Amaya's impulsive move lead to an epic fail as she was merely thrown back into a wall, while the remaining party went on the a

Amaya's impulsive move lead to an epic fail as she was merely thrown back into a wall, while the remaining party went on the attack. She thought, avoiding other blows, and attacking the limbs as best she could, but its six tails lashed out like angry snakes and would let no such action be done. Leon was standing his ground the best, if that was describing it as being able to stay standing in one spot while not being keeled over by a thick appendage. Its mouth opened, like a new imprisonment for all of them with teeth, if that's what they were, shaped like sharp blades, thin but sturdy enough to be a significant hold for anyone, unless you were air itself.

Come on Amaya, think, it's a living cage, that's all it is…With tails and an anger problem. Amaya told herself. She watched for only a second as the Heartless started to bring down its heavy arms, with Donald and Goofy inside its cage-like claws. Donald could be seen furiously blasting magic from the inside, but only ended up shocking himself with a Thunder spell. It was funny enough to burst out laughing so hard you wouldn't be able to breathe for hours, but the real situation was more deadly, and the first thing to deal with.

Everyone successfully avoided the heavy blow, as what was meant to crush Sora and Leon resulted in a shockwave that threw everyone slightly off balance, and shook the platform with almost enough force to tilt it downwards where everyone was facing. Anymore hits like that and it'd be a one way slide down to the bottom of the postern gorge, and it wouldn't be comforted by clouds of pillowy softness either.

Kairi looked at Amaya, who was trying to hold herself up at the moment. "Nothing seems to be working!"

"Every time we try to get near those cages it repels with its tails, and vice versa." Leon explained while throwing attacks away from himself. "Improvising isn't really working!"

Amaya frowned and looked at the monster raise its arms quickly, ready to slam the postern into a two story shack. Amaya stepped forward, putting her hand on the one end of her Keyblade while holding the handle in her right hand. She pushed it forward quickly, letting magical energy pass over everyone within the blink of an eye.

"Protect!"

There wasn't a crash, or thunderous slam that caused the postern to collapse, but instead one angry Heartless trying to beat the pulp out of a magical barrier that refused to let out. Everyone was waiting for the attack to come, but all looked over at Amaya when the heartless beat at a faint translucent light. Amaya struggled to keep it up, since the poundings on the shield took a toll on her energy. She looked up at the cages, and noticed a most peculiar thing. "Look." She threw her head in the other direction for the others too look.

It was so, taking yet another examination of the heartless, as it continued to rampage and club the barrier with both arms, the cages were starting to loosen. Then, become weaker, and start to show signs of weakness. Amaya grunted in fatigue, she couldn't hold this up for more than a few seconds. She didn't have to explain it to the others, only nodding at Kairi and holding her pose. Kari nodded back at Amaya. "On three!"

Sora, Riku and Leon nodded, readying another attack, which would hopefully be the last. Amaya looked up at the beast, waiting for the right time to let the shield down.

"One…"

"Two…"

Amaya looked up one last time, just as the beast's arms were coming down once more. "Three!"

The shield faded, leaving the other three to attack. Throwing her arms down, Amaya fell on her back, feeling more exhausted than she should have for only a Protect spell. Kairi stood next to her incase anything unplanned happened.

Sora, Riku and Leon took no time to make their blows. Sora a d Riku jumped at its flailing claws, while Leon slashed at its gut, a large ghastly gash of dark energy becoming a wound that would only dissolve and turn the creature into dust. As the other two made their mark on the claws, they opened as they were cut, freeing the two captives from a shrinking prison. A heinous shriek came from the heartless, thrashing all eight limbs about in a furious struggle to make a comeback and take its enemies down with it. Everyone stepped back as far as they needed, watching the beast fall down the tower, and crash to the ground below, bursting into dust and a glinting light rising from it, fading soon after into oblivion.

It was gone, and now, nothing but the silence of heavy breathing and sighs of relief. Amaya lay flat on her back, taking in deep breaths and just trying to relax. Kairi looked down at her, as if she were dead, but knew very well she wasn't. Donald and Goofy were very ecstatic to be out of their prison, but there was still danger lurking about.

"Geez, if that thing didn't take us from the lab we'd have helped ya earlier!" Goofy stated. "We don't know where it came from?"

Donald was too busy looking at Amaya's body lying on the ground to bother to try to explain why a heartless like that came after them. "Who is that? Where'd she come from and when?"

Amaya lifted her head up, and then thunked it back down on the floor. "I'm Amaya, from the Nexus, and I got here awhile ago."

"Where'd you learn that spell from?" Donald questioned further, suspiciously curious to know the origin of Amaya's magic.

She heaved herself up, supporting her torso up with her arms. "I was taught by my mentor. Now is this going to be an interrogation where I have to re-explain myself or are we going to see if Cid is okay and finally have some time to hear my ludicrous story while everyone is around to hear it?"

Everyone looked at each other. "Well we can't do it with you lying on the ground." Riku commented walking past Amaya and standing above her head.

"I can't exactly get up after that." Amaya retorted with an unenthusiastic stare. "A Cure spell won't work for some reason, it's been proven so don't try."

Kairi offered her hand, and Amaya took it, letting herself be pulled up and put back on her feet. She staggered for a bit, but regained her center of balance, putting her keyblade on her back. She looked at the open entryway with a vague sense of 'I'd rather be doing something else' and wishing this entire problem never occurred in the first place.

"Okay, no use in just standing around." Leon mused, walking forward and slinging the gunblade back over his shoulder. Everyone else followed, not expecting anymore heartless to show up after that battle. Amaya was still tired, but could still walk perfectly fine as she was, it was only her inner self that felt depleted. It was odd using magic in a real time scenario outside a training simulation, since she'd never needed to use it before.

Passing many grey halls and rooms that looped back around to the entrance of some random dead end, the door to Ansem's study, neatly clean to some extent came into view. Amaya looked around in slight awe mixed in with curiosity. She'd only read about this place in the story, but seeing it was different, very different. The next room, Amaya knew was the computer room where the entrance into Tron's world was; the laser that converted all genetic matter into data set for the network you were teleporting to. The technology was baffling to try to comprehend, but anyone could say it was 'cool'.

Cid looked up from the computer. "Oh, so you finally decided to show eh? Got those two out of their problem too? I was stalled up here with a few problems but Tron did most of the work." The blonde man looked at Amaya. "You were that girl I saw with Yuffie and Aerith a little while ago aren't ya?"

Amaya nodded, but didn't say anything. "What happened up here anyway?" Sora asked.

"Well…"Cid began, looking around the room. "There were a few Heartless down in the back room, but they left pretty quickly, like they were in a hurry. Then, that big one came up outta no where and took Donald and Goofy, disappearing. You must've run into it."

"We did." Leon muttered. "Anyway, Amaya has something she says she needs to explain to everyone , so we might want to go and check in on Yuffie and Aerith and hear it there."

Amaya looked at Leon, giving another small nod. She was being a bit shy at the moment, even though she knew these people better than most it felt extremely awkward. Nothing was really said afterward, only a long walk back to Merlin's house. Amaya said nothing, only nodded, said an occasional yes or no when addressed a simple question. Still feeling tired, she was quiet until she had to explain for one last time what had happened.

Sitting at a table, everyone listened to the girl's story; about the Nexus, teleporting the books to the library and the incident following it, and what she did before she got here. Amaya then explained how much she knew of the books that wrote themselves, about the accurate history of how it happened, where it took place, when and who was apart of it. The only hard bit was speaking of why she read it and knew almost every word written down, and why she couldn't read it now, or anyone else could see nothing but blank pages. Many questions then, started to fly around.

Sora was a bit dazed. "You jumped off a ledge without knowing what was at the bottom?"

"It was just a reaction!" Amaya protested defensively.

"And this Maraxis guy wants it because it'll destroy everything we know." Kairi repeated. "Why would they be made then?"

Amaya stopped, to answer with something she shouldn't have been speaking of. "Well, its to help others that need guidance in life, because of an incident that happened long ago. You see, there are special gateways to the 'soul entities'. One of them is 'Life and Death'. People would go to the gate and ask for the deceased they were looking for, be it a mother or relative of friend, and ask for help. This way, they wouldn't feel so alone anymore, but the Gatekeepers couldn't keep doing it any further, and now that heartless started to exist, they had to lock it forever and let nothing pass through it." Amaya paused to breathe, and then continued the story. "There are many other gates that the Gatekeepers must watch over besides passages to other worlds. The Keyblade Masters are those that can lock it, unlock it at will, but the Gatekeepers moderate what goes through those passages. At least before we all started to disappear..."

Riku took all of the information in and thought for a moment. "Wait, then what do you protect then?"

Amaya looked up at him. "Technically, I'm not one of them yet, I'm still just a student, but I was meant to 'graduate' within the next week." She answered calmly but with a slight tone of disappointment. "You earn your summon gem with your soul guardian empowered inside it. Taila had one, but she's disappeared like the rest of them. You'd put it in this space right-"

Amaya took out her glove, but the empty space wasn't empty anymore. It had a flat gem in it, a soft silvery blue one that was smooth and almost soft to touch by just brushing your hand over it, but pushing hard it was a cold stone. "That's not possible. That wasn't there before." Amaya gasped in utter shock.

Everyone looked. "Well, your glove speaks otherwise." Goofy pointed out.

Amaya shook her head. "Then that means, I'm the last one." She was quiet and still for a moment, thinking with a morbid look on her face. "Something's happened to Taila then, maybe Maroko, and I'm not going to have her vanish like the others."

Amaya put the book on the shelf across the room, and stood, looking at it. "If this Maraxis guy wants the book that badly then why are you putting it there?" Yuffie asked, cocking her head to one side like a confused dog.

"I don't think he can use it anymore, he's too involved, like I am to read anything out of it, but I think I know what he might be after, if not the book anymore."

Amaya searched her bag for a few items. She threw a large sheet of paper onto the table, and held a piece of blue chalk in the other hand. She started to draw, and sketch something and continue to without speaking another word to anyone of what she was making an outline of. After ten minutes of standing around, pacing, yawning and waiting, she finally stopped.

"This."