Disclaimer: The concepts behind KHII and FFX (somewhat) are owned by the Church of Enix and the Lord and Master Axel. Scratch that, the Axel part is my thing.
But that's not the point. This story is about Demyx! We must read about him, pronto!
And on another note, this stuff is happening right before The World That Never Was…last-minute preparations that Sora has made could be mentioned…or featured.
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His whole body was numb for as long as he could remember. First he was sent to get Roxas back. Bad idea? Of course it was! Then they wanted him to defeat Sora because he was strong enough to. Bad idea? Well, if you die trying, of course it was! Now he couldn't open his eyes and he was having trouble breathing in this dark abyss, and he couldn't die yet, even if he was a Nobody! He was still younger than the rest of them, and there was still so much to see in the real world!
"What are you doing back?"
Demyx sprang awake as he gasped and looked around the empty courtyard. There was only sand and stone pillars with grass beyond on the countryside hills, and it took him a few seconds to see the muscular man standing in front of him. He remembered seeing this golden boy before; Sora had called him Hercules, son of Zeus and the one of unmatched strength, with a heart of…
"Crap," the nocturne gulped.
"Sora told me that you were the one that took the Olympus Stone and that you were the one releasing Nobodies, right?" the man with the brown curly locks asked while pulling Demyx on his feet by the front of his cloak. He cringed at the stench of the hero (the stench of a thousand bench presses, using a flying horse as his weight) and the sweat on his muscles. He remembered the times when he used to make fun of Marluxia for liking men, and had now found his perfect match.
"I…" he began "I…wasn't trying to hurt you good sir, just trying to get one of our old comrades back! Yes, exactly!"
"Aren't the members of Organization XIII supposed to be dead?" Man, that kid had said a lot to these people. And wait…he was supposed to be dead! He envisioned those last moments in Hollow Bastion, that final blow, everything! Maybe he was a ghost, he thought, but Hercules hand didn't go through him. Holy mother of Ansem, he was alive!
And soon to be dead, as Hercules was winding up to punch him in the face.
He quickly ducked and freed himself from the man's grasp and saw the punch go into the pillar, making it topple into the one to the right, then the next, and a domino effect was occurring. Demyx had to get out of there. Fast. Then he remembered: the Underworld! The exit was right across the stadium's courtyard! He dodged the falling pieces of rubble and the bolts of light coming from the hero and barely made it alive to the stairs to hell. Before Hercules could follow him, a cascade of pillar remains fell over the entrance. Even if he could lift anything…he needed a shovel.
"Note to self…don't go back there…ever again" the rocker panted. It wasn't incredibly dark, with the illumination of the hellish lake. So now that he was safe, where was he supposed to go? He wasn't going to stay in there, just to kick it with ghosts when he was alive! But if he was alive, he did have a few minutes, so maybe Sora overlooked a treasure chest or something.
He saw two imps alongside the lake, one blue pointy one smacking the fatter pink one on the head with a clipboard.
"Excuse me, have either of you seen a boy with a key anywhere lately?" Demyx mused.
"Yeah, months ago, and if he comes back, we're done for! OW! Pain, quit it!" the fat one replied.
"Well, Panic, even if Hades is dead, we still have a dying chance! You said 'if!' If is good!"
Demyx decided to forgo the conversation and walked down a curving path that led to whatever that Olympus Stone he stole was. So, that big flaming Hades guy was dead. Maybe he was reborn to fill the shoes of the King of Hell! No, he wasn't the type of person to send people into eternal pain and suffering. His element was water after all.
He heard footsteps. Heavy ones, like the sound of steel-toed boots and the clanging of buckles and trinkets. What if those imps were in cahoots with Sora? What if he was after him right now? Once you have a near death experience and all, you don't really need that paranoia. He raised his arm to summon a ripple of water that turned into his trusty sitar, and stood in a battle position, watching every corner of the darkness.
"Hey kid, over here," a deep and rich voice commanded. Demyx turned to the right to see where the voice came from, then turned back to see the swordsman directly in his face. He was now praying that he was Sora instead. "You must be the crybaby Organization member that couldn't put up a fight. I've hear a lot about you, Demyx."
The man was tall, about six feet, with a massive scar running through his right eye. His left arm was in a sling, leaving his crimson sleeve to blow in the ghastly wind. His sword was of an unmatched size, and probably more useful than a Claymore, he thought. Which was bad for him.
"Hey, I put up a good fight! See? I'm still alive! And…oh man, this is hard…I'm not going to hurt anyone because of this great second chance at life, sir…"
"Auron. The name is Auron" he sternly said.
"And you already know my name, so, how about we just nicely talk this over, and…um…talk." Demyx shakily said. If there was anyone to be intimidated of, it was this guy. What had he gotten himself into?
He found a nice alcove in the cavern and sat in it. He motioned for Auron to join him, but realized that probably wasn't a good idea. The samurai answered coldly with "I'm not sitting next to you."
"So…I'm guessing you're dead, so how did you end up here?"
Auron glared at him. Demyx was never good at starting conversations.
"I'd rather not talk about that yet. Tell me where you're from, Nobody."
"Heh, I wish I knew. Ever since I've been a Nobody I can't really remember what my life was like before…you know. I'd like to find out someday."
"A simple 'no' would have done it."
"You know, you're not very friendly, are you? Well if you won't say how you kicked the bucket, where are you from?"
Auron was beginning to get extremely irritated. Well, more irritated than he was by just looking at Demyx. This kid was insane, drugged with an overdose of cheery, and just plain annoying. But if telling him about…then would shut him up, he'd do it.
"I used to be in a place called Spira. I was the guardian of a summoner named Yuna. Happy?"
"Summoner? What's that?"
"Every so often there was an evil that destroyed parts of Spira and killed many innocent people called Sin. A summoner is someone who uses creatures called aeons to save Spira from certain doom for ten years with the faith of Yevon. As a guardian I had to protect the summoner and make sure she goes through with her pilgrimage. Does that help you?" Auron was hoping that all of the information would make his brain explode. Unfortunately it didn't.
"What do these…aeons…look like?" Demyx questioned. Whatever this Sin thing was, and whatever a summoner was, it sounded pretty cool. Maybe…
"It depends."
"And is this Sin in any other world besides Spiral?"
"It's Spira. And wherever there's greed there will be Sin. Why do you care so much?" Auron saw the gleam in the musician's eyes. "What the hell are you up to?"
"Put it this way," he began to pace around the rocky hall "Xemnas has enough greed to power about three worlds, so there could be a lot of Sin around…and if I pick this aeon thing up, I might be able to clear my name, not to mention travel the world to find awesome monsters…that's it! Auron, become my guardian to help save these puny worlds and to clear my name of the Organization XIII!"
Auron rested and shook his head. "You have got to be kidding me. Spira is nowhere near any of these places, and you are a complete moron. How could you defeat a Sin, even if it did exist out here?"
"Hm…I didn't think about that. We can teleport to Radiant Garden and steal that old man's gummi ship!"
"You're pathetic."
"I know, but it'll have to do for now. Come on, do you want to rot here in this waste of an Afterlife or do you want to help save a bunch of people?" He made a fake begging face with his hands clasped together and classic puppy dog eyes. What bothered the swordsman the most was that he did have a point. He had been wrong about a lot of things in his life, and maybe he shouldn't doubt the big things like this.
Or maybe he should stick with the guy just to prove him wrong. He liked that idea the most.
"If you screw this up, you're a dead man, Demyx."
"That's Grand Summoner Demyx to you!"
"…whatever." They began to regress to the court where the imps were fighting when Auron brought up another troublesome point. "How are you supposed to find aeons if they're scattered all over these worlds? A gigantic aeon detector?"
"I dunno, doesn't their presence just come naturally or something? Trust me, I bet we'll be able to find one around, you—"
In front of them sprung a large beast from the depths of the fiery pits. It was slobbering, gruesome, and quite overwhelming if you were asking yourself why it was the Hound of Baskerville with three heads. Demyx was astounded, and Auron was just pissed off.
"I could have sworn we killed this thing the first time!" he grunted. He pulled his longsword up from over his shoulder and prepared to swing at it, until Demyx raised his hand and urged him to stop.
"I'm not even sure you have enough brainpower to be a summoner. There's a giant monster in front of us. I have to kill it. We'll die if I don't. Get it?"
"Don't be too sure about that. I betcha it's an aeon!" A small lightbulb would have flashed above his head at that moment. Seconds later, it would have burned out. "You said that they were big creatures that were powerful and would lend you their power as long as you prayed to Yehvun or whatever."
"Yevon, you idiot, Yevon."
"Okay, well how do I get it to lend me its power? A spell? A chant? Come on!" the eager rocker shouted.
"A prayer. You have to use a prayer. I'm beginning to think that you aren't cut out for this." That was a lie. He always thought he was never cut out for it, but showed him the prayer quickly. He bent down, then came back up with his hands in a ying and yang fashion. He wasn't going to even try to teach him the real verbal one.
Demyx walked up to Cerberus with the utmost respect one could have for it, and made the prayer, and childishly asked "Oh great aeon of Yevon, may I borrow your power to save the worlds of Sin?" The monster tilted its heads and pounced onto the rookie. Auron readied his sword and ran to him, only to find that he didn't need it again. Cerberus was simply licking Demyx, the floppy pink tongues suffocating him and drowning him in slobber. The swordsman was actually laughing at the situation.
"Auron, c'mon man, this thing is so heavy!" he gasped.
"Well, is it an aeon or not? Do you have some 'grand summoner' plan that you would like to share?"
"Throw your sword over there." He pointed to an especially dark area of the underground and made a pleading smile with his guardian.
"You really are that stupid, aren't you?"
"Trust me, I think I know how to get his attention!" He was now spitting on the ground…and it wasn't his. knowing it was a bad idea, he still threw his Masamune into the abyss. Cerberus saw the flashing metal from the corner of his eye and perked his ears up and ran to fetch it, relieving Demyx of some chest pains. He could barely stand and leaned on Auron once he wobbled to him.
"I'm not going to get my sword back, am I?"
"Of course you will! Watch this!"
The dog (if that's what you would call it) stomped back into the lighter area and dropped the sword, no dents and no rust, onto the ground. He was fully attentive to the summoner, who was attempting to pray yet again. "Oh great aeon of Yevon, may I borrow your power to save the worlds of Sin?" he proposed. Cerberus now barked happily, like a puppy given a mailman to devour, and licked Demyx's face with only its left head's tongue. It then dissolved into the air, light fragment by light fragment, until only a small piece of parchment was left. Auron left from under the nocturne's arm, and he did fall again, to pick up the paper.
"It's music. What use could this have?"
"Throw it over here and I might be able to play it." He took out his sitar again and after a few fine tunings and plucks had carried on with the sight reading. It was a deep and brooding melody, only playable on the lowest two strings, and after the last note was strummed, man's best friend appeared back. And it also leaped onto the exhausted Demyx to lick and slobber him in glee.
Auron didn't want to believe that this kid was able to sense an aeon's power just by his stupidity and optimism, but it happened. Maybe he wasn't going to be useless to this world, and maybe there was something greater in store for him. Or maybe he was bored enough that he would gladly become his guardian, perhaps to finish the life he had started. Dead man walking with a second wind.
"You said something about stealing a ship…you better figure out how to get it if you want to keep finding aeons" Auron smirked.
"Yeah, but, cough cough, can you help me with this first?"
"As long as we can drop by somewhere afterward…I think Destiny Islands was the place they said."
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Haha, the experiment's first chapter is done! In all it has a planned 12-13 chapters and will feature more characters, I promise! Like in the next chapter…
Chapter 2: The Amateurs of Disguise
So now that Demyx has seen his full potential, they'll have to teleport to Radiant Garden to steal a gummi ship, because teleporting just won't do for the edges of the universe! But how can they sneak past the reconstruction committee? And if they can pull that off, who are these people that Auron wants to find, and how can they be of use? Find out next time!