Background Soundtracks
The Heartless Has Come by Yoko Shimomura from Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix
Dance to the Death by Yoko Shimomura from Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix
Critical Phase by Yuki Kajiura
Let the Stars Fall Down by Yuki Kajiura

Chapter 10: Tunnel Vision

Entering the subway tunnel was easy. It was fighting in it that was the problem. In Lila's haste to return to the Twilight tunnels, she had forgotten how cramped and claustrophobic everything was down here. It made it harder to dodge enemy attacks and to avoid ambushes, but it did give them one advantage though: the Heartless couldn't fly out of range. Thinking of using this to our advantage, she pulled Riku aside.

"Let me blast the first ones that show up, then you and Pluto can come in and finish off the stragglers that I missed or weakened," she suggested, tapping the cannon at her hip. "My weapon has a longer range and needs time to charge, so with your quick combos, I think we could defeat them a lot more efficiently." After a brief moment of consideration, Riku gave a small nod.

"Alright. Let's give it a shot." After the whole ordeal they'd had earlier, they'd decided to give teamwork a test run, and it worked, surprisingly. As soon as they were low enough into the tunnels, the Heartless began showing up left and right, but they were hardly a problem anymore. Directions, Lila and Riku found, weren't much of a problem either, since the only thing they had to keep in mind was to keep going down, since all they did when they had arrived was climb up the slopes. While some of the abandoned turnarounds made the subway maze a little confusing, it didn't eliminate the one simple fact that the darkest place was at the bottom, and shadows lurked in dark places, so what better place to look for a Heartless than at the bottom of a subway tunnel?

Making a mental note of the number of entrances they passed, now passing Entrance 2, Lila noticed that beams of sunlight were becoming harder to find. It was as if the further they went down, the more bleak the pathway began to look. The gateways seemed to ominously countdown until the group reached their inevitable demise. Occasionally though the area would have enough sun for little plants to poke their heads out of the brick and sandstone, as if to give some hope to those passing through the darkened tunnels. A soft wind blew in through the air vents, making the petals of one strain of wildflowers flutter in the breeze and carry the scent into the air. The smell filled Lila with a sense of nostalgia, recalling a memory she had long since forgotten.

"Mommy, what's that smell?" Lila had asked her, catching the strong, aromatic smell of flowers.

"Those are the lilies, sweetie," said her mother as she patted down the soil for a freshly planted flowerbed.

"Why are they pink? I thought lilies were supposed to be white." Her mother wiped her forehead against her wrist, smudging bits of dirt and swiping away fly-away hairs that had fallen out of her large hair-clip.

"Oh no, there are all kinds of flowers, even in their own groups," she explained as her hand tenderly touched the petals. "These are called Stargazers."

"Wow... They're so pretty!" Lila exclaimed before leaning in to give them another whiff. "And they smell so sweet."

"Not as sweet as you, my silly lily," she teased as she held her close and tickled her stomach.

The image of her wasn't very clear other than that, Lila's impression of the memory coming from when she was very young, probably around four or five, but the world seemed to be colored with bright colors as if she had spilled cans of paint and finger-painted them in. She hummed fondly at the warm feeling the memory gave her before she heard a brief warbling in her ears and noticed Riku was looking expectantly at her.

"I'm sorry- what?"

"I said 'Be on your guard,'" Riku repeated, effectively snapping her out of her trip down memory lane. "This area is covered with the scent of darkness, so be ready and pay attention."

"O-Oh right! Sure thing!" Lila added fiercely, though her tone was uncertain. While Riku focused on the task at hand, she found herself noticing the area had more of a sinister aura than it'd had moments ago. The area itself didn't look any different, but she couldn't shake off the strange feeling that she was being watched. Finally, the group stopped near the bottom of the subway turnaround. A few more paces to the right and they could have boarded their Gummi ship, but it was blocked by the large crowd of people that gathered in the underground.

Hearing Pluto's whimpers next to her, Lila placed a finger to her lips and hushed him as she grasped onto his collar, trying to keep his impatient fidgeting under control. After scanning the area, the gamer recognized the large Heartless in the center to be a Shadow Stalker, though she would have mistook it for a Darkball if it wasn't for the chains. That certainly explained the vast amount of Possessor Heartless in the area, since it was known to summon other Possessors. Lila couldn't help but let out an aggravated hiss at the creature. She could tell by the sheer size of it that it was going to be hard to beat.

"Riku, we have to kill this thing fast, or it will be that much harder to kill later," she urged him before his face whirled towards her, his expression changed instantly from ready to concerned.

"What makes you say that?" he asked cautiously.

"Because I've dealt with these things before. It's a Shadow Stalker. It's like a Possessor on steroids. They're weak in this form, but they're hella nasty if you don't get 'em while they're down." His eyebrow arched in surprise. She could tell from the once over he gave her that he was not totally sold that she had fought a day in her life, which wasn't completely unwarranted since technically she hadn't. Regardless, Lila urged him. "Just trust me on this! I know what I'm talking about." After trying to find some deeper truth in her determined stare, he turned away and readied his sword.

The large Heartless hovered to and fro in the center of the turnaround, letting the people encircle it like they were about to join hands and be sacrificed to the creature. Any stragglers that weren't controlled by the Heartless were soon caught quickly afterwards and possessed by the Possessors that the Shadow Stalker spawned.

"It looks almost like an alien queen about to feed her children," Lila wrinkled her nose in disgust, expecting the Shadow Stalker to consume the massive crowd of people. However, both the Heartless and the possessed townsfolk did nothing but stand there.

"Why isn't it consuming any of their hearts? It's just sitting there," Riku wondered aloud, confused why the Heartless wasn't acting on impulse. Lila agreed with him, wondering if this was the true boss or just another pawn. It wasn't until moments later that she discovered the real reason it hadn't done anything as the Shadow Stalker turned and looked at them knowingly. It was to lure them down here, with the townspeople as the bait. Walls made up of dark energy suddenly sprouted up behind them, created a large force field in the turnaround, effectively blocking the exits and ensnaring them inside its trap.

Riku narrowed his eyes. "Should've guessed this was a trap," he stated before shifting his feet into a defensive battle stance. After realizing holding onto Pluto was no longer necessary, his thrashing becoming more violent as the tension rose in the air, Lila quickly let go and started charging up her machine. The Shadow Stalker erratically jerked and shook, the rattling of its chains seeming to stir it excitedly into a frenzy. The townsfolk around it suddenly did an about-face and went on the offensive as they marched towards us.

"Damn it. Not again," Lila growled as her hand squeezed her weapon in irritation. Riku begrudgingly brought down his blade with a grimace, sharing her frustration. They hated that they had to fight the townsfolk again. The Shadow Stalker stole them in order to lure the group down here, and now it was using them as foot-soldiers. They didn't deserve this. If only there was a way of separating them from the Possessors. There just had to be!

Desperately trying to think of ideas, Lila's gaze flitted to the metal box she clutched tightly in her hand, to Riku and back again, and then inspiration came. Putting everything into a hunch, Lila aimed her cannon exactly like she had done multiple times before and fired a large blast at the crowd. A brief moment of satisfaction and horror filled her chest as she anxiously watched people fall down right and left like mosquitoes hit with bug spray, but it was soon replaced by reassurance as black clouds of Heartless evaporated into thin air. Finally, they was getting promising results.

"Oh thank god that worked," Lila sighed in relief, like a ton of bricks had been knocked off her shoulders. "That would've sucked if it had backfired." Riku turned to give her an incredulous look.

"You mean you fired your cannon at innocent people and just hoped for the best?!" Riku exclaimed.

"Hey! It didn't kill you when I used it on you, did it? You're fine! Besides, it was better than doing nothing," she defended, anxiously trying to press towards the present situation. "Anyways, focus on getting the people to safety. I'll deal with big, bad, and ugly over here." Riku instantly shook his head.

"No way. You can't handle this thing alone."

"Can you get rid of Possessors without hurting people?" Lila gestured frantically. "Besides, I can't carry unconscious people. I'm not as strong as you, but I can at least hold it off. Just trust me on this, okay? I'll be fine, and besides, I've got Pluto. Now GO!" She urged him, sounding more confident than she felt. Truth is, Lila was absolutely terrified. She had never fought something this big on her own.

I can handle this... I can handle this... She told herself as she took a deep breathe and aimed her weapon. It's just like the video-games... It can't hurt you unless it possesses something, and what is there to possess in an empty subway tunnel?

Apparently, more than she thought. Having only played the games, she had underestimated the tenacity of her enemy. Not wanting it to make the first move, she'd nervously fired blasts at the Shadow Stalker, sending it scuttling into the ceiling, where it would possess the ceiling lights and send blasts of blue energy raining down on her.

By a stroke of luck, she managed to avoid those shots by having stood next to the walls, since the lights were only in center of the ceiling. After it finished, she fired a blast of her own and knocked the Heartless back out into the open. She wanted to move closer and get a more direct hit, but she noticed Riku wasn't done escorting the people to safety, so she continued to focus only on hitting her target when it wandered too close.

Lila had to keep reminding herself that she wasn't trying to go all out against this thing, that she was just buying time until Riku got everyone out of the way, but it was hard. The large boss made her a bit trigger happy in how it would erratically jerk about and shake, dodging some of her nervous blasts with its quick, unpredictable movement. Pluto was, surprisingly, a great help in distracting it and keeping it from jumping into the ceiling again. He would chase it around, occasionally leaping up in the air and biting one of its chains to pull it back down and make it easier to shoot. Her light cannon was an useful weapon, but with the kick it gave, its blasts weren't very clean when it didn't have any sights to help angle the shots.

So far, so good... Lila tried to think positively before the Heartless suddenly ducked and flattened itself into the floor. Crap! I forgot that it did that! The Heartless crept towards her right as she decided to bolt to the other side of the room, the dark shadow blob on the ground following behind her before it stopped below her feet and shot anemone like tendrils around her. Managing a small jump at the last second, it only managed to snag her foot, but that was enough.

A sharp pain dowsed her foot in what felt like hot, tiny needles as Lila frantically stomped and kicked the Heartless with her other foot before it spat her back out again. Shaken from her experience, Lila scooted away and tried to get back onto her feet as the barrier fell. Pluto took this opportunity to build up his aura and charged towards the Heartless, smashing it into one of the walls. Disoriented, Lila stumbled backward and blindly shot at the ceiling, blowing out the bulbs of the subway lights and causing sparks of fire and light to rain down on the Shadow Stalker. It let a out a ghostly shriek of pain before the lights flickered and eventually blinked out, one by one.

Her end of the tunnel was now covered in darkness. Lila couldn't see where the Heartless had run off to, but judging from the softness of the clinking chains and the distant echoes of the tunnels, she could make an educated guess that the Shadow Stalker fled into one of the smaller tunnels. At least it couldn't use the ceiling to attack anymore. Waiting for the ten second recharge, Lila cautiously moved down towards the bottom subway tunnel. In the distance, she could see the faint dimming of lights flickering on and off from the emergency back up generators. Illuminated at the bottom of the tracks was an old subway turn around that was covered in crabgrass and old vines, but there was no sign of the Shadow Stalker. Suddenly, Lila felt something cold grab onto her shoulder. Without hesitation, she whipped around and punched the dark tendril that grasped onto her, sending whatever had attacked her back into the shadows.

"Oww! Jeez! Calm down, Lila! It's me!" eased a male voice. Lila squinted, barely able make out the frame of the figure before she spotted the tell-tale silver hair and lowered her arms.

"Riku!?" She blinked owlishly before shoving him backwards. "God, don't scare me like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"Sorry," he offered before rubbing his shoulder. "Man, you punch hard for a girl."

"I'll take that as a compliment," she spoke dryly before asking, "Is everyone out?"

"Yeah. Pretty much everyone's awake now, so they managed to evacuate after that, since they know the tunnels," he explained before looking down the subway tunnel. "So where did the Heartless go?"

"I don't know. Somewhere down there, I think. Shouldn't be able to get far. There's nothing down there to possess anyways."

"Yeah, nothing but tracks and old subway cars down there," Riku trailed off before they both froze. Wait. What. A low train whistle blew ominously at the bottom of the cavern as two lights flickered on below. The creaking and moving of rusted wheels echoed through the tunnel as the train car began lurch forward.

"Crap!" Lila cursed before they hightailed it out of there. A rogue subway car began gathering speed below as it gradually ground its wheels for a steady uphill charge. The closer it got, the more Lila could see the grim details on it. The train car was now covered with black and purple markings, possessed by the Shadow Stalker, its eyes and teeth the headlights and flat-nose of the subway car.

Its jaws formed at the front the car, chomping wildly at anything it could sink its teeth into. It continued to launch itself up the tunnel before it entered the main room and smashed into one of the railroad buffer stops for the turn around. Using its strength, it used its dark energy to spin a massive whirlwind of dark energy that became stronger with its speed. After unleashing its attack, Riku leapt at it with his sword and smashed the front windshield before it halted to a stop, revealing the other side of the car to have eyes and teeth as well. Linking up its rails with the tunnel behind the duo, sparks flickered and spat from the grinding wheels and rusty rails as the Heartless geared up to charge forward again. Trapped with nowhere to go but up, they were forced to run until they could somehow manage to duck into a drop off tunnel or risk being shoved all the way there by the Heartless. Unfortunately, even with a nap, Lila was still a much slower runner than Riku and Pluto, and soon felt the Stalker subway car collide into her back.

Lila let out a panicked cry as the Heartless took a sizeable bite out of her strength. At this point, the gamer was only hanging on from sheer willpower before the car collided into Riku and Pluto as well. Sandwiched between Riku, Pluto, and a Heartless, the ache in her side grew from painful to agonizing. She could scarcely move, one of her arms pinned uncomfortably behind Riku's back as she weakly turned and aimed her cannon in her free hand and shot a final blast right into the Heartless's face, breaking the other windshield as they launched out of the subway transit out into the open. The kick-back of the weapon was so strong that it fell out of her hands onto the tracks. The Shadow Stalker flew out of the shambled train car before it gradually rolled to a hault, but not before they were all flung out into the open with it. After kissing the pavement multiple times, Lila let out a long moan as she tried to get up. Everything hurt, but nothing was broken until she blindly felt around for her weapon and saw it smashed to bits yards away by the train tracks, crushed by the weight of the train car.

The Shadow Stalker hovered briefly overhead as if to give them a moment to pray to their god before dropping back into the ground. Knowing what came next, Lila started running, half crawling away, before she was inevitably caught and trapped inside the shadowy prison. An enormous pressure began building in Lila's chest as it engulfed her. The sound of chewing and cutting of flesh causing her to frantically kick and flail inside the beast to no avail. Everything was screaming. Her body, her voice, the shadows. She could even hear Riku calling out her name, along with feeling something beating against the prison from the outside, but it was muffled by the dark energy inside the Shadow Stalker. Left helpless and weapon-less, she could scarcely breathe as Lila desperately flailed against her captor. Images of her home being devoured, her family swallowed up by the darkness, and eventually turning into Heartless left her with a familiar sense of failure and desperation.

"Lila, you act like you've got blinders on," complained Kurami as she tried to explain the Greek epic and Marvel superhero comparison essay she was helping her write. "You're not seeing the big picture here. The best part of the story to focus on is the hero's ordeal."

"Why?"

"Because no matter how far they've fallen, the hero always gets back up to face the challenge head on, like Peter Parker as Spiderman. Spiderman always had to deal with super-villains as well as having bad press for being a vigilante, but despite being public enemy number one, he always fought for what was right despite that everyone hated him, and always got back up no matter how many people put him down. That's what makes the hero so relatable. Spiderman may do fantastic feats, but under the mask, he's still awkward, flawed Peter Parker, a regular guy just trying to make it from one day to the next. Life always likes to throw problems your way, but no matter how bad it gets, you always get back up and make it through, otherwise the story ends."

"I can see dramaturgy was the way to go for you," Lila smirked at her sister, who sniffed dramatically and straightened her posture.

"Well, if I want to make it as an actress, I have to study hard," she sniffed before hitting her with a book. "And that means you should too!"

"Okay, MOM!" Lila teased her before opening up her workbook. "So explain to me how anti-heroes and anti-villains aren't the same thing again."

Lila thought reliving this memory in her last moments as odd. After all, Ami helping her with her homework was not an unusual occurrence. Despite that she was older than her, Ami had always sat down and helped her when she didn't get something. She didn't yell when she got frustrated and made sure that her older sister stayed on track. Ami was always there for her, no matter what.

But like Spiderman, Kurami was still just a person under her mask of kindness. If she went through the hardships Lila was facing now, would she be able to do it alone? Lila always tried to talk a big game by trying to act like the older sister for her, but the truth is that Kurami was always the one that stepped up to face the challenge. Now, she needed to step up and be the big sister Kurami deserved. She needed to be there for her, and dying inside of a Heartless was not the way of doing that. I may not be one the heroes she always idolized, but there was one thing she did know: her story would not end here.

The story... the story can't end here... Lila thought. It... it can't end like this! I won't let it end like this!

A rush of energy started to build in her chest before it enveloped her in a slowly building light. Suddenly, a bright flash blasted the Shadow Stalker open like a popped balloon before it weakly slithered away. In Lila's hand was a strange sword with a winged fleur de lis hilt and a six star shaped flower that was attached to the edge of the blade like the teeth of a key. Attached to the hilt was a long chain that had a smaller fleur de lis charm connected at the bottom.

"That's a..." Riku gaped.

"...Keyblade." Lila finished as she held up the sword to examine it with shock and awe. It was coated with blue and gold metal, the flower petals being the only color of pink on the whole keyblade. The name Stargazer suddenly filled her head as a bright energy coursed through her that she could feel from her chest all the way to the edge of her fingertips. Filled with renewed strength and purpose, Lila smirked and leapt towards the Shadow Stalker with a loud battle cry. She began swinging wildly, beating fiercely at the Shadow Stalker like it was a pinata. Small sparks shaped like stars flung off its body as old muscles and joints in Lila's arms and shoulders began stretching and clicking together like clockwork as muscle memory began to take over.

While her spirit didn't deter, her arms were beginning to tire, but Lila didn't care. If she could kill this thing quickly enough, it wouldn't be able to use its last resort and make them fight it a second time. Lila could do nothing but hope that this was the case as she unleashed her unrelenting fury upon the chained Heartless. To keep it from escaping, Pluto bit down on the chains and pulled as she delivered blow after blow until she couldn't anymore. After seeing her strikes become slower, Riku leapt into action and continued where she'd left off, not wanting to get caught up in the berserk assault as Lila stopped to search for her only Hi-Potion and took a long swig, feeling the effects almost instantly as the stings of pain numbed to a dull ache. Lila was about to join in again, but it didn't seem to be necessary as Riku efficiently delivered fast and sudden blows that would have knocked most tanks of their feet. It wasn't long afterwards that the Heartless let out a final cry and began to quake in pain. To Lila's horror, Riku lowered his sword, sensing that the battle was done, but he was wrong. Dead wrong.

"No, Riku, hurry! Kill it! Kill it NOW! It's not done!" she cried out as the Heartless screeched in pain. Noticing her urgency, Riku quickly flew forward with a sudden dash, but when his sword lodged itself into a sudden force field, Lila knew it was already too late. Rather than disappear into smoke, the Shadow Stalker oozed a blue aura and had shrouded itself in a cloak of shadows and black thorns, obscuring it from view. After a couple seconds of hovering in mid-air, the thorny nest pulsed, like it had a heartbeat, before a creature burst forth like a butterfly busting out of its cocoon, and much like a butterfly, the metamorphosis gave the Heartless a new appearance. Its new form resembled a wolf-like beast with broken chains on its manacled wrists and a long flowing orange mane. Green thorns snaked up its chain-bound legs and torso, its menacing appearance accented with its sharp jagged teeth and long orange claws. This was its true form. Dark Thorn.

"Well crap." Lila deadpanned. She hated it when she was right.