Two lone Nobodies ran through the Crystal Ravine of Radiant Garden, their staff-like weapons held at their sides.  One had the other’s arm slung across their shoulder.  Both were drawing in haggard breaths, one out of physical exhaustion, the other dealing with both mental and physical exhaustion.  Blood was leaking from his chest, and several threads of ice were still clinging to the edges of the tears in his Organization robe.  The two took a seat on one of the crystal formations.  “Are you okay, Machelix?” the one with the more avian staff asked.  

“Yeah, Xiru, yeah, I’m fine,” Machelix managed to say before doubling over with pain.  

“That wound was serious, huh?”

Machelix nodded.  “The Blizzard Lords are the worst of the Heartless lords, the only ones I know of that can wield ice magic.”  (It was a little known fact that Machelix hated being cold and was thus weak against blizzard magic.)  “Thanks for taking it out.”

Xiru chuckled before replying, “No problem, dude; anything for a friend.”

Machelix held out his staff before him, concentrating some of his magic into it.  He whispered the name of a spell, but when he applied pressure to the magic in the staff, nothing happened.  “I must truly be weakened,” he muttered.  “It’s getting to the point that I can’t even use spells anymore!”

“What was it that the Superiors wanted us to do, anyway?” Xiru asked.  

“They wanted us to inspect the wreckage of Maleficent’s old castle to see what information she was gathering.  Apparently the dregs of her Heartless army were all that she had left before she was killed; again.”

“But think of what they’re guarding,” Machelix insisted.  “It has to be great in order for them to go through so much trouble defending it.”

“So, what’s our next move?” Xiru asked.

“That’s an easy one,” a voice said.  It sounded like it was coming down from the blue cliffs around them.  Both of them looked up there, and what really came down was a purple fog.  What was that stuff?

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.  Xiru and Machelix tore through the canyon, further down the ravine trail.  The purple fog continued to chase after them.  At the rate they were going, they would be overwhelmed for sure.  When they came to an open plain of rock, Machelix stopped their retreat.  

“Machelix, what are you doing!?” Xiru cried in surprise.

“There’s someone else here.”  He pointed ahead of them to the other exit to this plateau.  There stood a person with aquamarine hair, some of it bordering her face and the rest done back in a ponytail.  She wore goggles over her amber eyes and a knee-length navy-blue shirt under her gray jacket with a teal lining.  She wore jeans and black shoes on her legs.  In her hands was a hammer-like weapon with the symbol of the Heartless on it.  She smiled with a playful grin Machelix had seen in only one other place.

“She’s Tea, the renegade Heartless recently attacking Nobodies.”

“Good call.”  Xiru sounded impressed.

Machelix shrugged.  “I like keeping records of the Organization Blacklists.  You’re pretty far up there too, you know.”

Tea laughed a shrill giggle, obviously not one to be ignored but not one to show a negative nasty side.  “So, Machelix, it seems that you share a bond with your Somebody, a bond uncommon amongst our kind.”

“Yeah, what of it?” Machelix retorted.

Tea’s eyes took on a more savage edge, but her smile stayed the same.  “I can’t stand that kind of feeling, especially from a being that’s not supposed to feel.  It disgusts me.”  She raised her arms without lifting her gaze from the two Nobodies.  The fog that had been chasing them surged across their feet, covering the entire battlefield.  The fog rose up around them, past their heads and up to the level of the rock walls around them.  They were playing in her element now.

“Xiru,” Machelix shouted through the thick blanket.  “See if you can’t blow this fog away!”

“Oh, fun!  A fight!”  Machelix saw a slight flash of light through the fog as he took a defensive position.  Xiru must have transformed his staff into his bird, Xiolu.  “Soft Storm!”  Other, much fainter and smaller flashes of light appeared throughout the fog.  One flash that popped up right in front of him took the shape of a feather.  Obviously Xiru wasn’t playing around.  The feather zipped out of his view when he heard Xiru snap his fingers.  A flurry of feathers rushed by him.  Momentary patches of clear air flowed behind each feather as it passed, but the relief was only momentary.   The whirlwind of feathers wasn’t working!  

“Xiru!—” Machelix called, but the touch of cold metal sliding against his neck cut off any further communication.

He heard a voice whisper into his ear:  “If only you weren’t so wounded, then we could have some real fun.”  The voice was like poisonous icing in consistency.

Machelix only smiled, bringing his staff around.  Now he had her.  Throwing her off of him, he concentrated a portion of his remaining magic into the staff.  Concentrating and forming it in the glass sphere of the staff, he fired it, shouting, “Twilight Pulse!”  The silver ball disappeared into the fog.  

Whether it hit or not, he didn’t know; the fog was getting too thick.  The fog… as long as it was up, they were at Tea’s mercy, that which Heartless weren’t famous for.

The Heartless girl reappeared beside him but only yawned.  “Please, who do you take me for?”  A yellow cloud billowed forth from her robes.  The cloud bent to her will, encircling Machelix.  

He could feel something different about this fog than the last kind.  He could feel this fog numb his body, making it freeze on the spot.  His nose still worked, and it was telling him that this stuff wasn’t any ordinary fog:  this was a paralysis fume!  He had read about this in the Organization Blacklist, but never once did he think hat he would get caught by that foul-smelling odor.

Tea dissipated the fog around them, now standing right in front of Machelix.  “Well, that puts an end to you.  I’ll just be going now….”  She turned on her heels and started to walk away.

“That’s what you think!”  Tea turned around to face the voice, but Xiolu’s beak smashed into her face.  She tottered backwards but remained standing.  It was only when a blast of feathers from Xiru knocked her flat on her back.  Xiru ran over to Machelix, holding onto a yellow spray potion.  Xiru sprayed Machelix with it and asked, “Still okay?”

Machelix cringed (not from the question) and replied, “I would be if you didn’t spray my wound with that.”

“It has to enter the bloodstream,” Xiru explained.  “It’s an altered Paralyze Heal fit for humans.  You’re not the only one who’s been doing research on Tea.”

Machelix blushed, his body now becoming less stiff.  

Xiru turned from him back to the recovering Tea.  “Leave her to me; you stay here and recover.”  He ran off, Xiolu flying right beside him.  Xiru sent the bird ahead to seize Tea’s hammer.  Tea was still trying to get up and thus was unable to grab her hammer before Xiolu snatched it away.  The bird flew away as Xiru got into position right behind Tea.  He held her in an arm lock, rendering her fumes ineffective.  Xiolu dropped the hammer behind Machelix before setting itself up to dive right at Tea in a kamikaze strike.  

Machelix instantly realized what was going on:  Xiru was using Final Flight, his suicide strike!  Machelix had to stop him; he was one of the few friends he had in the reborn Organization.  Machelix picked up his staff and Tea’s hammer, running with as much speed as he could muster towards the Heartless and Nobody.  Before Xiolu got to the two, Machelix shoved his staff’s spikes into the ground between Xiru and Tea.  

Xiru was surprised by this change to his plan, to say the very least.  Machelix shoved him away to his further surprise and seized the sleeves to Tea’s coat, stabbing them with the spike on either side of his staff.  She was now utterly pinned and set up for her defeat, and it showed on her face in a tragic whimper.  Xiolu screeched towards her, striking her in the dead center of her chest as a scream erupted from her.  Xiolu slipped around Machelix’s staff, coming to a stop behind Xiru.  Tea slumped to the ground, her arms still held up by her sleeves still attached to the staff’s spikes.

Machelix stood over her huddled form, her hammer in his hands.  “Why?” he asked.  “Why do you only attack Nobodies with contact to their Somebodies?”  

Tea looked up at him with a sneer and an overall look of rage on her face and replied, “Why should their Somebodies be as they were, instead of Heartless like me?  I can’t stand that.”

Machelix tore his staff out of the ground and off of her sleeves, throwing her hammer to the ground in front of her. He also dropped a bottle of greenish liquid beside it.  “It’s because our Somebodies have a reservoir of light that keeps them human.  Find yours, and you’ll see what I mean.”  He joined Xiru as the Nobody continued up the path, leaving the Heartless girl behind to ponder her thoughts.

As they caught sight of the wreckage of the bailey on the edge of Radiant Garden, Xiru asked, “So where do we go now?”

“We go to the market,” Machelix replied with an unstable smile.  “You have no idea how hungry having a hole in your stomach makes you.  Then we can go back and try to take those plans.”