A/N: Hey, guys. Look, I know you all want Riku to come into the picture. So do I. It's just tricky, considering in the game you don't see him until near the end, but I'm trying to add him here and there. I can't really do too much between Kalista and him while he still looks like Ansem. That'd be a little too disturbing. But don't worry, he's not the only guy who has a thing for her.

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Chapter 14

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It wasn't called the "Old Castle" for nothing. Once, it must have been a magnificent place, but age and war with darkness had certainly taken its toll. Still, it was definitely large enough to be a castle. It had looked much smaller from a distance, but now on the inside, Kalista realized just how big and intricate the bastion was.

Getting into the castle hadn't been so hard. She had easily been able to sneak past the heartless guards, which were very few. Most of them had been sent out of the castle toward the fight. One thing was for certain: the heartless were undeniably coming from here. She'd seen countless amounts of the dark creatures pouring out of the castle gates. But now that she was in the castle, the question now was how to find this "source" in order to stop them. What was the source, anyway? Kalista had looked in many different rooms, but all she'd found were bedrooms, bathrooms, or dining halls. The rooms were very ordinary, despite them being grand and full of dust and cobwebs. She hadn't found anything, well, strange.

This is getting me nowhere, thought Kalista, getting more agitated as time went on, I've got to stop whatever's causing these heartless before it's too late.

Traveling up the many floors and opening many doors, Kalista finally found herself in a beautiful library, with shelves and shelves of books. She walked through the old, unkept room. As she came to the far side of the library, she saw a staircase and a single chair underneath it. It looked rather odd and out-of-place, especially next to such a large window. Even though she was in a hurry, Kalista walked over to the chair and sat down in it. For some reason it felt strange to be sitting here, as if many people had sat here before. She closed her eyes and put her face to the window, feeling the sun on her face through the stain glass.

Suddenly, the warmth vanished for an instant, and then reappeared. Kalista opened her eyes with a start. She looked closely at the window. There it was again! Small shadows were sliding past the glass, blocking the light. She jumped back away from the window, realizing the shadows were heartless. They were crawling like bugs along the outside of the castle, heading down the main gate and on to the fight.

So, thought the girl, they're not coming from the inside of the castle, they're coming from the top.

Recognizing what she had to do, Kalista rushed back out of the library and started running down the hall. When she was a good distance away, she faced the wall to her right. Taking a deep breath, Kalista began imagining things that flowed and bended. She pictured an ice cube slipping into a cup of water. She thought about a knife sliding its way through hot butter. She visualized dipping her fingers into oil. Finally, looking at the wall, she envisioned it as nothing but a liquid mass. Slowly, she raised her hand to the stone, uttered a spell, and pressed her hand against it. But instead of the wall being solid, her fingertips melted into the stone as if the wall was fluid. Pressing the rest of her body against the wall, she passed through it like a ghost.

The moment she was on the other side, Kalista pulled out one of her sai and pegged it into wall to keep from falling. Strong gusts of wind whipped her long, dark brown hair into her eyes. She pushed it away with her free hand and looked around her. She was halfway up the castle, and beyond she could still see the battle raging near the town. She caught a glimpse of Ryu breathing fire, but was too far away to see any of her other friends. Kalista glanced to her right, eyeing the swarm of heartless crawling down the castle's side. She was now a good distance away from them, so they didn't notice her. She looked up to see where they were coming from. There, at the top of the castle, was a tower.

That must be it. Kalista pull her other sai from her belt along with a rope. Straddling her first anchored weapon, she tied the long rope securely to sai, than threw it upwards. It punctured into a part of the castle far above her. Pulling out her first sai, Kalista preceded to climb the rope. When she had reached the ropes end, she repeated the procedure. At last, she made it to the base of the tower. Most of it was enclosed except for one side of the circle.

Standing on tiptoe, Kalista was able to see into the tower's center. At first she saw nothing. Then she spotted a flicker of movement, and quickly ducked down before she could be seen. She heard a scuffle of feet, and then someone speaking.

"Doooh, now we'll never be able beat the Keyblade Master and his friends," she herd a low, congested sounding voice say, "I thought that there Xehanort was gonna help us take the town, but now he ups and leaves without no reason. What'll we do now?"

"Oh, be quiet you fool," The next voice slithered its way to Kalista's ears, "that pathetic nobody never knows what he wants. He probably would have turned on us anyway. And I've doubled the heartless, as you can see. Sora and his little friends don't stand a chance."

That voice had made Kalista stop breathing. She didn't know who it belonged to, but something about it awoke a terrible agony in her mind. That sleek, slinking tone; like a snake coiling around your arm just before sinking its fangs into your flesh. All of a sudden, images from her nightmares began to flash in front of her. She tried shaking her head to get ride of them, but they remained. She didn't know how, but she was certain: she had heard this voice before.

"But de got a dragon with them!" insisted the first individual, "and it's takin out our heartless by the bucket load. Look now. There goes a bunch up in flames."

"SILENCE!" Screeched the second voice, but who apparently knew what the first one was saying was true. After a moment of silence, they continued.

"Shocking as it may seem, you're correct, Pete. It seems I underestimated the Keyblade Master this time. I'm not sure how he managed to make a dragon do his bidding, but I'll find a way to nullify his advantage, if it's the last thing I do. Hm, that said, I suppose our only option is to leave for now..."

The voice grew silent.

Kalista heard small steps in her general direction.

"Why, it seems we have a guest."

Before she could think, a hand reached down and seized Kalista by the arm, flinging her from her hiding spot into the middle of the tower. Groping for her fallen weapons, she spun around in a fighting stance to face her oppressor. But as their gazes met, Kalista's eyes widened, and the sai fell from her hands to the floor with a clang.

Standing in front of her was the one person Kalista had never wanted to see again. The long, black dress, the green skin, the horned skull, the clawed hands clutching a tall, black staff; nightmares of her past. And that face, with its cruel eyes and mocking grin. Such a being had only one name. And she knew it all too well.

"M...M...Maleficent!!!" The name tore itself out of Kalista's throat.

The witch looked the young fighter up and down in surprise and confusion. Then a wicked leer crossed her face in recognition. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the little girlfriend," she said mockingly.

Kalista tried to speak. But all that came out was a scream. She darted toward the green woman with inhuman speed. She jumped up with her weapons aimed in a fatal blow. Maleficent rolled her eyes and flicked her wrist. Instantly, Kalista found herself paralyzed in midair. The witched waved her hand straight down, causing Kalista to be shoved to the ground.

"Well, it seems someone's gotten a bit vengeful, haven't we? I can't see why, though."

Kalista glared up at Maleficent. "You monster! You killed him!!"

The witch snorted. "Don't start blaming me, little girl," she said, "It's his own fault for lusting after power. All I did was give him what he wanted. To bad he couldn't handle it." She waved her hand again, and Kalista was thrown to the other side of the tower, ramming into the wall. Gashes appeared all over her body, even though no weapon had struck her flesh. She felt warm blood seep through her clothes as she cried out in pain.

"Now if you'll excuse us," said Maleficent, "we need to be going."

She raised her hands and a dark portal appeared in front of her. She motioned to Pete (who during this time had just stared at the scene in confusion), and the two stepped through the opening.

"Come back, you coward!" Kalista yelled, throwing a sai with all her strength at the portal. But the dark hole had vanished, and her sai merely stuck into the opposite side of the tower.

Infuriated, she drove her other weapon into the ground with such force that the floor cracked and shattered all around her. Then, in despair, she threw herself on the ground, shaking with emotions she'd been pushing down ever since... that day. The day when her world had ended. The day he died.

She laid there, fighting the memories trying to force their way into her mind. Why? Her head screamed to the world, WHY?!

She couldn't get up. She didn't try. She didn't move or make a sound. She didn't even breathe. In fact, she was holding her breath so hard, that her lungs gave out and she went unconscious.

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"Kalista? Kalista, can you hear me?"

Kalista's eyes slowly opened. When her vision cleared, she realized she was in Leon's arms, with him looking at her with a worried expression on his face. She looked around her. She was at the base of the castle. How she got there, she couldn't remember. Sora, Donald, Goofy, Yuffie, and Ember were all watching her anxiously. Cloud, Aerith, Cid, and King Mickey were a little ways off, casting each other worried glances.

"Kalista, what happened?" Leon asked.

For a moment, she wasn't even sure. Then, like fire, everything burned its way back into her mind. She took in a ragged breath and put her hand to her face, completely overwhelmed. The large loss of blood had made her weak. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the battle raging in her mind. Leon put her down, but she had to lean heavily on him for support.

"Kalista?!" Sora said in a concerned voice.

Kalista knew she had to say something; to let them know she was alright. But she couldn't make any sound. She kept trying to breathe, but she couldn't get enough air. She started to tremble again.

Leon slowly sat them both down and wrapped his arms around her, trying to calm her. "It's ok," he whispered, "just breathe."

For a few minutes, that's all she focused on. And with each passing minute, it became easier. Finally, she pulled herself away from Leon's embrace.

"I...I'm ok," she managed.

Yuffie sighed, and Sora looked like he would faint with relief.

Ember bent down next to Kalista and put her hands on her shoulders. "Who did this to you?" She asked with an unforgiving glint in her eyes.

Kalista didn't even look at her friend. She tried to take the emotion out of her voice. Surprisingly, it was very easy. "Maleficent," she said, "the source of the heartless was Maleficent."

Everyone gasped.

"But I thought she was dead," said Aerith.

"So did I," agreed Sora, "After all, I killed her... or at least, I thought I did."

"She was summoning the heartless from the tower," continued Kalista, "I tried to stop her, but she used some sort of gravity spell and pinned me to the floor... then she shot me into a wall and left." She gingerly felt her side, becoming conscious of how much it hurt from the blow. Her clothing was soaked with the blood from the mysterious cuts all over her arms and legs.

"So Xehanort's controlling the nobodies, and Maleficent's controlling the heartless," Leon summed up, "well, let's just hope they're not working together."

"Oh, please, two power hungry freaks like that could never work together," stated Yuffie. She turned to Kalista, "We should head back to Leon's place and have a look at your injuries. There are a lot of them, but none of them look very deep," she said, then smiled, "I'm just glad you're alright."

Kalista gave her a small smile in return. But when she looked at Ember, the smile vanished. Ember was looking at her with wide and worried eyes. Why wouldn't she? After all, she was the only other person in the group who really knew what Kalista had just been through. But, more than anything, Kalista wanted to shut this bad memory away with all the others. She put her hand over Ember's.

"Em, I'm fine, really," she said with more certainty than she felt.

Ember kept looking at her.

"Right, of course." Which was her way of saying, "Nice try liar."

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Hurray that #14 is finally out! I'm going on a missions trip to Jamaica tomorrow (I have to get to the airport at 4 AM!!!) so I won't be able to upload any stories or probably even get on the internet until the beginning of July. But don't worry, I'll put the next chapter up right around that time.

Please read and review! It makes my day :)