Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to anything used in this fic, except the name of the DEK, that was all me ;).
A/N: I should be studying for finals right now, but where's the fun in that?
This fic should probably only be about maybe three chapters at most after this one and that's absolute most.
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Normal POV
Skyes charged at his next target, Yuffie. In the background Yuffie could see the once-leader Madame clutching her stomach before dropping to the cold stone floor in defeat. Yuffie took a deep breath and grounded her feet, there wasn't much time. In the corners Tidus, Leon, and Paine quietly withdrew their weapons and fingered the triggers/handles. They knew the end was coming.
Yuffie did a quick back flip to get herself out of Skyes pathway and began firing shruikens at him in a rapid succession. He, needless to say, fell quickly. Maleficent rose from the chair she had been seated in the whole time.
"I must say, you are a feisty one. It's a shame you don't really work for the former DEK." she said sarcastically.
"Why would I want to work for a dysfunctional group that hated each other?" Yuffie said with a smile. Maleficent's face remained neutral. Yuffie put her hand on top of her head and pretended to smooth her hair. This was the signal. Without warning Leon, Paine, and Tidus dashed out from their corners, their weapons in action-mode.
"Well so you do have friends. I would think before you finish me off…" Maleficent began, but Yuffie cut her off.
"We're not going to finish you off yet. But we will hurt you, and yes we could finish you off if necessary." Yuffie said, then realized what she had just said didn't really make sense.
"You poor simple fools, you dare think you can defeat me?" she boomer, clearly angry. Yuffie took this as the perfect timing to begin the fight.
They weren't fighting to finish her off, not yet. There still was too much information that she probably knew. They had no clue what exactly the boss wanted with Rikku or Yuna for that matter. Gippal and Baralai were also missing, and there was the age-old question of the food delivery service which had landed them there.
However it took most of their strength just to attempt to hurt her to a point where she would give in to their demands. First Paine twirled the large wooden rod Aerith had given her around and cast a blindness spell on Maleficent.
"Nice." Yuffie commented as she administered potions frequently and threw shruikens. Leon managed to get some decent hits with his gunblade in before getting it knocked out of his hands. Finally Maleficent began clutching her chest and sat down in the chair winded. She closed her eyes and waited for one of the three to finish her off. After about a minute she opened her eyes again and felt something hard around her wrists.
"Don't even think it. Those chains having a coating on them that will prevent you from escaping, even with magic." Paine said. Yuffie was standing behind her, next to Leon. They both had their weapons in their hands. Tidus was on the other side of her; during the fighting he had run across the room and found the chains. The others hadn't needed him, so he had set up this little interrogation area while they were fighting.
"So, Maleficent is it?" Tidus asked harshly, which was so out of character for him Paine almost laughed.
"Not to you." she snapped. Paine rolled her eyes and took a bomb core out of a pouch. While she was in Traverse Town picking up Leon and Yuffie she had stopped by the items and accessory shops.
"Don't make me use these." Paine warned, waving the bomb in front of Maleficent's face.
"Fine, what do you want to know?" She caved. Tidus smiled and looked over at Yuffie who smiled as well. Leon's face remained neutral while he kept asking himself why was he here again.
"Everything." Yuffie answered with a giggle, but she quickly stuck her hand over her mouth to quiet her laughter.
"I guess I should start with the beginning," Maleficent sighed, wondering why she should even bother keeping quiet, they were bound to find out sooner or later. "Two years ago I was living in my castle, in my home nation, when my pet found a very peculiar note. It was addressed to me and from the boss. The noted simply stated if I wanted to save my home planet then to meet him at Hallow Bastion. That was it, no date, no time, and no address. I took the note to be a prank and continued with my plans to overthrow King Stephen. However when I was defeated by Prince Phillip and Aurora overcame my curse I felt very weak. If a force as transparent as love could overpower me surely I wasn't suited for ruling a kingdom? Right?" Maleficent looked at the faces of her listeners, they all stood quietly and shrugged. She continued her story, "A few months later I was recuperating in my castle when another note came. This one was also from the boss; it said if I wanted to be more powerful then one could imagine then to come to Hallow Bastion. This time it has a key attached to the letter. The key was a small almost mini-keyblade. I took the key and found a Gummi ship in the basement of my castle. I went inside and found another note. It said 'Bring Aurora to Hallow Bastion'. Without any questions I captured Aurora fairly easily and took her prisoner in my ship."
"Wow." Yuffie breathed, Maleficent shot a quick glare at her. Tidus had pulled up a chair and was sitting on its edge, listening closely.
"When I boarded the ship this time the coordinates were pre-set for Hallow Bastion and I arrived there within six hours. The boss was waiting for me and my prisoner Aurora at the entrance to Rising Falls. He told me his name was Ansem and he and his brothers Sephoroth and Seymour were planning the biggest event to ever threaten the universe. They took Aurora and put her in this very room, along with some other princesses from various worlds. Then a huge group of us met. The DEK you saw here was only a small fraction of our forces. Ansem and his brothers had assembled an army of villains. Our purpose was to find eight princesses of heart and bring them to him. Along the way we were to find the keyholes of any worlds we visited. These keyholes lead to world's heart. Ansem ordered us to prevent the keyhole from being sealed and to use the keyhole to control the heartless in the world. He warned us of a key barer." Maleficent paused as all eyes became fixed on Sora who even in his slumber was clutching a giant key.
"Sora." Yuffie said what everyone was thinking, Maleficent nodded.
"Yes, Ansem told us he himself would take care of the world the key barer resided in and he did. He told us the key barer would try to stop us by using the power of the light to overcome the darkness. He told us the darkness, however, was the most powerful thing in existence. He told us if we helped him we could use the eight princesses' hearts to unlock the final keyhole and find Kingdom Hearts. He told us only then would we have true power over the heartless." Maleficent stopped again and took a deep breath. The little group was all leaning in hanging on to every word she spoke.
"I think I can fill in a few blanks," Paine said, "Ansem wanted power and he needed princesses. Those princesses were located all over the universe so he summoned their enemies to capture them, and the pay for capturing them was a slice of the power he was going to acquire?"
"Simply put, yes. But there is more," Maleficent continued, "So while Ansem had six of the princesses we still needed two more. They were not easy to find as their worlds did not have an antagonist. Kairi, the princess of Hallow Bastion, was found seventh. Unfortunately she was useless without her heart. We still don't know where it is, and we can only assume our plan is a failure for if she is a heartless then she will not be able to open the door."
"Kairi is a heartless?" Yuffie asked. Maleficent half shrugged half nodded.
"Looks that way, we're not positive though. Something is leading us to believe that the heart is in the castle, she seems to be responding to something for she had shown signs of consciousness recently." Maleficent paused a bit too long.
"On with it." Leon urged fiercely. Maleficent shot him a glare, but was met with an equally flame-freezing expression. She felt hopeless.
"Fine. The last princess of heart was located in Spria. A world none of the DEK had ever heard of it took us almost six months to find it. All we knew was to search for a girl named Yuna; we were told she was a summoner. When some of our members arrived in Spira we learned that Yuna was to be staying at one of two houses. The DEK wasn't one to take chances when it came to the princesses of heart, so we decided to abduct the occupants of both houses and bring them all to Hallow Bastion. So began a mission. When we intercepted your telephone lines we heard that you were ordering pizza and the others were ordering Chinese food. So we simply took the uniforms and posed as your delivery personnel. Viola, I think you understand where the story goes from there, on our ships we figured out who was the real Yuna and dumped the rest of you in Traverse Town. Baralai or whatever his name is managed to stay aboard the ship and when he arrived here we quickly fed him to the heartless." Maleficent chuckled and Paine made a fist.
"Why I ought to…" Paine started to swing at Maleficent but Leon grabbed her wrist before it was too late.
"No good will come of that." he whispered in her ear. She didn't respond, but dropped her fist into her lap.
"I can only guess that when you arrived in Traverse Town, you realized you were missing Yuna, etc. and went off to play hero. And to help the key barer in his mission to save the worlds. You realize if he does that our hard work will be ruined." Maleficent snarled; she was regaining her strength now. "You don't realize something. The darkness is more powerful then love, Ansem gave up his peoples and killed his own two brothers just to have more control. The darkness consumes hearts and soon enough, even if you finish off me, your hearts will also be consumed."
Yuffie fought back all her emotions and flung her shruiken at Maleficent. "Rule number one in war, all is fair in LOVE and war. Also next time, and there won't be a next time, try to remember not to spill the only thing keeping you alive." Yuffie grinned and aimed her weapon at Maleficent's heart. They all closed their eyes and waited silently for the deed to be done. When they opened their eyes Maleficent's body was dissolving and a red heart was floating skyward.
About an hour later
Paine, Leon, Tidus, and Yuffie had all been sitting around in the large room waiting for Sora and Riku to wake up. The sleeping potion hadn't worn off yet and it was only a matter of time before the brother-killing Ansem found out his entire army of allies was dead. Luckily with the DEK out of the way they didn't have to worry about being caught, except by Ansem, who they were planning on fighting anyway. That assumption was a mistake.
"I see you've made yourselves comfortable." A familiar voice boomed. The doors opened to reveal Rikku, decked out in all black, entering the room. Paine and Tidus' jaws dropped. Rikku hated black and at the moment she looked like some anti-Rikku evil twin.
"Is something wrong Rikku?" Tidus asked, stating the obvious. Riku and Sora began to stir on their beds, perfect timing.
"Of course not, now that we found you. The boss will attend to you in a moment; right now he's a bit pre-occupied." Rikku stated as if she were telling Tidus that she wanted a turkey sandwich for lunch.
"Rikku…"Riku moaned quietly as he woke up. The entire room's eyes turned and became focused on him. Rikku's eyes flashed their natural green before returning to black.
"Finally you're awake." Paine muttered. Yuffie and Leon edged forward and looked at Sora's face. His eyes were still closed in a deep sleep.
"Is everything alright Rikku? You feeling okay?" Tidus asked. Everyone in the room, but Rikku, simultaneously rolled their eyes at him. "What?" he asked defensively.
"I see you have eliminated the DEK, thank you in advance for making my job a lot easier." Rikku said in that villain-y was of hers.
"Excuse me?" Yuffie asked, she withdrew her shriukens.
"I was sent here to finish them off, so the boss could have them out of the way, but I see you've already done that for me. Now if you'll please hand over the keyblade and leave we can finish this without a fight."
"We haven't come this far for nothing." Yuffie said, but it seemed she was alone.
"Rikku, stop. Think. Back up. We're your friends; we are here to rescue you. Please try and understand that." Tidus begged.
"We don't want to fight you," Paine added, "but we will if it's necessary."
"I won't." Riku said from the bed he was sitting up on. All eyes fell on him once again. He stood up from the bed and walked over to Rikku. "If nothing else remember that I never hurt you." he said softly so only she could hear. Her eyes flashed again.
A heavy wooden door swung open and all eyes instinctively flew to it. Gippal stepped into the room, dirty, wrinkled, out of breath, and still looking as hot as ever.
"I finally found you. Rikku are you alright?" Gippal panted without looking up from the ground. When he did he was Riku and Rikku standing next to each other, Rikku looking totally different and dressed in a pair of black felt Nike Active Pants® and a form fitting black camisole. Her eyes were a stormy black instead of their usual green swirls. "Oh my god what has he done to you?" he asked, as he ran over and scooped Rikku up in his arms.
"Put me down." she hissed. Gippal didn't seem happy with the request, but he complied. "Leave or I will hurt you!" she screamed, picking up where she left off. Gippal seemed a little shocked and back up a few steps, Riku stayed put.
Suddenly Wakka charged into the room with a small handgun, much like the one that had been with the Chinese delivery woman that night they were all abducted. "Is it go time yet Gippal?" he asked without taking in his surroundings. Everybody in the room sighed and Rikku moved away with a quick pace.
"I will be back shortly." she muttered before leaving the room. Sora began waking up.
"Did I miss anything?" he asked as he rubbed the sleep from his heavy eyelids. Yuffie sighed and began to fill him in on the details.
Exactly Forty-five minutes and Three point eight seconds later
"Miss me?" Rikku called in the Dungeon of the Hearts as she swung open the doors to the large room. Ansem followed close behind. Something was not right. The room was barren.
"You said they were here." He grumbled before snapping his fingers twice. A black portal formed in the center of the hallway and Ansem began to step into it.
"Wait! They are here! I know they are! They couldn't have escaped!" Rikku pleaded. Ansem just shook his head and muttered a few curses.
"Well they left and we need to find them and the keyblade they posses." he said harshly.
"Actually there's something I forget to tell you." Rikku grinned a little and pulled a black keyblade out from thin air. "I took this off Riku when he was speaking with me. I think it should serve our purposes quite nicely." Ansem's lips formed a small smile.
"Excellent, now bring that boy to me and make sure no one follows." he nodded in brief acknowledgment and exited the room through the portal.
Rikku sighed heavily and put her hands in front of her face she hastily created a portal destined for Traverse Town and stepped into it. The faster she got this over with the faster Ansem would release her. Not only did he have power over her, but he was also abusing herself and Yuna.
Traverse Town
Tidus was the first one off the Gummi ship, followed by Yuffie. They were all headed for the hotel for a quick night's sleep. Then they were going to gather some supplies and head to Hallow Bastion in the morning in hopes of defeating Ansem and breaking whatever mind control he had over Rikku. And to save Kairi and Yuna…and Baralai.
Wakka and Gippal had come along skeptically, they didn't really want to leave the castle and most of all Gippal didn't really want to leave Rikku. He had a feeling that the 'boss' just had some mind trap set over her and she was acting on that. He made a mental note to buy her an outfit for when they freed her, that way she wouldn't have to walk around in her possessed clothing after being freed. He silently congratulated himself for being so thoughtful.
"Tidus, Leon, Sora, Wakka, and Riku to one room me and Paine to the other!" Yuffie shouted as they made their way down the street.
"No way, five to two? You guys have to at least one extra person." Sora whined.
"Fine, Leon can stay with us because he shares a room with me normally, so all his clothes and stuff will already be there. Aerith will stay with us too…and you guys can sleep in her room." Yuffie compromised. Everyone agreed and they came to the hotel quickly, they only had to fight about a hundred heartless…
"The heartless are increasing in number," Leon whispered to Paine, "that's a bad sign." Paine considered this logical comment.
"Well on the bright side Rikku was trained nicely in fighting, I guess I trained her well on the warrior dressphere." Paine answered. Leon nodded and thought of what to say for his answer. He realized everybody else was also deep in conversation and nobody was paying any attention to the silent warriors.
"I don't use dresspheres, but if I did I'm guessing warrior would be my favorite." Leon said finally.
"You get to whack bad guys with a big sword, what could be better?" Paine said, she even surprised herself at the fact that she just made a joke.
"Whacking two bad guys with a sword." Leon said, chuckling a bit. Before they knew it they had arrived at the hotel.
Paine, Yuffie, Leon, and Aerith decided to stay in the Red Room, Paine and Leon would be on watch duty for the night. Riku, Sora, Wakka, Gippal, and Tidus agreed to stay in the Green Room with Wakka and Tidus on watch duty. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, everyone seemed happy and eager to finally get a night's rest. Little did they know they were all thinking the same thing, they would all rather be back at Hallow Bastion rescuing one of their friends.
At Traverse Town's World Exit
Rikku finally arrived at Traverse Town after much physical difficulty. Her powers seemed to be weakening somehow and she wasn't sure why. An outside chance that Ansem's powers were weakening might be to blame.
Rikku came up on the whole via the Alleyway; she quietly crept around the stone buildings and saw the balconies of the hotel. Two silhouetted figures which seemed to be deep in conversation. Upon further inspection one of the figures was Paine and the other was a guy with longish brown hair. They were probably on watch duty, but Rikku noticed that they weren't paying attention to anything but the conversation they were having with each other.
Rikku quietly crept through the alley and worked her way into the first balcony. Two Wizard Heartless appeared in front of her, Rikku acted quickly, throwing two small dark spheres and them and capturing their essence. She directed them to inside the hotel room. 'Better have them weakened before I even make my entrance' Rikku thought slyly.
Inside the Green Room
"Tidus stop spilling Coke all over my frickin' bed!" Gippal yelled at Tidus for the seventh time that evening. Tidus didn't listen for the seventh time and remained seated on the large bed guzzling soda and playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City with Wakka.
"We should probably get some sleep if we want to be well rested for the battle tomorrow." Sora said shyly from the corner. Three sets of eyes turned and glared at him simultaneously. "Never mind." Sora mumbled sheepishly.
"I agree with Sora," Riku said as he unplugged the PS2, "we're going to be fighting the biggest battle ever to be fought in the entire universe. We're going to be fighting for our friends, family, country, worlds, even our own hearts. We can't even be the slightest bit tired or we'll risk a failure to win. And I don't know about you, but I do not want to be around in this world if we fall to Ansem." Hesitantly Gippal agreed.
"At least it'll stop Tidus from spilling Coke all over my bed." he reasoned. Wakka got up and flicked the lights off in the room.
"All right men, we sleep and tomorrow we fight!" Wakka whooped and Tidus let out a cheer. Then in a millisecond they all succumbed to sleep.
Rikku entered the room quietly. Her eyes were already adjusted to the darkness of the room, surprisingly she didn't see the Wizards she had teleported there. 'You mustn't rely too heavily on the darkness' powers.' Ansem had warned her, she hadn't listened and now she could really feel her powers weakening, but Ansem's mind control seemed to be increasing, it was so strong that she could almost feel him controlling her every move. As if he had become a part of her.
Rikku decided to try and act as quickly as possible, she slinked over to the corner of the room and picked up Sora's keyblade. It quickly dissolved in her hand and landed in Sora's hand. 'Crap' she thought as he began to rub his eyes. He looked at the keyblade in his hand sleepily and starting setting it down.
Rikku watched Sora silently and held her breath. Then she saw Riku's sleeping body he looked so innocent. She remembered seeing him that way before, it was serious déjà vu. For a second Rikku felt her emotions shooting back at her, but only for a moment. Because some pain in her heart snapped her back to reality. Everything was as Ansem had told her; nobody cared for her they were just getting in the way from the ultimate plan. She had to fulfill her role in the ultimate plan he told her.
Sora thought he was dreaming for a moment when the keyblade appeared in his hand. But then he heard someone breathing very softly in the corner. He turned around and saw the outline of a girl standing in the corner. At first he thought he was imagining Kairi again and it was just his mind playing tricks on him, but then he noticed it was Rikku.
"Everybody wake up!" Sora shouted suddenly, it shocked Rikku enough to cause her to suck in her breath quickly, enough of a noise to make herself even more noticed. Immediately Tidus shot up and shouted something about the world ending and Wakka just rolled over mumbling something to his mother. Riku stood up and brushed himself off, he looked around the room and his eyes settled on Rikku.
"Is it you?" Riku asked, directing his voice towards Rikku. She cringed and didn't reply. Inside Rikku's mind she was screaming at herself, she wanted to run over to Riku and tell him that she was sorry and she never wanted to hurt him, ever. She wanted to tell him she was tricked by Ansem and couldn't control her speech or actions. Most of all she wanted to tell him how much she cared for him.
Gippal stood up and walked right over to the light switch, flicking it on. Everybody blinked a few times, their eyes adjusting to the light, before looking around the room for the intruder. Rikku didn't blush, although her brain was screaming at her mouth. She couldn't control any of her outward actions, luckily she had regained, as if by magic, her inward thoughts.
Wakka crossed the room and took out his blitzball. "Whatta you want Rikku, ya? Don't make me use this ya." Rikku's eyes flashed green for about ten seconds; they looked at the guys pleadingly. Then they turned the stormy black and Rikku pulled out her thief blades. They were slightly different, the thief blades had taken the form of two black keys both had a heartless symbol inscribed on the keychain.
"Rikku please." Gippal pleaded she didn't respond and started thrashing her keys through the air.
With Yuffie, Aerith, Paine, and Leon
"Yuffie did you hear that?" Aerith asked the young ninja. The girl nodded and quietly got off the couch she had been sleeping on. Aerith climbed out of the bed from across the room and walked over to the door. Yuffie ran out onto the balcony and alerted Leon and Paine.
"What kind of guards are you anyways?" Yuffie asked when she stepped onto the small balcony. "Oh." she said at the sight before her, Paine and Leon were sitting very close together talking quietly. Leon had Paine's hand in his and they were…laughing?
"Yuffie what do you want?" Leon asked, slightly irritated. Yuffie shrugged before answering.
"Aerith and I heard some weird noises coming from next door, we thought maybe you'd like to come with us and check it out." she answered carefully. Leon and Paine got up from their seats and followed Yuffie into the Red Room.
"Aerith is gone. She must be next door." Paine commented. The small group quickly opened the door of the adjoining room and entered. None of them prepared for what they saw next.
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A/N: I wouldn't have cut it off there if this wasn't already 10 pages long. Nobody wants chapters that are too long. So don't worry I'll wrap a lot up in the next chapter and yeah. I hope I did a good job explaining everything, or was I really confusing? Whatever I have a tennis match so I'll be writing later…
Lucy!