Disclaimer: Sadly, its not mine.
Chapter Four
Could've Been Magic
"Now I'll follow my own way,
And I'll live on to another damn
day
Freedom carries sacrifice,
remember when this was my life.
-Life of my Own, Three Doors Down
The keyblade was weak. Its gold color dull and the normally warm
metal cooling rapidly.
Sora didn't have time to worry about it. The fire
monster had, as hoped, turned on him, and it was all he could do to keep it from
catching him with those spiked hands and sending him flying across the
cave.
The keyblade flickered, failing to block the next blow. Sora fell
back and crab crawled desperately away. The heatless loomed above him, pulling
back one heavy arm for a killing blow. Sora held up the keyblade, a thin and
faulty barrier between him and destruction. He focused his power into it,
watching with wide eyes in the time-slowed world of impending death as it
brightened, responding. It had to hold. It had to hold. He closed his eyes.
The blow never fell. Instead there was a horrible high pitched shriek
followed by a grunting moan. Sora cracked an eye.
The red headed Ari,
reluctant evil king destroyer, stood behind the dying heartless with a
fire-laced keyblade in his bleeding hands.
He had powered the already
lethal weapon with Blaze Sword.
Ari himself did not know exactly what had
happened. He knew they had been fighting, and losing. That a boy had run into
the cave, screaming a challenge to the monster and holding what looked to be a
giant key. And losing. Ari hadn't known what to do, there he was, standing,
watching as their savior fell back. Ari watched, holding a virtually worthless
sword and with no plan to save the innocent who had tried to help them.
It was then that the key had formed in his hands, appearing out of thin
air, replacing his previous weapon.
The rest had been instinct. He
swallowed, watching with rapidly glazing eyes as the giant writhed on the
ground, shrieking, before falling still and dissolving into darkness.
Sora picked himself up, eyes locked on the newly revealed keyblade
master. He couldn't squash the spark of jealous. But before he had the chance to
question the boy, his forgotten companion, the red eyed Princess Marlene, had
run full tilt, skirts lifted to her knees, into the cave and wrapped her arms
around Ari.
The boy did the only thing he could in such a
situation.
He fainted.
~~~~~~~~
Darkness.
Darkness
was easy. It was merely a lack of illumination. No hardship, no struggle, just
an unending blackness.
No, it was the light that was difficult. Light had
to be made and protected. It could be smothered, hidden, and destroyed. But it
could also be created, in a way that darkness never could. Just one spark could
set a city ablaze, or a soul.
Riku was in the dark.
And he
couldn't find the light.
More importantly though, he couldn't breathe.
He was being slowly crushed, huge claws digging ever deeper into his
chest as the pressure increased. His eyes were still open, but dull and glazed.
His hands clung loosely to the lizard's leg, but he had given up on pushing it
away.
Elena paused in the destroyed door way. She lived two floors down,
and had both heard and felt the dragon's entrance. She watched as the beast
reared up for a moment before slamming down again, weight crashing onto Riku's
broken body. The silver haired teenager rocked with the impact, gasping in pain.
Blood dripped from his mouth.
She didn't know what to do. She didn't have
a weapon and couldn't remember her spells. Desperate, without thinking, she ran
into the bedroom... To deliver a hard kick to the lizard's tail.
Its eyes
widened, and it reared again, twisting its head around to look at her. It kicked
back, huge clawed foot sweeping her off the floor and into the far wall,
watching as she slid down it, unconscious.
Its head swayed on as it
hissed and turned its attention back to the boy beneath its feet.
Who
wasn't breathing.
~~~~~~~~
Reno was not a hero. He didn't want to
be a hero. Hadn't wanted to be a hero since he was five years old and playing in
the concrete garden outside his father's work.
Still, he was loyal, and
he was brave, in a cruel street-wise way, and he didn't run away when another
Turk was in trouble. He would have sacrificed the boy, he didn't really like the
kid, didn't really trust the kid, and he was pretty damn sure this sudden attack
of the reptilian kind was the ever enigmatic Riku's fault, but he couldn't
abandon Elena.
Damn his morality.
He thumbed the mag rod to full
power, enough voltage to fry a herd of chocobo.
"Beat it, Gex." He cast
Thunder and the electricity arced from his nightstick to pop and sizzle on the
dragon's wing.
It swung around mid hiss, surprised and hurt, its huge
tail crashed against the wood flooring and the plaster walls cracked. The shock
wave knocked Reno off his feet.
Outside the storm raged, wind dashing
rain and hail through the wide hole in the building.
The mag rod glowed,
and another bolt of lighting danced across the lizard's sensitive wings.
Enraged the dragon twisted its body around, Riku rolling bonelessly
beneath its feet as it turned. Its bulk crashed through one of the remaining
walls. Its claws dug into the floorboards and its head lowered threateningly.
Reno cast Thundagra.
It breathed fire.
~~~~~~~~
Light
flashed through the windows, making shapes on the wall.
Black hands
gripped glittering gold, glittering gold that changed to silver under the new
touch.
Lighting struck outside, filling the room with light and casting
shadows on the wall.
~~~~~~~~
"I don't want it."
Ari sat on
the ground, keyblade between his feet. Sora sat across from him, peering up into
his face. The princess was at his side, hand on his shoulder. "I don't want
it."
"Are you sure? I mean, it's yours, I don't even know if it'll go
with me." He was sitting cross legged on the dusty earth, head cocked to the
side, and a chicken pecking absently at his clothes. He brushed it away. Where
the hell had all the dumb birds come from anyway?
"I'm sure. I don't want
it."
The princess rolled her eyes, she had already tried to convince her
reluctant hero to keep the odd weapon, but he would have none of it. "Just take
it Sora."
The brown haired boy shrugged and picked up Ari's keyblade. It
was lighter than his own and had a weird cartoony look to it. "Now, princess,
you said that if I helped you, you could show me where the keyhole
is?"
"Yes. So I did."
~~~~~~~~
It felt like liquid metal
flowing in his hand. It was cool, soothing, but full of an icy power. It felt
like his sword.
It felt like his magic.
It felt like grim
determination, strength and never ending life. Drink of me and you shall live
forever.
It felt like his life.
But most of all, most of all, it
felt absolutely nothing like Sora's. Nothing like love.
He stood up,
lurching elegantly to his feet, metal boots scraping against the cracked floor.
Blood-streaked silver fell across his eyes and he smiled. Smirked in the
face of the dragon.
His hand was tight on the icy silver keyblade that
wasn't his, but had always been a part of him.
Lizard died in the light
of Ragnarok, its crushed heartless anger and hopeless love leaving nothing but
steam in the damp air.
~~~~~~~~
When Elena came to she was lying
on a clean comfortable bed that was most defiantly not her own. She sat up,
feeling slightly dizzy, and looked around. The walls were bare white,
nondescript.
"Hey, you're awake; I thought you'd be snoring away all
week." The wry voice sounded tired and very familiar.
"I do not snore!"
"Sure." Reno smirked from the doorway.
Elena was still too dizzy
to glare, "What happened? Where am I? Please say you're wearing more than just
the robe."
The redhead grinned lazily, looking very comfortable in the
oversized fluffy bathrobe. His hair was dripping wet and, Elena realized, much
shorter. "Your boy attracted a giant dragon, got my apartment destroyed and your
head slammed through a wall, then disappeared."
"He's gone? What happened
to the monster? Is it dead?" Elena leaned forward, face worried.
"Yeah,
gone. I don't know about the thing, it wasn't there when I got up." "Oh." She
was too tired to ask what had happened to him.
"Let her rest, Reno." Rude
came up behind the red head, he was fully dressed, complete with sunglasses,
despite the fact that it was still pitch black outside. Exhausted synapses in
Elena's brain fired and she realized that they must be in his apartment. Rude
lived in a different building than herself and Reno, closer to work but farther
from the bars and shopping malls.
"We gotta keep her awake now, though.
You know, the whole concussion thing." Reno was still smirking.
"Oh
God." Elena rested her aching head in her hands, as if the night hadn't been
long enough all ready.
~~~~~~~~
The keyhole was in a house. The
basement of a house. The basement of Ari's house, to be precise. It was a two
day walk from the Northern Mountains. Once there they were greeted with much
cheer and although Ari's father was disappointed that they hadn't acquired a
Galloping Snow Beetle, he was thrilled at the presence of Sora, who everyone
seemed to know came from another world, as well as puzzling out Stan's renewed
shadow problem, and poking at the keyblades. He also cheerfully explained that
the chickens' sudden attraction to Sora was most likely due to a curse of some
sort and that he had absolutely no idea how to remove it. "It'll wear off
eventually, I'm sure, M'boy." he said brightly, patting Sora on the shoulder,
"And until then you'll never be short companions."
"Or food," the still
shadowy Stan muttered darkly, he had received a similar 'wait till it wears it
off' diagnoses and was expressing his displeasure with the world to anyone who
would listen.
When Julia found out why Ari had missed their date she
swore to never speak to him again, and when Princess Marlene found out about
Julia she swore the same.
The new keyblade locked the keyhole without any
difficulty and when Sora leaned back against the wall, wondering what to do next
he fell backward through it, spiraling into a new world.
His new friends
peered at the wall as one. Linda waved. Epros looked thoughtful. Stan
grumbled.
Everything was as it should be... In a twisted cartoony sort of
way.
~~~~~~~~
The new keyblade was glowing and throwing off
silver sparks. Riku glared at it, his side was throbbing, his muscles burned and
his head was swimming. It felt like he was trying to operate through sludge and
a pissy keyblade was the last thing he really needed. Gritting his teeth he
stumbled through still dark city, searching desperately for some way to escape
this hell hole. When he finally felt the magic of a hotspot flow around him he
almost fell to his knees.
His shadow slid up off the dusty ground and
gripped its master's tattered cape.
Riku focused the last vestiges of
his power, searching out another world, looking for something strong and close.
He locked onto a sugary sweet green world that tasted like blood. Focusing, he
began to slide down the lines of power, only to have his concentration broken
and the spell shattered by a powerful shock from the silvered
keyblade.
His eyes snapped open and he stared at it, sizzling in his
hands, silver light arcing off of it. It was icy cold, burning his skin through
his glove. Lancing pain cut through him, followed by a foreign anger.
The
keyblade sparked again, glowing a blinding silver and feeling like hate,
disgust, fury.
Next to him the shadow hissed viciously at the weapon. It
thought the blade should be tossed away.
"Fine." Riku muttered, "What the
hell do you want me to do?" his original keyblade was still vanished, but he
could feel it in his mind, drained and dead, ultimately worthless. He couldn't
afford to throw away this new one, no matter how obnoxious it might be.
A
bright shaft of golden light shot from the key, lighting up the street to his
right.
Riku rolled his eyes, "I bet half the city is awake now, as if
the damn monster wasn't enough..." He took a deep breath, wincing at the pain in
his chest and walked the way of the light.
~~~~~~~~
Kairi sat
shoeless in the sand, Sora's wooden sword, now hers, lying next to her. Tidus
was on her other side, talking about surfing.
"Huge wave, just huge! And
I was on my little board and so sure I was gonna just be toast, but somehow I
got it and was able to ride it allll the way back to the beach. Wakka's looked
soooo stunned; he never thought I could do it." The blond grinned and stretched,
joints popping. "It was so cool... What's with you? You're all
quiet."
"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm just kinda tired." She shrugged
self-consciously. "Where is Wakka anyway? And Selphie?"
"Ah," Tidus
waved his hand dismissively, "They're collecting fruit or something, Selphie
thinks she can cook again."
"Again?"
"Yeah, she randomly goes
through these weird phases where she tries to do, y'know, girl stuff. I think it
happens when she spends too much time watching her mother. Last time she tried
cooking she set the stove on fire and we messed up the WHOLE kitchen throwing
water on it. When her parents got home and saw it, geez, we were all grounded
for months."
Kairi smiled, "Oh, well, I hope it goes better this
time."
"It should, she's not allowed to use the oven. Or anything else
with fire." "Why aren't you helping her?"
"Huh?"
Kairi cocked her
head, "I said, 'why aren't you helping her?' you know, to gather fruit and
stuff."
Tidus shrugged, it was his turn to be self conscious, "I didn't
feel like it, besides, I promised you I'd teach you to fight, I never promised
Selph I'd be a fruit picker."
"Oh." Kairi looked down for a moment before
grinning picking up her sword, "Then let the lessons continue."
Tidus
drug himself to his feet, pole in hand. "All right!"
~~~~~~~~
He
appeared in a thick green forest, "Wow. I didn't know that could happen." Sora
stood up, brushing dirt off his pants. The world looked normal enough, not too
bright, not too creepy. There was a dusty trail away to his left that looked
fairly well traveled. He followed it, occasionally stepping over flowers that
had taken the risk of growing in the path. After a while he began humming
quietly to himself. The sun was warm on his skin and he felt more hopeful than
he had in weeks. He would find Goofy and Donald, he would find King Mickey and
Riku, they would all find their way home. Where Kairi would be, waiting for
them, and they could race again, and climb trees again, and he could see his
parents, who would be absolutely furious, but that was okay. He had a working
key blade, he had potions, he had magic, and, apparently, he had some bizarre
power that let him travel between worlds without a gummi ship.
All in all
it was shaping up to be a decent day.
~~~~~~~~
The red light of
dawn was seeping through the city by the time he reached his destination. If it
weren't for the pale green outline he never would have seen it. A keyhole. This
world's keyhole.
If he were feeling better he would have punched the
wall. All the same, his blue eyes, one stained a dark crimson, narrowed with
rage. "I walked here... All the way here... For a keyhole.... THAT I CAN'T
CLOSE!!" He panted, blood dripping from his mouth.
Something had been
damaged in his chest and now whenever he spoke blood came with his words. He
didn't have enough magic for a healing spell, didn't have any potions left,
didn't have any anything. "Damn."
The keyblade didn't respond, merely
glowing gently to itself.
Riku let his head fall forward onto his chest.
He was so tired; maybe if he just sat down, slept a little, everything would be
better when he woke. Maybe...
The keyblade hummed softly before, quite
suddenly, shooting out a beam of golden light. Golden light that hit the
keyhole... And locked it.
Riku's eyes widened. He couldn't lock the
doors, he knew that, he could only open them. He possessed the dark keyblade,
forged for a powerful but cruel heart.
The silver key seemed smug. It
seemed to be saying, we are more than that now. We are no longer late night
marauders made to kill and maim, built to serve. We prove that we can protect as
well, we can save and help, we can be good.
Slight smile on his face
Riku trudged back to the hot spot and through it to a new world, green and
warm.
~~~~~~~~
Sora threw himself backwards onto the warm spring
grass. He had found a meadow, full of lush green and delicately colored flowers.
He had picked a few and twined them together into a bracelet. He stretched,
yawning loudly and basking in the sun. It felt good here. It felt clean here. He
hadn't seen a heartless yet and the one person he met on the trail had looked at
him like he was crazy when he asked about monsters.
There wasn't a beach
in site but somehow the place still reminded him of home, all warm sun and lazy
days. The keyblades lay on his left side, playfully zapping each other. His
pack, still heavy with potions lay on his other side. Sora knew he should take
inventory, be a responsible hero, but he just couldn't work up the will. He let
his eyes slip closed, flower bracelet lying on his chest, and fell asleep slight
smile on his lips.
~~~~~~~~
Lancelot Lavender Lawrence was
exhausted. His arms ached, his back ached, his life ached. His clothes itched on
his skin and his axe dug uncomfortably into his shoulder as he walked hurriedly
down the path towards his family's cottage.
His mother was going to be
furious.
He had been due home an hour ago, but work had run long, and
when you were the youngest woodcutter in the county and your middle name was
'Lavender' the other guys didn't tend to feel the same comradery that they did
for Jim and Danny. So when he was slow finishing up the guys didn't exactly wait
around. Worse, the blade of the axe had another chip in it and the handle was
beginning to crack. He knew what would happen if he told his mother though, he
would get another rant about how it was good enough for his father and should be
good enough for him as well. She didn't seem to understand that his father's
faithful axe was now 20 years old and ready to be put out to pasture. Actually,
his mother didn't seem to understand a lot of things lately. It had been that
way ever since his older sister had "disappeared" taking food to their
grandmother. Everyone but their mother knew that the girl had met Bastian B.
Zev, the town slacker, on the road and married him a month later, but their
mother acted as if Red had died and refused to think differently.
On top
of it all, he was fairly certain he was being followed. Every now and then he
caught a flicker of black in the brush, just off the path. For now it was
keeping its distance, but when night fell all bets were off, everyone knew
that.
Lance shifted his axe nervously and picked up the pace. God, he
just wanted to be home.
~~~~~~~~
Anti Sora was, in all honesty, a
special creature, the problem was that he knew it. He was Riku's sole creation,
the only one of his breed. He was also quite bright, which was unusual among the
heartless. Intelligent, powerful, skilled, and a real prick, he tended to share
his pain with everyone around him.
Right now he was annoyed. He had been
sleeping comfortably, only to be awoken by a sudden, almost vicious, jolt of
power into his keyblade and he did not like it. Arrogant sneer in
place he slid from his resting place and into the real world, prepared to
seriously hurt whatever had dared disturb him.
He had taken to sleeping
in Riku's black keyblade about the same time Riku began traversing the worlds
through magic. In the keyblade he could rest as much as he wanted while being
carried around the galaxy. It took no effort on his part and eliminated the risk
of being left behind; it was good deal all around. Except that now he had been
rudely awoken and he did not like it.
They were in a forest, outside an
old wooden shack that Anti Sora, personally, thought was worthy of a quick and
painless burning and little else. Worse, from the way Riku had laid out their
things it looked like they would be staying there, and he did not like
it.
His 'master' was sitting propped against a rock polishing a keyblade.
A silver keyblade. Anti Sora scowled, wondering where this new thing had come
from and if it was the reason for his disturbance. His own, black, keyblade lay
on the ground next to Riku, already cleaned. It was glowing slightly, something
it hadn't done for a long, long time.
Still scowling he stalked off to
explore the woods, he wasn't tired anymore.
~~~~~~~~
The cool
evening air woke Sora from his afternoon nap. The sun was setting, painting the
sky a beautiful orange color. He rolled over onto his stomach and stretched, his
back popping satisfyingly. He felt a surge of horror when he reached for his
keyblades and found that the new one was missing. He sat up in the long grass,
crestfallen, sure that the other blade had gone back to its real master, a world
away.
It was half an hour later when he picked up the remaining key,
intending to cast a fire spell on a small pile of stick he had collected, and
noticed the new key chain. It was small, bright gold, and in the shape of an odd
little key itself. Eyes narrowing, Sora carefully slid it off. Instantly it
changed from a cute little knick-knack to a full sized and very familiar
keyblade. It glowed brightly, sending waves of cheerful light out into the
deepening dusk. For a few moments the meadow was brightly illuminated, the
flowers and grass sparkling. It looked like magic. Sora almost expected
firecrackers to go off or for the stars to fall.
In less than a minute
everything was normal again, but a minute was long enough, and the dark shapes
hovering at the edge of the meadow skulked away, afraid.
Sora lit the
dried grass and in a moment there was a small but cheerful fire blazing. He
didn't even notice the silent exodus as the monsters around him fled.
~~~~~~~~
Anti Sora was not nearly as happy as his artistic base.
He could feel the heartless around him now; the world was positively rotten with
them, though for some odd reason it only showed after sunset. He couldn't tell
their breed, and didn't particularly want to know.
There were other
things too, wandering cautiously in the early darkness. Making the long grass
rustle. He wasn't as uncomfortable with these creatures. They ignored him. Anti
Sora wasn't even sure if they could see him.
He had followed the
woodcutter for a little while, curious, but had grown bored after only a few
minutes. He couldn't understand what the creatures saw in the boy, he didn't
strike Anti Sora as being particularly appetizing and he certainly had no magic
to feed off of.
He had also happened upon his master's little obsession.
He had been meandering back to the shack, taking the long way, when he stumbled
upon his cheerful flesh-toned twin, sprawled in the grass and sleeping like the
dead. He had snapped his fingers a couple times over the boy's head, but the
world saver hadn't even twitched. With an eye roll Anti Sora had continued on
his way, reaching camp just as night truly fell.
God, he hated this
place.
