The World That Never Was

[Kingdom]

The World That Never Was
The World That Never Was, introduced in Kingdom Hearts II, is home to Organization XIII, and is situated next to the realm of darkness in an in-between realm. It also houses the headquarters to Organization XIII, the Castle That Never Was, which is portrayed as a huge white castle decorated with the emblem of the Nobodies, in addition to Dark City, a deserted metropolis of skyscrapers.

The most distinct feature of this world is its seemingly eternal night, with the large, heart-shaped moon, Kingdom Hearts, continually shining in the sky. Kingdom Hearts was designed to appear as the heart-shaped moon from the cover of the first Kingdom Hearts game. When the scenario writer, Kazushige Nojima, created the scenario, he described it as a moon floating in the World That Never Was. Upon reading that, Nomura thought of using the visuals from the first game to create a connection.

 

[DarkChronicler]

It was an interesting night for Deep Dive City, if you were there to see it.

The Heartless had been, at first, but the first onslaught had cleared them away, banishing them to the sea of darkness that surrounded the World That Never Was. What remained of their various leading minds could not muster the power even to spy within the newly cleansed city.

The Nobodies, too, had been there to see it, and to a certain extent, were still there. Individually, however, there wasn't a single Nobody left that had been in the city when the newcomers arrived.

Glorious, thought the Arbiter atop Memory's Skyscraper. Absolutely glorious.

She wasn't really a Nobody anymore. Supreme had restored her to grace from that faceless, emotionless heresy. She was Rebuilt, better and stronger than she'd been either in life or as a Nobody, and moreover, she was an Arbiter, hand-chosen by Supreme himself to lead the Inquisition to its rightful place upon the throne of all Darkness.

It made her heart, trapped in a gold pendant about her neck, quiver with glee.

She stood and waited, glancing occasionally and expectantly toward the hollow sky above Deep Dive City. After nearly an hour of tranquil silence, with no sign of the arrival of the Inquisition's new fortress, the Arbiter set to the one thing that had always brought joy to her heart- painting.

She always felt it odd that Supreme wanted his Arbiters to retain a piece of their humanity. Not that she disliked it, of course, far from it! Having her heart always near, instead of lost in the distant glow of Kingdom Hearts, gave her even greater power as a Rebuilt. It also served as a very visible reminder of how close she was to that cold abyss of being a Nobody once more, should she displease Supreme.

And if you were a Nobody, you were parts. Just as the heretic Nobodies in Deep Dive City had become, harvested and broken down into more useful components, which could be put to more constructive uses than their original owners gave them. She pitied them, but only as far as one could pity a half-mindless drone that willfully rejected the Inquisition's sole offer of mercy. Those that accepted would become Servitors, or, like herself, even Arbiters if they were of strong will and sharp mind. The legions who refused, of course, also became Servitors, in the sense that their material could be divided and used to augment their redeemed neighbors.

It really was glorious, at least to her. The great Heresy- the movement of Nobodies seeking to take the power of Darkness and claim supremacy over the Light- was finally being curtailed, one Nobody at a time. One day soon, Supreme would wield the might of Kingdom Hearts, and the worlds would finally know true peace.

She still wondered how Supreme intended to manage that last bit.  

[DarkChronicler]

The Library arrived first, rippling into existence in the yawning abyss where the bleak castle of Organization XIII once hovered. The Library, in itself, was a splendid structure, reminiscent of a cathedral with its buttressed walls, elegant spires, and stained-glass windows framed by watchful gargoyle Servitors. It was one of the oldest parts of the Inquisition's headquarters, younger only by minutes than the Deep Lab, the innermost sanctum and workspace of the Inquisitor himself.

The Arbiter watched from Memory's Skyscraper as the Library drifted in a slow, meticulous circle before settling into place at Supreme's direction. Perfectly centered and anchored in the darkness, it would become the center from which the rest of the fortress would soon grow. Already, sections of corridor and staircases were materializing from the gate she and the other advance Arbiters had opened, ready to connect the chambers and vaults of the Basilica before being buried in the solid protection of living stone, the final fate of any Nobody that could not be made useful one way or another.

A long hallway formed before the Library, stretched out just enough for new windows to form and glisten between them, a rainbow pageant of the history of the endless battle between light and dark. Two colossal doors formed at the hallway's other end, marking where Supreme intended to construct the new Concourse, the cyclopean central hall that served any purpose not dedicated to any other chamber, from meetings to celebrations, as rare as those were in the Inquisition, to duels and lesser arbitrations that didn't require the Inquisitor's dreaded Inner Court to convene. As the stones squirmed and slammed into place, the Arbiter realized that this new Concourse would easily dwarf not only its predecessor, but the whole of the original Basilica entirely.

It brought another smile to her hooded face. That kind of expansion foreshadowed great plans and greater numbers of new recruits.  

[DarkChronicler]

The new Basilica was nearly complete. The construct formed a magnificent white trident in the darkness, two great arms reaching out from the Concourse to nearly encircle Kingdom Hearts from below, while its strength-giving light shone dazzlingly through the windows of the Library. The great outer wall seamless, flawless, and capped with a permanent garrison of Zappers, Blasters and Scorchers. Its half-domed perfection was broken only by the massive front gate, a Servitor itself and bristling with weapons. Only a mad fool would dare assault the Basilica directly. All that remained were personal touches.

The Arbiter sped toward the gates with all the excitement of a child on Christmas morning, eager to claim her workspace and build it to her own tastes. Where most Arbiters were given little more than a cubicle with a cabinet, she'd been promised a full-size laboratory of her own, a reward for her masterful command of the purging of Deep Dive City. The gains had come with a rare and precious promotion- she now answered directly to Lord Olmedin, one of the oldest and most powerful members of the Inquisitor's own Inner Court!

Already, she could see a great cyclopean structure being assembled at one end of the great crescent of the Basilica, square and windowless and foreboding. Only Olmedin had such..medieval taste. Even as she approached, she could see its walls expanding, new wings and labs simply growing out of the sides of it, until at last the ceiling split and the great observatory dome rose to bathe in the light of Kingdom Hearts, a great hunchbacked silhouette standing within. And just below it was a space between two other protruding labs, waiting just for her.

Aleuth the Artificer took her place at last among the elite of the Order.  

[DarkChronicler]

She stood at the Brink of Despair, arms folded and head bowed, looking like any other Arbiter, unless you knew what you were looking for, or looking at. The blood-red lettering that decorated her bone-white cloak was unique to her, vanishing when and if she removed the robes of office and reappearing on any new robe she donned. The untrained eye would mistake them for mere decoration, but any Arbiter could read them at a glance and know everything there was to know about Aleuth.

A pattern of gears and spokes ran about the edge of her hood and collar, trailing down the front of her cloak and around the hem. This was her personal symbol and would not reappear in any form on any other Arbiter's cloak. The front of her robe was decorated with marks of rank and campaign honors, woven above and between dozens of tiny pockets filled with gears, bolts, spools of wire, and the occasional useful bit of a Nobody she was saving for work in the lab. Each pocket had its own little red mark, in case anyone else had to fish something out while her hands were busy.

The embellishments were more pronounced on the back of the robe, where the centerpiece was a stylized representation of Memory's Skyscraper surrounded by circles of eyes, gears and bones, symbolizing her successful assault and occupation of Deep Dive City. Each bone represented a hundred Nobodies defeated, each eye a convert to the Order, and each gear a full company of Servitors under her command during the battle. Other, lesser efforts were marked below this, smaller tallies of victories and conversions, but these were insignificant compared to the honor of personally seizing the perpetual home of Kingdom Hearts itself for the Order.

A large space on the shoulder of her right sleeve was left blank, as it was for every Arbiter until the completed one of the most important contributions they could make to the Order - the creation of a Praetor, a wholly unique Servitor of superior ability and power. Many of Aleuth's former superiors had gained their status from such creations, but many of those had also lost their positions and more when those creations failed in their duties. The Deep Labs, where Supreme himself worked, were filled with the remnants of such failed Praetors, where Supreme had taken an interest in the design and wished to eliminate its flaws. Unfortunately, the first ingredient in these upgrades was invariably the Arbiter who created it. Such was the penalty of failure.

Her left elbow was encircled with an electrical pattern, where the sleeve ended abruptly to reveal her bulky-looking mechanical arm and hand. Hands, rather, as she had several to choose from, folded into the hefty pod of the forearm, tools for anything from delicate surgery to field repairs on a tank to gourmet dining. At the moment, her gilded social hand was out, a masterpiece of gold, jewelry and clockwork that would have been the envy of the finest watchmaker in any world.

Around the cuff of her right sleeve was an elegant ring of Celtic knots framing a single watchful eye. This was her badge of office and her identification as a member of Olmedin's branch of the Outer Court. As a member of the Inner Court, Olmedin sat as one of the thirteen supreme judges over the rest of the Order and over all worlds, but it would be to his Outer Court that those worlds under his jurisdiction would answer. As the left hand of Supreme, Olmedin's domain included the World that Never Was and those closest to it in both space and spirit, and so it had fallen to his judgment to choose the conqueror of Deep Dive City.

And he had chosen well by anyone's standards.  

[DarkChronicler]

"My Supreme Lord, a message comes." It was Talent, the Piper, one of the only true pacifists with the Order, who spoke from the bench addressing the somber figure at both the peak and center of the semi-circle of seats from which the Inner Court dispensed Judgment upon the prosecuted, honors upon the loyal and obedient, and orders to the whole of the Order Terminus. The black-robed man spoke not but raised his hand toward Talent, who rose with rare urgency. "I have found her, My Supreme Lord, and she calls to us for aid. The Corruption has been traced, she knows its source, but it moves against her even now, in Traverse Town."

The black robe stood at once, raising high his weapon and rod of office, the dreaded Caduceus. The chamber fell silent at once, all eyes now on Lord Hepaxuris, the Supreme Magistrate. He pointed the Caduceus three times, and each Arbiter to whom he pointed rose at once and departed through a Dark Portal bound for their lost sheep in Traverse Town.  

[DarkChronicler]

"Another message, my lord, from Lord Tycho. The source of the infection...is Deep Dive itself!" Talent reeled in his seat with the news, and terrified murmurs ran through the assembled Arbiters before the bench. If the infection came from within Deep Dive, then even THEY were at risk to be contaminated.

Supreme struck the bench with the foot of his Caduceus as he rose, raising his hands once more to call the gathering to silence. "Be at peace, my loyal children. I did not make you with so many weaknesses as this. You are safe from this corruption, as safe as you are from becoming Heartless. But now we must be thrice as vigilant in guarding our domain and the worlds under our dominion from this new threat. Lord Olmedin, Lord Conrack and I will begin dispatching you to personally oversee the security of every world to which we have access. The time has come once again, my children, the time of Crusade is upon us!"