Part I: Chapter 4 Aeterna
Having been thrown into an interspace warpgate, Sora thought for sure he would be dead. A few moments after the complete destruction of the Atlantica Sector, Sora woke up. Although dazed, he looked around. Apparently he was still alive... and wet? It seems he was flung straight into the rising falls of Hollow Bastion. His friends were far away so there was no way to contact them, especially without a gummy ship. Hollow Bastion was supposedly abandoned a while back. That was the bad news. The good news is that because of that same reason, Sora would be able to rest in the castle and try to heal the wounds he received from the gummy crash and the weardown effect that warpgate had.
As Sora made his way through the castle, he wondered about that strange and powerful man. Not even a hundred Ansems combined could possibly reach that kind of strength. And how did he open an interspace warp without the use of a ship? So many questions, but so little energy to think about it. Sora had no choice but to be grateful, at least for now.
Hollow Bastion couldn't be any worse. There was nothing there. Just the sound of the wind blowing through the halls connecting the energy powered lifts. Not even a single shadow to poke around. As he got older, Sora began losing touch with his childhood self. Being around darkness all the time wasn't helping either. He felt more depressed and angrier than ever. It didn't help that he was all alone in a castle that had no way out. All he could do now was to lay down in one of the castle's living quarters to take a nap.
Sora awoke to that same familiar sound of electrical current coming from somewhere above. The sound seemed to be covering up another, fainter sound. He did not hesitate to jump off the bed and run out of the living quarters. But as soon as he opened the doors, BAM. The corridors of Hollow Bastion were flooded with monsters. They were of the same form as the one in Atlantica Interspace, only this time they were bite sized. They were no smaller than an average heartless shadow and no bigger than an average heartless soldier.
Sora grinned. It was payback time, and with that he dashed out of the room with the Plantium Chocobo in hand. These smaller monsters had the same beam-like attack as the giant one. The power of the Platinum Chocobo would not be denied though, as won't his fighting skill. Sora skillfully deflected the beams back at his attackers with ease. The beams instantly killed these puny monsters, since anything that touches the Platinum Chocobo is temporarily charged with the power of light. In other words, the deflected beams simply cancelled out it's targets existance, and would only hurt Sora if they happened to directly hit without touching the blade.
Things were getting frantic as Sora used the energy lifts. The monsters weren't getting stronger or anything, they were simply rushing at him in greater numbers. A good horizontal swipe of the Platinum Chocobo was the response Sora gave them. Being in those small lifts, the monsters had nowhere to go but to their end. The final lift arrived at the top sanctuary. Sora emerged with hardly a scratch.
Sora rushed into the old room. The room where he, Donald, and Goofy once fought and defeated the black dragon. In the center of the room, on the floor, there was a great puddle of darkness. Streaks of darkness spiraled outward from the center of the puddle, circling the room. Sora poked at the spirals with his shoes, and seeing as it was harmless, decided to check out the center.
"This was all too easy," said Sora, lifting the Platinum Chocobo with both hands, the key aimed right at the center.
But as soon as he attempted to jam the blade into the darkness, the spirals suddenly retracted back into the center, and it reformed itself into a new shape. In a flash it had taken the form of Sora, just as the Fake Sora on Captain Hook's ship, and parried Sora's blade with it's own keyblade. This only angered Sora, and he used all his might to try to run this new Dark Sora through with the Platinum Chocobo. In an instant, the Dark Sora creature knocked away the Platinum Chocobo, grabbed Sora's right arm, and tossed him with immense power into the wall surrounding the circular room. As soon as Sora's back hit the wall, the Dark Sora flew at him and kneed him right in the chest, nearly crushing his ribs in. Then Dark Sora backflipped to the center of the room and raised his arm. He created a basketball-sized orb of dark energy and flung it right at Sora. It exploded on Sora, knocking him into the wall again. Then Sora just hit the ground limp, completely out cold. The Dark Sora bowed, and his formed changed back into the spiraling puddle of dark energy from before. The spirals shortened towards the center, a black beam shot upwards towards the sky, and then it was gone.
(Next time on Part I-Chapter 5: Terminus Omega)