Author's Notes: In case some of you didn't know, I do not own Magus. Squaresoft does.
Major senseless humor at the end of the chapter. Blame me or Disney, whichever you prefer.
Chapter XV: Incarceration
Alone, hands clamped and restrained to the stone wall, behind bars locked with simple latches, guarded by lifelessly silent Soldiers — in all his journeys, Sora was surprised by the fact that this was the second time that he'd ever been held captive. Unlike the hold on Captain Hook's ship, however, his current situation held a sense of hopelessness. Despite that, Sora saw the good in the dark setting; he still had his heart. He was still alive, and life meant opportunity to act. The only reason that the Heartless would let him keep his heart would be because they, or someone above them like Yzma, needed him alive. For what purpose that was, Sora was left to speculate.
"You are the one called Sora," a stranger's calm voice stated, coming from the entrance to the holding room. A brief second later, a tall man with dreadfully pallid skin, fiery crimson eyes, long, light-blue hair, and a flowing dark azure cloak made a plain entrance. "I must say that I didn't believe that Yzma had what it took to capture you and your friends."
At the mention of his friends, Sora struggled in vain against his wrist restraints, demanding of the stranger, "Where are my friends?"
"Safe," was the only answer he gave Sora, afterwards introducing himself, "I am Magus, and I believe that you and I have a common enemy."
A questioning silence from Sora told Magus to continue.
"The darkness," he revealed.
"Darkness?" scoffed a disbelieving Sora.
"Yes," his captor pressed on, "the darkness, and with the help of the Keyblade, you and I could conquer the greatest darkness!"
"But... aren't you...?" Sora trailed off doubtfully. Though Magus was offering Sora a way to defeat the darkness, the sorcerer didn't strike Sora as a "good guy". Finally, the Keyblade master asked, "You're sided with the Heartless, so who would you want to—"
"It's a marriage of convenience," explained Magus, "They can help me, so I enlisted their aid. Now, Sora, I ask of you to join me. Come with me to the lost stronghold of lightlessness, the fortress of Xanadont, and open the door hidden in the darkness!"
Door hidden in the darkness? Sora connected mentally, recalling the words of the enigmatic voice of his dreams, Could it be the door to the light? If it is, then...
"What is your answer, Keyblade master?" questioned the man in front of the prisoner's cell.
"I can't do it alone," Sora spoke with swift certainty in his tone, "I'll need my friends — Riku, Tracy, Felicity."
Magus clearly didn't expect that certain reply, and he remained silent, examining Sora's features closely. He pondered over the request momentarily. "But... You're the Keyblade master, are you not? Why would someone in your position need any help in opening a door?"
"Riku has a Keyblade, too," Sora said back to Magus, "Why not ask him, too?"
"Yours is the Keyblade of the worlds," he remarked, "His is the Keyblade of hearts. Yours is the one that I — that we — need."
Sora's eyes stared into Magus's, mustering as much of a challenging stature as he could in his position. "Unless my friends are with me, I'm not locking or unlocking any door for you, Magus!"
Magus stopped himself as he thought once again before telling Sora, "You may have the other two boys, but the girl is under Yzma's care." His next words were filled with subtle guile. "I'm afraid that there's nothing that I can do about her. Yzma's quite intrigued with her, it seems." Seeing the expression of concern and distrust cross Sora's countenance, Magus determined, "It must be a tough choice, so I'll leave you to think about it."
The dark master of Heartless turned away from the prison cell mercilessly as he stepped to the door and made his exit. From outside, though, Magus's voice reached to Sora's ears cold-heartedly, "Please, don't rush the decision too quickly. Take your precious time about it. You're not going anywhere."
—————
"This is bad," Tracy uttered in complaint as he paced through his prison cell, "Quite bad."
"But at least we're alive," Riku reasoned from the cell beside Tracy's, "and at least you can sit down." The captive Keyblade holder looked down at the steel clamp that held his wrists locked to the wall opposite his cell's door.
Tracy silently agreed with Riku as he sat down in the corner closest to Riku, kept from the other teenager by metal cage bars. Once more, the question of the better fate, death or life as a Heartless, crossed Starlight's mind. Given their location, he risked to guess that they would face one of the two in the near future.
"They need us for something," Riku told his prison pal, "That's the only reason we're here and alive."
Tracy looked up at Riku's handsome eyes, worried that he might be wrong. "You sound sure," he countered, "Do you know something that I don't?"
Riku stated plainly, "I know darkness."
That answer wasn't what Tracy had been expecting from him. Deciding to change to a more comfortable and important topic, Starlight queried, "Where's Sora?"
"Hard to say," answered the other captive, "I haven't seen him. I haven't seen Kuzco, Pacha, or Felicity, either."
"Well, then," suggested Tracy unwaveringly, "we should find them."
"And how do we do that from here?"
The confident Tracy thought on it, giving their surroundings a serious scan. The room was rectangular with stone walls, obviously within Kuzco's palace, and the metal bars split the chamber in half, running from short wall to short wall. On Tracy's side of the room, another line of bars split the area into two equal cells for Riku and himself. Outside the cells, the doors to both were guarded by a pair of Heartless Soldiers each, and another couple stood on either side of the exit in the corner to Starlight's left, the farthest corner from him. In the corner on the boy's right, his wooden weapon rested against the wall. The doors on the cells were kept locked by a small series of latches. The only things keeping Tracy from unlocking the holding cell from within were the Heartless.
"If we could get rid of the Heartless, or just distract them, I could unlock my cell," Tracy briefed Riku on his thoughts. "Any ideas?"
"Not really," Riku began, "If I could only use my Keyblade..."
With Riku's words, a plan came to Tracy Starlight. "The Keyblade! Where is it?"
"I could call it," said Riku negatively, "but there's the issue of..." He forced his arms against his restraints. "I couldn't do a thing with—"
"Maybe you won't have to!" the other kid smirked knowingly, "Call it!"
Tracy received a glare as he rose to his feet. Giving the boy a quick, "Whatever," the Keyblade master opened his right hand, and instantaneously, the dark Keyblade of hearts came into existence. As Riku's fingers curled around the handle, he questioningly inquired, "Now what?"
Starlight's eyes briskly glanced at the Heartless guards, who made no move to react to the appearance of the Lockheart. "So far, so good," reported Tracy. "Now, drop it, but try to get it within my reach."
Understanding came to Riku in a flash. "You think it'll stay in your hands? Won't it just come right back to me?"
"It's possible," admitted the other prisoner, "but we won't know until we try." Tracy paused briefly. "Remind me to tell you about my theories."
Riku looked around the room with a light-hearted smile on his face. "Is there a theory behind this?"
The unrestrained teen looked around before telling Riku, "Somewhat. You see, if the Keyblade can choose its holder, than there must be some kind of consciousness behind it, however primitive or advanced it may be." He chuckled at himself, "I'm really just hoping the mind behind your Keyblade isn't as picky as the mind behind Sora's. This is my experiment."
"You picked a fine time to 'experiment'," observed Riku.
"Thank you, now throw me the Keyblade!"
Without further delay on the parts of either teenager, Riku looked at the ground for a few seconds, making mental guesses as to how far he might be able to throw it with only the power of his wrist behind the toss. Now that Tracy and Riku actually took the time to gauge the distance that Riku would need to throw the weapon, Tracy suddenly hoped that he would even be able to reach the discarded blade. Preparing, Riku touched the tip of the Keyblade to the ground, the handle leaning against his hand. So set up, he used a simple flick of his wrist to launch the Lockheart in Tracy's direction.
Fortunately for the teenage couple, it traveled an adequate distance away from Riku, and with only moderate effort, Tracy's arm slid through the bars and grabbed the handle of the Keyblade, rotating it and sliding it through the bars swiftly. "Got it!" At the sound of the two words, unluckily, the six Heartless fiends suddenly moved to action beyond the confines of the two prison cells. The Soldiers closest to Tracy's door quickly flipped the simple latches, unlocking the cell, swinging the door open, and stepping into the confined space to face their newly-armed captive.
"Tracy!" Riku called out in warning, though he needed no such signal.
"We got Heartless!" Tracy yelled out, bringing the unfamiliar blade to use against his captors. With a graceful twirl, the blade of darkness slapped against the craniums of the Heartless duo twice, knocking them both back into the bars of the cell. An instant later, he waved the Lockheart at them, blasting the Soldiers with an icy wrath. The spell seemed to be more than enough to dispatch the creatures. By this time, the four remaining opponents reached the cell and entered to do battle with the unruly prisoner.
It works! Tracy said to himself in thoughts, The Keyblade actually works! Wasting no more time, Tracy launched into another whirling attack, aiming lower this time and hitting the torsos of the Heartless regiment. With the Soldiers momentarily dazed, Tracy took the advantage of the cell's open door and ran past the Heartless through it, taking the fight into a wider area. It was then, on the other side of that partition, that an easy, ironic plan made itself known to Starlight. With one brisk kick, Tracy struck the cell's unclosed door, knocking it back shut. Finishing the plan, the young Tracy Starlight raised the Keyblade, aiming at the latches, and cast Blizzaga, encasing the lock in solid ice, containing his captors inside of his former cage.
As the Heartless within struggled to break the ice or the bars, Tracy could only laugh with pleasure at the simplicity of the encounter. "I didn't know the Heartless were also brainless," he poked fun at the quartet of imprisoned beings, afterwards unlocking Riku's cell by slicing into the latches with the Keyblade. The metal pieces of the lock fell uselessly to the ground, and Tracy stepped into the cell with Riku to free his companion.
"Nice job, Tracy," congratulated Riku.
"Not too bad for a first date," Tracy gave the compliment to himself, "Maybe you'll rescue me on the second one?" As he made small talk with the other fighter, Starlight raised the Keyblade and brought it down accurately upon the clamps attacked to Riku's wrists. Once both were shattered, Tracy offered the Lockheart to its rightful owner. "I believe this is yours."
Riku allowed his disbelief to enter his voice, "You used that thing pretty well for a first time. You sure you don't want it?"
Tracy could hardly believe his ears. "Me? With a Keyblade?" he asked with obvious skepticism, "No way! That's way too much responsibility for me!"
"And you think I can handle it?" Riku said with equal disbelief. As the couple looked at each other curiously, Riku advised of them, "Let's find Sora and the others!"
—————
With the exception of a single lamp shining on the ceiling below onto a bed in the center of the room, the chamber was bathed in the darkness. Resting on the central bed was Yzma's latest test subject, Codename: Heartilly. Her birth name, however, was Felicity Twilight Autrin.
"It looks like she's regained consciousness," Yzma stated to herself, "We're ready to begin." The superannuated lady stepped out of the darkness, bringing herself into Felicity's view. "You, my dear, aren't exactly the most beautiful daisy in the field," she compared, "but it's not your outer looks that I'm interested."
"Thank God!" Felicity muttered, "I'm not so thrilled with yours, either."
Yzma's visage flinched angrily at the insult before she regained an almost lady-like calm in her demeanor. "I'd watch your young, my dear, for I'm the one who holds your life in her hands." From a place not visible to Felicity, the old woman obtained a gleaming dagger and approached the younger lady. She brought the dagger to Felicity's throat threateningly.
"Ooo, shiny!" Felicity gawked at the miniature blade.
Yzma glared at the foolish girl. "You have the intelligence of a custard pastry!" she shot at her.
"And you have the intelligence of a dust particle!" Felicity counter-insulted.
"You jade ingrate!"
"Quizzical, push-up bra-wearing liar!"
"Llama-spitting butcher!"
"Ornate obstetrician!"
"Laborious leprechaun!"
A high-pitched squealing noise left Felicity's mouth loudly.
"What?" asked a flustered Yzma.
"I win!" the young girl declared proudly, "Tracy's trick never fails!"
"Enough of this madness!" Yzma yelled out in anger and irritation at the silly girl.
"Oh, yeah!" Felicity realized, "You were saying something about life or death or something like that?"
Yzma rolled her eyes sadly. "My line was, 'I'm the one who holds your life in her hands', and then you interrupted me when you said my knife was shiny. Can we get on with the story now?"
"Maybe," shrugged Felicity.
The villainous woman snarled at her prisoner, "This is very important! If we don't continue the story, then the ratings will drop, and we can't really afford to lose ratings, not when no more than a half-dozen people have made it this far!"
Felicity's eyes widened, baffled by Yzma's explanations. "Story? What are you talking about?"
"This story! Across the Worlds by Erik! Someone must be reading it now, or we wouldn't—" Yzma cut herself off suddenly when she looked at the confused girl. "Oh... You're not supposed to know about that! You see, this is why you should stick to the script, Felicity!"
"Uhm," a voice from nowhere intervened, "listen, this is kinda getting really old really fast, like Yzma here, so why don't we just start from the beginning of the scene, okay?"
"Who are you?" both ladies asked at the same time.
"The author."
"Oh."
—————
With the exception of a single lamp shining on the ceiling below onto a bed in the center of the room, the chamber was bathed in the darkness. Resting on the central bed was Yzma's latest test subject, Codename: Heartilly. Her birth name, however, was Felicity Twilight Autrin.
"It looks like she's regained consciousness," Yzma stated to herself, "We're ready to begin." The superannuated lady stepped out of the darkness, bringing herself into Felicity's view. "You, my dear, aren't exactly the most beautiful daisy in the field," she compared, "but it's not your outer looks that I'm interested."
"Thank God!" Felicity muttered, "I'm not so thrilled with yours, either."
Yzma's visage flinched angrily at the insult before she regained an almost lady-like calm in her demeanor. "I'd watch your young, my dear, for I'm the one who holds your life in her hands." From a place not visible to Felicity, the old woman obtained a gleaming dagger and approached the younger lady. She brought the dagger to Felicity's throat threateningly.
"Okay, you old windbag!" the girl yelled at her desperately, "Hold the dagger away and tell me what the hell this is about!"
"Simple," Yzma explained to the teenage girl, "It's about your heart. Though fate hasn't been kind to you in the department of external prettiness, you've been blessed with a gorgeous, young heart!"
"And that means...?"
"That you're the perfect test subject!" the aged scientist woman answered, "With my knowledge, I'll soon be able to take the beauty and light of your heart and apply it to my own exterior and," she laughed with demented glee, "finally regain my rightful, youthful beauty! Unfortunately for you, dear," she spoke with quasi-compassion, "your heart will most likely not survive the process, but who cares about that, eh?"
As Yzma closed in on her specimen, Felicity could only say a mental prayer and hope for some kind of miracle.
