I knew I'd promised I'd be quick about this chapter. Well, to make up from my delay, for which I have no excuse this time, this chapter is quite long. And the next chapter is on its way; I've already got a part written down.
Most importantly, the main storyline and characters appearing here aren't my idea. Mr. Kiosce thought about it all, even the title of the chapter. This chapter and the next come entirely from his head. He told me the ideas: I just wrote them down with my writing style, so to speak. Well, I did add a couple of things, but anyway... you get the idea.
Anyway, have fun. Hope you like it. :)
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Heroes Die Alone
Narrator: Ken
Usually, people say that I have quite a large ego. Well, perhaps that might be true, but at that time, I had every reason to feel like the king of all Creation. The battle we had recently waged had been the most terrible fight I had ever been in, and we were still alive, still whole, and by God, we had never been so victorious. And, well, I also had had an extra bonus... it's not everyday you get kissed by a beautiful woman such as Morrigan. Of course, I must argue that it all ended with that kiss right there... Even though I'm aware that I'm quite the ladies man, I'm engaged to lovely girl... Man, I sure missed her.
Anyhow, I did feel that it had been a crushing victory, however, I was sure that not all my companions felt that way. Though Seyia, Shiryu, Hyoga, Shun, and Ikki had all received new powers, they felt kind of sad. They didn't say so, but I could feel it. We all could. Especially Seyia. I take it that you all know already what a kind of man Seyia is... very devote to his work, which was to protect his goddess. It was a shame that they didn't succeed in saving her from the Heartless at that time. Yet we kept telling him and the others not to worry, that we would get her back, along with the rest of the princesses of heart. And you have no idea how much we needed to do that as quickly as possible...
Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Besides, I want to keep you all pinned, you know. It's not good for me and my... high self-esteem, as some would say, if I lose my audience.
You'll learn all about it later. At that time, we had already departed from Athena's Sanctuary and were on our way to the old God-knows-where. I was traveling in the ship that Wilheim and his buddies got at the beginning of their adventure, along with my good pal Ryu, the aforementioned ex-vampire, his hot, young girlfriend, the quiet Vincent, the Keyblade master, the elf and the fairy, and last, but not least, our pilot: Dante. He had volunteered to pilot the ship, since he was better at it than most of us, and besides, his small ship had already been taken by Cloud and Tifa (God knows what those two were up to), and those guys' ship had been taken by the five saints, who wished to travel by themselves (I don't know how the five of them managed to fit in there, nor I want to). All we could talk about at that time was about our battle in the twelve houses of the Sanctuary. Like I've said, it had been a hell of an experience, and I really wanted to know what the rest of my companions had to say. In a few words, they too, had it way rough. Dante was the one who spoke the least: he only said:
"It was pretty dangerous, but Sora managed to handle it." And then he kept silent for the most part of the trip... Until we all started to talk about our homes.
I spoke about my life in Seattle, and about my baby, Eliza. I know what you're thinking: he's surely going to say: "God, I was really worried about her." But to be honest, I wasn't worried about Eliza. I was sure that, wherever she was, she was okay. She is strong; she can take all sorts of things. But I did miss her, however. I only wished to be by her side once more. Hang out with her, like we did on the docks, doing nothing but to stare at the sea, while drinking something... Then I would take her home and wish her good night... I admit that I sighed many times while telling these to the guys. Ryu spoke about his life as a wanderer, and about the many places he had visited. Demean and Tish were the ones who talked the most. They talked about magical places that I wouldn't even have dreamed of, about cities none of us had ever seen, and about immense forests that only one of us, besides them, knew. Even then, though, Wilheim didn't talk much, amazingly, 'cause he's a freaking parrot. Ukyo was the one who did most of the talking. She spoke about her home, Nerima, and about Ranma's house, and the rest of her friends. Sora told us everything about his little island and his friends. By what I heard, I whish all of us were there, taking a nap in the beach...
As all of us talked and talked, Dante kept piloting the ship in silence. It seemed that he wasn't even listening to us. But I know that he was. And by the look on his eyes, something told me that, in some way, he wished to share a bit of his thoughts with us. Of course, I was shocked when I found out I was right: for once, I had discovered what it felt like to have empathy.
It was Sora who had the courage to ask him if there was anything he wished to say. It happened right after one of us told a joke (I don't quite remember it. What I do remember, though, is that it wasn't worth remembering: I had to force a laugh). Right after each of us stopped laughing, a silence came. Neither of us knew what to say to break it. So, Sora turned to Dante and asked:
"What about you, Dante? What's your world like?"
Dante spun his head and looked at the boy for a moment while frowning. Then, he smiled and said:
"What's the point? I mean, trying to keep it as a secret. You'll find out sooner or later. Besides, I kind of trust you."
"That's a relief." I said. "So, go on. Tell us."
"Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is its size." Dante began. "You all speak about your lands as if they were really big. Believe me, no matter how big they are, they are just little rocks on a pond when compared to my world... These United States that you speak of..." he turned to me as he said this. "Let's say that my world's United States consist of two-hundred-and-seventy-two states. And they're all cities as large as you can imagine. You know that feeling, when you feel that you are reaching the edge of a city, and you're about to look at the outer lands? Well, there's no such feeling on my world, because when you reach the edge of the city, all you can see is more buildings and lights."
"Sounds strange." Sora said.
"Sounds grotesque." I added, with a laugh. "So your world is that big, huh? What do you do to get from one side to the other?"
"It's not like we travel a lot." Dante replied. "Sometimes, you don't get to go to a lot of places when you're in war. Although sometimes you do."
That practically stabbed my joke in the back. There was silence, as you may have expected, and though it only lasted a few seconds, I felt that it had been eternal.
"Your world is in war?" asked Demean. "How is that so? Is it a revolution? A battle for independence? One man's ambition?"
"Not really." Dante replied. "For survival. Let me tell you a bit about the military on my world... we all start our training when we reach age twelve, and..."
"Twelve years old?" Wilheim abruptly interrupted. "What sort of country forces younglings to seize arms at such an age?"
"Hey, easy, Wilheim..." I said. "You know, in the days of old, children used to train at a very young age. Even in some movies they depict small kids learning how to fight. Haven't you seen Star Wars: Episode II?"
"No, I have not, and this is no movie we speak about, Ken." He said, none too pleased about my commentary. "Though you may be right about the days of old, I am strongly against..."
"I understand, man, I really do." Dante intervened, before he could continue. "But if you were the governor of a country of my world, you'd probably say 'yes' to a law of the sort. When your world is practically battlefield where the Heavens and the Abyss are always going at it."
"Come again? The Heavens and what...?" I stuttered.
"Hell, you might call it. Believe me, it's no picnic."
"A battle between Heaven and Hell... Scenery such as that... I thought it would only be possible in one's mind." Vincent said.
"That's why we all train at such a young age. You see, a long time ago, we don't exactly know when, some jackass had the brilliant idea to make a connection between the Heavens and the Abyss. And guess what world he chose to establish as a link..." he stopped for a second while we all looked at each other, wandering what he would tell next. "Some said that Armageddon had come, and that our end was nigh. Yet we weren't willing to give up hope. That's why we chose to fight."
"Against Hell and Heaven?" Ukyo asked.
"Against the creatures of the Abyss, naturally." Dante replied. "Pretty soon, it became our battle... Now, the cities in my world are garrisons. And, like I said, they're all huge. Everyone's ready for war, I mean, everyone has had militia training. You see, we do begin our training at age twelve, and become candidates for joining the militia when we reach age thirteen." He made a pause and then said: "Though we are at constant war, there is one good thing about our world: there is no poverty. Since we all have to join the army, we all get paid, and the money is good: the government supports it."
"What kind of a government do you guys have over there?" Sora asked.
"It's kind of difficult to say." Dante replied. "What I can tell you is that it's one unified government."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, before the war, all of us were separated, and, like it usually happens, sometimes fought amongst ourselves. But when hell broke loose, literally, we all came together."
"Did you ever get to know the peaceful times?" Tish asked.
"No, sadly." Dante answered. "It all began a very long time ago. Since then, we've all been fighting against the creatures of the Abyss, and their leader, Adrian."
"I see... please, continue."
"Anyway, there's more to tell about our training." The kid said. "We are not only thought the ways of war. We're also thought regular school... You know, math, history, and all those things. Guys that are good in math usually don't train as much as the rest of us for battle. Most of the times, they become engineers, or mathematicians, or physics in order to research stuff about warfare. Sadly, as you can see, that's about the only thing we can think." He then got up from his seat and sat next to us. "Don't worry, the ship will continue its course. Unless the other guys tell me we have to change direction, we don't have much to worry about." He then turned to me and said: "What do you think?"
"About your world?" I asked, and he nodded. "Well, it sucks, quite frankly. To be in an eternal war must be no fun."
"I agree." Ryu added. "Yet we all are destined to a place, Ken. For better or worse, Dante was born in that world. And he is doing everything in his power to destroy evil."
"I wish I was doing everything in my power to destroy evil in my world." Dante said, with a sad smile.
"Come on, lighten up, Dante." Sora said. "You might not be fighting against the beasts of hell in your world, but you're helping us against the Heartless... which is good, too. You're fighting evil..." he paused for a moment and then he asked in a low voice, I don't know exactly why: "Do you think that the Heartless have anything to do with the beasts of the Abyss?"
"To be honest, I don't know." Dante replied. "What I can tell you, though, is that if Heartless were to attack my world, they wouldn't last. Their offensive would certainly be the shortest in history. Because of what I've told you, mostly."
"Oh, I see..."
"Well, let me just tell you a bit more about my world." Dante said. We all nodded and kept silent. It was a rare thing: to see him open up to us like that. "Remember what I told you about the governments, that they were unified? Well, in another way, they were also divided. Firstly, the government is divided into several parts. For instance, there are the Holy knights and the fanatic paladins in one group... that's the one of the medieval knights... then just plain medieval on the other. By the way, those guys have the best magicians you could hope to see... Then there's the technocrats... those guys can create lots of wonderful machinery, and stuff, but still, they need magic to do so. Then, there's the barbarians, the Abyss worshipers, the Oceanus lizard people, sorcerers with enchanted castles... over sixty ways of living."
"Hold on, kid." I interrupted. "Why are you telling us all this? What does it have to do with anything?"
"Um... I only wanted you to know what type of government we have." He replied. "If you want, I can shut up."
"No, no, no, that's surely not what he meant... right, Ken?" Ukyo said, giving me one of those looks. Of course, I nodded frantically (also, I hadn't meant that... it just came out wrong). "Come on, Dante, go on."
With a sigh, the kid continued speaking.
"My home garrison was one called Madrigal, but I was transferred to the Capital Garrison of the Silver Garrison. Over there, we have a balance between technology, magic, and medieval, yet we prefer technology to the other ones. Still, you can't be too careful. We all carry swords in case we should have to engage a demon at close range."
"'In case?' You sound as if you were some sort of inventor when you clearly excel at fighting foes, Dante." Ryu said.
"Well, thanks... I guess." The kid said. "Speaking about that, I think I've already mentioned it, but I was an outstanding private. I've killed countless demons, and I've also got lots of unconfirmed kills... You have to report to headquarters about your progress, but sometimes it slips my mind, if you take my meaning. Either way, one of you once asked me, I think it was you, Ken, that if I was such a good soldier, then why didn't I have a higher rank?"
"Yep, that was me." I intervened. "Then you replied that it probably had something to do with your age, or maybe about you not being a very good magician... Then Donald started to piss us off and we all told him to shut his beak."
"Good memory." Ryu said.
"Yeah... well, after thinking about it for a long time, I actually believe that it was because I wasn't such a good magician." Dante confessed. "Yet, though I haven't received any additional training, I have learned a thing or two about Aeris and, as much as I hate to admit it, about Donald. If I'm not mistaken, they'd promote me if I showed them my skills. I could go as high as... colonel."
"Well, if we ever get there, I'm sure they'll promote you, Dante." Sora said, enthusiastically.
"Thanks for the support, man." Dante replied.
"If I may ask one question..." Wilheim intervened. "Are humans the only beings that live in your world? Or perhaps there are others, such as elves, and fairies, and all those sorts of wonderful, fantastic creatures? Or maybe, you have yet to see them, but believe in their existence?"
"No, actually, there are lots of creatures in my world, and we all live together... depending on the race." The kid said. "There are elves, were-cats (such as Felicia), dwarves, draconians, unicorns, gargoyles, griffins, hippogriffs, rock-eating plants, Luciens..."
"Wait a minute." Demean interrupted. "I do not know about the rest of our comrades, but Tish and I are not familiar with the term 'Lucien'. What creature do you speak about?"
"Jeez, I open the door for a little while and you guys think I'm a dictionary." Dante said, with a smile on his face. "Sorry, old habits die hard..." he paused and took a deep breath before going on. "Okay, kids, history lesson. Luciens are sort of like were-wolves... but those guys can't choose between transformations, if you know what I mean. They're in their 'monster' state twenty-four-seven. But they're not exactly were-wolves, since they have reptilian features in certain areas. For instance, the area below the elbow and knees are completely scaled, and the talons are... I don't exactly know how long, but several inches, at least, and they're bright yellow. They could shrink a duck to a pillow if they wanted to."
"Too bad Donald isn't around to hear this." Sora laughed.
"They also have extended jaws, like the ones of a canine, and enough strength to snap a bear's neck in two."
"Too bad Octavius isn't around to hear that." Vincent added, with a grim smile. "He would certainly have a lot to comment."
"What do you mean? Oh, right, he's a were-bear." Dante said. "Anyway, they have a long tail. But it's not like the one of a were-wolf: it's scaly and reptile-like. They can use it to bash away any foe. They also have spikes that come out of their spinal area and out from the shoulders. The rest of their body is covered with fur, and they have a thick mane around their necks, which makes them very proud, that also covers part of their upper chest. It helps to attract the females. They have very interesting traditions and clothing. And though they're sometimes aggressive, they're... well, for lack of a better word, interesting to be around. But actually, they weren't originally from my world."
"Do you mean that they're aliens?" Sora asked.
"Not really..." Dante answered. "Actually, it would've been a lot better if they had actually been aliens. They were once some of the fiercest creatures of the abyss. They were really tough opponents to face. They would do awful things, like kill a child's parents and let him live to see if he or she was up to the challenge of avenging his or her parents' death... Yet they always failed. And... they also performed sadism on people.
"Sadism...?" Sora muttered. "...That's horrible."
"Forgive me if I sound rude, but..." the little fairy intervened. "Your people must have had an extraordinary excuse to house such fowl beings. For such creatures deserve divine punishment."
"That's what we all thought, at first." Dante explained. "You see, it all happened a few centuries ago..."
I couldn't help but to let out a chuckle as I heard him. "What?" he asked.
"Nothing... it's just the way you talk about all that." I said. "It's like if you had actually seen all those things. But don't take it the wrong way. I'm enjoying the story. Come on, go on."
"Okay..." he said. "As I was saying, there was an internal war in the Abyss. Adrian, the leader of the Abyss, was suspicious of the Lucien. He thought that they were going to try to usurp the Abyss's power. They fought for a long time. When their war ended, we already had strengthened up our defenses and feared the worst. Most of the Luciens survived the Abyss's onslaught, but in the end, they lost the war. And so they were vanished from the Abyss, destined to live in a lone continent of our world. Their punishment: to be hunted down by us. Yet our leaders used common sense, even though many of our people wanted to get even with those creatures. After months of debate, we offered them a peace treaty. Well, actually, it was they who did this. That's how they became our greatest allies in the war against the Abyss. They called the continent they had been destined to stay in 'Home'."
"Still, I don't think that the other races lived in peace with the Luciens that easily." Vincent guessed. "Am I correct?"
"Again, common sense." Dante said, nodding his head. "The government only granted them amnesty. The public opinion wasn't, and isn't to this very day, too good about them. We only let them live so that they could help us. But, as you might expect, we don't have much tolerance for them. It isn't easy, you know... to forgive so many deaths, so much butchery. Some people say: 'Don't kill them: that's just an easy way out for them.' But either way, we hurt them in any way we can. And believe me, it isn't as bad as it was some time ago. The verbal abuse, of course, is still there: we call them mutt, hellhound, mongrel, sick dog... you name it... Even though they really try hard to redeem themselves."
"Though it is probably not the same..." Wilheim interrupted. "This story of yours reminds me a bit about the conflict that there is between Vampyrs and Garous."
"Garous?" Dante asked.
"Were-wolves." Wilheim clarified. I think only Demean, Tish, Ukyo, and perhaps Vincent, knew what he meant, for the first three nodded their heads as he spoke, and the other one didn't look as puzzled as the rest of us... Then again, Vincent has always been very inexpressive. "You see, from the world that I come from, there has been a grudge between these two races as far as anyone can remember. But, unlike in your world, the cause of such conflict is unknown to most of both vampires and were-wolves. Only the elders can remember the true reason, and they do not share it easily. This grudge has only persisted because each race thinks that the other one hates it. It is sad to say, but when it comes to believing in the other race, they only believe in hate, anger, and killing. I had the opportunity to once face a were-wolf, and learnt about this. I am certain that if both races were to sit down and discuss about this problem, the conflict would surely come to an end. Yet no one has the courage to propose this. Though I know and am fond of the vampires, they will never heed me regarding this, and the only were-wolf I met is, as far as I know, the only one aware of this. If he speaks, they will think him a traitor. What they must do is to gather more beings that want the conflict to end. I reckon that you, Dante, want the remorse in your world to come to an end, too. If I am correct, then you should do this. Otherwise..."
"No, it's not like that." Dante interrupted. "Sorry I didn't let you finish, but I think I know where you're going. I don't hate the Lucien." Wilheim nodded his head. We could all see that he was just about to imply that. "I don't. What's more, I really try to make friends with them whenever I get the chance. They're nice, once you get to know them. Heck, my girlfriend is a Lucien, and I think that says it all, and..." he stopped short as all of us looked at him with a surprise glance and while grinning. The great, almighty, cold-as-ice Dante actually had a girlfriend...! "Go ahead, laugh it up."
"Why should we?" Ukyo asked. "I mean, it's strange to be in love with someone who isn't of your own species, so to speak. But I don't think it's that terrible. After all, I am Wilheim's girlfriend."
"'After all'?" Wilheim asked with a smile, while we all burst out in laughter. It had sounded very funny, really. "Why is it that all of a sudden I feel so small?"
"Yeah, Ukyo, you said it as if you were actually doing him a favor!" Sora added, and the laughter grew. Even Vincent let out a chuckle or two.
"That's not what I meant, Sora! Don't you get involved!" Ukyo said.
"Hold on, hold on..." Dante said, trying to calm down his laughter. "Perhaps he might be terrible, or whatever, but at least he's of your own race. I don't see what that has got to do with anything."
"Oh, but I first met Wilheim and became his girlfriend when he was a vampire." Ukyo explained.
"Really?" Dante asked. "You were a vampire?"
"For fifty-one years." Wilheim answered. "Of course, like you may be already thinking, I did not know that the curse of the vampire could be removed, until I met Demean an he told me about Gabrielle's existence. That is why I know the vampires very well and I am friends with them."
"Oh, I get it..." Dante said. "Well, everyday you learn something new, I guess."
"I guess." Ukyo said. "So..."
"So what?"
"So tell us about your girlfriend, Romeo."
"Oh... yeah, that." The kid chuckled. "Well... what's not to tell? She's wily, wild and has the most stunning gray fur and grace. Yet, like all the Lucien, she is a bit aggressive, and ferocious..." he leaned back and a dreamy smile appeared on his face as his eyes wandered up. "But that's what I like about her. She's stunning... smart... sensitive to others..." and then he actually sighed.
"It sounds to me like you're crazy about her." I said, poking his ribs with my elbow. "Eh, Dante? Don Juan? Casanova?"
"Okay, okay..." he said, chuckling again. "I get it... But seriously, you know how much I love her?"
"As much as the sun misses the flower?" I mocked, and we all laughed.
"Come on!" Dante said. "I love her enough to withstand the mockery of my companions." Again, that murdered the joke. Dante was getting real good at assassinating my goofs. "They all bothered me because I was going out with a Lucien. Some even called me 'traitor'. I picked a lot of fights because of those jackasses. But I never fought because of what they said to me. She had it worse than me: she was but a pup back then. I tried to defend her always, but of course, they were more than me and I always ended on the ground... She used to carry me somewhere safe and... licked my wounds. She is very sweet... Yet eventually, they stopped picking on me. I guess they realized that I wasn't going to leave her, and even though I had every bone in my body broken, I would fight for her. In time, some called me 'Bloodhound' as a joke. But later, that nickname changed to 'Doberman', out of respect, I believe. I just wished that everyone learned the lesson, and not just the handful of guys that have come to understand my relationship with Takeesha."
"Takeesha?" Demean asked. "So that is her name?"
"Right." Dante said. "That happened when we were just friends. Well, kissing friends. I mean, not precisely kissing friends. I kissed her. She licked my cheek..."
I just couldn't help it. I let out a little chuckle when he said that. I tried to shut up, but the door was already open, and so I began to laugh. Dante rolled his eyes as he smiled and shook his head.
"Alright, I'll get back to piloting the ship." He said.
"No!" everyone yelled as he got up and headed for the cockpit. Ukyo then stood up and began to kick me. "Ken, you jackass!"
"Really, Ken, you are beyond a doubt the king of smoothness." Ryu added, while shaking his head.
"But I – hey!" I exclaimed. I turned to Dante and said: "Come on, Dante, don't be like that! I promise I wasn't mocking you! It's just that it's very strange to see a young man so much in love with a girl. Come on, you know I was just kidding: I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings."
"It's alright, Ken." Dante replied, while turning around. "Really, I believe you. Don't worry about it." He then paused and after a sigh, added: "By the way if we ever do arrive at my world, then Takeesha will be very happy to see me. She'll probably give me a bear hug... But seriously, one big, bear hug. It's possible that she'll crack some bones under that terribly strong embrace of hers. I'll need someone to heal me..."
"I could do that." Tish said. "Do not worry about a thing, Dante."
The kid smiled and sat at the controls without saying another word. Even though Dante had said it was alright, they all did nothing more than to stare at me in silence... Man, I hated when that happened. I was getting real good at getting my foot caught in my mouth...
"You should try to have a little more... common sense, Ken." Sora whispered.
"Aw, come on!" I said. "You know I didn't mean to offend him."
"Yeah, but..."
"Guys, guys!" cried a voice that came from the radio. It had been Felicia's. "Guys, is anyone there?"
"I still cannot understand how is it that she is piloting a ship yet again." Wilheim murmured. Then he turned to Vincent and added: "To be honest, I am still wondering what method she used to convince you so you could let her handle the controls."
"I don't really know what was on my mind at that moment." Vincent replied.
"What is it Felicia?" Dante asked.
"I've spotted a new planet; one to which I think we hadn't gone to." The were-cat replied. "It's at our two o' clock."
"I don't see anything." Dante replied.
"Trust me: I have better eyesight than you do."
"Okay... since you're a were-cat, I guess I can buy that." Dante said, with a sigh. "Alright... Where did you say it was? Two o' clock?"
"Yep. Come on, follow me!" she said.
We all approached the cockpit and looked into space. There was the Gummy ship Felicia, followed by the rest of our... um, 'fleet'... The planet was pretty big. It was the biggest world I had seen so far, actually. As we approached it, it kind of got me thinking... Hold on, why should I tell you? You probably already guessed it, too. And Dante also thought about it, surely, because as we got closer to the planet, I saw a glitter of excitement on his eyes.
"Whoa!" another of our companions suddenly cried through the radio. It had been Cid. "Look out, guys! Heartless ships, coming right behind us!"
"I can't see them!" cried Seyia. He was piloting the ship where he and the rest of the saints went, I believe.
"I can!" Dante exclaimed, as we all looked at the radar and noticed about... five ships. And those ones were tailing just our ship alone! "But I'm not going to be able to shake them!"
The rest of our companions started to scream over the radio at each other, calling for help. But the Heartless ships were too many. And besides, they seemed to be heavy fighters, not those lightweight pieces of crap that shot spits and exploded with just one hit... And then we heard them begin their attack. They were shooting at us, all five of them at once!
It was impossible to dodge all that crossed fire, even for a good pilot such as Dante. It wasn't long before he cried the dreaded phrase.
"Damn! I'm hit!"
The planet's gravity began to pull us toward it and we began our descent, if you can call it like that. I was, however, surprised that the Heartless hadn't finished us off... But that thought only flashed in my mind for a second, 'cause then all we could think about was to hang on to something tight. Dante struggled to keep the controls in place, using all of his strength to pull the levers... Still, it looks that he needed some help. Before long, he called to me, for I was the one closest to him.
"Ken! Come here and give me a hand! We have to keep the ship stable if we don't want to end as pancakes!" he cried.
"Okay, here goes nothing!" I yelled, as I struggled to get to his side and pull on the levers as hard as I could. We managed to straighten the ship a little bit before it plunged into the planet as fast as a meteorite and hit the ground in a couple of seconds. The ship began to slide on the ground at an alarming speed. But then, it came to a sudden stop. And do you know what happens when you're going really fast and then you just come to a halt? Yep, you guessed it.
"Oh, shoot!" I screamed as suddenly Ryu's body impacted with mine and we both flew outside the ship's cockpit, and crashed against a tree...
"Ow..." I muttered, as I woke up. "Did anyone write down the number of the truck that ran over me?" I slowly got to my feet and cracked my back and neck. Then I looked down and noticed Ryu had just woken up as well, and was just as wounded as I was.
"That wasn't too much fun." He said. He glanced at me and asked: "Are you okay, Ken?"
"Yeah, no thanks to you." I replied, while helping him up to his feet. "At least we're alive."
"Yeah, it looks that way, but what about the rest of our friends?" Ryu said. "Come on, Ken, let's go look for them."
"Right."
We let out a faint cry as we turned around and look at the horrifying scenery set in front of us. All of our friends were scattered on the ground, as if there had been a battle and all of them had been killed under a merciless fire. There were some of them standing up, however. Octavius was on foot. Also, Sora, Ranma, Cid, Ukyo, and Ikki were awake, and seemed to be well. They only had a few scratches on their bodies, but there was apparently no great damage. As we walked to them, we saw that both Donald and Goofy, who were far away from the ships, were starting to regain consciousness.
"Holy..." I muttered. "Is anyone else alive?"
"It does not seem that anyone is dead." Octavius said. "However, I could be unfortunately mistaken. Let us rouse everyone of them and see what damage has been done to the ships."
"I think Wilheim's alright." Ukyo declared, as she pressed her head against Wilheim's chest. "His heart is still beating..." she paused and then added: "He protected me from the crash with his body. It's the second time he's done this. I'm beginning to dislike ships much."
"Don't worry, he'll come to his senses in no time." Ryu said, kneeling by her side and putting his hand on Wilheim's forehead.
"Dante?" Sora said, as he shook the unconscious kid. "Come on, wake up. Are you alright?"
"Hey, Sora." I said, as I approached him. "Are you hurt?"
"A bit, but I'm alright." He replied. "I'm a bit concerned about Dante, though. He was the one who broke the glass of the Gummi ship." He turned to see the Gummi ship and added: "At least it doesn't look in such a bad state. If it hadn't been for Dante, it would've probably be a pile of scrap by now."
"What about our other guys? Have you seen them?" I asked.
"Vincent is right over here..." he answered, pointing at the dark man, who lay just a few feet away from us. "Ukyo and Wilheim are right there. She seems fine, but I don't know about him. And Demean is right over there, by that tree. I don't see Tish, though."
"Don't worry about her, I have a good feeling that Demean is holding her. I'll go check them out. Meanwhile, try to bring Dante back to consciousness, will you?"
"Sure thing. I don't think that he's in such a bad shape." He said, while feeling the pulse on his wrist and examining the wounds on the rest of his body.
As I walked to the elf, I noticed that he too was about to wake up. He shook his head and pressed his hand against it, while he opened up his other hand, revealing that Tish was safely inside of it. She too, had just woken up...
"By God..." Demean muttered. "And I almost thought that we would conclude this trip without any engagements... If that could be called engagement."
"I would not call it like that." Tish added. "The fact of the matter was, however, that we were soundly beaten."
"Yes, but at least it seems that everyone is alive and well."
"I wouldn't be so sure, Demean. Take a look around you." I said.
"I see wounded companions, but the presence of death is unfelt." He replied.
"Indeed." Tish added. "Our friends are unconscious, but not dead. I can feel every heartbeat of each of them."
"I don't know what sort of powers you possess to be so certain." I said. "But I hope you guys are right. Either way let me help you up. Take my hand..."
The elf did as I told him and I helped him to his feet. The little fairy shook her head and after a second or two, she began to fly about the whole place, casting powerful healing spells on all of our friends. Slowly, they all began to shake, waking up from their sleep. Donald too started to help, by also performing his magic on us. When Aeris finally came back to herself, she joined the duck and Tish. Pretty soon, all of our friends had woken up. And I mean, every last one of them. We were all there, and, like Demean had predicted, all of them were alive.
It was not until then that I looked at our surroundings. We were just on the outskirts of a forest, with immense trees, all covered in snow. I didn't realize until then that the weather was cold as hell. To make things worse, I wasn't wearing any shoes (neither were some of the rest of our friends, including Ryu), and my feet were practically turning blue. I had to sit down by a tree and rub them as hard as I could, until I felt blood running through them again. I then looked back and realized that this tree was the same that had stopped Ryu and myself. I examined it and noticed that there were markings on it, other than the one Ryu and me had left on it when we crashed against it. It looked as if they were initials...
"Hey, guys!" I called. "Come and take a look at this."
Only a few of them came. Only Ryu, Octavius, Sora, and a recently wakened Dante answered my call.
"What is it, Ken?" Ryu asked.
"Check this out, Ryu. It looks like someone carved his or her initials on this tree..." I said.
"And, if I may ask, what miracle precisely must we witness?" the were-bear asked.
"Hey, I was just curious about them." I answered. "That means that there must be people around here."
"What initials...?" Dante muttered, as he got closer and inspected the tree. He looked at them in silence for a very long time. None of us said anything else. We just stepped back and stared at him in silence. He was behaving rather strange...
"What's going on in here?" asked Donald as he walked to us. "What's he doing?" he added, pointing at Dante.
"I don't know." I answered. But then, Dante spoke in a low, excited voice:
"I wrote this when I was young..." he paused, while turning around. He had a huge smile drawn on his face. I had never seen him like that. You could almost say that it was scary... But of course, to see anyone so happy isn't frightening. "I'M HOME!" he cried, and then raced to us and hugged the first of us on his way: Donald.
The rest of our companions turned to him in confusion as he laughed and danced around happily. The duck was so shocked that he hardly made any sound as Dante swung him from side to side. He kept on jumping and chuckling joyfully for a very long time, before he actually stared at Donald and realized that he was hugging the neurotic duck. He let go of him and Donald fell on his feathery butt.
"Hey!" he exclaimed. "What's the big idea? It's cold!" he quickly got up and rubbed his buttocks. He looked pretty disturbing... but I couldn't blame him.
"Sorry." Dante muttered. He smiled again and looked at all of us, and repeated, softly: "I'm home."
"That's good to hear." Ryu said, after a while of keeping quiet. "Talk about coincidences."
"What do you mean?" Donald asked.
"He was just about talking of this world, before the Heartless attacked us..."
"If this is your home, Dante..." Demean suddenly intervened. "Then I assume that the Garrison that you spoke about must be nearby. If so, then please, take us there, for I am sure that, like myself and my little Tish, my friends are freezing under the cold of this merciless weather."
"Amen to that!" I cried. "Come on Dante, show us the way."
"Yeah, sure!" he replied, enthusiastically. "It isn't far. Come on, follow me! I bet everyone will be happy to see friendly faces!"
He started running to the east, with the rest of us following behind him. Some of us were truly struggling just to keep sight of him. He was really fast... I'm sure that this was because he already knew the terrain. Yet some others were running practically right next to him (for instance, Felicia). But all I could think about at that moment was to get something for my feet. I feel that they could break into a thousand pieces at any given instant.
"Can I ask you something, Dante?" I heard a shivering Felicia ask.
"What?" the boy said.
"Why aren't you cold? You aren't blue or pale, or whatever, and you don't seem to be shivering."
"It must be because it's probably summer, I guess."
"Summer?" all of us exclaimed, in shock.
"Well, yeah!" he laughed, as he ran up a hill. It wasn't long before he got to the top. "You see, it's just that..." he then stopped short and stared at what was in front of him in shock. He said no more as we all caught up with him. As I walked to him, I saw a small area of grass. Without wasting another moment, and while thanking God for his mercy, I put my feet on it and began to rub them again. It was very cold, but not as much as the snow. Again, I rubbed them until I felt blood running through them again. I could do nothing more than to think how hazardous to my health this could be...
"What is it, Dante?" asked Sora as stepped next to him and gazed at the horizon. My feet pinked up again and I looked, too.
"The Silver Garrison..." Dante muttered, at last.
The city was immense. It was all surrounded by a wall that seemed impenetrable at first sight. It reflected the intense glitter of the sun, which had finally graced us with its presence. There were many buildings, and each one taller than the next. It all seem so advanced... I didn't expect to see so much technology in my life. Even though the star of the day had come out, there were still many lights turned on in the big city. It's not like the light of a street, you know... It wasn't to keep the city illuminated. The sun was taking care of that. It was more like, by looking at them, you could notice that something was going on inside the city. Blue lights, red lights, green lights... There were also huge towers standing proudly all over the Garrison. Many of them were connected by long bridges. This was all very impressive. I really don't know what else to say... Oh, yeah. There was one thing that really caught my attention, besides all the other things I have described: the belligerent nature of the city. There were sophisticated cannons all over the place, as well as soldiers on watch. Many of them strolled about the wall, sometimes stopping to take a look to the horizon. I was almost sure that they had already spotted us. There were lots of battle towers too. They weren't as big as the ones I already mentioned, but they were armed to the teeth. Everyone seemed sharp and alert, as if they expected an army to come and attack them in any minute. And, surprisingly, they weren't that wrong...
"Wow..." I murmured. "That thing is huge!"
"And armed!" Sakura added. "I thought things like that could only be constructed in movies... Why are there so many soldiers out there, Dante?"
"I'll explain later, I promise." The boy replied. "Either way, that's the Silver Garrison. It's got one of the best defenses on the world. No army can attack it without suffering heavy losses... Truth to be told, I don't think they've ever suffered a defeat." He then looked at all of us and added: "But the best thing is, all creatures are welcome." I caught a glimpse in his eye and nodded, as I understood what he meant. Even the famous Luciens he had spoken of had a place there... I got up and smiled in relief.
"You suppose they have a pair of socks they can lend me?" I asked.
"I'm sure it'll be no trouble." He replied, with a chuckle... but then, he stopped his laughter and watched in shock as one of the soldiers suddenly cried out to his other companions. An alarm went off and the cannons, towers, and all the other weaponry slowly turned to a single direction and started firing. We all ignored what sort of army was attacking, for it all was happening on the other side of the city... What we did know, however, was that the Garrison had begun a fierce battle. "No..." Dante muttered. And just like that, he jumped high into the air and raced as fast as he could to his Garrison's aid.
"Wait... Dante!" we all called and ran behind him. But before any of us could catch him, a group of foes cut our way. They were Heartless. But they weren't like anything we had seen before...
As we all put ourselves on guard, I noticed that there were at least five different new types of Heartless, unknown until that moment to us all. The first one seemed like punks: they wore ripped shorts, torn jeans, and hoods. Most of them were armed with all sorts of things: axes, chains, pipes, bats... The second kind of Heartless seemed more like a S.W.A.T team than anything else. They had a blue, light armor covering their body and big, glass shields, with the Heartless crest carved on them. Other Heartless appeared to be soldiers, with gas masks and military clothes. And lastly, there were other two types of Heartless, dressed identically, but with different weapons. They wore tuxedos: I didn't think Heartless had a taste for clothing... The first type of enemies carried machine guns, while the others carried sharp swords. In total, there were about a hundred of them. Perhaps a bit more.
But we weren't scared. At the most worried about Dante, for we had now lost sight of him. Yet we were convinced that we would meet with him shortly: as the Heartless raced into battle, we all cried in rage, letting loose our attacks against them.
As we began our attack, we realized that these Heartless were unlike anything we had faced so far... Why, you ask? The other monsters we had fought were mindless creatures, driven by hate and the desire for destruction. Their only goal was to kill us, but there was nothing else in their minds. These new guys were something else. As the punk Heartless raced to meet us, a couple of them leapt behind Shun and threw their chains at him, leaving him immobile (or so it seemed). Next, two Heartless charged at him, with pipe and bat at the ready. It was as if they knew what to do. But their strategy had only one flaw: they had drastically underestimated Shun's power. With no effort at all, the saint broke through the chains and unleashed his own. In a matter of seconds, the four punks had been destroyed.
Seeing that these beasts weren't as stupid as I thought, I decided to put some strategy into my own fighting. I took on a unit on the swat team, with Ryu covering my back. Those guys were a lot more coordinated than the punks and their shields represented a problem, since they were difficult to get around them. Also, the bastards had in stock some sort of gas, which they threw at us at the first chance they got. It wasn't tear-gas, but it did have a strange effect on us. I kind of felt weaker, and I could see that Ryu was in the same situation. Nevertheless, again they had failed to consider all the variables. Because, you see, it's a good thing, to have two sorcerers, a girl with magic potions, and a fairy that can heal as supports. In a blink, Ryu and I were back to full strength and meant business with those nuts. I raced at the Heartless and unleashed a Sho-Ryu-Reppa on their faces. They covered my powerful technique with their shields, but I succeeded in shattering them. Before I got down, Ryu managed to launch a powerful Shinku-Hadoken to finish them all.
The one who was having the roughest time of us was Ariel. I wasn't too surprised... The Heartless soon realized that she wasn't as fast as the rest of us and the mafia Heartless (um... yeah. So you can understand what I talk about, that's the way I'm going to call the tuxedo Heartless from now on... sounds better) were soon emptying their machine guns on her. A few bullets did hit her, yet Aeris soon healed her, while Link stood in front of her and protected her with his shield. While behind the Hylian, Ariel started to throw more potions at the Heartless. She only succeeded in breaking a few of those S.W.A.T. Heartless shields, but nothing else. She did help in healing our companions and ourselves, though.
A platoon of soldier Heartless charged at Octavius, attempting to bury the bayonets on their rifles on his body. It was a large platoon: I guess that they saw him a bit too big. But the were-bear roared and sliced a huge part of them with his katana, with just one swipe. The few that survived tried to surround him and shoot him. Although he did receive a couple of shots, Octavius quickly grabbed the remaining Heartless and smashed their heads into pieces.
Later, four mafia Heartless with swords surrounded Sakura, Ryoga, Ukyo, and Wilheim. They began to attack them in a frenzy of hate, and I realized that they were pretty damn good, too. Even Wilheim had trouble parrying their blows with his big, bad sword. Ukyo struggled to keep the rhythm with her opponent. Even so, she did get slashed a few times, but nothing serious. Ryoga fought with his iron umbrella, while Sakura did her best to stay away from the furious blade of her foe. When Wilheim noticed that Ukyo was hurt, his sword was lit up and flames emerged from the blade: that could only mean that he was mad. With a quick, deadly swipe, he cut through the Heartless's blade and body. In a blink, he had killed his foe. However, when he turned around and got ready to help Ukyo, he noticed that she had already stabbed the Heartless in his chest with a little spatula of hers. Soon, Sakura managed to fire a Hadoken on her foe and killed him. As for Ryoga, he used a similar strategy: a Shi-Shi-Hokoudan directed to his adversary's head. It practically exploded under the blast of energy...
Demean fired lots of arrows at the mafia Heartless, who were the ones that were giving us the most trouble from afar. It wasn't long before Link joined him on the shooting... But those S.W.A.T. Heartless soon realized that their mafia brethren were being slain and quickly covered them with their shields. I couldn't believe how smart they were getting!
However, we weren't a bunch of fools. Camille and Morrigan flew high into the air at great speed and used their nimble, strong tentacles to destroy the Heartless's shields. Once that had been done, the five saints unleashed their powerful techniques to destroy the line of S.W.A.T. Heartless.
And then, something happened. None of us expected to see this... But all of a sudden, the Heartless to a few steps back. All of them stepped back...
"Are they doing what I think they're doing?" I asked Ryu in a low voice.
"I... I think they are..." replied my shocked friend.
And they were. The Heartless were actually running away! I couldn't believe that... They had attacked intelligently by covering their vulnerable comrades, charging in group, and go for back up... and now they were running away?
"What the hell is going on in here?" I asked.
"That's precisely what I'm asking myself right now..." answered Felicia's voice. I turned to her and saw that she wasn't looking at the running Heartless: she was looking at the ground. I looked down and let out a gasp of horror (but it wasn't loud, that I can assure. Ask anyone.) as I noticed that all of the Heartless we had killed were still there. There were even some decapitated foes, and still they remained lying on the ground. They were completely immobile, and didn't seem to be breathing...
"Why are they still there?" asked Yuffie in a whisper.
"I don't know..." Sora mutter. He walked next to one of them and stood still for a while. Then, with a quick move, he buried his Keyblade in one of the monster's body. The creature let out no sound, nor made any move. It lay perfectly still. "It seems that they are dead after all." He said. "But what I can't understand is why they haven't disappeared..."
"They must be a new type of Heartless." Goofy inquired.
"Great job, Einstein." Donald grumbled. "What Sora means is that all the other Heartless we have defeated have all vanished."
"Do you suppose that maybe... they could be turning into a true form of life and not just a mere shadow lurking by the foot of a tree?" Link asked.
"Do you think that that's possible?" Akane added.
"Listen, we'll all worry about it later." Leon suddenly interrupted. "Right now, we've got to find Dante. We don't have a clue of where he is."
"And quite possible we will have to lend our services to the Silver Garrison." Demean added. "Then let us go, there is not much time!"
As we ran to the Silver Garrison, a portion of the huge wall that surrounded the city came crashing down. A swarm of Heartless began to invade the city. Our pace quickened as we cried in rage to get the Heartless's attention. But again, these monsters were unlike anything we had faced during this war. Instead of looking at us and confronting us, like all the rest of the Heartless did, these new enemies didn't pay much attention to us; instead, they kept on entering the city like water pours through the crack of a damn. Seeing that the foes weren't going to play along with us, we had no choice but to attack them from the front.
And again, the Heartless surprised us with an unexpected tactic. A group of approximately thirty enemies riding badass motorcycles raced at us at a fast speed. We all stopped in our tracks and barely got out of their way as they attempted to cut us down with long swords. All of us escaped intact. In fact, Merryck had the brilliant idea to actually throw in his sword at one of the bike's wheels. The motorcycle came to an abrupt stop and the Heartless riding it was sent flying high into the air. The bike exploded all of a sudden... I didn't get a chance to see them clearly, but I was betting that I was about to find out the appearance of those things shortly. The Heartless quickly got up and stared at us for a moment. He was a shadow, like any other, with no clothes or armor of any kind. He was tall, for a Heartless, since all the other ones we had faced were about Donald or Merryck's height. This one was as tall as Sakura, and had a thin, yet muscled body... He stared at us with apparent hatred before turning around, trying to flee. But amazingly, the other Heartless had already turned around and had started their attack again. This time, I got to see what the bikes looked like. They seemed like top-notch vehicles, painted in red, with lizard-like heads. And from the eyes of these last ones, suddenly came out energy bullets as if a machine gun was spitting them out. And since the poor son of a bitch was in the way between us and the rest of his stupid friends, he got shot... I couldn't believe how cold-hearted this new bastards had proven to be. Not that the other Heartless we knew had probably helped each other out, but... you get my meaning, I hope.
I don't know how they did it, but thanks to Aeris and Donald, the bikes' fire didn't blast us to a million pieces. They managed to create a large barrier that deflected all of the foes' shots. But of course, the Heartless did manage to get their motorcycles through the field. Naturally, we were ready for them. We did manage to kill a few ones. Wilheim cut off a few of the foes' swords with his blade (and also a couple of heads); Merryck again pulled the stunt he did earlier; Sora fired some shots to destroy some motorcycles, and Cloud cut through some of the enemies with his gigantic weapon. However, what most of the rest of us succeeded in doing, was to knock them off their motorcycles.
If we knew what was about to happen next, we would've tried much harder to destroy the bikes. As the damn monsters fell of their vehicles, these last ones began to change. Like a stupid "Transformer" or some thing of the sort, the bikes bended and twisted magically, in order to turn into some sort of armor for the fallen pilots. As the Heartless got up, we noticed that the lizard-like heads that I mentioned a while ago that was attached to the motorcycles had turned into helmets. A thick armor covered the chest – it looked like a hard bone to gnaw through. The Heartless's arms and legs were also well protected. On the bottom of their feet, there were small wheels; they looked like some sort of roller-blades – don't ask me how they got them, 'cause I won't know how to answer that. The rubber wheels of their bikes had turned into sharp disks, attached to their arms. It was not before long before the first monster threw one at us in anger. Luckily, the victim of said disk had been Link, and he quickly fended the attack off with his shield. The rest of us managed to evade the attacks somehow, and then began our attack once again. There were only about twenty Heartless left.
Mine threw the disk at my neck, attempting to cut it off. I was fast enough to duck under the thing.
"Whoops!" I cried. "Missed me! Try again, ugly!"
The disk returned to his arm, like a boomerang, and he tried again to hit me. This time, he threw it at mi legs.
"Too bad!" I yelled, while jumping over it. "You'd best try to improve your aim, pal!"
This time, he meant business. As the disk returned to him, he threw with more strength and quickness. I quit my joking for a moment as I ducked underneath the weapon. However, I wasn't quick enough, and I got my arm cut. It wasn't a lethal cut or anything of the sort. Nevertheless, it did hurt a lot.
"Oh, you bastard!" I cried. "Now you've done it!"
I ran to him at full speed and kicked the disk out of his arm. Now that he was unarmed, I thought that he would prove to be easy as pie. I was somewhat mistaken, though. He knew his way around martial arts and gave quite a battle. But hey, no one else had beaten me before (except Ryu, but I'm not in the mood to talk about that) and I wasn't going to start losing now. The instant he dropped his guard, I connected a few jabs to the face and then followed them with a roundhouse. The Heartless fell on his back, and I decided it was time to finish him. I leapt high into the air and buried my knee in his back. He let out a loud yell and then lay still. Seeing that there weren't enough Heartless for me to have fun with, I just stood on one place and looked around to see how my friends were doing.
Though they did have to fight at their best, most of them weren't having much trouble. Yuffie beat his enemy by throwing small shurikens at him; Ariel managed to stab his enemy on the chest and got away with just a few cuts (most impressive, if you ask me); Ryu destroyed the Heartless quite quickly, as the saints. Ryoga and Sakura fought side to side, along with Ranma and Akane. They beat their enemies in no time, as well. Ukyo decapitated the Heartless she was fighting in a brutal way. And, last but not least, by a long shot, there was Wilheim... What happened to him was really interesting, if you ask me, and somewhat... disturbing. With a swift blow, Wilheim shattered the disk. The Heartless, unarmed, wasn't willing to give up. He raced at our guys at full speed. Wilheim patiently waited for him, sword at the ready. He swung it to the monster's head, but the Heartless ducked in time to dodge the blow. Next, he somersaulted and kicked Wilheim in the face, knocking him down, and then stepped back. Our friend got up, spitting blood and wiping the sweat off his forehead. I looked at his face closely... he was mad. I had never seen him that mad (after the battle with Ursula, of course). His sword was set on furious fire. His eyes seemed to shine for a brief moment. He was terrifying and menacing. With a loud yell, he ran at the Heartless as fast as he could. And he was pretty fast, almost as fast as Felicia, if you ask me. He avoided the Heartless attempt of counterattack and buried his job deep in his stomach. With great strength, he pulled it out, by thrusting upwards. The Heartless, nearly split in two, fell to the ground, his life gone, of course. Then, Wilheim turned to the rest of the Heartless in silence and pointed his sword at them. There were about five of them left. They all turned to our enraged friend and fled in terror... We all stared at him in silence as he lowered his blade, walked to the dead body of his enemy and kicked him in anger, sending him flying far away.
"Wilheim!" Ukyo exclaimed, as she saw the strange behavior of our friend.
He didn't turn to see her. He just sheathed the sword and walked away from us... I didn't get it. Why was he so mad, all of a sudden?
"Let us go." He said, dryly. "There are still many enemies out there. We must act quickly, lest we want the Garrison to meet its end at the hands of these fiends."
"Take it easy, Wilheim..." I murmured as he walked past me. He gave me a quick glance with his furious eyes... However, he didn't seem to be mad at me. He only shut his mouth and it looked to me as if he wanted to nod his head. However, he only kept on walking, with Ukyo following him closely.
There wasn't a moment to lose. The warriors inside the Garrison were slowly losing the battle... There were just too many Heartless. But still, I knew that we could beat them if we put our hearts into it. As we approached the huge wall, we got finally see what the Garrison's soldiers looked like. They were lightly armed, but defended themselves bravely. Their helmets were heads of wolves. It almost seemed like their eyes shone. Their skills with their swords were superb, but most of them, however, opted to carry some other long-range weapon. They did have some heavy armor, though, which covered most of their bodies, save for their waists and thighs...
"Don't let any more of them through! Shoot them, shoot them!" One of them yelled and the rampage of war grew in intensity.
"The cavalry is here, fellows..." I whispered, as we arrived at the shattered wall. "It's Ken time! HADOKEN!" my projectile blasted a few lines of Heartless. They didn't experience a heavy loss, but that had been enough to catch their attention. A squadron of Heartless soldiers, along with a few of those S.W.A.T. type warriors raced at us. The last ones led the way, maintaining their shields up. "Ryu, would you be so kind as to join me in this endeavor?"
"I don't mind if I do..." my friend replied. We both stopped short and began to concentrate our energy to unleash our techniques. Soon, the five bronze saints, Morrigan, Sakura, Ranma, and Ryoga followed our example and gathered energy too. At last, all of us together unleashed a wave of energy like you wouldn't believe. It cut through the Heartless like a blade come from the Heavens. Still, there were plenty of foes left for us to fight, and they weren't willing to give up yet, not even as they ran at us, stumbling across the dead bodies of their companions.
As a large group of Heartless ran at us, I noticed that the Garrison's soldiers had reorganized themselves and had started to defend the fortress again. But the remaining Heartless were strategic in their attack. The soldiers fought a long, hard battle that would end in, at that time, whatever God wanted.
All we could do was to keep the other large group of their backs...
"Everyone! This way!" Demean suddenly yelled, drawing our attention. He was waving his arms high in the air, signaling us to go beside him. In less than two seconds, we were all there, ready to hear whatever he had to say. "I have an idea. It will be best if we attack the Heartless from the side, for they have formed their shield-bearers to protect themselves. They have no defense from the sides, however. For this, we need to be swift, in order to destroy the shield-bearers. Felicia, Link, Sakura, Akane, Vincent, Camille, Merryck, Morrigan, and myself will attack from the sides. When the shield-bearers have been eradicated, you shall attack from the front..."
"I understand your strategy, elf." Octavius interrupted. "I shall lead the attack from the front, then. Wilheim, Goofy, Cloud, and Leon will follow me in this offensive."
"I get it." Ryu intervened. "That means that the rest of us should clean the mess, right?"
"What do you mean by that?" Seyia asked. "Could you be more specific?"
"There is no time!" Demean yelled, as we all noticed that the wave of Heartless was nearly upon us. "Let us go!"
"Watch carefully, Seyia. You'll get our meaning in no time." I said.
The elf, the fairy, and the other swift guys quickly ran to the sides and penetrated the Heartless' defense from the sides. Demean used his knives, while Link slaughtered the S.W.A.T. foes with his sword; Felicia tore the troops apart with her claws; Akane and Sakura used quick punches to get rid of the foes; the two succubus attacked from a distance with their tentacles; Merryck slipped almost unseen by the Heartless and swiftly killed a couple of them, and Vincent used his gun to shoot down some enemies.
Once the defense had been broken, Octavius, and the other monsters wrecked havoc on the Heartless forces. There were some mafia Heartless in the group, and they didn't get a chance to use their machine guns against them: they had charged at the bunch of foes like a stampede. And so finally, our turn came.
"This is it, guys!" I cried, and started to gather energy. Ryu and the rest of my friends quickly caught on and called power to their fists. And so, another beam of energy come from all of us supermen crashed against the wave of Heartless, practically annihilating them. Those who couldn't use Ki, such as Ukyo and Ariel, relied on other sources. Wilheim's chick used her tiny-shuriken-like spatulas to do the job, while the ex-mermaid helped us with some of her potions.
Only a few Heartless remained after our onslaught. One of them, a new type of enemy I had never seen before, quickly leapt at me with blinding speed and knocked me down. I got up and got ready to fight him, but he was already on the run.
"HEY!" I shouted at him. "You running away? Goddamn chicken! Get back here!" It's a shame to admit this, but that stupid acrobat-like Heartless was a lot faster than me
He didn't get far, though. A swift arrow come from Link's bow pierced his chest and stopped him in his tracks for good.
"Shoot!" I cried. "That's one you owe me, Robin."
"How curious." He replied, with a smile. "I was about to say the same thing to you."
"You don't go around killing other people's enemies, William Tell. It's just not very sport-like."
"I shall keep that in mind the next time some other minion tries to kill you."
"Hey, hold it right there!" a soldier suddenly yelled. We all looked up at him, for he had called at us from the upper part of the wall, and noticed that there was a very big group of fighters pointing their weapons at us. Some of my friends raised their hands, but I didn't quite do that...
"What's with you, morons?" I cried. "Didn't you see us just save your butts from that pile of monsters?"
"Ken, you're not being very helpful..." whispered Aeris, who was standing close to me and had her arms high in the air.
"Soldiers of the Silver Garrison!" cried Tish. "We are not here to fight you. We have come to aid you in this battle! Now, please! Lower your weapons and let us fight this evil together!"
"See? That's the way you speak to a person who's pointing at your head with a gun." Aeris added. I only rolled my eyes and sighed.
The Garrison's soldiers looked at each other with questioning glances, not knowing what to do. Even then, they wouldn't lower their guns. Man, truly felt like kicking their butt. We had saved them from those jerks and they were pointing their guns at us? What's up with that?
Either way, we had no time to chat. All of a sudden, a faint cry coming from another part of the Garrison was heard.
"We're about to lose the wall! We need more men, now!"
The soldiers again looked at each other. Some of them left and ran at full speed at their comrades in need. Some others stayed behind, watching over us...
"Please!" Tish said. "You will not win this battle unless you fight alongside with friends!"
Again the quick glances. I really wanted to tape their head to their necks so that they would stop doing that.
"All right!" they finally said. "If what you say is true, then follow us to the northern wall!" and so they took off.
Felicia and the two succubus jumped to the upper part of the wall and followed the soldiers closely as the rest of us struggled not to lose sight of the swift were-cat and the other two girls.
We got to where the battle was in a minute or two. The perimeter of the Garrison was huge. Either way, as we arrived at the spot, we finally saw Dante. He was fighting alongside two other fellows: one of them had blue hair (it seemed like it had dyed it. It wasn't a natural blue, like Ikki's hair color don't ask anything regarding that, 'cause I declare myself ignorant on the matter) and wore a loose shirt and baggy pants. He was a pretty good fighter and knew his way around the sword well. The other one was a weird creature, that appeared to be some sort of a were-wolf. It wasn't long before I guessed that it had to be Takeesha, Dante's girlfriend.
On the spot, there was another guy, a soldier on a bike, that was cutting down the Heartless like grass. He was also very good at defeating the Heartless on motorcycles, which were quite a pain, as I've already told you. All I could see is that he had blonde hair. As he fought his way through the rows of enemies, he insulted them and mocked them, telling them that he was too much for any of them: we would either get along just fine or we'd hate each other, I thought.
"Dante!" Sora cried and slashed some Heartless in order to get to him, and blasted some foes off his back. Not much, though, because the Lucien was Dante's main shield, as he was hers. Each helped the other out of tidy situations quite a few times, and fought shoulder-by-shoulder. No doubt the Lucien was Takeesha, for only girlfriend and boyfriend fight so closely to each other, caring only about the safety of the other, much like Link and Aeris, or Wilheim and Ukyo.
Speaking about the latter two, they had already teamed up and were cutting down several units of Heartless. It was then that I noticed a new type of foe: knights. They were covered in hard, full plate armor and had a lizard-like helmet covering their heads, much like the head on the Heartless' motorcycles... They were quite strong and skilled with the sword, but both fellows managed to cut through them: Ukyo used her nimble feet and agility to slay them, while Wilheim unleashed his behemoth strength on them, destroying not only the Heartless, but also shattering their armors as if they were made out of glass.
We all joined them and made our best to reach Dante and the others before they would be overrun. Actually, some of my friends decided to go help at the foot of the broken wall, which was overrun by Heartless. The Garrison's soldiers were barely able to defend themselves from the attack.
Dante had begun to use magic spells, and was killing a lot of Heartless with his fire incantations. He was getting good at it. The biker had created a perimeter around us, impeding large numbers of Heartless to enter the ring we were in. The other warrior, the blue-haired one, leapt high from one place to the other, slashing Heartless as quickly as he could, while the Lucien swiped at her foes with her fierce claws...
Sora was fighting bravely and fiercely, especially that he now was by Dante's side, and that Goofy and Donald, their personal escort so to speak, had reached him. His skill with the sword had grown a lot: I take it he had watched all of our friends fight and had learned a little bit from each one. He was almost as agile as Demean, as tricky as Link, as strategic as Cloud, and as powerful as Wilheim. He still needed to perfect his fighting style, but he was doing very good. He parried the blows of the knight-Heartless and counterattacked without delay.
Donald and Goofy opened the way for the rest of us to help them. The duck fried some Heartless with his fire spells, while Goofy smashed lots of them with his trusty shield. He also covered us from the mafia-Heartless' bullets, for they had opened fire on us with their mean machineguns. They even gunned down some of their Heartless companions, and still they kept on firing...
Though we all got a bit injured during the fight, it wasn't long before we won through. And as I turned my head around to search for the rest of the guys that were fighting against the Heartless along with the Garrison soldiers, I saw that the foes had almost been eradicated. Seeing that they had lost, the Heartless began to flee. In a matter of seconds, there was not a living Heartless to be seen on the battlefield.
"That was harder than I thought." Sora muttered, as he sheathed the Keyblade. "Damn... I thought they'd never go. I'm glad these Heartless are running away."
"I'm not too thrilled about that, to be honest." Ukyo intervened. "You know what Sun Tzu said: a well-planned retreat can mean victory another day."
"Come on, don't be such a party pooper." I said. "We won today. If they come back, we'll give them another beating. Right, Sora?"
"Yeah!" the boy replied, enthusiastically.
"Jeez... I'm so glad that you're okay, Takeesha." Dante suddenly said. We all turned to him and saw that the Lucien was hugging him and licking his cheeks, as he struggled to get free. "But you're about to break my ribs again...!"
"I'm sorry, Dante!" Takeesha replied. "It's just that I'm so happy to see you! I thought you were dead! And when things are at their worst, you come and rescue me!"
"Oh, you know me." the kid said. "I like to make an entrance." He smiled at her and hugged her tenderly. She also hugged him, but this time, it was not a bear hug: it was something that he could tolerate.
"Hey, Dante, if you went to the circus while you were away, you should've brought some souvenir, other than the clowns." said the boy with blonde hair. I took a better look at him, and noticed that he was a bit taller than Dante. He also looked older. He had a tough build, yet a delicate face. But that wasn't too important. The important thing was that he had been looking at us when he had said those words.
As you might expect, I was the last person that was going to stay quiet.
"Clowns?" I exclaimed. "Listen, Conan, why don't you come here and say that to my face?"
"Are you talking to me?" he asked. Our other companions merely stared at the two of us... we were making a scene, no doubt.
"You got that right, mini-He-man. You'd best quit insulting us, if you don't want us to get mad and open a can of whoop-ass on your face."
"What did you just say?" the kid asked, looking at me defiantly.
"Knock it off, you two!" Dante yelled, and quickly came between us. "Cameron, they're my friends. Stop calling them names, will you? They're not a bunch of clowns, they're great fighters. Ken here is quite strong..." as he said this, I smiled innocently at the boy, whereas he stared at me with fire in his eyes. "...and could probably pound you to bits. So why don't you be nice and just shake hands?"
"Shake?" I said, offering my hand.
Cameron said nothing for a couple of seconds. He just stayed there, mumbling angrily to himself.
But all of a sudden, I heard the cocking of a lot of guns. I turned my head and noticed that our friends – the ones that had entered the wall to help the Garrison's soldiers – were walking to us with their hands on the back of their head, as all of the soldiers pointed at them...
"Oh, crap." I muttered.
"Wait!" Dante exclaimed. "Lower your weapons! These men helped us out! They're our friends! Don't hurt them!"
The soldiers hesitated for a moment before lowering their arms. And during that instant, Cameron smiled innocently at me and offered me his hand...
"Friends?"
I couldn't help it. As soon as the soldiers lowered their strange guns, I let out a chuckle and shook his hand.
"You got me, kid. But don't be too proud. Next time, I'll show you what I'm made of."
"Right, I bet you will." he replied, walking away from me.
"Okay, then..." Dante said, as he rounded up his friends and introduced them to us. "Everyone, this is Kane. He's a soldier, like myself, and is very skillful. He's also a very good friend of mine."
"Hi, y'all." the blue-haired kid replied. "Nice to meet you."
"And this here is Takeesha... She's my girlfriend." Dante added, as she took her by the hand.
"Hey." she answered, shyly.
Dante then introduced all of us (took him about twenty minutes) and then he suggested that we all went inside the Garrison to rest up. By that time, the soldiers were all fixing the broken wall as fast as they cold, as well as the cannons they had lost, curing the men that had been injured, and throwing out the Heartless' bodies. As we walked inside the city, Kane began to ask a lot of questions to most of us. He seemed very curious about us...
"Where do you guys come from? Are you all warriors? Exactly what race do you come from?" and all sorts of other questions. Naturally, it was the most talkative of my friends who answered. I wasn't in the mood for talking with anyone, right now. All I wanted was a pair of socks and a bed. My feet were colder than ice and my legs hurt like hell. I bet the rest of my friends felt this last sensation too. We had done a lot of effort just trying to stay on foot. Oh, you don't remember? Well, it wasn't until after that I did: Dante's world had twice the gravity than ours...
"Oh, that was such a nice nap!" I said, while yawning loudly. Someone had just knocked on the door that lead to the room I was in. It had been Dante. He asked me if I was ready to go to the main Headquarters, I think. I was still half asleep, and didn't quite understand his words. Even so, I nodded my head and shouted back: "Yeah, I'll be there in a few minutes!"
After the battle, Dante and the Garrison soldiers had provided us with a room (and socks, pretty warm ones at that, by the way), so we could rest a while. It had been a very demanding fight, and we all needed to get some sleep. As for me, I reckon that I slept about two, maybe two-and-a-half hours. Pretty good rest, if you ask me.
The room was quite small. It had only two doors; one of them lead outside and the other one was the door to the bathroom. There were only two beds on the room; I was, naturally, on top of one, and Wilheim was occupying the other. I know what you're thinking: 'What the hell was Wilheim doing there, with you? I thought Ryu was your best friend.' Well, yeah, but we all nabbed the first room that we saw. Wilheim had the fortune to share rooms with me. Still, I wondered what had been of Ukyo...
Curiosity overcame me as he started to wake up. I decided to ask him about it, but I first started with a light question, and its answer would say it all, to my surprise.
"Wilheim, what's up with you?" I asked. "I don't think that I've ever seen you so mad. It's not like I've known you forever, but it's quite a shock to see you as angry as you were when you kicked that Heartless' dead body. Is there anything that you want to share with me? Or would you rather that I just shut up?"
The young man sighed as he put on his shoes and stretched himself. I take it that he had a nice, long nap, too.
"I suppose that I can tell you." he said. "Are you that surprised? We have been fighting against these fiends for the longest of times. It appears as if we have spent our lives hunting them down. The memories that I had before this odyssey began have almost escaped my mind. For it seems that I have dedicated my entire live to the purpose of their eradication. I am wondering if this will ever end. And to see them sprout from the floor like worms makes me feel that I will never be able to go home. Perhaps we are doomed to fight until we cannot raise even a fist, to go on battling until life itself escapes on a breath come from our mouths. That is why I am so angry at the Heartless. I just want this to end, Ken. As, no doubt, you do."
"Yeah, I understand, Wilheim, but kicking a dead body out of anger?"
"Perhaps I am more hot-tempered than you might have imagined at the beginning." he replied. "Either way, that is enough idle chatter. We have to be going already. I reckon that the Garrison's general is waiting for us."
"All right, if you want to leave it like that, fine." I said. As we exited the room, I whispered to myself: "I thought that some talking would do you some good..."
We walked through a long corridor and finally got to the HQ of the Silver Garrison. It was riddled with soldiers and technicians locked in their computers. There were many screens depicting the damage done on the Garrison, the troops that were cleaning the mess up, and there were also radars, which showed us, thankfully, nothing out of the ordinary. Right to our left, there was a great hall, with lots of chairs. Anyway, that's not important. In that hall, all of our friends stood, along with Dante's buddies, some other soldiers (which were asking Dante a lot of questions), and a tall man that wore a fancy uniform. He had lots of medals on it and he also wore a cap that had four stars in it. I supposed that he had to be the general we had been looking for. And so, without saying a word, we approached the group.
"Ah, you're finally here, guys." Dante replied, as he turned to us. It looked as if we had been the ones that had slept the most... "General, these two are Wilheim and Ken, two fine warriors. Guys, this is General Gisla: he's the one in charge of the Garrison and its defenses."
"How'zit going?" I asked, waving my hand at him. I really wasn't good at behaving like a soldier. Wilheim on the other hand, was much more civilized. He shook hands with the general and then stood firm, with both arms behind his back...
"I thank all of you for helping us a while ago." he said, with a smooth and, undeniably, charming voice. Well, I guess that most generals must have one of the sort. "I must admit that without your help, it would probably not have been a victory... Dante tells me that this boy is capable of sealing away this curse from our world. Is that correct?" he asked, as he glanced at Sora.
"This boy possesses the Keyblade, sir." Demean replied. "It is the only weapon strong enough to break the Heartless' main weapons: the keyholes that they utilize to invade a world."
"We've already sealed some world's keyholes." Sora added. "We'll also have to look for this one if we want to get rid of the Heartless for good. If we do that, they'll all be gone in the blink of an eye, General."
"Perhaps you could help us with a bit of your army?" Shun asked.
"Most certainly." Gisla replied. "I will send out a platoon with you immediately, if you feel like it. However, I am concerned about these Heartless foes. You say you have fought them in the past?"
"Why, of course, sir." Merryck answered. "Well, although, to be perfectly honest, we have not exactly fought against this sort of Heartless, if you take my meaning. You see, we have noticed that the Heartless are quite tricky fellows, normally adapting themselves to the world they are invading. It is likely that the same is happening here, yet they are acting like intelligent individuals, you see. It is not a simple as it was before. Well, to tell the truth, it has never been simple: this only makes matters more difficult."
"I see." the General said. "In that case, than I think that it would be best if we dispatched you and the recognizance platoon after we learn the behavior of these creatures. Otherwise, we would send you to your doom. We cannot risk to have you overwhelmed by those monsters." he then turned to Dante and asked: "Dante, would you like to lead the team?"
"Me?" the kid asked, enthusiastically. "Yeah! I mean... yes, sir!"
"I can't believe that you already got your own mission!" Takeesha exclaimed happily, and licked Dante's cheek.
There was silence for a couple of seconds, which was suddenly broken by the General. He spoke to Dante, yet he did so in German...
"Machen man wissen?"
"Nein." the boy replied, shaking his head.
I had no idea what they had just said. I knew what language they were speaking on, but I didn't know what the hell they were saying. However, I knew that there was one than more person in the hall that knew. And I had one of them right beside me...
"Hey, Wilheim... what did they just say?"
"What they said is between them." Wilheim replied, much to my disappointment. "It is none of our business."
"But you did understand, didn't you?"
"Ken, if I would not have understood that, it would have been quite shameful, for remember that I am German."
"The only thing that disturbs me, General..." Dante said. His voice interrupted the delicious chat that Wilheim and I were having... "Is the fact that the Heartless could try to form an alliance with the creatures of the Abyss. What if that were to happen?"
"Um... Dante..." Takeesha muttered. But the General quickly raised his hand, asking for her to be silent, and so he explained.
"Dante, we have not been receiving any signals of the creatures of the Abyss. It has been several battles since we last saw one. That's why, not too long ago, I sent some scouts to investigate what had been happening with the Abyss."
"And? What did they find?"
"Something quite disturbing. I was shocked to hear this..." he paused for a few seconds (adding a bit of drama to the moment), and then replied: "It seems that the Abyss has been destroyed by the Heartless."
"WHAT?"
Before he could continue, an alarm went off, and many of the screens that the soldiers were constantly watching turned red. The soldiers that were taking a break quickly returned to their positions and checked their screens carefully. Like ourselves, I bet they were wondering what the hell was about to happen next. As Gisla approached one of the computers and stared at it silently, Takeesha said to Dante in a low voice:
"I'm going out to help. You stay here."
"What? How can you...?" Dante began, but Takeesha put her hand on his mouth to silence him.
"You've had it rough. Stay here for a while, okay? It's probably nothing too terrible. The worst is over, I think."
"You think?"
"Stay here, Dante. I promise I'll be right back." and with that being said, she bolted off. Dante stuttered some words, hardly anything understandable, and then stood still. He sighed and walked next to General Gisla, taking a look at the monitors in silence.
"What is going on?" asked Gisla.
"I don't know, sir." answered a young soldier. "It appears that something set the alarm system off, but I don't have a clear image on the mo—" before he finished, the image on the screen went black. "What?" he hit a few keys on his board, but nothing happened. "I lost the image, sir."
"Tell us something we don't know." Leon said, peeking over my shoulder.
"General! I have a clean image, over here!" another soldier called. We all raced to the computer, nearly killing each other to get a better view. "General... he's back. It's him."
"Oh, no..." the General muttered. He removed his cap and wiped some sweat off of his forehead. "This is not good..."
"Not good?" Dante exclaimed. "No... Takeesha!" and as expected, he ran as quickly as he could to find his girlfriend. The rest of us stayed behind... I don't really know why. I guess we all wanted to know what we were going to go up against. That's why we kept our eyes pinned to the soldier's screen...
The camera focused a strange figure, garbed in a long, leather coat. He wore black pants and shirt. His coat was open, revealing a shirt that had the phrase "Discover the night". The camera turned to his back... there it was: the Heartless' crest carved on him. Then it zoomed to his face. He had long, white hair, tied up in a ponytail. We couldn't see his face. His eyes were behind a pair of goggles and the rest of his face hid behind a metallic mask. He wore stylish leather gloves and boots on his hands and feet. A chain connected the two sides of his collar, and there, I spotted a black cross. He also held two evil-looking swords. Finally, the camera turned up and we all gasped in awe and fright as we saw a floating city, not too far from the Garrison...
All the turrets that were near the man turned around and began to shoot at him with full power. But the man didn't even get scratched... After the turrets stopped firing, he pointed at them with his finger, as if it were a pistol. "Bang", he said... and the turrets exploded into a thousand pieces as a bright light come from the man's finger blew them up. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I had never seen so much power. Neither of my friends said anything... They all just stared at the monitors in stupefied silence.
The man then lowered his head and began to get shot by hundreds of soldiers. He began to run like a demon come out of hell on the walls, and not a bullet managed to wound him. Some soldiers were shooting at him from the walls, while others were down in the city. He ran to the ones on the walls first. With nimble movements and a technique that only one person had (but not as developed as his), he slashed at the Garrison's men, cutting them down like grass. The youngest of us, who hadn't seen that much killing, Ariel, gasped in horror. Before she could start crying or anything, Aeris, who was the closest to her, covered her eyes and hugged her tightly. The rest of us kept watching the butchery in silent horror.
The man began to work on some spells, as he saw that the Garrison's soldiers had begun to attack him with magic. They were mainly fireballs that bounced off the warrior's body like rubber balls hitting an iron armor. The man raised his hand and brought it down quickly. As he did this, all of the soldiers were engulfed in a black bubble. We saw nothing for a couple of seconds. We merely heard agonizing screaming through the bubble and horrid sounds, as if something was being broken. As the bubble vanished, we gasped in terror as we realized that that which was being broken were the bones of the soldiers. Somehow, the man had cast a powerful gravity spell that had completely destroyed an entire platoon. Now I was really worried... I didn't know if we were strong enough to face this demon.
The man shot at another turret with the same, shiny blast. This time, we didn't hear the explosion from the soldier's radio, but we heard it as if we were there. It was clear that he was getting closer. The camera then turned to the ground, to another platoon of soldiers... Dante's friends were in there, and were marching at a fast pace to meet this new enemy. He was nowhere to be seen, though.
"We have wasted enough time here." Suddenly Octavius said. "It is time that we go aid the soldiers. More will die if we do not hurry."
"Didn't you see what that thing just did?" Yuffie answered. "If we go down there, we'll be the ones that are going to be killed!"
"Then so be it!" the were-bear replied and stormed off to the battle. We all looked at each other for a few moments, realizing that not only we didn't have any other choice: it was our job.
We quickly ran out of the main headquarters, hoping that there would still be a Garrison left to defend. We heard nothing but screaming and explosions coming from everywhere. It was as if there were a hundred of those monsters surrounding the Garrison, and closing in on us. But it was only one...
There were many monitors through the city. As we looked at them, we ran faster and faster. The man had already worked up Kane, and was a few seconds away from finishing Cameron. With the boy at his feet, all he had to do was cut him up. He quickly broke through his armor with his fist and threw him beside the unconscious Kane. Cameron had been knocked out...
We were almost there. And now Takeesha was facing the monster. The Lucien tried her best to injure the demon by swiping at him with her claws and biting him down as hard as he could. But even those sharp teeth of hers didn't sink down the man's skin. He then punched and kicked as if she were a training bag full of sand. The warrior's body bent horrible, as if it were the one of a rag doll. Then, he began to cut her with his sword. We all gasped in fear and anger and ran faster. He didn't cut any limbs, thankfully, for it seemed that he wanted her to live. But he did bruise her terribly. And still the Lucien struggled to fight back. The man finally kicked her hard enough to send her flying against a news van. Takeesha fell down hard. She struggled to get up, but as she did, the man walked to her and put his foot on her chest. He then kicked her while she was down... I think it's safe to say that he broke a couple of ribs. As we turned right on a corner, we heard his voice as he spoke to her.
"There are people who say they'll rip your heart out with bare hands. Still, none of them ever do it. Let me show you what it feels like..."
At last we got there. But Dante had beaten us to the scene. He had shot a furious fireball from his hand, which had succeeded in knocking the man down, and away from Takeesha. We all ran up to her as Dante gently shook her head.
"Takeesha... please, don't go dying on me." he whispered.
"Dante... I..." she murmured and then closed her eyes. She didn't die, but wouldn't wake up for a long time.
The boy stood up and glanced at us. He then nodded his head, as did we, understanding that he was ready for the battle, as were we. He then called out to the evil man.
"Get up, you coward! Face me like a man!"
The monster got up from the ground, and shook some snow off his coat. He walked to us and stared at Dante (I think. With those goggles and mask, only God knew where that guy was looking). He then sheathed his blade and spoke.
"I didn't think you magic would grow so much, Dante. Congratulations: you've outdone yourself." he said.
"What the...? How the heck do you know my name?" Dante demanded.
"What? You don't remember me? Come on, Dante, I thought you'd have a better memory. Oh, well. I suppose it would be rude of me not to show myself." he took off his mask and goggles... and we all stared at him in awe, without saying a word.
He was Dante. Well, almost. Only the color of his hair and eyes were different. These last ones were purple and gold... and they were evil. It even seemed that there was lightning in them. He began to laugh maliciously, as if he had just pulled out a prank on us... "Mhmh... hehe. Heh... HAHAHA!" believe it or not, he sent down a chill through my spine.
"What...?" Dante muttered. "How... what the... YOU?"
"Dante? Gwarsh... Why didn't you tell us about your brother?" Goofy asked. Some of us stared at him in silence. For my part, I was about to say something nasty to him. But that wasn't the time.
"He's not my brother, Goofy." Dante answered, somewhat vexed at the dog's words. He turned back to the foe and added: "...You've changed. I remember you. You were my shadow. You appeared just before the planet disappeared. You were nothing but a black body back then, bastard."
"Oh, you like? You see, this is what they call evolution..." the man replied, but was interrupted by a bullet come from a soldier up the wall. He managed to stop it with his hand and then looked up. There were now plenty of men ready to empty their guns on him. But they wouldn't get the chance to do so. 'Cause the monster flicked his wrist and another of those lightning bolts hit the wall, demolishing it and killing the people on top of it. Ariel screamed and turned back, covering her face in horror. We all turned to the man, muted by his evil powers, and so he spoke again. "I apologize. But people nowadays are quite rude. I just came down from the Sky Castle to say 'hi'. But what greeting do I get? Turrets shoot at me and soldiers try to shred me to pieces. Sadly, my reflexes have improved since last time, Dante. That's why they didn't stand a chance against me. Oh, I beg your pardon! I've forgotten to introduce myself. How clumsy of me. Anyway..." he bowed. "My name is Digaia. A pleasure to meet you all, make no mistake about it."
"Digaia..." Ukyo muttered. "You sick son of a bitch."
"Quite feisty, aren't we?" Digaia replied. "Anyway, the correct term would be perverted. Please don't call me that."
"Pervert—What the hell are talking about, bastard!" Ukyo snapped, but Wilheim stopped her from going up against Digaia.
"How rude. I'm surprised at your poor hospitality."
"Shut the hell up, damn it!" demanded Dante, furiously.
"If you do not hush your putrid mouth, I will go after you myself and cut you down with fire, boy!" Wilheim roared, menacingly.
"What? And here I thought that improvisation was a lost art. Only renaissance characters speak like that. What's with you?" Digaia asked.
Wilheim didn't say anything. He merely glanced at Dante, as did we all. It had sounded like something he would say.
"It's not my fault that this jackass speaks like me." he declared.
"Either way, I want all of you to know that Maleficent had ordered me to blow up all of your ships, but one." Digaia continued.
"What? What are you trying to pull, idiot?" Seyia interrupted. Shiryu had to hold him, as usual, so that he wouldn't go off fighting by himself.
"You'll see in a moment, but let me finish. And please, stop calling me names. I don't like that much." the monster replied. "Anyway, the Heartless ships that shot you down were under my command. I told them that I wanted to face all of you alive. That's why you weren't blown up. Because I want to have the honor of killing every last one of you."
"An honorable Heartless." Octavius chuckled dryly. "I never thought I would live to see a brave creature among rats."
"Strange indeed. But that's why you're all here. Oh, and Dante: I'll be especially glad to kill you. And don't think that I'm a pushover, like last time. I'm the real deal."
"You know, I so much wish you didn't have a mouth. Why don't you quit your yapping?" Dante challenged.
"I'm sorry. It's not everyday that you meet old friends."
"I'm not your friend!"
"Oh, come on, Dante. It's hard to see you and be silent. I just want to pop like a weasel."
"Are you done? Or is it just one of your best kept secrets? To bore people to death?"
"You're so stubborn, Dante. Just like your mother." This time, Dante didn't reply right away. None of us knew what to say. I think I don't lie when I tell you that none of us saw that one coming... "Oops. I'm sorry. Did I touch a sensitive spot?"
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Dante roared, throwing himself into battle. He tried to cut down Digaia with his sword, but failed. The Heartless leapt high into the air and landed far from us. Dante just stared at him with fire in his eyes, holding his weapon tightly. Some of us attempted to join him. But suddenly, he and turned to us and raised his hand. "NO!" he shouted. "It's personal, now! He's mine!"
"Come on, Dante, give it your best shot, sport!" Digaia cackled, as one of his swords disappeared, whereas the other one grew in size. "I think I should cut you some slack. Two swords against one is unfair." Enraged, Dante charged at him at full speed, aiming his sword at Digaia's head. The monster blocked the blow and countered with a swipe to Dante's feet. But our friend jumped over the sword and brought down his weapon upon Digaia's face. The fiend moved quickly to evade the hit, yet he still ended up with a small cut. He touched it and when he saw blood on his fingers, he smiled at Dante. "Very good, Dante, very good, indeed. Only your mother has been good enough to cut me, until now."
"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" the boy wailed, furiously, swinging his sword from one side to another. They kept on fighting fiercely. Dante used some of his magic spells against Digaia. The Heartless only evaded the shots: at that point, he wasn't trying to stop them. They battled on and on, Dante with rage on his eyes, Digaia with confidence and evil on his. We all knew what was going on, as they swords crashed together and sparks came from their steels. Digaia was just toying with our friend...
"Why don't you ask your dear General what happened in Madrigal, Dante? He'll surely fill you in on what happened to your mom." Digaia taunted.
"I'LL SHRED YOU TO PIECES!" Dante replied.
"I'd like to see you try." the Heartless sneered... and stopped playing with him.
He punched Dante, and every time he did, black bubbles came out of his fists. Yep, you guessed it: gravity spells. Each time one hit Dante, he cried loudly in pain as his body bent down. Either way, he always found the strength to get back to his feet and keep on battling. Later on, Digaia used another fierce attack...
"Thunjira!" he cried, but not too loudly. A sphere of blue lightning engulfed Dante and not only electrocuted him; it also sent that nasty shockwave through his body that bent his bones and muscles. It was a combination of lightning and gravity...
But Dante still wasn't willing to give up. Even then, I knew that he wasn't going to win this battle. I ran at his aid, but Ryu stopped me.
"Ryu, let me go!" I demanded.
"Stop, Ken! It's Dante's fight! He said so!" my friend answered.
"I don't give a damn about what he said! I'm going to help him, goddamn it!"
"Let him keep his honor, Ken!" Ryu shouted.
I knew that he wasn't going to let me go. I stopped thrashing and stood still, worried about our friend... I had to let him do his own fighting. But I couldn't stand to see him get beaten up like that.
Digaia had already cut a lot of Dante's body. The boy was bleeding from almost everywhere. And yet he kept on battling. I suppose that the memory of his mother and the rage he felt kept him afoot. Nevertheless, it wasn't making much a difference...
Suddenly, Dante managed to disarm Digaia. Their swords twisted fiercely, cutting the air about them, and finally, the Heartless' blade flew far away from him.
"FINISH HIM OFF, DANTE!" I screamed.
But Dante had already lost the battle. As he tried to slice Digaia into two, the fiend moved out of his enemy's blade's way and then pummeled him with his fists and feet. Dante couldn't even move as the Heartless' punches broke his body. Our friend managed to block one of the punches and tried to kick Digaia on the stomach. However, the fiend quickly got out of the blow's way. He leapt into a lamp post and stayed there. Dante conjured a fire spell and threw it at the Heartless. But the enemy was too quick: he kept on jumping from lamp post to lamp post, tiring Dante with every leap. The boy finally couldn't take it anymore. He fell to his knees, gasping for air. Then, his opponent charged at him and began to beat him up again. And every time that it seemed that Dante was about to fall to the ground, Digaia held him and attacked him mercilessly. At long last, he kicked him in the stomach and sent him flying against a news van, the same one that had stopped Takeesha... Digaia wiped Dante's blood off his hands and suddenly noticed that Dante had managed to cut his shoulder, somehow. However, it was an insignificant cut.
"You know, I know forty-two martial arts." the monster said. "I've mastered the use of all sorts of weapons, thank you very much. You don't need to ask what you're thinking, I'll answer right away: I'm much better than you." all of a sudden, his sword came flying back to his hand. He walked toward Dante and got ready to finish him off. I tried to leap back into action, but Ryu didn't let me.
"Ryu, he's going to kill him!" I exclaimed.
"Not yet, Ken... not yet." he answered.
Dante slowly got up. He looked in pretty bad shape, bleeding from everywhere. Digaia ran at him and evaded Dante's clumsy attempt of a stab. The fiend sidestepped and buried his sword slightly on Dante's side. The boy collapsed, letting out a weak cry of pain. Digaia swung his sword at Dante's neck. He barely managed to parry it, but his own weapon broke. Digaia smiled wickedly and said:
"Bye-bye."
"Now can I help him?" I asked Ryu, as my heart leapt out of my chest.
"Now!" Ryu exclaimed.
"HADOKEN!" I cried, and shot a weak, but fast wave of energy at Digaia. He managed to leap out of its way just in time. Either way, that was my plan. I wasn't meaning to kill him, of course. I just wanted to keep Dante alive.
"You people have never heard of manners, have you?" he said, as he summoned his other blade. "You can't interrupt a duel. Just face that Dante is as good as dead." We didn't reply. We just put ourselves on guard and waited for him to make his move. "Is that how it's going to be?" he asked. "Oh, well..." he was ready to attack us, when he suddenly noticed something on his forehead. He raised his hand and touched it. "Sweat..." he murmured. "Amazing. I salute you, Dante." he added, turning to our fallen friend, who still struggled to get up from the ground. "Too bad your mother didn't last that long..."
The boy couldn't get up. Yet that didn't stop him. He began to crawl to Digaia, still yearning for a piece of him.
"You still think you can beat me?" Digaia asked. "Tsk-tsk-tsk. That is so sad."
With that being said, he leaned back and let out a shout. It was so loud that we had to cover our ears. The windows on the city and its cars couldn't stand it and exploded. Every glass on the area broke down. Still, I thought that was the best chance we would ever get to take him down. And all of my friends thought this as well. We all began running at him at full speed, trying our best not to let the damn scream finish us. This time, we meant business...
Or at least we think we did. For out of the blue, four beams of massive energy came crashing down on the snowy floor nearby. None of us received a direct impact, but the amount of energy used in those projectiles had been so huge that when it exploded, their shockwaves knocked us out of our feet. The energy had almost destroyed our bodies... We were lucky to be alive.
That was it. I'm ashamed to admit it, but that was it. We survived because of a miracle. But none of us were in condition to fight. Not even one. Out of us, thirty-and-something fools, not even one had the strength to get up. We heard nothing but that strange sound that you hear after a loud concert for a few moments. And when it faded, we noticed that Digaia was laughing, along with other enemies...
I struggled to look up and saw, indeed, saw four individuals. Two men, one Lucien, and some other thing. When Digaia stopped laughing, he glanced at them and said to us:
"I'm sorry, really, so sorry! I forgot to introduce you to my friends! But that's okay. I'll let you meet them now." He walked past by each of them and named them. "This is Jace." he said. The boy wore a red jean jacket that reached to his runners, and blue jeans. The jacket was a bit open to show a white shirt with a flaming skull, and underneath it, it said "BURN BABY!". If I would've been able to speak, mark my words: I would've surely commented on that shirt. Anyway, he was also carrying two separate tanks which connected to a lot of guns around his arm. He wore a bright red bandanna around his neck, and a cowboy hat over his brown hair (later on, I don't know how many remarks went through my head about that hat). He also had a scanner over his eye. It was clipped to one ear and had a red screen.
"This is Tamora Leslin. She doesn't talk much, but is essential on the battle field." Digaia added, as he walked past another team member. It had been the Lucien. He had brown fur and was the only one wearing a gold loincloth. "This here is Josie." he said, as he walked past another boy. This one was a bit skinny. He wore a brown coat over his buttoned, blue shirt, and jeans. Despite his appearance, I could tell, from his eyes, that he had great power. Oh, and he was also holding a big chain around him with the blade of a scythe attached to it. That also sort of gave him away. His hair was bright golden; not just an ordinary blond (And I'm not an ordinary blond, if that's what you were thinking).
"And last, but not least, this is Fiona." he concluded, as he stopped next to what seemed to be a human at first glance. A mask covered the lower half of her face, so I can't exactly tell you what she looked like. She had long, dark hair and wore black clothes. Her arms covered in bandages were long and she only had three fingers, with three great talons protruding from them. She held a long, grim-looking scythe behind her back, just between her wings. Yep, she had wings. Long and leathery that ones, at that, too... "She is mute." Digaia said. "But you'll know what she means to say." he then kissed her forehead. Never thought I'd see a Heartless do that. "Well, long story short, they're all pretty powerful, almost as powerful as myself. Not a bit weak, I'll tell you that. Together, they're unstoppable. They call themselves the Four Horsemen; a suiting name, don't you think? Just so that you know how powerful we truly are, let me tell you something: the five of us alone destroyed the Abyss."
I really can't think of anything to say to that even now. What would you answer to that? What I did do, though, was to let out a chuckle of desperation.
At that moment, Jace lifted his arm up and pointed at us with his finger as if it were the cannon of a gun. I was almost sure what was going to come next. Luckily, I was wrong. Digaia quickly twisted his finger and said:
"Not yet, Jace. The bet would be off if you did that."
"Oh. Sorry about that, boss." the boy answered.
"...Bet?" Sora managed to ask. "What bet...?"
"Jeez, I'm so clumsy, I'm forgetting everything!" Digaia chuckled. "Um... I got it. Josie, you won last time... why don't you fill them up."
"Sure, why not?" the other kid said. "It's like this. The one who kills the most of you wins. And the prize is to have fun while we look for the princess of Heart."
"Which should be somewhere near here." Digaia intervened. "There's only left. So, if we win the battle, we'll win it all. She's the last one that's needed to open the ultimate door."
"And you guys can't beat us." said Josie. "Not when we put our heads together."
"Huh? How do we do that?" asked Jace... not the brightest monster, I might say.
"When we worked together." Josie said.
"Oh, got it."
"Stupid..."
"That's unimportant." Digaia said. "The kicker is that we'll bet on your lives. But now is not the time."
"What the... hell do you mean...?" Wilheim struggled to say.
"Chump, it'd be no fun to kill you like that. We want a real challenge." Jace said. He walked to him and then something caught his eye... "Wow! What a great sword! Mind if I keep it, boss?"
"Suit yourself." Digaia replied.
"Get your hands off it...!" Wilheim muttered, holding on to his sword as hardly as he could. But then, Jace kicked his face, leaving him unconscious.
"Don't be such a sore loser." he said. "You'll have a chance to win it back, if you beat me. Heh... what a joke."
"I really don't care if Maleficent gets mad at me for not finishing you now." Digaia said, glancing at Sora. "I know you're the Keyblade bearer, and all. But what the heck. You're all beaten, anyway. Here's the deal: I'll give you eight days. That's a week. No Heartless will attack you during that time. Prepare yourselves. Train if you like. You won't win. No sir. But you still have got to give it a try. And don't think about running away. If you do, the Heartless ships on orbit will blast you to pieces on my command." he paused as he walked to Dante and threw him his sword, covered in blood. "By the way, this is yours." Then he looked at all of us and concluded: "Eight days. We'll attack with our whole army then. It'll be like setting fire on a stack of hay to find a needle."
"Huh? What are you talking about? I thought we were going to run the whole city down." Jace declared, proving once again, that he was the stupidest one of the bunch... and was the one with the most powerful weapon.
"I mean the princess, Jace, the princess." Digaia answered, and for the first time, he seemed exasperated. "The stack of hay is the Garrison, and the needle is the princess of Heart. Please! You're killing the analogy!"
"Oh..."
"Hey, Dante..." Digaia said. "Tell me something: Machen man wissen?"
"...N-Nein..." Dante answered, faintly.
"I won't tell them." Digaia said, with a smile. "But if you want to give a bit of battle, it'll be your only choice."
We all then heard sirens. I supposed they were the medical vans. I just hope they wouldn't take too long... My eyesight was starting to get all blurry.
"Eight days, people. See you then." Digaia repeated. He turned to his team and said: "Meet me up at the Sky Castle." They all nodded in response. That's the last thing I saw before I fell unconscious.
When I woke up, there was a paramedic studying my injuries. I turned to him, but he kept me still with his hand.
"Try not to move. You're not in a very good shape."
"My friends... where...?" I mumbled.
"They're all alive. Somewhat injured, but they're alive. As for Dante, he's lucky to be breathing." he gave me room to sit up and said: "Off you go. You can walk back to the headquarters on your own. I think it was only the shock of those energy waves that left you so weak."
"How... how is everybody else?" I asked.
"Your friends?" he asked. "You're the only one that's woken up."
"No... the soldiers."
"Oh... we suffered many casualties. But at least Cameron, Kane, Takeesha, and Dante are alive."
"Where's Dante?"
"He's over there." the paramedic replied, pointing at two paramedics. They were busy working on someone. Dante, I guessed. "He's not doing to well. It seems that he has... Oh, wait!" he exclaimed, as one of his colleagues signaled something. "It seems that he's wakening up!"
"Dante...? Dante!" I exclaimed. I got to my feet and ran at his side. He had barely opened his eyes and was struggling to sit down. One of the paramedics helped him. I suppose that he had no injuries on his spine... "Are you okay, Dante?"
"Umm... no." he replied.
"Be careful." one of the paramedics said. "You're still pretty weak. We'll get you to the hospital in a minute."
"Alright." Dante mumbled.
"What happened?" I asked.
"They left... didn't you see?"
"No... I fainted right when Digaia said to the others to meet him at Sky Castle..." I paused for a second and then added: "I can't believe we got our butts kicked by a bunch of brats. Look how they left us!" I looked at the rest of my friends. All of them were still out. There was a paramedic per person... I could only hope that they were all in good hands.
"Now you see what brats are capable of." Dante said. "Either way, that wasn't the last thing he said... he said 'thank you for the two gifts'. Then he left."
"Two gifts? I can understand one... Wilheim's sword, no doubt. What could the other one have been."
"I don't know... an easy victory?" Dante suggested, angrily.
"No, I..."
It then hit me. And as I gave a quick glance at Dante, I knew, in his face, that he had found out for himself. Something had gone terribly wrong.
While the paramedics were still busy trying to cure his wounds, Dante and I scanned the entire battlefield. We looked at each and every one of our friends. And then, my heart leapt. I felt it pressing against my lungs as I held my breath. I had the same sensation that someone has when he's about to receive news about someone's death...
"Dante..." I muttered, as we looked at each other and asked at the same time: "Where's Ukyo?"
