Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or ANY of the people within this entire story. They are owned either by Disney or Squaresoft (er…Square Enix now, I suppose) or some other guy.
Soon enough I arrive back in Hollow Bastion, but in a different part of this towering castle. At the very end of the room is the same emblem I saw when I first arrived here, that heart. A golden border frames it, and a number of pipes and wires criss-cross around it. A stairway begins upwards to it, but it immediately splits into two winding stairways that lead to opposite sides of the emblem. I begin to wonder what is so important about that emblem. In fact, I think I saw that same emblem on some of the Heartless when I had been romping through the castle, destroying everything that stood in the way.
I turn around to face Maleficent and hand her the girl who, for one reason or another, appears to have lost consciousness. That just makes the job easier for me. What I see almost shocks me. It is a long hallway, and that in itself is no problem. But on either sides of the hallway are women, confined within some sort of container, all lying unconscious. I knew Maleficent was a rather shady character, but I never would have expected this. What need did she have to do this? Would this girl be among them soon?
My questions are answered soon enough when Maleficent grabs the girl and puts her into one of the empty containers. I count the number of containers and find there to be six, five of which are filled. That means that before she had possession of this girl, there were two empty containers. Two, the number of empty containers before I was here. Two, the number of people Maleficent was sending me in search of. Why was Maleficent doing this? I begin to ask but am silenced before I could speak so much as a word.
"You are entitled to privacy, as am I. You don't need to know the reason behind this, just as I don't need to know why your friends are so important to you. I fear that you'll be most disappointed, I really do." This talk again? She had said the same thing earlier, when we first made our deal. Then the cloaked man told me to be wary of Sora. Why was everyone cautioning me about being eager to meet Sora? I doubt he's done much other than sit around waiting. He always was rather lazy. Considering his habits I had always been astonished that he stayed even remotely fit, let alone fit enough to fight with his sword.
Thinking about that I take out my own wooden sword, which still I refuse to throw away for some reason, perhaps sentimental value. There are a number of places where the wood has been chipped away at, forming a number of dents in the once perfect-looking sword. Each of those dents is where my sword took a lot of abuse in clashing with Sora's own sword. I can remember all of our battles with the swords. He had never won. I had always held the edge over him, and he never managed to match my level of skill.
I smile faintly thinking about all of those battles, thinking about my days on Destiny Islands. Now that I was in Hollow Bastion, diving into darkness and doing evil deeds for an even more evil person, not to mention the by far more evil person orchestrating everything behind the scenes, I am able to fully appreciate those days, and wish that I had been able to do so when those days were still the present.
Still, now that I had held up my end of the bargain, I looked over to Maleficent and spoke.
"I did your dirty work. Now you get to live up to your promise." I say, making it very clear that it was best for her to comply. I don't want to have to wait much longer in this castle. It's unsettling.
"Of course, whatever you want. Unfortunately…" Great! I knew that she would find some sort of way to make me regret this deal. My eyes harden and convey a sense of cold anger. She merely brushes it off and continues. "Unfortunately, a slight problem has occurred. You see, a rebellion of sorts has broken out on a world. We took something from it, and ever since one man has been on a rampage, destroying all of the Heartless he can find. Now, that world also contains a much larger threat that the Heartless need to subdue before it can be realized, but with this one man's berserker rage, the Heartless simply cannot do that."
"And what do I have to do with any of that?" I ask, knowing that she plans on using me to remedy this problem.
"It's quite simple really. I cannot take you to meet your friends unless this man is convinced to stop his little crusade. All of my resources are tied down to stop him. So, will you help me with this problem? Or…" She paused to add a drama to her speech, "will you abandon your friends?" I hate her for this. I hated her beforehand, but I really hate her for this. This wasn't in the bargain, and as such she should be left to clean up her own mess. But I have no means of finding my friends, so whether I like it or not, she is in complete control of this arrangement. I am at her mercy, and that I despise.
"Fine, Maleficent. But know that you're playing a dangerous game with the wrong person." I say, showing all of my anger as a threat to her.
"I'm sure you're right." she says in turn, unfazed and undaunted. She uses that tone again, the one that makes me feel like a little child. I struggle to not lose control and unleash my anger, keeping it all bottled up inside. I cannot lose my composure, not when it counts most. I follow behind Maleficent, walking in her shadow. I truly belong there, for I have been letting her overshadow me the entire time I have known her. I have been submissive, and I haven't fought for myself like I usually do. This is the result.
I begin to wonder why I chose to let myself be overshadowed so easily. It is unlike me. Usually I would always be on top, and it would be everyone else who felt so overshadowed. What is different about now? Am I so desperate that I allow myself to be used like this? Everything is so frustrating. I haven't known so much as a fragment of happiness ever since I left Destiny Islands. All I have is memories of happiness, and that holds no weight for me. Things have only become harder with those memories, for the more I think of happiness, the more I want to know it again. But, for as long as this deal with Maleficent goes on, I shall just be this desperate shell of what I once was. My pride, perhaps even my arrogance, has been stripped away from me in favor of compliance. My calmness and stoic attitude have been taken from me in favor of desperation. My hope has been turned to despair. And most importantly, my light has metamorphosed into darkness.
Once more I go through the darkness, and once more I come out of it, relieved to see the light of day as usual. I look around to find Maleficent and discover that she is nowhere in sight. That means that I am alone and my methods won't be under Maleficent's scrutiny. Pleased with this I bring out my sword, and I allow my anger and hatred to take over. I can feel the blade respond to that power, feeding off of it, and when I am done I can easily sense the blade's power.
"Beware the darkness within your heart." I look around upon hearing the cloaked man's voice but all I find is small village. I shake my head, contemplating the cloaked man. He has yet to reveal his identity to me, and whenever he visits me it is only for a brief moment in time before going away again. This time I didn't even see him. It seems like he is constantly leaving behind clues for me, but he always leaves questions, never answers.
Regardless, I head towards the village. It looks like it normally would be busy despite its size, but the place is abandoned. My eyes dart nervously from side to side, watching for something, anything. I know that something is here, but where? I close my eyes and focus. Upon doing so I can feel my blade responding to a darkness coming not from me, but from…
I whip around and bring the blade down, slicing through a shadow Heartless. Before I can congratulate myself though, I notice that despite it being high noon in the village, the houses are casting shadows, and at different angles at that. I look on in astonishment as all of the shadows rise and form into the living shadows, knowing that they cannot hide. I look at their sheer numbers and feel pity for myself. There had to be hundreds of Heartless. They completely encircle me, and through sheer numbers could take me down as though I were nothing.
Yet I will not give up, not without a fight. As I lift my sword up into a defensive position I acknowledge the irony of this situation. Maleficent sent me here to help the Heartless, yet here I am, preparing to take hundreds of them down. I look around as the Heartless prepare their attack. Some of them prepare to leap upwards while others move to run at me. Knowing that I'll need to be able to fight Heartless attacking from the air and the ground, I bring out my wooden sword. It won't kill the Heartless, but it will at least beat them back. I look at all of the dents in the sword once more, and I only wish that this was another friendly battle with Sora, when all that was on the line was pride. But here I am, locked in a death fight. Either the Heartless will emerge victorious, or I will. There is no way for both sides to win.
The first of the Heartless runs forward while a number of other Heartless leap or join it in running at me. I sweep across the ground with my blade, obliterating the first Heartless, and the quickly snap it up to impale another. Meanwhile I manipulate my wooden blade to fight back five or six other oncoming Heartless. I myself leap up into the air, lowering my blades just above the ground, ripping through a number of Heartless. I land on top of a Heartless and quickly destroy it. I then throw my black blade into the air, fighting now only with my wooden blade. When I sense the time is right I dive forward and narrowly avoid my own sword which, in its fall, destroyed quite a few Heartless. I roll backwards and flip up, grabbing my sword and performing an aerial slash to destroy another several Heartless.
Despite my having killed at least twenty Heartless now, I have barely even dented their numbers, and despite all my power, I feel that I will not live to tell this tale.
I hear a loud explosion in the distance and one of the Heartless is completely obliterated rather mysteriously. The other Heartless then look into the distance before sinking into the ground. I am quite puzzled by this and can only watch as they scatter about. I look to see what the Heartless were so scared of and find a man with a rifle in hand. He has long black hair tied back into a ponytail, and his clothing gives him a rather vain appearance. Upon seeing me he walks over and greets me.
"Greetings, stranger. I must say that I am quite annoyed that I had to help you. I was in the middle of something very important. And now that I see you, I wonder why I even bothered." My anger rises somewhat, and I already feel quite a bit of contempt for this man, but he could be of use.
"Hello. My name is Riku. And you are?" I ask, hoping that this man could be of help to me.
"My name…is Gaston."
Author's Note- Okay then. For those of you who aren't a walking Disney encyclopedia (I am proudly a member of the non-encyclopedias), Gaston is that really obnoxious-to-the-point-of-villainous guy from "Beauty and the Beast". Ya know, the one that led the mob to kill the Beast? I don't know of any name for the world this takes place on (other than "Little Village" or potentially France), and as such I decide not to care. Besides, why would Riku care about the name of the world in the first place?
Anyways, this is the first of Riku's actual adventures, the stuff he does to pass the time while waiting for Square Soft/Enix to allow him another cameo appearance. By having him go on such adventures, he isn't just sitting around, and Riku wouldn't do that.
Well, please do review. Last time I checked this story was oh-so-close to reaching twenty reviews, and that's a plateau I would really like to reach.
