towerofanimus | 001 || Open

Entry tags:

001 || Open

Characters: Axel and YOU
Setting: Room 1-18, Dormitories
Format: I'm doing prose, but whatever you do, I'll match~
Summary: After waking up with a ridiculous outfit on, a tee'd off Axel teleports around for some exploring. Not with a ridiculous outfit on, though. That would be silly.
Warnings: Nada for now

Please don't hold back on me, Axel. Promise.

He awoke with a start and for what felt like forever stared at the ceiling, unable to move or say a word. Last he remembered, he was at Twilight Town and last he remembered Xion had been with him. Not one of their usual meetings, mind, and not one he would have chosen out of his own volition. So where had that gone? Their voices, the fire burning at his fingertips-- All of that hadn't been a dream, had it? Thinking it, Axel finally shifted on his bed and swung his legs over the edge to sit up. This wasn't Twilight Town, this wasn't Never Was or any other World he could think of, that was for sure.

Deciding it would be best to investigate, Axel stood and approached the chest at the foot of his bed. His Organization coat, some regenerative potions... and some letters out of all things. Head tilted, he picked up the first one then ripped it open to read. Well. That certainly hadn't been the most pleasant letter he'd ever received and he didn't even believe it. Still. The smallest bit of unease started to settle in his gut upon thinking about the possibility of his World being truly destroyed. If that was the case, which one would it be? And why?

But more importantly... what about his friends?

With a sharp scoff, Axel pocketed the letter along with a couple of potions before he stood to head for the door and out into the hallway, footsteps quick and body tense. Regardless of some crummy letter or what had really happened to their World, regardless of how things had turned out between the three of them in the end... he wanted to find Roxas and Xion.

He wanted to be at ease.

((OOC: Feel free to notice/bump into one hotheaded redhead tromping through the tower!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Axel briefly glanced over at his pocket where he kept the notes he'd received. Yeah, he'd gotten them, but he hadn't really been in the right mind at the time to believe them.]

You tried? Are you sure?

[Axel isn't the type to be flustered. He's not the type to overreact, either. But in the slightest of ways perhaps he is, glancing around at the walls as if searching for a way to escape nearby. Just minutes ago he was confronting her in that town, ready to fight, and now he's expected to stay put? He shakes his head again.]

How's that possible, though?

Edited 2012-11-12 07:19 (UTC)

Yes. I'm sure.

[Why would she still be here if she could leave...? Although... with the people she knew now... and knowing what she was going home to... Maybe it was less straightforward than she thought... But still...

She shook her head, to clear it. That wasn't something to worry about right now, unsettling as some of the implications were.]

I don't know how. They told us the worlds are gone. And... you can make corridors to places in the Tower, but nowhere outside of it.

[He wouldn't have expected her to leave, not with what was happening back home. That was what she was good at, after all, and what Roxas had picked up on. Running away and staying away- He really had grown sick of it.

Axel's brows furrowed at the thought of it and his voice became more stern.]

Someone told me about timelines.

[That guy he'd met at the elevator said it.]

Which one are you from?

Timelines?

[At first she's confused, then after a moment, she realizes what he must mean. It was... a standard sort of question, for people who'd arrived from the same world.]

You mean, what I remember last from home?

[She looks down and away then. It's actually taking a few moments to remember the specifics. She's been in the Tower for such a long time...]

I... I'd been with Riku [Forgetting that that's maybe not a thing to casually bring up] ...but then you and Roxas found me and brought me back.

[So... the first time. Not that she knows about the second.]

[Axel nods before she continues on to explain herself. Sure, he has some answers now, but he's still not at ease with them. If anything, they might shake him up a little more. The first time he had to bring her back, after all, hadn't been one of his finer moments.

Axel glances off to the side with an odd mixture of embarrassment, anger, and... despondency mulling around in his chest. It takes him a while, but soon he's back to facing her.]

I was about to bring you back again. [he says, gesturing with his arms as all that pressure inside of him escalates.] We don't have time for this. You were supposed to stay put.

[Even back then, though... even back then she hadn't hated or blamed him, or at least not to the point where she'd forgotten another aspect of what he'd done. Like she told Roxas, if he hadn't brought her back, she may never have gotten to see her friends again. If she had hated him she wouldn't have come to eat ice cream with them the very next day, no matter how awkward the encounter was.

His response though, confuses her.]

Stay put...? But I... when did I...

[He... he must be talking about their future right? But when would-]

[Oh. Suddenly she has a very good idea when this probably is. She thinks. Unless something else happened in the two months between when she arrived at the Tower from and when Riku had.]

It's when I was going back to Sora, isn't it.

[No. No no no no nononono. How is it, that the one time one of her friends remembers her it's somehow worse rather than better?

Xion shifts her weight from foot to foot, tense and wary and cornered and visibly upset. She wants to run. Really she does. She doesn't want to be here anymore, not with her friend so angry and upset and it being her fault. And it being over something they couldn't change, something she isn't sure she'd want to change, especially now that she's met Sora.]

And when you didn't even bother to think if it was the right decision or not. Yeah. That time.

[He had already confessed to her, told her how he might have originally thought it best for her to leave and truly be back with Sora, but after Roxas left, after Axel had nothing left but memories, he knew he couldn't let her go. The Organization would hunt them down, eliminate them, and maybe even make him follow through with that. Didn't they understand?

He hangs his head for a beat, his thoughts leaving him feeling heavy and tired.

Like this. Just like this they had been standing talking in front of that old abandoned mansion...]

[Now that, strangely enough, strikes a nerve. A sensitive one, if the way her face tightens up is anything to go by. Her head jerks up, and she glares at Axel. There's an implication in those words, one she doesn't like.]

It is the right decision. Axel, I've met Sora. He's here, in the Tower. And...

[Her voice softens a little now, as she looks down and away.]

He's amazing. He's done so much to help me... He's saved me more than once... and he knows what I am and he doesn't care.

[She looks up again, gaze hard again.]

If I were to go back now I'd do the same. I can't let him sleep forever.

[And she doesn't like the implication that doing so would be the "right choice."]

[As soon as he sees that change in her expression Axel knows he's struck something, but it's too late to take his words back. That regret doesn't stick around for very long, however, once Xion replies with that. Instead, there's that anger again, making him raise his voice with her.]

You don't get it!

[It's not that he disagrees with Sora being great. And if he's honest, he wouldn't want Sora to sleep forever either. But there's still something about this that bothers him to no end. Losing Roxas and Xion just like that- Why does the thought of that hurt?]

You don't know if it's the right decision or not and you and Roxas just can't keep running right into things thinking you know everything! You just don't!

[The air is hot and charged and her head feels fuzzy with anger and hurt and pain. The words he's saying, they're pushing her. Pushing her in a direction she doesn't want to go. She remembers Sora telling her to find some other way to bring him back, when he found out who and what she was. She remembers Namine telling her that Roxas didn't remember, remembers Riku telling her why.

And Axel keeps pushing. Pushing against something she's tried to make her peace with however she can and even though she does really believe that she would willingly do this for Sora now some small part of her still feels stuck, fighting the unfightable, trapped-

And he keeps pushing until she feels like she has to push ba-]

IT'S DONE!

[It bursts out of her as a shout, echoes down the empty hallway.]

It's done, okay? Riku's from after either of us. There's nothing I can do even if I wanted to!

[She doesn't want to stay here anymore. She turns and runs.]

[So you know how this conversation is taking place right outside Xion's room? Well, she has neighbors.

Certain very short neighbors with impossibly spiky brown hair.

Who were trying to nap. Except they he wasn't really asleep yet, and the sound of a very good friend shouting somewhere outside the door is more than enough to wake this certain somebody up.

Sora sits up in bed, listening for another minute or so until he's sure that the voice he's hearing has to be Xion ~~since it certainly can't belong to the person who sounds like her anymore~~. He walks over to his door and looks around for her when he steps out into the hallway...only to arrive just in time to see her run off.]

Xion!

[He's not sure if he should chase after her or not, though...he doesn't even know what's going on. Sora recognizes the guy with the red hair - they had met once, months ago, though Sora wasn't sure if he would still have memories of that. Weren't he and Xion friends? And he had seemed nice enough then - making generous mental adjustments for the fact that Sora had looked like a certain evil twin of his at the time - so he doesn't hesitate just just ask-]

What happened?

[He looks at Axel, but his attention is still half-focused on the direction Xion ran off in.]

[This isn't good. He shouldn't have yelled at her, but what else was he supposed to do? Axel's about to say something else, but suddenly Xion's yelling back and it catches him off guard and turns him silent. She's... never yelled at him before. He can't ever remember a time when she's raised her voice at all. Sure, they've fought, but- Somehow this is different.

To see her turn her back and run, however. That awakens something in him. Because he remembers Roxas. Because he remembers wanting to follow him but being too much of a coward to bother... and being left to watch one of the only things that could have ever mattered walk away.

He's furious.

So furious he completely disregards everything else around him and charges after her, unwilling to let her escape. From here, from him. Sorry, Sora, you'll have to wait for your answers.]

Xion!

[Xion ignores him, making a beeline for the stairs. Running is her only option - there's no time for the elevator after all and if she made a corridor Axel would just follow her.

She sprints down them, as fast as she can without falling and hurting herself. Axel has the advantage of height and speed, but Xion's been training with Reno for months now and knows where she's going. At the same time that's dangerous for Axel that he doesn't especially if he just arrived and... a part of her wants to turn around and tell him to stop following her and leave her be-

She makes it down through the dormitory floors, whipping past the graveyard and a floor of fabric and curtains, both flashing by too fast for her to really register.

It's about halfway down floor fourty-six though, that the steps beneath her feet suddenly vanish and she's falling, falling, mouth opening in a quick shriek as she flails and falls before she manages to right herself with Aerial Recovery and hit the ground, stumbling as she does so. She hasn't been on this floor before, and she stares around, emotions already heightened, wary for signs of any danger and momentarily distracted from her flight.]

[Well, that didn't work out the way he was hoping.

For a moment, Sora just stares in half-confusion, half-surprise in the direction that Xion, and now Axel, had run off in. He had missed something. A pretty big something. It had to be, because though he had seen Xion running off before, he had never seen her look so...upset. No - she had really sounded angry.

But how is he going to figure any of this out if he's just standing around here?]

Hey, wait up!

[And off he goes, trailing behind both of them. Thankfully, he knows the tower fairly well, so he starts gaining on them bit by bit. But because he's, for the most part, blindly focused on catching up, it's too little too late when he finally realizes that the stairs that should be under his feet suddenly aren't. And, unfortunately for Sora, his landing is far from graceful.

Yeah, just. Give him a minute to pick himself up. And to get over the fact that, wow, this does not seem like a very good place to be at all.]

Edited 2012-11-16 07:36 (UTC)

[Axel may have just arrived and may not know the layout of the Tower, so he has to rely heavily on senses to make sure he doesn't veer off course. It's never been easy to catch Xion, but he's determined to make this work. Just like last time. He won't know what he'll do once he catches up with her... He just knows it needs to happen.

Closer and closer he gets, barely registering the rest of the surroundings with his focus elsewhere, and just when he thinks he might have a chance to reach out, tackle, something, he hears her scream.]

Xion!

[With the steps disappearing, he doesn't have much time to launch himself forward to make a grab for her and break her fall. Instead, he too tumbles down then instinctively performs Aerial Recovery to make his landing as smooth as possible in... wherever they've suddenly dropped. The darkness around them isn't the most pressing of concerns, however. He can't see Xion anymore, can't hear her, either, and it's causing some apprehension to stir.]

Xion, where are you?

[Xion hears him, looks around frantically for a glimpse of Axel or... had there been another person? She hadn't paid close enough attention to the sounds to be sure-

The faintest of whispers, a brush against the back of her hand. Xion jumps, looks around, sees no one.]

Axel?

[Except she can't see him, and with as angry as he was he wouldn't go around doing the whole 'tap on the shoulder than run to the other side' trick.]

Wh-who's there?

[This is wrong. This is bad. She has to get out of here. There's an object glowing nearby, and the faint light of the stairs in the distance.

She doesn't know what to trust.

Another brush, against her shoulder, some more whispers. Letting out a quiet noise Xion heads for the glowing object, picks it up, sees the writing and reads it. A moment, later, she drops the flashlight like a hot coal, disturbing another series of whispers and a ghost of sensation against the back of her scalp.]

G-go to the stairs. Don't... don't do anything, just go to them!

[And whoever's whispering please stop]

Ow...

[That's probably the first noise anyone has heard out of Sora since the stairs collapsed, because he's still trying to shake off that sudden fall. Nothing feels broken or anything, thankfully, but he'll probably be hurting later. ~~Someone needs to learn Aerial Recovery already.~~

But the creepy whispers and the general bad feeling about this place are enough to tell Sora that he probably doesn't want to hang around for very long...and, more importantly, neither should Xion, or that guy...hadn't his name been Axel, or something? It had been awhile since they met, so Sora wasn't completely sure. Though both of them seem two steps ahead of him right now.

Once he's up and moving around, he notices the dim lights - one from the center of the room, and one from the stairs. He's about to go check out the one in the room, but Xion beats him to it.

Head for the stairs? That sounded like as good of a plan as any.]

Where are you guys, anyway? I can't see a thing.

[Though he's not sure if he wants to see what - if anything - he just felt brush against one of his arms. Or whatever else is there, because it felt like there was something. Or maybe lots of somethings.

Considering what "something" usually meant in this place, he hoped he was wrong about that.]

Xion!

[Axel can't see her either, even with his enhanced senses in the darkness, but for whatever reason he can hear and feel everything else just fine. The whispers and the brushes against his shoulders- Axel twitches and steps away when something seems to come up beside him, not because he's scared, but because, dude, that's his personal space and you cannot invade that without his permission.

If both Sora and Xion's voices are anything to go by, then the voices and the faint touches could be from either of them, but Axel doubts that. No, the two of them sound further away.]

What? [he asks quietly before glancing around and finally spotting light from the stairs nearby. He considers heading over there... but in the end Axel turns around to glance about in the darkness once more. There's urgency in his voice now and not so much anger.]

Both of you head over to the stairs. I'll follow.

[As soon as Xion hears the other voice, she freezes. No... no no no why did it have to be Sora? Why did he have to follow them down and now he was trapped here too where it wasn't safe and... and...

Axel's instructions interrupt her train of thought.]

O-okay.

[Xion stumbles forward towards the distant light of the stairs, but there's voices echoing, all around her. Whispering... breathing... she couldn't make it out.]

Did you say something? [More whispers] Sora? Axel?

[And then it feels like she's bumped into someone as she's walking, and she darts sideways, only to brush into more and more things. She turns around, in a circle, searching sightlessly for someone, anyone.

Someone touches the back of her head and she turns. She's lost sight of the stairs by now. She needs to find them she has to get out. There's another whisper in her ear, accompanied by the sensation of someone breathing in it. She jerks away, turning around and stepping towards the stairs again.]

Stop it, please stop it!

[Her voice is getting more and more frenzied. She doesn't know who it is, who or what is doing this but it's making her feel more and more panicked the longer she stays here. The fact that she'd already been upset when she'd fallen onto this floor was just making everything worse.]

[If it wasn't for the fact that Sora was alone right now, he probably would have been pretty freaked out. Not that he wasn't, what with all the noises and weird things he kept feeling brush against his skin, but having other people around gave him a way to remind himself that he had to focus on a goal, even something as simple as making sure to get to the stairs. It was a huge help, and even though he was sure that Axel couldn't see him, Sora nodded at his words.

He just hoped that Xion and Axel got there okay, too.

It would be okay, he tried to tell himself. Nothing had hurt him yet, and he was pretty sure that everyone else was still alright, too. But...would something try to hurt them?

It was probably a good idea to not think about that. They were better off not waiting long enough to find out.

He kept taking steps toward the staircase in the distance, listening for the sounds of his friends. Instead he heard whispers, and weird sounds that almost seemed like voices but probably weren't, and he was about to tune them out altogether when he heard a voice that was for sure Xion's. She sounded really scared, and he wished that he could see well enough to find her. Or at all.]

Just ignore it, Xion! We've gotta meet up at the stairs, okay?

[Hearing her voice sound so frightened is enough to drive Axel to run back into the darkness and search for her. Whatever is in here is messing with her and he won't allow that to happen. On the offensive now, ~~or should we say Mother Cat Mode~~ Axel quickly summons his chakrams to his hands and rushes in blindly, listening to Xion's voice so he can try to pinpoint exactly where she is.

Occasionally he'll hear one voice and then two, maybe three all at the same time, but Axel manages to tune them out. He has a goal in mind... and he won't let anything keep him from reaching it.]

Xion, I said go to the stairs!

[Dammit, he can't see her. He can't see either of them... By now he's wandered further away from the stairs, but his safety is the least of his concerns.]

Sora, keep going!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

001 || Open

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/3 I think

2/3

done sob

Oops all these feels

no subject

no subject

Ooops...

so I heard y'all wanted a bad situation made worse?

It's fine, Sora. We're just PEACHY. /shoos

no subject

I'm not sure if peachy means what you think it means.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject