Note: There's a teaser for Chapter 6 of Daddy Dearest at the end of this. This is "Just a Survivor", described in slight detail on my profile under "Stories"...or was it "Upcoming Stories". Anyway this is what's keeping me from writing Daddy Dearest. I'm really pumped about this one. Like I am with "Daddy Dearest". This is just a teaser trailer of sorts. As you can see from the "Originally Written" date, this probably isn't the final version for this particular story chapter. I'm pretty sure this is the first chapter I started out with. There's another "song chapter" that was written pretty close the time this was written, but it's more dramatic, than action-filled, friendship, sporting, happy poppy-ness. So I went with this one.
On another note, this plot was originally going to go into the sequel to that story I keep talking about "Someplace We Belong", but I've got a good running rewrite for that one, so I made this into a separate story.
On another note, the names are correct. Spoiling the plot for you guys already, lol. With that said, without further ado, I present to you awesome readers out there, Just a Survivor.
Just a Survivor
Subject: Kingdom Hearts Series
Characters: Ienzo (Zexion), Demyx, Axel, Arlene (Larxene), Xaldin, Lexaeus, Roxas (Sora)
Inspiration: Sukisyo, OP1 "Just a Surivor" by Tatsuhisa Suzuki
Originally Written: August 16th, 2008 5PM to 7:12PM. (Doesn't include the layout.)
This is one of the few times I actually suggest listening to the inspiration song while reading the Chapter.
You need the full version and the time notes will only be much use to you if your song is 3 minutes and 44 seconds long.
~~~~~Trailer Start~~~~~~
(First seven seconds)
Axel looked around extending his senses, ignoring the floating water music notes from Demyx and the beat that accompanied them. Good. Everyone made it on the train. Trailmon was more like it though. He, Demyx, Arlene, Lexaeus, Ienzo, Xaldin and Roxas just barely escaped that hoard of heartless. They had found themselves without much purpose when they showed up after Xemnas' defeat at Sora's hands. Since then they've been traveling. It had started off as a search, their original plan for their hearts, but it had quickly become a life and death matter, more so than it had been when they were fighting Sora.
Walking through the darkness, with a bond like only ex-organizations members could have, they wound up in this world made of data, where you traveled by Trailmon to get where you wanted to go. What started as annoying, for if you didn't have a ticket, many of them costing much more munny than they had when they first found each other, you didn't get a ride, quickly became a savior.
The group had come across an area known as the "Rose Morning Star" located on the "Dark Continent" to the world's inhabitants and the castle belonging to something or other named Cherubimon, in the center of the area. The castle was for the most part empty. They stayed there while Axel worked his ass off to "thaw out" Roxas. They had little time to recover from the events of their previous extremely taxing battle though. The group was soon ambushed by hundreds of Shadow and Neoshadow crawling throughout and around the building.
Thank Kingdom Hearts they found this trailmon named Worm. There was no way in heck they were gonna be able to outrun or destroy all those heartless. They were making good progress in escaping the heartless now.
(7 seconds to 22 seconds)
"That's...not good." Arlene replied at the huge black mass walking towards them. All the heartless had merged together into something that reminded her of that Darkside being she remembered Ienzo mumbling about during her Organization days. The heartless looked more like a giant sized Neoshadow than a Darkside really.
Xaldin and Lexaeus sat inside one of the middle cars on the trailmon. Xaldin had his head stuck out the window staring at something or other. Lexaeus decided not to comment on how much Xaldin's hair blowing wildly in the wind made him think of a shaggy dog.
Demyx stood looking up at the heartless with a worried smile on his face. He was glad he had used the bathroom before they left that Castle.
"Run!" Axel yelled as he and Larxene jumped up on top of the trailmon. Demyx barely made it through the caboose's door before a gigantic heartless hand smashed the caboose, picked it up and threw it.
Lexaeus jumped in his seat as Xaldin brought his head back inside the trailmon car startling him. "Lexaeus."
"What?" Lexaeus looked at Xaldin confused. Xaldin looked like he just saw Xehanort naked.
Just then Demyx busted through the door as they heard another crash. "Run! Run away!!!" Demyx yelled still running through the cars. Xaldin and Lexaeus followed suit, not wanting to find out what the heck was causing the loud crashes.
Lexaeus looked up as they ran between cars, to see Axel and Arlene leap to the roof of the next car. He heard another crash, saw the car two cars down from him smoking in the distance on his left and decided to hurry along a bit faster.
Demyx thought it was a good time for a song as he clutched the bars on the back of the first car tightly. He pressed his back against the car watching as the heartless picked up and threw the car in front of him with ease.
Demyx looked up at the others already on the top of the car holding on as best they could. Lucky Roxas and Ienzo were sitting in the only seat on top of the car.
(23 seconds (1st Verse))
He decided to flip himself onto the top of the car, with his legs hanging off the back end. He felt the water in the air collect around the car as he started his song, "Kurayami ni..."
Arlene glared at Demyx with a snarl, "You dork! I can't believe you're singing at a time like this!" She screamed holding her open hands up by her head.
Axel laughed as a particularly strong lighting bolt struck the heartless stunning it for a few seconds, "Good one!"
"Arrrrggghh!!!" Arlene yelled, "I'm surrounded by idiots!"
(33/34 seconds)
Ienzo patted Roxas' head with a smile. "Don't worry about us. Just help Worm drive, k?"
"No problem." Roxas replied as Ienzo got out of his seat and used a few tricks up his sleeve. The first one wasn't noticeable and he planned to keep it that way for a while at least. Every time one of his carried over abilities he learned as a nobody were revealed, the group looked at him with a "How the heck did you do that?" look. The second was easily noticeable; he summoned his Lexicon and mumbled a few Latin words. The lexicon disappeared turning into a long silver staff with a black book with keychains of the nobody symbol hanging from it, on the top.
Lexaeus watched Ienzo particularly impressed as Ienzo tossed the staff up in the air behind him and caught a silver bow and a pack of black arrows with white arrow heads, just as Xaldin called out his spears and Axel his chakrams.
(55 seconds (that slight pause between the 1st verse and chorus))
In the midst of flying water surrounding them, Lexaeus felt pretty useless stuck kneeling on the trailmon watching everyone else fight. He didn't have a long range attack that would keep him on Worm.
"Heh heh. Oops." Roxas smiled nervously feeling himself pressed up against the back of the chair. He had accidentally pulled the brakes, which sent the group falling forward. All except for Demyx who had leaned backwards, and Ienzo who Lexaeus had noticed pretty much had his feet stuck to the trailmon's roof.
56 seconds (Chorus)
"Roxas!" The group, excluding Demyx, yelled in a whining manner.
"Hey!" Roxas yelled looking back at them, "I'm only two years old! Give me a break!"
Demyx and Ienzo were the first to attack. The water surrounding the trailmon effectively encircled the arrow Ienzo had shot out smacked the heartless right on it's face. The now soaked heartless was shocked by Arlene which accompanied her yell of "Lightning STRIKE!"
Axel and Xaldin launched their respective weapons at the heartless striking it's chest. The heat from Axel's chakrams dried off the heartless, and the attack itself shook it out of it's paralyzed state.
The attacks continued like this, only interrupted when Axel, who had to stand on the very edge of the trailmon in order for his attack to hit the heartless, was smacked with a particularly fierce hand and went flying backwards. Demyx had leaned to the right to avoid the attack and Arlene had to twist her body sideways to avoid being hit by Axel. Xaldin was already on the far right and had nothing to avoid. Luckily, Lexaeus had caught the redhead.
In exchange for hitting Axel so strongly, one of Axel's chakrams embedded itself in the heartless's face and exploded into a flurry of flames. Axel caught his chakram and smirked, "Take that ya bastard!"
(1.20 (Interlude between Chorus and 2nd Verse))
Ienzo and Demyx looked back at each other with a nod, Axel's attack had slowed the gigantic heartless a bit. With a shout of "Curaga!" and "Healing!" the duo healed the group from the previous battle with the mob of heartless and the gigantic heartless's attack on Axel. The group was surrounded by translucent blobs of green from Demyx's Curaga and a mist of white from Ienzo's Healing.
Ienzo unclasped his hands, and took out another arrow.
"When did Ienzo learn all this?" Lexaeus mumbled to himself.
(1.29 (2nd Verse))
"Obieteta..." Demyx returned to his song with a grin on his face. 'This track is more like a roller coaster,' he thought.
"Why exactly are you singing!?" Arlene yelled looking at Demyx while striking the heartless with a lightning bolt in time with Xaldin's spears slashing at the heartless.
The ground started to shake with great quakes. "You have to be kidding me." Xaldin looked at the heartless that was catching up to them. It had gone into a pretty strong sprint for a heartless. Another arrow smacked the heartless right in the face, and exploded, into a blast of white.
Pretty much pissed off, Axel was glowing an orangey red while he threw his chakrams and caught them wildly.
Lexaeus shook his head and looked back at Roxas. "Can't you go a bit faster!?" The heartless was gaining on them.
"We're gonna have to!" Roxas yelled back.
(1.52 (2nd Verse))
Right before Lexaeus turned back to continue watching the fight, he noticed the track looked at bit off.
"You guys better hold on to something!" Roxas yelled tightening his grips on the control handles.
"Aww fuck!" Lexaeus yelled, completely out of character seeing the vertical loops, on the track. There were ten of them before the track straightened out again, all of them at the top of deeply indented grassy hills. The grass was dead and/or dying, but Lexaeus certainly wasn't worried about that.
Demyx had already returned to holding on the bars on the back of the first car. He had noticed the strangely shaped track when he looked back at Ienzo before they healed the group. He didn't want to ruin his song by telling the others though. Instead he had looked back at the heartless with a grin.
(2.03 (Chorus))
Lexaeus stood behind Ienzo, the fact that he had pretty much stuck himself to the trailmon as he continued firing arrows was made pretty obvious. He gripped Xaldin with his right hand and Axel and Arlene, who was gripping one of Axel's chakrams prepared to kill the red head if it burned or stabbed her, with his left as though he was reaching out to hug Ienzo from behind.
Water continued to hit the gigantic heartless from the left and right as though there were an invisible being who controlled water punching their opponent.
(2.29 (Interlude part, that guitar "solo"))
Lexaeus was pretty nauseous by the time the track straightened out again.
Arlene grumbled, Axel groaned in pain and Xaldin winced when they landed back on the trailmon for the final time with loud metallic thuds. Arlene resumed her lightning attacks as the heartless was pretty much on the group now and swinging it's huge black hands at them. Xaldin transformed his spears into a dragon and had the created item circle about the heartless striking it.
Axel jumped up with a smirk as his chakram exploded in the face of the heartless again.
(2.46 (That part right before the final Chorus))
"You may want to slow me down kid!" Worm yelled to Roxas. Roxas looked up ahead. Where did the ground and track go? "90 degree drop coming up!"
"Oh COME ON!!!!!" Roxas yelled as Worm flew off the track going too fast to stay on anymore.
(3.00 to 3.05 (Chorus))
There was a collective scream as worm began to flip to a vertical position. Lexaeus, close enough to the side of the cliff, took out his Tomahawk and swung fiercely, just as the Heartless jumped off the cliff as though it were going to do a body slam. It smacked into a thick slab of Earth which proceeded to break into pieces. Lexaeus repeated the process.
(3.06-3.17)
Demyx looked to his right and left. Xaldin gripped the right bar on the back of the track, Axel and Arlene held onto the left bar. Somehow the three of them were still able to attack. The process of Lexaeus' attacks slowing down the heartless seemed pretty cool. But it was Ienzo's arrows, he was still stuck on the trailmon somehow, getting stuck into the huge chunks of Earth that Lexaeus' move were leaving behind and exploding, sending a flurry of smaller upward hailing earth chunks flying at the heartless; the track falling along with them as Worm and the heartless destroyed the looping track, and the fact that they were all working in sync as they once did before Roxas had left the Organization that made this whole thing worth it.
"Kizu mo itami mo sono mama ni aruite iku!" He sang with a smile as Arlene continued screaming at him "Is your stupid song over yet!?" His slightly longer hair blew wildly around him.
(3.18 to end)
Demyx's water attacks turned into floating music notes as the beat to his song which came from even Demyx didn't know where, continued to the end.
"Good." Ienzo replied to his arrow hitting the heartless on the left side of it's chest 'causing it to burst into thousands of hearts. "That was my last arrow." The hearts floated to the sky while the group screamed and/or braced themselves for a horrid landing. "Now to get Roxas." The young boy was still holding onto the lever controls screaming. He couldn't exactly let go. The force from the winds would cause his light and still healing body to go crashing right into trailmon track and rock.
Ienzo ran towards him somehow keeping himself stuck to the trailmon. He made note to ask Demyx exactly how he played music with no instrument.
Note: Arlene's move, "Lightning Strike" comes from many things: it's a move of quite a few Digimon I believe, among other things. In this instance, however, it's inspired and resembles "Sophia's" lightning strike "symbology" move from, um, that game, Star Ocean: Till The End of Time. That's a damn good game, btw, long. Therefore I'm annoyed that I didn't enable trophy granting in my first runthrough.
Daddy Dearest Chapter Six Trailer
Note: Two words. Holy fuck. 800 hits!? You guys are awesome. Thanks for taking a look at Daddy Dearest everyone! I'm sorry for keeping you all waiting for the next chapter. Progress is going slow, but I'll get to the end. So, um, here you go. ^^
If it seems like the format is strange for this trailer, that's on purpose. I edited out some parts of this particular scene.
~~~~~~Trailer Start~~~~~~
As the group walked, Riku found himself studying the back of Sephiroth. 'He...looks like that...thing.' He thought back to the few times he had seen the creature, always charging at him as though he had a target sign on his forehead. 'At least from behind at any rate. If your hair was any straighter you could pluck the strands and use them as needles.' Riku tried his best to smile, anything to keep his mind off the fact that the same thing that had killed his mother and most likely Sora's parents was trying to kill him as well.
He looked at the ground, blinking back a few tears. In a way he was glad that it followed him. He wouldn't know what to do if he found that it was now going after his friends and their families. Riku focused on the soft clicks of Vincent's gold armor covered boots and Sephiroth repeatedly clicking Masamune out of it's sheath and sliding it back in. "Sephiroth? Vincent?"
The older silver haired man slightly tilted his head, the only sign that he had heard Riku, more focused on listening to his surroundings to make sure they'd know if it came back. Vincent grunted out something that sounded like "What?"
Riku swallowed thickly, "What is Jenova, really? Why is it after me?" Riku looked back at Vincent who raised an eyebrow curious. "Well, you did tell me to ask another time."
"You didn't mention you noticed it's name before," Vincent replied. Sephiroth remained quiet, his hand gripped tightly on Masamune's handle.
"It didn't click until just a while ago..." Riku muttered. Sephiroth drummed his fingers lightly on the handle, the long sword twitching slightly with each drum of the finger.
Vincent pursed his lips. He had to find a way to describe her without making him freak out, otherwise he was a dead man from the start. "Jenova is a supernatural being. Hundreds of years ago, it fell to my planet."
"I know that...I think." Riku replied. "I just want to know what it is." Riku looked back at Vincent. Vincent eyed him strangely again. "Blame my friend's dreams."
"What information are you looking for then?" Sephiroth finally spoke.
Riku looked at Sephiroth, "What do you mean?" He switched the shoulder his bag was hanging on.
"Jenova is many things to many people." He replied calmly and slowly. Vincent looked away; Sephiroth was right about that one.
Sephiroth glanced back at Riku, mako green eyes looking down on him. Riku figured that was all he was going to say. As loving as the man was towards him, Riku couldn't help that sometimes the older man scared him. Occasionally he worried him. Riku occasionally felt that something was off about him. He seemed to care about Riku, but something always kept Sephiroth away from him.
"What is Jenova's purpose?"
"Who knows." Vincent replied, "It exists to destroy most likely. Infecting planets with its putrid cells and destroying it while it uses the planet as a vessel to the next one."
Riku stopped walking. His thoughts disturbed him. 'Does this mean it'll go back for Destiny Islands? Will it get bored of trying to kill me and head back or go to some other planet?' Riku looked up and around. The sky was stuck in this permanent gray, unless it happened to reach part of the world where the neon green stream cut it off.
Vincent placed a hand firmly on Riku's shoulder, "We'll find a way to stop it. It has been stopped before."
Riku looked up at Vincent failing to force a decent smile on his face, "Why don't we just kill it once and for all?"
Sephiroth nearly busted out into laughter. He settled for chuckling instead. "You need to regain your strength. I know of a place we can take shelter for a while." Once again, Vincent agreed. It wasn't that he didn't want to destroy it and get it out of everyone's lives forever. It's just that, no one knew how to destroy it and actually keep it that way.