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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 21:35:42 GMT -5
With a mechanical roar of wood and steel, an old-timey rollercoaster crashed along its rails, descending rapidly and curving suddenly, much to the delighted cheers of the children, adventurous adults, romantic couples, even the few elderly aboard. Kids ran with their friends to the next crazy ride, lovebirds loosely held hands and giggled, and everyone just had an air of pure pleasure as they enjoyed this colorful and crazy amusement park. Everything was smiles and bright colors, no sadness allowed!
The lights, the laughter, the cotton candy! Prankster’s Paradise was a fun-lover’s dream come true! Demyx knew if there was any place to feel whole again, it was going to be here among the rabble. As soon as the smell of popcorn and laughter hit him, he recalled faint memories his old name had, and knew that this was something he would have never passed up. So why should his Nobody? Though he wasn't sure what he himself felt, he was determined to do his past self the justice that glorious young man must've deserved! So, with determination, he ran a hand through his meticulously styled hair and marched to the ticket booth, presenting his munny.
"One ticket, please!"
But the man within didn't really budge. Upon closer listening, one could hear snoring. Demyx huffed, no desire to work for a stupid piece of paper that said he was allowed to be there. Still, he didn't want to get caught if anyone checked, 'cause that would mean even more work of getting out of that trouble. The self-pitying Nobody felt he could never win. With a light tapping, he tried to stir the seller, but the man's head just rolled to the other side with a snort, remaining fast asleep. Demyx exaggeratedly slapped his palm to his face.
"Aw, seriously?"
(@braig, save the day!)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2018 22:27:57 GMT -5
Braig sauntered down the well-worn road, the heels of his boots clicking against the asphalt as the sniper took in the view around him. Battered stalls, littered with trinkets and tired workers alike stretched out in front of him like a runway. There was a certain charm to it all: the sound of rollercoasters screaming along their rails, the lights blazing into the night sky, the carnival food, but most importantly... the loose wallets. People tended to get so caught up in the dreamy buzz that they stopped paying attention to the reality around them. Despite the allure, the sniper hadn't come here to waste an evening looting pockets while getting wasted on cheap beer. He had been given the luxury of carrying out 'reconnaissance' wherever he pleased. Not missing a beat, Braig had pushed the definition of scouting to its very limits. Bar-hopping in Port Royal, basking in the sands of Agrabah, fighting the locals in the Coliseum, he had done it all. After all, it really should have been no surprise that the sniper had taken this order seriously for only about as long as it took to leave the room.
To the sniper, slacking was a fine art that he had already perfected.
The former guard followed the path around to the front gates, pushing his way past the stragglers as they milled about like animals. Of course, he could have simply teleported in- and he would have been more than glad to- but he knew it would draw way too much attention. He cursed to himself as an unaware patron brushed shoulders with him, leaving a residue of something staining his worn guard's uniform. He twisted around, prepared to give the offending person a thorough tongue-lashing when his eye caught sight of something familiar...
It took him a few moments to recognize Demyx's voice. It should have eased his nerves, after all Demyx was hardly a threat to the sniper, but instead his presence just raised more questions in the back of his mind. The Nobody was clearly bothered by something, and it didn't take long for the sharp-eyed sniper to locate the source of the other's frustrations. He was tempted to leave Waterboy to his own fate, but the other seemed so defeated that even the cold-hearted sniper couldn't abandon him. With a grumble, he pushed past the Nocturne, and leaned casually on the worn-out, wooden counter, clearing his throat rather loudly in an attempt to rouse the boothkeeper. Undisturbed, the man simply lolled his head to the other side, his snoring beginning to drown out the sounds of the circus that surrounded him. It was clear that the poor man wasn't going to be awakened so easily.
Now more than ever, he was tempted to simply warp himself inside and be done with it. With a frustrated sigh, the Freeshooter shot a look over his shoulder, then leaned over the counter. He fished around, eventually pulling the ticket roll. He tore off two tickets, dropped the roll back onto the counter, and quickly slipped away towards the gate. As he passed the Nocturne, he roughly pressed a ticket into the other's palm while flaunting the remaining in his other hand.
"Don't drop it, alright kid?" He spoke, already preparing for the Nocturne to not recognize him at first glance.
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2018 7:30:11 GMT -5
Who the heck was that cool guy?
Demyx looked at the ticket in his hand with fearful wonder. Had that guy really just reached back there and taken the ticket? Well, of course he had! And the frazzled musician for a moment really, super… kinda wanted to say something? But here he was with a ticket in his hand and a seller none-the-wiser. And Demyx himself was no stranger to theft…
“Yeah, maaaybe I have no place to talk,” he mumbled to himself. “And I really shouldn't argue when I get free stuff!” He started to walk away, but turned back only to scoop up his munny, then he bolted back to the circus. He caught sight of the stranger from the booth and rushed towards him, looking to make a friend.
“Hey, man! Thanks a bunch!” He walked backwards alongside his mouthy savior. “But I noticed-” Demyx eyed the guy’s outfit. “-you don't seem like you're a local. I’m not from here either, not judging, promise! I just thought…” he trailed off, getting a good look at the stranger's face for the first time. Eye-patch, cool scars, an eye that looked like it could see for miles? Who did that remind him of…
“Oh man! Are, are you…” He held inhaled his breath with deliberate calm, obviously extremely excited. “Are you Captain Hook?!” He leaned on a post beside them for a moment, overcome with the perceived hilarity of his joke, but trying to keep it cool. “Where’s your pirate treasure, Cap’n?”
Demyx inhaled sharply, smiling like an idiot but keeping what little composure he had. He bapped the man on the shoulder a couple of times, “Xigbar! You have no idea how happy I am to see you, I swear! I knew it was a good idea to come here… How have you been, why do you look so different, did you get a haircut? Oh man, Xiggy you gotta tell me everything! How's the Organization?” The Nocturne had so much to ask, so much he wanted to know, but most importantly he wanted to hear from the only person he considered a real kindred spirit from the Org.
Demyx always thought fondly of Xigbar. He was really the only one Demyx looked up to, thinking of Xigbar as himself if he was braver, bolder, better-spoken, more skilled, and had a sweet set of guns! Jealous of the friendships some of the other members seemed to forge, he had began to consider the sharpshooter a friend, a mutual slacker. The pure excitement of seeing him alive and well was almost too much for the Nobody, but he did his best to keep it cool, especially when in the presence of who he thought was the coolest person around. Maybe, this could be his way back to the Organization without getting in too much trouble, too...
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2018 23:11:37 GMT -5
Braig stopped walking when he heard the hurried footsteps of the musician trailing behind him. He turned to face the Nocturne, eye searching for any sign of recognition from the other. He had been ready to lie, to claim he was simply an eccentric local, and leave the musician to enjoy this carnival of fools in peace, but that late glimmer of recognition on the other's face was enough to hold Braig back.
The sniper sighed, accepting his fate as Captain Hook, and actually managed a quiet laugh in response. Surprisingly enough, it was free from the sarcastic vitriol that normally accompanied his humor. Since he lost his eye, he had heard more pirate jokes than any one man would have cared for. Yet, there was something almost... refreshing about such a silly, stupid, joke after being stuck around the Seekers for so long.
Truth be told, it took him back to simpler times.
The sniper rocked with Demyx's lighthearted baps, responding to the other's outpour of enthusiasm with a crooked smile. After all, he couldn't remember the last time he had actually experienced anything even resembling a warm welcome. Especially since his recompletion, his days had been spent bouncing between strange worlds, dodging the growing list of people who likely wanted him dead, and reporting back to Xehanort, who never exactly showed any kind of thanks for the sniper's hard work. Let here he was, reunited with one of the few people the sniper was able to call 'friend'.
To see him alive and well felt almost unreal to the sniper. The last he had heard of Demyx, he had been struck down by the keyblade wielder.
"Well, if isn't the Waterboy himself!" Braig teased, nudging back at the blonde with his elbow before he began walking again. His path was aimless, loosely directed towards a tightly bunched group of stands down the path. He was too far away to make out the writing on the old, weathered, hand-painted signs, even with his sharp eye, but he could see rows and rows of prizes hanging off of the shoddy wooden frames. He slowed, his features darkening as his expression turned more serious, as he wracked his brain for the best way to phrase what came next.
"The Organization... went belly-up... We lost, kid. Sora destroyed every single one of us," Braig spoke slowly, deliberately refraining from mentioning Xehanort's true plans for Organization XIII. After all, it wasn't any of Demyx's business, what the True Organization was up to these days. Yet somewhere deep down, the sniper didn't want to see the musician get roped back into the old coot's schemes.
"But, somehow, a bunch of us came back," Braig explained, a flippant hand gesture punctuating his speech. He left out most of the details, hoping his simple explanation would be enough for now.
"Except, I guess the ol' Superior's plan must've worked, 'cause when I woke up... I wasn't Xigbar anymore," The sniper continued, a bit more slowly. It still didn't make sense to him, but he knew it had been all part of the old coot's plan all along. To a degree, the sniper was satisfied with that explanation. He pressed his own palm to his chest, the thrumming of his own darkness-infested heart serving as proof of his completion.
"I... got my heart back, kid."
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Post by Deleted on May 11, 2018 9:14:48 GMT -5
Demyx stood, frozen with a dumb friendly smile on his face, waiting for some punchline. But there wasn't one. Xigbar wasn't joking.
No, Xigbar’s somebody wasn't joking.
He somehow had a heart, X-head had done it, and a Nobody had a heart! Demyx’s head practically buzzed with the all the news which may had seemed simple to some, but Demyx was an easily overwhelmed young man. He wanted to congratulate not-Xigbar, to ask more about how the heck the Superior’s plan actually ended up working! But in the end, Demyx felt he would’ve been happier to see his friend alive and well rather than pestering with all these long-winded questions with answers he really couldn't care less about, if he had a heart to feel with.
“That's…” He was at a loss for words now, though he still had the smile, now in sort of a disbelief. His own hand raised to his chest, but quickly pulled it away when he felt nothing. How could he have dared to expect anything more? But then all he could do was let out a sudden short laugh and wipe away non-existent sweat from his brow. “That's a relief, about the Organization being gone! Y’know, I’d been wandering the worlds forever trying to think how I’d go back without getting yelled at again! I just knew Saïx would've accused me of hiding somewhere. Um, no, I was dead thank you very much!” He laughed again, though quickly realized he might be being insensitive. He looked away and scratched his head with a nervous clearing of his throat. “Erm, sorry that you had to get beat up too, though. Totally not fun...” Everyone, everything destroyed, honestly it wasn't easy to believe, but why would Xiggy-not-Xiggy lie to him? Plus, if he ended up okay, who's to say the others hadn't woken up whole, too? Maybe Vexen remembered what fun was, Larxene was less bitter, maybe even Saïx learned how to chill! Even the meanest of them deserved some kindness…
But then again, if Xemnas’ plan worked… why didn't Demyx feel like his heart had returned?
“Hey, um,” the Nocturne poked his head with his thumb. He wanted to ask what it felt like, having a heart. Those pangs of emotion in his chest, though he was certain there was nothing there, they had him concerned and wondering. If he could just ask…
“Xigbar, look!” With a delighted gasp he clapped his hands to his cheeks. His gaze was set on a game stand with bottles all stacked together, the goal obviously to knock the whole stack down. But Nobody was focused on the prizes: an array of crudely handcrafted carvings and toys, all with once-bright paint now chipped and faded such that it betrayed their hand-me-down origins. A cutesy duck with wheels and string around its neck, a pale doll that stared eerily into the distance, and a tiny plain music box were what remained of a potentially bigger prize pool.
“Come on dude, we gotta!”
He ran over and started haphazardly tossing the ball, missing every time. With his back to Xigbar, he momentarily held a expression of pain, but checked himself before it could be properly seen. He wanted to know everything, but this wasn't about hearts or the Organization, this wasn't about number II and number IX; this was about Demyx, and whoever Xigbar was now, living and celebrating a continued existence that could’ve been the result of meticulously hard work, of some kind of fluke.
Upon this realization, a warmth- tiny, like the smallest ember falling onto one’s palm- pinged in his chest for barely enough time to think about it.
After a particularly loud miss, the Nobody beamed at the Somebody proudly, and asked: “So, if you're not Xigbar now, what do I call you, old man?”
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2018 15:24:04 GMT -5
"You don't have to worry about Saix anymore, kiddo." Braig replied with a grin, looping his arm around the other's shoulders, but the grizzled sniper's grin masked a rare pang of guilt. Deep down, he had wanted to tell his old friend the secrets that he kept silenced for so long, about Xehanort and the Seekers and the true Organization. After all, there was so much more to the old Organization than Demyx knew, so much that the Freeshooter had kept hidden. Yet he knew that trying to explain it all now would do nothing but put the young Nocturne in danger, and the last thing the gunman wanted was for Demyx to end up on the wrong side of this tangled mess. Besides, the poor boy was finally free from Xemnas' grasp, might as well let him enjoy his newfound freedom unafraid of far-off wars or black-coated conclaves.
For now, Braig was simply thankful that the musician had come out of this mostly unharmed, but he could tell that something was amiss. A yellow eye followed the other's hand as he quickly pressed it to his chest, seemingly checking for his own heart. An awful sense of intuition bloomed in the Freeshooter's mind as he began putting together the pieces...
Had Demyx not been reborn complete like the others? A pang of pity bubbled up within the sniper's cold heart. To come so close to the Superior's fabled happy ending, only to miss the payout. Perhaps it was only a matter of finding Demyx's heartless. That's how it worked, right? Destroy the Heartless and the Nobody and you get a Somebody again? Though, something told The Freeshooter that it wasn't going to be that easy. Braig let his attention stray as he walked. They were finally close enough to read the signs, but most of the stalls and rides had odd names like 'Magic Dragon', 'Lucky Duck', or his personal favorite: ' The Cyclops'.
"Hm?" He turned his head back towards Demyx, one brow raised as the sniper listened. The Nocturne seemed to want to be asking something, however the other never voiced his inquiry, instead becoming seemingly distracted by a particular booth. The sniper follows the excited musician's lead over to the booth. He eyed the bottles, then lets his eye trail over to the numerous prizes strewn about the walls.
Braig walked up to the worker, a dirtied old man who looked far too disinterested in his job, and returned with a handful of heavy plastic throwing balls. He passed three to Demyx before taking his share up to the front of the booth. "Alright, kid. We get three shots each. If we can knock 'em all over, we get our pick of anything on that back row."
He let Demyx go first, not wanting to get in the way of the younger man's excitement. After Demyx's missed shot, the sniper took aim at his own stack of bottles.
"It's Braig now... and watch your mouth, kid. I'm not that old." He retorted playfully, well aware of how the stray strands of silver had aged him. With that, the Freeshooter readied his first shot, carefully aiming as best as a one-eyed man could...
...Only to miss his stack completely. The tiny plastic ball bounced harmlessly off the back wall of the booth before clattering to the floor. For a sniper, he sure had a bad throw. He scoffed, eye narrowing in disbelief, before stammering out a quick excuse. "T-That was just a warm up!"
Braig bounced his second ball in his hand as he motioned for Demyx to take his second turn.
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