Blue Skies

Chapter 9: Kingdom Hearts Online Part 3: "I Can Handle You."

A/N: It's been quite a while, hasn't it? Apparently I was presumed dead. Well, here you go. I wonder if this should be in its own story, rather than lumped into Blue Skies? I'll look into it - just as soon as I finish procrastinating...

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On the way out of Cave Town...

Riku let Meteor lead the way while the party left Cave Town, since their new teammate actually knew the town's layout. Lambda, sitting on Riku's shoulder, spent the time looking around at the people they passed. "There are a lot of different races here. I wonder if I can count them all? Let's see...a pair of Gnomes, three Salamanders, five Imps, another Salamander, one Spriggan - hey, Spriggan, give that sword back to the Gnome! Phew, they caught him... Two Sylphs, another two...no, three Salamanders...I give up."

Riku commented, "It's nice how they all get along, more or less. I have a bad enough reputation without being sort of the same race as that Spriggan, though."

Meteor looked back with a somewhat tense expression. "Don't worry, you look nothing like the other Spriggans. But there are quite a few people staring at us...so maybe worry about that instead?"

Meteor's attention snapped back to his front when a gruff voice called out, "Hey, renegade! I see you found a party. And hey! You joined a whole circus of freaks! Is it 'cuz his girly hair and emo coat match your stupid curl and sissy magic?" A huge, muscular Salamander blocked the path.

Meteor groaned. "Ugh, I was hoping to get out of town without running into this guy again..."

Riku crossed his arms, unimpressed by the bully's insults. "Meteor, care to fill me in?"

"That's what she said!" The bully doubled over from laughing at his own non-joke.

Meteor glared up at his antagonist. "Dude, that joke was old back in the Stone Age." To Riku, he added, "His username is Burly585. He's a bully, an idiot, a failure at comedy, and undeniable living proof that online games shouldn't require everyone to have unique usernames. On the other hand, he has better armor and stronger fire magic than me, so I've never beaten him in a fight."

"Don't worry, that changes today." Riku moved in front of Meteor and put on his best death glare. "So, is there some reason you're blocking the road? We have a matter of life-or-death importance to deal with in Alne, so you have two choices: get out of our way, or be removed."

Burly585 took a step back, clearly unused to dealing with enemies who were taller than him. "Hey, don't act all superior! You want a piece of this?!"

"Here, Riku. This is the legal way to go about showing how 'superior' you are in ALO." Lambda hovered off of Riku's shoulder and opened a tutorial about PvP duels.

With a thankful smile to Lambda, Riku followed the instructions to send the duel invitation. With a smirk, he taunted Burly585. "Well, I'd rather just go about my business, but if you insist..."

The bully quivered in his armored boots; he'd never picked on a target he didn't know he could handle before. And even though Riku was clearly a noob who didn't know how to navigate his menu, the silver-haired man gave off a vibe of danger. No, he could do this! No casual noob could possibly beat the great Burly585! "W-well, fine! Let's go!" He mashed the Accept button, and a pop-up announced the imminent duel to anyone nearby, counting down from 60 seconds to give the combatants time to properly equip themselves.

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Riku VS Burly585. 1-on-1 deathmatch. No time limit. Starting in 60 seconds...

Burly585 took five paces back and equipped a two-handed broadsword, which was proportionally larger and of slightly higher quality than Meteor's weapon. He also equipped a full helmet to protect his face, which slightly muffled his taunt. "Let's see if you can break through my armor, noob! I bet you can't!"

Riku, meanwhile, pulled on his hood and equipped Way to Dawn, settling into his familiar combat stance. He was pleased that deathmatches were allowed, due to the way death worked in ALO. Burly585 would simple dissolve into a red flame for a minute or two, then respawn with some progress lost toward raising his skills. "Challenge accepted."

The bully laughed at the design of Riku's weapon. Granted, it might seem impractical to those who had never seen a Keyblade in action. "What kind of stupid weapon is that?"

Riku let his opponent see the knowing smirk under his hood. "This is the kind of weapon that is everything except stupid. Rather than explain, I'll just show you what I mean."

3...2...1...BEGIN!

Riku charged forward and prepared to jump to the side, knowing that a heavily-armored fighter like Burly585 wouldn't waste energy making the first attack. Or would he? Riku smirked under his hood as he saw the hulking Salamander stomping right at him, sword raised high overhead, yelling, "HIYAAAH!"

Burly585 probably thought he was intimidating, but he might as well have painted a big red stripe across his torso to tell his opponent where his guard was open. In an extra burst of speed, Riku painted that stripe for him. "Zantetsuken!"

"What the h-URK!" Burly585 didn't even have a chance to comment on the attack before his torso slid off of his cleanly-disconnected legs. Both halves of the bully caught on brilliant red fire and burned away, leaving behind a small red fireball that hovered for a few seconds before puffing out entirely.

The duel pop-up announced the winner: Riku!

The fight, though laughably short, had attracted a few onlookers, many of whom applauded Riku's display of speed and strength. Riku rubbed the back of his head through his hood, feeling out of place. This felt like the old days of Riku being the best fighter on the Destiny Islands, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't deserve this applause. He hadn't finished atoning for the messes he'd made yet. Besides, the whole point of the duel was to clear the path, and now there was a crowd taking up the whole road.

Lambda noticed the problem. Flying overhead, she called out, "Riku's pretty cool, isn't he? We really do have to get moving, though, so clear the road, please!" The people did move aside, but mostly to get a closer look at Lambda, who suddenly realized that most Pixies were relatively simple AI programs. "And now I'm the big attraction...great..." One of the awed onlookers suddenly grabbed Lambda's wing, which she had to yank out of his grip. "Hey, hands off! Let us through, please!"

Meteor stepped forward. "Let me handle this." He raised a hand in front of him and spoke several words of an incantation, surrounding Riku, Lambda, and himself in shining blue barriers that could push away solid objects. "Just plow through them! Follow me!" He sprinted through the crowd, tossing aside an Imp and Sylph who were too slow to get out of the way. Riku followed suit, while Lambda grabbed onto his hood, merging her barrier with his.

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Cave Town: North Gate...

At the edge of town, the party slowed down to catch their breath. Their barriers faded as Meteor's spell timed out.

Lambda huffed in irritation as she pulled herself all the way into Riku's hood. "That guy's hands were grimy! I didn't know immaterial wings like these could even feel contact, much less transmit a sensation as complex as uncleanliness. Well, I guess that's what I get for trying to be polite to a mob. Thanks for the save, Meteor!"

Meteor gave her a thumbs-up. "It was no trouble! I'm just glad my barrier spell is useful for something. I haven't exactly had much success using it in combat, even if that's mostly because I never had a party to support."

Riku grimaced. "If that Burger858 guy was anything like the rest of his race, then no wonder you had to leave the Salamander territory. I personally don't see what's so great about specializing in attacking magic. Sure, I mostly use offensive magic myself, but one of these days I'm going to take a nasty hit from something, and I won't be able to heal myself."

Lambda added, "He also seemed to be teasing you about your hair, Meteor. I noticed that curl changes shape sometimes; is that why?"

Meteor chuckled grimly. "Yep. It's a super-rare feature I got in the avatar randomization process, and it responds to my emotions. You'd think having a rare avatar would be great, but it's almost impossible to lie for whatever reason when my hair goes rigid from stress. Not only that, but it's a female-only feature. I only got it due to a randomly-occurring glitch that was patched a month after I joined."

Riku winced. "Wow, that is some seriously bad luck."

"Tell me about it. Everyone who doesn't tease me for specializing in defense seems to think I'm a magical girl wannabe. I've tried cutting the dumb thing off, but it reappears whenever I return from logging out."

Lambda realized that she had a similar hair curl, and also matched many traits of a character in the magical girl fantasy genre, so she felt the need to speak up. "I, for one, protest the notion that magical girls are somehow inferior to musclebound bullies like Burly585."

Riku remarked as an aside, "Oh, yeah, that was his name. Now I can forget about him all over again."

Meteor grumbled, "It's not so much the 'magical' part I have the problem with. It gets really old, walking into shops and hearing the clerk ask me, 'Can I help you, miss?' The glitch even makes NPCs do that. That's part of why I carry a big sword."

Riku cut in, asking, "What's the rest of the reason? You said earlier that you named a unique move after yourself. What sort of move is it?"

Meteor cheered up immediately, walking faster as the party approached a stream of daylight at the end of the tunnel. "I'll show you the next time we run into some monsters. Don't worry, it won't take long. The random encounter rate on the road right outside the caves is..."

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Random encounter: goblins and Heartless!

"...Really high." Meteor sighed and drew his sword, pointing it at one of the five Shadows crawling between the legs of seven goblins, which had appeared in a blue flash that doubled as ALO's teleportation effect. "Those are Heartless, right? Time to see if in-game weapons can beat them."

Setting his shoulders in a firm line, Meteor activated his red Salamander wings. With a mighty leap, he soared high above the group of enemies and was silhouetted by the sun. While he was in the air, he quickly chanted a few Words of Power, covering his broadsword in a cloak of fire as he raised it overhead.

"Meteor Crush!" Meteor shouted his namesake attack and dove straight down into the fray, flaming sword-first. A massive explosion went off as he crashed to the ground, knocking all the enemies into the air. The Shadows immediately burst into puffs of Darkness that scattered on the hot wind, but the goblins kept sailing through the air, making them easy prey for Meteor as he spun in a circle, throwing the rest of the flames off his sword with a spinning slash. The extra fire washed outward and incinerated all the goblins. Meteor stood back up in the middle of the now-burning field and slung his sword onto his back again, unfazed by the flames slowly dying down around him.

For a moment, there was only silence. Then, Riku and Lambda erupted into applause.

Riku gave Meteor a big thumbs-up. "That was the most badass attack I've seen in months! And that's a really big compliment, since I'm comparing you to Organization XIII."

Lambda dug through functions and found a battle-victory fanfare jingle to play for Meteor. "What style! Even Riku's attacks aren't usually that cool, and his are usually limited to a single target, so yours is more useful, too!"

Meteor basked in the compliments he really wanted to hear, but finally held up a hand. "I know my Meteor Crush is a cool move; I'm the one who invented it, after all. But there's a huge drawback. See my sword?" He turned around to show his new friends that his broadsword was glowing red-hot. "I only have an ordinary metal sword. Covering it in such hot flames weakens the metal. I went through a lot of broadswords before I figured out that I have to not use my sword at all for a little more than five minutes after that attack, or it'll break."

Riku's applause lost some steam; five minutes of being unable to attack was quite a steep price to use such an awesome move. "Ouch. That must have been embarrassing the first time it happened."

Lambda found a sound clip titled "sadairhorns" and played it. She winced at how fitting the fanfare turned out to be, and hid in Riku's pocket in embarrassment.

Meteor grimaced. "The cooldown time is why I had so much trouble with that bully; if anyone survives my Meteor Crush, I get left totally defenseless. That's why I really need to be in a party. So again, thanks for bringing me along! I hope my Meteor Crush and support magic makes up for my below-average swordplay and weird hair."

Riku arched an eyebrow. "Let's tally the weirdness between us. You, Meteor, have a curl of hair that bends when you emote. Meanwhile, I, Riku, am the living prison of a sentient Heartless supervillain. My idea of a vacation is to set out and explore other worlds. I'm trying to prove myself worthy of my sword-sized key's approval. And to top it all off, this is my girlfriend." Riku plucked Lambda out of his pocket by her cape's collar, eliciting an adorable little eep from the Murakumo Unit-turned-Pixie. "I think I can handle you. Right, Lambda?"

Lambda was still flustered over being suddenly yanked into the air, but she gave Meteor a double thumbs-up. "Yeah, we both pretty much think 'weird' is cool! Now could you let go of my collar, dear?"

"Sure thing, dear." Riku dropped Lambda into his other hand, and she fluttered back into the air. Both of them were still flushed from the sheer cuteness of that squeak.

Meteor started laughing at nothing in particular. At first he just chuckled softly, but as he got louder, Riku and Lambda joined in until they were all laughing together. They were the friends Meteor had always wanted. "Seriously, though, thank you both so much. I won't put myself down anymore."

Lambda clutched her sides as she tried to get her giggles under control. "No worries. That was the best laugh I've ever had, and it's great to be able to laugh like this with the least bigoted Salamander in ALO." Riku, who was still letting out chuckles every few seconds, nodded in agreement.

Meteor wiped a few tears out of his eyes, then turned toward the World Tree's silhouette on the horizon. "You're both welcome. We're going to need to fly to get to Alne before sundown, when I'll have to log out for a while. I hope you can keep up!" With a smirk, Meteor extended his wings and took off, racing toward Alne as fast as his wings could carry him.

Riku returned an equal smirk as he overtook Meteor's speed with the Power of Darkness. "Don't worry about me." Both of them poured on the speed, and Lambda laughed brightly as she held onto Riku's hood.

To the hordes of Heartless already roaming on the ground, the travelers looked like shining streaks of red, black, and white racing through the sky, taunting the creatures below with the delicious Light of their hearts. Claws of Darkness stretched skyward, yearning to tear the three friends' camaraderie apart, but there was a much tastier Light further ahead. The Heartless lacked the advanced minds necessary to truly plan ahead, but their feral instincts knew what to do. They would stalk, track, and devour, always and forever...