KINGDOM HEARTS: Another Story
Written By Ben Warren and Laura Trout.
CHAPTER 1:
There was a sensation of falling . . . it was as if his entire world had risen up around him and then vanished, leaving him to plummet for all eternity. He could remember fire, and the sensation of heat all over his body, but his mind was unable to comprehend anything except for the endless falling . . .
So this is what it is like to die, he thought. There was no other explanation for what he was feeling, death must have been imminent.
But it was not to be so.
---
He opened his eyes and shook his head to try and bring the world into focus. Running one hand through his short, spiked blue hair, he saw that he was lying in an alleyway, the cold wet cobblestones biting into his back. A strangely reassuring feeling considering that it meant he was stationary, and no longer falling. More to the point, it meant he was still alive.
Had he been falling? Or had he imagined it?
Struggling to stand, he brushed himself down and looked around. It was night-time, and the stars were out in the sky. Craning his neck to get a better look at them, he watched as one star - a long way away from the look of it - flashed brightly and then vanished.
"How strange." he murmured, and stepped forwards.
His boot caught something metallic, and fairly large, sending it spinning away. Bending down to pick up this new element, he found that it was a large broadsword, about a meter and a half long. With a fat flat metal blade, supported by a piece of blue metal running along each side through the middle. The handle was forged in gold, with blue material wound around the handle for the grip. Such a beautiful thing to be discarded. When he got home he would have to try and find the owner . . .
When he got home? Where was home?
Where was he now? He had no idea.
Who was he at all?
It stunned him to realise that he had no recollection of anything prior to his dream of falling. He knew that he was educated, could talk and think and identify objects like the sword, but he had no recollection of who or what he was.
There was a sharp rasping sound suddenly from behind him, and he spun on his heels to look around. But there was nothing there, only the faded brick wall that sealed one end of the alleyway.
His hand tightened on the sword in his grasp, and its weight reassured him that he was safe. His head swam from the sudden movement of turning, it felt as if he were just waking up from a deep sleep.
"I . . ." he started, then shook his head.
Was it him, or had the sword in his hand looked like some kind of large key for a second?
Everything was spinning and things where still hazy. "Where am I?" he glanced at the sword in his hand again. It was once more the broadsword he had found. The grip fit his hand so well . . . it must be his, it simply must have been.
He made a few practise swipes and slashes into the air in front of him, fighting imaginary foes. Yes, the skill was there, he was trained with a blade.
But why couldn't he remember it? Why couldn't he remember his past? Everything was so confusing and too dream like.
Gazing at the long-thick blade of the weapon, he noticed something written on the hilt. Engraved there in a fine script.
"KNAVE," he read aloud.
Did that name mean something to him? He thought about it for a moment, and decided that it did.
Was it his name though? That was the question. Logic dictated that if this was his sword, then the name engraved upon the weapon must be his own. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to fit together in his head.
"My name is Knave." He spoke aloud, trying it out. There was no ill feeling about it, in fact he rather felt that he liked the title.
At least that was decided then until he learnt differently, his name was Knave.
A repeat of the rasping sound made him abandon his trail of thought. Long and drawn out this time, like a snake's kiss, it had come from right beside his ear.
Without really knowing what he was doing, Knave threw himself to one side and rolled away from the direction that the sound had come from, the manoeuvre saved his life.
Rising out of the shadows was a large wolf-like monster. It's skin black as night and only the beast's eyes showing any colour at all. They were red and insane. The monster swiped at the air in front of it with large broad claws from a strangely human hand, and was enraged to discover that its intended victim was no longer there.
Knave knew with a cold certainty that this thing had come there specifically to kill him, and without thinking he brought his sword around in front of him in a defensive position. The movement took him by surprise, on some hidden level he obviously believed that to stand and fight was the best action to take, or that he could beat this monster.
The thing came at him in a fury of teeth and claws, but he turned aside the attack with a whip of his blade and drew a thin scarlet line across its chest. It roared at him in anger, and swiped at him with it's tail, knocking him from his feet and sending him sprawling.
The two combatants circled each other slowly, each aware of the other's cunning now. Knave made sure to keep the defensive length of the sword between them, and the monster prowled around after him on all fours, in a position that suggested that it would pounce upon him at any moment.
From somewhere in the distance there came the ringing sound of weapons fire.
The beast lifted its head and sniffed the air, stopping the deadly dance between them and backing away slowly. The look in the beast's eyes was one of pure disdain, it's meaning obvious to Knave.
It said, "you can wait," and "I have more important prey to hunt."
With a suddenness of movement that took Knave quite by surprise, the beast turned away from him and darted out of the alleyway at speed. Knave ran to follow it, but was unable to keep up.
He lost the monster as it left the alleyway, for the first time getting a look at the world that lay beyond that cold little corner. It was a town, brick and wood seemed to be the most commonly used materials for its construction, but metal and slate was evident as well. There were a few houses to his left and right, and down some steps before him lay a large square courtyard, overlooked by more houses. All built in a similar Elizabethan style.
Slowing his run to a steady stride, Knave stepped down to the foot of the stairs.
That was when he got his first glance of the runners.
There were three of them, and they were being pursued by no less than twenty of the same type of monster that had attacked him.
---
The three of them had been running for over five minutes now, and had managed to stay ahead of their pursuers until now. Three of the monsters swept around ahead of them, over the rooftops and dropping down to cut them off.
Reno was the first to react, the young man drew his pistols and fired six shots into the approaching mass, several of the monsters were caught in vital places, causing them to snarl and hiss as they unravelled and vanished, leaving behind a faint black mist. He went to fire again, but one of his guns jammed, and he threw it to the ground with a curse.
Stepping back to be closer to the group, he searched his pockets for more ammunition for his remaining weapon.
Surrounded now, the group stopped running, and began to bunch together in a crude triangle formation that faced three possible sides of attack. The monsters spread out around them, confident in their numbers.
One eagerly pounced forwards ahead of its fellows in its eagerness to be the first to tackle the prey. One of the two women, a young girl with angelic wings spouting from her shoulders, stepped forwards and made a small movement with her thumb and two fingers in the air before her.
Instantly a shell of white light appeared around the group that acted like a solid wall, the monsters attack smashing harmlessly against it, and it howled in pain as if stuck, but did not vanish. It quickly hurried away to join its brothers in the seething mass of teeth and claws that surrounded them.
Hakujou gave a grim smile and stepped back. Her magic would hold them at bay for a moment, but no more. Soon they would have to engage the beasts in combat, and their numbers were too few to stand up against such overwhelming odds for long.
"As soon as the shield falls, make a break for it. Reno and I will hold them here for as long as possible and try to draw as many of them off as we can. If all goes well we'll meet you back at the Hotel." She whispered.
Lirael, a slightly younger woman, and the last of the three shook her head so hard that her long dark hair shook about her. "I won't leave you." She stated.
"You don't have a choice. You have to get through to see Merlin; remember what king Mickey said?" the older girl retorted quickly, her shield beginning to shimmer and grow weaker. All around the strange black creatures started to close in on them.
Reno reloaded his gun in silence and took a careful aim at one of the closer beasts. Any second now the shield would fail altogether, and then it would be carnage.
Hakujou spun on her heel and faced Lirael, slightly taller than her friend, she had to look down. "If you fall here, then nothing can be done. Nothing can be restored. It will be darkness and shadows forever! So when I tell you, you're going to run. Understand?"
Lirael nodded her head once.
The shield shimmered in the darkness for a moment longer, and then vanished without a sound. Instantly Reno got off three shots in rapid succession that cast two monsters into mist and wounded a third. Hakujou started forward and threw a handful of fire that scattered the beasts directly in front of her and left a momentary route of escape.
"GO!" she yelled, and instantly Lirael was running through the mass of dark shapes.
One of them snapped at her heels as she passed, but a bullet from Reno's pistol shattered its skull and it vanished. The young woman ran on out into the night, clearly all of the attention was on Hakujou and the gunner as they fought on with a mixture of loud explosions and shots somewhere in the distance.
Not daring to stop and catch her breath, she kept running onwards, up over the steps and around a corner, a couple of the monsters peeled off from the main group and gave chase.
Damn, she mentally cursed and tried to throw them off by ducking into a sidestreet that went on a little way before opening out into a maze of smaller avenues.
She slowed for a second, convinced that she had lost them. The sounds of battle had died down now, and Lirael hoped that her friends were alright, but she could not risk going back to see for herself.
Leaning on a wall she came to a stop and panted for breath. Quite how far she had run the young woman had no idea, and she had no idea how long she could dodge her pressures, but it was a case of stopping now or collapsing from exhaustion later. And that could prove fatal.
Something hissed in the shadows ahead, and one of the beasts slipped out into the half-light where she could see it properly. Smarter than she had given them credit, they must have set a trap and then deliberately run her down this narrow street.
Moving more quickly than she had anticipated, it leapt towards her in a fury of teeth and claws, but she was one step quicker still. A golden light shone about her hand and a blade-like object appeared there, slashing out with it she delivered a powerful strike across the length of the beast that all but cut it in two. The thing burst into the same mist as the others had and vanished.
Deciding that it was too risky to stay in the streets, where she could be seen and cornered more easily, Lirael climbed up onto the rooftop and began to make her way across the flat tops of the houses.
Before Lirael could react, another beast sprung at her from somewhere behind, spinning on the spot she narrowly avoided the killing attack, but her weapon slipped from her grasp and spun away on the smooth tile roof as a claw grazed her arm. The bright light that it had shone stopping instantly the moment it left her fingers.
Moving quickly to try and find it, she was horrified to realise that the remaining two of the monsters that had followed her had her pinned between them. Her weapon nowhere to be seen, she crouched down low, her left hand gripping her right shoulder and closing over her wound.
There was no way out of this one. Unarmed and surrounded she could only try to escape if she saw an opening. But somehow she doubted that there would be one, these beasts where too well organised for that. Far more intellectual than she had been told they would be.
She dodged to the right and threw herself into a roll that avoided a swipe from the first monster, but the second one had anticipated this action and was already there waiting for her. It took the last of her strength to jump back a step and avoid the jaws that waited for her.
By then the first monster had recuperated behind her, and was moving closer. It raked a crimson line across her back with a powerful blow that sent her sprawling and made her scream despite herself.
Falling to her knees, she cried out again in anguish and flung up her arms to protect her face as the two monsters closed in around her to finish the job.
There was a flash of blue somewhere off to her left, and something leapt across the rooftops quicker than she could follow, and with a swift strike severed one of the monsters in half down the middle, pausing only to scoop something up off of the ground.
Black mist from the destroyed monster obscured her vision, stopping her from seeing who or what this new arrival could be, but she reacted on instinct and caught her weapon as it was tossed over to her. Flaring into life as it touched her fingers, she swung it around in a wide arc and sliced clean away the head of the remaining monster. It too burst into mist and vanished.
"Don't just stand there, run!" It was a man's voice, deep commanding. A hand appeared beside her and helped her to her feet, where she could finally see her rescuer properly.
He was a young man, about twenty-one, with short spiky blue hair and garbed in matching clothes that had once been fine, but were now ripped and faded as if burnt. His face was handsome, but it was his eyes that drew her in. They had a quality unlike any she had ever seen before, crystal blue that reflected everything around him perfectly, there was an edge of kindness there that suggested that he where a poet, despite the sword gripped in his free hand.
He pulled her along with him as he ran, and suddenly it became clear why he was so intent on moving. More of the monsters were arriving, chasing the two of them over the rooftops. Lirael's arm hurt like hell, and he was pulling her by the wrist of the other. But despite all of that, and instead of complaining she recognised that she was with someone that could help her survive this encounter. Her friends may be lost to her for now, but this man seemed to know what he was doing.
A beast leapt out of the shadows to her left, and Lirael used her shining weapon to destroy it without taking the time to slow down.
More of the monsters had caught the scent, and worse still they were starting to run out of roof.
A large gap loomed ahead of the pair of them, and to her shock Lirael realised that the man had no intention of slowing down.
"Can you make it?" he asked her as they ran.
"I'm not sure . . ." Lirael started to reply, but no sooner were the first few words out of her lips than he had scooped her up into his arms and put on an extra burst of speed.
Leaping across the distance, he hit the floor with a loud grunt and dropped her across onto the safety of the other side. The creatures, too large and bulky to make such a jump were forced to watch them from the other side of the expanse.
It was at that point that she was horrified to see the man slip and tumble towards the edge himself. His footing giving way from under him as he tried to scramble up the steep incline that marked the edge of the rooftop.
He pushed me the last of the way, she thought, but he couldn't make the jump and carry me!
Lirael darted forwards and caught his flailing hand just as he was about to slip over the edge. Her fingers locked around his wrist, and in return he gripped her own for dear life.
There was a flash – a second of clarity in Lirael's mind.
She saw a vision of the Keyblade shining between the two of them for just a fraction of a second, and then it vanished. Shaking her head she put her mind back into the task.
It was only then did she realise just how much bigger than she was, and his weight could bring them both tumbling over the edge. Her wounded arm screamed in pain as she held onto him.
But to her amazement she did not fall. The young man had managed to find a handhold with his spare hand and was putting all of his weight onto it, obviously a last minute thought to save them both. But doing such a thing he was unable to pull himself up.
Bracing her feet, Lirael pulled and with a great sigh of relief he tumbled back onto the rooftop.
They were safe. They had managed to outrun the monsters and had brought themselves a moment to escape into the night.
"Thanks." The young man said and shook his head as if to clear it. She could see why, it was a long fall down and it would have put a fright through her. "I owe you one."
"Actually I think that makes us even." Lirael panted, out of breath from all the running.
The man nodded and stood up, looking around before leading her over to a low point were they could drop onto a lower roof and then find a ladder to take them to street level once more.
It was on the way down that things finally caught up with Lirael, and she slipped into unconsciousness.
---
Knave caught her as she fell and scooped her up into his arms, surprised at how light she was. Her pretty face was blissfully unaware, and he decided it would be best to let her sleep for a while. Evidently she had not had the chance to rest properly in quite a while, and so a little time out would do her no harm.
Perhaps there was an inn or something similar around here where she could get medical attention? He'd also be able to get something to eat there if that was the case, he had no idea how long it had been since he'd last had a meal but his stomach rumbled hungrily.
At least she spoke his language, that was something.
And what had that vision been when they had touched?
Something about it had sparked memories in his head, but now wasn't the time to ponder them.
Moving out of the cramped little alley, he walked her out into the early morning breeze. The sounds of battle had stopped in the distance, and he wondered what could be so special about this girl that her two companions had been willing to give their lives for her.
Looking for the first time at her weapon, still clutched tightly in her little hand, he gave a small sound of surprise. It was a large key, held in much the same way as a sword would be.
Just like the one I saw in the alley, he thought to himself.
Perhaps his meeting this girl was not such a huge coincidence after all.