The Third Scroll

I unrolled the third scroll, being careful not to damage the brittle old paper than it was written on. You had to be extremely careful when dealing with anything this old, after all.

"Hmmm," I said to myself, "Not much mention of Xehanort yet on this scroll..."

Lexaeus leaned over slightly, to see the scroll easier. Unlike the previous one, this third scroll was written in the language of the World of Darkness once again, so I didn't need to bother with the translation guide for the Elven language. I had already written a quick translation of various words on my clipboard, to eliminate the need for switching back and forth between the scroll and the translation guide very often, and it was working fairly well--only a few words were difficult to translate, and they were mostly old words that weren't in use in the more-recent version of the language.

"It seems," I said, "That we've discovered a scroll detailing the events in the World of Darkness after the defeat of Gil-Neithev. Apparently, the war wasn't over just because the primary enemy was gone... in fact, it had spread to the World of Twilight as well."

When Xehanort was away in the World of Light, fighting Gil-Neithev, the people of the World of Darkness had managed to fight off the remaining Light creatures, forcing them through the second of the enormous doors that connected the worlds to each other.

But within the world beyond that door, the World of Twilight, another battle was raging. Gil-Neithev had actually attacked the Twilight World soon after ruining the World of Light, but had left to deal with the World of Darkness before it was finished with its previous target.

The people of the Twilight World fought off the Light creatures, but it seemed that those creatures were no longer the only enemy. Some of their own kind had betrayed them, and become obsessed with the Light--even going so far as to aid the Light creatures rather than their own families.

The three initial traitors soon became an army of Light-crazed warriors, each of which could control the Light creatures much like Gil-Neithev had done years before. The people of the Twilight World knew they couldn't defeat this new force on their own, so they sent messengers to the far corners of the world, searching for anyone that could help.

And help came surprisingly quickly. A group of strange wizards, skilled both in magic and in metalworking, apparently had met the messengers on the way there, and had changed their course toward the last stronghold of the Twilight World's people soon afterward.

Working deep within the basement of the castle, these wizards constructed several strange weapons that had never been seen before--key-like in shape, and oddly powerful considering their appearance. At first, three of these Keyblades were constructed--one symbolizing Light, one for Darkness, and one for the Twilight in-between the two forces--but soon it became obvious that three would not be enough.

More Keyblades were constructed, given to the most powerful warriors of the Twilight World, but then something terrible happened--the enemy learned how to construct Keyblades of its own.

But these were not the same as the Keyblades made by the wizards. Whereas each of the wizards' Keyblades had a small chain on the end with some symbol or object attached, the Keyblades made by the enemy were different, and lacked this keychain.

They were also different in the way they were created. While the wizards created their Keyblades from ordinary metal infused with massive amounts of magic, the Keyblades of the enemy were made by extracting and purifying the hearts of those they had killed in battle. Though Gil-Neithev's influence was necessary to produce Light creatures with any significant amount of strength, it was not required to synthesize hearts into a Keyblade--the traitors could easily do this themselves, by using their control over the power of Light.

The warriors of the Twilight World were slaughtered. The battlefield grew more and more desert-like as the Light creatures advanced, their army fronted by the three greatest warriors who fought in the name of Gil-Neithev. Even those who were given the initial three Keyblades could not hold out for long--though the majority of the Light army was destroyed by these three warriors, the three leaders of the enemy army were simply too powerful for them.

Even the great war-machines, constructed by the wizards after Keyblades failed, were unable to defeat the three--their Keyblades were more powerful than the simpler ones held by footsoldiers, and no simple robot could stand up to them for long.

It seemed that the Twilight World was doomed. The three Keyblade wielders were exhausted, forced further away from their home base by their enemies and with no support from robots or other soldiers. Eventually, they too were killed, and their Keyblades fell to the ground and became imbedded into it, much like those of the enemy's warriors who had also fallen in battle.

The three enemy warriors stole the Keyblades, preparing for one last assault on the Twilight World's castle, when suddenly someone else appeared in the distance.

Xehanort.

The one who had defeated Gil-Neithev itself, the Warrior of Darkness, had come to the Twilight World as well to finish off the last remnants of Gil-Neithev's attack on existence. The three enemy warriors attacked, but their stolen Keyblades refused to stay with them for long and quickly disappeared. Now only armed with a single Keyblade each, they were no match for Xehanort--he slashed through their armor with his sword, flung each of them to the ground, and then summoned a storm of Darkness large enough to encompass almost the entire battlefield.

When the Darkness faded and the deserted landscape became visible once again, the three warriors were gone--there was not even any sign left of their Keyblades. The Keyblades of fallen warriors had been destroyed by the blast, which uprooted them from the ground and allowed the hearts they were composed of to become free once again.

Almost as soon as Xehanort appeared, he left again, creating an opening to the Dark Passage and returning to his own world--the World of Darkness--never to be seen again in the Twilight World.

Xehanort had now saved three worlds--may his legacy be remembered forever.

"Too late for that, I guess," Zexion said, "All that anyone remembers of Xehanort now is the psychopath who nearly destroyed the World of Light."

"Yes," Lexaeus added, "It's too bad. The Xehanort we met barely had any of that warrior from the past left in him."