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Description
"For lack of anything better to do," Marluxia said after a week and a half of mind-crushing boredom for the majority of the Organisation, "And since I can see that some of you are itching to have anything to complain about, missions as of today will be reinstated."
There was a moan of apathy from the collected Nobodies. Marluxia ignored them.
"Reconnaissance," He said over their voices, holding up a hand to silence them. "During Xemnas' rule, every member did their fair share of recon and a great deal of information was amassed. However, the Organisation data banks are a mess-" And he looked pointedly, if not accusingly, at Xigbar. The man shrugged.
"Ain't my problem if the others don't know where to put the shit they've collected."
"It no longer matters." Marluxia replied flippantly. "The information is not useful to our cause. Xemnas had you all collect data on the Darkness of people's hearts and this is useless. From now on it will be your objective to assess the emotions - of all kinds - of the natives in each world we have so far encountered. Are you still following me, or are your nails more interesting?"
Demyx, who had been picking at them, looked up guiltily.
"Since he did such an excellent job last time, Saïx will once again be in charge of the missions, although when they are complete you are to report back to me. They shall be distributed on a weekly basis."
Interesting, Vexen thought. Marluxia was giving everybody an easy time, probably to secure their favour. But the more free time the Nobodies were given, the worse tensions would rise in the Castle. Marluxia couldn't fix that, and Vexen was curious to see how he tried.
"Missions may also be completed in whatever size groups you deem necessary," Marluxia continued. "There is also the considerable matter of hearts."
Several people who hadn't really been listening suddenly perked up, all ears and eyes open.
Marluxia glanced at Vexen, and nodded. He took this as a sign to speak, and cleared his throat.
"I'm working on a practical solution to the problems of heart synthesis," He explained at the Organisation in general. "I shan't bore you with the details but I'm ninety-eight percent certain that it will be possible, and the resulting hearts will be as functional as natural hearts,"
There was a cheer from Demyx, ever the optimist, and a quiet chuckle from Luxord.
"How long is it going to take?" Larxene, lounging against her throne in tight jeans and a grey hoodie, asked.
"I have no idea," Vexen replied truthfully. "That would depend on the materials and equipment available. I should also need a test subject once the first heart is complete. Of course, Roxas would be best for the job, but I understand that he is somewhat important-"
"What happens to Roxas' body is up to Roxas." Marluxia interrupted, looking directly at the boy. He'd barely spoken since the takeover and seemed a little distant to everything, but now he was watching Marluxia with a careful, inquisitive eye.
"I don't mind who volunteers themselves to have the first heart implanted," Vexen quickly added, amending himself. He needed to adjust to the fact that from now on everybody was going to be acting like they were human. And if that meant one thing, it was that things were going to get messy, very quickly. He hoped that Marluxia had realised that in his perfect plan of the future.
Larxene, surprisingly, raised her hand.
"I'll do it."
Marluxia nodded approvingly at her, and Vexen grit his teeth. When he said that he didn't mind who volunteered, that didn't mean that he wanted that slimy little bitch...
"It is decided, then. Vexen, do you need any assistance?"
Vexen didn't miss the glance that Marluxia cast towards Zexion and Lexaeus. He shook his head.
"I'll be fine on my own."

---

"Ah. Vexen. How good to see you again. I trust you are well?"
Marluxia had requested another meeting with Vexen just a week later to keep up to date with the process of heart synthesis. So here Vexen was feeling a little lost in Marluxia's airy office at the top of the castle.
"As well as ever," He replied, lingering uncertainly by the doorway.
"Do have a seat," Marluxia said, pulling off his gloves and settling behind the desk. Vexen complied, as Marluxia plucked a pomegranate from a basket of fruit.
"So. How is the project going?"
"Larxene," Vexen said accusingly, "Is a pain to work with. She touches everything, cannot perform even the simplest of experiments, has ruined my results more than a few times..."
Marluxia chuckled a little.
"She is rather, isn't she?"
Vexen frowned, having not expected that sort of reaction.
"I thought you liked her,"
Marluxia stood, gently prising away the outer skin of the fruit he held.
"Of course I do. She's the best friend I've ever had, and that's saying a lot for a Nobody. Curious, isn't it?"
"What is?"
Marluxia gestured to the pomegranate.
"Such a plain fruit, the pomegranate. Peel away the skin and inside you find nothing more than pith and yet - if keep working, and inside you find a myriad of beautiful jewels,"
To prove his point he split the fruit with his thumbnails and there, nestled in the core of the fruit, were a whole family of little blood red seeds. Vexen, who wasn't one for metaphors and much less poetic metaphors, simply frowned.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Larxene is a precious girl should you look closer than her callous exterior,"
"We're Nobodies," Vexen snapped before he could stop himself. "All we are are callous exteriors,"
Marluxia simply smiled thinly.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not."
"Hmph."
"I see you haven't been speaking with Zexion or Lexaeus," Marluxia said suddenly.
"No," Vexen replied curtly.
"You shouldn't hold my actions against them, Vexen," Marluxia said, almost reproachful in his tone.
"It's fine," Vexen said as there was a knock at the door and Marluxia swept over to open it. "I have other things to hold against them,"
Larxene was standing in the hallway, hand on her hip and a cocky smile plastered onto her face.
"Hey there, boys,"
Vexen rolled his eyes at the derogatory comment, but Marluxia didn't seem to concerned by it, simply ushering Larxene into the room with an almost mockingly chaste kiss to her forehead.
"Vexen tells me that you are a pain," He said lightly as he drew up a chair for her.
"I see I'm doing my job well, then," She retorted, blowing a kiss to Vexen who visibly recoiled. "Stuffy old geezer. I don't see why Marly li-"
"Larxene. Please." Marluxia interrupted. "Vexen is playing a very important role in the Organisation. And don't call me Marly. It makes me feel like a dog,"
Larxene petulantly stuck her tongue out at the Assassin as Vexen stifled a snigger. Marly. It must have been the most ridiculous name for the man and yet, it was oddly endearing...
"Shall I be going then?"
Larxene and Marluxia had been smirking to themselves over some private joke, glanced up.
"That would depend on whether you had anything further to discuss,"
"I don't believe so," Vexen replied carefully, and took his leave.

---

It is a curious thing, Marluxia wrote one evening. Even beings with no hearts seem capable of falling into a habit of emotional expression when they are not forced into an emotionless mould...
He habitually teased the end of his pen with his teeth as he formed the next sentence in his mind.
And yet whenever questioned, we immediately snap back into the same heartless routine. Curious indeed. As Vexen would say, this merits further research.
Hm. Vexen.
It is curious also how bonds can form and break, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It appears that the heart is not the only complex component of a person. Perhaps further experiments shall reveal the answers. Perhaps we will always be in the figurative dark.
Marluxia glanced back at what he'd written.
Perhaps it is time I was asleep.
He placed down the neat little notebook and the pen, waved a hand over his light, and lay back.

Nobodies do not dream.
Their empty core does not allow it so; they simply cease to exist when they sleep - they become shells, of sorts, no deeper than the physical body. The soul is flighty, without the heart to lock it down.

Marluxia, true to his heartlessness, did not dream. One moment he was staring into the darkness of his room, and the next his alarm was filling the room with soft light and music. He whacked it, and the glow became a glare.
Marluxia was not a morning person. He never had been; only strict self-discipline kept him awake in the early hours of the morning. Vexen would be up, no doubt. And it was Vexen that Marluxia needed to see. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was a thought in the back of his mind that he felt must have been extraordinarily important to have withstood the nothingness of sleep. But it didn't come to him, even as he tugged a brush through his hair, and dressed down in a smart pair of jeans and a plain white shirt that he left open at the collar.
Vexen could shine some light on the subject, at least that was what Marluxia hoped as he slipped on a pair of pumps - effeminate perhaps, but useful - and made his way down the twisting corridors to the castle's laboratories. Already Demyx had been at work with the paint and bright colours were splashed haphazardly onto the walls in an attempt to brighten the place up. They didn't look right, but they still coaxed a small smile onto Marluxia's lips.
This castle had always been perfect and useless to their purposes. It was situated in the darkness, close to Kingdom Hearts - although Marluxia had long since dismissed its value as a heart restoration technique - but it was as emotionless as they were logically supposed to be. Marluxia knew well enough that although Nobodies were hollow, they were anything but lacking in personality. According to the evidence that had been collected, all Nobodies should have been the same. And clearly, they weren't. But this castle seemed to have the effect of proving the exact opposite - it sapped all life from all who inhabited it until they truly did think they were heartless.
Marluxia had been planning a move since the very beginning, but until a new, more suitable location could be found it was nothing more than a plan.
How many weeks had it been? Marluxia had been eager to install a calendar to the Grey Room (now in the process of being renamed the Rainbow Room, only hindered by objections from all bar Demyx) to keep track of the days, but here there was no sense of time. There was no sense of anything, in fact. No wonder, thought Marluxia, that the whole Organisation was borderline insane.
But things were running smoothly enough - with the Nobodies put to work collecting new information not on negative emotions but positive, destroying the last of the heartless, and running errands for Vexen, things had settled into a sort of routine. There was occasionally the odd disruption to this in the form of a heated disagreement and sometimes a fight, but by and large Marluxia was able to break things up. And Vexen reported that he was making good progress with the Heart Synthesis project.
All in all, things were going startlingly well. This worried Marluxia. But he didn't know what to do to rectify this worry, so he left things as they were and continued to run the Organisation as was.
Another thing that worried Marluxia was Vexen. As of late, the man had become more and more secluded, speaking little to anybody - Marluxia knew that he had had somewhat of a disparity with Lexaeus and Zexion, but he didn't know what and it seemed rude to ask the man. Not that he could; Vexen was surprisingly not in the laboratory.
The fluorescent strip lights glared as always, and in containers and test tubes things bubbled and clicked, an elaborate machine linked to a torch set up in the corner that split the white light into some sort of pattern before reconnecting them all. It was so beautiful that Marluxia dared not touch, however curious he was as to what would happen if he should twist this lens just a millimetre or so to the left...
"Interesting, isn't it?"
Marluxia's head snapped up to face Vexen, who was leaning against the doorway with a clipboard in his hands. His hair was tied back out of his face in a loose pony tail, his body covered by a long laboratory coat.
He quickly straightened.
"Yes. Might I ask why...?"
Vexen shrugged, carrying the clipboard over to an immaculate desk and checking off a few more boxes.
"I was simply amusing myself. What brings you here? The others shan't be up for several hours yet."
Marluxia walked over to Vexen to inspect his work. Flawless, all of it. The Academic had thrown himself into this project one hundred percent.
"I came to see how you were doing."
"Good. I can finally show somebody who understands a fragment of what I say my new break though. Come."
Marluxia smiled inwardly and followed Vexen to an observation platform overlooking a cavernous hall, the walls and floor of which were covered with bottles and jars, all empty. In the centre, floating alone, was what looked like a shapeless crystal.
Vexen handed Marluxia a pair of goggles with some kind of widget attached to the side and placed his own pair over his eyes as Marluxia copied.
"Take a look at this."
He flicked a switch and the lights clanged off. And there-

- Marluxia gasped.

Strung between the other objects, the containers that Marluxia had assumed empty, and the crystal in the centre, were hundreds upon hundreds of twisting, glowing threads. They were tinted slightly blue by the goggles, some brighter than others. They pulsed, collectively, like a great, beating heart. He couldn't stop himself from reaching up to touch one and his hand passed straight through.
"What are they?" He breathed, taken back at the momentum of what he was seeing.
Vexen was smiling a little in the darkness, a test tube filled with whatever the stuff the threads were made from in his hands.
"It's just a substance I've been using for testing in place of real emotions," He said, and his voice sounded different. "They have the same properties, you see. I've been using it to develop a functional core."
He pointed to the crystal in the middle, which was glowing like a lamp.
"My first attempts couldn't collect emotions - I'll call this substance that so as not to bore you with the details - in the same way that true hearts do. It would pass in and out of the membrane that supported it, but that was all. Eventually all the emotions were simply drifting aimlessly in and out of the jars. But I've finally done it - I've created a "core" that can attract and retain emotional ties. Look at them. Aren't they stunning?"
Marluxia had been watching Vexen, actually, but since the older man hadn't noticed he chose not to comment and turned back to the room of emotions and nodded.
"Very. What are the practical implications of this?"
Vexen smiled a little proudly, taking off his goggles and effortlessly hanging them on an invisible hook in the darkness. He took Marluxia's too, and just like that the "emotions" were gone. Then Vexen turned the lights back on and returned to the main laboratory.
"What it means," He said, "Is that my first prototype heart will be completed by the end of the week,"

Description
"For lack of anything better to do," Marluxia said after a week and a half of mind-crushing boredom for the majority of the Organisation, "And since I can see that some of you are itching to have anything to complain about, missions as of today will be reinstated."
There was a moan of apathy from the collected Nobodies. Marluxia ignored them.
"Reconnaissance," He said over their voices, holding up a hand to silence them. "During Xemnas' rule, every member did their fair share of recon and a great deal of information was amassed. However, the Organisation data banks are a mess-" And he looked pointedly, if not accusingly, at Xigbar. The man shrugged.
"Ain't my problem if the others don't know where to put the shit they've collected."
"It no longer matters." Marluxia replied flippantly. "The information is not useful to our cause. Xemnas had you all collect data on the Darkness of people's hearts and this is useless. From now on it will be your objective to assess the emotions - of all kinds - of the natives in each world we have so far encountered. Are you still following me, or are your nails more interesting?"
Demyx, who had been picking at them, looked up guiltily.
"Since he did such an excellent job last time, Saïx will once again be in charge of the missions, although when they are complete you are to report back to me. They shall be distributed on a weekly basis."
Interesting, Vexen thought. Marluxia was giving everybody an easy time, probably to secure their favour. But the more free time the Nobodies were given, the worse tensions would rise in the Castle. Marluxia couldn't fix that, and Vexen was curious to see how he tried.
"Missions may also be completed in whatever size groups you deem necessary," Marluxia continued. "There is also the considerable matter of hearts."
Several people who hadn't really been listening suddenly perked up, all ears and eyes open.
Marluxia glanced at Vexen, and nodded. He took this as a sign to speak, and cleared his throat.
"I'm working on a practical solution to the problems of heart synthesis," He explained at the Organisation in general. "I shan't bore you with the details but I'm ninety-eight percent certain that it will be possible, and the resulting hearts will be as functional as natural hearts,"
There was a cheer from Demyx, ever the optimist, and a quiet chuckle from Luxord.
"How long is it going to take?" Larxene, lounging against her throne in tight jeans and a grey hoodie, asked.
"I have no idea," Vexen replied truthfully. "That would depend on the materials and equipment available. I should also need a test subject once the first heart is complete. Of course, Roxas would be best for the job, but I understand that he is somewhat important-"
"What happens to Roxas' body is up to Roxas." Marluxia interrupted, looking directly at the boy. He'd barely spoken since the takeover and seemed a little distant to everything, but now he was watching Marluxia with a careful, inquisitive eye.
"I don't mind who volunteers themselves to have the first heart implanted," Vexen quickly added, amending himself. He needed to adjust to the fact that from now on everybody was going to be acting like they were human. And if that meant one thing, it was that things were going to get messy, very quickly. He hoped that Marluxia had realised that in his perfect plan of the future.
Larxene, surprisingly, raised her hand.
"I'll do it."
Marluxia nodded approvingly at her, and Vexen grit his teeth. When he said that he didn't mind who volunteered, that didn't mean that he wanted that slimy little bitch...
"It is decided, then. Vexen, do you need any assistance?"
Vexen didn't miss the glance that Marluxia cast towards Zexion and Lexaeus. He shook his head.
"I'll be fine on my own."

---

"Ah. Vexen. How good to see you again. I trust you are well?"
Marluxia had requested another meeting with Vexen just a week later to keep up to date with the process of heart synthesis. So here Vexen was feeling a little lost in Marluxia's airy office at the top of the castle.
"As well as ever," He replied, lingering uncertainly by the doorway.
"Do have a seat," Marluxia said, pulling off his gloves and settling behind the desk. Vexen complied, as Marluxia plucked a pomegranate from a basket of fruit.
"So. How is the project going?"
"Larxene," Vexen said accusingly, "Is a pain to work with. She touches everything, cannot perform even the simplest of experiments, has ruined my results more than a few times..."
Marluxia chuckled a little.
"She is rather, isn't she?"
Vexen frowned, having not expected that sort of reaction.
"I thought you liked her,"
Marluxia stood, gently prising away the outer skin of the fruit he held.
"Of course I do. She's the best friend I've ever had, and that's saying a lot for a Nobody. Curious, isn't it?"
"What is?"
Marluxia gestured to the pomegranate.
"Such a plain fruit, the pomegranate. Peel away the skin and inside you find nothing more than pith and yet - if keep working, and inside you find a myriad of beautiful jewels,"
To prove his point he split the fruit with his thumbnails and there, nestled in the core of the fruit, were a whole family of little blood red seeds. Vexen, who wasn't one for metaphors and much less poetic metaphors, simply frowned.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Larxene is a precious girl should you look closer than her callous exterior,"
"We're Nobodies," Vexen snapped before he could stop himself. "All we are are callous exteriors,"
Marluxia simply smiled thinly.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not."
"Hmph."
"I see you haven't been speaking with Zexion or Lexaeus," Marluxia said suddenly.
"No," Vexen replied curtly.
"You shouldn't hold my actions against them, Vexen," Marluxia said, almost reproachful in his tone.
"It's fine," Vexen said as there was a knock at the door and Marluxia swept over to open it. "I have other things to hold against them,"
Larxene was standing in the hallway, hand on her hip and a cocky smile plastered onto her face.
"Hey there, boys,"
Vexen rolled his eyes at the derogatory comment, but Marluxia didn't seem to concerned by it, simply ushering Larxene into the room with an almost mockingly chaste kiss to her forehead.
"Vexen tells me that you are a pain," He said lightly as he drew up a chair for her.
"I see I'm doing my job well, then," She retorted, blowing a kiss to Vexen who visibly recoiled. "Stuffy old geezer. I don't see why Marly li-"
"Larxene. Please." Marluxia interrupted. "Vexen is playing a very important role in the Organisation. And don't call me Marly. It makes me feel like a dog,"
Larxene petulantly stuck her tongue out at the Assassin as Vexen stifled a snigger. Marly. It must have been the most ridiculous name for the man and yet, it was oddly endearing...
"Shall I be going then?"
Larxene and Marluxia had been smirking to themselves over some private joke, glanced up.
"That would depend on whether you had anything further to discuss,"
"I don't believe so," Vexen replied carefully, and took his leave.

---

It is a curious thing, Marluxia wrote one evening. Even beings with no hearts seem capable of falling into a habit of emotional expression when they are not forced into an emotionless mould...
He habitually teased the end of his pen with his teeth as he formed the next sentence in his mind.
And yet whenever questioned, we immediately snap back into the same heartless routine. Curious indeed. As Vexen would say, this merits further research.
Hm. Vexen.
It is curious also how bonds can form and break, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It appears that the heart is not the only complex component of a person. Perhaps further experiments shall reveal the answers. Perhaps we will always be in the figurative dark.
Marluxia glanced back at what he'd written.
Perhaps it is time I was asleep.
He placed down the neat little notebook and the pen, waved a hand over his light, and lay back.

Nobodies do not dream.
Their empty core does not allow it so; they simply cease to exist when they sleep - they become shells, of sorts, no deeper than the physical body. The soul is flighty, without the heart to lock it down.

Marluxia, true to his heartlessness, did not dream. One moment he was staring into the darkness of his room, and the next his alarm was filling the room with soft light and music. He whacked it, and the glow became a glare.
Marluxia was not a morning person. He never had been; only strict self-discipline kept him awake in the early hours of the morning. Vexen would be up, no doubt. And it was Vexen that Marluxia needed to see. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was a thought in the back of his mind that he felt must have been extraordinarily important to have withstood the nothingness of sleep. But it didn't come to him, even as he tugged a brush through his hair, and dressed down in a smart pair of jeans and a plain white shirt that he left open at the collar.
Vexen could shine some light on the subject, at least that was what Marluxia hoped as he slipped on a pair of pumps - effeminate perhaps, but useful - and made his way down the twisting corridors to the castle's laboratories. Already Demyx had been at work with the paint and bright colours were splashed haphazardly onto the walls in an attempt to brighten the place up. They didn't look right, but they still coaxed a small smile onto Marluxia's lips.
This castle had always been perfect and useless to their purposes. It was situated in the darkness, close to Kingdom Hearts - although Marluxia had long since dismissed its value as a heart restoration technique - but it was as emotionless as they were logically supposed to be. Marluxia knew well enough that although Nobodies were hollow, they were anything but lacking in personality. According to the evidence that had been collected, all Nobodies should have been the same. And clearly, they weren't. But this castle seemed to have the effect of proving the exact opposite - it sapped all life from all who inhabited it until they truly did think they were heartless.
Marluxia had been planning a move since the very beginning, but until a new, more suitable location could be found it was nothing more than a plan.
How many weeks had it been? Marluxia had been eager to install a calendar to the Grey Room (now in the process of being renamed the Rainbow Room, only hindered by objections from all bar Demyx) to keep track of the days, but here there was no sense of time. There was no sense of anything, in fact. No wonder, thought Marluxia, that the whole Organisation was borderline insane.
But things were running smoothly enough - with the Nobodies put to work collecting new information not on negative emotions but positive, destroying the last of the heartless, and running errands for Vexen, things had settled into a sort of routine. There was occasionally the odd disruption to this in the form of a heated disagreement and sometimes a fight, but by and large Marluxia was able to break things up. And Vexen reported that he was making good progress with the Heart Synthesis project.
All in all, things were going startlingly well. This worried Marluxia. But he didn't know what to do to rectify this worry, so he left things as they were and continued to run the Organisation as was.
Another thing that worried Marluxia was Vexen. As of late, the man had become more and more secluded, speaking little to anybody - Marluxia knew that he had had somewhat of a disparity with Lexaeus and Zexion, but he didn't know what and it seemed rude to ask the man. Not that he could; Vexen was surprisingly not in the laboratory.
The fluorescent strip lights glared as always, and in containers and test tubes things bubbled and clicked, an elaborate machine linked to a torch set up in the corner that split the white light into some sort of pattern before reconnecting them all. It was so beautiful that Marluxia dared not touch, however curious he was as to what would happen if he should twist this lens just a millimetre or so to the left...
"Interesting, isn't it?"
Marluxia's head snapped up to face Vexen, who was leaning against the doorway with a clipboard in his hands. His hair was tied back out of his face in a loose pony tail, his body covered by a long laboratory coat.
He quickly straightened.
"Yes. Might I ask why...?"
Vexen shrugged, carrying the clipboard over to an immaculate desk and checking off a few more boxes.
"I was simply amusing myself. What brings you here? The others shan't be up for several hours yet."
Marluxia walked over to Vexen to inspect his work. Flawless, all of it. The Academic had thrown himself into this project one hundred percent.
"I came to see how you were doing."
"Good. I can finally show somebody who understands a fragment of what I say my new break though. Come."
Marluxia smiled inwardly and followed Vexen to an observation platform overlooking a cavernous hall, the walls and floor of which were covered with bottles and jars, all empty. In the centre, floating alone, was what looked like a shapeless crystal.
Vexen handed Marluxia a pair of goggles with some kind of widget attached to the side and placed his own pair over his eyes as Marluxia copied.
"Take a look at this."
He flicked a switch and the lights clanged off. And there-

- Marluxia gasped.

Strung between the other objects, the containers that Marluxia had assumed empty, and the crystal in the centre, were hundreds upon hundreds of twisting, glowing threads. They were tinted slightly blue by the goggles, some brighter than others. They pulsed, collectively, like a great, beating heart. He couldn't stop himself from reaching up to touch one and his hand passed straight through.
"What are they?" He breathed, taken back at the momentum of what he was seeing.
Vexen was smiling a little in the darkness, a test tube filled with whatever the stuff the threads were made from in his hands.
"It's just a substance I've been using for testing in place of real emotions," He said, and his voice sounded different. "They have the same properties, you see. I've been using it to develop a functional core."
He pointed to the crystal in the middle, which was glowing like a lamp.
"My first attempts couldn't collect emotions - I'll call this substance that so as not to bore you with the details - in the same way that true hearts do. It would pass in and out of the membrane that supported it, but that was all. Eventually all the emotions were simply drifting aimlessly in and out of the jars. But I've finally done it - I've created a "core" that can attract and retain emotional ties. Look at them. Aren't they stunning?"
Marluxia had been watching Vexen, actually, but since the older man hadn't noticed he chose not to comment and turned back to the room of emotions and nodded.
"Very. What are the practical implications of this?"
Vexen smiled a little proudly, taking off his goggles and effortlessly hanging them on an invisible hook in the darkness. He took Marluxia's too, and just like that the "emotions" were gone. Then Vexen turned the lights back on and returned to the main laboratory.
"What it means," He said, "Is that my first prototype heart will be completed by the end of the week,"