CHAPTER XXXVI

BIGGS AND WEDGE

As they followed Biggs and Wedge through the alley, Sora and his friends noticed the path start to open up. Soon, it dumped them out into the middle of a huge square, full of small buildings. They were the same shades of blue and black as the rest of the buildings in the World That Never Was, but they were much shorter, the highest of which was only two stories. There was a large gazebo in the center of the square, with a bunch of rag-tag musicians playing something terrible in the center. Behind the gazebo were more houses, and they realized that it was a dead end. The only entrance was the alley through which they had just come.

Biggs looked up at the musicians as they passed the gazebo.

"Gettin' better, guys!" he lied. "C'mon, our hut is this way."

Wedge waggled his finger in rhythm to the musicians. "Yeah, this way is our hut. C'mon!"

They stopped in front of a small house that looked much shabbier than the rest of them. It had sections near the front windows that were actually held together with duct tape, and the door was nothing more than a piece of cardboard being held onto the hinge with twine. Biggs delicately pushed the door open and let Sora, Kairi, Donald and Goofy inside. Wedge followed, shutting the door too quickly as it ripped from the hinge and floated to the ground.

"Damn it, Wedge!" he said, pulling folding chairs from his closet. The room was small, but it reminded them of Merlin's house – definitely rustic. There was a small table in the center of the room with a large pitcher of green liquid on top of it. Around the room were several large chests and armoires, though they all looked fairly used. In opposite corners there sat two beds, one covered in a brown sheet and one with a tattered overcoat being used as a blanket. This definitely didn't seem to be one of the top places to live in the universe…but Wedge and Biggs didn't mind, so Sora and his friends said nothing about it. Biggs poured six glasses of the green beverage as they sat down around the table.

"So…not to be rude, and thanks for the drinks and all…" Sora said, sniffing the green liquid. It didn't smell half-bad… "But how come we had to come here?" He took a sip of the beverage, and it turned out to be refreshingly similar to fruit punch.

"Well, Emptiness Crossing don't take too kindly to outsiders. Last time someone new showed up, he treated us like slaves and shut us up in the city for months. But we couldn't fight him…he was just way too strong…"

"Xemnas…" Kairi said. "We know all about him. We're the ones that defeated him."

"You guys defeated him!" Biggs said, shocked. "Sorry …but that guy was fierce! Anyway, we just finished up repairing most of the damage him and his buddies caused, the last step was finally getting that wreckage out of the way so we could leave the city when we need to. Not like we'll be doing that…"

"Doing that we'll not be!" said Wedge, making everyone sigh with grief.

"Why not?" said Goofy.

"Well…come with me." Biggs said, standing up, while Wedge drained the rest of his glass. He walked over to a large tapestry with burn marks in it and pulled it aside, revealing a small staircase leading upward. As they ascended the shabby stairs, they popped out of a small hatch on the roof of the building. Biggs turned away from them and pointed up into the sky.

There it was – the castle that led them up to Kingdom Hearts. All sorts of memories flashed through the friends' minds as they stared at the familiar castle, but they stopped as they noticed the huge changes – now instead of sporting the Nobody insignia, the upside-down heart with thorns, it sported both that logo and the Heartless insignia – a heart with black, jagged rips through it. There were three towers, as they remembered – one with the Nobody logo on the left, the Heartless tower was on the right, and in the center there was a new insignia that they didn't recognize right away.

Sora had a hard time placing where he knew the shape from…just a simple looking three-pointed crown…and he realized, pulling his necklace up into view, that he was wearing it the whole time.

"Why does the castle have this on it?" he wondered, shining the crown chain in the light of the street lamps.

Biggs grabbed the chain and almost choked Sora with it. His pudgy eyes bulged with terror as he looked at it. Wedge backed up, stammering.

"You…you work for them? Where did you get that?" he said, tossing the chain away from him as if it was on fire.

"What? No! I don't even know where this came from! I've had it since I was born…it's just some trinket…"

Biggs and Wedge relaxed. "Good. Had me scared for a sec…" Biggs said.

"For a sec, scared me too!" Wedge copied yet again.

Kairi looked at Biggs and Wedge and asked, "why would that scare you? Who would he be working for?"

Biggs gave Wedge a shifty look as he stared back up to the castle.

"Well, we don't rightly know who exactly is up there…but every night, we see shooting stars land on the castle, followed by the shrieking of a dragon. We've only seen the dragon come out o' the castle once…but it was enough…"

Wedge was shivering with fear too much to copy Biggs. "Yeah…a big, black dragon that spit green fire to the heavens…so I'm sure ya can see why that'd scare us."

A loud chime rang out through the town, reverberating against all the various metals, filling their ears with noise. "Oh! We gotta get down to the gazebo. The Protectress is coming!" Biggs shot down the stairs like a pinball, Wedge at his heels. With another shrug, Sora and his friends were off after them.

The gazebo was surrounded by townsfolk moving tables and setting up stalls. Most of the buildings were residential, so it seemed the merchants only set up shop for a few hours of the day. This Protectress they heard about seemed to draw quite a crowd, so it made sense that the merchants wanted to sell their wares before she came.

Sora caught up to Biggs, who had managed to get a few inches of standing room inside the gazebo, where he opened his vest and started to sell watches and chains from his pockets. Wedge walked around the various townsfolk, but none of them turned their back on the pickpocket for a second.

"Well…we should take this opportunity to do some shopping!" Kairi said, pulling a pouch of munny from her pocket. She gave everyone a few coins and they split up, walking around to various shops, trying not to get trampled or robbed. The denizens of Emptiness Crossing were almost as strange as any they'd ever met…some had glowing green skin; some were almost humanoid, if not for the seventh eyeball; and some were short ones that resembled baby rhinos. Strange was an understatement. Kairi bought some ribbons at a small girl's stall that advertised elemental resistance. Sora picked up a couple of strength-boosting belts, and Goofy and Donald upgraded their weapons. Donald tapped his new Missile Wand on the ground as he walked, and Goofy couldn't help but laugh at the fact that it was taller than him. Goofy twirled his lightweight Mako Shield around his finger…it was light as a feather though Goofy knew it was capable of massive damage due to the aerodynamic holes all over it. They met up again on the side of the gazebo, as the bell rang twice this time, causing everyone to stop moving and stare at the alleyway. Sora and his friends tried to stop moving, but they wanted to ask Biggs who was coming down the alley to Emptiness Crossing.

Through the corner of his mouth, Sora managed to squeak at Biggs, "who is everyone waiting for?"

Biggs rolled his eyes. "Didn't you hear me before? The Protectress! She keeps the dragon from coming here, and-"

"Shh!" rang out from all sides around Biggs. He shot Sora a dirty look as he turned his gaze back to the alley, to wait in silence with everyone else.

Sora, Kairi, Goofy and Donald were doing their best to keep still and not offend anyone, when the shadows in the alley stirred. Through the darkness, they could see the figure of a tall woman in black robes.

She had two, large, hornlike protrusions caused by her cape jutting over her head. Her face was white as a ghost, though it did make her dark eyes show very brightly.

The townsfolk dropped to their knees and bowed to the Protectress as she entered. She raised her arms over her head as a signal to the residents to relax, as she stepped up onto a small pedestal in front of the gazebo.

Sora, Kairi, Donald and Goofy's mouths hung open. Out of nowhere, Donald jumped up and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Maleficent!"

Every resident of Emptiness Crossing, including Biggs and Wedge, stood up and turned to stare directly at Sora, Goofy, Kairi and Donald. The hate burned through their eyes like lasers…

"Oops," said Donald, sounding much more like a sheep than a duck.