A duststorm greeted Larxene before she even left the dark gateway, the particles blasting through the opening into the dark pathways.
Sora bore it without much notice, emerging onto one of the many stone pillars that made up the Keyblade Graveyard. Behind him dragged the still-imprisoned form of Kara. Looking back at her, he smiled in his strangely pleasant Sora smile, "This is where Xehanort wants to turn you into the X-Blade, isn't it?"
Kara's eyes were defiant, though she'd apparently given up on struggling, "What are you talking about?"
Sora seemed curious at her response, "So he hasn't told you his plans? You know, where he destroys you?" Larxene raised an eyebrow, but she walked to the edge of the pillar they were atop of, keeping a lookout for any intruders.
"That's a lie!" Kara rebutted, "he would never-"
"Deceive you?" Sora asked sarcastically, "You really think you're special to that guy?"
Kara didn't seem to have an answer for him. She widened her eyes in shock when the tip of Sora's Oblivion embedded into her chest. "Wait! Stop!" she protested, receiving no answer. Instead, some Dark energy glowed inside her, the purplish light glowing beneath her red dress, before fading as he pulled the blade from her.
"Don't worry," he said quietly, "I won't kill you. I just need a base to ruin his plans if he does plan to make you part of some keyblade."
"You're wasting your TIME!" Kara screamed, a huge sword-wielding Unversed with a mismatched torso and legs emerged, looking like it should fall over. It closed half the distance between itself and Sora before a slow creep of Dark Fire simmered and then engulfed it.
Sora's golden eyes looks pitiably at the girl imprisoned within tendrils of shadow, "So are you."
Some distance away, a shining white-blue streak of light cometed down into the ground, dissipating when it reached the surface. In its place were the shapes of three beings, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy.
The taller and more stout Goofy was the first to take notice of their surroundings, "Gawrsh, where are we?" he asked with trepidation in his voice.
Kairi brushed some of her red hair behind an ear, taking stock of the shapes that littered the arid wasteland, "Keyblades? It's like…" she reached a hand across her body, rubbing the other arm uncomfortably, "some sort of graveyard for them."
Donald was less than encouraging, "More like a mass grave," he cynically observed. He could hardly be blamed, the vast expanses of keyblades were old, tarnished by years in the sandstorm. Perhaps they had weathered the sands for centuries, there was truly no other way to think of them. They appeared to be ancient ruins, the shine of them tarnished, all their different shapes and colors seemed faded. The less robust had even begun to crack, and ornamental pieces surrounding the hilts had snapped off and fallen into the dusty ground. There were even a handful where the keychains had weathered away, leaving a bare, silver frame of the skeleton keys without any trace of their last master's heart, so that even the monument to its long dead wielder no longer bore their name.
The fields of them were endless, neatly divided into rows and blocks of the blades. Punctuating the endless arid desert were the stone spires that unnaturally reached towards the heavens. In close view, five such spires were raised, with a number far off in the distance. One was significantly shorter than its neighbors, a stepping stone almost.
"Why do ya think the starshard brought us here?" Goofy anxiously prodded, sounding like he'd rather be somewhere else.
"I'm not sure," Kairi said quietly, "But there must be a reason," she turned over one of the decrepit keychains in her hand, which to her appeared as a purple paopu fruit. "Let's keep looking," she said, letting the charm fall to hang once again.
Belle was feeling apprehensive. It was safe to say all the Princesses were. Held in their tiny cells in The Castle That Never Was, they had all noticed the increase in patrols today. Often there would be one of the Xehanorts to check in on them, provide them with food, and if they were feeling particularly bored, some words of conversation. But these visits only lasted a few minutes, and were only ever one Xehanort at a time. Today, three, four, sometimes more would pass through the prison area, and the time spent without a Xehanort was much rarer than the time spent with.
It was during one of these brief pauses that Belle called over to Alice, "Alice? Have you seen it?" she addressed the child she'd taken to regard as an equal after so many conflicts.
"I do believe so," the tempered voice responded.
From across the way in her own cell came the timid voice of Snow White, "You mean the way they have all begun to look the same in their hearts?"
"Yes, yes precisely," Belle answered, looking troubled, "they have become almost indistinguishable through our spirit sight."
Jasmine stepped up, "Do you think-"
She was cut off by the door opening again. Belle counted no less than nine of the Xehanorts entered the prison area. Most had their hoods up, but three of them were drawn down. She only recognized the leader,who spoke to them, "Princesses, our time has come. It is time to reunite you with the seventh. The Princesses of Heart will be reunited!" he proclaimed, raising his hands to towards the sky in a sacred pronouncement.
Without word, the Organization members circled the detention area, and together opened a massive Dark Gateway that swallowed them from the floor. In a flash the six princesses found themselves floating briefly through the dark passageways, yet before any of them could react to this a second matching gate swallowed them up, and the princesses found themselves on a windswept mountain. On further inspection, it was more like a mesa, or pillar of stone that had emerged from the desert below.
"My goodness, look at them all," Alice's voice failed to hide her distress, her eyes wandering the fields of ancient keyblades. They were faint lights. Where there should have been flame, all that could be seen was a glowing wick, the faintest specs of dying embers throughout the graveyard.
There was little room for pleasant exchange beyond this, as one Xehanort clone each quickly took position around a single princess, binding her in dark chains. Those remaining spread out over the mesa-top, one of them muttering from under his hood, "That scent…"
The lead Xehanort clenched its fist, "Sora."
The one who held Belle snorted, "Kara is with him."
"It doesn't matter," Number 1 tried to reassure the lot, "He cannot interfere anymore."
"We now wait on the Zexion vessel," another copy clarified.
"Correct. Then we will forge the blade that can unlock Kingdom Hearts for us."
"Should we deal with Sora?"
"If he arrives before the seventh Princess…"
The leader of the Xehanorts considered this for a moment. Then, pointing at two of his unoccupied clones, "You two, retrieve Kairi. We'll complete this before Sora can act fast enough."
A much smaller dark gateway was opening in the Keyblade Graveyard at that moment. Its occupants emerged, a blonde haired boy and a young man with silver hair wearing a blindfold.
"Is this the place?" Riku's voice was much more curt and stern than Ven was used to hearing it.
His companion looked over the fields, seeing the lifeless keys buried in the ground, wincing at the memories of his last time here, "This is it."
Riku inhaled deeply, exhaling in frustration, "Xehanort's here. That must be why Sora came."
Ven's eyes grew as enraged as the good natured boy's eyes could get, "Xehanort?" Without waiting for any more information, he drew his keyblade, spinning it behind his back and advancing with it ready to draw at the slightest provocation.
Riku's readiness wasn't quite as dramatic, but he was no less on edge. He found his attention, however, on the depleted keys. He felt a certain kinship with them, once proud servitors of the Light who had tarnished in time. The thought occurred to him, of course, that many of these blades were probably the tools of dark wielders in a bygone era. But with the passage of time it was impossible to detect with his senses what faction any individual keyblade had served in that far off war. The thought only strengthened his silent bond with the graveyard.
"Riku, look!"
Ventus was pointing at a few figures in the distance. There was a faint sound of metal clashing, the sounds of small explosions could be heard as well.
"Xehanort," Riku confirmed them by their scent, but looking closer, "and Kairi!" he summoned Road to Dawn, the demonic and angelic mixed blade held at the ready as he and Ven dashed towards the melee.
Kairi, Donald, and Goofy were having a tough enough time of things. The two clones they found themselves battling seemed to anticipate their every move. So far they had managed to keep even by ceding ground, one of the tricks Riku had taught her when dealing with a superior opponent. Her own fighting skills had improved, she could tell, but she was still no match for the battle-hardened Master.
Her keyblade's flower-shaped teeth were trapped in the hook of her opponent's blade, a crystalline pink weapon. He twisted his weapon, pulling the girl's keyblade from her hands and slinging it into one of the spires. As he swung down a final blow, his keyblade was met with twin feathery-white shafts, and petal-like teeth.
Spinning around in mid-air, Ventus delivered the clone a swift kick, "Not yet!" the copy went sprawling back from the force of it.
"Ven!" Kairi resummoned her keyblade, holding the golden, flower-covered weapon combat ready.
Where Ventus went, the other Xehanort knew Riku was close behind. He immediately backstepped, and in so doing managed to avoid a charged blue-white disc of energy that buzzed between himself and Goofy, where the Xehanort had previously been sitting.
The other copy that Ven had put out of commission stood up, looking to its companion for a silent exchange under their hoods. Nodding at each other, both clones leapt over the heroes, landing on the opposite side. The assorted keybearers and heroes got into stance, yet before any of them could react the two Xehanorts turned and retreated in a headlong sprint across the arid waste.
"Come on!" Riku shouted at his companions, and the five heroes pursued the fleeing enemies towards one of the taller spires.
Larxene was pacing anxiously.
"You feel it, too?" Sora asked behind her, his voice unusually calm.
"I feel Xehanort...but many other presences, as well."
Sora inhaled deep, closing his eyes and concentrating, "Most...if not all of the Xehanorts. All of the princesses, and…" he chuckled to himself, "Riku and his Other-Me."
Larxene whistled, "That's a lot of enemies." She cast her gaze back at Kara, "What do we do with her, then?"
Sora looked back at the unconscious split-half girl, "Bring her. We'll need to time this right."
Larxene slung the teenager's body over her shoulder, and the pair began their trek towards the feel of combat.
The Terra vessel was busy. Concentrating, he summoned an entire army of Heartless as his other selves bought time. He would need a barrier capable of blocking the keybearers, yet with how powerful they had become, it would need an army of thousands to believably give him the space he needed. Normally such a chore would be a simple affair, but with Riku wielding ever stronger powers of Darkness and Sora still out there somewhere, there was no guarantee that any Heartless enslaved by the lesser clones wouldn't turn coat at the first sign of either power. Only his darkness alone could be counted on to keep the Heartless' loyalty at bay.
He had assembled enough Shadows, the small, hunched bipedal pitch black creatures scurrying and lurking into the surface of the stone spire. They traveled quickly along the dark recesses of the rock face, popping up whenever there was a space of light. They swarmed over the immediate area like an angry swarm of bees. A number of artificial Heartless were still around, and he had brought many around, mostly Soldiers, their metal helmets clanking, a few even brandished weapons in addition to their claws, looking like some kind of distorted blue and black leprechaun with pointy helms.
His concentration was disturbed when the sounds of battle approached him much sooner than he had anticipated. As it got closer he realized why: The princess was being guarded by more than the king's two buffoons. A stray fireball, probably from that blue wizard, flew up at the spire, barely missing where the other clones were holding the princesses in stasis.
Kairi was awe struck by the numbers of Heartless she saw, turning back towards Riku, "That must be where Xehanort is."
Riku only nodded his agreement, trying to keep pace with the two clones. It seemed unlikely they'd be able to corral him away from the fortification, so the keyblade master whistled, "Hold it!" and the party of five came to a stop.
They all took some moments to adjust to the sight of it. Heartless of all kinds, Riku guessed it was no less than a few thousand, were all assembled around the spire. Riku could sense the Princesses of Heart at the very top.
Rather suddenly, the commotion stopped, all of the Heartless army coming to a complete standstill, the only sounds the far off winds and buffeting sands. The five heroes all looked to the only sign of movement, the very top of the Heartless spire, where the Terra Xehanort walked to the edge, looking down on them, his voice a shout just loud enough to hear, "Kairi!" he called the only Princess of Heart not in his possession, "Would you be kind enough to join me? If you do...I promise your friends will be spared!"
Kairi only glared. Riku took it as his cue to step forward, "Let the Princesses go, Xehanort!"
"Or what?" Terra's face gloated over them. "You cannot stop it now, Riku!" His hand lashed out, from it an arc of dark lightning. The blue-purple light cascaded directly at Kairi too fast for anyone to react.
Save for a flash of gold and silver, and a red and yellow vestment with large black ears seemed to dive in front of Kairi, catching the attack on his silver-shafted keyblade, and redirecting it harmlessly towards one of the empty stone spires.
"Your Majesty!" Donald and Goofy cried out in unison.
"Mickey!" Riku sounded relieved to see his old friend.
But the King was all business, glaring at Xehanort in this place, where he had beaten Mickey so long ago. "Xehanort! This is your last chance!" his high tenor voice actually managing to sound somewhat intimidating following his impressive display.
But the Terra vessel only chuckled, "What? One more keyblade doesn't do you any good. You are all alone either way."
"Not alone!" Ventus spoke for the first time, transfixed on the face of his old friend, "Our friends are always with us. And we're always there for them!"
A sinister sounding chuckle seemed to echo in the minds of all present. Everyone but Mickey, hero and villain alike, looked around for the source of the dark feminine sound, "Hmhmhm...my dear boy, you are more right than you know."
A series of dark portals opened, starting behind Mickey's position, and reaching far into the stretches of the graveyard. The keybearers and Xehanorts alike turned to look curiously.
From the portal that opened up right on top of the heroes stepped a tall, demonic woman. The staff of Maleficent was glowing brightly as she took a stance flanking the keybearers, bowing reverently towards one in particular, "Master Riku."
"Maleficent?" the blindfolded teenager seemed mostly confused.
"Are you ready to defeat Xehanort?" the witch asked him casually.
Riku chuckled a bit, "Yeah, I suppose I am."
Ventus seemed more concerned, "I wish you would stop making it sound so easy. He's got an army of Heartless and clones stacked against us."
"Which is why you need power of your own," Maleficent turned, looking towards the portals that were still open. Raising her staff, a bright emerald glow radiated from it, and the portals flared up, billowing darkness all around like a smokescreen as the sound of transit through them consumed them, and the blackness faded away.
In their places were the shapes and faces of familiar friends. The Beast, Aladdin, and Squall making up the closest row. Behind them still, Tarzan, Mulan, Hercules, Jack Sparrow, Peter Pan...all of their friends from so many worlds gathered into a large force.
Pete stepped up, nodding to Maleficent that all they had gathered were accounted for. She turned back to the keybearers, cloak billowing, a hand across her chest with a slight bow towards Riku, "Now you have an army, as well."