Yeah, I can't wait for the next chapter. This story is well worth the wait.
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Fanfiction ► KH: After Dawn
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So my sister finally sent out a hard copy of my manuscript. It should be to my station in a few days. Once I get the material in front of me, I should be able to get back to work asap. I expecting the next chapter to be posted in approximatly two weeks.
Good. I should have time to read it by then too. Right now school is keeping me very busy... Good luck with writing!
I had a few issues getting this chapter done. I just bought a new laptop so I had to install a trial version of Windows Word. Then I had to buy internet access because I wouldn't be able to copy my personal files to a military computer. And yesterday I had problems getting a decent wireless internet signal. But the chapter you've all been waiting for has finally arrived!
Sora and the gang travel to Neverland after the Astropass shows them a vision of Captain Hook's pirate ship and Tinker Bell. In his latest scheme to rid of Peter Pan, Captain Hook has kidnapped Wendy's daughter Jane. Peter and Sora rescue Jane who at first doesn't seem to enjoy being in Neverland and wants to go home, but the only way to do that is to fly. Captain Hook learns of Jane's plight and tricks her into kidnapping Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, and Clarise and Anemone. But with some quick thinking and pixie dust, Captain Hook is defeated. But Clarise and Anemone are no where to be found...
“What do you mean no one knows anything? Someone has got to know something!” Grace shouted at Balthier. It had been a long morning. Balthier had given the Angelus Knights a fully detailed reported about their findings on Captain Hook and his recent string of kidnappings but the Knights had no leads on where the Commander might be keeping the children, let alone where Anemone and Clarise had been sent, or even where the Commander himself was. Add that on to the fact Grace no longer seemed to be talking to Sora and she was angrier than usual made the day go by really slow.
“I’m only passing on what the Knights told me,” explained Balthier, “I’m not exactly pleased with it either but we’re doing the best we can with what we have.”
Grace bit her lip, trying hard not to scream out in frustration.
“Besides, I’m sure the two of them are safe. They are the Commander’s daughters and he is still very much attached to them,” remarked Balthier.
“Yeah, except they don’t even want to go near him,” Grace muttered under her breath. She walked out of the cockpit, down the corridor and into her bunkroom she shared with the girls. It was empty, as everyone was practicing their training this time of day. She sat down on her bed, her head leaning on her hand, her hand leaning on her knee. She stared down at the floor in front of her deep in thought, when a pillow dropped in the floor in front of her.
“What’s that for?” she looked up at Tai, who had dropped it.
“Something for you to hit at without hurting anyone,” explained Tai. He sat down next to her on the bed. “I know you really mad. I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10, you’re 10 plus. But who are you mad at?”
Grace was quiet for moment, then said, “I’m just mad at a lot of people right now. And in case you’re wondering, it’s not you.”
“Oh I know that,” Tai gave a small smile, watching his feet swing back and forth above the floor, “You can’t stay that mad at me for long Gracey.”
That made Grace give him a tinny smile. She continued to stare at the floor and the pillow deep in thought when something Xine said got her thinking. “Hey, do you think Axel knows where Anemone and Clarise are?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we can get a message out to him somehow,” Grace went on to say.
“Maybe.”
“You know, for a reincarnated god, you sure don’t know a lot,” remarked Grace.
“Dad’s says it’s only a theory,” Tai frowned.
“We’ll you’re something special alright,” Grace smirked, “C’mon! I bet Joey knows a way.”
************************************************************************
Clarise woke up on a bed in a small room, no larger than the size of a large bathroom. On the bed next to her was a still slumbering Anemone and she began to look around. The room had no windows; only a door and a nightstand between the beds. The sheets of the bed were white and the walls were white wash, but the door and the nightstand were made of wood furnished with gold handles and gold doorknob. The room was heated as well; she could feel the heat rising from the wooden floor. She climbed off the bed and over to Anemone. “Anemone! Wake up!” she hissed, rubbing her shoulder.
“Huh? What?” Anemone moaned after Clarise shook her. It took some time for Anemone to rub her eyes open and get up, but she did, she asked, “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” replied Clarise, “But-”
They doorknob was starting to move. Clarise hurried back to her bed and the door opened. A nurse in a white dress wearing a white hat walked inside with a clipboard. “Good morning,” she said brightly with a large smile, “I am Nurse Nineetoo and I’m in charge of the west wing of this ward. May I have your names please?”
“Where are we?” Anemone asked ignoring the question.
“No need to worry. You and your friend are perfectly safe here,” the nurse said as if she had already heard that question a thousand times before, her smile not wavering, “Now, your names please?”
“I’m-” Anemone started to say but Clarise interrupted.
“I’m Mary-Kate and she’s Ashley,” answered Clarise, “She’s my older sister.”
“And how old are you?” asked Nurse Nineetoo as she wrote their names down on a clipboard.
“I’m fifteen, she’s fourteen,” said Anemone, following along with the lie.
“Good, good,” remarked Nurse Nineetoo, “If you will come with me, we can change you out of your dirty clothes and you may join the rest of the children for breakfast.”
Nurse Nineetoo led them out of their bedroom and into a hallway. The hallway was, not surprisingly, white with a polished wooden floor and several wooden doors on the left side of the hallway, leaning to more than likely, more bedrooms. Along the right side of the hallway were windows, but they were only the size of portholes. Judging by the look outside, it was very dark and Clarise could have sworn she caught of glimpse of snow swirling by. But back inside everything looked so clean and neat, spotless and sterile like a hospital. That’s what it smelled like to Anemone: a hospital. She hated hospitals.
As they continued down the hallway, they passed several doctors and nurse, all in white and carrying clipboards. They paid no attention to Nurse Nineetoo or the girls and instead looked at their clipboards or straight ahead.
Nurse Nineetoo stopped in front of another wooden door and allowed the girls inside. The room was white as everything else, except the floors were made of gray tile and there was a pipe drain in the middle of the floor. There were wooden cabinets and a sink in the corner and a large leather bed on top of what looked like a filing cabinets. It was an outpatient room. The nurse pulled two blue dresses from a cabinet and left so the girls could change.
As soon as the door was closed, Anemone turned to Clarise, “Mary-Kate and Ashley? That’s the best you could come up with?”
“On the spot? Yeah! It’s obvious they don’t recognize us or else we wouldn’t be here, wherever we are,” explained Clarise as she threw the blue dress over her head, “But I bet as soon as they found our are names, it will ring a few bells. Or do you want to go back to Father?”
“No I don’t!” Anemone said firmly, involuntarily stomping her foot, “But I don’t like it here. It’s too…plain. And I don’t like this dress either!”
“Well you’ll just have to grin and bear it,” muttered Clarise as Nurse Nineetoo reopened the door.
“All ready?” she asked, wearing that same perfect smile.
The girls nodded and followed Nurse Nineetoo back outside into the white hallways. They passed a few more wooden doors to a larger section of the building and finally stopped in front of two double wooden doors. Two men in black uniforms stood outside the doors, their hands behind their back, looking straight ahead. Anemone felt even more uneasy. Nurse Nineetoo opened one of the wooden doors and allowed the girls to pass inside.
It was a cafeteria filled with children of all ages, all dressed in blue. Nurses and Doctors walked around the room slowly, their eyes on alert for any sign of trouble. Unlike most of the building, there was colorful mural around the wall of a beach. All the children were chattering, but majority of them were separated by the boys from the girls. Clarise and Anemone sat down at one end of the table and a nurse brought them a tray of breakfast.
“This place is weird,” concluded Anemone as she started to cut apart a pancake.
“Looks like we got company,” Clarise noted as several girls and a few boys moved down to where they sat.
“So where are you from?” asked a girl with blond hair and pigtails.
Clarise and Anemone looked at each other. “Um…what do you mean?” asked Clarise.
“You know, what world are you from?” asked a boy with vibrant red hair.
The girls looked at each other again. “Um…Twilight Town,” Anemone said quickly.
“You guys know about other worlds?” asked Clarise.
“Of course! We got kids from everywhere,” said the boy with red hair, “Most of them are from heavily populated worlds like Alluria, Traverse Town, Twilight Town, and the Raidant Gardens.”
The girls looked at each other for a third time, only with worried looks as a difference. Clarise looked around across all the tables. “There sure are a lot of us. Is this some sort of hospital?”
“Does anyone look like they’re ill?” said a girl with mousey hair, “Better yet, when does a hospital need guards posted outside the cafeteria? This isn’t a hospital; sure there are doctors around but take a good look at the nurses.”
Anemone and Clarise looked around again. Now that the mousey girl had pointed it out, all the nurses looked the same: same height, same weight, same uniform, same uniform. The only differences between all the nurses were skin tone, hair color and quite possibly eye color. “They all looked the same,” remarked Anemone.
“Right,” nodded the mousey girl, “Now do you remember the name of the nurse who brought you in?”
“Nurse Nineetoo,” replied Clarise. It then hit her. “Oh! Ninety-two!”
“Now way!” hissed Anemone, “All the nurses are androids?”
“That’s right,” nodded the boy with red hair.
The twins were getting more uneasy by the second. “So if this isn’t a hospital, what is this place?” asked Clarise.
“That’s just the thing,” said the girl with pigtails, “No one really knows. All day they run tests on us or were in a classroom learning about different worlds. Sometimes they let outside if it’s nice but they’re always watching us. They tell us we’re here because we have something special that no one else has and they’re just trying to find out what it is.”
“But there’s one thing we do know,” the red haired boy said darkly, “is that whenever he comes, kids disappear. Most of them don’t come back.”
“He?” asked Anemone.
“We’re not sure what his name is, but all the doctors call him the Commander,” said the girl with pigtails. Anemone involuntarily made a fist. “He never talks to us alone but sometimes he comes in the classroom and observes. He hasn’t come by this month yet so he should be coming back soon.”
“You said most of the kids don’t come back? Back from where?” asked Clarise.
“We don’t know,” said the mousey haired girl, “They take at least 10 or 15 kids at a time but the next day only one or two come back. They don’t stay very long; they usually leave with the Commander but when they get back, they’re different. They’re not the same as they were before.” She looked down at her tray sadly.
“As in they change?” asked Anemone. “Physically or mentally?”
“Usually mentally,” explained the red haired boy, “But sometimes both. They’re always quiet and sad. They have to be doing something to them, it could be about what they’re looking for, but whatever it is, it must be terrible and by the looks of it, were all going to be heading to that same fate.”
The kids all went quiet and looked sadly at their food trays. “Now I don’t think that’s going to all of us!” Clarise said hastily, “I’m sure we’ll all get out of this safely! We just got to think positive.”
“What makes you so sure?” asked the mousey haired girl.
“Ever heard of the Keyblade Master? We’ll we know him and I know he’s going to come after us,” Anemone folded arms with a smile.
This seemed to reassured the kids; it seemed that they had heard much of the Keyblade Master from other children. They discussed the rest of their meal of what they had heard of the famous key bearer until the nurses called them up out of their seats and sent them out for testing. Anemone and Clarise stuck together, making sure there was no possible way they could be separated, and although she didn’t want to admit it to her sister, Anemone doubted that Sora would find them anytime soon.
************************************************************************
SOMEWHERE DEEP IN SPACE
“So you want me to send an ultrasound wave into a portal so that maybe Axel can come here?” Joey asked looking up from his laptop.
“It’s been done before. Axel and Xigbar were able to pick up my locator when Roxas and I escaped from the Commander back on the Islands. I was hoping you could create something similar but imbed a message in it,” explained Grace.
Joey was quiet for a moment, swinging back and forth in his seat, deep in thought. “I could do something like that. Like a Morse code…yeah! Okay I got it!” He cracked his knuckles and started typing away at his laptop. “I’ll have it up and broadcasting in five minutes or less.”
“Thanks Joey,” said Grace and she back down the hall to the living room to wait for a reply.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Fifteen minutes later, alarms went off all across the ship. “Intruder alert! Intruder alert!” the computer alarms wailed over all the intercoms. Grace jumped off of the couch and ran down the hallway just as she heard a grumble and a crash.
“Stupid alarms!” she heard Axel complain and take out the alarms.
“Quit your whining! They’ll deactivate once they know it’s us,” said Xigbar.
“Yo!” Grace called grabbing their attention. “I knew you guys would come.”
“What’s the big emergency?” asked Axel, starting to walk towards her.
Suddenly Balthier jumped out of nowhere, with his guns loaded, pointed at Axel and Xigbar. Axel raised his hands instinctively and Balthier lowered his guns when he realized who they were. “Sorry,” he apologized, “But we have a few too many close encounters lately.”
“Tell me about it,” Xigbar muttered.
By that time everyone had gathered out into the hallway to see what all the commotion was about. “So what’s this about?” Axel asked Grace.
Balthier shot her a look but she ignored him. “Clarise and Anemone were kidnapped and may have been sent to the Commander. I- I mean- we need to know if you guys have any information.”
“So the Commander didn’t take them but somebody else did?” asked Xigbar.
“Hook’s pirates got them. They’ve been kidnapping kids for some time now,” explained Sora, “and selling them to the Commander. That’s what happened to the twins that we know of. As far as we know, the kidnappers don’t know they’re his daughters.”
Axel and Xigbar were quiet for a moment. “Do you think that’s it?” Axel asked Xigbar, “Do you think that’s where they might have gone?”
“More than likely,” replied Xigbar. He then turned to Balthier. “What do you know about the planet of Raymnor?”
“The Ice planet? Only that it’s uninhabitable,” said Balthier.
“Was,” corrected Axel, “The Commander’s set up some sort of base there. We thought at first it was a medical station because he sent for doctors but we were wrong. It’s a lab.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Fran.
“We did some recon about two weeks ago. The place is pretty isolated; it’s on the planet’s northern hemisphere. We saw them brought in all sorts of lab equipment. At the same time they had a bunch of kids running around playing snow ball fights, all being watched by guards and nurses. Some of them were Angelus. That’s where the kidnappers have been bringing the kids: to the base on Raymnor,” explained Xigbar, “For what, we don’t know yet, but it can’t be anything good.”
“Something the Commander doesn’t want anyone to find out about,” said Ling.
“He could be testing out his Bird Flu virus on the kids,” Grace remarked, “I mean, he wouldn’t try it on his own men.”
“Possibly but he doesn’t enough of the right scientists there for that,” said Axel, “They’re mostly psychologists specializing in childhood and adolescent psychology. That’s the age group of most of the kids there; no one younger than 10, no one over 18. Then there are pediatric doctors, a handful of dentists, and about fifty androids posing as female nurses.”
“How many children were there?” asked Balthier.
“At least 200,” replied Xigbar.
“These doctors aren’t of high quality so more than likely they haven’t recognized Clarise and Anemone as the Commander’s daughter,” explained Axel, “Either way, they’re still in danger.”
“They we have to go and get them! The sooner the better!” Sora said firmly.
“Hold on there!” Balthier placed his hand on Sora’s shoulder before he could take off, “We don’t know what exactly we’re up against. Right now it’s best we sent in a small team to infiltrate the base and go from there. Axel and Xigbar would obviously go because they can sneak around easier.”
“I’ll go too,” Grace stepped forward, “I know how to handle the Commander’s guards and you need at least someone who can use the Keyblade just in case.”
“I’m coming too!” Joey joined her, “If I can get into their security system, I can use it against them and get into their files.”
“Let me come,” Ling said suddenly, “I can be your magic support.”
“I’m going with you!” Jane jumped out from the crowd, “We don’t know what the Commander has up his sleeve, but I bet he won’t expect my aeons.”
“Alright anymore and we’re going to need a bigger portal,” remarked Axel in a sarcastic tone.
“Gracey hold on a sec-” Sora stopped Grace just before she jumped into the portal Axel just created.
“I’ll be fine Sora,” she reassured him, “I’m not going alone you know. Besides, you need to lead the main team in. And even if I do get captured, it’s better me than you.”
“That’s not what I-” Sora called after her but she was already gone into the dark abyss.
************************************************************************
JUNO FEDERATION LABATORY
RAYMNOR
The rest of Clarise and Anemone’s day went by rather slowly. They had their height and weight measured, their fingers pricked for blood testing, and an eye and ear exam. Then they were taken into a classroom with about thirty other children about their age to study universe Geography and Geometry. They then were taken back to the cafeteria for dinner and sent straight to bed. As soon as the twins found themselves back in the small white room they woke up in that morning and the door was shut tight behind them, Anemone turned to her sister, “So any idea of getting out of here?”
“And go where?” asked Clarise. “We don’t even know what world we’re on.”
“So you would rather stay here until Father comes for a visit? You know there’s no going back to Sora and the others if he finds us,” Anemone remarked sitting down on her bed.
“I know that, but what else can we do?” asked Clarise, sitting down on her bed, “And we just can’t leave all these kids here. Whatever’s going on, it must be terrible.”
“Yeah, but unless Sora and Grace find us, we’re on our own,” Anemone said looking down on the ground.
“Hey Anemone…?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember that forbidden book by Phillip Pullman?” asked Clarise.
Anemone looked up, a little confused as to where she was going, “Which one?”
“The first one of the His Dark Materials Trilogy. The Northern Lights, or the Golden Compass. In the book, children were being kidnapped and sent to the far North by the Goblers or the General Oblivation Board. The main character went to the far North to save her friend with her dæmon companion, her soul, and an armored bear. Anyway, she found out where the children being sent, to a lab where they had their dæmon’s cut away from them,” explained Clarise.
“And you think that’s what they’re doing here? Cutting their souls away?” Anemone asked, her face a little pale.
“Not their souls, but their hearts,” Clarise said darkly.
Anemone involuntarily reached for her chest with her right hand tight in a fist. “But how could they do that? Why would they?” she asked horrified.
“To make Nobodies. It makes sense from what the other kids say: only a few survivors, the look of sadness and emptiness, it fits,” Clarise concluded, “And we knew Father was trying to look for ways to create Nobodies.”
“I hope your wrong Clarise,” Anemone said firmly as she took her blanket and wrapped it around her, “I hope you’re very wrong.”
“I hope I’m wrong too sis,” Clarise whispered as she grabbed her blanket and went to bed.
The twins managed to sleep peacefully the rest of the night with the hope that the new day would bring them answers for the questions they had. Nurse Nineetoo brought all the children from her ward down to breakfast but as soon as they got there, the girls noticed that the cafeteria sounded quieter than usual.
“What’s wrong?” Anemone asked the red haired boy who had sit with them yesterday.
“Rumor is the Commander’s coming,” he replied.
“When?” asked Clarise.
“The day after tomorrow. Which means kids will start disappearing today,” the boy added in a hushed tone.
The girls looked at each other. Anemone dropped her fork and completely loss her appetite. A nurse noticed her sudden change and asked, “What’s wrong? Does it not taste good?” asked the nurse.
“I don’t feel well,” Anemone replied not looking up at the nurse, “I’ll be fine though.”
The nurse didn’t seemed too convinced but she walked away. Once she was gone, Anemone turned to Clarise, “We need some place to hide.”
“Where?” Clarise asked.
“I don’t know. Give me some time,” replied Anemone.
All the children seemed to be on edge for the rest of the day. They all looked around fearfully as if someone would reach out and grab them. But the girls had their thoughts on other things. They spent their time traveling between rooms trying to find a place to hide for a few hours, but they were always with a nurse or a guard. They weren’t even allowed to go to the bathroom by themselves. There was no way they could sneak away unnoticed. Their attempts became even more of a priority when a doctor walked in on their History class and asked the girl with mousey hair to come with him. The girl’s face went white at once and she said nothing as she walked across the room and out the door with the doctor. As soon as the door closed behind her, the classroom broke into a frantic chatter and it was sometime before the nurse could get the class under control again.
“Any ideas?” Anemone asked Clarise as soon as the nurse’s back was turned.
Clarise just shook her head and stared blankly at her desk.
The mousey haired girl did not return by dinnertime. Most of the kids spent their dinner whispering in groups, talking about who had been taken out of class and had not returned. The twins tried to block out of most of it and focus on their dinner and were extremely relieved when they brought back to their bedroom.
“I’m sure Sora and Grace will find us,” Clarise said in an attempt to reassure Anemone.
Anemone frowned but didn’t say anything and went to bed without a word.
The next day at breakfast, all the doctors and guards looked very uneasy. This in turn made all the children extremely uneasy, so much so that they stopped talking completely. “What’s going on now?” Anemone asked.
“He’s here,” said the girl with pigtails. The twins nodded; there was no needed to go any further.
The doors to the cafeteria opened suddenly and the twins almost jumped underneath the table. They were relieved to see it was not their father, but the mousey hair girl and a few doctors. As the doctors that entered the cafeteria spoke with the doctors watching the children, the girl with pigtails got up and spoke with the mousey hair girl. Clarise knew at once there was something wrong when the girls started to speak.
“What do you mean you have to go away?” asked the girl with pigtails.
“I can’t be here anymore,” the mousey hair girl said quietly, her face blank and her eyes full of sadness.
“Why not?” Pigtail girl insisted.
“You wouldn’t understand,” the mousey hair girl said in the same blank tone.
Pigtail girl looked at her with disbelief. “But we could always tell each other everything! This-this isn’t like you! Did they do something to you?! Is that why? What did they do? Tell me please!”
“You wouldn’t understand,” the mousey hair girl repeated.
“What’s not to understand?!” Pigtail girl reached for mousey hair girl’s hands but the mousey hair girl pulled them away.
“I’m sorry. Good-bye,” mousey haired girl turned away without a second look back at Pigtail girl.
Pigtail girl started to cry and sank to her knees. A nurse tried to help her to her feet, but she pushed the nurse away. “Get away from me!” the pigtail girl screamed. Finally two guards dragged the girl to her feet and pulled her out of the room. “Let me go! Let me go!” she cried harder, “I want my friend back! What did you do to her?!”
The room went completely silent after the guards dragged her out. Anemone gave a small moan and her hand reached for her stomach. “Bathroom,” she managed to say to Clarise before she gave a small lurch. Clarise pulled her sister to her feet and walked her across the room.
“My sister doesn’t feel well,” Clarise said to one of the nurses, “May I take her to the bathroom?”
The nurse nodded and allowed them to leave the cafeteria unattended. Once they reached the bathroom, Anemone ran to the nearest stall and vomited. “I don’t believe this! How could he?! That bastard!” Anemone cursed between lurches.
Clarise was silent for a moment. She then felt a wave of heat wash over her from above. She looked up and saw she was standing underneath a heat vent. “Hey Anemone, I got an idea,” she said as soon as Anemone was done throwing up.
Anemone looked up at the vent with her. “Think we can squeeze?” Anemone asked.
“Help me up,” said Clarise already way ahead of her sister. Anemone had her climb up on her shoulders and Clarise unlocked the vent with her hair clips. She caught the vent cover from falling onto the floor and climbed up into the shaft. She then leaned out of the shaft to grab Anemone’s arms and pull her up.
“What now?” asked Anemone.
“We need to get to the communication room. Maybe there we can send out a distress signal,” suggested Clarise, “Hopefully before they start to wonder where we went.”
“I don’t care about that,” Anemone grumbled, “Just as long as Daddy doesn’t find us.”
************************************************************************
The first thing Grace noticed when she stepped out of the Corridor of Darkness was the sharp bone-chilling wind that swirled around her. “I knew I should have brought a jacket!” she heard Jane complain from behind her.
“Stop your whining!” Axel said over the wind, “You knew we were coming here.”
Grace squinted through the blowing snow and could barely make out a large building glowing in the distance.
“I’ll go on ahead and scout,” said Xigbar and he disappeared in a flash.
“Let’s move before we all freeze to death,” suggested Grace. They moved toward the building but keeping away from the lights. The building looked like some sort of station with a landing port for space transporters and a cargo bay for supplies. Guards were posted at the front entrance which looked like some kind of office and made patrols underneath the glowing florescent lights.
Xigbar returned about a minute later with his report. “There are only two guards posted outside of the cargo bay. If we’re quiet we should be able to sneak around them,” he explained.
Sticking to the shadows, they moved around the other side of the building to the hanger bay. The guards were roving, leaving just a few seconds from the door that lead inside. One by one they waited until the guard’s back was turned and rushed inside, albeit Joey almost getting them all caught by slipping on the ice just in front of the door. Once inside they maneuvered behind cargo boxes and blind spots in cameras across the cargo bay into the main building.
The hallways were empty as they tiptoed passed bedrooms until Ling found the communications room. Surprisingly there was no one inside; they found out later everything was automated by the computers. Even so, Joey set up a jamming frequency so that none of the cameras inside would detect them and started to hack the system. “First thing first,” said Grace leaning on the chair Joey was now sitting in, “Find Anemone and Clarise.”
“Luckily this system has a complete roster of all the children being kept here. That should make things easier,” remarked Joey and he began to type in commands. The computer hummed as it went through its list. “No matches,” replied Joey.
Grace gave a moan but Jane said, “They could be using fake names. Try searching a list of all the twins that came through recently.”
Joey punched in the command but shook his head once he was given back the results. “There are a handful, but none of them are Clarise and Anemone.”
“Try searching for their hair color. Who else do we know has hair like Clarise and Anemone?” suggested Ling.
Joey searched the computer again and smiled when two pictures came up. “Found them! They’re under the names Mary-Kate and Ashley. Room 17B.”
“Okay! Let’s go get them!” Grace was rearing to go.
“But what about the rest of the children?” asked Jane.
“We’ll worry about them later,” said Grace, “Right now, we need to make sure Clarise and Anemone are okay.”
“Hold on,” Axel stopped her, “We got a problem.” He pointed to one of the video camera screens. Grace looked up and knew immediately they had a very big problem. Waiting for an elevator to take him to the second floor was the Commander.
“Joey, send out a message to Balthier. Tell him to bring everyone,” said Grace, her eyes focused on another screen. Xine and David were heading down to the basement levels in another elevator.
“Yeah, I think I’ll do that,” he said slowly, his eyes focused on the same screen.
“Do you think the Commander knows his daughters are here?” asked Ling.
“I don’t know, but we got to find them before he does,” said Grace, “Our best bet right now is that bedroom. Joey you stay here. We’ll go on ahead. Lock the door and make sure no one else comes in. Do you understand?”
“I got it,” Joey said annoyed. Usually he was the one who asked that question.
“Okay! Let’s go!” Grace summoned her Keyblade and lead the rest of the group outside of the room.
************************************************************************
“OW! You’re stepping on my hair!”
“Be quiet! Someone might here us!”
“Shh! What was that?!”
“What was what? Whoa-!”
The ventilation shaft that was holding Clarise up popped open and she fell out of the shaft. “Clarise?” Anemone crawled back to the shaft opening and looked down into the hole.
“I’m alright,” Clarise moaned, “I managed to land on my butt. It looks like I’m in some sort of conference room. It’s empty.”
Anemone climbed down out of the shift and looked around. They were in a large room with a large wooden table in the middle of the room with large black computer chairs, a coffee machine and a stand for cream and sugar. A large plasma screen TV hung on the wall and there was a Cisco Conference talk center in front of the table. “We could hide out here,” suggested Anemone.
“Maybe,” said Clarise. She then heard voices. “Quick! Under the table!”
Anemone and Clarise ducked underneath the table just in time. The door opened just as the girls centered themselves in the very middle of the table. They pulled away quietly as several people sat down. “So what have you to report?” the Commander’s voice echoed from the chair in front.
“The Heads of Staff all agree that from our initial analysis, Project Dæmon has been very successfully so far,” said a voice from the right side of the table. Clarise recognized it was the voice of Juno City’s Chief of Medical Research. She knew he liked to create all sorts of gizmos and gadgets from the Forbidden Books. It made perfect sense he would come up with something from a book he wasn’t suppose to read, though her father condoned it, which may have been why he was stationed here. “With the new modifications to the Heart Machine, research, and our new experimental anti-depressant cocktail drug, our success rate has jumped by 12%.”
“12%...that is quiet an improvement,” the Commander said the pleasure in his voice, “And the post-procedure death rate?”
“That has decreased by 5% in the short term. We have a while before we can foresee any long term occurrences. But this new drug should help,” explained the Chief of Medical Research.
“Excellent! And what about these modifications you made to the Heart Machine?” asked the Commander.
“The Machine continues to do what it was basically designed to do only with less to clean up afterwards and is much more powerful than its predecessor. If used properly, the patient experiences less pain by saving time, increasing the survivor rate,” said someone from the left side of the table.
“That is extremely good news but-”
“But we lost one of our gatherers. Captain Hook was recently defeated by the Keyblade Master and he knows we’re behind the capture of these children. The Angelus Knights are now more than likely on high alert,” remarked the Chief of Medical Research.
“But they are unaware of our true operation still,” said the Commander, “You will continue as normal but keep your security on high alert as a precaution. I will be taking our latest batch of subjects with me back to HQ. This meeting is dismissed.”
The twins watched as their father’s feet got up and left the table. They heard the door open and closed but the rest of the scientists didn’t get up. “That actually went well. I was expecting him to chew us out about Captain Hook,” said a scientist, “But rather it was as if he was expecting something like this to happen.”
“Who knows what the Commander is thinking nowadays,” remarked another, “But we knew sooner or later the Angelus would catch on to us.”
“If you asked me, he seemed a little disappointed that we modified the Heart Machine. Remember our first procedures with the super growth clones? He enjoyed watching their hearts being ripped out…”
At this point, whether from her nerves or more graphic content, Anemone lurched again. Clarise shot her a look to be quiet but it was already too late.
“What was that?”
“Underneath the table!”
“Well what do we have here?”
Arms reached out for the twins and although they struggled against the scientists, one of them pulled out a tasser and shocked them both. The girls were unceremoniously dragged out and thrown on the floor.
“What do we do? Although they’re children, we can’t let them go. They know too much,” said a scientist.
“What the hell were they doing in here anyway? How did they sneak up here? Shouldn’t they be in the lab? Who’s their nurse?” asked another.
“That’s unimportant right now,” the Chief of Medical Research said sharply, “But I don’t think the Commander won’t mind two extra subjects to take back with him to HQ.”
The doctors carried the girls out of the room and down the hallway. Anemone slipped in and out of consciousness but she was slowly starting to stay awake longer. The doctors carried them into a large circular white room that looked like an operating room. In the middle of the room was a laser machine and right underneath was an operating table with braces for the arms and legs. A series of calibrations and switches sat on one side of the room and on the other side was a metal sliding door, sealed tight. On the other side was a glass window and a metal door that led to an observation room. The doctors carrying Clarise placed her underneath the laser machine and strapped her down to the table. She struggled against them but she was still too weak.
Once Clarise was secured, they joined the rest of the doctors and Anemone inside of the observation room and locked the doors for some odd reason. “What are you going to do her?” Anemone asked trying to struggle against the doctor’s grip.
“We’re going to give her a small operation. If she’s lucky, she’ll live and might remember you’re her sister,” smiled the Chief of Medical Research. He turned to one of the doctors. “You may begin when ready.”
The doctor at the controls nodded and began to start up the machine. The machine began to hum and light up, sparking electricity between all the flashing light bulbs. The laser itself began to spin and charge, aiming directly at Clarise’s heart. The laser suddenly glowed and sent out a charge of pure white light at Clarise chest. Anemone heard her scream over the hum of the machine and began to struggle again. Then all was quiet; the machine began to shut off and Clarise stopped screaming.
Clarise felt as if she was barely awake; there was something glowing just above her body, floating in midair, something bright and warm but she couldn’t tell what it was. She heard the metal door unlocking and slowly moved her head so she could see.
Out of the metal door stepped a Heartless, but not just any Heartless. It was one of the massive beasts from Juno City. It quickly caught whiff of its prey, gave a blood chilling howl, and slowly stalked towards Clarise. Clarise wanted to run but she couldn’t move, she didn’t even think she had the strength to even move but wait for the enviable.
“Let her go! Let her go this instant!” Anemone cried as she desperately tried to grab the doctor’s attention, “Do you know who I am? I’m the Commander’s daughter! Anemone Nevue! If he ever finds out what you did, you’re going to be sorry!”
That seemed to have grabbed the doctors’ attention. The Chief of Medical Research looked down at Anemone, “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Because if you’re wrong, Daddy’s going to kill you personally,” Anemone glared at him.
The Chief of Medical Research seemed to be debating what to do silently, all the while the Heartless was getting ready to pounce on Clarise. Suddenly the lights began to flicker and there was the feeling of static electricity in the air. There was a cry from inside the operation room. The doctors and Anemone turned to look. The Heartless had been taken out disappearing into black smoke. “What the-?” one of the doctors started to say before the glass window broke and something like a shadow of black smoke raced in. The black smoke settled in the observation and out of the smoke stepped someone in a black coat, a female by the look of it.
The figure viciously threw throwing knifes at the doctors taking two down and pinning one up against the wall. To end her combo, she tighten her wrist and the knifes began to spark with electricity, shocking everyone else except for Anemone. The female then began to shut down the machine as Anemone climbed out of the broken window and rushed to Clarise. “Clarise! Clarise!” she called her sister’s name.
All Clarise heard was an echo of her name and Anemone’s blurred image. She heard someone else calling her name, a female voice, but her vision was starting to blur. Then, darkness.
************************************************************************
David looked up at a dusty supercomputer sitting in a basement, its motor spinning with a dull hum, punching out numerous calculations on a laser jet printer a few feet away. Xine noticed he was looking at it sadly.
“This is my brother,” he explained to Xine.
“Your brother?” she asked confused.
“Sometimes experiments fail,” David said quietly, “His body fell apart and they transferred his mind into this machine. He was older than me, the stronger of the two of us while I was the brains. He always protected me; I was his only family and he was mine. He always had a strong sense of what was right and wrong. But he couldn’t control his body and that’s how he ended up here. It’s been such a long time; I wonder if he remembers that he was once human, let alone me.”
Xine was quiet for a moment, then said, “I don’t. Of course I was never human to begin with.” She turned to walk away leaving David alone with what was left of his brother.
Sora and the gang travel to Neverland after the Astropass shows them a vision of Captain Hook's pirate ship and Tinker Bell. In his latest scheme to rid of Peter Pan, Captain Hook has kidnapped Wendy's daughter Jane. Peter and Sora rescue Jane who at first doesn't seem to enjoy being in Neverland and wants to go home, but the only way to do that is to fly. Captain Hook learns of Jane's plight and tricks her into kidnapping Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, and Clarise and Anemone. But with some quick thinking and pixie dust, Captain Hook is defeated. But Clarise and Anemone are no where to be found...
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
THE HEART MACHINE
SOMEWHERE DEEP IN SPACE
THE HEART MACHINE
SOMEWHERE DEEP IN SPACE
“What do you mean no one knows anything? Someone has got to know something!” Grace shouted at Balthier. It had been a long morning. Balthier had given the Angelus Knights a fully detailed reported about their findings on Captain Hook and his recent string of kidnappings but the Knights had no leads on where the Commander might be keeping the children, let alone where Anemone and Clarise had been sent, or even where the Commander himself was. Add that on to the fact Grace no longer seemed to be talking to Sora and she was angrier than usual made the day go by really slow.
“I’m only passing on what the Knights told me,” explained Balthier, “I’m not exactly pleased with it either but we’re doing the best we can with what we have.”
Grace bit her lip, trying hard not to scream out in frustration.
“Besides, I’m sure the two of them are safe. They are the Commander’s daughters and he is still very much attached to them,” remarked Balthier.
“Yeah, except they don’t even want to go near him,” Grace muttered under her breath. She walked out of the cockpit, down the corridor and into her bunkroom she shared with the girls. It was empty, as everyone was practicing their training this time of day. She sat down on her bed, her head leaning on her hand, her hand leaning on her knee. She stared down at the floor in front of her deep in thought, when a pillow dropped in the floor in front of her.
“What’s that for?” she looked up at Tai, who had dropped it.
“Something for you to hit at without hurting anyone,” explained Tai. He sat down next to her on the bed. “I know you really mad. I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10, you’re 10 plus. But who are you mad at?”
Grace was quiet for moment, then said, “I’m just mad at a lot of people right now. And in case you’re wondering, it’s not you.”
“Oh I know that,” Tai gave a small smile, watching his feet swing back and forth above the floor, “You can’t stay that mad at me for long Gracey.”
That made Grace give him a tinny smile. She continued to stare at the floor and the pillow deep in thought when something Xine said got her thinking. “Hey, do you think Axel knows where Anemone and Clarise are?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we can get a message out to him somehow,” Grace went on to say.
“Maybe.”
“You know, for a reincarnated god, you sure don’t know a lot,” remarked Grace.
“Dad’s says it’s only a theory,” Tai frowned.
“We’ll you’re something special alright,” Grace smirked, “C’mon! I bet Joey knows a way.”
************************************************************************
Clarise woke up on a bed in a small room, no larger than the size of a large bathroom. On the bed next to her was a still slumbering Anemone and she began to look around. The room had no windows; only a door and a nightstand between the beds. The sheets of the bed were white and the walls were white wash, but the door and the nightstand were made of wood furnished with gold handles and gold doorknob. The room was heated as well; she could feel the heat rising from the wooden floor. She climbed off the bed and over to Anemone. “Anemone! Wake up!” she hissed, rubbing her shoulder.
“Huh? What?” Anemone moaned after Clarise shook her. It took some time for Anemone to rub her eyes open and get up, but she did, she asked, “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” replied Clarise, “But-”
They doorknob was starting to move. Clarise hurried back to her bed and the door opened. A nurse in a white dress wearing a white hat walked inside with a clipboard. “Good morning,” she said brightly with a large smile, “I am Nurse Nineetoo and I’m in charge of the west wing of this ward. May I have your names please?”
“Where are we?” Anemone asked ignoring the question.
“No need to worry. You and your friend are perfectly safe here,” the nurse said as if she had already heard that question a thousand times before, her smile not wavering, “Now, your names please?”
“I’m-” Anemone started to say but Clarise interrupted.
“I’m Mary-Kate and she’s Ashley,” answered Clarise, “She’s my older sister.”
“And how old are you?” asked Nurse Nineetoo as she wrote their names down on a clipboard.
“I’m fifteen, she’s fourteen,” said Anemone, following along with the lie.
“Good, good,” remarked Nurse Nineetoo, “If you will come with me, we can change you out of your dirty clothes and you may join the rest of the children for breakfast.”
Nurse Nineetoo led them out of their bedroom and into a hallway. The hallway was, not surprisingly, white with a polished wooden floor and several wooden doors on the left side of the hallway, leaning to more than likely, more bedrooms. Along the right side of the hallway were windows, but they were only the size of portholes. Judging by the look outside, it was very dark and Clarise could have sworn she caught of glimpse of snow swirling by. But back inside everything looked so clean and neat, spotless and sterile like a hospital. That’s what it smelled like to Anemone: a hospital. She hated hospitals.
As they continued down the hallway, they passed several doctors and nurse, all in white and carrying clipboards. They paid no attention to Nurse Nineetoo or the girls and instead looked at their clipboards or straight ahead.
Nurse Nineetoo stopped in front of another wooden door and allowed the girls inside. The room was white as everything else, except the floors were made of gray tile and there was a pipe drain in the middle of the floor. There were wooden cabinets and a sink in the corner and a large leather bed on top of what looked like a filing cabinets. It was an outpatient room. The nurse pulled two blue dresses from a cabinet and left so the girls could change.
As soon as the door was closed, Anemone turned to Clarise, “Mary-Kate and Ashley? That’s the best you could come up with?”
“On the spot? Yeah! It’s obvious they don’t recognize us or else we wouldn’t be here, wherever we are,” explained Clarise as she threw the blue dress over her head, “But I bet as soon as they found our are names, it will ring a few bells. Or do you want to go back to Father?”
“No I don’t!” Anemone said firmly, involuntarily stomping her foot, “But I don’t like it here. It’s too…plain. And I don’t like this dress either!”
“Well you’ll just have to grin and bear it,” muttered Clarise as Nurse Nineetoo reopened the door.
“All ready?” she asked, wearing that same perfect smile.
The girls nodded and followed Nurse Nineetoo back outside into the white hallways. They passed a few more wooden doors to a larger section of the building and finally stopped in front of two double wooden doors. Two men in black uniforms stood outside the doors, their hands behind their back, looking straight ahead. Anemone felt even more uneasy. Nurse Nineetoo opened one of the wooden doors and allowed the girls to pass inside.
It was a cafeteria filled with children of all ages, all dressed in blue. Nurses and Doctors walked around the room slowly, their eyes on alert for any sign of trouble. Unlike most of the building, there was colorful mural around the wall of a beach. All the children were chattering, but majority of them were separated by the boys from the girls. Clarise and Anemone sat down at one end of the table and a nurse brought them a tray of breakfast.
“This place is weird,” concluded Anemone as she started to cut apart a pancake.
“Looks like we got company,” Clarise noted as several girls and a few boys moved down to where they sat.
“So where are you from?” asked a girl with blond hair and pigtails.
Clarise and Anemone looked at each other. “Um…what do you mean?” asked Clarise.
“You know, what world are you from?” asked a boy with vibrant red hair.
The girls looked at each other again. “Um…Twilight Town,” Anemone said quickly.
“You guys know about other worlds?” asked Clarise.
“Of course! We got kids from everywhere,” said the boy with red hair, “Most of them are from heavily populated worlds like Alluria, Traverse Town, Twilight Town, and the Raidant Gardens.”
The girls looked at each other for a third time, only with worried looks as a difference. Clarise looked around across all the tables. “There sure are a lot of us. Is this some sort of hospital?”
“Does anyone look like they’re ill?” said a girl with mousey hair, “Better yet, when does a hospital need guards posted outside the cafeteria? This isn’t a hospital; sure there are doctors around but take a good look at the nurses.”
Anemone and Clarise looked around again. Now that the mousey girl had pointed it out, all the nurses looked the same: same height, same weight, same uniform, same uniform. The only differences between all the nurses were skin tone, hair color and quite possibly eye color. “They all looked the same,” remarked Anemone.
“Right,” nodded the mousey girl, “Now do you remember the name of the nurse who brought you in?”
“Nurse Nineetoo,” replied Clarise. It then hit her. “Oh! Ninety-two!”
“Now way!” hissed Anemone, “All the nurses are androids?”
“That’s right,” nodded the boy with red hair.
The twins were getting more uneasy by the second. “So if this isn’t a hospital, what is this place?” asked Clarise.
“That’s just the thing,” said the girl with pigtails, “No one really knows. All day they run tests on us or were in a classroom learning about different worlds. Sometimes they let outside if it’s nice but they’re always watching us. They tell us we’re here because we have something special that no one else has and they’re just trying to find out what it is.”
“But there’s one thing we do know,” the red haired boy said darkly, “is that whenever he comes, kids disappear. Most of them don’t come back.”
“He?” asked Anemone.
“We’re not sure what his name is, but all the doctors call him the Commander,” said the girl with pigtails. Anemone involuntarily made a fist. “He never talks to us alone but sometimes he comes in the classroom and observes. He hasn’t come by this month yet so he should be coming back soon.”
“You said most of the kids don’t come back? Back from where?” asked Clarise.
“We don’t know,” said the mousey haired girl, “They take at least 10 or 15 kids at a time but the next day only one or two come back. They don’t stay very long; they usually leave with the Commander but when they get back, they’re different. They’re not the same as they were before.” She looked down at her tray sadly.
“As in they change?” asked Anemone. “Physically or mentally?”
“Usually mentally,” explained the red haired boy, “But sometimes both. They’re always quiet and sad. They have to be doing something to them, it could be about what they’re looking for, but whatever it is, it must be terrible and by the looks of it, were all going to be heading to that same fate.”
The kids all went quiet and looked sadly at their food trays. “Now I don’t think that’s going to all of us!” Clarise said hastily, “I’m sure we’ll all get out of this safely! We just got to think positive.”
“What makes you so sure?” asked the mousey haired girl.
“Ever heard of the Keyblade Master? We’ll we know him and I know he’s going to come after us,” Anemone folded arms with a smile.
This seemed to reassured the kids; it seemed that they had heard much of the Keyblade Master from other children. They discussed the rest of their meal of what they had heard of the famous key bearer until the nurses called them up out of their seats and sent them out for testing. Anemone and Clarise stuck together, making sure there was no possible way they could be separated, and although she didn’t want to admit it to her sister, Anemone doubted that Sora would find them anytime soon.
************************************************************************
SOMEWHERE DEEP IN SPACE
“So you want me to send an ultrasound wave into a portal so that maybe Axel can come here?” Joey asked looking up from his laptop.
“It’s been done before. Axel and Xigbar were able to pick up my locator when Roxas and I escaped from the Commander back on the Islands. I was hoping you could create something similar but imbed a message in it,” explained Grace.
Joey was quiet for a moment, swinging back and forth in his seat, deep in thought. “I could do something like that. Like a Morse code…yeah! Okay I got it!” He cracked his knuckles and started typing away at his laptop. “I’ll have it up and broadcasting in five minutes or less.”
“Thanks Joey,” said Grace and she back down the hall to the living room to wait for a reply.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Fifteen minutes later, alarms went off all across the ship. “Intruder alert! Intruder alert!” the computer alarms wailed over all the intercoms. Grace jumped off of the couch and ran down the hallway just as she heard a grumble and a crash.
“Stupid alarms!” she heard Axel complain and take out the alarms.
“Quit your whining! They’ll deactivate once they know it’s us,” said Xigbar.
“Yo!” Grace called grabbing their attention. “I knew you guys would come.”
“What’s the big emergency?” asked Axel, starting to walk towards her.
Suddenly Balthier jumped out of nowhere, with his guns loaded, pointed at Axel and Xigbar. Axel raised his hands instinctively and Balthier lowered his guns when he realized who they were. “Sorry,” he apologized, “But we have a few too many close encounters lately.”
“Tell me about it,” Xigbar muttered.
By that time everyone had gathered out into the hallway to see what all the commotion was about. “So what’s this about?” Axel asked Grace.
Balthier shot her a look but she ignored him. “Clarise and Anemone were kidnapped and may have been sent to the Commander. I- I mean- we need to know if you guys have any information.”
“So the Commander didn’t take them but somebody else did?” asked Xigbar.
“Hook’s pirates got them. They’ve been kidnapping kids for some time now,” explained Sora, “and selling them to the Commander. That’s what happened to the twins that we know of. As far as we know, the kidnappers don’t know they’re his daughters.”
Axel and Xigbar were quiet for a moment. “Do you think that’s it?” Axel asked Xigbar, “Do you think that’s where they might have gone?”
“More than likely,” replied Xigbar. He then turned to Balthier. “What do you know about the planet of Raymnor?”
“The Ice planet? Only that it’s uninhabitable,” said Balthier.
“Was,” corrected Axel, “The Commander’s set up some sort of base there. We thought at first it was a medical station because he sent for doctors but we were wrong. It’s a lab.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Fran.
“We did some recon about two weeks ago. The place is pretty isolated; it’s on the planet’s northern hemisphere. We saw them brought in all sorts of lab equipment. At the same time they had a bunch of kids running around playing snow ball fights, all being watched by guards and nurses. Some of them were Angelus. That’s where the kidnappers have been bringing the kids: to the base on Raymnor,” explained Xigbar, “For what, we don’t know yet, but it can’t be anything good.”
“Something the Commander doesn’t want anyone to find out about,” said Ling.
“He could be testing out his Bird Flu virus on the kids,” Grace remarked, “I mean, he wouldn’t try it on his own men.”
“Possibly but he doesn’t enough of the right scientists there for that,” said Axel, “They’re mostly psychologists specializing in childhood and adolescent psychology. That’s the age group of most of the kids there; no one younger than 10, no one over 18. Then there are pediatric doctors, a handful of dentists, and about fifty androids posing as female nurses.”
“How many children were there?” asked Balthier.
“At least 200,” replied Xigbar.
“These doctors aren’t of high quality so more than likely they haven’t recognized Clarise and Anemone as the Commander’s daughter,” explained Axel, “Either way, they’re still in danger.”
“They we have to go and get them! The sooner the better!” Sora said firmly.
“Hold on there!” Balthier placed his hand on Sora’s shoulder before he could take off, “We don’t know what exactly we’re up against. Right now it’s best we sent in a small team to infiltrate the base and go from there. Axel and Xigbar would obviously go because they can sneak around easier.”
“I’ll go too,” Grace stepped forward, “I know how to handle the Commander’s guards and you need at least someone who can use the Keyblade just in case.”
“I’m coming too!” Joey joined her, “If I can get into their security system, I can use it against them and get into their files.”
“Let me come,” Ling said suddenly, “I can be your magic support.”
“I’m going with you!” Jane jumped out from the crowd, “We don’t know what the Commander has up his sleeve, but I bet he won’t expect my aeons.”
“Alright anymore and we’re going to need a bigger portal,” remarked Axel in a sarcastic tone.
“Gracey hold on a sec-” Sora stopped Grace just before she jumped into the portal Axel just created.
“I’ll be fine Sora,” she reassured him, “I’m not going alone you know. Besides, you need to lead the main team in. And even if I do get captured, it’s better me than you.”
“That’s not what I-” Sora called after her but she was already gone into the dark abyss.
************************************************************************
JUNO FEDERATION LABATORY
RAYMNOR
The rest of Clarise and Anemone’s day went by rather slowly. They had their height and weight measured, their fingers pricked for blood testing, and an eye and ear exam. Then they were taken into a classroom with about thirty other children about their age to study universe Geography and Geometry. They then were taken back to the cafeteria for dinner and sent straight to bed. As soon as the twins found themselves back in the small white room they woke up in that morning and the door was shut tight behind them, Anemone turned to her sister, “So any idea of getting out of here?”
“And go where?” asked Clarise. “We don’t even know what world we’re on.”
“So you would rather stay here until Father comes for a visit? You know there’s no going back to Sora and the others if he finds us,” Anemone remarked sitting down on her bed.
“I know that, but what else can we do?” asked Clarise, sitting down on her bed, “And we just can’t leave all these kids here. Whatever’s going on, it must be terrible.”
“Yeah, but unless Sora and Grace find us, we’re on our own,” Anemone said looking down on the ground.
“Hey Anemone…?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember that forbidden book by Phillip Pullman?” asked Clarise.
Anemone looked up, a little confused as to where she was going, “Which one?”
“The first one of the His Dark Materials Trilogy. The Northern Lights, or the Golden Compass. In the book, children were being kidnapped and sent to the far North by the Goblers or the General Oblivation Board. The main character went to the far North to save her friend with her dæmon companion, her soul, and an armored bear. Anyway, she found out where the children being sent, to a lab where they had their dæmon’s cut away from them,” explained Clarise.
“And you think that’s what they’re doing here? Cutting their souls away?” Anemone asked, her face a little pale.
“Not their souls, but their hearts,” Clarise said darkly.
Anemone involuntarily reached for her chest with her right hand tight in a fist. “But how could they do that? Why would they?” she asked horrified.
“To make Nobodies. It makes sense from what the other kids say: only a few survivors, the look of sadness and emptiness, it fits,” Clarise concluded, “And we knew Father was trying to look for ways to create Nobodies.”
“I hope your wrong Clarise,” Anemone said firmly as she took her blanket and wrapped it around her, “I hope you’re very wrong.”
“I hope I’m wrong too sis,” Clarise whispered as she grabbed her blanket and went to bed.
The twins managed to sleep peacefully the rest of the night with the hope that the new day would bring them answers for the questions they had. Nurse Nineetoo brought all the children from her ward down to breakfast but as soon as they got there, the girls noticed that the cafeteria sounded quieter than usual.
“What’s wrong?” Anemone asked the red haired boy who had sit with them yesterday.
“Rumor is the Commander’s coming,” he replied.
“When?” asked Clarise.
“The day after tomorrow. Which means kids will start disappearing today,” the boy added in a hushed tone.
The girls looked at each other. Anemone dropped her fork and completely loss her appetite. A nurse noticed her sudden change and asked, “What’s wrong? Does it not taste good?” asked the nurse.
“I don’t feel well,” Anemone replied not looking up at the nurse, “I’ll be fine though.”
The nurse didn’t seemed too convinced but she walked away. Once she was gone, Anemone turned to Clarise, “We need some place to hide.”
“Where?” Clarise asked.
“I don’t know. Give me some time,” replied Anemone.
All the children seemed to be on edge for the rest of the day. They all looked around fearfully as if someone would reach out and grab them. But the girls had their thoughts on other things. They spent their time traveling between rooms trying to find a place to hide for a few hours, but they were always with a nurse or a guard. They weren’t even allowed to go to the bathroom by themselves. There was no way they could sneak away unnoticed. Their attempts became even more of a priority when a doctor walked in on their History class and asked the girl with mousey hair to come with him. The girl’s face went white at once and she said nothing as she walked across the room and out the door with the doctor. As soon as the door closed behind her, the classroom broke into a frantic chatter and it was sometime before the nurse could get the class under control again.
“Any ideas?” Anemone asked Clarise as soon as the nurse’s back was turned.
Clarise just shook her head and stared blankly at her desk.
The mousey haired girl did not return by dinnertime. Most of the kids spent their dinner whispering in groups, talking about who had been taken out of class and had not returned. The twins tried to block out of most of it and focus on their dinner and were extremely relieved when they brought back to their bedroom.
“I’m sure Sora and Grace will find us,” Clarise said in an attempt to reassure Anemone.
Anemone frowned but didn’t say anything and went to bed without a word.
The next day at breakfast, all the doctors and guards looked very uneasy. This in turn made all the children extremely uneasy, so much so that they stopped talking completely. “What’s going on now?” Anemone asked.
“He’s here,” said the girl with pigtails. The twins nodded; there was no needed to go any further.
The doors to the cafeteria opened suddenly and the twins almost jumped underneath the table. They were relieved to see it was not their father, but the mousey hair girl and a few doctors. As the doctors that entered the cafeteria spoke with the doctors watching the children, the girl with pigtails got up and spoke with the mousey hair girl. Clarise knew at once there was something wrong when the girls started to speak.
“What do you mean you have to go away?” asked the girl with pigtails.
“I can’t be here anymore,” the mousey hair girl said quietly, her face blank and her eyes full of sadness.
“Why not?” Pigtail girl insisted.
“You wouldn’t understand,” the mousey hair girl said in the same blank tone.
Pigtail girl looked at her with disbelief. “But we could always tell each other everything! This-this isn’t like you! Did they do something to you?! Is that why? What did they do? Tell me please!”
“You wouldn’t understand,” the mousey hair girl repeated.
“What’s not to understand?!” Pigtail girl reached for mousey hair girl’s hands but the mousey hair girl pulled them away.
“I’m sorry. Good-bye,” mousey haired girl turned away without a second look back at Pigtail girl.
Pigtail girl started to cry and sank to her knees. A nurse tried to help her to her feet, but she pushed the nurse away. “Get away from me!” the pigtail girl screamed. Finally two guards dragged the girl to her feet and pulled her out of the room. “Let me go! Let me go!” she cried harder, “I want my friend back! What did you do to her?!”
The room went completely silent after the guards dragged her out. Anemone gave a small moan and her hand reached for her stomach. “Bathroom,” she managed to say to Clarise before she gave a small lurch. Clarise pulled her sister to her feet and walked her across the room.
“My sister doesn’t feel well,” Clarise said to one of the nurses, “May I take her to the bathroom?”
The nurse nodded and allowed them to leave the cafeteria unattended. Once they reached the bathroom, Anemone ran to the nearest stall and vomited. “I don’t believe this! How could he?! That bastard!” Anemone cursed between lurches.
Clarise was silent for a moment. She then felt a wave of heat wash over her from above. She looked up and saw she was standing underneath a heat vent. “Hey Anemone, I got an idea,” she said as soon as Anemone was done throwing up.
Anemone looked up at the vent with her. “Think we can squeeze?” Anemone asked.
“Help me up,” said Clarise already way ahead of her sister. Anemone had her climb up on her shoulders and Clarise unlocked the vent with her hair clips. She caught the vent cover from falling onto the floor and climbed up into the shaft. She then leaned out of the shaft to grab Anemone’s arms and pull her up.
“What now?” asked Anemone.
“We need to get to the communication room. Maybe there we can send out a distress signal,” suggested Clarise, “Hopefully before they start to wonder where we went.”
“I don’t care about that,” Anemone grumbled, “Just as long as Daddy doesn’t find us.”
************************************************************************
The first thing Grace noticed when she stepped out of the Corridor of Darkness was the sharp bone-chilling wind that swirled around her. “I knew I should have brought a jacket!” she heard Jane complain from behind her.
“Stop your whining!” Axel said over the wind, “You knew we were coming here.”
Grace squinted through the blowing snow and could barely make out a large building glowing in the distance.
“I’ll go on ahead and scout,” said Xigbar and he disappeared in a flash.
“Let’s move before we all freeze to death,” suggested Grace. They moved toward the building but keeping away from the lights. The building looked like some sort of station with a landing port for space transporters and a cargo bay for supplies. Guards were posted at the front entrance which looked like some kind of office and made patrols underneath the glowing florescent lights.
Xigbar returned about a minute later with his report. “There are only two guards posted outside of the cargo bay. If we’re quiet we should be able to sneak around them,” he explained.
Sticking to the shadows, they moved around the other side of the building to the hanger bay. The guards were roving, leaving just a few seconds from the door that lead inside. One by one they waited until the guard’s back was turned and rushed inside, albeit Joey almost getting them all caught by slipping on the ice just in front of the door. Once inside they maneuvered behind cargo boxes and blind spots in cameras across the cargo bay into the main building.
The hallways were empty as they tiptoed passed bedrooms until Ling found the communications room. Surprisingly there was no one inside; they found out later everything was automated by the computers. Even so, Joey set up a jamming frequency so that none of the cameras inside would detect them and started to hack the system. “First thing first,” said Grace leaning on the chair Joey was now sitting in, “Find Anemone and Clarise.”
“Luckily this system has a complete roster of all the children being kept here. That should make things easier,” remarked Joey and he began to type in commands. The computer hummed as it went through its list. “No matches,” replied Joey.
Grace gave a moan but Jane said, “They could be using fake names. Try searching a list of all the twins that came through recently.”
Joey punched in the command but shook his head once he was given back the results. “There are a handful, but none of them are Clarise and Anemone.”
“Try searching for their hair color. Who else do we know has hair like Clarise and Anemone?” suggested Ling.
Joey searched the computer again and smiled when two pictures came up. “Found them! They’re under the names Mary-Kate and Ashley. Room 17B.”
“Okay! Let’s go get them!” Grace was rearing to go.
“But what about the rest of the children?” asked Jane.
“We’ll worry about them later,” said Grace, “Right now, we need to make sure Clarise and Anemone are okay.”
“Hold on,” Axel stopped her, “We got a problem.” He pointed to one of the video camera screens. Grace looked up and knew immediately they had a very big problem. Waiting for an elevator to take him to the second floor was the Commander.
“Joey, send out a message to Balthier. Tell him to bring everyone,” said Grace, her eyes focused on another screen. Xine and David were heading down to the basement levels in another elevator.
“Yeah, I think I’ll do that,” he said slowly, his eyes focused on the same screen.
“Do you think the Commander knows his daughters are here?” asked Ling.
“I don’t know, but we got to find them before he does,” said Grace, “Our best bet right now is that bedroom. Joey you stay here. We’ll go on ahead. Lock the door and make sure no one else comes in. Do you understand?”
“I got it,” Joey said annoyed. Usually he was the one who asked that question.
“Okay! Let’s go!” Grace summoned her Keyblade and lead the rest of the group outside of the room.
************************************************************************
“OW! You’re stepping on my hair!”
“Be quiet! Someone might here us!”
“Shh! What was that?!”
“What was what? Whoa-!”
The ventilation shaft that was holding Clarise up popped open and she fell out of the shaft. “Clarise?” Anemone crawled back to the shaft opening and looked down into the hole.
“I’m alright,” Clarise moaned, “I managed to land on my butt. It looks like I’m in some sort of conference room. It’s empty.”
Anemone climbed down out of the shift and looked around. They were in a large room with a large wooden table in the middle of the room with large black computer chairs, a coffee machine and a stand for cream and sugar. A large plasma screen TV hung on the wall and there was a Cisco Conference talk center in front of the table. “We could hide out here,” suggested Anemone.
“Maybe,” said Clarise. She then heard voices. “Quick! Under the table!”
Anemone and Clarise ducked underneath the table just in time. The door opened just as the girls centered themselves in the very middle of the table. They pulled away quietly as several people sat down. “So what have you to report?” the Commander’s voice echoed from the chair in front.
“The Heads of Staff all agree that from our initial analysis, Project Dæmon has been very successfully so far,” said a voice from the right side of the table. Clarise recognized it was the voice of Juno City’s Chief of Medical Research. She knew he liked to create all sorts of gizmos and gadgets from the Forbidden Books. It made perfect sense he would come up with something from a book he wasn’t suppose to read, though her father condoned it, which may have been why he was stationed here. “With the new modifications to the Heart Machine, research, and our new experimental anti-depressant cocktail drug, our success rate has jumped by 12%.”
“12%...that is quiet an improvement,” the Commander said the pleasure in his voice, “And the post-procedure death rate?”
“That has decreased by 5% in the short term. We have a while before we can foresee any long term occurrences. But this new drug should help,” explained the Chief of Medical Research.
“Excellent! And what about these modifications you made to the Heart Machine?” asked the Commander.
“The Machine continues to do what it was basically designed to do only with less to clean up afterwards and is much more powerful than its predecessor. If used properly, the patient experiences less pain by saving time, increasing the survivor rate,” said someone from the left side of the table.
“That is extremely good news but-”
“But we lost one of our gatherers. Captain Hook was recently defeated by the Keyblade Master and he knows we’re behind the capture of these children. The Angelus Knights are now more than likely on high alert,” remarked the Chief of Medical Research.
“But they are unaware of our true operation still,” said the Commander, “You will continue as normal but keep your security on high alert as a precaution. I will be taking our latest batch of subjects with me back to HQ. This meeting is dismissed.”
The twins watched as their father’s feet got up and left the table. They heard the door open and closed but the rest of the scientists didn’t get up. “That actually went well. I was expecting him to chew us out about Captain Hook,” said a scientist, “But rather it was as if he was expecting something like this to happen.”
“Who knows what the Commander is thinking nowadays,” remarked another, “But we knew sooner or later the Angelus would catch on to us.”
“If you asked me, he seemed a little disappointed that we modified the Heart Machine. Remember our first procedures with the super growth clones? He enjoyed watching their hearts being ripped out…”
At this point, whether from her nerves or more graphic content, Anemone lurched again. Clarise shot her a look to be quiet but it was already too late.
“What was that?”
“Underneath the table!”
“Well what do we have here?”
Arms reached out for the twins and although they struggled against the scientists, one of them pulled out a tasser and shocked them both. The girls were unceremoniously dragged out and thrown on the floor.
“What do we do? Although they’re children, we can’t let them go. They know too much,” said a scientist.
“What the hell were they doing in here anyway? How did they sneak up here? Shouldn’t they be in the lab? Who’s their nurse?” asked another.
“That’s unimportant right now,” the Chief of Medical Research said sharply, “But I don’t think the Commander won’t mind two extra subjects to take back with him to HQ.”
The doctors carried the girls out of the room and down the hallway. Anemone slipped in and out of consciousness but she was slowly starting to stay awake longer. The doctors carried them into a large circular white room that looked like an operating room. In the middle of the room was a laser machine and right underneath was an operating table with braces for the arms and legs. A series of calibrations and switches sat on one side of the room and on the other side was a metal sliding door, sealed tight. On the other side was a glass window and a metal door that led to an observation room. The doctors carrying Clarise placed her underneath the laser machine and strapped her down to the table. She struggled against them but she was still too weak.
Once Clarise was secured, they joined the rest of the doctors and Anemone inside of the observation room and locked the doors for some odd reason. “What are you going to do her?” Anemone asked trying to struggle against the doctor’s grip.
“We’re going to give her a small operation. If she’s lucky, she’ll live and might remember you’re her sister,” smiled the Chief of Medical Research. He turned to one of the doctors. “You may begin when ready.”
The doctor at the controls nodded and began to start up the machine. The machine began to hum and light up, sparking electricity between all the flashing light bulbs. The laser itself began to spin and charge, aiming directly at Clarise’s heart. The laser suddenly glowed and sent out a charge of pure white light at Clarise chest. Anemone heard her scream over the hum of the machine and began to struggle again. Then all was quiet; the machine began to shut off and Clarise stopped screaming.
Clarise felt as if she was barely awake; there was something glowing just above her body, floating in midair, something bright and warm but she couldn’t tell what it was. She heard the metal door unlocking and slowly moved her head so she could see.
Out of the metal door stepped a Heartless, but not just any Heartless. It was one of the massive beasts from Juno City. It quickly caught whiff of its prey, gave a blood chilling howl, and slowly stalked towards Clarise. Clarise wanted to run but she couldn’t move, she didn’t even think she had the strength to even move but wait for the enviable.
“Let her go! Let her go this instant!” Anemone cried as she desperately tried to grab the doctor’s attention, “Do you know who I am? I’m the Commander’s daughter! Anemone Nevue! If he ever finds out what you did, you’re going to be sorry!”
That seemed to have grabbed the doctors’ attention. The Chief of Medical Research looked down at Anemone, “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Because if you’re wrong, Daddy’s going to kill you personally,” Anemone glared at him.
The Chief of Medical Research seemed to be debating what to do silently, all the while the Heartless was getting ready to pounce on Clarise. Suddenly the lights began to flicker and there was the feeling of static electricity in the air. There was a cry from inside the operation room. The doctors and Anemone turned to look. The Heartless had been taken out disappearing into black smoke. “What the-?” one of the doctors started to say before the glass window broke and something like a shadow of black smoke raced in. The black smoke settled in the observation and out of the smoke stepped someone in a black coat, a female by the look of it.
The figure viciously threw throwing knifes at the doctors taking two down and pinning one up against the wall. To end her combo, she tighten her wrist and the knifes began to spark with electricity, shocking everyone else except for Anemone. The female then began to shut down the machine as Anemone climbed out of the broken window and rushed to Clarise. “Clarise! Clarise!” she called her sister’s name.
All Clarise heard was an echo of her name and Anemone’s blurred image. She heard someone else calling her name, a female voice, but her vision was starting to blur. Then, darkness.
************************************************************************
David looked up at a dusty supercomputer sitting in a basement, its motor spinning with a dull hum, punching out numerous calculations on a laser jet printer a few feet away. Xine noticed he was looking at it sadly.
“This is my brother,” he explained to Xine.
“Your brother?” she asked confused.
“Sometimes experiments fail,” David said quietly, “His body fell apart and they transferred his mind into this machine. He was older than me, the stronger of the two of us while I was the brains. He always protected me; I was his only family and he was mine. He always had a strong sense of what was right and wrong. But he couldn’t control his body and that’s how he ended up here. It’s been such a long time; I wonder if he remembers that he was once human, let alone me.”
Xine was quiet for a moment, then said, “I don’t. Of course I was never human to begin with.” She turned to walk away leaving David alone with what was left of his brother.
It's Larxene, isn't it? Awesome chapter, I love it!
Yes, it is, though it's very obvious. We'll learn her connection to the twins in the next chapter but I'm looking forward to writing her next meeting with Axel.
I've never played Chain of Memories, so I know her only through fanfiction^^ And you're making me curious! I really want to know what that connection is now!
Great chapter, well worth the wait. And Larxene makes her appearence, I can't wait to find out more.
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