Authors Note: Hahah
Authors Note: So everyone, its been a while. Life has gotten difficult, with the number of things that need accomplishing crashing down around my ears, this story took a back seat on my priority list. Not to mention the fact that my computer completely fried. (remember that fun little curse I mentioned?) So I told myself that if one person showed that they cared it was missing, I would strike out to carry it on for them. As long as I have one fan around, this story will see its completion. So here's to you Shire Folk, for pulling me out of a writing funk and once again inspiring me to aspire to greater heights. He is a magnificent writer with a great spin on things, if none of you have read his stories "The Annals Of Darkness" get on it, its well worth your time. So here I return to you all, darker, but more idealistic then I was in the past. Its time to rock! Also, I would like to issue you all a challenge. I would like you all to invite one person you know to start reading this story. Madness, I know. But the simple truth is without reviews I won't get the chapters cranked out, not because I have to have a certain amount or I need the motivation, but because the person writing this story is the world's biggest airhead and forgets...constantly. Oh, and hello Mavs, if you're reading this, I'm back ;)
You guys ready for some action!? Ready to see who the mysterious assailant is? Well that's too bad! Kidding. Hopefully the majority of your question will be answered this chapter, but expect to have your mind splattered in the near future. The real plot of the story will be revealed soon.
Also: Now celebrating 1300 hits! Woohoo! I'm not sure when that happened, you must have smacked your screens while I was asleep.
Random Butterscotch Fact #6- I go by a number of odd nicknames given to me by friends and enemies alike. Some of the odder ones include Carlos Julio Roberto Ramirez Sanchez Rodriguez VI, Englebert Humperdink Shlapbamwalla Finglebert Frisky Buns (Friskybuns for short), Casanova, and Captain Awesome. You be the judge. Anyone who leaks this information will suffer my wrath. I shall curse your armpits with the flies of a thousand camels.
Anti and Airships
(/)(\)(/)(\)(/)(\)(Third Person P.O.V.)(/)(\)(/)(\)(/)(\)
Kairi and Tifa slid around the final corner of their now stranded vessel, and were relieved to see the entrance hatch finally hove into view. Bolstered by the sight, they sped toward it with the determination and all the will of someone fighting for their life and the lives of those they cared for. About fifty feet from their destination they encountered Riku and Sora who quickly stopped dead in their tracks, more than slightly baffled.
"Tifa!?" Both boys cried out in unison.
"What are you doing here?" Riku asked her, now entirely flabbergasted.
"Don't sound so happy to see me" she said with a dangerous edge in her voice, but released her anger with a soft sigh and launched herself into his arms for a brief, but loving kiss. "I'll explain later" she promised him pulling herself from the protective circle of his arms. "Right now, we have work to do."
They all spun to face the door arming themselves appropriately. Tifa slid on her studded leather gloves as Riku unsheathed his midnight Keyblade Way To The Dawn and quickly drew potions (from the same strange dimension he kept his video camera in) and began hand them out judiciously to the other teens. Sora took one of the proffered bottles with quiet thanks and summoned his Keyblades Ultima Weapon and Twin Force…AND twin force!?
"Sora!" Kairi exclaimed "you're in Wisdom form again!"
"Yea" he grinned sheepishly "that seems to be happening a lot lately. A little bit after you left I was just piloting through an armada of Ultima Gummi's when I felt this overwhelming wave of sorrow. It's got me a little worried at first, but right after it hit me I started to shift forms. The timing seems to always be fantastic, so I figured it was better not to complain for now." He finished the strange tale with a frown, but replaced it with his usual optimistic grin so quickly the other three thought they had imagined the worry in his eyes. "Besides, we'll see King Mickey soon and if anyone can figure this out its him."
She nodded in agreement and summoned The Light's Embrace while dropping into a defensive position next to Sora. She had promised herself that she would protect him, and it was finally time to prove it.
"Kairi…" Sora started, but she cut him off.
"Sora, don't you dare tell me that you don't want me in this fight. I told you that I was coming along because I knew that every time you fought a battle like this one, you might not come back to me. That every time you faced off against the heartless, you could lose your heart forever, die and only return to me as an empty husk. I swore to myself, that I would do everything in my power to keep you from getting hurt, and the worst injury you've sustained since this began was my fault. So don't even think about asking me to stay out of this!" She ended the tirade with her chest heaving while her lungs tried to regain the lost oxygen and realized with more then a little trepidation that everyone was staring at her. Even Namine seemed a little stunned and that was hard to do to a girl that lived in your mind.
"I was just going to ask you to give magical support since your fighting skills aren't quite good enough to handle some of these enemies head on." He said weakly his eyes still wide from her outburst. She began to turn a deep cherry red as the realization that she had blown her top for no reason slowly began to settle in. "But don't worry" he said leaning down to her ear to whisper "the only hit that could ever stop me would be the blow to my heart if you ever left." And with that last tender sentence he shed all emotion, steeling his mind for the battle to come.
"So corny…" thought Kairi.
"But soooo good" Namine finished for her thoroughly impressed by the romantic words of poetic young warrior.
With everyone fully prepared, the group of young warriors turned to face the now dilapidated gummi hatch. The Bangs and Screeches of heartless claws and weapons against the hull of the ship made for a raucous symphony that they knew could herald their end. But not a one felt fear. They were too filled with the need to keep each other safe. All at once, the enemy assault stopped, but the abysmal quest was quickly taken up by a quartet of slow earth shaking footfalls. The fear inspiring drum beats stopped just in front of the door and Sora's eyes widened in recognition.
"IT'S A BEHEMOTH!!" He screamed urgently at Riku, each of them grabbing a girl and dodging to opposite sides of the narrow hallway just as a midnight black cone as tall and thick as two Sora's came splintering through the entrance like it was a piece of old plywood. No sooner had the appendage pierced the ship then a blood curdling cry erupted from the black depths of every heartless in the area. It was time to feed and the heroes felt a chill tingle up their spine as the cold truth that they were the main course made itself aggravatingly apparent. Kairi glanced at her left looking to Sora for support but what she found swept what little security she maintained out from under feet.
"It's time to make these bastards pay" Sora growled through gritted teeth his eyes glowing an unearthly yellow. A bestial growl tore itself from his throat as he flung himself toward the hulking giant currently standing between them and a probable death. Kairi gazed on in horror and awe as he ducked a crippling swipe from the hulk's paw and leapt nimbly into the air. Stabbing directly into the flesh of the behemoth underbelly he gripped the Ultima Weapon tightly before executing a forward aerial dodge, opening a deep chasm across the entire gut of what had once been a fearsome foe. Darkness seeped from the wound but impossibly the gargantuan still stood, the vile liquid dripping onto Sora. She felt like vomiting just from the sight of it.
"What's happened to him?" she begged Namine for an answer "I never would have imagined that Sora was capable of something like this…no…that isn't Sora. It's someone else…it has to be." The pleading tone it what she had meant to be a statement of fact worried the heroin even more.
"This is what war does to a person and Sora has fought it alone for all of us for longer then any one person ever should…Roxas can't be much better off then he his. This is bad Kairi, we have to help them, and soon."
Riku's voice shook Kairi from her reverie. "Let's GO! Sora will die if we don't help him!" The Princess and her nobody had never heard a more motivational sentence in their life. Closing her eyes the two found the stream of mana they were searching for and followed it back to the source. Pulling heavily on the well of power Kairi snapped her eyes open and focused.
"Lightning!" she spoke with a force she didn't and her voice itself seemed to crackle with power that sped itself toward the death of her foes.
Lightning bolts the width of a grown man crashed down to the ground in the center of a group of heartless killing most and scattering or dazing those few that remained. Riku stood before the injured behemoth one hand burning with a dark flame the other gripping his weapon like it was his only tie to life. Extending the charged palm he seared a hole through the giant's eye and straight into its skull finishing it off with a sizzling finality and spreading the fetid stench of burnt evil across the battlefield. Tifa, seizing the opportunity given to her by Kairi's spell set upon the malicious beasts currently stunned from the force of the lightning the heroine had summoned and finished them each in turn with swift, calculated retribution.
Kairi cast about the deck of the pirate ship looking for her tortured love but was rewarded with little more then the visage of her own mortality.
"I know your worried Kairi but we have to focus" Namine told her "If we get injured it will only cause more problems for them. We can help now by reducing the number of heartless on the battlefield." Kairi nodded and turned her search for Sora into a quest for a new target…it didn't take long.
The cluster of Large Bodies seemed thoroughly distracted making them easy targets for the female magician. Picture a raging inferno that would have put Pompey to shame, Kairi drew in the mana…and froze at the last second.
"Oh god…" her heart stopped.
"Well…" Kairi felt her nobody go pale "we found them."
Sora emerged from the group ricocheting off the distended belly of one only to use the extra momentum to bite his blade deep into the skull of another. The slain heartless slid to the ground and vanished in a puff of black smoke coughing up the heart is had stolen long ago. Quickly capitalizing on the opening left by the fallen foe the Keyblade Master launched himself skyward once more performing an Ars Arcanum The reckless flurry of blows quickly ended a second Large Body in a sickening storm of rage and pitch black blood, but the spraying gore did not slide from his pale skin. It stuck like pitch, marring his features and bringing him ever closer in appearance to those he was striving to destroy. Turning swiftly Sora ran at a Samurai, tackling it to the ground and stabbing it repeatedly in the face, screaming a number of obscenities equal to the number of lives the dark beast had taken. In this fevered state the enraged hero didn't see the Assault Rider charging him from his now defenseless back. Fumbling for the concentration to conjure a spell strong enough to stop the beast about to claim the life of her love Kairi felt a wave of relief wash over her as Riku leapt from the wreckage of what had been a heartless platoon. Digging Way To The Dawn into the Centaur's back. Using the Keyblade as a fatal handhold the silver haired boy pulled himself up, level with the creature's disturbingly human head. Riku began to pool the rage he felt toward his attackers into his free hand, it burned with the intensity of a city a flame, an intensity the charging heartless knew all to well before its all of its senses were severed completely. Headless, heartless and hopeless the Assault Rider fell, striking the ground and sliding to a rest a mere foot from Sora before vanishing.
"Feel free to thank me any time now" Riku told his spiky haired companion, cocky as ever even in the face of possible annihilation. Sora did not respond to his best friend's taunts, so Riku opened his mouth to issue a witty and appropriately timed insult, but stopped when he realized what was happening to his childhood companion. Sora's entire body was covered in the slick black blood of the heartless. It dripped off him in large globules but the supply never seemed to end. It was a shockingly stark contrast to his now luminous yellow eyes. The fallen hero gave a Cheshire Cat grin before slipping like the shadow he so resembled back into the fray. The screams of his enemies were the only sign he was there at all outside of a tar black blur that toyed around on the edge of human perception.
(/)(\)(/)(\)(/)(\)(Kairi's P.O.V.)(/)(\)(/)(\)(/)(\)
"No…" I couldn't move "No no no. This can't be happening…I can't have let this happen." Despite the fact that my limbs wouldn't respond I was suddenly very aware of Riku standing next to me, looking for all the world like a vengeful spirit of the dead.
"Kairi…I need you to listen to me" his voice rang hollow like a hammer against an iron tube. "If we leave Sora like this, we will win. He will destroy absolutely every heartless on this ship and we will get out of this alive and nearly unscathed, but we will lose him. If you want to save him, you need to prepare the biggest fire spell you can manage and directly it directly at the center of the carnage, no questions asked. Do you understand?" He fixed me with a cold unwavering stare, but there was fear behind the mask.
"But he's in there!" I wanted to scream "It could kill him too!" but I was too numb, too lost. I managed a curt, tired nod before setting to work.
"Wait for my signal" he whispered in my ear, and then he was gone.
While I pooled the necessary energy in my mind I tried to track Sora's movements across the deck of the great pirate ship. It wasn't difficult. The entire army had given up on us acknowledging him as the only real threat and hoping to overwhelm him with numbers. If the heartless had emotion, I can only imagine they would have fled for their lives eons ago rather then face what was before them now. But they rushed on blindly and fearlessly toward an opponent they could never hope to defeat. The smaller creatures were flying through the air while the larger ones fell to the battle stained floor missing limbs or whole torsos. The occasional explosion rang out momentarily drowning the cries of the merciless murderers I was rapidly beginning to feel some sympathy toward. Hordes of them feel before that blood stained shadow. At points it would seem like the sheer weight of the army had finally brought my hero to his knees, but with a cry that seemed to come from the depths of hell, he would cut through a swathe of them like it was all he was meant for. I almost pitied the heartless then…almost.
Just as quickly as he had vanished Riku was back at my side, stealing across the battlefield like a ghost in the night. I could see Tifa gathered up in his arms unconscious and hugged closely to his chest suffering from a nasty gash to the temple.
"Are you ready?" he questioned me.
I responded with another nod.
"NOW!" he bellowed.
The pull on my mind from the release of mana made my knees wobble and my stomach rebel, but I managed to keep myself up and my lunch down. At least until the shockwave hit. The explosion I had caused rent beast and ship alike failing to discriminate in it's determination to burn everything with a nihilistic glee. I had never risen to my feet so quickly in my life. Dashing toward the crater left in the ships surface I was surprised to see Riku keeping stride next to me Tifa still in hand. Reaching the edge of the hole I began to circle it in the hopes of finding Sora alive…in the hopes of finding him at all. Despite the fact that I felt dead inside, tears began to fall of their own volition.
"Come on Sora, where are you" I pleaded with him to reveal himself and thankfully I was answered.
"Kairi!" Riku's voice rang out with urgency "he's over here, but badly wounded from the blast, you need to heal him quickly.
Sprinting the rest of the way I dropped to my knees next to the battered form of my hearts core. I was angry, I was battered, I was confused, I was worried, but there wasn't time for any of that, most of all, I was strong. I was strong enough for Sora and me, I had to be or I was pretty sure that I would fall apart. Pulling on the small amount of mana I had left I let the healing spell flow from my body to his, watching the lighter wounds heal over and the greater lessen, I felt a weight on my conscience vanish as well. If I had been responsible for Sora's death, I would have made sure mine followed shortly there after.
"Why Riku?" I didn't ask, I demanded an answer "why did you make me do this to him?"
"He had to be stopped before the darkness could cover his heart as well as his body, you were the only one string enough to do it. I was 99 sure his dark powers would shield him, but if you hadn't done it, he would have been lost to you forever regardless. It was the only way."
(/)(\)(/)(\)(/)(\)(Third Person P.O.V.)(/)(\)(/)(\)(/)(\)
"Ohhhh very clever me boy" a deep throaty voice chuckled at the heroes. The two that were conscious quickly turned to face the new threat. The man that stepped forward was really only half a man at all, one arm and leg were mechanical and his glowing red eye seemed to be sizing them up and liking the odds.
"Who are you?" Kairi demanded rising from her position next to Sora's limp form.
"Me?" the cyborg questioned innocently. "Why I be just a humble pirate captain meh lady. Captain Long John Silver to be sure, but yeh could do me the pleasure of jes callin' me John."
"What do you want?" Riku questioned him once more ignoring the villain's introduction completely, but Long John continued his speech, seemingly un-offended.
"Well unfortunately a lowly captain like meself must answer to a higher power, and seeing as how gods are in short supply these days" he paused here to let out a bitter, sarcastic chuckle "I'm out to please me lady lord."
"Malificent" Riku spat the name out onto the deck as if ridding himself of a bad taste and a bad memory all in one. God knew she had provided him with enough of both.
"Ahhh" Long John nodded satisfied "so you know who I be speakin' of boy. Then you also know it be out of the question for me to return empty handed. It really isn't personal you see kids" the pirate paused here adopting a look of legitimate remorse "it's just my hide er yours. Lads!" he yelled pivoting on his metal leg to address the heartless "finish th-."
In place of what the teens could only imagine would be the last sentence they would ever here, a laser cannon shot rang through the air and planted itself firmly between the gaping jaws of Long John Silver who, rather promptly, died right on queue. As luck would further have it, a second, third, fourth, and many more following shots rang out across the deck ending the lives of the heartless Sora had let live in the same fashion. To skeptical to be happy but too tired to question their luck Riku and Kairi gazed at the sky hoping to discover the name of their mystery savior, but gentleman that he was, he addressed them directly.
"Hey kids" the high pitched voice greeted from their side "happy to see me?"
"King Mickey?" Kairi questioned incredulously. This wonderful little mouse had just saved them for the umpteenth time. She really had to write him a thank you card or something one of these days, but a groan from the body at her feet quickly reminded her of the urgency of the situation, but the infallible king was already on it.
"Get the med squad down here now! Four wounded two unconscious." He looked back up to the two stunned teens with a smile that bellied his commanding nature.
"Thank you so much much-." Kairi started but was cut off by a wave of the king's hand.
"There will be plenty of time for thank you's and explanations later. Right now we aren't safe." As he spoke four members of the med team ran up to the teens with gurneys and bags that contained other assorted objects needed for such an occasion. "For now, go with these people, they will make sure you get fixed up and after a couple of days when you are feeling well rested, we can talk." The med teams had lifted Sora and Tifa to separate gurneys and were carrying them swiftly toward a white sterile looking gummi ship. Riku was already gone walking stiffly and obediently beside Tifa's still form, deep in thought.
"Go with him Kairi." King Mickey spoke softly but with the authority of his station. "If what I think happened here did, he is going to need you as soon as he's awake."
Nodding in acquiescence Kairi followed Sora like a guiding star toward what she hoped was safety, at least for a time.
-/\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\-/\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\-
As all but the King's personal ship faded into the night sky, Mickey watched in quiet remorse and impotent rage as another star winked out on the horizon.
"What have I gotten them into?" he asked himself "I did what I thought was right for the many, but in doing so did I doom the fate of the few?"
His silent contemplation was cut short by the appearance of a dark portal which promptly spewed forth an even darker soul.
"You've gone too far this time" Mickey told the horned shadow. There was no accusation in his voice, just simple fact.
"But good king" the shadow oozed like honey from the comb "I have followed all of your little rules, just as you asked, just as I promised. It is no fault of mine if there were a few…contingencies, you forgot to address." A sparkling white smile spread across the dark features making them appear even more sinister.
The mouse began the walk back to his gummi, hands folded calmly behind his back. "Just remember Malificent, a pendulum swings both ways" he paused here to face her for the first time "just hope that when this one swings back, you aren't in its path." Stepping onto the loading ramp of his small ship, the King piloted the vessel away from the dismal ruins of a once great vessel and sped off toward the light of home.
"Oh, but fair king" Malificent spoke to the open air "all clocks can be broken." Stepping back through the portal she sealed it behind with the twitch of a lacquered nail, cackling like the mad woman she reveled in being.
-/\- /\- /\- /\- / \- /\- /\- /\- /\- Chapter End -/\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\- /\-
Authors Note: There you have it, not as long as you all deserve but its as long as I can drag out the chapter without making it painful to read. You can all thank my buddy Alex for this chapter as he is currently sitting next to me whip in hand with the key to my chains placed well out of reach. I fear I've been gone to long to hope for a rescue from my heroine Mavs and her powers of extreme dance mojo, but at least it got the job done. So let me know if you're as happy to have me back as I am to be here. Have a good night everyone.
Music Listened To: All of The cd "In Defense Of The Genre" by my favorite band Say Anything.
