Invitation to Darkness

A Kingdom Hearts fanfic

By:

Chison

Cloud slowly opened the door, and a brilliant light shone from inside the house, and after the light had faded, the room was completely dark, with only a pair of beady, orange eyes looking at the visitors from the ceiling. "Well…it seems we have some visitors…I want them dealt with quickly. Nothing should become between our quest for power Anti-Sora. Deal with them." the figure whispered to the darkness, and the pair of orange eyes left, but they were replaced with a pair of dull yellow eyes.
Marlena tried to look past Cloud, but couldn't see anything, she grabbed the door handle and flung the door wide open. "Come on Cloud, lets go and find that portal." walking past him, he rushed in after her, but the door slammed shut behind them, leaving them in darkness. "I knew we should have found a different route into this…castle." Cloud said looking around, but it seemed the darkness faded, revealing cobblestone walls and floors. Marlena took a few more steps into the room, touching the cold wall, and noticing the picture hanging on the wall: it was Sora! "CLOUD!" She shouted, turning around, pointing at the painting, he walked beside her and looked at the painting, but he looked back at her, and said in a irritated tone said, "yes that's a nice picture of the landscape, now lets go." She looked back at the painting, and it was the landscape of Twilight Town. Something in her gut told her that she didn't imagine Sora in the painting, but she moved behind Cloud, who was looking at the walls and floor. There were two hallways that split, one right, and one left, he turned around and said, "the room splits…Which side to you want to take?"

Marlena looked at both, and pointed to the left hallway, and started to walk toward it, and Cloud took the right. "Hopefully these two paths will converge somewhere, until then, you are on your own Marlena, good luck." his voice echoing down from the hall, Marlena swallowed her lump in her throat and started walking down the hallway. "I wonder what Sora's face was doing in the painting? And why did it change?" Pairs of yellow eyes seemed to grow from the floor, crawling toward her, but when she turned around, there was nothing there, "I know someone, or something is following me…" Marlena thought to herself as she walked, she summoned her key blade, and whirled around, taking out one of the heartless on the wall.

Just then, hundreds of heartless started crawling through the floors, walls, and ceiling! Screaming, Marlena ran through the hall, with the heartless crawling after, hoping to find a big room to take care of them, she ran blindly through the hall, and ended up in a massive round room. The heartless crowded around her, making a circle, she kept turning around, trying to get a head count of how many were in the room with her, "I'm not sure if I can take all of these heartless at once…" sensing the fear in her, one of them started to come after her, but she saw him, and knocked him to the ground, and he vanished. They backed away, but then they started to melt into one another, and it started to form a human-like heartless, with she same dull eyes. Marlena readied her key blade, for whatever was coming next, but then she heard a voice: "You think you can defeat the next evolution of the Heartless?"

Anti-Sora seeped through the stone floor, taking his image after Sora, he held out his left hand and said, "You were simply a carrier for the Key, not even the Master knows why the key blade has still resonated with you." Marlena stared down the yellow eyes and said, "I want my friend back." Walking toward the new Heartless, Anti-Sora said, "your 'friend' has no interest in going back, all he wants to do is find Iris, who has forgotten him." Marlena took a few steps forward and shouted, "Iris still remembers Zashi! No matter what you've done to him!" Pointing to the new Heartless, he shouted, "do you recognize him now!" Marlena looked at the Heartless, stunned when it took upon Zashi's face. She let the key blade slip from her hand, and it gave a loud clang when it hit the floor and disappeared, Marlena fell to her knees, and started crying, saying, "Zashi how can I help you when you keep sinking further into Darkness!" Appearing in front of Marlena, Zashi looked down at her and said, "I want Iris back, and I will do anything to have her back." Summoning the key blade in her right hand, she swung at Zashi, knocking him about two feet away and onto his face.
The room started to fade, revealing the hallway again, Marlena got to her feet, and looked around, "What the heck?" she whispered to herself as she slowly walked down the hall.

Making her way past wooden doors, the walls seemed to become darker as she walked, then she entered a massive room with six pillars holding the ceiling, she moved cautiously through the room with a massive rug on the floor with a heartless symbol embodied on it, she noticed the walls had changed from black, to a dark blue. She stopped. "I know where I am! I am in the Grand Hall of Hollow Bastion!" She walked slowly, with her mouth agape as she saw the massive machine with great puffs of white smoke coming from the vents, and the heart-shaped portal, and electricity shooting from one gear to the next, but then she heard some voices. She quickly, and quietly ascended the stairs, and poked her head through the hand rail. A man with white hair, orange, beady eyes and a beige cloak with black trim paced around the room. "There is only more heart required to open the portal then the way to Kingdom Hearts will be open again, and we will prevail." Anti-Sora stood and watched him pace around the room and asked, "What about that Marlena girl? Could she have the heart we are looking for?" He stopped and looked at him, saying, "If she had the heart, we would have taken it long ago when we destroyed her world!" Marlena swallowed her lump again, and tried to get a better view of the man pacing back and fourth, but she couldn't, then spheres started to form in the space above their heads, and a brilliant light shown down, revealing a man with white hair, strangely glowing green eyes, and a massive black angel wing, wearing a black leather jacket. "Ansem, they are already here in the castle, they have taken separate paths to come here."

Ansem turned to Anti-Sora and used the back side of his hand and smacked his face. "I TOLD YOU TO DEAL WITH THE INTRUDERS! YOU FAILED!" Falling to the ground, rubbing his cheek, he got up from the floor, "Ansem, are my friends here yet?" Marlena instantly knew that voice, it was Zashi! She moved around to get a look at him, he still had the same scruffy hair, and the necklace that matched Iris'. "You told me that they would come looking for me, where are they?" Zashi questioned Ansem, who turned away, Marlena got to her feet and climbed the stairs, shouting, "Zashi!" running toward him, with her key blade in hand, but she was cut off with a massive katana, the figure with the angel wing said, "if you want to reach Zashi, you first have to fight me." Marlena fell into her attack stance and said, "I don't care how many people I have to fight, I will have him back!" The figure laughed and said, "You think you can succeed where Cloud has failed?"