What? I'm too early with a chapter? Well, my bad then ^^
Let's get to the shout outs!
The Unknowing Herald: Okay... You sure? Starts with Metal ends with a 3 (or Eater) Yeah, I am ^^
TerraKH: Yeah, it is! He is a pretty stupid villain, yes ^^
Xerzo LotCN: How about that: Pretty good chapter! lol
Boohbear19: Thanks!
Okay, if you don't know it already, I onyl own Luriél in this story. Jack goes to TerraKH's belongings and everything else belongs to Disney or Square Enix
"I think you got some explaining to do." Jack told Sora after they flew for a few moments.
"Yeah…" Sora muttered "Funny thing is, I don't really know what was going on myself. First I wake up, get asked by Adam and then Xemnas and this weird guy burst in killing you two and Jensen and ten Xemnas comes over to me and I think he kills me too… And for some reason Ansem is here and not Xemnas… and you know the rest…"
"So, you're telling us that you had a… vision?" Jack asked after he opened his vest and checked for injuries.
"Yeah, maybe…" Sora said, staring at his hands as if he expected them to suddenly change.
"We are being followed… I think." Malik, the pilot, told them worried.
"Can you get rid of them if they really do?" Jensen asked the pilot.
"Yup, they follow us! I'll try to fly through the city and then over the lake, maybe we lose them between the skyscrapers." The pilot replied and the engines immediately began to howl up.
Sora and the others had to hold on to something to not get thrown around.
"I can't get rid of this thing!" Malik said "It looks and flies like nothing I ever- watch out!"
In that moment, the door of the helicopter was ripped away and a swarm of Shadows tried to come in.
"Since when can they fly?" Jack asked shocked as he kicked one of the small black creatures back out of the helicopter.
To their surprise, all the Shadows crept towards Sora and ignored the others completely. Sora immediately summoned his Keyblade and tried to push the Heartless back, but only worsened his situation.
"It's attracting them!" Squall told him immediately "Put it away!"
Sora, now with his back on the door, nodded "I know…"
"What?" Jack asked surprised.
"See you later…" Sora told them with a grin as he opened the door behind him and let himself fall back.
"Wait!" Jensen exclaimed and tried to grab the teen, but was too late.
All the Heartless immediately leaped after Sora and almost made the helicopter drop out of the sky.
"Sora!" Jack and Squall yelled after their friend, but he was already swallowed by the darkness of the night.
"Shit…" Jack gasped as he leaned back in the helicopter "What now?"
"Sora is no little kid… he'll catch up to us…" Squall told him calm "He got out of more dangerous situations already."
"More dangerous, huh? Was he ever pushed out of a flying vehicle by a swarm of Heartless?" Jack asked as he looked out again, realizing they were over the lake the moment it happened "Shit…"
"Wait!" He heard Jensen shout before the helicopter disappeared out of his view and he only saw the mass of heartless bursting out of the door.
(Fall, Tron Legacy)
"Firaga!" Sora shouted and sent a powerful blast of fire into the swarm above him
The swarm was completely swallowed by the fire, but was unharmed as it burst through the flames and crashed into Sora.
The Heartless began to slash and scratch all over his body and caused his bandages to loosen. Suddenly, he hit the surface of the cold lake and was pushed underwater by the Heartless.
His bandages got soaked with water and the Potion in them was washed out.
Within seconds, his body felt as if he was torn into thousands of tiny pieces. And in fact, the Heartless basically tried to tear him apart. The already loose bandages finally ripped and floated away from Sora, while the sponges, that weren't under his cloths, sunk to the ground.
After seconds of being pushed under the surface, Sora hit the ground. Immediately, Sea-grass like Heartless appeared around him and wrapped their arms around him.
Trying to break free, Sora turned and pulled on the vein like arms, but his efforts were in vain as they only pulled tighter around him.
Due to this, all the air he still had left in his lungs was pressed out and Sora slowly started to suffocate.
With one last push, he managed to free his hand and stretched it out towards the light of the moon that reflected on the surface, hoping one of his friends would grab it and rescue him.
(End Fall)
The surface seemed so close, yet was so far. The Heartless wrapped around his whole body and covered his face as well, turning everything he saw into darkness.
Feeling how he slipped into unconsciousness and therefor the seemingly unavoidable death by drowning, he gave up to break free from the Heartless.
His last thought before he stopped moving was the smiling face of one girl.
"I hope the boy can swim…" Jensen muttered as he looked at the dark lake beneath them.
"He grew up on an Island, of course he can…" Squall told him.
"Yeah, great… You ever tried to go swimming with a swarm of Heartless attacking you?" Jack asked sarcastic "Not so pleasant…"
"Anyway… Where are we heading?" Squall asked the augmented man.
"To the Sarif Industries HQ. We need a way to find the boy again…" Jensen told them.
"What? Are you shitting me?" Jack asked surprised "We aren't supposed to reveal that we're not from this world to anybody! We already broke that for you!"
"That's too late already…" Squall muttered "At least two people know it now…"
"Two?" Jack asked surprised.
Squall nodded "Yes… Jensen and the pilot, because you had to say it…"
"Ah, shit… you're right…" Jack said with a sigh.
"And Pritchard seems to know it as well…" Jensen told them "He recognized you and Sora… and even you, Jack."
"So, we blew our cover, without having one in the first place… Great, just fucking great!" Jack sighed.
They remained silent over the time of the flight. Jack and Squall both occasionally peaked out of the hole where the door used to be and looked down on the dim lit city of night that was beneath them, hoping to see Sora on his rider coming towards them.
After a while, the helicopter finally slowed down and prepared to land behind one of the biggest buildings in the city.
They descended towards the ground and soon landed. As they got out of the helicopter, they were immediately stopped by two armed guards with Sarif Industries vests.
"Halt!" One of the men said intimidating "Who are you?"
"They belong to me…" Jensen told the two guards as he passed by Squall and Jack.
"Oh, Jensen! Sorry we didn't see you in the first place…" the second guard said and immediately lowered his weapon.
"Your nightshift is far from over, you aren't supposed to be sleepy…" Jensen warned them as he lead the two men away from the landing platform.
"Do you still need me?" Malik called after Jensen.
"No, you can go home. Thanks." Jensen told her.
"Wow, this is the place where genius people have stupid ideas, I assume?" Jack said as they entered the bright lit main hall of the building.
Except for a few security guards and a half asleep receptionist, it was completely empty.
"You've got any form of communication to keep in touch?" Jensen asked, ignoring Jack's comment.
Without a word, Squall got out his communicator and showed it to the augmented man, who still wore his glasses, even though they were inside.
Jensen quickly snatched them out of the younger male's hand and then led them to a door with the label "Francis Pritchard, System Administrator".
Without knocking or anything he entered the room and went towards the only desk in the room.
The man in the chair behind the desk was asleep with a magazine covering his face and only woke up as Jensen tossed the communicator at him, hitting him in the stomach.
"Wha? Oh, It's you…" the man said still sleepy "What's that?"
"Can you use that to detect another one of these things?" Jensen asked.
"Hm… I think, why?" Pritchard replied after he inspected the communicator.
"We lost Sora and hope to find him with the use of the Communicator." Squall told the computer freak.
Suddenly, Pritchard jumped up from his chair in shock "Holy shit!"
After a moment of silence, the man took a pen and a card out of his desk.
"Could- Could you please sign this for me?" Pritchard asked Squall and handed him the pen and the card. On the card was an image of the griever symbol on a red background, with an image of a younger Squall on it. The image however was no picture, but was what looked like a animation of him.
"What the hell?" Squall asked surprised as he looked at the card.
After he looked away for a few moments, clearing his head and getting rid of the headache that came with looking at the card, Squall signed the card and quickly gave it back to its owner.
"What's Final Fantasy?" Jack suddenly asked as he observed the poster on Pritchard's office wall.
"Oh…" The man suddenly said and had to swallow hard "Just a game… nothing too interesting!"
"Okay…" Jack muttered as he continued to observe the poster of the woman "And what is "Rule 34" and why does it rule?"
"What?" Pritchard asked surprised "Well, uhm…"
"Pritchard, the device?" Jensen reminded the other man.
"Oh, yeah!" Pritchard said relieved and quickly started to work on the device.
"How long will that take?" Jack asked as he walked around the bow of old monitors.
"One… maybe two…" Pritchard replied, already completely drawn in by the communicator.
"One or two what?" Jack asked confused as he came back to the desk.
With a sigh, Pritchard put the screwdriver he used for the cover of the device aside ad looked up to the scarred wanderer "Maybe one hour, maybe two days. This technology is completely foreign to me!"
"We don't have days! Sora could be dead by then!" Jack told the man angry.
"If I had some privacy and silence, this could go much faster…" Pritchard told him and then turned to Jensen "As much as I appreciate Mr. Leonhart's usual silence, could you please bring the two somewhere else while I'm working on this?"
"Follow me." Jensen told the two travelers and led them out of the office.
"And now, what?" Jack asked with a yawn.
Jensen didn't answer but lead them upstairs into a much smaller room.
He then sat down behind the desk and pointed at the couch "Sit down, might take some time until Pritchard is finished…"
With a sigh, Jack pulled his sword and sheath from his back and sat down on the couch, followed by Squall.
"This is going to be a long night…" Jack said as he buried his face in his hands.
Squall slightly nodded, but never let Jensen escape his glare.
After a few minutes, Jack was asleep and only Squall and Jensen remained awake.
"Why are you staring at me?" Jensen asked annoyed after a time.
"You wear those "Augmentations". If what we think is correct, you are no better than our enemies or the Heartless…" Squall told him cold and without hesitation "I have no reason to trust you."
"This augmentations are something I never wanted!" Jensen told him "Only through the orders and money of my Boss I am who I am now! This arms, this legs, this eyes. Do you really think I ever wanted any of this? No, but Sarif wanted me to life!" so he took away so much of my destroyed body and replaced it with this. I am half machine now and I have to learn to live with it!"
"And I'm supposed to believe this?" Squall asked the man.
"I did never ask to get my arms and legs replaced! If I had the possibility, I'd take them back!" Jensen now yelled at him "If I had the choice, I'd rip out every part of my new body!"
"Proof it…" Squall told the other man "Proof it that you can put away these Darkness powered tools."
Jensen looked surprised at Squall for a moment, but then led his hand to his other shoulder and prepared himself to remove the mechanic limb from his body. After a moment of hesitation, Jensen sighed and lowered his hand again.
"I knew it… The Darkness is addictive, isn't it? The feeling of power in you, while it slowly corrodes your heart and mind to the point of total madness…" Squall said "At which point are you? The power= This is what destroys worlds. If there is ever a chance to end this madness and free your people of these "Augmentations" don't hesitate. Pull the plug to it and end it once and for all. Or are you already a slave to it?"
Before Jensen was able to reply however, Pritchard burst into the office "I think you got to see this!"
Surprised by his sudden awakening, Jack jumped up and raised his still sheathed sword, but soon realized that there was no danger coming from the person that woke him up.
"Already?" Jensen asked surprised.
"Was way easier than I thought…" Pritchard told him and led the three back to his office.
Pritchard immediately sat back down in his chair and showed a map of the city and the surrounding areas.
"I don't know what powers your communicators, but I found out I leaves a track that decays rather fast…" Pritchard explained as a glowing green line appeared over the map "First you three appeared here you stayed pretty long in the warehouse, that that you blew up, so I don't know more than that…"
The line then went through the city and towards the lake that lied north of the city and split up there.
"That's the point where you lost your companion, Sora." Pritchard told them "So I extracted your trace and made a quick timeline…"
The animation showed how Sora's dot moved up to the point at the lake. There it remained for a few seconds and then disappeared.
"Where did it go?" Jack asked surprised.
"I thought the same… but here." Pritchard said and pointed at where the dot was now.
"So, he's in this building?" Jensen asked.
Pritchard nodded "Yes, but I don't know how he got there… At least I know on which floor he is…"
"But?" Jack asked, already expecting something.
"But it's a corporation building… Jensen can't go in there because it's one of Sarif's partners. You two will be on your own…" The system admin told the two.
"But you could at least bring us there and tell us which floor, right?" Jack asked.
"I'll bring you there." Jensen told them "What building is it?"
"The Eidos building." Pritchard answered and showed a 3D animation of the building "And I think he's on the 36th floor. There are renovations in process, so there should be nobody…"
"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" Jack asked and put Wanderer's Judgment on his back.
"Wake him up!" Ansem ordered the second man on the floor.
With a grin, he took the two metal rods that were connected to a car battery and walked over to the person tied to the only chair.
As the two rods touched the soaked cloths of the young man in the chair, his body tensed up under the electric charge.
After a few seconds, the young man with the bag over his head cried out in pain.
While the second man proceeded to walk behind his victim, Ansem summoned a Corridor of Darkness and out of it came two dead bodies. The one was a silver haired boy and the other a red haired girl.
"Take off that bag…" Ansem ordered his accomplice as he stood right in front of his hostage "Good to see you again, Sora."
"What do you want?" Sora spat out disgusted and angry.
"I don't want anything! But Xehanort wants me to show you something." Ansem told him with a grin and stepped aside, revealing the two dead bodies.
"No." Sora gasped shocked.
"Yes, we won. And all without a real final battle!" Ansem said smiling "The seven Princesses are dead, as are six of the seven Guardians. And we successfully forged the χ-Blade!"
Sora stared in pure disbelieve at him as dark smoke started to rise from his wrist "No…"
"Riku did a real bad job defending Cinderella from us… after all I taught him!" Ansem told Sora as he took the rods from his still hidden accomplice "And so did the sweet Princess with Jasmine! Two birds with one stone, I have to say, we were lucky."
Suddenly, Sora became completely calm and looked down in defeat "You bastards…"
With a snicker, Ansem pressed the rods against Sora's chest. After a few seconds, he put them away again and grinned at him.
"Why don't you give up? I'm sure you could lead a nice quiet live under Xehanort's rule." Ansem told the teen as he put the rods away.
"You…" Sora said weak as the straps around his wrists started to rip apart "Liar!"
With this, Sora ripped of the straps and launched himself on top of Ansem. With anger in his eyes, he slashed down on Ansem's face with his dark claw.
"Yes! Embrace the darkness!" the Seeker of Darkness yelled gleefully.
As he pulled his hand back to hit Ansem in the face, Sora hesitated for a moment.
"For my friends…" he muttered as his hands began to glow in a bright light.
Before his hand met with Ansem's face however, the second man, a simple guard, stunned Sora with the rods and made him collapse on top of Ansem.
As Ansem stood up and lifted Sora up on his collar, the second man turned towards the door.
In this moment, Squall and Jack burst in and immediately shot Firaga and Blizzara spells at the two.
The guard cried in pain as the Fire burned off his flesh and the icicles pierced what was left from him.
"Ansem, stop!" Squall yelled angry.
"Oh, I just wanted to leave… " Ansem told them as a Corridor of Darkness appeared behind him, shattering the glass it appeared in.
Without hesitation, Jack charged at the Seeker of Darkness.
"Good bye." Ansem said as he disappeared and threw Sora out of the Window.
"Sora!" Both men shouted and Jack immediately leaped after him, followed by Squall.
Jack managed to accelerate enough to catch Sora. In the moment before they hit the ground, Squall grabbed Sora as well.
But instead of creating a pile of red goo on the street, they vanished in a flash of golden light.
So, this chapter focused more on Jack and Squall for once... Hope you still liked it!
Anyway, I need some sleep now!
Till then, (how bout music this time? Yeah) Listen to good music! lol
