Hello everyone, and welcome to chapter 25 of Before: Kingdom Hearts! We're back at it again, with about 1K words stored away for the next chapter, but for now, it's time to catch up with Sora!
Creativity: Ooh, boy I'm excited for this one!
Author: I'm just glad I've got a chapter that's going to be much less stressful than my usual fare. I can just sit back, relax, and create an awesome fight scene and expand on the world beyond Ryo's perspective.
But before we do that, or have a quick pre-chapter conversation, let's address the user reviews:
CeleneTheAngel: I can always count on you to review. As for the voice in his head... that'll get addressed later. A very long later (Hello English) but later all the same. And no, he's not flying yet. He'll get there eventually, but no flappy boi yet.
And that's the reviews answered!
Creativity: But before we get into the chapter, didn't we have some housekeeping stuff to take care of?
Author: Oh, right!
So, before we go any further, I'm thinking about making a few changes to how I release these chapters. Namely, abandoning the 'season' model and will focus on releasing it based on 'mini' arcs. So, for instance, for as long as it takes me to get team protagonist out of that underground city. Originally, I was going to write out a minimum of half the season before I started publishing again, so I could take a short break and break the season in half.
I'm not sure which one I should go with, since they both have advantages. If I stuck to the seasonal release, I'll have a bunch of chapters ready to go and you guys get consistent uploads for five to six weeks, but It'll be longer stretches between seasons. Whereas if I stuck to this 'theme' oriented release schedule, I would be releasing chapter sets with less time in between them, but my uploads would be a little more inconsistent.
If I could get some feedback on that, I'd really appreciate it.
Creativity: Remember, feedback makes a story better! Now, here's the Discord password: 5RRcGwh
Author: Thank you, Creativity! And now, it's time for us to begin! Ahem…
We now proudly present chapter 25 of Before: Kingdom Hearts!
Things had not gone according to plan.
Sora knew that this fight was going to be unusual, but he didn't think they'd be on the back foot this bad. But, on the back foot they were, and it looked to only get worse from here.
"Watch out!"
Sora yelped as he leapt to the side to avoid a stream of stone spikes that erupted where he'd just been standing. They retreated not soon after, but Sora knew that the follow up of an energy blast salvo was coming. Sora turned to face their foe, who had just dropped to its knees and had crossed its arms in front of its chest. The Cruciatus Darkside let out a low, echoing wail as it unleashed four blasts of dark energy from the stone embedded in its normally hollow chest. The blasts were also wrapped in dark yellow lightning that promised immeasurable pain, should they make contact. However, while Sora had dodged the last couple of salvos, mostly out of fear that he'd get a repeat experience with the Torrasque, but he couldn't help but wonder…
"Archive! Get ready with that Purge spell in case this doesn't work!" Sora shouted to Archive before he stopped and braced himself, keyblade at the ready.
"Wait, what? What are you doing?!" Archive shouted back before he unleashed one of those dark chain lightning attacks again. Sora ignored him as he focused on the incoming blasts. With a flourish of his blade and a heavy slash, the blasts were on their way back where they came from; straight into the stone heart within the Darkside's chest. The Darkside let out a groaning noise as one of its arms was raised to the stone protrusion.
"Now's our chance!" Sora shouted before he unleashed a pair of Fire spells and began rushing towards the Darkside. Archive held out his arms to either side as spheres of dark energy, each a foot in radius materialized around his hands. A storm of dark bolts erupted from the spheres, all homing in on the Cruciatus Darkside. Sora leapt up and ran along the Darkside's arm, taking care to avoid the Agony spines that had grown on its body. Finally, he used Kingdom Key to vault off of one of the Agony spines towards the Darkside's head and let loose with a wild, whirling slash! The Darkside groaned in response and Sora kicked off its face back to the ground. However, while he'd most certainly got a reaction, he wasn't exactly sure what kind of damage he'd done, if any. The Darkside's beady yellow eyes focused in on Sora, who could feel its steely gaze fixated on him.
"Uh… I think I might have made it mad…" Sora mumbled a little too loudly before the Darkside swung its palm down at him to flatten him like a mosquito. Sora leapt to safety before whirling around to give the hand a good few smacks with his keyblade before he flipped away.
"I don't think whatever we're doing is working!" Sora called to Archive, who leapt out of the way as the Cruciatus Darkside brought its fist down like a hammer where Archive had just been standing.
"Nothing is unbeatable. It must have some point of weakness…" Archive muttered before he warped a short distance away and firing a pair of twin beams at the Darkside, both of which seemed to do little more than agitate it. Sora leapt back out of range of a swipe and unleashed a three fire spells. One of them struck the Darkside's shoulder, another its face, and the final hit the stone heart embedded in its chest. The Darkside let out a groan as it stumbled back before it retaliated by slamming its fist into the ground, sending a wave of Agony spines shooting up from the ground towards Sora! Sora managed to dodge the attack and felt a grin creeping across his face.
"Well, that was quick! I found that weakness!" Sora called to Archive before aiming his keyblade at the stone heart. Archive responded by unleashing his chain lightning attack upon the stone heart, getting even more of a reaction out of the monster.
"Destroy the heart! If destroy the heart, the Darkside will likely retreat on its own!" Archive called out before he leapt from his perch and fired a pair of dark spheres at the Darkside's heart! Unfortunately, the Darkside seemed to have caught on to what they were trying to do and was now covering its exposed weak point. Sora tried a pair of fire spells, but those didn't make the Darkside budge.
"We need to get it to move its hand!" Sora called out before he yelped as the Darkside did just that, only for a salvo of energy bolts to erupt from the stone heart! Sora reflected the bolts back, but the Darkside was already covering its weak point once more. The blasts broke harmlessly upon its arm. Sora gritted his teeth as he tried to think of a way to strike at the weak point of the giant Heartless. With its arms in the way, its attacks would be hampered. However, the window to attack was brief at best, since the Darkside's giant, shadowy mitts were large enough to cover the heart with only one, leaving the second free for swiping at them. However, that still left it off balance while one arm was busy with guarding the stone heart. Not that it mattered if they still couldn't hit it.
"We gotta find some way to hit this thing, or we're gonna be heading in one direction! Rock bottom!" Sora cried before he did a one-handed cartwheel to avoid another wave of Agony spines before following up with another fire spell. Unfortunately, the flames did about as much as the blasts that Sora had reflected earlier.
"It's not going to move its hand. We'll need to find a way to move it ourselves or find some other way to attack the heart!" Archive assessed before he launched twin spheres of dark energy at the Darkside in an attempt to draw its attention away from Sora. Archive's attempt was a success, but now he was faced with an angry Darkside that was now charging up what looked like an even more powerful version of its chest blast attack, only this one had a lot more of that dark yellow energy in the mix.
As it turned out, this change in color wasn't just for show as the Darkside uncrossed its arms from its chest and unleashed a massive yellow and black beam from its chest! Archive's eyes widened in his bandaged skull before he crossed his arms in front of himself and conjured up a dark barrier to protect himself! The energy beam struck the barrier and began to break around it, but Sora could tell that Archive was struggling against it. Sora took aim at the source of the beam and fired off a salvo of fire spells, though they didn't do anything. They didn't even get the Darkside's attention.
Sora gritted his teeth in frustration as he tried to think of a way to get Archive out of there before his barrier broke. The Darkside didn't appear to be losing any steam with this new blast, meaning that Archive was running on limited and rapidly dwindling time before he couldn't maintain the shield anymore, and that could lead nowhere good.
"Well, when in doubt, attack from behind!" Sora exclaimed before he began to run around the Darkside and felt a surge of elation, followed by immense frustration directed at himself. The heart shaped cavity in a Darkside's chest went all the way through the body, so of course the stone heart was visible from behind!
"Here's a keyblade in the back, ugly!" Sora shouted before he hurled himself into the air and drove Kingdom Key forward, impaling the giant Heartless in the back of the stone heart. The Darkside immediately ceased firing the beam and let out what could be interpreted as a wail or groan of pain. With Darksides, it was hard to tell. All that mattered was that it hurt. Archive took advantage of this brief respite to teleport a short distance away to recover before he saw what Sora was doing. The Darkside, slow and lumbering as it was, couldn't shake Sora away as he kept rushing in and delivering a flurry of blows to the stone heart before he retreated. Seeing that the Darkside was now almost comically distracted, Archive began to gather dark energy around himself before it coalesced into two large spheres around his hands. He brought them together in front of himself before he braced himself and shouted out two words.
"DARK ULTIMA!"
A colossal beam of black and purple energy erupted from Archive's hands that slammed into the stone heart, immediately causing the Darkside to let out another groan/wail. However, there was something different about it this time. There was an element of panic.
Sora noticed what Archive was doing and smirked. He knew, as if by instinct, that they'd just won. He rushed forward and reared Kingdom Key back one last time before he stabbed it into the stone heart. Immediately, it began to crack on both sides before it burst in a terrific explosion of yellow and black energy! Sora was thrown backwards, landing on his rear and rolling a few times before he came to a stop on his back, groaning a bit from the impact. The Darkside let out one last eerie bellow before it collapsed to the ground. The Agony spines fizzled and popped off its body before crumbling to ash, drifting away on a non-existent breeze. Just like that, the Darkside had returned to the form that Sora had always been familiar with. The inky black skin, heart shaped gap in the torso, no cracks in its 'skin'. However, unlike the other Darksides that Sora had defeated, this one wasn't fading away. Then suddenly, it began to stir.
Sora yelped and leapt back, Kingdom Key raised and at the ready. However, the Darkside payed him no mind as it slowly pushed itself off the ground and back onto its feet before it began to look around. Sora wasn't sure how, but he could tell that the Darkside was experiencing something that Sora had never seen in a Heartless before; the Darkside was confused.
Archive suddenly appeared not to far away and raised his hand. A pulse of purple energy began to emanate from Archive's hand that seemed to get the Darkside's attention. There was a few moments longer of the Darkside staring at Archive before the Sora saw the familiar signs of a portal opening up beneath the Darkside. And just like that, the Darkside began to sink into the ground before it completely vanished from sight and the portal closed.
"Okay… What the heck was that?!" Sora exclaimed as he dismissed Kingdom Key.
"We purged the Agony parasite from the Darkside. I was unsure if it would survive the process, but I have no doubts that the Darkside would have preferred death to a fate in the thrall of the Agony." Archive replied.
"Okay, great. But why exactly did the Darkside, one of the most powerful pureblood Heartless, just leave and not try to kill us?!" Sora shouted, waving his arms in the air as he gestured towards the spot where the Darkside had just vanished from.
"It was the Agony heart that brought the Darkside here. With it gone, it had not reason to remain here and I merely told it to return to the Dark Realm." Archive explained. Now Sora was even more confused.
"Wait, wait, wait! You can talk to Heartless?! How can you talk to Heartless?!" Sora exclaimed, freaking out even more now. Archive didn't seem to get why Sora was freaked out though, given how he wasn't really reacting to Sora's more… animated behaviour upon learning this revelation.
"The Heartless use a dialect similar to the Shades, though it is noticeably more primitive. Also, just because I can speak to them, doesn't mean that the Heartless are obliged to listen. The Darkside could have turned on us and made an attempt on our lives it had felt so inclined." Archive clarified, though that didn't do much to help Sora. However, after a few minutes of taking deep breaths and confusion on Archive's part as he watched Sora trying to calm down, Sora had chilled out enough to decide that it was probably better to not think about this insanity and instead focus on something else.
That something else wasn't coming to him at the moment, so he decided instead to backtrack a few steps and try to learn more about the pre-heart destruction Darkside.
"So, how do you suppose that Darkside ended up like… well, that?" Sora asked Archive, who just shook his head.
"I'm not sure. The Heartless and the Agony have been warring in the Realm of Darkness for ages upon ages, well before the world was torn asunder. If this was indeed possible, which it shouldn't be, it should have happened a long time ago." Archive replied, visible still a bit shaken by the mere existence of the Cruciatus Darkside.
"Wait, you said that the Darkside we just fought shouldn't be possible. What does that mean?" Sora questioned. Archive huffed in discomfort.
"The Heartless are largely creatures that operate on instinct, with that instinct being bound around a 'prime directive'; that directive being to protect their home of the Realm of Darkness. That's why they target hearts in the Realm of Light and the Keyblade in particular, as they view that light as a threat to their home. However, they also protect the vast majority of the Realm of Darkness from being overtaken by the Agony, so naturally the two factions are almost always battling each other. However, if the Agony beginning to adapt, to learn how to somehow possess the Heartless, then the situation is far more dire than I could have imagined. If they take over the Realm of Darkness, then the Realm of Light will surely fall as well." Archive explained gravely. Sora felt a small sinking feeling in his gut before he felt a well of determination.
"Well then, we better keep going. I need to get back to Yen Sid's tower, and we need to unlock all those obelisks to do that. Besides, once we get them unlocked, you and the shades can leave, right? You could go down to the Realm of Darkness to help!" Sora declared. Archive glanced over at Sora and stared at him for a few moments before he nodded.
"Yes. Yes, that is probably the best course of action. Let's press on. The next shackle is nearby." Archive agreed before he began walking away in the direction of obelisk. Sora jogged a bit to catch up before drawing up along side him as they continued on their journey through this dark world, one step and one shackle at a time.
And that's where we're gonna end this chapter for today! Ah, such a nice, short and relaxing chapter to write!
Creativity: It is a bit of a relief to have something relatively stress-free to knock together in between our bulkier chapters.
Author: Oh yeah. I needed that stress-relief.
So, I don't have much else to say today since I'm real tired right now. However, hopefully I'll have more stuff out for you guys that can hopefully help distract you all from the horrors of the world right now. So, stay safe, stay healthy and I wish you all the best in that regard.
Thank you all for reading, please review, hope to see you on Discord and we'll see you next time!