Chapter Seven: Chris Talonflight: Friendship
"Hey, what are you doing there?" I asked sharply. The figure didn't even turn around.
"I'm sending my heartless minions up the tower. What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Exactly what you said." I said grimly. "Who are you?" I should have remembered, but sleeping for so long still had my brain fuzzy.
"Who are you?" the figure retorted in response, still not turning from peeking through the crack between the two double doors into the tower.
"Maleficent's dead." I commented. Now I remembered this part of the game. "You're an idiot, Pete, for two reasons." I started ticking things off on my fingers. "One, you're sending shadow heartless and low forms into that tower knowing that there's a powerful wizard up there. Your minions will probably be slaughtered. Second, that wizard is Yen Sid. It doesn't take a genius to figure that if you fail to get him turned into a heartless he will come gunning after you. Third, you're waiting at the bottom, not even seeing how much progress your minions are making, and thus not knowing when you have to send the next batch of heartless, and not seeing any defenses that he has in place. Fourth, your outfit has way too many zippers, which is not a good idea, since all I have to do is aim there with my weapon and your clothes will fall apart, which will be very embarrassing. Fifth, your standing in my way, and I don't take kindly to rude people who wont even look at me when their talking to me. Sixth, if you don't turn around right now, my shadow heartless is going to- Oh shoot!"
It was too late. Nudge had pulled one of his zippers. Pete, for the figure was he, leapt ten miles into the air and came down in a thump. Nudge stood by innocently.
"Why you!" Pete fumed while re-zipping his zipper. "You'll pay for that! Go Dustflier!"
"Hmph." I smirked. "You wanna handle this, Nudge, or shall I?" Nudge shook his head, and charged at the Dustflier. The Dustflier charged at him to meet the charge, but a straight on charge was never Nudge's intent. He leapt over the Dustflier, allowing the Dustflier to ram into the dark energy ball that Nudge had been dragging. While the Dustflier was stunned, Nudge plowed into it, slashing furiously with his claws and tendrils of darkness. Dustflier was pushed back. Then Nudge charged up a large ball of dark energy, and launched it towards Dustflier. The Dustflier fell, dead, before fading into darkness.
Pete gaped for a good ten seconds. Suddenly, something pushed him away. A large scythe slammed into the ground where he had been standing.
From the darkness behind where Pete was now standing, emerged a familiar figure.
"Xanju!" I yelled, summoning my dark keyblade.
"Where are you guys coming from?" Pete yelled, before fleeing into the night. I let him go.
"Who are you?" Xanju asked. He was wearing a blood red cloak. In his right hand he held a bat-winged scythe. In his right hand he held an angel winged scythe. However, both of the weapons were tinted red.
"How can you ask that?" I asked him. "You tried to kill me!"
"How should I know?" he said, slumping. "I don't remember."
"You don't remember?" I asked, confused.
"The last thing I remember is battling some girl with a key. Then she smacked me in the head, and my memory went blank. That's all." He said miserably. "When I woke up, I found myself here, in this world. Then I was attacked by that fat dog thing. He said he was trying to turn me into a heartless. It didn't work, because I'm a Nobody."
"So you remember you're a Nobody, and your name and stuff, but not your past?" I asked him.
Xanju nodded. "How is it that you know me?" he asked.
"Well… It's a long story." I said. "You see, we were from the same world, called Reality. We were friends. You original name was Juan. However, our world was taken over by creatures of darkness known as the Heartless. We were scattered to different worlds. You had your heart removed from you by a Heartless, which turned your remnant into a nobody. You were mad at me, because it turned out that I had the power to stop the Heartless and I hadn't done it before you lost your heart because I hadn't known that I had the power at all. You came after me and my friends because of that. Eventually, though, you ended up being manipulated by a man who was trying to destroy all of the worlds in darkness. After we met you on our way to kill him, my friend Ashley stayed to battle you, while I went on ahead." I summarized. "After I beat the guy who was using you, I have been battling an evil group of Nobodies called Organization XIII. I am now about to go speak with the Ultimate Wizard known as Yen Sid."
"I… I did that?" Xanju asked. "How…" he seemed shocked. "How could you not wish revenge upon me?"
"I don't let little stuff get my mood sour." I waved it off. "Besides, you were still my friend, just being manipulated."
"You mean… We're still friends?" he asked.
"Duh." I suddenly grabbed him and gave him a noogie. "Come on, you can travel with us."
Xanju took a minute to absorb this, before nodding. "All right." He said.
"Then let's go." I smiled.
We went into the tower.
"So, what's your name again?" Xanju asked. I chuckled.
"Chris Talonflight. This little guy is Nudge." I said, gesturing to the Shadow.
We walked up the huge spiral staircase without incident. We did pass some half dead heartless, but they were incapacitated by Yen Sid's magic.
When we reached the top, I opened the doors, and there we stood, in front of an old man sitting at a study desk.
"Ahh!" he said delightedly. "I have been expecting you, Darklighter, but I am also happy to meet your little friend, the Tame Heartless!" his eyes settled on Xanju.
"This is my other friend, Xanju." I offered.
"You keep strange company, Darklighter." He said softly. Then he seemed to regain his composure. "Do you know why you're here?"
"Well, I know I gotta find someone." I said, as I leaned on the desk.
Yen Sid raised an eyebrow.
"I can't believe I was just that casually impertinent to the Ultimate Wizard." I moaned. "Sorry. What do I call you? Wizard? Yen Sid? Master Sid? Sir?"
"Impertinence suits you better, Darklighter."
"Why do you keep calling me that?" I asked. "My name is Chris."
"Darklighter isn't a name, it's a title." Yen Sid explained. "You are the light portion of the darkness."
"You know that made no sense." I pointed out.
"It's best to give you the full explanation. You are not the first one to use darkness for good. One other once did, named Terra. He had a poem he once wrote. This is it.
"I am Darklighter.
"I am the lord of shadows.
"I claim the shadows that the Shadow cannot.
"I am the light of the darkness.
"I am the darkness of the light.
"I am what darkness was created to be.
"I am Darklighter."
"Do you see now?" Yen Sid finished.
"I think." I shrugged. "Anyway, who is it I'm searching for?"
"You know Agent Frostmourne, correct?" Yen Sid asked. I nodded in affirmation.
"Yeah, he's like my best friend." I responded.
"He and the King have gone missing." He said, folding his hands. "I believe that it is the work of a group of Nobodies, calling themselves Organization XIII." He paused. "You are responsible for the deaths of half their members."
"Noted." I said with a grin. So, I DID get through the RE: COM events all right! YES!
"You know what you have to do." Yen Sid smiled.
"Yeah."
"Um… Are your clothes comfortable?" he asked, looking at me strangely.
Ahh… the clothes issue…
"Well…" I paused, unsure how to explain that I had been sleeping for the past year.
"I have three aids." He said hurriedly, sensing my discomfort. "They will help you find some more… suitable travelling clothes."
I entered the side room. There, three fairies tittered among themselves. I noticed several paintings in the walls. The first was a picture of me in a blood red outfit, wielding two keyblades crackling with red electricity. The second picture was of me in an ocean blue outfit, with my keyblade encased in blue energy. Another picture of me showed me as a Heartless, as Anti-Chris, the power of darkness flowing over me. Yet another picture showed me in my dark armor outfit, with black and red armor, and a red blindfold. I knew what they were. The red form was Valor Form. The blue for was Wisdom Form. The black and red form was what I referred to as my dark form, but I now realized that it must be my own Master Form. The heartless form was Anti Form.
"Hello, Darklighter!" the fairies tittered.
Oh no… I always hated this part of the game…
I flexed my arms in my new outfit. My new outfit was a beauty, and similar to the one Frostmourne had lent me when we had gone after Johnson in the KH1 events. It had a single black shoulder-plate of armor, with black pointy armor running down the left arm, and covering the hand, with four slots. The shoulder plate had a Heartless symbol inside an O with a diagonal line through it, in the classic "NO" symbol. The torso of the outfit was black leather, along with the legs, which had some black armor on them too, with more strange red slots in them. The right arm was sleeveless, but there was a long fingerless glove that reached my elbow, and a trio of arm-bands to fill the remaining space.
"Honestly… it doesn't feel that different." I admitted. Each of the fairies giggled.
"You're wearing new clothes, not making love to a woman." Xanju muttered. I chuckled at that, happy that my friend was back with me.
"In order to enter your Valor Form, you must merge with Xanju." The fairies instructed.
"And how in the world am I supposed to do that?" I wondered out loud.
"Simply want to." The fairies explained. "Both of you must wish to merge, and then combine your singular powers to merge."
"That's complicated." I pouted. Then I gave Xanju a look. He shrugged.
After a few tries, we succeeded.
Xanju vanished in a red flash, and suddenly, the armor on my left side turned blood red. The black leather of my outfit became grey and red camouflage. Yuffie's headband, which I had previously worn on my arm, somehow was now wrapped around my head, with her name in red letters. I was holding two keyblades. One was my usual Last Chaos keyblade, but the second was a black and red keyblade. The handle was a circle of blades, and blade itself was a twisting rod leading up to a pair of intertwining scythe ends. Both keyblades crackled with a red electricity, and I felt… hyper. I felt like I was on an energy high. I wanted to run a marathon, battle Sonic the Hedgehog, climb Mount Everest, cross the Sahara Desert, race across Antarctica, and fly off a cliff…
You get the idea.
"Whoah-cool-this-is-awesome-I-never-knew-that-Valor-Form-was-so-energetic-and-hyper!" I said in one breath.
"The Valor Form has that effect on people." The fairies said wryly.
"So-how-do-I-transform-back-to-normal?" I asked.
"Just want to."
Transforming into Valor Form was easy. I ended up naming the scythe-headed keyblade Last Judgment. It was a reference to a similar keyblade that I had seen on Deviant Art back on Earth that was named Last Judgment. So when I was in Valor Form I would wield Last Chaos and Last Judgment.
Yen Sid smiled at me when I went back into his room.
"I assume you wish to be off on your way." He said. I nodded.
"There is a certain world that I wish you to visit first." Yen Sid said. "You might know it as Persia. I believe you have a contact there, the Prince?"
"Yeah!" I nodded enthusiastically. "Prince is cool! But why do you want me to go there first?"
"There is a discrepancy about the time of that world." Yen Sid explained. "You visited it last year. This time, it could be that seven of Prince's years have passed since that time. You might go next year, and then only a month might have passed. The time relation with the rest of the worlds of Fantasy is chaotic to a strange degree."
"So if I go there now, I'll arrive there seven years after I saw him last." I concluded. "Awesome."
Seven years was the time difference between "Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time" and "Prince of Persia: Warrior Within."
After dispelling Xanju and exiting Valor Form, I bid a farewell to Yen Sid.
"I hope to see you once again, Darklighter."
"Oh you will." I waved it off. "After all, I wanna see if you have written down my story yet."
"Actually…" he lifted a large notebook. "… The events of your first excursion against Johnson are written down. I am halfway through your antics in Castle Oblivion. I must say, it makes a good read."
"What have you titled them?" I asked.
"The first part is called: 'Kingdom Hearts: Light of Happiness.' The second part is called: 'Kingdom Hearts: Quiet of the Ascension.' I believe the tale of your Nobody will be called 'Kingdom Hearts: Nothing is Sacred.'" (Note: this is a reference to the previous stories in this series, with the events parallel to KH1 being called Light of Happiness, the events of KH RE:COM being called Quiet of the Ascension, and the events of KH 358/2 Days being called Nothing Is Sacred. If you haven't read these stories here on , I advise you to read them because it is very hard to understand the context of this story without them)
"I see…" I grinned. "Maybe when this is all over, I'll take a copy of them back to Reality. They'll go quite well on ."
Yen Sid chuckled. "Yes, I believe they will. And as for this excursion, I believe I will title it: Kingdom Hearts: Sound of Rising Storm."
After bidding farewell to the old wizard, I opened a dark portal, and stepped out in Persia.
