Machelix was bathed in the light glow of his computer screen, checking over the recent stats for the Organization.  The tournament was going well; Xiru had made it as well as a few of his other favorites to win.  Some new members had been added to the lower ranks and some others who had been in longer had moved up to higher danger levels.  

This last bit was what unsettled Machelix.  He was still only a C-rank, a mild threat according to the system; downright appalling in his opinion.  He brought up the list of missions he had done.  Only seven were on the list, and some of them were pretty easy to accomplish.  He could do better.  He brought up the list of missions Xhaonroi and the other superiors had put up onto the Organization’s database.  

One of interest caught his eye.  Apparently a legion of Heartless had grown audacious enough to assault their castle.  Xhaonroi was calling for Nobodies to relieve this matter.  He didn’t even bother looking at the rest of the specs as he drew his staff and bolted out the door to his hideout in Memory’s Skyscraper.  “That sounds like fun,” he said to himself as he made his way through the darkened streets.

The castle of Organization Infinity was easy enough to spy.  A new one had been erected recently after the original Organization’s was dismantled and disappeared.  The new one was ever expanding due to the ever-increasing number of members, at least two-hundred-fifty capacity at the moment, maybe more.  Machelix never stayed long enough to keep them all straight.  He only knew his contacts, and as long as they liked him back, that’s all he cared about.  

As Machelix climbed one of the buildings encasing the barren field surrounding the castle, Machelix could make out splashes of color in the sea of immense darkness below him.  Apparently there were other Nobodies in the Organization who had taken up this mission beside himself.  Also apparently the Heartless were more numerous than he previously thought.  He scanned the battlefield quickly before bounding into the sky, set on a flight plan to the weakest point in the enemy’s ranks.  He fired a Twilight Strafe at the Shadow Heartless below him as he flew.  

Upon landing at the end of his swath, he immediately shifted his weapon to its Keyblade form and started hacking the Heartless around him to pieces.  Machelix smiled to himself as the darkness grew thinner and surged forward anew with a new wave of Heartless with each of his flurries of strikes, like the water of the tides.  It was the rhythm of battle that made him feel whole, like he was supposed to feel.

He soon noticed, however, that the Shadows coming forward with the subsequent waves were taller than their bug-like counterparts.  These ones stood at his height, blocking his view of the other Nobodies.  Machelix sneered in realization.  “Apparently they brought in the Neoshadows.”  These Heartless fought more aggressively than their weaker brethren, and Machelix was having a hard enough time just keeping a patch of open ground around him.  

It was insanity to think that this reckless move would work.  Machelix leapt up as high as he could, the Neoshadows coming up after him.  He shifted his Keyblade back to the staff again, preparing to launch a spell in order to propel him towards the castle for some back-up.  The Heartless wouldn’t have been able to follow him if done properly…

“Burn, baby!”  A pair of fiery chakrams cut off his trail of thought and sliced through the Neoshadows like tissue paper.  The chakrams flew on a boomerang path, slicing more Heartless out of their path before returning to their owner’s hands.  Machelix landed on his feet but still off balance.  He turned in the direction of the fire wielder to see none other than Axel!  He had already regained his battle stance and was manually carving through the Heartless around him.  

Machelix swung his staff like club, the spikes skewering scores of Heartless before he got to Axel.  “What are you doing here?” he asked, both of their backs turned to each other and their attention turned towards the Heartless.  

Axel grinned to himself as he threw a pair of fireballs before him.  “Why do you think?  I miss having my weapons glide through Heartless.”  He brought his chakrams around in a wide arc in front of him, five or more trails of dark vapor floating up into the cloudy night sky.  

Machelix couldn’t argue with him there.  He brought the blue orb of his staff down on the head of a Neoshadow before splaying it with the spikes.  

“There’s just something about their attack pattern,” Axel mused just loud enough for Machelix to hear.  He threw his chakrams in front of him, the flames shooting out catching a large number of Heartless.  

“Like what?” the Mysterious Mage asked.

Axel shrugged his shoulders while his attack was still going on.  When he caught his chakrams, he replied, “It just seems that the Neoshadows only started showing up when you hit the field.”

Machelix hesitated a second when he heard this news.  That opened him up to a sliding kick from a pair of Neoshadows before him.  Axel sent one of his chakrams orbiting the two of them, slicing the two in half before they got close to their target.  Machelix made up for that folly by firing a wave of spells at the Heartless.  Another wave quickly replaced this one.  “What the heck is driving these Heartless towards us?”

“As if that weren’t obvious enough.”  The voice crawled into Machelix’s ears and festered in his brain.  He was frozen again in fear, but this was more serious than his last set of chills.  This voice was alien to him, but it sounded so familiar…

Axel’s voice thawed him out as he screamed, “Machelix, behind you!”  He whirled around, one of his chakrams extended from his arm.  A light chuckle masked the sound of teleportation as Axel’s target got away.  Axel brought the chakram around again, this time in front of Machelix.  The approaching wave of Heartless was driven back.  

Machelix rested his hand against his head, giving it a firm shake to clear it.  His eyes refocused with resolve, but some confusion lingered in his voice as he asked, “Who was that?”  He launched a Twilight Pulse at the approaching Heartless as he awaited the answer.

Axel’s voice was cold and grave as he replied, “That was your Heartless, Leah Cim.  He’s the one leading this army.”

Machelix could feel his blood run cold again, but he boiled it with rage steeled by frustration.  “Let’s end this now.  Nova Chakram on my mark.”

“Yes, sir,” Axel answered.  “One fireworks display coming right up!”  Axel took off into the air with a breath of fire.  A gang of Neoshadows had pounced at him, but they only landed in the clearing he left.  Yet another wave clambered over their confused and muddled forms.

Machelix bent down to his knees in his own patch of ground, his staff held in his two hands.  Another wave of Heartless surrounded Machelix, their numerous hands outreached.  Machelix lifted his eyes to the sky, waiting for the time to spring the trap.  Axel was falling into position above him, but the Heartless almost had him.  This ploy couldn’t be interrupted.  Machelix sprang up, the twin spike clusters of his staff level with each other as he brought it around.  The Heartless were caught unaware and were quickly dispatched.  

Axel came down on Machelix right then.  Machelix was ready for him.  Axel had held his chakrams out flat before him as he freefell, allowing Machelix to grab one in his open hand and allow the other one to land on the ball of his staff.

In this position, Machelix shouted the spell:  “Twilight Pulse!”

The ball of twilight energy associated with this spell threw Axel’s chakram up into the night sky, Axel holding on tenaciously to both of them.  Machelix’s arm was almost wrenched out of its socket as he too was hoisted up by the power of his spell.  His other hand lagged behind, still clutching the staff.  He swung up to join Axel on the top side of the chakrams.  At that point Axel loosed a stream of flames from the lower bases that took them higher into the air.  Axel kept their ascension straight by keeping his arms rigid.  They were a star in the sky, a star that drew the eyes of every Heartless and Nobody on the battlefield.

Axel cut the power to their rocket when they flew over twice the height of most of the buildings encasing the war zone below them.  Axel threw his chakrams to his sides, holding them steady but charging them with fire magic.  Machelix held onto Axel’s hood with one hand and his own weapon with the other, the base spikes pointing forward as the point of a javelin.  They began their descent back into the darkness thus arranged, both of them staring unflinching into oblivion.

“Alright…  Now!” cried Machelix.

Axel nodded and threw his chakrams below him, the weapons still charged with fire energy.  They plummeted faster than the two Nobodies did and sank into the concrete below them side by side in no time.  They remained alight, even when that far away from Axel.

Machelix trained his eyes on the spot still far below them where the torches burned.  It wasn’t hard to miss them, a pair of vertically slit eyes staring out of the darkness.  Machelix launched his staff at them as one throws a spear at a dragon’s face.  The staff spun slightly as it fell, stabilizing its descent.  Machelix smiled as the staff sunk itself in the concrete dead center between Axel’s weapons, the arrays of spikes knocking against the metal hoops.  

Then all hell broke loose.

A ring of energy escaped the ball at the end of the staff and spread out to the chakrams.  The fiery weapons absorbed the energy and released their own in a massive surge.  A ring of fire two feet thick tore up the ground and cut through the Heartless army like a laser through metal.  The effect truly was a nova explosion, taking out anything in its path (besides the Nobodies, who all had the sense to jump over or teleport away from the inferno wave).  It was all over in a few moments.

The Nobodies left behind looked over the recently overrun castle grounds with shock and wonder.  The same two thoughts were on everyone’s minds:  “What happened?”  “Was that Axel?”

Nothing was left behind on the battlefield from that final assault except for those survivors.  There were no Heartless and no one to thank for destroying them; the weapons and their owners had disappeared.

…

Machelix and Axel exhaustedly broke through the doors to Memory’s Skyscraper, the shorter of the two leading them.  They both collapsed onto a couch on the left wall of the entryway panting heavily.  After a short while of catching their breath, Machelix said, “That attack needs revamped.”

“Tell me about it,” Axel replied with a wheeze.  “It looks ridiculous.”

Machelix shrugged and playfully shot back, “I was talking about your timing.”  He had a light chuckle at this.

“Hah, hah.”  Axel took a look around from his seat and said, “I see you’ve done a little work with the place.”

“Yeah,” Machelix answered with a nonchalant sweep of his eyes across it.  “I had a few devices installed to ensure my privacy.  One of them, a light-matter barrier, is the reason why I opened that portal at the doors instead of inside.  No portals of darkness can be made inside.”

“That’s a handy feature,” Axel noted.  “Saves you the trouble of having to deal with Nobody fan-girls in your stuff.”  This time he had the light chuckle.

Machelix shrugged.  His demeanor became more serious as he asked, “So what’s the deal with Leah Cim?  I thought I didn’t have a Heartless.”

“That’s what we at headquarters thought as well,” Axel replied.  “Apparently, your body and soul were split in half when your heart was stolen.  You embody the lighter half of the Twilight Heart rent, and Leah Cim represents the darker half.”

Machelix slowly stood up as he took this in, slowly wandering over to his computer.  He sat down at it and instantly began typing this new data into his database.  After a few seconds he turned around and addressed Axel, saying, “You can have one of the guest rooms upstairs.  Take your pick.”

“Thanks,” Axel replied as he took the stairs leading up next to Machelix’s computer station.  

Machelix was hard at work again, entering the last hour’s escapade into his computer.  “Seems I have a lot of work to do,” he mused to himself.

The End