Clear Skies
Chapter 3: Uncharted Depths
-"The Realm of Darkness Is Most Forbidden."-
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A/N: What's that, The Mighty Gyarapie? You want more of Team Riku exploring the Realm of Darkness? Titano Man XIII, you want more action? Here you go!
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[Team Riku's POV] Realm of Darkness: Mid Level: Cave of Return...
Lambda blinked. "'Cave of Return'? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a 'Cave of No Return'?"
"Guess we'll find out when we get inside." Riku gestured at the massive cavern mouth they'd come across. Somehow, the interior of the cave was even darker than the rest of the Realm, so they couldn't see what was inside from this far away. "I hope your scans are right about this, because my nose isn't any good here - it's all Darkness."
Lambda nodded. "Mickey's definitely past here, which means he must have gotten through the cave somehow...unless the Realm of Darkness put the cave here specifically to block us."
Replica pointed out, "Nothing to do but dive in, then. Or are you two scared of the dark?"
"Not anymore." Riku squinted as he pushed into the dark cave. Literally pushed; it turned out the blackness was just a thin membrane across the entrance, and he passed right through it with just a little effort, dragging Lambda with him by the hand.
Inside, the walls were covered with a new kind of Heartless. They had the appearance of spindly, writhing black tentacles with purple veins, ending in bony hands that constantly grasped at nothing. They had no eyes or any indications of a face.
Lambda scanned the new enemy as usual. "Scanning: Pureblood Heartless confirmed. Target ID: Grasper. This cave contains 150 individual targets. Individual threat level: D. Odd... it seems like they're connected to a big boss-level Heartless, like the Leechgrave and its Tentaclaws...but I can't pinpoint where it is. Let's just clear 'em out for now."
Team Riku got down to business, clearing a path through the Graspers. When anyone approached, the Heartless limbs would whip toward their prey and try to grab on, but Riku and Lambda were too quick for them. One slash was all it took to sever the hands, which disintegrated immediately. Unfortunately, there was no way further into the cave on the other side of the crowd.
"Is this a dead end? WHOA!" A previously defeated Grasper sprang back up beneath Lambda and grabbed her around the waist. It swung her back and forth a couple times, so Riku grabbed her hand as soon as he could. He couldn't free her from the Heartless' grasp before they were both dragged down into a hole of Darkness that formed at its base, though...
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The Realm of Light: Radiant Garden: Town Square...
"WHOA - OOMPH!" Riku and Lambda found themselves sprawled out in the middle of the town square, right where they'd entered the Realm of Darkness in the first place. The patch of Darkness that had spit them out shrank away to nothing, while remaining as solid as the tile it had covered.
Lambda got to her feet, looked around, and groaned in annoyance. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me! So that's what it meant by 'Cave of Return'? Maybe the cave itself was the big Heartless, and we just walked right into its mouth."
Riku rubbed his sore head. "It's kind of an ego boost that the Realm of Darkness sees us as a big enough threat to kick us out rather than trapping us...but this is a serious problem. Mickey's still trapped down there, isn't he?"
"Scanning...target not found. Therefore, I choose to believe he's still alright down there. Remember, Aqua was trapped down there and stayed unchanged for a decade. That's no reason to drag our feet on bringing them back, though!"
"Whoa, whoa, hold your horses, guys!" Lea shouted from behind them. "Before you have another go at the Realm of Darkness, at least take these with you!" He held out a pair of Gummiphones as Riku and Lambda ran over to him.
Riku turned the device over in his hands. "What's this?"
"Neat! We get smartphones!" Lambda switched hers on and started thumbing through the settings straight away. "I guess they're called Gummiphones. Don't worry, Lea, I got it memorized. Personal-area network established. Now I can stream all the Gummiphone's functions right to my eyes! Augmented reality for the win!"
Roxas commented as he caught up with Lea, "Whoa, lucky! It's kind of tricky to type on that tiny screen."
Xion joined them. "It just takes practice. Too bad Mickey doesn't have one; we could've used it to tell him to...er, come get one."
Riku flinched. "Oh, right! Mickey's still down there!"
"Oh, he is, is he? Lemme try something..." Lea gripped his Summon Shard, and a semi-transparent King Mickey appeared in front of him. "Great, it worked!"
Mickey looked down at his summoned self for a moment, then flinched. "Guys, now's not really the time, I'm kinda fightin' a giant Heartless...wait, what're ya doin' back there?!"
Lambda told him, "The Realm of Darkness literally spit us out. If you commit to the summoning, you can come here and we can give it another try. Quick, before you lose focus!"
"Okay, I'll give it a shot." Mickey closed his eyes and concentrated as his image turned solid. "Ah, there we go!"
Xion handed him a Gummiphone. "Here you go, Your Majesty: one Gummiphone, mint condition, batteries fully charged. With this, we can keep in touch next time you guys end up getting separated."
Mickey set up his profile and pocketed the Gummiphone. "Thanks, fellas! Now that that's settled, are you two...er, three...ready to try again?"
Lambda nodded. "Affirmative."
Riku grinned. "Just say the word, Mickey."
"Bring it on!"
"Then let's get back in there!"
Riku opened the portal again, and they jumped in before Lea could point out, "Maybe you should bring along some Potions this time aaand they're gone."
Roxas shrugged. "No big deal. They'll come back if they need to. Anyway, that's the toughest set of deliveries out of the way! What now? Should we head back and check on Ansem's Code?"
Lea shook his head. "No, Ienzo would've texted us if he'd found anything significant."
A new voice called from a side street, "Hey guys, long couple-of-hours no see!"
"Who's there?" Roxas called back.
Hazama grinned from right behind him. "Aw, don't tell me you forgot to give a Gummiphone to your friend Hazama! Anyway, these things are pretty sweet. They've got all the bells and whistles, and an extra-crisp 4K camera! It's kinda bulky, and not exactly cutting-edge compared to the phones Dr. Kokopuffs used to whip up, but it'll do." He flipped a Gummiphone around in his hand a few times and pocketed it.
Xion gawked at him. "When did you..."
"You left the suitcase unattended, so I helped myself. Really, you should've expected that much from me by now! As for why I'm here, I found a couple of the Organization's members stalking around nearby worlds. Here, I'll pull up the map."
Hazama snatched Xion's phone and brought up a display of the World Map before she could protest. He pointed at two of the worlds in the same cluster as Olympus. "Xehanort's mini-me was skulking around 'Toy Box' over here, making dimensional anomalies and other weirdness. Meanwhile, some fabulous pink-haired fellow and his scythe-wielding Nobody minions are stalking young girls over in the outskirts of 'Kingdom of Corona' over here."
Lea groaned. "Ugh, looks like Marluxia's at it again. Let's go after him first. I still owe that guy an assassination, after all."
"Okay, then let's go. Thanks for the info, Hazama!" Roxas opened a Gate Between (having read up on how to do so while the rest of Team Kairi was busy training) and led the way through.
"There they go. Now that I've got my merit badge for the day, I think I'll hit up that new restaurant in Twilight Town. A fancy place like that had better at least have hard-boiled eggs on the menu. Ah, it's been way too long..." Hazama left through a Corridor of Darkness before Aeleus could come patrolling around the corner and find him.
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[Team Sora's POV] Olympus: Mount Olympus...
Team Sora's trek back up Mount Olympus was easy enough. The only things barring their path were a few sets of Heartless, including some Water Cores (basically Flame Cores for the water element) that had taken over the nearby rivers and waterfalls to try and wash the heroes away. Beating the Heartless brought the flow back down to normal, but it took some trial and error to find out that the Water Cores were weakest against Fire magic for some reason. Unless Donald, Sora, or Kairi hit them with a fireball to evaporate the water bubbles surrounding them, they could teleport away from physical attacks.
"But why Fire...?" Namine wondered.
Goofy scratched his head. "Gawrsh, I dunno."
"Doesn't matter! If it works, it works!" Donald got back to casting.
Sora, meanwhile, was deep in the beating-up-Heartless zone and didn't even notice the conversation. "Fire! Fire! Take this! Hah! Gotcha!"
They were about halfway up the mountain, just past the last scraggly tree they'd reached before, when the Rock Titan attacked. Its roar alerted Team Sora to the threat waiting near the mountain's peak.
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Defeat the Rock Titan!
Donald yelped, "Wak! What's that thing doing here?!"
Sora recalled, "Didn't we beat him at the Colosseum that one time?"
"Hades mentioned something about Titans. Is that one of them?" Kairi asked. "Also, I thought he said it would still be a week before he could free them."
"This might be more of the Organization's meddling!" Goofy reflexively summoned his shield when a pebble fell on his head...
"Incoming!" With Namine's warning, the team dove forward to avoid a giant boulder falling down from the Rock Titan's perch high above them. With a loud crash, the boulder blocked the path that led back down the mountain.
"Then the only way to go is up!" Sora dashed up the sheer cliff face, with Kairi right on his heels. They had to weave around more falling rocks that appeared out of thin air above them.
Appearing on a narrow ledge halfway up the cliff, Goofy called, "Gawrsh, he never did that in the Colosseum! Don't let your guard down, everyone!" He held his shield up to break apart a rock that was about to fall on Donald, then they popped over to join Sora and Kairi as they took a short tunnel through the mountain to get closer to the top. Just one more cliff to climb...
Frustrated by his foes' evasiveness, one of the Rock Titan's two heads roared and summoned multiple boulders at once. The other head stared blankly at its twin for a second as it waited for its turn to think, then roared as well to summon a second rockslide, leaving no space to dodge between the boulders.
Below the Titan, Sora switched tactics and started running on the falling boulders, rather than dodging around them. He nimbly jumped from rock to falling rock. Unsure if she could keep up on her own, Kairi fused with Sora to give him a burst of strength, and Heart Sora cleared the top of the cliff with a flying leap. Kairi separated from him again as they got their footing, while Donald and Goofy appeared beside them. Sora pointed his Keyblade up at the Rock Titan and called out, "Alright! Now the fight's really on!"
Kairi followed Donald and Goofy's example and started hacking at the Titan's feet. "What can we expect from this guy, Sora?"
"Dunno. When we fought him in the arena, all he ever did was stomp around. Just don't get stepped on and you'll...watch out by your feet!" Sora grabbed Kairi and dove aside as a purple glowing line under their feet suddenly caused a series of sharp rocks to burst from the ground. The rocks quickly crumbled to dust after appearing, but another line was already glowing under the heroes' new position, forcing them to dodge again. "There's no way this is the same giant rock as before! Let's stay on our toes, then!"
"Speaking of toes, this foot's pretty much had it. Go hit the other one, Sora!" Goofy took advantage of the new attack's preference for targeting Sora, and gave the Titan's right foot one more solid whack with his shield, causing painful-looking molten cracks to form on it. "Let's knock it over, just like last time!"
"Got it!" Sora dumped his MP into a series of Fire spells as he closed in on the other foot, then got to whacking it with his Keyblade alongside Kairi. They jumped back in unison as the foot tried to stomp down, dodging a giant shockwave and a ring of spiky rocks. Sora kicked off the cliff wall behind the Titan and came in for a Flowmotion-fueled attack that finished off the foot.
With a pained groan, the Rock Titan wobbled and pitched, finally falling backward on his rump. He seemed to be having trouble standing up again, though his legs were slowly regenerating to close up the cracks. Sora took this opportunity to hop, skip, and jump up the sides of the Titan's massive body to reach his heads. All the Titan could do was flail his necks about, trying to crush Sora with his chin, but Sora was ready for that and rolled over onto the giant's shoulders before jumping back into the fray for a few dozen more whacks.
Down below, the rest of Team Sora didn't have much to do. "Gawrsh, how do we get up there...?"
"Wak! I've got an idea! Kairi, lend me some mana!"
"Sure thing. Up you get!" Kairi lifted Donald onto her shoulders and let him do his thing.
"DONALD METEOR!" With the extra mana boost siphoned from Kairi, Donald called down a series of flaming rocks from the sky, peppering the Rock Titan's face. "Two can play at that game!"
"Gotcha!" Sora finally managed to slice one of the Titan's weakened heads clean off, just as the brute finally managed to stand back up. His craggy cranium careened into the canyon, followed shortly by the rest of him. Sora barely managed to leap off his back and rejoin the others. "Ha! Dropped him like a sack of rocks!"
Jiminy popped up. "Well, I'll be! Great work, everyone! But if that was just the rear guard, things must be really bad up ahead!"
"Good point. Let's go!" Sora led the way up the mountain trail to a short tunnel.
Goofy came up short at the wall. "Gawrsh, is this a dead end?"
"Nope!" Donald pointed at a crack in the wall with sunlight peeking through. "Ready, Sora?"
"Sure am, Donald!" He and Donald stood back to back and spun around, leaving a circle of firecrackers with their weapons.
"DUCK FLARE!" The rockets turned in midair and zipped over to the cracked wall to blow it up, letting extremely bright sunlight spill into the cave. Once everyone's eyes adjusted to the glare, they stared up in awe at their destination.
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Olympus: Realm of the Gods...
Gold-tinged clouds formed everything in this place: stairs; a big gate decorated with gold lightning bolts; huge, elaborate buildings... Goofy was certainly impressed. "Whoa, fancy! Herc's dad lives here?"
Sora gawked at the glamorous architecture. "Isn't this the kind of place where actual gods live?"
"Sure is!" Hercules came swooping down from above. "Wow, how'd you guys beat me here? That headwind must've been worse than I thought." Pegasus huffed in annoyance at the rough flying conditions. "Anyway, yeah, my dad's Zeus, king of the gods."
Kairi was impressed. "Neat! Although I probably should've put two and two together by now... Wait, if your father's a god, wouldn't that make you a demigod, or something?"
"Full god, actually, but Hades kidnapped me as a baby and somehow got rid of my immortality, so I can't live here full-time. I have adoptive parents down below, too - the best ordinary folks on this side of the Aegean - but I can't just let Hades romp around Olympus like he owns the place! I'm heading straight to Zeus' throne, but I've got to free the other gods first, so don't wait up for me. Just keep heading up and you can't miss it. Let's go, Pegasus!" With a last thumbs-up to Team Sora, Herc nudged Pegasus into a climb and zoomed ahead.
"Let's not keep him waiting!" Sora tried to follow, but an entire platoon of Heartless appeared in his path: 25 tall, armored Satyrs lined up in neat, organized rows with one extra in front at the center. All of the Heartless simultaneously covered their faces with their sharp-horned helmets and charged at Sora as one unit.
"Don't even think about it!" Goofy leapt in front of Sora with surprising agility, raising his shield to easily repel the lead Satyr. It tumbled back into its fellows, and the Heartless phalanx dissolved into chaos. Donald took advantage of the opening to sling some status-inducing spells around, leaving most of the Satyrs shocked, frozen, or burned.
"Sora, follow my lead!" Kairi took Sora's free hand and spun around with him, both of them shooting Pearl spells in every direction as they crashed into the remaining Heartless. The last spin was twice as fast and produced twice as many globes of Light, easily enough to wipe out the last of the Satyrs. "Holy Burst!"
Namine clapped. "Nice! King Mickey did that with Riku once or twice."
"Aw, I thought it was original." Kairi shrugged and set off toward a nearby ramp. There was still a lot of ground - er, clouds - to cover before the team could catch up with Hercules.
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[Team Riku's POV] Realm of Darkness: Lower Level: Cave of Return...
Lambda stared at the cave mouth which the team found looming over them as soon as they touched down in the Realm of Darkness the second time. "Well, this confirms that it's the cave that moves to block our path. We're going to have to get through it somehow."
"Let's blow it up!"
Riku chuckled at Replica's enthusiasm. "Something this big? Sure, but we'll need to find a weak point, or a core, or something."
"Scanning...as I thought, it's a huge Heartless. Look, you can see its eyes way up over the cave mouth. And yeah, there's definitely some kind of huge energy signature inside. I've never scanned anything this Dark before. Like, not even Xehanort."
Riku summoned his Keyblade. "Well, we can't leave it alone, then. Lead the way, dear."
"Follow me." Lambda pushed through the membrane over the cave mouth and immediately fired the laser emitter holding her prehensile French braid together. The Braid Beam cleared away a swath of Graspers inside the cave, leading to a wall that was a slightly different shade of purple from the rest of the bluish-black stone pretending to be just another part of the Realm of Darkness. "IDEA Engine, activate. I'm feeling lucky today! Firaga!" *SHEENG!* She scored a Quantum Critical, turning her merely great ball of fire into an even bigger one surrounded by a scattering of green holograms. *BOOM!* The wall exploded, revealing another chamber.
Riku applauded. "Whoa! Nice shot, dear!"
"Yeah, but don't expect one of those every time. It's random."
"Let's hurry through before the Graspers come back!"
In the new chamber, there were a series of featureless Shadow Globs stuck to the walls, emitting streams of Darkness that seemed to empower a glowing purple barrier in the center of the room. Whatever was inside the barrier was obscured by the glow, but the proper course of action was obvious enough. Between the four of them (counting Replica), Team Riku was able to destroy all the Shadow Globs at once, and the barrier vanished.
Instead of some pulsing, biological core, the barrier contained a podium on which a dull, misshapen yellow crystal sat. Riku cautiously approached the podium. When nothing tried to stop him, he simply picked up the crystal and examined it, since it was smaller than his fist.
Immediately, the cave began to rumble. Lambda was worried it might collapse on top of them, but it merely disintegrated into smoke like any other Heartless. After the smoke dissipated and the team finished coughing, Lambda scanned the strange crystal. "Scanning...target is composed of 100% pure Darkness. I think...I think this crystal is one of the thirteen fragments of the original X-Blade's Darkness!"
Riku gawked at it. This little thing was a counterpart to the Princesses of Heart? "Seriously? But...wait a minute. If this thing exists, then what the heck does Xehanort think he'll accomplish with his plan?"
Mickey guessed, "Maybe he just needs 'good enough', not the original shards. After all, he managed to forge something awfully close to the X-Blade before with just two components of pure Light and Darkness, and he got those by splitting Ven into two people. He may not even know the original fragments still exist, otherwise I'm sure he would've gathered them up by now."
Lambda pocketed the crystal. "Either way, we should hang on to this... 'X-Frag', ourselves. It could mess up Xehanort's recipe, which is good for us."
Replica was stuck on a different plot point. "So is the Ventus guy we're looking for a Nobody, or some kind of artificial male Princess of Heart, or...ugh, just save that explanation for when we find him, Your Majesty."
Riku nodded in agreement. "Agreed. And we still need to find Aqua before she can lead us to Ventus, anyway. Let's get back to searching. Lambda, do you have a lock on them?"
"Affirmative. She's this way...and don't rush ahead this time, Mickey!"
"I know, I know!"
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The Dark World: Castle of Broken Dreams...
After a short trek through branching tunnels while being hounded by Neoshadows almost the whole way, Lambda led the team out into...a rural town? "Okay, what in the worlds are we looking at?"
Mickey gawked up at a shining castle visible in the distance. "This is...Cinderella's world, 'Castle of Dreams'! The Heartless destroyed it once, but it was restored when we beat Ansem and broke his Kingdom Hearts. So why is this place still in the Realm of Darkness?"
"It must be a fake that the Realm created to replace what it lost. I sort of understand the feeling."
Riku shrugged. "I guess we don't need to bother with anything here, then. We just need to get through this place to where Aqua is, right?"
"Right, dear. Scanning...there's a portal of some kind in the castle. Let's go..." Lambda took one step forward...and the ground fell away beneath her. "SERIOUSLY?!" She quickly equipped her Keyblade's Glider form and flew back up to her teammates with the green thrusters of her bladed rocket boots, then dismissed the Glider. "Geez, talk about a tone-setter. Guess the fake world isn't very durable." Lambda walked around the new pit. "Now let's - AAAH!" Another pitfall! Lambda flew right back up again, but now she was thoroughly ticked off. "Screw it, I'm just going to fly the whole way."
"Sure, but what about us?" Mickey gestured to himself and Riku, neither of whom could fly at will.
Lambda thought it over. "Oops, right. Let's see...I have Tow Options, but hauling you two along with those would be totally undignified, not to mention you couldn't defend yourselves if the Heartless decide to attack..."
"If only we had a grind rail..." Riku mused. "I've got it! Blizzard!" Riku fired a chunk of ice from his Keyblade that skimmed low to the ground, leaving behind a straight, thin trail of ice that went right between the two pits. Then he jumped on the trail and zipped along it with Flowmotion. Mickey followed right behind him. The ice bullet broke on a street corner, but thankfully the ground there didn't give way when Riku and Mickey jumped off the D.I.Y. grind rail. Apparently some parts of the town were stable enough to stand, but it was impossible to tell which areas were safe.
Lambda caught up on her Glider. "Nice! And that gives me an idea - I was wondering how I should implement a Blizzard Option!" She generated a new Option: a simple, stylized snowflake that left behind a frozen trail as it swooped through the air at her command. "This'll solve the problem of getting the rail to go around corners. All aboard! ...Whoa, that's cold!" Setting her bare feet down on the rail, Lambda copied what she'd seen of Riku's Flowmotion abilities, and the three of them (plus Replica) zipped along the rail as it bent and snaked its way through the distorted, empty town.
Proximity alert. Lambda jumped up and over a sudden swarm of small, fuzzy Heartless that stampeded through an intersection and over the grind rail.
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Defeat the Heartless!
Lambda hopped off the grind rail, confirmed the integrity of the ground, and took a good look at the mob of beady-eyed, worm-tailed little Heartless. "Scanning...Target ID: Vermunchkin Swarm. Individual Vermunchkins are threat level D. Collective threat level: B. I think they're just here to slow us down."
Riku stuck the landing. "Well, they'll have to try harder than that! Dark Cannon!" He launched twenty purple fireballs and defeated twenty Vermunchkins.
"Nice. Only a thousand more to go," Replica snarked.
Mickey eyed the cobblestones around them worriedly. "If I use a Light blast here, it'll break the ground. We need another solution."
"Sure thing. Rats are scared of fire, right? Fire Option!" The snowflake hovering idly beside Lambda morphed into a fireball-shaped crystal, zipped forward, and spewed a stream of flames over the Vermunchkin Swarm. A few Heartless in the middle of the swarm caught on fire, which began to spread to the entire group. The swarm wouldn't last much longer...but until they burned out, Team Riku now had a swarm of flaming rat Heartless to deal with! Lambda took a step back and sweatdropped. "I really need to start thinking these plans through..."
"Don't worry, I've got this. Dark Shield!" Replica manifested in front of the team and created a shield of hexagons over his hand, which he thrust against the wave of burning Darkness to hold back the threat until the individually weak rats succumbed to the flames. "And that's that. Here's hoping there aren't any more distractions until we get to the castle."
...Lambda was already distracted. "Wait a sec, gotta post about all of this on the group chat..."
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[Team Sora's POV] Olympus: Zeus' Throne...
Sora led the way up to the tippy-top of Olympus. Along the way, he and Kairi traded all the information they knew about Shotlocks, Formchanges, and Drive Forms. In a stroke of rare genius, Sora combined a Shotlock with Flowmotion to invent a move he called an "airstep", which allowed him to fly straight to an enemy or landmark after locking on. This let him reach the highest point of Olympus without any stairs or grind rails. (Needless to say, Kairi was instantly hooked, vowing to incorporate this new ability into her fighting style.)
The first chance to test airstepping in combat came right away: as expected, Hades and three Titans all crowded the former site of Zeus' throne and audience chamber. The round, golden platform was pretty huge, but the elemental giants made it look merely large. They were in the process of pouring lava all over the bearded guy from the statue on the mountain.
"You won't get away with thi-!" Zeus' angry declaration was cut off by a blast of icy breath from the Ice Titan, which hardened the lava and sealed it over the god's head.
Hades conjured a throne out of storm clouds and slouched in it with a blood-based martini. "Sorry, bolt boy, I'm the one calling the shots now!"
"Not if we can help it!" Sora charged headlong into the scene with his team right behind him.
"Ugh, you again? Eh, no big deal. Titans! DESTROY THEM!" Hades and his throne vanished as the Titans turned to loom menacingly in the direction he pointed.
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Clash with the Titans!
"This is gonna be a tough fight..." Donald pointed his staff from one Titan to the next, unsure which to attack first.
"Don't worry, Donald! We outnumber 'em!" Goofy kept his shield at the ready in front of Donald, which turned out to be a good idea when the Tornado Titan sucked a huge chunk of rubble through his gaseous body and shot it out of a cyclonic arm right at the team. Somehow, Goofy stood firm against the attack, and the rubble was sent back the way it came. Even stranger, it seemed to actually damage the Tornado Titan.
Sora missed a step in surprise and stumbled to a stop. "What? That worked? But isn't it, like, made of air?" Luckily, the Tornado Titan was just as surprised, and decided to hang back and let the other two Titans handle most of the fighting for now.
"Okay, that leaves two Titans to focus on. How can we even fight a Lava Titan, though?"
"I've got an idea! Everyone follow me to the top of that mound!" Sora rushed to the top of the pile of igneous rock encasing Zeus and faced the Ice Titan. The rest of the team followed his lead.
"Now what, Sora?" Donald asked.
"Now we get the Ice Titan to attack. He's the only one of these three I've fought before, so I know we can redirect some of his attacks."
"And then we hit the Lava Titan with that! Smart idea, Sora!" Kairi grinned at him.
"Who'd have thought a blockhead like Sora could come up with a plan like this?" Donald joked.
"Hey!"
"Isn't it kind of a bad idea to let the Titans surround us, though?" Goofy wondered. (Luckily, the Titans in question were basically just standing around, wondering what Team Sora was up to).
Kairi called, "Namine, we're relying on you to let us know when the Lava Titan attacks from behind us!"
"You can count on me."
"Alright, then the only thing left to do is to make the Ice Titan lose his cool!" Sora tossed his Keyblade and bopped the Ice Titan right between the icy caves that passed for his nose. "Neener neener! You can't hit us!"
"ROOOOAAAAR!" The Ice Titan lost his cool, just as planned, and roared a beam of frigid energy at the heroes. Everyone jumped off the mound and slid down the sides to stay ahead of the beam...which turned out to be a bad idea when the mound was made entirely of rough stone, jagged ice spikes, and Zeus' biceps. They had to jump the rest of the way to the ground. Luckily, everyone stuck the landing.
Above them, the beam hit the Lava Titan, which made it boil with anger and belch a stream of lava back at the Ice Titan. Now enraged beyond their already pitiful capacity for reason, the two Titans grappled each other's arms and started trying to kill each other, immortal or no.
It was kind of redundant at that point, but Namine fulfilled her part of the plan. "Everybody run!" Team Sora fled as storms of fire and ice filled the space around Zeus' prison, then watched as the opposing forces reduced each other to blobs of immobile half-liquids.
Sora turned toward the Tornado Titan. "That's what they get for not working together! Now there's just one left!"
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Defeat the Tornado Titan!
The Tornado Titan rolled his blank, red eyes at the failure of his brethren and swept back into the fray. The first thing he did was suck the entire team of heroes into his arms and spit them up onto a layer of solid clouds overhead, then grew large enough to fight them there while still leaving his bottom-most point in the throne room. Unlike the solid Rock and Ice Titans and the liquid Lava Titan, the Tornado Titan had no fixed volume, so he could grow as large as he wanted to be - especially when he was angry. His immense size made it hard to tell how far away he was; running toward him seemed futile.
Maintaining a comfortable distance between himself and those painful Keyblades, the Titan began throwing more chunks of rubble, only to have Team Sora send the attacks back just like before. Even Donald managed to return a volley by catching it in midair with Donald Aero. The cyclone he generated was itty-bitty compared to the Tornado Titan, but it dealt plenty of damage.
"Can't he attack us any other way?" Kairi wondered.
Namine sighed. "Kairi, I thought you knew better than to say things like that by now."
Kairi covered her mouth. "Oops! Sorry, everyone!"
Sure enough, the Titan changed tactics. He sank beneath the clouds, then came back up with bits of the Ice Titan's body swirling through his arms. The half-melted ice refroze in the bitter winds, becoming icy spears that shot toward the heroes. They were able to defend themselves, but the icicles didn't fly back at the Tornado Titan the way they would've if the Ice Titan itself launched them.
Before anyone could react, the giant sank back through the clouds and came up using the Lava Titan as ammo instead. A blistering bombardment of unblockable fireballs rained down on the heroes from above, forcing all of them to keep running toward the Tornado Titan.
All of them except Kairi. She Formchanged her Keyblade into Dual Fans and twirled to spin the fireballs into a tornado of her own, redirecting the seemingly unstoppable force. "Now, let's see how you dance!" She sent the swirling fire right back at the Titan, wounding him enough that he dropped all the bits of his ally. "Oops, you missed a beat. You'll get it next time, won't you?"
"ROOOOAAAR!" Never before had the Tornado Titan felt such all-consuming rage - and this was coming from a being of pure elemental chaos! He would not allow himself to be humiliated by a little mortal girl in a PINK DRESS! He grew larger than ever and sucked all the heroes up again, this time spitting them high into the air to shoot more bits of rubble and his fellow Titans at them as they fell.
"Everyone grab on tight!" Sora got the rest of the team to link hands and control their fall, changing formation to bend around the projectiles. Soon, they came down right on the Titan's glowing red eyes. "All together!" They all readied their weapons and struck at the same time, somehow managing to poke out the eye of the storm.
The Titan was finally too weakened to maintain the cloud cover of the arena, and everyone fell back down to the throne room, where Hercules was waiting for them. "Sora, you didn't leave any for me!"
Sora laughed. "Whoops! Sorry, Herc!"
Hades, who had returned to the scene of the crime, wasn't laughing. "Oh, you think this is over? You think this is funny?! TITANS! Get up and DESTROY THEM already!"
And just like that, the defeated Titans rose again. They were immortal, after all. Attacking them could only keep them down for so long. To make matters worse, the Rock Titan had finally climbed back up the mountain to join the fight.
Goofy yelped, "Oh no, there's four of them now!"
Sora rebutted, "So what? We still outnumber them!"
Hercules got an idea. "In fact...I think I can add one more to our team!" He leaped up onto the volcanic mound and dug into it, ripping apart the solid rock and ice with his bare hands. In moments, he struck gold, and Zeus emerged from the rubble, bathed in holy light.
"I already freed the other gods. Welcome back, Dad!"
"Nice work, my boy! Now it's my turn!"
Below, Hephaestus put the finishing touches on a new set of lightning bolts and hurled them up to Zeus. Hermes flitted by, taunting the Titans. "Oh, he's mad now! Now you're in for it! Better start running!"
A lightning bolt sheared off one of the Rock Titan's heads (the same one Sora had cut off earlier), and all the Titans started to flee, heedless of Hades' commands from below them. The Tornado Titan fled right over Hades' head, blowing his flaming hair out. Hercules saw this and got another idea. He ran over, grabbed the Tornado Titan (for a mass of air, he was pretty solid), swung him around to suck up the other three Titans, and hurled the amalgam of evil elements up into space. A brilliant explosion followed soon after, but no sound reached the spectators down in the atmosphere.
"Did he actually kill them?" Kairi asked.
Goofy shook his head. "Probably not, but it'll take forever for any bits that are left to fall back down. And when they do put themselves back together, Herc will be ready. Right, Herc?"
"Absolutely!" Herc grinned his patented Action Figure Grin.
"That's my boy! A true hero, through and through!" Zeus patted his son on the back hard enough to make even Hercules stagger.
"Oh, that's right!" Sora ran up to Hercules. "I remembered the thing I wanted to ask you when I got here! Remember when you lost your strength before, and then you got it back? How did you do that? I need to figure out how to get my lost strength back, too."
Hercules scratched his head. "...It's not like there was some trick to it. I just saw that Meg was in trouble, and I threw myself into trying to save her. I was so focused on doing that one thing with all my heart, that I didn't stop to doubt myself over screwing up before."
"'With all my heart', huh..." Sora held a hand over his chest.
"Yeah. If you had that 'Power of Waking' once, then when you really need it, just look inside your heart, and it'll be there." Hercules decided to lighten the mood. "Besides, are you really sure you need more power? It's your first day back from whatever happened, and you're already holding your own against three Titans at once!"
A younger Sora might have just accepted the compliment, but now he was (slightly) more mature and able to see the reality of what happened. "It's not like I did much fighting, really. It was a team effort...and the Titans mostly beat themselves."
Kairi disagreed. "Even so, you stood up to them, held your ground, and kept a cool head under pressure. Plus, you came up with all the plans...and you told the Ice Titan 'neener neener' to its face! You're a great team leader, Sora! We'll just have to keep training until you get the rest of your power back."
Herc grinned wider, somehow. "Yep! It's like Phil always says, 'Rule Number 3: Courage is all that separates you from every other country bumpkin with a sharp stick!'"
Team Sora were all still laughing at Herc's Phil impression while they blasted off in the Kingdom to report back to Yen Sid.
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[Team Riku's POV] Realm of Darkness: Forbidden Mines...
Opening the huge gates to the fake Castle of Dreams led to a completely different environment: a claustrophobia-inducing tunnel that was lit by glowing gemstones embedded in the rocky walls.
"I guess we already went through that portal, huh?" Riku commented. He pulled a gem from the wall, and it immediately stopped glowing and broke down into worthless dust. "Okay, now we know not to do that."
Lambda scanned the area. "Scanning...mapping... Good news: there's only one path! I'm not sure if there are any traps or enemies, though."
" Those are guaranteed," Replica scoffed.
Riku started leading the way deeper in. "Let's get through here before it caves in or something..." *THUNK* The door behind them shut and vanished, leaving only bare stone. "Fine then. No going back."
Lambda took Riku's hand, in case some trap tried to eject her from the Realm of Darkness again. "What world is this place from, anyway?"
"I think it's Snow White's world. I got bounced there by the Star Shard once; the dwarves who live there are really protective of their diamond mine."
Lambda tilted her head to the side in thought, and caught a glimpse ahead of Riku. "Come to think of it, I've never met Snow Wh-what's that?"
"I'm just guessing, but it looks like the tunnel ahead is flooded by a cloud of poisonous gas, judging by the...greenness."
Riku groaned. "Great, and this is the only path. Plans, anyone?"
"Protect Option!" The barrier formed, partially overlapping the tunnel walls, and pushed the green clouds aside. "It's airtight, remember? We just have to get to the other side of the cloud."
"Great! That's a good plan!" Mickey charged ahead...right into the barrier. "Oof!"
Replica chuckled. "Think of it as slowing-down practice."
Team Riku charged through the cloud at a more moderate pace. As they reached the end, Riku saw a pair of Minute Bombs already prepped to explode. "No problem. It's not like they can get through the barrier."
Lambda was far more worried. "No - RUN!" She equipped her Glider and snatched up both of her tangible teammates before zooming along the tunnel at maximum speed.
"Lambda? Why are you so-" *BOOOOOM!* King Mickey was cut off by the sound of the Minute Bombs' self-detonations igniting the toxic cloud, creating a torrent of fire that rushed down the tunnel, lapping at the Protect Option's barrier even at this speed. Worse, the tunnel began to collapse around them! Rubble began to obstruct Lambda's flight path, forcing her to swerve around it...until suddenly she passed through a new portal.
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The Dark World: The Trial Worlds: Hub...
"What...how...when...?" Lambda looked around the round, gray room in confusion, taking note of the doors in every direction and the swirling save point right in the center. "How is there a copy of the Training Worlds in the Realm of Darkness?"
"So this is where you trained with Team Kairi, dear? Only one of the doors is labeled. Well, not counting the one we came out of."
Replica groaned, "I hope this doesn't mean what I think it means..."
Lambda nodded sadly. "That we'll have to clear whatever trials wait behind each door to get past here and rescue Aqua? It certainly seems that way. But first, what about the save point?"
"The what?" Riku asked.
"Oh, right, you never saw Kairi make one. We used these to return to the Hub when we were done with each world. But this is the Hub, so what happens if we use this one?" Lambda approached the circle as the rest of the team crowded around her.
"Let's all try it together, just to be safe." Mickey jumped up and grabbed both Riku's and Lambda's hands, and they huddled into the circle.
"Okay...here we go!"
A flash of Light spirited the team away from the Realm of Darkness.
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[The Realm of Light] Twilight Town: The Old Mansion: Library...
Team Riku reappeared in the corner of a dusty, familiar library, at the top of the secret staircase leading to Ansem the Wise's hideout in Twilight Town. Behind them on the bookshelf, a small gargoyle bust with glowing green eyes stared at their feet - and at the strange, purple save point on which they'd appeared.
Riku asked the most pertinent question. "So...we can get back there through this, right?"
Lambda tested it...
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The Trial Worlds: Hub...
"That's a solid 'yes.'" Lambda immediately teleported them back to Twilight Town.
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Twilight Town: Mansion: Library...
"We should probably take a quick break before tackling the Trial Worlds. Let's check in with the other teams," Lambda suggested.
Riku agreed, and pulled out his Gummiphone to take a quick photo of the purple save point. He posted it to the chatroom Kairi had set up.
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GummiNet chatroom: Exploration Log...
Riku: Bad news: we haven't found Aqua yet, and the next part of the Realm of Darkness looks...tedious. #TeamRiku #RealmOfDarkness #TheDarkWorld #TrialWorlds #TooManyDoors
Riku: [Photo: the Dark Save Point] Good news: we found a way to get to Twilight Town and back! #AnsemsMansion #TwilightTown
Roxas: so your back in twilight town? we arent having much luck following hazamas lead. wanna meet up for ice cream? #kingdomofcorona #marluxia #toomanytrees
Kairi: Wait for us! We're on our way to Twilight Town right now! We got a lot of training done, but still no luck with the Power of Waking... #TeamSora #TitanSlayers #StillInTraining
Hazama: [Photo: A Demon Tide attacking local children] don't take too long - you'll miss the show ;) #Heartless #UsualSuspects
Mickey: OMGosh! #ToTheRescue