Kingdom Hearts fic: Potentials - Chapter 13

[mistressofmuses]

In chapter 13: Kairi seeks out some new allies.

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An excerpt from a news article, published a few years ago:

Much has been said about the revitalization of the Defenders of the Light within the last few years. And indeed, the Hero organization has been going strong for over a decade now, with no signs of slowing. Regionally, they’ve become all but synonymous with the idea of Superheroes.

But for some people, the name “Defenders of the Light” still calls to mind an older organization, one started back when superpowers were considered science fiction, and vastly predating the current glossy, professional image. It started more than a quarter century ago, as a team of men and women who banded together to do what they felt necessary to protect the people of their city.

Attitudes from those who recall this older version are sharply polarized.

Some fondly recall a time when heroism seemed like the kind of thing anyone could do, when the drive to make things better was enough, regardless of what authorities said. They see the original Defenders of the Light as inspirational figures, mundane heroes who did what they believed in.

Others say they struggle to trust the current incarnation of the organization, because they associate the name so strongly with vigilantism. And indeed, that was the way authorities viewed the organization when it started. And despite their popularity with average citizens at the time, in the past several years the “vigilante” label has grown more and more common.

The Defenders of the Light have largely tried to distance themselves from that history, emphasizing their superheroism, and pushing the remaining original members to retire quietly. And indeed, most of those original heroes have faded from public consciousness entirely, remembered much like the long-retired sports icons and movie stars of our childhoods.

Whether the “new” incarnation of the Defenders of the Light will fully escape the shadow of what it was before remains to be seen, but at the very least, it has begun a new legacy of what it is to be a Hero.

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Kairi kept her eyes on the road, ignoring her exhaustion, forcing her eyes to stay open for just a while longer. The adrenaline that had kept her going throughout the day was wearing off now that she was sitting still. A glance at the clock told her she’d crossed over to the next day without even noticing. And it wasn’t over yet.

She needed someone who could help her access the files on the laptop. If The Scientist were around maybe he could have done it—of course he could, it was his computer apparently—but at this point she had no idea how long he’d been gone. The last time she’d directly seen him had been at the formal press event, where he’d been on stage presenting research.

With him out of the running, she didn’t really know any tech experts. The Defenders of the Light had always taken care of their nebulous technology needs, ensuring none of the individual Heroes were forced to do anything to maintain it… also ensuring that none of them could. And it was all a moot point, because as far as she knew, she was the last of the Heroes who hadn’t been captured.

Her eyes slid over to the laptop, in its case, flat on the passenger seat next to her. There was no reason to keep checking it was there, and yet she was paranoid enough that seeing it reassured her.

The potential solution she was now chasing after had actually occurred to her in passing, though it had taken her a few minutes to really latch onto it. The most she’d done was help maintain the “secret” tech that had been set up before her time as a Hero.

That “secret tech” was from the original Defenders of the Light. If they’d been able to set that up, then maybe they had enough know-how to help with this. And if anyone understood being pushed out and labeled something you weren’t, it would be the so-called “vigilante” ex-heroes, right? So maybe they’d at least hear her out before turning her in.

So now she was driving through the night to find the location the original heroes had retired to. She still didn’t know what had caused her and the other Heroes to be seen as villains and the villains to be seen as the new heroes, so she had no idea how far that perception had spread. But if it was geographically contained, there was hope; the original heroes were outside the city, far enough away that she’d been driving since before sunset and she still wasn’t there.

She’d met them, when she was a kid, back when she was “Starchild” and the existence of superpowers was still exciting and new. The Defenders of the Light had been the ones to take her in, to help her learn about this world she’d found herself in until she was adopted.

It hadn’t been long before they were pushed out of the organization, but she hoped they’d remember her.

She shook her head and reached for the energy drink in the cup holder. She finished it and cracked another, tossing the empty can to join the others littering the floor of the backseat.

It probably would have been a good idea to at least try and contact the original heroes first, give them some warning that she was coming, to gauge what kind of reception she was likely to get. But, well, the risks had seemed too high when she’d been thinking about it in the deserted Headquarters building.

Any chance that a call could be intercepted was too high, and knowing that the Defenders of the Light habitually tracked their Heroes meant that chance wasn’t a slim one. Any possibility that her plan could be learned, that someone—any number of whom had the ability to functionally teleport—could come for her, that they could come back for this laptop that must have been left behind in error… It was all too risky, because this could be her only shot.

Now, as it was creeping toward one in the morning, still close to four hours away from her destination, the equation seemed less obvious. What if they weren’t there anymore? What if they’d all gone on vacation? What if they’d been alerted to her Villain status and would call the police as soon as her car pulled up?

What if she got there, they broke into the files, and they just discovered it was weird porn? She giggled, but it sounded on the edge of hysteria even to her own ears, so she stifled it.

Kairi shook her head again, took another drink of liquid caffeine, and kept driving. She’d make it to the next service station, grab some more energy drinks, maybe nap for an hour in the parking lot, and then keep going. It was all she could do.

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Pulling up to a sprawling, enormous house in the middle of nowhere at six in the morning didn’t seem ideal, and Kairi had just enough presence of mind to deeply regret putting all of her eggs in this particular basket.

But she put the car in park, grabbed her bag and the laptop, and walked up the low steps to the front door. She rang the doorbell. This early in the morning was definitely a rude time to bother someone unannounced.

Despite the early hour, she didn’t have to wait long before someone came to the door. A tall woman opened the door a crack and asked, “Can I help you?”

She was older than when Kairi had last seen her, but she recognized Aerith, and a small bit of the tension she’d been holding deserted her. She felt her shoulders slump with the relief that at least this was the right place.

Aerith was waiting, and Kairi fumbled over how to even explain. As long as the drive had been, as many times as she’d tried to plan what she’d say, how she’d ask for help, she couldn’t manage any of it. Finally she choked out, “Hi.”

“Hello. Can I help you?” Aerith repeated.

“You probably don’t remember me, I mean, it’s been a really long time, but…”

Aerith’s eyes widened a fraction, and so did the door as she pulled it open a bit farther. “Starchild? I mean… Radiance, now, isn’t it? Is that you?”

Kairi just about collapsed as she nodded, tears coming to her eyes and starting to spill down her cheeks.

“Come in.” Aerith waved her inside. “What’s happened?”

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Kairi cradled a cup of hot coffee, enjoying the warmth and the fact that it was occupying her hands more than she really wanted to drink it.

Aerith had called everyone in the house to come down and hear what Kairi had to say. It had been more than a little overwhelming, to be the center of attention for almost the entire old lineup of heroes. Aerith, Leon, Yuffie, Cloud, Tifa, Cid… Even if they had fallen out of favor, maligned as outdated relics of a pre-superpowered era, they had been the face of heroism when she was a child. They were among the first people she’d met as a child new to this world, even if she’d been too young at the time to truly appreciate who they were.

It was halting, and she was so exhausted she was afraid half the words made no sense, but she finally got the story out. She’d started with an explanation of the Event they were being prepared for, moved to Corridor’s betrayal, and finally described waking up in a world that saw her and her team as villains and the Organization as Heroes. As they asked questions, she explained more, filling in the gaps about the missing Heroes, the break-ins at their private residences, the Headquarters building being deserted, finding the laptop…

After Kairi’s explanation faded into quiet, Yuffie tilted her head to the side. “How could they convince a whole city to forget who you were? Not even that, remember you as something totally different?”

Kairi just shook her head. “I don’t know. But… it’s like they warned us this was going to happen. We just didn’t realize what it meant. One of the first things that was said before this all started was that this new Event was ‘going to redefine hero and villain.’ Whatever… memory distortion, or whatever it is, I’m glad it didn’t reach here.” She didn’t say it, but the threat of “...yet” hung over the statement.

“I didn’t think we were on anyone’s radar anymore,” Leon said. “But I’m glad you came here.”

That was as good an opening as any. “We used your comm system. The official channels couldn’t detect it, so we—me, Keyblade, and Corridor—kept using it, so we knew what was happening when we were split up.”

“I’ll be damned,” Cid laughed. “That shit still works? You were a kid when I showed you that.”

She nodded. “You built good tech. I know that’s not the same thing, so I don’t know if you can, but that laptop I found has files that are locked. I can’t access them, but I think they’re important. They could explain what’s going on. Or maybe it’s nothing, but I don’t know how to get to them to find out. Would you be able to get them unlocked?”

Cid made a ‘hand it over’ gesture across the table. She picked up the laptop bag and slid it over.

“We’ll see what we can do.”

“The password written on the note unlocks the computer itself.”

He nodded.

“You look like you’re going to drop,” Tifa said, leaning forward. “Have you slept?”

“For about an hour at a rest stop,” she admitted.

Yuffie was the first to stand up. “Come on, then!” She half-hauled Kairi to her feet. “We have a guest room, and you need sleep.”

“But…” Kairi protested weakly.

“You’re not much help if you can’t think straight,” said Cloud.

She knew he was right. She nodded, and allowed Yuffie and Aerith to show her to a small guest room. She was asleep before she even got under the covers.

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Kairi woke up disoriented, and she froze, trying to assess the unfamiliar surroundings. Everything came back quickly, and she could have wept with relief that at least they believed her. She had help.

She slid off the bed and looked around the room. She’d been so exhausted before that she hadn’t even really seen it. It was nice enough, though with the slightly disused and mismatched air of every guest room she’d ever stayed in. That was strangely comforting.

Venturing into the hall, she at least remembered her way to the kitchen, so that was the direction she chose.

“Sleep well?” Tifa was at the kitchen table, reading something on a tablet in front of her.

Kairi nodded. “Much-needed. How long was I out?”

“It’s about 3:00, so seven hours or so. Leon and Cid have been working on the laptop you gave us, and I think they were successful. Right now they’re copying the files, just to be sure nothing can happen to the data.”

“Where are they? Can I go see?”

“They’re in Leon’s office. Third door down the hall.” Tifa pointed down a different hallway than the guest room was in.

“How big is this house?” Kairi asked.

She’d meant it rhetorically, but Tifa answered: “We had to find somewhere big enough for all of us. It just didn’t seem right, when we realized we didn’t have much of an option besides retiring, for us to split up. Maybe it’s strange, but we were a team. We got used to relying on each other for everything. But we also don’t want to constantly be stumbling over each other. So it’s big.”

“Fair enough,” Kairi said, pushing away the daydreams about having a house for the people closest to her. Focus on now.

She ventured toward Leon’s office.

The door was closed, but a knock got her an impatient “Come in,” from Cid.

She shut the door behind her. “Tifa said you’d gotten the files unlocked?”

Leon nodded, not looking away from the screen. “And you were right. These files were about some ongoing project the Defenders of the Light were running. There’s experimental data in here about alternate realities, about trying to find specific people within those realities… even about creating alternate dimensions. There’s more than we’ve had time to look at. We’re creating backup copies of the files right now.”

She let out several long, slow breaths. “They’ve been talking about this alternate dimension we’re supposedly colliding with. The Organization is supposedly from there. Is there information about that?”

“I think you’ll need to read some of this for yourself,” was Leon’s not-terribly-comforting answer.

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They drafted everyone into poring over the files. They were gathered around the oversized kitchen table again, each with piles of printouts, carefully labeled as to which file they’d come from.

So much of it was written in shorthand and jargon that was probably perfectly comprehensible to the scientists and lab assistants who’d conducted the experiments, but made Kairi’s head spin.

Every once in a while, someone would highlight something, or read a bit out loud. She wished she was getting to see everything herself, but there was just too much. It would have taken her days to read through it all.

She put aside a stack of pages that held records of specific measurements she lacked the context to evaluate, and turned to the next batch. This particular bit was written more conversationally, like a journal entry by someone talking their way through an idea.

Alternate Potential Powersets

Superhuman powers manifest due to a confluence of causes: a balance of an aptitude or predisposition, and the environmental factors that actually bring them about. There’s clearly a genetic link, but an imperfect one. Other Heroes arise from documented accidents or exposures, or are chosen seemingly at random by external power that grants them extraordinary ability.

A question that has been difficult (and will likely remain so) to test is whether or not each person has only one particular power they could develop, or whether there are multiple potentials. I hypothesize that if an individual were to have the proper predisposition allowing them to develop a superhuman ability, different environmental exposures could result in different abilities manifesting.

As we continue our research into alternate dimensions, I hope to find a way to test this hypothesis. If we find a dimension similar enough to our own to contain the same (or some of the same) individuals, then perhaps we will find out if these alternates ever develop different powersets, or if they remain consistent.

Kairi highlighted the title of the paper in pink and shifted it to a different pile. “Someone, probably The Scientist, wanted to study whether alternate versions of the same people could develop different powersets.”

“Wait, wait, wait…” Yuffie said, sorting through her own pile of discarded pages, before pulling one out. “I haven’t read it yet, but I saw something with a list of powers… here it is!”

She passed two pages over to Kairi, who started to read them.

The first was titled Anticipated Power of Organization Members. She read on:

The inciting action taken on the night of the press event appears to have been successful. As we await the chance to collect more data, we have recorded our baseline assumptions about what we will see in order to mark any variation.

Xigbar: Enhanced speed and accuracy
Xaldin: Elemental control of air
Vexen: Ability to view connections between data points
Lexaeus: Enhanced strength
Zexion: Unknown; artifact?
Saix: Enhanced strength and speed relative to lunar cycles
Axel: Elemental control of fire
Demyx: Elemental control of water (vocal)
Luxord: Ability to view probability of outcomes
Marluxia: Elemental control of plants
Larxene: Elemental control of electricity
Roxas: Unknown; artifact?

The effect on those with dimensional or artifact-given powers is unknown.

Kairi went cold. There was no way that list of powersets was coincidental. She’d already thought it was suspicious how similar the Organization had been to the Heroes, but those were the exact powers represented on the Defenders of the Light roster.

But that wasn’t entirely correct for the Organization.

The second page was titled Displayed Powers of Organization Members and continued with:

Now that all organization members have been observed, we feel we have conclusively answered the question of whether specific powers are guaranteed. While there is strong correlation between powers that manifest in individuals, variation can and does occur.

What followed was a list of which members’ powers matched up with the anticipated list, and which did not. This list was correct in regards to what she’d actually seen in fighting the Organization. Most had been correctly predicted, but some didn’t match up:

Vexen: incorrect. Subject displays elemental control over ice.
Lexaeus: partially correct. Subject additionally displays elemental control over earth.
Zexion: displays ability to craft illusions.
Demyx: partially correct. Subject’s elemental control over water is facilitated instrumentally.
Luxord: partially correct. Subject can also alter probability.
Roxas: has received a keyblade.

More insistently, something was bothering her about the names. She ran down the list, trying to figure out what it was. Xigbar would be Trickshot, Xaldin would be Lancer, Vexen would be The Scientist… none of that meant anything to her.

The Scientist was Even. Vexen and Even… Fuck. She skimmed to the bottom. Roxas and Sora. And there was the pattern.

“Do we have a printed copy of the active roster? The one that included real names?” Kairi asked, voice only shaking slightly.

Quiet shuffling of papers before Cloud held a sheaf of pages up, and passed them to Kairi.

It was the file she’d first started reading when she found the laptop. It still felt wrong to be prying, but she had to prove her theory right, so she skimmed down.

Lancer… Civilian identity: Dilan…

Compared to the Organization list, he would be Xaldin. The pattern held.

Fire Dancer… Civilian identity: Lea…

And he’d match up to Axel.

Nymph… Civilian identity: Elrena…

Larxene.

And finally she scrolled down, just to see.

Keyblade… Civilian identity: Sora Irino.

They’d known his identity after all.

“The Organization members are somehow based off of the most recent roster of the Defenders of the Light,” she said, words falling heavy into the room.

She held up the pages listing their powers, and the roster that named the Heroes, offering them for everyone else to see. “The Organization members have essentially the same names as the civilian identities of the Heroes, just with an X added in and the letters jumbled. They were expected to have the exact same powers, but some came out different.”

None of them would have realized, because civilian identities were closely guarded, even between Heroes. They could have guessed at one or two, but it would have been hard to recognize the pattern, even with it right in front of them. Even when she’d been suspicious. Larxene and Nymph had been so similar to fight. Axel and Fire Dancer, two red-headed fire manipulators. Roxas and Keyblade, somehow chosen by the same artifact. And yet she’d tried to pretend it was coincidence, too worried about what was going to happen to Riku to take on an extra mystery.

And it was in some ways a much smaller discovery, but realizing that whatever they’d pretended, the Defenders of the Light had known Sora’s identity… a small bit of hope blossomed in her chest. Riku wasn’t the only one who could have sent them to Sora’s apartment after all.

Cid took the papers she held out, skimmed through them quickly, and then looked at her. “This first one mentions an inciting incident. That mean anything to you?”

“The press event. They had all the Heroes come to a mandatory formal event, supposedly to mingle with the media…”

“Anything odd happen?”

“They announced the fact that we were approaching another dimension. But also…” she remembered something making her stumble, and that she’d been exhausted that night, and the next day. “There was something that seemed to affect the Heroes, but no one else. Just a moment where we all felt something happen. Something wrong. It passed almost immediately, but I felt off the next day, almost hungover, and Sora said the same, even though we hadn’t been drinking. Riku wasn’t there, and he felt fine.”

Cid passed the pages down, and Tifa took a look at them.

“Why do some of the Heroes not have an analogue? You’re not on here. Neither is Riku. Neither is Xehanort.”

Kairi frowned. “Riku wasn’t at the event. And not like he just didn’t show up, he wasn’t even invited. And Xehanort and I are the only dimensional Heroes on the roster, and the file about anticipated powers mentions that they didn’t know how to predict those. I wonder if that’s related.”

Tifa nodded.

Leon leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “So we’ve at least started to answer what happened. What do we do about it?”

Kairi knew exactly what she needed to do, even if she hadn't worked out how yet. “I need to save Riku and Sora. And the rest of the Defenders of the Light, if I can.”

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