Sora and Riku both landed at the same time, though Riku's landing was much more graceful than Sora's. Riku gave a gentle laugh and offered his oldest friend a hand up. Sora accepted his help with his habitual goofy grin. "My landings sure need work don't they?" he said.
"Don't worry, you'll get used to it eventually," Riku reassured. They both paused to scan their surroundings, a vast forest with rolling hills visible through the trees and not a soul to be seen.
"Not a whole lot to see," Sora sighed. "Merlin will sure be disappointed."
"I say we explore a little first, you never know what we might find here," said Riku. As if on cue, the world erupted in an explosive geyser of dirt as something very large impacted a few feet away. Sora rolled to his feet and shook the dirt from his head, then froze as he found himself staring down the barrel of a tank. Riku leaped through the air, tackling him to the ground as the tank fired.
"MOVE!" Riku roared, dragging Sora to his feet as he darted off into the trees. Sora followed close behind. The tank fired again, spraying dirt and wood nearby. Neither of them looked back as the tank's engine roared behind them, louder as the distance closed. Both froze in surprise at another vehicle roaring toward them, a smaller, faster one.
"MAKE WAY FOR THE TANK-KILL EXPRESS!" a frantic voice wailed from the quad-bike. Sora and Riku dove to opposite sides as the bike sped through them. A soldier leapt from it and landed between them. His quad bike rammed head on into the tank. The soldier smiled as he pulled some kind of device from his belt. "This just never gets old," he said before squeezing the remote. The tank went up in a blazing inferno as the bike exploded.
Both keyblade wielders stared in wide-eyed amazement as the soldier shrilly cheered his victory. He paused and looked up, as if some words had just appeared in the air over his head. "PROMOTED! PROMOTED!" he shrieked in triumph.
"Oh will you just shut up and get down!" another soldier growled nearby.
"Yeah, man," said another, wearing the white cross of a medic. "There's probably more of them. And watch for snipers!"
"PROMOTE-" the report of a rifle cut the soldier off, a hole burst through his head and he fell.
"I got it," said one soldier, wearing a facemask and carrying a large rifle.
"I got him," said the medic, who rushed to the fallen soldier's side and jolted him with a defibulator. In an instant the seemingly dead soldier was alive again and firing toward the enemy.
The masked soldier took a single shot into the woods then cheered, "Head shot!" None of the soldiers took notice of the startled young men on the ground. Sora and Riku looked at each other in amazement, and shrugged. More soldiers joined them and more shots came from the woods ahead. The soldiers whooped and cheered as they blasted away at each other. A soldiers fell, medics instantly revived them, sometimes were too busy firing. Sora wasn't sure if they should join in or not. They didn't even know what they were fighting over.
Before either boy could cry out, a pair of soldiers leapt upon them, both wore gasmasks and black uniforms. Sora flailed and gasped desperately for help in the unyielding grip of the enemies. Riku fared no better, barely holding back the knife back from his throat. A faint gasp and the slashing of metal on flesh was heard, then repeated. The soldier's grip on Sora's throat went limp as a taller figure tossed the lifeless body away. Sora gazed up in awe at a scowling veteran soldier with a golden eagle emblem on his helmet.
"You two alright there, soldiers?" the Colonel grunted. Both boys nodded in shocked reply. "Then back to it then, this war ain't gonna win itself! Love the JRPG avatars by the way!" he growled before rushing into battle, knife at the ready.
So many questions swam through both their minds. They continued to watch in awe as both sides blasted away at each other in the trees. Soldiers of both sides fell by the score, some were quickly revived with a blast from defibulators, the bodies of those who didn't vanished after a time, only to soon be replaced by identical soldiers with identical voices running in from a distance back. Eventually the shooting died down and the friendly soldiers, whose language Sora and Riku could understand, stood victorious.
"YES! WE WON!" one soldier cheered, the one who had nearly ran them both over with a quad bike.
"WE HAVEN'T WON YET, DIPSHIT!" a soldier beside him roared. "We just took the objective! We need to move on to the next one!"
"Actually, no," interrupted the one in ski mask. "Look the rest of the team took the other two objectives!" The whole team looked up and erupted into cheers.
"TOLD YOU! WE GOT IT MADE!" the support soldier screamed.
"DON'T JINX IT!" the engineer screamed. "They'll be back soon!"
Sora and Riku's eyes widened as they looked up to see a giant blue B floating in the air over their heads. They blinked into the distance to see other letters suspended in the air. "What in the wide, wide, kingdom hearts is going on?" Sora wanted to gasp, but could only mouth the words.
"Hey who are these guys?" the support soldier asked, gazing down curiously on the two boys. Sora and Riku both stood up awkwardly in unison, both stumbling for words as to how they should introduce themselves. "Wow, check out the avatars they're rocking! I wonder how much those cost!"
"Oh great!" signed the engineer. "Anime fanboys, bet they're squeakers too!" he grumbled.
"No, man, I'm telling you they're JRPG fanboys. Like from those Last Fantasy games!" said the other.
"Same, thing."
"Um… Hi, I'm Sora… And this is Riku," Sora tried hard not to look or sound awkward, but fail miserably.
"Um, yeah dude," said the one in the ski mask. "We can see your names just fine over your heads."
"Fanboy noobs! Great!" the Engineer grunted. Then Sora realized the name Engineer was hanging in bright green letters over the soldier's head. As were similar and vastly different and outlandish names were over all their heads. He gasped and nearly fell over backwards as he noticed him and Riku's names floating respectively over their heads.
"Yep, we got noobs on the team," the support soldier smiled, whose air suspended name read Noob. "Just watch and learn from me and Simon here and you'll both be masters of battlefield in no time." Another support soldier with glasses waved casually beside him.
"BULL FUCK!" Engineer bellowed.
"He's right," Medic calmly stated. "You really shouldn't follow their example. If anyone it should be the Colonel," he pointed to the soldier who had saved them both earlier.
"What classes are you two anyway?" asked Recon. "You're not holding weapons or anything?" Sora and Riku awkwardly summoned their keyblades. None of the soldiers looked shocked or surprised so much as confused. "Giant keys?"
"Oh great," sighed Medic. "Everyone go ahead and insert your crude jokes on the chat." As if on cue, a string of perverted jokes appeared in the corner of both boy's visions. Both blushed crimson, trying not to think of the same girl.
"What good are key shaped broadswords gonna do you here?" the Engineer demanded. "This isn't Chivalry!"
"SOLDIER!" the Colonel burst in. "The rookies have the right idea! No honor killing a man with guns. At the start of the match I took out a tank with my knife!" Colonel held up the blade he used earlier to save both keyblade wielders. Both blinked dumbfounded at the two, interlocked bipods dangling from the end of the knife.
"Um, Colonel, maybe you should give the rookies a few pointers," Medic timidly suggested.
"Yeah, better him than Mr. Closet-Call of Duty here!" Engineer snapped at Medic with a glare.
"Alright boys, you're getting the questionnaire," Colonel grunted as he turned to Sora and Riku. "You both got jobs?" The boys nodded and opened their mouths to explain. "Both wrong answers! Going to work equals minus kills, playing Battlefield; plus kills. Lose the jobs! Sex? Either of you having any?" both blushed again and stumbled, wide-eyed, for an answer. "Right answer!" Colonel grunted in approval. "Battlefield is our pussy here! How about shit buckets?"
A nearby explosion cut off the increasingly awkward questionnaire, knocking everyone back and sending a geyser of dirt and grass up into the air. "MORTARS!" Multiple soldiers bellowed as everyone scattered for cover. Sora and Riku scrambled alongside Noob, Simon, and Colonel, diving for cover behind a small hill. Noob and Simon peeked over the top and began frantically firing their machine guns, chattering to the beat of the weapons as they fired. "WFT!" Simon exclaimed. "We're not hitting them!"
"Yeah, no shit, it's because you both SUCK!" Engineer hissed.
"No, man, seriously, we've been doing burst fire like you guys said and still no luck!" said Noob replied into his radio. Sora and Riku barely had time to wonder they could hear the radio chatter loud and clear without headphones of their own. "And they're black!"
"NO SHIT, NOOB!"
"No I mean REALLY black!"
"And that's a bad thing?" Medic hissed, apparently indignant on account of his skin tone.
"Not THAT kinda black, like BLACK BLACK! See?"
"Wow! He's not kidding!" gasped Recon. "They're not in Russian uniforms like before, they're like inky black and… Shit they're eyes are glowing yellow!"
"Oh the jerks just downloaded a patch or unlocked some fancy skin!" Engineer snapped. "Just take em out!"
"Yeah, take em out!" grumbled an elderly voice on the radio. "THEY'RE RUINING BATTLEFIELD!"
"I'm on it," Recon complied. A sniper rifle shot rang out from behind a tree at the other end of the hill. "What the… I just got a headshot but it did NOTHING!"
"I KNOW! That's what me and Simon were talking about!" Sora and Riku exchanged glances, then crawled to the top of the hill beside Noob and Simon. They looked down with vengeful recognition on an army of heartless. The inky monsters stood upright and fired weapons similar to the soldiers, but were impervious to the hail of bullets raining down on them.
"HEY!" Colonel bellowed. "GTFO, CHEATERS! WE DON'T PLAY THAT WAY HERE!"
"Someone get on chat with Admin and ban these fuckers!" Medic growled.
"EVERYONE STAY DOWN!" Sora cried as he stood to brandish his keyblade, Riku did the same.
"We'll take it from here!" Riku grunted as they both charged the heartless. The otherworldly monsters took a moment to notice their attackers. They stumbled and hesitated with the same shock both keyblade wielders expressed at the sight of the friendly soldiers. By the time the heartless recovered and took aim, the boys were upon them. Sora and Riku swung, parried, dodged, and swung again in their familiar dance. The Heartless fell and dissipated with their every strike. The keyblade wielders dodged bullets like raindrops, those they couldn't close the distance to in time they struck with fire, blizzard, and thunder spells.
The Heartless respawned in droves and charged the interdimensional warriors again and again. But eventually their numbers dwindled. The battlefield gamers watched all of this in stark bafflement. What had happened to their beloved game? Was it a virus? A hack? Had the EA executives finally lost their minds and turned the long running multiplayer shooter into an action RPG?
Sora and Riku charged side by side at the two remaining Heartless soldiers, bringing their blades down on the foes in practiced unison. They nodded to each other in approval then turned to the wide-eyed gazes of the soldiers. "Holy shit-bucket!" Medic gasped. Just then Riku's wrist mounted communication device chimed. Cid had rigged it for him as a prototype. He casually pressed the receiver.
"Sora, Riku!" Merlin's voice gasped. "You've got to get out of there now!" A familiar laugh echoed as darkness crept across the sky. The callous cackle of the horned mistress of all evil herself. Some of the soldiers seemed to wince in recognition. "It's Maleficent! She's dragging that entire realm into darkness! Don't worry I have a trick up my sleeve that might save you!" Before Riku or Sora could answer, a blinding light enveloped them.
The Caspian Border flashed with dazzling brilliance for brief seconds, then was plunged into utter darkness. Not night, but an inky black flood of darkness that no light could drive away. What had been a realm of fun, competition, and simulated carnage was now merely a depthless chasm of oblivion.
Sora and Riku blinked several times as their eyes adjusted the milder light of Merlin's house. "Ah, so it worked after all!" Merlin announced in triumph. "My all-purpose recall spell! Quite nifty, if I do say so myself, but sadly cannot be used very often. Such a pity we couldn't save that world, though. What was it like there?"
Sora sighed. "I don't even know where to begin! For starters there were these soldiers and."
"WHAT THE FUCK!" several voices screamed in unison. Sora stumbled and nearly fell. Merlin's house was flooded with several, perhaps dozens of horrified faces, all in heightened states of distress. There in Merlin's living room were the soldiers from the lost world.
"What the hell?" Noob exclaimed. "I'm really standing now! I'm not in my gaming chair anymore! I'M NOT IN MY GAMING CHAIR ANYMORE!" he finished shrieking.
"Where's my bedroom? Where's my house?" Medic asked frantically.
"Where the hell is my shit bucket? Shit! Where's the bathroom?" Colonel grunted in confusion.
Engineer was fast becoming unhinged. "Oh God, I'm not in my house! OH GOD, I'M NOT IN MY HOUSE! OH GOD! OHHHHH! GOD!"
"Dad-blasted VR!" huffed Old Man. "VR is ruining games! AND NOW THEY'VE RUINED BATTLEFIELD!"
"WTF, Bra!" Choppi gasped.
"Oh my God we've been swallowed by the game!" Noob wailed. "THE MATRIX HAS US! WE'RE GONNA DIE!"
"SILENCE!" Merlin's voice thundered through the room with the force of thunder, shaking the house to its very foundation. All the soldiers now stood in whimpering, terrified, obedience. "Everyone please, do NOT panic!" Merlin's voice had returned to its normal tone and octave. "Please sit down, everyone, and I will explain everything." The terrified soldiers did as they were told.
Merlin sighed at the realization that this would take some time. "It is just as I suspected, boys," he turned to Sora and Riku, who were almost as flabbergasted as their guests. "The world you boys visited was in fact a virtual world that they were accessing by recreational game consoles via a local electronic frequency."
"A video game?" Sora asked.
"Exactly!" Merlin replied. "It seems my all-purpose recall spell had the side effect of transporting them here along with you. Carbon copying their electronic avatars as themselves into our world. I'll give you all a more thorough explanation in a moment," he briefly turned to his terrified audience. "But for now I need one of you to run to the castle and fetch Cid and the other of you to round up Leon and Cloud, and bring them all here. I think I already have a plan to put these ones to use, and possibly even get them home."
Sora and Riku silently nodded and were off. Sora went to find Cid, Riku to collect Cloud and Leon. Both parties returned to Merlin's house to find the soldiers sitting and talking quietly to each other out in the square. Scrooge McDuck was making a killing, selling ice cream to the new arrivals. Some of them snickered and giggled at the top hat wearing duck as he waddled from customer to customer, though not so much in callous mockery as in surprised recognition.
Sora and the others proceeded past the soldiers to Merlin's front door. But Sora stopped short before entering and stepped to the middle of the square, his face was somber. "Excuse me, everyone!" he called out softly. All eyes were on him. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I can't help but feel responsible for you all being here. We went there to help, to keep another world from being swallowed by the darkness, but it feels like all we did was make things worse. And now you're all stuck here for, I don't know how long. Again, I'm sorry," Sora finished with a sigh.
A hand softly clutched Sora's shoulder, he looked up to see Riku standing beside him. "That goes for me too," he said with firmly but with remorse.
"No need, kid," Medic stood up. "Merlin told us everything."
"Even if you hadn't shown up, the Heartless still might have found their way into our server," Recon said, standing. "If we hadn't been taken along with you, we might have been swallowed up or even possessed like the enemy team was!"
"And the Heartless might have gotten into our REAL world," Simon said as he and Noob stood. Soon all the soldiers were standing.
"The truth is we all owe you our lives, kids," Colonel walked up to keyblade wielders. "Hats off to you, soldier." He finished with a salute. All the soldiers saluted. Sora and Riku both blushed and couldn't suppress their smiles as they returned the salute.
"It's true," said Merlin, emerging from his house with Cid and the others. "Their being stuck here for now is unfortunate, but it DID save their lives. Furthermore we now have a small army to use against the Heartless." The soldiers grimaced in surprise at the last part.
"Whoa, wait a minute here!" Medic stepped forward. "I thought we made this clear earlier, we're NOT real soldiers!"
"Please let me make clear how much I HATE to say this phrase," said Engineer. "But Battlefield is just a game."
"Of course it is," said Merlin. "But even a game can be put to use, with a little imagination and a considerable amount of magic," he explained, though the puzzled looks remained. "Sora, do you recall your friends from Traverse Town on your last visit?"
"Joshua and the others? Yeah, why?"
"Do you recall the game they were being forced to play? A game that Organization 13 had hacked and had tied to the very fabric of the world." Sora nodded. I've been speaking with Cid these past few minutes about a theory we had developed after you returned with your report and I'm certain that we can use the base code of that game these men were playing, eh… Battlefield, and project it into other worlds. Once Cid and I are done with the preparations, they will be able to log in to their game here in the safety of Radiant Garden and have their avatars projected into other worlds. Then they can use their skills and unique capabilities in the game against the Heartless! We will, of course, upgrade their weapons and equipment. And with their help we will be able to stifle the Heartless and the remnants of Organization 13 on multiple fronts!" The crowd stood in shocked silence.
"Wait!" Noob broke the silence. "You're saying, we'll be fighting those things that attacked us at Caspian through the magic web and defeat them by playing Battlefield?"
"Precisely!" Merlin answered proudly.
"And we won't get killed?" Engineer asked. "We'll just respawn like in the game?"
"As long as nothing happens to you here in Radiant Garden, which is highly unlikely given our defensive measures, yes, you will be able to simply keep respawning, at least until the light magic energy is exhausted. And since none of you can wield keyblades you won't be able to close off the worlds from darkness, of course. But you will be able to help save many lives by doing this. And if we are able to preserve enough light magic, I might yet be able to transport you all back to your home world, and just as you were."
"Okay, that makes sense, sure," Recon shrugged. "But, interdimensional game projection or not, this is a real war we're talking about with real lives at stake! And again, we're not trained soldiers!"
"NO!" Colonel growled. "But we ARE trained gamers!" he said as he stepped up closer to Merlin. "It's like I said before, boys. We owe these people our lives. And there are other worlds out there, with other people who could get swallowed up and possessed, just like our fellow gamers on the Russian team earlier. These people need our help and we need theirs to get home. It's time for us to step up to the plate! Man the fuck up! And do what we all do best!"
"He's right," said Noob. "Look around us! We're in a genuine Disney multiverse! You all heard that creepy voice back at Caspian!"
"Yeah! The stepmother!" Simon chimed in.
"Yeah, the…" Noob paused in confusion. "No, Simon that was Maleficent."
"No I'm pretty sure that was Tremaine," he replied.
"Yeah, no, they just sound alike. But I'm telling you, it was Maleficent."
"Um… I don't know."
"OH WILL YOU BOTH JUST SHUT IT!" Engineer bellowed. "It WAS Maleficent, but it was the same damn VOICE ACTRESS!"
"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" Colonel roared. "The point is we have a way to help. I say we do it!"
"YEAH!" the soldiers cheered.
"We savin Disney, Bra!" chimed Choppi.
"HELL YEAH!" screamed a wide-eyed engineer beside Choppi.
"Nobody fucks with DISNEY on our watch!" Noob cheered. "We got us some PRINCESSES TO SAVE!" a roaring cheer went up from the soldiers. "All of us are in this together!"
"That's right!" Colonel grunted.
"Whoever or whatever it is that's after these worlds, we are gonna get em, take their tags, and we're gonna TEABAG THEIR FACE!"
"YEAH!" the roaring voices of 32 soldiers vibrated throughout the town. Merlin smiled with satisfaction and nodded to Cid. He'd have Sora, Riku and the others fill the men in on more of the details while he and Cid got to work. The Heartless and Organization 13 didn't know what they were in for.