Inverted Sky: KH Chain of Memories
Chapter 10: Castle Oblivion part X
As the pages of Zexion's book continued to flip by, the opposing group swiftly dashed in different directions. Donald moving to the left, Kairi to the right, Goofy moving straight ahead, and Sora lept up with a downward slash. As they each attempted their attacks, Zexion waved his free hand to create a gravity orb where they had been previously gathered. This rapidly pulling each of them back, yet not before Kairi and Donald cast their spells, as well as for Sora and Goofy to throw their weapons.
In seeing these attacks still coming, Zexion's eyes narrowed a bit. Him knowing that until he finished with the spell he was currently concentrating on, he couldn't cast anything very big. But he simply smirked while still holding his hand out, him clenching it into a fist and caused a wall of sand to erupt up in front of him. This blocking each of the attacks before the wall returned back to the normal ground, to which the thrown weapons reappeared in their wielders' hands.
In that same moment though, the pages suddenly stopped turning as the area around the group began to darken. However, Sora, Kairi and Donald all lifted their weapons out to create a powerful shield around all of them. At the same time, they glanced up to see the reason why everything was becoming dark. There being dozens of large meteors raining toward them, to which Zexion simply smirked lightly and appeared to hover onto a ledge nearby.
With each impact that hit the barrier and ground, everything quaked violently around the group. This even destroying the steel blue-haired man's gravity spell, yet it was no longer needed to keep the four in one place. After a few moments though, they could then see a large blue magic circle slowly rotating under Zexion's feet. It being clear that he was about to use an even more powerful spell; "We have to stop him before he finishes casting that." Sora muttered out silently with narrowed eyes.
"We have to strike hard and fast to break his concentration...or at least force him away from the center of the circle." Kairi claimed while glancing to the others briefly, whom each gave a quick nod in response.
"I'll go first." Goofy stated as he readied himself to start running.
"Alright...we'll be right beside you." Sora said, turning toward Donald and Kairi.
"Both of you hang on to me, I'm gonna try and move us out of the way once we drop this shield." she continued, to which the pair nodded once more while grabbing a hold of the teen's jacket.
"And just for good measure..." the brown-haired girl hummed silently, lifting a hand out.
Though there was a warping of the space directly ahead of where Goofy would be running, it was hard to see due to the seemingly endless number of meteors. With a few deep breaths in preparation, the four gave each other a quick nod before the barrier dropped. Instantly following this, Goofy began rushing toward Zexion, his shield up and at the ready. All the while, Sora placed her arms around Donald and Kairi, to which she swiftly moved with them to the side and up the side of the nearby mountain.
Her gaining a similar yellow aura that she had seen Larxene use during their fights, as it was a means of using lightning magic to greatly enhance someone's speed. Once they were out of the twenty meter range of the meteors, Sora then changed direction with the pair still in her arms. Them arcing across the mountainside, and began heading right toward Zexion. Whom lifted one of his hands out to the charging Goofy, before shooting a series of magical blasts at him. However, each one seemed to just stop in mid-air around ten meters between the two, as though they were frozen in time.
Seeing this, Zexion's eyes narrowed slightly before his gaze shifted to Sora and her group. Of which was rapidly approaching from his side, making any kind of retreat difficult. Though, they also shot a large amount of fire magic ahead of them, all aimed directly at him. At the same time, Goofy threw his shield giving the young man yet another target to deal with. Yet with a swift glance to each of the four, Zexion then brought both his hands out to either side.
This creating a large barrier around him for a split second, but it was still long enough to cause each of the four's attacks to deflect off and away. As the fire spells were extinguished though, it created a large smokescreen that made it impossible to see any of them. That is, until they each emerged through it just a few meters from the man with their weapons at the ready. "Not bad." he whispered while kneeling down and slamming a hand into the ground.
"But not good enough." Zexion continued while looking around to each of the four, all of whom were frozen in mid-stride.
"And now that you're in the perfect range..." he began in a confident tone, standing upright and clapping both hands together as the magic circle flared even brighter.
"...it's time to-" the steel blue-haired man was about to finish, yet cut himself short as each of the four actually broke free of his Stopja spell.
This lead for him to instinctively dodge out of the way when their attacks all came toward him at once. But by doing so, the nearly finished magic circle shattered apart and faded away. "H-How?" he uttered out in surprise, looking between the four.
"Looks like you might have underestimated us a bit." Sora claimed with a small grin on her features.
All the while, Donald just rolled his eyes as he had been in the process of trying to dispel Zexion's magic circle during their charge. So when the man cast this Stopja spell, the nature of the duck's dispelling magic caused said spell to fade instead. Something Donald figured he would be able to gloat about later, as they now had Zexion mostly surrounded upon this ledge. Him being backed up against the side of the mountain, to which he glance to each of the four with narrowed eyes like a cornered animal.
"Looks like I might have." he muttered silently, sounding quite frustrated by this turn of events.
"But no matter...things will go our way soon enough." Zexion continued before swiftly vanishing in a corridor of darkness.
Though the group seemed to move forward briefly, as if about to attempt one final attack, they held themselves back instead. But with a heavy sigh, they then glanced to one another with a slowly growing smile on their features. "We really make a good team." Sora commented happily.
"Even though it wasn't a long fight, I think he definitely ran away for a reason." she continued while smiling a bit wider.
"Yeah...though I'm actually the one who-" Donald began with a prideful tone and puff of his chest.
However, he was quickly cut off as Sora looked to Kairi's staff with a wide smile. "Oh~, that looks so pretty~!" she hummed out, looking over the weapon as she hadn't noticed it until now.
While it was made from a light wood, there were a series of variously colored flowers across it. Each of which were connected by thin green vines that stemmed from the large sunflower at the tip. "Right? I was having Merlin make it when you were heading off for your whole 'final mission'. But thankfully, he finished just as we were about to leave to go find you." Kairi responded as she held out the staff in a proud manner.
"Oh yeah...Merlin was teaching you magic, right? How far into his lessons did you actually get?" Sora inquired curiously, all as Donald tried and failed to speak up again to continue his bragging.
"Not very far unfortunately, but I have managed to pick up on a few things now that I've gotten into a few fights." the auburn-haired girl stated, giving a somewhat sheepish smile.
"Well, I sort of forgot a lot of things...but if I can help in any way, I'll do my best." the other teen declared, fully locking eyes with her friend.
Whom blinked briefly before smiling softly as she and Sora seemed to share a few seconds to themselves. But it was quickly interrupted as Donald finally got fed up with being ignored and just broke them up with a squawking yell. "I was the one who broke his magic! So I deserve the credit for making his run!" he called out in frustration, hopping up and down while continuing to squawk.
As the teens turned to him, they both chuckled lightly and nodded their heads. "Sorry about that Donald, thank you for your help." Kairi said in a soft tone.
"Yeah...you're definitely the best mage here." Sora added while giving a small grin.
After a brief glance to the pair, the duck smiled a bit wider while puffing his chest up once more. His confidence and pride overflowing at this point, making him miss the fact that his jumping around drew him toward the edge of the ledge. Upon which, he slipped and and dropped him into a shallow area of the ocean water. Immediately following this, the other three laughed as a result before helping him up and out of the water. All of this leading for Donald to huff lightly, as he figured this was just his karma for trying to brag.
Their previous conversation all but forgotten once more.
During all of this though, Zexion sighed heavily while looking to Marluxia with a shrug. "They took me off guard briefly, but it won't happen again." he claimed firmly with his arms crossed.
"Indeed not." the pink-haired man began silently as he looked to the other man in a firm manner.
"Because the next time...you'll have Lexaeus with you." he finished, narrowing his eyes slightly as Zexion could only nod in response.
"Fine...just so long as it's not Larxene or Axel." the steel blue-haired man stated with a bit of a heavy sigh, obviously believing the two to be the most disruptive to his plans in one way or another.
Marluxia merely smirked lightly as he turned his gaze back to the orb, which now displayed Mickey and Riku. The two continuing on their way further down to the basement of the castle, all while training the silver-haired boy to become stronger. "Though...it seems we'll need to push him to use the Darkness a bit more. If our plans with Sora fail...Riku will be the next best candidate for helping the Organization." he stated while tilting his head up in thought.
"Perhaps we should offer the Superior's shadow an extra foothold on that boy's heart." the man continued, gaining a small grin on his features.
Zexion nodded briefly, yet soon raised a brow in question and tilted his head to the side slightly. "And how do you plan to do that?" he asked curiously, but also with a bit of suspicion.
"The same way we plan to bend Sora...by removing his only 'help'." Marluxia responded, his gaze shifting directly to Mickey.
Whom smiled to the silver-haired boy as Riku himself managed to catch onto the King's basic sword techniques. "Good job Riku, you're already doing better than I did." the mouse exclaimed happily.
The teen gave a returning smile as they continued their training, him feeling like he was indeed making progress to become stronger. 'Maybe I really can do this.' he thought to himself in a determined manner.
And so the plot thickens, I hope all of you have enjoyed this Remake version so far. I'm thinking I'll have chapters 11-15 done by the next update, but I guess we'll see. Anyway, let me know your thoughts in a review or PM. Until next time.
