Welcome back to Invader, the ultimate in Kingdom Hearts suspense. That's what I hope I'm achieving, anyway. I think I've done well so far. :)

Yes, I am working my bottom off to bring you the sixth chapter of Invader. This chapter will be a milestone—it will make Invader officially longer than Castle Cleanup! *more confetti* Yesterday, I did some very rough math and realized that I've written over 30,000 words of KH fanfiction in total, over just a few weeks. Man, I'm prolific! :) FFN has truly become my go-to website. People of FFN, thank you all! You're a wonderful audience, and I'm proud to be in such great company.

And now, with that out of the way, it's time for the beginning of the climax…

DISCLAIMER: This chapter includes a Toy Story world, and as there is not one in the game, it is not covered by the first disclaimer. Toy Story belongs to Disney and Pixar. I do not stand to profit from this work in any way. Please include a Toy Story world in KH3, please. It's my first and favorite Disney/Pixar film, and I'd love to see Sora and friends running around in Andy's room. In fact, try to have a Pixar presence in general, if you can. Please? :)

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Invader, Part Six—The Last Straw

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Training started early the next morning. Saix had chosen to devote a full day to the training session, to ensure that everyone got all the basic moves and one or two more advanced moves down pat before the mission. He was also planning to finally teach the Keybearers proper parkour before the end of the day, so that they could keep up with the Figure.

Both of these were easier said than done. To start with, Organization XIII did not generally use unarmed combat. As they were fighters who faced extremely hazardous duties every day, they were already proficient in basic punches and kicks, but they rarely practiced them and almost never actually used them. All of them could certainly bring down a random mugger without their weapons or powers, but a skilled combatant was another matter. Saix, luckily, knew karate and a little basic judo, and thus was able to act as a mentor for the Nobodies.

It was still a slow process, painful in multiple senses of the word. Case in point—when Demyx walked in, he immediately tried to chop a board like in the movies. All he broke was his hand. Saix had brought lots of potions and lots of Cure spells for this very reason. It was the first major injury that day, and it would not be the last.

The Keybearers took to unarmed combat with much talent, to everyone's surprise (and Vexen's chagrin—he wasn't even good at the basics). Roxas, in particular, seemed like he had done this before. He took out the practice dusks quickly and efficiently.

When Roxas made an impressive roundhouse kick, slamming one of the dusks to the floor, Saix nodded in approval. "Well done, XIII. Have you studied unarmed combat before?"
He seemed to hesitate, but ultimately, he just shook his head as his fist collided with into a dusk's face.

Many found the training session to be quite satisfying. Having been the targets of dusk pranks for so long, the Organization was perfectly happy to use them as punching bags. Really, this was the reason for their recruitment as such—fun training was diligent training. As you might imagine, it sometimes got a little brutal.

For example, at one point Xion recognized a dusk that had once played a particularly nasty trick on her (or at least she thought she did—they were all completely identical). She threw the lesser Nobody to the floor and started hitting its face repeatedly. Even Saix found this slightly disturbing—the Keybearers were usually the sweetest kids in the worlds, and they were the only ones who felt some amount of sympathy for the dusks (though it was always miniscule).

As Saix made her move on, Roxas' eyes went wide. "Remind me never to make her mad."
Axel's eyes were bulging out even more. "I thought we had talked about the temper thing. She's worse than Larxene when she's angry."
Zexion looked up from the book he was sneaking a few pages of. "She's been very… temperamental… since this whole thing started."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious. I'm talking to her…"

Axel walked over to his other Keybearer and put a hand on her shoulder. "You okay, Xi?"
Xion looked up. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"
"You were a little… overkill on that dusk."
"I'm just following along with the lesson." She smiled. "I have to be good at this to take that guy on."
"I think you might want him more than Xemnas. Don't obsess over him. I've seen Angry Xi, and I prefer Cute Xi."
Xion looked at her feet. "I'm sorry I've been so… what's the word…"
"Moody?"
She nodded. "Yeah, moody."
Axel patted her on the shoulder again. "Don't worry about it. Just try to direct the rage toward fighting him rather than going off on everything, all right?"
She smiled again and nodded. "Okay!"
Axel beamed back. "That's the Xion I'm used to."

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Within a few hours, everyone had the basic moves down. Saix watched as the Nobodies practiced more advanced moves. Despite the initial difficulty, they were still trained fighters, and learned fast.

Satisfied that the Keybearers were already proficient, Saix walked over to the sea-salt trio. "Axel, I want you to teach them parkour."
Axel sighed deeply, as usual. "I've tried before, Saix. They don't do parkour." He made a 'stick figure' gesture with his hands, making it do runs and jumps and flips. "They don't do this."
"Which is why you teach them. You tried once, in a place filled with difficult obstacles and stone ground. What were you expecting?"
"And the castle is better?" He spread out his hands. "This whole place is metal! It's probably just as bad."
"Then find a place that's softer. They will learn to do this, and it will happen today. Is that understood?"
Axel grunted. "Fine, fine. If you want them to hurt themselves repeatedly, then there's nothing I can do." He waved to the Keybearers. "Come on, guys. We're going to try parkour again."
Roxas looked terrified. "Parkour hurts!"
"Not where we're going. Not much, anyway…"

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Woody looked over the RC car. "Yeah, the new batteries are really working for you! I'm a bit busy right now, but I think Buzz would be happy to take you for a test spin."

As the little car vroomed in excitement and drove off, Woody checked his to-do list, a post-it note massively out of proportion to his body. His face fell when he realized that he had to work on dealing with the Heartless problem now. Andy had brought a huge bucket of the little troublemakers in a few weeks before, and they were not friendly. They tore up everything and were constantly trying to break the other toys, including Woody and Buzz. In addition, the last few playtimes had been unusually dark and violent, and the cowboy knew the Heartless had something to do with it.

But they were everywhere, and they kept coming. Some disgruntled Green Army Men had managed to beat a few, but the next day, more had taken their place. The toys were under siege, and Woody didn't know how much longer they would be able to hold out.

His thoughts were interrupted by a noise. Vhoosh… He turned toward the bed. What was that? It was suspiciously similar to the sound the Heartless made when they respawned. Sighing, he waved to some of the more muscled toys and walked toward the bed.

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The Keybearers spoke in unison. "It's dark here."
"Hold on a sec! There's a flashlight here, I think…"

Axel hit a button, and an oversized flashlight turned on, illuminating the area. Various things lied around—wrappers, crumbled paper, pencils and pens and crayons, lots of Lego blocks—and all of them were way bigger than they should have been.

Xion looked around. "Where are we?"
Roxas blinked in recognition. "Oh, I remember this place. This is Andy's Room. Everything is really big. And the toys are alive."
"The toys are what?"
"That was what I said, too. They're not that bad, though. I guess this place is soft because of the carpet."
Axel turned. "Exactly. And under this bed, there are lots of things to practice on, and no one comes under here. It's perfect."

Xion noticed something. "You look… shiny."
Axel cringed. "Oh, great, I forgot, the place makes you plastic. How flexible do you feel?"
Xion opened and closed her fist. "Just the same as usual. It still feels weird, though."
"Well, good enough for me. Now, the first lesson is just the same as last time." He set a few Lego blocks in a row and pointed. "Jump over this. You can't do it normally, so use your arms to push you over."

The Keybearers ran at the bricks, jumped dramatically while grabbing the groves in the brand name, and became very successful in skidding along the floor on their faces.

Axel sighed. "Yeah, it takes a few tries to get it right."
Roxas rubbed his face. "It feels like its itching and burning at the same time…"
"That's called carpet burn. It's why you shouldn't skid across carpets. It's still nicer than scraping yourself all over stone."
Xion stared up at the bed. "I don't know. The stone hurt, but at least the worst of it stopped fast."
"This is going to be a long day, isn't it?"

The conversation was interrupted by a voice. "Who's there?"
Roxas hid behind an empty tin for some trading card game. "It's that cowboy," he whispered. "What do we do?"
Axel pulled Xion over. "You're doing it, Rox. You know the drill. Just stay low, and we'll be fine."

The cowboy—Woody, if Axel remembered correctly—walked under the bed, a few very large toy wrestlers trailing close behind. He walked around, occasionally tipping things over with his hat. "Whoever you are, I'm not here to hurt you or anything," he called out.

Xion, like her friends, did the usual procedure—breathing softly, crouching low, keeping her hood up. She did this very well until she caught sight of a familiar face. Or rather, a hidden face.

The Figure.

She gasped, accidentally grabbing the attention of both the Figure and Woody. The wrestlers walked over to the flashlight and turned it, catching the sea-salt trio like deer in headlights.

Xion still had her eyes on the Figure. She tried to resist the urge to attack, but her anger at him was just too great. She summoned her Keyblade (causing Woody to jump a bit) and ran at the Figure at full speed. He dodged, sending her careening into a sleeping teddy bear—well, the teddy bear had been sleeping until a girl with a giant key slammed into his belly. Before Xion could get her bearings again, the Figure had left in a sea-salt blue portal.

Without thinking, Xion threw her Keyblade against the wall, screaming in frustration. Woody just barely dodged it, holding tightly onto his hat. The Keyblade made a loud clang and hit the floor, covered in plaster. Xion put her hands over her mouth—she had just realized how much more complicated she had made everything.

This was the moment every Organization member hated. The cover was completely blown, the locals had seen weapons drawn, and now they were having a good look at the Nobodies. Worst-case scenario was that they realized, as a group, that they were being visited by an outside force, which made things a lot more complicated in future missions to that world. General protocol dictated one thing: Convince them they saw something else, something mundane, then hightail it out of there as fast as you can.

Axel put his hands in the air. "Don't worry! It's all good. We're just some new toys. You don't see us much because we're trying to surprise the Heartless."
Woody walked closer. "You're helping with the Heartless?"
"Yeah," Axel continued, putting on his best acting skills. "We came in the same box they did. We're from a… TV show. We're supposed to be the hopelessly outnumbered heroes fighting back. There are ten others like us. You might see them around. Just pretend they aren't there. They need as much space as possible to fight the Heartless."
Woody looked skeptical. "And that guy she ran at?"
"That would be a… member of the Heartless leadership. He's a bit koo-koo. Thinks he's really the Heartless Commander, set to destroy the world. We're trying to take him down."
Woody closed his eyes, as if remembering something. "…All right. Just don't throw those keys around too much, all right? Andy might notice collateral damage you cause."
Axel nodded. "You betcha."

Satisfied, Woody waved to the wrestlers and walked off. He looked back one more time, his gaze lingering on Xion, before he disappeared back into the sunlit room.

Axel sighed in relief. "Come on, we have to go explain to Saix what happened."
Xion looked down at the floor, eyes still as big as plates and her breathing a little shaky. "He doesn't have to know, does he?"
"Yes, he does, Xion. He needs to know these sorts of things so he can adjust future missions to suit the new conditions. I'm sure he'll be all nice and understanding…"

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"You saw the Figure?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you attacked him, despite the fact that your cover had just been blown and attacking would only make things worse?"
"Yes, sir."
"And despite the fact that when six trained, armed men, including you, took him on at once, he still managed to escape?"
"Yes, sir."
"…I really don't understand what part of this you thought would end well, Number XIV."

Xion kicked her legs, the uncomfortable chair being just a little too high for her. "I'm sorry, sir."
Saix rubbed his face. "Sorry isn't going to cut it, XIV. Not this time."
Xion gasped. "No, no, no, you can't…"
The Luna Diviner raised his hand. "Don't worry, I'm not dusking you. I lost that desire long ago, and besides, you're still useful to us. But I am going to have to exact some punishment for this." He leaned across the desk, reminding Xion of how he used to be. "During Operation Shadow Key, including the initial mission in Twilight Town, you are to remain in your room with the door locked. Do not come out unless you are told to. If he comes in, you may attack him in every way you feel necessary. Otherwise, I don't want you getting in the way. Is that understood?"

Xion put her head in her hands. The Figure would be fighting her best friends, and she would be locked in her room, like a dog confined to its kennel when guests were coming. She wouldn't be able to help in the fight, and it was her fault for attacking when she would clearly lose, then throwing a fit when she did. Everything was her fault, and even her friends knew that denying it would be lying.

She sunk down in the chair, her head down. "Y-y-yes, sir."

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None of that was in the original outline. I think I just made the story a lot more interesting. :)

I'm bumping up the number of chapters to ten. Hear that, people? Only three more chapters to go until I'm done with this thing! *even more confetti* I am extremely proud of this fic. My writing only seems to get better every time I finish a chapter. Writing fanfiction has given me lots of useful practice, in areas I was not proficient in at all before, like action scenes and mystery. Thank you, FFN!

Writing this chapter, I realized that my characters are probably sighing enough to contribute to climate change with all the carbon dioxide coming out of their lungs. :P If anyone can suggest alternate ways to show exasperation, I will be extremely grateful.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Remember, reviews are always appreciated. The big reveal is very soon, so get those guesses out there before the secret stops being secret…

Thanks for reading, and tune in next time for the seventh thrilling chapter of Invader, a tale well calculated to keep you in… is this getting old? This might be getting old. No one has told me yet what it's referencing…