The Coliseum this time did not send us to yet another new scene, a welcome change after the results of the last extra area I'd stopped by.
On the other hand, there were a few of differences to the usual scene. The Coliseum showed the signs of the Hydra's attack, confirming that this represented the right time at least. The entrance door put us down on top of the pile of rubble where the lobby used to be, looking toward the massive doors that link either to the town near Thebes or to the Underworld.
Buried under that rubble, reaching up out of it, were the remains of the two bronze statues just outside. These were not the same as normal, both carved this time into the form of Ice Titans.
As we picked our way down the rubble, Data-Riku and Vanitas had a little trouble getting Riku down without themselves losing their footing. Taking my Keyblade back off Vanitas helped slightly.
"Definitely shorter than it was," I murmured to myself, checking it absently.
"Yeah, Riku said something about Anti-Sora being released from it," Sora told me. "He did something that arranged for it to become a part of Vanitas though."
"Probably for the best. I don't think he'd make a good travelling companion."
"You know what's going to happen here, don't you?" Sora asked as we passed into the familiar depths of the Underworld through the first door of the floor.
"'natchly. We just go on over to the Underdrome and handle some Heartless before we take on Hades and the support he had last time."
"You're forgetting the rest of the trip. The way I remember it, you had to pick up Auron's captive free will between rounds."
"Oh yeah. I forgot about that. You had a problem with me when I got you to pull in some help afterwards, as I recall."
"I know. You're also forgetting it was Maleficent's aid, not Hades. Remember what she brought along?"
"My Heartless and a Dustflier."
"Right. With them taking care of Riku..." he left it hanging. "I'm good by myself, but I'm not that good – and you're hardly at full strength you know."
"I wish people would stop reminding me about that. I made a mistake, let it lie. We might have a problem here."
"No boats to get across, no Pain or Panic... and no Underdrome. You did make this world right, didn't you?" he threw back to Roxas.
"How should I know?" he replied. "These are his memories, not mine."
"What does Neku say?" I asked.
After a few moments to check, Roxas replied, "He says stop bothering him, he's busy and that you'll find out what you need to know if you go down to Hades' chamber deeper in the Underworld."
This being Castle Oblivion still, each possible route had a door to itself. This was the first time in the Castle I had more than one direction I could take – one into the Underworld's caverns that lead to the Lock where Megara was held and where the seal for the Underdrome was, the other leading to the Cave of the Dead and to Hades' chamber. It was fairly clear which way to go based on Neku's waspish response.
There were Heartless in the following rooms, of course. The Underworld here had been split up into many smaller rooms each piece separated into several rooms. At least there was only one route to follow through it.
Mostly these Heartless were just the usual varieties – Soldiers, Shadows, a few Neoshadows, Lance Soldiers and some Minute Bombs are the ones I recall right away. Two rooms in though, they started getting airborne reinforcements in the forms of Air Soldiers, Blue Rhapsodys and Crimson Jazz. Sora shot me a meaningful look as they started to supplement the ground forced, and I fell back just enough to get clear of the main fight surging around him to take the rest out by magic.
I came up with several more magical experiments in the Underworld. Did you know if you fuse Thundaga with Fira, then route the resulting spell through any of the Aero spells you get a vortex of superheated plasma? The surprised looks my companions gave me suggested no one had, but it was brutally effective. Anything that got caught in it, didn't come out again.
One of the more interesting ones was suggested to me by Vanitas, of all people – the light from Esuna, some earth-magic and once again the most combinable of spells, Aero, and we had ourselves a portable sandstorm that didn't affect us, but battered at the Heartless mercilessly. Sora took a moment to heal himself, remarking that if I kept this up I'd have enough to write a whole book of spells. Tempting, but writing magic isn't the same as writing other things.
Anyway, eventually we made it down to the end of the Cave of the Dead, leaving a barrier behind us so we wouldn't be disturbed while handling anything that came up in Hades' Chamber.
Last time I'd been here it had been to steal the figurine that held Auron's Will, and I'd had to do it right under the noses of both Hades and Maleficent. This time however, the room was all but deserted.
Deserted except for one, pulsing red heart, held in a sphere above the table. There were a few very thin dark lines in places over it that pulsed between those the heart made, expanding with each pulse only to be forced back when the heart beat again.
"He's pulling toward it," Data-Riku said. No one needed any prompting to know who he meant. I touched on Riku again, this time searching him for the one thing I hadn't thought to check for. It wasn't there.
"Could this be what Data-Sora did?" Vanitas wondered.
"Probably, but how did it get here if Roxas and Neku were blocking out outside influences?"
"There's one outside influence," I told them. "We'll have to confront my Heartless here, and that forces him to be here. We don't know what happened upstairs, so it's entirely possible that my Heartless somehow took Riku's heart with him, and when we dragged him down here it was left here."
"Want me to do it?" Sora offered. "I know how it's done."
I thought about it, watching Riku's heart for a time. Maybe I could do something with this.
"Let it be for the moment. It's safe this way. Don't worry," I reassured him. "I'm not going to just leave it like this. I'm planning something, I just need a little time to figure it out. Put Riku down on the table," I told Data-Riku and Vanitas. "It'll give you a break from carrying him around everywhere."
"I can manage," Vanitas protested, but Data-Riku was already moving.
"I'm sure you can, but you can't carry him on your own and I want a break." Data-Riku looked over his real self almost critically as they laid him down, then said, "For some reason, he seems completely different to me."
"It's that darkness in you," Vanitas explained. "You accepted it, gave in to it. You might have switched it for the Master's there," he nodded to me, "but you still take it willingly. Riku does it differently."
"He balances his use of it carefully so it doesn't overcome him," I supplied. "That's why you can see it has only a small hold on his heart. Now stop babbling and let me concentrate."
The theory of the idea forming was sound, I just had to figure out how to make it work in practice. If my Heartless was here and in some way responsible for what we were seeing, there was no doubt he would have arranged for some kind of alarm to be raised if we released it. He'd want to know the moment that happened, and would likely have arranged for something inconvenient to happen to us when we did.
So if we left the two separate for now, bringing them both with us he'd have no idea what we'd done. I could hold Riku out of sight in reserve, a trap ready to spring on the unwary Anti-Liam, who was probably expecting me to do the Right Thing and reunite the two.
But how do you take a captive heart with you?
I reached out with my Keyblade, tapping Data-Riku on one shoulder then lowering the Keyblade to cause Mickey to reappear again. Sora's surprised expression was priceless.
"Your Majesty?" he exclaimed. "That was you all along?"
"Didn't ya explain that to him?" Mickey asked me wearily, then spotted Vanitas. "You have been busy, haven't ya? And Riku-"
"I'll explain what you missed in a moment, Mickey," I cut him off. "I need to know something, and you're the closest thing I have right now to an expert. Do you know of any way we can make that come along with us," I motioned to Riku's heart, "Without restoring it?"
"Why would you wanna do that? Just give it back to Riku."
"And set off whatever trap my Heartless has put on it, knowing that we'll do that because it's the right thing. Just hear me out," I told him, then briefly explained the basics of the plan.
"Can you be sure your Heartless would do that?"
"'natchly. I'd do it. Maybe differently to him, but I'd still do it."
Mickey considered it with clear reluctance. I don't think he approved of what I was doing, but I felt it was a necessary step.
I wonder how things might have turned out if I had restored Riku there instead.
"I think I know a way," he said eventually. But we'll have to bring Riku along with us."
"Why don't I help Vanitas?" Sora suggested. "That way Roxas still has his hands free to work with Neku, Mickey can bring his heart, and you can keep us safe."
"Can ya handle that?" Mickey asked me.
"You didn't see the magic he threw around on the way down. He doesn't need a Keyblade with that behind him."
"What about when I run out of magic, huh?" I asked him slyly. "We'll head back up to the entrance of the Underworld, then we'll have to run on down into the caverns to unlock the Underdrome. That's where I took on my Heartless and the Dustflier last time, so we'll have to raise it to do it again this time – unless Neku wants to lend a hand."
"He says stop relying on me," Roxas answered for him. "Besides, I'm working on something."
"You are, or he is?"
"Both. Somewhere we managed to skip two whole floors – either that or there's only eleven basements to Castle Oblivion, because there's only four floors left after this one. We're planning out what worlds you'll be going to, some of what will happen there, and keeping the others out. Should also warn everyone – because he won't be facing Ansem at the end, and because of Xehanort's plan, we'll be going directly to the Keyblade Graveyard for the final confrontation."
"Did you want to arrange the rest of my life after then for me as well?" I suggested sardonically.
"Be nice," Mickey murmured to me, then muttered a few words with his Kingdom Key aimed at Riku's heart that attached a chain of light to the barrier holding it. "After you," he told me. "You're the leader here."
"Is it just me that finds it strange that a king is deferring to me?" I said to no one in particular.