When Axel finally figured out what to do, he was holding the key pass to the car, and Roxas was giving him a hard look, like he was trying to figure out where he actually wanted to eat. "Have you decided? After midnight, it's no food until after the operation." The blond was well aware since he had been through surgery before.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked the driver after they had picked up burritos the size of their faces and had begun their way to the park. "Your face has been stone since we left, Ax."

The redhead sighed, long and an eternity, until his lungs had fully emptied; he sucked in another breath for reply as the car went into park. Getting out, he hummed thoughtfully, "You know how stressed I've been with Xion and her acting out?"

"Yeah, she's going through her terrible twos." Roxas bit into his food once they were seated at a picnic table, "And the...other thing, yeah. She's gone way too far lately."

"Well, I finally figured, she doesn't have to be self aware for her to follow orders. Really, a level two could run my dad's program correctly. The human body doesn't have to have something self aware to run the nanobots. You may be right about her having a tantrum, but we can't risk anything with you and this experiment." He trailed off.

The younger teen could hear the but, and arched a brow, baiting the other with the word he wanted to hear, "But?"

"But I still in a sick twisted way want to play God. I was thinking about it last night. I want to see if the connection truly is only one way. Could theoretically a human upload their conscious to The Database and then load it back into a different body? Xion would be the perfect way to play with that." Axel flicked some rice off his hand, "What do you think?"

"I think you're playing with fire, Axel."

He acknowledged the answer noncommittally, "Roxas, what do you think about? When you're not thinking about the book and everything? What's your book even about?"

The blond was prone to mood swings. Moments where he would spiral into depression and mope. Moments where he looked at his mortality, but when he was with Axel, things seemed to stabilize. He felt like he could depend on the other. There were a lot of things that he thought about. He thought about gardening and how good running sometimes felt. He wished he could still run, but the doctors forbid it. He sometimes thought about how good a sunburn felt. Not in a pleasurable way, but the way the pain made him laugh at his own stupidity. It reminded him that he was not just one body, but millions of cells combined. When Axel asked him about what he was thinking about, he was thinking about how he wished everything was simple. How he wished he wasn't the weather swinging back and forth day to day, but the climate. Stable. Predictable. Defined. "You know...I think I'll tell you. In case it all doesn't work out."

When he spoke, he spoke of a desert land, far off planets, and mysteries that metastasized themselves in simple ways. The way some humans were fated for each other like the ocean and the shore. He spoke of his own twisted view on humanity. His visions of the future, and how one day, the AI would replace them. "Would you destroy them if you could?" Axel asked softly.

"I don't think they'll ever eliminate us…" Roxas began slowly, "We'll just...phase out. Humans are weak, and if we provide them with all the stuff they need, they'll just keep on going."

"But don't they too need to worry about things? When the earth runs out of coal for electricity or the wind turbines break or the solar panels give, will they keep going?" His mouth was full of spice from far off countries, and he stifled his pain with some water.

Popping his wrist, the blond boy sighed, "Does it really matter? If we're not here, does time continue? Isn't time a human concept to begin with? After we're gone, who cares what is left?" He sighed softly, "Look Axel, I wouldn't get rid of them, but I also wouldn't keep making them. I think we should leave well enough alone. I think humans need to find a new realm to occupy. Something solely our own. The question is what? I think….If I ever got the chance, I would go to the Mars' colony. If I were on top of it all, I would ban AI on Mars. Robots are fine, but only level 2 or down. I would allow humans to regain a sense of self, but that's just me and my stupid ideas."

"No, I can see it." The redhead nodded, "Have you changed a lot since we met? I was thinking about it, and even in four months, I have changed so much. I thought about how the Principal told me as an incoming Freshman I would change a lot by the time I was a Senior, and I didn't believe him. Sitting here now, I am a different person. I've become a better person, and I'm really glad about that."

Roxas laughed, "No, he told us that too, and I didn't believe him either. I would agree. I am a whole other person. Brighter, I would say. My writing has changed a lot too since then. I read different books as well."

"More cultured?" Axel teased, "Hipster."

"Ew, that term is so outdated. What are you going to say next. 'That's so skate. Groovy. That's hip.'" He rolled his eyes, "That's lickin'."

"Don't go all 2030 on me. You're killin' me."

"You sound like my grandma." Roxas laughed, taking another bite of food. "If...If it doesn't go alright tomorrow, I want you to do me a favor, okay?"

"Yeah, anything, Rox…"

"Have me buried in a grave facing the ocean if you can."

The redhead frowned, green eyes staring into the other's, "You're not going to die."

"Just promise me."

"You're not going to die, Roxas!" He shouted, feeling anger well up in his chest.

"Promise me."

In the end, he promised.

~o~

Axel shut Xion down while she was powered off. He ripped out her hard drive and tore through her code. The Xion that woke up would be bland like a cracker. She would respond to human commands, answer questions, and obey. The Xion he would upload to the body would be the Xion he had killed the first time. The one who had never lived outside the computer before. She would be excited. She would be enchanted with life. She would be pure. It would give him a second chance.

Because he had hated who she had become.

Selfish. Entitled. Bitter. Too human. In the worst ways.

His father may have built her, but Axel had been responsible for who she had become with the small slivers of code masterfully worked in.

In the end, he was sure it would fail, and he was glad.

Humans didn't deserve eternity.

Just a chance.

No beta. I will finish this story. It is not over. This is not the original 31. I replaced it. My writing has changed a lot since last year, and hopefully you see the changes. There are a lot of plot holes. Please overlook these. This story was originally a lot bigger than a teenager year old could handle.