Final Fantasy XV - Kingdom Hearts

Part 10

Summary: Two warriors of Light, the Chosen King and Keyblade Master, face an unseen Darkness.

With one swing to the upper left, Kairi cleanly sliced a soldier in two mid-air while flipping forward. She brought down Oathkeeper upon another shadow and decimated it with a two-handed stab, burying the blade into the ground and using her magic to elect a wave of magic from the strike which blasted her surrounding enemies.

Kairi yanked her keyblade out of the ground in time to spin and swipe at one of the sabertusks that was leaping towards her with its maw wide open. Instead of tasting her flesh it was fed cold steel as Kairi slashed its head off. Spinning Oathkeeper in her hand, Kairi turned around, aiming her keyblade at the small group of shadows crawling up from the ground.

An ember grew upon the tip of the key and with a grunt, Kairi fired a large ball of flames at the group, creating a decent-sized explosion upon impact. Smoke blew up in her face, momentarily blinding her as she raised her arm to block the smoke from entering her mouth and eyes. Then she heard the clanking noises of the soldiers racing towards her, though she couldn't distinguish where though, so she leaped into the air and out of the cloud of smoke.

In the air, the princess was swarmed by leaping shadows that tried to claw at her. Kairi spun around like a cyclone and with her keyblade flashing from the beautiful setting sun being a beacon of light she sliced and diced the heartless to nothing. Flipping two front flips during her wild swings, she landed on her feet out of the dissipating cloud behind her, panting. She rose her head up quickly in time to block a sabertusk's clamping jaw, its massive mouth wrapped around Oathkeeper.

Kairi threw it off herself with a grunt, the beast freeing her keyblade from its mouth but once it stood on all fours before her, Kairi fired a stream of ice from her weapon. Dagger sharp icicles soared at the monster, piercing it and destroying it.

She rolled to her right when she heard another beast roar behind her, narrowly dodging the leaping creature. The sabertusk landed a few feet ahead of her, which gave the redhead time and distance to conjure up a new spell. That was until Kairi turned around too late to avoid what felt like someone had just smacked her with a tree, sending her crashing and bouncing along the ground.

When she rolled backward, she immediately got back on her feet, keyblade stabbed into the ground to give her support. Panting and shaking off the pain, Kairi got to her feet and stood, shakily but still going. A Helmed Body had been the one to attack her and given how thick its arms were Kairi was grateful it didn't break any bones of hers from that attack.

Not to say she wasn't in any pain…

Digging into her pocket, she yanked out her last potion and quickly downed it, despite the awful bitterness. Her body glowed green as her wounds healed from painful to manageable. Shaking her head, she tossed the bottle aside and raced into the fray once more, hacking away any creature of the dark that came close to her. With her right hand wielding the mystical weapon, Kairi channeled a spell in her free hand and aimed for the ground in front of her.

'AEROGA!'.

A whirlwind air appeared before her, sucking up and throwing any small heartless into the sky above. Kairi leaped and once she was over the spell, she was propelled upwards into the sky, her helpless heartless surrounding her. Spinning around while holding her keyblade outwards from her body she left a trail of fire, creating a ring of fire. As she fell, Kairi turned herself and fired a Magnet into the center of the ring, creating a small but effective sphere of red and blue which sucked the airborne heartless into the flames with an explosion.

As she descents, Kairi aimed for the Helmed Body, diving like a torpedo towards it. Kairi's keyblade pierced through the metal helmet and the body and like before once she stabbed her keyblade into the ground, she let out a wave of magical energy that blasted the heartless around her, killing a few and sending some flying. Kairi pulled her key out of the ground but staggered backward, tired and magically drained from her uses.

Sweat ran down her forehead as she coughed, lungs depleted of air and she started to feel incredible aches in her legs. Bending down with her hands on her knees, Kairi panted and tried to catch her fourth wind. As she could feel some form of air refilling her lungs, she lifted her head to see slowly the world around her was darkening and slowly day's final moments will shift into night. Kairi looked over the mountains to see the sun finally descending below, and the dark had arrived.

A sound of metal groaning and a loud tremor rumbled ahead of her, slowly she turned to see a large metallic hand reach out and drag itself out of the pool of darkness as small embers began to grow in the air around the hand. The Iron Giant finally pulled itself from the void as bombs began to manifest, fluttering in the air with large sinister imitations of smiles. Kairi gritted her teeth, raising Oathkeeper and steadied herself.

Her mind was racing with thoughts as she desperately tried to remember of Ignis or someone had warned her previously about these monsters, but nothing came up. Goblins were one thing, but these were entirely a different cause of trouble for her.

One of the bombs fluttered towards Kairi, and once in range, it opened its mouth to, what she assumed, take a bite out of her. The princess, however, sidestepped its jaws and slammed Oathkeeper downwards, cutting it and making it tumble to the ground. Thinking it was done, Kairi turned her eyes upon the remaining daemons, but from the corner of her eye, she could see the Bomb twitch and spasm, fire crackling around it.

Kairi let out a yell as she quickly ran away from it, and rightfully so because in mere seconds later, the daemon detonated in a fiery explosion that threw her off her feet and onto her back. With a thud and a grunt, Kairi groaned in pain as she rolled onto her side, grunting. With a gasp though, Kairi quickly rolled to the left, because then a large slab of iron slammed down upon where she once laid.

Scampering to her feet, Kairi turned on the giant, now fixed on her as it lifted its sword upwards, ready to strike again. The girl ran again, inches from being crushed by the sword as the ground shook from the sheer force of it.

Once on its flank, Kairi ran and jumped onto its up-high heel, used it as a steppingstone and jumped onto its back. Steadying herself by spreading her feet apart and using its metal shoulders for steps, the princess lifted her keyblade and like swinging a golf club, swung at the neck of the giant. The beautiful keyblade sliced opened the back of the neck, allowing its dark ink to ooze out from it. This victory, however, was superficial as the daemon barely noticed or even acknowledged the wound.

The giant shrugged Kairi off its shoulders and let her fall to the ground. Landing on her feet, Kairi jumped back from another slam of the sword, nearly losing her feet in the process.

Staggering back after landing, Kairi shook from the exhaustion and felt her body screaming in pain. Yet all she did was look back at their safe spot seeing the barrier, thankfully, still up and running and keeping her boyfriend safe from harm.

She just needed to keep this up for a little while longer until Aqua or someone finds them, at least that what's she's been telling herself to keep fighting on. But no matter how willing the mind may be, the body is waning with exhaustion and pain, two things Kairi was unable to ignore for much longer. She reached into her pocket for an ether or anything that could help her.

Her fingers brushed a smooth object though and in confusion, she pulled it out. It was the pendant from earlier, but for whatever reason Kairi felt a certain energy from it. Or rather, a faint hum of a heart. Looking at the giant and the pendant, she nodded and decided to risk it all.

Closing her eyes, she held the pendent close to her heart and called.

'GOLIATH!'.

Upon a tall tower that reached beyond the clouds, a lone statue of a gargoyle sat upon the watchtower. As the rain fell from the darkened skies above while the sun fell, slowly the rock began to crumble and crack, until the eyes glowed with light. The rocks shattered and standing place, with his wings outstretched, Goliath let out a roar that shook the ground itself.

He spread his wings and flew off his tower into a portal to where he was called upon. Before Kairi stood a tall and powerfully built gargoyle with lavender skin and dark hair. Wearing a brown loincloth with a black buckle, he practically dwarfed Kairi in height alone, with onyx colored eyes. Kairi let out a breath of surprise at the creature, but when she looked at his eyes, she knew it was a friend.

With a curt nod, the gargoyle turned to daemons with a snarl as his wings were out and his claws prepped to tear them apart. The lavender skinned beast's claws tore the bombs that came close to him into shreds, not even giving them time to detonate themselves. Goliath grabbed one by punching into it's gaping maw and flung it towards the Iron Giant, exploding just after smacking its head. The golem staggered backward, leaving itself wide open for Goliath to swoop by with his claw digging into the metallic beast's form.

His claws tore asunder the daemon's stomach, ripping open its metal form. This time unlike Kairi's swipe on the neck the daemon fell to its knees in defeat, its body slowly sinking into a puddle of darkness.

The remaining bombs were torn apart by Goliath, like a wild hurricane destroying everything in its path, yet even as they fell more daemons began to spawn around them with heartless joining in the fray. Kairi let out a tired groan, standing upright and using a small portion of magic to heal her wounds. She joined in the battle, bringing down a shadow with one swing and then another solider with another.

Goliath flew near her to intercept a large body trying to tackle with its rubber gut. Goliath grabbed the monster's stomach by the sides, despite even his powerful claws not being to pierce its rubber gut. He lifted the heartless over his head and with a roar, he threw the heartless to its cohorts, crushing them under its obese weight. Kairi stabbed a soldier through its stomach and while the body faded, she fired an icicle at another shadow, piercing its ink colored head.

Now the gargoyle and princess stood back to back, surrounded by an ocean of heartless and daemons, outnumbered and slowly Kairi's body was giving out to tiredness. Yet she held her keyblade up high, eyes narrowed with determination and with a nod to the beast, they dove into the battle…

Keycatrich

Grunting and groaning, Noctis slowly opened his eyes to see what looked to be the ceiling of a tent of sorts, he felt the gentle breeze of the wind along with a coolness as opposed to the blistering heat. Blinking the strange sleep out of his eyes, the prince rubbed them with his arm as he slowly sat up in his cot.

Looking around he could see this rough set up of a camp was the hunter's HQ based on memory, seeing several lists of hunts, notices and other things around him. The cot he was in was smaller than usual, but he could hear voices outside, including one that sounded a tad bit hard to understand from here.

'What…happened?', he sighed, rubbing his head and shaking it to rid the lingering weariness that stuck with it. He lowered his hand when memories of "Master" start to conjure up, and that sensation of everything freezing came back to him like a distant memory long since passed. The place he was sent to…

'Noctis!'.

He looked up to see a very relived Goofy entering the tent, carrying a tray of he guessed was the hunter's food. 'You're awake!', he stated, his voice lit with joy. Smiling back at the other world being, Noctis got up from his cot. 'Sorry bout that, but…what happened?', he asked. Goofy looked at him with a worried look as he scratched his cheek. 'Gee, when we were talking to you about the phone numbers, you suddenly collapsed', Goofy explained.

'Me and Donald had to carry you back to the hunter's HQ, but you wouldn't wake up'.

Noctis could see how many lights were alit, darkness had fallen and more hunters were patrolling the area. The prince gave his friend a grateful nod, and with a gesture, he and Goofy left the tent. Goofy told him since they came here, he and Donald were helping with some of the heartless that sprang up or any daemon that came too close to the campsite. They had also tried to get word to Ignis and the others, but no one had their numbers and they couldn't risk leaving him alone in case heartless or worse showed up.

'But Iggy and the others didn't try and contact us?', the prince asked as he followed Goofy to the Haven.

'I don't know, we didn't hear anything but then again we never got our phones yet', chuckled Goofy.

That's something that needed to change soon the prince thought.

In the Haven he sees Donald with the chocobos, feeding them although with great hesitation and he kept himself at arms distance from the yellow bird. As much as of an arm reach someone his size could muster. Either way, the bird snapped the lettuce from his feathered hand, making him jump back with a loud quack, jumping backward from it. The bird tweeted happily from its snack, fluttering its feathers with approval.

'Lousy birds…', Donald grumbled shaking his hand. He looked to Goofy and Noctis, sighing with relief. 'Oh, you're awake. Phew…'.

'Sorry to startle you two like that', he apologized.

'What happened to ya? One moment you were fine then you went down like a sack of potatoes!', Donald asked.

At the question, the prince went silent as memories began to resurface, and the Master too. Frowning, he folded his arms. 'Can I ask you guys something?', he said, looking at them both. They nodded. 'Have you guys ever met somebody called "Master of Masters"?'.

At the inquiry, Donald and Goofy looked at one another, ultimately shrugging to each other and then shaking their heads to Noctis. 'Nope, can't say we did', Donald answered. 'Why?'. 'Well, when you two were talking to me, he…he somehow stopped everything. Like he froze time! And then he went on about, I dunno, chosen one? Light? Junk like that'.

'Did he hurt you?', Goofy asked.

'No, he just…he said he needed to see if I was the one, he was looking for? Or some crap like that', he listed. 'But…he did something to me and then, it all went black'. 'Do you remember anything else?', Goofy said. He shook his head. 'No, nothing else'. Then, the prince reached into his pocket to take out his phone, and as he predicted, he had numerous texts from Ignis along with several missed calls. Maybe switching them sound on silent was a bad move on his end after all.

He unlocked it and scrolled through his texts, but he glared at one text that got his attention.

Ignis: 'Noct, emergency'.

'That's not a good sign', he grumbled, dialing the number of his advisor. After one beep, he answered. 'Hey Specs, what's going on?'. 'Oh, thank the Astrals, what happened to you?', asked the man on the other end. Before Noctis could answer, the man grunted. 'No, never mind. We have a situation on our hands. Sora and Kairi were attacked by the empire earlier!'.

'What? Where are they!?', Noctis demanded, putting on speaker for Donald and Goofy. 'We don't know! We didn't find them on the site of the hunt, but Gladio is tracking them down with Aqua, myself and Prompto were on our way to you and the others'. Noctis grunted and gestured the chocobos to his friends, immediately hopping on one. 'Don't bother, we'll meet up with you guys. Head back to Gladio and we'll catch up!', Noctis ordered, grabbing the rein of his ride.

'Understood, be safe!'.

With a click, the prince jumped on his bird and with a kick, they sped off onto the road and into the wilds.

With Donald riding with Goofy, Noctis was speeding ahead of them since his Chocobo (who he effectively named him Speedster) was well used to his rider. They mostly stuck on the plains to evade the imperials searching the roads and using the location Ignis provided to them, mostly where the two keyblade wielder's hunt was, Noctis was fixed on spots where were closest that Kairi could have used as a base or place to hideout.

He occasionally glanced back at his fellow riders, both carrying equally worried looks yet they looked deadest on finding the two. The prince could imagine the fear and worry they were going through, it was no different when he heard about his home being invaded by the empire. Noctis was just praying this time he wouldn't hear those two new friends of his shared the same fate as his dad.

He didn't want to imagine how the others would react.

As they raced through the plains, desperate to think where Kairi could be with Sora, yet nothing was coming to his mind. There was a Haven near them if his memory of the map was accurate, but that was still too far from where the hunt took place. If they were wounded, they'd never make the trek, plus he doubted they knew where it was.

"Follow the light".

Noctis blinked and looked back to the two but returned to looking ahead. That voice, it sounded like a girl. Familiar too…

"Follow the light".

Noctis looked around the head of the Chocobo and he could see a faint shimmering light trail ahead of him. He shook his head, but the trail was still there, guiding him. It felt familiar to him as if Kairi was trying to guide him to her and Sora.

"Well, better than nothing!", he thought.

'Follow me!', he yelled, diverting the bird to follow the trail…

*Near Roadblock*

Bringing her keyblade down upon the last bomb, slicing it in half and with one more blast of magic from her mystical weapon that blasted another into nothing, Aqua ran ahead to cut down a goblin that foolishly stood in her way.

A roar that shook the ground around him, Gladiolus brought his great up with a slash that cleaved through a trio of bombs and demolished them. He glanced at the master to check how she was faring, and unsurprisingly she was already cleaning house with the daemons, just cutting down another bomb.

As much as Gladiolus wanted to call it a night, find a Haven and just wait out the night before continuing, his thoughts kept going back to Sora and Kairi. It was bad enough daemons were starting to pile up and the search just getting harder, but if the heartless were prowling around them…

Grunting those thoughts away, he laid his sword upon his shoulder as Aqua joined his side, and then together they kept running in the direction where he hoped more tracks were made by the redhead. Flashlight on, they kept running with the larger man leading the two while taking down any daemon that was too close to them or they just took the flight option.

They stopped for a moment, Aqua raising her keyblade to stop his run. He looked at her before his eyes followed her own, and from a distance, he could see faint lights booming from a distance from their location. Sparks of magic and even a bolt of lightning were signals for them. They looked to another and with renewed vigor, they ran towards the magic.

Running around a large boulder, they came to the battlefield to see Kairi being tossed across the field, crashing through a withered tree. Breaking it and then slamming into the ground with a very loud "thud", even from the distance they could feel it. Before the redhead was an Iron Giant slowly marching towards her, though its body carried several cuts and even the sword was cracked in the body of the steel.

Kairi looked to be trying to get back to her feet, but she couldn't even lift herself an inch off the ground before she fell in defeat. The giant raised its giant blade to finish the girl, and then it brought the sword down.

Before the steel could pulverize Kairi into a paste, Aqua dashed and grabbed her defeated apprentice and managed to move her away from the attacking monster. With its sword down, Gladiolus took this opportunity to strike at the giant's waist. His sword struck at its waist, and when met with resistance, he roared as he tore through the giant. The blade was carved free from its steel obstacle as the giant fell, melting into nothing.

After he checked for any more daemons, Gladiolus jogged to Kairi and Aqua, the latter holding her up in her arms. His face steeled when he sees the condition the poor girl was in, and he felt his throat tightening up. Her clothes were torn and riddled with dirt, sand and her blood, sweat plastered all over her face. Several cuts and marks on her arms, legs and a few on her cheeks, one above her eyebrow was still bleeding and running down her eye.

'Kairi! Kairi, please open your eyes!', begged the master, her voice was so shaken and terrified she was close to tears.

Gladiolus knelt near them, checking Kairi's wounds to see if there was any poison or infection. Kairi stirred and shook weakly, cracking her eyes weakly open. 'S-S-Sora…Sora…', she whimpered, weakly pointing her finger at the barrier.

The two adults looked up to see where she was pointing, and sure enough, the barrier was still going strong. Aqua looked between her student and barrier, her eyes narrowing with worry. 'Kairi, dispel it immediately', she ordered. 'N-N-No…heartless…', she gasped.

'They're gone kiddo, we've taken care of them', Gladiolus assured double-checking for them just in case. 'Kairi, the barrier!', Aqua pressed. Kairi whimpered, eventually she opened her hand up to the barrier and then slowly, a faint violet light shimmered on her hand appeared, and then the barrier broke down. She dropped her hand and slumped into Aqua's arms, eyes shutting tight. Aqua's stern look changed to genuine fear. Gladiolus looked at the princess before he turned a hard look to the blue head.

'What's up with that? Couldn't you dispel it yourself?', he questioned.

'I wouldn't have pressured her to do it herself if I could have', responded Aqua, quick and to the point. 'But unless we break it ourselves there was no other way'.

'And we didn't do it because? Kairi looks like she's just a step away from…', he said, but didn't finish that sentence since his message was clear.

'Because if we did, we'd be doing more harm to her. Barriers like this require you to maintain it using will power and concentration', Aqua explained. 'The more damage it takes, the more mana you lose and when you run out…you start feeling the attacks yourself'.

Gladiolus frowned at this, looking down at the girl with a mixture of worry and respect. Sighing, Aqua placed a hand on her student's head and chanted. 'She must have been fighting for hours and maintaining the barrier for so long…'.

A wave of green flowed from her hand and washed down Kairi's form, healing some scratches and cuts, but Gladiolus could see the result was no greater than just slapping a bandage on them all. The girl looked so close to just passing away in such a state he was almost going to grab an elixir and just drown her with it. If only he had one…

Looking at the cave, he got up and told her he'd see how Sora was faring while Aqua tended to Kairi. Entering, he found the boy still unconscious and on his side. Curious, he checked his back and sure enough, the wounds he expected him to possess were still there, albeit not as severe as they would have been. Gladiolus gently lifted Sora into his arms and carried him out, almost reminding him of Noctis when he was passed out from training.

'Kid's passed out, and looks like Kairi healed what she could', he said, showing her the boy. Gently lifting Kairi into her arms, Aqua looked back at the man. 'They need healing, how far is a Haven from here?', she asked. Gladiolus hummed in return, furrowing his brows in thought before he looked up. 'There's one just south of here…but', he started, before he turned around and more daemons began to spawn.

'Oh shit', he grunted.

'Gladio!'.

The two turned to see the cavalry had arrived, literally.

Noctis, Donald, and Goofy came in charging, weapons out and ready. The prince leaped off his mighty stead and tossed the engine blade at the recently spawned giant, warping towards it and plunging his sword directly into the iron skull of the monster. It stood little chance of survival.

Noctis next leaped off the daemon and warped back to his Shield and friends, standing before them. 'Are they ok?', he questioned, looking at the sleeping forms of his friends. Donald and Goofy looked heartbroken at the sight of the two, but Aqua shook her head. 'We need to take them somewhere safe to properly heal them', she elaborated. More daemons started to spawn as well as heartless in front of them, earning their attention.

'I don't think they like your plan…', Gladiolus joked without an ounce of humor in his tone. It was graver than anything else.

'Then take them to the Haven, we'll hold them off until Iggy shows up!', Noctis ordered, turning to his Shield.

'You better take the chocobos too!', Goofy suggested, shield raised high in time to block a shadow's assault. It was then smacked into the ground by the captain. 'We can hold them here!'.

Aqua and Gladiolus looked at each other, then nodded and quickly placed the two wielders of the key on the birds and hopped on. 'We'll see you at the Haven!', Gladiolus shouted as the birds sped off. 'Don't die on us!'.

With them gone, and more importantly safe from the monsters, Noctis looked to the two otherworldly allies, who with utter confidence nodded back. He then turned to the horde of the dark creatures, blade in hand and with a growl, unleashed his Armiger.

'It's on now', he growled as his body was surrounded by crystals and light…

The prince charged forth with his ghostly weapons around him, grabbing his engine blade and decimating the shadows that crawled towards him. With his limbs wielding the sword, the weapons floating around him flew and stabbed, cut, chopped and cleaved through the darkness, making him seem like a whirlwind of swords.

With Noctis in the thick of it all drawing the attention, Donald circled them while casting spells. He fired a whirlwind of air into a small group that sent them all flying into the night skies, which then allowed the duck to let them suffer the wrath of a thunderstorm above. He created a small black could with lighting bursting from it, and once within range, the heartless were all shocked and destroyed by the bundle of lighting and thunder.

Goofy wisely was keeping any of the flying monsters off the prince, blocking the bombs' fireballs, smacking them aside with his shield and even throwing it at them with enough force to one-shot them. He yelped when a goblin was taking shots at him with their crossbow, dancing like he was standing on hot coal to evade the bullets.

Thankfully Goofy, after mid-stepping, threw his shield at the goblin's head, smacking it and killing it. Impressively his shield ricocheted off the goblin and soared to another goblin, then shot off to a bomb and then finally smacked right into the other iron giant's head, disorientating it. Which gave Noctis an opening, he aimed his arms at the giant and his ghostly weapons soared like rockets, piercing the iron flesh.

The giant fell into nothingness as Noctis brought the Sword of the Tall down onto a large body heartless, destroying it and tearing through it. He spun around and grabbed his crossbow, shooting at a few flying heartless, picking them off one by one.

Then his armiger surge ended, and he was winded. Goofy quickly joined his shield and blocked a new shadows attack. It was then obliterated by Donald's thunderbolt. The duck stood in front of the two and aimed his staff at the growing numbers, casting Magenta. The powerful spell sucked them all into a group, trapping them in place, and seeing all the daemons and heartless stuck in place gave the prince a malicious idea.

'Goofy', he said, pulling out two magic flasks.

He handed one to him and turned to Donald. 'Think you can give us some more thunder?', he asked. Donald nodded and lifted his staff, sparks of lightning surged around his staff, crackling and sparking. A black cloud formed above the dog pile monsters, growing bigger and bigger until it nearly covered them all.

Both Noctis and Goofy threw the flasks at the horde just as Donald cast the huge bolt of lightning. A golden bolt raced down from the cloud just as the flasks smacked and exploded upon impact, creating an explosion of fire, ice and lightning that shook the ground and the force of it knocked the three of them on the backs, not even Goofy could stand against the blast. Dust flew and blinded them, forcing them all to duck their heads and wait it out.

After the winds ceased, Noctis peeked to see there was nothing remaining save for a combination of scorched and frozen land, faint sparks of electricity dancing around. The prince chuckled lightly, surprised they weren't turned to ashes, or frozen or shocked to death from that concoction of destruction. They stood up and dusted themselves off, the two new guys laughing together while Noctis smugly looked on.

But their victory was short-lived, as more heartless began to re-surface along with daemons. 'You gotta be kidding me…', Noctis groaned, summoning his sword again.

'They just keep coming!', complained Donald, jumping up and down in fury. 'Buzz off will ya!?'.

Goofy gulped, but then he turned to the right to the road, he let out, 'Fellas! Look!'. The two turned to see Ignis and Prompto on the road, the latter using one of his sniper guns he seemingly found, picking off some heartless. 'Noct! Get over here!', Ignis yelled.

'Time to go!', Noctis said, pushing Goofy forward and with Donald following behind, they ran for the Regalia.

The heartless chased them with bombs following close by, some managed to get close enough for a hit. Prompto though was picking them off one by one and with Noctis using his sword and Goofy his shield, they managed to stay them off them.

They all piled into the car unceremoniously, but no sooner did he feel he was being crushed by Donald and Goofy's weight, the prince shouted: 'DRIVE!'. Slamming his foot on the pedal, the advisor sped his party off into the night, leaving behind a horde…

*Dawn*

As the sun slowly rose from the mountains, the drive to the Haven was weary and many of the party were barely keeping their eyes open. Only their worries for their fellow companions were keeping them from falling into a well-deserved slumber.

Ignis pulled off the road just near the Haven where the party could see tents were up and faint smoke was rising to the slowly brightening sky. They hopped out of the car and sprinted to the Haven, arriving to see Gladiolus going through their first-aid kit. He looked up to see them arrive, nodding to one of the tents.

'Aqua's been with them the whole time we set camp', he explained, placing a few items back in the box.

'Are they well?', Ignis asked, joining him.

'Hmm…Sora's coming along better, we gave him a hi-potion and she healed him, he's just sleeping now', he said. 'Kairi…*sigh* I dunno…'.

'How bad was she?', Prompto asked worriedly.

'Aqua said she's exhausted herself, said she's used up so much magic and strength by the time we found her she was on fumes. She's worried she may sleep for a lot longer than we thought'.

There were several glances to each other, mixtures of worry, fear, and apprehension, yet none spoke up. Ignis sighed in turn after he and Gladiolus finished with the kit, he placed it on the makeshift table and started to prepare for breakfast.

'All we can do for now is wait…everyone, you can either go for a nap or wait for food…', he offered.

A small compromise and at least now everyone could regain their strength and rest, so to keep their minds off the situation they face everyone started to do their own thing. Donald and Goofy were helping Prompto get some chairs up and ready while Gladiolus grabbed his book and started to read quietly, and finally, Noctis decided to go for a nap.

Lying down on his sleeping bag, the prince slowly drifted off into slumber…all the while thinking of that place, he was taken too…

And what did it mean?

A/N:

Chapter 10! Happy out!

Question: Should Aqua and Kairi get more keychains throughout this story or do you think they should stick with it? I've already planned on Kairi getting one more after Oathkeeper but curious what you people think.

Thanks for reading! As always stay awesome but more importantly stay safe!