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Character(s): Neirenn, Roxas
Content: Discussing the situation, with guest appearance by the Heartless
Setting: Central Station
Time: Week 10, just before the swarm starts showing up
Warnings: Violence, of the KH variety.

Neirenn had to admit, it was nice to actually be able to see the city again. But she couldn't help but feel extremely wary about this whole thing. Some person--fairy--named Maleficent puts the city under a curse of darkness for no stated reason, and then lifts it, just like that? Had she just gotten bored? No, Neirenn didn't trust it at all.

And it had been such a powerful spell, too, even seeping indoors if people didn't make sure to lock up tight.

She looked around out of the window. The shadow mist still wasn't completely gone. Dark patches were still far darker than they ought to have been, and the only light came from what a person carried with them--but at least it wouldn't go out, now. Stepping back and shutting the curtains, she cast her portal spell again.

She appeared on the platform of Central Station seconds later, looking around for the person she was supposed to meet. With the trains still out, there weren't many people here. Neirenn wasn't sure if he or she had ill intentions, but if they did she could take care of it. Anyway, they seemed too suspicious to be actually suspicious.

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Roxas sat on the edge of a bench, tense and nervous. He clenched a black-gloved fist and unclenched it, certain that there would be Heartless surrounding him the very instant he moved outdoors. He'd quickly donned the coat of the Organization that morning, worried that using the Keyblade to fight them in his normal clothes would draw too much attention.

He looked up when a sudden change in the shadows on the ground alerted him to someone on the platform, and saw a brunette who seemed to be looking for someone. He put the journal inside his coat, and stood up, the hood carefully drawn so she would be unable to see his eyes past the blond hair.

"Are you the girl I was talking to?"

Neirenn turned at the sound of the voice. It was--a boy? He didn't sound too much older than she was, and by his height he didn't look it either. Not that she could see too much with the black cloak, other than that he was skinny.

"Yes," she said, "I'm Neirenn." A boy in a hooded black cloak, like some shadowy cult member. Cult... an organization? Or is he just being furtive for some other reason?

She wouldn't find out more by staring, anyway. "This isn't right," she said. "I assume you've been here longer than me. Do you have any idea why Maleficent would just pull it back like this?" She'd seen a warning on someone else's journal, but they hadn't gone into specifics. "I can only assume she's doing something else with that power."

Roxas knew nothing about Maleficent at all. Something about the situation struck him as wrong, but he didn't know just what it was. "I have no idea," he confessed. "I've been fighting Heartless all day, so I haven't had time to worry about why the fog is gone."

She's going to think I'm an idiot... "I do want to find out, though. It's..." He had to think for a second. "...Annoying?" Was he really annoyed? Or was it fake?

"Heartless?" said Neirenn, frowning at the unfamiliar word. "What are those?" She didn't like admitting to her ignorance, especially to someone whose eyes she couldn't even see, but the question was out now and she did need to know. Anyway he didn't know what was going on either. She glanced around suspiciously, wondering if there were any around now--

--Was that shadow behind the pillar a little darker? Neirenn took a step towards it, and it seemed to shrink back. "Annoying," she said, not looking back at Roxas. "Yes, that's one word for it. Has she done anything like this before?"

"Huh? Oh...the Heartless are the things that keeps squirming around wherever there isn't any light. They feed off people's hearts..."

He watched her approach the Shadow as he was talking. "I haven't been here long enough to know," he answered her second question. "Don't leave the light if you aren't ready to fight them off. The darkness will take you."

"You don't have to keep saying ominous things like that," said Neirenn. "If it's going to kill me, just say that." She'd been in life-and-death situations before. And really, it seemed like he was just trying to be deliberately spooky.

Of course, she did think of the other implications of that statement. The darkness will take you--like the spirits corrupt people who aren't strong to handle dark magic. Well, that isn't me. She stopped, watching it. It crept out of the gloom again, staring with bright yellow eyes that didn't blink.

It didn't look real. She really had a hard time imagine it ripping open somebody's chest. But there were more, now, crawling up over the edge of the platform. Uh-oh.

"So these things will attack, huh?" she said, conjuring a candle-sized flame over her hand that she could easily turn into a fireball. "Maybe that's what became of the mist."

"Losing your heart isn't supposed to be a good thing," Roxas answered her.

A shaft of light spun from Roxas' left hand, a vortex of darkness from his right. Oathkeeper and Oblivion materialized with a hum over his head, and he brought them down to his sides. One of the Shadows leaped toward him, only to collide violently with Oblivion and dissipate into smoky wisps and spheres of darkness on the other side of the Keyblade.

"If you don't want to fight, they'll chase after me," he called to Neirenn. "The Keyblade draws them."

Neirenn felt the magic being cast behind her and looked back at Roxas to see him standing with two odd--weapons summoned into his hands. She watched as he slashed into one of the Heartless. But instead of bouncing off or being cut open, it simply burst into a cloud of black mist that vanished.

"Oh, I can deal with them," said Neirenn, cracking her knuckles. Keyblade, well, they did look a bit like giant keys. But magic was rather more effective than swords, she'd always thought.

Bringing her arm around in a wide arc, fire leapt out in a curve that blasted into the Heartless.

Oathkeeper flew through the Shadows, flipping end-over-end and smashing into some on the way, then flashed brightly, disappearing. It came back to Roxas' hand with a sound like a chorus of tiny bells shaken just once. Fluidly, he slashed through another with Oblivion, using that momentum to throw Oathkeeper again. He flipped over a Neoshadow as it came toward him, spinning and destroying it too with a strike from Oblivion, then Oathkeeper flashed back to his left hand again.

For the moment, there was no end of them in sight, though Neirenn's fire made very quick work of anything that got near it. Roxas slashed both keyblades in an arc over his head, bringing them down on two Heartless that were jumping toward him, and was very thankful that she was here. Otherwise, this would take him forever, since throwing the keyblades was the only thing he could do to take out more than one at a time.

Though tempted to try and see more of the boy's fighting--she had to admit, it looked impressive from the corner of her eye--Neirenn concentrated on taking out Heartless herself. Her first fire spell had done a good job. But there was a lot more air around here than anything else.

Several bolts of lightning, strong lightning shot out from her hands and lancing into each Heartless as it came into her range. She knew she could summon her elemental guardian, but with all the darkness around here--these Heartless were dark magic creatures.

Instead, she conjured another arc of flame, wiping out another group.

Roxas was amazed at how fast Neirenn was wiping out the Shadows, and the Neoshadows weren't holding up much better. She was almost making him look bad.

It didn't take long, between the Keyblades and the magic, for the Heartless to relent. Of course, there were more lurking where the light couldn't reach them, but those few weren't brave enough to venture toward the pair. Roxas took the respite to catch his breath, now very, very glad Neirenn'd met him here. She was by no means defenseless, or unprepared.

"Thanks," he said, though it didn't make much sense, since she'd come on her own.

"No problem," said Neirenn, with a look of satisfaction on her face. She glanced over at him, but of course the hood still left his face in shadow. His fighting skills had been impressive too, she had to admit.

Of course, her questions were still there. "I thought it made sense that she had just reshaped her spell to create these Heartless--but you've seen them before, right?" she said. "Before you came to this city."

"She doesn't make them, but...I guess they listen to her," he answered distantly. "I don't know much about that either."

Oathkeeper and Oblivion dissipated, much the same way they'd appeared. Out of habit, he reached up to pull back his hood. He gasped, stopping before he had a grip on the fabric. His hand fell to his side, and even with the hood still up he looked somewhat sheepish.

"Hm..." They listened to her? Some sort of spell for binding or compulsion? No, she hadn't picked up on anything like that. They all seemed to be acting independently. Or rather, she corrected herself as she thought about their single-minded swarming, instinctively.

Neirenn watched with interest as Roxas dispelled his weapons, and then looked up with even greater interest as his hand went to his hood. "Why are you so secretive?" she asked. She was mostly satisfied by now that he was honestly trying to figure out what was going on, just like she was... but his behavior still confused her.

Another gasp. She was left without an answer, though, as Roxas started to walk to the exit form the station.

"There has to be somewhere better we can go," he said, purposefully changing the subject in the hope that she'd go with it, and he wouldn't think about it. He'd been trying not to ask himself that same question since he talked with Riku.

"Indoors might be better," agreed Neirenn as she walked alongside him, but the cautiously inquisitive look on her face hadn't changed. How could someone this young have this many secrets, that he wouldn't even say her name? But he did have a point. Out in the open wasn't a good place for a discussion like this, even without these Heartless.

"What about outside of the city? Do you think that would be safe?" She'd seen the wall of thorns blocking the Niflheim gate, and she wasn't sure if she could use her portal spell to leave the city walls... but there was stuff on the map outside of it. And, in Neirenn's opinion, it was better to try it than not.

"It won't make any difference," Roxas answered tonelessly. "Can we go back to your place? It should be safe there."

No one could get through those thorns either way, regardless of whether there were Heartless beyond them or not.

"Fine," said Neirenn, who'd already raised a hand to cast the spell that would have taken them outside of the city. Well, getting into the hotel was a piece of cake at least. Probably more convenient, anyhow.

The two of them faded out, with the curly blue wisps of air and butterflies that were the aesthetic accents to a standard portal spell, and into the lounge on Neirenn's floor. It was empty at the moment, which suited her fine.

"So... the Heartless listen to Maleficent, and try to rip out people's hearts," she said. "Is it just her doing all of this?"

Roxas blinked. That was nothing like the corridors of darkness he was used to. "What did you just do?" He was actually a little curious, a good sign.

"And...I don't know very much about them, but I think Maleficent is...helping them along. They do this kind of stuff on their own if you let them, but I guess some people can make more of them show up." He shook out his right arm, trying to get it a little looser. Fighting Shadows isn't any trouble, but Neoshadows had always been really annoying. So many of both in the same place was wearing him out.

"It was just a simple portal spell," said Neirenn, although she was pleased that he'd been impressed. "Actually, it's pretty complicated to learn, but once you get the hang of it it's not hard to cast."

But, Heartless. "Where do they come from?" she asked, watching him shake out his arm. This was why magic could be better. "They look like dark magic to me, but they're too complex to occur naturally." She didn't like the "I don't know" and the "I guess," but it was better than staring out of her window and wondering on her own.

"They're what becomes of people who lose their hearts. If a person was strong, a Nobody is made too." Roxas wondered for a moment if he would be in trouble for saying that much. He wanted to say he'd been ordered to destroy as many of them as he could, but if someone from the Organization was listening he'd be branded a traitor. He couldn't risk that...not when he still knew so little.

Neirenn thought about the things that they had fought... those had been people? They had looked like children's drawings. And she'd just blasted them apart without a second thought. "I thought those were just... spell constructs, or something," she said quietly. "But... people?"

That was horrible... she didn't want to turn into something like that. She wouldn't let it happen to her. "Are the Nobodies dangerous too?" she asked, glancing out of a window. She thought she could see a few of the Heartless plodding around in the gloom. "What do they look like?"

"The Nobodies are stronger," Roxas answered, looking to the floor from under his hood. "But I haven't seen many in the city. You probably won't have to worry about them." He left her question about the Heartless unanswered. It wasn't something he wanted to think about...there wasn't anything he wanted to think about, really.

You probably won't see them. Neirenn frowned. Probably wasn't much comfort to her; she had landed in Paixao when she had been certain she was going from her house to the Academy. And 'won't see many' was definitely not the same as them not being there at all.

"But what do they look like?" she persisted. "If they're stronger like you say, I want to be ready in case there are any lurking around dark corners. If Maleficent is strong enough to bring out these Heartless, who's to say she wouldn't be able to direct Nobodies as well?"

"She can't," Roxas said shortly. "That's not how Nobodies work."

He was getting more and more worried, though, that he was telling Neirenn too much. What would she say if she found out that he was a Nobody? He almost wished Axel were around, to help him figure out what he should do.

"If you're going to dodge my questions, you should put a little more effort into it," said Neirenn, crossing her arms. "Will I at least be able to recognize them when I see them?" Him not wanting to tell her his name was one thing, but that wasn't likely to be a life-or-death situation. She didn't want to get ambushed and not know what to do. "And do you think my magic would work against them?"

The thought that the boy himself might be a Nobody hadn't yet crossed her mind. She was trying to draw a mental picture of them that came out looking something like the Heartless--something that had once been human, but wasn't recognizable as such anymore.

"If you see them, they'll be silver, and not very human-looking." It was starting to bother him a little that he couldn't say anything more useful. But did he really even care?

"They're much stronger than Heartless," he said in answer to her second question. He was going to get a ball of fire to the face if he kept making her angry...

Neirenn wouldn't have set him on fire--but soaking his head with a well-placed water spell wouldn't have been out of line, or giving him a bit of a jolt. But fortunately he decided to actually give her a useful answer this time. "I'll keep my eye out, then," she said. It would probably make it easier that these things didn't look human, she thought with some guilt. She hoped that the Nobodies wouldn't be as--well, cute as the Heartless were.

"So Maleficent called the Heartless, but she wouldn't be able to do that with Nobodies..." She looked thoughtful for a moment as she went over the conversation in her head again. "Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Roxas looked away, turning his entire head to the side. "There isn't," he answered. There were other things he could say, but if someone found out there would be no haste lost in dealing with him. As it tended to when Roxas fell silent, an almost tangible sense of gloom coalesced around him.

Right. It was annoying, how reluctant he was to part with any sort of information--but given current events, Neirenn didn't doubt that he would be in danger from someone. She wasn't sure if she entirely believed that he wasn't with Maleficent, but she couldn't be the only dangerous person in this city.

And he did seem to have honest intentions, if secretive ones. Why is he so... shadowy? she wondered. He seemed... melancholy. Even more so because he really seemed like he was her own age.

"Well, it's not going to be easy finding out more with those Heartless around," she said at last. "I don't suppose you can tell me anyone else who might know more about what's going on, either."

"I don't know anyone else," Roxas' voice strained. "If I did, I just would have told you to find them." He feel silent for a moment.

"Sorry." He didn't know why he apologized, but he had snapped at her. Wasn't apologizing for that normal? "Where's Axel when I actually want him around?" he whispered to himself, talking into the hood to make it harder for her to hear.

She seemed to be losing patience with him. "I guess...I'll go now..." he said. He didn't actually start leaving yet, though.

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jlksdjfl I am so sorry

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