Of Keys and Hammers

by zcritic88

In a realm beyond, the Four Chaos has taken notice of a realm tied close to the heart. They squirmed into the darkness and sought to corrupt if to reach a prize beyond the light. Will the Light of Order, be able to repel this ancient evil?

35. Horrible Monsters

In a factory; Sora, Donald, Goofy, Mike, Sulley, Boo and Kairi entered a particular hall with many crates and a conveyor belt, mechanical arms laying inert. One particular came to life and aimed a cutting beam at Sora. The boy dodged and Mike yelped at the close shot. "Hey, what's with the machines? They've gone totally bonkers!" He turned to an agreeing Sulley. "There's no way we can take Boo through here safely."

Boo agreed with that in her own way as Sulley put together how this came to be. "This must be what Randall meant by "Improvements"," Kairi agreed with that and looked at the various machines shooting cutting beams wildly. "Improvements on killing who ever comes here." Donald stomped his foot in frustration at the hall. "Those aren't improvements for us." Goofy nodded. "Nope, they sure aren't" Sora sighed and smiled in confidence at the death trap, pointing to himself. "Nothin' we can't handle!"

Goofy advised to the natives. "Sulley, maybe you and Mike should take Boo some place that is safe while we figure out how to shut all this down," Sulley nodded to that as he and Mike hid behind a crate, the green monster suggested back. "If you find the contraption controlling those things and smash it." Goofy observed the machine parts, looking like they were meant to cover for something, then to the lasers going out of control. "Hmmm. Maybe we can use the parts here to avoid the lasers."

Sora and Kairi thought it was a sound idea, the team of four slide under a shed and dashed through each one in a good timing, they found the conveyor belt making a curve to the right, they found a cat walk leading to a cage with a contraption keeping the death trap wild. They dashed to the cat walk and climbed, Goofy readying his shield like a one would hold a folding chair and smash at the contraption, Sora and Kairi followed with their keyblades for wrecking, they watched the device short circuit and fall apart, the the robotic arms shooting the laser beams powered down.

Mike and Sulley found the coast was clear and went to catch up with the four, with a clinging Boo in hand. A mechanical door opened up as the monsters arrived and placed the child down, knowing they were in relatively safe grounds. A voice from the speakers sound a bit embarrassed. "Yeah, well, that was just a warm-up. The real fun's just starting!"

Sora, Kairi, Mike and Sulley looked up with crossed expressions and traveled past the door, going down a hallway and finding a storage room full of scream canisters and a variety of unversed that were quickly dispersed. They exit the storage room and traveled down a hall that lead to an elevator room, the elevator looked dim and Sora voiced the annoyance. "Great, the power's out again," Mike understood that. "Okay! We know what to do." He remembered something about the room and looked around, finding a covered room labeled. Painting booth. "Bingo!"

The group were confused about that and Sulley asked. "Uh, Mike? How's that supposed to help?" Mike whispered something in Sulley's ear as the quartet realized what ever the plan was, it was going to be ridiculous, Mike finished and Sulley approved. "Heh, that's good!" The green monster tried to walk out of doing the deed himself. "Yep, take it away!" Sulley stopped him, grabbed him like one a ball and chuckled. "Nice try, Mikey. I'm not doin' this alone!" Mike pleaded. "Hey! You, not me. C'mon...Sulley!" The door slid open and let the two monsters in as Mike continued. "No. Stop! Sul-ley! Not what I had in miiind!"

Close! The five heard the wail of a plan gone wrong, they heard a beep, a shine of light behind and the odd melody of machines whirling.

RIIIIING!

The doors slid open, letting out Mike and Sulley, covered in pink and blue pant. Sulley nudged at the embarrassed Mike and laughed with him, Mike pouted as Boo laughed to that. The elevator lit up, the four visitors gave a praise to the quick thinking, they, the girl and the painted monsters went into the elevator as one. Donald pressed a button leading up, caused the door to close and for the elevator to ascend. The elevator stopped and Boo wandered off, Sulley called to her and followed. "Boo!" Mike pleaded and followed. "Come back! You can't run off kid!" The three ran off and the four followed in turn, into a room with many water pipes, Boo called to Sulley once more. "Kitty!" The monster sighed. "There you are!"

The two tried to approach and an upper pipe broke, spilling a rain of water on top of the two and washing the paint away, Sulley was slightly disappointed and gave a mellow whine. "Ah. That paint kinda growin' on me!" Mike was more thrilled by the lack of paint on himself. "Woot!" Sulley shook the wet off his body like any hairy beast would and annoyed Mike. "Agh! Hey, no. Would ya cut that out?"

PEW!

Five, flying dark orbs enveloped with water appeared, in repeat, Sulley and Mike got Boo to safety as Sora, Kairi, Donald and Goofy went into battle. Sora felt annoyed by the havoc. "Just how much of this place is infested by these guys?" Sulley and Mike joined into the battle and much like the swarms before, quickly took out the aquatic heartless. Sora and Donald used lightning magic and gave Kairi a jolt of an inspiration to shoot down the lightning. Clearing the way towards another place in the factory.

A cross section with two paths, further to the left was a hall short circuiting and full of danger to the right was a set of stairs leading into a hall way not to dangerous. It lead to a storage room surrounded by electrical fences that connected to the metal crates, five electrical mage like heartless, three soldier like heartless and two toad like unversed appeared. Kairi growled and jumped into battle first. "Electricity, after we all nearly got wet." Sora, Donald and Goofy jumped into battle as Mike and Sulley realized how much of a disadvantage they were in. Goofy had an idea and used his shield to bash the unversed foes into the electric fence, seeing that they took a nasty jolt as Donald shot fire balls at the soldiers to knock them into the electric fence and gave the teenagers time to take out the mages with quick combos. The teenagers shot fire balls to finish off the soldiers as the two unversed croaked and jumped off the fence, inflating and trying to attack. The teenagers dived after the two unversed and knocked into the fence again, the frogs burst into flames and faded away. The electric fences powered down, Mike jumped down as Sulley climbed down with Boo. A gate opened to lead them to the other direction, a conveyor belt with many out of control lasers. Mike sighed. "Not this again."

In the Castle that never was.

At the highest point of the tower, Ahriman, Maleficent and Xehanort focused a ritual of three to open a way from the Realm of Darkness. Causing something to fall out, twelve of the disoriented Varanguard, looking annoyed at a denied victory as Dorghar climbed out like a frenzied beast, Archaon followed behind, giving a silent vow of vengeance as he held in his left hand, a scurrying rodent with a glowing horned crown, he tossed the rodent near the ledge and asked. "Tell them, before I silence you and the Horned Rat forever."

The rodent looked around and was gasping in a frenzied snarl, Xehanort asked nonchalantly. "You're own personal venture didn't go according to plan and you salvaged something? We were readying your escape from the Realm of Darkness after Maleficent spoke of what she sensed." Archaon pretended to care about that. "I will focus on toppling Olympus later, when we are certain no more would defy us." He answered Ahriman's unspoken question. "It was not those weaklings that banished me, but a potential candidate. A demon that controls time and space was what ended my siege when I had the victory so close at."

The Sorcerer denied the question. "I doubted that Sora and the others would have bested you in their current power, if you were anything like... the other one, doing combat with you would have been suicidal for even the most veteran of warriors. What would have made youths not even at adulthood and strange animals that act like humans?"

Archaon answered the Sorcerer. "Dead." He asked Maleficent. "You completed your task yet, witch? We must gather our thirteen soon."

The Mistress of All Evil showed the pendent and promised him. "Pete is tracking the Horned King as we speak and I will be on my way as soon as your... guest, speaks." The rodent forced himself up and hissed. "I will witch thing! Yes, yes. I have not forgotten your assault with in my domain."

Xehanort backed away and felt he sensed enough as the rodent introduced himself. "I am Thanqoul. Great Grey Seer of the Horned Rat, you seek the dark dark?"

Ahriman sensed the rodents thoughts and called a time out as he and Xehanort closed the dark rift. "Hold it, you are from the same kind of realms Archaon is from?"

The skaven nodded and rubbed his hands together. "Is that a problem?" The Everchosen slowly nodded to the three, keeping the skaven unaware as Xehanort asked. "A creature as dark as you... survived in the Realm of Darkness without succumbing to its power?! How did you even fall into the realm in the first place?"

Thanqoul glared at Maleficent. "Witch thing ruined my Ritual of Thirteen tolls. But, I found a great power with in." He snapped his fingers and caused shadowy rats to scurry from the darkness. The Everchosen watched the numbers come by the hundreds. "He had his mind on the warp stone he horded above everything else, even when his own heartless turned on him. A heart like the skaven... that by some dark miracle was strong enough to endure the darkness and chaos, is of value among our Thirteen."

Thanqoul relished the name and snickered as Ahriman sarcastically approved. "An excellent idea to throw in a self serving, backstabbing rat among us, you have him under some form of control?" Archaon and Xehanort gave a sinister smile, the scientist answered to that. "This is one of the reasons Vanitas freed Slannesh in the other reality. With the four proper aligned, the Great Horned Rat... an upstart... is declining in power as one of the Four major gods of Chaos. If the Great Horned Rat is cast aside, so will the rest of the Skaven. Not that a Skaven would care for their own kind."

Archaon agreed with that. "And because of his... mastery over what was the vermin that followed him, that I decided to be generous," Thanquoul agreed with that and gracefully bowed. "Yes, yes. You have the aid of the Great Horned Rat, as with me," None of the four were believing the facade of obedience, the Everchosen ordered. "Thanqoul, you have dominion over the sewers of the dark city bellow. Come at my call and serve us faithfully and perhaps the Four Chaos Gods would allow the Horned Rat to have his position. Betray us and the two of you are forfeit."

The rodent cringed as Maleficent and Ahriman stood out of his way, a large plan he didn't spend much time thinking about was up in smoke. "Y...Yes yes. We will be ready," He scurried down the tower and out of hearing, Ahriman let the other three know. "My Rubrics will see he never sets one foot on this castle again. Archaon, about the demon that opposed you, it is clearly not something of the light?"

The Everchosen shook his head. "No... but unless we can learn more about that demon or where it lurks," Xehanort felt the plan coming into format. "There are ways to make a heart that black serve us, but it will take time. For now-" He gave a small look to Maleficent, the witch understood and took her leave. "Then this meeting is over, another will join soon." With her gone, Ahriman readied for his own. "I will organize my forces for our... hindrance momentarily. We will be ready once we track her down."

The other treacherous sorcerer left as Archaon asked Xehanort. "The Keyblade Master seeks to throw our plans in jeopardy and we are to crush her with a full army?"

The Seeker of Darkness nodded. "But not with you just yet." Archaon understood why. "If we slaughter them all now, we waist the value of those with in their ranks. That demon's little... excuse, is what you really sought?" Xehanort agreed with that. "Regardless of what Aqua's plans are, the fact she has students now, could be a problem. One is a Princess of Heart, another is beyond the reaches of darkness, but only one of them is susceptible." He felt bored thinking about it. "More will be discussed when Vanitas returns. By now, Aqua is prioritizing a friend of hers."

In an illusion of a long alley way.

Kendry was astonished by the amount of burning in the town, six dead dogs and the sound of someone screaming. "Oh, no! Not again," He rushed through the town and found a knight in elite armor, being surrounded by five hollow bandits, the knight killed two and was shanked by a third. Ken fired and quickly killed the fourth, he shot himself to the fifth for a quick kill and watched the knight riposte the last of the bandits. The knight turned to his savior and casually greeted him. "Oh, hello again, Sir Kendry. I... got a little in over my head after journeying into the Darkroot Garden for... better equipment. This might have been the tenth time I ventured down here if it wasn't for you're intervention."

Ken shook his head and checked the knight's armor. "I see, there was a lot of bodies back there. Do... you know what's been causing most of the problems here?"

Jambert nodded to that. "The undead hollowing, but there is a passage I am searching for that... seems to be locked away for the moment." Ken had his keyblades ready and went ahead. "You found who had the key yet?"

Jambert cringed and followed ahead fast. "Oh I have, one is right before me... but a knight should not have to rely on others. The other..." He looked ahead to a fogged gate and saw two dogs rushing after the boy, he rolled in the way and slew one as Ken fired his gun like keyblade, the dog jumped to the right and rushed after him with a diseased maw. Ken turned his blade and caught the dog in the shot, quickly slaying it. "Is behind this? You don't have to go in there when someone with a key that unlocks anything is here."

Jambert knew and he wished to allow the boy to aid him through that, he shivered in a trance. "Five times I crossed that fog, five times... I was sent back to the bonfire. I will slay the demon before I venture downward, less he haunts me in my dreams," Ken's eyes widened and slowed down, patting the knight on his shoulder. "I get it, how about instead, we deal with that demon together?"

Jambert didn't mind that compromise. "We shall, but we enter the gate at once and make it to the stairs. That demon is not alone." The duo approached the fogged gate, Jambert stuttered and counted down. "When I say one, we vanquish this demon or die trying. Th...three," Ken counted. "Two," Jambert counted. "O...One." The two entered through the gate and heard snarling, on entry to a narrow alley with stairs to the left, Jambert tried to bolt to the stairs and was pinned down by two dogs as Ken had a look at the demon Jambert was terrified of. A large humanoid with a boney tail, grey skin, brown ragged pants and a four purple eyed goats skull for a head, the Capra Demon held two hooked machetes as large as Jambert and readied to slash the two weapons at the knight, giving a dull hiss and ordering its dogs to jump back. Ken shot to the Capra Demon with his burning keyblade and knocked him back, towards a fence barely away.

The knight got up and slashed at the two dogs dancing around him as Ken looked around and found the arena to be no larger than a storage closet. The Capra Demon looked at the boy and ran to him, Ken dismissed Cadia's Light and held Firekeeper's Wish with both hands, positioning it to his left shoulder and facing it forward. He went to the stairway and was tripped by one of the two dogs, Ken fell on his rear and had his back against the wall, he struck the dog dead and watched the Capra Demon ready a swing at him with his right machete. Ken rolled on the stairway to dodge and tried to get himself up, crawling up and finding the demon following him. He screamed in mortal peril and sprinted up the stairs like a scared animal as Jambert killed the second dog, looked at the demon, took out a fire bomb, hurled it at the Capra Demon, causing it to casually turn to the knight.

Jambert readied his claymore and taunted. "Now the tables are turned demon. There is two of us and only-" The demon wasted no time running after him, pressed its machetes together and swiped from its right, Jambert rolled to the right and dodged the slash. Ken climbed up the wall for even footing, the Capra Demon saw it missed and rushed by the outer side of the stairs, like it wanted the two to jump off. Jambert rolled off the stairs as Ken used his air magic to somersault to the lower end of the stairs. The Capra Demon jumped off and met a few slashes from Jambert's blade. Ken shot to the demon and stabbed it across the shoulder, pouncing upon it, pulling the blade back and doing it again, the demon waddled back and was slashed in the stomach. Ken and Jambert jumped side by side, the knight readied another fire bomb as the boy's keyblade twist into an odd form, a fiery spear. He thrust as the knight threw, a combined fire ball struck the demon in the heart, pushing it against the fence and causing it to fall over dead.

The two felt weak on their knees at a feat, the demon was slain. Jambert searched the carcass as Ken looked upon his burnt spear and realized. "It... did an actual form change?"

Jambert took out a key and gave a praise to the sun in the sky. "I knew it! HA! Praise the Sun, we can journey into the Depths now." Ken kept staring at his burning spear and let it return to the burning keyblade, he looked up and asked. "That's the way to Blighttown?" Jambert nodded and turned around. "And to our second bell. Sir Kendry, you fight with a certain finesse, do you have a tutor of some kind?" Ken nodded. "I do, I was mostly self taught until Miss Aqua took me and two other students in. One is already a powerful warrior before she had a keyblade, the other is around or above my level. What about you?"

Jambert tried to remember the details. "I learned from an academy before I caught this dreadful curse. But that... I don't know how long it has been." The two went down a stairway to their left and journeyed to the lowest point in the town. They slew a few stray thieves and found a door to their right. Jambert used his key and unlocked it, he lead the way in and was greeted by zombies, he and Ken carved through and smelled the aroma of sewage.

In a floor bellow.

Aqua saw a burnt trial of bodies and the appearance of a wyvern without a tail, stomping in front of her, roaring and letting loose a fire breath. The Keyblade Master jumped high and behind the wyvern, striking at the stub of a tail that looked to have been hit with something cauterizing. She sensed the wyvern ready a spin and back flipped, the wyvern flew up and blew fire down to the ground. Aqua jumped onto the wyvern's back and enveloped herself in lightning, striking the foe and causing it to spasm, forcing it to land and exposing it to a swift beating, she felt regretful about something and burst into air magic, slashing the wyvern at the head and flying above it to fire down magic beams, the wyvern went limp and the woman felt an odd satisfaction, she went across the trail of burnt bodies into the keep and found a bonfire, reminiscent of what her wayward student does on a frequent basis. "These memories are not his. What had he let loose?"

She followed to the left and saw destruction, whether by the condition of the world or from bodies that seemed fresh, a gate way lead to a church and with in was a bright door. She walked across and found herself in familiar grounds. Something appeared in front of her and swiped two large machetes at her. She flipped to the right and saw a large, black skin humanoid with a set of black pants with a red skirt. It's chest had hints of grey, it had a bone white tail, its head was that of a four eyed goat skull. The eyes gave a golden glow and the machetes it wields were rusted with hint of red gears. The Goat Demon disappeared and Aqua flew as far to the other corner of the room as possible, finding the demon trying to land on top with her and slam with machetes and appearing from the wall, the Goat Demon slashed its right machete at her. She back flipped and watched it swing with its left, she flew in and relentlessly attacked. The Goat Demon took the slashes and stilled from the fourth slash, Aqua back flipped and watched the Goat Demon lunged towards her with the two machetes, she had the chance and attacked back, she aimed a fire ball at point blank range and caused the demon to stagger. She enveloped herself in fire and rushed the Goat Demon, bringing it into a stun lock. She jumped into the air and swiped a barrage of fire, causing the creature to shatter into an illusion. She panted and heard a deep laughter from behind. "Ha, ha, ha. An extraordinary battle, Lord of the Castle."

Aqua turned to find Garland with his blade to his side, she was ready to kick him from the castle. "You're not welcome here, leave and never return." Garland gave a polite gesture. "I shall once the crystal above has syphon enough of the Castle's infinite power. I never thought draining the power would cause a ripple of memories, colliding with one another and taking whole new shapes," Aqua growled and knew from the appearance. "Like the Goat Demon, I know who that thing was." Garland nodded to that. "A memory of a fiend you and your pupil know of and a memory of a fiend he and his keyblade know of." He and Aqua gave a challengers glare and charged after each other. SHATTER!

Garland faded into an illusion, Aqua heard the knights voice warn her. "The memories of whole world resigned with in the castle, one full of more dangers than you can possible imagine. You're pupils desire for knowledge will be his undoing, less you hurry." Aqua didn't want to agree with the intruder and looked ahead to the hall. "Of all the places-"

At a Factory

Sora, Donald, Goofy and Kairi followed Mike and Sully to a massive metal gate. The CEO ran ahead and let them know. "Once we get through here, we're clear." Mike went to a computer like device at the right. "Yep! This is the central control unit for the whole factory!" He asked. "Now whaddaya say say we get outta here?"

Sora and Donald rushed to the computer, the boy insisted and pressed buttons randomly. "Let me!"

Donald pressed buttons randomly. "I want to do it!"

Mike tried to stop them as Kairi looked to the two like they were being dim wits, she asked Goofy. "Didn't they get in a mess from doing something like this?" The shield bearer nodded as he watched Mike chase the two off. "That they did." Mike pressed a few buttons and and tapped a hand on the metal in frustration. "Rats! Randall must have messed this up. Nothing works!"

Donald asked disappointed. "We can't get out?" Goofy advised. "Maybe it would be faster to just break it." Kairi approved of that. "That worked for the others, it might work here." Sora agreed with that and drew out his keyblade. "Oh, that's brilliant."

Mike yelped as Sora readied to carelessly destroy potentially expensive equipment, Sulley put a stop to that. "Hang on!" Sora looked back as the monster advised. "Think I've got a better idea." He approached and spoke of the idea. "If we can just short it out, the lock will disengage and lucky for us," He looked towards Boo, who was eager to help. "Boo is a walking energy generator." Mike was agreeing to the plan. "Mmm. That might work," Sora agreed back and was having ideas of how to make Boo laugh. "You're our MVP, Boo."

The girl laughed eagerly as Sulley put her on the top of his head, the two wandered across the room playfully, Sora and Mike attempted to join in on the fun, the green monster tripped and caused Sora to trip. The boy lost grip of his keyblade and accidentally kicked Mike across, the monster landed on his knees and slide. On stopping, he posed and pretended it was intentional. The keyblade fell on the monster and wacked him on the head, it disappeared as Mike was stunned. The group, Sora included, laughed at the slapstick, causing the computer to overload and spark, Boo heard something, turned to find dark creatures emerging from the shadows and crouched, Sulley turned to find six floods, five snakes and a spiked toad appearing from thin air. Mike asked Sulley. "Hide her." The furry monster was on it and kept guard as Sora, Donald, Goofy and Kairi readied for battle.

Sora and Kairi focused on the floods as Goofy and Donald focused on the snakes, Mike annoyed the toad and caused it to focus on comitting a flying press to his direction. The floods were bested with ease as three of the snakes went for Mike. The green monster ran from them as the spiked toad licked its maw and inhaled, sucking the snakes in and leaving the other two to the keyblade wielders. The three snakes crawled out of holes on the toads back like parasites and spit at the group, causing purple puddles to splash and bubble like acid. Sora turned his hunny spout into hunny blasters as Kairi focused and caused her keyblade to take shape into a staff with a floral star at the top, spinning a magic girl and giving a wink to Boo as she raised it to the air and hovered, yelling loudly and blasting the toad as Sora fired a barrage of hunny wands. The goofy like behavior from the odd monsters caused Boo to laugh, Sora formed his blasters into a launcher as Kairi caused her staff to enlarge into a pillar resembling a sand castle tied to a tree, she jumped on top and yelled to the unversed. "Spawn of evil, here my words. In the name of the stars, I'll punish you."

Sora fired globs of hunny and watched Kairi give an elegant, for her form, spin that fed a strong light into the star, she floated behind the star and clapped it towards the unversed. BOOM! The foe was obliterated and the pillar faded, Kairi landed with grace, Boo looked like she didn't get it and thought Kairi was acting over the top. Laughing lightly and causing the machine to go haywire, it was still functional and Mike snapped his fingers. "Shoot, it's no use. We need a bigger burst of laughter."

The group saw the unversed stopped coming and Sulley escorted Boo to a less crowded spot. The CEO asked his friend. "Would you care to do the honors?"

Mike faced Boo and pointed his fingers in style. "I'd love to," He tabbed the upper left side of his head and caused his eye ball to rotate to the lower right, he tapped again and caused his eye to rotate back, he aimed lower for a different angle and slowly raised his left hand lower and his right hand lower. "Tada! 40 – 0. Game and set!" The visitors grouped up as Mike sighed. "I'm not cut out for this racket," Boo stopped laughing, she really didn't get the joke to the point Mike had to explain it. "Come on. It's a tennis joke. Should I've gone with ping-pong?"

Sora whispered to his friends. "Nothin' could have saved that one." They agreed and Mike went to another joke. "Wait! Nobody move! I dropped my contact!" Sulley scratched his chin on doubt. "I don't think Boo's going to get it, Mike." Sora approached Sulley and whispered as Boo folded her arms unamused. "Do you get it?" Sulley answered in a whisper in an attempt to stay respectful. "Yeah, it's 'cause his eye's so big. The joke is you can't lose a contact the size of a dinner plate."

Mike got it through his head that his joke was a complete failure. Donald approached Mike and asked in complaint. "Aren't you supposed to be good at this?" Mike answered his excuse. "I am once I'm warmed up."

Kairi snapped her fingers and approached Sora. "Hey, remember that... thing we practiced?" Sora hummed like he didn't remember, remembered and his eyes glistened. "That?" Goofy asked. "The funny face special?" Sora answered and scratched the back of his head. "Well, if you insist." He approached Boo and crouched to get started as Kairi played along with her cheeks puffed, joined the fun and crouched. Sora noticed and imitated an overly happy cat, Kairi pretended to pout and stuck her tongue out, Boo giggled at the silent argument. Sora pulled his side lips and stuck his tongue out as Sulley was finding it funny and asked. "Come on, everyone join in." Kairi acted jealous and mimicked Sora, Boo was entertained by the weird mouth with two sets of mandibles as Sulley, Mike, Goofy and Donald made funny faces to Boo. The girl laughed louder and caused the machine to beep out of control.

DING!

The group noticed the light on the side of the door turn green. Sulley laughed to that and teased Mike. "Sora and Kairi are aiming for your job." Mike folded his arms in a scoff as he and the group tried to get to door.

Hearing rapid foot steps and a familiar voice taunting. "You aren't going to leave without saying good-bye?"

The group turned around to find Randall squinting his eyes menacingly, Mike sighed. "Give it a rest, Randall. You're not going to get away with this," Sulley agreed with that. "We'll stop anything you throw at us." The group readied to fight as Sora agreed. "Yeah!"

Randell kept taunting. "Maybe you will. Or then again, maybe you won't. I've still got an ace up my sleeve." He pointed to a metallic device that looked like a robotic centipede, had a suction like tube and yellow canisters. Mike and Sulley recognized parts of the machine and expected a fight as Randall snapped his fingers. "Now, I command you to destroy them!" Nothing happened, Sora and Kairi readied to attack as Randall turned to the machine and snapped his fingers again. "Hey, come on!" He crawled to it, tapped and hissed. "Move... move, you stupid-"

Mike sighed. "Haaa! Looks like your ace is a joker." Randall weakly kicked the machine. "What a pile of junk." He crawled away as the teenagers readied a charge, Sulley stopped them and suggested with a desire to not cause traumatizing violence. "Just leave him. Don't think he can cause us any more trouble."

Boo looked up to Sora and Kairi calling them. "Kitty!" Sulley petted Boo with the primary objective in mind. "Besides, we gotta focus on getting Boo home." Sora let a grudge go and dismissed his keyblade. "You're right." Kairi agreed with that. "There isn't a point beating that lizard up."

They focused on the gate as Sulley lead. "Boo's door has to be somewhere in the vault. If we head outside and go through the power station, we can get to the door vault that way."

The gate rolled up and the group left, in a minute, the gate rolled back down, a Coachman appeared from a corridor along with a masked figure in black and red. "See, what did I say. You bluff enough and they will make a jackass of themselves once you show what you really got," He asked the masked boy. "They'll never see the real surprise coming. It's all yours."

Vanitas agreed with that and saw Randall making himself visible. "And lucky for us, I just gathered enough screams to invite some...ha, party their way." He aimed his hand towards the mix and matched machine, causing ooze to form out of it as an unversed symbol shined upon a bauble on the device. "If that doesn't take their breath away, this... wonderful machine will." The ooze slithered in front of the masked man that instructed Randall. "All you need to do is catch them by surprise and watch the show." A face formed with in the ooze, sploshing into a horrific mixture of darkness and machine, Randall gave an evil smile to a chaotic deal.

In the depths of a sewer.

Ken watched Jambert dive his claymore onto a giant mutated rat and jumped off as the rat finished its death throes. The boy jumped off into the stinky water and watched the knight search everything. "You think that blacksmith will like to see that ember you found?"

Jambert took a black shade from the rat and saw a path leading to a slide, he looked ahead and took the left corner. "I will see to it when we make a path to Blighttown," He slide down and Ken followed, the boy lit up his burning keyblade to use as a torch and saw a hole leading down somewhere, he and the knight made it to the other side and found moving slime waddling towards them, the boy walked to the right and found a stairway up, calling his friend. "We should make a way back down here in case we run into another mess. Those butchers wouldn't stop."

He lead up the stairway and Jambert followed, towards a cell block with a ladder up, leading to more stairs that lead to a room that had a locked door to the left. Kendry tapped the lock with his blade and opened the door, leading to a comforting hall way with a bonfire. Jambert gasped and thanked him. "Oh, thank you. Neither of us want to go back to that alley way above ever again," The knight left for the fire as Kendry felt a shiver of fear leave and an odd light with in his eyes, he looked ahead with his gun like keyblade and wondered. "Will I form change you soon?"

Tap! Tap!

Jambert returned and went back down the stairs. "I think I saw something when we slide down there. Shall we see?" Kendry nodded and followed him, curiosity got the best of the two as they found a door in the crated room and looked, finding a J shaped tunnel and a swarm of rats skittering to them. Kendry fired his gun and quickly dispatched them as Jambert followed and searched from behind wooden boxes, putting another large weapon in his bag as Ken went the other way, finding two wooden boxes and stepping close.

BURST!

A rat charged out with its diseased fangs, Kendry jumped back and stabbed it between the eyes, Jambert caught up and apologized. "It was a great axe, Sir Kendry, you addressed your teacher as Miss. Care to share more about her?" Ken nodded and found a ledge with a set of stairs. "She is wonderful person that saved my life. You might like her, but-" He raised a finger and looked down to more rats, gunning them down as he advised. "She isn't like anything you might have seen, all the gritty... smelly things that use to be people. It might be embarrassing if we meet her down here or in the town over."

Jambert agreed and shrugged as he walked down the stairs, found a bars keeping him away from the corpse of the giant rat. He looked back to find a hall way. "That isn't what a lady should see, a knight covered in filth. But it's too late now."

He and Kendry went down the hall that had a turn to the right, showing a fogged and dread of what was to come, the boy went in first and found a rodent keeping guard of something, he fired and heard the sound of someone channeling something. Two more rats, glowing blue, scurried to him, Jambert saw the gate passed and charged after the rats with his claymore.

SWIPE!

The rodents were slain, the duo saw stairs down a small ledge and saw a wizard channeling a spell. Shooting blue beams upon them, the duo rolled out of the way and quickly cut him down. They found themselves at a balcony and viewed the yonder, finding a wall of the sewer broken down, glittering sun light down the water way flowing to a chasm. Ken appreciated the small beauty as Jambert noticed a doorway to the right. "Hmm." Ken looked away and watched the knight walk ahead to the door, joining him to another damp hall, they took a turn to the right and found a path to the left, ignoring the rat ahead and finding themselves back in the room where the giant rat was.

Jambert noticed something odd climbing on top of the corpse, a red glowing knight with barbs. "Oh, hello, seeking the way to-" Roll!

The knight rolled towards Jambert and caught him in his barbs, puncturing his armor and knocking him down. Kendry was in a corner and confronted the glowing red foe that had gnarly spikes on his sword and shield. The boy jumped back and watched the knight roll to him, he dodged out of the way and went to the intruders personal space, the knight looked surprised, blocked with his shield and had it parried away by flames. Ken jabbed the bayonet into the knight as Jambert got up, he kicked him back to the water as Jambert followed with his claymore. The knight of thorns rolled after Jambert, the less sinister knight got out of the way and slashed at him. Ken position himself for a clear shot as Jambert readied his shield, the knight of thorns slashed at Jambert and was parried by the shield, Jambert riposte his foe and knocked him to a wall, Ken fired at the thorn knights chest, the knight went limp and faded away, leaving behind a black flicker. The boy raised his keyblade in the air and healed Jambert with a cure. Pulse! "That was weird." He went to the left to slide down as Jambert put away the black shade. "Quite."

He followed the boy down the sewer passage, finding a green door with wheel barrels and crates, it had a lock. Jambert snapped his fingers as Ken asked. "Now, may I please unlock the door? I have that feeling something will jump at us at any moment." Jambert shook his head and found a doorway to the right. "If I take short cuts like that... would I be worthy of knighthood?"

Ken shook his head and noticed an odd, crouched up statue near the door way, Jambert stepped across and was jumped by a frantically bouncing, lizard with bulging orange eyes. Ken felt unnerved, watched the lizard inhale and shot it dead. Jambert flung the lizard off and saw a crystalized statue eerily resembling a human, both kept quiet and walked through the door to another hall, leading to a balcony showing the room of sun light. The knight saw a golden sign and went to it. "Besides, who would be there to help the lost soul?"

He summoned a familiar golden knight that gave a praise to the sun, marveling the wonder ahead, Ken sighed and said hello. "No one. Hey Solaire, you're ready to see what awaits?" The warrior of sunlight looked to be smiling to him. "Even in the darkest depths, the sun finds its way. Lead the way."

The two did so and found a stairway down, they took a left and walked past a fogged gate. They took a deep breath in cleaner smelling air as Solaire followed them, Ken noticed something wiggling over an edge, a small lizards head with a rather thick neck. His eyes widened as he whispered. "Guys, there is something here."

Jambert noticed the small head and the neck, the head pulled to reveal an exposed rib cage, the knight wished to complain and saw the rib cage move like teeth. Massive clawed fore arms appeared to pull the body they were attached to, the lizard roared from its rib cage and revealed it to be a massive maw for a chest, it had two sets of wings on its back, black scales and second set of claws on its abdomen, a set of legs on the back and a mighty tail. The trio knew a dragon when they see one, one with a massive gaping maw of teeth that oddly wriggled. The dragon growled, flipped its upper half back and showed more of its maw as it shrieked, the Gaping Dragon swatted a broken pillar to bits with its left fore arm as Solaire charged ahead and Jambert rushed to the dragons side, Ken stayed by a wall and readied Cadia's Light, the dragon slammed its upper half to the ground in a crawl and howled as Solaire thrust his sword to its head, Ken fired the multi laser at it and Jambert sunk his claymore into the dragons side, his sword scratching the scales, the Gaping Dragon crawled, knocked Solaire aside and rushed to Kendry, the boy ran to the left and watched Jambert go for the dragons tail. The Gaping Dragon reached towards the wall and turned after its nimble prey, Kendry kept firing at the head as Solaire charged a lightning bolt and struck the dragon, causing it to howl in pain and flip its upper body up, it felt a sharp blade forcing its way through its tail, it swiped Jambert away with said tail and took flight. Ken used his air magic to take flight and jumped to Solaire's side.

THUD!

The dragon turned, landed and caused a rumble, positioning his tail against the wall and felt beams of power against its chest, it fell over and crawled after the two grouped together, Ken shot across the other end of the room, landed on a wall and flung to the dragons tail, cutting deep into it and back flipping as Solaire was knocked asunder and Jambert dashed for the tail once more. Solaire got up and tried to charge the front again, like one without much common sense, and was snatched by a talon. Ken watched in detail as the Knight of Sunlight was tossed into the gaping maw, the teeth clenched down and crushed prey, the boy aimed at the dragons head in anger and felt his keyblade shift around his arm to form a canon. Jambert slashed the deeply cut tail. SLASH! The tail was cut loose, the Gaping dragon roared in pain as his tail was severed, dropping Solaire and spinning after Jambert.

PEW!

Cadia's Light fired, the Gaping Dragon was shot in the head once more and fell forward, Jambert rolled out of the way and rushed to the dragons head, he took his claymore and chopped the dragons head off. The body went limp onto the watery ground, Jambert panted and looked upon the chewed up Solaire, punctured, yet living. The knight slowly faded, looking bright over victory. "That a mighty beast, yet... still no sun."

Ken agreed with that as his arm canon returned to a keyblade. "Maybe it will show after the second Bell gets rung. Thank you for the help Solaire," Jambert gave a respectful bow to the Warrior of Sunlight. "May we meet again soon," Solaire vanished and chuckled. "May we shall, good friends."

With the dragon slain, Jambert searched the tail and pulled out a massive great axe, the knight had much to search and asked. "Sir Kendry, I... might need to search this monsters guts. You shouldn't need to see this." Ken sighed and turned. "I'll be at the door to Blighttown, that was a pretty nasty thing for a nasty place."

He went back the way he came and reached the sewer, finding the green door to his right and turning, he found a crouching merchant with a horned, golden helmet with glasses. "Aye, Shwma and good day to you," Ken shook off the dread and asked. "How's it going and thank you. Who are you?"

The merchant answered. "I'm Domhnall of Zena. I'm just, well, a peddler of sort." Ken felt the honest tone and greeted him. "I'm Kendry of Radiant Garden, I traveled from far away and want to see what is out in the world. What do you sell?"

The merchant answered with a near childish joy. "Well, I adore trinkets and oddities. So I trade for them," Ken whistled. "Jambert is going to like this once we gets to it. We're heading to Blighttown." Domhnall gasped. "Blighttown, it's just past that door, you stocked up on blooming purple moss?" He closed his right eye under his helmet, his tone being sincerely worried. "I'd advised against going there unless you have a reason."

Ken closed his eyes in a cringe. "We heard a bit of how awful it might be over there, but he was a pretty grouchy guy. I guess he wasn't just trying to talk us down," Domhnall hummed to that. "Don't let the Crestfallen get to you, but he had some wisdom to share. I know it isn't my place to ask, but what are those?"

Kendry opened his eyes and showed keyblades. "They are special swords called keyblades. I'd offered Jambert to just let me open this, but he wanted to find the actual key. That's why you heard... that."

Domhnall shivered and cringed. "Many who go that way never returned and I saw a poor soul breath in a basilisks breath," He looked to the statue in pity and noticed someone sliding down. "I never knew him."

Ken wanted to forget about the orange eyed fiends. "This whole place is one wrong turn away to death. These keyblades are pretty special for me, so you know what my answer to your other question is going to be. They are one of a kind," Domhnall placed his hands together in respect. "I won't consider asking if they are."

He saw a blue haired woman in a black dress looking worried for someone and looking directly at the boy, he asked Ken. "Should a youth such as yourself be traveling these lands? It is awfully dangerous."

Ken was completely unaware. "I'm traveling with Jambert... but he can afford to get killed since he just reappears by a bonfire. I can't." Domhnall gasped and shook his head. "Then you shouldn't consider visiting that diseased town. Madam, were you looking for this child?"

Ken jumped and turned, finding a familiar woman feeling like she was being watched, the boy shook his head and heard foot steps and jingling. Jambert arrived with a set of filthy keys. "Ha! Sir Kendry, we can leave these bowels now once we prepare." The knight noticed the maiden with hint of blue and a blade similar to his companion. "I say," He stood boldly. "Lady Aqua, you're apprentice told me about you," The knight gave a respectful bow, unaware that he was making her feel depressed. "I am Knight Jambert, an undead that seeks to ring the second Bell of Awakening and do something about the Curse of Undeath."

Ken saw the look in Aqua's eyes and played along. "I came to this adventure after trying to save him from some birds. He's a pretty good person if you don't mind him looting everything that isn't bolted down. I been hearing that Blight Town really isn't the kind of place we should be going in unprepared, so we might need to do that."

Jambert agreed with him. "I learned that lesson after the undead burg. Any recommendations?" Ken had one. "Blooming Purple moss." Domhnall gave a tip to the knight. "The merchant that sells them is just a near the entrance to this sewer if you search the nearest building, buy bunches." Jambert took the tip and was interested in the merchants wares as Aqua sensed her student's intention. "But... are you going to open the door or should we?"

Jambert answered proudly. "I haven't carved into a dragons bowels, just to not use its contents." He went to the gate and opened them, bringing a shine of light as he and Domhall gave a glow. Stopping still. Ken knew what happened and exhaled. "As nice as these two are, they are just something this castle made. Miss, thank you for not telling them."

Aqua silently walked past the shining light, Ken sensed anger, yelped and followed, the two entered a white hall. The teacher tried to calm herself and asked. "Kendry, how did you find this world?"

The boy answered clearly. "When I was dealing with people that were trying to kill me. Me and a friend needed answers and this world was around the corner before we dived in," He put together the puzzle of odd reactions and realized a wrong. "And coming here was one of the worst mistakes of my life, was it?"

Aqua turned around sharply and was exhausted. "Castle Oblivion was made so intruders who wander deeply would be lost into oblivion, when the memories they brought to life become too much for them to bare. You brought a keyblade that is partially alive and remembers the places you saw. Places that were filled with death."

Ken swallowed and asked. "But that isn't even close to half of the places from that world or what ever was and the next floor is all about a place I heard, enough about. How... do you know of this place?"

Aqua answered. "I created this castle. Kendry, there is someone trespassing here and he is tampering with its power. We need to get to the top floor and because of that keyblade's memories, most of the castle is like the world that Keyblade came from." Ken's chest felt stone cold, his eyes nearly became glassy. "I...turned this place into a death trap in the worst possible time?"

Aqua nodded and cast a healing spell to wake him up. "And because Garland is in the castle, tampering with so much, I can't just shut it off." Ken felt awake as his teacher calmed down. "But, you battle through quite a number of foes. Did you learn anything new?"

The boy nodded. "I actually mixed aero with my attacks and both of my keyblades form changed. Miss, those are more than just memories of a world full of dangers." Aqua nodded back. "There are people that lived in that world. That's what it remembers. But-" Ken saw the hesitation and helped her continued. "That would have been how this castle did me in. The actual world is gone, those people the illusions were made after are gone. That's...probably why seeing Traverse again didn't make me feel any better."

The teacher approached him for a lecture. "You want to see it again, but in you're heart and mind, you know the truth that it isn't going to happen." Ken wiped tears from his eyes and felt a gentle embrace along feelings of guilt. He looked up to Aqua and let her know. "Miss, there wasn't anything any of us could have done. What... what are we going to do?"

The teacher felt a hug back and hesitated to let go. "It's too late to undo the mess, but we could learn of that world together, learn from it and see things go back to normal." Ken let go and felt it was a good compromise. "Then give Garland the boot. Miss, besides the memories, what else is there in the castle?"

Aqua looked around and asked. "Promise you won't tell any one?" Ken vowed he won't. "It's why Garland needs to go and when he does-" Aqua nodded and whispered to his ear. "If this clue me and the others found proves something, we can get started, do you remembered what I said about Ven?"

Outside of a Power Plant.

Sora, Donald, Goofy, Kairi, Mike, Sulley and Boo exit the building and found most of the factory to be engulfed in fire, they saw two spiked turtle toad tearing apart various contraptions and causing chaos. Mike voiced the collective thought. "Oh no..." Light shined above them, the sound of a helicopter passed by, they listen to someone speaking with in. "Disregard Code 835. 72-16 in progress. We have visual on unidentified life-forms. Suspected cause of the conflagration. Code 72-16, over."

Mike and Sulley made the front charge, the green monster spoke. "The whole factory- it's a total mess." Sulley agreed with that. "I know, Mikey. But right now, we just gotta keep moving." The others gave a combined. "Yeah." and went down across the roof, taking out four sudden yellow hard hat heartless that bounced on shovels. They entered an open area that was engulfed in flame, watched a helicopter return and ropes dropping down. "Ready to descend." Monsters in yellow hazmat suits fell down by the string, one particular, a stocky one with four arms, was confident that he and his group had it under control. "Stand aside. We'll get this fire put out, pronto."

BOOM! A spiked turtletoad crawled along as the fires danced, the hazmat monster took a walky talky and called base. "Code 72-16. Unidentified life-form sighted." Sora and Kairi approached the chaos for battle as the combatants followed, the boy let the agent know. "These guys are our specialty." The teenage girl promised the agents. "Get ready to help with the fire, we can't let this spread," She asked Donald. "Are you ready?"

The duck nodded and readied his staff as Sora saw flooding unversed appear and charged after them. Donald spun his wand to form an orb of water as Kairi dashed to the turtletoad and let loose quick slashes, she enveloped herself in water and spun to the lesser unversed, Sora spun himself and summoned bolts of water to pelt the large unversed as Goofy and Sulley attacked its face, the various splashing kept the fire under some control as Donald ruptured the water orb and brought rain upon the both foe and flame, Kairi rushed to the opponent like a spear of water for a finishing blow and saw six fire ball like heartless shoot out from the flames. Sora and Donald fired upon them with more water as Kairi looked upon two grouped up fire balls and swiped a tide of force upon them. Clearing the way as Boo came with a hose, the group took the hose and sprayed more consistent water as the agents took out hoses of their own and did the same. A part of the roof top was under control and Sulley looked up to an agent that was tall and had four arms. "Thank you, you did great!"

The agent saluted. "Yes, sir. We will be on our way," The agents climbed up the helicopter as the group found a door into a building and traveled through, fighting through any heartless they came across and reaching to the other end, with a path closed in by two fences and seeing the helicopter flying towards oddly dancing fire. "Requesting back up. We need help containing this chaos!"

Sora, Donald, Goofy and Kairi sweated at the word chaos and crossed over to a wider space with pipes, finding purple flames dancing around equipment and laughing merrily. Kairi squinted her eyes and gasped. "Not here." She shook her head, turned to Mike and Sulley as they caught up and found Boo seeing the flaming images for what they are. The toddler hid behind Sulley with a whimper and the teenager girl readied her keyblade. "Sulley, keep Boo safe. These things a greater danger."

Sulley position Boo somewhere that the strange creatures wouldn't charge as Mike felt his spine shivering. "These things give me the creeps, what's going on?" Sora didn't want to speak of it as a flame took into a more corporeal form. A pale purple hermaphrodite like demon, with upward curved horns, an elegant black dress a small staff with two masks and four sets of arms, two upper that looked normal and two that had claws, the demon noticed the four and giggled. "Oh me oh my," It placed its normal hand on its forehead and leaned back dramatically. "The heroes seek to despoil our waltz once more," It caught itself with its claws, pushed itself back to position and pointed to them in a dance. "Halt them forever more."

The surrounding flames distorted and took the form of two hordes of ten daemonettes, along with three mix and matched fiends that caused Kairi to shiver. Sora, Donald and Goofy looked upon the fiends features and stood in front of the Princess, Donald asked loudly. "This is what you fought a while ago?"

Kairi nodded as the daemonette horde sprinted. "When an egotistical man was causing problems. Do we need to talk about this now?"

Goofy shook his head and flung his shield at the left most horde of daemonettes like a boomerang, causing three to dispatch in mist as Donald summoned a twister, slowing the horde of razor sharp claws down as he and Kairi felt their bodies moving to a dance with the Masque leading the forces. Breaking them from their usual pose as the other horde closed in with the fiends. Mike yelled out to the demon. "Hey now's not the time to be da-" His single iris widened in realization. "Oh."

He sprinted and rolled after the demon, knocking the demon of it its dance and causing it to back flip. Kairi felt despite Mike's intention, he wasn't helping, Sora gasped to an idea and gave a spun as he slammed his keyblade and swatted four of the daemonette horde away, Kairi flipped forward and thrust forward, dispatching three. Mike realized he didn't have much of a plan thought out as the Masque stepped forward and sprinted after him with its claws. The monster rolled back to a guarding Sulley and stood up, the larger monster readied something fierce as the demon gave an elegant flip for an attack. He gave a fierce roar to the daemons face, caused it to gasp, step back and exposed it to a swipe of feral claws. Goofy caught his shield back and charged the remaining six, dispersing four as Sora and Kairi wiped out their own group. Donald quickly scorched the last two and saw the fiends sprinting next.

Sora and Kairi back flipped to the Masque, grabbed it by the horns and tossed it at the fiends readying their claws for a vicious attack on Goofy, they watched the fiends quickly tear into the demon without much of a care. Sora formed his hunny blasters as Kairi formed her staff, feeling like they were in control of their movement as Mike cheered. "Come on guys, send these bozos outta here!"

Kairi spun her staff and flung a stream of golden light, burning the fiends flesh as the hunny wands knocked the fiends back in goop. Donald and Goofy jumped back, the shield bearer aimed at the disoriented fiends as Donald enveloped the shield with water. They called out to the keybearers. "Watch out!"

The teenagers did so and watched Goofy spun his shield, shooting out a pump of high pressured water that caused the fiends to disintegrate. Bringing a small calm for travel as Sulley comforted a shaking Boo. "Those things won't be a bother anymore."

The four travelers hoped they won't as Kairi explained. "Those are Chaos Daemons, something we been dealing with recently. They're worse news than the unversed we been fighting." Mike and Sulley took the girls word for it, the blue fur monster lead the way as he made sure Boo was firmly on his back. "Come on, we got to get to the vault before this gets worse."

The others followed towards a narrow building of the access way, finding four pogo shovels bouncing more than expected and two flutterwing heartless that seemed drawn to something, obviously it was towards the scent of the daemons of Slaanesh. They were unceremoniously dispatched as they found a ledge high above, yet no stairs. Kairi snapped her fingers to an idea and asked. "Sora, could you run up there? I think we can make a set of stairs for everyone else."

Sora blinked like he was asking how and answered. "I... can." He rushed up as Sulley, Mike and Goofy were advised to stay to the side. Kairi cleared her mind of her troubles and envisioned waves at a beach, she swiped her keyblade and formed a massive tidal wave reaching to where Sora was standing. The boy gasped and pressed his keyblade down to help with his own water magic, causing the waves to ripple against one another. Donald smiled, aimed his staff and froze the waves, turning them into make shift stairs that looked uneven, but would work in a pinch. The duck froze up railways for good measure and the girl used that as a way to walk up.

Reaching the top of the ledge and watched the others make their way up, Kairi winked and answered. "Someone tried something like this and made a palace. I never got to see how it was done." Sora was impressed regardless. "It's still cool. I always get a little worried when I run up like that."

Donald heard that and caught up. "We need to talk about that," Sora turned to find the duck and the others catching up. "I know, I can run up here, the rest of you can't." Goofy agreed with that and added. "But we didn't slow much down."

The group climbed up boxes and bags to a no where nearly as tall ledge and turned to the right, finding a pipe to travel on top and reaching the other side, they turned right and found three golden mages and two vermillion, readying attacks of lightning and fire. They were quickly taken out, they traveled right again and across a cat walk that spiraled on top of a tower. A helicopter flew up to a drop way and shined the light to a ware house. "The door vault is this way," Sora understood and walked to the edge of a drop. "We can drop down from here." Kairi jumped and used her wings to glide herself to the storage far bellow, finding a shining box and using gravity and her keyblade to smash it open, finding a strange box and opening it. Revealing a treasure map of a door vault with a banana symbol. She felt it was suspicious, put it away and looked up to find Sora gliding down with air magic, pushing the air back up and using it to land as the rest of the party landed slower with similar air magic. Boo was firm in Sulley's arms and clapped all the way.

With a whole group ready, they left the ware house and saw another portion of the power plan on fire, finding four vermillion mages and two flaming cores burning things as four soldiers with crab like claws crawled on all fours like twisted serpents. Sora and Goofy went to deal with the strange acting versions of a normal foe as Sulley placed Boo to somewhere safe and joined in. Donald and Kairi let loose water magic on the fiery heartless and Mike cheered for both. The green monster noticed more of the hazmat wearing monsters trying to put out the fire and waved. "Great work guys, we just about-" Pew! With the fiery heartless quenched, two bloated large bodied heartless with puffed up cheeks appeared.

They waddled lazily and shot sharp blue tongues at Donald and Mike, knocking them away. Kairi changed her keyblade into light sabres and carved into the right most heartless, making quick work of it as the left most was sent flying from a hunny glob. Sora had it in the focus and quickly freed its heart as the snake like soldiers laid still battered and released their hearts. Donald raised his staff in the air and focused a rain spell, clouds formed and sprinkled water. Something flickered from the sky and bopped Sora on the head, the boy grabbed it and saw an odd silver charm with a red gem, having a lions paw mark. He had a memory of a particular king and let the charm fade into his heart. The fire was extinguished and the hazmat monsters readied to control the fire elsewhere. Mike lead to a door way leading into a ware house. "This way."

Sulley picked Boo up and followed like the rest, Mike noticed a generator overloading and signaled that they should run away. BOOM!

The generator exploded, pipes ignited and exploded, collapsing the path and causing a chain reaction that the group did run from, the group fell from the shock and flipped to their rears, watching a blue pipe fall. They got up and Mike was having a headache. "Oh, great. This time we're really stuck." The visitors felt their progress halted, Sora asked the CEO. "Sulley, have you got any ideas?"

Sulley placed Boo down and answered. "Just give me a second," He was having a head ache thinking about it as Boo wandered near the rubble and wandered back to Sulley. "Kitty!" Sulley listened and watched Boo point to a pipe that leaned upward and leading into a building, snickering like the others were a bit silly. Sulley felt he was over thinking something. "If I'm right about that pipe..." He remembered. "Hmm! Yep it's perfect."

He petted Boo in pride of her. "Boo, thank you." Boo giggled as Kairi and Sora looked at the pipe leading into the building, laughing with her at the spark of brilliance as Sulley lead the way. "We gotta follow that pipe." Mike asked. "What?! Wait a sec. I thought we were going straight to the door vault," He pointed to the path. "The only place that pipe leads is to the cooling tanks!" He argued. "You sure you don't have a better idea?"

Sulley gently put Mike to the side and advised. "Don't worry, Mike. Just trust me." He picked Boo up and lead up the pipe and down a long path, leading into the inner workings of a bust pipe, with in the insides of a cooling tank with a door. A parasite infested, blue spiked toad fell from the ceiling and deflated for battle as six daemonettes on strange beasts appeared. Kairi glowed and flung a lily of light and water at the demons, causing two of them to sizzle and fade away. Sora and Sulley jumped out of the way of the frog slapping its whiskers, the boy focused on the unversed, its parasites and the daemons that clawed at Goofy and Mike in sadistic vigor. His fur shifted to yellow and his keyblade turned into a hunny blasters, he jumped high above and directly from over head, fired down a tornado of honey wands upon the foes, two more of the daemons vanished and gave Donald the chance to freeze another back into the warp. The remaining daemon howled like it was being denied and vaporized in instability, the toad's parasites spit upon Goofy and Mike as the host inflated and tried to perform a flying press on Kairi. The girl back flipped, focused upon it and aimed her keyblade to form a five petal blue flower, shooting it in point black range and making it regret its existence. It inhaled at her in spite, the girl rushed out of the way with a trail of water as Donald cast a group heal. Sora and Sulley attacked the unversed by the sides of its cheeks and quickly dispatched it.

With danger averted, Sulley went to the door and Boo followed. The monster spoke as he tried to pull the sliding door to the side. "I'm sure Maintenance hasn't finished patching it up." He yanked the door loose and put it to the side, leading the group. "This way."

Boo giggled as she and the others followed, Mike realized he was about to be proven wrong for arguing. He found himself in a familiar place. "Wait a second." He looked around to find the outer building of a storage facility. "It's the door vault!" Sulley turned to him and calmly asked. "Yep. What'd I tell ya?"

Mike had his hands at his hips and pretended to be sarcastic. "Sure, nice job, Sull. Seriously, if I didn't know any better..." He approached and revealed his true meaning. "I'd say you actually ran the place."

Sulley appreciated the compliment. "Thanks Mikey. Alright, it's not much farther." He picked up Boo once more and jumped down a ledge with the group. A swarm of six flooding unversed, appeared in an alley way leading to the right, the group readied to keep fighting the forces of darkness.

In Castle Oblivion.

Aqua finished explaining and asked Ken. "Now do you see why I was livid earlier?" The boy nodded and went to the door. "Because in this castle, someone very important to you is suspended even from time. Sorry for making such a big mess while someone else is messing things up." He opened the door as his teacher was calm to him. "If I had a better time to tell you, Kairi and the others sooner, I would have and this might have never happened."

The two entered and found themselves on a wooden road built over an abyss, finding Jambert circling around a fat, infested barbarian, stabbing it in the back with a fortified claymore and kicking it into the abyss. He heard something, looked towards a path and backed away from a swarm of five zombies that barely looked human, rabid, infested, ghoulish beasts. He slashed them three at a time, hurled them off the bridge and avoided attempts at grappling from the other two. Aqua shot a fire ball at the left most ghoul as Ken shot a fire ball of his own at the right most, the ghouls snarled and flailed wildly as Jambert sliced the right most in two and stabbed the left in the back. The knight turned to the two eagerly. "I was never expecting roses, ready for a descent?"

Ken nodded, dismissed his burning keyblade and held his gun like blade with both hand. "We don't need more of these things seeing us," Jambert agreed with that and advised. "Perhaps we should reserve the light for... when we know a ghoul isn't going come and try to make jerky out of us?" he stepped forward and found not one, but two fat barbarians noticing him and readying massive clubs, it looked like a sharp prick hit him by the wrist. Aqua noticed another dart coming from the upper right, Jambert was pricked again as he tricked the barbarians into lining up side by side, he cringed in pain and was gasping. Ken noticed the direction and fired, a hot beam pressed against a wrecked wooden wall and shot through a darkly clad zombie with a blow dart, causing it to fall over dead as Jambert rolled back from the clubs, took a purple moss with flowers, pulled his helmet lid up and bit into it. The barbarians waddled to him for another attack, with their backs against a wall, Aqua wanted to curse and kept close, tricking them into attacking and back flipping, she and the knight rushed in to attack, slashed at both and backed away as the barbarians swung to them.

Ken gave a glow of fire and shot above the undead foes, causing a small sun of fire to shine and rain down four fire balls on them. The barbarians grunted pitifully as they smouldered and collapsed. Jambert smiled back to the boy as Aqua advised against his suggestion. "These things live in the darkness and while they would see light miles away, they would find us anyways. If another sniper is in this town," She cringed in imagining as Ken saluted to both. "I got them when I find them."

Jambert sighed and confessed. "So perhaps I am... over thinking this. We have still taken our first step into a dark domain, survival is important." The key bearers understood and let the knight travel towards a set of ladders, finding another ghoul rushing at him and another trying to hit him prone with a hunk of a dead human that was partially eaten. Jambert rolled back and focused on the one with a larger weapon, Aqua vomited as Ken shot the ghoul Jambert was focusing on, letting the knight deal with his gnarly foe in peace. He saw a small gate with a doorway that had a ladder as Ken summoned his burning blade once more. "Perhaps we can have a better view bellow. Don't doddle behind."

He went past the gate and climbed down as the key bearers followed and found themselves to a gate with a set of stairs leading up, they found Jambert attacking one of three ghouls on a bridge way to a left most door. The one furthest towards them noticed the boy and sprinted after him, Aqua flung a fire slash and sent it's scorching carcass to the cave bellow. Ken rushed after the other ghoul with both keyblades and stabbed it in the back, he flung it across to a ledge with two ghouls fighting over a dead corpse, knocking them off and sending them falling. Jambert finished his foe and found ladders past the door, he was taken aback and traveled down, giving Ken a moment to ask his teacher. "This is... how we are not really going down? Despite what we are seeing?"

Aqua nodded and went ahead to see the sight of a large stone bridge way, built from the swamp bellow, all the way to the top of the mountains, a bright light shining upon the darkened, blighted town. "This is a memory of the town and of that knights descent. There has to be a point for him coming here," Ken nodded back and looked at the scenery. "To figure out the fate of the undead and ring the Bells of Awakening. One was at the Parish, the other is all the way down here."

Student and teacher went past the door together and watched Jambert rushing a ghoul through, jumping over a ledge and landing to pick something up, the key bearers followed him as he felt relief to a sight. "It was a rude entry, but we are half way down by the looks of it," Ken looked across to find a wooden floor bellow, leading to a wooden gate with a stone bridge behind. "I... guess so."

Jambert coughed and made a leap of faith, the key bearers heard numerous growling down bellow and jumped after the knight, who was backing away, the student and teacher turned around and found half a dozen ghouls crawling after them and pouncing. The duo jumped back to the knight and heard growling from behind. Aqua heard clanking of armor and looked to her left to find two ghouls coming for her. Ken saw one coming for him and shot its head off. Jambert took out a fire bomb and hurled it at the five ghoul horde to get them to back away. Aqua attempted to swing and was grappled by one of the ghouls that tried to clamp its jaw on her shoulder. She glowed and pulsed light energy to knock the ghouls off. Jambert rushed at the five and swung, killing three and giving the key bearers time to shoot a fire ball together and finish the horde. With one danger averted, the group of three went past the gate and found a bonfire on a stone bridge. Jambert went to light it up and sit down for a moment. Ken sat down next to the knight and looked down to the swamp. "That wasn't too bad, but sheesh."

Aqua agreed and relaxed. "What has happened to this place to make it so... wretched?" Jambert didn't wish to know. "This goes beyond hollows, my dear, this must be the slum of the burg. Where the unwanted must have found squalor in between... a sewer and the swamp bellow."

Ken rolled his eyes. "And then all this undead stuff happened. It's why these guys are pretty savage and... gross," Aqua wondered. "This is one of the most miserable places I have been. Would we be leaving this behind if we make it to the swamp? Or are they hiding from something there?"

Jambert looked back and dreaded. "What could have forced them all to chose this life?" He felt rested enough and stood up. "*Huff* What has happened is far in the past, what matters is getting to the bell. If there is a survivor in all of this, then we should consider getting him... or her, to safety." Aqua cringed as she got up. "But we shouldn't count on that."

Ken got up and looked away from the height. "Those survivors could just be us." The group agreed to keep going and walked past a wooden gate, finding two fiery dogs and a ghoul sprinting to them. Jambert slashed the two dogs away as Ken flung to a ghoul for a quick kill, he felt a sharp prick on his shoulder, felt a burning pain and fell over in shock.

Aqua gasped and found a zombie with a blow dart as Jambert saw the boy and took out more moss. "I have the boy, slay this thing." The Keyblade Master jumped high and flung ice spells at the zombie as Jambert flipped the boy on his back and stuffed the moss in his mouth. Ken bit and swallowed, feeling his body working. "...Ow."

He stood up and healed himself as he and the knight watched Aqua being cornered by three ghouls and spun in an icy tornado, freezing them and shattering them. The males fought their way through the infested corner as the female above was carving destruction and let loose a power that sounded like a squawk, the two looked above and found the wood freezing. They found a ladder to climb up to and met up with Aqua at a gate leading to a stone pillar at the bridge. Jambert was the first to see the cold fury in Aqua's eyes and asked intimidated. "Do you think that is all of them up here?"

Aqua looked back and looked at her student. "I think so. Ken, are you still hurt?" The boy shook his head. "No, but I didn't even see him. That toxin acts pretty fast," Aqua lead the way and requested. "Focus on any ledges or corners they would hide in. Me and Jambert will deal with the rest." They reached a stone tunnel that had a grotesque barnacle parasite clinging with in, Jambert noticed something underneath and found a pathway. "There has to be another way."

At Monsteropolis.

Sora blasted a turtle toad into oblivion with a hunny launcher without breaking much of a sweat, the rest of the group looked around to make sure no enemies would get the jump on them. Sulley lead the way into the door vault, in a vast hall that had a trial of black goop. What ever made the trial certainly wasn't something belonging to the world, the trial lead them up the stairs and to the front of a familiar platform. The goop disappeared and the group kept guard as Sulley ordered. "Everyone look for Boo's door."

Sora and Kairi noticed a familiar lizard appearing out of nowhere in a sinister laugh. Sulley turned around with a tired tone and saw the stilled scream extractor. "Randall..." Mike smugly asked. "Didn't you learn your lesson with pile-of-junk fiasco?"

Randall scoffed and answered. "Oh, I learned a lo,." He stepped out of the way and disappeared, showing the inert machine, Mike dismissed any hint and approached, Boo noticed the blue bauble giving off a glow of an unversed symbol and hid behind Sulley. The blue fur monster warned his friend. "Wait, Mike. Something's different!"

Sora, Donald, Goofy and Kairi agreed as they approached and stopped Mike, Sulley moved Boo to an empty metal crate in suspecting danger. The green monster wasn't too concerned. "Oh, please. It's just more junk."

They heard cruel laughter and turned to the right, finding Randall standing on an edge near a pipe, laughing louder. "Ah, ha, ha, ha!"

Mike readied to call him out and sensed something wrong, he looked back to find the scream extractor gone and heard the sound of an oozing monster from behind, he turned and saw a black lump emerging from the darkness, animating, growing limbs and forming a face of red, sadden eyes and a maw. Mike backed away in horror as Sora, Donald, Goofy and Kairi readied for battle, Kairi said what the group were thinking. "Another Unversed!"

They saw parts sticking out of the Lump of Horror, parts of the Scream Extractor on its cranium and many scream canisters on its sides. Mike felt himself lifted up and found Sulley ready to give him a pep talk. "Mike, time to reach down and let the scary out," Mike quickly smiled and hummed in agreement, he smacked his face and readied to look fierce, he was dropped and joined the group for an intense battle. "Oh I'm ready Sulley, I'm ready!"

Randall rubbed his hands together. "Finally... this is exactly what I need to take over the company. But first, I am getting rid of you. Attack!" Barriers formed to block the groups exit, barring Donald, the group attacked as one.

The Lump of Horror let loose steam and bottled up screams, causing thunder clouds to form above the melee group and shoot down static electricity. It charged through the group and juggled both Sora and Kairi, the teenagers glided to separate paths and landed, Sora focused on the lump, split his keyblade into two hunny blasters and jumped high over it, firing a sticky barrage upon it as Kairi performed her own shot lock and fired the flower beam. The lump wit stood the damage as Mike cheered for Sulley to claw a chunk off its body. The lump slumped its limbs into the ground and caused six tendrils to wiggle from the shadows, hands emerged and tossed fire balls, Kairi spun and let loose a whip of water upon the hands, she crackled and let loose a spark of lightning to electrocute the hands and sent them reeling back to its host.

The group learned their lesson on stacking up in its face and split apart. The lump rushed after Sora, the boy jumped high and kept himself in the air as the lump tried again and again to rush him. The lump splattered against a wall and was pelted by fire balls from Kairi and Donald, Sora kept his hunny blasters in form and fired upon the monster. Donald noticed the monster inhaling and squawked. "Watch out."

WOOSH!

The monster shot a large fire ball upon him, sending him flying as it inhaled and shot fire at Kairi, the girl had a better time dodging and flinging projectile light at the monster and causing it to sizzle. Sora landed and dashed to the left to fire more, Kairi burst in light and flipped to the monster, slashing down at it and causing it to slither into the ground. Disappearing entirely, Sulley felt his hair standing. "I got a bad feeling about this."

The ooze bubbled in the center and erupted, the goop surrounded the fighters and the Lump of Horror took the form of a demonic winged orb with a face. It splattered projectile oozes with a similar face and black limbs grew from the splatter. Sulley felt the eldritch like environment was excessive, Boo crouched in her crate and tried to look away. The Lump of Horror flapped Sulley and Goofy towards a bundle of limbs, the two fought against the mass with little effort as Donald let loose thunder bolts to clear out three more. Sora kept firing on the lump as Kairi carved through the rest, the limbs fired upon the boy that kept dodging and the Lump curled its wings. Collapsing into the ground and causing the limbs on the walls to vanish, it reformed to what it was and rushed at Kairi, the girl flew high and the monster looked up to shoot fire balls, she dived down to dodge as Sora formed his blasters into a launcher and fired stronger shot upon the Unversed.

The rest of the group attacked when they can and repeated the cycle, the Lump of Horror sank into the ground and caused the environment to turn to an eldritch state. The winged monster inhaled and shot out a series of tube like suctions from its maw, the suctions aiming for the groups faces. Sora vanished in high speeds and sliced the tubes out of the way, they receded and risen up like cobras, Kairi cringed and realized what the scream extractor can do. She caused her keyblade to form into a staff and disintegrated the limbs. "We don't need those grabbing us and we don't want to find out what would happen if they do?" Mike over heard, rolled through a limb and answered to Donald and Goofy. "No you don't."

Kairi jumped across and caused three flowers of light to appear, forming light images of herself. She shot a barrage of stars at the monster as Goofy yelled to Sora and had his shield high up. "My shield's ready!" Sora knew what the idea was, jumped on the shield and felt his fried sky rocket into the air, they separated as a pillar and the boy grabbed his friends hand, tossing him at the winged horror and knocking it back into the ground with the force of a falling shield.

The tubes sank into the darkness along with the hands, the Lump reemerged, knocked Goofy back and stuck its machine like tongues out, coiling one around Goofy, then to Mike and Donald. It felt the burning light from Kairi and shot one of its tongues at her, Kairi caused a sand castle tower to appear, raise her high to the air and caused her duplicates to appear with her, they raised their weapons to the center as the tongue coiled after her and caused an orb of light to form, tearing into the Lump and causing to recoil as Sora and Sulley stood side by side. The two gave a roar together as the boy readied his keyblade for a downward slam, causing a horned head of light to emerge from the ground and readied rows of teeth, chomping at the lump and leaving its forehead exposed. Sora rushed to it and impaled the bauble, cracking it open and causing the lump to swell, it gurgled and collapsed, causing the parts of the scream extractor to fall with the boy and let the snared group go.

Sora felt something scurrying towards the wreckage and was shoved out of the way, finding Randall appearing before him and yelling to the machine. "WHY!?"

He kicked the machine as Mike noticed a wooden door with a purple glow and Kairi's eyes glowing pink. The green monster grunted to Sulley and tried to wordlessly explain what to do, Sulley didn't get it and Mike imitated a growl, something Sulley did understood, he noticed Kairi with her eyes glowing pink and skittering behind a distracted Randall. He signaled to Mike it might not be necessary and went to the crate to get Boo, Mike wondered why as Donald and Goofy noticed, the duck tried to say something and was silence by his partner. Sora noticed the tranquil fury, keep quiet and watched as Randall heard a faint click, the villain turned around and saw an insect like monster with an otherworldly glow, opening her maw of razor sharp teeth, revealing the mandibles with in her cheeks, extending far as her tongue stuck out to compliment the sudden shock, she gave off a shriek and readied to bash Randall with the hilt of her keyblade.

Causing the lizard's scales to turn bright blue with white stripes, Sulley picked up a shaking Boo and noticed violence about to happen, he stopped Kairi with a chuckle. "That won't be needed. Ha," Kairi stopped and saw Randall's fear to be enough as she calmed down, retracted her face to something nowhere near as frightening and turned to ask. "What do you had in mind?"

In a memory of a Blighted Town.

Jambert lead Aqua and Ken towards a route behind the parasitic barnacle, the teacher and student saw how they were going to get down and watched the knight toss fire bombs at the monster. Aqua asked. "So the upper path lead here and behind that... thing. If we take the other path, it should lead us deeper in?" Ken guessed so. "We can make the jump, but Jambert can't."

SLASH!

The two turned and watched Jambert sever the parasites left legs, the knight went for the right, saw the foe dangling and stabbed it through the center, tearing it from the wall and fling the hissing carcass to the earth bellow. Jambert jumped off and picked up a scroll most interesting. "Power within? It's a good thing I met Laurentius earlier."

Aqua blinked as Ken whispered. "He was some ordinary looking guy we rescued in the depths from a cannibal. He gave Jambert a few tips on pyromancy," Aqua nodded and joined with the knight. "You found that kind of magic helpful?"

Jambert turned and nodded. "I've relied on my sword and shield, but sooner or later, I will run out of fire bombs," Ken jumped to the wooden ground and asked. "You might want to find him again when you can. Fire is found just about everywhere."

Jambert agreed with that and took the bridge way down, finding a single barbarian waddling with his club, the knight tricked the foe into attacking, rolled to his side and back stabbed it. Ken aimed Cadia's Light and quickly shot the hulking zombie in the head for a kill. They went through the alternate path and found themselves in the stone pillar, finding a ladder down. The knight slid down first and saw a fogged gate. "It isn't too much of a hassle if something like this doesn't require me to change tactics."

Aqua jumped off, landed and found it understandable. "Something that compliments the old sword and shield, that won't force you to relearn everything you knew," Ken agreed with that and followed. "I had to do that when I picked up that burning keyblade, among other things. But sometimes you really don't have to change much to get good."

Jambert went across the fogged gate to find a set of stairs leading down to a wooden gate. "I haven't gone hollow yet and the company certainly helps ease the normal sounds of growls."

The keybearers climbed down and felt something suspicious, there isn't many enemies. The three traveled past the gate and found mosquitoes buzzing towards them, they ignored it and found two three legged insects crawling. The insects had odd humanoid arms and a maw glowing in flame. Ken noticed a blow dart sniper and quickly shot it dead as Jambert and Aqua focused on the insects sides and slew them. The three kept going and tried not to think about where the monsters came from, finding themselves moments from entering a swamp. Three of the chaotic insects crawled from bellow the wood and attempted to attack in large numbers, Ken let loose wind magic and yelled out. "Bringing the storm." Jambert and Aqua rolled left and right as the boy spun in high speeds and flung a tornado upon the insects, sending them flying deep into the marshes of the swamp, the bystanders watched and saw a stone tunnel with little water flowing out. The knight requested as he looked to the vast swamp and shook his head. "Oh no, not yet. May we consider looking at that tunnel before we consider traversing the damp marsh?"

Aqua didn't mind and flung magic darts at the mosquitoes swelling to spit something out. "It could have something we can use." She made the bold move to jump into the marsh, Jambert jumped down with her and both felt a burning feeling with in their feet. Moving towards the side of the tunnel was a struggle in itself, Ken jumped in and felt wheezy as he followed. In but a few moments, the three felt sick and made it to dry land as well as the tunnel. Where a bonfire awaited them by the left wall, Jambert lit it up and sat down to rest as the key bearers felt an urge to clap to him.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

The knight raised his hand. "Please, please, we were just traversing from that town and into another realm of dangers," Aqua and Ken agreed to that and rested up on a wall side by side, the blue haired woman closed her eyes in relief. "But getting here was tedious." Ken wanted to pass out. "Yeah, but it's safe here,"

He yawned and closed his eyes as Jambert fed black shades to the fire and looked invigorated, the knight agreed with that. "But we are not finished with this place until we find the Bell. I'll scout ahead after searching the tunnel and be back." He hummed and stood up with kleptomaniacal desires. "Unless you two wish to go treasure hunting yourselves?"

Aqua politely refused. "We're good, we don't need anything here," Jambert smiled to that and took off into the tunnel, the woman opened her eyes on listening to the foot steps and looked to her student as if he was asleep. "Ken, Ken!" The student gasped awake. "I...I was just resting up, Miss," He relaxed and agreed with what he heard. "He doesn't need most of things he picks up, but we can't really use it anyways."

Aqua crouched and looked to the tunnel like she felt a crucial flaw. "Even if it didn't matter, one day his greed will bring him towards certain death," Ken agreed with that. "Wandering around, hoping to find something interesting is what caused this whole mess in the first place."

Aqua smiled to him and asked. "But we figured out something that happened in this world. A long time ago, there was a world heavily tied to the flame, civilization was allowed to prosper," Ken listened. "But then the Curse of Undeath came and eventually, people became undead and became hollows. That's how society fell apart in ruins. But how does it involve the fire?"

He shined his burning keyblade. "How does it involve this?" Aqua wanted to ask something back and saw Jambert return with a whistle, the knight saw the confusion and answered. "There was chest with a dragon scale, those are invaluable," He stepped out and dreaded the swamp. "I have enough moss, I'll be back soon." He marched out and left the two alone, Ken closed his eyes and rested. "But more importantly, how does any of this involve him?"

Aqua shrugged. "He's just some guy.. but everything you saw in this castle involved him," Ken had one correction. "Traverse Town was mine, but even then he tried to save it from a demon." He rested still as Aqua arranged the puzzle and clapped. "He set in motion the worlds history. That's why he is so important to the worlds memory."

She watched her student drift away to a short nap, she allowed it and felt an odd fascination as she noticed a white haired woman in black against the other wall, though obviously looking blind, she fixated on the bonfire, she knew a truth that would be much to speak of. "Thou are correct, but it is far too late to turn back. We are in quite the pickle," Aqua asked the Firekeeper. "Jambert is one of the knights you told stories about? Do you know how long ago any of this is?"

The Firekeeper answered clear. "He is among the First of the Great Lords...this is from ages past. But...but..." Aqua vowed to keep quiet. "But... for reasons we will figure out soon, you had to stop." The Firekeeper wasn't apologizing. "I did not foresee this happening. Thou, who art Undead, art chosen... In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords," Aqua finished the rest. "And by ringing the Bells of Awakening, the fate of the Undead will be known. This is why Jambert went on this journey, to learn what awaits him?"

The Firekeeper nodded. "Precisely, many like him came, many have failed. Many had gone hollow long before they came close to an answer." Aqua felt pity and looked out to the swamp. "Many of the Undead's hearts couldn't take it anymore. But someone eventually found that answer?"

The Firekeeper stilled and crouched, the keybearer felt that question's answer wasn't going to have an ideal one. "We will find out eventually."

She looked on and asked the Firekeeper to keep quiet, she sneaked a Gummiphone from Ken's pocket and saw no texts, she sighed and sneaked it back. "I hope Kairi and the others are kept in the dark of this long enough." She felt an inner balance that was tipped lopsided as the Firekeeper guessed with a smile. "Thine students have learned much on their own and with a little guidance, they exceeded. Could there be something thou would seeketh here?"

Aqua explained the awkwardness. "I think the magic of this world works a lot differently from how it would work for me." The Firekeeper raised three fingers. "There are three, the Soul Sorcery that comes from the soul along with Pyromancy that seems to draw from nature, then there are Miracles that derived from the power of faith." Aqua was drawn to the concept. "I'm not sure about how the Pyromancy or the Miracles would work as well now, but I think I might know a way of how Soul Sorcery could."

The Firekeeper shook her head and heard splashing. "A power from the will of the heart, but how would thee learn?"

Aqua scratched herself uncertain, unless she goes out of her way to explore, the secret could be forever lost, the Firekeeper disappeared in ashes and left the keyblade master with many questions, Jambert returned with a large bill hook sword and murky stains upon his armor. He placed down a wooden box and rested by the bonfire, he put the sword with in and had pleasant news. "There is a great hollow tree that leads... somewhere, to the left of here past the base of the town. To the right is a spider nest... hmm. I believe the nest is the path we should seek, for why would a spider make a nest far away from the tree?"

He closed the box as Aqua asked the illusion. "If not, we will know which path has the Bell. Jambert, do you... know about Soul Sorcerery?" The knight shook his head and blew under his helmet. "Not in the experience those wizards know, but I met a youth in the Burg that mentioned a teacher of his a...Big Hat Logan. He went to a city called Anor Londo through Sen's Fortress. I believe me and Kendry seen the Fortress... could Logan be there?"

It was the first time Aqua heard of Anor Londo or of the Fortress. "If he survived the dangers unscathed, he could be traveling there. Maybe I could learn something from Logan."

Jambert approved of that and laughed. "A maiden such as you, hasn't mastered Soul Sorcerery?! What would I call the magic you done?"

Aqua answered and nearly forgotten something important. "Magic and skills I learned from my own teacher. Something that while any one could learn, would require knowing about the Keyblade to use to in the ways you saw," Jambert snapped his fingers. "Shoot, then I'm afraid that is lost to me. A Keyblade is not like any weapon I have laid eyes upon and... pilfered."

Aqua agreed with that. "It is bound to the heart and unless yours is tied to it, it won't help you." Yawn!

Ken opened his eyes and felt rested enough, he greeted Jambert. "Hey, welcome back."

The knight greeted him back. "The swamp is rather treacherous, we will travel to the right when we are ready."

Ken felt energized and let him know. "I am. Miss, I was hearing you talking about some magic that might help, are you sure we should go finding out?"

Aqua remembered and pressed her fingers together. "We... will talk about that when we can. Lead the way Jambert." The knight nodded and warned them. "You won't miss it, but we have miles of swamp to traverse. Thankfully the caustic sludge is nothing like the toxins those blow hard used." Aqua took his word for it. "We can heal on the way."

At a Door Vault.

On a platform for door maintenance, Sora, Goofy, Donald and Kairi watched justice be dispense. Randall was forced before a cobbled together fragment of a door, with Sulley and Boo behind him to make sure he doesn't escape. Mike opened the door and was awfully friendly about exiling a person that wrought so much chaos upon the facility. "All right, and in you go." He directed towards the door as Randall growled and was given a cute roar from Boo. "Rwar!"

Sulley approved and gave Randall the verbal banishment. "There's no place for you anymore, Randall," He and Boo looked at each other like a parent to his child. "Now we're in the business of making children laugh." Boo giggled to that and irritated Randall to where he pointed to the child and threatened. "You this is funny?"

Mike placed his hand on Randall's shoulder as Kairi gave the lizard a glare of pink, the green monster mocked Randall with sarcasm. "Hilarious! The more you whine, the funnier it gets."

Randall nearly blew a mental fuse, gave up, pushed Mike out of the way and walked to the door. Sulley gave his goodbye regardless. "Enjoy your extended vacation."

Randall cursed as he went through the door. "You clowns are going to be sorry when I find my way back and I finally take over this place."

Mike readied to close the door and watched Randall with in what looked like a trailer, a teenager yelled out. "Mama, the gator's in the house again!" A rather obsess woman pulled herself from a couch and glared at Randall, the woman wielded a shovel. "Are you kidding?! Oh, this time, he's in for it!"

Mike laughed towards the group like it was kind of funny and listened to the sound of a monster getting beaten up by the shovel, he turned around to see violence and cringed. "A..heh, heh," He had his hand on the knob and closed it. "So long! Smell ya later."

Mike closed the door and Sulley approached the contraption, if to be certain Randall doesn't return. "And now we just need to do one last thing." Sulley readied his fist and Sora stopped him. "Hang on! I have a way to lock him out." He approached the door and drew out his keyblade, he aimed and caused a keyhole to form on the door, the blade glowed and shot a small beam into the keyhole, causing a radiant glow that caught Sulley's breath. The keyhole glowed and clicked like a lock. The door floated and cleared itself of the dark, it was consumed by the light and disintegrated. Donald sighed in relief. "And that takes care of that." Goofy agreed to that.

In a few moments, the group ventured into the storage facility for doors and found a white door with pink flowers. Sulley and Mike climbed to that door and were ready to say goodbye to the toddler as the visitors climbed on a rail. Sulley spoke to the toddler. "Okay Boo. Time to go home. You must be tuckered out, but we'll play together real soon."

Clink!

Something shook, Mike and Sulley realized the door was moving, along with a red door that Sora, Donald, Goofy and Kairi jumped on to. The doors moved across the rail to the laugh station, they wondered what was going on and saw a corridor close up. The doors were lowered and the group saw a black figure with hints of red and in a helmet. The visitors felt an aura of danger as the figure approached. Sora readied himself and asked. "Who are you?" The figured looked at Sora in a condescending and tried not to laugh at him. "Gotta say, that strange facade had me fooled at first, brother."

Sora was more confused and remembered. "Wait a second, you're..." Sora's sense of danger escalated as Goofy and Donald stood in front of him, remembering the warning they were given, the masked figure snickered and approached slowly. "Ha, ha! So you figured it out? Gotta say, it would just make it too easy if the Keyblade's so called Chosen One was a short watt."

Sora wasn't taking that disrespect. "Blah, blah. This is the part where you spout some dark mumbo jumbo and disappear, right?" The masked figure didn't care and went to a desk with a scream canister. "This whole world... was powered by scream. They convert the screams of human children into energy," He picked up the grim marvel. "And this very company was what made it all happen," He walked back to his position and looked upon it. "It's as rich of a source of negative emotion, of suffering as we'll ever find."

Mike felt a rather substantial amount of guilt and barked. "For the last time, we already stopped doing that!" The masked figure asked Mike back as he lifted the canister high. "Did you? Then how do you explain all these canisters of surplus scream? You forgot to throw it all out? Or you couldn't let go of this worlds foundation?"

Mike and Sulley growled to one of the answers being true, the masked figure had more. "This factory was every me and Slaanesh could hope for and I was lucky enough to find a pawn whose heart was darkened by thoughts of revenge."

Kairi cringed and readied her blade at a certified psychopath as Mike knew who the figure was talking about. "You mean Randall," Sulley sighed and guessed how it happened. "All Randall ever cared about was winning," He and Mike looked at each other with an understanding. "And this guy took advantage of that weakness."

The figure sighed in pride. "My heart was made of one thing that only a god could understand. And the Unversed collected enough screams, sadness and trauma to form a connection." Mike readied to fist fight against the psycho and was held back by Sulley. "Yeah, and the whole time they were trashing our company in the process!"

The psychopath was disappointed about one fact. "But with all this negative emotion given away, my heart is incomplete," Mike calmed down as the psychopath casually dropped the canister like it was garbage. "I need something else that is more," The canister busted a casket and shot in a collection of screams, Sulley jumped out of the way with Mike and Boo in hand, by a desk and out of sight. The visitors watched the canister fall and roll, landing by Sora's feet, facing behind the psycho that answered. "The half of me," Sora turned to find the psycho raising a gear like keyblade to him. "that sleeps...inside your heart."

Sora called the psycho by his name, giving the sound of another talking with him. "Vanitas!"

That caught the group by surprise and Sora wondered what was happening as he placed his free hand over his chest, Vanitas taunted. "Ventus... what a strange place to slither off to..." He raised his hand to Sora like a predator with a claw. "you insignificant speck."

Sora swatted the hand and stepped back. "What are you talking about?"

Vanitas sighed, unaware that Sulley, Mike and Boo crawled past some desks behind him. "Oh, you wouldn't remember. When you were little...you formed a special bond, with a boy named Ventus who joined with your heart." That knowledge crashed upon the four's minds, Donald squawked. "Ven was in Sora all along?!" Goofy was in disbelief. "Is that why Ven and Roxas looked so much alike?"

Sora kept his guard and felt a whole world he was better off not knowing was revealed. "How... is that possible?"

He noticed darkness closing to him and his friends as Vanitas readied to carve out someones heart. "Now, you will return Ventus to me."

He swiped a dark wind at Sora and caused his chest to hurt, much like what happened before, he gasped and clenched his fist, trying to fight through a flash back as Donald, Goofy and Kairi stood in front of him and confronted the darkness. His memory became more vivid, in a familiar cavern with a bold Space Marine confronting Kharn, a jolt of fear and desperation came, Kairi's voice struck out to clear the illusion. "Get away from him, you freak!" Donald agreed with her. "You're not going to do that to Sora, no way!"

PEW!

The dark wind was dispatched and Vanitas readied to swipe. "Stay out of this!"

Woosh!

Dark bolts knocked Donald and Goofy far back as Kairi gave off a radiant glow and charged after Vanitas, the masked figure simply swatted her to the side like she was an insect, sparking a burst of anger with in Sora. He gritted his teeth and struck against Vanitas, who parried back against him, light and darkness pulsed against one another. Sora saw a blue beast behind Vanitas, Sulley spoke behind the psycho. "Made ya look."

Vanitas turned around and met the roar of a beast and stepped back, causing him to drop his keyblade and to be grappled. Mike covered Boo's eyes during the scare as Sulley picked Vanitas up and saw doors arriving.

The masked demon ordered. "Urg. Let me go!"

Mike waved to the CEO towards the closest door. "Over here Sulley!"

The CEO ran to the door and found it leading to a stand up show that had an odd puppet like bear with a brown hat, before a clapping crowd as he held a rubber duck. "I'm going to need some assistance for my Bernie impression." FLING! Sulley hurled Vanitas into the door, Vanitas landed right before the bear that was more than pleased, the bear turned to face Sulley and cheerfully thank him. "Oh thank you. Wocka! Wocka!"

Sulley didn't mind it and ordered Mike. "Close it! Quick!"

Mike closed it and Sulley grabbed the door, Mike opened another, finding a frozen cave. Sulley tossed the door into that one. Mike slammed it and opened another door to find an odd tea party being hosted by a man in all mostly a red and black suit, complimented by a matching mask. The man gasped flamboyantly and stopped his conversation with a short, angry looking man in yellow that was strapped to a chair. "Oh my, is there really a monster in the closet?!"

Sulley hurled the previous door in, closed it with a feeling of awkwardness and took the door into the last one, a simple shack with a middle aged man in a white shirt and blue pair of under wear. The man was on a chair watching t.v, showing a large red fez with the image of a fish, he looked at Sulley in astonishment. "Woah, woah, a is that a monster in the closet... holding a closet?"

Sulley awkwardly tossed the door in and closed it. He put the closet in a wood chipper and watched the machine do its work. Guaranteeing that Vanitas won't be getting back easily. Mike and Sulley high fived each other, then high fived Boo. They heard two teenagers laughing in amusement and a boy saying. "That.. ha, was awesome!"

The three turned to find Sora with a concussed Kairi, Donald and Goofy. The mage sighed. "Thank you!" Goofy agreed to that. "We ow ya!" Kairi agreed with that. "Nice quick thinking."

Sulley disagreed. "No, we should be thanking you. We never woulda managed to get Boo this far if you hadn't come along to help," Mike pointed his thumb to the white door with flowers. "And finally, we found her door."

Boo laughed in joy as Sora approached her and crouched. "Boo, I know how excited you were to come play with Mike and Sulley. Sorry we dragged you into this." Donald warned the boy. "Watch it! You're going to scare her with that face!"

Sora wasn't amused and argued. "Hey, you were way scarier," Goofy didn't wish to ruin the scare contest. "Gwarsh, I think the three of us combined wouldn't be nearly as scary as Kairi," The princess had her hands at her hips in pride as Boo simply nodded, what ever she heard was enough to scare a monster that had been scaring her for a while, she imitated a roar in respect towards Kairi. Mike shivered in mutual thought. "That would have been one for the records."

Sulley agreed and asked the toddler. "Okay, Boo. Time to go." Boo puffed her cheeks and pressed her fingers together. "Kitty..." Mike promised the girl. "We'll catch up soon kid." Boo cheerfully said her goodbyes to the green monster. "Mike Wazowski!"

Mike and Donald yelped, Boo went to hug Mike goodbye. The green monster smiled and petted her head. "I'll see ya kid."

Boo let go and held onto Sulley by his finger, who guided her to the door and readied to open it. The visitors called for the girls attention. "Boo!" Boo turned around to find the monsters covering their faces, they revealed goofy expressions as they gave their goodbye. "So looong!"

Boo laughed to the good will of new friends.

In a fetid swamp.

Ken summoned a wall of fog to distract bolder rolling barbarians as Aqua and Jambert sprinted to the webbed land. The knight panicked. "Oh, no, no, no, no!"

The adults reached the land as Ken made his jump and saw three boulders flung his way, he and Aqua made a dash and left Jambert to run from the heavy bombardment. They reached a burrow and ran in, Aqua gave off a heal and spun her finger next to her head, Jambert agreed with that. "*Huff* Everything in this swamp seeks our death, especially cannibals. Now," He turned to find a group of humans with pulsing spider eggs on their back, giving praise to something, the knight kept caution and traveled to a fogged gate. The key bearers pushed through with in, finding the depths of a spiders lair. Ken squinted his eyes and saw the edge of the tower. "There it is, that's where the Bell is."

The trio noticed something was coming, an unsightly monster that caught Aqua off guard. A large, flaming, demonic spider with a hissing maw, on top of the spiders head looked to be something or someone merged. Long, talon like hands, the right hand held a flaming sword, the form looked like that of a woman. Jambert was staring at the odd form and was trying to stay a gentlemen as Ken saw more, a smooth looking stomach, long black hair and two strips of hair covering the woman's chest. The boy tried to look away as Aqua saw the feminine, elegant face looking upon Jambert and giving a sadistic smile, the key blade master called it out. "And she's making this her web."

The woman on top pressed her free hand on top of the spiders head and had it dash after them. Jambert charged directly after her as Ken dismissed his burning keyblade and kept a distant right to shoot. Aqua dashed to the monsters left and readied an ice spell, the spider jumped after Jambert and spewed lava from its maw, the knight rolled to the right as the woman turned to Aqua and raised her hand up, causing pillars of lava to erupt in front of the Keyblade Master, stopping what would have been an attack. The spider took the damage from Jambert's claymore and spit a glob of lava at Kendry, the boy growled and sprinted out of the way, the spider turned to the knight and the Chaos Witch glowed her blade bright, she swung after Jambert with clear intention to kill.

Jambert rolled out of the swing and run in between the lava puddles as Ken aimed and fired at the spiders abdomen. Aqua rushed to the spiders rear and slashed, causing the Chaos Witch to grit her teeth and slump to the spider, the spider glowed and burst into fire, scorching Aqua and sending her flying back, the keyblade master back flipped and felt the burn, having to heal herself as the Witch looked upon Kendry with frustration and readied a massive fire ball. The boy gasped and kept running towards his teacher, the Witch shook her head and saw Jambert try to charge her again, she tossed the fire ball at the knight that rolled out of the blast, the ball made impact to the ground and caused lava to heat. The knight sprinted past her and had his back towards stable ground, he gave slashes to the spiders face when he can as Aqua noticed something odd. "Why... is she so focused on him?"

Ken had no idea and aimed a clear shot at the woman. "What ever the reason, she is going to kill him if we don't do something," Jambert tried to let the boy know. "I have her under control, but please come up with a plan."

The witch looked at the other two intruders and saw the aimed keyblade let loose light, shooting her in the stomach and causing her to kneel over. Aqua jumped on the spiders head and readied a strike with an icy glow, hitting the Chaos Witch in the head and causing her to parry with her burning blade. The witch gritted her teeth and pressed her hand on the spiders head, Aqua back flipped as Jambert made a run for it.

BOOM!

The spider leaped after them and spewed lava at Ken, the boy jumped out of the way as the melee oriented fighters struck the spiders sides, Ken stood by the stairway and noticed the witch attacking back in a desperate frenzy. He aimed at the witch's stomach and fired, the witch let her spider roar and breathed lava all around.

STAB!

Jambert jabbed his sword into the spiders throat and caused the witch on top to look glassy eyed, she swung her blade pitifully as Aqua shot an ice spell, causing the witch to shiver as her spider bled. Both collapsed, the spider gave a death hiss as the witch fell limp. Victory was achieved, yet the key bearers didn't feel right.

Jambert exhaled and saw something flicker from the witch's bosom, a flickering soul. The knight took it for safe keeping and looked around. "C..Come, we need to ring the bell."

The key bearers dismissed their keyblades and followed the knight to the stair way into the tower. Finding a lever and a hole with still spider eggs, Jambert went to pull the lever as the teacher and student looked to each other, silently watching the knight listen to the bell ringing, Jambert exhaled in relief to a task finished and wondered more as he looked down the hole. "Hmm, what secret is something like her hiding?" He readied a jump and asked his companions. "Do you think it is strange how she is one of the few monsters that have enough intelligence to trap someone? Like those two demons up above."

Ken agreed to that and looked down. "That's not the odd part for us. She cared more about attacking you." Aqua agreed with that and watched the knight jump down, she and Ken jumped with him, finding a red cragged passage way one way, a stairway back to the floor above and nothing else.

The Keyblade Master asked. "Jambert, you rung your bell, there isn't much of a treasure down here." The knight knew that and tapped the door ways. "There isn't, but no one speaks of her. What could she be-"

Tap!

His fist went through a webbed cluster to the right, a tunnel appeared. "Ah, an illusion," He signaled his companions. "Come."

He found a man holding eggs on his back and approached, the man looked up meagerly and asked. "Oh dear... What have we here? Are you a new servant?" Jambert half answered as he saw pale spider legs in the room ahead. "Y...Yes." The man asked confused. "Hmph. But you have no eggs?" The man gave up. "Bah, no matter. Go and have an audience with Our Fair Lady. I pray that you will mind your manners."

He crawled out of the way, he and the key bearers entered a room full of spider eggs and to their right, a sickly pale spider with blood red tissue attacking its head to a pale blonde woman. Aqua felt a sickening pain as Ken saw the obvious resemblance and gasped. Jambert approached the Fair Lady and was spoken to in an odd tongue, the knight looked surprised and the Fair Lady blindly looked at him questionably. The keybearers felt the knight drop his jaw and watched him drop his sword, the knight pulled something out of his pocket, a collection of blacken shades, Jambert looked up to the woman and didn't wish to answer her. He, the Fair Lady and the egg carrier stilled in faded illusions.

A white door opened, the keybearers were silent in disbelief and walked past the door, into the still hall of Oblivion. Aqua voiced what she sensed and saw. "That... was that witches sister? She was why that witch attacked Jambert over us, he has those... things while we don't," Ken agreed and looked back. "And...we saw to her sisters death. Jambert... killed that thing thinking he was defending himself."

Aqua took a deep breath and felt awful about herself. "And Jambert had to make a choice of what to do for the Fair Lady." Ken shivered. "Since her sister... isn't around now."

He felt remorseful as his teacher reminded him. "These are all figments of memory, Jambert was the one who had to take responsibility for this... we just had to witness that," She turned back. "But... even if it was an illusion, it felt too real that we couldn't grow cold."

Ken agreed and asked her. "You made the Castle's big defense that good. Miss, are you sure you want to look around these memories for magic? What if they don't work?"

Aqua turned and answered. "Soul Sorcery, it sounds like a magic that comes from the heart. If I can know how that sorcery works, I could replicate it, if Sen's Fortress and Anor Londo are that important to the memories... I might meet the man who spent so much research into it," She admitted it. "It's pretty selfish to wander around these illusions for something like that."

Ken agreed with that. "It is, unless we can be quick about finding Logan. If you eventually get a reason to undo the castle and make the way to Ven," Aqua answered her student. "Then I won't get another chance. We need to find these memories in one trip or the magic of that world will be lost forever. But... for something more important, with both bells rung, Jambert would know what he is suppose to do and we can put together what happened to that world." She and her student felt the shivers leave and proceeded up the castle, ready to explore another memory of a dead world.