Chapter 35: Eyes of the Machine Pt 5
Within the depths of the building as Vanitas is within a strange area as the whole world shakes for some reason. "What is going here?" he wondered as he sense something is wrong.
"The other overseer AI has gone mad and the drones are responding to his rage. I suggest you grab the Cogna module and leave that world before you get caught in the crossfire," the voice said.
"Noted," he said as he runs down the area to be the location he seeks to see a group of Combat Androids guarding it. "Huh, I going to need the exercise," Vanitas said as the machines goes into attack mode for its eyes begin to glow red.
"You can't get your hands on the module. Stop him," the female sergeant ordered as several female androids engage with Vanitas.
"This is going to be fun," Vanitas said as he charges up darkness into his palm with his Void Gear Keyblade in his other hand. "Abyss," Vanitas launches an orb of darkness to nail into one of the Android to see her burst into many pieces with blue blood scattered on the floor.
The dark Keyblade wielder is fighting several androids at once with him keeping pace with the androids looking dumbfounded by his raw skill. "What is he?" one of the android questioned as Vanitas punches her in the gut to fire a point blank dark blast to reduced her to scrap metal.
He kicks the knee to make the next android buck over as he grabs her head and bash her into a wall. Her head caved in as blood and pieces of flesh were painted there as Vanitas's viciousness is increasing to deflect incoming sword slashes.
He is dueling two androids at once with him bashing away one with his sheer strength and cast Dark Firaga to pepper the next one into submission.
Vanitas leaps onto the fallen android to drive his Keyblade into her head for it pierces through her skull. He tosses the corpse at the rushing combat unit for he slashes the air to make a dark energy crescent to slice both in half.
The remaining android were dumbfounded by his power. "He isn't human at all, all flight units. Engage target," the sergeant ordered on the radio with more flight units hovering nearby to lock onto Vanitas.
"Haste," he cast a spell onto himself to run like grease lightning to avoid the incoming hail of bullets and missiles to crash into the side of the building. Vanitas is running though the hallways filled with bullets and explosion with debris kicking up all around him. A rocket explodes in front of him to launch him out of the window to land on a flagpole on the edge of the building.
"Fire, fire," the sergeant ordered as the rounds and rockets is lighting up the side of the building. Vanitas leaps up to wall run up the building to avoid incoming projectiles with a devilish smirk under his helmet visor. He grabs a ledge to jump high in the air to focus into his Keyblade to lock on multiple targets.
"Bloody Lance," Vanitas with precise aiming fire several sharp blood red magical spears to hit all their makes to take out all the flight units with a deadly headshots. Then the magic spears explode on contact to turn to them ashes.
"Damn it," the sergeant said as more androids fall from the roof to try and impale him with their swords.
Vanitas is running on the side of the building to let out energy crescents to aim for their necks to see their bodies and severed heads falling to the dark abyss below. He grabs a corpse to bust through a window to see the sergeant to toss the dead body to knock the squad leader off balance.
The sergeant knocks the body away as her arms were chopped off by Vanitas with blue blood squirting from her exposed arm slots. Vanitas grabs her by the neck and tosses her into the wall. Then he swiftly jabs his fist into her chest to impale right through it.
The android spits blue blood onto Vanitas's visor as she has a look of disbelief to see 16 well trained combat units be taken out so easily like there were first day rookies. "What are you, you are not human? She wondered to be looking at his helmet covering up his gleeful smirk.
"I am not, I am a demon. A walking nightmare," Vanitas said as he pull away his fist to stomp his boot onto her head to crush it into a bloody pulp.
"Impressive performance," the voice said
"That was nothing, I was holding back in my fight with Sora and Riku. I hate holding back," as Vanitas went back to the floor to be within the chosen location to grab a small metal diamond shaped module. "This is it?" he asked.
"Yes, this will let me control the hidden force under this world," the voice said.
"The Cogna, what is that exactly?" he asked.
"It was a very powerful robotic force that was developed a long time ago. The people on this world wanted to use them to fight against the Heartless and they were very effective. Sadly, the Cogna were never put into full production and are left dormant on this world. Now my dream will become a reality and soon the Heartless will be nothing more than a memory," the voice said as Vanitas goes into a dark portal to teleport out of the world.
Elsewhere Sora and the others manage to get to the core of the world to see Cloud and Tifa coming their way. "Cloud and Tifa, you are okay," Sora said sounding relief to see them being okay.
"Yeah, Tifa manage to kill Ad. We got one more left," Cloud said.
"Also, we need to find that keystone," Tifa said as everyone nods for their radios are going off.
"Guys, we have a big problem," Yuffie said on the radio.
"Screw big, we have the fucking machine army on our asses now," Cid butted within the radio as a massive number of robots descend onto the station with Cid, Yuffie and Nanaki are trying to fend them off.
"Hey old man keep up or your back gives out," Yuffie said as she is slashing incoming bots with her large shuriken.
"I can say same thing to you rookie," Cid said as he leaps to of a big machine to shove his spear onto its head to kill it.
"Less talking, more fighting," Nanaki cast Balloonga as let loose a barrage of energy orbs to destroys groups of enemies but more replaced them faster than they can destroy.
"Guys, this is Jessie. I am getting readings from the network. Its out of control, all the machines went mad along with the remaining Overseer AI," Jessie said.
"Its Vee, its got to be," Calca said as he is scanning the sections to see the network is going haywire.
"We will deal with him and put a stop to this," Brina said as suddenly all six of them get teleport on top of a tower which overlooks the whole worldwide city; Sora, Riku, Cloud, Tifa, Brina and Calca reappear on the massive roof to see a huge amonnt of machines covering the whole sky blacking it under their dense swarm
"By the Goddess Cosmo, how can we fight all these robots?" Tifa wondered as they feel overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the machines.
"You can't," Vee said as he is on top of a pillar to lay down on his back. "Soon all your friends will be dead and it would be for nothing. The keystone you were looking for, we gave it to that woman that caught Tifa," Vee said.
"Seriously?" Sora asked as Vee gets onto his feet as the tension in the air has hit a frigid absolute zero.
"Sora, get ready," Riku summons his Keyblade Way of the Dawn to get into combat stance along with everyone else.
"You can feel it can you, that everything in this world is meaningless," Vee said as he is shedding tears with his face consumed with rage and deep sorrow.
Riku and the others noticed half his skin has turn pitch black for it slowly creeping to the side until his whole body is now black and his tears were blue like his blood to stretch down his cheeks.
"As far as I am concerned, my brother means everything to me. Without him, there is nothing to live for and now everything must die!" Vee let out a vicious sorrowful scream as his body is covered with a dark aura that rocked the whole city to its roots.
He leaps down and unleash a massive shockwave that rocked the whole skyscraper. "Thunder Tits, what did you do to him," Yuffie shouted on the radio as they heard everything.
"I killed his brother," Tifa said as all they regain their balance but they are facing a black blur for Vee is unleashing every ounce of the network's processing power into his cybernetic body. With one hit, he manage to cripple Tifa in a single blow to the stomach to hear her ribs breaking all at once.
"You did and I am going to enjoy making you suffer," Vee said as he grabs her arm and spin her across the roof like a rag doll. Then he tosses her into a pillar with him teleporting right out of Cloud's sword swing. He reappears to punch him in the head and kick his Buster Sword out of hands.
Cloud is firing fire spells but Vee is easily dodging everything Cloud is throwing at him. Vee delivers powerful right hook to the face to send Cloud flying across the roof. "Guys, you got to distract him. I am going to hack into him to disconnect him from the network," Calca said as he conjures rows of ice spikes to shoot out of the floor with Vee teleporting away.
"Is it going to work?" Riku asked as he cast Curaga on Tifa to fully restore her body back to normal for she gets back into the fight.
"Yes, but every time I do, he will get better at adapting to it. We only have a certain amount of times before he resist my hacking completely and then there is no hope of beating him after that," Calca said.
"Do it," Cloud said as he blocks an incoming punch to knock him away but Cloud regains his ground. Calca begins as he locks down Vee with his hacking to briefly cut him off from the network with Cloud using his Sonic Blade to dash into Vee multiple times.
Cloud's last thrust made Vee fly towards Sora with him in Mage State with him casting Magnet to trap him into his spell. "Dark Firaga," Riku peppers the empowered android with his barrage of blue fireballs.
"Crescent Storm," Brina slashes the air with her sword to create several energy crescents. Vee gets hits until he teleports out of there to sweep kick Brina and pound his fist into her head to make her bounce across the floor.
Vee instantly heals himself as he is reconnected back with the machine network as he raises his hand to point at the massive swarm of machines.
He uses electromagnetism to take a chuck of them and make a swirl made of thousands of machines to crash through several skyscrapers. He leaps on top of it as he starts peppering the roof with energy blasts that left huge craters in their wakes.
"Any time now," Riku said as he and Sora use combined Reflega to bounce the energy projectiles back towards Vee. He uses a powerful energy shield to guard against them to be left unharmed.
"Zero Graviga," Sora points his Keywand at the swirl of machines to break them up into small gravity orbs trapping them inside. Everyone use their spells and energy attacks to destroy all the bubbles to wipe out the massive swirl with Vee crashing back onto the roof.
Everyone tries to land a hit but nothing worked with Vee upper cutting Sora and knock him over the roof. "Sora," Riku said sounding concerned as uses his Magicite to transform into his armored state.
He tosses his Soul Eater blade to stab the edge with Sora using it to jump off to save himself and summons Balloonga spells to try hitting Vee, "Thanks," he said with Vee blocking his spells with his energy shield.
"Well if Kairi found out you died, she would kill me," Riku joked as he summons his Soul Eater into his left hand with him assaulting Vee along with Cloud, Tifa and Brina. Sora and Calca cast spells from a distance to support them with Vee using a shockwave to blow all them away.
"Got him, hit him with everything you got," Calca said as he disabled Vee with him taking hits from the others.
"Beat Rush," Tifa is smashing her fists into his body to knock him back with each blow with Cloud unleashing energy into his blade.
"Blade Beam," Cloud drives his blade onto the floor to let out a powerful energy wave to strike at Vee to see him flying away.
Riku bashes Vee onto the floor as he charges up dark power. "Dark Break," Riku jumps up and delivers powerful thrusts from above threes time each more powerful than the last. He thrusts downward to unlashing a dark shockwave to stun him.
Riku is behind the android to prepare a powerful strike with Sora returning to his normal state to join him in a team attack.
"Zantetsuken," both Sora and Riku unleashing very fast powerful single slashes to appear in front of Vee. Vee's arms suddenly violently burst apart with blue blood shooting out everywhere.
"Its not over yet," Vee said as he recovers his connection to the network but his arms are still missing but he uses his feet to create more shockwaves to push them back. "You got one hack left before I am immune to that, you better prepare to die," Vee said.
"Calca, I got this one," Cloud said.
"You sure, you got a move that will put him down?" Calca asked.
"Yes," Cloud said as he prepares to unleash his ultimate move. "This was made for Sephiroth but this guy is worth trying it out on," he thought.
Vee sends another wave of machines with his electromagnetism as both Calca and Sora back in his Mage State cast Stopga to freeze the horde in place with Tifa, Riku and Brina using their energy attacks to destroy the horde turning them into piles of scrap metal.
Calca nails Vee with his last hack to knock out his connection with the network. "Cloud now," Calca said as Cloud powers up with his body covered in a blue aura.
"This is it, I am breaking my limits," Cloud goes in slashing in deep with his Buster Sword to bombard the android with several powerful cuts. Then he follows with even stronger slashes as he is striking him from all sides.
The android is caught off guard how strong Cloud is getting with Cloud knocking him into the air with the fourteenth strike. He leaps above Vee to power up his sword even further to look like a bright beacon in the distance.
"Omnislash!," Cloud pour all his power into his Buster Sword to crash his weapon into Vee to slice his body clean in half. Vee has a look of disbelief as he explodes into ashes as Cloud lands onto the ground. He spins his sword in his finger and places it onto his back to sheathe it.
"Cloud that was so cool, what technique is that," Sora asked to be awestruck by Cloud's raw power.
"It's called Omnislash, it's a technique I made for Sephiroth when we fight again but the dire situation called for it," Cloud said. They see the huge mass of machines start to disburse from the sky for it all begins to clear up again
"Oh, by the Goddess. They are starting to shut down," Yuffie said as the androids and machines drop onto the floor to be harmless.
"Good, I thought we were toasted there for a moment," Cid said to magically put away his spear.
"Indeed, we didn't get the keystone but we did remove two dangerous threats," Nanaki said.
"All well that ends well," Biggs said as Wedge is shaking in the corner.
"Is it over, I thought we were going to die," Wedge said.
"We are not, thanks to Cloud," Jessie said with hearts in her eyes. "My hero," she swooned as Cid sighs at this.
"Ah the youth, young and stupid. Guys come back, we need to go back to Umiko and Leon to report what we found here," Cid said.
"Right, you guys want to tag along" Sora asked the two androids.
"You want us to join you?" Brina asked.
"Yeah, the more friends the better," Sora said as the twin androids nod their heads.
"We are grateful for your offer of friendship," Calca said.
"You were a big help, so you both joining us can only be a plus," Riku said as they head back into the Gummi Ship to begin their trip back to Traverse Town with two new allies joining their ranks.
Meanwhile within Traverse Town, a mysterious young woman is on top on a building to look at Kairi, Aerith, Prishe and Ulmia in the park below. "So, the girl is here?" she asked.
"Yes, you are her shadow my dear. It would be time to show yourself to her," the voice said within her head. The young woman wields her Keyblade to have a look of longing in her deep blue eyes.
"Kairi, you and I are the same. More than you can imagine," the young woman said to vanish into the shadows to eagerly wait to meet Kairi in person at last.