Clear Skies

Chapter 2: To Be Strong

-Holding Out for a PROFESSIONAL Hero-

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A/N: Now it really starts! The story's perspective will shift several times between the different teams, starting here with Team Sora.

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[Team Sora's POV] Olympus: Mount Olympus...

"Huh? Where's the Colosseum?" Donald looked left and right, apparently expecting a shiny gold logo to appear nearby with trumpeting fanfare.

"Maybe it's on top of the mountain?" Goofy hypothesized. After all, there were clouds below them in the Colosseum before, and it was a long way downstairs to the nearby city (or the Underworld). As for where Team Sora stood now, they seemed to be on a mostly barren trail halfway up a comparably tall mountain.

Kairi rubbed her neck sheepishly. "Sorry, everyone. I guess I was a little off."

Sora reassured her, "Don't worry about it, Kairi! I missed it by a mile on my second adventure, and this is just your first time here!"

Namine pointed out, "That was your third adventure. Castle Oblivion happened before that."

"Apparently. I sure don't remember going to any place called Castle Oblivion." Donald shrugged.

"Hence the name," Kairi pointed out. "Plus, Namine says she was involved. Your memories were affected by her powers."

"It's regrettable, but given how your time there is tied to the fake memories I implanted in Sora, it would take a long time sleeping in the pods to sort it out so you could remember everything, even though you've stabilized from the last time you needed them."

Donald gave the prospect a hard pass. "No thanks! I'm never getting in another of those pods. No way, no how!"

"Yeah, what he said!" Goofy and Sora added simultaneously.

Jiminy Cricket hopped out of Sora's hair to get everyone back on task. "We're here looking for Hercules, isn't that right? How do you suppose we can find him?"

Sora decided, "Let's just get to the top of the mountain for now. Even if the Colosseum isn't up there, or if it is and Herc isn't in the Games right now, we'd be able to see the whole world from that high up!"

"And how would we pick out Hercules from that far away?" Kairi asked.

Goofy answered, "Just look for smoke, fire, giant monsters, that sorta thing. Herc's a true hero, so he'll be wherever trouble is!"

"Good point."

"Onward and upward, then!" Sora pointed the way up the trail, Jiminy nestled back into his invincible hair, and the journey began.

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Defeat the Heartless!

Of course, they hadn't gone fifteen steps into a wide natural tunnel before the usual adversaries showed up. There were quite a few enemies for a first encounter, but the varieties were fairly bog-standard: ten Soldiers, six Air Soldiers (which were wearing purple instead of brown today, for some reason), twelve Shadows, and three Large Bodies.

Goofy repelled a leaping Shadow and a spin-kicking Soldier with his shield, then proceeded to gather all the Soldiers into his signature Goofy Tornado move. "Wow, what a crowd! There seem to be more of 'em hanging around than usual."

"Something bad must be happening! Freeze!" As the Royal Magician of Disney Castle, Donald took pride in his customized spells, and he'd come up with some new variants for this new adventure. His Donald Blizzard acted more like a snowy shotgun spread than a normal Blizzard's single penetrating bullet. It froze several Air Soldiers into Heartlessicles, grounding them and leaving them easy prey for Sora's Keyblade. A Donald Thunder spell then surrounded Goofy and his victims with a sphere of arcing lightning, making the Soldiers zap each other and pop while leaving Goofy unharmed.

Sora kept whacking away. "Geez, I really have lost a lot of strength. I should've pasted these small fries in one hit." Although it took more than one hit to beat each Heartless, Sora's swordplay wasn't lacking in skill; he'd learned a lot about fighting over the last year and a half. He just didn't have the power to use most of the flashier moves he'd invented anymore.

Luckily, he'd retained his all-important abilities to Dodge Roll, block, and Air Slide. Unluckily, he'd lost access to all of the Drive Forms his Very Special Outfit had gathered. Even Valor Form wasn't working, and that was the one that came with the outfit!

"Well, if you all you need is strength training, then beating up Heartless is what worked for me! Aeroga!" Kairi swept the three Large Bodies into the air with a swirl of wind, and she would've juggled them longer, but all of them popped when the miniature storm burst.

"Sora, look out! Shadows behind you!" Thanks to Namine's warning, Sora repelled the sneak attack. It took him two hits to beat even a Shadow, but he kept getting more enemies with his combo and kept them all locked down until they popped.

All the Heartless were finally beaten. "Wow, Kairi, you really have gotten strong! I don't think we've ever taken one of those big ones out in one hit before!" Goofy complimented while he wiped his brow.

"I've gotta catch up..." Sora mumbled to himself.

Kairi giggled. "'Catch up'? Sora, I've seen you fighting at full power before. Once you've got your strength back, you're going to be way stronger than me. You've just got to keep moving forward."

Sora grinned his sunny Sora-grin. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Kairi. Speaking of forward, though..." The path dead-ended at a huge statue of some bearded guy in a dress - er, toga. Judging by the offerings of food and Hercules action figures that had been left at his feet, the statue probably depicted a god of some sort. But anyway, the only way further up the mountain would be to scale the sheer cliffs around the shrine. "Oh, I know! Watch this, guys!"

Sora ran straight at the lowest wall. Without slowing down, he put his giant shoes against the vertical surface, and his whole body was surrounded in a sparkling blue aura as he ran up the wall and flipped over the top. "I learned this in the Sleeping Worlds! Neku called it 'Flowmotion'. You use the mana of the world around you instead of your own to move around really fast. You can Super-Dash, Super-Jump, Rail Slide, all sorts of things. It only works if you kick off something solid first, though. And this isn't a dream, so I can't just jump up the same wall as many times as I want. I'll still need a bit more power before I can grab enough mana to Super-Jump even once, actually."

"That's so cool! I didn't learn that in the Training Worlds! Let me try!" Kairi mimicked Sora's actions and (after falling on her butt a couple times) managed to pull it off.

"Neato! I guess you didn't lose all your power, Sora!" Goofy was suddenly standing behind him, along with Donald.

Sora's jaw dropped. "How did you - what did you - when did you-"

"Oh, that? We do that all the time!" Goofy nonchalantly waved off the mention of his ability to teleport to Sora's position.

"You mean you just noticed?" Donald scoffed, having popped over at the same time as Goofy.

"Hey, I'm just a human, not a duck or dog or mouse or cat-bear-thing from Disney Town. I can't just do things just because it'd be funny." Sora ran up a couple more walls and found a tunnel back to the slopes of the mountain; Kairi followed suit.

"It's pretty strange from our perspective, yes. It's super useful, though! We won't have to worry about keeping pace with each other in rough terrain like this," Namine pointed out.

"We're pretty high up now," Goofy noted, once again appearing behind Sora.

"But there's no sign of Hercules," Donald added.

Sora decided to just shout as loud as he could to try and get the true hero's attention. "HEEEEY! HERCULES! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

A new disembodied voice joined the conversation. "Hmm...I know I dotted my I's, crossed my T's, zeroed the hero...so who in Greece would be calling that blockhead's name?"

Hades, local god of the Underworld, appeared in front of the party with a puff of fiery smoke. "Oh, geez Louise. It's you? What are you here for, runts?"

Sora declared, "We have to ask Hercules something! But if you're up to no good again, then we're also here to stop you!"

"Gee, so sorry, I don't have time to play with you today. I am running on a tight schedule right now. Gotta get everything arranged for next week." Hades started walking away. "Once the planets align, I'll have Titans to jailbreak, thrones to steal, worlds to conquer. You know how it goes."

"We won't let you do any of that!" Sora readied his Keyblade and ran in for an attack.

Before he reached his target, Hades scowled and whirled around. His skin and flaming hair turned from blue to red as he did so. "Kiddo, you are TICKING. ME. OFF! Get off my case already!" With one swing of his arm and a liberal application of godly strength, Hades sent a gale-force wind to blow Sora away. The rest of the team was also caught in the gust, which sent them flying off the mountain and out into the distance. Hades cooled back down to blue. "Have a nice trip! Don't forget to write! There, that sent them sailing." Then he realized something. "...Sailing right to where I left...eh, no problem. With all the Heartless I sent out to keep Irkules busy, those kids are done for even if they stick the landing. I mean, what could go wrong?"

Hades was asking himself a rhetorical question, but someone answered anyway:"You truly have no idea...how much has already gone wrong." A Dark Corridor opened and admitted a rather short stranger in a Black Coat.

Hades hadn't had any personal dealings with Organization XIII, but he recognized their get-up well enough. "Oh really, now? And I suppose you're here to do something about it?"

"Indeeeeed. Our schedule has been unexpectedly pushed forward, so we require that you get a head start as well." The stranger summoned a weapon - a Keyblade, no doubt about it. Hades decided not to question the potential Trojan-ness of this gift horse...

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[Team Riku's POV] The Realm of Darkness: Lower Level...

"I wasn't expecting things to go wrong so fast!" Upon landing in the Realm of Darkness, Riku and his teammates, Lambda and Mickey, were immediately set upon by no less than five stacked-up swarms of Shadows called Demon Towers. On top of being multiple A-tier threats, they seemed significantly more aggressive than Heartless fought elsewhere. They were pretty easy to fight, but not so easy to finish off, and their attacks were all out of sync with each other, which kept everyone dodging too much to strike back often.

"At least we can see the floor this time. It was all pitch black the last time we were in the Realm of Darkness." Lambda hopped away from a Demon Tower's lunge, then jumped to get clear of a gathering swarm of Shadows that tried to form another Tower under her feet. "Protect Option! Everyone gather up!" As soon as Mickey and Riku reached her, Lambda activated the hexagon-barrier bubble generated by her shield-shaped Option drone. "There, that should give us some breathing room."

"Speaking of breathing, can air get through this shield?" Riku asked. It was a pretty impressive barrier, to be sure. The Demon Towers kept smacking their formations against it, but they barely left a dent in the sphere, and the dents fixed themselves so quickly that the Heartless were unlikely to ever get all the way through.

Lambda realized, "Um...no. No, it can't. So we've got a couple minutes at most before I'll have to lower the shield, or you two will probably pass out."

Riku huffed. "Have I mentioned recently how unfair it is that you can survive in space just because you're a Murakumo Unit? Sorry, I meant Event Conver-something or other."

Lambda supplied, "'Event Convergence Moderator', dear. And I don't think you've ever griped about that particular bonus before. Come to think of it, I'm not sure air matters in the Realm of Darkness. Time itself is a non-concept here."

"Sorry, dear. I think I'm just mad at these Heartless...and myself. I just finished beating up a bunch of Xehanorts, so I kinda felt invincible. Who'd have thought plain old Shadows could be this tough?"

"We are on their home turf right now," Mickey pointed out. "There are a lot of weaker Heartless here, too, but also some that are stronger than anything you'd ever find in the Realm of Light."

"We need a plan for this," Replica put in. "Our attacks can't get out of this barrier any more than theirs can get in, so we need to be ready before Lambda drops the shield."

"Leave it to me!" Mickey started charging Light for one of his unique, massive spells.

Lambda grinned. "Oh, this is going to be so cheap. Ready when you are, Your Majesty!"

"Almost there...now!" Lambda dropped the barrier right as Mickey's glowing aura reached a crescendo. "LIGHT!" The Demon Towers rushed in immediately, only to be burned away to nothing by the blast of Light that swept out from King Mickey.

Lambda reported, "All targets terminated. Do you think we can just do that every time?"

Mickey shook his head. "No, I'll need a lot of rest if I use that spell too often. I'll let you know when I'm ready for another blast."

"I'll handle the next group, then; just stay back," Replica volunteered. Even without a body of his own, he could project an image of himself near Riku and use powerful Darkness-based attacks. His "Dark Burst" in particular worked just like Mickey's charged Light blast, but only Riku was immune to it, so his allies had to keep their distance.

"Sounds like a plan. But which way do we go?"

"Hmm..." Mickey looked left, then right, then narrowed his eyes at something far off. "She's this way! I can track Aqua by following her Light."

"Huh, I wonder what Light smells like," Riku mused. He'd mastered the ability to track Darkness by scent, after all.

Mickey gave Riku a weird look. "Uh, Riku? Light isn't something you smell. It's something you see."

Riku blinked, then facepalmed. "...Oh. Duh! Now I feel stupid. I guess being a Keyblade Master doesn't mean I'm already perfect, huh?"

"Master Aqua could probably write a book about that...but only if we save her! Let's go!" Mickey dashed ahead, quickly vanishing around a corner among the twisting stone tunnels and bridges of the Realm of Darkness.

Riku slumped over. "Aaand there he goes. Again. Why can't I hold an adventuring party together like Sora does?"

Lambda reached up to hug him around the shoulders. "Because you're not Sora, dear. I personally prefer you over the friendship maniac."

Replica chimed in, "I'm certainly not going anywhere, either. But how do we track them now? At this rate, we'll have to save both Aqua and Mickey!"

Lambda pulled away from Riku and stared down the tunnel Mickey took. "Don't worry, I've got that covered. Scanning...3 sources of the Power of Light found. Target 1 is...target lost. That must have been Kingdom Hearts - imagine that! Anyway...Target 2 is still moving toward Target 3. Relevant targets locked on. Follow me, and stay close. We can't let the Realm of Darkness separate us any more than it already has!"

"Got it." Riku held Lambda's hand as they ran. Just to be sure. "This really is just like old times."

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[Team Roxas' POV] Radiant Garden: Ansem's Computer Room...

"Just like old times, eh, Roxas? Standing around in a big, metal-walled room with Xion, waiting for orders. It's like we never left the Organization." Lea crossed his arms behind his head and leaned against a big red device that looked like it could digitize him at any moment.

Xion replied for Roxas, "Yep! I'm even getting the same frosty looks from the other members." She remained stubbornly cheery, but changed the slogan on her magic T-shirt to say, "I Came Back From Retroactive Nonexistence For This?"

"We get it already," Dilan griped.

Lea asked, "Speaking of frosty, where's Even? I kind of expected him to have the worst reaction to me."

Everyone got really quiet.

"What? Is there something on my face? Did my tattoos come back?"

"I think something bad happened to Even," Roxas stage-whispered in his ear.

"Yes, it did." Ienzo spoke up without taking his eyes off the main screen. "He reappeared here with the rest of us, but he took the longest to reawaken. I took my eyes off him for a few minutes to confirm the castle's security, and when I came back, he was gone. I suspect Xehanort and his, er, Darknesses may have taken Even with them."

Roxas guessed, "Xehanort must need Even's help with the Replicas he's using."

Ienzo nodded. "That would make a great deal of sense. He might be an insufferable blowhard at times...well, most of the time...but Even truly was the most brilliant scientist among us, especially at both biology and robotics. Even Xehanort wouldn't be able to make sense of the blueprints for Vexen's masterpiece without assistance from the man himself."

"Speaking of Replicas, how did you know I'm one?" Xion asked. "You even knew how I died, even though you died, like, a month before that. Terminated, whatever."

Ienzo blinked. "That's a valid point. I can only surmise that Namine must be working hard even right now to keep us all up to date."

*Ding dong ding dong. Dong ding ding dong!*

A series of chimes played from a speaker in the ceiling. Ienzo gestured to Aeleus. "Ah, that must be Chip and Dale! Could you show them inside?"

Aeleus and Dilan nodded and left the room.

Lea stood up straighter. "Chip and Dale? What are they doing here?"

Ienzo became somewhat smug. "Aside from helping Cid repair the Gummi Ship that crashed in the town square, they recently claimed to have finished a working model of a new kind of handheld computer that can communicate with other such devices between different worlds. I've been helping them with some back-end software issues. But enough about that from me; you should see our masterpiece for yourselves!"

The chipmunks in question then scampered around the corner. "Ta-daaah! It's your favorite Gummi engineers here: Chip..."

"...And Dale! Here to unveil our latest invention:"

"GUMMIPHONES!"

...The chipmunks were too small to hide any inventions on their fuzzy personages, but Aeleus and Dilan had that covered. They wheeled in a huge, rolling suitcase and unzipped the flap to reveal that it was filled to bursting with colorful, chunky devices. Each red-and-black Gummiphone had a blank screen taking up most of the front side, a camera lens at the top of the front and back sides, one big button on the bottom of the front with Mickey's royal symbol on it, and a slider on one side for volume control. A golden crown design framed the top half of the device and disguised the state-of-the-art antenna that allowed it to communicate across worlds.

Chip chattered, "We made enough for everyone! Everyone in the Restoration Committee, everyone fighting Xehanort, all of the old wizards and fairies, and all of Ansem's apprentices! You get a Gummiphone! And you get a Gummiphone! EVERYONE GETS A GUMMIPHONE! Now we just need to hand them out!"

Roxas reached into the suitcase and picked up a Gummiphone for himself. "Wow, you're just letting us have them for free?"

Dale nodded enthusiastically. "Yeppers!"

Chip added, "We really don't need your munny. His Majesty pays us way too much!"

Xion chuckled as she picked up a Gummiphone of her own. "He would."

Lea was already fiddling with the settings and pre-installed apps on his phone. "This is really thorough! We've got an app for setting up text chats in various threads, a camera that - whoa, it takes pictures from the front, too!" He grinned and took his first selfie before continuing, "...And of course it can make video calls..." He set up a call, and after Roxas and Xion clicked a pop-up, he appeared on their screens, creating a jarring echo effect as he continued talking. "There's a huge archive of all the crazy stuff that's happened to everyone, data on the Heartless, a copy of Jiminy's Journal - hey, that one's already up to date! We'd better let Namine know she doesn't need to keep copying and pasting our memories around."

Roxas scratched his head. "That would be easier to do if she had a phone already."

Ienzo sighed. "Please don't use the Gummiphone to call someone when you're standing right next to them; it's poor phone etiquette. Anyway, it will take me some time to analyze Ansem's Code. If you want to make yourselves useful, you can hand the rest of the phones out. Unfortunately, we ex-apprentices are confined to this world for the time being because we can no longer create Dark Corridors, so we'll have to rely on you to issue Gummiphones to the other Guardians of Light."

"Sure thing!" Xion created another Gate Between to take everyone to Olympus Colosseum while Roxas grabbed the suitcase's handle. "Let's track down Team Sora first, so Namine can focus on other things."

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[Team Sora's POV] Thebes: Agora...

Team Sora was a tangled mess of limbs, having been sent flying through the air. They passed the transit time the same way most people would in their situation: by screaming their lungs out.

"WAAAAAAAAAAK!"

"WOO-HOO-HOO-HOO...!"

"AH-CHOO!"

"Wait, Namine, how can you even sneeze-"

"No time! We're gonna crash!"

Sora covered his eyes and braced himself to break about a hundred bones...but before he could experience a fatal impact with the city of Thebes, he was caught around one leg. He opened his eyes to see Hercules, who had caught Sora and Goofy before they could hit the ground. The hero held Sora up at eye level and grinned. "Long time no see! You okay, Sora?"

Sora grinned back. "Sure am, Herc! I was actually looking for you, but then we ran into Hades instead."

Goofy added, "And he sent us flyin' right here! Talk about a lucky break!"

Jiminy, who was hanging from one of Sora's hair spikes, realized, "Wait, where's Donald? And Kairi?"

"Up here!" Kairi's voice echoed. Donald was hanging by his hands from the bicep of a giant statue of Hercules. His outfit had gained a pink, stripey pattern - Kairi had fused with him and given him Heart Form so he'd survive the fall. Now that they'd landed, Kairi separated from him and reappeared, balancing on one of Herc's literally sculpted muscles. She picked Donald up and slid to the ground by sticking to the statue's side with Flowmotion. "Hah! Stuck the landing!"

"Thanks, Kairi! I thought I was a goner!" Donald extricated himself from Kairi's arms and brushed himself off.

Herc set Sora and Goofy down. "Nice moves! You're definitely no ordinary damsel in distress! Kairi, was it? Are you traveling with these three now?"

Kairi beamed. "You have no idea how gratifying it is to hear that. I'm Sora's girlfriend..." Sora turned red and couldn't look her in the eye, "...and I'm going to keep saying we love each other until he stops acting like he doesn't know that I know he knows I know. I spent a long time training to stop getting kidnapped so often, both over the whole Princess of Heart thing and because Sora likes me back. It kinda makes me a target for villains with grudges against him, but he's totally worth the trouble!" She grabbed his hand and snuggled into his side.

Hercules laughed heartily. "Heh, I don't hear a story like yours often! If every damsel reacted to distress like you, I'd be out of a job!"

Sora remembered why they'd come here. "Speaking of jobs, we've got another problem to deal with. You remember those Organization XIII guys from the last time I was here? I thought I beat them all, but their boss came back somehow. He's got, like, half of a new group of sub-villains already, so he's back to causing trouble. And to make matters worse, I lost most of my power the last time I fought him, including something called the Power of Waking that I need to save someone important."

"...Huh. Can't say I understand all of it, but it sounds like you've got your hero work cut out for you!"

"Yeah. So, we wanted to ask..."

*BOOM!*

A nearby building exploded, and a bunch of Heartless wreathed in fire flew out. Herc rushed toward the scene. "Sorry, Sora, we've got to put this conversation on hold until we save the city!"

Donald summoned his staff. "We'll help out! We're real heroes too, after all!"

Goofy summoned his shield and posed alongside Donald. "Yeah! Really real this time, a-hyuck!"

"Great! You guys head that way and protect anyone who hasn't evacuated yet!" Herc dashed to the rescue of the people trapped under rubble on the east side of town, and Team Sora rushed off to the west.

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[Team Roxas' POV] Olympus Colosseum: Entrance

Team Roxas appeared right at the gates of the Colosseum - no mistakes, no getting lost.

"Been awhile since I was here!" Lea stretched his arms out. "The Organization occasionally sent members out to keep the Games interesting. I heard they were gonna send you next, Roxas, but then...you know."

Xion gazed out the gates and down the mountain. "Wow, we can see the whole world from up here! Hey, look! That town's on fire! I bet that's where Sora would be!" The town in question was nearby, but it was not the town at the base of this specific mountain. Team Sora had been way off target; their mountain didn't even have a town right at the base.

"Then off we go! Last one there buys the next ice cream!" Roxas gripped the suitcase's handle and blasted off at light speed. Xion equipped her "Sonic Blade" sword and wings to fly. Lea turned into fire and teleported repeatedly.

Roxas made it there first, followed by Lea, with Xion pulling up the rear. Lea leaned against the gates of Thebes. "Man, those wings of yours are really slow, Xion! At least after the ramming is over."

"Yeah. I guess the next round of ice cream's on me. In the meantime, let's try to find Sora."

A new voice called from above, "Aw, not more black-hooded goons!" An immaculately groomed white stallion with wings swooped down from above, and two riders got off: a shapely woman in a purple toga-dress-thing, and a tiny, fat satyr wearing nothing but his own fur.

Roxas stuttered, "W-wait! We're not with Organization XIII! We're just here to give Sora something!"

Lea waved. "Phil! Long time no see! You probably forgot about that time I competed in the Games, eh?"

The woman asked, "So Sora's here, too? That's welcome news. I'm Megara, by the way. I guess you could call me a supporter of Hercules. Wonderboy's strong, but he can't be all over town at once. The Heartless are just everywhere today!"

"If that's all you're here for, I saw some kind of fighting on the west side of town. And I saw a very specific, Hercules kind of fighting in the east. I bet Sora's off thataway." Phil pointed the direction the visitors should go. "Before you go, I've got two words of advice for you: Don't. Make. Trouble!" The locals remounted Pegasus and took off to the east before anyone could correct Phil's word count.

Lea realized, "Wait, what the heck are we chasing after them for? I have my Summon Shard!" He hefted the red, star-shaped Gummi Block that hung around his neck and concentrated on Kairi.

A translucent image of Kairi appeared next to him. "Whoa! It's nice to see you again, Lea, but I'm kind of in the middle of a battle, so I can't really split my attention for long! What do you need?"

Lea held up a phone. "Tell Sora we've got gifts for everyone. This Gummiphone could be yours for the low, low price of getting back to the town gate in one piece!"

"Neat! I'll be sure to pass that - AAH!" Something hit Kairi at her actual location, dispelling the Summon Shard's effect and causing her image in front of Lea to vanish.

"Uh-oh! I hope I didn't screw things up for them too badly."

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[Team Sora's POV] Thebes: Temple District...

Defeat the Heartless and save the townsfolk!

With her attention split, Kairi mis-aimed her attempt to block an arrow fired from a Bizarre Archer, which - despite the name - was not exactly bizarre. It was simply a bow-wielding bipedal Heartless, as one would expect. The lucky arrow grazed past Kairi's Keyblade and embedded itself in her arm, causing a yelp of pain and forcing her to stop Lea's summoning.

Well, better my arm than the citizens'. Kairi gave the mother and child huddled behind her a reassuring smile, and then began to glow. "Sora! Use my power!" She vanished, leaving the arrow and wound behind, to power Sora up with Heart Form.

Sora's clothes gained pink criss-crossed stripes over the black parts, and the emblem of Kingdom Hearts appeared on his shoulders. A pink halo winked into existence over his head, and pink sparkles danced in the air around him. Most importantly, Kairi's Keyblade appeared in Sora's left hand, allowing him to dual-wield it alongside his own Keyblade. He also felt a surge of power welling up inside him, temporarily replacing the strength he'd lost.

Before he could get embarrassed over this Form's color scheme, Sora launched himself into combat. He had some experience dual-wielding from his previous adventures, so he picked up the basics of fighting in Heart Form quite fast. Unlike Valor Form, this Form didn't hinder his magic or his ability to block, and in fact slightly empowered both tactics. And when another Bizarre Archer let an arrow fly at him, he even surprised Kairi by teleporting behind the attacker, reappearing with a burst of pink Light that damaged the target.

On a whim, he began simply teleporting repeatedly, and it worked; these enemies were on the weak side, and they were easily destroyed by an effect that was meant to merely knock them off-balance. "Cool, is this the Growth Ability for Heart Form? I lost the special movement abilities my other Forms used to give me, so it'd be nice to learn some new ones."

All too soon, Heart Form ended and Kairi reappeared. Luckily, Sora had already beaten the Heartless. "I think so. I'll call that move 'Blink.'"

Standing on the sidelines, Goofy pointed out, "Gawrsh, that'll get awkward if anyone says 'Nobody blink!'"

Beside him, Donald yanked the camera down to his level. (Hey, stop doing that!) "Don't listen to Goofy! It sounds great!"

Sora waved to the civilians - chalk up two more saves for the post-Junior Heroes! "Anyway, you two are safe now! For now, try to get out of town as soon as you can, okay?"

"Thank you! But I was kind of expecting Hercules, not a random batch of kids and...whatever you two are."

"Grr...mph!" Goofy held Donald down and clamped his beak shut before he could make any snappy remarks at the ungrateful citizens, who finally fled the area.

Sora sighed and looked around for more trouble. "I think that's the last of them-" *Rrrrumble...* "Or not." A nearby temple shuddered and began to collapse, only to be held up by something - probably something called Hercules. He sure cleaned up his side of town fast! "Let's check it out!"

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Defeat all of the Heartless and save the people before the temple collapses!

Having heard the voice of Kingdom Hearts summing up the situation, Kairi ignored the sight of Hercules holding up a half-collapsed roof on his shoulders. Instead, she skipped straight to bisecting a few Flame Cores, which were like a Pureblood version of the various types of flying spellcaster Heartless.

Speaking of which, a nearby Vermillion Samba summoned a glyph to start rapid-firing fireballs at Kairi, but Donald caught it in a vortex with Donald Aero before it could finish casting. Before the monster could settle, Goofy whacked it with his shield. Pop!

Meanwhile, Kairi and Sora kept cutting down Shadows and Flame Cores. Sora compensated for being unable to one-shot the enemies by casting Water, which was a new spell he'd learned on his way back from hugging his Dream Eaters. When the spell was cast, a shield of water briefly surrounded Sora before gathering into a watery ball and arcing toward his target. Dousing the Flame Cores with magic water prevented them from catching themselves on fire and zooming around to crash into people, making the battle much easier.

In less than a minute, Team Sora cleared a path for the civilians to escape the collapsing temple. The whole place collapsed behind them as everyone filed out...everyone except Hercules.

Kairi reached toward the rubble ineffectually. "Oh, no! Is he okay?"

One of the townspeople answered, "You think Hercules could be beaten by that? He got a bigger building dropped on him just last week!"

Sure enough, Herc rose triumphantly from the rubble. "Thanks for the help, guys. Is everyone okay?" A chorus of affirmatives answered him as the civilians fled toward the agora. "Good! Looks like another day is saved!"

"Whoa, let's not be too hasty there, 'hero'!"

Sora groaned, "Ugh, not Xigbar again!" Sure enough, the one-eyed sniper appeared from a Dark Corridor.

"Well, if it isn't Hercules! An undefeated warrior! A savior of the people! A true hero! But you couldn't have accomplished any of that if you were just any old dude. You've got friends in high places...or should I say family? How's dear old dad treating you?"

"Wow, what a friendly guy. Sora, you say you know this creep?" Herc then addressed Xigbar directly. "Sure, my strength is more than just the result of training. I have a lot to thank my dad for. But before I got Phil to train me, my strength was more of a curse than a blessing. I was a walking disaster area before, but now I'm, well, a hero! So I don't want you going around saying that putting in the hard work is a waste of time. All the power in the world is useless without the effort and will to shape it into something better."

Xigbar just smirked wider; he always seemed to be either smirking or scowling, and today was a smirking day. "Oh, I'm well aware. I'm just saying, you'd better check up on Thy Heavenly Father, because there are some other big names already heading over there to shake things up..." Xigbar vanished as smoothly as he'd entered.

Herc hesitated for a moment. "Why would he go to the trouble of warning us? Doesn't he want the bad guys to win?"

Kairi replied, "No, his group has a very specific battle they want to set up and play out in a very specific way, and for that, they need our side to be strong, but frazzled. He's trying to toughen us up, and this whole world is just collateral damage."

"Well, he'd better stay gone, then, because I have some things to say to him about that...right after I save Olympus." Hercules whistled sharply through his fingers, and Pegasus heeded the call to come pick him up, already bearing Phil and Meg. "Sorry, but there isn't any more room. I'll meet you up on Mount Olympus!"

"His dad lives on Mount Olympus?"

Goofy followed Pegasus' path with his eyes, and realized, "Hey, that's the same mountain we were on before!"

Donald groaned, "Now we have to climb back up?"

"Well, we were going to have to go back that way anyway. Team Roxas has some gifts for us by the town gate. Hopefully they also kept the townsfolk safe."

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[Team Roxas' POV] Agora...

Team Roxas had indeed kept the area secure. Sora was greeted by a few familiar waves from townspeople he'd personally saved, and no one seemed overly torn up about the town being exploded. Apparently this was a regular happenstance in Thebes.

Sora received his Gummiphone - and immediately dropped it while trying to turn it on. Even Roxas wasn't quite as technologically inept as Sora.

In contrast, Kairi got her phone and immediately set up a chatroom labeled "Exploration Log". She took a selfie of herself and the crowd and typed in a few lines of text and "hashtags" so her post could be searched out later. "This is fun! Anyway, we've still got things to do. See you around, Roxas, Xion, Lea!"

Xion waved as she herded the other two around a corner where the locals wouldn't see her opening a Gate Between (but showing off the Gummiphones was okay?). "See you soon! Next stop: um... Okay, how are we ever going to get these to Team Riku?"

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GummiNet chatroom: Exploration Log...

Kairi: Just got my Gummiphone after a bit of hero work! The town's kind of wrecked, but everyone's safe! Next stop: Mount Olympus! #TeamSora #Olympus #Kairi #TechnophobeSora #SoraDonaldGoofy

Lea: haha, sora can't use a phone? #predictable #gotitmemorized

Lea: sorry, can't chat, xion wants me to stay focused on #teamriku #deliveryboy #realmofdarkness #gotitmemorized

DonaldDuck: are u going to use #gotitmemorized in every post?! #overused

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A/N: I'm planning for there to be a short chatroom exchange at the end of most chapters. Team Riku will get much more screentime in the next chapter.