Chapter 2: Interference

After a long time searching the enormous parking garage, I had finally found my Gummi Ship... and now, I was headed off. I was careful to pilot the ship out of the garage without hitting anyone else's vehicles, and before too long, I was leaving the world's surface.

Space travel, unlike parking garages, was something I had gotten used to during my journeys. The reduced numbers of Heartless applied to the space between worlds even more than it did to the worlds themselves, and even on long trips between worlds I had hardly seen any of the space-dwelling Heartless--or, as Sora called them, "Heartless ships."

I had to correct him on that more than once, of course--they were not actually spaceships at all, but gigantic Heartless that looked like ships.

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any of them around today--at least not on the route I was traveling. Nobody ships--which, unlike the Heartless variety, actually were ships piloted by a certain kind of Nobody--still appeared every once and a while, but without Organization XIII to send them out on missions, they rarely crossed paths with anyone now.

Apparently, today was going to be the exception to that. Just as my ship came around a large asteroid, three Nobody ships came into view--all of them the usual type, with some sort of drilling weapon mounted on the front. They didn't seem to be attacking yet, but they were drifting right toward me--and the last thing I was going to do was let them get close enough to use those drills.

I aimed the guns on the front of the ship carefully, and then quickly fired off three blasts at the ships. Each of them were destroyed without much trouble, but something seemed... off. Even though they were Nobody ships, there was no sign of the silvery burst of energy that usually followed when one of the basic Nobodies was destroyed.

It was almost like those three ships had been abandoned--or something else had killed the Nobodies first. But what could do something like that?

It wasn't long before I got my answer. Something had slammed into the back of my ship--hard. The ship spun around from the force of the impact, nearly flying into a smaller asteroid before I was able to get it back on balance. I made a sharp turn back toward the larger asteroid I had just passed, and came face-to-face with some sort of enormous creature that was latched onto the asteroid.

Well, at least I thought the part I saw first was its face--it was hard to tell. There were eyes all over, with one large one in the center, and it was gripping onto the asteroid with eight huge legs, each one big enough to crush a human easily--no wonder the ship had gotten knocked around so much.

I fired a few blasts from the ship's guns at it, but it just held up one of its legs and deflected them like they were nothing. I managed to dive away from it fast enough to avoid a second swing from one of its legs, but before I could come back around and aim for another shot, I was caught from behind by another one.

My ship went spinning again, this time flying behind the asteroid and out of the creature's view. At least, it was out of its view for a few seconds--before I could turn around, its eyes had shifted positions so that they could look behind it without moving at all. I flew by the creature again, this time keeping my distance, and blasted at it as many times as I could, but every time it would just block the hits with the flat side of one of its legs. Finally one shot got through, but it barely affected the thing--one of the smaller eyes was destroyed, leaving a miniature crater in the surface of its skin, but it didn't even flinch!

"What IS that thing?", I yelled out, not realizing that nobody was around to hear me. It couldn't be a Heartless--the Gummi Ship's guns were specially made for destroying the Heartless, and would usually take down even the larger ones after a few volleys. It didn't look like any Nobody I had ever seen, either--the color of it, a pale silvery-white, was about right, but it didn't have the familiar Nobody symbol anywhere on its body.

And it was glowing. No creature I had ever seen--Nobody, Heartless, or otherwise--was constantly surrounded in a dim glow like this thing was.

After a few more failed attempts at swooping in and firing on its eyes, I decided that it would be better to escape than to fight--I wasn't getting anywhere fighting, so there really wasn't any other choice. I cranked the ship's speed up as high as it could go and did one last circle around the creature's asteroid before zipping off in the opposite direction.

But the thing just wouldn't give up. Barely a minute had passed before a dot appeared on the radar screen, coming up behind me at speeds I didn't think something like that creature could ever reach. I flew off at a different angle, passing into a small asteroid field, to try and throw it off, but it didn't help--the creature was now slamming asteroids out of the way in its rush to get to me.

Another swipe from one of its legs narrowly missed--I could tell from the way the ship wobbled. The thing was now right behind me, repeatedly swinging at me with its legs while somehow flying fast enough to keep up with my ship at the same time.

Another swing--and this one hit. I was almost thrown out of my seat, only staying strapped in because I had remembered to put on the seatbelt. A warning light came on, showing that one of the ship's Gummi Blocks had been dislodged by the attack and was now floating off into space somewhere. Thankfully, it was just an extra piece I had added on as a decoration--who knows what would've happened if something important got broken in mid-flight.

The ship spun uncontrollably for several seconds before I finally got it balanced again, and sped off through another asteroid field. I tried to duck behind asteroids as often as possible to throw off the creature, but nothing worked--instead of trying to follow me around corners and possibly getting thrown off track, it just plowed right through the rock and kept on going.

However, there was a good side to this--it was no longer right behind me. I pushed a button on the controls quickly, shifting the guns so that they were aimed backward toward the creature, and began to slam on the fire button like I was playing an arcade game. This slowed the creature--probably by forcing it to take some time to block the shots--but it was still coming.

I sped up suddenly, flying around several asteroids, firing the rear guns the whole way. I could see some bits of rock floating in space from where my shots had struck the asteroids, but there was still no sign that the creature had taken any real damage.

I was now entering a more familiar section of space--it wouldn't be long before I was home again. But I couldn't have that thing following me home...

Suddenly, I remembered something. The comet.

Several years back, I had heard about a comet that had been sighted in the area--I remembered Sora and Kairi mentioning that they would've liked to have had their wedding on a night when the comet was visible in the sky. They were disappointed then to find that it wouldn't come close enough to our world to be seen for years--but now, I was actually glad that it was too late.

The creature was tough, sure, but I don't think anything would be able to survive a direct impact from a comet. And judging by the way it tore through asteroids, rather than trying to go around them...

It was going to work.

I flew through space further, heading in the direction of the world that I once called home. The creature was still following me, as always--and now, it had almost caught up to me again. And I could see something bright up ahead--there wasn't anything else it could be but the comet.

I flew carefully, making sure to stay ahead of the creatue but not too far ahead, while keeping an eye on the comet's path as well. I felt the vibrations of the creature's legs swinging past the sides of the ship, only missing by a few feet--if not less. A few times, the ship was hit again--I lost another couple of Gummi Blocks, including one of the guns.

And then, the comet came into view. I was heading straight into it--I had to time this just right, or who knows what would happen. The comet came within 50 feet...

And I made a sharp turn, flying away from the comet for long enough to avoid it and then coming back into my original path.

My ship was slammed again--this time not from the creature, but from a massive explosion. I turned the ship around just in time to see the creature slam into the comet head-on, causing the explosion. The comet began to crack as the two titans collided, but it kept on flying along its path, smashing the creature like a bug as it went. The creature's legs flailed around for several seconds before finally all movement stopped.

And then, the entire creature began to glow. It started out as just a brighter version of the glow that surrounded it already, and then quickly brightened until it resembled the surface of the sun... and then it went out again, and the remains of the creature crumbled into a fine white powder before disappearing entirely.

And then, I finally felt like I was ready to go home.