Black Dreams Eternal: Chapter One
Chapter written by: Tidus ((Priest)), Sora ((Crys)), Yasha ((Kaya)), Aeon ((Shadowclaw)), and Arados
CRASH! BOOM! CRASH! SMASH!
Those are the sounds that were ringing through the Gummi Ship as it hurtled towards the unknown.
"You idiot!" Sora cried, attempting to wrestle a certain blonde- furisode-wearing idiot who'd just sent them blasting into the unknown. "You just sent us blasting towards who-knows-what! For all we know, you could have just sent us blasting towards a....a...." Sora stopped for a moment, attempting to think of a word. "...A...Black hole! Now out of the Captains chair, I'm flying from now on!" He declared.
The brunette went back to attempting to pull Tidus out of the Captains chair.
"Ow! Ow! Sora, stop pulling my hair!" Tidus whined, legs locked around the chair, and hands gripping the controls until his knuckles were white, "C'mon! I've never flown anything before!"
He paused, and despite Sora's pain-inducing attempts to get him out of the chair, he spoke calmly, "Well, there was that one time, in Spira, that they let me pilot the airship, but Lulu nearly took my head off when I almost crashed it into the ocean..." before going back to yelping and trying not to be thrown from the seat.
Unfortunately for him-- Sora was stronger, and Tidus' legs eventually gave out on him. The boy teenager was sent flying, end over end, out of the chair to crash into the back wall of the gummi ship, before sliding down to the floor. He lay there, upside down and head ringing, trying to figure how he'd got to where he was, the landing disorientating him perhaps a touch to much, "Owie..."
Yasha had immediately wandered over to the back area as soon as she hopped onboard the strange, lego-ish vehicle. Trouble being, she had no idea what a 'lego' was, but looking at the gummi ship, she figured it to be very colorful and blocky.
Yasha looked up from inspecting what appeared to be some rolled-up cots in the back when she heard Tidus and Sora yelling at one another. Peeking out of the back room, she blinked several times as she watched Sora attempting to yank Tidus, by the hair, out of a chair.
Looking out a nearby window on the ship, the half-Heartless vaguely realized they were no longer on any planet in particular, and had left without her noticing. She shrugged, figuring the back of the ship had better shock-absorbers then the other parts.
Yasha gave a startled dragon-ish yelp when Tidus went flying her in her direction, and slammed the door shut. After half a minute, she reopened the door, shoving Tidus off of it. Viewing the carnage, she blinked again.
"You people are CRAZIE..."
"WE'RE Crazy?" Sora raised an eyebrow from the captains , no one could see that, but oh well. "What about You, Miss 'Yummy hair! I'm soooooooo glad you're okie, okie'?" He inquired, making a poor imitation of Yasha's voice.
The brunette turned his attention back to....driving, well, not really driving, more like flying, but whatever. Well, for a second he wasn't paying attention, seeing as he enjoyed taping the blue fuzzy dice hanging off of the intercom mike and watching them swing. Wheee.....fuzzy dice.
Tidus shook his head out, having been knocked half-way-to-unconscious by Yasha's entrance, before rolling onto his feet.
Conveniently forgetting that it was his fault that they were in the middle of nowhere, without any idea of which direction to take to go anywhere, the blonde scratched his head, "So, how do we know when we get to a world?"
Then he jumped on the back of Sora's chair and clung there like he used to cling to trees when "sparing" with Riku. This meant he had his legs and arms wrapped around the chair and Sora. Somewhat spitefully, over having his chair taken away, Tidus dug his chin into the other's head, and blinked.
"Hey, where'd the dice come from?"
Sora's eye twitched in annoyance at having the captains chair and himself glomped by a blonde haired moron wearing Japanese woman's clothing. See, normally Sora would be in a slightly more cheerful mood. Unfortunately, being glomped by a half-human half-heartless, nearly having his lungs crushed, finding out the Heartless were lose again, and getting launched to god-knows-where by Tidus, while one of those might not be so bad by itself, all of those things together were making him just a bit irritated.
"Tidus, first off, please remove yourself from myself and the chair." The brunette growled. "Second, I have no idea, we just kind of fly until we run into something I guess. And third, the fuzzy dice are a present from a friend of mine, and I like them. Okay. Can you get off of me now?"
Oh yes....this was going to be a looooooong flight.
Yasha giggled when Sora yelled at her for calling him 'Yummy Hair'. Obviously finding it more amusing then threatening. She walked up behind the two boys and lightly batted at the dice, watching them swing back and forth in a hypnotized way.
Yasha randomly giggled again. "You should take a right, Yummy Hair!"
"Why a right?" Tidus wondered, completely ignoring Sora's previous demand to let go of the chair. He was, actually, quite comfortable where he was, despite having Sora's wild brown mane ending up in his mouth more often than not. In fact... he squeezed his arms a little bit tighter around Sora's neck, just to prove that he was still there, "Why not a left? We could always go left."
Tidus just liked being contradictory, from time to time.
Yasha lightly thwacked Tidus on the head, and considering her huge claws, this was more then enough to knock him right off the chair. She didn't notice this however, as she was to busy rolling her eyes.
"'Cause that's where I can sense the most darkness, silly!" Yasha waited for a response from the blond teen, and upon not hearing one, looked down at the floor.
"Hey, Tidus-kun, why're you laying there all funny?.."
Sora almost hugged Yasha for knocking Tidus off, save for two reasons. One, this was Yasha, and she would probably hug him back and crush his lungs again, two because he was attempting to pilot a Gummi Ship and the act of hugging would involve him letting go of the instruments of steering.
"Uhhh...I think he's on the floor cause you knocked him there, Yasha, and thank you for doing that." Sora said, twisting the steering...thing to the right. "And...yup, we're goin' right. You're sure it's too the right, right?"
It took Tidus a full ten minutes to recover from being slapped away from the chair by Yasha. Silently, he cursed the fact that he didn't have any scales to protect the back of his head, before changing his mind and deciding he liked his hair to much to have had it replaced by the thin layer of protective scales that covered the back of his neck, parts of his shoulders, the backs of his arms, and his legs.
Rubbing the aching point of his skull, the blonde stood up slowly to get his balance back, then blinked at his companions. Sora was taking care of what appeared to be... debris... floating through the realm between worlds, that could have hit their ship.
Had this... had this once been a world? Had it been destroyed? How though? The Heartless never left anything of the worlds that they destroyed, but this... there was debris and pieces of it everywhere. It was like piloting through a mine field.
Obviously, in the ten minutes he'd been out of it, they'd been following Yasha's directions and had come across this strange sight. It sent a chill down his back, of which he decided to remedy right then and there.
Cheerfully, he draped himself over the back of Sora's chair, one arm over Sora's shoulder and across his collarbone, before he pointed out the main window curiously, "What's all this, Sora? You blow something up?"
Hey, Tidus took comfort in being able to physically touch someone without causing harm. It had been to long since he had been able to equate touching with comfort, and not the sting of battle.
Sora sighed as again Tidus' arm had found itself a spot on him. "Tidus, please get your arm off of me." He sighed, knowing full well the blonde wasn't going to budge anytime soon. 'Just ignore it...' Sora told himself, turning his attention back to the going-ons outside the ship.
Sora's brow furrowed at the debris as he piloted the ship through it. "No, I didn't blow anything up.." He said with a shake of his head. "Something else must've caused this, it's not the normal stuff you see in the space between worlds." He observed, maneuvering the ship carefully past a rather large piece of debris.
By going past the large piece, they were able to see what it was obscuring, a rather large, barren looking planet. It looked sorta like a rock, with a HUGE chunk blasted out of it and many holes and scars marring the surface. The world was colored a sort of red, or at least what remained of its surface was colored red.
"Sooo..." Sora said after a moment of silence. "Who's betting that's where all the junk came from? Ya think there's anyone still living on it?"
Yasha nodded excitedly. "Yeah yeah! That's where the darkness is coming from, that planet is still -alive-! And since it is, there's Heartless there. And if the Heartless aren't finished with it yet, there still be some innocent peoples down there!"
"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Tidus tightened his grip around Sora's shoulders for a moment, before flinging both arms out, "Lets head down! Crash land or something!"
He paused at the dirty look he got from Sora, and amended that statement, "Okay, fine, don't crash land. Just land. I wanna get out there and thrash something!" He was getting antsy.
In times to come, he would realize that 'getting antsy' was the feeling that came when he was on the same world as another Sinspawn. He'd been like that back on Spira, as well, but at the current moment in time, he had no idea that that is what this feeling meant.
All he knew was that he either wanted to be down there, or very far away, and quite frankly, the blown up world was making him curious, "Which button is down?"
And he started to reach for the dashboard.
Sora's eyes widened and he grabbed Tidus' wrist. "Don't. Touch." He stated, pushing the other boys arm away. "We don't need you crashing the Gummi Ship and getting us killed before the Heartless get any more shots at it."
The brunette maneuvered the Gummi Ship towards the planet. "Geez, I really hope there's someone still living on this thing." Sora mumbled.
Aeon ran, his heart pounding, his feet pounding the ground relentlessly as he did so. It had been almost a month since landing, (well crash landing to be honest) on this planet. He'd driven his own craft directly into the planet –on purpose- causing one hell of a mess in the process. He wasn't too pleased about having survived the impact in some respects but you just had to make the best of a bad situation. He had no idea why these . . . things . . . were chasing him – well maybe just the one reason but nobody knew about that surely. As he ran, somehow finding the energy to keep himself going, he failed to notice a tree root almost casually sticking out from the ground. Snagging his taloned foot, he tumbled over and over, finally coming to a stop in a wide open area.
As a loud multitude of cries came from where he had been running from, a strange feeling began to overtake him. A feeling of familiarity almost, deep, primal, like he could sense something or someone, a feeling he hadn't felt in a long time. Aeon growled. Sinspawn here? How was that possible? He snapped himself out of his thoughts and prepared himself for the inevitable battle he was going to have to fight. If he could sense the Sinspawn no doubt the Sinspawn could also sense him. He'd meet it soon enough.
As he stood there, relishing the blood-rush that was filling his veins, the first of his new tormentors appeared in his sight. A strange being – Aeon had only seen it a few days ago and just the one at first. It appeared to be comprised of smoke yet somehow solid – golden eyes blazing out of its dark form. Aeon had assumed it was a denizen of the planet at first and tried to talk to it – that was when he had first been attacked.
The smoky creature had tried to . . . . well rip his heart out using magic he guessed. Its hand had glowed and it had clawed in vain at his chest but nothing much had happened after that. It had let out a primal screech into the night, causing more of its kind to appear. Aeon hadn't bothered sticking around for the next part. Two days he had been running now. He did manage to put a fair amount of distance between him and the creatures at one point by flying over a chasm, but they had managed to catch back up with him again.
Aeon let out a bestial screech, throwing the cloak around his shoulders to the ground, relishing the feel of air around his wings, flexing his arms and taloned hands, stretching the kinks from his back and neck.
Clicking his beak in anger, his once blue eyes now blazing a fierce red, the phoenix/humanoid hybrid took up a fighting stance, and shouted to the demonic beings waiting to attack him.
"Bring it on!"
"Ow! Gee, Sora, watch the wrist!" So he had scales on the backside of his wrist-- that didn't mean he had them in the soft fleshy area where Sora's fingernails had dug in to keep from him from the dashboard. Gingerly rubbing the red area, he pouted at Yasha, "He's so mea--"
But he was cut off as the ship hit ground, bouncing a couple times before coming to a halt. Tidus blinked slowly as he brought himself back to his feet, "Nice landing Sora, real nice."
He felt like spiders were slowly crawling up his spine, and it wasn't a very nice feeling. A shudder worked it's way through him, before he pursed his lips, oddly serious, "Yasha? Where's the darkness? I got this baaaaad feeling that we're close to the boiling point, and I'd rather be fighting when things go to hell."
Yasha perked up at Tidus' question, now she would get to be useful again! Smiling cheerily at his 'when this all goes to hell' comment, she kicked the door open lightly(which left a small dent), and jumped down from the ship to the ground. Digging her talons in as she hit the dry, cracked earth, she flapped out her wings to their full flight-span.
Yasha slipped her eyes closed, going into a momentary trance. Her wings glimmered ruby red for a barest second, before her eyelids snapped back open. and she launched herself into the sky. She flapped her wings and giggled, waving a clawed hand to the west.
"They're a thatta way! There's a whole lot of 'em too, and something else, but I can't tell what. T'is not a Heartless, but it hasn't got a Heart..." Yasha shrugged absently, and keeping low to the ground, flew off in the specified direction.
"C'mon! There's a fight breaking out, I can -feel- it!"
Sora began running in the direction Yasha had gone, already summoning the keyblade into his hand, feeling it's reassuring weight. He could feel a little of his old self coming back, the excitement of battle bubbling through him.
'I wonder if that's good?' Sora thought to himself. He let a small grin come to his face. "C'mon, let's go then!" He cried.
"Hey! Guys! Wait up!" Tidus gave an indignant squawk, chasing after his two companions, his long furisode waving behind him like some sort of flag. To an outside observer, had there been any, it would have been amusing.
But there were no observers, not in this blasted landscape. Here and there, one could find specks of life and light, but they were few and far between, swallowed by the shadows that had overrun the world. It was a frightening sight, but Tidus pushed that out of his mind as he raced off after his friends and towards something that caused his stomach to knot.
Then they were upon the battle, blades and claws slicing through Heartless after Heartless, headed towards a figure that was fighting just as fiercely as they were. For a moment, Tidus got a good look at their fellow fighter.
A moment was it took.
In that moment, it struck him, that familiarity, and he found himself snarling, blue eyes flashing angrily. His conscious mind had discovered what his instincts had already known.
"Sinspawn!"
Aeon was busy slashing left and right with his own taloned fingers, desperately trying to dodge the shadowy, wraith-like claws of the enemy. He had no idea what these things were, and didn't particularly care either.
He had partially taken to the air, flapping his golden wings to keep him floating a few centimeters above the ground, which allowed him a greater degree of maneuverability while he fought. As one of the beasts tore an icy claw across his arm he involuntarily shuddered at the cold touch. He swung his arm in a vicious backlash, knocking the foul thing away from him.
Suddenly some of the heartless broke off. Looking up to see the reason why Aeon noticed three others joining the fray. One appeared to be a winged dragon-like creature. The second was a human male wielding a most unusual looking weapon. It was the third that caught his eye most, as it explained his strange feeling earlier.
"A Sinspawn!" Aeon gasped softly, his voice unheard amongst the sounds of battle. But alas the few seconds he'd used to check out the newcomers was a few too many.
Pain tore through his mind as he felt one of his wings freeze yet burn at the same time. Twisting as he touched back down he met the gaze of a heartless, blood dripping from its dark claw.
As Aeon turned it struck again, raking its claws down his chest, many of its brethren joining in the attack on him, the intense coldness forcing him to his knees on the ground.
The pain was unbearable, the cold threatening to make him pass out, spots already appearing across his vision. With a primal bird-like shriek Aeon summoned every last ounce of strength and fought back against the pain.
Forcing his eyes to clear Aeon stared into the eyes of the shadowy demon in front of him.
"You . . . play . . . with . . . fire . . ." Aeon fought to get the words out.
The pile of heartless was suddenly blown apart, spirals of fire twisting away from Aeon's body, his feathers ablaze yet not burning, his body already relishing the heat it felt, the coldness no more.
"You're gonna get burned!!!" Aeon yelled, before rushing back into battle.
"Holy..." Tidus swore, having not once let his eyes be taken away from the form of the other Sinspawn. He had been making his way towards this other sinspawn, determined to take out the remnant of that which had changed him, on top of the Heartless that he had been smacking out of the way.
But the flames that had just exploded out of the bird-sinspawn's body were... well, a bit distressing when brought into consideration with his own power. Sure, he was strong, but still... he didn't know if he was that strong.
Ah, well, that didn't matter. What mattered was taking out the Heartless. Hopefully, the other would get killed in the-- wait. No. A Heartless Sinspawn? Ah hell, that meant he'd have to actually protect the clueless creature before taking it out.
The Brotherhood swung through the air as he put more force behind the blows to get closer to the bird-man faster.
"Oi!" he shouted, before ducking under a swung, parrying another blow, and kicking out to send one of the Heartless flying over the heads of the others and towards Yasha. He didn't know if the other could understand him, but such considerations had never stopped him before, "Sinspawn! What the hell you do to get all these Heartless on your tail?"
Aeon was now slashing heartless left and right, trying to keep their cold hands away from his sensitive body. His body was still smoking slightly from the attack but mysteriously no part of him had been burnt by the flames.
Oi! A shout rang out. Aeon grabbed the creature currently in front of him and threw it into a bunch of its kin. Whirling around he found himself face to face with the other sinspawn. Standing right next to it he recognized it from the memories he was forced to carry in his mind, memories of a past he didn't live but a past he was unable to live without. A name floated to the surface of those memories. Tidus.
Tidus shouted another question at him.
"Sinspawn! What the hell you do to get all these Heartless on your tail?"
"Don't call me Sinspawn! The name's Aeon!" he yelled over the din of the battle! "These things are called heartless?"
The phoenix/sinspawn took to the air slightly, kicking aside a heartless that had got to close for comfort.
"Then what do they want with me? I've not done anything to them!"
The exchange of words was cut short as Aeon and Tidus were separated by a heartless who shoved Aeon aside.
Yasha had charged into the battle claws first, and tore the first Heartless near her to shreds with her claws, and swatted another away with her wing.
Yasha managed to turn her head just in time to notice the Heartless Tidus had sent her way, and grinning twistedly, plunged one taloned hand straight though it's chest cavity. Then flung it off her hand and into another incoming shadow.
With a feral shriek, Yasha launched herself into a gaggle of Heartless, raking her claws across anything solid in sight.
They were Heartless, they had to die.
Sora kept on a wary eye upon the shadowy creatures charging at him, his grip tightening on the key in his gloved right hand. A small smirk made its way onto his face. He closed his eyes, concentrating on summoning energy into the weapon in his hand. A glow of crimson and gold danced around him, traveling from his body into the keyblade.
"Bring it on." Sora said with a grin, sapphire eyes opening, the Heartless nearly at him now. "Strike raid!" He cried, bringing his arm back and flinging his glowing weapon at the heartless, the keyblade becoming a spinning whirl of gold and crimson, slashing through the masses of shadow. The keyblade flew back to it's master's hand and with a cry the boy flung it again, chocolate colored hair falling into his eyes as he did so. The keyblade again came to his hands, three times more, and three times more he threw it again.
Finally the keyblade was caught into Sora's palm and with a cry Sora charged at the many heartless still remaining, spinning and swinging the keyblade in an arc, striking several heartless around him, slicing a few in two and savagely damaging others. He continued doing this, alternating between doing this and using his old combos.
Even with the four of them battling as furiously as they were, the Heartless weren't thinning very quickly. Tidus winced as he was slashed across his cheek, the claws trailing in a line parallel to the scales dusting his left cheek.
They weren't doing so hot, and it was getting harder and harder to unleash his overdrive attacks as time wore on.
Eyes narrowing sharply, Tidus swung the Brotherhood in a sloppy arc, only to follow up with a vicious kick. If they didn't get help-- and soon-- he was going to fall into his berserker mode. Which would be bad. The blonde was unsure if he'd be able to tell friend from foe in that state.
Still, there was nothing more that could be done without help.
A short distance away from the other's fight, another Gummi Ship landed unseen on the charred landscape. Small, maybe able to fit 2 or 3 people, it hid well among what might once of been building. After a few cautious minutes the door to it's cock pit opened and a single figure stepped out.
Arados stared around at once was probably a world, now nothing more than chunk of floating debris and ruin as her dark hazel eyes looked over the land. It reminded her of something people used to talk about, what was it?... Oh yes, the apocalypse. It would certainly seem so if any survivor had seen her standing among the ruins, soft white wings fluttering softly and casting dancing shadows, her glaive held firmly in one hand.
"Hm?" Arados turned her head slightly as she saw a shadow move among the rubble. One lone shadow heartless moved towards her in a slinking motion, it's bright yellow eyes staring back at her. A heartless. Arados stared blankly at it with faint recognition. Yes, these beings... they had been in her home world. Arados took a step towards it, hand reaching out, as she remembered the silent beings that used to watch her as she played in the woods and fields.
She froze as the heartless hissed, drawing back and away from her, claws bared. Memories returned to her. Heartless... End of Days... 4 years... eternity... darkness... empty...
Arados shook her head, keeping her watch on the heartless. She drew her scythe out, pointing it at the shadow heartless. It hissed one again and scurried off, Arados following in pursuit. The farther she followed it, she realized, the more that began to appear. She spread out her wings and flapped upwards a few feet, skimming just out of reach of the claws and fangs of other heartless. Due to the flat terrain, she could see a group of heartless gathered not to far away, and... people fighting them?
Wings stopped as she caught full sight of the fight, flapping now and than to keep her hovered in mid-air. The heartless that she had followed became lost in the crowed of heartless. A dragon-girl... a brown-haired boy wielding some odd weapon... and two others who she couldn't place, though one of them, the one with golden colored hair, she could see wasn't faring to well. Most of them didn't seem to be.
For a minute Arados could only hover there as she took in this strange sight, than felt the brush of claws beneath her. Heartless eyes leered up at her, and snapped her out of her revere. She spread her wings once again, skimming forward towards the golden-haired boy, her glaive held diagonally in front of her.
"Take them on all sides!" she called on instinct, landing a few feet away from him. She swung out with her glaive, pivoting in a circle and using her wings to gain strong momentum, killing and wounding a circle of heartless around her. "GRAVIRA!" she cried out, raising her glaive as she summoned the magic to dispel the remaining heartless.
The shout caused Tidus to be distracted for but a moment, but that hardly mattered, now that whoever it was that had just arrived had cast her spell-- because the Heartless had fallen back, in surprise, fear, and death as they were attacked by a new enemy.
With the newly arrived breathing room, he grinned fierily, and launched himself at the considerably smaller group of Heartless that were attacking him. With his second wind, he laid into the creatures that had destroyed a good chunk of his life, "C'mon, you sons of--" his words were cut off as he took a jab to the stomach, but he didn't care.
He was cutting them down, and that was all that mattered as he unleashed his overdrive once more, "ENERGY RAIN!"
Sora looked up at the stranger who had flown into the battle, yelling out something about surrounding them and launching a gravira attack. He nodded at girl and swung his own keyblade.
"Graviga!" He cried out, adding his own gravity spell to the new- comers, crushing more heartless under the attack. "Guys!" He called out. "Surround em so we can all attack and finish them off, like she said!"
With that Sora ran past the remaining Heartless so he was standing outside of them and began concentrating to build up energy for an attack.
Aeon had grown tired of being slashed at by so cold heartless claws and had taken to the air himself. Watching with interest as the newcomer and Sora's combined magic pressed the heartless to the floor his beak twisted into a smirk.
Holding his hands up in the air, he put his own pryokinetic abilities to good use. As his forearms blazed back into flames again he pointed his hands down at the heartless. Slinging down balls of fire with precise movements of his hands he laughed coldly as several heartless burst into flame, only to be cut down moments later by one of the fighters below.
Arados fluttered quickly among the heartless, leaving explanations for later. Slicing quickly left and right as she passed by crowds of the dark beings, she wounded some and destroyed the others already hit. Slowly the crowd of heartless were beginning to thin.
A soft ripping noise and a twinge of pain from behind distracted her, a heartless having managed to grab a hold of the lower end of her right wing and ripping it's claws through the feathers. Arching her wings up, Arados turned and slashed through the heartless, flapping upward again.
She glided to the edge of the ring of heartless, swooping down low enough to brush the top of the heartless's antenna. Ignoring their scratches and swipes, she circled round once more baiting them, than once more focusing her glaive in their midst and shouting "GRAVIRA!".
Yasha merely grinned when another stranger flew into the scene and starting throwing spells around, another new friend to help! She smashed a Heartless in the jaw and spin-kicked another in the gut. After tearing both Heartless' heads off, she pounced over to the enclosing circle the human and humanoids were making around the Heartless.
Flapping her leathery wings, Yasha jump-kicked a Heartless, sending it spiraling into another, and launching herself towards Sora. "Yummy Haaiiir! Need any heeelp?" She sang while grinning cutely.
The brunette looked over as Yasha kicked a Heartless his way and grinned, finishing the Graviga spell he had been launching and concentrated, gold and red energy dancing around him.
He eyed the Heartless coming at him. "Sonic Blade!" He cried, becoming a crimson and gold streak, almost too fast to see and leaving nothing in it's wake. White and blue energy began to gather at the end of this attack. "Blast!" The last blow was really like a sonic blast, blasting away debris and Heartless. Sora smiled and stood up straight, surveying the area. Not a Heartless remained.
"Hey! Thanks for helping us!" Sora called out to the girl whom had helped them, also addressing the odd phoenix like man standing as well. "What's your guys' names?"
Aeon flew gently back down to the ground having seen the last heartless vanquished.
The other male who had appeared with the sinspawn and the dragon called out to him.
"Hey! Thanks for helping us! What's your guys' names?"
Aeon walked closer to the male, bending down to pick up his cloak from where he had dropped it.
Aeon felt something wet run down his arm. Looking at it he noticed a steady trickle of blood running from an open wound a heartless had given him. Closing his eyes and concentrating the cut slowly started to knit back together, with Aeon grimacing in pain as it did so.
"My name's Aeon." he said as he stood up again.
Despite himself Aeon couldn't help but be impressed.
"Nice fighting back there. You're pretty skilled with that . . . weapon . . . thing."
With the heartless finally gone, Arados landed nimbly on the ground, glaive lowered at her side. She didn't look up when she heard Sora ask her and Aeon what their names were and instead took her own time in answering.
Right wing spread out slightly and wrapped a little in front of her, she straightened the feathers where the heartless had clawed. There was hardly a wound, at least nothing left that couldn't heal fine by itself, but ruffled feathers could be very uncomfortable. Eyes fixed on her task, she repositioned each over the slight wound for protection.
Finally, she looked up, both wings falling neatly against her back once more, fixing each of the group with a wide, intense stare before looking finally to Sora. "Arados." she said simply after a moment.
Tidus barely heard either answer, eyes locked on Aeon, and growling under his breath. Sinspawn-- oh how he hated sinspawn. Ignoring that he, himself, had become one not that long ago, he loathed them with all his heart and soul.
Which was really saying something, since his heart was currently in his sword. Did that mean his sword hated them too? Ah, a question for another day-- all he cared about right now was taking out a potential threat.
What did he care that this guy helped him? He was sinspawn, and sinspawn were disgusting horrid things that meant that Yuna was still dancing for the dead. Something he had hoped to have stopped her from having to do with his sacrifice.
Ignoring his injuries from the barely finished battle, the blonde stalked over to the bird-man, and did only what he thought was right.
He lifted the Brotherhood and attempted to take Aeon's head off with it.
Aeon snarled as the other sinspawn stepped forward to swing his blade in a vicious arc at his head. Flapping his wings with all his strength he flew back up into the air, the resultant gust of wind pushing Tidus's blade off course and forcing the human to step back. Aeon's eyes burst from calm blue to fiery red in an instant, his body engulfing itself in an aura of blazing fire. With a gesture from his outstretched hand he sent a long stream of flame at the ground to hit the stop where Tidus had been standing mere seconds before.
"You DARE try that again Scale-boy and the next one doesn't miss!" Aeon said in his hissed whisper of a voice, the fury practically radiating from him with pure intensity.
"Hey hey HEY!" Sora cried, stepping between the two. "CHILL!" He said, waving his arms.
"Okay..um...Aeon was it?" Sora inquired, looking over at man pulsing with flames of rage. you give us a second?" He said before turning over to Tidus.
"Okaaaay...ah..Tidus? Dude. Chill. He's a guy with wings....who can shoot fire. No biggie. I don't know what's going on here...but ah..I don't think it requires taking this guys head off. This guy just helped us not get dead. I really don't think he's a guy you should go and kill." Sora scratched his head. "Why you would wanna kill the guy is beyond me...but can you like, hold back the urge to murder the guy? I'm sure he's not all that bad."
"And um....Aeon?" Sora said, looking over at the man, still flaming. "Ummm.....can you please not burn my friend to a crisp? He does act like an idiot sometimes, but he's a reeaaaaalllyyy nice guy and I really kinda don't want him dead. Also, it's not cool to kill the guy you just fought alongside."
Sora sweat dropped. "Ah..yeah......so ah, can you guys just NOT kill each other?"
Tidus growled, fingers clenching at the sword in his hand, "He's Sinspawn, Sora! That's a pretty big thing-- to me, to my friends, to Spira! His kind helped Sin destroy Zanarkand, Kilika, and god knows only how many millions of people!"
The blonde blitzer was practically seething in rage, glaring at this remnant of his own personal sacrifices. Had it all been in vain? Had they not actually defeated Sin? Had he left his loved ones behind to face that evil without him?
He couldn't bare the thought, couldn't stand the mere idea that Yuna had been left to deal with Sin without him by her side. His pseudo- father was his problem, and he was supposed to deal with the bastard himself!
Aeon growled at the mention of Sin, angrily pushing several memories back before they had a chance to reappear.
"You are one twisted creature if you hold every other sinspawn responsible for that thing's actions. It ever occur to you some of them might be totally innocent? I wasn't even involved!"
Aeon flew back down to the ground slowly, keeping his distance from Tidus in case he needed to make another quick ascent.
"I'm the last sinspawn that freak of nature ever created and damned if I'll stand here and listen while you blame me for a lifetime of actions I never had anything to do with!"
Aeon landed and tried to calm himself down. Fighting with brethren was not a good idea. He changed the subject, his eyes slowly changing back to blue.
He looked over at the one person who had yet to introduce herself. Some half dragon girl or something. He smiled pleasantly then turned back to Sora.
"So what's with the smoky bandits? Somehow I don't believe you came here just for the pleasures of a fight."
Arados sat against a boulder-sized piece of rubble, watching as Tidus tried to be-head Aeon and Sora tried to restrain him from doing something they just might regret. The whole time she watched silent and eerily wide-eyed, until Tidus began to talk about Spira and the sinspawn.... something that caught her attention.
Her eyes narrowed, though she remained in the same relaxed position. She listened closely, trying to piece it together. 'Sinspawn...' she thought, connecting it into relation with the Heartless. Of course, the Heartless must of not been the only creatures to be haunting the worlds once the door was opened.
"Are you sure this is wise?" Arados said quietly, sinking back into her silent revere again, staring at Sora, Tidus, and Aeon. "There could be more than just Heartless around... and he seems to be the worst of your troubles right now."
Yasha shifted her weight from one of her giant taloned feet to the other as Sora attempted to calm both Sinspawn down. Her normally cheerful appearance was replaced by a childish and confused sadness, as she seemingly was incapable of grasping what they were fighting about. Fighting anything except Heartless didn't make any logic to the dragon girl.
Yasha piped up directly after the other winged-girl quieted. "I agree! We've got bigger fish to fry! We should all get along, more friends make the road funner, right?". She tilted her head, the last statement being more of a question.
The half-Heartless decided to try and help the situation in her own way. She hopped forwards and spread her wings outwards, grinning towards Aeon. "HI! Lemme welcome you!" she squealed.
It took approximately .0005 seconds for Yasha to tackle her glomp- victim.
Aeon looked at the dragon girl about to ask her what her name was when she hopped forward.
"HI! Lemme welcome you!" she squealed.
Before he could blink her arms were wrapped around him in a vice grip of pain. He cried out in surprise, Pushing on the upper part of her arms with all his might he desperately tried to force her off.
" . . .get . . . off . . . me . . ." he gasped.
He felt the cut on his arm split open again - his healing must not have done the job properly. As the blood ran freely down his arm he pulled hard. Well that was worth freeing his arm by a whole millimeter.
" . . . You're . . . crushing . . . my . . . spine . . . and . . . wings . . . "
Seeing spots in front of his eyes Aeon closed them and concentrated, both increasing the natural body heat he gave off and trying desperately to scratch the dragon girl's arms raw with his taloned hands. But he was probably only tickling her at best.
Aeon didn't believe in faith or religion or any of that rubbish. But right now he prayed this insane beast would hurry up and let go.
Sora groaned, slapping his forehead with a gloved-hand. "Why me?" He mumbled, rubbing his temples before stepping over to the dragon-girl.
"Ah, Yasha? You're crushing Aeon's spine." The Keyblade Master said, gently tapping Yasha's shoulder. "I really don't think he wants his spine broken into many tiny little pieces, D'ya think you could let him go?"
Yasha giggled and loosened her grip ever so slightly when Aeon tickled her. A audible 'awww' was heard from the draconic female when Sora asked her to let go, which she did, and promptly latched onto Sora's spiky crown of hair.
"Okie, whatever you say, YUMMY HAIR!" She chirped happily, taking a big whiff of the brunet's hair.
Ignoring his friend's odd fetish with Sora's hair, Tidus was busily laughing himself to death-- watching the other Sinspawn get the stuffing squeezed out of him by Yasha had been great. It made him feel a whole lot better.
Finally calming himself, he gave the phoenix a long, hard look, "So maybe I don't kill you now, but I'll be watching you. You do anything towards my friends, and I will kill you, bird-boy. Even if it means destroying my body again."
Aeon turned on him, speaking in that strange whisper of a voice he possessed.
"Now you listen to me scale features. I have no interest in you, let alone killing you. Seeing as your arrival just dealt with a bunch of smoking monsters who have been following for over a day I don't want to kill anyone else gathered here either. Now can we all get off this damn rock somehow cos I would be ever so happy to leave it behind."
He folded his wings against his back and started to put the cloak back on.
Sora let out a cry of alarm as Yasha latched onto his head and started sniffing his hair. He sighed, pulling himself upright. "Yasha.." He began but decided to just let the odd dragon- girl stay on him. Hey, she'd get over her obsession eventually....
...he hoped.
The Keybearer sighed, trying his best to stand up straight. 'Well, things are going great. We're on a nice big nearly destroyed hunk of rock, Tidus and Aeon are at each others throats, who knows WHAT Arados is thinking, and I have an odd dragon girl sniffing my hair like a flower. Oh yeah, we're off to a great start so far.' He thought.
"Alright." Sora said, attempting to get everyone's attention. "Now that we're done with the nice friendly introductions, like Aeon said, let's get out of here. I really don't think there's much more we can do here, I really doubt there's anymore living things here to save. This world's pretty much lost."
'I wonder what this world looked like before it was attacked.' Sora thought. 'What were the people like? Were they peaceful? Or maybe they were always waging wars? I wonder what it would have been like if we had come earlier...'
Sora shook his head slightly. No point in thinking 'what if'. Right now he had to be thinking of the present.
"So...yeah." Sora continued. "Let's get out of here."
Aeon smiled slightly, an amazing feat seeing as he had a beak and not a mouth.
"Best thing I've heard all day. This place got kinda boring after the first two weeks of being on it. So which direction to your ship?"
He eyed the dragon girl still enjoying the aromatherapy of Sora's head. Well the kid did him a favor in getting her off so best he return it.
"Hey err Yasha was it? Maybe it might be an idea to save some hair sniffing for later, like maybe when we get to wherever it is we're all going?"
Yasha giggled, continuing to sniff at Sora's spiky hair, playing with the tussled locks of hair while the others talked. Her already dangerously large grin widened, 'Yayyay! Onto the next world we gooo!'.
Yasha blinked her owlishly large eyes at Aeon's request. Shrugging, she took one last whiff of the shampoo and conditioner scent, and gave the hair a big kiss. "I wuv you!", she happily informed the hair while hopping off of Sora.
Sora shuddered slightly. "Okaaaaaay..." He said, running a hand through his now messier then before hair. "I guess we should get going then." He looked over at Aeon and Arados. "If you want we can drop you guys off at Traverse Town or something..or..well.."
Sora grinned slightly. "Okay, here's the deal. You see them Heartless thingy's that attacked you Aeon? Well, they happen to invading every world. They're out to kinda destroy everything. I kinda beat these things once before, so now we gotta do it again. So yeah, we're traveling to other worlds to stop the Heartless. Anyways, we can either drop you guys off at Traverse Town and you guys can lead semi normal lives, or you can come with us and lead a life of total insanity and saving the world...and stuff. I mean, cause like, you guys seem like pretty good fighters. We could use some more people." The Keyblade Master grinned, extending his hand. "So, you guys wanna come along?"
Aeon considered the offer. He wasn't too pleased at being attacked by those . . . Heartless . . . and he was more than up for wiping out their kind. Besides, he doubted he would find any peace lazing around doing nothing.
He stretched out a taloned hand and grasped Sora's firmly.
"It would please me greatly to join you on your . . . quest."
Arados looked at Sora's out stretched hand, weighing what he said. After a few moments, she sighed. As if after meeting Sora, Tidus, Yasha, and Aeon she could just walk away and lead as normal a life she could get. Yeah, she could do that. And probably feel even more guilty for the rest of her life. "Sure." Arados said and shrugged, getting the feeling that this was going to a very, very interesting trip.
Sora grinned. "Alright then!" He said. "I guess we should get going then!" He began to walk towards the gummi ship, then looked back at their current rather large group.
"..Aw crap." He mumbled. "How are we going to do this? Lesee, one Gummi Ship, three seats, six people. Three with wings." Sora groaned. "How the hell are we gonna do this?"
Arados sighed once more as the problem of the Gummi Ship came up. She looked over in the direction of her Gummi Ship, still over... somewhere. "I have a Gummi Ship that we can either use to add parts onto yours... or we can break up into groups. But..." Arados trailed off as yet another flaw came into their plans. "It isn't very big." She was silent for a few more moments, glaring at a rock in frustration. Though, she was slightly amused at this. She remembered when she and Mica used to take little camping trips into the forest, and they would always forget something. 'Stop.' she told herself abruptly. From behind a ruin she could see a Heartless peep it's head out at the group.
"Or we could kill the Heartless until we have enough pieces." She added, swinging her scythe casually, a piercing iciness in her eyes.
"Killing things sounds good to me," Tidus grinned, shifting in order to be able to watch both the Heartless and Aeon at the same time, "But that's going to take one freakin' long amount of time. If we've got a way to get back to Traverse Town, we could get someone there to overhaul the gummi ships, right?"
Sora nodded, eyeing the Heartless warily. "Yeah. Cid's got a Gummi business back in Traverse Town. I get discounts, so it should be no problem making the Gummi Ship bigger or merging two."
More and more Heartless were forming, coming up from pools of darkness on the rubble strewn ground. They spotted the ground, there were so many of them the land for miles was more black then the dusty rocky red Sora had become so used to. Sora's eyes narrowed and he held out his hand to summon the Keyblade once more.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Suddenly an explosion rocked the ground and the blast knocked Sora back. A howling wind began tearing through the area and the ground began to crack, flares of obsidian and amethyst bursting from the cracks. These cracks became wider, darkness exploding from the world. Sparks of energy crackled around. Debris blew everywhere.
"I really don't think now's the best time to be fighting! This place is about to be completely annihilated, and we will be too unless we get out of here!" Sora called over the sudden chaos. "I think it's time to GO!"
Arados's eyes widened as what was left of this world began to crumble away, completing it's process of destruction. Suddenly, everything seemed to be familiar. The same loud rumble of the ground falling apart, the same sudden cold as the world began to close into itself and break apart....
For a moment a hilly, open landscape replaced the broken world in Arados's eyes. 'It's happening... again...' she thought, half terrified. She looked to the others, recognizing the same look on some of the others faces. Just as Arados was seeing her own world destroyed, they were watching theirs.
The noise began to get louder in Arados's ears, almost deafening into noise so loud, it was deafening. She wanted to leave this place, now. "Hurry!" she half shouted, backing up slowly, flapping up into the air a few feet to surpass the cracking ground.
"I'm definitely for the getting the hell out of here!" Tidus yelped, jumping away from a fissure that had opened between his legs. He didn't give himself much more time to think, tearing across the landscape back towards the Gummi Ship he's arrived on, and hoped to whatever gods were out there that the ship was still there.
Thankfully, it was, and he scrambled in madly, heart pounding as he watched the world crumble away. It was like watching Destiny Islands fade all over again, which was not something he really wanted to see. He saw some of the others board Arados' ship, and nodded to himself in thankfulness-- they wouldn't have all fit into one ship, after all.
Hitting the buttons to slam the doors shut, he was yanked out of the captain's chair by Sora, who rapidly input the coordinates their destination-- Traverse Town-- into the computer, and began lift-off sequence.
It wasn't until they had completely left the dying world, with Arados' ship in tow that he looked around himself to see who was on the ship with him.
Just his luck, he moaned mentally. It's the bird boy.
This was going to be a looooooong trip.
Yasha gave a panicked yelp as the ground gave way beneath her, the draconic half-Heartless barely launching into the air in time before getting dragged down into the bowels of the doomed world. She immediately hit the ground running a few feet away, dashing with her wings still outspread to make it to the closest Gummi Ship, which happened to be Arados'.
Hoping the girl wouldn't mind a bit off odd company, Yasha grabbed the door with one clawed hand and swung herself inside, landing in a heap on the floor. She dragged herself over to a chair, which she half-collapsed in, eyes swirling.
"Wow...that was....fun..."
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End Chapter One