Wow, it's been a long time hasn't it?
Okay, from the top. This part takes place after the eventual final conclusion to Tower of Trials. That means that there are many events that happened that haven't been written out at the time of writing this, and lots of things that you will be confused about. Don't worry, those events will be written, eventually, and posted to Tower of Trials.
Because so much stuff happened in the last two, I'm going to forgo doing what I did at the start of Light's Growth (formerly The War) and A Week of Troubles (former The War) in giving a summary of events of the prior volumes. It's a dick move, I know, but it's a lot of material to try to sift through for a complete summary. So, in substitution, I'll present their current mission critical goals before the beginning of The Battle for Radiant Garden.
1.) Find the Cornerstones and prevent Maleficent from gaining their power;
2.) Defeat the allies/cronies of Maleficent that she has infused with her power; and
3.) Put a stop to the sorceress and her armies.
Alright? Everybody good? Okay, without further ado, let's get this show back on the road!
Disclaimer: Shire Folk does not own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Final Fantasy, or any other licensed works that are used within this work of fiction.
Note: I would also like to give a big shout out to fuzzynavaljewelry who has been assisting me as my go-to grammar Nazi, editor, and consultant; and Shadow Horizons, my long-time pre-reader and ideas bouncer.
-A-D-
The Annals of Darkness
Part V: Cornerstones
Chapter 1: Radiant Garden I
1402hrs, Sunday, December 7th, 1671, Radiant Garden Reckoning
1402hrs, Sunday, 2003-12-07, Destiny Islands Reckoning
Northern Wall, Radiant Garden
Yuna spun around, breathing heavily as her weapon came forward across her body, striking at the sword arm of an Armoured Knight Heartless. It blocked her weapon's stroke, its pointed feet sliding back less than a centimetre on the stone ramparts of Radiant Garden's northern walls before halting. Its balance was unaffected, but Yuna attacked again, lifting the other weapon she held in her left hand and pulling the trigger twice. The Heartless jerked backwards as the bullets from her sidearm struck it in the shoulder, and that momentary distraction was all she needed to bring the weapon in her right hand under its guard and stab at its chest. It wasn't enough to break its armour, but it felt the blow, stepping away from her. Again and again Yuna stabbed, slashed, and shot at the Heartless with her weapons, until finally she was able to get the one she held in her right hand through its armour. The Heartless struggled for another second or so, before Yuna yanked the protruding wing of her sword back, aggravating the wound she'd inflicted, and pushed forward one more time.
It vanished in a puff of black smoke, its heart rising bright and pink into the dark sky, freed by the power of the Gullwing Keyblade she held.
That's another one, Yuna thought, panting. How do Sora and the others make fighting with this thing look so easy?
"Yuna." She looked up, seeing Paine fending off another pair of the Armoured Knights that had just leapt off ladders onto the ramparts. "Could use a hand here." Her friend was tiring, her sword strokes sluggish and weak compared to how they'd been several hours ago. Paine gasped as one of the swords of the Armoured Knights slid off her sword and cut her arm.
Yuna grit her teeth, mustering up her energy, and pointed her pistol at the two Heartless. She fired several shots while a United Forces soldier pushed the ladder away from the wall. One of the pair fell back under the force of her rounds, allowing Paine to focus her full attentions on the second, and Yuna charged at the first. It staggered around, trying to get into a favourable position, but Yuna was too sudden, and the point of her Keyblade pushed the Heartless back into the crenelations. Caught with unyielding stone at its back, the Gullwing drove through its armour and ended it. Paine drove the sword arm of the second Armoured Knight up high and kicked it in the chest, knocking it over. She shouted, "Yuna, now!" The weary mocha-haired member of the Gullwings reacted quickly, delivering a coup-de-gras on the fallen Heartless with her Keyblade.
"There's no end to this," Paine said, grasping at her bleeding arm. She'd already exhausted her supplies of potions. Yuna stood from her kneeling position over where the Heartless had been and forced Paine to remove her hand so she could examine the cut. Not for the first time, she was glad of the time she spent on her Pilgrimage, healing and bandaging the wounds she and her Guardians received.
"It's not serious. C'mon, we'll have to bandage that," Yuna told her quickly. She was just starting to reach for a bandage when she saw something pop up behind Paine. "Look out!"
Paine ducked, but it wasn't necessary. Just as the Shadow's claws were about to strike her, Rikku came in out of nowhere, stabbing the Shadow in the side of the head with her red daggers. "Rikku," Yuna said, surprised. "I thought you went—!"
"Don't worry, Yunie!" Rikku answered. "I got him out of here. He's being looked after at the castle. Man, ever since those Hero guys went back to where they came from, these Heartless have just been impossible to deal with!"
"Yeah, where did they go anyway?" Yuna sighed and nodded her head as she started to bandage Paine's arm while Rikku acted as lookout. The Heartless were attracted to her because of her new Keyblade. She was putting them in danger, but still they were staying with her. It was just like how her journey to stop Sin had placed her Guardians into danger, but like then her friends were here of their own will. Nothing she said would make them abandon her.
"We'll just have to keep fighting," Yuna said, though there wasn't much effort in her words. She was tired. "We'll have to keep fighting until Sora and the others return, for Selphie's and Tidus' sakes as much as our own."
"Yunie…" Rikku said softly, gazing sadly at her cousin. She'd been there when the three of them drove Lexai off the walls, but it hadn't gone very well.
Yuna's outfit glowed brightly in the gloom, the young woman switching from her Gunslinger dressphere into another that she had been in only a couple of hours before. The Songstress dressphere had given strength to those six Keyblade Wielders when they'd fought against the Decimator. Maybe now, Yuna hoped, maybe now it would give all of them the strength to hold out until those six could return to them.
"Shadows fall, and hope has fled;
Steel your heart, the dawn will come.
The night is long, and the path is dark.
Look to the sky, for one day soon
The dawn will come."
Light came from Rikku's and Paine's clothes as they came to stand next to Yuna, joining her in song. Slowly, those who heard them joined their own voices with theirs, this common hymn known across the worlds, and as they neared its end, it was echoing across the plain.
"The shepherd's lost, and his home is far.
Keep to the stars, the dawn will come.
The night is long, and the path is dark.
Look to the sky, for one day soon
The dawn will come.
Bare your blade, and raise it high.
Stand your ground, the dawn will come.
The night is long, and the path is dark.
Look to the sky, for one day soon
The dawn will come."
Just as the last notes of their final word's echoes faded into silence, the darkness that had covered the sky was punctured by a bright light, quickly spreading overhead, and suddenly several blue meteors streaked through the initial hole in the darkness that had blanketed them. Yuna rushed to the edge of the crenelations of the wall just as the first rays of sunshine she'd seen all day struck her face, and she looked at the place where those meteors struck the ground. What they'd been carrying seemed small at this distance, but even so… even so she could tell.
"Sora!"
-A-D-
In Tower
Far away from the conflict, but in another way right next to it via a swirling massive portal of green light, stood a number of people. It was an eclectic group. Ages varied from a toddler to the prime of adult life, several were not even human, and many of them were armoured and kitted out for battle. The entirety of the group was made up of twenty humanoids and several others, all amassed together in the top floor of a twelve-storey stone tower, going over last minute preparations before storming through the portal.
One of the armoured men was crouched down, speaking to the child, and instructing her that she needed to stay brave and close to her mother at all times, repeating it two times until the child nodded her head. He gave her a tight hug that lasted longer than he'd originally intended, before letting go and standing. He gave the woman standing next to the toddler a long, intimate kiss and a hug that lasted even longer, both of them making the other promise to stay safe, before donning his helmet that completely covered his face.
The leader of the group turned to one of the others, a woman in a brilliant suit of armour: vermillion, gold, and white all coming together perfectly along with her white cloak, bordered in gold and crimson with a black stylized wolf head in the centre. All of them were wearing similar white cloaks, though the colours that edged them were different. "How's the leg?"
"Leg's doing fine; thanks for asking," she answered, fingering the gold-wrapped hilt of her sheathed sword. "Those gnomes were geniuses, modelling it perfectly after your arm."
"Well, they did get a lot of experience with it when they lengthened it for me," he replied. "Better still see Winry, though, when this day is over." The woman nodded her helmeted head. Another woman came up to the two of them, fully armoured in a form-fitting suit of coloured plates and mail that she wore like it weighed next to nothing, with her white cloak edged in blue and silver.
"I think we're as ready as we're going to be, my lord," she said to the man. He nodded his head and unsheathed his sword from its sheath, a long gently curving moon-silver blade with three thin golden lines running down it to converge in the golden centre of a silver seven-pointed star that emerged from the blade near the tip. Its hilt was a basket of shining bronze, and it had an oak-coloured rubbery grip of shark belly skin. The base of the pommel was a brilliant blue tourmaline gemstone, and dangling from a short chain beside the ring the pommel stone was set into was a silver three-pointed crown. The whole blade shone slightly, but the sound of the magic steel leaving its scabbard quieted the group.
"Fearless Wolves," he declared, his voice loud and clear, "my friends, today you are about to fight something the likes of which none of you have ever seen before, and I cannot thank you enough for your courage to answer the selfish request we made to come with us into battle. None of you have seen the Heartless before firsthand, but by this day's end you'll have seen enough of them to last a lifetime, and if you want to return home to Olomund after today we will harbour no hard feelings and we will gladly grant your desire. However, the place we're going to is the realm my friends and I call home, and if you wish to stay longer to help us defend them and return peace to our home, we would be eternally grateful."
He bowed his head, quickly followed by five others.
"Are ye kidding?" a short, stocky woman in the form-fitting plate asked. "This'll be an adventure the likes o' which we'd never even dreamed of."
"You might as well accept it," one of the others told him, "we're coming with you whether you like it or not. Leave Olomund in the care of the ones staying behind."
"You guys…" he whispered, sounding emotional underneath his helmet. He shook his head, then, and straightened up. "Alright then! As soon as we're through we're probably going to be right in the thick of the enemy, a long way away from anyone friendly on the other side. We keep close and move as one until we make the gates. Nobody runs off on their own, got it?" He waited for nods. "Right. Group One goes through on my mark. No matter what, we'll clear the area immediately around the portal's exit. Thirty seconds after we're through, Group Two follows to assist us. Group Three comes fifteen seconds after that, and a full minute later Group Four moves through the portal. By then we'll have secured the area, and we'll begin cutting our path through until we reach the gates. Once there all non-combatants will seek shelter, we'll evaluate the overall situation, regroup, and redeploy as the situation demands. Everybody understand?" He was met by nods.
"Good!" Out of a flash of light and into his left hand appeared a massive tower shield of an orange-golden colour, a shield everyone assembled knew he had named Aegis, and it had earned that mythic name time and time again in his hands. He raised his sword, the Keyblade called Remembrance, as the rest of the warriors of the gathering bared their weapons. A small hawk landed on his shoulder while a girlish-looking air elemental hovered in the air behind him with a determined expression on her face. "Group One! Five seconds on my mark! Four! Three! Two! One! GO!"
He charged through, followed by four other armoured humans bearing Keyblades, two small birds, the air elemental, a tiny fire elemental in the shape of a dragon, a hissing snake, and a black cat that calmly padded along after them without a care.
Once through, the man found himself falling through the air, surrounded by a cone of cyan light like a shooting star. His companions were in a similar situation, all of them shooting towards a mass of black beneath them. The sky around them was lit, the sun already midway through its westward march in the southern half of the sky.
"I don't get it!" one of them shouted, completely unperturbed by them falling through the sky. "When we left it was completely dark!"
"The darkness felt strange to you guys too, right?" another answered. "That blackness in front of us must be the source of it. Maleficent's allies did something to keep the skies dark."
"Then we'll just have to break it up!" the leader said. He readied his Keyblade, but one of the women shouted at him.
"Sora! I can hear them singing!"
"What?"
"Listen!"
He paused, straining his ears, and over the whipping of his cloak in the air he could hear that she was right. A hymn was rising through the darkness and the clouds to greet their return.
Bare your blade, and raise it high.
Stand your ground, the dawn will come.
"Kairi," Sora spoke urgently as they rapidly approached the darkness, "let's bring them their long-awaited dawn." She nodded, raising her sword of fire above her head.
The night is long, and the path is dark.
Look to the sky, for one day soon
The dawn will come.
With a great cry, light that had been pooling around their Keyblades surged forth as they slashed them at the dark bank, but before theirs struck a different streak of orange-gold beat theirs to the punch, and a hole was punched all the way through until they could see the ground beneath them teeming with Heartless. The hole in the darkness quickly spread as they sped through it, unveiling the blue sky behind them and letting the light of the sun touch the battlefield for the first time that day.
They hit the ground hard, but completely unharmed. Looking up, their second group was already on the way down, and the Heartless that hadn't been squashed by their landing were now eyeing them with surprise, caught off-guard by the appearance of five Keyblade Wielders in their midst.
Sora eyed Riku for a moment, the latter shrugging with a hidden smirk, uncaring for having stolen his friend's thunder, before Sora refocused his attention. He didn't need sound to hear Riku gloat, "The Dawn is coming."
"Attack!" Sora shouted, launching himself at the nearest foe.
"For Athena!"
"Aiwemon digivolve to, Ohtarmon!"
"Ohtarmon digivolve to, MaltaOhtarmon!"
"Menelmon digivolve to, Soronmon!"
"Soronmon digivolve to, Thorondomon!"
Two powerful monstrous warriors now stood beside the humans and the familiars of three of them, joining in the fray with their own special skills. One of the women finished a spell incantation, and all of the surrounding snow whirled to her location. It clumped together, forming itself into an eight-foot tall vaguely humanoid mass.
"Destroy all our enemies within a thirty metre radius of right here!" Naminé ordered, and then turned towards a front that was being slightly neglected. "Ice Make, Tiger!" From out of her hands burst a vicious, massive tiger made entirely of glittering ice, roaring as it charged towards the Heartless that were trying to get around MaltaOhtarmon to get at her. She didn't even spare a glance at her ice tiger as it started to tear the Heartless apart with its teeth and claws. Instead, Naminé found her attention drawn to a contingent of Air Pirates, Rapid Thrusters, and Wyvern Heartless that were heading towards their descending reinforcements.
"My lord!" she shouted, pointing. "2 o'clock high!" Sora, after having stabbed an Armoured Knight in the chest and sending an electric burst from the tip of his Keyblade into every Heartless within three metres of it, defeating them all, looked up at where Naminé was indicating.
"MaltaOhtarmon, cover me!" Sora shouted as he swiftly sheathed his Keyblade and clicked a button on the shield's grip. "Naminé, help me get their attention!" He released his hold on his shield and it stayed exactly where he'd been holding it when he clicked the button. Naminé nodded, pointed her Keyblade up into the sky, and spoke a command word. Instantly a volley of magic missiles stormed out of the point of Nobody's Pride, heading for the lead Heartless. They smashed into the Wyvern, taking it down with a cry, but it was just one Heartless out of over a hundred heading on an intercept for their descending friends.
She heard the twang of a bow, and saw a glowing arrow that Sora had fired arcing into the sky and smiting an Air Pirate right in the neck. She barely heard the second thrum of the bowstring, only a couple seconds after the first, or the third two seconds after that, but she saw the arrows finding their targets, and making the Heartless vanish in puffs of smoke with glowing pink hearts.
I'm not that good with a bow, Naminé thought while Sora continued to fire at a rapid pace, and I don't want to use a charge recklessly, but the power of the Moon should be sufficient in wiping them out!
"Moon's Cannon!" she shouted, directing the face of her shield towards the sky. The large kite shield's face lit up with opal light, and surged up into the air in an expanding beam of moonlight. The Heartless that had been heading towards their descending friends were bathed in the moonlight and immediately obliterated. Dozens of little pink crystalline hearts floated in the sky, and the blue comets bearing the first wave of their friends hit the ground.
"I could have done with a warning about that drop!" Melbil chastised as the dwarf drew her Keyblade from its scabbard.
"Oh? What happened to that spirit of adventure of yours?" Jastra wondered, drawing her own Keyblade.
"It remained in the tower before I fell a thousand feet," Melbil grumbled. She slammed her Keyblade on the ground, and tremors went through the earth before great spikes of rock shot up underneath Heartless that were on their way to the ring of Keyblade Wielders. Jenny Clover was already casting her spells, putting Heartless to sleep or destroying them with magic, and Jastra had already advanced towards the front, slicing at their foes with her own Keyblade.
Sora glanced back after putting his bow away and taking up Remembrance again. It was good to see those three in action along with Roxas, who'd also dropped; the first three who'd joined their little pack of wolves also being the first three to have gained Keyblades of their own. Group three was already on its way down, but the sky was clear of the Heartless that had tried to intercept the comets.
A sound entered his ears then, a sound that brought him to overflowing with pride and vigor. Horns, trumpets, and cheers all coming from the direction of the wall, with the horn of Gondor chief among them. He snatched up his shield, pressing the button on the grip again, and raised his Keyblade in the direction of the wall. The cheers grew louder and more defined, the people lining them somehow able to see his gesture. Kairi's signature Skyfyre spell was obliterating Heartless, and Naminé's ice creatures were very effectively doing their jobs. She'd just added another one to the mix, an ice girallon: a savage gorilla-like creature that was eight feet tall with four arms, and it was rending Heartless limb from limb.
Group Three landed, adding three more to their number, and though only one of these three Wolves wielded a Keyblade it didn't deter the other two in the slightest. One smiled readily, extended her great white wings and bore a fiery flambard in her hands as she shot towards an Invisible with the speed of an arrow, the light of the flames on the wavy sword reflecting off her marble white skin. The Invisible barely blocked her first stroke, but lost its serrated greatsword in the process. She spun around, slapping the Invisible and several Heartless with her wings and stunning them with the suddenness and strength of the blow, before cutting them down with a single swipe of her blade.
"We have this, Sora!" Jenny shouted. "If you just want us to hold here, that's going to be pretty easy by the look of things."
"Don't underestimate the Heartless," Riku advised her. "Most of these guys are just the grunts, but even they can be a problem if you're not careful."
Sora nodded his head in agreement with Riku's statement and backed up a few steps as Naminé's newly made ice owlbear barreled up to where he was to begin fighting the Heartless with the others. Between it, the tiger, the animated snow monster, and the girallon, oh, and now the familiar gryphon added to the mix, Naminé's creations were taking up the brunt of the heavy work. Kairi and Jenny were adding ranged support with spellcasting, and Yuffie had created a dozen shadow clones to manage the gaps. In just a short time they'd already cleared out the area within a sixty metre diameter circle around where they'd landed.
"Alright," Sora called. "We've secured the landing zone, and ahead of schedule." He turned his Keyblade towards a few Heartless that had just slipped past a shadow clone and blasted them away with a trio of firebolts. Yuffie created another dozen shadow clones to bolster the outer line keeping them out. "Group up and keep the skies clear for Group Four when they come down."
"They should be starting their descent in a few seconds," Riku said, looking up at the sky. He looked towards the gate, still many hundreds of metres away. "We're still going to need to clear a path through that, though."
"I have a few ideas," Sora answered him, "and Naminé also has a trick she wants to try out. Isn't that right, Naminé?"
"You said it, my lord!" Naminé called, turning to look at him. Even with their faces completely concealed, it was easy to tell that they were smiling at each other. "Would you like me to begin preparations?"
"Rock, Paper, Scissors with Kairi to see whether we perform Double Trouble or you get to go ahead and try it out."
"Double Trouble?" Riku asked, confused. "Wait…" he restarted, chuckling, "you don't mean that Limit again!?" Sora laughed. He and Riku watched as the two sisters went through thirteen quick rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors, tying each time, until Kairi finally emerged as the victor.
"Yes!" Kairi declared with a fist pump. "Alright, Naminé, one question."
"Shoot."
"Why a girallon?"
Naminé held her hand up to placate her sister. "Okay, I know that's a bit touchy for you, Kairi, but you have to admit that they're really effective at what they do."
"Oh, I know firsthand at how effective they are," Kairi agreed. "It's just really, really uncomfortable for me to be seeing one of your creatures take that shape when it was a girallon that ripped my leg off and ate it right in front of me."
"They're coming down," Roxas announced.
"And I'm really sorry that we didn't make it down there in time to prevent that," Naminé apologized, not for the first time.
Kairi waved it off. "Don't worry about it. It'll be a story to tell my kids about someday, and one to tell Selphie later today when we meet up again." Kairi raised her sword of fire, with the keychain for Crowning Flame curiously dangling from the weapon that looked nothing like that Keyblade, and pointed it behind her. A Flash Arrow of Light emerged from the fiery blade, streaking through the air and blasting a hole through the head of a Neoshadow Heartless that was leaping for Naminé's ice tiger.
Group Four landed, some of them piled on the cart they'd brought along with supplies, and others in front. The toddler was laughing and giggling in excitement from the ride down, securely in the lap of one of her 'aunties' on the cart. Sora watched as the girl's father quickly double checked that she was fine. He received a nod, nodded back, and turned to his girlfriend. "Kairi! Let's go!"
"Absolutely, Sora," Kairi agreed, striding next to him as they faced the enemy before the gates. The flames that made up her sword flared, growing three times their size until it appeared as though Kairi was carrying a sword-shaped inferno attached to a hilt. "These Heartless had better prepare for trouble."
"And make it double," Sora added, Remembrance suddenly becoming enveloped by a whirlwind that raced with a tempest of lightning strikes. Before anyone could blink, the two had used Flash Step to close the distance between them and the Heartless. Both of them began advancing, never once pausing or faltering as they presented the Heartless with an overwhelming offence that offered no openings. Fire, wind, and lightning surged out from their weapons, cutting down Heartless that weren't even near where their swords were cutting or shields bashing.
"To protect the worlds from devastation," Kairi recited, her flaming sword buried to the hilt into the bodies of three Armoured Knights that all made the unfortunate mistake of standing behind each other.
"To unite all peoples within our nation," added Sora, slashing Remembrance down across his body while simultaneously ramming Aegis through a Shadow. Wind and lightning sluiced off his Keyblade like water, cutting through and blasting apart an Assault Rider that had emerged.
Kairi pointed her weapon forward, arresting her advance and securing a steady position as her bolts of fire now shot out of her sword. "To announce the wonders of truth and love!"
"To extend our reach to the stars above!" continued Sora, mirroring Kairi's stance and mixing whirlwind blasts of wind magic with her firebolts, extending each into deadly lances of fire that even looked as though they were being borne by charging knights on horseback made of the wind. The lances were not slowed or diminished by anything they encountered in their path, going forward nearly thirty metres before fizzling out and dissipating in sparks and slight breezes, leaving only trails of floating hearts in their wake.
"Kairi."
"Sora."
Kairi held her sword aloft, and the fire that made it flared even higher. A raging sword-shaped conflagration rose to the height of a tall spruce tree out of the golden hilt of her blade, casting its light and heat all around. "Team Keyblade blast off at the speed of light!"
Meanwhile, Sora had lifted Remembrance above his own head, and showing great dexterity and the efforts of considerable practice he was spinning it horizontally above his head in just his right hand. The wind and lightning that had been coating his blade like a thick insulation of fibreglass swelled and grew above him into a raging tornado. Lightning flashed inside the tornado's gales, and the fire from Kairi's sword was pulled into it and raced throughout the tornado, turning it into a firestorm cyclone that reached high into the sky as Sora shouted, "Surrender now, or prepare to fight!"
He unleashed the Inferno Tempest, and nothing stood in its wake as it roared with unbelievable volume towards the gates. It cleared the path, sucking in Heartless from all over and destroying them utterly; they burned to ashes under the heat of the flames, were cut to confetti by the hurricane winds within the cyclone, or were blasted into oblivion by thick bolts of lightning.
When the towering inferno extinguished itself, just ten metres away from the gates, an entire swath of the battlefield, more than twenty-five metres in diameter, was cleared for the Keyblade Wielders to advance to the gate.
Sora and Kairi, smiling underneath their helmets, leaned back-to-back against each other with their heads turned towards the destruction their Limit had wrought, and Wispy leapt up from beside them to place her head between theirs. "That's right!" she giggled in her breezy language of air elementals, joining the words the other two spoke.
Kairi turned to look behind her. "Plato! You should really join us when we do that!"
"I respectfully refuse, my Queen."
"Alright everyone!" Sora shouted, waving his Keyblade forward. "To the gates!"
"Make your dreams reality, Sehanine."
There was a flash of light, and Naminé's Keyblade was replaced by the staff that was its unsealed form. She twirled it around once before rapping it against the stone ground with an ominous doom. At once the sides of the empty corridor Sora and Kairi's Limit had given them and the exterior of the perimeter they'd established around the landing zone cracked and broke apart, the stones falling into a bottomless chasm that opened up beneath them. Jenny summoned up a horse to pull the cart, and they all started to move now that the ground-based Heartless were unable to reach them.
Sora put away Remembrance and Aegis, and again pulled his bow out from a bag at his hip, drew an arrow from the same bag, and nocked it on the bowstring. He kept an eye out for aerial Heartless on their way to attack, but none seemed eager to get close this time. "They've stopped," Kairi commented aloud.
"Yeah," Sora agreed. "And the last time they did this, something bad happened, but I don't remember what."
"Not even that," Kairi added, "but they're pulling back."
There was cheering and shouting from the walls as the procession reached where Sora and Kairi were standing with their familiars, the two Ultimate-level digimon and Naminé's ice creations and animated snow monster forming an honour guard around the cart and those around it. The Heartless were retreating away from the wall, falling to the hail of spells and missiles being launched from the defenders until they got out of range.
"Where are the Septem?" Riku asked, Sora matching his stride so that the three of them were walking at the front. "We've pretty openly declared that we're back, so why aren't they coming for us?"
"If we're lucky we've startled them," Sora said. "They've probably pulled themselves back along with their Heartless and are debating their next move, now that we've thrown a wrench in whatever plan they'd been concocting since we vanished. How much time has passed?"
"Two hours, eleven minutes, and several seconds, my lord," Naminé answered, increasing her pace to catch them. "We were gone three years to the day, and at twelve thousand times conversion rate that's what it works out to."
"A lot can happen in two hours," Kairi said. She glanced back at the people behind them. "But not as much as can occur in three years."
"Tell me about it," Riku chuckled. Sora snorted to himself.
"That's right. You need to tell Leon that he's now something like your brother-in-law."
"I'll let Yuffie tell him that we're married now," Riku muttered, glancing back at his beloved ninja wife as she walked beside the horse pulling the cart. "I think he'll go easier on her than he will on me."
"I'm sure everything will be fine if you show him the pictures Jiminy managed to take," Naminé advised him with a comforting tone. "I've never seen Yuffie so happy as she was that midsummer's day after the King's Challenge."
They were getting close to the gates now, the massive doors only thirty metres away, and Kairi looked at the path around them with the chasms separating them from the Heartless. "Naminé, how did you do that?"
"It's just an illusion," she answered her sister. "Right now it's got the Heartless fooled, so don't do anything to break it until we're inside." She struck Sehanine on the ground again with another reverberating doom, and the ground seemed to fall away as the illusory chasms opened up in a shell around the walls in front of the gates, linking up with their cleared corridor to the gates to make an unbroken line of bottomless chasms. The Heartless that had stayed right in front of the gates that hadn't been destroyed by the twister of flame or retreated with the rest charged towards them, but Kairi raised her sword of fire towards them and spoke a single word. A tiny bead of red light emerged from her sword and sped towards the cluster of armoured knights.
"Kairi…"
"Don't worry, we're just out of range."
The bead miraculously missed each of the Heartless, and then exploded into a fireball some ten feet behind them, the fireball's blast spanning a full thirty feet in all directions and, true to Kairi's words, stopping just short of licking at their armour. The Heartless, though, were completely consumed by the spell.
"Nicely done," Sora said with a nod. "Though you still worry me with how much you like that spell."
"It's fireball, Sora," Kairi answered with a bit of a laugh. "You'd think that that spell was made for me." They made the gates and found them still closed, even though the army on the walls was cheering loudly at their return, and bearing the marks of having endured assault. Kairi lifted her head and raised her voice to be heard above the din. "By the order of Kairi Talerith, Princess Royal of Radiant Garden, I demand entry into the city for myself and my party!"
"You heard the Princess! Open the gates!"
The gates began to creak open, and at the same time as they did Naminé turned around to face the horde of Heartless just outside of her illusory chasms, or at least the ones that weren't still in range to be threatened with being destroyed by the rain of spells and arrows coming from the walls as they retreated. She rapped Sehanine on the ground one last time with a thunderous doom, and time seemed to run in reverse on the chasms. The gaps in the rock sealed closed, the rocks flying up from the endless darkness of the earth to settle once more into what appeared to be solid ground. "Go," she commanded, and at once her ice creatures and animated snow monster charged towards the retreating Heartless, not to rest until all of the Heartless or they themselves were destroyed.
The gates finished opening, and two dozen mounted persons on chocobos came through them. Those from Olomund reacted with a little bit of surprise at the sight of the large riding canaries, but the natives watched and stayed ready as the riders took up flanking positions on either side of their cart. Through the gate then strode an anthropomorphic mouse and two men, all of whom were familiar to the natives of the Realm of Light.
"Your Majesty," Sora said, nodding at the mouse. "Chief Guardian, General."
"Is that you, Sora?" King Mickey asked. Sora nodded again at the mouse monarch. "Gosh. Ya seem taller than before Xokor sucked you all into that light. What happened to ya?"
"This is not the time or place to discuss that," Sora answered, taking off his helmet. The others took off their helmets too, and the King, Garda, and General Berger all showed looks of surprise. Sora glanced up at the hovering sphere cam that was absolutely broadcasting their return for the entire city to see. He had no idea if it was also sending out sound, but he didn't want everyone to be hearing everything as well. They could already see his face and those of the others now, so without a doubt they'd know that they truly were back. "What's the situation? We have been gone from here for about two and a quarter hours, right?"
General Berger, Garda, and King Mickey all glanced at each other before answering. "That is about right," Garda replied. "Let's get inside the walls first, though," he said, motioning with his hand, "we'll discuss everything then."
"Alright," Sora agreed. Sora looked back at his friends. "Okay Wolves. Kairi, Roxas, Jenny, Kal, and Shina, I want you five with the cart to the castle. Kairi, you can show Beth and the others where they can go to keep themselves and Iroviel safe, then I want the five of you back here pronto."
"Done and done, Sora," Kairi said. She glanced at Jenny, who nodded her head from the front of the cart while Lady Puff yowled next to her, and they all began following their escort through the gates.
"We've got a field command post set up over here," Garda said, pointing to a large tent that had been erected on the craggy field behind the secondary wall. "They were hitting the wall hard after you all vanished, so the top of the gatehouse became too dangerous for us to assemble at." Sora nodded his head, understanding that things really couldn't have been easy on them for the last little while.
"What about the new Wielders that were made just before Xokor attacked us?" Sora asked.
"They were a big help," Mickey answered, his tone grim, "but they also became big targets for the Heartless and the Eximius Septem since they were complete novices to using the Keyblade. I'm sorry, Sora, but they took casualties; we lost some."
Sora felt a sharp pain in his chest at the news and bowed his head for a moment. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty. We should have gotten back sooner."
"Don't blame yourself for that, Sora," Garda told him firmly. "They fell holding the wall and gates, and we still hold thanks to them. You've given us breathing room and a chance to rest just by coming back, so don't devalue their sacrifice."
"Forgive me, Chief Guardian," Sora answered. "I jus—"
"Stop that train of thought, Sora," Garda interrupted him. "It was out of your hands, but you're here now, and that's what counts." Sora nodded his head at the man who had first taught his girlfriend to fight, and looked sideways at Riku.
"Riku, I'm going to use it. After I have, take Yuffie and go find all the surviving new Keyblade Wielders and tell them not to be afraid and to answer the summons. I'll speak to them when we're done." Riku nodded in understanding.
They had just reached the tent when a tall man pushed a flap aside and strode out of it. His long, tall spikes of crimson hair and teal triangular tattoos near his eyes easily identified him, and Lea ecstatically ran up to Roxas and the cart as soon as he caught the blond's eye. "Roxas! Aren't you a sight for sore eyes!"
"Great to see you, Lea!" Roxas answered, clapping him on the shoulder, and now standing almost as tall as him. "I see that you're still alive and kicking."
"Yeah, those Heartless won't get me, got it memorized?" Lea replied. "What happened to you? You got taller, and grew a beard. C'mon, man. Let me in on it. What kinds of crazy shit happened to you after that creepy light—"
"Lea, stop," Roxas told him firmly, glancing back at the cart. "Do not swear in front of my daughter."
Lea fell dead silent and stopped in his tracks. Not just him, even, but so too did Mickey, Garda, and General Berger. More people were coming out of the tent, and Sora could make out the old Radiant Garden gang chiefly amongst them.
Sora slowed to a stop and took in a deep breath as they quickly came within earshot. Well, here we go.
"Huh!?" Lea cried. "D-daughter!? What are you talking about, Roxas?"
Leon and the others froze in place, obviously hearing Lea's outburst.
Roxas, Sora mentally instructed his former Nobody, only a quick introduction now. You can give a bigger one later.
Alright.
Roxas extracted himself from Lea and hopped onto the cart, where he took a seat next to the toddler and the woman sitting next to her. "Lea, there are a couple of people I'd like you to meet." He smiled at the woman and took her hand as well as placing the toddler in his lap before returning his gaze to his old friend. "This is my wife, Shina Starbrow, and our daughter, Iroviel."
"Jenny, do not stop the cart," Kairi whispered from where she was walking briskly next to the horse. "Keep on driving."
"W-wife? What?" Lea asked vacantly, looking into the beautiful face of the elf maiden without comprehension.
She smiled at him beneath her long, braided, silver hair, decorated in beads of gold and precious gems; and her silver-grey eyes flecked with gold sparkled with inner delight. "Charmed to meet you, Ser Lea," she said, voice light and stealing Lea's breath away. "I have heard many things about you from my husband's lips. I look forward to getting better acquainted at our next meeting, and hope that it shall be longer than the present one."
Jenny Clover drove the cart off towards the castle, leaving many people stunned in their boots while Sora and his company of Fearless Wolves stood silently in the awkward air. Many seconds passed before Sora coughed to break the silence, sniffed in the cold wintry air, and gestured to the tent. "Shall we have that briefing, then?"
Lea rounded on him. "Sora! What the hell? Why are you just standing there like nothing's wrong?"
Sora took in a deep breath and met Lea's eyes. "Look, Lea. It may have only been a couple of hours for you all, but we were gone for three years. Three years, Lea. My niece turns two in a month. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is wrong, and our reality is just something that you'll have to learn to live with."
"But...but for Roxas to have had a kid! And for it not to have been with—" Lea stopped himself, his eyes now staring at Naminé with fear in them. She wasn't showing any reaction at all to his words.
The young woman in question closed her eyes and spoke loudly. "How Roxas chooses to live his life is up to him. If that means taking responsibility for something that happened between him and Shina instead of running away from it, then I support him in his decision. Now then, as my lord reminded you, you were all about to brief us on the current situation, correct?"
Her own words caused whispers to go throughout the assembled people they'd left behind.
"Did you hear that?"
"She said 'my lord'. Did she mean Sora?"
"What's happened to them?"
Sora ignored the whispers and turned instead to the open area outside of the tent. Though he had since put the arrow away, he still held his bow in his left gauntlet, and now drew Remembrance from its sheath once again. He pointed it at the air above the ground, and a great bullet of light shot out of his Keyblade, causing a gust of wind to ripple around the area. The bullet splashed apart in the air as if it had struck a solid wall, and suddenly there was an image of the Kingdom Key's unsealed form, Cosmos, floating in the air and shining brightly. Everyone present with a Keyblade felt a sudden tug in their hearts; they felt an urge to be near to the image that spewed forth light all around it.
Turning to his two married friends, Sora said, "Riku, Yuffie, find them; tell them to come." They nodded their heads and rushed off, away from the tent and towards the walls. Sora turned back to King Mickey. "Your Majesty, before we start the briefing, actually there's something I'd like to ask of you, but you're not going to like it."
"What is it, Sora?" Mickey asked. The mouse glanced at the beacon shining behind Sora and shook his head. "Naw, I shouldn't be calling ya by your name so casually like that. What do you need, Grandmaster?"
Sora was startled at the title for only a second, but managed to control his features so that it didn't show. Naminé whispered a few words under her breath, and the floating sphere cam dropped to the ground, inert. Sora nodded his head at her, approving. If this went south, he did not need everyone in the city to see it happen. "As I understand it, the Keyblade that came to you is the Star Seeker, and after you got the Reverse Kingdom Key from the Realm of Darkness, you left the Star Seeker's keychain with Master Yen Sid, and have been carrying the Reverse Kingdom Key ever since, right?"
"Uh-huh. That's right," said Mickey, nodding his head and summoning the Keyblade with the golden shaft to his right hand. Sora put his bow away in the bag at his hip, and pulled out the Star Seeker's keychain with his left hand.
"Please give me the Reverse Kingdom Key, Your Majesty."
King Mickey frowned, and Sora could tell that most of that frown was from confusion at his request. "Why do ya want me to do that?"
Sora met Mickey's eyes with a steely, unwavering resolve. "Because I found out that you didn't just 'find' that Keyblade, Your Majesty. You took it; and its master wants it back."
-A-D-
And I'm back everybody! I hope you all enjoy this new journey of theirs.
Also, as you all know, I can be sporadic with updates. This time I'd like to stick to a release schedule of at least one chapter a month. I know that that means that this will take a while to get through if I keep to that and don't go any faster, but I feel it will be better in the long run if you all have knowledge that you'll be getting something AoD related from me once a month and possibly more.
Please drop a review and leave comments and discussion on the Annals of Darkness Facebook group, and don't be afraid to check out and edit the TV Tropes page as well!
May the Grace of the Valar Protect You
Shire Folk