Chapter One: Combat
Makoto's eyes blazed open as he awoke from sleep, and none of the heaviness lingered. This sort of instant awakening had been happening for nearly a year, and while Makoto didn't particularly know why, he really didn't care. He felt a bit warmer than usual when he woke up, and as he peered down he noticed that he was in a snug silver one-piece suit made of a soft fabric. A blanket of a similar material slid off of him as he sat up in his bed. Beside him lay the young man he'd met the day before, Kyo.
Kyo awoke without the agility that Makoto had come to posses. He rubbed around his eyes as he sat up, and nearly jumped when he saw Makoto plopped next to him. "How did you get in here?" Kyo whispered in a jovial tone as he ruffled Makoto's mop-top. This time Makoto didn't faint, but a spark carried through his body with enough force to make him shiver. "Hm? How could you be cold in this fabric?..."
"I do not know why I'm here. I fainted. I am not cold," the words were ejected from the teen's lips like a laundry list.
"Take the volume down a bit. Katrina is still asleep. I didn't mean here as in this room though; I meant my bed. You were on the top bunk the last time I checked…" The young man's eyes went hazy and rolled up thoughtfully.
"I apologize. I still do not know," Makoto said softly, but still dully.
"Hm, I suppose one of the senior crew just decided to play a prank on me then." Kyo scratched his scalp and yawned. "Oh, but you wouldn't know about them, I suppose, as you don't even know where you are."
"No."
"You're aboard a Gummi Ship, and a very large one at that. It's made of the only materials that can withstand travel between the universes."
"Between the universes?"
"Yup, completely other existences, and somehow there's this physical, space-like place between it. At least that was how it was explained to me… twice, probably."
"How would you forget something so basic the first time around?"
"Ah, I suppose I'll get around to the nature of this organization then, but I have a lot to explain. Katrina probably knows all of this if she's in a world where universal magic is practiced at all… Ahem, well, to keep it simple, all sentient beings are made of three major components, the physical, the body and the metaphysical, the heart and soul. The heart regulates emotion and character, whereas the soul is consumed with logical and survival processes. When your heart becomes consumed with darkness, if your character is evil enough, you run the risk of separating the three, with soul and body becoming one awful creature, a Nobody, and your dark heart would take physical form as a Heartless."
"I am nothing but a human. How does this concern me?"
"Don't be so sure. Some people's three elements are strong enough to retain the shape of their bodies as they separate. Anyway, sometimes the separation isn't so clean, or a heart doesn't go away into darkness, or a hefty portion of the soul might be removed… a million different things could happen. In these cases, memories, which usually link hearts like chains, become attached to the body or soul, or a million other things, but some Nobodies, Heartless, things in-between, and even the Rejoined sometimes gain the ability to manipulate memory."
"Rejoined... people who's heart, body, and soul come back together? And how can these people manipulate memory? Do they have a special name too?"
"Hey, you're a really fast learner kiddo! Yea, we're called the Unchained. There are three basic powers that most Unchained have, the ability to destroy and dilute memory, the ability to create and strengthen memory, and the ability to give memory physical form. Some people have... other powers, or all three of the common types, and more."
"So why do they want me?"
"You're an Unchained of course! I was told that you can make things from memories, and that Katrina over there," Kyo nodded to another bed across sparkling clean, white-walled room, "can decimate memory. I can strengthen memory."
Without warning, Katrina, wearing the same shimmering silver outfit, lashed out from her bed and toward Kyo, who in turn intercepted her with one hand and held her above his head. "Ack! I'm nothing like you, you Wiggler!" She thrashed about in Kyo's palm as he yawned.
"Oh, relax. They would have captured you if I had been there or not. This way we just don't have to eat gruel this morning."
***
Katrina and Makoto sat across from Kyo in a large mess hall with walls and benches made of the same white material as the bedroom they awoke in. The Koopa and the detached teen set down saucers full of a bubbling forest green goo while Kyo laid out a a pan pizza pie laden with grease, water lacking any sort of murk, and a plate of what appeared to be some sort of pudding. Kyo began to hand a slice of pizza to Makoto, but Makoto brushed it away. Makoto's hand spasmed, knocking the food into Katrina's slop. "I think my own food has more nutritional value."
"Er, okay then..." Kyo tilted his head to the side as he pulled up a spoonful of the pudding-esque substance to his lips.
Just as the silverware was about to part them, Katrina burst in, "So why do you get such amazing food, huh?" and cast her evil glare upon Kyo.
His spoon fell into his pudding and his eyes widened. "Eh... eheheh. Who knew so much resentment could be contained in such small eyes?!" The glare lasted three more seconds before Kyo said, "I get more because I was on the mission to recruit you two. You see, anyone can live here for free, but there are.. ah... certain perks if you help run anything or go on missions."
Katrina picked her soggy slice of pie from her soup and nibbled on it. "So who runs this operation?"
"Well, the most powerful of us... and the Finders." Kyo began to stir his dessert with his spoon lazily.
"Finders?" Katrina flipped hair out of her face.
"People who cannot manipulate the chains of memory, but who can see them all... and trace them to more Unchained. What an unfitting name if they can find us through those chains. Then again, a Nobody is a somebody, and a Heartless is only so because it is a heart."
"Oh, stop your bellyaching!" Katrina spat. "Why do you want to give us this food if you have to work for it?"
"Oh, you're my teammates. Finders and other leaders decided that teams should be made of a physical powerhouse, a mage, and a well-rounded member. The well-rounded member is usually a Summoner like Makoto, and the other two are a Repression and a Reminder."
"I'm not working for these kidnappers!" Katrina slammed her fist into her saucer, causing a rattle that drew stares from all of the blinking, bugling, and squinting eyes in the cafeteria.
Makoto, in a hushed tone, stated, "Her goal is to return to her world. Even if she finds it, these people will drag her back. My goal is to win the Island Open. Our goals cannot be accomplished on this ship. We must return to my world."
Kyo waited for the eyes to divert back to their meals before he spoke up again, "Dear Katrina, you really do need to learn to restrain yourself. If you stay quiet, I might be able to get us a small Gummi Craft out of this place." Katrina's eyes light up like an exploding Bob-Omb until Kyo added, "I can't be sure that the nav chip in that ship will have recorded the way back to Makoto's planet though. We'd still be going hit and miss at worlds, but you wouldn't have Finders breathing down your neck."
"I am going to exercise now," Makoto butted into the conspiracy.
"Forget that," chortled Kyo, "Get into the combat training room. Make sure to ask for a pack of cards at the desk before you go in. Whoever's there should be able to tell ya' what your ability is about." Makoto left a completely clean dish as he soundlessly sulked off. "And meet back at our room at 1230!" Kyo called after him.
***
At the reception desk sitting before a door marked, 'COMBAT' Makoto encountered what appeared to be an animatronic bear plush with a ridiculous red nose, a similarly colored ball bouncing by a tether right over its head, and small purple bat wings that were probably nonfunctional. "I was told to receive cards at this location," Makoto stated while staring at the pom.
"Ah, you must be a new Summoner then, kupo! I honestly don't know what people were thinking when they make these names, kupo... You can do much more than summon, kupo."
"They are only names," Makoto shrugged. "Then you are the one who will give me the cards and explain them."
"Yes, yes, kupo!" the stuffed animal replied gleefully. Suddenly, a pile of cards with red backgrounds appeared in its hands. "These are attack cards, kupo. They turn into physical weapons when activated." The card disappeared and a short dagger appeared in it's place and it sliced through the air once before it vanished. "Kupopo! They all vanish after use!"
"You forgot to say kupo twice."
"Ack, kupo!... Oh, I keep forgetting there are no other Moogles around this place." The Moogle's voice went from high pitched and inviting to soothingly deep. "Anyway, the next type of cards are magic, but they can only imitate universal magicks."
"This is the second time I've heard this. What is universal magic?"
"Universal magic is the standard magic used in most worlds, however, some people were able to rewrite their worlds' rules... Universal magic may or may not work in some of them. It's really rather annoying. In any case, if you use multiple magic cards of the same type at the same type, they become stronger." One card popped out of existence in the furball's hands, and a minuscule cube of ice dropped down a few feet away. A few cards disappeared from the palm, and an ice sculpture in the Moogle's image dropped right over the ice cube. "Er, of course, the strength is also determined by how strong your own magical ability is... but you can't really chain together more than three cards... or four if you get really good."
"Can combinations be made with more than magic?"
"Almost any combinations of cards can be made, but they won't do anything special unless you influence them to... In an emotional pinch you may make up a new move."
"I don't know that it could happen then," the queer youth whispered to himself.
"Ah, are you a Nobody then?" The Moogle's red pom bobbled from side to side. "Lost your heart?"
"Not that I know of," Makoto shrugged.
"Hm, yes, you lack the personality to be one of them," the plush spoke while rubbing his furred chin. "In any case, I'll teach you of the faux-summons that we Summoners are capable of." The Moogle held a card to Makoto's face, and it featured a slime green anthropomorphic lizard hunched over in an autumn brown cloak and holding a lantern and sparkling dirk. It vanished, and in the hazy distance behind the furry bear-bat the same lizard appeared, made a devastating strike at the air, and disappeared himself. "We can also create cards based on the fighting memories of past allies to aid us, if only for a moment in battle…" The Moogle's eyes began to shake and water. "I know you can't understand without a heart, but… th th-at was a fallen comrade." The little critter took in a deep breath, sighed, and shook his head.
Makoto simply nodded his head blankly.
"Ah-and-ah, the last thing you need to know. It's rather important, but you won't be able to use it in this training session. If you have partners in battle, you may notice green cards fall on the battlefield. Pick them up as quickly as possible. If you use one, you'll be able to control your partner for a short time, and you'll exponentially increase their power. Should you leave it, it will vanish with out going into your deck. The only problems with this technique is that you cannot control yourself; you're vulnerable, and if you do not know your partner well enough, even your extra power will not make up for the costs of using this. That's why there are teams of three; one partner protects the Summoner while the other is linked. That's why the upper crew makes pairs of Unchained that have been in combat with one another before."
"Apparently tennis is combat," Makoto blurted. He took a stack of cards from the table the Moogle stood upon and wandered wordlessly toward his training.
***
Kyo lay in his bed, tossing up and down a silver ball. "So what's up with that Makoto kid? I mean, he obviously doesn't have a heart, but usually Nobodies can at least fake emotion."
"I don't particularly know and I don't particularly care. The thought crossed my mind, but it never really interfered with me getting home." Katrina muttered as she waved about the metal rod Kyo had given to her as a wand.
"Now I see why you two got along so well." Kyo laughed. Katrina growled, pounced upon Kyo and grabbed a lump of his little locks. "Oh you're not without a heart, but you are 'heartless', and teetering on the edge of dar-." Kyo grabbed a hold of Katrina and stroked her hair. "I miss..." his eyes glazed. He froze for a few moments before coming to and peering around. The awkward gaze stopped at Katrina, and Kyo softly blurted, "kness."
With the elegance of a stupefied Goomba, the disgruntled Magikoopa popped from Kyo's now limp limb. "What in the deep bowels of Bowser's Castle was that?" she demanded an answer for the disturbing moment.
"Hm? I was just telling you that you should watch out. Becoming a Heartless, and perhaps a Nobody... it devastates the heart and leaves body and soul without meaning," Kyo explained, his eyes reddening and beginning to water.
"What?! Not that! You paused in the middle of your sentence and... and you!" Katrina brushed back her hair.
"Oh, that... I try to see the psychologists on board, but they're not quite sure why I do it yet. The metaphysicists say that my heart and soul are too clouded with memory that my body cannot access, and to wait it out until the memories shift."
"I've never read of anything like that," Katrina mumbled as she made a disgusted face.
Roars of laughter emptied from Kyo's throat. "I venture that you spent more time studying magicks than metaphysics, and given your state I doubt that psychology was very popular in your universe."
After a period of silence and shuffles, the two laughed together quietly.
***
Shiftily a shadow spiked up through the floor, but Makoto sliced it in half with a blade shaped suspiciously like a key. The weapon also appeared when Makoto performed magic. Once in a while his tennis racket would pop up for magic, but it failed to appear more and more often as Makoto realized its limited potential. Suddenly the room faded from a hazy rain forest back into a silvery cube. Scrolling text across the wall alerted the silent teen that his training session was over and informed him of the time. While he could have gone at it for much longer, he decided to leave; it was nearly noon and it would be best for him to examine the ship a bit more if they wanted to escape it.
As Makoto exited he noticed a queue of eager combatants lined out in front of the training entrance. One grabbed the boy by the shoulder and grinned from floppy ear to floppy, furry ear. It snorted crudely, but genially, with it's brown snout before praising, " Oi boy! Good job in dere. Oo-sually people are beggin' fer ass-istance after ten minutes in dere. Yeh did sure did well lad!"
"Thank you," Makoto said as he expertly swung out of it's grip and under it's lance.
"Er, g'bye then lad..." it said as it walked forward in line and its silver armor clattered. Makoto sauntered away as if absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. He was finding none of the equipment in the ship out of the ordinary either. There was a short moment where he wondered why he was able to use everything intuitively, but he'd figured that he was just used to such things from operating tennis practice rooms after hours for his and Katrina's practice.
A breathless Katrina ran right into the boy's leg and his eye twitched at the physical pain. "Hello," Makoto said as he looked to the nearest clock. "It seems that I have missed our rendezvous. Apologies."
"Never mind! We're going to get on the flight for the next missio-"
"That is a highly illogical plan. The weaponry that the ships
going on the following mission have is vastly inferior to those of
the higher ends of the ship. In addition, if we flee on the mission,
it will be easier for them to locate us. We should instead hijack one
of the Finders' ships."
"You're!... You're insane!"
"No.
Those ships take no damage from the smaller ships; they'd have to
sacrifice three or four of the same ships to get us back judging on
Kyo's piloting record," Makoto whispered as screens quickly flashed
before his eyes. "They would not bother pursuing two unproven
members and a good pilot if it took that much effort. They'll just
hope to meet us up on another planet when they do a standard sweep.
If they tried targeting us with the ship we're on now, everyone would
know that someone had stolen a ship, and others would try, even if we
fail."
"And how do we grab the thing in the first place?"
"I can
access nearly anything on this database," the calm child spoke with
a shrug.
"Ugh, let me get Kyo."
***
The trio made their way precariously around the ship based on the schematics that Makoto was able to uncover. No turn guided them the wrong way, and they met no resistance by any sort of security. Kyo sweared that at the first restricted portion of the ship that he used to see anthropomorphic, tall, lizard-like guards with enormous tails and even longer heads. Neither Makoto or Katrina had difficulties believing him after the day they had been through. Makoto was even planning on quietly taking down some guards with his newly acquired cards, but he had no such luck, until the last turn.
An extraordinarily tall and slim woman with red hair appeared before them in a ball gown made of the same material that they were wearing. Her sunburst hair fell straight down with bangs that just barely strayed from her eyebrows. Her eyes, gray as twilight, cast the large male and the small Koopa into paralysis while a Keyblade appeared in Makoto's hand.
"Anyone can wield a memory," she said, gazing right through Makoto. "But this memory has status. Remember that." She began to walk away while saying, "Well, hurry along. You don't have long before the others find out what you're doing. I've been wanting a new ship anyway..."
Makoto dragged the dumbfounded duo into the cockpit and booted up all of the systems with ease. "I did not find more information on how to operate these vehicles because you were listed as an excellent pilot. I was not able to retrieve data on my universe or a universe similar to the one Katrina has described to me. I think finding the other information was meant to be easy based on our encounter with that woman. She is a Finder?"
"Yeah, yeah, she really is. I don't really understand why she would be helping us... In any case, I think I know which universe we should stop in first. They know quite a bit about Gummi Ships there; we should be able to make any mods and make a stop for fuel," Kyo grumbled as he started plugging in the coordinates. "Sometimes I wish I could just travel the Corridors of Darkness."
"I was planning to go to a world where there was a recent raid so they would have less of a chance of following us, but your tactic is also sensible." The quick, dully speaking boy took his seat on Kyo's left.
Katrina's face boiled and her eyes watered as she took the seat to his right. "I...I want to go home! Now! Now! NOW-NOW-NOW!" With that threatening bellow, their silver disc of a ship blasted into the interspace.
