Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, Ansem, Riku, or anyone or place mentioned in this chapter of Before the Dawn. I am making no profit from this, so please don't sue! Amen!
Riku was horrified to take in the sight he was currently viewing. The Islands were burning, small purple creatures were swarming all over the beaches, the boats, in the water. The heartless were going to overrun the world. Again.
Riku raised his legs to gather momentum to kick himself up to a standing position. as he did so, something felt different, wrong. his limbs were sore, as if he hadn't used them in a long time, his muscles were burning. The young man stood up, and as he tried to summon Way to the Dawn to his hand, he knew he was missing something.
"What...?" he asked aloud as his hand remained empty, gripping only air. Suddenly the ground rumbled underneath him, sending him almost to the sand again.
At that moment, the sky darkened and blotted out as though it were a sheet of paper being covered in ink. sand was picked up and hurled around in a great twister of what had once been Destiny Islands. Riku reflexively did the only thing he could do.
He opened a dark corridor.
The inky black portal spit the silver haired young man out somewhere familliar. Hollow Bastion. It hadn't changed since his last visit, just as heartless infested, just as strange and foreboding as ever.
Riku jumped as he spotted himself in the reflection in the falls.
He looked different.
However long Riku had been out for, it was apparently long enough for his hair to grow down to his waist, but that was what shocked him the least. Riku was dressed in all black, a long cape hung from his shoulders, black pants with black boots and a black belt were what he was currently garbed in. No shirt covered his chest.
Which, of course, allowed perfect view of the heartless emblem embedded in his sternum area.
He had no time to think about that, however, as a single neo shadow stalked up to him. Riku sunk into his battle stance, ready to eliminate the foe. he forgot momentarily that Way to the Dawn wasn't responding to him.
The heartless drew itself up to its full height, reached out a claw and...
bowed deeply to him.
If this wasn't strange enough a second heartless, a Behemoth, materialized and instead of immediately charging Riku, it knelt before him and bowed it's head. almost as if it were waiting for him to do something.
However, it never got the chance. The neo shadow exploded in a puff of oily black smoke, and in its place, was the one person he thought he'd never see again.
Sora.