It is oft reported that of the Organisation, Demyx was the biggest slut, or possibly Marluxia.

The simple fact is that it's Vexen.

He's the only one to have slept with every single other member at some point, despite being the most reclusive of them all. He's even slept with himself, once or twice. His secret? Replicas.

The scientific impossibility of cloning has always fascinated him, and with the loss of a heart bodies are simply so easily duplicated, and he has done it - wittingly or otherwise - for all the nobodies of Organisation XIII.

He will be the first to tell you that this was never for any perverted reason - although he will happily add that Marluxia, the narcissistic bastard, specifically requested a replica of himself for that very purpose - but it is simply easier to create replicas who are naturally predisposed towards him. In a few cases, this has developed to unprecedented extreme.

During the day, the replicas are used by the others for menial tasks that none of the original nobodies could be bothered with, or mindless heart collection, or pits of strength, but at night, they are his.

They sleep with him, sometimes, crawl into his bed to cling to his arms, his legs, his chest. They coo his name until he is lulled into a gentle, deep sleep, and lovingly awake him again more softly than any incessant alarm. They follow him around the labs and he makes idle chatter with them as they help him with collection and disposal of all kinds of random laboratory equipment and chemicals. He drops soft kisses on their foreheads as he walks past, and is rewarded with small, fleeting smiles in turn.

He respects them. After all, they are, of sorts, his children; they don't have the easiest of lives - none of them have any more than a simple number for a name, nor even their own identity, and they are abused so badly by the other members that sometimes Vexen finds himself their only solace. Perhaps that's partly why they adore him so much, but for whatever reason, adore him they do. Effortlessly, unwaveringly.

Those who know - precious few - call him sick, twisted even, for creating his own reverent followers, but they don't understand. This, he reasons, is his reward for being such a successful scientist, for having such a brilliant mind. It had been unheard of, to create life, before his very first Replexen lay coughing on the surgery table in the small hours of one idle Monday morning.

Now he has at least one for each member, several in the cases of himself, Xemnas, Roxas and Marluxia. The first three are self explanatory. Marluxia? He isn't so sure. But there's something about the Graceful Assassin's twisted, manipulative mind with layers upon layers of hidden personality, and perfect body, that makes him both a pleasure and a challenge to replicate. He's got it wrong quite a few times. The first Repluxia was nothing more than a psychopath, the second akin to a sulking adolescent. The third really was perfect, down to every flawless detail and personality trait, but with such people as Marluxia you can't give to them who they truly are. So a Four-Eleven was made, just a little more innocent than the original, a little more submissive. Marluxia deemed it perfect. Vexen never saw the poor thing again.

He wonders sometimes if it's even still alive.

A pity, that. He quite liked that replica. So sweetly naïve... but Vexen suspects that he didn't stay that way for long.

He takes a select few with him to Castle Oblivion, some for research, some for assistance, some for company.

He makes a few more in his time there; another Zexion - Two-Six; an eighteenth Thirteen. Each Roxas that Vexen makes is more obedient, less questioning, more stoic, on Xemnas' orders. But he doesn't like altering personalities of replicas. People are complicated enough as they are; if you start changing things too you never know which way their alignment can turn.

He leaves the Marluxias at home, back at the World that Never Was.

It's two weeks later that he is killed. Burned, brutally, by none other than Axel, ordered by that very man whose replicas he so lovingly created.

The experience leaves him shivering in his room. It's not the physical pain - replica Twelve-Four was created to be impervious after all - but the simple fact that Marluxia deemed him so expendable cuts him deep. He immediately plans to leave - after all, the Organisation considers him dead - and gathers his possessions and replicas together. Tomorrow morning, he will be gone. One by one, the other nobodies of Castle Oblivion fall. He feels them fade invisibly into the darkness, countless floors below in the lowest laboratory where he hides.

When he takes his leave to go to bed, he is uneasy.

In the small hours of the morning, shaking arms wrap around his body and tug him close. He runs his fingers over one hand - the skin is smooth, the nails well kept and manicured. Marluxia.

He reaches out to turn the light on, and twists around to see the man who ordered him dead.

Four-Eleven opens his mouth to say something and Vexen snarls quite uncharacteristically, pushing him away.

"Don't speak," He says. "Don't look at me."

He searches the room for something - anything - to cover those deep, deceitful blue eyes, and finds a long strip of black fabric somewhere in the bottom of a drawer. He ties it around the replica's head and they are gone.

He still holds him tight that night. The poor thing is being punished but has done nothing wrong, scared and confused as he mourns for the loss of his original. It's the least that Vexen can do.

Vexen of all people understands the injustice of a punishment undeserved, but it is months before he can finally bring himself to remove Four-Eleven's blindfold. The replica - so obedient, just as the original Marluxia requested - has spent that time fumbling in a world of artificially induced darkness, unable to see, unable to speak. It's cruel.

Finally Vexen is lying in bed one morning, watching him. He knows that Marluxia is gazing impassively back in his general direction, and he reaches around to the back of the head of messy pink hair and tugs the tight knot out, letting the fold fall loose.

"Speak," He says, "If you must."

For a moment Marluxia simply stares, blinking in the light. There is a depth to his eyes that Vexen has forgotten he had.

"He took over," He finally says.

Vexen frowns at him.

"Marluxia? He tried, certainly-"

"No. The Replica Four-Eleven. He took my place in the Organisation." Marluxia says. When Vexen doesn't reply, he continues. "He convinced Xemnas to grant him leadership ove Castle Oblivion, created his own agenda, and ordered you dead. He wanted to kill you, Vexen. He grew strong. He grew resentful."

Vexen pulls himself away from Marluxia, shaking his head.

"You?" He mutters disbelievingly. "You're the original?"

"What does it matter," Marluxia replies. "They're all dead now. Even that fool Axel."

Vexen sighs. As many times as he's had Repluxias in his bed, he's never wittingly slept with the real Marluxia. It's an odd feeling, to suddenly realise that for months he's not been sleeping with his own creation, programmed from the word go to like him, but an independent, freethinking original nobody.

Finally, he lays back down on Marluxia's chest, tangling his fingers in that silky soft pink hair he knows so well.

"What does it matter," He agrees quietly as Marluxia pulls him closer in the warm morning sunshine. "What does it matter at all."