Right. Y'all can shoot me now, if you like. I'm a bad girl who oughtn't be playing with things I don't kno if I can handle. I saw, around three weeks ago, a series of chapter-shots, one which were written by drawing two names from a cup and flipping to a page in a dictionary, randomly choosing a word there, and writing the chapter-shot involving those two chaarcters and that word. It was Kingdom Hearts, and so is this. Admittedly, I did more to determine my word- I made slips of paper with the numbers 0-9 on them, four of each, and drew three or four of them with each pair of names to determine what page I would be choosing my word from.

The selection: Vexen + Saix + irritation

I admit to having another nine combinations waiting in the wings, but these are stress relief and I promise nothing. For now, enjoy my attempt at stepping into another fandom.

Vexen heard them coming before they set foot in his lab. This was a small blessing, as it gave him time to put several beakers and a set of petri dishes out of the way where they ought to be safe. When Xigbar was around, it was always a good idea to take precautionary measures, and that was definitely Two's voice echoing in the hallway.

Not only Xigbar, it turned out, but Saix as well- he should have known, what with Two talking to someone who wasn't being as loud as he was, and there were few who fit that category. Saix wasn't coming by choice; Xigbar had him by the hood and the arm, marching him down the hall. He himself looked rather rumpled. No doubt Saix had put up a fight.

"Here," Xigbar said, pushing Saix towards Vexen. The Luna Diviner stumbled a step, then collected himself and straightened, jerking his hood back up. His robe was zipped up to his neck. "Fix him."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Something's wrong with him. Make him tell you what it is and fix it."

"Two, he appears to be-"

"Dude, I don't joke with you, and I don't drag him around for fun. If I say there's something wrong, then there is. Fix it. I'll get an order from on high if I have to."

Vexen scowled.

"Very well. I'll see what I can do."

Xigbar nodded, opened a portal, and left. Vexen turned to Saix, who was edging back towards the door.

"Don't even think about it, Seven."

Saix's eye glittered from the shadows of his hood. He was not a happy Nobody.

"He is being unreasonable," he said shortly. "There is no reason for me to be here."

"I'll be the judge of that. What is it that prompted Two to bring you to me?"

Saix hesitated.

"Tell me."

Rather than say anything, Saix pushed his sleeve up to his elbow and offered the bared limb to Vexen, palm up. A faint bluish tint spread patchily over his skin, like a bread mold without the fuzz.

"I see. Remove your robe, and anything you are wearing under it."

"What?"

"I need to see the extent of this infection. You may keep your undergarments, if you wish."

Saix did as he was told, albeit slowly, folding his robe over a chair and setting his boots under it. Pants went over the robe.

The blue continued up his arm and shoulder, across his neck, up to his ears, and down his back to disappear under his boxers. It reappeared at their hem, all the way down to his feet. More of it was working its way across his chest and stomach. It looked almost as if some kind of slime or fluid had dried on his skin, but Vexen doubted there would be this much trouble over something so trivial.

"How long have you had this?" Vexen asked, circling Saix to get a better look. His right arm had not been covered yet, but there was blue showing on his bicep.

"Two days, not counting this one."

"It began after a mission?"

"Yes."

"Any other symptoms?"

"Itching."

"Anything else?"

"No."

"Where did it start?"

"My left hand and wrist."

"And it has spread from there?"

"Yes."

"Come over here; I need to take a sample."

Saix followed Vexen to the half of the lab that served as the castle's medical facilities. He stood still and quiet while Vexen drew blood and took a skin sample.

"Sit down," Vexen murmured, nodding at the table. He carried the samples to the long counter separating the halves of his lab and switched a microscope on. "What world were you in?"

"Carmine."

"I'm not familiar with the name."

"It is a relatively obscure world."

"What type of world?"

"Mostly swamp. No transformation on entering. If there are intelligent beings living there, they did not show themselves."

Vexen nodded absently, placing the first slide on the platform and bending over the eyepiece.

"How quickly has it been spreading?"

"After I noticed it on my hand, it spread to my shoulder within a few hours."

"A few can be a wide number of hours. Be more specific."

"Four to five hours."

"And the rest?"

"My back was covered the following morning. My legs were covered by late evening. It spread to my ears and left arm today."

"Looks like a virus," Vexen murmured, adjusting the magnification. "It will take some time to formulate a cure, but I can give you something to ease the itching until then."

"That is unnecessary."

"Take it anyway. Until I know whether or not this can spread, I suggest you avoid contact with anyone. You may go."

Saix dressed and left. Vexen checked the blood sample, then went to find Xigbar. He'd been touching Saix more than long enough to transfer the virus.

Xigbar was playing poker with Luxord when Vexen found him.

"I need you to come with me, Two."

"What for?"

"It concerns Seven."

"And?"

"You were touching him."

Xigbar blanched. He put his cards down and stood hurriedly.

"Where to?"

There were no traces of blue on Xigbar, but Vexen took samples anyway and checked them under the microscope.

"D'ya know what it is yet?"

"A virus."

"That's all you know?"

"It is very rare that I have to handle infectious substances or organisms that I am not already familiar with. For now, I know that it is a virus."

"Ooookaaaayyyy…do I have it?"

"Not in your bloodstream, no. What prompted you to bring Seven to me?"

"Huh? He was scratching after breakfast, really hard, like a dog with fleas. Not like him. So I followed him, and he took his robe off out on one of the balconies. Last I knew, the only part of him that's blue is his hair. So I brought him to you."

"You're clean," Vexen said, straightening. "You may go. If it is possible, remove Seven from the duty rosters for a few days, while I work on this."

"Will do," Xigbar said, saluting. He was gone before Vexen turned around.

--

Saix marched in the next afternoon, carrying the lotion Vexen had given him to ease the itching.

"This has no effect," he said shortly when Vexen gave him a questioning look.

"I see. Has the discoloration spread further?"

"Yes."

"How far?"

"Everywhere but my palms, face, and the soles of my feet."

"Any further symptoms?"

"No."

"I should have a more effective remedy by this evening. Come back at nine. In the meantime, tie a handful of oatmeal in a coffee filter, steep it in a bath, and soak in the water."

"You want me to what?"

"It will help."

--

By that night, Vexen had a spray bottle of medicated fluid tailored to kill the virus in minutes. It had worked well on samples grown in petri dishes, and he was relatively sure it would work just as well on the viral colonies spreading over Saix's skin. They were simple, as far as viruses went; minimal protection beyond the protein coat and shell, nothing he couldn't get past. Either they hadn't been exposed to individuals with a body makeup similar to Saix's before, or they were little more than an annoyance for large creatures.

"Vexen! Something's up with Saix!"

Axel, Xigbar, and Demyx portalled into the lab, holding Saix between them. He was bucking and fighting their grip, thrashing in a desperate attempt to make them let go.

"On the table. Now."

The three of them managed to get Saix flat on the cold steel table.

"Nine. I want him drenched."

"What? I-"

"Do it."

Demyx nodded. Just like that, Saix was dripping. Vexen gave him a once over, turning the water to ice, building on it until the apparently crazed man was pinned to the table under a coat of ice nearly eight inches thick. Before anyone could leave, Vexen picked up his bottle and sprizted all three of them.

"Do not leave."

"Dude, what is this stuff? It reeks," Xigbar complained.

"A cure for the virus. What happened?"

"He came charging out of his room," Demyx said. "He broke the door down and everything. He was yelling and trying to claw his clothes off…he's not contagious, is he?"

"I have not yet determined if the virus can be spread by touch or not, but it seems unlikely. Did he say anything?"

"Um…yeah, actually…it sounded like he was saying get them off, but I was kinda paying more attention to where his hands and feet were. And his teeth."

Saix punctuated the conversation with an enraged roar.

"Them," Vexen murmured. "No apparent intelligent life…I wonder."

"Wonder what?"

"The only thing out of the ordinary with this virus is the enzymes it secrets. They are remarkably advanced for a virus- viruses tend to be simple, using the bare minimum to feed and reproduce. If anything about them is complex, then everything is…I did no research beyond determining what killed them."

"Dude, say something we can understand."

"Two, was there any information about the world Carmine before Seven visited it?"

"Uh-huh."

"What was it?"

"There was an old report saying that there were remains of civilization, which Saix didn't find, and that there were no signs of whoever built them. And there were signs indicating a massive change in climate. Why?"

"Viruses are simple but efficient. They multiply and adapt in a way that no other organism can ever hope to match. Killing them is easy, but if they are not all wiped out, they return in greater numbers with a resistance to the method of destruction used on them before. If they could think, there is no telling what they could do."

"Dude! Speak a language the rest of us can follow!"

"The viruses are sentient."

"What?"

"They can think. They built those ruins, in a distant past, and then either engineered themselves or evolved into organisms similar to viruses. The world is mostly swamp- that isn't a particularly easy environment to thrive in for bipeds or quadrupeds, but viruses, protozoa, and algae all thrive in it. If there was some violent upheaval in that world, the virus infecting Seven could be the ruling creatures, or what's left of them."

"Get them off of me," Axel murmured. "Hey…Saix can hear really well, right? What if he can hear them making some kind of noise?"

"I say we drench him in that smelly junk and get it over with."

"No. He ought to be escorted back to Carmine. Perhaps the viruses took to him accidentally and simply wish to return to their own world. If that is the case, we should try and keep from wiping out a civilization."

"I'm not letting anyone set foot on the world ever again," Xigbar said stubbornly. "Last thing we need is anyone else winding up like Saix." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Saix, who was kicking ineffectually against the ice. "He's gone totally bonkers. We're lucky he isn't in his berserk mode already."

"If he is tethered, it would be simple to drop him into Carmine for a few minutes, which ought to be long enough for a majority of the viruses to leave him. Then he can be pulled back and thoroughly disinfected."

Xigbar sighed.

"Alright, fine. I can hold a portal open for as long as you need, but I'm only giving you ten minutes. Longer than that and I'm closing it on you."

"That will be sufficient. Eight, find two ropes. Preferably nylon or some other synthetic material."

Axel nodded and left.

Vexen went to stand over Saix, who was still fighting the ice. His eyes glowed with barely contained rage- he was very close to crossing into his berserk state.

"Seven? Can you hear me?"

"You said you had a cure!" Saix yelled. "Give it to me."

"That is impossible at this time. If you-"

"You said nine o'clock!"

"I said I should have a remedy at nine. There was no promise."

"You have to get them off of me!"

"Get who off of you, Seven?"

"These…these things. They won't stop screaming!"

"Are they saying anything?"

"NO!"

The word was barely discernable in the roar. Vexen stepped back a pace, recognizing the change. Saix was beyond reasoning until the problem was solved. For the moment, the only thing Vexen could do was brace Saix's head and make him stop tossing it before he wrenched something in his neck. He accomplished this by darting in when Saix lifted his head as high as he could and grabbing his ears when he let his head fall. Saix yelled furiously, but his hands were stuck and there was no biting someone directly behind him. Unless he wanted to jerk his ears free, he had to hold still.

They were still like that when Axel returned, two coils of rope thrown over his shoulder. He handed one to Xigbar and waited with the other.

"Two, when I release Seven, bind his arms to his sides as securely as possible."

"Gotcha."

"Now."

Saix sat up with a crash of breaking ice. Xigbar was on him just as fast, looping the rope around him with ease, thanks to little portals he opened around Saix. In moments, Saix was covered from shoulders to mid-thigh with rope, unable to lash out, even with his feet, for fear of losing his balance. Vexen took the other rope from Axel, tied it into the first rope, and nodded to Xigbar. A dark portal opened. Saix lunged for it so quickly that Axel and Demyx both made a dive for Vexen, who was almost pulled through the portal with the force of Saix's leap. Two steps forward found them standing on a rotting log in the middle of a bog. Saix was sprawled in the muck before them, writhing frantically.

"They can't get past his clothing," Vexen murmured. "Nine, get his boots off."

"Can you see how he's kicking?" Demyx yelped. "Why me?"

"You ought to be able to keep the mud from touching you, as it is water-based. That gives you an advantage the rest of us do not possess. Do it."

Demyx stepped unhappily into the slime, sinking over his knees at once. He waded to Saix's feet and made a grab for one. He got a solid kick in the hand for his troubles, but kept trying until he caught Saix by one ankle. Before the berserker had a chance to sit up and try to bite him, he wrestled the boot off, falling back into the mud with a splat and a disgusted yelp.

"There," Vexen said, pleased that he'd been right again. "They're going."

Sure enough, blue was pouring off Saix's foot and spreading like an oil slick over the surface of the bog. It avoided Demyx, surging away from the log towards the open expanse of bog beyond Saix. In moments Saix had stopped struggling and the blue was a fading stain on the mud. Axel reeled Saix in, helping him stand up, then reached out to pull Demyx out of the mud he was stuck in. All four of them stepped back through the portal.

"Kingdom Hearts," Xigbar muttered, covering his nose. "And I thought that spray stunk. What did you do, go swimming?"

"Not exactly. Nine, if you would."

Demyx hosed them all down- Axel and Vexen were splattered with muck flung up by Saix's thrashing. Saix was untied, and Vexen attacked them all with his spray bottle. Sure that there was no danger to the other members, Vexen sent Xigbar, Axel, and Demyx on their way. Saix remained behind for examination.

"Has the itching stopped?"

"Yes."

"Any lingering effects?"

"Nothing beyond a chill."

"Merely an aftereffect of being encased in ice. You ought to warm up in a few minutes."

"What were they?"

"I believe they were a highly advanced species that evolved to live in the swamps. Likely telepathic."

"Am I the only one who heard them?"

"Yes. Did they say anything?"

"No. It was more that they were expressing base desire- for safety and food, neither of which I provided. Then anger."

"They thought you were a food source, I imagine, and swarmed you with the intent of digesting you- the cause of the itching was the digestive enzymes the secreted. You were too large or not compatible with their systems, but they had no way to leave you. The reaction was a way of trying to force you to return them."

The samples were clean. Vexen nodded faintly and shooed Saix off the table.

"You may go. I'm sure Two will have a mission for you in the morning."