Chapter 11: The Coliseum

Alex knew he was having a nightmare. He knew it right as it started. A dark hallway twisted and turned, making him disoriented as he tried to walk through it. His vision was blurry and he kept hearing faint echoes of voices. Alex managed to walk down to the end of the hallway and came across a staircase. The setup of the place he was in was all too familiar to Alex. He didn't want to go down the stairs, but he couldn't control his dreams. His legs wobbled with each step he took. The railing was a lifesaver for Alex's balance. The staircase curved to the right and Alex hesitantly made the turn. He knew where he was now. Alex even knew when he was.

The sight before him was one that never left his thoughts, yet it still caught Alex by surprise. He saw himself on the ground floor of the house clutching a baseball bat. His brother, mother, and father each holding objects of their own. Alex could see the villainous Dark Alex grinning through the darkness, his yellow eyes piercing the night and shining right through Alex's soul. Alex tried to call out to his family and his dream self to get away, but he knew they couldn't hear him.

The front door opened and a blur of blond hair entered the house. Alex knew what happened next. His evil copy grabbed Ashley and thrust his arm into her heart, sucking it out. The look on Dark Alex's face was one of ecstasy, as if he got some twisted sexual pleasure from this. Alex struggled to breathe as Ashley hit the floor, never to move again. Alex's feet felt as though they were cemented to the ground. He began to wonder what kind of twisted God would allow him to relive this moment.

The dream Alex screamed and rushed the evil twin, only to get punched in the stomach and crash against the wall. The real Alex could only watch as Dark Alex grabbed his brother with unbelievable strength and did what he did to Ashley. He saw his brother's lips move as Sean whispered his last dying wishes for Alex.

I didn't fail you Sean, Alex thought. I sent that bastard back to hell.

That thought still wasn't enough to stop the tears from forming. A tear hit the floor just as Sean Bane did. Alex saw his mother run toward Dark Alex, tears streaming down her face and eyes that lusted for the bloodshed of Sean's murderer. Dark Alex just smiled and sucked out Rachel's heart. Alex clenched his fists. Seeing this made Alex want to bring Dark Alex back from wherever he was and beat him to death with his own hands.

Alex knew the dream was almost at its climax. Dark Alex was shot by his dad, Michael, but that didn't stop the Heartless. Alex's lip quivered as he saw his father shot to death with his own gun. And Dark Alex had a smile on every step of the way. Alex just wanted it to be over. He wanted to wake up, not remembering the dream. But he knew that it would never shove the memory out of his mind or his heart.

Suddenly, the entire scene seemed to rewind itself. Alex watched as Michael got back up with the gun in his hands. His mother was still holding the skillet, and his brother was wasn't dead. Alex didn't know what had happened. The scene began to replay. The deaths of his family members. But this time, Alex noticed something different. Something he hadn't seen before.

What he saw made him cry even harder, mostly in disbelief. Dark Alex punched the dream Alex into the wall and took Sean's heart. The real Alex kept his eyes squarely on the dream version of himself. He saw the dream Alex get up from the ground, shaking debris from the wall he hit off of his back. Memories started to come back to the real Alex of what happened that night. He remembered getting slammed into the wall, but the next thing he remembered was driving in the car. Alex didn't remember what had happened between then.

He watched as the dream Alex continued to watch the slaughter of his family as Dark Alex made his way to his mother once more. But instead of rushing to help his mom, the dream Alex ran through the back door. Running away! The sight shattered Alex's world. When his family needed him the most, he ran away like a coward. He couldn't believe it. Perhaps he could have stopped Dark Alex. Or he could have yelled for help. But that is not what Alex had done. He had left the only family he had behind in the hands of a monster.

Sora awakened from his sleep because of moans and ,soon enough, screams coming from Alex's room. He quickly got out of bed and ran over to the room. Sora saw Alex twisting around in bed.

"NO! NO! I won't believe it!" Alex kept screaming.

Sora ran over to the side of the bed, shaking Alex and yelling his name, "Alex! Alex! Wake up! You're having a nightmare."

Alex didn't stop twisting. His cheeks were wet with tears. Sora knew Alex was having one hell of a bad dream. He decided to take drastic measures and slapped Alex across the face. Alex's eyes shot open. He was breathing hard and took a few looks around, as if he needed to make sure of where he was. Then he saw his friend.

"Sora," Alex whispered. "What happened?"

"You were having a nightmare," Sora explained. "Must have been a doozy too. You were crying and everything."

"I was," Alex touched his face and felt wetness. "Wow. I guess I was."

"You sure you're okay?" Sora asked, with more than a hint of concern in his voice. "It wasn't about Alice, was it?"

"No," Alex replied. "It wasn't about her."

"Do you remember anything?" Sora asked.

Alex looked straight into Sora's eyes and said, "No."

Of course, it was a lie. Alex remembered exactly what had happened, but he couldn't tell Sora that. He didn't want Sora to look at him differently just because he wasn't from the islands. He didn't want to be seen as a freak. He had seen some of the expressions on Sora's face as they went through Wonderland. Most of them were weird looks. Alex had known plenty of kids at his school that had gotten those looks and he had been glad that he wasn't one of them. He wanted to keep it that way.

"Well," Sora began, "it's probably time we got up anyway. Donald said we should be getting to the next world pretty soon."

"Any idea what it is?" Alex asked as he got out of bed and put on his clothes.

"Nope," Sora shook his head. "Hopefully this one doesn't have any crazy rulers like the last one."

"We can hope," Alex nodded in agreement.

The two exited Alex's room and climbed their way up the ladder into the cockpit of the Gummi Ship. Donald and Goofy were in their usual positions. Donald was keeping a sharp lookout for any Heartless ships. His hands clutched the steering wheel tightly. Goofy was taking a little snooze in his chair. Sora wondered how Goofy didn't keep waking himself up with the sound of his own snoring.

Donald turned to the boys and smiled. "We're almost there boys."

"Did Chip and Dale tell you what it was?" Alex asked.

"Apparently," Donald explained. "The whole world is just one big arena. It was built way back when. All made of stone."

"What's the world called?" Sora asked.

Goofy turned to Sora and replied, "Olympus."

Alex's eyes grew wide, due to dozens of realizations at once. He had learned about the Greek myths in school. Mount Olympus was where the gods resided. But that wasn't the only reason Alex was excited. He assumed the world they were going to was still Disney-based. And there was only one Disney movie that Alex could think of that had to do with Greek mythology.

"What are you smiling about?" Donald inquired, smirking.

"Oh now he's smiling," Sora grinned. "And this is the same guy who moments ago was having a nightmare."

"Nightmare?" Goofy looked a little lost.

"It's nothing," Alex said. "I don't even remember it."

"Approaching target," the computer said.

Gee thanks, Donald thought. We have eyes you know.

"Look!" Goofy pointed out the window. "There it is!" The others turned to see a small object floating in the distance.

"Okay everyone," Donald jumped from his chair. "You know the drill."

Goofy instantly sprinted to the desk with the steering mechanism and cowered behind it.

"Not that drill you idiot!" Donald stamped his foot. "Just get to the teleporter."

"Oh, sorry," Goofy chuckled and led the way down the ladder.

They entered the VR room just as they had last time. They stepped on the glass portion of the floor and waited for the computer to begin countdown. Alex cracked his knuckles, Sora stretched his neck out, Donald tapped his foot on the ground, and Goofy just stood there, yawning.

"5...4...3...2...1...0!" Sora closed his eyes as he felt the ground leave him. He was getting used to this. In no time at all, he felt the ground return. He felt the dusty wind blowing against his face, so he shielded his eyes with his hands as he opened them. He found himself staring at a large set of wooden double doors

The doors opened and the group stepped inside for a wondrous sight. An open square lay before them with stone walls surrounding them. Golden stands were lit with fire, creating the outline of the square. Two, tall, golden statues stood on either side of a large door in the distance, which had two thunderbolts on each side. The statues were of men outfitted in Greek armor and shields. Their swords crossed right over the large door, which was surrounded by pillars. Alex put two and two together and realized that they were at Disney's version of the Olympus Coliseum.

"Wow," Donald stood in awe.

"How did they build something so huge?" Sora wondered aloud.

"Kinda cool, huh?" Goofy smiled.

"I guess we have to move forward," Alex pointed to the large door in the distance.

"Yes. Let's," Sora started walking forward and the others followed. The air was warm and Alex was already sweating, so he took his jacket off. It took three of them to open the door, but they eventually made it inside.

Alex viewed it as the Olympian version of a lobby. The stone room was illuminated by twin torches on each side of the wall. Underneath one of the torches, was a square, stone pedestal that looked attached to the ground. In front of them, was a doorway that was cut off by a metal chain, and attached to it was a sign that said "Closed". By the doorway was another pedestal that was underneath a poster labled "Rules". A creature was standing on the pedestal, inscripting new rules onto the parchment.

He was a small, fat man except for below the belly. The legs were coated with fur and instead of feet, he had hooves. From the torso up, he looked like a man. His body was slightly red and he had curly hair with two horns sticking out. He had a goatee and a tail that wagged on occasion. It was the strangest thing Sora had ever seen. This even beat cards that could talk. Alex pushed Sora forward, earning him a dirty look.

Sora stepped forward nervously and said, "Ummm, hi?"

"Good timing!" The creature was too busy with the rules list to turn around. "Give me a hand, will ya?"

He pointed to the large stone pedestal. "Move that annoying thing over there for me. You know how it is, I gotta spruce this place up for the games."

Sora wanted to protest, but Alex shook his head. Sora shrugged and figured he might as well do what the guy said and make a good first impression. Sora crouched to get a better grip on the pedestal and pushed. It didn't move. Sora dug his feet into the ground for more traction and pushed even harder. The pedestal still didn't move.

"This thing weighs a ton!" Sora exclaimed.

Alex joined in to help Sora and they both pushed with everything they had. It wouldn't move. Sora was starting to get aggravated. He motioned for Donald and Goofy to come over and help, thinking that with four people they could surely push it. That theory was dashed in about five seconds. The pedestal would not leave its spot.

Sora got up and turned to the creature. "It's way too heavy mister!"

The creature straightened up like an arrow, having a hard time believing what he was hearing. "Whaaaat?! Too heavy. Since when have you been such a little-."

The creature had turned around and stopped mid sentence when he saw who he was talking to. "Oh! Wrong guy. What the heck do ya think you're doin' here kid?"

The creature hopped off his pedestal and started walking threateningly, toward Sora. "This here's the world famous Coliseum. Heroes only! And I got my hands full preparin' for the games. So run along pipsqueaks!"

"Who're you calling pipsqueak?!" Alex asked. "Dude, have you looked in the mirror lately?"

The creature growled at the insult and, but saw the bad look Sora was giving him and sighed. "Look, it's like this. Heroes are comin' from all over to fight ferocious monsters right here in the Coliseum."

Donald narrowed his eyes and folded his arms. "You've got heroes standing right in front of you, in case you hadn't noticed."

"No! I hadn't," The creature retorted.

Goofy put his arms on Sora's shoulders. "Yep, he's a real hero chosen by the Keyblade." Sora gave Goofy a smile.

"And we're heroes too," Donald added, stressing that Sora wasn't the only person in the room.

"Hero?! You mean those runts?! Aaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!" The creature clutched his belly and gasped for air.

"What's so funny?" Sora asked. "Alex and I have fought a bunch of monsters."

"And we beat 'em all!" Alex gave Sora a high five.

The creature got serious quickly. "Hey, if you can't even move this...." He began to push on the pedestal, but it wouldn't move. Everyone just stared at him. "You can't call yourself......" He pressed his back against it and pushed with his hooves. Alex just smiled and yawned. ".......a Hero!" The creature tried one more time before he sat on the ground, breathing deeply.

"That's what puttin' on weight does to ya buddy," Alex laughed.

"Alright," The creature struggled to get back up. "So it takes more than brawn. Well...well let's see what you can do."

"What did you have in mind?" Sora asked.

"Just follow me," The creature unhooked the metal fence blocking the way forward. "I hope you're ready. This is where the boys get separated from the men. Become a hero or die a coward. Give up or keep going. This is where you're tested by the gods. Oh by the way, the name's Phil."

Phil led the way through the doorway and the team was hit by a sudden rush of wind. Alex shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted to see where they were. They were in the Coliseum itself. Bleachers as high as Alex could see rose above them, until Alex thought they were going to engulf him and everyone else in it. On the far sides, there were caged doorways which Alex guessed were used to hold particularly nasty beasts until they could be brought out to feast on human flesh. Or in Alex's case, hearts. The ground in the Coliseum was pure sand, but it was shaped as smooth as possible. It wasn't the comfortable and soft sand found on Destiny Islands, but Alex could see how it would aid warriors in keeping their footing and it would provide a better cushioned floor if they did fall, or get slammed into the ground by their opponent.

Goofy almost made himself dizzy from so much turning around. Donald had an even more impressed look on his face than he did when he saw the outside. No one was in the coliseum, but numbers of wooden barrels populated the arena portion.

"What are those for?" Alex pointed at the barrels.

"That is your challenge," Phil explained.

"Challenge?" Sora raised an eyebrow.

"Time limit challenge." Phil explained. "If you can destroy all these barrels within the allotted time, I may consider you for the games."

Donald walked over to Sora. "Why are we wasting our time here? It's obvious the king isn't here and I don't see your friends anywhere. Let's just go."

"Aw come on Donald," Sora said. "A little competition never hurt anyone."

"Now you listen here-."

"You start in three....two....one.... begin!" Phil waved his hand in the air like in a race with the person holding the flag.

Sora raced forward, summoning the Keyblade as he went, and sliced through a barrel. The Keybearer switched direction and leaped over to his left. Another barrel was smashed aside by the Keyblade. Sora destroyed the next two by shooting fireballs and bullets of ice. Sora made five quick slashes to destroy an entire row of them. He pointed the Keyblade to his side and finished off another with a blizzard spell.

Phil watched Sora with great interest. The kid knew magic. Maybe there was hope for him after all. Donald just watched Sora, his temper growing by the minute. This kid just seemed to undermine him at every turn. He couldn't believe how selfish Sora was being. Giving up looking for his friends at the sake of his own ego.

"Thirty seconds!" Phil yelled, just as Sora finished off the last barrel.

"The time limit was forty seconds," Phil said. "Y'know you ain't bad kid."

"Looks like I'm headed for the games," Sora put his hands behind his head and grinned sheepishly.

Phil stopped the smile by saying, "Afraid not."

Alex couldn't believe what he just heard. "Are you serious? We just passed your test. Why can't we participate in the games?"

"First, Sora was the only one who passed the test. You guys didn't do it," Phil pointed out. "But most of all, two words, you guys ain't heroes!"

Goofy counted the words on his fingers. That didn't add up to four.

"Come on!" Sora complained. He really wanted a chance to show how strong he'd gotten. Phil just turned and folded his arms, adamant in his decision.

"Y'know what, I'm getting out of here," Alex raised up his arms in defeat. "It's starting to smell real bad. Like goat."

Alex led the way out of the lobby and back into the sun. Sora walked by him, a look of defeat on his face. First Alice, and now this. How could he ever find his friends? He can't even get into a tournament. He looked at the Keyblade still clutched in his hand. For being such a powerful weapon, it hadn't helped him get anywhere.

Donald walked by Sora with a smug look on his face. "I told you we shouldn't have wasted our time."

"You seemed to be liking the idea of being a hero," Sora snarled. "Why don't you quit putting blame on me and hold yourself accountable for once?"

"Guys stop," Goofy stood in between them. "We're all frustrated, but the important thing is that the Heartless didn't attack us. Which leaves us still alive to search for our friends."

Alex nodded. "You're right Goofy. We need to keep looking."

"Man, he is rather a stubborn old goat, wouldn't you say?" A mysterious voice said.

Sora twisted around to see who spoke. It turned out to be an even odder character than Phil was. The man was tall and blue-skinned, wearing a black toga. His blue hair was moving and Sora looked closer to see that it was blue fire. He waved to the group, showing off sharp teeth between black lips.

"Who are you?" Donald asked.

The man started to move toward him waving his arms in defense. "Whoa, whoa, wait, hold on there fuzz boy. Now let me guess. You guys wanna enter the games, right?"

The man casually draped his arm around Sora's shoulder, sending chills down Sora's spine. "Well then, get a load of this."

He cupped his fingers together and started humming for dramatic effect. White light pierced through his fingers until a thin strip of paper was being held in between his fingers. The paper had thunderbolts drawn across it.

"Is this what I think it is?" Sora said, starting to smile. "A pass?"

"You betcha," The man grinned mischievously.

"All right," Alex thrust a fist into the air.

Donald just shook his head. This was just a giant waste of time of needless fighting.

The man started to walk away and mumbled under his breath, "Good luck kid. I'm pullin' for you, little shorty." He smirked under his breath and nearly laughed aloud. He was such a bad liar. The man teleported away before the others even knew he was gone.

Phil had just begun putting the finishing touches on the poster of rules. He was scraping the rule on with a sharp rock. He had to be perfect or else he would tear the entire poster, but Phil was confident in his abilities. Until Sora and company came charging through the door, taking the satyr by surprise.

"Oh Phil!" Sora yelled.

Phil lost his concentration and ripped a large chunk of the parchment. He gasped and threw the rock to the ground. He turned to the group with fire in his eyes.

"Is it just me or is he redder than usual?" Alex asked.

"Whaddaya want?!" Phil bellowed at the top of his lungs. "I thought I told you pipsqueaks to get lost!"

"Okay enough with the pipsqueak thing okay," Sora said. "Looky what we have here."

Phil stared in horror as Sora pulled out a genuine tournament pass. How did they get one so fast? Phil grabbed it to make sure of its authenticity. To his dismay, it passed.

"How did you get one of these?" Phil asked, suspicious.

"Our little secret," Alex said quickly. "Now we can enter the games, right?"

Phil took one last look at the pass and sighed. "Yeah, you guys can."

"All right!" Sora made a fist in victory.

Phil unhooked the chain once more leading to the Coliseum. "You guys better watch yourselves. Some weirdos signed up for the game. Strange thing is, I don't even see how these guys did. They don't even have real hands."

Alex glanced over at Sora. Sora nodded. They knew what was up. Heartless.

The team walked into the Coliseum, weapons drawn. They were ready to face their enemies. Phil took his place near the entrance sitting on a bench, ready to yell any helpful advice. The group walked into the center of the arena, waiting for their opponents to emerge from the caged doorways that held them.

"Watch out!" Phil screamed. Sora turned just in time to slice a Shadow in the air.

Many other Shadows began to populate the area and the team spread out. Alex stabbed downward at a Shadow and brought his blade up to slice another. Donald blew Shadows away with fire and froze them with ice, then he whacked the frozen ones until they shattered. Goofy punched an airborne Shadow into another one. He blocked a claw strike from one and kicked it.

Phil was impressed at how quickly they finished off the creatures. It appeared they had done this before.

The second match breezed by just as quickly with more Shadows thrown into the mix, but it proved no challenge for the team. The third match added in Soldier Heartless, which added difficulty to the match, but not too much.

The fourth match introduced the group to magic casting Heartless. Alex could only describe them as red, floating bells with yellow eyes. They cast fire spells. Alex dodged one and struck another which sent the fireball blasting back to the Heartless. To Alex's dismay, the Heartless just absorbed it. Sora just leaped in the air and attacked them. Donald and a Heartless each cast a spell at the same time and they canceled each other out in a explosion. Donald used the smoke from it as a cover for him to get closer and whack the Heartless into next week.

The fifth and penultimate match was against the same large bodied Heartless the group had encountered in Wonderland. They dealt with it easily enough.

"Break!" Phil yelled and the team came bustling over for a drink.

Phil complimented them as they drank. "You guys aren't doin' too bad. I wish he was here to see this."

"Who?" Goofy asked as he finished off a drink of water.

"Hercules," Phil said with an extra dose of admiration. "Now he's the real deal. A real hero if I ever saw one. The best I've ever trained. Sure is too bad that he's off visiting his father." Alex knew the story behind Hercules. His father was Zeus.

"Best you've ever trained?" Sora said. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that's my job kid," Phil said. "I train heroes. Some of the best you'll ever hear about were trained by me, including Hercules."

"Wow," Donald said. "I never would've guessed."

Phil turned and stared at Donald. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Donald replied.

Alex was dousing his face with water when he heard footsteps coming his way. He turned, expecting to see Heartless, but saw something even worse.

The man had spiky, blond hair and very blue eyes. He was tall and obviously muscular. He was wearing a bluish, black muscle shirt and very baggy pants. Around his stomach, were various belts of brown and black. His leather boots scrunched against the sand as he walked. On the hip of his right leg, were three curved armor plates. His muscular arms were held back by metal bands around them and his hands were covered by fingerless gloves. On his left shoulder, was a metal armored plate that looked like it had begun to rust. Over his shoulders, he wore a maroon cape that covered the lower half of his face. The end of the cape whipped in the wind and looked like it had been ripped in battle.

The man was attention grabbing enough, but that wasn't what the team was looking at. Alex had a quick deja vu to his first encounter with Leon, because this was exactly the same. The man was holding a sword. It was the largest, most powerful looking sword that Alex had ever seen. It was even bigger than the Leon's Gunblade. The sword was easily as tall as Sora and the width wasn't far off either. The metal sword gleamed in the sunlight and Sora wondered how this man was carrying it. It must have weighed a ton. The man clutched the red hilt of the sword with one hand as he walked past.

The man stared at Sora as he walked. Sora stared right back. Both of them could tell that it was a silent challenge to the other. The man turned his head and walked off confidently. Sora turned back to see Alex having a worried look in his eye.

"Gawrsh, uh, Phil," Goofy gulped. "That guy doesn't happen to be our opponent, does he?"

"Yep," Phil said, not having noticed the scared look of the team. "He's in the tournament. You're gonna go up against him next."

Unbeknownst to the team, the spiky haired man had entered through the caged door. He stopped just enough for the door to come back down. Light seeped through the bars and it allowed the man to see the other presence within the room. The man didn't like him all that much. But then again, who would like the God of the Underworld.

The fire atop Hades' head seemed to dance along. It meant that Hades was excited for something.

"Okay, that little punk is your next opponent, okay?" Hades pointed to Sora through the bars. "So, don't blow it. Just take the little bastard out."

The blond haired man smirked. "Let me get this straight. The great God of the Underworld is afraid of a kid. How sad. Sorry but my contract says-."

Hades yelled angrily. "I know. You think I don't know? I'm the guy who wrote the contract. Now I know it says that you're only required to kill Hercules in this tournament. But you gotta fight these twerps to get to him."

The blond haired man just shrugged. It would be easy enough.

"It's just like that old goat says," Hades explained. "Rule 11: It's all just a game, so let loose and have fun with it!" Hades made punching motions, trying to loosen the blond warrior up. He failed.

"Well, I mean a casualty or two along the way is no big deal, right?" Hades chuckled.

The warrior didn't respond to Hades' antics. The caged door opened once more and the warrior walked out into the sunlight, confident and ready to win the next battle.

"Sheesh," Hades snickered. "Sure is stiffer than the stiffs back home. But still, suckers like him are hard to come by."

Hades turned toward the darkness of the chamber to hear loud roars and gnashing of teeth together coupled with clanging of chains. Hades laughed aloud.

"Today's the day the Keybearer dies," Hades swore.