Author's Note: This probably won't be the best of my "Second Chance" series of stories, but I try my best.
I don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.
CH3: Trouble already.
The way up towards Mount Olympus was actually a lot higher than Sora and the others had expected, but they were not willing to give up now so easily. Given that most of them were very good climbers, they were beginning their journey up, taking Phil's advice in treking along the road of a valley. So much greenary as they climbed, and so far, they only just reached the ruins of a temple as they made their way up.
"It's so beautiful here." Kairi commented, as Sora and Ven both helped her up from by pulling her up the rest of the way from the ledge they'd been climbing up on.
"Yeah, I gotta admit, if it weren't for the bad guys, I'd could just come here anyone I'd want and just gaze out this place all way." Sora nodded in agreement, as next to him and the other two teenagers...well, Ven techniqually wasn't a teenager, but he still felt and acted like one, Mickey and Goofy were helping a panting Donald who was already out of breath.
"Maybe for you, but climbing up these cliffs is ridiculous!" Donald grumbled sourly, "This place needs an elevator."
"What's an elevator?" Jack asked as he pulled himself up almost easily. He had to admit, while he didn't climb in landscapes that often, at least this was a lot better than the stairs back in town.
"Just one of those higher gadgets some worlds have." Mickey explained as he and everyone else moved on once more, following the trail and passing the broken pillars. "It's uh, a metal box that has bottons that takes you up or down to high and low places."
The pirate considered the words, and while the stairs were a nightmare, it still left him confused. "Sounds like a rather pathetic excuse to be lazy. Not to mention slightly claustophobic."
"Back on the Islands, we don't have those things." Sora chuckled in agreement, as Kairi giggled. "The highest gadgets we have are light-bulbs."
But before the conversation could continue, much to everyone's annoyance and shock, a swarm of Heartless suddenly appeared right in front of them, though while the normal shadow Heartless were comman as Sora and his friends would know, there are new ones they'd never seen before; there were five new Heartless that blew trumpets that nearly made everyone's ears burst badly. Sora, Kairi, Ven and Mickey quickly summoned their Keyblades, while Donald and Goofy summoned their Wizards Wand and Shield, and Jack, slightly hesitant to summon his Keyblade, instead drew out his Cutlass.
They immediately took action as the Heartless attacked and attempted to kill them instantly, but Sora and his friends managed to avoid this. Sora dodge-rolled out of the way before delivering his combos of slashes and thrusts at one of the newer Trumpet-Heartless while careful not to lose his hearing, but was becoming difficult as he cried out when the trumpet suddenly blew him backwards, before he caught himself mid-air and flipped to restore his balance. He then had an idea and casted the Silence Spell which silenced the Trumpet-Heartless's Trumpet, rendering it soundless. He then used his new powers he gained from the Mark of Mastery and glowed in light which allowed him to jump and leap from pillar to wall and finished off the Heartless by preforming a new boomarang plummet by tossing his Keyblade downwards right at the Heartless' head, eliminating it instantly. Sora then caught his Keyblade as he landed safely onto the ground before tackling the other Heartless.
Ven casted Thunderaga at three of the Normal Heartless which paralyzed them to the point where were frozen in electricity which gave him the advantage to toss his Keyblade expertly in the same style Sora used for two years and the weapon hit the Heartless one by one before they vanished into nothing and the blonde-haired boy caught it when it returned to him, then rolled out of the way when another Heartless, a Watery-Jellyfish one that came out of the water, blusted a jet of water at him. Ven then casted Thunderaga again and was surprised that it was eliminated immediately which made him realise that these new Heartless were strongly disadvantaged by Thunder spells.
Mickey knocked away the helmet-Heartless with his triple-sommer-sault combo that did serious damage to the enemy with his Keyblade before he used his agility to slash and swipe at it and five more other Heartless. He then flipped back-wards to avoid their claws and then once he was in the safe distance, he shot out three orbs of light from the Kingdom Key-D Keyblade which lowered the Heartless' health. The King then finished them off with Firaga that melted the Heartless before he went to freeze one of the belly-shield Heartless with the Stopza spell and along with Ven who joined up with him, the two old friends teamed up to deliever severel double-combos at it before they destoryed it for good.
Kairi did pretty good herself, slashing at the Heartless more skillfully than the last time back in the Caribbean. She did her best to mimick the movements from Sora and Riku, as well as Aqua while developing her own battle technquie. She then twirled out of the way before another one of the belly-shield Heartless could squash her flat, and as she quickly raced behind it, she thrusted as many slices as she could while she actually finished it off with a light Thunder Spell she learned from Aqua before they left the Mysterious Tower days before.
Jack slashed and sliced at the Heartless with his Cutlass, before pulling out his pistol and shot one of those annoying Trumpet Heartless in the head as Heartless instruments were getting on his nerves. He then had to run away from another one only to end up stuck in the middle as another one came towards him from the front. Mentally panicking and thinking quickly while thanking whatever Gods that were watching him today from the place he and the others were about to visit, that a vine was there, attatched to a wall. He then grabbed onto it and sliced it from the stone wall, lifting him up just in time to avoid the collision of the two Heartless who were knocked out after crashing into each other. The Pirate Captain then let go and landed safely on the ground after a bit of a stumble, before being confronted by a sword-wielding Heartless who looked ready to cleave him in half. Jack just smirked at this stupid act, and when it lifted it's arms to make the attack, he simply held out his pistol and shot it dead squarely between the eyes, causing it to disappear into nothing.
The stupidity of these annoying monsters never cease to amaze him, it seems.
Donald casted multiple spells at several Heartless that weakened them, while Goofy finished them off by whacking them with his Shield before preforming his Goofy-Tornado skill by twirling around and around and around while eliminating the Heartless as he went before stopping and felt slightly dizzy. Unfortunately, while Goofy was knocked back and had to run out of the way to avoid one of those annoying Flying magic Heartless casted fire onto Donald's tail that got caught on fire, which made the white mage scream hysterically as he ran around in panic, which made him lose his temper once more and madly casted multiple spells of Thunder and Blizzard all over the place that weakened and/or destroyed most of the Heartless around them, though he almost accidently hit Sora, Ven, Kairi, and Jack who cried out when he was nearly turned into a pir-icicle.
"Oi! Watch where you waving that thing!" Jack shouted.
Mickey ducked when a blizzard spell nearly hit him, before crying out to his Royal Magican, "Donald, calm down! You're only making things worse!"
"You can stop now!" Sora called out, after taking notice that all of the Heartless have been eliminated from the area...for now, at least.
Finally, Donald did stop and breathed in and out to calm down from his latest hysterical temper attack. When he did, he realised what just happened and became apologetically and sheepish, "Sorry. It was stress relief."
"What happened?" Kairi asked, as she, Sora, Ven and Mickey began healing the others as well as themselves even for the minor injuries. During the visits to Radiant Garden, she managed to pick up on learning on healing magic alongside Namine after the defeat of Xemnas a year earlier.
Donald pointed at his tail feathers that were covered after he healed himself from the burns, glaring at the spot while grumbling, "I'm gonna strangle the neck of Chaos, that stupid bad guy and sending in all those Heartless!"
"Now now, settle down, Donald." Goofy quickly told him in his efforts to calm his friend down. "This ain't the time to think about that. We still have to find Hercules to see if he's okay."
"If I remember right," Kairi began, thoughtfully as she gazed up the valley, where there was a gap between the wall where a river was flowing that continued the way up to Mount Olympus, "Phil said that we have to then follow the river between the gap in the wall once we past the pillars."
"Quite adventurous, eh?" Jack teased.
The Princess of Heart rolled her eyes and pointed out, "I've been ready to explore the worlds since I was fourteen and after Sora, Riku and I finished up the raft and supplies."
"Good old days." Sora sighed, shaking his head. He still remembered it like it was only yesterday; building the raft only to end up being dragged away from his home and his friends, going on an adventure that changed his life forever, saving the worlds from the Heartless and those who controlled them, finding his friends, saving those who were lost a decade earlier, and now this. It was amazing how time flies so quickly that you don't even notice until then.
"You mean bad old days, if you really think about it." A familiar taunting voice spoke next to him, causing Sora to turn and he forced himself not to groan aloud as the manifestion of Vanitas appeared, leaning casually against the wall with his arms crossed. "I mean, come on. Everything in your life just went from bad to worse, and now you're still trying to fix up this mess? Waste of time, if you ask me."
'Will you just leave me alone already?' Sora told him mentally in sheer annoyance. 'I decide what I want to do when it comes to my friends. And what do you care? You're just a ghost.'
Vanitas rolled his eyes, "Oh, grow up. Unless you change your attitude, I'll always be in your mind."
Before Sora could respond in his mind, Kairi's voice snapped him back to reality as she asked, "Sora? What's going on? Are you okay?"
When the sixteen year old boy turned to turn his gaze to the sixteen year old girl, Sora quickly saw the concerned and confused expression on Kairi's face. Still not wanting to tell her or anyone else about his current problem in having the ghost of Ven's darkness in his mind or heart, and said, "Uh, i-it's nothing! I'm okay." sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "Just got distracted in thinking back on how all of this happened two years ago."
Sora couldn't help but slightly winch at the suspicious yet hurt look in Kairi's eyes, but she didn't push it. Instead, she just nodded and mumbled an 'Okay' before following Mickey, Donald and Goofy towards the path. That look alone just made Sora's heart ache. He hated lying, but he didn't want to make his friends worry about him or make him think he's gone completely nuts. Ven gazed worriedly at Sora, before following the others.
Jack lingered behind before approaching Sora, and told him in a serious tone, "If you keep hiding something from them, mate...that would just cause suspicion."
"Like you didn't do it yourself, Jack." Sora pointed out, though he had to admit, his pirate friend was right. Jack made the grave mistake in keeping his bargain with Davy Jones a secret and had payed a heavy price. Sora didn't want to go down that path, but what if no one believed him? The only one would solve this problem would be Yen Sid, and the Sorcerer wasn't even around to help this time. He'd been kidnapped by Aced along with Angeal and Genesis who both obviously failed to keep him at bay.
"Which exactly proves my point." Jack replied. "It's almost as worse as Will's honest streak."
"...Guess you're right." Sora sighed in defeat. He just wished Master Yen Sid was there. The Sorcerer would know what to do in this situation. For now, it was all onto the shoulders of Sora and all of his friends and they had to act on their own, along with their friends back in Radiant Garden and Midgar. "Well, let's go!"
Sora quickly raced after the others through the gap of the wall, with Jack quickly following in many hopes to solve all of this as soon as possible.
Though as Sora didn't like to face it, Jack was right. He would have to tell the truth sooner or later, and just hope for the best. He just didn't want to anyone to worry gravely about him. Especially Kairi.
Meanwhile, Lea, Roxas, Xion, Isa and Myde were handling the Heartless problem that quickly appeared as soon as the five of them arrived back in Thebes. It was almost as though the monsters knew that they were coming, and it quickly became a nuisance.
Lea tossed his Chakrams expertly that flew like very shrap knived frisbees that eliminated five Heartless before catching them with ease. He then spun his weapons around which then created a large swirl of fire that bursted out and handled another four. He then switched his weapon use to his Keyblade and spun around just in time to slice a large Neo-Heartless cleanly in half before repeating the process as fast as he could, finally starting to get used to summoning and wielding his new weapon which was steadily becoming more and more easy.
Roxas and Xion both double-combo the Heartless they were fighting by sharing their Keyblades with each other, and even held hands while Roxas held the Oblivion Keyblade in his right hand while Xion held the Oathkeeper Keyblade in her left hand and the two swiped, slashed, sliced and clashed against the Heartless while leaping in the air as they did before finishing off the two Trumpet-Heartless with a double combination of Light that finished it and surprisingly three other normal sized Heartless instantly.
Isa thrusted his Claymore in an almighty swipe that created a powerful gust of wind that blasted seven Heartless back and send them crashing into five others, before he raced forward and one by one cleaved them with the combination of the Claymore and his new Keyblade with near-flow-motion movements he learned as his time as a Nobody.
Myde, while not one to like fighting, managed to whack and slash the Heartless he was handling with his satyr, combined with his water abilities under his command as a wave of water swirled around before engulfing three Heartless and literally drowned them. He finished off the other three by smacking his weapon and instrument into them while pulling at the strings so that the sounds can burst their hearing, which worked out just as well.
After awhile, the group finally caught a bit of a break once they knew that the Heartless wouldn't show up again anytime soon and all sighed softly in relief. Lea wiped the sweat from his brow, muttering, "Whew...I guess Chaos and Bhunivelze were kinda ahead of us if the Heartless are appearin' a little more lately."
"Lea, look out!" Roxas suddenly cried out, pointing behind his redhaired friend as another Heartless appeared behind him to make a surprise attack.
Just as Lea made to twist around and make to move out of the way, the Heartless, a Neo-Heartless, was quickly and suddenly struck down by a very modern metal-like large sword, wielded by the surprisingly familiar man who grunted as he took down the Heartless, before standing straight.
"Gladio?" Roxas blinked, stunned to see the swordsman whom he and the others briefly met earlier.
"Where'd you come from?" Lea asked, stunned and a little traumatized at how close he'd been to being cleaved in half himself. For a muscle guy, he'd been surprisingly fast and quiet.
"Just noticed you had your back towards one of those things and took it out when I did." Gladio replied, shouldering his sword with ease. "You oughta be more cautious next time when that happens."
The redhead gave a nervous and sheepish chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck, saying, "Yeah, well...thanks for the save, man. I owe ya one."
"Hey, just doin' my job in helping others, especially a group of close friends." Gladio shrugged, while suddenly dismissing his sword as though it was a Keyblade, much to the group's surprise. Was this guy some kind of special gifted warrior or fighter like they were? Just who was he, anyway?
Deciding to ask about that later, Lea shrugged and stated, "Well, Myde here is more of a friend. Isa, Rox' and Xi' on the other hand, they're my family." along with Namine, whom he's still worried sick about, but he didn't mention her. Not yet.
"Mr. Gladio, I thought you were going to continue in the Games." Xion spoke up, noticing that Gladio wasn't competiting in the next round at the Coliseum.
"I was headin' that way when those things came outta no where." Gladio answered, "Then I saw you guys and I gotta admit, you're pretty good."
"Thank you." Isa nodded politely.
"So, Gladio..." Myde spoke up, as though he suddenly felt a memory come into mind. "...How come you're competiting in the Games, anyway?"
Gladio looked slightly hesitant to answer, and while Roxas, Xion, Lea and Isa looked they didn't mind not knowing while glaring at Myde who shrunk back a little when he realised that he blurted out without realising and mumbled a slightly terrified apology. Though the more he gazed at the mullet-haired younger man, the more he felt that he met Myde before, but couldn't figure out how or why.
Finally, he muttered, "It's complicated."
All of the sudden, out of the dark cloud, a familiar fire-headed figure appeared which alarmed the group, as it was Hades who said while noticing Isa and Myde, "You two are back? Guess that means you guys split up along with Sora and gang, considering that there's more of you kids."
"No, not you again!" Myde shivered in fear.
Hades only responded by flicking Myde between the eyes, which was enough to knock the mullet-haired young man onto the ground while saying, "Well, hey, I guess this could work out, especially since you got a new swordsman who has great potential in being my nasty warrior to really finish off Hercules."
"And why would I work for some loser like you?" Gladio growled low.
"Fine, okay, it was my best shot." Hades shrugged, "But hey, I know more on a few things than you kids do."
"What do you want this time, Hades?" Isa questioned sharply as he, Roxas, Xion and Lea glared at him.
"Ah, you know. The usual. Taking over Mount Olympus, taking out Wonderboy, and taking out you guys and the rest of your friends as well. Nothing new." Hades commented.
"Speaking of Hercules, what did you do to him and Meg?" Roxas demanded angrily, knowing that now was the time to ask about the absence of the two.
"Weeelll, I did set up a perfect trap for them." Hades grinned evilly, before chuckling as though he suddenly remembered something, "Oh, and you know what slipped on my mind? I've got that bluebird friend of yours, along with the new raven-girl and two new buddies that you'll not be thanking latter."
Hearing this made the hearts of the group freeze in horror. Hades knew that Riku, Aqua, Skuld and Terra went to the Underworld, and how has them captured? Immediately the group summoned their weapons as their glares hardened, with Lea demanding angrily, "What did you do to them!?"
"I'm holding the two little girls along with little nut-Meg somewhere that you can't find them, as I encountered them a little earlier. As for your other two buddies..." Hades then snapped his fingers and as a chariot with a dragon at the reins appeared, to the group's shock and horror, both Riku and Terra were inside, gagged and tied up in chains of smoke.
"Riku! Terra!" Roxas cried out, quickly making to free them with the others quickly following, only for Hades to appear in front of them.
"Ah, ah, ah!" Hades tsked while waving a finger. "See, there's nothing you guys can do right now, because I have some little company for you to play with."
As soon as he said it, the ground suddenly shook violently that nearly made Roxas, Xion, Lea, Isa, Myde and Gladio lose their balance, before they heard a roar coming from behind them. When the group turned to see what it was, a giant horned Heartless with gapping jaws was seen from the distance, already crushing it's way through Thebes and destroying everything.
"What the hell?" Gladio breathed, shocked.
"That'll keep you kids busy, while I take care of Sora and Jerkcules." Hades laughed as he climbed into the chariot, and as his ride took off with him and his passengers, he concluded, "And then I finish off Zeus and there's nothing you can do about it!"
"Damn it!" Lea yelled angrily as he and his friends watched Hades leave with two of their friends captive against their will. This was bad. How can they save Aqua, Skuld and Meg in the Underworld without the risk of having the giant Heartless destroy Thebes.
"Looks like I've got some work to do." Gladio grunted, summoning his sword once more as he turned to face the giant Heartless.
"You're not going alone." Isa declared, summoning his Claymore.
Lea shut his eyes, not wanting to leave Isa and Gladio, but at the same time, he didn't want to risk the safeties of Roxas and Xion, and Myde was useless when it comes to fighting giant monsters, and he was completely worried about Aqua, Skuld, Sora, Kairi, Ven, King Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Jack, and Hercules as well as Meg, and wanted so badly to even rescue Riku and Terra from Hades' clutches. That's when an idea came into mind; he knew it wasn't a smart one, but what choice did they have.
"Alright, Roxas. You, Xi' and Myde head to the Underworld, save Hercules' girlfriend Meg, Aqua and Skuld, and get your butts to Mount Olympus to help out Sora and the others." Lea instructed to one of his younger best friends.
"But-!" Roxas began to protest.
"We can't just leave you!" Xion protested.
"You want me to go to the Underworld!?" Myde shrieked.
"Don't worry, the three of us can handle that giant thing. This is nothing compared to the Kracken." Lea assured them, before telling them more firmly, "Go!"
When Roxas and the others saw Isa and Gladio(who was admittedly surprised by this) nod in agreeing with Lea, the blonde-haired teenager hesitated a little, before nodding and grabbed Xion and Myde's wrists before pulling dragging them with him to the Underworld to rescue three of their friends and then to help the rest of their friends.
Knowing that Roxas and the others would be just fine, Lea in the meantime summonde his Chakrams and stood by both Isa and Gladio as all three of them glared unimpressed at the emerging giant Heartless, before they took off running towards it to hold it back as long as they can.
A little while earlier in the Underworld...
Riku, Terra, Aqua and Skuld found it rather easy to find the entrance to the Underworld given the last time Riku was here when he he'd been tricked to work for Maleficent two years earlier. Thanks to Phil's suggestion and Sora having told him of his adventures last year, given how the four Keyblade wielders were already feeling the effects of the Underworld weakening their combat strength, Riku pulled out the Olympus Stone and as he held it up in the air, it began to glow. The light from the stone soon covered him and three of his friends with him as they felt their strength return to them.
"So this is the Underworld, huh?" Terra asked, glancing around at the place. The floor was stone cold, the air felt freezing and dead, the river ahead of them was filled with dead souls, and at the other side of the river, as Riku remembered, was the Underdome which was once again locked.
"This place gives me the creeps." Skuld admitted, rubbing her arms as though she was feeling cold. "No wonder no one wants to die."
"I agree. A place were death awaits." Aqua muttered. She felt the sudden chill in the air of the Underworld, one of the realms of the dead. But there was more to it than that. Gazing up at the Underworld sky, she tried not to cringe as this place reminded her too much of the Realm of Darkness.
"Yeah, Hades runs it like there's no tomorrow." Riku nodded, before gazing at the large gates which he believed he knew was the way to the Lord of the Dead's Chamber. "If memory serves me right, his chamber should be right at the end of this hall."
As the four of them made to begin their way towards the large zig-zag door, Aqua suddenly found herself frozen on the stop, gasping softly as the astmosphre of the Underworld suddenly began to drain away her energy despite having the light from the Olympus Stone protect her from having her combat skills weaken. Her vision swam as she felt her legs wobble as a sense of deja vu' hit her out of no where. Suddenly, a memory which she realised she forgot as not even memories were safe from the Realm of Darkness filled her vision.
FlashBack: During the events of Kingdom Hearts 0.2...
Aqua thought she'd seen the comatose Ven inside the glass Coffen Princess Snow White had been sleeping in until his image disappeared, making her remember that the real Ven's body was sleeping in the Chamber of Waking in the transformed Castle. She felt tears in her eyes, but forced herself to smile as she knew that it was him who was keeping her heart strong, keeping the darkness away.
Just then she sensed something materalize behind her and glanced to see a large, ornate mirror floating in mid-air. What was a mirror doing here? Aqua stood up and approached it and placed a hand onto it, only for it to suddenly shine. She recoiled her hand in surprise, but her shock, her reflection suddenly came to life, sticking it's hand out and grabbed hold of her wrist from the other side.
"What!?" Aqua gasped, then she screamed as she was dragged right into the mirror.
When she finally emerged through another mirror, Aqua managed to catch her breath from the unexpected, and admittedly, terrifying experience. As she stood up from her crouched position, she slowly examined her new surroundings. Many spiral-shaped columns and altars containing runes on their walls populate the room. It somewhat reminded her of a twisted version of the Evil Queen's Chamber. Outside of room around her, was of course darkness, and different colours of glass shards, as though she had just entered Mirrorland.
Aqua walks toward the center of the room and sighs. She turned around and was shocked to see that three mirrors surround her, each one showing blue fire instead of a reflection. They spin around her and proceed to affix themselves to the walls inside three of the altars, firmly placed within the perimeter of the runes.
What just happened?
Worried, Aqua doubled back to make a quick exit as she remembered how she got swallowed up in here. When she returned to the mirror where she came from, though, to her great confusion and shock, her reflection was not there. That was then she realised that the mirrors that surrounded her must've stolen her reflection that prevented her from escaping.
"Those mirrors... Maybe they're a clue." Aqua said to herself. If she entered those three mirrors, maybe she can figure out a way to restore her reflection and escape from this Mirrorland.
As she ventured through, Aqua tried very hard to ignore the echoing sound that was hauntingly her own voice, that was making her more and more terrified, though she tried hard to prove the voice wrong.
"Are you really worthy of being a Keyblade Master? Is there any point in continuing this fight? You'll never see the realm of light again. Your bonds of friendship only tie you down. No one will find you here, and no one wants to. Just let go of everything and fade into the darkness."
"You'll never see the realm of light again...You'll never see the realm of light again...You'll never see the realm of light again..."
End of Flashback.
"Aqua!" Terra's voice snapped Aqua out of her panicked dazed.
Gasping sharply, Aqua blinked and panted as though she had just experienced a terrible nightmare. She didn't even realise that she had grasped her head and had collasped onto her knees until Terra had called out to her. When she gazed up to him, she suddenly realised that Terra was cradling her in his arms in his knelt position, looking very worried. Riku and Skuld both looked worried as well as they were also kneeling on their knees.
"Are you okay?" Riku asked, concerned.
"W-What happened?" Aqua asked, feeling dazed.
"You were trailing behind, and then you looked...paralyzed and passing out." Skuld answered, before asking gently, "Did something happen?"
Realising that what she experienced as one of the most horrible memories of her time trapped in the realm of darkness, something that she didn't want to remember, Aqua gazed down despondently, sighing, "I'm sorry. It's just...a lot of things happened when I was in the realm of darkness. It was getting to me. I guess this place just triggered one of the horrible memories."
"Do you want to head back to the Coliseum?" Terra offered, gravely concerned. He knew that his friend in his arms had suffered due to being trapped in the realm of darkness for twelve years and still blamed himself for it.
After a few moments of taking a few deep breaths to calm her shaky nerves down, Aqua finally shook her head, seemingly recovered, and, for some reason, being held like this in Terra's arms was comforting. "No. I'm alright now."
"Are you sure?" Riku asked.
"Yes." Aqua replied, finding herself steadily calm, before slowly standing up, with Terra's help even though she didn't need it, she still smiled her thanks to her friend.
"Aqua...maybe you really should-" Skuld never got the chance to finish as all of the sudden dark, smoke-like chains appeared and wrapped around all four of them, before they were thrusted straight through the chamber tunnel and were chained up to the wall, their wrists, arms, waist and legs chained to it in iron-like grip. Riku, Terra, Aqua and Skuld struggled against their bonds just as Hades appeared in front of them in the dark cloud of smoke.
"Ugh, you three again so soon? And here I thought you guys and your other friends, both old and new died out already." Hades rolled his eyes, before smirking, "Not that I'm complaining."
"This is your doing, isn't it, Hades?" Aqua demanded angrily, pulling at the bonds around her arms. "Where is Meg?"
"Little Nut-Meg? Eh, I have her tied up at my place, bluebird." Hades waved dismissively. He then turned to see Skuld for the first time and blinked mockingly, "Whoa, there. What have we here? Another pretty face? Dark hair, just like a Raven. Maybe I should call you raven-girl."
"So you're Hades that I've heard about." Skuld grunted, glaring at the God of Underworld. "You caused so many problems in the Realm of Light, tried to kill Hercules and his father, attempted to use Terra, Zack and Riku to turn to darkness and now had caused this."
"And it's another miss smarty-pants." Hades shrugged, turning to both Terra and Riku, "And seeing that you both are experts when it comes to darkness, why not come and pick the winning side for once? Whaddya' say?"
"Why would we ever do that?" Terra challenged, as he and Riku both glared, which only made Hades' smirk grow.
"Because if you don't, then your girlfriends will be ancient history." Hades grinned. With a snap of his fingers, a familiar monsterous growl filled the room. From the darkness of the large entrance towards his domain, out came the familiar giant three headed dog guardian of the Underworld, Cerberus, stomping towards them, and it was sneering dangerously above the trapped female Keyblade wielders who struggled harder at their bonds.
"Aqua! Skuld!" Riku cried out.
"Call it a little pay back for what happened earlier." Hades began, gazing at Riku and Terra, "So, let's cut to the chase, shall we? You both are more suited to work for me and join my army because both of your darknesses are a bit of a power boost up."
"Don't listen to him!" Skuld cried out.
"You be quiet!" Hades snapped, glaring at the raven-haired girl. "You're as big as a loud mouth as that scaredy duck friend of that keyboy. Jeez louise."
"Stay away from them, Hades!" Terra warned in a calm, yet dangerous tone.
"You won't get away with this!" Aqua warned to Hades.
"Sure I can." Hades smirked as he gazed at the blue-haired young woman, before turning back to both Riku and Terra, saying while becoming impatient. "What do you owe these two ladies anyway, huh? I mean come on, you can't seriously care about them more than anybody else right? So, what's it gonna be; work for me...or the little bluebird and raven-girl become Cerberus' next hunk of meat..."
He raised his hand as time ticked, and Cerberus was edging closer, the right head and the middle head opening their dangerously sharp teethed jaws wide as they prepared to swallow Aqua and Skuld whole as the two women had their eyes widen in fear before they closed their eyes and braced themselves to be eaten. Both Riku and Terra felt the last of their calm nerves slip away as two of their friends were about to be chomped. Aqua and Skuld had only just gotten out of the realm of darkness. They can't lose them again.
"NO!" Terra screamed.
"STOP!" Riku exclaimed, just before Hades snapped his fingers and capturing everyone's attention. "We'll do it, work for you."
"Just leave them alone, please!" Terra pleaded.
"Terra...! Riku...!" Aqua gasped, horrified. They were doing this just for her and Skuld's safety, and while she was thankful for the delay, her heart ached at the decision.
"Knew girls were every guys' weakness." Hades smirked, snapping his fingers again and had Cerberus lean back, but also blocked the entrance and still loomed over the trapped women, before he snapped his fingers again and both Riku and Terra disappeared before reappearing in a black-bat wing decorated carriage with the black dragon at the reins.
Both Riku and Terra gave one last look to the two women before being gagged by the smoke chains as Hades climbed in and then took flight. They flew around the Underworld as Hades called up to the Titans who emerged from their slumber.
"Ready for round two, boys?" Hades called down to the giant minions of his. When the Titans roared in agreement, he smirked, "Now, back to the mortal world, shall we?"
Riku and Terra could only hope that Sora and everyone else can find Hercules and solve this crisis on time.
A/N: Still have to wait one more day before I can see the new trailer. *Sigh* oh well, can't be helped. See you in the next chapter!