Full summary: This is the first story of a series, known as the Earthblade series. The story is about how a new keyblade master (OC) faces his first challenge, on his home world, Earth. It will also detail how he came to poses the keyblade, in a later chapter. Sorry, but the only Kingdom Hearts characters in this installment are the heartless, the rest are OCs.
Disclaimer: I do not own the heartless. I do not own the keyblade. I do own Andrew, Devlin, Maria, and all my other OCs. I own Shadowhaven. I doubt I own Earth. I think I own just about everything else too.
Chapter 6: Pain
Andrew explained to his friends how the other Andrew had come to be a serial killer.
"That's, a little creepy, him having the same name as you, his late wife having the same name as me…"
Devlin remarked, "Very eerie how similar his past is to yours as well."
"My past." Andrew had stopped crying, though it continued to rain. He grew silent at the mention of his past, a silence brought on by the pain he still had not shared with his friends.
"No need to talk sir, we know how painful this memory is to-"
"No you don't. How could you, you've never been through what I've been through."
"I never had any parents either sir."
He remembered that quiet well. She had never known her parents; she had lived in a foster home all her life.
"You don't know what its like. You never had a family. You didn't lose it. You never had to live every day knowing that you could have saved them, but you were too much of a coward!"
He sighed, "I never wanted to tell you…
It was a little over a year ago, the day the heartless first came to our world. I had been playing, ironically enough, Kingdom Hearts Two. They came up from behind, I didn't even see them.
"Get down Andrew!"
Years of training had allowed me to react instantly to my fathers command. I quickly ducked, as gun shots went over my head. I saw a dark mist appear over my shoulder, and hesitantly turned around.
"No way."
I couldn't believe my eyes. Enemies that I had just been massacring in a videogame, they had become real. My dad was fending the off with a SHPD standard hand gun. As I began recovering from the shock, Dad issued an order. "Andrew, get your mother, and run!"
Considerably calm, given the situation, I ran like mad past my dad, into the kitchen. I grabbed an eight inch kitchen knife, ran back out, and into my parent's room.
It was eleven pm, and my mom was asleep. That wouldn't fly, so I quickly woke her up, "Mom, the heartless," I panted, "coming, must, run."
Still sleepy, my mom rubbed her eyes. "What time is it?"
"Heartless, come-on already!"
"What, heartless? Did you have nightmare?"
Just as I was trying to come up with a way to convince her that I wasn't having a nightmare, she saw the knife in my hands. Her eyes widened, and she looked like she was about to ask me something, when another burst of gun fire from the other room brought her to her senses.
Without saying a word we tried to leave. Quickly assessing the situation, I realized that the only way out of the room safely was through a window. Luckily we were on the ground level, so I jumped through the window, beckoning my mom to follow. I had plenty of cuts from the glass, but that didn't matter. What did matter was the heartless surrounding the house. I had never seen so many yellow eyes starring at me, chilling me down to my very soul. No way was my lousy kitchen knife saving me from them. I quickly looked for an alternative rout.
"H-Heartless," stuttered my mother. Then I found what was hopefully our salvation. A sewer, we had to escape into the sewer. Rushing over to the tunnel that would lead to either another infestation, or our salvation, I quickly managed to lift the cap off, and beckoned to my mother, who I was desperately trying to save. She complied.
"Ladies first," and with no time to argue with me, she went down first. Just as she sank beyond sight within the darkness, I heard a scream coming from within the house.
"Dad."
No longer daring to stand there, I quickly descended, holding the knife in my mouth by the handle, meeting my mother, who had been waiting down below. I saw a signal tear falling from her eyes. It was enough to tell me she had heard Dad's scream. I was on the verge of tears myself, but there was no time. We both nodded, a silent promise to shed our tears latter.
As we ran, there was a thump behind us. They had come.
A look behind me confirmed my worst fears, yellow eyes.
We kept running, what else could we do? It was no use. I saw a light up ahead. Someone had lifted the cap off another entrance up ahead. With the heartless ready to pounce at even the slightest delay, I knew that this would be my only chance to escape.
I had begun to forget my mother, lost as I was in survival instinct. Easily outrunning her, I bolted toward the exit. I was already halfway up the ladder, when a thump and a scream reminded me who else was there. I looked down, my newest fear confirmed. My mom had tripped. I held the hand holding the knife out in desperation. I threw it at the heartless that was coming closest to her. There was suddenly a flash of light, and the knife was gone, replaced with another surprise. It had become the keyblade.
A staff of wonder and ruin,
A sword of terrible destruction,
A shield to repel all,
You may earn this power.
The new weapon spun, struck down the target, and returned to my hand, in a move I vaguely recognized as strike raid. I looked at my Mom's ankle, already knowing by her face she was in pain. It was clearly useless, twisted beyond the point an ankle should be twisted. She was doomed
Unless I helped her.
Cold fear gripped my heart, I struggled with myself, but the victor was already decided. My less noble thoughts won, I looked down upon her soon to be carcass, and finished climbing the ladder to the salvation of the damned. Her voice rang out to the heavens, "Andrew, help!!!" Then there was only pain, and her screams. They made the bitter sound of death, a death so horrible, even your very soul felt her pain. They dragged on, or perhaps it was only the guilt that carried on through that silent night. The sound would never leave my ears, I ran for it, ran until the screams ended, but they never did.
And still I run.
"Those screams still haunt my every moment Maria. My dreams are nothing but a web of nightmares, reliving that pain, forever cursed to know I could have prevented it."
Devlin and Maria seemed to avoid his gaze, as they attempted to soak this new information in. It was a lot to take in. Andrew had always told the story as if he had been unable to save them. Part of them wanted to believe he was lying now, but they knew he wasn't.
Maria was the first to meet his gaze, relief flooded Andrew, her eyes showed confident loyalty. "I don't care if you handed them to a heartless on a silver platter, sir. You still saved my life, I will follow you for it, no questions asked!"
Devlin merely nodded in agreement, and asked, "So what will you do now?"
Andrew hesitated, there was news to tell, and it was another failure. "Despite my efforts to persuade them, no one would abandon their homes. They abandoned their lives instead. There is no one left in the badlands, the victims tonight were the last of them. The heartless will leave the badlands in a matter of days to pursue new prey, if we're lucky. They will attempt to devour what's left of the city. How many survivors are left in the rest of town?"
"At most, a third of what was in the badlands, and over much more wide an area sir."
Andrew spent not but a moment formulating a plan. "Playing the great defenders of mankind hasn't worked out well for us so far. That's because we've been playing defense. Well no more! There is no way we'll be able to reasonably defend this large an area against the full strength of the heartless. So it's time to switch stratagems! From now on, full focus on offense, we fight together."
"And what is our first step?" inquired Devlin.
"The heartless were definitely waiting for us yesterday. They have a leader. I believe that is this same leader who created the shield surrounding the town. If we take him out, the heartless won't be as big a threat, and the citizens can escape."
"Right!" the others proclaimed on unison.
"This man will be human, and strong enough to control heartless. Fighting another human is a whole different level."
Devlin merely replied, "I was trained to fight humans."
Maria added, "This man must be stopped."
Andrew smiled; his friends were with him all the way.
Character Responses:
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A/N: Next chapter, the enemy makes itself known, but is he just too powerful for the keyblade to kill?
