Chapter Thirty-five The King's Secret
Vincent's escape from the dungeons of Hollow Bastion was not easy, the details were lost in a haze of white hot rage and determination. Vincent refused to be treated like a beast. He was not a monster, he was not one of…them.
For days now he had searched for his friends, Ansem had not told him where the Turks had gone before stealing his heart. Heartless. The reality of his condition had not set in yet. He was still in denial of what had happened to him. He was sure that numb feeling would just go away soon, it would only be a matter of time.
Outside a bar he found the familiar black Gummi Ship of his friends, Vincent was not relieved to see it, he felt nothing looking at it. He stepped inside and saw his friends Rude, Reno, Elena and Tseng sitting and laughing over drinks and food. They were talking about their latest adventure, about how they defeated a giant monster at a palace, but destroyed the palace in the process. Vincent approached them. Suddenly Reno shuddered like he was cold and turned around quickly.
"Vin? It that really you?!" Reno was so surprised he spilled his drink onto Elena. She didn't notice. None of the Turks noticed. They were all staring at Vincent.
"I-I don't believe it! It really is Vincent. How is this possible? You went missing in Hollow Bastion, we thought you were dead!" Elena explained.
"Vincent, what happened to your hand?" Tseng asked. In the black suit all the Turks wore his golden claw was clearly visible. As was the black and red mark of the Heartless that was brandished over Vincent's breast pocket.
"He's a Heartless," Rude stated. The Turks pulled out their guns, "Stay away from us, you're dangerous. You've seen what those things do, they take your hearts and turn you into monsters. We don't want to become monsters,"
"I wouldn't steal your hearts, you guys are my friends," Vincent said matter-of-factly.
Rude cocked his weapon, "Not anymore you're not. Heartless don't have friends,"
"Try it again!" Riku demanded.
"I told you, healing magic doesn't work on Heartless!" Donald yelled back, "I've already tried three times. I can't keep wasting my magic like this,"
Vincent was slumped against a broken stone wall, his black Heartless blood was oozing out a gaping hole in his chest. He was unresponsive. Riku paced back and forth desperately, running his fingers through his hair, "Vincent you stupid Heartless! Why did you have to go and do that! I could have handled him, I would have been fine on my own,"
"Now that's a good boy," Horge said praisingly after Riku offered to show the commander where he had seen Kida and Milo dive underwater. Sinclair returned with several crew members, all holding long crates. Someone grabbed a crowbar and started opening crate after crate, inside each one were several riffles and belts full of bullets.
Riku was confused, "What do we need those for?"
"What do you think kid? That they're just going to hand over their treasure? We didn't come all the way down here to leave empty-handed. Especially after their king said we can only stay a day," Horge immediately turned to Vincent, "Well Valentine, it looks like it's your time to shine. With your aim and experience, I'm going to be counting on you to do most of the heavy lifting,"
Vincent said and did nothing. Riku exchanged horrified looks with Donald, "We are not going to help you rob and hurt the Atlantians!"
"Well son, you'd better. When you signed up for the crew, you agreed to do everything I ordered you to," Horge put matter-of-factly.
"When you put it that way…" Riku paused. Suddenly, he summoned his sword and charged at Horge. Sinclair grabbed her gun from her belt and shot at Riku. A golden claw grabbed the white haired boy's shoulder and pushed him out of the way. The lieutenant's bullet hit Vincent squarely in the chest, sending the man backwards and slamming against a wall, he did not move. Dr. Sweet ran over and pushed his pointer and middle fingers against the Heartless man's neck and shook his head.
"He doesn't have a pulse," Sweet said sadly. The doctor suddenly had a reluctant look on his face.
"Sinclair, now why did you have to go off and kill Valentine like that? He was one of my most useful men," Horge said irritably. Sinclair shrugged apologetically. Riku and Donald ran over to Vincent's unmoving body and looked back to Horge, "I assume this means this is your resignation?"
Riku snarled and gripped his sword tightly. Donald held his scepter up, ready for a battle.
"Fine, just don't think you can get a ride back with us, or that you'll get paid that ship you wanted," The commander motioned to the crew and grabbing weapons and tools. They followed Horge out of camp, leaving Riku and Donald behind with Vincent, and without any visible way of ever finding Sora or the others again.
"Stupid Heartless!" Riku screamed again, grabbing Vincent's cape and shaking him violently, "Why'd you have to play hero now, sacrificing yourself like that? Don't you know that that's Sora's most annoying quality?!"
Suddenly a fist collided painfully with Riku's jaw, sending the young man backward. The boy was dazed but could barely make out Vincent gingerly rubbing the back of his head. Donald squawked, "He's alive!"
"Of course I'm alive," Vincent said hoarsely. He pulled himself to his feet and his blood pulled itself back inside his body and he healed, "You've never seen a Heartless get destroyed with one shot before, have you?"
"But you weren't moving. And Sweet said you had no pulse…" Riku babbled, still rubbing his jaw.
"I got knocked out when I hit my head. And of course I wouldn't have a pulse, remember that Sweet couldn't hear my heartbeat during our physicals. No heart, no pulse," Vincent explained. He noticed he was still wearing the crew's uniform, "I don't think I want to wear this thing anymore. Let's get out of these rags and help Milo."
"I told you what it said already!" Milo said in a tone of a controlled scream. Horge shoved Milo and Kida through the doors to the throne room. The guards brandished their weapons to protect their king, but upon seeing his daughter in danger, the King told the guards to pull back.
"Then just humor me and read it again," Horge waved the ripped page in Milo's face patronizingly.
"All it says is 'the Heart of Atlantis is in the eyes of our King'. If it said anymore I'd read it," the cartographer exasperated.
"If that's the case, then he knows," Horge marched forward and slammed the king in the gut. Kida screamed as the frail old man buckled down, "Where's the heart, we know you know!"
"I will never tell you," the king said feebly. Horge threatened to hit the man again. Milo was about to protest, but surprisingly another one of the crew spoke up.
"Hold on Horge, I didn't sign up for this. People weren't supposed to get hurt. You already killed Valentine, I'm not going to be a part of this if it's going to involve blood," Sweet said decisively. Though the doctor's warnings were futile, Milo couldn't help being just a bit happy that someone was taking a stand.
Horge ignored Sweet and was about to hit the king again but instead he noticed something from the throne. The stones that made up the garden in the throne room looked like the symbol on Milo's journal, "The Heart of Atlantis is in the eyes of Our King,"
The commander motioned to Sinclair and with her riffle, pushed Milo and Kida to the center of the garden. The three of them and Horge stepped on the center stone and the palace began rumbling. Slowly the floor sank, revealing a chamber beneath. As the pedestal the four were standing on continued its decent an eerie blue light filled the chamber. In the center of the cavernous room, floating above a deep pool of water was the Heart of Atlantis. The fluid giant blue crystal was orbited by giant carved faces. As the pedestal finally stopped on the ground Kida collapsed onto her knees and wept, "The Kings of our Past!"
"Can we hurry this along?" Horge said insensitively as Kida said a chanting prayer in Atlantian. Milo helped her gently to her feet and gave the commander a look of burning hatred, "Well Thatch, how do we get the crystal?"
"Do I look like an engineer? There is a giant suspended object a hundred feet in the air over a pool of water, goodness knows how deep," Milo snapped, kicking a small stone into the pool to illustrate his point. Suddenly the crystal turned from calm blue to a violent red, shooting out beams of light all around it. One of the beams of light hit the crystal on Kida's neck and turned white. Kida looked as though she were in a trance and began walking towards the water. Milo called out after her, "Kida!"
"All will be alright, Milo Thatch," She said in Atlantian. She walked off the shore of the pool and began treading on top of the surface of the water. When she stepped directly under the crystal another beam of light appeared and pulled her up. She disappeared in the light as the crystal became blue again and changed forms. The crystal solidified into a statue, one that looked like the princess of Atlantis.
"You can't do this!" Milo begged as the crystallized Kida was placed inside a crate, "You don't understand how important she is. You think the crystal is some kind of giant jewel, I thought it was some kind of battery. We're both wrong. This crystal is what's keeping these people alive. It extends their lives, powers them, allows them to heal. The crystal is just as much a part of them as they are a part of it. It is the Heart of all these people, if you take it, they'll be doomed!"
"Now, that changes everything," Horge laughed.
"Yes, with a story like that we can sell it for ten times as much as we were asked for," Sinclair sneered. Suddenly a shot buzzed by her ear.
"You're not taking that crystal anywhere," A voice called from above. Vincent, Riku and Donald were standing above the palace, prepared to attack again.
"Valentine?! Y-you were dead!" Horge blurted, the first time the man showed any kind of surprise, "What are you?"
"I am what those people will become if you take that crystal," Vincent jumped down from the ruin and landed eye to eye with the commander. Though momentarily taken aback, Horge recovered and made a gesture.
Suddenly all of the crew were aiming their riffles at the Heartless. While he may have survived one blast, Vincent knew this many guns would definitely destroy his Heartless body. He stepped back in front of Milo to protect him. Riku and Donald followed suit, jumping down from the ruins and surrounded Milo. And much to everyone's surprise, Sweet stepped back with Milo and put his hand on the cartographer's shoulder. Horge rolled his eyes irritably, "Now that everybody's made up their mind, let's head out,"
"Looks like you'll be able to open another shop with your dad, Audrey," Milo called out as the crew began driving away. One of the rigs suddenly stopped, " And Vinny, now you can open a whole chain of flower shops! Think you'll ever run out of bacon ever again, Cooky?"
More and more rigs stopped and Audrey, Vinny, Mole, Mrs. Packard and Cooky jumped out and took their stand with Milo. Horge merely shrugged, "Less ways to split the money,"
Without another word, the rest of the crew drove over the bridge and returned back to the tunnels. As the crystal left Atlantis, the observing Atlantians saw the pendants around their necks stop glowing. Mrs. Packard flicked her cigarette, "That was a beautiful sentiment, but this means we're going to die now,"
"No, it doesn't," Milo shook his head and ran back into the palace. The king's guards were trying to support him, it was clear Horge's blows wounded the man more than expected.
"Kida…" the King said feebly.
Milo turned to Sweet and Donald, "Can you help him?"
"We'll try," Sweet nodded and brought out his instruments. Donald started waving his arms to cast a healing spell. The king pushed them away.
"No, do not worry about me, I am an old man that has seen millennia rise and fall. Save Kida, bring me back my daughter. Do not let her become like her mother," The king gasped.
"What are you talking about?" Milo demanded.
"The state of this world is my fault. Like a fool I tried to use the crystal to create war and my attempts backfired on me, causing this country to begin collapsing on itself. The crystal saved us, but in order to do so, it had to use a human host. It chose Kida's mother, my beloved wife, and we were saved. But she was lost," The king's breath was getting more and more shallow, "Young man, I was wrong about you, it is clear you care about this world. Take my pendant and go, go and save my daughter!"
With his last ounce of strength, the king took off his necklace and handed it to Milo. Milo nodded solemnly. He turned to Sweet and Donald and commanded, "Watch over the king, I'm getting the princess back,"
Without wasting any time Milo ran outside the palace and began using his crystal to turn on the fish shaped sculptures. The Atlantians looked at him curiously, not sure what he was doing. Riku walked up to him, "Milo, what's going on?"
"A fight," Milo replied simply and began showing the other Atlantians what the fish machines were capable of, "See, do this,"
"That's what I wanted to hear!" Riku jumped onto a fish machine that looked like a shark behind the Atlantian girl he had spent the day with. Other Atlantians did the same and began flying out of the city to follow their princess.
"Got anything sporty, like a tuna?" Vinny asked. Milo glared at him and the demolitions expert jumped on the nearest fish.
"You'd better come with me," Audrey said as she grabbed Milo's hand and got in the driver's seat of her machine. Vincent chose to climb on as well. Audrey gave the Heartless a dubious look but said to Milo, "We're gonna go after Horge ourselves, but I've got to warn you: we might be able to outnumber him now, but he's never surprised,"
The fleet of Atlantians warriors caught up quickly to Horge and his crew. Though it was clear the Atlantian machines were faster and more advanced than their former commander's, Horge's forces still had weapons. The Atlantian vehicles were seemingly defenseless. Riku and his copilot managed to dodge a hail of bullets from a machine gun but were losing patience, "How are we going to get the princess back if we can't fight back?!"
Suddenly Vinny pressed a panel on his vehicle and a beam of energy blasted out of his fish and disintegrated one of Horge's flying rigs, "That'll work,"
"Yo Milo, Horge is just up ahead!" Audrey called out.
"You said we'd probably have him outnumbered!" Milo squawked.
"I also said Horge is never surprised," Audrey replied.
"I managed to surprise him before," Vincent called out as he loaded his weapon, "I'll do it again,"
Audrey followed Horge up the winding tunnels as the Atlantians, Vinny and Mole fought against their former crew. The three realized where the commander was heading with the crystallized princess: the magma chamber of the dormant volcano. At the sealed entrance, some of Vinny's dynamite was wired at the top, ready to blow and provide escape to Horge's Gummi Ship. Milo snarled, "He's going to get away!"
"Not if we can help it!" Audrey announced as she observed the crate hanging from a chain below the balloon shaped Gummi, "You go and try to stop Horge. Vincent and I will cut the princess free,"
Horge spotted Vincent, Audrey and Milo catching up to them quickly. He realized he would need to outrun them if he had any chance of escape, "We need to lighten the load!"
Sinclair had also seen the machine's approach and was already dumping cans of fuel and extra ammo outside the cockpit, "There's nothing more we can get rid of unless one of us wants to jump,"
"Ladies first," Suddenly Horge seized Sinclair and threw her out of the ship. She screamed as she fell past Milo and the others and hit the ground. Horge called after her jovially, "Nothing personal!"