"Maxx. Maxx, wake up." P.J. gently slapped his friend's chin a couple of times.
"Five more minutes, Minnie," Maxx complained, waving his hand as if shooing away an annoying fly.
"Maxx, wake up!" P.J. repeated, this time shaking Maxx's body with energy. "We're not in the Castle and I'm definitely not Minnie, so forget your good morning kisses."
Maxx finally straighten up. "What's the freaking big deal?" he said with an annoyed tone of voice, rubbing his eyes.
"Your magic crystal thingy," P.J. said, showing Maxx a purple crystal fragment. The crystal was glowing intermittently. "When it glows like this it means there are Heartless nearby, doesn't it?"
Maxx stared at the crystal, suddenly focused. He got up and started to pack his sleeping bag. "Can't you just check that on your own before waking me up next time, Peej?"
P.J. snorted. Maxx can really be impossible early in the morning. "You know I can't, man. I'm a psychic, not a magician. I can't locate something that doesn't have a mind."
Maxx didn't respond. He put on his backpack and quiver, and picked up his bow from the ground. Then he presented his opened right hand to P.J. "Let me check," he said. P.J. gave Maxx his crystal and waited. Unlike Maxx, he didn't carry around a lot of equipment, so he had been ready to go for minutes.
Maxx closed his eyes and the crystal in his opened hand levitated a few inches. "Corda amissa reperi. Corda amissa reperi. Corda amissa reperi."
While Maxx was chanting, the crystal glowed with increasingly intense light. This time it was constant. Maxx kept repeating those three words many times, until the light finally faded and the crystal fell back in Maxx's hand.
"Heartless. Lots of them. In that direction," Maxx announced, pointing to the verdant hills. "Someone must be fighting them. Someone with power, because I felt some of the Heartless's energies disappear."
"We should go and give them a hand then," P.J. said, clenching his fists. He started to walk in the direction that Maxx had pointed. But he stopped when he felt Maxx's hand grab his arm.
P.J. turned around to look at his friend. Maxx was frowning. P.J. knew what it meant when Maxx had that dead serious expression.
"It. It's with them, P.J."
P.J. looked back toward the hills. He was apprehensive and impatient at the same time. Today it could finally be over. This was the battle they had prepared for weeks. They had been looking for it in countless worlds and now their search was over. P.J.'s wrists were trembling with excitement.
"Let's go," he said. This time it was his turn to grab Maxx's arm. He ran toward the hills, almost dragging his friend with him.
"Where do we go now, Maxx?" P.J. said. He had expected to find the Heartless easily, but it looked like they were further than he thought.
"I can't use the crystal again," Maxx said, panting. Despite being much thinner, Maxx unlike P.J. couldn't use his psychic energy to empower his physical strength. "That'd take too much time. You search for them."
"I've already told you, Maxx. I can't use my psychic powers to locate Heartless. They don't have minds."
Maxx opened his mouth to reply, but had to catch his breath first. "Then don't locate them. I told you there's probably someone who's fighting those Heartless right now. Locate that someone. If they're enemy with the Heartless they must have a mind."
"Alright, good idea."
P.J. closed his eyes and opened his mind. He immediately felt a strong presence nearby. His excitement died when he recognized the owner: it was Maxx's mind. "Of course," he thought. P.J. couldn't feel distant minds as long as he was so close to Maxx's. Maxx's mental energy was too distracting.
P.J. detached his mind from his body and let it wander through the forest. Maxx's mind become fainter and fainter. Conversely, P.J.'s mind become much more sensitive to smaller details. Now that they were no longer overshadowed by Maxx's more powerful presence, P.J. was able to feel a universe of little simple minds he hadn't noticed before. The minds of little animals, even those belonging to insects. Occasionally he felt larger more complex minds, but they were still too primitive to be humanoid. Just some animals more intelligent than others, but still animals.
The experience felt like floating in a vast void space, completely dark except for a multitude of little points of light. Like a swarm of fireflies, each representing a mind, no matter how insignificant. Three of those lights caught his attention. While the others appeared and disappeared as his mind got closer and further away from them, those three were constant. If the other points were like fireflies, those three were similar to stars.
P.J. brought his mind closer to them. As he approached, the three points grew larger. They were no longer stars, they were suns, globes of intense mental energy. Humanoid minds, just like Maxx's.
P.J. inspected them from the distance. They were releasing waves of intense emotions. P.J. wasn't able to tell more about the nature of those emotions without intruding on the privacy of those minds, something he'd rather not do. But if these three were indeed fighting against Heartless, then the situation was easily explained. Nothing causes more intense emotion than fighting for your own life.
P.J. was about to return to his body, but he cast one last look at the three globes of light and noticed something that stopped him in his tracks. No two minds were alike. Even without actually reading them, minds could be easily told apart by their signatures. Each mental energy was different in some way, each one had his own "sound." While P.J. was not familiar with the other two, he recognized the sound of the third mind. It belonged to someone he used to know very well.
P.J. opened his eyes. It felt to him like whole minutes had passed, but P.J. knew the whole experience hadn't taken more than a couple of seconds.
"You were right, Maxx," he said. "I felt three minds and they're probably fighting the Heartless."
"Alright," Maxx said. "Where to?"
"There." Maxx started to move in that direction. "Maxx..." P.J. said hesitantly. Maxx stopped and cast him a quizzical look. "Your father is there too," P.J. continued.
Maxx was unfazed. "He isn't my father," he said, in a completely neutral tone. "Can we go now?"
P.J.'s heart ached at his friend's words. But he nodded nonetheless and ran after Maxx, who seemed to have regained all his strength.
Soon everything will go back to normal, P.J. kept repeating to himself.
"There they are," Maxx shouted. Unnecessarily, as P.J. could see that for himself.
From their vantage point, P.J. gazed at the valley bottom a few feet below. It was crowded with a black army of monstrous creatures. Most of them were no larger than kids, while some were more or less the same size as a human adult. A few of them, however, were almost as big as an elephant. The Heartless were all different in shape, but they had one characteristic in common: they were all black creatures with glowing yellow eyes.
Surrounded by the Heartless army, P.J. saw the three warriors whose minds he had felt earlier. He immediately identified Goofy, the Captain of the Royal Knights. It had been years since the last time he saw him, but Goofy hadn't changed one bit. He was wielding a shield, protecting his mates from incoming attacks.
P.J. looked at the other two figures. One of them was a duck and clearly a magician, judging by his robes and the flashes of lights he was firing from his hands. P.J. had never met him, but he bet it was Donald Duck, the famous Royal Magician and Max's magic teacher. The third one was a human boy P.J. had never met before. But he immediately recognized the weapon he was wielding: a Keyblade.
Goofy and his friends were holding their ground unbelievably well, considering they were just three against countless enemies.
"Which one is it?" Maxx asked.
"Who cares?" P.J. said. "They need our help. Let's slay them all."
Maxx nodded and readied his bow. While Maxx shot the first arrows, P.J. charged the enemy. As he was running, P.J. let his own psychic energy flow into his clenched fists, empowering them. He got close enough to the nearest Heartless and started throwing punches at them, each time releasing a massive amount of stored telekinetic energy. The strength of the blows was enough to dissipate every Heartless in his way, except for a few larger ones, which were still left visibly shaken.
P.J. kept running toward Goofy and his friends, but a Heartless that looked like an overgrown ant stood in his way. P.J. got ready to strike, but he realized that his fists were now too weak to deal any meaningful damage. Unfortunately telekinesis wasn't P.J.'s forte. He disliked physical combat, but none of his other mental techniques worked against the Heartless.
P.J. looked with terror at the ant Heartless, which was moving against him. P.J. desperately tried to charge his fists once more, but it was taking too long. The ant would over him in a matter of seconds.
Someone came between P.J. and the menacing ant. P.J. heard a metallic knell as the ant slammed against Goofy's shield.
"Mr. G.! Thank you," P.J. said to his savior.
"P.J.?" Goofy said, still focused on the Heartless, waving his shield in its direction. "What are you doing here?"
The ant Heartless screamed with pain. Two arrows had pierced its eyeballs. Its hellish cry became weaker and weaker, as the creature dissipated into black smoke.
"Ah-yuck, I see you brought company," Goofy giggled.
"Yep, they're Maxx's doing."
"Max?" Goofy cried, looking at P.J. in the eyes for the first time. "You mean Max is here? Where is he?"
"Mr. G., look out," P.J. shouted. With his recharged fists, P.J. stroke a little Heartless that was trying sneak attack Goofy. The Heartless disappeared with a yell.
Goofy paid it no attention. "Where's Max, P.J.?"
P.J. cursed his big mouth. He shouldn't have let Goofy know that his son was there, risking his life. At least not while the battle was still ongoing. Goofy's fatherly instincts seemed to have taken complete control over him, making him forget his own safety. After all, Goofy probably didn't know that his son was a knight now.
"He is safe, Mr. G. Don't worry about him, worry about them!"
P.J. raised his fists, ready to fight against three Heartless that were charging them. Goofy seemed to have regained the amount of sense strictly necessary to hold his shield, but his gaze was still wandering around unfocused.
In a flash of light, the human boy cut effortlessly the Heartless's bodies with a single blow of his Keyblade. "Are you alright, Goofy?" the boy asked, breaking his fighting stance.
"Sora! Goofy!" the duck shouted. "Look out!"
P.J. looked in the duck's direction and his jaw almost dropped. A gigantic Heartless was approaching, walking slowly toward them. It looked like an elephant-sized Doberman, with two disproportionately large heads and six legs. One of the heads was looking away from the battle, its ear drawn back. The second was snarling and drooling. Its eyes were staring at P.J. and the rest of the group with blood lust.
"Sora," the duck said, "My magic won't do nothing to that one. Try with the Keyblade."
"Gotcha," Sora said.
P.J. gulped as he saw Sora running straight toward the monstrous dog without any hesitation. The Heartless's vicious head growled, launching what appeared to be a sonic wave. Sora dodged it and slashed the air with his Keyblade.
The Keyblade seemed to cut air itself. The beast was struck by a violent gust of wind and howled painfully.
"Bring it on," Sora taunted.
The beast's vicious head growled back. The Heartless jumped. Sora readied his Keyblade, but half-way during the jump a vortex of darkness opened and the beast disappeared through it. The vortex swirled for a couple of seconds, then disappeared from sight as well.
The other Heartless seemed to have lost their will to fight after the beast's departure. They stopped their attacks and stared at P.J. and the other guys with insecurity. One by one they turned around and ran away.
"No!"
P.J. heard Maxx's scream and saw him running toward them, with his bow still in his hands. "We lost it! It used a Corridor of Darkness to run away."
"Maxie!" Goofy jumped toward Maxx and hugged him, perhaps a little too vigorously. "What the heck were you trying to do? You coulda been killed."
Maxx didn't reciprocate his father's hug. In fact, he pushed him away, causing him to fall on the ground. "I don't have time for this," he said, taking the purple crystal fragment out of one of his pockets. "I have to trace it before the trail gets too cold."
Maxx went to the approximate point where the beast had disappeared. He began chanting, while holding the crystal in front of his face.
"Obscuro aditu occluso, ostium tuum pulso. Obscuro aditu occluso, ostium tuum pulso. Obscuro aditu occluso..."
While Maxx kept repeating his magic formula, P.J. helped Goofy get up.
"Would somebody explain what the hell is going on? Who are you guys?" Sora said.
"Of course," Goofy cheerfully said. He didn't looked upset by the way his son had treated him. "That over there is my son, Maxie. And this is his best friend, P.J."
"Hello," P.J. said politely. "Nice to meet you."
"Hi," the duck said, shaking P.J.'s hand with enthusiasm, "I'm Donald Duck."
P.J. looked expectantly at the human boy, but he looked too stunned to even notice. "You have a son?!" he finally said with a high pitched voice. "And you never told me?"
"Ah-yuck, it never came up I guess," Goofy said.
"He's sure grown up," Donald commented. "Looks like he studied magic on his own after we left, because I've never taught him that incantation. I don't like the sound of it, though."
"Of course," Goofy said, completely unfazed by the last sentence. "That's ma boy!"
"Huh..." P.J. cleared his throat. How was he going to explain this? "Huh, Mr. Goof? May I speak with you? There's something you should know about Maxx."
"Of course, P.J. What's the matter?" his voice suddenly sounded concerned. "Is my Maxie in trouble?"
"Um... Actually, Mr. Goof..." P.J. scratched the back of his head. "Oh boy. How can I say this? The short version is...Uh, that isn't Max."
"What the heck are you talking about?" Goofy said. "Of course that's Max."
"No, that is..." P.J. sighed. "That is Max's Nobody."
Goofy was staring at P.J. as if he had grown a second head. "Wha... What?"
"Oh boy," Donald Duck said. "This bad, really bad."
"So that thing that attacked us," the human boy said, "Was it his Heartless?"
Goofy's eyes opened wide with shock. P.J. couldn't blame him. Being attacked by a horrifying beast and then discovering that it was your son's heart must not be easy. "Yeah," P.J. said.
"Ostium tuum pulso!" Maxx shouted in frustration. "Why won't this stupid spell work?"