Dark Horizon

By Zexion72

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Ocean or the Kingdom Hearts series

Chapter 1: The Calm Before the Storm

On Klaus III...

Mirage watched over her students in the dojo. As she watched them, she smiled. Her students had learned a lot recently and they were applying it to their fighting styles better than she thought they would. If they kept up that level of progress they would become really strong in no time. Mirage clapped her hands together twice.

"All right everyone, take a short break. You all deserve it," said Mirage. Instead of bowing at the dojo's exit and leaving the children walked over to Mirage. "What is it?"

"Sensei Mirage, could you tell us what exactly happened in the Executioner incident last year?" Asked one of the children.

"Yeah, we heard very few details about it," said another child. Mirage smiled warmly.

"Sure, why not?" She said. Mirage cleared her throat and began to talk. "The Eternal Sphere, the true name of our Universe. Our universe had been created by beings from another dimension. We call them 4D beings. Our universe was nothing more than a simulator used for their personal entertainment. We were all nothing more than data in a large program. One day the 4D beings noticed that we had learned how to use symbology, the coding that was the foudations of the Eternal Sphere. They feared that we could use symbology against them. As a result, they created the Executioners. The Executioners were powerful creatures that some considered to be gods. Last year, the Executioners had finally been released into our galaxy. A scientist by the name of Dr. Leingod, an authority in Symbological Genetics found out what the 4D beings were planning and he decided to develop counter measures against the Executioners and the one leading them, the Creator. But as the pieces slowly started to fall into place something unexpected happened. Shortly before the Executioners were released, an upgrade in the Eternal Sphere was scheduled. A 4D being by the name of Alek Rothrock had been given the job to test this upgrade. In order to do this he had to enter the Eternal Sphere. Suddenly something went wrong and he ended up getting stuck in the Eternal Sphere. Soon Alex met, Cliff and Dr. Leingod's son Fayt. After a few days, Alex started to change. At first, he believed that we should be destroyed but slowly he had a change of heart. When the Executioners came at last he fought against them by our side. Despite the fact that the Creator was his own dear friend he continued to fight with us. In the final battle, After the Creator had fallen, Alex and the others were confronted by a man named Vox. He told Alex that Creator had been manipulated into making the Executioners by a mysterious group called Organization XIII. As the Creator died, Alex was filled with grief which soon turned to anger towards Vox. Before the Creator died, he started to delete our universe. As our universe was being deleted a strange seal appeared. Vox destroyed it and then fought with Alex. Shortly afterwards, Vox retreated and left Alex and the others to die. Our bodies may have been data, but our minds were not. Our minds still believed that our universe existed. Because of that believe, the universe and everyone in it were restored. With our universe sealed off from the 4D beings, we could live in peace and freedom." One of the children raised their hand, drawing Mirage's attention. "Yes?"

"What happened to Alex?" Asked the child.

"Unfortunately, he died when our universe was deleted. Since he wasn't part of our universe, he wasn't restored."

"Aww... poor guy."

"Do you know anything about that group Organization XIII? And what about that seal?" Asked another child. Mirage grinned, the curiosity of children never stopped amusing her.

"We don't know anything about Organization XIII or that seal. But apparently Vox had something to do with that group," said Mirage. Suddenly there was the sound of the phone ringing. "I'll get it." Mirage got up and walked over to the phone in the lobby. She picked it up and put it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Hey Mirage, you sound like you are doing well," said a familiar voice on the other line. Mirage smiled as she recognized the voice.

"How are you, Cliff?"

"I'm doing fine. So how are things at the dojo?"

"Pretty good, the students are learning a lot and are making a lot of progress. If they keep this up they will become really strong in a short period of time." Cliff chuckled.

"That's, exactly what I wanted to hear."

"So how are things in the world of pollitics?"

"Same ol', same ol', things haven't changed one bit. The big wigs of the New Pangalactic Federation are as annoying as ever."

"Some things never change I guess." Cliff and Mirage started laughing.

"So have you heard anything from the others?"

"I heard from Maria last month, she said she is still being given a hard time by the New Pangalatic Federation."

"I knew that would happen, it's because of the powers the Dr. Leingod gave her. I tried convincing her into staying in the Klaus system but that girl is really stuborn."

"It's her choice, she wanted to find somewhere to live in peace. Besides, does her stuborness come as a surprise to you?"

"No, not really."

"There you go, so have you heard from anyone lately?"

"Other than a few former members of Quark, no."

"I see..."

"Well, I got to go. Talk to ya later, Mirage."

"Okay, be careful Cliff, I have heard rumors of strange ships coming out of nowhere and attacking people." Cliff sighed.

"Yeah I have heard that rumor too, it's spreading like wild fire. But you don't need to worry about me. I can take care of anything that is thrown at me."

"Right, just don't get cocky. Talk to you later, bye."

"Okay, bye." Cliff hung up and looked back up at the screen in front of him. "Alright, so where to now?" Suddenly an alarm went off. "What the hell?"

"Unidentified ship approaching," said the computer. Cliff knew that when a ship was unidentified it usually meant some form of trouble. But he knew that he couldn't jump to some conclusions. Maybe the person inside needs help.

"Display." A screen popped up with an image of the ship. "Wait, what the hell is that? I have never seen that kind of ship before." The ship was colored shades of light and darker blue. The body was round and on both sides of it were two cone like arms. On top of the body was a blue cone that looked like a thick antenna. On it's face was a strange symbol. The symbol was white and looked like an upside down heart with three spikes stick up forming a cross. Suddenly the tips of the arms started glowing. They shot off several blasts at Cliff's ship, each one of them was a direct hit. After the shock of the impact Cliff looked back up at the screen.

"What the hell was that for?" Cliff tried to open a channel so he could communicate with the pilot. There was a beep sound. "What the? No signal? How's that possible?" Cliff paused for a moment. "Could that thing... could that thing not be a ship but an actual creature? Wait... what am I saying? That bastard is going to pay!" Cliff typed in a command on the computer and two quantam torpedos fired off at the strange ship. Upon impact the ship exploded. "Ha! Teach you to attack people like that!" Suddenly an alarm system went off.

"Warning, damage to engines. Cruise to the nearest planet and contact officials for help," said the computer.

"That thing did THAT much damage? You've got to be kidding!" Cliff sighed. "Oh well, nothing I can do about it now. What planet is the closest?"

"Elicoor II."

"Why am I getting a sense of Deja Vu? Alright, Elicoor II it is. I'll contact Lancar when I get there." Cliff set a course for Elicoor II. He leaned back in his seat and let out a big sigh. "I guess all I have to do now is wait. Still... what was that thing anyway?" The incident with the mysterious ship bothered Cliff. He didn't believe those rumors at first but they were confirmed true right before his own eyes. But what were those things? They weren't ships but they weren't powerful demons like the Executioners. The best way Cliff could describe it was a ship that has a consciousness all of it's own. About an hour passed and Cliff finally reached Elicoor II. To prevent attraction attention, Cliff landed nearby Aquios. He got off the ship and walked into the city. Aquios had changed a bit, it was the same lively city that Cliff remembered it as. He took the time to walk around looking at the familiar places. Suddenly a certain woman with short red hair caught Cliff's attention. She was dressed in a light blue dress decorated with flower-like designs, it took Cliff a moment to recognize her since he had never seen her wear an outfit like this. "Hey Nel, how are ya?" Asked Cliff. Nel looked up from the table she was sitting at and her eyes widened in shock as she realized who was talking to her.

"Cliff? What are you doing here?" Asked Nel.

"Well, it's a bit of a long story. But anyway, it's good to see you again." Nel simply nodded.

"Likewise. Well, aren't you going to take a seat? I assume you came here for a reason." Cliff sat down in the seat on the other side of the table. He explained what had happened to his ship and how he ended up here. Nel seemed troubled by Cliff's story. "I see..."

"Is something wrong? You have a grave look on your face," said Cliff.

"The symbol that you described... it's exactly like the symbol that I saw on one of those creatures earlier..."

"You mean you have seen those creatures here on Elicoor II?"

"Yes, they have been appearing for a few weeks now but we don't know what to do about them. We can't predict their behavior. Sometimes they will be completely harmless, and sometimes they will attack. But that's the least of our problems."

"What else is wrong?"

"There are strange black creatures with yellow eyes. They pop up randomly and out of nowhere, usually they come out of shadows. They are always hostile, they will stab into someones chest and all of a sudden a glowing object shapped like a heart will appear. The creatures will run off and the person they attack disappears." Cliff's eyes widened in shock as he heard this. "Is something wrong, Cliff?"

"During one of my meetings last week, I heard that the federation lost contact with one of their ships. They dispatched another ship to investigate. They found the ship... however..." Cliff paused.

"Yes? What did they find?"

"The ship was completely intact, not a single scratch. However, there was no one onboard the ship. All the crew members, soldiers, everyone had vanished. There were weapons scattered all over the floor but there were no bodies, blood, or anything. The federation is completely baffled about this. So far that is the only reported incident, but the fact that similar things are happening on Elicoor II could mean that this is the sign of trouble in the near future for the entire galaxy."

"Could this perhaps be another attack from 4D space?" Suggested Nel. Cliff shook his head in disagreement.

"No, their universe was sealed off from ours. There is no way they could possibly be responsible for this." Cliff looked up at the sky. "What does all of this mean?"

Meanwhile on Earth...

It was near the crack of dawn. It was still dark outside and everyone in the neighborhood were still asleep. Fayt had just been woken up by his parents, they told him to get dressed and get ready to leave. Fayt muttered something about lack of sleep and walked into the bathroom. A minute or so later he came back out dressed. He went downstairs where his parents were waiting.

"Why do we have to wake up this early?" Groaned Fayt as if he was still half asleep. "Dad, don't you have off this week?" Fayt's mother sighed.

"You are full of questions this morning. Then again you wouldn't know since you were asleep when we got that call." Fayt gave his mother a confused look. It was unusual to get a call so early in the morning. The only time that ever happened was when the two genes that were in the lab on moonbase suddenly exploded about three months ago.

"What call?" Fayt's mother looked over at her husband. He simply nodded as if he understood.

"I'll explain," said Fayt's father. "We got a call from the New Pangalactic Federation HQ. They said that they..."

"Federation HQ?" Interrupted Fayt.

"If you'd let me finish..." Said Fayt's father, sounding a little annoyed. "Anyway as I was saying, they said that they need to see me right away. They also told me that I could bring my family as well. So I decided we could make a little vacation out of this." Now THIS was something to be concerned about. Odds are if the Federation needs to meet with Dr. Leingod, head authority in Symbological Genetics, something was wrong.

"What could they possibly want?" Asked Fayt. His father simply shrugged.

"They didn't say, the only way to find out is to go there."

"They have a private shuttle for us waiting over at the 48th district station. Let's go and get this over with," said Fayt's mother. As they started walking out of the door Fayt quickly looked over at his sword hanging on the wall. It hadn't been used since the final battle with Luther 1 year ago. He took it off of the wall and strapped it on his waste. It couldn't hurt to take it with him...

In the deep regions of space, Sophia's trip to Expel had ended and now it was time to go home. She went to the Space Port and waited for her flight to arrive. She would have called her parents to let them know that she was coming home but based on her watch it was early in the morning on earth, she would call them later. About ten minutes later there was an announcement that her flight had arrived. It would take about 4 days to get back to Earth and compared to some flights that isn't too long.

"I wonder how Fayt, Uncle Robert, and Aunt Ryoko are doing," said Sophia in her thoughts as she got onboard the ship. The inside of the ship was similar to the Helre only a lot bigger. After everyone had boarded, the ship left the port, left the atmosphere, and went into gravitic warp.

In another region of space Maria was flying a speeder shuttle while trying to escape from a Federation Ship. She brought up a screen to see that they were starting to gain on her.

"These guys don't know when to quit. This makes... the 10th attempt to capture me this month," said Maria with a tone of amusement in her voice. The Federation Ship started firing at Maria. "Now they are resorting to violence, they ARE getting desperate." Maria got an idea and she grinned. "Time to teach them a lesson." She slowed down her ship and the Federation Ship caught up to the point where it was above her ship. She used her powers to temporarily fuse the ships together and created a hole that she could go through. She pulled out her Quad Scanner and turned it on. "So the engine room is that way, alright." Maria quickly ran to the engine room.

She went inside and looked around. Maria realized that if she wanted to she could easily destroy the entire ship just by destroying everything in this room. But if she did that she would end up killing herself. So instead she pulled out some small switch-activated mines and attached them to various parts of the engines. Maria quickly returned to her ship, disconnected the fusion, and closed the holes. She then contacted the ship above her. On screen popped up the Captain of the ship. He had the dark beard and the officer outfit that all high ranking officials in the federation had.

"You..." Said the Captain.

"It will be a thousand years before you can capture me," said Maria.

"What? I'll show you!" Maria accelerated her ship and as she did she pressed the mine switches. Maria could hear an alarm go off in the background of the Federation Ship.

"The engines have been severely damaged! We can't move the ship!" Exclaimed one of the soldiers.

"Damn!" The Captain looked back over at Maria with a pissed of look. "You won't get away with this."

"Yes I will. See ya," said Maria. She cut the transmission and went into gravitic warp. The Captain of the Federation ship sighed.

"I can't believe she got away again."

"Captain, we are getting a transmission from HQ," said a nearby officer. The Captain knew what that meant. Admiral Hermes was going to ask for a report and he would have to tell them that they lost Maria again.

"Display." The screen popped up with Hermes on it. "Admiral. Unfortunately, Maria has gotten away again. Once we repair our engines we shall..."

"Do not worry about it Captain. I have hired someone who said that they would take care of Maria," said Admiral Hermes.

"What? Who is it?" The Admiral shook his head.

"I do not know. I never saw his face, he wore a black hood. At first I wasn't sure if I should trust him, but there was something about him that made me feel like he could get this job done with ease."

"He sounds very suspicious..."

"Yes, I am still unsure of this person but if they can take care of this for us I couldn't care less. It will get the government off our backs about it. Well I just thought that I should let you know. Over and out." The transmission ended. Back on Earth, Admiral Hermes recalled the events that had happened.

FLASHBACK

Hermes had just gotten off the phone with one of the big wigs of the Federation. The Government was starting to get impatient with the military. They wanted Maria to be captured as soon as possible. What they didn't understand was that this girl had strange powers that helped her escape each time. Hermes began to think that this Maria girl was close to impossible to capture. Suddenly his phone started beeping and he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"This is the front desk. There is someone here to see you," said the secretary.

"Send them up."

"Right away." Within a few seconds the person was transported up. This person wore an all black outfit with a zipper in the center running from just below their neck to the very edge of the coat. On both sides of the zipper there were two lines of thread dangling down to the edge of their chest. On each end point was a beautifully carved bead. Overlapping the string and the zippers was a silver like chain necklace that hung from one end of the hood to the other. This person was wearing black gloves and strange black boots. His hood was up so Admiral Hermes couldn't see his face.

"Can I help you?" Asked Admiral Hermes.

"If I heard correctly you are trying to capture someone by the name of Maria, am I right?" Asked the man.

"Y-yes that's right. Why do you ask?"

"I am looking for this girl. If you want me to I could easily capture her and she will be in my custody." Admiral Hermes wasn't sure if he could trust this person. But he sensed something about this person. It was if he could sense that this person was capable of getting the job done. Admiral Hermes nodded.

"Alright, you may take this job. When you do capture her, contact me." The man nodded.

"Understood, I shall do so when I have captured Maria." Suddenly a cloud of dark energy appeared and surrounded the man. The cloud formed into a spinning oval and when it disappeared the man was long gone.

END OF FLASHBACK

"I hope I have done the right thing in giving that man the job," said Admiral Hermes.

Meanwhile, Maria was continuing to fly with no destination in mind. She leaned back in her chair and sighed. "Why can't people just leave me alone? I may have super natural powers but I am a regular human being, aren't I?" Suddenly there was a warning signal. Maria got up and checked the screen. "What? I'm being pulled out of Gravitic Warp? How is that possible?" The Federation wasn't able to do these sort of things but then who could it be? When Maria arrived in conventional space she was ambushed by thousands of small ships. "What are those things?"

Maria had never seen anything like them beforeThey were all colorful and they came in different shapes and sizes. Some were bigger than others while some were small but dangerous looking. But each one had something in common, the strange symbol. The symbol was white and looked like an upside down heart with three spikes stick up forming a cross. Suddenly they all opened fire on Maria. Maria tried to dodge them but it was too much. Her ship was taking severe damage.

"This is really bad! I can't fight all of them." Maria looked around trying to find an opening where she could go into gravitic warp. But there wasn't an opening anywhere. They continued to fire at her ship but it didn't seem like they were trying to kill her, to Maria it seemed like they were sending her in a direction. "That's... Elicoor II!" Maria had no idea why these creatures were trying to send her to Elicoor II but it was better going there than staying with all of these things. She turned around and went straight through the opening that lead to Elicoor II. It was a rough landing but Maria made it in one piece. She looked around, she had landed nearby Peterny. She had her communicator so she could contact someone and ask for help. But Maria decided to go to Aquios first and talk to Nel, it had been awhile since she had seen her comrades that had fought alongside of her 1 year ago. Maria walked into Aquios and took a look around. It was the same lively town as she had remembered it was 1 year ago. She stopped as she saw two familiar faces.

"Cliff! Nel!" Said Maria as she walked over to them.

"Hey Maria, long time no see," said Nel.

"Never thought I would see you here," said Cliff.

"I could say the same to you Cliff. What are you doing here?" Asked Maria.

"I was attacked by these strange creatures that were like ships and I had to land her because of the damages on my ship." Maria's eyes widened in shock.

"Really? I was attacked too, they looked exactly like that."

"Coincidence, maybe?" Suggested Nel. Maria shook her head.

"That wasn't a coincidence. There is no way that so many of those things would just happen to appear." Cliff gave Maria a confused look.

"That many? How many attacked you? I was only ambushed by one."

"I was pulled out of Gravitic Warp and ambushed by thousands of them."

"What? Thousands? That couldn't be a coincidence. You are lucky to have survived that." Maria simply nodded. It didn't seem like those creatures were trying to kill her. More like they wanted to send her to Elicoor II. But Maria decided not to mention that.

"Strange things are happening up in space, as well as Elicoor II," said Nel.

"Hmm? What's wrong?" Asked Maria as she turned her attention over to Nel.

"Apparently strange creatures have been popping up here," said Cliff.

"Tomorrow, Airyglyph and Aquios are going to discuss what to do in a conference. How about coming with me to that meeting? I am sure that your thoughts on this subject will help," added Nel. Cliff and Maria looked at each other and shrugged as if saying: why not?

"Sounds good to me," said Cliff.

"I don't have anything better to do," said Maria.

"So when and where does this conference take place?"

"It takes place tomorrow in the conference room inside the castle. The king of Airyglyph and his representatives will arrive tomorrow."

Meanwhile in a place far away...

Inside of the Mansion's Basement one person sat at a computer the other stood behind him. The man sitting at the computer had a black outfit with a red cape on his back. His face was covered by red bandages and all that could be seen of his face was his mouth and an amber-colored eye. The other man wore an all black outfit with a zipper in the center running from just below his neck to the very edge of the coat. On both sides of the zipper there were two lines of thread dangling down to the edge of his chest. On each end point was a beautifully carved bead. Overlapping the string and the zippers was a silver like chain necklace that hung from one end of the hood to the other. He was wearing black gloves and strange black boots.

"So the Organization has sat their plans into motion. We must make haste," said the man at the computer.

"Yes, we have to restore Sora as soon as possible," said the other man.

"It will take a few more days but soon he will awaken."

"And what of the other one?"

"He will take a little while longer. We can only hope that his heritage will not result in him joining with them. That is the last thing we need."

So who is the other one? Why was Fayt's Father summoned to the Federation HQ? What's the cause of Elicoor II's Problems?Find out in the next chapter. Anyway, please review.