Chapter 8: Clues
Night had fallen over the Destiny Islands, but it was hard to tell for the massive glowing door that had appeared in the sky overhead. The entire city was illuminated, giving the place the appearance of early morning rather than midnight--and then, as quickly as it came, the light was gone.
Three armored figures drifted downward from the door, still glowing, and landed in the sand lightly. They stood perfectly still for several minutes, looking around at their surroundings, and there was a sniffing sound from within their helmets, as if they were breathing in deeply.
"Yes," the tallest of the knights said, "Gil-Neithev's influence runs deep on this world. It seems our arrival will be less bloody than I had first expected."
The others only nodded, before the three of them all began to slowly walk off of the beach they had arrived on and toward the center of the city.
As the knights disappeared in the distance, two figures emerged from their hiding spots in the alley near the edge of the city.
"Now this is bad news," Alberto said, adjusting his hat nervously as he walked. He quickly headed toward an open door in a nearby building, followed by a thin girl with a strange red light shining from underneath one lens of her sunglasses.
"Bad news indeed," Alekia said, "But Ansem's the one Gil-Neithev was really after. If we hadn't gotten him off of this world already, those knights probably would have killed us already."
"What?", Alberto said, suddenly stopping, "You mean those guys saw us!? But we were down an alley, behind a friggin' Dumpster! How..."
"They're on an entirely different level from the average guard," the girl said, reaching up and fiddling with the controls of her artificial eye for a second before continuing.
"So saturated in Light that they could see the Darkness around us--even at night."
Alberto seemed to shiver for a second at the thought. "So that means..."
"It's impossible for us to hide from them forever."
"Roxas..."
The young girl's voice seemed to echo in Roxas' ears for minutes after he awakened, even as her image faded out of his mind.
"Naminé," he said to himself, barely awake and half-stumbling to get out of his bed. This was the third night in a row that he had dreamt of the girl, even though he hardly remembered her at all.
No, wait. That wasn't right--he did remember her. He even remembered his days spent with her in Castle Oblivion, suggesting things for her to draw. He remembered the results of those pictures--Larxene with tentacles replacing her arms and legs, holding a helpless pizza-delivery boy down onto a table; a grinning Xemnas taking a big bite out of a Heartless' rear end; Marluxia, as a girl, in a frilly pink dress...
Roxas froze. Just days before, he had no memory of any of those people--but now he remembered them well enough to recall their names, what they looked like, and even the specific reasons why each of those pictures were so funny. He could even remember Naminé giggling as she saw the results of his ideas converted to paper form.
"Well, that's really weird," he mumbled, falling back onto the bed with a soft thump and quickly drifting back to sleep.
Zexion paced back and forth in the hallway, thinking about what was happening lately. The three knights that had appeared before bothered him the most--were they the same warriors that Xehanort had killed hundreds of years earlier?
Were they alive, dead, or somewhere in between? Had they been sleeping in those coffins all these years, frozen in time... or had Gil-Neithev actually brought them back to life?
None of those questions really mattered, of course. Zexion could tell that, no matter what their origin truly was, they were incredibly powerful. The tallest of the three seemed to be easily stronger than even Lexaeus--and the others, though a bit less than a match for the Organization's strongest surviving member, weren't lacking in power, either.
And with the three of them fighting together... he doubted that even Xemnas could have defeated them.
"Lexaeus," he said, noticing that the large man had finished his daily workout, "We need to do something about this, and soon."
"Yes," Lexaeus said, "Gil-Neithev's power is building with every day that passes. If we don't move against the forces of Light soon, all will be lost." He stopped for a second and cracked his neck.
"We'll need to make sure everyone's ready first," Zexion said, "Especially the girl... she hasn't had any practice with that Keyblade of hers in almost twenty years now."
"I'll be the one to train the girl's combat skills, then," Lexaeus said, stopping in front of Vexen's door before continuing.
"After all, we wouldn't want her ending up fighting like you or Vexen, right?"
I talked with Mickey for hours, catching up on the recent events throughout the worlds that I hadn't visited. Besides Sora becoming a king and the unexplainable changes to the Destiny Islands, a lot had happened while I was gone.
Simba had a daughter, who was now a fully-grown lioness. A tribe of outcast lions, the immediate family of Scar himself, had attempted a takeover, but in the end they were defeated.
Aladdin had reunited with his father, discovered an ancient treasure that turned everything it touched to solid gold, and managed to outwit the legendary Forty Thieves.
The Beast and his subjects had regained their original forms, and now lived happily with Belle in their castle.
Traverse Town apparently had ceased to exist, the bits of destroyed worlds that composed it returning to the places they had originally come from.
There were so many changes that I couldn't possibly remember them all--ten years, apparently, was a lot longer than it seemed. But there was one thing that just didn't make sense--the changes to the other worlds had mostly been changes for the better, but Destiny Islands had become a horrible place to live. What was happening? Would it spread to other worlds as well?
"Mickey," I said, turning toward the small King again, "What do you think is causing all the problems back home?"
"Well," he said, seeming unsure of himself for the first time since I had arrived, "I don't know." He hopped off of the chair, pacing back and forth in the room and seeming to be concentrating on something.
"Wait a second--you said the guards mentioned a 'Gil-Neithev,' or somethin' like that, right?"
"Yeah, I figured it was just some kind of weird religion... you've heard of it?"
"I sure have," he said, hopping back up onto his chair quickly, "When I was younger, me and Donald both learned some magic from Master Yen Sid. One time, when the Master wasn't home, Donald got into some of his old books and stuff..."
"And one of them said something about Gil-Neithev?"
"Yeah... but before we could really check it out, Yen Sid came back home and took the books away. He never did like us kids playing around with his stuff while he was gone..."
"Yen Sid," I mumbled to myself, "So he knows something about this... maybe he can help us somehow."
"Well, it couldn't hurt to ask," Mickey said, hopping off of his chair again.
Not long afterward, the King and I left the small room, heading back to the Gummi Ship hangar. Neither of us really knew if the old wizard would be able to help us or not--but, like Mickey said, it couldn't hurt to ask...
...could it?