Final Fantasy XV - Kingdom Hearts
Part 3
Summary: Two warriors of Light, the Chosen King and Keyblade Master, face an unseen Darkness.
It seemed like today was the day that life just decided to take a royal dump on Noctis and his slowly growing party.
Just literally a minute after slaying a new kind of monster, NOW it seemed the empire decided to finally make themselves known to the seven as an entire fleet of airships had flown towards them. A total of seven, three keeping back for reinforcements just in case the four somehow failed, which Noctis was secretly hoping for now.
'Who are they?', Sora asked, pointing at the fleet.
'Nifs…the empire's soldiers', Gladiolus said with a grunt, laying his great sword on his shoulder, rubbing his chin. 'And our enemies'.
'What do we do? Think we should make a run for it?', Prompto pipped, not liking the amount of ships in the sky.
'Not gonna happen, we're taking them down', Noctis said with an aggressive tone, already summoning his engine blade. One ship opened the hatch, and outran a platoon of magitek soldiers, leaping from the ship and right before the company. Robotic like humanoids, wielding rifles, axes and one carrying a banner behind the entire platoon.
One of the soldiers ran towards the prince, but his shield was immediately in front of the offender and with one swing, he cleaved the soldier in two via waistline. Gladiolus summoned his shield in his left hand and spun around to slam it into another, throwing the soldier aside. More soldiers ran in, only for Donald to cast "thunder" upon them, and three bolts of golden lightning struck them, shortening their circuits and causing several of them to explode.
Sora ran in with Goofy, cutting down soldier after soldier easily with single strikes of the keyblade, before he vaulted over one, leapt on the head of another and jumped. Goofy crashed through them all like a bowling ball crashing through pins, knocking them down and then he tossed his shield. The metal weapon flew and struck home in the head of the soldier, knocking it down and breaking the face.
Another platoon descended from another ship, but Sora was already jumping towards the falling magiteks. He aimed his keyblade at them and yelled: 'Stop!'. They froze in the air like a still picture, and Sora dashed towards them. He used one a stepping stone to launch himself further up in the air. Sora the aimed the key at them as a swirl of air gathered around the tip. 'AEROGA!'. A vortex of wind-lashed out in the middle of the soldiers, gathering them up as time resumed normally for them. The wind tore their limbs and joints asunder, rending them into broken toys.
As their robotic limbs fell from the sky, Sora dived down to re-join the others.
Below, Ignis was dancing around the axe-wielding soldiers, cutting them during his leaps and flips. 'Ignis!', Sora called out, diving towards him. Seeing an opportunity, the specs wearing man crossed his arms, daggers in hand and then leapt backwards out of the horde as his daggers grew frosty. He tossed the two into the ground below the horde, instantly freezing the ground and trapping them. 'All yours!', the strategist offered.
Sora let out a yell of approval and dived right into the horde, the keyblade plunged into the ground sent a blast of magic around him. The soldiers were torn to pieces from the attack, weapons and bodies all torn asunder. Sora stood up and gave him a thumbs up. 'Nice!'.
Ignis gave him a nod of approval, turning to see Donald and Prompto shooting bullet and magic at their targets. Donald blasted the soldiers with ice, freezing their joints to the point of turning them into ice sculptures, which gave Prompto easy marks for his shots. The blonde took down each soldier with well-placed shots, and every time Donald froze or debilitated one, he'd make that moment of weakness a perfect chance to take one down.
But despite the teamwork of the royal retinue and the other world heroes, the empire was steadily increasing the number of soldiers against them. The rest of the ships had decided to risk it all and deploy whatever resources they had left against the group. The area was filled the to brim with magitek soldiers, and their numbers seemingly endless.
Gladiolus was struck across his chest by one axeman, forcing him to reel back but not before he gave the attack a full forced upper swing of his sword, tearing that soldier apart. Gladiolus grunted in pain, looking to see Goofy join his shield to ward off another attacker to give him some space. But Goofy let out a yelp of fear and pointed to Sora and Noctis being surrounded by the soldiers. 'Damnit, we've gotta move!', Gladiolus said, crushing a potion. He looked at Goofy's shield and his own before an idea formed.
'Ya with me?', he asked. Goofy gave him a thumbs up and with a brave look, the two pressed their shoulders together, raised their shields at a perfect angle and then ran together. Combing their strength together, the two shields became a train of destruction, ploughing through the vast horde of soldiers like they were nothing.
They reached Sora and Noctis, creating a clear path in the process for them to take a breather. Gladiolus even gave Goofy a well-earned pat on the back and nodded to him, while the captain just beamed. Noctis struck down a soldier and summoned his dagger to toss into another, while Sora chopped and blasted anything that came near him.
'They just keep coming!', Noctis grunted, parrying another axeman.
'Quit your whining and keep fighting!', Gladiolus grunted, bringing down his sword upon another. 'We'll just have power through them!'.
'Sora, Goofy!'.
The two turned to Donald and Prompto, now fighting off neo-shadows. The duck was even resorting to whacking them with his staff, which gave the two the idea he was running low on mana, and Prompto was mostly dodging and trying to create some distance for himself at this point. 'Hang on Donald, I'm coming!', Goofy yelled and charged through the soldiers. 'Noct, go help Goofy, we've got this!', Gladiolus ordered, smacking another soldier down.
Noctis nodded and warped to his best friend. His sword struck an unsuspecting soldier right in its chest, the prince arriving on time to yank the blade out and backflip off the corpse. Noctis stabbed another soldier and used the remains as a shield to block an axe. The attacker was put down by Prompto, turning in time to take the shot.
Donald was given an ether from Goofy and once recharged, the duck lifted his staff and channelled a great deal of mana into it. 'THUNDAZA!', he roared. Donald might have well brought down Ramuh's power upon the field, for his spell struck practically every enemy here and probably across the world with this. The soldiers were all decimated, but some of the heartless were clever enough to slink into the ground to evade his attack.
Not all but a good portion of them…and that is where things got interesting.
The shadows began to slither and sink into the destroyed magitek soldiers' remains and using the darkness to relink their limbs and forms, helmets becoming corroded and twisted, piercing yellow lights for eyes taking up the hollow ones from before. Their weapons even shifted into much darker and cruder weaponry.
Suddenly the battle turned from fighting the empire, to the heartless possessing the imperial forces.
'You've gotta be kidding me…', Prompto groaned as Noctis cursed.
'Now what do we do? We can't beat all of them!', Goofy asked.
'Donald can ya do that again?', the prince asked.
Donald lifted his staff but all he got was a spark and a tiny flash of lighting from it, no more than that. 'Nope, I'm out!', he sighed. 'Terrific…', Noctis said, brandishing his royal arm. 'Wait, where's Iggy?'.
(*)
Ignis slit his dagger across the throat of a neo-shadow and tossed his right-handed dagger into the head of a soldier. Surrounded by overwhelming odds and with the heartless soldiers surrounding him, his odds had quickly turned against him.
Ignis performed a backflip to dodge an on-coming axe swing, just missing his feet. He landed his hands, pushed himself over a neo-shadow and summoned his spear mid-air. On his feet, he spun his elegant weapon and cleared out the surrounding heartless around him, and then with a thrust penetrated a heartless soldier's torso.
'Determined buggers, aren't you?', he said with a sigh, seeing more heartless rise from the ground. Summoning his daggers again and crossing them over his arms, Ignis looked for an opening or chance to return to the others, he was outnumbered and, regrettably, outmatched by the ferocity and persistence of the heartless. Even daemons lacked their determination, and that was saying something else…
It seems his wish came true, for suddenly when he glanced up, he could see a shimmering light past the empire's ships. The light turned into beams, zigzagging left and right all over the sky, and then it pierced through a ship, damaging it and bathing it with smoke and fire before it charged towards the advisor of the prince.
Ignis quickly rolled away from the light, having exploded upon impact. A burst of light shined through and suddenly like magic, the heartless were exterminated within the beautiful light. Ignis was flabbergasted by this, but when the light cleared, he had a feeling the battle had turned to his favour upon seeing who it was.
A tall and slender figure with blue eyes and medium-length blue hair mostly parted to her left. She wears a black and navy blue, high-collared halter top, a black corset with two pairs of white laces and black shorts. Two pink straps intersecting over her chest, with a silver badge over the intersection. On her arms are white bell-sleeves and tan, fingerless gloves also wears a small, segmented piece of armour on each of her upper arms. She wears black stockings reaching about halfway up her thighs, leaving a small area of bare skin.
There are two strips of blue cloth draped over each of her hips, along with a smaller, white strip of cloth tied around her waist and draped in the same manner. Her silver boots are pointed and armoured, with a sharp "hook" on the outer side of each. In her hands, was a keyblade but far less, well, keylike than Sora's the man believed. She looked around and her eyes narrowed when they fell on the heartless, and she took up a stance. 'Stay close to me!', she ordered.
Ignis looked to another wielder of the keyblade behind the blue-haired woman, but she looked closer to Sora's age. The outfit she wears is a unique hooded pink-and-black dress, with two small black cat ears. There are black ruffles on one side of her skirt and plaid on the other. She also wears thick belted black boots and thin white bracelets on her left wrist and a thick wristband on her right wrist. Short dark red hair with a pale complexion and had possibly the most beautiful blue eyes the advisor had ever seen in a teenager.
Though her keyblade looked…ridiculous…
A neo-shadow leapt towards her, and she quickly sidestepped its attack and swung her weapon at it, destroying it. But another leapt at her from behind, almost hitting her. Ignis tossed his spear at it, piercing the monster and demolishing it with one hit. The spear flew and even managed to strike a soldier down, hitting it in the stomach.
The two turned to him as he slashed a heartless soldier and kicked another aside before the blue-haired woman aimed her keyblade and shouted: 'Pearl!'. A ball of light burst from her keyblade and struck the heartless Ignis fought, but it kept dancing around and hitting several more heartless for a while before it disappeared.
They huddled up closely as the heartless swarmed them, the horde turning into little hills to block Ignis' view of his liege and company. 'There's so many here!', the redhead squeaked, looking around. 'Told you we should have come earlier to help!'. 'No need for the smart talk young lady!', the blue head chastised.
'Ignis!'.
They all turned to see a blinding light within the hills of the darkness and then burst through them showing Noctis and the others, the prince in his Armiger state. Floating above two inches from the ground, surrounded in the crystal ethereal form of his ancestors' weapons. Sora's eyes shot open with shock though.
'KAIRI!', he cried.
And next thing the advisor knew, Sora was blasting his way through the heartless as if he was cutting butter with a hot knife, making his way to "Kairi". 'Sora, there you are!', Kairi called out with a wave, but just narrowly parried another axe-wielding monster. She pushed it off her and slashed at the stomach, bringing it down. Sora managed to seeming teleport to her side and glared at the heartless, keyblade held high.
'What are you doing here with…Aqua!?', Sora asked, finally turning to his fellow keyblade user. 'Talk later, we've got the heartless to deal with first!', she said, firing another pearl at the heartless horde. 'I'm inclined to agree with her', Ignis remarked, growing weary of this seemingly never-ending heartless. Sora nodded and looked at Donald and Goofy, who gave him a thumbs up. 'Go for it!', Goofy cheered.
Sora gripped the keyblade with both hands and lifted it upwards, a surge of magic swirled around him. 'As one!', he cried. The magic changed into blazing flames, circling him until he was blocked from view by the flames. 'Oh man, what's he doing now!?', Prompto asked, already feeling his stomach churn.
When the flames cleared, Sora was now riding a giant lion made of pure fire. A sentient one too, as it took one step and let out a roar that shook ground before them all. The royal retinue's, bar Ignis, jaws fell to the ground as while Aqua looked on in amazement. 'That is a big kitty!', Kairi praised, starstruck. Simba roared once more before he pounced upon the heartless, each landing caused a massive wave of flames to spread around the field and the fires consumed the heartless all around.
'HOLY CRAP!', Prompto shouted, immediately taking his camera out and taking as many pictures as he possibly could. 'Prompto is this the time?', Ignis groaned, stabbing a heartless. 'Iggy, this guy is riding a flaming lion of awesomeness! Why would I waste the chance to take photos of it!?'.
'Hey Aqua, when do I learn that?', Kairi asked, hacking away a soldier.
'As soon as I do!', Aqua remarked.
Sora and Simba leap into the air, Simba spinning around and around in the air, turning into pure fire and raining down hellfire from the skies, blasting what heartless remained behind and consumed them all in ablaze. Sora landed back on his feet, turning to the others as the darkness faded, and the imperial forces wisely retreated, back to wherever they came from.
'Looks like the Nifs got the right idea to get lost', Gladiolus remarked, making his weapon disappear back into nothing. 'Suppose seeing a giant lion of flames consuming everything around it would do that for you', Ignis said, looking at the scorched earth around the area.
With the battle at a close, Sora immediately approached Kairi and Aqua. 'How'd you guys find us?', he asked. At this, Kairi scratched his cheek shyly and looked anywhere but Aqua, to which judging from the glare the blue master was giving the read head, even Sora managed to put two and two together. 'What did you do?', he asked.
'Well…see, we didn't have a ship to go looking so I…may have…borrowed something akin to transport…', Kairi said, but then Aqua interrupted. 'Stole, you stole something that NO apprentice should EVER touch', Aqua chastised, arms folded and eyes dead set on the girl. 'I-In my defence, we had to find Sora!', Kairi said. 'THAT is not an excuse to use something you have little to no understanding of!'.
'Uh, what did Kairi borrow?', Goofy asked.
'STOLE', Donald and Aqua corrected.
Aqua held her hand out for the girl, and with a sigh, Kairi handed back the item in question. Immediately Donald and Goofy gasped with shock. 'THE STAR SHARD!?', they exclaimed. Sora had a bad feeling that was important…and shouldn't have been touched…
'The heck is that supposed to be?', Noctis asked, looking at the item. 'This is a very…well, lets just saw its something nobody, especially someone who DOESN'T know how to use, should have', Aqua elaborated. 'But do you know how to use it?', Ignis asked.
Aqua shook her head. 'No, and that alone is a problem'.
'Why? You managed to get to Sora and the others, so it works right?', Prompto pointed out.
'By pure luck, therefore this is dangerous. Unless you know how to work it, it will randomly take you, well anywhere', Aqua explained. 'She's right, even the King couldn't figure that out', Goofy said. 'He got into a lot of trouble'.
Aqua fiddled with it before she shrugged. 'Sadly, we have no choice but to risk it and with luck, it'll take us somewhere we know', she gave him. 'Sounds fun! Worse thing that can happen is we end in a new place!', Sora said, carefully choosing his words.
'I wish I shared your optimism', Aqua sighed with a tired smile. She lifted the Star Shard, mana surging around it as Noctis and his royal retinue stood well back. The shard started to shake in her hands, but the shakes began more uncontrollable for her hands, sparks of magic shot from it and even shocked the keyblade master.
'Aqua… is this meant to happen?', Sora asked, immediately backing away. 'I have a worrying feeling it's a "no", Sora', she said. Immediately Kairi snatched the shard from her master's hand and tossed it away, but it didn't get three feet before it exploded in a magical puff of smoke and lightning. Once the dust cleared, all remained of the shard was…shards. Tiny specs of light from the sun, no larger than pebbles and the lightning shape part was now a dull grey colour.
Aqua slumped. 'You can't be serious…', she whined. 'Guys?', Sora said, looking at his two companions. They both shrugged, just as clueless as the keyblade users. 'Aqua, by chance, has this object been used frequently?', Ignis suggested, joining their side. 'I'm not sure…umm, I'm sorry, what was your name again?', she said.
'Ignis and these three are my companions. Noctis, Gladiolus, and Prompto', he introduced. 'Nice to meet ya', Prompto said with a wave. 'Pleasure, I'm Aqua, this is my apprentice, Kairi', she said. Kairi waved back, smiling away. 'Any rate, I don't know…Donald, Goofy, how often did the King use it?', she asked. Both looked at the shard, and then back to the others. 'A lot', they both said conclusively. 'So, we've no ship or star thingy…now what?', Sora asked, stumped Aqua opened her mouth, but all that came from her was a sigh. 'I…don't know…'.
Kairi folded her arms, looking down in guilt and not looking at the others. Sora patted her shoulders kindly smiling softly. 'Aww well, we'll figure out. Sides think of it like a…uh, a…', he stumbled, before clapping his hands. 'Think of it like training! It's Kairi's first time on a mission, right? So, we could ya know, see what's out there and get her into the swing of things!'. They all looked at him, a mixed of smirks and eye rolls. 'Only you could take a problem like this so laid back…', Donald sighed, shaking his head.
'Better than letting it get me down!', he replied with a grin. 'Well perhaps Cindy could help', Ignis offered. 'While I cannot guarantee it if she sees your ship she may be able to help'.
'Well, what do we have to lose?', Sora said, 'Let's go see her'.
'Sounds good…but uh, we're gonna need to talk about travelling…and whose riding with who…and if we have enough chocobos…', Noctis said, realizing the number of people that the party was currently made up of.
'What's a Chocobo?', Kairi asked, tilting her head.
Later…
'WA-HOO!', Sora and Kairi cried, racing off with their bird friends down the road, while trailing behind them was Donald riding with Goofy (he didn't trust the Chocobo) and Prompto, racing the two keyblade masters. Aqua rode in front with Ignis and the others in the Regalia, going at a normal speed while keeping Prompto and company in their sights.
In her hands, Aqua was busying herself with the Star Shard…s… to try and put it together via magic and through memory. Her efforts had less than favourable results, seeing as most of the shards were no bigger than pebbles and whatever magic she had wasn't enough to keep them in one piece long enough to repair the other parts. Groaning, she stuffed the rest of it back into her pockets, giving up for now.
'No luck?', Noctis asked, looking at the passing landscape.
'I may have to give up on it altogether, I don't even know if putting it back together will restore it…', Aqua lamented. 'That girl…'.
She turned her blue eyes on the two, watching them racing with Prompto laughing together, Kairi had her arms around Sora's waist and rested her head against his shoulder. Aqua hadn't seen her this happy in so long now ever since she escaped the realm of darkness and begun mentoring her. Kairi wasn't sad or down during those times, and she smiled but most of them were half-hearted and at best mostly made on her effort, but Aqua could see she missed Sora.
When she told the master about Sora's situation, she wanted to go and get him as soon as possible, but without their ship to use and with little chances of contacting Riku or anyone with transport they were limited on options. Plus without Aqua's armour, she couldn't even use her gilder to bring everyone back, something she had yet to do.
So when Kairi managed to sneak off and take the Star Shard when they were visiting Yen Sid's tower to report the situation, Aqua was furious at this recklessness…but a part of her was proud Kairi was willing to go to such lengths for Sora. That determination to help him was admirable but costly.
Far more now than ever…
'So that Keyblade thing…what's that all about?', Gladiolus asked, putting his book down. Aqua turned to him before he returned his look at her. 'Has Sora said anything?', she asked. 'Other than it's a weapon that only he can use and do all kinds of weird crap with?', Noctis added. 'Noct, language', Ignis chastised. The prince scoffed at the man, looking at Aqua. 'It's a weapon designed to fight the darkness, namely the heartless. And only those chosen can wield it', she explained. 'So is it just you three or are there more?', Gladiolus asked.
'There's…ten in total, the rest are elsewhere for now', Aqua said. She wondered how much these men were able to figure out that they indeed from another world, based on what they had seen and possibly what they gained from Sora's group. 'But what's up with the looks? I mean Sora's looks more…I dunno, like a key, yours looks old', Noctis said.
'I lost my years ago, this was my master's'.
Eraqus flashed in her memory, along with a sharp tug on her heart as her eyes grew dimmer with pain. 'Sorry, I didn't…', Noctis said with a scratch behind his neck, he must've touched a sensitive memory. Aqua smiled softly at him. 'It's ok, thank you none the less', she said warmly. The prince smiled back in a friendly manner before Gladio sat forward. 'And Kairi's?'. Aqua giggled. 'I can assure you, she wasn't the least bit fond of the design, calling it far too "girly" for her taste'.
Eventually, they arrived at Hammerhead just as the sun had began to set down, not a soul in sight around the station or garage. The Chocobo riders hopped off with the other world heroes groaning from the long trek, Kairi saying she might have lost feeling in her backside. They spotted Cindy just closing her garage and approached her, the mechanic waving at them all.
'Howdy fellas…and gals', she said, looking at the new members of the prince's party. 'New friends, and potential costumers', Noctis introduced. 'Hiya', Sora said with a friendly wave and smile. Cindy warmed up to them with a friendly smile, outstretching her hand. 'Well then, name's Cindy Aurum, Hammerhead's residential mechanic', she said. 'I'm Sora, this is Kairi, Aqua, Donald and Goofy', greeted the hero.
She gave the two anthropomorphic beings a strange glance before shrugging and smiling again. 'So what can I do for ya'll?', she inquired, 'Something need fixing?'. 'Yes, but it's not a car, nor any vehicle', Ignis said. At this, the blonde blinked and gave them all a sceptical look, their sheepish looks didn't do them any favours either. 'Alright…so what's broken?', she asked. 'Well see, did you happen to see a crash recently?', Sora asked.
'Ohh that…wait, you folks came from there?', Cindy asked. 'Yeah, it's our ship and uh…we're kinda hoping you could fix it?', Sora said hopefully. Ordinarily, Cindy would be hesitant to consider taking a job like this if she didn't know specifically what it was they wanted fixed, but she hasn't had a bad deal from Noctis and company, and truthfully she was curious to see whatever it was Sora and his friends were using.
'I'm gonna need to have a look and see what it is first before I make any deals about fixing it', she said honestly. 'But if I think I can fix it, we'll see what we can do, sound good?'.
'At this point, we'll take anything you can give us', Aqua said.
'Swell, we'll head out tomorrow then', Cindy confirmed. 'Daemons are on the prowl already, and I don't wanna even think about those other nasties from today'. They all wisely kept the identity of the heartless under wrap, for now, the last thing this world needed were more monsters to worry about at night. 'Sure, we'll take you there in the morning', Gladiolus agreed. 'Alrighty then, have a good night everyone'.
With that out of the way, they all decided it was a good time to call it a night, after all, that's happened today Noctis wouldn't be surprised if this all turned out to be one heck of a dream.
At Ignis' suggestion for space, they all transferred to a nearby haven just so everyone could have both the space and peace for sleeping. Everyone was tired from today so Noctis told the advisor to leave dinner off for tonight and make it up for breakfast if everyone was starving enough.
A total of three tents were put up curtesy of Gladiolus, the four royal retinue as always in one, while the girls had their own and Sora shares with his friends. Goodnights were bidding, and everyone ducked into their tents.
A new day was dawning…
A/N: So this was late…
As you can probably tell this is gonna be a full KH story with FF XV, hence the inclusion of Aqua and Kairi since I love these two :3. I'm not sure how long this is gonna be, but ya never know. Thanks for reading, as always. Stay awesome but more importantly stay safe!
