K² ::Rise K to the Second Keyblade::
Once people prayed to Blue Sky for something.
The craving for power gave birth to the Heartless.
The Heartless drove people to the depths of ruin.
And then it has calmed down.
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Author's Notes: (12/20/04) Sorry for the long long delay! I promised, but I couldn't keep it. (slumps head) The finals are finally over so I can relax now. As for keeping this out for so long, another chapter after this one has been submitted. Both chapters three and four were done for quite some time, but I got too lazy to send them in. Oh, and CoM...is fun! Bashing heartless using a different system is fun. I'm taking my nice time into playing it unlike those who just decided to beat it in one day (can't understand that either). Hades is hard! Period.
(A.N. Original) I've decided to now call my fan experiment under a made up company called Fan-Enix since I can't help it already! () I'm having too much fun thinking of what to do to this story that I practically drew K² fan-art in a sketchbook. Chapter Two has been renovated a little at its end, since I found a mistake, and a few dividers were placed in as well.
This present Chapter does incorporate the other Disney and FF characters into the story rather blunt. Goofy and Donald though, I do hope will be able to stick by Sora's side in a few chapters ahead. For now, they're…well, you'll see. Chapter Three also marks the starting of the story to break away from R²'s storyline rather slowly. One final thing. It would probably be considered a bit PG because Tidus says something that's suppose to mirror what's in the manga.
Special Thanks goes to the following:
FairysLight- Once again! Thank you. I appreciate you putting me in your Favorites. Pleasure of having you follow Sora's journey tightly. Hehe..
Lyphe- Ah! I was hoping to catch someone who read the manga to comment here (as other people would surely have). Thank you and I will (a little too late now for my response..).
Dislcaimer: I don't own anything! Seriously! I'm not joking! Do I look like I'm joking!? Really now.. I'm not! Honest! I hide nothing behind my sleeve!
K-chan: Do you not know that you placed exclamations in just about every one of those sentences?
Tomogirl (whacks him on the head with Donald's Shooting Star): Do you not know that you just ruined the effect of the disclaimer? (turns to readers and bows apologetically) On with the story…
Quotation Key:
"text"-quote
'text'-thoughts
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Chapter 3: It Has Only Begun
Two silhouettes were staring at a big huge HD screen. Everything else in the room was in total darkness.
"Did you get the readings right?"
"Yes. There is no mistake of that huge amount of energy being recorded in the computer. That was an Omega Warp emitted from a normal human body."
"And an hour later?"
"That was another Omega Warp emitted from what I can tell is Hikari." Sounds of scribbling could be heard once this person stopped talking.
"So it's true. The Awakening has occurred. Therefore, that first human body has to be the keyblade master?"
"Correct."
"…….. Prepare the ship for Gummi Warp. We're heading for Hollow Bastion, ….now!"
--
--
"Oh phooey! I lost again!", a high pitch voice was quacking from a white duck dressed all in blue. His hat's tiny golden tassel was swinging in every direction due to his head moving all the time. He was sitting on a long purple sofa, facing a large flat screen TV. Wires from the front of the TV led all the way to a small gray box sitting in the middle of the floor, which indicated itself as some kind of video game machine. Next to the duck was an orange haired guy, with a blue head band, who looked down at him with a silly grin.
"Stop complaining! You won all 23 rounds of the last game,"
"Hey!…Uh, garwsh. What are you guys doing?", a tall dog-like creature with a green hat entered the room through a sliding door.
"Playing only the latest game to hit the market! MetroDome!", the guy said excitedly as he began punching hard on his controller staring at the screen.
"Is it hard?"
"Ah. Whaddya know Goofy. It's just a game. Nothing important that you'll need to know. Did he come back yet?"
"Nope."
"Heh. Figures. He must be using his powers strategically as usual," the duck rolled his eyes.
"What was that? That rolling eyes move you did, mister Donald? Do I sense the feeling of jealousy toward our own captain?", the human had to say something sarcastic to the duck.
"And what are you staring at, Wakka?", the duck glared hard at him. Goofy left the room sighing. Everyone had something busy to do except him. He walked up to a window and gazed deeply into what's on the other side. Billions of stars. Planets. If the King was still with them, he'll bet even more exciting things could've happened, but as for now, everything's moving slowly. Time itself, was ticking one step at a time. The heartless must've surely devoured thousands of worlds by now.
--
Twisting. Turning. The heat of the event was consuming him. Heartless were everywhere making safety the first thing that comes to mind. A window appeared in front of him and the only way to escape these nightmares was to jump through it.
Sora's eyes bolted open. Sunlight was strewn everywhere in his sight.
'Am I dead?', His arms were spread out making his body formed in a cross-like formation. His back was laying against something soft. Soft enough to feel like… He sat up quickly and turned around only to be faced with a pillow and a bed sheet.
"Yes!", Sora fanned his face with relief and laughed at the same time, "It was only a dream. It felt so real though. Those black creatures kept showing up. Then this box opened and out popped this girl." The minute, he said that, the little red hair girl appeared out from underneath the bed's blanket and was staring up at him with those same innocent blue eyes. Sora's happy expression became frozen. It was like that for a few seconds before it changed into a face of sheer terror.
"Agh! That girl's in my bed!", Sora frantically jumped away from his bed and laid himself flat against his bedroom wall. He quickly looked to his bottom left, seeing that his roller blades were sitting there on the floor resting upon each other.
"Soraaa! You up!?", a cheerful voice was calling from the other side of the bedroom door complete with a few knocks. The door then opened and out popped the head of Tidus. His eyes grew big noticing what was going on.
"Hmmmmmm. You weren't doing anything immoral were you?", the blonde looked between Sora and the girl with a suspicious expression.
"No! Of course not!!", Sora began to blush at this question with annoyance.
"Hey, chill. I'm just teasing my favorite co-worker! Mwahaha! Listen, we were all worried as to what happened to you last night. You should've seen the Boss! He was practically bashing our heads madly with questions. Anyways, we're just glad to have you back in one piece."
Sora's eyes bulged when the thought finally hit him.
"Tidus? How did I get home?"
"What? You're telling me you don't know? Ah well. Guess you did get abducted by a UFO or something…"
"Hey!!"
"Just kidding again! It was strange actually. We were about to storm out of the store holding up a search party just for you, when a sudden soft knocking was at the door. It looked like a child was outside so I opened it up, and found you laying on the ground, unconscious. I picked you up and noticed that that red hair girl appeared to be stuck with you as she followed me into the store."
Sora stared back at the girl with an apprehensive look.
"She's stuck with me?"
"Guess so! Hohoho! Good luck babysitting! I'm heading off downstairs so you better hurry or else, you'll be grounded by the Boss….for the hundredth time!", Tidus stuck his tongue out before closing the room's door. Sora groaned before noticing, the girl was no longer on his bed. Turning a little to his right, he easily spotted her, going toward his small bookshelf. She was tip-toeing in order to pick up some kind of small key that was just sitting there on a middle row. A small key…..with a tiny handle at the end of it.
"Hey! Don't touch that!", Sora ran over and grabbed the key away from her. Suddenly, he felt his hand, that held the key, was beginning to get warm. A light streak appeared pushing itself through his fingers and then another, and another. Eventually, his whole hand was surrounded by an explosion of light.
'!?', Once the light flashed, it was already over. Sora opened his squinting eye and looked at what was in hand now. A long big version of the key. It even had something hanging from the end of it now. Something, that looked like the shape of a mouse's head connected by a chain. The boy blinked and gave a quick shout dropping the gigantic key onto the floor. He stared at the girl who could only stare back up at him.
"Okay Sora. This is just getting too weird again. Pull yourself together and pretend nothing like this happened at all," he found himself talking to no one as he scratched his head. He turned to the girl again expecting her to say something, but sighed knowing nothing good will come out of his doing. After putting away the key inside a closet, he began to do his morning chore before heading downstairs to work. The girl was trailing behind him almost in a clingy fashion.
When he got to the kitchen, he began to feel something was going abnormal. Mostly everyone was crowding inside the kitchen, looking through its window into the customer area. Even the Boss was looking through it with that stern look of his.
"Morning! What's going on?"
"Shhhh! There's a suspicious customer sitting over there," an older boy was aiming his thumb at a stranger wearing a long brown detective coat. The hat matched with the outfit covering over half of the stranger's face. His gloved hands are what made him more suspicious.
"Is he some kind of out-of-towner?"
"Don't know. Looks like one, right? One of us tried getting his order but he wouldn't say anything." At that very moment, the door opened and this time, it was Sophie who entered into the store. Sora could feel his face growing pale at the moment. Although, he never met her before, something told him that she was connected to the black haired girl, he met yesterday. Her attire was pretty similar and the big long bag, that was on her shoulder, reminded him of a sword. She sat herself far away from the stranger who seemed to have taken no notice of her. One of the workers exited out of the kitchen and greeted the girl whole heartedly.
"Welcome to "Cid's 100 Juice Shack". Do you want to see our new Juice Special menu or go with the regular?"
"Neither, thank you," the girl smiled up at him, "I just want one glass of water with sugar lemon please. I'm not going to be here too long."
"Alright then. Your water will be right up, miss," the worker did the small bow before going back to the kitchen with a puzzled look on his face, "She's another strange one too. Never have I heard of someone ordering just simply water from our store before."
"Hm. Ya' know Sora?" Tidus gave the kid a wide grin, "You seem to know her from somewhere. I saw your face get really white like a ghost. Why don't you serve her the water?"
"Ah!? ..But..," Sora couldn't even protest another single word before he was standing outside the kitchen door holding onto a tray with the water, "Darn. Why do I end up always being the carrier boy?" The red head was trailing behind him with one hand curving into a fist holding it right up at her mouth. The other hand was still clinging onto his shorts.
"He-here you go, maam," the spiky hair boy couldn't stop himself from feeling nervous as he handed her the glass. He got the instant feeling, something was about to happen again.
"Thank you," she gently took the water and began mixing the sugar lemon in (since it was put aside in a mini dish), "Isn't it strange? There are some things in this world that are hard to be compatible with. When you think about it, there is water and then we got sugar lemon. You mix them together and you'll still have some sourness going on inside itself, even if you can't see it."
"Eh?", Sora stared at her in wonder. He couldn't understand the fact that she was giving him some kind of a hint. A sound could be heard on the other side of the room. The stranger began taking off his clothing only to reveal..
"Hey kid! We're back for Hikari!", the two shrooms were balancing themselves on top of each other to look like some kind of totem pole. The boy's eyes twitched in frustration.
"You're those mushroom monsters! How'd you guys find me!?"
"First of all, we're known as 'Rare Truffles'. Not 'mushroom monsters'! Secondly, you gave us that card. Remember!? Geez. This kid definitely must've had some kind of a freak accident when he was a baby."
"Oh.. Yeah. That's right. Now that I think about it.," Sora didn't have time to think though as the girl, he was serving, got up and unzipped her bag. The mushroom heads shrieked realizing who it was.
"It's Leon's Vice-Commander! How'd she get here!?"
"As I said, I won't be here for long," she took out a long purple staff; shaped on the top with a symbol for the moon. Pointing it at a frozen Sora, she beamed her last smile at him.
"I'll see you later kid. It's been great fun meeting you and Hikari too," she beamed quickly looking from the boy to the girl, and lifted the staff high at the ceiling before executing her final move, "Omega Warp-G!" A gush of wind started to flow through the room from out of nowhere. Everyone's hair got caught with the howls and flowing air. After the wind died down, a sound of one single loud clap echoed in around the room. A large (tiring scene) flash of light formed in the room's center for only a second. As soon as it disappeared, Sora and the little red head was gone once again. The two shrooms grumbled before running out of the store in fear. Sophie packed her staff into the bag and turned to face all of the shock stricken store workers who were rooted at the window.
"I'm sorry, but this situation had to be called on in an emergency. Thank you for your hospitality," she bowed low, and turned toward the store's front door swiftly. A few colorful geometric boxes were flown from her hand, through the air, and landed successfully on her once seated table. When she was gone from sight, the worker who got down Sophie's order began to relax, but couldn't get the entire scene out of his head.
"Great. She gave us munny for the water. Who is she and what did she do to Sora?" Tidus, on the other hand, couldn't stop staring at the spot where Sora once stood.
"Sora was just there, wasn't he?" The last important person in the room was Cid, who was on one side of a wall, in a pensive mood and kept silent for the rest of the day.
--
"So this is where you've been, Sora", he repeated the name so many times, he practically lost count of them. It took him months for his search to go through. Other than the major duties that was ultimately in his care, he felt that this search was far more important than the rest of them. Even if it pained him from having to do so. His sharp green eyes turned to examine the town he was in. Everything was paradise. Kept nestled between five other islands. Who wouldn't want to live here? It could be comparable to where he once was from. The boy shook his head to keep any more thoughts from entering his mind. He was hiding himself in a shadow of a building that overlooked the ocean in clear view. The main spying target though, was the town's only juice store.
"Drats! Why couldn't that girl leave us alone!?" The boy's head straightened as he saw two small black figures in blue coats running out of the store.
"Wherever we go, she's there! Remember that last incident that involved the bicycle?"
"Oh please. Don't even go there Medot! I wanna hear no more out of your mouth!"
"Heh. Well, at least, we'll have to admit that she got to the keyblade master and Hikari first."
"Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Admit the grandeur defeat. Jafar's not going to like what we just did."
"", and their voices grew smaller as they dashed down the boardwalk into a tiny dot. The boy walked out onto the boardwalk, watching the two shrooms, before turning around to look back at the juice store. They mentioned something about Sora. His eyes moved up and down the building. Looked like some kind of apartment complex on top of the store. Was it possible that Sora lived in there? Not taking any other chances, he ran right up to the store's side wall.
"Mega Gravira!", he yelled not caring if any passerby actually heard him. He already ignored several gawks from walkers at his strange outfit. Once saying that spell word, he was running on the wall, heading right for the roof. He landed on the top of the building with one drop of sweat. It was easy to locate the door that took him down. The hard part was navigating around the building without being caught by any of the store's workers. Going down two flights of stairs, he found the door that took him into a long wooden floor hallway. He smirked seeing that his speculation was correct after peering into one of the rooms. His tour of the floor leaved him with nothing. Heading back to the stairs carefully, he walked down the next set of floors. This hallway was painted a little differently from the floor above him, but nevertheless, an un-going pattern of bedrooms were still going on.
Upon reaching the second to last bedroom of the hall on its right-hand side, he began to sense a familiar aura spread out all around it. Not to mention, the room's ingredients: a messy looking bed, a bookshelf, a few clothes laid out on the floor, and an open window. The boy began to smile.
"You have changed. Little mister slob now." He advanced toward the room's closet door. Opening it up, the keyblade greeted him in the face. His hand went up in a reaching position, about to grab the key, but was interfered as he could now sense someone was behind him.
"Who…..are you? Why are you in Sora's room? How did you even get here without going through our store's first level?", Tidus approached the boy with caution. The silver head turned around slowly. His short straight hair was banging against his cheeks evenly since it only went down to his neck. He was quiet though as he waited for what else, this particular boy had to say. Tidus eyed the intruder's outfit with a serious look, "Are you some kind of a criminal or something? Dressed all in black… Hey!", he watched, rooted on his feet, as the other boy grabbed the keyblade, and ran right past him. Yet, very distinctly did Tidus manage to hear the boy speak to him as he went by.
"I am here to redeem a friend!" He then paused at the room's doorway before giving a sweeping bow. Tidus was about to walk up to him, but made it there too slow for the boy was out of the room, and eventually, the entire building. Sighing, he looked back at Sora's open closet door with a worried look.
"Was that a gigantic key in there? Anyways, Sora, you better come back. I can't help to think that you must be the most wanted guy in the galaxy."
--
"Ahhh---Ow!", Sora felt himself hurled through some open space into a dark opening. Passing through it, he then landed upon a cold hard floor face down. The red head landed gracefully though, on her two bare feet.
"Seriously, if I keep going through these odd warp-like things, I'm going to have a major huge headache that would last for a month!", groaning as he rubbed the back of his head with his two hands. Looking up and around him, he was in some kind of gigantic room filled with several monitors and computers. Only the sounds of a few hums were to be heard. The spiky hair boy got to his feet and began walking around the room. What's unique about the room itself is that, it's very bright and colorful. Even more, it looked like it was made entirely out of building blocks.
"What is this place?" At that very moment, a door, on the opposite end of the room, opened with a hiss sound. Three figures emerged from the doorway. Two of them, he recognized, but the third person was of no recollection.
"Well, it's about time you got here," snorted Yuffie as she placed both hands at her waist, "I was beginning to think that our Vice-Commander sent you to the moon."
"Yuffie, be polite! He's going to be here with us for awhile," Aerith placed one hand on top of the shorter girl's head, "so you'll need to get along with him."
"Sure, if only he pulled his act together and be more like the person, he's suppose to be," Yuffie pointed out with a frown.
"Huh?", Sora blinked, "Wait, you're telling me that I'm going to be here for awhile?"
"Boy, are you slow," the black haired girl simply shook her head.
"Yes. More will be explained later as we move on. Yuffie, can you please bring Hikari here?", Aerith asked as she decided that she heard enough comments from her companion. The shorter girl obliged, taking a hold of the child carefully, and walk her over to where the third person is.
"Where are you taking her!?", Sora couldn't believe he was actually demanding such a question. The third person placed one arm around the red hair girl's shoulder and looked at Sora directly in the eye. He was giving the younger boy a harsh glare.
'Wha!? Why do I feel so intimidated by him? It's as if, he could see right through me…,' Sora felt chills and a little fear. His eyes daringly treaded up to the figure's forehead to see a scar shaped in the form of an 'x'. From that point on, he didn't want to actually know more about this man. A man with shoulder length dark brown wavy hair and wearing a simple vest. A single chain bearing a cross hanged from his neck. He turned around leading the red head through the door. Once they were gone, Aerith turned to Sora with another one of her smiles.
"Don't worry about Hikari. She'll be fine. As for you though, you're going to have to take a special test."
"A-a test!? You're kidding me right!? I'm not the best test taker there is…"
"Oh no. Nothing like a writing exam. This one doesn't require any pencil or paper."
"Then, what does it require?", Sora raised one eyebrow up as he asked this. He obviously didn't seem like the type who would think of anything above what he's use to. Yuffie had to be the one who grinned at this thought. She tried her best to stifle a laugh as she said an answer.
"Your mind."