Chapter 1: The Darkness Strikes

In the morning, I woke up, feeling less tired than last night, and got on my clothes. I ate breakfast and walked outside to meet Jacob and Anthony at the Struggle Tournament Arena. There, we met and started walking towards the abandoned building just a hundred yards away. Strangely, despite being one and a half hours before the start of the Tournament, people still came early and had all their food and drinks ready. We were wondering what was going on, but still, we moved through the crowd. Our assumptions were that people were prepared for the event and came early. It was peculiar that there were more adults than kids around, which is usually reversed.

Back to the subject, nobody is old enough now to know anything about the building. People have heard that it was once home to a murderer who was stopped in his own home by the great great great grandfather of Eard'Narche. Nobody knows anything besides that, except Narche's own family members and himself. None of them speak about it, and Eard doesn't speak much about anything. He is very anti-social, and it appears as if he is always hiding something very important, fearing that too much talking could reveal it. As we were walking towards the building, the tall skinny man coordinating the event stopped us.

'Hey, aren't you three in the Struggle Tournament?' the man asked.

'Yes, we are. What of it?' I said.

'Its 15 minutes until the Tournament begins, I suggest you stay very close by.' The man said.

'I thought it was 1 hour and 15 minutes!' Jacob said, startled.

'Everyone does, because most of you kids that are attending the tournament except Eard seem to have forgotten that its Daylight Savings time.' The man said, laughing. 'Why else do you think all these adults are gathered around with their food and drinks? Because most of the kids forgot, still there are some around.' The man continued laughing, and we frowned.

Quickly, we decided to check the final mystery when the Tournament was done, and went to get our toy swords in the locked cabinet, along with our costumes, which held 100 marbles each. We checked the match up chart, and it turns out that I would fight Tyler first, and Anthony would fight Eald'Narche, while Jacob fights Logan, and Amed fights Austin. If I win, I'll go on to fight either Jacob or Logan, and if I win that fight, I will fight the remaining guy, while the other guys I don't duel fight each other. I suited up, and it turns out I was blue, with Logan red.

The Tournament was held up by 10 minutes while the people who forgot about daylight savings time were found and brought to the arena. At the first fight, I stood ready for fighting with my plastic blue sword. The 10 pouches, each filled with 10 blue orbs, laid on the small, slippery holes in my jacket costume. The bell rang, and Logan charged first. I found that the strange energy given to me yesterday still remained. I easily dodged it and smacked him across the arm with the sword. A pouch flew out of a hole, and I rushed to grab it. I placed it in one of my 10 empty costume holes and charged.

My sword fell short of my target by one foot, and I quickly backed away to avoid his slash. I countered by charging into him and smacking him with my sword. Two more pouches flew out, and I grabbed one, Tyler managing to take the other. I smacked his hand with it, and took the pouch, as well as another that fell. So far, I have 14, out of the 20 I need. He tried to make a powerful slash to my neck to knock me down for enough time for him to take all my pouches, except I ducked, and did a powerful uppercut. He fell back, all his pouches but one flying out of the holes in his jacket. I took them, and as he laid down, I smacked the last pouch from him, and the bell rang again- this time as my victory.

I still had blue orbs in the next fight, 8 minutes after my previous one. Anthony was unable to defeat Narche, and Jacob beat Logan by a few seconds (it was a timed victory). Amed easily defeated the slow, though powerful Austin. Next, I was up against Jacob. He was quite easy to fool, and I heard the bell ring, focusing on my target. I charged first, though not too fast, and he dodged my hit. He tried a counter, but I blocked it, and slammed his blade onto one of his own costume holes, knocking off one of his pouches. I grabbed it, and rolled to avoid his attack. I did a difficult corkscrew maneuver, throwing us both off the ground and knocking 2 pouches off both of us. I grabbed all of them and spun, getting up quickly. He got up, breathing for air, and ran towards me with his sword held high.

Believing this was easy, I tried to strike across his chest, only to be met by a flurry of hits. Miraculously, none of them knocked pouches off me, and I ducked his move, which would be his last. I quickly did an uppercut, and despite the 4 flying pouches, I continued to hit him repeatedly, until all his last pouches were on the ground. While he lay on the floor, tired, I casually walked over and picked up the pouches. The bell rang again, once again signifying my victory, and I went to spectate the other fight, which came next. Eald easily, very easily, defeated Amed. He was like a ninja, really. I wondered if even my newfound energy could help me in this next fight.

Once I got up, I looked at Eald closely. He held his blade across his chest with his right arm, his left arm poised at his hip. The bell rang, and I barely could react, before he struck. He sped towards me as fast as I did, and whacked me across the chest with the blade, knocking 3 of my pouches to the ground. I picked one of them up, and rolled, trying to hit him. He blocked me immeasurable times, before countering my move with a strike to the foot, knocking down 2 of my pouches as I fell. Once again, I rolled up and looked at him closely, before leaping up to my feet. He ran at me, and then I focused my strength on my feet, propelling me up.

I jumped higher than even last time, in the basement of the Memory Skyscraper, and felt like I flew. I kept my focus, and struck Narche across the shoulders, knocking him to the ground with 5 of his orbs as well. Now, we had 10 orbs each, and he was on the ground. He got to his feet, chuckling, and made a long vertical leap. He closed distance between us in a second, his sword aimed at my chest, and I rolled to the side, slamming into him with all my strength. All his pouches were on the ground, and I picked them up as fast as I could. One of them was left, in his left hand, and he held his sword with his right. I ran towards him, as did he, and we fought for the last pouch, which he had placed in a costume hole on his arm.

He attacked upwards, and then left, then diagonally, then down, and I blocked every attack, until there was a lock. Our swords locked, and we focused our matching strengths into a last strike. I won, and his sword flew out of his hands onto the edge of the arena. Chuckling, I struck him across the arm, knocking him to the ground, and grabbed the pouch. Everyone cheered, and Eard smiled. I then felt cold, very cold, cold unlike any other. It was painful, but not as in freezing cold, just… cold. I looked behind, to the East, and saw a huge storm system; a black and dark purple-colored cloud sending lightning strikes towards the ground at a phenomenal speed. It was moving over 1000 miles per hour across the city. The wind was powerful enough to knock me down, and many others. The storm blocked out the sun completely, and the city looked like it did last night.

Instantly, a huge portal appeared over the park. It was black, circular in shape, and black lightning strikes were blasting out of it from an unknown source. It was a hundred feet or so, in diameter. Suddenly, like ants, man-sized black creatures were falling from the portal hundreds of feet from the ground, to the park. They fell for minutes, and did not pile up, but when they fell, they disappeared. The creatures stopped falling after 5 minutes, but the portal stayed open. Then, a woman shouted as she saw one of the creatures leap from a rooftop onto the arena, mere feet from Eald and I.

It was black and about the size of a man, but its back hunched. Its claws were sharp, and small blue lines ran from its glowing yellow, lid-less eyes to its tentacles. There were tentacles on its bald head, and they extended for about 2 feet. It suddenly looked around at the people and shouts were heard around the city. A small portal appeared in the ground, and another creature appeared and exited the portal before it disappeared. In the time span of 5 seconds, about 10 portals appeared on the arena. The creatures failed to notice us, and then began running towards the spectators of the Tournament.

The people began running for their lives, as the creatures jumped on people and clawed them in the chest to death. Hearts began rising up from the killed people's bodies, before a strange black smoke enveloped the hearts and they disappeared. The creatures chased the people, and shouts were heard across the city. Then, my blue plastic sword was flung from my hands by an unknown force, and a different blade appeared. It was extremely strange. Its handle was a rectangular white block, with its edges cut into spikes. The center of the block was cut off, and a small black pole, apparently where I held this blade, was connected to the white block. A grey feathery rope-looking thing was attached to the end of the block. The blade itself was a black pole, about three feet long. At the last foot of the pole there were 2 white spikes, with two gray spikes in-between.

A few seconds after I got the blade, Eald stood up, gasping.

'The Keyblade!' he shouted.

'What? This is… a Keyblade? What is a Keyblade?' I asked him.

'No time to explain, we have to get…' he was cut off by a portal opening on the ground before us. Instantly, many more began to appear. From them, the black creatures appeared, and started leaping towards us.

I didn't need any help to know that I needed to destroy these things, and as they tried to attack, I struck them with my blade. They instantly disintegrated into black smoke, and I began to attack more of them. Eald's hands began to glow yellow, and a fire formed around them. He laughed, and as his eyes began to glow purple, he aimed his hands at the dark creatures constantly spawning from the portals. He shouted something I couldn't understand, and fireballs began to fly from his hands. As they touched the dark creatures, they exploded in fire, and he did so for several seconds. By the time he finished, there were less than half as many as there were before.

Still, there were many, and they continued to spawn. So, he continued to shoot fireballs, even though more slowly. I continued fighting with the Keyblade, and then I saw I was surrounded. I jumped up quickly, as high as I could. With the Keyblade, I felt myself even further augmented, and I saw myself jump over 15 feet into the air, followed by the shadowy creatures. They were slower in the air, and I cut them down extremely quickly. As I fell back to the ground, I felt myself land on one, and destroyed it. I ran to Eald, trying to stick together with him for better protection. Then, I heard a great boom from behind me. I barely dared to look behind me, but I did so, and I dropped the Keyblade in shock. On the wall of the building Jacob, Anthony, and me were going to investigate, there was a massive portal almost as large as the one above the park.

Eald was in shock, and I felt the Keyblade back in my hands. I didn't want to know how it did that, who Eald really is, and what's is going on, I just wanted to get out of here, NOW. As if reading my mind, Eald shouted for me to follow, and he ran in the Memory Skyscraper, and I followed, looking back. Instantly, a huge clawed hand came through the portal. Small blue lines were covering the arm like circuits on a computer. Its claws were, on average, probably 20 feet long, and I quickly ran inside. I followed Eald into the basement, and found that the door at the end of the basement was fully open, except a dark smoke poured out of it slowly.

'Oh no, oh no…' Eald said to himself, frowning and sighing.

'What is it?' I asked.

'That door. It leads to the heart of this world, the one thing those creatures out there want most. That is why they're here.' He said, rubbing his head. 'Marcello, I'm afraid that our worlds are gone. There's nothing we can do now, there are too many creatures within the heart of the world to save it.' He said. 'Follow me, we're getting out of this place.' He sighed, and stood up, running towards the stair.

I followed, and we found ourselves outside in front of the memory skyscraper. I couldn't believe what he said, and even while running through the town towards the park, I still thought about it. Once we reached the park, we looked behind at the distant portal in front of the Memory Skyscraper, and were in shock. The portal was gone, and in its place, atop a crushed building, was the largest creature either of us had ever seen. It was a snake-like creature, except it had a head similar to the creatures we'd seen, and it had huge arms. Its claws were perhaps 30 feet long in average, and it was 1000 feet tall, I believe, from my view of it 'standing up'. The whole snake-like body was probably one and a half thousand feet long.

'Run, it's the Ophidian! Quickly!' Eald shouted, turning around and running full speed towards the center of the park. I began running after him, and as I looked around, I found that the Ophidian was following us. After about 5 minutes, the Ophidian had reached the edge of the park, and we had reached the portal.

'Ok now, what are we supposed to do?' I asked, looking up at the portal.

'Hold up your Keyblade, aim it towards the portal.' He said.

I did so, and as I aimed, a ray of white light shot up from my blade.

'I will meet you on the other side of the portal!' He said, before disappearing.

As the ray shot up, I was relieved, and then I looked behind, in shock. Thousands of the creatures surrounded me, forming a huge circle around me. Just a few hundred feet from me, the Ophidian slithered towards me, and it held up its long arms. I looked up at the ray, and after a second or two, it touched the portal. The portal became gray, and I began flying up the ray of light into the portal. Down below, I saw the massive hole of creatures, and the huge Ophidian, as they all grew into mere specks, before I entered the portal…