'Twas Between Us
Chapter 3
An Unwelcoming Return
Leftovers. The shadows and darkness scattered throughout Hallow Bastion were like leftovers after a big feast. A terrible and monstrous feast. Hallow Bastion used to be a kingdom of darkness, where a Heartless had to crawl over and underneath other Heartless just to cross a room. Now the shadows were scattered. People returned to Hallow Bastion, building things that people do and putting up electric lights. There were still many Heartless, but they crawled beneath the town and in the shadows of structures, like scuttling roaches. The streets of Hallow Bastion were no longer flooded by shadows, and there was now barely more than a snippet of darkness, like the little Shadow Heartless that scurried between buildings.
After leaving the World That Never Was, the Shadow snippet fled to Hollow Bastion to join with the dredges of Heartless there. Without Maleficent, the Heartless were not organized like they used to be and they wandered, only instinctively sticking together like a colony of ants, but with no queen. The Heartless had strayed very far from its cluster and wasn't sure where to find it. This Shadow moved closer to where the people were living. It was tantalizing, because having so many hearts close together increased their alluring light. The waiting Heartless would usually watch hungrily for anyone who stepped outside of the group, for a stray heart to walk just a little too close to the darkness. The snippet, however, was in the opposite situation. It had strayed too far from dark and was very far away from its other shadows. It needed to turn back and keep looking for its cluster.
A flicker of grey. The Shadow snippet came to a jerky stop and twitched its head in that direction. There it was. A flicker of grey slithered through the air and around the corner, it looked familiar. The Heartless bobbed its head as a croak blossomed from its throat. Vah-Vapid! It scurried even farther from the shadows to pursue the Dusk.
Farther and farther did the Shadow snippet go. It did not pay attention to the fact that it was now in the city streets, it just doggedly followed the Nobody. Finally, the Dusk reached an alley that went nowhere and the snippet of darkness caught up. It trilled happily, Vapid! Vapid!
The Dusk's head completely snapped around. Its mouth was unzipped, revealing its gaping, empty hole of a mouth. Cold and empty. This was not who the Heartless was looking for. The Nobody's form ticked and twitched mechanically. In a flash of silver, its pointed feet stabbed the Shadow's shoulder. The Heartless chirped sharply and stumbled back on its stocky feet. It gave a weak, sad hiss when the Dusk jerkily slithered closer. The Dusk suddenly froze mid-air, only cocking its head at an angle. As if getting sucked away, the Nobody retreated as a wavy sliver of grey. The Shadow snippet was alone in the alley. It felt bad inside. It was like being hungry but way, way worse. The Heartless felt hurt, but it wasn't thinking about the stab wound. It was like the craving for hearts yet it didn't actually want them, at least not like before. The Shadow tried desperately to understand this feeling.
There was an electronic bubble that echoed from the street. The Heartless' antenna twitched. It twisted around and scuttled over the street, curious of the lights that came from it. The snippet of darkness poked its head from the alley and its bulbous eyes regarded a flickering cluster of cylindrical pillars that spontaneously rose from the cobblestone and then dropped down, reappearing in a different spot. They seemed to be searching for something. The little Heartless croaked in interest.
One of the pillars rose up very close to the snippet, and the cylinder passed through the edge of the creature's stocky foot. There was a dull, buzzing beep of alarm, and the rhythmic flashes stopped immediately. One of the pillars of light dropped and formed a shiny, almost chrome-pearl orb on the ground. It appeared to slide on the floor without friction by riding a circular plate of light. The antenna of the snippet twitched, its instincts telling it there was danger. But the Heartless was very, very curious about this shiny ball rapidly approaching and wanted to see if it could grab it and take it back with it. The orb tapped its foot and then the orb blew up.
The Heartless was punched upward by the explosion, hardly able to utter a squeal. It messily flopped back onto the ground. The snippet chirped anxiously and shook its head. Looking over, the Heartless saw several more orbs racing towards it. The Heartless hissed in surprise and flattened itself into a black shadow on the ground, hoping to pass under them. The orbs rode on top of the Heartless with their blindingly disks. The shadow's paper-thin form vibrated unwillingly, as it was pulled from the cobblestone, phasing through the disk until it made contact with the silvery orb. The orb blew up and the little snippet was jolted out of the ground, tumbling across it. The Heartless sharply hit the ground, back-first and sprawled messily.
The other orbs beelined over. Chirping, the little shadow flipped over and scurried on its hands and feet like a bug. It hurriedly scuttled up the wall. The orbs didn't even slow as they crawled up the wall after it. The Heartless squeaked in panic. It was running out of building. Its head twitched wildly, tossing its gaze around as the orbs quickly closed the gap.
The Heartless suddenly came to a stop. It sprang off the wall and landed on a separate building. It froze and twisted its head over its shoulder at the orbs. Thankfully, the orbs didn't leap off the wall after it. The Shadow snippet hurriedly darted up the building and squeezed itself between the walls of some bluestone castle ruins. It crawled down into a foyer with no roof and a stairwell. It was not a very dark place, but it was farther away from the people and the strange lights. The weird lights could still be heard bubbling electronically in the background, but they seemed to have lost the Heartless. The small Shadow moved down the stairs and settled by a room with nothing in it.
This nothing came in the form of a tangle of Dusks. The Nobodies greeted the Heartless by unzipping their mouths with noiseless hisses. They writhed separately yet moved together as a lashing body of rubbery limbs and piercing needles. The Heartless zigzagged across the floor but the Dusks' wavy, blade fingers kept cutting it off, until it squeezed into a corner, nothing more than a ball of darkness, crooked antenna rattling and two yellow orbs staring unblinkingly at the wave of silvery thorns approaching.
Darkness pooled beneath the Dusks and dozens of claws seized their pointed feet, clamping shut as inky, thorny traps. The Nobodies lurched and broke apart, writhing wildly, yet they could not uproot themselves. Crowded brambles of Shadow Heartless and their jagged antenna flooded from the ground as a ruptured anthill. They rattled and shook the Dusks, yanking the silvery forms down into their cluster of razing claws, trying to rip them to pieces. The Nobodies had their mouths yawning open, but there was only emptiness where there would have been screams. The Dusks still lashed, stabbing the Heartless with their needle fingers and one Nobody almost got free, nearly swiping the snippet of a Shadow.
The little Heartless flinched and did not join in the jittering cluster. It scurried away and started up the stairs, only for an oversized, four-fingered hand with dark fur to grab it by the scruff of its inky body. The Heartless was pulled up towards the face of a thick-jawed cat wearing blue-and-red, full-body suspenders.
"Where'dya think you're goin'?" Pete huffed.
He glanced over at the knot of Heartless, seeing the last stringy arm of a Dusk get swallowed up by the clump of shadowy bodies. He muttered, "Dang flammin' Nobodies. Muckin' up everytin'. Dey've been a bigger pain in 'da neck lately 'dan ever before."
Pete then rattled the Heartless in his hand, jangling its stocky body like a ring of keys as he stated loudly, "Dat means youse better get it together, see! Now get back in line." Pete then tossed the Shadow snippet into the cluster of other Heartless, where it landed with a lumpy thud and sunk into the group, becoming indistinguishable from the rest. Pete crossed his arms with a huff. His tiny, pointed ear then flicked up, hearing an electronic bwop steadily approaching.
A pillar of artificial light rose up from the ground in short bursts, moving farther each time. It suddenly appeared very close to the knot of Heartless, who collectively scuttled away. Pete reacted quickly and snapped his fingers, shocking the cylinder with a crack of lightning magic. This caused the cylinder to freeze and breakdown until it became a shiny orb on the ground, sitting idly. Pete curiously marched over, giving it a once-over with some thoughtful hums. He noticed the Shadow Heartless still avoided it warily.
He guffawed, holding his belly as it shook. Pete wiped a tear from his eye and spoke teasingly, "Aww, dis little thing givin'ya trouble? I know dere's been a lotta changes 'round here, with a whole bunch'a 'da darkness missin', but I didn't 'tink dat meant youse guys had turned soft too!"
To prove his point, Pete stamped his large boot on the orb. It exploded on impact, and Pete yanked his foot in the air with a loud, "Yowch!" He held his foot and hopped around in a circle with his body bouncing as he yelped, "Ow-ow-ow!"
He finally came to a stop, letting out a sigh once his foot stopped stinging. He glanced at the dozens of glowing, beady eyes staring at him. Pete flattened his ears and growled, "Whadd'are youse lookin' at, huh?"
Heartless simply stared, twitching their antenna slightly. Pete grunted, only to hear more electronic bubbling. He glared over his shoulder as more flashing lights and orbs approached. Pete snapped his fingers and a translucent wall appeared behind him, blocking them.
Pete snorted angrily and marched through the Heartless, "Outta my way!" He muttered, "Dumb security system. I'll deal wit' dat later. First thing's first, I gotta see Maleficent's old castle. Place may be a mess, but she can't really be gone…right?" He shook his head, slapping the sides of his jaw, insisting, "It can't be! 'Dose dumbbells don't know nottin', an' I'm gonna prove it!"
While Pete marched off, the cluster of Heartless scurried into the shadows after him. The little snippet of a Shadow glanced up, catching the silvery shapes of a few Dusks flying overhead like scraps of streamers caught in the wind. They were just blurs of shapes and dull colors, not alluring like the light of hearts. But the snippet still thought of one particular Dusk, which strangely stood out like the glow of a heart in its fuzzy memory. Its head vibrated in a quiet purr, Va-pid…But the noise was completely swallowed by the collective clicking and thumps of the Heartless' stocky and thorny limbs scuttling together.
CatCrescent:Thinking of the Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden defense system, it actually seems quite terrifying from a Heartless' perspective! Also, Pete was honestly one of my favorite villains in Kingdom Hearts. Despite being cartoonish, he didn't feel out of place and he was both insidious and lovably sympathetic at the same time. Though, I have to say, his accent was something of adventure in-and-of-itself to figure out how to write.