Vexen

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I'm a scientist. Experiments are what I do, yes.

Vexen, the Chilly Academic (いてつく学究, Itetsuku Gakkyū^?, lit. Freezing Scholar), is the Nobody of Even and is Rank IV within Organization XIII. He controls ice and uses it to command storms and blizzards, freezing his opponents solid, while defending himself with his massive shield.

Vexen was the highest-ranking member of the Organization inside Castle Oblivion, but ironically he is the first Organization member to be eliminated. He created the Riku Replica and uses the Replica to carry out several experiments on Riku and Sora. Vexen appears in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts III.

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Vexen approaches problems like an intellectual, with a hypothesis and a method to test those hypotheses. He appears to view life as a grand experiment, suiting his title as "The Chilly Academic". He appears very much like the stereotypical 'mad scientist'. More than any other member, save Xemnas, he considers his numerical rank a literal one and will often deride members with lower numerical rankings than his; he reminded Marluxia of his superior rank when Marluxia orders him not to "disappoint us" again and addresses Zexion by his inferior rank when Zexion lamented Vexen's impatience, but is often chastised by others for this behavior.

Interestingly, 358/2 Days shows a more understanding side to Vexen's character; he is seen patiently guiding Roxas in the aspects of reconnaissance and gave the latter all the time he wanted to examine the town even more, before finally ending the mission with valuable advice. However, Vexen was irritated by Roxas only being able to "look, but not see"; in other words, making sense of the data he was gathering. He felt proud of himself when it looked like his teaching was paying off with Roxas - "small steps for small minds."

Vexen also displays a fear of Xemnas, immediately bowing to Marluxia's demand to destroy Sora when Marluxia threatened to tell Xemnas of the failure of the Riku replica. He also feared to approach Xemnas while the latter was in the Chamber of Repose, and took Zexion's suggestion to approach Xemnas there as a joke.

In the Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories manga, Vexen appears as a character who thinks that he doesn't get enough respect from the upper floor members.

After reacquiring his humanity, Vexen, now having the heart to feel horror and shame for what he did, became determined to atone for his sins and only re-joined the Organization in order to help ensure its defeat. Although acting still as a passionate scientist, in truth Vexen was more than willing to risk his life to atone, which Demyx couldn't help but call him out for, and he uses his intelligence to successfully coax Demyx into joining him.

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Vexen wears the basic Organization uniform of a black coat with like-colored boots and gloves, though the sleeves of Vexen's cloak are a bit longer than normal and partially cover his hands. His cloak is also the longest out of all the members having it almost like a gown that covers his boots. Vexen sports dirty blond hair (which was a somewhat brighter shade of yellow in the Gameboy version of Chain of Memories), worn long with two slightly shorter (but still long) bangs that frame his face. He also has rather large, bright green eyes.

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Vexen fights with a large blue shield, which he uses to fend off frontal attacks, making it necessary to attack him from behind. He is also able to use the shield offensively, akin to Goofy, but further enhances the style with the spikes lining the edge of his shield. He can use his cryokinetic abilities to blast his enemy with ice from his hand, and can call forth large chunks of ice from the ground to freeze his opponent solid.

He also has the power to create slippery ice patches on the ground, or summon icicles that rise from the ground and follow their target for several seconds. Finally, he can create an unavoidable blizzard that can be resisted only with a Card Break. In the remake, Vexen can conjure up a sword made out of ice and whack his opponent several times with it before performing a final shockwave which destroys the sword and ends the sleight.

Like several other members of Organization XIII in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Vexen moves by levitating, sometimes several feet into the air.

Vexen summons his shield ready to fight Sora in Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories.

In Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, Vexen, as well as other members of the Organization that have already been eliminated, can be fought. Vexen's shield makes him completely invincible in this game, but the shield has an HP bar of its own and can be temporarily destroyed, allowing Sora to attack Vexen directly. Vexen has the additional power in this battle to create a copy of Sora's Anti form to aid him in battle.

Vexen still has his "freeze" attack where a blizzard freezes Sora, immobilizing Sora while Vexen gains data, but it can be stopped by a Reaction Command. He also has the icicle attack from before, but also returns with a new attack where he makes two spinning blades of ice and throws them at Sora. In the data battle against Vexen, he has a new attack where he throws giant chunks of ice at Sora.

Vexen also has the ability to collect and manipulate Data. This ability allows Vexen to create Replicas. Not much else is known about this ability.

In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Vexen has a Limit Break called Diamond Dust. During Diamond Dust, Vexen summons three large mounds of ice to come up from the ground to strike enemies, dealing ice damage to and freezing all struck enemies. Enemies that are frozen take three times as much damage while frozen.

During Vexen's Final Limit, Vexen's three mounds of ice are replaced by one larger glacier. This deals greater ice damage to enemies, and temporarily makes them gradually lose HP. It also freezes them for awhile.

While his power still makes him a quite formidable foe for Sora and Riku, with Riku and Sora both being unable to defeat him in their first fight until Sora came out on top in their last fight, although he is one of the most prolific members due to the amount of times he is fought, Vexen, while holding remarkable power, is revealed to be one of the weaker members of Organization XIII alongside Demyx. Thus, while high-ranked, he does not have the power to back his authority, which is why no one in the Organization shows Vexen any respect. Axel and Larxene seem to frequently poke fun at him with jokes and sneers, with Larxene going as far as to call him a "half-baked good for nothing", while Marluxia was able to easily silence him when he retorted of the failure of his plan and intimidate him by just summoning his weapon. Axel easily wounded Vexen before he could react and destroyed him by specifically burning him with his Chakrams using just a snap of his fingers while Marluxia proved to be able to fight equally with him, although Vexen had notably already been wounded by Sora. In Riku's story, Zexion and Lexaeus is shown to be also superior to him, henceforth making him do their bidding. Most of all is how Vexen deeply fears Xemnas, who as the Superior is doubtlessly effortlessly far much stronger than Vexen, to the point that it seems Vexen would not be able to reason with him if he angers him, as he does not dare to try to meet him in the Chamber of Repose as well as the mere mention of Xemnas being enough to make him back down from challenging Marluxia.

Weapon

Vexen, like Goofy, carries a shield into battle. His shield Frozen Pride is pointed, and is colored blue and silver. He can use it to block attacks, but it is also used to slash foes. If turned upside down, the shield has the vague shape of the Nobody symbol.

In Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, it can be changed during the sleight "Slide Break," where he freezes ice onto the shield to form a gigantic ice sword that he wildly slashes with before smashing the blade onto the foe. However, his Absent Silhouette does not use it to attack, instead relying on his data replicas and ice magic for his offense, and uses his shield to block any attacks during battle. However, the Silhouette's shield has its own small health bar, and breaks after a while, and leaves him vulnerable until another shield is summoned.

In Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, Goofy can obtain a similar shield through synthesis.

Vexen's shield, Frozen Pride.

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