Remnant of the Key

by lyokoMARVELanime

Adopted from FandomBard12. Four Keybladers meet four huntresses while on a quest to recover a lost friend. Now, their destinies shall become intertwined as they fight against darkness of both Remnant and beyond. The question is, just what else will come from this meeting between the two?

14. On and Off the Rails

AN: Look, I'm just saying, emphasis on saying, maybe it wouldn't hurt for you to consider trying a few different weapons out, at least in this story. I mean, it's obvious that you're good with your scythe, but you can't seriously expect us to believe that you don't have some experience using other weapons. I mean, we all saw you using one of Penny's swords pretty well in Volume 3.

Ruby: It was only for a few minutes, and I barely even did that much with it. Besides, why would I use anything other than my beautiful Crescent Rose? [smiles all giddy-like while a thought bubble of said scythe appears above her head]

AN: I don't know. Ask any of the writers on fanfiction that have given you a Keyblade in their stories. I mean, I get why they would do it, but I'm not sure you do, so that's why I'm telling you to ask them.

Ruby: [thought bubble pops, while she growls in annoyance]

AN: Besides, again, you've admitted to being really into all the different types of weapons, so maybe you could at least consider being in a scene later on in this story where you try out a bunch of different ones, or at least show how good you are with them? We've already implied that you're going to show off how good you are with a sword in an earlier chapter, so...

Ruby: Hey, showing how good I am with a sword is one thing. Uncle Qrow actually taught me how to use swords when he was training me.

AN: So are you saying that you can't use any weapon besides your scythe and a sword?

Ruby: I never said that.

AN: Then I guess we can showcase that in a later chapter of the story.

Ruby: I never said that either! Oh, and I think your readers/followers/fans are here.

AN: Nice try, Ruby. Like I'm really gonna fall for that...[looks to see you and everyone else reading this have arrived] Oh, you're not joking! They are here! Uh...To be continued at a later time. Ahem! Hey, everybody and welcome back to Remnant of the Key, for our newest chapter!

[audience applause]

Yeah that's right. Show us some love. You know you were eagerly awaiting this, but I'm sure that eagerness is nothing compared to how excited you all are for some of the other surprises we may or may not have in store for the story later on down the line.

Ruby: Ooooh! Like what?! Like what?! Tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us!

AN: Sorry Ruby, but I'm not giving away any spoilers. [sees Ruby frowning and grumbling again, and thus pulls out the perfect cure for that] Cookie?

Ruby: [brightens up instantly] Gimme please!

AN: [allows the plate of cookies to be swiped away while Ruby inhales them] Hehe, works every time.

Jaune: Come on. Can't you at least tell them that the next time Riku shows up it will be during...

AN: DAH! SPOILER! [hits the button]

Jaune: [suddenly has his leg snagged by a web-line, and is then pulled upside down so that he's eventually hanging from the ceiling, and tied up in a web by Spider-Man] Whoa! Not again! Why do I always get stuck up in high places?!

AN: [looks curiously at Spider-Man for a minute] Wait, wasn't that the fish bomb button?

Ruby: [with her mouth full of cookies] Fish bomb button?

AN: Yeah. It's a button that would've dumped a bunch of fish onto him to the point where it would've drawn Blake in so that she could go crazy in trying to get said fish from Jaune.

Ruby: [swallows recent mouthful] Do you really think that would've worked that well on Blake?

AN: You tell me! She's your teammate. More importantly, what is Spider-Man even doing here? I thought he was upstairs doing some rehearsals with Lightning Farron and the rest of the cast from A Spider's Focus. Or with the cast of Hearts of Avengers. Or with the cast from the Code Avengers Series. Or with the cast of Avenging Normandy. Or the cast of Justice Marvel. Or with...Wow, I know I shouldn't be too surprised by this, but it's only just now that I've really come to realize that Spidey's in a lot of my stories.

Spidey: Hey, yeah, I know I'm not supposed to be in here right now, but I was actually just swinging around here looking for the kitchen. We ran out of pizza and other snacks, and I drew the short straw to get more.

AN: Just a little further down the hall, take the second stairwell down one level, and it'll be the second door on the right.

Spidey: Thanks lyoko Prime.

AN: Don't mention it. [waits to watch Spidey leave for a minute] Okay, so, now that we've got all that cleared up, how about we get today's chapter started, shall we?

Ruby: Um, don't you want to answer some reviews first?

Jaune: Or how about getting me down from here?!

AN: Yeah, I'm thinking that we answer reviews at the end of the chapters from now on. Less clutter at these starting notes, and more space for these funny little skits. Now then, with nothing else to address...

Jaune: I'M STILL UP HERE!

AN: ...Let's get this show on the road! Or should I say, get the show on the railroad? Eh? Eh? Am I right?...Guys?

Everyone other than AN, Yang, & Jaune: [deadpan looks for the terrible, Yang-level pun]

Yang: [grins a little with a thumb's-up] Nice one!

AN: [sighs a little at how Yang was the only one who liked the joke] Just run the disclaimer and start this thing.

I do not own anything from either the Kingdom Hearts or RWBY franchises, or any other franchise mentioned in this story.

---

Chapter 14: On and Off the Rails

A rather somber mood was in the air that night after our heroes had set up camp, but not all of it was due to how they had been unable to find anything. Oobleck and Aqua's questioning had stuck with the members of the group who had been on the receiving end of it. Ever since they had been asked those big questions, there was this odd weight on their minds that they could not shake, telling them that the teacher and Keyblade master knew that they were holding something back in their answers as well, while at the same time, were looking for something else in their answers as well. The only thing that made it more confusing was that Ruby and Sora had not been asked about their reasons for wanting to become a huntress and Keyblade master as well, but before any of them could ask the couple about it, they had already moved to take the first watch of the night while biding their friends good night.

Afterwards, the group had all eaten their small, packed diners and crawled into their sleeping bags, thinking that a good night's sleep might help them to get over the whole thing. Unfortunately, the whole matter was just too well burrowed into their minds that they could not conceive even a second of nodding off, let alone sleep. Just what was it that made Sora and Ruby different from the rest of them, and why did Aqua and Oobleck really question their reasons for wanting to be a huntress or Keyblade master? It just did not make sense in any of their minds, and as a result, it kept them all awake for quite a few hours. The only consolation was that Ruby and Sora were not using their time on watch-duty to flirt with each other because they thought everyone else was asleep, because they had a hunch that the two would have been far too lovey-dovey for them to really get any sleep.

Eventually, Yang was the one who broke the silence that until that point was only disturbed by the camp fire that the two teams were gathered around. "Hey Blake, are you awake," Yang quietly asked.

"…Yeah," Blake admitted, not wanting to even bother pretending she had been asleep.

"Why do you think Doctor Oobleck asked us about being a huntress," Yang asked. "Like, what was he trying to say?"

"I don't know. Maybe he was just curious," Blake offered.

"You think?"

"…No."

Yang sighed in response to that hesitant answer, glad that at the very least, she had confirmed she was not the only one who thought that Oobleck was aiming for something deeper when he had questioned them on that. Still, she had to check if that was the case for all of them, and looked over to her redhead friend. "Lea? Are you awake?"

"I'm pretty sure none of us have ever managed to get to sleep," Lea confessed.

"Why do you think Aqua and Oobleck were asking you guys about being Keyblade masters, or wielders," Yang asked.

"…I'm not sure. I want to believe that they were just curious, but I doubt it was just that," Lea shrugged.

"Yeah, guess that confirms we're all in the same boat there," Yang muttered before she turned to her other teammate. "Weiss? Are you awake?"

"Of course I'm awake! We're all being kept awake by you all talking," Weiss snipped in response, prompting Yang to roll her eyes at that answer, while Ventus and Roxas both just sat up to silently confirm she was not entirely wrong. "And I think they…that they knew something about our answers. Like how we weren't all being entirely truthful. Or at least that I wasn't," she then admitted in a softer tone than before.

"Meaning what," Ventus prompted. He had a good hunch about Weiss's meaning, but he felt that it would be better for her if she said it herself.

"Well, when I said I wanted to honor my family's name, I meant it, you know that Ven," Weiss started off, giving Ven a meaningful glance to show she was glad to see he was letting her get this all out there. "But it's not what you guys think. I'm not so stupid that I'm don't know what my father has done with my family's company. I'm fully aware that the Schnee Dust Company has operated in a…moral grey area ever since he took control."

"That's putting it lightly," Blake remarked on reflex.

Even though the cat Faunus's remark got a rise out of Weiss, she did not let it get to her too much. She did still begin the next part of her little speech with a bit of a bite in her tone though. "Which is why I feel the need to make things right! If I had taken a job in Atlas, nothing would've changed. My father was not the start of our name, and I refuse to let him be the end of it, whatever it takes."

"Huh. I know you're not too fond of talking about your family beyond the obvious, but I never woulda guessed you had daddy issues like that," Lea attempted to joke.

"Not the time, man," Ventus admonished.

"Sorry."

"I would've been more worried if you had not said anything like that," Weiss attempted to joke, but it ended up falling flat for the moment.

"Hey, I'm just glad to know that you're willing to fight for a chance to make things right," Blake told the heiress, taking over the conversation afterwards. "All of my life, I fought for what I believed was right. I had a partner named Adam…well, more of a mentor, actually, and he always assured me that what we were doing would make the world a better place. It wasn't until much later on that I realized his idea of a perfect future, turned out to be…not perfect for everyone."

"I'm guessing that he's the new, radical, more violent leader or something," Roxas figured, making sure to tread carefully in what he said in case Oobleck was still awake. He did not think it would be a problem if Aqua found out about Blake's past, but he did not want to just blurt it out for anyone to hear right now if they were not already aware.

"No, but he is a strong figure head in the group," Blake corrected before continuing with her story. "When I joined the academy, it was because I knew huntsmen and huntresses were regarded as the noble warriors in the world…well, in this world, anyway, and that they always fought for good, but I never really thought much about what would come after joining. When I do leave the academy, I don't what I'm going to do next. How can I possibly undo so many years of hate?"

"Just because it's hard, doesn't mean it's impossible to make up for your mistakes," Lea assured the girl.

"Yeah, if anyone can figure it out, it's you," Yang agreed. "You're not one to back down from a challenge, Blake."

"But I am! I do it all the time," Blake argued a second later. "When you all learned I was a Faunus, I didn't know what to do, so I ran. When I realized that my oldest partner had become a monster, I ran! Even my Semblance it's proof of that. I was born with the ability to leave behind a shadow of myself; an empty copy that takes the hit while I run away."

"Only to strike back when things are more in your favor," Ventus added on before Blake could put herself down further. "Not every fight is won by just attacking head on. Sometimes, you need to know when to make a quick retreat so you can come back stronger."

"It doesn't change how I always go for the easy option of just running from my problems," Blake disputed.

"Maybe, but at least you and Weiss have something that drives you guys, be it in your reasons to become huntresses or as people," Yang disputed with a rare, sad tone in her voice that caught everyone's notice. "Me, I've always just kind of gone with the flow, and that's fine. I mean, that's just who I am, but how long can I really do that for? I wanna be a huntress not really because I wanna be a hero, but because I want the adventure. I want a life where I won't know what tomorrow will bring, and that'll be a good thing. Being a huntress just happens to line up with that. I mean, I guess being a Keyblade wielder would too, but that doesn't really seem like something that's in the cards for me."

"Just going with the flow isn't always a good thing," Roxas told her; not knowing it was now his turn to share. "All of my life, regardless of how short it's been so far, being a Keyblade wielder has really been all that I know. Sure, I've done some other stuff; I've made friends, got a great girl, and lived a peaceful life away from fighting monsters, but even after that little bit of peace, I ended up just being pulled right back into the world of Keyblades, monsters, and magic. Even though I always say that I'm me and not anyone else, there are still days where it feels like I'm just living a copy of my original self's life. I don't mind being able to help others and stop darkness from spreading, but I want to know what else there is for me to pursue, you know? Maybe I should just stop and live a normal life if possible, and that would be a good thing. But at the same time, I can't help but feel that I can do more. If anything, I'm still being a Keyblade wielder because I want to figure out what I can do now that I truly exist as my own person, and just what my real purpose could be now."

The others had to admit, it was nice to hear that Roxas wanted a chance at a normal life, but they also felt bad for him since it seemed like he was not likely to get it so long as he wielded the Keyblade. The only thing that made them feel for him a little more was that he desired nothing more than to find a purpose for himself beyond just the responsibilities as a Keyblade wielder. Ventus on the other hand had his own opinions on the matter.

"Are you sure you really want to know about that though," Ven asked of his look-a-like. "What if you find your purpose and it ends up being something that takes you away from everything you care about? Would it really be worth it?"

"No…I don't know," Roxas hesitantly huffed. "Would that really matter?"

"It does to me," Ventus admitted. "I've always said that being a Keyblade master is my dream, but it's not just because my best friends share that dream. It's more than that. Ever since I lost the memories of my past, I've felt like becoming a Keyblade master might somehow help me find the answers to questions that I've been looking for. Things like what happened to my parents, if I even have any other family out there, even how or why I became a Keyblade wielder in the first place. I've wondered about those things and more for so long now."

"Anyone in your position would, Ven," Weiss reassured him.

"But at the same time, I'm scared of what will happen when I do find those answers," Ventus continued on. "Every time I ask myself about that stuff, I'm always left wondering what will happen if or when I find out about it. I've built a life for myself, found friends and family all on my own….People I love. I don't want to lose any of that, but I feel like I just can't ignore how badly I want to solve the mystery of my past, so how can I really expect to fulfill my dream of becoming a Keyblade master if I'm too scared of what will happen after the fact?"

"No one really knows what's going to come after you reach a goal, Ven. Sometimes it's just a simple matter of finding a new one, and other times it's just settling for what you managed to gain along the way and being happy. The only one who really knows where to go from there is you," Lea stated, imparting some of his rare bits of wisdom when he did. Of course, it was not long before he realized he had not finished with his catchphrase, and smoothly added, "Got it memorized?"

Hearing him throw out his go-to line brought smiles to the others for a brief second, and Roxas even let out a half-chuckle as he said, "You always seem to know just what to say to make everyone feel better, don't you Axel?"

Roxas's comment ended up bringing the previous mood back, but more because it had made Lea let out a sad sounding sigh and admit, "Maybe for everyone else, but sometimes, it's hard to follow your own advice."

"Meaning what," Yang asked.

"I never really thought about becoming a Keyblade wielder until just a short time ago, and I wasn't even sure if I could become one until the thing finally popped into my hand," Lea confessed. "Besides that, I only went to Yen Sid and the others to get trained up as one so I could be the hero and save my friends. You guys know what happened next. I got all trained up, went to the Keyblade Graveyard with the other Guardians of Light, ended up getting trounced by Xemnas and Saïx, and barely even had to do all that much to get most of my friends back. Either way, mission accomplished, even if I do feel like I barely did that much to make it happen, save for clobbering Saïx until he was knocked back to his senses and became Isa again. Now, I'm not entirely sure what I want to do. Sure, I'm always gonna be there to protect my friends and bring them back if anything happens to them, but what else is there for me to do? It's not like I have any real reason to keep being a Keyblade wielder like the rest of you."

"What about that friend of yours and Isa's," Roxas asked, earning him an odd look from Lea. "I overheard you two talking about her one time. Someone you two knew back in Radiant Garden that you met after sneaking into the castle a few times."

"Yeah, and we became Ansem the Wise's apprentices thinking we could rescue her, and look how well that turned out. One day she was gone, and the next thing you know, Ansem had up and vanished, and then me and Isa had become Nobodies, doing all the icky jobs for Xemnas," Lea filled in with no shortage of bitterness. "The big reason why we never really complained too much was because we figured that doing those jobs would help us find her, but we still failed."

"…So this girl you two were looking for…Is she…special to you," Yang asked, a creeping feeling of jealousy forming in the pit of her stomach.

"If that's your way of asking if she's more than just a friend to either of us, then no, it's not like that. She's just a really good friend we made one day after sneaking into the castle," Lea assured the blonde. "Despite how far up the ranks Isa rose as Saïx, he was still unable to find any trace of her again."

"Well, maybe your job's not done then. You've still got one friend left to save," Blake offered.

"And I don't have a clue where to look," Lea pointed out.

"Didn't stop you from trying to save me and Xion," Roxas reminded him.

"Maybe, but if she knew what Isa and I have done to try and find her, I'm sure she'd be disgusted with us both," Lea pointed out. "I'm not saying that I don't intend to try and get her back, but that still doesn't help answer my question: what else am I gonna do and why should I keep being a Keyblade wielder? I've got nothing else besides rescuing my friends and making sure to protect them, but it still feels like that's just not enough. I know it sounds selfish, but I'd kinda like to have a reason that's just for me."

"I don't think it's selfish to want something for yourself every now and then, but I do get what you're saying. It's tough to really know for sure what you really want," Yang assured him, with the others all nodding in agreement. She then looked over to her sister and said sister's boyfriend, as she added, "Sometimes, I wish I was like Ruby. She's always wanted to be a huntress, and all for the very reason that she's always said. Ever since she was a kid, she dreamt about being the heroes in the books. Always helping people and saving the day, and never asking for anything in return. Even when she couldn't fight, she knew that's what she wanted to be, and from what I can tell, Sora's pretty much the same way."

"I don't know about that. Sora never wanted any of this Keyblade stuff," Roxas told her. "The only thing he'd ever dreamed of was a chance to visit other worlds with his friends. At first it was just for the thrill of a real adventure, but then it became a quest to help a friend find their home again."

"Hey, even if he didn't ask for it, he hasn't exactly made any attempts to give it up," Lea pointed out. "When he finally did lose the Keyblade, he kept on going in his journey to save his friends and all the worlds when he could've just as easily walked away. I mean, I get why he didn't, considering where the Keyblade had ended up at the time, but still…"

"But he's always been that way. Always helping other people without a second thought or care for his own well-being," Ventus pointed out. "He cares so much about others, whether they're his friends, someone he only just became friends with, or even just a total stranger that it really seems to hurt him when he can't do something to help. That's just who he is, and that's why he's taken his training so seriously after what happened at the Keyblade Graveyard."

"Yeah, Ruby's pretty much the same. She's trained so hard to get where she is today, and it definitely shows," Yang smiled as she glanced at her sister.

"Well, it's not like they're that incredible. They are still just kids," Weiss pointed out, though her argument sounded half-hearted even to her.

"Ruby's only two years younger," Blake countered as she sat up so that she could better speak with the others. "I can't really say for sure about whether or not the same can be said for Sora."

"He's actually a year older than Ruby, I think," Roxas answered for her. "I'm pretty sure his birthday had come and gone by the time we had all enrolled at Beacon, so he's now sixteen."

"Either way, he's not that much younger than us, and we're all still kids," Blake continued on.

"I don't really think any of us can say that we are now," Lea stated. "I mean, look at where we are and what some of us have been through. Me and the boys here have fought in more life and death battles than we should probably care to remember, and even fought in an honest to Kingdom Hearts war! That's gotta count for something."

"He's right," Yang agreed. "And now, we're all armed to the teeth in the middle of a warzone."

"It's the life we chose," Blake shrugged.

"It's a job; both being a huntress and being a Keyblade wielder," Weiss corrected. "We all had one reason or another to have a romanticized vision of being a huntress or Keyblade master in our heads, but at the end of the day, they're both important jobs to protect the people."

"Protect the people, and defend the balance between light and darkness in whatever way that we can, in our case," Roxas reasoned out.

"Regardless of what responsibilities we have, in the end, our own desires will have to come second, because keeping others safe is more important than anything else," Lea finished. "Guess we'd all better get it memorized, huh?"

"I think we already have," Yang grinned, looking a little more like her usual self now, and the others all smiled a little bit more right along with her to show they agreed.

With all of that now out of their systems, the six had no more trouble in getting to sleep when they lay back down again; though, the fact that they also felt a little emotionally drained may have had something to do with that too. What none of them realized was that Aqua and Oobleck had both heard every word that had passed between the six, and they were both now smiling proudly over how the kids had figured out such an important lesson.

---

It was just a few hours later when it finally became Ruby and Sora's turn to get some sleep while someone else kept watch, and when it did, despite all the energy they had earlier when they were on duty, the two had both fallen asleep the second they had crawled into their sleeping bags. Not only that, but when his master had gone to bed, Zwei had decided to do the same, snuggling up close to Ruby like he was a little tired kitten instead of a dog. At least that was the case, until a short time later when Zwei suddenly perked up, disturbing Ruby from her sleep when he did. Sora on the other hand continued to snooze the night away, only just barely making out what Ruby had told her dog in her still sleep addled state, but he was soon a little more awake when the girl accidentally nudged her foot against him for some reason.

"Huh? Wha…? Ruby, what is it," Sora muttered as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes for a second, but he became a little more aware when his only answer was silence. "Ruby," Sora quietly called out while looking around. "Ruby? Where'd you go?"

It did not take long for Sora to realize that Ruby, her scythe, and Zwei were all missing from the camp, so it was not that much harder for him to figure out what could have happened. Sora took even less time crawling out of bed so that he could go and find them as well, thanking his lucky stars that no one else had been stirred awake along with him. His luck continued to prove good when he got down the stairs of the building they were camped out in and spotted a red cloak lightly flapping in the wind, and he quickly came up behind the person wearing it.

Since she was so preoccupied with gazing around at what was right outside the doorway, the girl had no idea that Sora was coming up behind her, until Sora had gotten close enough to tap her shoulder, making her let out a cute little, frightened, "Eep!"

"Shh! Quiet! You'll wake up the others," Sora hushed after clamping his hand over Ruby's mouth.

"Well what do you think is going to happen when you sneak up on me like that," Ruby whispered back to him.

"Sorry, sorry. I'll admit, that was my bad," Sora conceded. "More importantly, what're you doing up at this time of night?"

"I'm trying to find Zwei. He just took off all of a sudden," Ruby quickly told him before turning to start looking for her dog again.

Sora likely would have rushed out to do a better search, had he not managed to spot the corgi in question just seconds after looking out the door again. "I don't think we have too much to worry about," Sora assured Ruby with a smile as he pointed to where her dog was.

"Huh," Ruby asked, only to sigh out of relief when she saw Zwei taking care of his business by an old beam sticking out of the ground. "Are you kidding me, Zwei," Ruby asked as she walked over to her dog once he had finished. "This is a wasteland. You literally could've done that anywhere."

"Hey, better out here than in the middle of the camp. I don't think any of us would've been too fond of waking up to that smell in the morning," Sora defended as he knelt down to the corgi. "You were just being a considerate, good boy, weren't you, Zwei?"

Zwei barked in affirmative to Sora's question, earning both him and the boy a short giggle from Ruby, but they all went quiet when they heard another voice speaking up that was definitely not theirs or any of their teammates'. Looking to where the speaker was, Sora and Ruby both had to keep themselves from gasping out loud as they ducked behind a wall, the latter scooping Zwei up into her arms as she went. The reason for their sudden distress: a pair of White Fang soldiers patrolling the area just a mere few feet away from them.

"What's with you," one of the two soldiers asked of his partner.

"I thought I heard something. Sounded like barking," the other soldier explained as he scanned the area.

Ruby and Sora planted themselves flat against the wall they were hiding behind, holding their breath in the hopes that they would not be seen, until finally, they heard the first soldier speak up again. "You're probably imagining things," the first soldier remarked.

"Well can you blame me? We ran into a ton of Beowolves almost the exact second we got here, so excuse me if I want to be a little cautious," the second soldier said.

"Whatever. Let's just finish our patrol and get back to base," the first suggested.

"Yeah, okay. This place gives me the creeps anyway."

The two soldiers then turned and started moving away, prompting Ruby and Sora to finally release their breath, albeit as quietly as they could. Seeing the opportunity this presented, Sora was quick to come up with a plan of action. One that he was more than happy to share with his girlfriend. "Okay, you hurry back up to the camp and tell the others. I'll follow them and see where they go. Just have Aqua and the others follow the tracking signal in my Gummiwatch, but make sure to tell them not to get too close to my position," Sora told Ruby while keeping his eyes locked on the retreating White Fang members.

Instead of the eager affirmative he had been expecting, Sora was once again met with silence, much to his confusion. "Ruby," Sora asked as he turned to where the girl should have been, only to find she was not there. "Oh don't tell me," Sora quietly pleaded as he turned back to where the White Fang soldiers were. His request was refused, as he easily spotted Ruby sneakily trailing after the Faunus terrorists with Zwei, much to his dismay. "Ruby," he hissed after her as loudly as he dared, but she was already too far away to have heard him, so he had no choice but to follow. "Wait, Ruby!"

Now Ruby would be the first to admit that she was not all that sneaky, at least if you were to compare to someone like say Blake, but that did not mean she did not know a few things about how to stealthily follow a target without being seen. The fact that she and her team were able to follow Team SLVR all the way to their stealth gummi ship not so long ago could attest to that just like how she was able to follow after the two White Fang soldiers right now would. She was especially glad that Zwei was keeping quiet, because she knew that the pup was more likely to give away their position if he made any noise right now. You could not blame her for thinking like that, given that most of the hunts that her dad and uncle took him on were not stealth-based, but it seemed that Zwei was at least trained enough to know how to keep quiet when necessary, because he did not make even a peep the entire time they were trailing the two Faunus.

When they finally came to a large building, Ruby had to scramble behind cover again so that she would not risk being seen, and was about to grab Zwei so he could help her know whether or not the two went into the building, when someone suddenly slapped their hand over her mouth and pulled her to them. Ruby's startled scream was muffled of course, but she only ceased struggling completely when she registered the familiar feeling of Sora's arms around her, coupled with his distinctive ocean-like scent. Sora on the other hand, was less than happy with her at the moment.

"What is it with you and just rushing off into stuff like this without thinking," Sora hissed, knowing that he was probably being a bit of a hypocrite scolding Ruby for something that he had done more than a handful of times in the past. Of course, Sora liked to think that he was much better about it now, but it was hard to tell if the same could be said of Ruby. "Seriously, I could've easily tracked them while you got the others and followed the tracker in my watch."

Ruby easily wriggled out of Sora's grasp after that and whispered back, "Sorry, but we were right there, and I figured we didn't have enough time. Besides, do you really think I would've let you go it alone?"

Sora knew that she was only asking to be polite, so he just smiled a little in reply to show his appreciation for her concern. He schooled his features again quickly enough when they both heard the sound of a door being opened, and he quickly peeked out to see that the White Fang Faunus they had been following were going into the building that they stopped at. Ruby quickly pulled Sora back behind cover again, only to hold Zwei up so that the corgi was now getting a good look at the location for them.

"Did they go in yet," Ruby asked of her dog. "One bark means yes."

If Sora held any skepticism of whether or not Zwei understood that, it was soon cast aside, because the next time they heard the door close, Zwei barked the one time, just as he had been told to, much to Ruby's delight. "Smart dog," Sora complimented.

"More importantly, this is it! We've found their hideout," Ruby quietly cheered. She then retrieved her Scroll and tried to dial up her teammates, but unfortunately, the call ended up being unable to go through. "Oh rats! I've got a low signal warning. We must be just out of the tower's range for anything other than short-range communications."

"No worries. When in doubt, gummi it," Sora grinned as he brought up his Gummiwatch to both activate his tracking signal and call his team. "Just to be on the safe side though, you should go back and get the others. I'll stay here so that you guys will know where to go."

"Didn't we just have a conversation about this," Ruby asked as she retrieved her scythe from where it had been set down on the ground. Just when it seemed like Sora was about to answer or she was going to add onto her question though, a faint crumbling sound reached her ears. "Uh, what was that?"

Ruby's answer ended up being the ground beneath her and Zwei caving in, and nearly dropping her and the dog into the dark depths below. The only reason she had not fallen in was because Sora had managed to leap over and catch her hand before it was too late, right at the same time that Ruby had managed to catch Zwei. Sadly, Sora could not hold onto Ruby for long, and he could already feel her hand slipping from his grasp. Ruby must have realized this too, as she quickly tossed Zwei up to Sora.

"Easy Zwei. I've gotcha, boy," Sora assured the corgi before passing the dog over to more solid ground. Once Zwei was in the clear, Sora reached back down to Ruby and called out, "Quick, give me your other hand."

Ruby did as asked, and was about to sigh in relief as she felt Sora pulling her up, until they heard the ground starting to crack again. "Oh that doesn't sound good," Ruby muttered.

Realizing what was likely about to happen, Sora redoubled his efforts to pull Ruby back up, but it was all for not when the street finally collapsed beneath him, dropping both him and Ruby into the abyss below. They only just caught a faint echo of Zwei's worried barks as the wind rushed past their ears, but Sora was more concerned with other matters at the moment. He knew that he could survive a fall from just about any height, but he was not sure if the same could be said for Ruby. Sure, her Aura gave her extra protection, but there was no guarantee it would be enough to prevent her from getting hurt when they landed, so he did not even think twice before pulling Ruby into his arms.

Once Ruby was secure in his hold and had her arms wrapped around him, Sora spun them around as best he could so that when they finally landed, he would take the worst of the impact. An impact that came a lot sooner than expected, and was coupled with the added pain of having Ruby's weight pressed down on top of him. Despite whatever pain he felt on any part of his body though, Sora knew that Ruby had most likely come out of this fall much more unscathed than he had, so he took some relief in that above all else. Never mind the dust that he and Ruby were now coughing out of their throats or the dull throbbing in his back; all that mattered was that Ruby was okay in Sora's mind.

"Ugh, well that hurt," Ruby grumbled as she sat up.

"Hey, it could've been worse. For you, I mean," Sora grunted as a reminder of whom she had landed on. Despite his obvious complaints, Ruby still gave him a thankful smile, which also served as Sora's third reward for his valiant actions. His first was the obvious pain to his body, but the second was the one that he found much more enjoyable. "At least I'm seeing stars for a good reason right now."

"And what's that," Ruby asked, knowing why it would be a bad thing for him to being seeing stars at the moment.

"Because I'm looking into your beautiful eyes," Sora replied as he ran a hand through her bangs, making Ruby blush.

"Sora! I really don't think now's the best time for that kind of flattery," Ruby attempted to scold. Her laughter and faint blush made it a very poor attempt though.

"It's not flattery if it's true," Sora easily shot back.

"No seriously. We really should be more focused on getting out of…" Ruby trailed off at the end only because she had used the time she was speaking in to look up at their surroundings, and was left rather surprised by what they found. "Whoa!"

"What? What is it," Sora asked as he turned around as best as he could while pinned beneath her. When he did, he was left just as surprised as Ruby, and gasped, "Oh wow! It's like some kind of underground city!"

It was just as Sora said. What they had expected to be nothing more than some variety of cave, turned out to be a massive, underground city. Sure, it was still technically in a giant cave, but the fact that there was a city down there at all was still pretty cool in their eyes. The only downside was that it looked like it was in the same state as the rest of Mountain Glenn, all ruined, crumbling, and broken. Well that and the two White Fang soldiers that just spotted them before Ruby and Sora could really take in the sights.

"Hey, how'd you two get down here," one of the two shouted as they both aimed their guns at the two intruders.

"Uh, would you believe us if we said that we just wandered into the neighborhood and decided to drop in," Sora chuckled weakly. Ruby's only response was to groan at the bad joke that was likely worthy of her sister, and the two Faunus were not much different.

"Well you and girlfriend have 'wandered' a little too far from home, kid," the second soldier said menacingly as they drew closer.

Ruby and Sora's first instinct was to slowly back away so that they could keep some distance between them and the White Fang soldiers, but they soon realized how unwise that idea was when they felt a steep edge at the backs of their heels. Turning around, they then realized that they were atop one of the old buildings of the underground city, and backing up any further would send them plummeting once again.

"Guess we have no choice but to fight our way out," Sora muttered as he prepared to summon his Keyblade.

Ruby silently nodded and reached for her scythe, only to gasp out of worry when she felt nothing but air where it should have been. "Uh-oh," she muttered.

"What's wrong," Sora asked, stopping short of summoning his weapon when he heard Ruby's distressed mumble.

"I think I dropped my scythe when we fell," Ruby told him.

Now Sora was worried. Ruby had told him on more than one occasion that she was terrible in hand-to-hand combat, and without her scythe, these guys were likely to tear Ruby apart with just a few shots from their rifles. Normally, Sora would not be too concerned, since he had done his fair share of fighting while protecting a friend, but in this case, he did not feel incredibly great about risking it. The last thing he wanted was to risk losing Ruby, but he had to acknowledge that they did not have much choice in this situation. Too bad for him that the White Fang had reached them before he could make peace with that matter.

"Hands off, you creep," Ruby snapped as she pushed off the Faunus that grabbed her, and then attempted to punch him as hard as she could. Since it was such a sloppy hit, the White Fang soldier did not even need to move to block her, and just as easily caught her next hit in his hand before knocking her down.

"Hey, leave her alone," Sora snapped, and he immediately socked the Faunus who hurt Ruby in the face as hard as he could.

Unlike Ruby, Sora's hand-to-hand abilities were actually rather decent, thanks in small part to the training he had done in that area with Aqua and Xion, so when he punched the White Fang soldier, the Keybearer managed to make him stumble back a little. Sora then threw a quick left at the Faunus, only to have his fist caught by him, but when the White Fang soldier tried to hit Sora back, he managed to deflect the blow with his free hand and then elbowed the White Fang soldier in the chest. Taking advantage of how he had thrown his enemy off balance, Sora then kneed the White Fang soldier as hard as he could, and freed his captured hand from the Faunus's grasp so he could nail him with a hard left punch.

Seeing that his current opponent appeared to be down for the count, Sora once again prepared to summon out his Keyblade when another pair of White Fang soldiers suddenly appeared, each armed and ready to fire on both him and Ruby. Not that he was too concerned, as he was sure that Ruby had managed to recover by now, but his confidence soon dropped when he heard Ruby grunting in exertion. He turned around and saw that the second Faunus who had first found him and Ruby had taken advantage of how Sora was so caught up with his buddy, and used that time to grab Ruby and put his gun to her head.

"Don't try anything stupid, kid. Unless you want me to blow her pretty little head off," the Faunus threatened, making sure to tighten his grip the more that Ruby tried to struggle against him.

Ruby was not too big of a fan of being caught and used like a hostage, but no matter what she did, she could not get enough leverage to retaliate against her captor. She was just barely even able to move enough so she could try and bite him. As fast as he was, she doubted that Sora was going to be fast enough to save her and deal with these guys before one of them got hurt, so the most she was able to do was give him a pleading glance, silently asking him to not surrender to these creeps over her.

Sora saw the look, but he had no intention of listening to it, a fact that he conveyed to Ruby with his eyes, and when he raised his hands up to show he gave up. "Smart kid," the White Fang soldier holding Ruby remarked while his buddies restrained Sora. He then looked to said comrades and asked, "What do we do with these brats?"

"What do you think? We take them to the boss. I doubt he'd be too fond of us finding a couple of intruders and not telling him," the third soldier remarked.

That was the last thing Sora or Ruby heard before they were each knocked out by the White Fang members who were holding them.

---

Meanwhile, back at the camp, Yang had let out a small yawn as her watch shift finally came to an end. The only reason she had been able to stay awake for most of it was mainly because she had the shift with Lea, and he found plenty of ways to keep her awake, either with his jokes, or with some crazy story from his past. She was just about to tell the next person in her team that they were up when she noticed that a certain someone was missing, and just like that, her big sister senses had started tingling like crazy.

"Hey guys, where's Ruby," Yang worriedly asked, getting everyone to wake up.

"Good question. Here's another one for you: where's Sora," Lea informed the blonde, waving to where the spiky haired boy had been sleeping last he had checked so that everyone could see the vacant sleeping bag.

"What's wrong," Aqua sleepily asked as she Oobleck came down, only to figure out the problem when she noticed the two missing members of their party as well.

Oobleck was already beginning to suggest a plan of action to find the two missing leaders when Zwei suddenly rushed into the camp, barking frantically as he ran up to anyone who might give him attention. "Zwei, what is it," Roxas asked. "What's the matter boy?"

The corgi could only whine sadly at them, and like that, Yang grew a little more worried for what had happened to her sister. "Something is definitely wrong," she told the group. "Ruby would never let Zwei go very far without her knowing it."

"I'd say that settles it then. Everyone grab your weapons. Your leaders may be in trouble," Oobleck ordered.

"And I think I might know where we can find them," Ventus announced as he tapped his Gummiwatch. "Looks like we're finally going to be able to rely on the trackers in our watches to find a missing friend."

"About time," Weiss remarked.

"No kidding. I was starting to think that we were going to always be unable to use those trackers for one reason or another, like it was some kind of running gag that we always end up being unable to use them or something," Lea commented. He then paused for a second, and asked, "Wait, did Ice Princess and I just agree on something?"

"Oh my Oum, I think we did," Weiss realized.

"Yeah. That's probably a bad sign," Roxas joked.

Despite knowing that he was not serious, everyone had a sneaking suspicion that Roxas was not entirely wrong in saying that Lea and Weiss agreeing so easily was a bad sign. Something about all of this just gave them a feeling of dread that was hard to ignore, and it made their worries for Ruby and Sora grow more and more, even as they rushed out of their campsite to find the two.

---

The first thing Sora noticed when started coming around again was that he was being dragged across the ground, and the second thing was how there was much more noise around him than there should be for an abandoned settlement. Cracking his eyes open, Sora quickly realized that he was now right in the thick of the White Fang's operations, and they were definitely not looking to do another robbery like they had at the docks. There were all kinds of weapons and Paladins around the area, along with train cars that were being loaded up with similar armaments, by both Nobodies and the White Fang. A loud bang grabbed Sora's attention soon after, and he quickly turned to see someone appeared to have dropped something really heavy. Namely, a large, box-like object with wires and Dust crystals attached all over it. From the way that one of the Faunus was scolding his friend, or subordinate given how the other guy was so nervous around him, he probably should not have been so rough with the device, and that spelled bad news to Sora.

On the subject of bad news, Sora immediately remembered Ruby, and quickly started looking around as best as he could for her out of worry. He did not want to think of what these guys would do to her if they decided to separate them for whatever reason, but he quickly breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that she was being dragged along by another pair of guards. Sure, she was still unconscious, but at least she was alright aside from that, so all Sora had to do was get her up again so that they could find a way out of this.

"Ruby," Sora weakly called out, still feeling a bit groggy since he just regained consciousness, but the girl did not answer him. "Ruby. Ruby, wake up!"

"Quiet you," one of the guards holding Sora snapped, and from the sound of his voice, Sora had a hunch that the guy would have kicked him or something if he was not marching Sora and Ruby over to their boss right now. Sora had no intention of listening to these guys though.

"I swear, if you've hurt her, there won't be a single pebble that you can hide from me under," he growled. The only thing that made his threat more menacing and believable was the fact that his body started to give off a faint haze of shadows, indicating that his inner darkness was building up. Whether it was intentional or not in this case though was hard to say, but it seemed to be the latter as Sora ended up taking a few calming breaths just after he realized what his anger was doing.

Thankfully, the White Fang soldiers did not notice Sora's attempt to keep calm, as Ruby had taken that moment to start slowly waking up. "There, you see," the one who had told Sora to be quiet said. "Your girlfriend is fine. Now shut your mouth, human."

"I'd like to see you make me," Sora challenged right when Ruby had become conscious enough to register what was happening around her.

"Uh…Sora, can you please not antagonize the armed terrorists," Ruby quietly pleaded.

"Yeah, listen to her, Sora, if you want to stay alive long enough to see the boss," Sora's captor mocked.

Sora just scoffed in response and said, "Oh, we'll be staying alive a lot longer than that. Just watch and see. We'll be making tracks out of here soon enough."

The emphasis that Sora had placed on those two words, coupled with how he had subtly glanced at his watch was enough for Ruby to realize that he was still wearing it, and that the tracking device in the gummi device was still active. She still glanced over to Sora's wrist to check and see for herself, and when she saw he was right, she gave him a happy grin and winked to show she had gotten the message. Ruby felt that she had to make sure that the White Fang did not catch onto Sora's meaning as well, so she was very thankful that they were next to a train that was being loaded up. It made her response to his words a lot more believable.

"Really? A train pun? I think that you might've been hanging out with my sister a little too much lately," Ruby groaned, a little more dramatically than she probably should have.

Sora easily realized what Ruby was doing when she said that, and decided to keep the act going a little more. "Hey, what can I say? Sometimes she does come up with jokes that are on track," he intentionally punned.

"You're just determined to ride the rails on this, aren't you," Ruby took her turn to pun. She was quick to make it seem like she had not meant to. "Oh, see?! Now you've got me doing it!"

"Guess you could say that we've been railroaded by the funny bone," Sora grinned.

"Enough! Please! I might as well kill you two just for all those bad jokes," the White Fang soldier begged.

"Heh," Ruby and Sora both grinned in satisfaction, happy that they had not only kept their reassurances hidden but also annoyed their captors while doing so. Their worries returned soon enough though, when they finally came to a stop before one of the train cars.

"Hey boss! We've got something that you should see," the soldier called out.

"Is it good or bad, Perry, because let me tell ya, I have had a day. Never mind the hell I've been dealing with for the past week," a too-familiar voice asked.

"Uh…It's a couple of kids," Perry reported, a little unsure of how to label this between good or bad for them. "A girl in a hood and some boy with spiky hair."

That got the boss to peek out from the train car he was in, revealing a less than happy Roman Torchwick that quickly laid a vicious glare onto the captive couple. "Yeah, that would be bad," Roman grumbled as he flicked away his cigar. "I swear, how do I keep running into you two?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's just bad luck. For you," Ruby quipped.

"Or maybe because of how bad you just stink. Literally. I mean, when was the last time you showered," Sora added on.

Torchwick jumped down from the train with a growl that soon turned into dangerous snickers as he walked over. "You know what, Perry? I think this might actually be better news than I thought," the criminal said while he cracked his knuckles. "I've been looking to get a little stress relief."

'Oh boy. We're in trouble,' Sora and Ruby both thought at the same time, suddenly wishing that they had kept their big mouths shut.

---

"Are you sure we're going the right way," Lea asked of his friend that was following the signal from Sora's watch. "I'm not seeing any signs of so much as a red hood or spiky hair."

"Yes, I'm sure. Sora's signal is coming from somewhere close to this area," Ventus snapped as he kept checking over the watch. He was just as worried as Lea though, because admittedly, the signal would cut out from time to time, and at some points after it came back, it appeared to be somewhere behind them for some reason. "Ugh! So much for being able to rely on the trackers this time," he eventually muttered when the latter happened once again.

Yang was about to voice her own concerns when they suddenly heard Zwei barking. Turning to the dog, the blonde powerhouse quickly spotted the same thing her dog had, and called out, "Guys, over here! It's Ruby's scythe!"

"What?!" the others all shouted as one while chasing after Yang so that they could see for themselves.

Just as she had said, Crescent Rose was lying on the ground, right at the edge of a large hole, and they all quickly came to the same conclusion. "You don't think Ruby fell down there, do you," Weiss worriedly asked.

Aqua and Oobleck were both over at the edge of the hole in seconds, and the others would have joined the two at the same or similar positions had Roxas not heard the ground start to crack again. "Wait! Stay back," Roxas warned, making everyone freeze where they stood. "It doesn't sound like the ground's very stable around here."

"So I guess it's safe to assume that Ruby probably did fall in," Aqua reasoned.

"And maybe that's why Sora's tracking signal is so erratic. Because they're somewhere underground," Ventus reasoned out.

"Underground…Underground…" Oobleck repeated under his breath, until he finally gasped in a clear ah-ha moment. "Of course! Of course, of course, OF COURSE! How could I have been so blind? So stupid!"

"Hey Doc, calm down," Lea soothed. "I'm sure that they're fine. Sora's survived plenty of bad falls, and he probably did something to make sure Ruby would too."

"No, no! Don't you see?! It's not the fall that I'm concerned with, it's what awaited them after the fall," Oobleck quickly clarified. "The very reason why we're here in the first place!"

"Doctor Oobleck, what're you talking about," Yang asked, now even more worried for her sister and Sora.

"Mountain Glenn," Oobleck stated, launching into a recap of what they knew about the area as an explanation. "An expansion of Vale that was inevitably destroyed by creatures of Grimm. Previously home to thousands of people. Working people, commuting to the city, the main city, developed a subway system to the inner city. Grimm attacks increased! Population in danger, now desperately searching for shelter. City evacuates into metro tunnels and what do they find?!"

"Ummm…" was the only thing that any of the others could have said if Oobleck had paused long enough to let them.

"The South-East quadrant of Vale is known for wild forests and deep caves," Oobleck filled in.

"Doctor, take a breath and just tell us what you're trying to say," Aqua pleaded.

"My dear, we're not just looking for an underground crime network. We're looking for an UNDERGROUND crime network," Oobleck finally shouted.

"You mean that they've been working in caves," Blake asked.

"No, no. Far more than that," Oobleck waved off. "Mountain Glenn was Vale's first serious attempt at expanding the kingdom, and it worked for a short period of time thanks to an aggressive perimeter defense, and unique transportation. The city developed an elaborate subway system to carry citizens safely from the new territory into the main kingdom."

"But without the natural barriers that protected Vale's borders, Mountain Glenn was doomed to fail," Lea recalled, surprising everyone a little. "What? I do actually pay attention in class, and like the doc's always saying, history's important."

"Exactly! And I'm glad to see that you have been paying attention, Mister Firebrand," Oobleck quickly praised. "Back on topic, as the end drew near for Mountain Glenn, the citizens living in the territory made one final attempt at survival. They took up shelter beneath the city, in the massive caves that they had cleared out for the subway, and they then cut themselves off from the surface."

"Are you saying that they built an underground city," Roxas asked, admittedly awestruck by the idea.

"In a manner of speaking, it was more of a village than a city, at least in the eyes of some people," Oobleck corrected the blonde.

"Well I guess if you were to compare this place to Vale," Weiss reasoned.

"So what happened," Aqua asked. "Are they still down there?"

"Sadly, no," Oobleck sighed with a mournful look. "It was a safe haven for a time, until one day, when an explosion opened the mouth of another cavern. A cavern that was filled with subterranean Grimm. After that, the kingdom officially sealed off the tunnels, creating the world's largest tomb."

"My god," Lea whispered.

"All those people," Roxas despaired, while the others could do nothing more than hang their heads in respectful, sad silence. Sure, this was not recent news for Yang, Blake, and Weiss, but it was still a sad thing to think about. There was at least one other emotion they were all feeling right now though: anger. Anger at the criminals who dared to use a place like that as their base of operations. It was like they practically desecrating a grave, and none of them were willing to stand for that.

The only other thing they could feel right now was worry, and that was probably the strongest feeling of all, even before Aqua next spoke up, saying, "And Ruby and Sora are likely down there right now, with all of those Grimm, Nobodies, and the criminals we're tracking."

"Yes, which means only one thing," Oobleck concurred. He then pulled out his thermos, making everyone think he was about to get another drink until it expanded into a long, club-like weapon, right as he said, "We must do whatever it takes to find and save them."

"Whoa, hold on a minute. Your thermos is a weapon," Lea exclaimed.

"Of course! Why else do you think I would've brought it out right now," Oobleck asked like it should have been obvious.

None of the students were willing to answer that right now, and they were all thankful that Aqua voiced their thoughts for them. "I really don't think you want them to answer that question, Doctor Oobleck."

"Yes, I do believe you're right," Oobleck admitted, having apparently realized what assumptions they might have made just after he had asked his question. "Now let's get moving everyone."

"Right," Aqua determined as she summoned out Stormfall. "We've got some friends to save."

"So what're we waiting for," Ventus asked as he stepped towards his teammates with a fist out. "For life…"

"And light…" Roxas continued, tapping his fist against Ven's.

"Together…" Lea then added as he repeated his best friend's actions.

"We fight," the three boys all finished as one with a final, group fist-bump.

As they all proceeded to dive down into the hole before them, Blake making sure she had secured Ruby's scythe on her back before she did, Yang had to grin and say, "Now that's a cool team battle cry."

---

A faint grunt escaped Ruby's lips as she was knocked to the ground by Torchwick, much to the criminal's amusement and Sora's rage. Apparently, Roman's stress relief consisted of basically beating her down as much and as hard as he could. Not that Ruby was actually getting hurt, thanks to her Aura, but she was not really able to retaliate all that well without her scythe, and Roman clearly knew it.

"You see, this is definitely just what I needed right now," Torchwick mockingly laughed. "I mean, sure, you were a pain dealing with, Red, but without that oversized gardening tool of yours, you're as easy to deal with as any, helpless little girl."

"Leave her alone, you creep," Sora shouted as he struggled against the White Fang soldiers and Dusks that were currently holding him back from attacking their boss. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

"Oh don't worry, Spiky. You'll get your turn in a minute, but I want to enjoy this for a little while. It's nothing personal, but me and Red here just have so much more history together than you and I do," Roman smirked in Sora's direction. He then paused for a second to think and said, "Huh, you know, now that I've said that out loud, I guess it is just a little personal in an odd way. Oh well. Back to spanking the bad little brat."

That was one of the last straws for Ruby, as she let out an angry battle cry while charging at Torchwick, intending to slug him for talking down on her like that. Too bad for her, Roman saw it coming from a mile away, and was able to easily side-step her charge, tripping her with his cane as she passed him by. While Ruby was now even more annoyed than ever, Torchwick just laughed a little more. "See, this is what I'm talking about. Perfect stress reliever right here," Roman continued to mock, while Sora kept fighting against his captors. "Perry, you did good bringing them here."

Perry said nothing, but he did shoot Torchwick a thumbs-up in response to the praise. Sora on the other hand had plenty to say. "Yeah, I bet you feel real tough beating on a defenseless enemy like some playground bully, instead of facing us like a real man," he snapped.

"Oh kid, you're just itching to take her place, aren't you," Roman chuckled. He then turned much more serious, and walked over to Ruby, shoved the barrel of his cane's gun under her chin, and asked, "But in all seriousness, how about you tell us how you found this place, Red? Or maybe if there's anyone else with you?"

"We told you already. We followed your nasty stench," Ruby growled in defiance. Her response just made Torchwick push his cane closer to her throat, but she continued to show no trace of fear over his threat.

Sora on the other hand, started struggling more than ever before, his body starting to gain a light trace of shadows once again, and those whiffs made it hard for the Dusks to remain close to him with getting a little stung. "Hey boss," Perry called out, having noticed what was going on with Sora.

"Not now, Perry. I'm busy getting Red to talk," Torchwick waved off. His smirk turned a little more dangerous when he next added, "Unless of course she doesn't care about what happens to her little boyfriend."

Now it was Ruby's turn to get angry and threaten the crook. "If you even think about touching him," she growled.

"Oh, touched a nerve did we," Roman mocked. "Well I'll do more than that to him if you don't talk."

Ruby's next response was a stronger glare before she said, "I've got a better idea."

The next thing Roman knew, his vision was filled with rose petals, signaling that Ruby had activated her Semblance to dash away, and he did not need to turn to his underlings to know that she had used her speedy escape to free Sora. Their pained grunts that were followed by Sora's smug-sounding laugh were indicator enough. Sadly, the heroes did not get very far, as Roman quickly spun his cane around so that the hooked end of it was aimed at them, and then fired the grappling line so that he could catch Ruby by her hood and reel her in like a fish on a hook.

"Nice trick there, kid, but in case it wasn't already clear, we're not through here yet," Roman snarled to the young huntress once she was back at his feet again.

"Think again," Sora shouted, making Roman look up and see that the boy had summoned forth his Keyblade to aim at him. "Let her go, Torchwick."

"Or what? You'll run me over with that little rollercoaster of yours," Torchwick mocked before he grabbed Ruby and hoisted her up to her feet. He then aimed the gun on his cane at Ruby's head and said, "I've got a better offer: you give up, and I won't shoot Red's pretty little head off. Unless of course, you think you've got a better chance of saving her before that happens. Well, Hero-boy?"

Now Sora was really mad. Sure, anyone would be in a hostage situation, but this was almost a perfect recreation of the moment when Xehanort had struck Kairi down, and the last thing Sora intended to do was let history repeat itself. The only problem was that there was not really anything he could right now without putting Ruby in further danger, and from the look on Roman's face, the criminal knew he had Sora backed into a corner. If that was not the icing on the cake, Ruby was giving Sora a pleading look that was not asking for him to save her, but for him to not do what their enemy was asking, making this one of those times that Sora wished he could just say no to Ruby. He did not want to do anything that got her hurt, even if it meant that he had to surrender to the enemy.

Ruby must have realized this, because she turned her silent plea into a spoken one and shouted, "Don't listen to him, Sora. Just attack!"

"Shut it," Roman snapped as he jabbed his cane further into the side of Ruby's head.

"No! No," Sora pleaded as he dismissed his Keyblade again. "I give up!"

"Smart boy," Roman smirked. He then signaled for his guys to restrain Sora again and tossed Ruby down so that he could start questioning her again, but before he could, a loud explosion grabbed his attention. It did not stop with one though, as another came soon after, followed by sounds of gunfire, cries of panic, and the telltale sound of a Dusk being destroyed. "Oh, now what's going on?!"

Ruby and Sora looked to where all the racket was coming from, and were soon grinning like mad when they saw their friends coming from around the corner, tearing through anyone stupid or foolish enough to get in their way. As relieved as they were to see that their rescuers had finally made it, the couple had no intention of staying idle, and Ruby was the first to make that clear when she kicked Roman in the shin. While the crook was left hobbling around from the injury that he had just been dealt, Sora summoned out his Keyblade again and blasted Roman with a quick burst of wind magic that sent him tumbling away from Ruby.

By the time Roman finally regained his bearings, Ruby and Sora were already off and running again, and he was not happy about that. "Somebody kill those infuriating brats!"

Torchwick's order was easier said than done, as Ruby and Sora proved to be a little too fast for any of the White Fang's shots to hit them. Even having some Snipers come in to provide assistance proved futile, because Sora managed to deflect nearly every shot with his Keyblade. After sending one last energy bolt back to the Sniper that had fired it, Sora grabbed hold of Ruby and leapt onto one of the rails of the train tracks they were standing between, activating his Flowmotion powers and riding the rail further away from the bad guys.

Having never really experienced Sora's Flowmotion powers for more than a brief second before, Ruby had to admit that the rush she felt running through her body right now, even as a passenger was unlike anything she had experienced before. It was like something had flooded into her Aura to make her even stronger and more resistant to any of the Dust rounds that came close to hitting them, while strengthening her body to an extent she had hardly ever imagined possible before. For a moment, she had wonder what it felt like actually using the power like Sora was as opposed to just being a tag-along, but that curiosity was soon replaced with worry when she noticed that they were starting to run out of track. The bad news just kept on coming, as the end of the line also included a number of White Fang soldiers and Berserkers that were already gearing up to fire on them the moment they stepped off the tracks.

Sora managed to avoid the initial shots by leaping into the air, but his Flowmotion quickly faded out as they descended to the ground again, leaving them vulnerable. At least they would have been, had a certain Keyblade mage not cast a Barrier spell around him and Ruby, blocking the shots and better protecting them from the blasts that sent the Faunus flying and made the Berserkers drop like dead weight, courtesy of Yang and Roxas.

"Ruby!" Yang cheered in relief, sweeping her sister up into a tight hug that Ruby had no compunction to deny for the moment.

"Sora, are you guys okay," Ventus questioned as he and the others all joined the two leaders.

"Yeah, we're fine. A little shaken, maybe, but a lot happier to see you guys," Sora grinned as an added show of his relief. "But I'm sure Ruby would be a lot better off if she had…"

"Her scythe," Blake finished in questioning as she presented the weapon in question to her leader with a smile.

"Yes! Thank you," Ruby cheered happily. "Oh, I'm so sorry I left you behind, baby."

"Ruby, focus! You can cuddle with Crescent Rose later. We've still got some problems to deal with," Sora reminded her.

"Right! Right," Ruby nodded. "You guys aren't going to believe this; Torchwick's got all sorts of weapons, robots, and Nobodies back down that way."

"What," Lea and Weiss both gasped in surprise.

"Yeah, all kinds of stuff. Every Nobody that we've heard about being on Remnant, plus a bunch of androids and mechs, and they're all being loaded onto that train," Sora informed them. "I think they're planning to get it all into the city for an attack or something."

"Ah, that's ridiculous! These tunnels are sealed. The tracks lead to a dead end," Oobleck waved off.

"You might want to tell them that," Ruby said to her professor.

Before anyone could argue the matter any further, the intercom came on and proved Sora and Ruby right via the person speaking into it. "Everyone get to your places. We are leaving now!"

Right after that announcement was made, the train let off steam and began pulling away from the make-shift staging grounds of a station, its horn blaring loudly as it slowly chugged off. Seeing this drew confused looks onto most of the group's faces, but the rest of them were more worried about the fact that the bad guys were making their move now, and how they were going to respond.

"Anyone have any ideas on how we stop something like that," Lea questioned.

"For starters, by getting some backup. I'm calling Jaune," Ruby said while pulling out her Scroll. A few taps through her contact list later, and she was sending a call to the young knight, only to get an error message that she had earlier when she had tried to call her teammates before. "I can't get through."

"Don't worry. I can still call Xion so she can let the others know what's up," Roxas reminded her as he tapped the call feature on his watch. Everyone was about to breathe a sigh of relief after being reminded that the call features on Team SLVR and Aqua's gummi devices could still make calls when their Scrolls could not, until Roxas's watch let out a loud whine of static. "Okay, maybe not."

"What's the matter," Blake asked.

"I don't know. I'm only getting static," Roxas replied.

"Something in these caves must be blocking the signal from our gummi devices," Aqua realized. "Meaning we're not anymore likely to get a call out with them than we would be with our Scrolls."

"So now what do we do," Weiss questioned.

"I'm afraid that there's only one thing we can do," Oobleck determined.

Aqua nodded in agreement before looking to the boys of Team SLVR, and asked, "How many of you have learned how to use Airstep?"

"Most of us have at least been told the basics, but me and Roxas are still struggling to make it work," Lea admitted.

"Well no time like the present to figure it out," Aqua remarked.

"Aqua, they're already too far away for us to get a proper lock," Sora pointed out. "Even if we were to use Ven's wind magic to give us boost, I don't we'd all be able to catch up fast enough, and that's going on the assumption that Ven, Ruby, and I are the only ones that go."

Hearing that, Ventus let out a small smirk and said, "Who said I would need to be the one who gave us the boost?" He then turned to the white haired heiress of their group. "Weiss, think you can use your glyphs on this many people at once?"

"Hmm…I suppose I could if we all grouped up as closely as possible," Weiss mused.

"Alright then," Aqua nodded before grabbing onto Oobleck with her free hand. "Everyone who doesn't have a Keyblade, grab someone who does and don't let go."

Pairing up was no problem for any of the girls, nor were the pairs a surprise, given that Ruby gravitated to Sora without a second thought, while Yang and Weiss did the same with Lea and Ventus respectively, leaving Roxas for Blake to hold onto. "Xion's not going to be upset about this, is she," the cat Faunus asked.

"Don't worry, you're fine," Roxas assured her. "If anything you should be more worried about whether or not I'll be able to get this Airstep thing right."

That did very little to ease Blake's nerves, but it was too late to back out now, as Weiss had already cued up the necessary glyphs to launch them all forward. Just like that, the group was launched over to the train just as it was beginning to steadily build up speed. It took a few more moments before they finally got within range, but soon enough, they reached the point where each of the five Keyblade wielders were able to properly lock onto a point on the back of the train, and shoot themselves and their passengers the rest of the way forwards using Airstep.

When their feet hit solid ground on the rearmost train car, Lea and Roxas both let excited grins cross their faces as the latter cheered, "We did it! We finally did it!"

His celebration ended up alerting a guard that was in the car, and Oobleck was just a few seconds too late in knocking him out before he could alert the others on the train. "We don't have much time," Oobleck alerted the others. "No matter what happens, we need to get to the front and stop this train."

"Uh, Professor," Weiss called back from where she was standing by an open hatch.

"Doctor."

"What's that," Weiss finished after Oobleck's most recent correction, indicating the large device that was inside the car.

Sora quickly recognized it as one of the devices he had seen earlier. "Hey, I saw the White Fang and a bunch of Dusks loading those things onto one of the cars earlier when they were dragging me and Ruby down here."

"Hmm, very worrying," Oobleck noted.

"Why's that," Lea could not help but ask.

"Because that, my boy, appears to be a bomb," Oobleck revealed.

"A BOMB," everyone on both Team RWBY and SLVR exclaimed as one while jumping back a little bit.

Ruby then looked around to see if anyone had any ideas on how to deal with that, when she caught sight of another problem. "We've got baddies," she reported as she indicated the gathering White Fang soldiers and Nobodies further up ahead on the train.

"Well, it's not like I expected them to go…" Oobleck started to say, only to be interrupted by the sound of the bomb in the car below them activating. "…Easy on us."

"Everyone onto the next car! And fast," Aqua ordered. "Ven, decouple the caboose and do whatever you can to push it further back before the bomb goes off."

"I'm on it," Ventus confirmed as he jumped down to the connecting points between the two cars. Summoning out Wayward Wind, Ventus was all but ready to cut the couplings between the two cars, but before he could do anything, the connection came undone on its own.

"Wow, way to work fast, Ven," Lea complimented, thinking Ven had been the one to cut the connection.

"It wasn't me. The car decoupled itself," Ventus reported.

"What," Oobleck and Aqua both exclaimed.

"This on the other hand, is me," Ventus affirmed for them as he aimed his Keyblade at the detached car and shouted, "Aeroga!"

With the extra push from Ven's powerful wind spell, the train car was pushed further away from the group, so that when the bomb finally exploded, it was too far away to do anything other than make them flinch from the sound of the explosion going off. "I guess it's safe to say that he really doesn't want us on this train," Yang commented, referring to how they had not only activated the bomb but also decoupled the caboose afterwards.

Oobleck would have agreed with Yang, had he not seen how the walls of the cave appeared to have been weakened by the explosion. "That's not good," he commented.

"Uh, neither is this," Ruby announced as she looked down into the car they were now standing on.

"We've got another bomb," Blake reported.

Hearing that, Oobleck had a very sneaking suspicion that he did not like at all, and he quickly made his way over to the next car forward as fast as he could. Opening the hatch, Oobleck ended up having his fears confirmed, much to his dismay, and he turned back to the others and shouted, "THEY ALL HAVE BOMBS!"

Hearing that, the team did not even need to hear the bomb in their current car activating before they jumped to the car that Oobleck was on, but their shock did make it so that they almost did not make it before the car had decoupled itself again. Thankfully they all did, but that did little in clearing up the confusion that they all now felt.

"This doesn't make any sense," Yang protested.

"No kidding. Why would they have bombs like that in all of the cars," Weiss asked.

"Maybe so that they have a way to ensure they can open up that dead end sealing off the tunnel from the main city," Roxas proposed.

"No way. Just one or two of these things would likely be enough. If there's one bomb for each of the cars, then that's way too many," Lea dismissed. Being such a pro with fire magic, Lea knew what he was talking about when it came to stuff like this, and the others all knew it. "Not only that, but why are they activating the bombs and then decoupling the cars like this? There's no way it's just to get rid of us."

No one had any suggestions that could explain the strangeness of this whole thing, and even if they did, there was no time to dwell on it, because the White Fang and the Nobodies were now nearly right on top of them. "How about we put this mystery on hold until we've dealt with the bad guys," Ventus suggested.

That was a plan that everyone could get on board with, as Teams RWBY and SLVR all rushed past Oobleck and Aqua, both of whom were still trying to figure out the mystery, to face off against their enemies. After a brief pause to ready their weapons and show they were prepared for whatever the villains had, Sora then shouted, "For life and light, together we fight!"

While Ruby spent the next few seconds gushing over how Sora's team had a cool battle cry, Yang went right to work by clobbering a couple of White Fang goons, sparing barely any more than two or three punches for each one. When a couple of Assassins popped out to try and cut her to ribbons, Lea came to the rescue and deflected their attacks before blasting them off the train with some powerful fire magic. Changing his blade into his chakrams, Lea proceeded to slice up the Assassins much more quickly before tossing the bladed wheels into some attacking White Fang Faunus that dared to try and get the jump on Yang while she was distracted with a few Dusks.

"Claws off the lady, fellas," Lea shouted after he caught his trusted weapons and turned them back into his Keyblade again. "Unless you want to deal with a more serious burn than we're already giving you."

"Hey, if they can't stand the heat, then they should get out of the dining car," Yang joked in an easy play-off of Lea's statement.

Blake and Roxas both rolled their eyes as they made their move, with the former taking the lead by rushing in and knocking several White Fang off as she passed them. Blake then proceeded to slash at any other Faunus that dared to try and attack her, before she had to use her Semblance in order to dodge an attack from some Reapers. Luckily for her, Blake did not need to worry about counterattacking, since Roxas had that taken care of from the moment she had created a shadow. With a few strong swings of Oathkeeper and Oblivion, Roxas was able to destroy the Reapers in no time, and the only one that remained was soon dealt with just as quickly when he used Oathkeeper to fire off an orb of light, followed by a blast of dark magic from Oblivion.

Weiss and Ventus were next to strike, and heiress easily led the charge by lunging forward and creating a trail of ice spikes behind her to hit the enemies she passed by. Using some of the ice as a stepping stone, Ventus was able to launch into the air and toss his Keyblade at the Ninjas who tried to approach Weiss afterwards. He made sure to imbue Wayward Wind with plenty of wind magic when he threw it, so he knew that the Keyblade was going to be spinning through the air due to the wind currents it was now riding even after he landed, but that was no problem for Ventus. The White Fang soon found that out when Ven touched down and landed an easy combo of hits to one Faunus, knocking him off, followed by a spin kick to another and a quick roll that placed him in the thick of the next group of bad guys right when his Keyblade had returned to his hand. From there it was a simple matter of using his speedy swordsman skills to remove the surrounding Snipers from the fight before they could fire off a single shot.

At last, it was Ruby and Sora's turn to join in, and while Ruby used the recoil of a shot from Crescent Rose to launch towards her targets, Sora merely used the powers of his Airstep abilities to put him in striking distance. No matter which method they used though, the results were the same: several White Fang and Dusks were knocked out of action all at once with a quick swing of their respective weapons. The only difference was that Ruby's attack was trailed by red rose petals, while Sora's was followed by faint, blue sparkles that came off from the aura of his Flowmotion powers.

Seeing that the students had things well in hand when it came to the full-frontal assault, Aqua focused on maintaining covering fire for Oobleck while the doctor continued trying to puzzle out what the enemy's strange could possibly be. It finally started coming together for him when the most recently detached car finally exploded, creating a few sizeable holes in the tunnel around them. He did not even need to look for further evidence to support his theory, because it came crawling out of those holes in all of its vicious, snarling, and soulless glory.

"Oh dear," Oobleck quietly gasped, and he then turned to the others to share what he had realized with them. "They're leading Grimm into the city!"

"WHAT," everyone else all shouted in horror.

"That's why the cars all have bombs in them! They detach and explode to create openings for the Grimm," Oobleck explained.

"That's insane," Blake cried out.

Aqua looked back to see the charging Grimm for herself just as the car right behind them detached like the others before it. Unlike Oobleck, she did not just all the various Grimm that her friends had dealt with up until now rushing after them, though. She also saw something much worse with coming with them. "It's not just Grimm he's leading into the city," Aqua called out, alerting them to the other enemy that was now trailing behind them and the train, even without the explanation of what else was behind them. "He's leading the Heartless there too!"

Turning to see for themselves, everyone was shocked to see that, sure enough, a veritable horde of moving shadows that could only have been the Heartless were now chasing after them alongside the Grimm, and it was not just the various varieties of Shadows. There were several Emblem Heartless coming as well, along with the various elemental Heartless that Sora had over the course of his last adventure. Why so many of them were down here with the Grimm was anyone's guess, but it was clear that they had been there for some time now.

"I guess we know where all the Heartless on Remnant were hiding now," Lea commented. "But why'd we have to find out like this?"

"It doesn't matter right now. We need to hurry if we want to prevent any of them from getting into the city," Aqua told them.

"Agreed," Oobleck nodded before he began giving out orders to the group. "Blake, Yang, Weiss, Lea, Roxas, and Ventus. You six go below and try to find some way of stopping those bombs!"

"Might be a little easier if we could call in some extra backup," Ventus said.

"Maybe we can," Roxas rebuked, getting odd looks from the others as he turned to his team leader. "After all, one of us can summon friends to help at any time he wants."

"Wait, are you saying that you guys can actually use summoning," Weiss gasped in awe. As far as she knew, only members of her family could do things like that, but then again, she probably should not be too surprised that the Keyblade wielders could do it too. It seemed like there was no limit to their powers.

"We can't. He can," Lea corrected, indicating Sora with his correction.

"And it's a bad idea in this case," Sora protested. "Most of them are too big or are just too powerful to be of help right now. Unless you actually want this whole train to blow up while we're on it."

"Come on, man. You've gotta have one summon that can help us out here," Roxas pleaded, hoping that the answer was yes.

"Sorry, but I'm still converting some of my old Summon Charms and Gems into Heartbinders, and the only ones I've got that could probably be of any help here would be the one for my Dream Eater friends and…" Sora started to say, only to stop short before he could name the other one. Then he smiled and exclaimed, "Duh!"

Thinking of the person that just came to his mind, Sora placed a hand to his heart, and focused all the necessary magic through the Heartbinder that corresponded to that friend, a faint wind picking up around him as his body lit up with a brilliant light. When he felt the magic reach the necessary apex, Sora looked up and shouted, "Together, as one!"

Following Sora's cry, a brilliant, blue light surged forth from him and began rocketing over the train car roofs to take out whatever Nobodies or White Fang Soldiers were still left up there with them, while the source of this beam shouted, "YEEE-HAAAAA!" When the last bad guy was finally down, the beam came back around to land before the group, revealing itself to be a familiar, blue and fluffy friend of Sora, Aqua, and Ven's, who happily said, "Aloha!"

While the Keyblade wielders were not too fazed by this little blue creature's sudden appearance, Oobleck and the girls had a rather different reaction. "WAAA-AAAH!"

"What in the name of Oum is that thing," Weiss screamed.

"He's Experiment 626," Aqua started to answer.

"Naga. Stitch," the little guy corrected, making Aqua and Ventus pause to look at him curiously. "My name Stitch now."

"Oh, right. Sorry," Aqua apologized, having forgotten about that for a moment.

"Anyways, he's a powerful alien experiment that can think faster than a supercomputer, lift objects three thousand times his own size, is almost completely indestructible, and see in the dark," Ventus went on to explain while Stitch himself was busy getting acquainted with Zwei.

Right when Ventus had finished, Zwei seemed to bark in approval of the little blue experiment, while Stitch happily petted the corgi before turning back to them and adding, "Also cute and fluffy!"

Having been drawn in because of the former factor, Ruby was quick to confirm all of Stitch's claim was true after petting him a few times, and immediately gasped, "AHH, he's right! Aren't you just so adorable?!"

"Well, there you have it. I guess we've got a seventh for our team," Lea figured out while Stitch reveled in the affection that Ruby was showing him, which Weiss would have joined in on as well if they were in a less serious situation.

"Just remember that Stitch won't be able to stick around for long. Once the energy I'm using to keep him here runs out, he'll disappear back to wherever I summoned him from," Sora cautioned.

The others all nodded to show their understanding, and then moved to enter the train as fast as they could, leaving Ruby, Sora, Zwei, Aqua, and Oobleck on top of the train with one simple question. "So, what are the rest of us going to do while they're dealing with the bombs," Ruby asked.

"Simple. We're going to stop this train," Oobleck declared.

No more was said between the remaining four and their canine company, and they all immediately began hopping across the train cars in a mad rush to reach the engine. Reaching that goal before the train reached the end of the tracks alone was going to be difficult, but so long as no one else got in the way, they were all sure that they could make it. Unfortunately, their path did end up being blocked once again, only this time, the White Fang was bringing out the big guns; namely, the Paladin mechs, alongside of Reapers and Berserkers.

"Now that's a problem," Aqua remarked, readying Stormfall for action, this time intent on entering the fight right from the start.

"Where's a Gigas when I need one," Sora grumbled. His annoyance at not having some similar heavy artillery of his own was cast aside though when Oobleck suddenly stepped forward and drew his weapon.

"Not to worry, Sora. I'll handle this," the doctor assured everyone, and he took a few quick gulps of coffee from the thermos before fully activating the weapon, and igniting a small flame at the end. Swinging it down, Oobleck's weapon had its enflamed tip positioned right over Zwei's head, and the only sign that the dog gave of noticing that was to merely bark as if to confirm he was ready for action. The next thing anyone knew, the dog had curled up in a ball as it leapt up, and allowed Oobleck to swing his weapon at him like a baseball bat, turning the corgi into a high-speed, fireball of doom.

Sora and Aqua both watched with gaping expressions as Zwei crossed the gap between them and that first mech that was charging towards them, and then completely destroyed the machine in just one hit. Weirder still was that Zwei landed on his feet, completely unscathed, and just panted happily over to them like he had never been lit on fire. The corgi only started to look worried when another Paladin stomped down behind him, but Oobleck made quick work of this one with a few quick fire blasts and a flaming swing of his flamethrower club.

Before anyone could comment on Oobleck's incredible display of power, the Reapers and Berserkers moved in to attack, but they were soon driven back by several rounds of magic spells, courtesy of Aqua. Sure, the spells did not do much damage, but Aqua was not aiming to take them out with her spells. She had cast them in order to build up the energy necessary to activate one of her most powerful, personal abilities, and it showed when her body was enshrouded with a light blue aura. Using the power of her Spellweaver Command Style, Aqua was able to glide across the ground while spinning her Keyblade through the air via light magic, easily scoring a full, six-hit combo on the monsters before she finished it off by firing an orb of light out from her Keyblade, destroying half the Reapers and Berserkers in one go.

"Whoa," Ruby and Sora both breathed in awe for what they just witnessed. Though the latter was left impressed with a little bit more than the former was.

"Good thing Lea's not here right now. He'd probably freak if he saw what happened with Zwei just now," Sora commented.

"Yeah, but I think it still would've been funny to see his reaction," Ruby shrugged.

Sora had to agree with that, but figured they would save the rest of their laughs for later. There were some more Paladins coming in, along with some more heavy-hitter Nobodies, and neither he nor Ruby had any intention of letting Aqua and Oobleck hog all the action for themselves.

---

"Well, I guess this is what we trained for," Yang said after she and the other six had dropped down into the car that take them right to the engine. They figured that if they nabbed Torchwick, they would have a much easier time stopping the bombs, so it was really no surprise that they were heading for a similar destination as the rest of their team.

Before they went too much further, Weiss reached into her pouch and grabbed a clip full of Dust rounds that she offered to Blake. "Here, this might come in handy," she told the cat Faunus.

"Thanks," Blake nodded while sliding the clip into Gambol Shroud.

"Well, so long as we're passing things out," Lea started off as he dove into one of his pockets and grabbed a few vials that he quickly passed out to the girls. "You three better take some of these Potions and Hi-Potions just in case. Never know when you might need a drink that gives a quick-recovery."

The girls all nodded and each pocketed two Potions and two Hi-Potions, and the group then proceeded to get moving for their destination. Their advancement quickly stopped when Stitch suddenly got down on all-fours and started growling. "What is it, Stitch," Roxas asked, only to have his question answered when Neo suddenly appeared before them, smiling her usual playful, yet devious smirk. "Oh. Never mind."

"You all go on ahead. I've got a little score to settle with this girl," Yang told them, not letting her eyes move away from the smaller girl for even a second.

No one was going to argue with Yang, mainly out of worry for their own health, but they did not get very far past Neo before a new squad of Nobodies suddenly materialized into their path. Not just any Nobodies; no, these were a very specific group of Nobodies that they had only heard about being on Remnant up until now. The very same type that Lea had admitted to being worried about on the night that they learned of their being here. "And at long last, there's our Samurais," the redheaded pyro grumbled. He then started to summon out his Keyblade, ready to hold them off for the others while assisting Yang as much as he could, while saying, "I've got these guys handled. You all keep…"

"No. I've got this," Roxas interrupted, already summoning Oathkeeper and Oblivion into his hands, much to the others' surprise.

"Are you sure, Roxas," Lea asked. He might have been able to handle fighting the Assassins, but he was not so sure that Roxas would be able to handle fighting the Dusks that had answered directly to him. Sure, Roxas did not really utilize the Samurais that much during his time in the old Organization, but they were still his followers, so there was no way of knowing for sure how he would handle this.

"Positive," Roxas nodded. "Maybe I can't get an average Dusk to see reason, but I'll be damned if I can't get these guys to fall in line with us. Now go!"

That seemed to settle the argument, and the others all took off, leaving Roxas and Yang with their respective opponents. Not that it stopped Neo or the Samurais from attempting to impede their path, but a few rounds of Fire Dust from Ember Celica certainly helped to discourage Neo from trying. The Samurais on the other hand just ended up having Roxas block their path, and they all seemed to freeze the moment he had appeared and aimed Oblivion at them, threateningly. For a brief time, the two sides just silently stared each other down as if silently daring the other to make the first move. It was hard to tell if Neo found it awkward to do so, given that she was eye-level with Yang's chest, but Yang was not concerned with that, as she took the initiative by throwing the first punch.

Yang was not sure what had happened after that, but somehow, in the blink of an eye, Neo managed to deflect her attack and push her back with her umbrella. The only thing that made Yang more upset was that the girl just spun said parasol up onto her shoulder after opening it, still smiling playfully like she was toying with Yang. The blonde brawler was not going to let that stand, and immediately charged with fists swinging. Neo did not seem to show any concern, as she easily leaned this way and that, dodging every attack that Yang threw, until she finally closed the umbrella again to block the blonde's next kick and a few other attacks that followed after, wrapping it up with a quick spin kick that knocked Yang to the floor. Neo then took her chance to strike back and threw out a drop kick that Yang just barely spun away from, but that did not deter her, as she easily caught Yang's next punch, and landed another pair of kicks that pushed Yang back again.

Getting her butt handed to her so easily was already enough to get Yang annoyed, but the fact that this tiny girl was doing so with that annoying smile still on her face was really starting to tick her off. So, it was no surprise that the next time Neo attacked, Yang made it a point to fire her gauntlets with every punch she threw at the smaller girl. It did not make much difference, since Neo blocked every blast with her umbrella, opening and closing it in quick succession so that she could better attack and defend at any moment. Despite the haze her annoyance at the girl's tactics was putting her in, Yang was still able to see at least one opening in Neo's defense, and quickly fired another blast at the girl's feet the next time she found the umbrella in her face. Too bad for her that Neo still managed to back flip away before the blast could hit, and continued to do so until she was sitting back on a crate, still smiling all the while.

Meanwhile, Roxas's stare down with the Samurais continued on, with neither side doing anything. You would think this meant that the two sides were in the midst of using Duel Stance against each other, but in truth, it really was just a tense stare-off. Roxas was sure that some Nobodies would not be so eager to try and fight against their former commander, and while his theory was disproven when they ran into the Assassins yesterday, it was certainly holding up here, because the Samurai were not showing any signs of intentions to attack him yet. He just needed to be absolutely sure before trying to reason with them, but his hesitance ended up costing him, as the front most Samurai finally realized he was not going to come at them. So, they took the chance and attacked.

Samurais may not have been the fastest moving Nobodies, but when it came to attacking strength and speed, Roxas was proud to say that they ranked pretty high up there. He just wished that he was not currently the target of their attacks, but since he knew their tactics better than anyone else, he was able to stay ahead of them for the most part, and if he could not dodge the attacks, then he easily managed to block or deflect them. Eventually, Roxas saw that he was going to have to strike back, and he did with some fast, strong swings of his own blades, driving the Samurais back. If Nobodies like these could be surprised, then they most likely were at the moment when they realized Roxas's attacks merely damaged the three, but did nothing to destroy them.

The three attacking Samurais were not deterred by their former master's show of mercy, and prepared to attack once more. At least they were, until Roxas shouted, "ENOUGH!" Hearing the blonde shout at them like that, the Samurais all froze where they stood, and then watched as Roxas relaxed his stance, holding his Keyblades at his sides. "What reason do you have to ally with these people," he asked them. "If it's to gain hearts of your own, then you'll never do so by working with Torchwick or the White Fang. I understand how powerful that desire is, but you're letting it turn you into the slaves you once were when Xehanort was around. You may not have human forms like I do, or like any of the members of the Organization did, but who's to say that you can't gain your own hearts if given a little time?"

Despite the fact that the Samurais did not have any kind of distinguishable facial features, Roxas was still able to tell that his words were making them think things over and he pressed on with his speech. "Please, there's no reason for you to fight against me, and I don't want to fight you, either. We were once allies, but unlike most of the other members of the Organization, I never saw you all as mere tools or slaves to be thrown away. We were comrades, and we can be again if you want to be. If you'd rather just be free to find your own purpose, then so long as you don't hurt anyone, you can do that, too, but if you truly want to make a real difference and find out if there is a way for you to regain what you lost, then don't fight us. Join us. Join me."

It really seemed like Roxas was starting to reach the Samurais, especially when two of the three that he had just been fighting holstered their swords and stood down, but the leader of those same three still held his blades ready to attack, and Roxas knew that it was going to take a little more to convince them. "If you really wish to stand against me, then by all means," Roxas stated, dismissing his Keyblades and holding his arms open to give the Samurai a clear shot at him. "Here's your chance to prove what you are once and for all. A slave of monsters, or lost souls that want to serve a truly noble purpose."

A tense silence filled the air at that point, and it was only disturbed when that lone Samurai finally charged at Roxas and swung both of its blades.

---

The rest of the team that were traveling through the inside of the train had continued their race to the front with little pause, but the next obstacle in their path could be heard long before Stitch had started growling again. The reason: because it was a lieutenant dragging his massive blade along the floor as if he was trying to intimidate any of them into giving up when he finally appeared before them. Obviously it was not going to work, but the sight of a few Reapers flanking him certainly helped to make him seem at least a little scary.

"Blake, you go on ahead while I handle this miscreant," Weiss told her teammate.

"Got it. Just be careful. This guy can take a lot of punishment," Blake cautioned.

"Don't worry. She's not going to be handling him alone," Ventus assured her.

"Yeah, because I'm gonna be sticking here while you go with Blake and Stitch," Lea told his friend, much to everyone's surprise. "What? Just because Weiss and I don't get along doesn't mean I want some scumbag and Marluxia's old lapdogs knocking her down. That's my job."

"Uh-huh. Sure, Lea," Ventus smirked knowingly. "Or maybe you're finally starting to warm up to the idea of being friends with her."

"Hey, fire and ice don't mix. That's never gonna change. Besides, you're the one who's actually fought alongside of Stitch before, so it only makes sense that you go with the group he's in," Lea pointed out. "Now stop arguing and go nab our big bad guys."

Blake and Ventus did not have any more time to debate the point, as they all finally came within range of the lieutenant. When Weiss and Lea both moved to engage from the start, it seemed for a moment that they would end up being cut down to size. As it turned out, they were merely faking the lieutenant out so that Blake and Ventus would have an opening to throw him off balance and then slip past, but not before Stitch had jumped up on his head and shoved his mask down so that he would be blinded for a moment.

Taking a moment to fix his mask, the lieutenant was more than a little annoyed, but when he realized who one of his current opponents was, he chuckled menacingly while revving up his weaponized chainsaw and growled, "Finally, I get to kill a Schnee."

"You and your buddies are gonna have a hard time doing that, pal," Lea cautioned as he readied his Flame Liberator, while Weiss just spun the revolver in her rapier. A tense silence hung in the air for all but a few seconds until Lea finally asked Weiss, "So which one do you want, Ice Princess? The big stupid one or his ugly buddies?"

"I hold no preferences either way, so long as you don't blow up the train during whatever fight you pursue, Flame-Brain," Weiss smirked.

"Just making sure. Didn't want you to go after the Reapers so you could deal with any frustrations you still had towards Ruby," Lea joked, right before he suddenly rushed in to attack the Nobodies in question with one last, rapid comment. "Because I already called dibs on them!"

Weiss merely rolled her eyes, albeit with a slight playfulness before she was forced to get serious again and deflect the lieutenant's chainsaw with a quick spin of her rapier. Weiss was hardly worried about her opponent's larger size, having faced similar opponents before, and it showed when she easily spun and flipped around the lieutenant, avoiding his attacks and striking back with quick, precise strikes. Sure, she was not doing too much damage, but that was okay with her, because she was sure that she would be able to outlast him. Then again, Blake had said that this guy could take a lot of punishment, so Weiss knew that she could not afford to hold anything back when attacking.

Lea on the other hand had to do his best to hold back from using his usual level of power, so as not to set the train on fire and risk setting off the bombs. Not a great thing for someone who relied very heavily on using overwhelming power to win most of his fights, but the Flurry of Dancing Flames was nothing if not quick to adapt. Plus, since the Reapers fought in a way that was similar to Marluxia, Lea already knew plenty of tricks and openings that he could take advantage of in a fight. For instance, when they swung they tended to overreach a lot, and Lea just had to get behind them when he dodged so that they would be thrown off balance in his counterattack, and on more than one occasion, they would find a way to try and speed around the battlefield in an effort to throw him off, but since Lea knew what to watch for in such instances, he was able to block most of their attacks. That did not mean he did not use any fire spells at all, as proven when one particularly strong Firaga destroyed at least two Reapers after he had whittled their energy down a considerable amount. It was not much longer before Lea destroyed the last of the Reapers, and was able to turn his attention to helping Weiss deal with the lieutenant.

Just when he had turned around and started moving to help, Lea could not help but stop for a minute and wonder if Weiss really needed his help that badly. The girl was certainly giving the lieutenant the runaround in the fight, and her advantage looked like it would continue to hold when she activated her time dilation glyph to increase her speed. To make things even more problematic for the White Fang lieutenant, a number of Weiss regular glyphs appeared around him soon after, allowing Weiss to speedily land several consecutive blows on his person, over and over again. When her last glyph faded away, Weiss used a wall to rebound off of, and dealt a very strong strike to the lieutenant, sending him to the ground. Weiss's next attack would have impaled the big man right through his head, but the lieutenant managed to show how great his resilience was when he simply rolled back and avoided the blow.

Weiss was not deterred by this, and proceeded to leap towards him once more, only to end up with the lieutenant grabbing her by the face. The next thing Weiss knew, she was being slammed into the floor and tossed up in the air while the lieutenant swung his chainsaw weapon at her like a baseball bat. The only reason why the weapon never hit its mark was because due to Lea making a timely intervention and blocking the attack with one of his chakrams. Using the other one, Lea managed to push the lieutenant back, and then proceeded to slash at him with several more strikes. Using the momentum of his last two blows, Lea finished off his attack with a powerful spin kick that pushed the lieutenant further back, much to his frustration.

"Oh I'm sorry. Did that hurt," Lea mockingly smirked as he let his trusted weapons hang loosely in his hands. His chakrams then started to be lit ablaze, and he shouted, "C'mere, I'll make it all stop!"

Lea then rushed in to land a few more fast, burning attacks to the lieutenant, but since the White Fang Faunus was now expecting Lea to attack, he was able to better dodge, deflect, or even shoulder the blows that Lea threw. That last one was something he tried to avoid having to do, given that most of Lea's attacks were very likely to set him on fire, but either way, Lea was no longer holding the element of surprise on his side, and the lieutenant eventually managed to push him back. This irritated the redhead, even more so since it forced him to change his chakrams back into his Keyblade again, but thankfully, he was spared from receiving any additional pain when the lieutenant suddenly found himself being held in place by a familiar, black glyph.

"Lea, hit him now," Weiss shouted as she held onto the lieutenant with her gravity glyph.

"You got it, Weiss," Lea called back, and he did not hesitate to slash his Keyblade at the big man with everything he had while the lieutenant was unable to move from his current spot.

When the gravity glyph finally released the lieutenant, he was already very torn up, and Weiss made sure to make it even worse for him via another barrage of fast strikes from multiple different angles. Under the combined assault of this fire and ice duo, the lieutenant could not hold up for very long, and eventually just dropped to the floor, both due to his Aura being exhausted, and the overabundance of injury that the two heroes had inflicted onto him.

A hard won victory does take its toll on a fighter, but thankfully, Weiss and Lea were just a little exhausted. Any injuries they had taken were easily dealt with by downing a Potion or two, and Weiss's recovery was even more quick thanks to her Aura, so they were soon back to exchanging their usual banter with each other. "Not bad, for a crazy pyro," Weiss complimented in her own way.

"You did alright too, I guess, for a spoiled brat," Lea jabbed back, his smile showing that he was not entirely serious.

For a minute, the two were silent, until Weiss finally just laughed and said, "We're never going to be able to cooperate or converse like normal people, are we?"

"Eh, normal's overrated anyway," Lea shrugged as he laughed too. "Now what do you say we go help stop this train?"

"I was just about to ask you that same thing, but I'm sure that you're more interested in making sure that Blake and Ven haven't already defeated all of our foes," Weiss smirked.

"Only if they're Ninjas. I love taking down Ninjas. It's the closest I'll ever get to taking down Larxene," Lea confessed.

"You really don't care for this Larxene woman, do you," Weiss noted.

"Trust me; you should consider yourself lucky that you never met her, because if you had, you wouldn't like her either."

---

It did not take much longer for Ventus, Blake, and Stitch to finally reach the engine after they parted from Weiss and Lea, but the company they found upon arrival was certainly far from desirable. The lack of any Nobodies did very little to improve that, or change how viciously Blake was glaring at the opponent that now stood in their way.

"Hello kids! You miss me," Torchwick quipped as he spun his cane about. "You know, the three of us have got to stop meeting like this. People are going to talk."

"I think you have me confused for the other blonde on my team," Ventus quipped as he called Wayward Wind into his hand.

Seeing the one Keyblade and how its wielder was holding it in a reverse grip, Torchwick managed to realize his mistake, but just shrugged it off as no big deal. "Hey, it's your fault for looking like you could be the other one's twin or clone. Maybe you should consider getting a new look to change that."

Ventus merely rolled his eyes, before replying, "Yeah, like I'm gonna take fashion advice from a guy wearing a cheap mobster suit."

Roman's only response was to start marching towards the two, growling under his breath, and while Ventus was more than ready for a fight, Blake had already taken off to engage him. Ventus was already worried, given that Blake's charge was leaving her wide open, but the cat Faunus proved that it was part of her plan when she used her Semblance to create a clone to take the hit and get behind Torchwick. This was not one of her normal shadows, though; this time, when the clone appeared, it was made up of fire, and instantly exploded after Roman had gotten too close. While the criminal was airborne, Blake managed to land several aerial attacks to increase the damage he was dealt, right to the point where Ventus actually winced a little when Torchwick hit the ground again. It did not stop Roman for very long though, as he easily readied his cane to fire a blast at Blake. The blast seemed to hit its target, but it turned out that Blake had used her Semblance once more, this time creating a clone made of stone so that she was protected from the blast and able to charge for another run.

Torchwick did everything he could to try and hit Blake, but once again, with her Semblance backing her up, Blake's skill as a swordswoman proved to be too much for him to handle, as she deflected or blocked every strike that Roman made, while pushing him back with several swings of her two blades. The next time Torchwick found an opening, it ended up being a bad move on his part, as Blake's Semblance ended up allowing her to create an ice clone that Roman ended up lodging his cane in, leaving him wide open for Blake's final attack as he struggled to remove his weapon from the ice. That attack came just as fast as usual for Blake, and like that, Torchwick seemed to be knocked out of the fight.

As he watched Blake move to subdue or restrain the irritating criminal, Ventus looked to Stitch and said, "Suddenly I'm wondering why we even needed to be here." Right after he had spoken, several Ninjas appeared and attacked Blake, preventing her from getting close enough to pin Torchwick down. "Oh yeah, that's why," Ventus muttered, and he then dropped into his usual battle stance, ready to charge. But not before he spared a few words for his old friend. "Stitch, you get up to the control room and see if you can find anything that might stop those bombs or this train. We'll handle things here."

Stitch just grunted in response and scurried past the battlefield, only stopping long enough to shoot a few enemies with his blasters as he went, and once Ven had used and ice spell to keep Roman where he was, he and Blake entered into battle with the former followers of Larxene. What followed was a face-off of speed against speed, as the two heroes were just fast enough to close the distance between them and any one of their opponents, while at the same time, the Ninjas were able to get clear and strike hard and fast at nearly the same speed. The only real advantage that the Ninjas had on Ventus and Blake was that there were so many of them, and that was starting to become less of a problem with each passing second.

Blake's only problem in this fight was that she had not really fought alongside of Ventus all that much, as the Keyblade wielder that she usually worked with was Roxas, but she was able to adapt pretty quickly. Since Ventus was a speed-fighter like her, Blake had no trouble keeping up with him, and was happy to know that he was able to cover her wherever she was left open while she did the same for him. On the other end of things, Ventus was also thankful that Blake was able to create various different types of shadows now, as they made dealing with the Ninjas go much faster if he only had his own magic spells to rely on. That was not to say that he did not use any magic at all, but it was still nice to not have to expend so much of his own magic when Blake had some elemental attacks that were almost if not just as good.

"Guess Weiss wasn't kidding when she said that Dust clip was going to be a big help for you," Ventus remarked as he cut down another two Ninjas.

Blake merely shot him her usual cat-like smile after slashing through three more Ninjas and then blasting a few more with Ice Dust using Gambol Shroud's pistol mode, and replied, "Just what you should expect from the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, and your Snow Angel."

"Okay first off, I've never called Weiss that. Second, don't you start too," Ventus pleaded after cutting down the Ninjas that Blake had frozen. "I've already got enough to deal with from Aqua's teasing on the matter of me and Weiss."

"And yet, you're not denying that there's something between you two," Blake pointed out, her smile not falling in the slightest.

"Are we seriously having this conversation while fighting bad guys," Ventus asked. "Because if we are, don't think I'm not going to ask how you think things are going to develop for you and Sun going forward."

The blush on Blake's face was enough for Ventus to know he had her there, and the two spent the rest of the fight destroying whatever Ninjas remained in relative silence, aside from the necessary exchanges of dialogue. That is, until several Dusks got the drop on Ventus and bashed him into a wall. In his disoriented state, Ventus was unable to defend himself from the next round of lightning-based attacks that the Ninjas directed at him, and let out a cry of pain from the serious shock of electricity that wracked his body as a result.

"Ven! Hang on," Blake called out, only for her path to be blocked by both more Dusks and a recently freed Torchwick.

"I think you've got a few problems of your own to worry about, Blake," Roman smirked.

Blake grit her teeth and glared angrily at the criminal, knowing that he had her boxed in, even if she were to try and use her Semblance right now, and from the look of how the other Dusks and Ninjas were all focusing all of their attention on Ventus, it seemed clear that the blonde was not going to be able to use any healing spells or any of the Potions he still had on him. She could probably try to toss him one of hers, but that would not do much good, since Roman was more likely to blast it out of the air before it reached Ven, and even if he did not, Ventus would still need to drink it, and that just brought things right back around to the original problem.

Just when Blake was thinking about trying something risky, a certain little blue experiment could be heard shouting, "Abaquista!"

"What…" Roman started to ask, only for Stitch to suddenly jump onto his head and shove his hat down over his eyes. "Ah! What the fricklety frack?! Someone get this thing off my hat!"

Stitch just laughed like a maniac as the Dusks all tried and failed to get at him, while he just made Roman spin this way and that, making the criminal accidentally hit or shoot his own henchmen. Watching Roman struggle with Stitch like this was already a pretty amusing sight to see, but when he suddenly crawled down to lick Roman all over the face as disgustingly as possible and then give the crook a wet-wily, Blake could not help but giggle at the sight. It did not stop her from being able to move and help Ventus, with his attackers, though, and after she had, the three were all able to get in on the action, Stitch doing so with his blasters.

Irritated by the humiliation that he had just been dealt, Roman did not hesitate in trying to blast Stitch for what the little blue alien did, but to his and everyone else's surprise, Stitch not only survived the blast, but ended up catching it in his bare hands before balling it up like a snowball. "Well, that's…different," was all Torchwick could think of to say at the bizarre sight.

"Hehehehe…Eh! Oh! AH," Stitch gasped as he started juggling the fire blast he just caught until he finally just threw it back at Roman.

"GAH," Roman cried out. "Why you little…I'll skin you alive for that, you freak!"

"Naga! Stitch not freak! STITCH FLUFFY," Stitch shouted as he drew his blasters again and fired shot after shot at Roman, while bouncing around the room like a volleyball, taking out several of the remaining Nobodies with each bounce. He ended up landing on the ceiling soon after, where he crossed his arms smugly, and said, "Keplarma chiggie!"

"What," Roman and Blake both asked.

"I'm pretty sure he just insulted your mom, Torchwick," Ventus guessed with a teasing grin.

"OH! Leave my mother out of this," Torchwick shouted, now appearing really upset as he tried to blast Stitch again.

The little blue alien just jumped down to avoid the shot, and scooped something up that he then used to plug up Roman's cane the next time he tried to fire it. "HA," Stitch laughed triumphantly.

Roman looked frantically between the alien and his cane, obviously knowing what was going to come next since he was about to fire it when it was plugged, and quickly, "You know, now that I think about it, a cane that's also a gun isn't the most safe thing, so why don't you guys go ahead and take this."

He then tossed the cane over to Stitch and tried to make a run for it, only to stop when he felt Stitch tugging at his pants leg. When Torchwick turned to kick him off, Stitch quickly tossed the cane back and said, "Merry Christmas."

"It's not Christmas!"

"Happy Hanukah!"

"Uh, I think we should back away now," Ventus told Blake as they continued watching Stitch and Torchwick play Hot Potato with the latter's cane.

Blake just nodded as she and Ventus turned and ran as far back as they could without leaving the train car, until the cat Faunus asked, "Wait, what about Stitch?"

"Don't worry. He'll be fine," Ventus assured her.

On and on, Stitch and Torchwick passed the cane between them, the latter not realizing that they had actually commenced an actual game of Hot Potato as they did so, until finally, the cane ended up in Roman's hands, and he grinned as he boasted, "Haha! I win!" He turned to further rub his victory in Stitch's face, only to see the little guy rushing over to where Ventus and Blake were, the former of which was already in the process of casting a barrier spell to better contain the blast, and after looking back to his cane, he quickly remembered why he was trying to get rid of it. "Oh…"

One explosion later and Torchwick was down for the count. Alive, but unarmed and beaten, and thanks to Ven's spell, the blast did not spread to the rest of the train. "Nice one, Stitch," Ventus laughed.

"Yeah, who's a good boy? Who's a fluffy little hero," Blake cooed as she scratched Stitch's chin, much to his pleasure. When she realized what she was doing, she leveled looks at both boys and said, "If either of you tell anyone about this, I will shave you both."

"Oketaka," Stitch happily agreed.

"Come on. Let's see if Torchwick's got something on him to stop those bombs," Ventus directed them. Unfortunately, that was where their good mood ended, because a quick search of Roman's person turned up nothing, and after looking into the control room, they found the console completely smashed up. "Oh, this is not good."

"What's not good," Lea's voice asked, prompting the three to turn and see the redhead and Weiss had just arrived.

"Roman smashed the controls, and we can't find anything else that might stop the bombs," Blake reported.

"Stitch, do you think you might be able to salvage anything from this," Ventus asked.

Stitch's only response was more alien gibberish and a cracking of his knuckles as he prepared to get working on the remains of the console, but right when he had approached it, his body began glowing and then fading away. "Uh-oh," Stitch gasped, knowing that his time here was up. "Uh…Bye-bye!"

The next thing they knew, Stitch had completely disappeared, and they knew that could only mean one thing. "I guess that fight with Roman zapped away all of his energy," Blake guessed. "Now what do we do?"

"Get in touch with Yang and Roxas, and then meet back up top with the others," Weiss suggested.

"Not like we've got any better ideas," Lea shrugged as he dialed up his best friend, and with that they turned to exit the train and return to the roof, hoping that Sora and Ruby's group was having better luck than them.

---

Yang's fight against Neo did not get better with time. Instead, the smaller girl ended up completely owning Yang right to the point where the blonde eventually ended up knocked out on the floor and completely vulnerable for Neo to finish her off. Drawing the sword that was hidden in the handle of her umbrella, Neo had every intention of ending things right then and there with a satisfied, wicked grin etched onto her face, but just as she was drawing her blade back, something came in and slashed at her, forcing her to back off. It ended up not just being one thing though, as several more blades were soon sailing through the air to strike her, and there was no way that they all could have come from just one person. When the attacks finally ceased, Neo turned to see who was responsible, and let out a silent gasp at what she saw.

There, standing tall and proud was none other than Roxas, holding both of his Keyblades at the ready and looking very much like a general ready to signal his forces to attack, and from the way that every one of the Samurai Nobodies were gathered behind him, it was pretty clear that he might as well have been just that. Not a single Samurai showed any sign of being likely to attack the dual-Keyblade wielder, and that was a little concerning for Neo. Not that it kept her from being curious as to how the blonde had managed to sway these creatures over to his control.

Her question must have shown on her face, because Roxas soon explained, "The thing about Samurais is that they always follow a code of honor, one that prohibits them from attacking their commanders without reason, especially when that commander respects them enough to not treat them as slaves. Now, stand down. Final warning."

Neo just looked at Roxas with a small smile before she moved her umbrella around so she as holding it under her arm, pulled out her Scroll, and typed something on it that she then turned to Roxas. The blonde figured that the girl wanted him to read whatever she had typed, but there was just one problem with that. "You know I can't read that from here, right," he asked. Neo's response was to wave him over. "What? No! I'm not falling for that. The minute I get close enough, you're just going to attack me," Roxas denied, only for the girl to raise both hands up as if to say she would not do so if he came close enough to read what she had typed. Seeing that she was appearing honest in her claim, Roxas glanced over to the Samurai and whispered, "If she tries anything, don't hesitate to attack, even if I'm still in the line of fire."

A faint sound that he registered to mean "Yes, my liege" rang through Roxas's head in response to his order, and he slowly approached Neo so he could see what she had typed. Looking down at the Scroll, Roxas then read aloud, "'You're funny, cutie, but I'm afraid that I can't do that.'" Ignoring the cutie comment, Roxas just looked at Neo and asked, "And you couldn't just say that?"

Neo shook her head in the negative, and then patted her throat with the hand that wasn't holding her Scroll, cluing Roxas in on what she was trying to say without needing her to type it out for him. "Wait, you…can't speak at all," he asked.

In response, Neo typed out another message on her Scroll and held it out for Roxas to read. "'I don't know. I've never tried,'" Roxas read before shooting her a flat look. "Okay, now I know you're just messing with me."

Neo merely shrugged in response and quickly pocketed her Scroll again before spinning around to attack him with her umbrella. Luckily, Roxas managed to jump clear, and allowed the Samurai to carry out their orders. Even with this new reinforcement though, Roxas was not able to get a leg up on Neo, especially since the only reason he had gotten one before was because he had the element of surprise on his side. Now that it was no longer there, Neo was able to handle rather well. He could still see signs of her struggling, but not to the point where she appeared to be worried. It was not until after one of the Samurai ended up destroyed by the multi-colored girl that Roxas really grew concerned, but only for his newly reacquired followers.

"Samurai! Disperse!" Roxas ordered, making the Nobodies pause and give him what he knew to be questioning looks. "Just go! I promise I'll call you if and when I ever need you."

The Samurai hesitated for a few more seconds until they finally began disappearing under their own volition, leaving Roxas and Neo alone in the train car with the unconscious Yang. Seeing this, Neo merely smirked and pulled out her Scroll again and typed out another message for him on her Scroll. Roxas did not need to move closer to her this time, but the message did leave him feeling a little flustered.

'Guess it's just you and me now, cutie,' Neo's message read.

"Yeah, I'm…flattered by the affection, Neo, but I have a girlfriend," Roxas informed the short girl, hoping that she would not take offense to how he hesitated before mentioning how he felt about receiving such attention from a criminal.

Neo just kept smiling as she typed out another message, and this one left Roxas a little more flustered than the first. 'I know. I remember seeing you and her together at the rally, and she's pretty cute too. I wouldn't mind having to share either of you with each other. ;)'

Roxas had gotten pretty used to hearing others call him and/or Xion things like cute, but this was the first time that someone had said something like that to him, so he was understandably shocked that Neo had done so in such a blatant manner. Sure, she had not actually said the words, but typing them out was clearly enough to rattle his mind. The wink emoji at the end did not help his state of mind, and that ended up leaving him open for when Neo attacked. Since Roxas's mind was such a muddled mess, Neo was able to slip past his guard and easily knock him down.

After landing near Yang, Roxas growled under his breath as he glared at Neo, thinking that she had pulled a cheap trick on him, until Neo showed him another message she had typed out on her Scroll, that said, 'Like I was saying, I wouldn't mind sharing either of you with each other, if we were on the same side, but unfortunately, we're not, so I've gotta kill you now.'

"Okay, you can stop…uh, typing things like that now," Roxas told her.

Neo just shrugged and drew her hidden blade again, ready to end either Roxas or Yang's lives, when suddenly, another surprise attacker came at her, forcing Neo away from both blondes. This time when Neo laid eyes on the surprise guest to the fight, she seemed to get genuinely scared, and Roxas could not blame the two-toned girl, given the look of this new arrival. If he had to describe her in as few words as possible, Roxas would definitely say that the best way to describe this lady was scary.

The person in question was a tall, imposing woman, with long black hair, and a sword held at her waist, the scabbard it was stored in appearing to have a rotary chamber loaded with multiple kinds of Dust, while her outfit was mainly colored black and dark crimson. As if to make her appear even more intimidating, the mystery woman also wore a helmet that not only hid her entire face from view, but looked a lot like a Grimm mask, but somehow, Roxas knew that she was definitely not with the White Fang, as her mask seemed far more elaborate than those of the Faunus group. The thing that really drove home was just how long her sword appeared to be when she drew it once again, and how the blade had appeared to have turned a deep, blood red color after she seemed to infuse it with some Fire Dust. In that moment, Roxas was glad that this swordswoman was not facing him, because he was sure that, even without the mask, she would be giving her target a various dangerous, fear-inducing gaze.

Seeing how pale Neo's face had become, and how her eyes even changed color to match that paleness, Roxas would say that was a very solid guess. Not only that, but Neo turned out to be so scared of this woman that she actually made ran away, disappearing in a flash of light via her Semblance, similar to how she and Torchwick had on the night when he and his friends first encountered her. As relieved as he was to see her gone, Neo's departure came with the downside of leaving Roxas alone with the scary, mystery woman, and Yang did not seem like she was going to be getting up any time soon. So when the woman turned to face both him and his friend, Roxas did his best to swallow any trepidation he had, and moved himself between Yang and this stranger.

"If you want to hurt her, you're going to have to go through me first," Roxas challenged as bravely as he could, but he was sure that it had come off rather feebly.

The woman did not say or do anything for a time other than simply staring at both him and Yang, but for some reason, Roxas just knew that her gaze was lingering more on the blonde behind him. Finally, after several more tense seconds, the woman did swing her sword, not at Roxas, but at the air next to them, and to his surprise, a black and red portal of some kind opened as a result. The woman then sheathed her sword with a simple flourish of her blade, and proceeded to back away from the two, not taking her hidden gaze off of them for a little longer. Of course, Roxas was now even more certain that she was mainly looking at Yang, for some reason, and his certainty grew when the woman finally spoke in a voice that sent chills up his spine yet still seemed to hold a very tiny bit of sweetness to it.

"Tell your redhead friend that he'd better take care of her, or I'll be coming for his head, and no magic or other worldly powers he might have will be able to keep him safe from me," the woman told Roxas.

Her comment confused Roxas quite a bit, leaving him wondering how this woman could know anything about Yang and Lea's growing relationship, never mind about how it seemed like she knew about their powers and origins, until something finally started to click into place for him. "W-wait," he nervously called out, making the woman pause. "Are…Are you…Raven?"

Once again, the woman kept silent, but only for a brief period, after which she let out what sounded like a short laugh and said, "I look forward to the moment when I next cross paths with you or your other friends, Keyblade wielder. Just pray that we're not on opposing sides when it happens."

That served as all the confirmation that Roxas needed to know that this woman definitely knew about him and his other friends from other worlds, but more than that, it gave him final confirmation that she definitely was Yang's long-lost mother. He was not sure what to think at this point. Should he tell Yang that her mother had just saved them? How would she react to that news? His mind was so riddled with questions about this event that he did not even realize that Yang had already woken up and was now trying to get his attention after seeing her mother disappear through her strange portal.

"ROXAS," Yang finally shouted almost right in his ear, startling him out of his stupor at last. "What happened to the Samurais? Where did Neo go? Who was that woman just now? Was that…?"

"Yang…I think…I think that was your mom," Roxas interrupted in little more than a whisper.

Yang seemed to take the news pretty well, all things considered, but from where Roxas was standing, it seemed like she had completely shut down from the shock. "She…she was really here," Yang eventually whispered. "That was her just now?"

"Yang, I know this is probably a lot to take in, but we've got to meet up with the others," Roxas told her, grasping her shoulders as if to make sure he had her attention focused on him. "Axel called me a moment ago and said that they couldn't find a way to stop the bombs, so they're going back up top to regroup with Sora and the others. Meaning we need to move, right now."

"R-right. Right, questions for another time," Yang nodded, mentally slapping herself to regain her focus and get back on track as she and Roxas quickly exited the train car. As they were going though, she spared another glance in her friend's direction and asked, "Did she…say anything to you?"

"Only to tell Axel that he needs to treat you right if he wants to live," Roxas replied as simply as he could.

"I see," Yang nodded, blushing a little bit over what that implied about her and the redheaded pyro. It was actually right at that point that she also noticed something was off with her friend. "Hey, are you okay, Roxas? Your face is looking kinda red."

"Uh, y-yeah! Yeah, I'm, uh…I'm fine. Just a little out of breath," Roxas stuttered, while trying not to think about the stuff Neo had said to him during their face-off. Yang seemed to drop the matter after that, but it did not stop Roxas from mentally promising himself to not tell Xion about this. The two-toned girl had already given her a few chills the first time that Xion saw her; the last thing Roxas wanted was to creep her out anymore with that information.

---

Sora spun around rapidly while sending a pair of yo-yos flying into the Paladins and Reapers that were after him and his friends. Of course, these were not your average yoyos. These were the Twin Yo-Yos, the second Formchange of his Happy Gear Keyblade, and they packed quite the monstrous punch, as several monsters and bad guys quickly realized, right alongside of Ruby and Oobleck. Aqua was not as surprised by the crazy weapons because she had seen them in action a few times before, so she was able to keep her wits about and help Sora deal with his opponents without ending up frozen from the shock.

Evidence of Aqua's lack of surprise over Sora's weapon was shown when she blasted several of the Nobodies with some of her most powerful spells after Sora had tied them up using the energy strings of his monstrous yo-yos. She did not stop there though, as Aqua was soon unleashing one of her own unique Keyblade attacks, Wishing Edge, to hit the enemies around her three times over in a single, leaping spin attack. Once Sora had spun around several times over while sending the Twin Yo-Yos flying, the last of the Reapers and Berserkers that were in their way ended up destroyed, save for one or two of each, but Sora was far from done.

"Hey, any of you ever seen this one before," Sora shouted as he sent the monster yo-yos flying forward. The next thing everyone knew, the yo-yos expanded to a massive size and changed into a large, monstrous mouth with razor sharp teeth. Teeth that chopped down on those last two Nobodies several times over until they finally ended up turned to dust and smoke.

With his attack complete, Sora's weapons changed back into the Happy Gear Keyblade, and he turned to go and help Ruby with her fight, but from the sound of explosions that followed after the two, echoing blasts, he got the feeling that Ruby did not really need that much help. Considering that another, burning Paladin just went tumbling off the train and down the tracks, it was more than likely a very good hunch. Too bad for the heroes that there were more Paladins on the way with a few Reapers and Berserkers as well, much to their irritation.

"Give me a break," Sora groaned as he changed Happy Gear into Shooting Star, already gearing up to change said Keyblade into Double Arrowguns. "We're never going to get to the engine at this rate."

"Only if we continue to stick together," Aqua remarked, and after a brief nod to the Beacon professor, she knew that Oobleck had the same idea as her.

"Ruby, Sora, you two go on ahead," Oobleck ordered. "Aqua and I will handle things from here."

"Are you sure," Ruby asked, not too fond of leaving anyone behind for any reason, even if they could take care of themselves.

"Don't worry, Ruby. We'll be fine. I just need to teach them a new lesson," Oobleck promised, and with that, he turned and ran off to face their foes.

When she saw the couple turn and face her, Aqua merely shrugged and said, "You heard the man. We've got this covered. Besides, I've yet to really dazzle them with some real magic."

Aqua then turned to join Oobleck in his charge, blasting the closest enemies with whatever magic she had before she finally just leapt into the air to unleash one of her most powerful attacks on the bad guys: Magic Hour. Seeing that attack and how many enemies it left devastated, Ruby and Sora were a little more assured that the two mission leaders could handle this and were now ready to carry out their orders. At least until a certain corgi let out a sad little whine, making Ruby turn to look down at Zwei.

Much like his owner, Zwei was not one to leave friends behind if he could help it, and from what she had seen, Ruby knew that her dog had certainly bonded with Oobleck at the very least, so she could understand why he did not want to leave just yet. Besides, the idea of leaving her adorable yet tough little doggy behind to look after those two did put Ruby's mind a little more at ease, so she could not help but smile as she nodded to Zwei and simply said, "Go on, boy. Make sure all of our friends stay safe."

Zwei's sad whine turned to a happy bark, and he then turned to chase after Oobleck and Aqua. As he watched the corgi go, Sora had to comment, "That's one loyal dog you've got there, Ruby."

"Yeah, I know," Ruby replied. She then got focused on the mission again and prepared to finish their run to the engine as she said, "Now let's stop this train."

Sora was going to nod in agreement, but that idea was abolished when he turned to face the front again and saw a very worrying sight. "Uh, I think we might be out of time for that," he informed Ruby. "We're about to hit the end of the line. Literally!"

Ruby gasped in fright when she saw that Sora was right. They were about to hit the wall that sealed the tunnels off from the main city of Vale, and the train was moving way too fast to be safely stopped at this point. Even if they did find a way to at least slow it down, it would still end up crashing through the wall, and there was no doubt that the bombs would finish the job of getting through if their friends did not find some way to stop them before they hit. Sadly, Ruby's prayers that the rest of their team had done so ended up going unanswered when said teammates appeared next to them.

"Hey, not to add to the bad news, but we couldn't find a way to stop the bombs," Lea reported. "And Torchwick destroyed the train's controls."

"What about Stitch? Couldn't he do anything to stop it," Sora inquired.

"He ran out of energy right when he was about to try," Ventus replied. "There's no way to stop this train without it crashing now."

"So what do we do now," Blake asked.

A simple glance between her and Ruby was all that Weiss needed to know what her leader had in mind for their reaction, a fact that spoke volumes about how far their teamwork had come since the early days of their time at Beacon. However, just when Weiss was drawing her rapier and spinning its revolver to Ice Dust, Sora stepped forward and readied his Keyblade for something as well. "I've got this," Sora told them. "A little barrier or reflect magic should keep us from getting hit too hard when we crash."

"Wait, what," the rest of Team SLVR gasped in surprise.

"Sora, did you forget that you lost your ability to cast reflect magic after what Xehanort did to you in the sleeping worlds," Lea questioned. "Last I checked, you still couldn't use that kind of spell."

"Hey, I've been able to regain my ability to use Firaga Burst and the basic gravity spells, and with all the practice I've been doing lately, I'm sure I can use one of the stronger versions of Reflect too," Sora stated in his defense, but it did little to reassure his friends.

"You mean you don't even know for sure if you can or not," Roxas asked, now more worried about how likely this idea was to succeed.

"Maybe we should just let Weiss do her thing, Sora," Ventus suggested, having figured out what the look between the heiress and Ruby likely meant already.

"No offense to Weiss, but I don't think a little bit of ice will be enough to make sure we get through unscathed, and there's no telling what kind of damage would be inflicted to whatever's on the other side of that wall," Sora tried arguing.

"And a reflect spell would be the better option?! You do remember that the spell's barrier explodes outwards with several times the damage it took after it gets hit, right," Ventus countered.

"We don't have time to argue! Let's just do both," Ruby finally cut in.

Weiss did not wait for anyone to dispute the idea, and instead just created as big of an ice barrier around them as she could, while Sora took a defensive stance with his Keyblade held forwards, and shouted the name of the spell he wanted to cast. "REFLEGA!"

Just before the eight students had been concealed behind the barrier of ice, a large dome of light also materialized around them all. The only thing anyone on Team RWBY or SLVR could see after that was the ice and barrier surrounding them, until their vision went white at the moment when the train finally crashed with a loud boom.

---

It was hard to know for sure just how long they were out, but judging by the orange tint of the sky, it was obvious that it was somewhere around or during sunrise. Not that anyone on either Team RWBY or SLVR was able to really enjoy the colors that always came with the beginning of the day, because at the moment, they were busy taking stock of their injuries from the recent crash while glancing about to try to check on each other.

"Is…Is everyone okay," Sora groaned as he tried to sit up and crawl over to where he thought Ruby was.

"Weiss…Weiss are you alright," Ventus asked of the heiress instead of answering Sora.

"I think so, Ven," Weiss muttered while accepting the extra hand up, along with the vial of Hi-Potion that the blonde handed to her.

"I'm okay," Blake confirmed while shaking her head to rid herself of any cobwebs.

"Same here," Roxas nodded. He grunted soon after and amended, "Well, my side and arms kind of hurt a little, but I don't think it's anything serious. Just a little bruise or flesh wound."

"Aside from the ringing in my ears, I'm okay too," Lea reported while checking on Yang, who was still coughing from all the dust in the air.

Ruby was about to ask Sora how he was doing, even as she winced in her attempts to sit up, until she picked up on a certain fact about that ringing Lea was talking about: it was not going away, and the actual sound of it was far more worrying. "I don't think that's just your ears ringing, Lea," she said.

When the eight started taking in their surroundings, it became clear that the ringing Lea and Ruby were talking about was actually an alarm, and that said alarm was echoing all throughout the main square of Vale City. To make matters worse, it looked like the people in the area were more curious about the crash site that they were all sitting in than they were concerned over why the alarms were blaring, and when the ground started shaking underneath the two teams of heroes, the citizens were about to find out why they should not have been standing around staring at them right now.

"Everyone get back! Evacuate the area, now," Ventus shouted as loudly as he could, ignoring how his head seemed to hurt a little more from the volume of his voice.

"You heard the man! Beat it! This area isn't safe," Lea screamed when no one seemed to pay his friend any mind.

Still, the civilians just stared at them, until the shaking beneath their feet grew strong enough for them to finally get a good idea on what the boys were talking about. The point of how dangerous this location was ended up being driven home really quickly when a massive King Taijitu burst out from the ground, along with several other types of Grimm and all sorts of Heartless soon after. Panic immediately flooded the streets, drawing the Grimm in every direction as the civilians scrambled to get away, and the Heartless did not make things any better, as they were all soon pouncing on anyone that they could reach before the soulless abominations. When the dwellers of darkness finally started claiming victims, it was not long before someone realized that every person that fell to these strange, yellow-eyed, black creatures was being transformed into another one of them, and the panicked screams grew louder and more frequent.

As if that was not bad enough, but as soon as the Heartless had gotten well into the city with the Grimm, several Dusks joined in on the rampage as well, and it was only natural that the people of Vale were quick to run and scream in fear of these silvery-white creatures after seeing what the Heartless were doing to people. This increase in fear seemed to draw the Grimm in like a mouse to a cheese factory, because they soon came even faster and more aggressively than ever, and the sight of all this chaos, destruction, and terror unfolding was far too much for anyone to take in, never mind the heroes that had just tried so hard to prevent his from happening.

"I don't…I don't believe it," Blake whispered in terror. "Vale's…Vale's been breached. The Grimm have gotten into the city."

"Not just the Grimm. The Heartless too, and with the Nobodies practically coordinating the attack…" Ventus trailed off at the end, unable to finish his thought.

"The whole city could fall in a matter of hours," Lea concluded for his blonde friend.

"So…we failed," Yang hesitantly asked, not sure if she would like the answer.

"…No," Ruby answered, her eyes narrowing in determination as she forced herself to stand up again. She did not even need to drink the Hi-Potion that Sora had offered her to make it happen; Ruby's sheer determination and force of will was enough to help her get back up and prepare to make a final stand. "We haven't failed yet. As long as there's even a single person in the city left to protect, and so long as we can still fight, then it's our job to keep going no matter what."

"She's right," Sora agreed, and he quickly cast his strongest healing spell over their entire group. As the others stood up, Sora quickly retrieved an Ether from his pocket that he used to replenish his magic energy, and stated, "This isn't over yet. Not while our hearts remain strong, and definitely not without a fight."

---

AN: Okay wow. All that happened. Some character development, some bad guy bashing, a lot of other crazy developments, and we end it all on a cliffhanger! Yeah, I'm kinda evil like that, ain't I?

Ruby: Only just a little bit. Is there really that much you can talk about regarding what happened without answering reviews at the same time?

AN: I'm pretty sure there's more than a few things. For instance, I'm sure you all noticed that I had an opportunity to get Ruby out of being caught by the White Fang earlier, but didn't. Well there is a reason for that. For one thing, it has been mentioned time and again that Ruby's a lot like Sora, especially in the case of Pre-KH3 Sora (or more accurately in this case, Sora before the events of this story), and if there's one thing that's always constant about Sora, it's that he tends to act first and think second. Ruby's not always been that way, but from what I've seen in the earlier volumes of RWBY, she did have that tendency quite a bit. Example: when she tried to 1v1 a Deathstalker, and a Nevermore. So of course I'm going to have her keep that up. Besides, it also gave us an opening for Sora to nearly go into Rage Mode again. You didn't think that would stop being a problem just because he's gotten out of his angsty funk did you?

Moving along to more important stuff, let's talk about the heart-to-heart moment that the guys got in on with the girls. I'll be honest, it was not all that hard for me to come up with some of the stuff that Ventus, Roxas, and Lea were going to say, at least in regards to the really important things and grievances. That's honestly what I feel like would be their hang-ups a good deal of the time, be it in canon or just in this story. Lea's gotta find a new purpose/reason for being a Keyblade wielder now that most of his friends are rescued, Roxas is trying to figure out how to live his life now that he actually can live his own life, and Ven's just worried that his quest for answers may tear him away from all that he loves. These are all very valid concerns that they have and will end up addressing later on down the line, but it will be a while before it happens. Honestly, when it comes to character development from this point onwards, I feel like it's going to be more of a slow burn for most of the characters, especially in the case of our leading Keyblade wielders.

Sora: Hey, how about the fact that we finally got the Gummiwatch tracking device thing working right?

AN: Yeah, I bet you all thought that was going to become a running gag for a while, didn't you? I mean, come on! What's the point of always mentioning that the watches have trackers in them if they're always getting messed with or having something happen that makes them useless? I've gotta give them at least one win with those things, you know.

Speaking of fun times, we finally saw a summon appear in the story, and it's none other than a favorite among Kingdom Hearts summons (at least as far as I can tell), everyone's favorite little blue alien: Stitch! Yeah, I know it probably seems like a bit of a waste to have him show up and only be part of one fight before disappearing, and that I probably could've set things up so that they did end up finding a way to stop the train somehow (don't ask me how, because I'm not entirely sure at the moment of writing this), but really, there's a lot of important things that unfolded because of the Breach. Don't worry though, the actual battle of the Breach will have more than a few changes to it, besides the fact that the Keyblade heroes, Heartless, and Nobodies are all involved.

Anyways, back on the topic of Stitch, you guys all caught each of the little references to his franchises that were worked in, right? I mean, one of them is a gag that I did in my very first Kingdom Hearts story, so it shouldn't have been too hard to miss.

Lea: You know, I'm pretty sure that they don't have Christmas on Remnant, hence the reason why in that one RWBY Chibi episode everyone called it Non-Descript Winter Holiday.

AN: Dude, it was obviously Christmas and we all know it. I say that it works here. BTW, how many of you were happy to see that Lea's assistance in Weiss's fight allowed her to avoid getting beaten down? Yeah, I know a lot of you were glad for that alone.

Oh, and let's not forget about what happened during the face-off of Yang and Roxas vs. Neo and the Samurais. Yes, Roxas now has command of the Samurais again, but it'll be a lot like how Sora can still control the Dream Eaters, so don't get too excited about that. If you're wondering why Roxas's could take back control of his old underlings while Lea couldn't, well the answer's pretty simple: I'm of the mind that Roxas never really treated the Samurais like they were just underlings or followers, but more like they were friends or comrades at the very least. Plus, like it said in the story, Samurai are known to follow a code of honor, and if that does carry over to the Samurai Nobodies, then I'm sure that it would be no problem for Roxas to earn their loyalty back, even if he isn't technically a Nobody anymore.

Roxas: Didn't stop you from having Neo admit that she had taken an interest in me and Xion.

AN: Hey, it's not like I'm the first person to have Neo do something like that. Besides, did you really think I was going to mention how Neo had been the first to take notice of your group a few chapters back because of you and Xion, and not run with it a little more later on down the line? Neo just has that vibe of being a playful prankster/flirt, you know, when she's not being a dangerous little killer, like in some of her more recent appearances. Or when she's acting out on her loyalty to Torchwick that may or may not imply something a little deeper than just a working relationship. In all seriousness, does anyone know or at least have an actual guess on just how old Neo is? I mean, I've heard all the comments about how Neo's only the same height as everyone else in RWBY Chibi and such, and it's pretty clear that Cinder and some of her gang are a little too old to have been considered as students at some points, but I still can't tell if Neo's actually older than she looks, or if she actually is as old as she looks. Ah, a mystery for another time, I guess.

And yeah, I had Neo use her Scroll to type out messages as opposed to the signs she's always using in RWBY Chibi here. It makes a lot more sense when you really think about it, if Neo were to do that with people who can't understand her via her usual methods of communication, plus, this isn't the Chibi version of this series, so of course I'm not going to have her follow the communication styles of Wil E. Coyote.

Finally, yes, I still had Raven come in to save Yang and Roxas, but only because that was the first time Yang had seen her mother in years, if at all, outside of pictures, even if it was only for a brief moment. I wasn't going to take that away from her. Plus, I just really wanted her to get in that threat towards Lea, make her seem at least a little like a good mother (in a sense) before we see her acting like a villain in the sequel to this story.

Yang: Hey! She's not a villain!

AN: A good deal of her actions in Volume 5 and a lot of the choices she's made before that don't really support that claim, Yang. I mean, I do get why she made some of those choices, but a lot of them are still pretty feeble excuses.

Now that we've covered everything I was going to mention regarding the details of today's chapter, let's start rolling those review answers.

"cbustroyer", I hear your concerns, and believe me, I get where you're coming from, but trust me, there will be some significant changes due to the involvment of Team SLVR and their friends. They just don't happen quite as often as you would probably like, but don't worry, you'll see that there is a method to my madness (and I use that last term figuratively). The big changes to the RWBY story will be happening very soon. Some of which you'll be seeing in the next chapter actually. Don't worry. You're cool in regards to the rant. I've mentioned before that sometimes, negative criticism can be just as good as the positive variety.

"CrazzyTony", you may be right in saying that Sora probably does hold some animosity deep inside for the fact that his wielding the Keyblade has caused him a lot of trouble, but I'm pretty sure that it's buried very deep down there under all the excitement he normally has for taking on these adventures.

"Hamm1999", I don't think you have too much to worry about there. We're still a long ways off from those moments in Hearts of Avengers, so by that point, it wouldn't really be much of a spoiler, considering everyone's more than likely to have seen it all by then.

"Dragon Rider 66", 1) Yeah, I'd say it was pretty good. 2) I think Ruby would probably have something similar to a skateboard, Yang a motorcycle-like vehicle (obviously), Blake, also a bike, Weiss, probably something like Aqua's, Jaune's would be a bike, Ren would likely have a waveboard like Ven's, Nora probably a skateboard as well, Pyrrha, also something similar to Aqua's, Winter also something like Aqua's, and finally, Qrow would get...a motorcycle thing. That's really the best and most basic answers I can come up with off the top of my head. And 3), I'm going with more of how things like travel between worlds and all that works in KH canon as opposed to how it works in Hearts of Avengers.

"twilightnite13", who says that there isn't some type of bad blood between the Heartless and the Grimm? Hehehehe...Can't say anymore about that just yet. The major details are a surprise for later on down the road, and which we'll get an early look at as soon as next chapter.

"Dracus6", once again, I'm afraid I have to say no to your request, because again, I still don't know anything about My Hero Academia, and I'm well aware of how easy it is to change that, but I just don't have the time at the moment between writing my other stories and all the other responsibilities I have in my life.

"SuperSaiyanFever", I think you just roasted Ironwood even better than Aqua had with that review. Also, that's one of my favorite Leonard Snart quotes ever. I really want to find some way to work that into one of my stories at some point just because of how cool I think it is.

"CT7567Rules", I do try and go a little more elaborate on specifics with weapons when I absolutely have to, but usually, I like to think that the most basic descriptions work pretty well a majority of the time, so I don't think I've got too much to worry about for the time being.

"Monkey D. Conan", as I said earlier, character growth is going to be a bit of a slow burn for almost everyone from here on out, but I do promise, we will see quite a bit of it for each of the characters you mentioned as time goes on, both in this story and in the sequel. And don't worry, there is a plan for Weiss and Ven to have such a conversation, and it will most likely happen during the next arc following this current one. And before you ask, no, it won't be the Vytal Festival aka RWBY Volume 3. No more spoilers than that though. You guys are going to have to wait and see what I have in mind for what happens after the Breach in the next chapter.

"invitingduke1", I never said that no one liked CoM or Re: CoM. Hey, if you like it, that's cool. The story of that game was pretty neat, but the popular opinion of the combat system said games use isn't really all that great. I mean, I don't really have that much of a problem with it myself, but that's mainly because whenever I play that game, it's always just for the sake of not wanting to skip over that part of the overall series story.

Okay, so I think that's all the reviews that I can answer this time, or at least the ones that I can answer without giving away spoilers, or without having to just simply leave it at "thanks" or something, but I am still very thankful for all of you who have given me such praise and criticisms on the story those far, so without further ado, it's that time again. Time to move...Onto the Preview!...

Vale's been breached, and the Grimm aren't the only thing on the attack. Heartless and Nobodies are flooding in by the hundreds if not thousands. Luckily Teams RWBY and SLVR are already on site to deal with the problem, but they can't hold the line on their own. Good thing that backup's already on the way in the form of several of their friends, and not just their fellow students either. A few other warriors are joining the action as well. How will our heroes hold out and prevail with the kind of reinforcements that they're getting? What will be the thing that ultimately proves to save Vale? And when it's all over, just what does Sora have in mind for them to do next? One chapter for all of our heroes ends as another begins, next time.

Please read and review, and may your heart be your guiding key for your landing strategy.