Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and characters copyright Square Enix and such people. Not me.

A/N:

Yes. Er. This was supposed to be longer. It was not cooperating.

Next chapter will come whenever. I'm sure I lost like EVERYONE because of my stupid random moments of vanishing but I hope that whoever reads will enjoy.

ENJOY

This one was kind of killer. The next world will be lots of fun, trust me. TRUST ME.

Thanks to everyone who reviews I love you SO MUCH.

It's seriously starting to look that I'm only writing this for you two, really, but I don't mind. I hope you enjoy. :D

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Motorcade of Meant-to-be's

The second we got out the door Lea had us running for a nearby side street as fast as we could go. Not like anyone was around, it was pretty early, but I guess he just didn't want to risk it. I could care less, sure, running wasn't my thing, but hey. I'd been through worse, and a little exercise never hurt anyone. We headed down the side street as quietly as we could, Lea stopping at where it crossed with another street and looking around the edge to see if anyone was around. Riku dodged to the other side to check there, and me? I ended up with my back to the wall, waiting for them to finish checking things out. We were moving on soon, though, and through areas where there were people starting to move around. Lea had us dodging into alleyways and going down empty side streets as often as he could.

Soon enough we were at the wall of the city. A very solid, thick wall. A very solid, thick wall with no doorway, as far as I could see. We stopped at the bottom of it, and I looked up towards the top. Fifty feet, easy. Man, why couldn't I teleport? So much easier.

"So, what do we do now?" I asked, looking over at Lea. He had his hands on his hips and was eyeing the wall critically. And he wasn't responding. I looked at Riku, and he shrugged, then crossed his arms and waited. I sighed and eyed the wall again. Yup. Definitely solid, and definitely not climbable.

"All right," Lea said finally, and walked towards the wall. I watched him curiously, noticing for the first time he had this nifty carrier thing for his chakram on his back. Cool. He walked up to the wall, and held his hand out to touch it. Flames burst out from under his palm, circling around his hand as he pulled it across the face of the wall. A thick line of glowing red appeared on the wall, and the stones started…er, melting. Or something, something was happening, and then Lea took his hand off of the wall and stepped back to let the wall keep… dissolving. Soon enough there was a narrow doorway in the wall, and I could see grassy hills past it, littered with large boulders and stones and stuff.

"Woah," I said, and Lea turned to face us with a grin.

"What just happened?" Riku asked, stepping forward to look at the doorway closely.

"Emergency escape route," Lea explained, "It's activated by elemental magic, and only if it's cast in the right spot."

"And you knew about this?" I asked, stepping closer to the opening. The sides of the doorway were clean-cut and smooth.

"Read about it in one of the security reports," Lea shrugged, "Memorized where all of the doorways are placed just in case it's needed some day."

We stood there for a little longer, admiring Lea's accomplishment.

"Er… is it me, or is the doorway thing getting smaller?" I asked after a long moment. There was no response from the other two for a little while, during which I could swear the doorway was getting narrower.

There was sudden cursing from Lea, and I took that as a sign to get my ass through that doorway. Well, apparently all of us had the same idea, and three guys trying to get through a doorway that was way too small was not a good idea. It was an almost-stuck situation, especially since the doorway was still getting smaller and smaller. I grimaced, and before things got any tighter than they were, I pushed myself forward from between the other two and let my form go. I felt the water I was made of splash across the ground to gather in puddles, and mentally grimaced at the thought of how much dirt and nasty stuff it'd be picking up. Ugh. Waiting just a moment, I reformed and found myself on the other side of the rapidly shrinking doorway, with Riku and Lea standing in front of me a bit further out from the wall.

"So, we made it, huh?" I grinned at the other two. Riku smirked, and Lea gave me a weird look. Still not used to the whole water thing, I guessed. I looked back to see the doorway melt shut, the wall smooth and untouched again. I frowned a little, and turned back to look at Lea. "Hey, there isn't any type of alarm or something that lets people know the doorway's been opened, is there?"

"No," Lea said quickly, grinning. Then a thoughtful look crossed his face. "Well, I don't think there is…"

"Let's move. Either way, we need to get out of here soon, before the guards start to really look for us," Riku said, and I nodded. "Where do we go from here?"

Lea looked around for a moment, then nodded in a direction.

"Down that way, over the Stony Hills. It'll be a bit longer and rougher than taking the road, but it'll be harder for anyone to track us," Lea said, and started off. Riku walked off just behind him, and I followed along, humming a random tune and taking the chance to look around. Radiant Garden was built on a higher spot of ground, and there were hills all around it. Further off to one side I could see something dark standing out on the horizon. It didn't look like anything natural, like a mountain or a forest or anything like that. It had too many angles and tall shapes and stuff.

"Hey, what's that?" I asked, pointing over to the shape. Lea looked back at me, then towards the horizon. For a moment his face grew dark, then he turned to look ahead quickly.

"Just ruins," He said, his voice strangely toneless.

"Of what?" I asked, still looking at the dark outline on the horizon.

"A city," He answered, still in that toneless voice. I looked towards the other two, and Riku glanced back at me with a questioning look.

"What city?" I probed further. Lea sighed. Annoyed? I always did have a knack for annoying Axel. I guess Lea's not that much different.

"It was a city called Midgar, and now it's ruins, and no one goes there, and no, we're not going to go there either. No, I won't tell you about the city, or about why it's in ruins, or why no one goes there." Lea said, and yeah, definitely annoyed. I tried to think of a different question from those that he had answered. No luck.

We went on in silence, and Lea was not kidding about the way being rough. Stones and boulders and dips in the grounds and little ditches and nature was just not being nice to us. I skidded down a steep hillside and followed the others up the side of the next hill, glancing back towards the slowly fading outline of the ruins on the horizon. Midgar. I wondered what kind of place it was, and just why it was that Lea didn't want to talk about it.

I wondered when we were going to get to this Cid guy finally, we'd been walking for ages. Okay, not ages, but still, Radiant Gardens was fading in the distance and I'd lost count of all the hills we'd crossed a long, long time ago.

"Why're we all so quiet?" I asked, looking ahead at the other two. Riku chuckled and Lea turned his head to look at me, eyebrow raised. I frowned, no snappy retort? No sarcastic comeback? Lea turned back to face the direction we were walking, and I sighed. It was a weird feeling. Dammit, if he looked more different, then I wouldn't keep expecting him to respond like Axel. It didn't entirely make sense to me, though, the way he was acting different. I mean, the only difference between Nobodies and their Somebodies was the lack of a heart, right? So our personalities and stuff should say the same, no matter whether we had our heart or not. Or maybe the lack of a heart changed our personalities? I couldn't really remember what I was like before I was a Nobody – okay, lies. Lies, I admit it, but I didn't really like thinking about it, so I just never did, and that was pretty much the same thing. Still, if I did let myself think about what I was like, just a little, I didn't think I'd changed that much. Not, not really.

"We're there," Lea said suddenly, and I blinked and looked around. Woah, did I space out or something? Probably, since we were no longer in the hills with their boulders and stuff, and instead we were at a series of cliffs and sheer drops that led down to a rocky valley. I looked around at the sharp stacks of rocks around us.

"Those are some crazy rocks," I muttered, turning around to follow the line of one cliff-rock-stack thing.

"Nature can be pretty amazing sometimes," Riku said, and I turned to see him looking out over the rock valley with a peaceful, thoughtful look on his face.

"Riku, are you a nature boy?" I asked, grinning. He looked at me, cocking one eyebrow. "Yeah, you are, you're a total nature boy. You're all about mountain hiking and snorkeling and rainforest adventures…"

"Hmm, a rainforest adventure sounds like fun…" Riku mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully with one finger.

"I prefer snorkeling myself…" I said, and Riku gave a serious, agreeing nod.

"I want to go to a volcano," Lea spoke up suddenly.

"Somehow I'm not surprised," I smirked.

"Can't bring Demyx, he'd evaporate." Riku said, and Lea nodded in agreement.

"Fine with me, I don't want to see any stupid volcanoes anyway." I said, crossing my arms. Lea looked slightly offended.

"Volcanoes aren't stupid, they're awesome." He said, hand flourish on the "awesome". I thought about it for a bit.

"Hmmm… Nope. Stupid." I grinned brightly at Lea's ticked off expression. Riku was chuckling as quietly as he could.

"That's that then." Lea said, and turned on his heel to stalk off towards a large rock formation. "We're going to go see a volcano."

"Hey!" I called out after him, "I'll… I'll get all steamy and fog-like! Probably!"

"Oh well, sucks to be you," Lea shot back, and disappeared around the edge of the formation. Riku shook his head, still grinning, and clapped me on the shoulder.

"Come on," He said, and I frowned, but followed him over to where Lea disappeared. The formation was smack dab at the edge of the cliff that dropped to the valley below, but to the right of where we stood there was a dark cave opening.

"Oooh, spooky," I said eerily, and Riku pushed me ahead of him past the opening.

There was a series of stairs cut out of the rock under our feet, and we headed down a passage that was brighter than I thought it would be. Something glistened up where the sides of the passage met the ceiling, some sort of moss or something. I don't know, I was never too good with the plant stuff. Marly's thing, not mine, you know?

Lea was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, and motioned for us to follow him as soon as he saw us.

"We're coming in the back way, the front of his workshop is out where the road passes by, so he can get his supplies in with little problem." Lea explained as he led the way further in. "Cid might be a little miffed about the intrusion, so don't be surprised by his, heh… colorful language."

I chuckled slightly as we moved further down the corridor. Before long it widened out a bit, and we came to a large steel door with a wheel thing instead of a normal handle. Lea took hold of the wheel, and bracing himself he jerked it into motion. It screeched loud and started to turn slowly, but soon enough it was turning faster, and the sound of metal sliding across metal came from somewhere within the door. Lea turned the wheel until it stopped, then pulled at the door hard. It obviously hadn't been used often, but it started swinging out.

Lea led the way past the door, and pulled it shut behind us, turning a wheel thing on the other side to lock it. There was another corridor before us, and the sound of loud machinery and banging and even louder music drifted down to us. Ugh, I grimaced. I liked rock music, but this just sounded like a bunch of baboons slamming guitars into a drum set. We moved further on and came out in a large warehouse-like area containing machines and pipes and tables and all sorts of crazy mechanical stuff. I couldn't even take everything in, there was so much. Well, that, and the crazy monkeys-on-meth music was driving me crazy.

Lea smirked as he walked past me and towards the farther end of the warehouse, and me and Riku followed behind him. There was a large propeller hanging overhead, supported on thick wires hanging off a large crane, and further on there was a large piece of sheet metal being formed into… er, something by a large, loud machine. Banging was coming from another part of the place. We eventually reached a large work bench, an old beat up radio sitting at one end of it, holding down what looked like blueprints. An older-sort-of-middle-aged blonde-haired man was working at something on the workbench.

Lea was standing a little ways off, apparently considering his options of interrupting the man. After a moment he walked over to the radio and hit a button, and thankfully – thankfully – the monkey-music stopped. The man whipped his head around to look who was touching his radio, and I could swear I heard him growl. He gave the redhead a long hard look.

"The fuck ya want, red?" The man said, then glanced over at Riku and me. His expression grew darker, and he gave the both of us a long, hard look.

"We need your help, Cid," Lea said, leaning back against the workbench and looking over the blueprints on it. I fidgeted a little, and shot Riku a glance. He looked totally relaxed, of course. Of course. Like what, this was all just gonna fall in place? Whatever.

"Who're these guys?" Cid nodded in our direction, but his eyes were lingering on me way too long. He knew who I was.

"Friends of mine," Lea said, grinning. Cid humphed and crossed his arms across his chest.

"I see that," He muttered, looking straight at me as he said it. Great. Wonderful. I gave him a grin, but that didn't seem to help.

"Riku's a keybearer, and Demyx and I used to… work together," Lea explained, "Cid, we need to get off this world."

"So what're ya bothering me for?" Cid grumbled, fixing the redhead with a stern look. "Defense Systems sent me fifteen fucking perimeter bots to repair. I don't have time for yer crap."

"We pissed the Major off," Lea added offhand, crossing his arms. Cid raised an eyebrow, and suddenly his frown transformed into a sly grin.

"Did ya? Heh, typical I guess," Cid laughed, slapping Lea on the shoulder hard enough that the redhead stumbled. "So what kinda shit did ya pull to get the Major after yer ass?"

"Nothing much, assisting a runaway prisoner, leaving my post, conspiring with a keybearer," Lea shrugged and grinned.

"And now you need me to get yer asses out of trouble, right?" Cid turned back to face Riku and me, giving us calculating looks. "Well, at least they don't look like total losers."

I frowned and glanced over at Riku. Mr. Cool was rolling his eyes. Lea chuckled and pushed himself away from the workbench.

"We need to jump worlds," Lea said casually. Cid grinned wickedly all of a sudden, freaky look on that guy.

"I got just what you need," Cid laughed sharply, then started walking off briskly towards one side of the warehouse place. We passed half a boat looking thing the size of a small cabin and a stack of wheels of various sizes. Insane. Cid stopped at the wall, right in front of a skid covered in scrap metal. Fixing his gloves, he leaned against the side of the pile and shoved hard. The skid shuddered, then slid with a loud scraping metal on concrete sound, moving a good few feet.

"What the hell?" I was gaping, seriously, how the hell did he move that thing? It had to weigh more than, like, all of us. Together. Like, quadruple us! Cid stood back, grinning like he was all awesome and stuff. Which he was. Holy shit.

"It's on wheels," Lea said in a loud whisper. Cid's smile fell into a glare, and he muttered off a string of curses before leaning over and pulling at a large ring stuck to the floor. With a loud creak he pulled up a square trapdoor and heaved it to the side.

"C'mon, and watch yer heads," Cid started down the hole, and the rest of us followed. I held back till the end, following Riku down the iron rungs sticking out of the side of the tunnel thing. Around ten feet down the ladder ended and we dropped into a low corridor.

A light flickered, then glowed softly somewhere ahead of us in the half-gloom.

"Keep close and watch yer step, there're rats down here and the bastards got a nasty bite on 'em," Cid said, pointing the flashlight ahead of him and heading off down the corridor. We followed close behind, the corridor so low we couldn't walk straight. Heh, sucks to be Lea.

A few times I heard something skittle by across the corridor, something furry and with giant razor teeth, no doubt. I grimaced and tried not to look at the ground as we walked, not that I could see too much of it in the gloom. I felt it, though, dirty and slimy and covered in weird… crunchy stuff. What the hell was this place?
"What the hell is this place?" I said out loud as well.

"Old sewer system for the warehouse," Cid called back from the head of the line. We were getting to a t-intersection, from the looks of it, and he took a right turn and headed on. "Made a new one when I renovated the place but I kept this one around, just in case."

A few more yards down we came to a grate in the sewer walls, and Cid popped it open and led the way through. Ugh, at least it wasn't a teeny-tiny grate, but like a normal sized one, but still. Still, we had to squeeze through. I could just feel the icky slimy dirty stuff getting all mingly with my water.

A few moments after we entered… whatever it was we entered, a bright light flooded the area. My eyes were blinded, but then I realized that damn, I'm just water, and they really shouldn't be affected like that, and I could see again. A-ha. Perception is what makes the rules, I got it now.

We were in a giant room, it was huge, and it looked like it was all carved out of the stone of the cliff. It had to, the walls were stone and the ceiling was stone, and right there in the middle of everything stood the weirdest looking thing I've ever seen. I've seen some weird things, I mean seriously, some of the Nobodies are just weeeeeird, but this thing was even weirder.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing at the… whatever it was that looked like it was made of orange and yellow and blue and red building blocks, with, oh, half a snow globe thrown in.

"That's a gummi ship," Lea said, still squinting slightly in the bright light. I huffed.

"That looks nothing like a zeppelin," I said, frowning and crossing my arms. "They're way cooler."

Cid turned to give me an odd look.

"You've seen a zeppelin before, kid?" He asked, hands on his hips.

"Man, I built a zeppelin! With my own two hands!" I stuck my hands out in front of me. "Well, I mean, not by myself. There was like a huge group of us and we didn't have much time, so it wasn't that good looking or anything. It could fly though! Like, mostly, I guess…"

I started to remember, wood and canvas and all that rope and stuff, but then I stopped.

"Shit, I haven't heard anyone talk about zeppelins anywhere outside'a history books," Cid chuckled gruffly and grinned. "Where you from, kid?"

Oh. Uh… oh. Damn.

I could feel all their eyes on me. Awesome. Wonderful. I fidgeted a little and tried not to think and the scream the scream the scream and I grinned a stupid grin.

"I-I don't remember," I shrugged and hoped he wouldn't push it. Don't push it.

Cid gave me an odd look, again, raised an eyebrow, and I thought I heard Lea start to take a breath, like he was going to talk, and he would, wouldn't he? Bastard.

"It's all right kid, shit, when ya've been around the worlds as much as ya have, everything can get a lil' muddled," Cid said. Was he being nice? Suspicious.

"Come on, I'll show ya how she works," Cid turned around and headed towards the ship. Lea gave me a look as he passed by, you know, a look. Like, hide all you want but I'm gonna find out EVERYTHING anyway look. I shuddered and looked at Riku. He didn't seem fazed. By anything.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I said as we walked to the ship. He gave me an amused grin.

"With me? Nothing." He said. I frowned.

"You're always so cool and collected and stuff," I sighed, annoyed. His expression faltered for a moment.

"Just… trying not to think of some things," He said quietly, climbing onto the ship. Dammit. I suddenly remembered why we were the ones running around the worlds and stuff. I climbed in behind him, and the hatch door closed.

"Sorry," I said, and he sighed.

"It's alright. If I think about it, I start getting mad, and if I'm mad I can't really think straight, so I just try not to think about it," He answered, and shrugged. "Not that I don't want to remember, it's just that I don't want to dwell on it."

I nodded. I could understand.

"All right, get yer asses up front and I'll show you how to fly this damn thing," Cid called out. I moved over with Riku to stand behind the guy at the front of the ship. There was the giant window thing and the huge dashboard… thing. Buttons, everywhere. Everywhere buttons. Big ones and little ones and even a big shiny red one.

"I don't think Demyx should be allowed near this," Lea said off-handedly. I glared at him.

"What happens if ya and the pretty boy over there get knocked out and the only one getting you three outta there is blondie?" Cid said gruffly. "Ya better listen good, I'm only saying this shit once…"

Gummi space was a freaky thing. I've heard about it and stuff but I'd never actually seen it. The sky at The World That Never Was was a lot like the sky when I was out at the ocean – dark and spotted with little white twinkling dots. Some bigger, some smaller. None of them huge geometric gummi blocks floating around other, round, spherical blobs of… something. It was freaky, to be honest.

More than that, though, it was boring.

BORING.

I twirled in the chair I was sitting in and watched the gaggingly bright colored walls go by. Whee. What a trip. I think I preferred swimming around as a turtle more. The walls were boring and spinning in the chair was boring and no one was talking and stupid Lea wouldn't let me near the front of the ship.

My spinning slowed to a stop with me facing Lea, who apparently had just gotten up to go… somewhere. I don't know. Ugh, stupid Lea. I grimaced in his direction and started spinning again.

"What the hell?"

Oh, that was new. I dragged my boot heel against the ground to bring myself to a stop facing him again. He looked kind of pissed. I tried to think about how long we'd been stuck in this ship all together but my perception of time was all wonky. Too long, probably.

"What?" I asked, crossing my arms and probably-maybe-sort of glaring at him. He sort of-maybe-kind of glared back.

"Why are you so freaking snarky to me?" Lea said, bristling. I could read that body language just fine.

I frowned and shrugged.

"Don't know what you're talking about," I answered, and shoved off with my heel to start spinning again, but Lea leaned forward and grabbed the chair.

"The first thing you say when you see me is that you hate me," Lea said lowly. What? What the hell was he bringing that up for? I frowned for a moment, then grinned brightly.

"So? Don't have a heart, remember," I said cheerfully, tapping my chest. "Can't hate."

For a while there it looked like Lea was going to chew through his own tongue. All of a sudden he shoved the chair spinning, hard. My heels skidded against the floor as I tried to slow down.

"Damn, what, does it bother you that freaking much?" I skidded to a stop and stood up to glare at him. Damn, forgot he had like five inches on me. Bastard.

"Yes!" He growled, glaring right back.

Huh. I glanced at Riku out of the corner of my eye, but he was looking very pointedly out the cockpit window. Well. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

"You and… what's his face… both gave me this weird look…" I said carefully, turning my eyes back to Lea. He was looking hella exasperated. "Like…"

"Like it was a fucking miracle we were seeing you again?" Lea spat. I started to reply, but he cut me off. "Maybe because it was."

"Why?" I frowned.

"Why? Because-" Lea started off again, but I interrupted him this time.

"Why do you care?" I said, shifting my stance. Lea sputtered a little, but I didn't let him get too far. "Not like we were friends or buddies or anything. I don't remember hanging out with you too much and definitely didn't hang out with Xaldin, I don't know who did, really…"

I chuckled, then gasped. Fake gasped.

"Oh, that's right, we did use to hang out." I said, grinning. "Used to. Past tense. Very, very past tense."

"Demyx…" Lea started, slow and like he wasn't trying to get angry. Fuck that.

"No, don't Demyx me, Mr. "I'm gonna run off and do whatever the hell I want and let everything else fall apart". You no longer have the right to Demyx me," I said, poking him in the chest. Hard.

"There were circumstances…" Lea started saying. I wasn't in a good mood to let people talk, apparently, because I cut him off again.

"I know exactly what those circumstances were," I hissed, poking him again. Funny, he didn't move away. "I don't give a crap about that. You could do whatever the hell you want, I don't care, but leaving and not telling anyone what the hell you're doing and just letting everything fall apart and not giving a crap about what we were supposed to do about it…"

I stopped myself. I didn't know what I was talking about anymore, I was just a lot more pissed than I thought I would be. He was giving me a weird look again, he looked like he was thinking real hard about something.

"You're mad because I didn't tell you," Lea said. I pushed him away from me and dropped back into the chair. "Demyx, if they found out what I was doing, if they caught up to me.."

"Shut up," I said, turning the chair around from him. I couldn't stand that look he was giving me. "I don't care, all right? So just shut up."

I looked at one of the stupid blocks in the wall. It was orange-yellow and it looked sort of like pineapple orange jello. Stupid, murky pineapple orange jello.

"You changed, you know…" Lea said. I didn't hear him because I'd sort of messed myself up already with what I'd said and I really didn't want to think about anything right then. That's the problem, right there, the thinking about it. Once you start thinking about it you can't stop and then you're thinking about other stuff that doesn't really matter, it really didn't matter. Honestly, so I wasn't too keen on the guy, not like I really hated him, I couldn't hate anything really, I didn't have a heart.

I didn't have a heart, so I didn't have feelings. No feelings, so it didn't really matter what went on before and now and whatever, it didn't matter because it didn't affect me anyway. None of it affected me.

"It was yours."

Shit. What the hell was it about this whole thing that was making me just feel so messed up?

Seemed like I had interrupted Lea in saying… something. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention.

"What?" He asked, confused. You're not the only confused one buddy.

"Saix was supposed to give the mission to you but you weren't there so I said I'd take it myself," I muttered. I should just shut up myself but I couldn't.

"Why?" Lea asked. His voice was all quiet and he looked too serious. Stop looking so serious, it looks bad on you Axel.

"I don't know, it's not like you were ever there, and… and it's not like he liked me or anything, I don't know. I don't…" I wrapped my arms around myself. "It just wasn't the same. Everyone was going, everyone was gone, there wasn't anyone there anymore, it was so empty… Stupid…"

"Demyx, what mission was it?" Lea asked, and I thought I could hear him stepping closer. I frowned, I was feeling swirly. Dirty. Murky and mugged up.

"What?" I asked, I looked at him and I looked at Riku and I couldn't find an answer anywhere, but what was the question that needed an answer?

"What mission was it? That you took?" Lea asked, and he was looking even more serious than he was. I shuddered and I realized I was gripping my arm too tight. Too tight. I was losing a bit of focus and then I was losing more. I pulled my arms away from myself and grabbed at the water bag.

"I'm gonna take a break, I'm just reaaally tired," I said quickly, sending myself down that trickle of water through the cork.

"Demyx, wait…"

I didn't.

I barely made it into the bottle. Everything was so dark but I didn't have eyes to see with so I don't know what that was all about. It was dark, and cold, and I had too many memories all crowding around and I didn't even have a heart to keep them all in.