Well I'm back from who knows were after a completely unoticed absense, with a story from my own twisted and game satuated mind, hope you all enjoy it.
Disclaimer:- I don't own the rights to any of the characters or creatures that apper in this fic, though I'm pretty sure Darkling Heartless are new, better safe than sorry you know.
The Worlds that were Lost.
Chapter 1:- "What's up with that star?"
During the first attack by the Heartless brought upon the multiverse by the Great King Ansem, many world's were consumed by the darkness, these are the story's of some of these victims of the darkness.
Destiny islands, a few weeks before Sora's story starts.
Sora was sitting on the trunk of the paupu tree with Kairi next to him, and Riku leaning against it as he always did, the trio looking up at the stars and talking about what they would do when they had finally built there raft.
"I wonder if each of there as many world's as there are star's in the sky" Sora mused while swinging his legs back and forth.
"Probably, but we won't know for sure till we get out there, right" Riku replied with an air of determination.
"Yeah, nothing is going to stop us, right Kairi, Kairi? What you looking at?" Sora tried to follow Kairi's line of sight but couldn't see anything.
"It's that star, for some reason It's flickering" she replied with a confused tone.
Riku took a step forward managed to find the star the other two were talking about, "Your right, I wonder's going on with it?"
On the rogue Planet of Anther
Samus was on edge, having a run in with a black, phazon powered version of yourself would do that to anyone, the Hunter was no exception. Making her way through the Anther base of the Space Pirates, her sworn enemy and threat to all life, sentient or otherwise, Samus realized something that made her put her guard up further.
It was completely silent, bad things had a tendency to happen to her at times like this, and she was sure this would be no exception, of course when trouble did strike, it was like nothing she had ever encountered before.
Halfway through the main control room it happened, in a flash of orange light a single Space Pirate ported in onto on of the gangways, for a moment he just stood there, Samus aiming her arm cannon squarely at it's chest, both glaring at each other.
Then the Pirate started what can only loosely be described as laughing, Samus's aim didn't falter, that was until large dark spots appeared on the floor around her, expecting either an Ing attack or another battle with her mirror image, she dashed out of the circle that had formed around her and aimed at it, though when the creatures the darkness contained emerged, Samus didn't know whether to be shocked or laugh herself.
What had emerged looked like hunched over children, bright yellow eyes, slightly oversized heads and very jerky movements, the sharp claw like hands where the only things that posed a threat, and given she liked to keep her distance Samus wasn't too worried.
It wasn't that she started firing that she realized how dangerous they were, these 'Heartless' as her scan visor had identified them, could take extraordinary amounts of punishment, and even then more kept coming when she downed one.
It wasn't until, after getting annoyed at it's constant taunting, she launched a power missile at the Pirate Commando, the resulting explosion knocking it off it's gangway, the load crack of it's exoskeleton breaking as it hit the wall and then the floor echoing throughout the chamber, that the heartless stopped turning up, though it was still a pain to kill of those that had already spawned.
As the last heartless vanished Samus breathed a sigh of relief, her arm cannon giving of it's vision distorting heat trail due to rapid use, after barely a moments rest she worked on her next plan of action, she wanted to know about this new enemy and the Space Pirates seemed to know, knowing that they would've kept detailed log entries on this new life form a little reading time seemed in order.
Plus she might find another gem like the reports on the attempted domestication of metriods, or the attempts on the replication of her morph ball, things like that you just couldn't make up.
A short while later after coming across nothing but the usual wild life and Ing possessed variants of them, Samus found the loading room that contained many of the Space Pirates records, after a few minutes reading and the pertinent logging of a "please don't feed the metriods your rations" announcement, she had a very good idea what these things were.
The pirates had apparently found some old Luminoth lore that stated as well as the planetary energy which was dubbed the the light of Aether, there was also another power source behind a 'keyhole' (the pirates had dubbed this a translation error) which was called the heart of Aether somewhere deep in the planet, this apparently not only keeps the planet going but the whole Universe.
After a little more digging she found out that the Pirates had found texts pointing to a darkness that would try and swallow this inner light, and the decision was made to exploit this, after a few failed experience and with an entire squad of captured Galactic Federation troops sacrificed, the higher ups in the organization were able to summon and control these heartless as will, experiments with phazon exposure have shown no effect but the high combat ability of the heartless has put those who can control them in high regard.
"This is just what I need" Samus thought "Space Pirates with a new, potently universe destroying weapon", She sighed before trying to look for a weakness in the archives, the pirates normally documented it encase of the weapon being used against them, behind her back the shadows began to stir slowly, a black helmet wearing head with bright yellow eye's emerging slowly.
In a move only she could pull of, Samus swiftly unlogged from the console, back flipped over the emerging heartless while switching from scan to combat visor modes, and fired a missile into the back of it's head which killed it instantly, all in one fluid movement.
The moment the first heartless helmet clattered to the ground about half a dozen more sprang up out of their little portals, seeing no controlling Pirate this time Samus figured they had decided it was a bad idea to have them in the same area as her.
Heartless - Soldier class The log entry read, More powerful and vicious than it's unarmored counterpart the Shadow class, prefers to over whelm with numbers than fight fairly, Samus closed the Log and resumed firing, so there was more than one kind of these heartless, no matter, missiles seemed to be getting the job done, she had already cut there numbers in half, when Samus heard a sound she had grown to loath.
Ing were phasing in to the light world, the only way to stop them taking over the heartless was to destroy the potential hosts before they could, and unfortunately Samus didn't have the time, before she knew it the one darkness had enveloped the other.
The result was terrible to look at, the armor had turned purple and gained many sharp points, the arms had become single elongated claws, the legs had lengthened as well increasing the heartless's hight by a small amount, as well as a mouth which able to fire the trandimensional energy beams that were the Hunter Ing's trademark, the eyes had that menacing red hue of the Ing added to the eerie yellow of the Heartless.
Quick as a flash on of the newly formed Darkling Heartless rushed forward and took a swipe at Samus, making contact it knock her to the side slightly, her HUD showing the energy drain which was much more than she would've liked, then after narrowly avoiding a couple of poorly aimed energy blasts, Samus soon got tired of being on the defensive.
Not wanting to take any chances she let rip with the power missiles, about two a piece were needed, leaving Samus's ammo supply dangerously low, but she was alive and the Darkling Heartless had been taken care of, now she just had to get to U-Mos and see if he knew anything about this 'Heart of Aether'.
Needing to get to the main chamber quickly Samus had to make a shortcut through the dark world, she hated doing that, dashing between bubbles of purified air, having her energy supplies rapidly drained even when Ing weren't trying to impale her was not Samus's idea of a good time.
Using her Dark Beam to turn on an inactive portal and stepping through, Samus found herself in the perverse world of the Ing, moving from safe zone to safe zone as fast as she could, Samus didn't want to spend more time in the Dark world than she had too.
Finding herself pressed down a different path due to a very high concentration of Ing Warriors, Samus cursed them loudly when it led her to dead end, of course in that same dead end was the Light Beam, smiling as the new system fused with her arm cannon, the Hunter turned swiftly back down the path, the Ing would go down a lot faster now.
Unfortunately it wasn't Ing Warriors waiting for her when she got back, It was more Darkling Heartless, about a dozen Shadow class and three Solider class, all of them looking more violent and twisted than their relatively childlike normal forms, waiting for her. Samus had been expecting this sooner or later but it was still worrying, still it seemed that neither the Ing or the Heartless liked the light very much, and with her new weapon Samus was going to take full advantage of this.
The first Shadow class received a swift barrage from her new weapon, causing it's entire body to burn away, a Soldier class got round her and jumped her from behind, swiftly wheeling round Samus calmly pointing her cannon at the descending Darkling Heartless, which promptly received a power missile to the face.
Landing in one of the Safe Zones, Samus took a quick look at the Luminoth Crystal, a certain part of it's log entry flash across her memory "...can be supercharged with Light energy... Dark creatures despise these crystals; some are injured or killed by the field they generate." At this though Samus smiled, allowing the Darkling Heartless to surround her within the bubble, still unharmed thanks to the possession, she jumped backwards out of the field and fired a blast of Light energy at the crystal, super charging it and completely obliterating the creature's inside.
Not much later a Dark Portal sprang to on the Light world of Anther, through which flew the diving for of Samus, picking herself up Samus's eyes opened wide, right in front of her in a massive fire fight was a full squad of Pirate troopers, another squad of Grenadiers and several Aerotroopers, opening everything they had on a mass of Heartless and Darkling Heartless.
Apparently the Ing had taken a liking to controlling the Heartless, and were willing to kill every single Space Pirate on Aether to keep them in their power, the Space pirates on the other hand refused to back down, the Troopers upfront guarding the Grenadiers which were firing into the mass of heartless over the Troopers heads, the Areotroopers were firing salvo after salvo and drawing the most of the Transdimentional energy blasts, using their extra mobility to avoid them.
Not wanting to get caught up in the battle between the Heartless and the rapidly overwhelmed Pirates, Samus formed her morph ball and rolled through a small tube to an out of sight ledge. She was shocked to see a Soldier Class Heartless plunge it's hand into a troopers chest and pull out what appeared to be it's heart, the Pirate collapsed and it's body disappeared.
Samus rolled through through one of Aether's small tunnels away from the battle, mulling over the info she had just come into, Apparently there was such a thing as the emotional heart, everyone had one, even the pirates, which Samus found hard to believe but was undeniable after what she had seen, and that the Heartless could take them causing the victim to vanish, this plus only her to to fight them equals not good.
Finding her way to the Temple Grounds, Samus found them relativity peaceful, the Ing seemed to be focusing on wiping out or possessing all the Pirates on the planet, fine for her safety for now, but in the long term this was bad, with the Pirates and Heartless under the Ing's control they would be all the more deadly.
After taking care of a few War Wasp's that just wouldn't get out of her way, Samus found herself in front of the only Luminoth on the planet not either in stasis or dead, U Mos, the fifth sentinel of Aether.
"I think I have some bad news for you U Mos" Samus started slowly before he cut across her.
"Yes I know, Heartless have appeared and are seeking the Heart of Aether, the Ing have discovered this and are hunting for it also, believing it will bring them victory."
"I think you just me more than I was about to tell you, so where is this Heart, I have to defend it"
"The Heart of Aether is behind the Keyhole, which can be found at the base of this Temple, make haste, and may the Light of Aether guide and protect you" And after forming the healing energy at his finger tips which refiled her energy faster than any recharge station, he said no more.
Samus was used to this sort of behavior, the Chozo that found her were like it all the time, and after deactivating the shield on the door out she started for the lowest chamber of the temple.
On the short ride down to the next floor Samus's thoughts started to wonder, she must've done something in a past life to get saddled with this, first it was just stopping Pirates, then saving an entire planet from it's dark mirror image and now she's rushing to defend a giant keyhole from another type of darkness, all she needed now was for Dark Samus to turn up and this disaster of a mission would be complete.
The battle started the moment she reached ground level, heartless popping out of the air and lunging right at Samus giving her barely any time to react, but it was all she needed, Moving so the Heartless's claws were barely millimeters away, then jamming her gun right in it's face, blew it's head right off.
The sheer amount of Heartless that attacked Samus were massive, each one seemed desperate stop her from getting to the heart, not that they could, blast after blast from her light beam making short work of them, it wasn't until the chamber before the heart's location that she had any trouble.
Right before her eyes several giant pieces of armor fell from the sky, they then started to pieces itself together to form a massive suit which loamed over Samus, "This could be bad" she thought, then she heard that sound again, the one that meant only one thing, Ing were phasing in, she watched as each piece was possessed each piece individually, "Scratch that, this is bad".
Her opening gambit was the power beam, opening up on the Heartless's midsection, which did nothing more than enrage it, managing to get into morph ball mode in time to get between it's legs and avoid it's charge, returning back to normal she watched as the small head scanned round for her before the rest of the body moved towards her.
Getting a small brain wave she switched to the Dark Beam and began to charge it, the Heartless saw it's chance and struck, hitting Samus on the right shoulder and sending her reeling, managing to hold the charge Samus regained her balance and fired at the heartless's head, coating it in dark energy and blinding it.
This is when Samus learned the unfortunate lesson that the different piece's of armor had minds of their own, the hands separated and began to spin towards her, hitting Samus across the chest, in retaliation she fired missile after missile at the disembodied hands, when one finally landed a loud crack was given off and could be seen on the gauntlet itself, now with a weakness located, Samus went to work.
Shattering each piece of the heartless one by one Samus began to gain the other hand, but after the hands went it changed configuration to a Cannon form, this was easily stopped by clogging the mouth with more dark energy, but not before it had got a couple of good hits in on her.
Managing to blow away the boots when they were separated and sent after her let only the body and head were left, getting desperate it started spinning along the ground at her, charging her Power Beam as she avoided the heartless turned whirling dervish, then as it came right at her she launched a power missile, it went in one side but not out the other, the Heartless slowing down to a stop inches away from Samus, both completely still, then in a flash of orange light the creature exploded, a heart floating away into the sky.
It was in the next area that she saw it, a massive old fashioned keyhole, about twice her size right in the middle of the floor, and surrounding it was a mass a heartless, smashing up against the rapidly weakening Luminoth force field that was projected around it.
Jumping into action Samus stared to destroy as many of the Heartless as she could, growing frustrated as the smaller shadow class jumped into the way of her shots as the Soldier class pounded away, though the numbers were thinning and soon the larger heartless would have nothing to block her shots.
Then the one thing she had hoped and prayed wouldn't happen in this whole mess did, a spray of blue beams hit the emitter for the force field, destroying it completely, looking up swiftly Samus saw her, Dark Samus, laughing that taunting laugh that was really out of place given the source, both aiming their arm cannons at the other until something else something caught Samus's attention.
A single Heartless had jumped into the air and dived into the Keyhole, a great white light poured outwards from it which quickly began to fade, as it did the land began to break apart and streaming of into a great dark vortex in the sky, Samus could only watch as everything round her was consumed by the darkness which then closed in around her, as her grip on reality began to fade, only one word came to her mind.
"Adam..."
And with that, Samus Aran's light, finally went out.
Back on Destiny Islands at the same time.
"Hey! It's gone, the star is gone!" Kairi shouted, jumping down from her seat.
"Are you sure?" Sora asked still desperately trying to find the star in the first place.
"Yep, It's no where to be seen, I wonder what happened?" Riku wondered while resuming his leaning position.
"I wouldn't worry about it, it's not likely to have anything to us" Sora joked leaning back and looking back up at the star filled sky, not even noticing that another one was missing, or the part he would play in bringing it back.
Well how was it? Not enough Sora and Co? Too many spelling mistakes? Not spaced out well enough? Any concrit would be great, seening as I won't know what you think unless you tell me.
The next chapter is under construction and will turn up at soime point in the near future.