Chapter 46
Riku stood in front of the old mansion, wondering what could be inside. Probably just Heartless, knowing what the rest of the World of Darkness had been like--strange, small Heartless, which would apparently rather cuddle up to him and sleep than attack.
Finally, after standing there for at least half an hour, Riku finally reached out and grabbed the old metal handles attached to the door. They were covered in rust, scraping up against Riku's hands, but apparently the door wasn't completely broken yet. After pulling on them a little, he was able to open the old double-doors that led into the mansion, and they swung open, creaking very loudly.
He stepped through the doors, slowly walking into the mansion and looking around as he went. He heard someone snap their fingers, and the doors suddenly slammed shut behind him.
Riku froze, and instinctively summoned his Keyblade, illuminating the area around him with a flash of blue and purple energy.
There was someone else in the mansion.
Mickey slowly began to awaken, still lying on the cold, ice-coated floor of the castle. For a second, he heard Xaldin's voice echo in his head, repeating his last words before the strange black void and stained-glass platforms had vanished. And then, Xaldin's voice spoke up again.
"You've only been outta it for about a second, y'know," he said, "So nothin' else has happened yet. You betta hurry, though--that thing's not gonna waste time sittin' around in front o' Belle's door for long!"
Stirred awake by Xaldin's warning, Mickey hopped to his feet and summoned his Keyblade once again. This time, the weapon was surrounded by a blue-purple aura before finally appearing--and when it did appear, it looked very different than before.
The Keyblade, which once looked exactly like Sora's Kingdom Key but with inverted colors, had transformed. Its handle was still very similar, but the bar in the middle was dark blue with gold bands at the points where it connected to the hand-guards. The blade itself had shifted shape to resemble one of Xaldin's spears, sharp on the end and with a dragon-like design. There were still two small key prongs on the other side, but they were vastly overshadowed by the large spike behind them and the spear point that they were attached to. And, finally, the keychain had become blue in color and shifted shape to resemble the symbol of Organization XIII--and of all Nobodies.
Mickey ran down the hall, carrying his new Keyblade, and felt a new strength flowing through him--the true power of his Keyblade, finally unleashed after all these years. The Shin'an spun around and swung its tail-blade forward as he came close, but the King jumped high into the air above it and then came crashing down, blade-first, onto the thing's back.
The Shin'an screamed, causing Mickey to be knocked off and a shower of ice to rain down all around. He held up his Keyblade, spinning it around at high speeds, and the ice shards were ground into a fine powder and deflected before they could make contact with him. The translucent-blue monster fired beams of Light toward him, but he leaped up between the beams and thrust the spear-point of his Keyblade into the creature's chest. The thing's exoskeleton split open at that point, releasing a spray of glowing slime and causing it to scream once again. By this time, however, the ice had already fallen from the walls and ceiling--there was no more left for the creature's shrieks to knock loose.
Mickey slashed and stabbed at the creature over and over, severing a few of the tentacles that made up its "hair" and sending it flying backward down the hall. Before the thing was able to get up again, he rushed along the frozen floor after it, leaving streams of water behind as he went--Mickey was now moving so quickly across the floor that the sheet of ice melted beneath him from the heat and friction.
And, at the other end of the hall, the prince was beginning to regain consciousness. He looked up at the battle that was taking place, with his eyes only half open, and saw something he recognized--a very familiar-looking spear--in between the flashes of black, red, and blue.
"...Xaldin...?", he whispered, staring out across the hall, "But... you were... Sora... urggh..."
The prince's head slipped back down to the floor, and he went unconscious once again.
Riku slowly and carefully made his way into the mansion, not sure what--or who--he would encounter there. His Keyblade was held out in front of him, ready to strike in case a Heartless or some other threat emerged. The floor creaked under his feet occasionally, and then suddenly he heard the sound of his feet brushing against carpet rather than plain wood.
There was another sound of fingers snapping, and a dim, orange-colored light flicked on. Riku could now see where he was going--he was standing in what appeared to be someone's living room, with a red carpet on the floor and several large couches and other furniture sitting around in different places.
On a table in the middle of the room (which seemed to have been polished recently--rather odd for such an old house!) was a stack of magazines, mostly written in a language that Riku didn't recognize. On the other end of the table was a pile of paper, apparently letters or notes of some kind. A heavy paperweight, in the shape of a Heartless symbol, was on top of them, making sure nothing knocked them off of the table. There was also a plate, covered in what appeared to be cookie crumbs, with a tiny Heartless sitting next to it and munching on them.
And then, there were several heavy footsteps, and the familiar shape of a tall, dark-skinned, silver-haired man appeared from the door on the opposite side of the room.
"Xehanort!?", Riku said, barely able to speak from the shock of seeing someone who he was sure was dead standing in front of him, "But... that's impossible!"
On the other side of the room, Xehanort only crossed his arms and smiled.
There was a loud crack as the Shin'an smashed into one of the wooden doors of the castle, smashing through wood and ice alike and knocking what was left of the door off of its hinges. Mickey came flying down after it not long afterward, thrusting his spear toward it, but the thing slid to the side slightly and the spear jabbed into the floor instead.
Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, and several other of the prince's servants--now in their original forms rather than those of living furniture--huddled in the corner of the room out of fear, staying as far away from the monstrous Shin'an as they could. When the thing leaped up and was knocked in their direction by another swing from Mickey's new-and-improved Keyblade, most of them fainted.
Fortunately, the creature ignored them, instead choosing to fly back toward Mickey and send a barrage of icicles from the ceiling of the room flying toward him. The King was hit, but he just jumped back up again as if the attack hadn't even scratched him, spinning his spear-like Keyblade and striking the monster over and over. The thing was thrown around the room, finally landing on an old wooden table in the center and breaking it.
It recovered once again, flying toward the room's exit, but before it was able to escape, Mickey came crashing down toward it once again, and with one powerful swing of his Keyblade, the creature's tail was severed from the rest of its body.
The tail twitched and writhed on the ground for several seconds, spewing glowing slime everywhere, before finally it glowed brightly and then dissolved away into white dust.
The rest of the creature stumbled in midair, no longer able to fly effectively without its tail balancing it out. It tried to head back toward Belle's room, but it crashed into the walls and floor every time it made another attempt to fly. It began crawling along the ground instead, pulling itself across the frozen floor with its arms, but before it got very far, Mickey was on the attack once again.
A blurry, half-transparent image of Xaldin--with one spear in hand--flashed over the small King for a second, making him appear far larger than he actually was. Then Mickey brought his Keyblade down, splitting the Shin'an cleanly in two, and the image faded. The blue-purple aura surrounded Mickey's Keyblade once again for a second, and then was absorbed into the weapon, causing it to flash and return to its usual form.
And, as Mickey walked past the defeated Shin'an to check on Belle and the prince, the two halves of its body began to glow brightly--looking like the surface of the sun for a second--before quickly dimming again and collapsing into two identical piles of white dust.
