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P.P.S Please only constructive criticism, if you think my story is crap, PM me (if you must); if you have a idea you think I might like, PM me. Credit will be given.
-Y.A.R.N.
Despite the fact that both Sora and I wanted to see if we could catch a trace of Riku, Donald and Goofy both manage to convince us that it was time to get moving. We both swept our gazes over the plaza with longing but followed. We walked up to the abandoned house that Cid had mentioned and walked in. The place was lit with a warm glow and although boxes had been stacked up against the wall and it looked as though it was half complete, it was a place I could definitely see as a residence. However, we could tell that there was a problem going on at the moment. We walked up to Cid who was discussing something with Leon; both of them had grimaces on their face and I noticed Leon was clenching his fists tightly as anger burned in his eyes. Aerith was frowning heavily, looking pensive while Yuffie was absently twirling a shuriken in her hand and had her mouth drawn in a thin line.
"Um..." I began, shifting slightly at the feeling of tension in the room, "Did we come at a bad time?"
Cid shook his head and turned to our group, "You guys ever hear of Maleficent? I hear she's in town."
I turned to Donald, Goofy, and Sora, all of whom looked as clueless as I did.
"Who is she?" Sora inquired.
Leon made a sound of annoyance in his throat, "She's the reason this town is full of heartless. Don't take her lightly."
I stiffened at the ominous warning while Sora shifted in worry.
Leon had soundly thrashed us when we first met him, and judging by how he hadn't even been taking us seriously and more or less toying with us. We were stronger than before but I had no doubt in my mind that Leon was still out of our league if was just me and Sora again. I remembered how Cloud had been stronger than I could have ever hoped to have taken on alone at the time. We had been able to overwhelm him and even then he hadn't exactly been a walk in the park. If Leon was wary enough of her to say that she wasn't to be taken lightly...
Needless to say, she wasn't someone I wanted the 'pleasure' of dealing with, or at least not anytime soon.
"She's been using the heartless for years." Aerith added.
We turned to look at her incredulously.
"What?!" Sora exclaimed.
"Years?" I repeated in shock, "She can and has been controlling the heartless for years? How the heck do you even begin control the heartless? Let alone do it for YEARS?"
"We lost our world, thanks to her." Leon said quietly, frustration lacing his voice.
"One day," Cid cut in, "A swarm of heartless took over our world!"
Leon ran a hand from his his forehead to his chin, finger twitching to run along the scar on his face, "That was nine years ago..."
Cid rubbed his chin, "I got out of that mess and came here with these guys."
Donald crossed his arms and scowled, "That's awful."
Leon sighed and said, "Our ruler was a wise man named Ansem. He dedicated his life to studying the heartless."
Cid picked up after Leon left it at that, "His reports should tell us how to get rid of the heartless."
"So... any ideas on the journals' location?" I said, remembering about what he said before.
"We don't know anything new." Leon replied, "It was scattered when our world as destroyed, as I said."
Cid scowled sourly, "I'm sure Maleficent's got most of the pages."
As we talked, I couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on my back, and a sense of foreboding when they were gone.
We left Cid's house after hearing about a rumor about the clock tower and ringing the bell 3 times. I wasn't usually one for rumors and unsubstantiated word-of-mouth talk, but ever since I had been thrown into the worlds that I had been, I knew that most tales had a nugget of truth (and that really, most of the things happening somehow seemed to fly in the face of any sort of logic I knew of), so I followed Sora's lead as we made out way to the clock tower. Besides, we still had to seal this world's keyhole, and I - at the very least - wasn't leaving until I found it and sealed it shut. From what I understood, Traverse Town was a majorly important world since the worlds had been falling. Any stragglers or those lost would usually end up here and try to make a home here in the event of their world vanishing. If this world fell, then there was no telling what could happen to the survivors of fallen worlds if this vanished, and that wasn't even counting the ones who already found a place in Traverse Town.
Would they simply end up in another world?
What if they started messing with the world borders?
Would they be lost to the void or darkness?
Battling through the Second District to the insides of the clock tower was relatively easier since we all took out the green heartless before letting Donald sweep away the large bodies (and Sora summoning Jungle King to his hand despite not having to summon The Kingdom Key and then attach the keychain to The Kingdom Key; a neat trick that saved some seconds). I was tempted to try out some of my Shotlocks as well as Command Styles, but if what Cid and the others said was correct than I wanted to keep any of my strength hidden in case she was watching us. I learned that there was plenty of magic out in the worlds, and that was ignoring the basics that Donald taught us. I didn't want anyone to be able to catch me off guard by figuring out a way to counter my strongest attacks because I had been busting them out like party favors.
Plus, I was sure that if there was one common theme in this entire mess of an adventure, they was a super heartless that was waiting to drop right in front of the keyhole when we found it. It was probably the only thing I COULD count on in this situation, so I wanted to make sure that I saved up my energy for that. The heartless surged in the clocktower and traveling through that was mildly irritating as we had already had to do this back on our first visit, but thankfully Donald and Goofy were more than enough to even the odds. We managed to make our way up the wall to the clocktower's roof thanks to a ladder and made short work of the heartless that had been guarding it and then bashed our way through the wood that had been blocking the bell-rope. Sora tugged it and the bell rang loudly, echoing out across the districts. I walked over the edge of the clock tower and saw the fountain mural in the plaza down below rotate and shift.
"Sora," I said, "Do that again!"
He nodded and tugged the rope, bell ringing in tandem with the wall mural once again shifting to the right as it spun.
"There gotta be more than just making the mural change..." I muttered.
Sora yanked and the bell tolled loudly, the ringing echoing over the silent plaza.
The wall mural shifting and I saw as the third and final spin revealed a pale blue ethereal glow surrounding a keyhole.
"There!" I called, "It's Traverse Town's keyhole!"
Sora jogged over the edge and brightened upon seeing it, "Alright! Let's seal it off!"
We quickly ran down from the clocktower and approached the fountain, I called Abaddon Plasma to my hand and jogged toward the keyhole only for a familiar shape to crash into the ground in front of the keyhole. Sora skidded to a stop behind me and called his keyblade to his hand as Donald and Goofy both summoned their weapons.
"Oh joy." I deadpanned, "Look who came back out to play..."
The Guard Armor torso and limbs hovered in front of us as the head came crashing down on the torso with a resounding clang before the heartless began straightening and looking at us. I scoffed at the hulking heartless, we had beaten it before and we were much stronger now than we were back then.
We could take it easily.
It flung both of it's fists at out group and we dove out of the way and summoned our respective weapons in our hands, setting ourselves into our stances. Sora didn't dither and launched himself at the main body of the Guard Armor, striking it with Jungle King and Hurricane Periods. Goofy moved to cover his back and guard against the legs that began to kick out while Donald and I both began beating and blasting the hands. The Guard armor began to shake and fall apart — literally — against the onslaught as we were determined to destroy it before it could even begin to properly retaliate. Sora knocked it's head back and it froze before all the body parts shivered before lifting up and crashing into the torso, making all the pieces of the heartless collapse in a heap in front of the keyhole. We all blinked at the unmoving pieces, confused at the short duration of the fight. We were definitely stronger, but there was no way we just beat the boss heartless just like that!
Right?
Sora scratched his head and readied to blast the prone body with magic to make sure it was gone, "So... is that it?"
The pieces of the heartless began to shake and rattle; I shot Sora a mild glare, "You just HAD to say that before you finished it off didn't you?"
The body lifted and the greaves rose in the air and the 'feet' bent until they looked more like pincer-shaped claws. The gauntlets shifted till they were vertical and the former hands pressed flat against the ground. The body of the guard armor shifted till it was upside down and the head lifted off the ground to once again land on its now-wide shoulders. The visor of the guard armor slid down and two yellow beady eyes could be seen from the darkness spilling out from the helm. The air felt heavier as the Guard Armor shifted into the Opposite Armor and the feeling of darkness radiating off the heartless boss of Traverse Town went up a notch.
The Opposite Armor limbs spun around it in a orbit, hands opening and closing as its yellow eyes scanned us. In a flash, its fists were hurtling towards us and legs spinning at us as all four of its limbs shot forward like rockets.
I threw myself to side and let out a cry of, "Thunder!"
Several bolts of electricity fell from the sky and struck the Opposite Armor, lightning crackling up and down its torso and limbs in synchronization. Despite the attack, the Opposite Armor barely reacted beyond a slight shiver as the lightning died down. Its limbs tore their way out of the floor and began to fly at us once again. I rolled out of way of a flying leg and Sora swept past me with a heavy overhand strike onto the attacking limb. The hand skidded and bounced on the ground as Sora sent it away. I saw the torso spinning towards us but knew that I wouldn't be able to block it with a standard block. Instead — in an act of pure impulse and desperation not to be hit by a stronger version of the spinning blow — I stomped and shoved my hands outwards with a sharp shout of effort, launching a Stun Impact.
The torso clashed against the dome of energy just as it expanded from me; crashing against it as the torso struggled to break through the layer of energy I had erected. Sparks of pink, yellow, and orange energy scattered as the attacks ground against each other. I gritted my teeth as I felt the power of the Stun Impact begin to wane, it wasn't meant to be used as a barrier; while it might be good enough to block a quick and powerful attack, prolonged attacks were a bad idea to use it against. Fortunately, Sora wasn't blind to my plight and had begun charging his newest technique, one he had been saving for just this sort of opponent. I managed to jump out of the way of the torso as my Stun Impact finally faded and the torso tore through where I had just been; Sora leapt into the air and pointed his keyblade at the guard armor aiming for the Opposite Armor, focusing on the head and torso. The tip began to glow with a near-blinding light as energy began to swirl and gather around Sora's keyblade.
"Ragnarock!" Sora roared.
A barrage of energy projectiles erupted from the tip of his keyblade like falling stars, twisting and spiraling before hitting their mark. Explosions rocked the heartless as its hands and legs were also struck by a respectable amount of fallout as bolts that failed to hit the main body of the heartless curved back and struck the limbs. The limbs trembled as cracks began to form from the joints and travel up and down the greaves and gauntlets from the damage. Even the torso began to sport shallow cracks and grooves where the blasts had hit it.
"Now!" I yelled, "Get the limbs while it's stunned!"
Donald began to cry out his spells, "Fira! Thundara!"
Bursts of magic erupted from his staff — stronger than his usual attacks but not quite as potent as the liquid fire sphere he used against Cloud — and struck one of the legs while lightning rained down on one of the arms. They shattered the already cracked limbs while Goofy and I closed in on the remaining two. I stuck the leg with a Zantetsuken while Goofy launched a Knocksmash on the gauntlet. The weakened limbs finally gave out as they shattered into pieces of metal that fell down and melted away into darkness. I smirked, now we just how we just had to deal with the spin attacks from the heartless' torso and send this thing back into the darkness.
It flipped its torso back and pointed the hollow of its torso at us. Purple light began to gather and the air filled with energy while the smell of ozone filled the air.
"Well nuts..." I mumbled, "That's a new one."
We were moving before it fired and barely got out of the way before it fired a orb of purple energy that exploded in the plaza. It didn't have any limbs, but apparently range wasn't out of this enhanced heartless' abilities.
But it wasn't fast.
The cannon's blast was powerful and the projectile itself was pretty quick and probably wouldn't be easy to deflect.
But it was using took time to charge and that was what we needed to capitalize on, if we hit it while it was charging and then retreated so we could evade the blast, we could beat it.
"Sora!" I called as it began charging it's cannon again, "You good?"
Sora was breathing heavily, not quite panting, but definitely short on breath, "Ragnarock took more energy than I thought it would. What's up?"
"We need to attack when it's charging," I shouted at our group, feeling the air once again thicken as the cannon was almost ready, "When it fires, we hit it with everything we got! No shotlocks though, we need to conserve out energy if it manages to charge another shot."
Sora nodded and we all dived out of the way of another blast of energy that sent a plume of dust skyward. Donald and I zigzagged through the plaza, launching spells while Goofy and Sora moved in bash the torso. Even while I was fighting, my mind was observing my growing abilities; my magic had definitely grown stronger as the blasts of fire and ice let out more noticeable fluctuations in the temperature as they were launched and had a more damaging impact when they landed. The Opposite Armor was definitely feeling the attacks as its previously shallow cracks began to deepen while bits of shadowy smoke leaked from its head. It tried to move back and charge its cannon once again, but Sora and Goofy refused to give it any room to breathe.
Something was giving way, and it wasn't us.
Sora leapt into the air an angled his keyblade and let out a shout of, "Sonic Blade!"
He lanced through the air, using his landing from one strike to pivot and hit the Opposite armor once again. Several strikes of the powerful attack later, and the Opposite Armor could hold on no longer.
Its head collapsed into its torso and the it let out a large heart as the body began to dissolve into nothingness. I breathed a sigh of relief and watched as Sora walked up to the keyhole and raised his keyblade into the air before pointing it toward the now gleaming keyhole. Light gathered at the tip of his keyhole before it shot a beam of light into the keyhole and — with a loud click — the keyhole to the heart of Traverse Town was sealed shut. The image of the now sealed keyhole crumbled away from the fountain's face which revealed a mural of a flower surrounded by butterflies.
"Well," I said as I twirled my keyblade before dismissing it with a smirk, "I suppose that settles that."