With Xemnas's disappearance, we found ourselves swamped with varying kinds of Nobodies. Before Roxas let me have my voice back, he summoned his own Samurai Nobodies back to us to fight them off. Maybe they were Nobodies, but they were also valuable allies given the Heartless and other Nobodies around.
We supported them ourselves though, separating to take on different fronts. Demyx once more tried to take control of the Dancer Nobodies, and when he failed again instead of using water and his music to defend himself, he went on the offensive instead, beating them up with the sitar and even a few times with his fists.
This separation left us all vulnerable in a way, however. On the top of the surrounding cliffs, there were still Heartless fighting other Nobodies, and one of the Surveillance Robot Heartless shot at a dusk, sending debris flying. I noticed too late to intercept it, and Goofy was once again knocked out.
I may have been too late to stop it from happening, but I got there in time to stop anything else from being done to him. Mickey was second to notice, evidently furious as he discarded his own black coat and somehow managed to fight with even more ferocity than before.
As soon as the Nobodies were clear, he left without a word, going on ahead. Demyx joined me while I took a few moments to work an ache out of one arm. Fighting Nobodies might be worthwhile, but even it takes its toll sooner or later.
"Is he... I mean..."
"No," I answered. "But it's very convincing. He'll come to soon enough and realize what's happened. We can go after Mickey and rejoin the fight."
"But..."
"Don't worry. Now we've driven off the Nobodies in this area, they won't come here. I know telling you to stay behind isn't going to do any good and he'll be safe here. He'll understand when he wakes up."
So we headed on after Mickey. How he'd gotten past some of the more active areas was beyond either me, but the two of us fought our way on with assistance from Yuffie, Leon and Tifa along the way. Cloud too, who held me back just before we moved on to give me the chain for Fenrir, the Keyblade with the most attack strength, even if it does shorten the combo chain by one. Fatal Crest made up for that though, still allowing me an unlimited combo chain as long as I held it.
We caught up with Mickey in the crystal fissure, which was strangely deserted of both Heartless and Nobodies, and took a few moments to look ahead at what we were facing. A lot of Heartless, in case you're wondering. I strongly suspect the entire battle between the two was orchestrated by the Organization so they'd put me in a position where I'd have no choice but to destroy Maleficent's Heartless army, giving them a nice supply of hearts.
"Did ya do something for Goofy?" Mickey asked me in a subdued tone.
"Yep. Made sure he was safe."
"That's all?" I winked at him, then pointed back up the ravine we'd come down. Goofy was running down it. "You knew? And you didn't say anything!"
"Well, you did kinda run off before you gave me the chance... and anyway, it seemed to make you fight even more than before."
"I don't know whether to hit you or thank you for this."
"You're welcome," I replied graciously, grinning as I added, "It's what I do. Incidentally, we'll probably see Xemnas again when we clear out those Heartless, so if you'd care to join us again..."
Mickey glared at me for a moment, then sighed.
"I'm not cut out to work with someone like you," he told me. "I don't like knowing you've got all the answers and feeling like you're not sharing them."
"It's not entirely deliberate. Besides, the future is a touchy place to be mucking around. Make the wrong change, and..."
"Donald disappears?" he suggested.
"Please don't remind me," I winced. "Not that I don't want to get him back, but I'm kinda the cause of it, and I'm trying very hard not to think about that."
"You just watch yourself, and if you've got something worth telling me, tell me. You know I won't tell anyone if you don't think it's safe to."
"I know," I nodded simply. That didn't make it any easier for me to tell him what was still to come – if I hadn't made any more changes.
Goofy caught up with us then, giving us a few moments of reunion before he too noticed the Heartless in the Great Maw ahead and told us we shouldn't have waited for him.
What you don't see here is that there's not one, but four Great Maws – they're a line of depressions in the cliffs, with the entrance and exit fissures joining together on either side, and that's why we all had to fight alone instead. I ensured both Demyx and Goofy had a supply of potions to keep themselves healed and added some extra elixirs to Demyx's supply for his magic even if he wasn't using it. I did offer to share our supplies with Mickey, but he insisted he'd be fine. Well, he did have the opposite of my own Kingdom Key and some healing magic. No doubt he'd make good on that.
There was nothing else for it at that point but to go ahead and head into the Great Maw for what most know as the Battle of a Thousand Heartless. I couldn't tell you if there really are a thousand, since I wasn't keeping count.
Contrary to my usual insistence that the scythe is an ineffective weapon, I borrowed from Roxas again so I could make use of Marluxia's scythe in hand as I headed in, using the shockwaves each swing generated to carve a path to what I judged to be the middle of the mass, which naturally turned immediately on me. I found one of the more useful things about that scythe is that with wide swings, it neatly shoved all the nearby Heartless around to be in front of me, leaving me with a nice wide area around that was completely clear but for the line up in front of me.
I discarded the scythe at that point, falling back to the Keyblade to eliminate that collection before falling on the rest of those nearby, keeping a close watch on all the others nearby so that when my small area of clear ground was too close for comfort, all I had to do was bring back the scythe, sweep them all up in front of me again, then repeat the tactic.
While making use of Roxas like this left me with only one Keyblade to call on, it was at least the more powerful of the two, cutting down on the amount of blows I had to land. On the other hand that was also somewhat limiting, since I'd grown used to fighting with two Keyblades.
So as the numbers began to dwindle, I reverted early so I could use both Keyblades, and when there were only a few left and I couldn't be bothered to chase them down, I threw each Keyblade after different Heartless, then sending various magic at any other Heartless that were still around. Mostly Blizzard, to make them hold still until I could send a Keyblade to them.
I was the first to exit the Great Maw, and quickly glanced back to the others to see how they were doing. Mickey was chasing down the last of his own Heartless, having clearly made good on his insistence that he didn't need any help.
Demyx appeared to have found a way to keep his water forms intact without having to keep playing the music, and was busily decimating the Heartless simply be cornering them with the water forms so there was no escape, and avoiding harm by using them to block any ranged attacks at him. Melee wasn't a problem for him, since he was still fighting with considerable feeling.
Goofy was slightly behind, but also had help in the form of Roxas's Samurais.
He was having trouble, Roxas murmured to me. So I had them lend a hand, and stole Demyx's tactics for him to use. Goofy doesn't need a Nobody to defend himself though, not with his shield.
"You think of everything, don't you?" I replied, not bothering to keep my voice down as there was no one else to hear.
I took a leaf from your book, and decided to take a few precautions – just in case someone tried to do anything to Goofy again. Once was bad enough; Mickey would probably never forgive you if something happened to him again, especially before getting Donald back.
Mickey finished the last of his Heartless, then ran past me after Xemnas, who was of course waiting just ahead. As Xemnas disappeared again, Mickey jumped into the corridor after him.
"Hello Axel," I said then.
"You know, that's a really irritating habit you've got there," he told me, coming up beside me. "Roxas used to do the same thing. It's kinda disturbing knowing the other guy knows what you're going to do."
"You get used to it after a while. I know it was a trap too."
"Will you stop that?" he demanded. "At least give me a chance to say something first!"
"Sorry. Guess I wanted to get that out the way before Saïx showed up."
"Saïx is coming here?" he asked, looking around warily.
"Oh, stop that. He won't show up until Demyx and Goofy have finished dealing with their Heartless. Anyway, I want to suggest something to you."
"I can't stay here, Sora. Not if Saïx is going to show up. He wants to destroy me."
"And Demyx too," I pointed out. "But as you can see he is alive and well, and has been ever since he turned traitor back at Olympus Coliseum. Why don't you come with me too, Axel?"
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"I'm the other side of Roxas, remember. And Roxas is awake within me, he'd never let me do anything to you, his friend. I can even arrange for you to talk to him, if you want."
"You can... but he's gone back with you. Riku told me so."
"He didn't lie to you. Let him show you," I added, then once more allowed Roxas to talk through me.
"Is it really that hard to believe him?" he asked Axel. "I mean, he and I are that similar..."
"Roxas? Is that..."
"Why does everyone who knew me ask that?" Roxas burst out in exasperation. "Of course's it's me, who else would it be?"
"But you still look like Sora."
"Well what did you expect? I did kinda give up my own form to complete him. But I've got my own presence all the same. I keep him out of trouble, lend a hand and sometimes even let him borrow some of my abilities."
"But you can't come out yourself, right?"
"Only for short times through his Drive forms, and even then we don't do that too often. But I don't mind that. So are you with us?"
Axel hesitated, seemingly uncertain. Goofy joined us, closely followed by Demyx.
"Hey, Axel!" he greeted the other Nobody brightly. "You coming with us too?"
"Hurry up and decide, Axel," Roxas told him. "I'm gonna have to hand back to Sora anyway."
"I don't know," Axel said, still not sure.
"C'mon, it'll be fun!" Demyx insisted, flinging an arm around him.
Alright, you need to watch out, Roxas said to me. Saïx is about to show up any moment now, and he's going to try to eliminate both Demyx and Axel together. He'll come at them from behind, so get ready.
I didn't need telling twice, getting my Keyblades ready by making some show of checking them. They almost never need cleaning or any maintenance, so this was completely for show.
Saïx appeared to have mastered the ability to create dark corridors that made no sound at all, but he wasn't capable of making them unseen, so as he emerged with his massive claymore already swinging downwards for the unprotected backs of Demyx and Axel, I quickly intercepted the attack, using both Keyblades to push back against it. Even with both of them there, the force Saïx had managed to put behind it was powerful enough to push me back quite a ways, leaving small troughs in the ground where my feet had dug in. Both Nobodies turned, saw Saïx struggling against my block and quickly got clear.
"Get out of the way, boy," Saïx growled at me. "They are traitors, and require punishment."
"They're friends of me and Roxas," I replied. "I won't let you hurt them."
Saïx made several more strikes at me, each one pushing me back further. Then he paused, and I seized the chance to strike back. He had only one blade to block my two, and big as it was, it was slow and unwieldy when faced with two Keyblades striking in just the right places.
"Next time, Sora," Saïx snarled at me eventually, retreating back into a corridor. I turned back to see Axel looking amazed.
"You fought for me, even though you didn't know if I'd go with you."
"That's what I do for my friends. You're a friend of Roxas, and any friend of his is a friend of mine."
"I'd trust him, Axel," Demyx told him. "I was cautious when he said he'd protect me from the Organization, but I've travelled with him for a bit and I don't think he ever had any intentions of turning on me. Now we're friends, and we work together, fight together... you wouldn't believe some of the adventures I've been on with him!"
"Later, Demyx," I said gently. "I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to exchange stories. But first... are you with us, Axel?" I asked, extending one hand to him. This time Axel did not hesitate, shaking it.
"Let's get this party on the road," he grinned.