Kingdom Hearts: The Hexon Chronicles
Part I: Chapter 1 | Ocean of Black

The gummi ship was silently docked somewhere just outside of Traverse. Sora, 16 years old at this time, slowly walked through the great, rather big gates of the town. His appearance was still quite similar to how he looked a couple of years back. However, he had grown taller. His spikey hair grew twice as long, with the back ends angled in a downwards fashion. He wore a suit similar to Riku (when possessed by Ansem), except that it was black, with vertical scarlet lines on it's left and right sides. The suit also lacked the feathery part.

Sora's face showed an expression of exhaustion. The Heartless in each world never really completely stopped coming, but they were becoming more uncommon with each passing day. Sora's slow steps finally came to a stop in front of the accessory shop's main entrance. He was about to open the door, but before he could grasp the handle, the door opened, in the opposite direction. Behind it stood an aged, blonde man. This was Cid, the owner of the shop. He was older. His hair was beginning to fade to more of a white color. But his body was still strong, since he continued to work on Sora's ship, and work in his shop.

The two stared at eachother for a few seconds. Cid immediately realized that Sora had been battling all day. Neither spoke. Cid simply took a step to the right, and walked away, seeing as he had some repairs to do in the second district's gizmo shop. Sora continued inside, leaned the Keyblade against the wall, and plopped down on the blue couch in the corner, where it took all of three seconds for him to fall asleep. The Keyblade, by the way, had a new keychain attached to it. The Platinum Chocobo. It was about 20 percent longer than the Metal Chocobo, but just as thick. However, the blade was created from the same material as Sephiroth's Masamune. With the Masamune and the Metal Chocobo combined, the Platinum Chocobo was overwhelmingly powerful. It, at the very least, had triple the power of the Ultima Weapon (it also had a cute, silver chocobo keychain :) ).

Meanwhile, in the gizmo shop, Cid is busily working on the metallic clock at the center of the shop. The clock has always been stuck at 6:54, and Cid never bothered to fix it. But the people wanted the bell to ring at midnight, so here he was. Cid skillfully maneuvered his wrench through the steel mess, adjusting gears, removing useless or broken screws, connecting bits. This was an easy task. And when it was finished, it would only need a small shock to get the clock running again.

Just as Cid was making final adjustments, a tremor shook the entire town.

"What the hell is going on?" Cid said to himself.

Screams and shouts were echoing all at once. Explosions, and metal clanking, and ghostly cries. In fact, Leon's voice could be heard in the distance, shouting a bunch of orders. Some to the townspeople. Some to Yuffie. Some to Aerith. Yet, Cid was too far away to be able to hear. He stood up, having fallen from the sudden tremor, picked up his tools, and dashed out the main entrance.

Cid nearly had a heart attack when he saw what he saw. The second district... completely overrun by Heartless of a new kind. The were much bigger. More buff. Darker. It looked like an ocean of black. And the worst part was that, besides the hotel, this was the shop district, so he was nearly alone. And the Heartless saw him. They knew he was there. He was just another victim for the darkness to them. They crawled towards the gizmo shop. Cid dropped his tools and made a run back inside the gizmo shop.

In the third district, Yuffie and Aerith were fighting off hordes of the evil shadows. Yuffie backed Aerith up, as Aerith tried to lead the townies towards the first district. The idea was to get them to Geppetto's old house (Geppetto and Pinocchio had been returned to their world already) and through a secret hangar that Cid, Geppetto, and Leon worked on, to dock a giant gummi ship in, in case of an emergency, such as this one (which was not expected to happen). The gummi ship was a special one. It had the ability to stay in warp space, so that it would not be harmed by Heartless ships.

As Aerith helped the townies (the ones in the first district had arrived to the ship first, since they were closer), Yuffie blocked off the gate that lead to the first district, and continued to fight them with her amazing speed and agility. She was simply flinging her ninja stars all over the place, but her special weapon was aimed right at the shadows' heads. The special star would spin towards them, and cut their heads right off them. To Yuffie's disgust, they just grew another head, and all she could do was fight until their life was depleted, and not their heads.

While this happened, had run out from the back door of the gizmo shop, Heartless following, no less. As he went out the door, he kicked off the wall to help him slow down and turn to the ladder faster. He climbed up the ladder in a crazy fit. He had to get away, because he had no chance of defending himself without a weapon.

"I've GOTTA get to Sora!" he thought as he dashed across the second floor balcony of the adjacent house. He ran as fast as he could and jumped from the balcony, to the rooftop of the next few stores. The Heartless didn't have a hard time following, but they weren't as fast as nimble as Cid, even at his age. Cid hung over the side of the roof and dropped down. He landed safely on his rear, a bit of pain, but safely, as the shadows were still on the rooftop. Cid busted through the first district gates.

Cid ran directly for his shop. He hopped off the side of the synthesis shop, on top of the crates, and lousily ran to his shop, as he was completely out of breath. Leon and Sora were inside.

"We're in deep shit!" said Cid, too tired to yell.

"Don't worry. All the townspeople are in Geppetto's ship, and already safe in warp. Yuffie and Aerith are with them. Those moogles were actually fighting off the Heartless too." Leon spoke in his usually calm tone. Almost as if he didn't care. "The safest place we can go to right now is Olympia. We'll survive if we stick together with Herc--"

"I'll drop you guys off there, but I have to go the other worlds to make sure the Heartless haven't spread!" Sora interrupted. He had all his friends to check up on, so he was very anxious to leave. "Let's get outta here!"

The three nodded, Sora re-equipped the Keyblade and walked out of the accessory shop's main door. As they turned towards the stairs, the Guard Armor dropped from the sky. But this wasn't the old school Guard Armor they had previously destroyed. It was twice the size. The gauntlets had bigger claws. The metal plates on the feet were much heavier and more powerful. The entire Armor was black in color, and glowing with a dark, fuzzy aura. It looked angry, and it wanted to kill. It raised it's left gauntlet and swatted at Leon, sending him flying into the mailbox and knocking it over. Broke the top half off, too. It was fine though, since Leon always trained, he could still stand, but was not capable of fighting such a thing.

"Get him outta here! Wait for me in the gummi ship!" That's all Sora said. He could not waste anymore time speaking, as the Armor raised it's foot and tried to stomp Sora into paper. Resourceful, Sora used his Guard technique to deflect the attack. The powerful blade of the Platinum Chocobo caused the foot to fly off the Armor and into the wall behind the Armor. Cid and Leon took the chance to leave town through the main entrance, and hover away from the town in the gummi ship, making sure that they are too far for the shadows to reach, but not far enough to be able to land quickly and pick up Sora.

While the Armor's leg was being recovered, the body began to spin. This was a common move, but this time, as it spun, a huge black whirlwind surrounded the body. The whirlwind fired off small homing balls of darkness that whizzed at Sora. The body itself was also closing in on Sora, while the gauntlets readied themselves for an attack. The knocked off leg had also been recovered.

Thinking quickly, Sora superglided far away from the Armor and it's threats. He guarded against the dark balls, but didn't count on something. The Armor wasn't chasing after him. Sora stared at it for a moment.

What happened is that the Guard Armor used it's dark powers to transform into the Opposite Armor. From there, all of it's parts combined with the body, creating a powerful weapon of darkness. The feet attached to the gauntlets, and the claws of the gauntlets attached to the head, which hovered behind the main body, which was aimed at Sora. A most peculiar combination, yet... still. Black energy began to gather at it's center to create a massive, opaque sphere. It was the size of the accessory shop, give or take. There was no way Sora could defend against such a blast, unless... his magic was strong enough.

Obviously not stupid enough to wait for Sora to try anything, the Opposite Armor let loose. A beam the size of a Firaga-G engine (that's pretty big, in gummi terms) flowed straight out from the dark mass of energy. Sora shouted "STOP!" and casted Stopga (can you see this scene in slow motion?) just as the beam approached. The timing was perfect, because the beam froze in midair as it was affected by strong time magic, and it's power flowed from Sora through the beam and right into the Armor, causing it to freeze, as well as everything in the first district.

Wasting no time, Sora superglided straight towards the Armor. Since the Armor was combined into one, he would only need to attack it head on, and just make sure he hits everything. So... he decided on Strike Raid. He stood directly behind the Armor and flung the Keyblade forward. It spun like the hurrican and sliced straight through every part. As it returned to his gloved palm, he repeated the combo until Judgement. He combined his Judgement follow-up with gravity power. Combining magic and weapon skills was a new thing Sora picked up during his travels. It drastically increased the power of his skills. The multiplied power of his gravity Judgement throw completely annihilated the Opposite Armor and it's parts, as it had just come out of the Stop dimension. The gravity dragged the pieces down and smashed them into the head, which destroyed the entire heartless. It dissipated into a cloud of darkness.

But this was nothing for Sora. He was much more powerful now. More experienced and skilled. He didn't even need to catch his breath. He silently ran his fingers through his hair and dusted off his clothes, called away the Keyblade, and quietly walked to the town gates, where the gummi ship was waiting.

[Next time on Part I-Chapter 2: Reunion]