Third chappie. I'll save the Saix and Solaris arguement for the next chapter, since I'll have Blaze talk to a new character... hmm... a mysterious one at that. (---------------------------------) Chapter 3: Their Freedom Port Royal... Marluxia, Larxene and Sherlen appear at the top of the fortress and look around. There wasn't anyone in sight. "Well this is a bit different." Larxene huffed. Sherlen wandered over to the ledge and looked out at the ocean. Marluxia followed and stood next to him. "First time out?" he asked. Sherlen nodded. "I can't remember the last time I've seen the ocean like this..." Larxene joined the two. "You were cooped up in the castle basement with the others, right?" "Yes. Xemnas said we were not well to roam the worlds, even the upper floors of the castle." Marluxia closed his eyes and sighed. "It can get rather dull being stuck in that place but when mission time comes around, I try to enjoy the freedom while it lasts. You should too." Sherlen smiled. "I'll remember that." After staring out at the ocean for another five minutes, Larxene yawns. "Welp, let's get cracking on finding that Twilight Angel. I have a feeling it's going be a long mission." "Diddo." The two men chorused. ---------------------------------- Land of Dragons... Xigbar, Xaldin and Gale appeared in the bamboo area, overlooking the encampment. The two immediately get down to business. "All righty. Here's what we're gonna do. We'll split up. Search the mountains and search the palace." Xigbar announced though Gale ignored him, staring off in the distance. "You'll search the palace." said Xaldin. "Okay but..." he motions Xaldin to come closer which he did and whispers in his ear. "What are we gonna do about Gale?" "I'm not taking her." "Don't look at me." Xigbar retorted. The two begin to argue, forgetting about Gale. She watches the two a little longer then shakes her head and begins walking away. She's wasting her time with them. The sooner she finds the Twilight Angel, the sooner she's free of the two morons. The arguement lasts a while until Xaldin stopped and looked around. "...Where is Gale?" They searched around the area to find Gale no where in sight. "Oh man, Xemnas will have a fit if we lost her!" Xgibar exclaimed but he grinned and took off running. "Where are you going?!" "You're on your own dude! Good luck finding her!" and he disappeared. "Xigbar, get back here and help me find her! XIGBAR!" he sighed, great, Xgibar duped him into taking Gale but whats worse is that he had to find her. "Oh well... let's get it over with." ----------------------------------------- Twilight Town... Axel, Roxas and Blaze appeared at the station. Blaze was instanly in awe at the surroundings. "Wow, this world is... awesome!" "I know where we can get a better view of it." Roxas said as he pointed up at the clock above the entrance. They disappeared and reappeared at the top and sat down on the edge. Axel sitting in between the two. "I've gotta hand it to ya, Roxas, this is a great spot." Axel commented. "Well there's an even better spot, Sunset Hill." Blaze smiled and looked out at the area again. "I'd love to go there." "Yeah but you know we're on duty." Both Roxas and Blaze lowered their heads. "Oh yeah." Axel then started laughing, lightening the mood. "I'm just kidding. See, looking for this Twilight Angel or whatever will take a while, I'm sure the others will take their sweet time in searching for it and Xemnas won't be expecting us back soon so... let's enjoy this freetime while we can." This cheered the two up. Roxas then stood up and took off running. "where you going Roxas?" Blaze asked. "I'm getting some ice cream. You guys want any?" "Sure." "Okay. "Cool. Be back in 5." and he disappeared. The two were alone now. Blaze smiled, looking away from where Roxas had gone back at the town. "Cute kid." "Yeah. He's a great friend. unlike the rest in the organization." Blaze nodded. "I hear you. I've only known you guys for six months and the only people who are friendly are you, Roxas, Demyx and..." she trailed off. "Something wrong?" Axel question, looking at Blaze, seeing her with a sad expression. "Nothing... I was just thinking... about the time I was cooped up in the castle basement for so long and never seeing the world.... only darkness." "That's real deep. Isolated from everything and everyone. What went on anyway?" she shook her head. "All I remember was that Xemnas told us that we were sick or something and we couldn't really do much of anything yet. It sucked. But at least I was roomed with Sapphiree so I wasn't entirely alone." Her sad expression disappeared and she smiled again. "But when we finally got out and when we met you guys... things changed... for the better... I was so sure it was only going to get worse when we were okay, call it my woman's intuition, I had a bad feeling about it... still... it's so nice to see the sun again." Axel was about to say something when Roxas returned with three Sea Salt ice creams. "I'm back. Here you go." he handed them their treats and sat down next to Axel. "So, what'd I miss?" "Nothing, just talking about stuff." Axel replied but he wanted to talk to Blaze about the whole isolation thing even more. Something tells him that there was something going on behind the scenes, because Xemnas never really told him or the others, VII through XIII, about Blaze and them until one month before they were released. "Hey Roxas..." Blaze stood up and dusted herself off. "Where is the... Sunset Hill you talked about earlier?" "You can see it from here." He pointed at a distant hill. "You can take the train to it but we could always warp there---" "No, that's fine." she interrupted. "I'll go check it out myself." "Are you sure?" Axel was about to get up but she sat him back down. "I'm sure. I just need a little 'Me' time now. If I'm not back in 10 minutes, go ahead and look for me." With that, she disappeared. Axel stared at where Blaze disappeared then looked back at Roxas and grinned. "If she's not back in 10 minutes, we're getting more ice cream." ----------------------------------------- Sunset Hill... Blaze walked up to the fence and looked out at the setting sun. Roxas was right, this was a better spot. The view was amazing. She closed her eyes as a light breeze sweft through her hair. "This is real..." She was about to take a bite out of her ice cream when someone walked up beside her. she moved her eyes to see it was a young woman, probably a year older than her or younger. She had long silver hair and blue eyes. She had a black scarf around her neck, she wore a white dress shirt and a blue top underneath, a long black dress, a black jacket and black highheeled shoes. Next to her was two wolves, one black and one white. The white wolf had one brown eye and one light blue eye. The black one had gold eyes. "A lovely view, isn't it?" the woman asked. Blaze blinked and nodded. "It must be so nice to finally be out and see the world..." "Yeah." Blaze looked downcast. "After spending nearly half a year imprisoned in darkness." Blaze jumped back, her eyes went from hazel to green and her hair grew longer but it changed from black to a fiery red and yellow, it was as if her hair was on fire. It was. "Who are you? How do you know what happened to me?" The woman sighed and knelt down to pet the wolves. "It's not how I know... I just... know... I can see into your eyes... your heart... you have endured so much and yet, you don't remember what they have done to you... It's cruel... erasing your memory of all the things they did... to make you what you are now... but even so... before that... you lived another life... one that had a beginning but no ending." Blaze was seriously getting creeped out by this woman. 'Just who does she think she is? Talking like she knows me or something. This girl has some issues.' "And what if what you say is true? What do you plan to do about it?" the woman stood up and looked at Blaze straight in her eyes, this actually scared her. Seeing the intensity in her gaze. "...Whatever I can do... to make things right again..." A blue light shined brightly from the woman and before Blaze knew it, they were gone. "What the?! Who was?! Why?! Okay, I'm confused." She then looked down and frowned. "Aww... I dropped my ice cream." "Blaze?" She looked back up and saw Roxas and Axel walk up to her. "Hey you ok? You look like you just saw a ghost or something." She patted Roxas on the head, smiling. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just awe-struck at the view." "Yep, this sure is nice." said Axel, chewing on a stick. Blaze stared at him. "It took you that long to finish?" "Heck naw," he grinned. "This is my third one." He then pulled out another sea salt ice cream from behind his back. "soon to be four." Blaze snatched the ice cream out of his hand. "Hey! That's mine!" "Too bad, so sad." she laughed, running from him. He gave chase. "Get your own!" "I dropped mine! Besides, you'll get fat if you eat anymore of these!" "I should be saying the same thing to you!" Roxas laughed at the two, this mission was going to be interesting, it already was from the get-go. He looked out at the scenery for a moment and blinked. "What is that?" He rubbed his eyes again to see if he saw it or not. but He could have sworn he saw a sparkly blue butterfly, flying past him. "That's a... weird but pretty butterfly... but... I've never seen one like it before... oh well." He shrugged it off and continued laughing at Axel and Blaze. (----------------------------) Just a cute moment then we'll get down to the serious stuff with Zexion, Saix and Solaris. The identity of the woman will be revealed in due time. ^_^
