route_1065 | In Which Xemnas Has Lunch And Encounters An Old 'Friend'.

In Which Xemnas Has Lunch And Encounters An Old 'Friend'.

Who: Xemnas

memoryborn
Where: Route 34
When: August 15, Midafternoon
Summary: Dubious once-allies cross paths once again!
Rating: G to PG, possible warnings for PUPPETS and REPLICAS

Ilex Forest and Route 34 both had things Xemnas was interested in catching. After a chain of headache-inducing disasters in Ilex, which highlighted that he really needed to teach his two pokemon how to cooperate and work together, it was time to do something else for a little while. He'd find a zorua sooner or later, but hunting a growlithe til then would be something more the speed of his troublesome pair. He had a list of the pokemon he wanted to catch, and his blitzle and deerling, much subdued after the trouble in Ilex, are still in tow. Xemnas did not tolerate failure well.

Finding something to match Xemnas' painfully exacting standards is much harder than just finding any pokemon, as his own team had begun to learn. Just anything simply won't do, and a morning and afternoon spent hunting, chasing and battling various pokemon lurking in Route 34 has yet to find one that Xemnas approved of enough to bother capturing.

But currently, it's time for a break. Both Sorrow and Regret were both visibly tired, and had worked hard to try to do what he asked them to, and a rest seemed appropriate. Settled by one of the small ponds that dot the route, egg carefully nestled against his backpack, it's time ... for lunch. A sandwich for himself, berries and grass and leaves for the blitzle and deerling, and a few magikarp in the water to flick crust at just to see them make Os at the surface trying to eat it. It's remarkably peaceful.

For the moment.

It's also very easy to spot the trio from the air.

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She gives no reaction of her own when he correctly deduces what she is. She is a Replica, despite being here for a long while in Johto, no matter the short "break" she took. It's those experiences as a Replica that make her the person she is. As much as she could try and follow the advice to look at herself as a human while in here, that didn't automatically erase what had happened.

Xion is only slightly surprised that his tone or attitude doesn't reflect the way other members of the Organization treated her with. She tries to look back on what Vexen actually ever said to her upon her creation, but she couldn't bring up those memories. She only remembers stiffly and obediently walking behind Saix as they left Castle Oblivion, claiming it would be "the last she'd see" of the place.

"Vexen created me, but I don't remember the things he said to me. I don't remember my first week." A pause as she considers what else to say, and then, "By the time I could properly think for myself, it was reported he died in Castle Oblivion."

"Unfortunate. I should have very much liked to know your starting parameters. Of course now they would be irrelevant, but Vexen was undeniably good at his work. The other replicas I have heard of or encountered looked and acted identical to their template. You are a remarkable variance." Had Vexen learned how to cross various progenitors for one result? The base point seems to be Kairi, but Xion didn't act much like her from what little he knew of the girl.

For a few moments he is quiet, then he shakes his head. Fake. Well. Now that he knew she was a replica, he knew better how to handle her. Finally something he could actually use.

"I can only assume someone has grossly misled you as to what a replica is, by way of their memories or personalities or even their beings and hearts. One may question if their memories are real, if they are the only ones to experience them. But share it with another, and no matter their origins, they certainly are real and do exist. What you are born as only matters as much as you allow it to. If you were chosen to be numbered among my Organization, then I should think there was very little fake about you at all. I have no use for a thing that can't think or act on its own, and you seem capable of both."

At that, she takes a step forward. Is he just saying all that to appeal to her better nature now that he knows what she is? The look on her face, however, looks torn between being frustrated and confused.

"You say that now, but it still was only Organization XIII. There weren't any chairs or titles for me because they were all filled - even if over half of them were gone already." Xion says, nearly on the verge of shouting at certain points. He has to be close to realizing why he had allowed for her to exist in the first place and to continue working with them even after she directly disobeyed them to their faces. He may not remember that, but by now, did she really seem like she'd fit in well with the Organization?

One silver eyebrow rises. "I wouldn't change the name of the World that Never Was even if it became a true living, breathing world either. It's just a name, Xion. If you were worthy of being numbered, then you were worthy of being among my chosen few. My Organization was Organization XIII even when we had only six members. It was Organization XIII when I was the only one left, and twelve chairs stood empty to remind me of my folly."

There's another one of those pauses, before his head tilts, ever so slightly, curiosity getting the better of him again. "Why do you let it trouble you so? I am aware a replica is often unstable and short-lived but surely you were of great value while you remained. As you certainly had a heart as all replicas do, I am certain also you must have forged bonds with at least one of the others. Do you not value yourself so much, that a thing like a title bothers you?"

And yet he still didn't know her. Then again if she was a replica, would memory of her die if she did? There was so little information on it.

"It isn't that!" She retorts, sounding just a bit dismayed. Her hands unconsciously curl and loosen themselves, as if trying to summon something back to her hands on reflex. Then she remembers herself and takes a step back, simmering in silence for a minute.

The title, the chair - it didn't matter in the way he's seeing them. Suppose he is right that they're all what they are, but she remembers that the longer she stays in The World That Never Was, or continued to work with the Organization in general... she just felt so out of place. It's also an accurate description as to the state of her mind, but she tries to regain some bit of composure. Hah. Unstable, indeed.

Speaking of bonds, "Roxas... and Axel. And it wasn't as though I knew I was a Replica at first," she grounds out. "Saix made it clear I was a failure first, but never said 'what.' You and the other members said Roxas and I were 'special,' and I don't think Roxas ever got the meaning behind why you guys said that beyond us being able to--"

She abruptly stops at that, but she doesn't look as though she just caught herself. Her brow is furrowed and gaze still on Xemnas, watching him.

"You too could wield a keyblade?" That's interesting. "I assume you inherited Kairi's blade, then." She seemed to be the princess's copy, it would fit. "I can see why you would be called special. Another such individual would be an incredible boon. If you were working well with Roxas, then all the better. That ... 'specialness', yes, you both shared it, but for different reasons, given what you were and what he was. And not only for the keyblade."

Saix calling such a replica a failure though, was strange. She seemed healthy enough, focused enough. Capable. Saix was often a good judge of character, but Xemnas knew he had a temper beneath that stoic calm. Xemnas had a hook, it was just a matter of seeing if she'd bite on it.

Fiddling with his pack very clearly is a thing to keep his hands busy. It is difficult to properly gesture while sitting, and it would look silly besides. "As for Saix, there is something you must understand. To some Nobodies, a replica is a mockery of the state of a Nobody. Neither truly 'exist' to some perspectives. They aren't 'real', and thus anything can be done to them, even killed, and it wouldn't matter. They don't 'exist'. But a replica has one over any Nobody - replicas still have a heart. It may not be a natural one but it is a heart."

"This can incite terrible things in a Nobody capable of even a little emotion, if they didn't consider that replica a friend. I imagine Saix saw you as undeserving. Perhaps he even hated you. You had something he did not. And if Axel was involved as well.. .. hm, perhaps two things he didn't. Did you know before they fell to the Heartless, Saix and Axel were very close?" Xemnas shakes his head. "At any rate. Do not put much weight on his actions. Look to the others, with less of an ..investment. Did they treat you differently, when they knew?"

She isn't sure whether to correct him or not on the assumption that the Keyblade she wielded was Kairi's. At the time, she didn't even know about her, and even then, this is the first time she's heard about the Princess of Heart being able to do so. Considering how strong of heart she was, even from Sora's eyes, she could see it.

She has her open to try and correct it, but Xion blinks in surprise at that bit about her best friend and Saix. Her mind immediately wants to jump on that topic, but he's already moving the subject before she could try. She eyes him warily as he's sifting through his pack, but then she glances at the two Pokemon already out, plus the egg. Those must be the only Pokemon he has, as he's still fairly new. And she does have Bell...

"I'm not sure if they ever found out. Xigbar - I think he knew from the start," she answers. 'Poppet,' he liked to call her. And then there was that one moment in the tea garden-- "He said I kept looking at him like he just 'drowned my goldfish.'"

She pointedly told him to shut up, and while she didn't give his words much thought as she had run out of time, now... Now she wonders who had he seen?

Only two. And one unhatched. Xemnas held his standards far too high, and had already passed up many pokemon that would have made loyal, strong team members. These two suited him well enough and when the third hatched.. that was all he needed.

The chance of those two taking on her togekiss were slim to none. They were tough for their size, but weren't that experienced. Eventually, he pulls out what looks suspiciously like a notebook, opens it up, and begins jotting down notes in shorthand. She might think it pertains to her ... it doesn't, but it doesn't hurt to let her think otherwise. "Xigbar is aware of a great many things. I doubt he treated you badly for it. He's harmless unless given a reason to be otherwise." For the most part.

Xigbar was far too laid back to just harass someone for no reason. "--you had a goldfish?" How do you drown a goldfish? "Was this an angry look or more of a sad sort of look, do you know? Forgive me, but I am trying and failing to imagine the look he meant."

When he asks her all those questions, she gives a shake of her head and looking very confused herself.

"I didn't have a goldfish. He said he saw someone else's face on mine, and the way I looked at him... He didn't make sense."

And by now, the sheer memory of that moment is making her expression look exactly as it did when Xigbar provoked her. Not that she realizes it as she tries to recall it, and finally answers:

"I think an angry look." And now she's glancing at that notebook, wondering what he's writing down. Is he recording what he's finding out from this conversation? Add to that, she's been staying a lot longer than she had intended; Illya's still waiting...

Poor Xion. It's all the worst sort of lie, the most terrible form of deception. A lie with just enough truth mixed in to seem believable, or a truth not fully told, can be spun any way one might wish. Xemnas was learning again what the brighter emotions felt like.. and thus how to better fake them. It made this much easier than it might have been only a short time ago. And she, friend of Sora and thus likely of Riku, if she believed things weren't as she thought they were back then, or even doubted the man had been as evil as he truly was.. then it would be a different sort of victory.

A far more important one. All it had to be, was believable. As if all it took was a different point of view. "You do have a certain resemblance to someone else," Xemnas allows, glancing up from his note-jotting. That look rather reminded him of Sora, actually, but he doesn't say so. As he notes she's watching him, he pauses. Did she know how to read shorthand? Ansem had drilled it into all of them.

"I want to be clear, Xion." All traces of anything like humor or good mood leech from his voice, as if this were completely, deadly serious. "I have no wish to be an enemy. I do not remember you, or the things that happened to make you act so towards me, but if it is so that you were the Fourteenth, and one of my Organization, then I have a responsibility to you even now. As I did then. It will be difficult for both of us if we treat each other as if we were foes. Not so long ago it was the obligation of cold logic. And now.."

And so the deception continues. How gullible was she? Sora could be incredibly so, with the right words. "And now it seems I may owe you a debt, reparations for whatever you suffered by the hands of those who could not feel regret or sorrow or shame for their actions. You, a true child of the Organization more than any Nobody could be."

"What?"

Is her initial and automatic response, shock washing over her face. She hadn't expected those words, nor the tone that is used to say them. Did he mean it? Did he really mean what he's saying? Perhaps all this is possible because he really has a heart to give sway to his thoughts. Emotions he could only remember are actually feeling real to him.

It had taken her a long while to slowly accept herself as something more than a Replica, and even then... The shock slowly gives way as suspicion creeps in. She still has questions and he may not remember what he did with her and Roxas, but she does. He even states that what she remembers is real. When she reminds herself this, she gives a firm shake of her head. Suddenly having a heart didn't automatically give him a pardon for the things he's done.

Still.

"No. I'm not. You could say that, but I'm not. I left it, and even if I still wear the coat, I don't wear it to represent your Organization," Xion says slowly and just as clearly as he did.

"I don't want to be enemies either-" And not in the sense that she wanted to be friends with him, "-and I'm not sure where I want to be with you... but I still remember. It's going to be a while before I think otherwise."

Just to be clear. She continues, "The only thing I want out of you is to not cause trouble. For anyone, and especially my friends. If you keep it up..."

Maybe I can believe, but she won't make it a promise. She waits for his answer with a steady gaze.

It is intensely relieving that he hadn't pegged her wrong, and the offer is rejected. Smarter than Sora but just as dense in other ways; didn't even baby birds know a snake when they saw it? Still, he wouldn't have to follow through with even trying to long-term act like 'a decent person', which pleased him. The chances of her accepting were abysmally small and thus good for him. To be stuck with such an odious task simply to convince a replica of his sincerity..

"..Ahh. That's how you see it. Rejection of everything you don't like, and only trying to keep the bits you did like. It's okay to cling to your memories of your friends, but anything you didn't enjoy is to be thrown aside as worthless. And yet without all of it, both joy and sadness, you would not be who you are today. Xion, responsibility simply doesn't go away if you wish hard enough. Children often like to think so, to shirk their duties. It's not as easy for those of us who are a little more grown up. And whether or not you like it or approve of it.. when those who know the Organization see that coat, they will think of us. Even your friends will think of the Organization before they think 'Xion', even if only for a moment, whether or not they wish to admit it. Thus whether or not you wish to, you still represent us in this world. Surely there are other things you can wear, if you hate and despise us so much."

His tone is the careful sort one might use when speaking to a particularly slow child. "As for 'causing trouble', have I caused any yet, directly? Or has any turmoil I've been involved in been the result of others going out of their way to attempt to threaten me, or intimidate me? It's a foolish idea, 'fear' is not an emotion that has seen fit to return, and yet they keep trying to stir it up. I have done nothing, but if such foolishness continues I will make certain it ceases." His smile is brief and humorless. "Whether or not they're your friends. Common sense seems painfully lacking in the lot you've decided to align yourself with. They should be careful that in all their bumbling and strutting around that they don't wake the dragon. It won't be the dragon's fault if they get burned."

Not just the recent incident. Even Sora had been foolish enough to go out of his way to taunt and hassle, as if there could and would be no repercussions. "If you wish for me to not 'cause' trouble, see to it that your silly friends cease attempting to provoke me. I am not a tolerant man, and not given to offering second chances without better reason than the agitation of a child. I owe Vexen much, as he was more than a mere researcher to me and mine, and perhaps I owe his daughter as well, but that extends only so far. I have done nothing."

"It would be wise for you and your friends to not give me reason to change that."

"I'll do something about it." Xion said, expression turned into one of resolution and somewhat... reluctant resignation.

Did that mean he had given her permission to warn others? In a sense, and-- hmph. "Permission" wasn't the right word either, but still. He hasn't forgotten the message he got, and whatever it said was making him on edge. She could see what he was trying to say, and while she would agree with the caution and wariness her comrades were showing, they were expressing it in, well... dumb ways. Flaunt all they wanted about having more powerful Pokemon - she knew Xemnas would just bide his time and pay the debt if things kept piling up.

And really, the only reason she hadn't thrown the coat away was for sentimental reasons. Plus, it was a practical piece of clothing when the weather grew a bit bad. She wouldn't tell that, though.

"A... truce, then?" At least Vexen left her with some vocabulary.

"Of a sort." A truce? Hardly. Breathing room, to construct a method to properly retaliate, or find ways to catch them without their protective monsters? Absolutely. Habits didn't die easy, and Xemnas was certain they'd be incapable of leaving him to his own devices for long, like bluejays harassing hawks. "Perhaps a nonaggression pact would be better suited given our situation."

Which is a strange thing for a man of his station to be offering a mere child, but it suited Xemnas's purposes and she didn't seem disinclined to agree, so it was acceptable. "I should like to enjoy what little time I have with a heart to call my own. Mucking that up with pointless battles seems foolish, wouldn't you say?"

For now. Until it wasn't anymore. It wouldn't be, in the case of the one sending him messages recently. That had stirred up annoyance and anger, emotions he hadn't truly felt in a long time. It had been ... almost pleasant, to feel the rush of hostility.

"I would still like to understand you better, if you would allow it." The addition is almost an afterthought. "Of course, I understand very well why you might choose to refuse. You represent so much."

She frowned when he said "of a sort." That wasn't good enough? When he explained a more appropriate term, her expression lessened. She wouldn't say she'd agree with his point about trying to enjoy his time with a heart, though. Her silence was probably answer enough.

"Understand me? What else is there to understand?" That genuinely had her confused. She thought he got enough from just her stating she was a Replica and one of Vexen's own. Granted, she didn't talk about how she was trying to be a complete copy of Sora and his abilities.

All of this was temporary, a fleeting thing. He would be called to his duty sooner or later, and this rogue fledgling heart removed and replaced with the proper one. Until then it was nice to know what he felt was his own feelings. Not a lot of feeling, not yet. But it's something.

"Who you are is not defined by what you are, Xion. There are still mysteries to solve." Such as why Xemnas didn't remember her. He wanted those gaps filled.

And he wanted to know how successful a replica she was to begin with. Had Vexen refined the program? Was it actually viable for what they'd wanted it for?

Her expression became thoughtful at that. He wanted to get to know her as a person? Was that what she was getting from him? Or that it must be he didn't remember her at all?

Then she remembered the Riku Replica she had a small chat with a while back. Before she had to go, she asked,

"Were there others?"

Did he remember those?

He pauses, glancing briefly at his pokemon, who are listening intently still. How much did they understand of what they heard?

"Replicas? ... Yes. Several that I know of. Vexen saw fit to create duplicates of himself; I suppose he tested the proceedure that way. You are the first replica, aside from the assorted Vexens, that I have encountered."

And alarmingly they were bald. Xemnas hadn't figured out if that was a design change, or merely the result of trying to create a replica of a Nobody. They hadn't known, he hadn't known, and that was the end of that.

"They had not seen fit to bother to claim a life of their own. Too much research to do, I suppose. However you have. It leaves me with many questions." Such as whether or not she was the perfect replica, what they'd worked for, theorized over..

And he'd never bothered to ask the Vexens if they knew anything about other replicas. An oversight, he could see that now. Thirteen vessels might not have to be himself through time or foreign victims. If the replica process had been perfected...

No, Xion represented many things. Many very, very important things.

Pokemon could, apparently, understand human speech perfectly well! After all, they responded to their commands. Bell herself knew a bit more thanks to being a Psychic type.

It surprised Xion to know that Vexen had created Replicas of himself. She remembered reading others, but he hadn't elaborated much on them, and she was more focused finding out where she was coming from. It surprised her to know Riku had a Replica of his own, too. An oversight on her part.

She took a few steps back, vaguely motioning at her Togekiss. Bell chirped and lowered herself to the ground beside Xion, waiting. She wanted to ask more questions, she wanted to know more. Yet if he couldn't remember her, what else could he tell her more than she already knew?

"I have to go," though she sounded like she wanted to stay a bit longer. Just a bit to gain... something she didn't know at the moment. "I'll... I guess we'll talk again?"

She wasn't sure she was looking forward to that again, even if she was using this to check on him from time to time.

They were smart enough, at least. But this matter of replicas might be too out of the average pokemon's experience. He wouldn't be able to answer their questions, not until he found a psychic-type he actually approved of.

Which could take some time.

As the togekiss settles nearby for Xion to ride, and her tone sounds almost... reluctant, it's a struggle to not smile. Instead he keeps his features easily neutral. "I am sure your friends are waiting for you."

But which ones? And would they in turn show up soon? "If you wish to find me, then I will be found. Goodbye, Xion."

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In Which Xemnas Has Lunch And Encounters An Old 'Friend'.

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