Chapter 37: Maleficent's Nightmare
Sora ran up the last flight of stairs and came to the final room of the tower. He tried to open the door, only to find it locked. He quickly stepped back and used the keyblade to unlock the door. The door clicked, and opened outwards. Sora ran into the room, keyblade at the ready. "Stop right where you are Maleficent!"
The witch looked somewhat surprised as she turned to see Sora. "The one with the keyblade, Sora. I didn't expect you to be here so soon."
She had her staff raised at Yen Sid, who was just staring at her, his face determined. "Why did you come here Sora?"
"To stop the heartless that came here. What other reasons do I need?" Sora said.
"I believe the wizard is referring to the fact that I wanted you to come here," the witch said, coming towards Sora.
It then hit Sora. It was a trap. It was planned from the beginning. "You knew about the heartless in the program in Ansem's computer. You knew we would follow it to here."
"Correct Sora. But once again you only realize far too late."
Then in a flash of white, Yen Sid disappeared. Maleficent looked slightly upset, but sighed. "I wished to take Yen Sid prisoner first, but you came earlier than expected. No matter. You and your friends will still share the same fate that was planned as soon as you entered the tower."
"And how many friends were you expecting to show up?!" came Riku's voice.
Sora turned around to see everyone run into the small room, weapons and the ready ,except Neku who's hands were giving off a blue sheen. "Bet you weren't expecting twelve, were you?" Sora said with a slight grin.
Maleficent laughed as she stepped back away from the group. "You think numbers matter. You see, you worry about quantity, while I," the witch said as she swept her arms upwards. "I go for quality!"
The entire tower began to shake uncontrollably as the witch disappeared green flames that left them in the tower room, the bricks shaking dust from the foundation. "What's going on?" Kairi asked.
"She's going to rip the place apart!" Axel exclaimed.
"And your explosion from earlier is just going to help her even more!" Namine said realizing what they had done.
"We had to have been out of here yesterday!" Valdamar said, running for the door.
Before he could run through, however, the bricks above the door fell down, creating a blockade, leaving the group stuck in the top of the tower. "Now what?" Roxas said.
"This way!" Sora said running towards the large window. "We have go out the window!"
"You're crazy! We'll fall and die!" Valdamar said.
Yami then swiped her keyblade in the air in front of her sending a strong gust of wind, breaking the mirror. "I'll guide us down."
She held her keyblade out in front of her as she closed her eyes, the castle shaking even more. The stone floor below them began to crack, everyone stepping closer together closer to Yami, trying to be stepping on the cracks. The floor then cracked all the way through, and the group began to fall, but suddenly stopped. Yami concentrated harder now, wind billowing her long hair up causing her hair to stand on edge. Slowly, the winds strength began to life the bricks and rocks the group stood on through the broken window to outside. Slowly, they began to lower until they were five feet above the ground, when Yami collapses. The wind died out immediately, causing everyone to fall. Thankfully, no one was hurt, except Yami who sat up as the King and Donald rushed over to her. "Are you alright?" the King asked.
"I've just…never moved that much weight before. It kind of wore me out," said, slowly standing up.
As soon as she stood up, however, she fell back to the ground, dropping her keyblade in the grass, screaming. "Yami?" Donald asked.
"Darkness…so…strong…" Yami's eyes went wide as she looked around. "It's here."
A extremely strong scent of darkness then hit Riku's senses as he stumbled for a second, but held his ground. "She's right. The Nightmare is near."
The others nervously readied themselves and looked around as Donald cast Curagra on Yami as she stood up slowly, Dark Whisper in hand. The ground began to shake even more with the strength of an enormous earthquake. If it weren't the magic placed on the tower by Yen Sid, it would have crumbled instantly. Then as the ground shook, a black shadow began to emerge from behind the tower. Sora faced towards the growing shadow, but gasped and took one step back.
The Nightmare was nothing short of a nightmare. It straightened out its back so it now stood taller than the tower, a dark mane of hair falling over its dark face protecting five yellow eyes on its head. It had six muscular arms, the three on the right holding onto the tower, the other three swaying in the air. It stood on two massive legs, the feet at the bottom were also concealed by the tower. It reminded Sora of the Darkside he fought so long ago, but even worse. But he could only guess that its head was its weak point as well. "We have to attack its head or arms!" Sora yelled to the others over the shaking ground.
"And how do you suppose we get up there?" Axel said.
"With my help."
The group turned to see Yen Sid behind them. "Master Yen Sid," Mickey said. "You will fight with us?"
The old wizard shook his head. "No. But I can help you take down this heartless. Afterwards, I shall explain to you what I know of what has happened."
Yen Sid waved his hand around the group, and raised both his hands up in the air. Slowly, the group began to rise, but they were still standing on what they thought was solid ground. Soon, they stood level with the top half of the Nightmare as a magical field appeared beneath them, creating a new ground for them to fight the massive heartless. The Nightmare let go of the tower and stared at the twelve, it hair mangled guarding most of its eyes. It brought up its highest left and right arm, and slammed them down on the barrier Yen Sid had created, the heroes jumping out of the way of the attack. "GO!" Sora yelled.
The group ran towards the fists, Neku reaching the right fist first. He threw energy blasts at the fist, but nothing seemed to happen. "Come on, do something!" he said out loud as he fired more blasts at the fist.
The hand opened and tried to grab him, but he quickly jumped out of the way using his psych abilities to jump far away. Riku then jumped at the right fist and swung Road to Dawn at it, but the blade quickly bounced off the fist. "Huh?" he said, striking it again and again.
Yami hit the left fist with her keyblade. "Riku!" she shouted. "This is an extreme darkness. I don't know if we can harm it."
"I don't walk the path of darkness! I should be able to hurt this thing!" Riku said, still trying to hurt the Nightmare.
Kairi then used Aurora on the left fist, and the two fists retreated from the barrier they stood on. "The light seems to do well on it!" Kairi said.
The monstrous heartless then readied its middle arms and held them palm out as orbs of darkness appeared in its fists. Pure beams of darkness then began to burst from its hands trying to hit the group. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Axel yelled running from one of the beams of darkness.
Roxas then jumped in midair and shot two orange light blasts, one from each of his keyblades and hit the beams of darkness, but it seemed to have no effect. "Drat!" Roxas said jumping out of the way of one of the beams.
Valdamar meanwhile was running straight towards the Nightmare's midsection, his sword in his sheath and his whip hanging from his belt. "What are you doing?!" Goofy said running after him.
Namine shot a beam of aurora light back at the Nightmare, but it didn't even flinch from the attack. However, the beams died out as it put its arms down next to its other four arms. Goofy and Valdamar stood on the barrier near the Nightmare as they could feel the power of the darkness surrounding the massive heartless. "Vald, what are you doing?" Goofy said half hiding behind his shield, slightly afraid of the monster in front of them.
"You see Goofy," Valdamar said shifting through a small backpack he had taken off of the train. "In my spare time I like making gadgets. Little do-hickies that come in handy every once in a while. While fixing the train, I found a lot of materials that were jammed into the train to break it in the first place. Fool around with them a little bit, and I can create a little something that can help us."
Valdamar then produced a small object that was put together with several pieces of small metal pipes and three electric cords that swarmed over the mass of pipes. "What is that?"
"Well, it's a crude bomb to be exact," Valdamar remarked. "It's not much to do any real damage. More of a distraction. "What we need to do is figure out a way to launch it up to its face so we can distract it then come up with a way to attack it good or find it's weak spot. You think you can get it up there Goofy?"
"No, I don't think so, I can launch someone with my shield, but if I hit that I might make it go off."
Valdamar got a grin. "Say, I've got an idea."
*****
The Nightmare brought its lowest arms and slashed them horizontally across the barrier Sora stood on. The arms being thicker than a building made it impossible to evade, so Sora brought up the Kingdom Key up in defense in a block. The arm hit the keyblade and Sora sending him back several feet. He got up with no injuries as he saw Namine, Kairi, the King, and Riku get up in a similar manner. "You guys alright?" Sora asked.
"Sora! I thought you said the arms were the weak point," Riku said shaking the cobwebs out of his head.
"This is must more powerful darkness then we imagined. We're going to have to pull out all the stops when we find its weak point," Mickey said.
Neku then zoomed over at a fast speed. "Uh, guys? What exactly are they doing over there?" Neku asked.
Sora looked to see Valdamar and Goofy standing right near the Nightmare, preparing to attack. But the Nightmare looked down and noticed them. "It sees them! Come on, we have to distract it!" Sora shouted.
Kairi and Namine both fired beams of light at some of its arms as his majesty sent Pearl magic at another arm. The Nightmare looked up, and brought up all six of its arms as dark orbs appeared in each palm. "Oh crap," Axel said, knowing that dodging six beams of darkness would be near impossible.
Just then Valdamar started running towards Goofy, the explosive cradled in his arms. "Goofy!"
"Up ya go!"
Valdamar ran at full speed at Goofy, who had his shield lowered at an odd angle. Valdamar then jumped and landed both of his feet on Goofy's shield. With the durability of a spring, Goofy's arm lowered Valdamar on the shield absorbing all the energy form his jump, and bounced him up in the air even higher. Valdamar flew up in the air, his fedora almost falling off from the air rushing past him. He began to slowly slow his accent as he neared the Nightmare's head, a hideous thing. Five, solid, yellow eyes stared at him through a tangle of dark strands as he stopped rising up as he threw out the object.
Normally, the explosive would have not gotten anywhere near the Nightmare from distance where Valdamar was launched, but Valdamar already had a solution for that. He swung his whip out towards the Nightmare, the whip loosely tied around the explosive. The teenager quickly jerked on the whip, loosening its grip on the explosive, sending it through the air at the Nightmare's face. Valdamar began to fall back towards the barrier as the explosive went off, the blast radiating through the air. The Nightmare turned away from the explosion, the brightness too close to its eyes as it instinctively brought its arms in front of itself to shield itself from the light. The dark orbs in its palms now faced up in the air in random directions as the beams fired out into the sky, none of them coming close within range of the heroes.
Valdamar then realized something as he fell, he whip dragging in the air behind him. What about landing without killing himself? Before he could react, he descent began to slow down, a wind flying past his face, sending his fedora off into the air revealing his untidy brown hair. "My hat!"
He slowly landed to the ground as he watch his fedora glide through the air until caught onto the end of a dark keyblade. "That makes the slate clean now," Yami said, tossing the hat back at Valdamar.
Valdamar caught the fedora with ease, and put it back on his head. Neku walked over. "Clean slate?"
"I once saved her behind a while ago. She just returned the favor. Now come on, this thing ain't dead yet."
The Nightmare swung its arms wildly as the light began to die out, the darkness beams disappearing. Sora looked at the Nightmare to see the dark strands covering the Nightmare's eyes had been blown back, its eyes looking more orange then yellow. Slowly, however, the eyes began to fade back into a yellow. "It's eyes…" Sora thought. "That's its weakness."
"That's gonna be hard to get to Sora," Donald said, reading his staff.
Goofy ran over, and Sora got an idea. "Well, we'll just have to meet to the challenge. You guys up for Final?"
"You betcha Sora!" Goofy said standing next to Sora, Donald to his other side.
"FINAL DRIVE!" Sora yelled, a hand on both of his friends.
A white light engulfed the three and slowly faded away leaving Sora floating above the ground, his clothes silver and white, the Kingdom Key and Ultima Weapon (The one from KHII) floating telepathically behind him. "This ends now!" Sora exclaimed as he began to fly up towards the Nightmare.
Sora soared through the sky as he neared the Nightmare. It moved its massive arms to swat Sora away like a fly, but Sora flew around dodging the swings. He soon reached near the Nightmare's face. He brought his two hands forward commanding the two keyblades to strike out at the heartless' eyes. The two keyblades swung through the air, invisible hands hammering them away at the creatures eyes. The Nightmare flinched from the pain each blow brought. They had finally found the weak point. Sora swung even more, inflicting more damage to its eyes. Then, the two eyes Sora were attacking started to slowly become orange, then to a deep shade of red. The eyes then started to become smaller until they didn't exist anymore, leaving only three. However, this had made the Nightmare even more mad as it swung all six arms at Sora. Sora quickly did a large loop backwards in the air taking his keyblades with hims to avoid the arms. He turned around as the Nightmare began to grow orbs of darkness in its hands, these much larger than. The Nightmare than began to lob the balls of darkness after Sora. Sora weaved back and forth avoiding the darkness as he headed for the barrier where the others stood, trying to attack the heartless' eyes from far away with magic.
No later than Sora touched the ground did the Drive end, separating him, Donald, and Goofy. They were all slightly tired, but Kairi and Namine healed them. "Are you alright?" Kairi asked.
"Good. Listen, we have to take out its other eyes that are left," Sora said. "That should be the way to beat it."
"I can't take everyone up there with wind," Yami said. "Perhaps myself and maybe someone else, but it couldn't be long. That is without risking the fall from the height, perhaps even further."
"Which one of us could cause the most damage?" Riku asked.
"We need the power of light to attack it the most," Roxas said.
Namine turned to Kairi. "Do you feel ready to do it?" she asked.
Kairi shook her head. "I haven't learned how to do it yet. You said it would come at the right time. It just hasn't happened yet."
Sora looked around, and noticed the Nightmare preparing the strike again. He looked at King Mickey and thought of his Pearl Magic. "Your Majesty, you should go," Sora said. "You're lighter than the rest of us and you can use your own light magic. You should go with Yami."
King Mickey shook his head. "That won't work. Welp, you see, I probably would only have enough time to attack one of its eyes. Then it will still have two."
The Nightmare then began to rise its six arms in fists, and brought them down towards the group. "MOVE!" Neku shouted as the group moved in opposite directions.
The fists shook the barrier like an earthquake, nearly everyone falling to the ground. Sora turned around to see Kairi on the ground, slowly getting to her feet. Sora felt something he usually hardly felt: anger. The Nightmare had hurt Kairi, that was the final straw. He ran over to where Yami and King Mickey stood. "Your majesty, if I may?" Sora asked.
Mickey hesitated at what Sora was asking, but his face showed he realized. "You do it Sora!"
Sora then put a hand on the King. "DRIVE!"
A blinding light absorbed the two, and died out to only leave Sora, with three keyblades! Ultima Weapon was in his hands, the Kingdom Key and the King's keyblade floating telepathically above him. His drive clothes had become gold and red, Mickey's royal seal designed across Sora's pants and arms. A small crown was also on Sora's head that circled around his biggest spike in his hair. Royal Form, amazing, Sora heard Mickey say in his head. "Yami! Take me up!" Sora commanded.
She didn't need to be told twice. Yami spread her arms, a small twister rising beneath them. They began to rise quickly into the air towards the Nightmare. The six arms swung around at them, but the Kingdom Key and Mickey's keyblade swung away from side with a mind of their own, striking the arms back away from the two as they arose. They soon met face to face with the Nightmare, Yami slightly trembling from the force of the darkness. The three keyblades surrounded Sora in the air, positioning themselves so each one aimed at an eye of the Nightmare. "Your reign of terror has ended!" Sora shouted. "PEARL TRINITY!"
The three keyblades swung each other and met at their points, each tip glowing white. The light became so strong that the Nightmare's eyes went straight to red, Yami shielding her eyes form the light as well. Sora stared straight at the light as it grew stronger, and then grabbed Ultima Weapon by its hilt and brought it out of the trinity. The other two keyblade swung back to their original positions and fired light into the nightmare's eyes. Ultima Weapon in Sora's hands shot at the third eye, the Pearl magic shooting straight through it. The light shone through the heartless, flying through the head and shooting out from the other end.
The Pearl Trinity began to become weaker fast as the Pearl magic shooting from the keyblades came to a stop. Sora breathed heavily, drained of energy as he lowered the Ultima Weapon while being supported in midair by Yami's twister. But then Sora noticed something. The smallest amount of a red circle was on the Nightmare's face. It wasn't defeated yet. A red laser then blasted from the eye hit Sora in the chest as he was knocked backwards, the beam continuing to hurt him and causing him to twitch in pain. It then stopped. Sora opened his eyes to see Yami had jumped from her position, Dark Whisper stabbed in the small red dot. "Be gone," she said.
The red dot disappeared, and the nightmare faded away, a hundred hearts floating up from the area the heartless used to occupy. Yami and Sora began to fall, the drive ending at one point separating Sora and the King, but Sora kept Ultima Weapon with him rather than the Kingdom Key. They reached the barrier and fell down to the barrier, all three exhausted. "That…was…strong," Mickey said between gasps. "You've become much stronger Sora."
"Couldn't have done it without you, your majesty," Sora said as he turned to Yami. "But I think we should both thank Yami. She stopped it in the end."
Yami shrugged slightly. "I couldn't just watch."
Slowly, Sora felt the barrier begin to move again. Thankfully, it was just lowering back to the ground where Yen Sid stood as he brought them all down back to safety. Other than being exhausted and a few flesh wounds, everyone was fine. Sora ran over to Kairi after they reached solid, real ground. "Are you alright? After the Nightmare banged the barrier I thought you were seriously hurt."
"Me? Sora, I'm fine. You're the one who should be taking it easy. You almost got yourself killed up there!" Kairi said.
"I'm fine," Sora said, but he then fell backwards onto his back, causing Kairi to gasp. Sora jut chuckled. "Kairi, I'm just relaxing on my back. Jeez, did you think I just died there?"
Putting a small smirk on and kicked Sora in the shoulder playfully. "Lazy bum."
Yen Sid walked over to the group. "Thank you for doing that. Maleficent meant that powerful to be a great trap for all of you. However, your teamwork has saved you all. However, one can never be too cautious. However, there is a greater threat than Maleficent."
"The Seekers," Valdamar said.
Yen Sid nodded as Sora sat up, paying attention. "Correct. However, soulz are far different than anything you have faced Sora. You have been on two great quests before, Donald and Goofy along with you. Your friends Riku and Kairi have been there too. But you others who stand before me: Axel, Roxas, Namine, Neku, Valdamar, and Yami. You have never been on such a journey. Yet I ask you to lend a hand to the these brave warriors in their quest to stop the Seekers, for if they are not…I fear there will be nothing left of the universe. Find the pieces of the Royal Scroll, un-code its riddle with the Crossroads, and discover the truth behind the Seeker's mission. The King informed me of your current quest and during your runs, I have been able to track the location of most of the other Royal Scroll pieces."
"Seriously?!" Riku said.
Yen Sid nodded, and clapped his hands. Then behind them, the groups three Gummi ships appeared behind them. "I have already put in the coordinates of the worlds in your Gummi ships. However, to do this in the fastest manner possible. You must split into groups to find the Royal Scroll before anyone else does. Go, heroes of the Crossroad and of other paths. Your journey awaits you."
Yen Sid then disappeared in another white wisps, leaving the twelve alone outside his castle. After a small discussion, they split into three groups. Sora, Kairi, Valdamar and Neku went together on the first ship headed for an island on one world. Roxas, Naime, King Mickey, and Donald got on the second ship and headed for a familiar desert. Riku, Yami, Axel, and Goofy boarded the last ship and headed for a port next to the sea.
Goofy's Shield Bumper
Royal Form- Sora did this drive with King Mickey to finish the Nightmare. In this Drive Sora has two of his keyblades and the King's keyblade. It's main power is using Pearl magic and heals Sora over time. In this form, Sora can also use the powerful Pearl Trinity from the three keyblades.
Alright, off to new worlds! However, I have some bad news. I will be going on Spring Break Vacation, so I will be gone for a week. No updates until I get back, sorry guys. I hope to write more ASAP.
Dezblade