Kingdom Hearts - Blades of Three Realms

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Yeah, I know," Crystal nodded to Shiro. Still, she really hadn't planned on ever coming back to Chronopolis. "But this place still gives me the creeps."

One thing that was almost as surprising as Roveth's proficiency for dismantling the mechanical enemies and hacking into the systems of the Chronopolis archive room were the Dusks that showed up to help Roveth's machine monsters with transporting the salvageable technology away from the future city to bring it to Twilight Town.

"Huh, when did Roveth get on good terms with the Dusks?" Roxas wondered as he watched them go to work. The fact that they had shown up on their own was even more surprising considering how viciously Isa used to have to bark orders at them as Sai'x to keep them in line.

"Well, there were definitely plenty of Dusks that liked getting up to mischief back at the Castle That Never Was," Xion pointed out.

"They must have taken a liking to Roveth when he was clearing out the access points in the simulated Twilight Town," Crystal suggested.

Something in the security software must have been set off by Roveth probing too deeply into the archives because a "RESTRICTED BY FATE" error was starting to appear on all the monitors. This was accompanied by some very brutal sounding mechanical noises from down beneath the archive room, as if an especially large dormant machine must have been stirring.

"Okay, this isn't what I was afraid of, but Roveth it looks like you've managed to piss off FATE somehow," Crystal commented in response to the message on the monitors.

"Um, what is FATE exactly?" Roxas wondered since he wasn't familiar with the reference.

"FATE is the artificial intelligence that operates this facility, originally adapted from a computer system called Mother Brain taken from the future in the year 2300," Crystal explained vaguely. "Mother Brain intended to eliminate what was left of humanity to pave the future for her machine children after the Day of Lavos incident, but a scientist named Lucca supposedly neutralized the homicidal tendencies of the Mother Brain AI and renamed the system FATE to run surveillance on the parallel worlds that resulted from her and her group of friends meddling with the timeline to prevent the Day of Lavos from happening in their own future's timeline. There's a safeguard in place, but it isn't totally dependable. We could be in for a fight."

And then FATE herself burst up through the floor looking majorly ticked off, beginning by firing lasers from her chest and setting off gravitational black elements seemingly at random. "Intruders. Detected. Intruders. Will. Be. Eliminated."

"This is the other reason I hate this place," Crystal muttered as she then proceeded to summon Light's Shadow into her left hand to start swatting away some of the laser blasts. "FATE is a self-righteous b***h."

"Yeah, I can see what you mean," Roxas had already summoned Oathkeeper and Oblivion into hand and was reflexively deflecting the laser blasts back at FATE. "Although, this could mean there's something she doesn't want us to find in those files Roveth was hacking into."

Xion was doing more of the same with Sweetstack. Really, the gravity attacks were more of a problem than the lasers at the moment. "You know, Roxas, you might be onto something."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing," Crystal held up her free hand and shot off a Photon Beam element to inflict a good amount of damage on FATE. "So let's hurry up a beat her!"  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro of course had instinctively brought up his hands summoning Kanshou and Bakuya both, proceeding to do the same and flicking open his own element grid, instead of Photon Beam though, he chose Omega White to do some significant amount of damage as well, wincing a bit when he took a laser to the arm however, thankfully it didn't hit anything vital to make it move, so he could still use it, however, when he heard the chair turning around, he'd look to Roveth, who had his eyes shadowed and looking entirely too calm despite the fact a pissed off machine was in front of him, but it would show he wasn't calm at all, as he brought up his hands, and flicked out various tools to hold between his fingers, looking up with that spark in his eyes "... uhm... i think FATE just met her match." Shiro would say, backing up a bit to let Roveth have room.

Axel of course would work to use his blue flames and chakrams to form a fire barrier against the lasers and at least kept Xion protected, since he knew Roxas could easily dodge any attacks left by that crazy machine, granted, seeing Roveth get into a weird state like he was, he was keeping whoever was close by out of his way at the moment "okay, i've seen him angry, i've seen him absolutely livid, this... this is new. i do not know if i like this." her said warily himself, while at least blocking lasers when need be.

Roveth however just got up from his seat, still holding the tools, and now had a creepy smile adorning his face with the twinkle eye and the tools in hand "oh my my my.. such an advanced AI and with a naughty attitude at that! seems i need to give you.. some persuasion." he'd say all too cheerily as if he was about to inflict massive pain or suffering on someone with a smile, and then would proceed to leap into the air and at FATE, tools in hand, readying and planning to dismantle FATE once and for all, for not only Lucca's revenge, but in a way, everyone's revenge, since it seemed the robot never learned.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"I'm just guessing, but it kind of sounds like Roveth just decided he wants to add FATE to his collection," Crystal pointed out while she readied some more magic of her own. What came next was entirely too silly for words as Crystal then proceeded to cast Haste on Roveth and also cast Slow on FATE causing the former to accelerate to what would seem like an even more gratuitous rate of speed than usual as compared to FATE suddenly lapsing into slow motion as Roveth went to work disassembling her. Eventually FATE stopped moving altogether once Roveth had disconnected all of her motor functions, but not until after Roxas and Xion were both in stitches laughing at how absurd it looked as Roveth took FATE apart piece by piece and the pile of parts in the room continued to steadily grow while FATE struggled to retaliate in slow motion against her attacker only to fail spectacularly because Roveth was able to move so much faster.

"Well, that was fun," Crystal rested Light's Shadow on her shoulder looking quite pleased with her's and Roveth's handiwork as it rapidly transformed the imposing figure of FATE into nothing more than a harmless joke.

Roxas wandered over to Axel, still laughing pretty hard over the absurd spectacle they had just witnessed, to clap his friend on the back. "Be glad you aren't a machine."

"Definitely," Xion agreed. "It seems like Roveth just keeps getting better at taking them apart."

While they were chatting amongst themselves for the moment and Roveth was disassembling FATE down to the very last screw the security error that had restricted his access to whatever file he had been hacking into was lifted from the monitors in the archive room and a recording began to play. It was broken and garbled, like there must have been a pretty substantial amount of interference when the recording was made, but it was still clear enough that they could hear the words being spoken behind the static.

"Frozen Flame... eye of the storm... Dead Sea," were the words that were spoken.

"Did that make any sense to you?" Roxas managed to calm his laughter as he looked back to Crystal trying to take the situation seriously again although it was difficult with Roveth still taking FATE apart in the background.

"Well, the Dead Sea is the equivalent of the Sea of Eden that surrounds the islands making up Chronopolis, but from what I've heard the whole place was detonated by the servants of the Dragon God," Crystal frowned slightly, but then perked up again. "But that was before the temporal reset! If the other version of this world really did get restored to the way it was before Serge was pulled over to this one, then the Dead Sea is probably still intact."

"Still, 'eye of the storm' doesn't sound like a safe place," noted Xion.

"You're right," Crystal nodded. "It doesn't sound safe at all. But I think that's our best lead because the eye of the storm is the perfect place to hide an artifact that no one is supposed to be able to find. But first," she clapped her hands together and eyed Shiro meaningfully, "we're gonna have to brush up on your sailing skills!"  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro of course sweat-dropped, both at Roveth's whirlwind dervish'ing around Fate and systematically reducing it more and more into component parts, hard-drives, so on, before looking to Crystal a bit and nodded lightly in agreement to most of what she said about the Frozen flame, and then just sweat-dropped once more at Crystal's mention of his... skills with sailing "i'm not that bad Crystal, well, at least i'm not as bad as probably some other swordsmen in the past sailing a boat. (Cue Zoro sneezing and grumbling about cutting whoever actually was talking about him behind his back.)" he said while frowning, clearly not remembering the countless times he fell off the boat when it rocked -just- right, not to mention the times he did get the two of them lost, say they were heading for Arni village, it'd be common that they'd end up in Marbule or the Dragon Fortress and all. of course, he then would narrow his eyes lightly, looking at Crystal "wait why do i need to brush up on my sailing skills? i mean we aren't going to separate are we?" he asked, while wondering what Crystal was up to.

Axel would chuckle a bit, sweat-dropping at Roxas's mention of him being glad he wasn't a machine, before snorting "truthfully i am glad i am flesh and blood thank you, not that it makes much difference should i accidentally piss Roveth off, those malicious shadows of his are -no joke-." he said, shaking his head, before looking back to roveth's dismantling and just snort-giggled once more, it did make the battle so underwhelming having someone so inherently good with technology and -wanting- to learn more.

Roveth of course would definitely not stop, in fact, once haste and Slow were enacted appropriately, he just went full speed then, literally dancing around FATE's attacks without even coming to harm, even looking like he was leaving after-images, while he'd take apart that weapon, shut down that processor, gut that harddrive, so on, in fact, it'd take all of 10 minutes tops, once Roveth got the pattern down for dismantling with efficiency at high speed that it'd just be a -very- large pile of parts and probably an unable to function head left for FATE, as he grinned down at it "so much for you being a threat now huh? you're now 'my' property FATE, and do remember this in your hard-drive... i have every full capability of erasing your entire personality files and 'memories' of being your previous self with extreme and thorough prejudice. either way, you will no longer torment this world." he said, before looking to one piece of corrupted hardware, and with an unerring flick of his wrist, said blackened CPU and motherboard which was -part- of FATE's controls and reeking of raw darkness (probably the side of her that was also Lynx) would suddenly find itself impaled against the wall, sparking violently before powering down, by a Phillips screwdriver of all things. goes to show that even Roveth has destructive tendencies outside of mere dismantling of things. however he -did- get to work whistling for the dusks, and a good few more machine monster summonings to get to work cleaning the salvageable mess up after finding pieces which had element grids in it, keeping those for himself to study and would turn and walk back to his previous seat, sitting down and begin working on seeing if there was other, clearer recordings, or if it was possible to at least recover more of the one that had just played and all now that FATE was out of the way.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Based on what we learned from Belthasar the Frozen Flame won't appear before just anyone. It only appears to its chosen arbiter," Crystal informed Shiro. "Basically, we don't even really know if that's going to be you or not, but we're operating under the assumption that it is or why else would Namine have drawn a picture of it in the first place? My guess is that the only reason this might work is because of your 7th element resonance causing you to read more or less the same as the Chrono Cross. And that means you're going to have to be able to navigate your way into the eye of the storm by yourself this time."

"So, think you'll be able to handle it?" Roxas spoke up while eyeing Shiro seriously for the moment. "You know we're all counting on you to make this happen."

"Poor Shiro," Xion chimed in. "He really doesn't sound very enthusiastic about sailing."

"All the more reason why we're going to have to get him into shape for it first," Crystal nodded to herself. "After that he should be fine."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro had sweat-dropped again, rubbing the back of his neck a bit while letting his mist mask form over his face to hide his embarrassment, knowing full well that his skills with sailing, compared to other things, -were- lacking. granted, he knew how to prepare and sail a boat, but his sense of direction -sucked- and he often found himself in the water due to random mishaps during the trips. ".... right well... i guess its safe to say we're onto something, as ever since we got here in Chronopolis, aside from the creepy vibe of 'i'm watching yooouuuuu' coming from the place, attributed to FATE of course, but also something... i guess the correct term would be nudging me." he said, frowning a bit within the mask "like something's trying to reach out for me, but can't do so from where it is." he said, looking towards Roveth who seemed to be looking all too amused at the mention of Shiro getting trained to sail.

Roveth of course had turned back to the others after hearing them mention Shiro and sailing, of course, he just chuckled a bit, definitely looking amused at that while letting the recordings and files and programs all start being copied onto a conveniently spare empty hard drive he was using so that they could be at least saved to be perused at their own leisure and all, as well as keep an eye on El Nido from a distance if need be. either way he just spoke up to the comment of his dark half being whipped into shape "you do know that's going to be a bit tough, given how often Shiro falls out of the boat, and/or gets himself lost hopelessly on the sea, like the time you guys were heading to meet up with that pirate Ship in this world, and somehow ended up at Marbule, or the time you were letting shiro take you two to Opassa beach by boat, and he got you hoplessly lost to the point of ending up at the shores of the Dragon Fortress?" it was clear Shiro was -definitely not the best at sailing, or at least needed a LOT of work.

Axel would look at Roveth incredulously, before shaking his head with a chuckle "sounds like those must've been hilarious adventures." he said, while Roveth nodded, and looked to Crystal a bit serious "so after we send Shiro on his way and all, what do we plan to do until he finds us again?" Roveth would hold his hand up and raised an eyebrow "i'm sorry, but i'm not continuing with everyone just yet, Chronopolis has me too intrigued to the point i want to make sure every last bit of information, knowledge, and technology has been absconded from this place back to Twilight Town for our use and my amusement. so i will stay here coordinating that effort with the help of the ever so friendly dusks and my Machine-type monsters to haul things through and all."  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Well, since we did kind of get found out for hiding out at Viper Manor we can't really go back there for free lodgings anytime soon, but it won't really put a dent in my funds to book us some rooms at the inn in Termina for a while," Crystal mentioned as she thought over what they were going to do while Shiro was off in the parallel 'Home World' variant of the islands searching for the Frozen Flame. "From there we can get to pretty much anywhere else we want since it's port town for the main island. And I did promise I was going to give Roxas the grand tour the last time we were here so it might not be a bad time to follow through on that. Who knows, we might even be able to catch a Magical Dreamers concert if we're lucky."

"That makes sense," Roxas nodded. "We'll still be on this world if Shiro needs us, but we'll be out of the way enough that he should have no problem locating the Frozen Flame other than his own dismal luck with navigation."

"It sounds like it could be fun," added Xion.

"Not to mention there's fishing, picnicking on Sky Dragon Island, and a lot of rather unique monsters to encounter," Crystal rattled off making a random tally with her fingers of things to do in El Nido for while they would be waiting for Shiro to return. "And Fort Dragonia is pretty impressive too. Plus, even if we do go exploring to track down certain monsters, it's pretty easy to avoid getting into fights with most of them. The monsters here are way less aggressive than the Heartless or the Unversed, that's for sure."


Leaving Roveth to his own devices of studying the technology of Chronopolis and relocating the salvageable parts to Twilight Town, the group eventually made it back to the main island where they came ashore on roughly the same small sandy patch they had set sail from only to be immediately accosted by a boisterous blonde dressed in a red and yellow-trimmed version of the same outfit that Roxas was still getting used to seeing Crystal dressed in and a quiet blue-haired boy who seemed to be alternating between surprise and looking apologetic behind said feisty blonde haired girl.

"So it was you who stole my boat again!" Kid pointed an accusatory finger right at Crystal.

"Hey, it's not your boat either!" Crystal countered. "We both know it really belongs to Serge," she pointed at the blue-haired boy who looked slightly taken aback at being dragged into the argument like this. "And he's only borrowing it from Korcha!"

"Point taken," Kid seemed to consider the argument with a sort of vague nod. "But we've still been wait'in here all day fer you lot to bring it back."

"If you were really in a hurry to get somewhere, I highly doubt you'd have been waiting around here," Crystal folded her arms over her chest looking impressively defiant.

"So, I take it you both know each other?" Xion spoke up wondering what exactly was going on here.

"Yep, you could say that. Me and Kid go way back because she's the original mastermind behind the Radical Dreamers," Crystal decided to make with the introductions. She grinned mildly while addressing Kid a little more civilly now. "Looks like you finally found Serge again. How long did that take you anyway?"

"Well, ya know, I scoured this whole side of the dimensional divide and when that didn't cut it I took a stab at crossing the boundary to his original world and you know what, I found the lazy bum snoozing at home like nothing had happened, but apparently he didn't actually forget nothin he just mistook it all for a dream," Kid explained sounding rather amused about it. "What about you, though? You've been gone a real long time, but I knew only you could be gutsy enough to take my boat right from under my nose. And ya clearly ain't sulking around like the world is about to end so you must've managed to find whoever it was you'd been searching for."

"Oh come on, I wasn't that bad!" Crystal immediately protested.

"I dunno 'bout that, mate, you were looking right pathetic the last time I saw ya," Kid retorted. "So, you gonna introduce me to yer new friends?"

"Oh right, almost forgot about that!" Crystal realized. Shooting the breeze with Kid was more than a little distracting considering how long it had been since their last meeting. "Well then, this is Shiro, Roxas, Xion, and Axel. We were going to be giving Shiro some sailing lessons so if you're gonna be taking the boat for a while, maybe you could take him along for some instruction while yer at it?"

"Hm..." Kid was sizing Crystal up now. "So which of these boys is the one you were oh so desperate to find?" Naturally, the way she said it got Crystal and Roxas both blushing pretty hard so Kid was able to make the deduction herself. "Oh, so it was him, huh? Must be pretty special if he managed to get yer attention."

"Please stop!" Crystal was getting increasingly flustered and embarrassed.

"Oh, so yer that serious, eh?" Kid was smirking in a manner that would have put Riku's infamous smirk to shame. "Anyway, tell ya what, if yer friend needs sailing lessons, then he's more than welcome to tag along. Serge is from a fishing village so he's no slouch when it comes to sailing and all. He might me be a good teacher for your Shiro."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro would've looked all too amused at Crystal's flailing and embarrassment, but he had caught eye of Serge, and through some shuffles of body movement, a shrug, couple of headshakes, and maybe a blink or two, Shiro would at least step up to speak next "well, i don't think my sailing skills can get worse under a teacher's guidance at least, though i will say that most of any misshaps i've had happen to me on the sea were purely accidental and -not- because of me not really being the sea-faring type." he said with Axel in the background chuckling in general.

Axel of course was looking a -lot- more amused in seeing the antics of Kid and Crystal, putting his hands in his silver coat pockets with his eyes twinkling a bit "i can definitely see why you got along well with her Crystal, she is as fiesty and troublemaking as they come huh?" he teased out aloud, sure, he was kinda missing Roveth's presence, as he'd probably be using this moment as further ammo against Crystal and Roxas, and even conspire with Kid to -really- get the two of them embarrassed "they've also gotten -quite- comfortable with each other too, Kid." he'd quip out, just to see if the fireworks started flying.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"You don't know the half of it," Crystal scratched behind her ear in response to Axel's comment about Kid.

"Axel!" You could actually hear Roxas's voice cracking slightly as he flailed and his face went an even brighter shade of red in his escalating embarrassment. "It isn't like that!"

Naturally, Roxas's reaction to Axel's teasing got Xion laughing pretty hard. She wasn't the only one either as even Crystal cracked a smile through her own look of embarrassment because that reaction from Roxas was both adorable and totally priceless.

"Heh, sounds like yer all pretty good friends," Kid nodded in approval. "That's good. Ya see, Crystal here thinks she can take care of herself and she ain't wrong on that account, but she can be a bit thick about taking her own feelings into consideration and needs folks around her to give her a shove in the right direction when she's being stupid and such."

"Wait, what?" Crystal stared incredulous. "Seriously, I'm not that bad!"

"Actually, you really are," Xion chimed in. "If it weren't for Roveth's meddling you'd probably still be tripping over yourself about Roxas."

"I... but... really?" Crystal looked both embarrassed and genuinely defeated at this prospect. "This isn't even fair! Why are you all ganging up on us?!"

"It's 'cause yer reactions are priceless," Kid snickered in amusement. "You always were good for a laugh." She then glanced between Serge and Shiro, eyeing the silent exchange taking place between the two. "Now then, what are you two chatterboxes up to?"

"Wait, were they actually having a conversation just now?" Xion puzzled over the interactions between Shiro and Serge. Neither had said a word to the other, but it did somehow look like the two had reached some kind of understanding with each other.

Kid looked meaningfully at Shiro. "You really shouldn't encourage him too much. Serge is too dang quiet as it is and now you're making him think he can get away with it."

"Considering he's been getting away with it this long I doubt he's ever really going to stop," Crystal noted with a slight chuckle of amusement.

"Still, it's interesting how Shiro seems to get along so easily with quiet types like that guy, Kaze, and now this guy, Serge who hasn't said so much as a word to us," Roxas commented now that he was no longer flailing, although his face was still pretty red.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro sweatdropped while serge looked embarrassed, but at least shiro spoke up on things "well, there are -some- people who can't really talk for various reasons, being shy, being mute, other things like that, so they learned to develop how to speak without speaking, by using body language and their eyes." he explained, scratching his head a bit "in Kaze's case, he's a good bit socially awkward due to his.. well.. status. Serge here..." he'd glance over, catching the boy's eye, and with a couple of nods and a point in Kid's direction, Shiro would continue "is pretty much a soft-spoken individual, he will answer verbally if pressed, but tends to not do so, due to apparently after meeting Kid, she talks enough for everyone." he said, looking a bit too amused in general.

Axel just sweat-dropped and shook his head lightly "good grief, i was -wondering- if there was a reason why he was silent... and you know Shiro, why in the world would you learn and know of such a thing?" shiro of course looked embarrassed "well... for a long time, before i met my mentor, i kinda played the part of the silent individual, even after then and eventually meeting Crystal, it took a while to finally get back to speaking as if it was natural... even if i still have old habits of back then." as for that explanation, Axel would turn to Crystal, looking on in amusement "not to mention every time we bring up when you two get to sleep in the same room." he teased, while crossing his arms a bit lightly.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Come to think of it, when they first made it to the Destiny Islands, Shiro really wasn't much of a talker and Crystal was doing most of the talking for the both of them," Roxas recalled. And then Axel just had to go and make that comment causing Roxas's face to immediately go several shades brighter again. "Come on Axel, did you really have to go and bring that up right now?!" Roxas started flailing again.

"Oh, I see, so that's how it is, is it?" Kid leered conspiratorially at Crystal.

"Oh my god, are we seriously having this conversation right now?" Crystal shot a dirty look at Axel before shrinking beneath the intensity of Kid's gaze. "So what if we have been sleeping in the same room some of the time? It's only because I was having trouble sleeping before on account of the nightmares I'd been having. It's not like anything else has happened!" The fact that she was blushing pretty hard herself made the argument sound rather unconvincing.

"Some of the time? You two have been sharing a room at practically every opportunity!" Xion pointed out. Okay, so maybe it was kind of unfair to keep pressing the two of them like this, but the reactions really were hysterical to watch.

"Who'd have thought you had it in you?" Kid smirked even more widely while clapping Crystal on the shoulder in a congratulatory fashion.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Crystal protested while sounding even more flustered and embarrassed.

"Oh, nothin, yer just cute when you get all embarrassed," Kid smirked as she tussled Crystal's hair making it get all frazzled. "Still, yer pretty lucky 'cause it seems like he must really like you too."

"Gah! Stop messing with me!" Crystal flailed even harder and struggled to fix up her hair so it wasn't all getting in her face.

"Yer still a tad too innocent to have let anything happen though," Kid went on sounding all the more amused by Crystal's flailing.

"You see Axel, that's what we've been telling you all along," Roxas tried to regain his composure, but his face was still bright red and he still looked quite visibly flustered by the whole discussion.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Axel of course cracked a wider grin "oh i could go further, but i think i've embarrassed Roxas enough at least to be content for a while." he said looking too amused, before turning serious as he motioned to Shiro "either way, you have some sailing skills to learn, so i think we should leave you to it and all." he'd said, moving off to the side to stand near Xion with an amused chuckle and all.

Shiro just shook his head at the group, looking amused himself, before starting to head off to follow serge towards the boat so they could get started on the lessons, with or without Kid since it seems she was sufficiently distracted by Crystal and the others, at least with the two of them out of the way it'd let Kid continue teasing Crystal if she so chose to and all.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Looks like it's time to set sail," Kid nodded to Serge and Shiro. She then looked back to the rest of the group. "Can't make any promises about when we'll be bringing Shiro back to you, but he'll sure be a more competent sailor by then. You lot stay out of trouble, alright?"

After seeing them off Crystal would start leading the way to the town of Termina seeing as that was going to be their designated meeting place for whenever Shiro made it back to the main island and Crystal still needed to make sure to book a couple of rooms so they wouldn't have to worry about finding lodgings elsewhere, particularly now that they couldn't just set sail for one of the other islands to find a place either. Of course, even after securing rooms at the inn, Crystal and Roxas were both still pretty embarrassed and flustered in general so they were going to need some time to cool off.

"You don't think maybe we teased them a little too much, do you?" Xion wondered as she remained behind with Axel at least for a little while.


Roxas began wandering aimlessly, in part because he honestly didn't know his way around the town and had no idea where he was really going, although he knew he could probably find his way back to the inn as long as he didn't wander outside of Termina. Suffice it to say, he encountered many things in his wanderings including a shady fortuneteller, a conniving street merchant, and a rather imposing weapon-smith. Yeah, Roxas got scared off by Zappa real quick. He accidentally stumbled across a peculiar pin on the ground and was immediately accosted by Pierre who demanded that Roxas return the Hero Medal as he had very obviously stolen it. Roxas was naturally more than a little annoyed by the accusation, although he would have returned the pin right then and there if the odd Frenchman had simply asked nicely. He might have gotten into a fight with the man if not for the swordsman who had then emerged from one of the nearby residences sporting two impressively large swords that both seemed identical somehow.

"Just because you keep misplacing it doesn't mean every kid who picks it up is a thief, Pierre," Glenn scolded as he loomed over Pierre with his rather impressive and muscular build. "Besides, thanks to him you didn't lose it completely this time."

"Um... thanks for sticking up for me," Roxas was pleasantly surprised to find that the swordsman was taking his side in the confrontation so there wouldn't have to be a fight. He handed over the pin and Glenn kindly sent Pierre on his way.

"There, you see, no hard feelings," Glenn nodded as Pierre left to go about his business elsewhere. "Don't mention it," he added speaking to Roxas directly. "You seem like a good kid and the Acacia Dragoons are sworn to protect this town. Still, try to stay out of trouble."

"Yeah, sure," Roxas nodded and went on his way, even though he still really had no idea where he was even going.


Crystal spent her time down at the docks skipping stones and checking out the concert parlor to see if there was any news about the Magical Dreamers. It looked like they actually were in town, at least, although there was no set date yet for their next concert. Maybe they were understaffed again so it was taking a while to find more backup dancers and singers to help with the performance.

By the time Roxas eventually caught up with Crystal the sun had already set and the twin moons were hanging high in the night sky accompanied by the sounds of the wind and the waves.

"So, you didn't head back yet either, huh?" Roxas was certainly calmer than he would have been a few hours ago after that continuous bombardment of teasing from everyone, except for Serge and Shiro who had kept quiet throughout the whole thing which was almost just as bad because neither had done a thing to stop it.

"And miss this view? No way!" Crystal answered with a grin before turning her gaze back to the night sky.

"So, you sulking around like the world was going to end, huh? Somehow, that really doesn't sound like you," Roxas had been wondering about that ever since he heard Kid say it, but there hadn't been a good opportunity to bring it up until now.

"Yeah, well, Kid was exaggerating a bit by putting it like that, but it is true that the last time she found me was just after I had left Twilight Town and even though I didn't actually know what was going on, it still felt incredibly wrong and I didn't know how to deal with the weight of what I was feeling so I guess I must have seemed pretty torn up about it," Crystal rubbed the back of her head sounding a little embarrassed. "Anyway, after I told her what little I did know she was the one who reminded me that moping around here wasn't going to change anything and convinced me that even if it seemed hopeless I should try to find you anyway. She was still looking to find Serge again at the time so I think she might have been trying to convince herself as much as she was me so that probably helped. Of course, there are a lot of worlds out there and even with the advice I got from Leon about tracking down Sora on the Destiny Islands if I wanted to know the whole truth, I still had no idea how to get there so it took a while to find the right world, but we both know I eventually got there. Come to think of it, I guess that was the second time she found me when I didn't know what to do with myself and took it upon herself to set me straight before she'd let me out of her sight. She's a pretty cool Big Sis, although sometimes she runs her mouth a lot more than I can handle."

"So, on the Destiny Islands when Namine said you wanted to meet me, that was the real reason you had come along to find Sora," Roxas realized sounding thoughtful. "You were actually hoping to find me."

"Yeah, well, wishful thinking aside, it's not like I really expected that was going to work," Crystal scratched behind her ear. "And when it did I was as surprised as everyone."

"That's true. It definitely seemed like at the time you had no idea any of that was going to happen," Roxas admitted.

"And I was pretty freaked out about it too because I knew that somehow I was going to be blamed for it," Crystal added. "Even if nothing went wrong, it was still something that happened because of my meddling. And it really was my fault, however indirectly, because of my connection to Cosmos."

"No one holds any of that against you," Roxas pointed out. "Sora was totally ecstatic and he really wanted to be able to thank you. Still, I guess I do kind of understand now why you kept your distance initially. You must have been afraid that something else might happen if you weren't careful."

"Not that I was really much good at staying away," Crystal responded with a mild chuckle. "'Really, Twilight Town, again?' Shiro never said anything, but it was written all over his face whenever I decided to use our re-supply runs as an excuse to visit."

"Come on, let's head back," Roxas suggested. "If we keep Axel and Xion waiting, you know Axel is going to get ideas after the day we've had."

"Just be glad Roveth decided to stay behind in Chronopolis or it could have been even worse," Crystal reminded him. They both shuddered involuntarily.

"Thankfully, he doesn't have to hear about it," Roxas assured her. He was pretty sure not even Axel was going to want to take that bullet.

Soon enough they would arrive back at the inn. It was already pretty late, at least judging by the angle of the twin moons, meaning it was really no time for a couple of kids to be out roaming the streets after dark, even if they were equipped to handle most of the threats that might dare to challenge them on this world.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

thankfully for Axel's sake Roveth didn't conveniently decide he was done right that moment and came in, so he was chilling about at the Inn with Xion, chatting it up, even trying some of the Squid Gut Pasta, which to him was actually pretty tasty despite the disgusting name and all. either way it seemed Axel was going to kick back and relax since he was able to in the world, and let Roxas and Crystal do their own thing until Shiro gets back.

Shiro of course, would definitely show that while he was competent at sailing a boat, he did have a few habits that led to him getting everyone lost that'd probably take more than a few hours to correct to a point at least, not only that, there would be countless times when something so simple would send Shiro tumbling straight into the waters, even when he was sitting still and doing nothing! it seemed Kid and serge had their work cut out for them, especially with the fact thaqt Shiro at least was willing to learn and learn he did, it was just slow going with the mishapsas if Murphy was literally watching and eating popcorn with glee at how many times he was making shiro fall in the ocean.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Fortunately for Shiro, Serge at least was patient enough to drag him out of the water each time he fell in, whereas Kid on her own probably would have just left him to fend for himself after he'd fallen in too many times for her taste, but it was Serge's boat so he was in charge and that meant Shiro wasn't being left behind.


Shiro's lessons with Serge went on for about a week or so, giving Crystal plenty of time to show the others around the main island visiting areas like the Shadow Forest, Fossil Valley, Divine Dragon Falls, Arni Village, and even as far as Opassa Beach while steering clear of the toxic fumes of the Hydra Marshes and also avoiding Viper Manor since they had already kind of overstayed their welcome when Solt and Peppor found them before their trip to Chronopolis. Axel seemed to routinely skip out on the island explorations in favor of lazing around Termina to take advantage of the downtime by catching up on sleep and relaxing in general. This meant that it was mainly just Roxas and Xion who were being taken out on these excursions in Shiro's absence.

One morning they got up a little bit earlier than usual to try doing some fishing from the docks and Xion must have caught something huge because when Roxas and Crystal went to help try to reel it in all three of them got pulled clear off the dock into the water, sputtering as they were pulled a little ways out to sea before thinking to let go of the fishing rod to start swimming back to shore while laughing about the "one that got away". It was probably for the best considering the island archipelago was home to more than just your garden variety fish and what had been on the line could very well have been some sort of huge monster they would have had to fight off if they had actually managed to reel it into shore. And reeling in a monster likely would have gotten them into trouble with the Acacia Dragoons patrolling Termina so, again, it was probably best that it got away when it did. Suffice it to say, they decided to take a break from fishing after that to pursue slightly less hazardous activities.


Eventually Serge and Kid brought Shiro back to the main island once they were finished with whatever errand they were running. All Shiro would know was that it involved chatting with Radius at the Hermit's Hideaway, but the details would remain ambiguous at best. Other than that it would have felt like they were deliberately sailing in circles around entire archipelago just for Shiro's benefit so he could get a feel for the ocean currents and the like surrounding the islands. In fact, it probably was for Shiro's benefit because once they returned to the main island it seemed that Serge and Kid had no further use for the boat at the moment and the task of instructing Shiro would then fall to Crystal until he was confident enough to make the dimensional crossing to actually attempt reaching the Dead Sea. After that the rest would be up to Shiro.