Abilities: As a presumably former Nobody and an incarnation of the original Xehanort, Xemnas has more than a few unique abilities. The most frequently used of these is the ability to travel from place to place - and even across worlds - through portals and corridors of darkness. While he’ll be unable to use these to leave the world of the game, they will cut down on travel time in general. In addition to this, he’s also capable of both going temporarily intangible and floating above the surface of the ground, although not to the point that he could be considered to be flying.
On top of this Xemnas has an element that he controls, like all of the fully humanoid Nobodies and their human counterparts. In his case, he wields the element of nothingness. While canon implies that he’s capable of using this ability to reduce a fully humanoid Nobody to one of the lesser variants, we never see him do this. Instead, he uses it to fuel a wide variety of attacks. In no particular order, these are as follows: -Shield: while this isn’t technically an attack, it none the less plays a major part in his combat tactics. As might be it expected, it’s nothing more than a simple rectangular shield of magical energy that is capable of blocking most attacks, provided it’s a frontal attack. Since it lasts a mere handful of seconds at best it’s not anything like a long term answer, but it lasts easily long enough to bear the brunt of an attack or two. In fact, one of his favorite strategies as to throw a shield in the way of an attack, before coming in with his own weapons while his opponent is still caught of guard. -Dark Vines: The least damaging of his attacks, this is little more than thorny vines of darkness. They generally come in batches of a dozen of so and are more of a distraction technique then anything else. -Lightning: His primary method of attack apart from his weapons themselves, this is once again basically what you’d expect. However, while the most common form he uses is nothing more than a simple blast of lightning, he can also use this to generate ‘cages’ of energy that slowly sap a person’s health. The precise form of these cages varies depending on both his will and what he intends to with the cage. Some of the them will hover around the target as they move, while others simply lock the target in one place (the latter sort also requires more outside help to break free of). -Lasers: While these could be considered to be an extension of his various lightning based abilities, there are also a few key differences. Most notably, the laser blasts are much more focused on a single point then his lightning is. They also tend to come in sets of two or more, unlike the lightning blasts.
In addition to these, he unlike has a handful of combat-related abilities that do not draw on his innate element. In addition to the floating mentioned earlier, he’s also capable of a sort of short-range teleportation. While it’s not much more than enough to make him more irritating to chase down, it neatly combines with his floating to let him hang in midair far longer than anyone has a right to. This tendency is not helped any by the fact that he can also create copies of himself. These share all of his abilities, but how long they last is largely dependent on how much effort he’s willing to put into their continuing. Since he tends to use them as a distraction technique, they generally can’t take more than a single hit and he never summons more than one at a time. Finally, he’s capable of using some variant on the theme of telekinesis to quite literally throw building at his opponent. However, since the buildings here are much more occupied than the ones at home, he’s not going to be doing any building tossing in-game.
And if that wasn’t already enough there’s also the matter of his weaponry. These take the form of a pair of what canon refers to as etherial blades (collectively referred to as Interdiction) that emanate from the center of his palms and look like nothing so much as a pair of hiltless lightsabers. Like many of his combat techniques, they’re made of the same void that is his element, and he most often wields them in a fast and brutally efficient form of swordplay. However, since they’re made of nothing more than his element, he can also use them as if they were projectiles. Better still, because his weapons are his element made manifest, he never runs out of projectiles, whether it’s simply a matter of enough to create a ring around a person or enough to create a nigh-impenetrable dome of sword-projectiles.
Along with this, word of god has stated that he might also have a Keyblade, and simply chosen not to use it. However, since this is the best we have on the question of whether he retains the use of it he won’t be either using one or displaying any sort of ability to wield one at the moment save in the very unlikely situation that actually requires him to. He’s grown used to his etherial blades, after all, and the Keyblade no longer fits into his battle strategy anyway.
Finally, and just in case he didn’t already have enough abilities to his name, he has one last attack he can only use in times of great strain. Called All-Vanity, it consists of Xemnas surrounding himself with a sphere of his element and unleashing a pair of larger laser blast from his hands. The lasers themselves do heavy damage if they hit, while the sphere itself does a lesser amount of damage on contact.
Just in case all this wasn’t already enough, he also has a few entirely non-magical abilities. Like all of the founding members of the Organization, he is a scientist by trade, with the bulk of his knowledge falling into the fields of biology and chemistry. However, given the natural curiosity of the man he once was and the way he was encouraged to learn, he tends more to the idea of the renaissance man than anything else.
Finally, like many of the incarnations of Xehanort, he has a deep and abiding interest in not only the Keyblade but also the lore surrounding it. As such, he has become something of an expert not only in keyblade lore in generally, but also in the various ancient languages necessary to read the appropriate texts.
First Person: [There’s a moment of silence before the speaker begins. It’s a memorable voice, if not else, quiet but easy enough to listen to. The words, on the other hand, are somewhat less so.] It‘s such a shame, is it not, to be stuck in this city? A gilded cage is no less a cage, and we are thus barred from knowing all there is to know of this world, if indeed it is a world in truth. But perhaps such things are of sharper minds then yours and mine. After all, it is certainly true that we cannot escape this prison on our own.
Does it chafe, I wonder? Are there those of you long to see other worlds and other skies? Or have you simply grown complacent? Uncaring of where and why you have come to reside. I would hear your answers on this matter, if you should care enough to give them.
Third Person: All things considered, Xemnas hadn’t really expected to find himself on a train. They were not unknown, in the various worlds he knew, but all the same, being on a train tended to assume one had gotten on willingly, and as things currently stood he couldn’t quite seem to manage that. Not that he was terribly concerned about either that fact or the question of where he was going. His plans - no, their plans - had not yet come to fruition, but there were certain advantages to planning for the long haul. Namely, there was still time for a slight detour, and perhaps he would find something of use in this new world. After all, it was not yet too late to find new allies.
Still, first there was matter of arriving at the city. For all that he had indeed been to many before there was hardly any sense in assuming anything about a new world. No, for that it was best to first see that which there was, and so he waited patiently until the train arrived. Worry could happen later, as could any other emotion that seemed reasonably appropriate.
For now, however, he simply stepped off the train when prompted to, without so much as the slightest flicker of concern that the train vanished behind him. He had other ways to leave at his disposal (or so he believed, not having quite attempted to leave of his own volition yet). Instead, he strode out into the city at large. There was, after all, more likely to be people then at the train station and he could hardly see if there were any suitable allies present without first speaking to the people in question. The idea of using the pocketwatch he’d been given was something he didn’t so much as even think of, largely because he had certain assumptions about the general purpose of watches.
But he had no qualms about speaking to people face to face. And besides, it was easier to control what people thought of him that way, which was certainly nothing to complain about.
[CANON] Xemnas || Kingdom Hearts || reserved || 2 of 2
On top of this Xemnas has an element that he controls, like all of the fully humanoid Nobodies and their human counterparts. In his case, he wields the element of nothingness. While canon implies that he’s capable of using this ability to reduce a fully humanoid Nobody to one of the lesser variants, we never see him do this. Instead, he uses it to fuel a wide variety of attacks. In no particular order, these are as follows:
-Shield: while this isn’t technically an attack, it none the less plays a major part in his combat tactics. As might be it expected, it’s nothing more than a simple rectangular shield of magical energy that is capable of blocking most attacks, provided it’s a frontal attack. Since it lasts a mere handful of seconds at best it’s not anything like a long term answer, but it lasts easily long enough to bear the brunt of an attack or two. In fact, one of his favorite strategies as to throw a shield in the way of an attack, before coming in with his own weapons while his opponent is still caught of guard.
-Dark Vines: The least damaging of his attacks, this is little more than thorny vines of darkness. They generally come in batches of a dozen of so and are more of a distraction technique then anything else.
-Lightning: His primary method of attack apart from his weapons themselves, this is once again basically what you’d expect. However, while the most common form he uses is nothing more than a simple blast of lightning, he can also use this to generate ‘cages’ of energy that slowly sap a person’s health. The precise form of these cages varies depending on both his will and what he intends to with the cage. Some of the them will hover around the target as they move, while others simply lock the target in one place (the latter sort also requires more outside help to break free of).
-Lasers: While these could be considered to be an extension of his various lightning based abilities, there are also a few key differences. Most notably, the laser blasts are much more focused on a single point then his lightning is. They also tend to come in sets of two or more, unlike the lightning blasts.
In addition to these, he unlike has a handful of combat-related abilities that do not draw on his innate element. In addition to the floating mentioned earlier, he’s also capable of a sort of short-range teleportation. While it’s not much more than enough to make him more irritating to chase down, it neatly combines with his floating to let him hang in midair far longer than anyone has a right to. This tendency is not helped any by the fact that he can also create copies of himself. These share all of his abilities, but how long they last is largely dependent on how much effort he’s willing to put into their continuing. Since he tends to use them as a distraction technique, they generally can’t take more than a single hit and he never summons more than one at a time. Finally, he’s capable of using some variant on the theme of telekinesis to quite literally throw building at his opponent. However, since the buildings here are much more occupied than the ones at home, he’s not going to be doing any building tossing in-game.
And if that wasn’t already enough there’s also the matter of his weaponry. These take the form of a pair of what canon refers to as etherial blades (collectively referred to as Interdiction) that emanate from the center of his palms and look like nothing so much as a pair of hiltless lightsabers. Like many of his combat techniques, they’re made of the same void that is his element, and he most often wields them in a fast and brutally efficient form of swordplay. However, since they’re made of nothing more than his element, he can also use them as if they were projectiles. Better still, because his weapons are his element made manifest, he never runs out of projectiles, whether it’s simply a matter of enough to create a ring around a person or enough to create a nigh-impenetrable dome of sword-projectiles.
Along with this, word of god has stated that he might also have a Keyblade, and simply chosen not to use it. However, since this is the best we have on the question of whether he retains the use of it he won’t be either using one or displaying any sort of ability to wield one at the moment save in the very unlikely situation that actually requires him to. He’s grown used to his etherial blades, after all, and the Keyblade no longer fits into his battle strategy anyway.
Finally, and just in case he didn’t already have enough abilities to his name, he has one last attack he can only use in times of great strain. Called All-Vanity, it consists of Xemnas surrounding himself with a sphere of his element and unleashing a pair of larger laser blast from his hands. The lasers themselves do heavy damage if they hit, while the sphere itself does a lesser amount of damage on contact.
Just in case all this wasn’t already enough, he also has a few entirely non-magical abilities. Like all of the founding members of the Organization, he is a scientist by trade, with the bulk of his knowledge falling into the fields of biology and chemistry. However, given the natural curiosity of the man he once was and the way he was encouraged to learn, he tends more to the idea of the renaissance man than anything else.
Finally, like many of the incarnations of Xehanort, he has a deep and abiding interest in not only the Keyblade but also the lore surrounding it. As such, he has become something of an expert not only in keyblade lore in generally, but also in the various ancient languages necessary to read the appropriate texts.
First Person: [There’s a moment of silence before the speaker begins. It’s a memorable voice, if not else, quiet but easy enough to listen to. The words, on the other hand, are somewhat less so.] It‘s such a shame, is it not, to be stuck in this city? A gilded cage is no less a cage, and we are thus barred from knowing all there is to know of this world, if indeed it is a world in truth. But perhaps such things are of sharper minds then yours and mine. After all, it is certainly true that we cannot escape this prison on our own.
Does it chafe, I wonder? Are there those of you long to see other worlds and other skies? Or have you simply grown complacent? Uncaring of where and why you have come to reside. I would hear your answers on this matter, if you should care enough to give them.
Third Person: All things considered, Xemnas hadn’t really expected to find himself on a train. They were not unknown, in the various worlds he knew, but all the same, being on a train tended to assume one had gotten on willingly, and as things currently stood he couldn’t quite seem to manage that. Not that he was terribly concerned about either that fact or the question of where he was going. His plans - no, their plans - had not yet come to fruition, but there were certain advantages to planning for the long haul. Namely, there was still time for a slight detour, and perhaps he would find something of use in this new world. After all, it was not yet too late to find new allies.
Still, first there was matter of arriving at the city. For all that he had indeed been to many before there was hardly any sense in assuming anything about a new world. No, for that it was best to first see that which there was, and so he waited patiently until the train arrived. Worry could happen later, as could any other emotion that seemed reasonably appropriate.
For now, however, he simply stepped off the train when prompted to, without so much as the slightest flicker of concern that the train vanished behind him. He had other ways to leave at his disposal (or so he believed, not having quite attempted to leave of his own volition yet). Instead, he strode out into the city at large. There was, after all, more likely to be people then at the train station and he could hardly see if there were any suitable allies present without first speaking to the people in question. The idea of using the pocketwatch he’d been given was something he didn’t so much as even think of, largely because he had certain assumptions about the general purpose of watches.
But he had no qualms about speaking to people face to face. And besides, it was easier to control what people thought of him that way, which was certainly nothing to complain about.