Welcome to Gaia! ::

Louis looked thoroughly concerned for a moment before he nodded, grinned, and walked over to Kyle, squatting in front of him and wrapping his left arm around his knees for support while extending his right to Kyle, "Hell yeah. I'm with you through and through. Let's kick some a**."

The boy smiled, giving the handshake a firm squeeze before releasing and turning his attention elsewhere, "By the way, is that normal?" he pointed to behind Kyle, "It sorta just appeared while you were spacing out."

Behind the dragoon, stood another platform, much like Kyle's, only ragged and decrepit, like a ruin leaning off center. It stood a small bit higher than Kyle's, so neither could see the face of the mosaic inevitably waiting at the top. To it, a set of glass stairs weaved its way up, only these looked similar to the foreign tower, cracked and broken at the edges with no consistent shape between them.

"Mmhm," the boy nodded excitedly and jumped up onto the first step, hopping from one to the next with relative ease, following Kyle up to the top. As the platforms seemed to tilt, oddly enough, so did the center of gravity, so despite standing diagonally to their original platform, they felt no ill effects like falling or slipping sideways.

Upon making their way to the main circular tower, it became obvious there wasn't much here. Like it's mostly desecrated sides, the flat face was shattered, only a small outcropping available to stand on, with enough room for 2 people. The boy stood, looking out over it, "Well, this is a mess." he knelt down and brushed away at the soot that had apparently gathered on the surface. As his hand swept over it, the soot kicked up, sparking as a wind whipped away the dirt and grime. The soot took to the air and then caught fire. moving through the air like a snake till it joined with the tail, forming a ring of fire encircling the platform.

The ring, swiftly shrunk, combining together in the center of the gaping hole as a sphere of swirling fire. Without warning, the sphere fell, deep into the bowels of the tower. Becoming but a glimmer deep within before exploding and fire returning to the surface, spilling out every opening and towering into the sky like an erupting volcano.

When the fire subsided and became a steady, flare beneath the glass, it became apparent that the small fragment they stood on had grown, now revealing a picture of a simply dressed angel. Resting with her wings splayed out behind her. The mosaic was still far from repaired, but this portion appeared to had reforged itself in the flames.

The boy stared, with some level of fright at the flames, stepping away from the edge as the inferno rose to the top and formed a pillar of fire and light. He looked at Kyle when it died down, then at the floor. He knelt down, feeling the glass with his palm, the surface still warm, but not uncomfortably so.

At Kyle's question, the young took a seat, crossing his legs and looking out at the flames still churning a few yards below the glass, "You know... now that you mention it, it feels familiar," he stared glassy eyed around the broken station, "I'm not quite sure why though. Almost like I've seen this in a dream before."

Across the way, not quite the complete opposite end of the station, another pair of ghosts sat with their legs dangling over the edge of the glass, one male, the other female.

The broken angelic boy stared intently at the mosaic, his mind searching for some answer, "Why an angel?" he asked offhand under his breath before looking at Kyle, "If this is part of me, I'd hope it'd help something come back."

With a groan he ran a hand through his hair, "This is so frustrating... it's like, I know I should know something, I can feel it, but nothing sticks. Everything's so blurry and hard to hold onto," a palm reached out and gripped at the air, "My memories feel just out of reach, like they're there, but I'm not able to hold onto them and I forget them the moment I have them back. Is that because I'm not... the original, or some sort of effect from Mateus' tampering?"

There was a slight flicker of light as Ajora reappeared in the main laboratory that Zexion had taken residence in for his experiments. As he casually strolled in from thin air, he seemed pleased, cracking his knuckles--

--and then locking up mid-step, his expression quickly turning to one of shock and...

No. No no no no.

He seemed to leap forward in urgency, only to disappear once again, this time reappearing atop the castle, on the Altar of Naught. Without missing a beat, he continued running forward until he gripped the ledge of the platform, desperately staring up (down?) at the World Convergence.

No it's a fluke, there's no way, who could have...

As he stared, he focused. The nethicite shards in his palms would have glimmered, had they been visible, and he drew on the taint he knew too well, allowing his mind to dive into the black abyss, the underlying darkness that existed throughout creation like a realm its own. The connection, normally, would have opened his heart to the darkness--the darkness--but his heart, his entire presence, was guarded, hidden in a veil forged for him by the aethecite in his chest.

His eyes glazed over with an oily blackness, and as they did, he saw and felt his consciousness rush through layers and layers of shadow and obscurity, diving through an ocean of obsidian plasma, slipping through the tenebrous currents to reach the dark layers of the Convergence. The world became monochrome and blurred, as if only light and darkness existed at all. Off to the side, he saw, felt, a massive region of pure white, as covered by a protective dome that repelled even the smallest shadow. Opposite that, however, was a region of sickly black, the region so black in essence that light didn't penetrate--not because it couldn't, but because it was simply repulsed by the absolute purity of negative being.

But he sought neither.

Flowing across the convergence, the rest of which was a constantly-flowing mix of grays, silvers, and everything in between, he found occasional points of darkness as solidly-black as the region before. From them, the black essence flowed just as freely as if they were simply smaller fonts of the mother cancer.

But he did not seek these, either.

No, what he sought was a single point of shadowed coalescence. It was familiar to him. Far, far too familiar. It would be linked to the sickened core, it would spout corruption with its very presence, but neither quite so strongly as the points before. This point, this single point, would be like a thrice-touched bruise upon creation. It would be black in birth, black in curse, and black in will, an upstart tumor, a malignant, budding death.

Just as he had been mere hours ago.

I'm just tired, my senses are off, surely there isn't...

There was.

Every ounce of his being ran cold as he found what had triggered his search. He focused on it, diving through the terrible currents of shade and dread, reaching the very surface of this un-world and pushing closer to see the truth. Part of him knew. Part of him denied. Part of him raged and writhed and surged and seared...

... because there, like a black beacon in the world, stood a man of onyxheart, touched by the twisted darkness, filled with the crystalline essence of a cold power tainted by malevolent intent.

There, standing before his guarded consciousness, was the man he knew as Kuro Oni.

He reeled, his mind pulled back from the shadowed layer in a blinding rush, the unseen world soaring past in a roaring blur as he returned to reality, the present, standing on the altar, staring at the amalgam planet.

In unbound fury, he screamed. At everything.

The game was changing.

After dropping Even off in Disney to be taken care of, Ajora returned to Ansem's Lab, beginning to scour the area for data. Luckily, the mainframe was accessible by a single computer with an easy-to-remember password...

soradonaldgoofy. No? SoraDonaldGoofy... do they seriously... SORADONALDGOOFY. Caps lock. Really?

The terminal lit up, and as it did, he took a moment to stare out the window into the massive factory. The place where they'd created the Emblem Heartless. The factory.

He grimaced.

Turning his thoughts back to the data he sought, he began to open up the archives. Folder after folder, drive after drive. More than a few bits were corrupted data; the nobodies and the (now-fallen) organization, a few files here and there. But all this was pocket change. He'd gotten more than enough plot information from Yen Sid and the various memories he'd hijacked. No, what he wanted here was specifics. Experiment results, schematics, concrete research.

And, more importantly for his own personal experiment, the entire operating system.

Next stop: Twilight Town.


Finishing his stint in Radiant Garden and Twilight Town, Ajora took a quick detour to Spira--Luca, specifically--and once more made his way to his lab on the Castle That Never Was.

First, he needed to defrag. Sitting down, he cautiously took a number of stolen memory spheres and began to drain away the excess, copied memories. Cidolfus' memories received one sphere (which turned a deep crimson), Hojo's another (which turned a more sickly green), and finally Even's into a third (into sphere that turned white-blue). These three were secured inside a small drawer, beside one that was more steel-blue (Zexion's) and another that was deep purple (Lugae's).

Thank the writer, they were giving me a headache.

You would be wise not to allow so many to accumulate, and to disperse them more quickly.

Yeah, well, soon enough that won't be much of a problem anywho. Still, what I wouldn't give to get my hands on Xehanort's... or even Ansem's.

The scholar, perhaps, but the fiend? You know that memories can construct a heart, and you would take them from the monster himself?

He sighed. Yeah, yeah, just wishin'. Besides, Zexion's and Even's will suffice for what I need right now, now that I've gotten the data from both the castle and the manor.

In a flurry of dust, he transported himself from the lab... down into the core of the castle itself.

It was a massive central chamber, constructed like a large, hollow sphere; it reminded him, faintly, of a combination of X-Men's Cerebro and the factory back in Hollow Bastion. The central terminal stood on a platform, held aloft on a large pillar connected directly to the bottom of the sphere, with a walkway the led back toward a closed door. The walls of the sphere were made of what appeared to be translucent glass with a pattern of alternating triangles. Behind the glass was sheer... blackness.

More immediately, the central terminal was very much like the one in Hollow Bastion, though it had multiple screens. The one thing it had from the Manor, though, was the one thing Ajora hoped it would.

The digitizer.

So that is how Axel got into the digital Twilight Town...

Cracking his knuckles, he turned the mainframe on. It began to whir to life, slowly at first, but then speeding up, getting louder. As it did so, dozens of hundreds of blinking lights began to appear behind the glass of the sphere walls; some were green, some were red. Other places had no light at all.

A lot of other places.

This... may take longer than expected.

The monitor finally lit up, asking for a password.

Dammit, I didn't even think to check.

A quick teleport to the lab got him the answer he needed, of course, but how annoying to go through the trouble of writing acting it out. With access to the mainframe granted, he did a preliminary scan, which...

... told him little to nothing. Error codes and error codes and nothing specific to help him out.

Alright, option two.

Pulling out a disc, he slid it into the console, beginning to upload the main reason for his trip: the Hollow Bastion OS. With any luck, once that finished installing into the main terminal (the rest of those lights were just databanks and process-sink servers, he wagered), he'd be able to get a more... User-friendly interface. Particularly with the information gathered from the Manor.

[Nicholas :: Disney Castle :: Chamber of the Cornerstone]

"Ouch, your retort cuts me, my dear. So hurtful." Nicholas laughed, closing his eyes and drifting backwards. He floated in a nonchalant manner, facing the sky. Noelle's shift to business, however, raised a brow. How would they even get him purged? Beating him seemed obvious enough, but he wasn't banking on that plan. Too many possibilities for failure, too many losses. Knowing what he knew based on Noelle's description of himself, fighting someone far beyond the Disney standard of villainy wouldn't work like they hoped they would. But what weaknesses of his could they exploit?

"Well, I'm not gonna lie, perception of myself is something I'm apparently good at...Let's see. Based on which you told me, which isn't very much, mind you...but that's not your fault, you know. I suppose I should start with my obvious flaws." Nicholas raced, his words jumbling slightly as his thoughts raced. "I'm assuming I'm a theatrical a*****e who tries the whole taunting thing, since that's what I would do. Exploit that. Be aware, however, I'm into the whole being Dangerously Genre Savvy thing so don't expect me to spill my whole plan out to you. Or if I do seem to give you an answer, assume its crap or not the whole plan. As idiotic as I act, I do have a form of intelligence and I actually can strategize and will totally ruin you if you expect me to be nothing more than a simple mook." He paused, taking a breath.

"However, I am prideful. I likely won't ask for help from other baddies. I also have no qualms about using dirty methods in combat. It's a fight, there's no honor. Stereotypical crap about 'Kill or be killed' mentality and blah blah blah. Am I boring you with this self analysis or shall I keep going?"