Final Fantasy XV - Kingdom Hearts

Part 70

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

*Keyblade Graveyard*

When their visions were no longer obscured by the bright light of the transporter, Noctis and company took in the world around them.

The king held back a gasp of horror when he sees the namesake of this world, behind them on a hill were dozens of keyblades, old, rusted, and withered through the passages of time. The sandy world was so devoid of life it was as if this world were death incarnate. The darkness isn't so strong he felt it suffocate him nor did he feel the warmth from the light either. He would have compared it to Twilight Town, except this world was nothing but emptiness and wrought with a bloody history.

Noctis sees Sora and the others ahead of them, greeting the other guardians while they joined them. But Noctis didn't see any smiles or playfulness within their eyes this time. Nobody had a smile on their face, no one tried to tease them for being late nor make a joke. Even Sora had the same look on his face, one where was ready to face whatever comes his way.

"Have you waited long?", the king asks, looking to Sora. He shakes his head and says: "No, just a few minutes".

"Where's Xehanort? Or has anyone come yet?", Ignis inquires.

"No one", Aqua reveals, "Maybe they're waiting for us".

"We'll see. The Keyblade Graveyard is just up ahead", Mickey informs, staring ahead. Following the mouse king's gaze, the king of Insomnia sees ahead of him through the thin veil of dust a narrow cavern leading to the graveyard. The thirteen guardians assembled; all eyes set on the path that lies before them. Noctis clenched his fist, wondering when Ardyn will show up, and how would he fare against the new king of Insomnia.

"Someone's coming", Sora announces.

Through the dust, the king sees a man walking through it with his hands behind his back. When he bypassed the dust, with yellow eyes and a wicked confident smirk, some of the party gasped in shock, some glowered and for the king, he gritted his teeth and narrowed his gaze. Standing before the party was none of than the man who instigated the whole thing, the very man who kicked started the end of all worlds and had brought the realm of light to its weakest point.

Xehanort.

Instantly the king could feel that dark power resonating within him, sensing a deep well of strength he had not thought possible. It is no wonder why Aqua and Mickey feared his power, even the king wasn't willing to clash with his head-on. He glanced subtly to Aqua and sees the burning rage in her eyes, the scorn for this man for all he had wrought on her friends, to Mickey's own eyes shining with disdain for this man.

He stands before them all, not remotely phased by the sight of there being four more additions to the guardians nor even a hint of trepidation for standing before a more powerful group. If nothing he seemed completely amused by their bravery to stand before him. His smirk turns into a wicked smug grin.

"Legend speaks, that darkness once covered the world", he says, like a storyteller regaling youngsters in folklore, "We know so very little of the Keyblade War…only that it was just the beginning". "If ruin brings about creation…what do you think a second war will bring?".

Noctis remembered the old tales Aqua had spoken to him about during his training with his keyblade, about how at some point all worlds were one. He remembered little of the vital information, save for that when the first keyblade war occurred, it shattered the world and brought destruction, yet in turn, allowed the worlds to survive as fragments of the one world. According to history anyway.

"When the darkness fall, will we be worthy of the precious light the legend speaks so fondly of?", he asks. On his left suddenly appearing is another of the organization, one of the four guardians knew all too well. Ansem, the seeker of darkness, and the Xehanort's heartless. Ansem's skin is tanned like the others, sharing Terra-Nort's long white hair, as well as the three spikes on the top and sides of his head, but he lacks the bangs.

He wears silver-white gloves on his hands, each with a grey band on the wrist, while the rest of the glove, which has three black buttons lining one side, bells outwards. There is a black pauldron on both of his shoulders, each attached to his coat by two straps. He also wears black pants and black, silver-lined, knee-high boots

Ansem's black leather coat is red on the inside and lined with yellow and has a large grey section that covers the lower half and shoulders of the coat. Upon closer inspection, this grey section seems to be attached by several small pins or buttons around the hip and neck sections of the coat, as well as by a belt that wraps around his back and attaches to the rim of the coat. This coat is high-collared and completely unzipped, showing the second, shorter jacket he wears underneath.

Ansem's second jacket is white and high-collared much like the outer coat. It is mostly unbuttoned and exposes Ansem's chest before being closed by three buttons and two belts near the dark being's waist, only to flare outward again, leaving three buttons undone. On his chest is the heartless emblem, but it seems to be just decoration as it appears attached to the long coat.

"Or will all of creation be instead, returned to shadows?", he asks alongside his somebody. "Today we will recreate that legend and see which roads it will take us". The two island boys glared at him, memories of his misdeeds upon them burned within their minds, only to avoid needless fighting or potentially weakening the others halts their arms. In time as well for the other side of the heartless to appear, Xemnas.

The leader for the former organization stands beside Xehanort's right, staring down at the guardians. "But first…your light shines far too brightly", he lectures, "It needs to be extinguished before we see the truth".

Finally two more enter the stage, two young boys roughly the same as the islanders and Ventus. Vanitas, and Young Xehanort.

Vanitas, masked, boastfully proclaims: "Only when your hopes have been broken by battle upon battle can the key be claimed to Kingdom Hearts". Ventus grits and bares his teeth and nearly launched himself at the boy. Suddenly stopped by a raised hand from Aqua, halting him. Young-Xehanort smirked and adds: "And break you, we shall".

Noctis steps forward to join Sora's side, his eyes showed no fear and only resilience to their boasts. Vanitas must have seen this rebellion within the king and smugly taunted him. "And this is the supposed king of light? Doesn't look anything special to me". Noctis scoffs and even chuckled lightly, making all eyes set on him bar his royal retinue. He then gives Vanitas a smirk. "You've got a lot of nerve bragging about this like you already won the war", he remarked. "But from my viewpoint, it's pretty obnoxious of you".

His smirk shortens to a more callous. "Especially when all four of you had lost to these guys in the past, and they were barely half as strong as you". The king's words had struck a chord within some, Vanitas stepping forward by a foot and snarled at the king while the older ones glowered at the mockery displayed by the king. Not missing a beat, Sora stepped forward with his liege.

"I don't know what you're expecting, but you're not gonna win this", promises the boy, "Especially not when we're all together this time!".

The guardians rallied at this combined bravado of the king and master, whatever fears or doubts they carried were stomped out. Xehanort though remained unchanged, though there is a twitch in his smirk. As if it almost dropped. He huffs as darkness begins to swirl and manifest around the dark warriors, and slowly their darkness expands and flies around the area, around the guardians. Over the tall cliffs that trapped them in a clearing, the skies darkened into dark blue and violet and over them.

Surrounded in the dome of darkness, the guardians looked up to see it was raining heartless. Some gasped while some grunt or cursed as the heartless slowly covered the field, trapping the guardians within a circle. Weapons were drawn as they gathered in a huddle, staring down the army of heartless surrounding them all.

"So, breaking our hope means they're just gonna throw an army of heartless at us…", Axel groans, keyblade resting on his shoulder.

"What? You disappointed?", Gladiolus asks.

"Was kinda hoping we skip the tutorial and get into the real deal, ya know?".

Sora and Noctis looked at the army of darkness, then to each other. With smirks, the two guardians called forth their weapons, Ultima and Noctis' new sword, the Ultima Blade. A modified and re-forged Engine Blade that Cindy had put back together, just with a new engine and raw power. As each guardian stares down the horde, nary a trace of fear within their hearts, Noctis boldly claims: "First with the highest kill count wins!".

"Oh, we're doing that game again?", Gladiolus laughs, "Good, maybe with the masters, I'll have some competition!".

"Lowest kills will have to do the dishes for the after party!", Kairi throws in with a grin.

"Better ensure you step up your game, Axel", Ignis says with a smirk.

"Oh what? Like Prompto's gonna do better than yours truly?", asked the pyro.

"Excuse you? I've got guns!", Prompto bragged, "I'll probably be in the top ten!".

"One way to find out!", Sora says, "Let's GO!".

The thirteen guardians ran into the fray, some running while others took to the skies as he heartless piled upon them.

Sora cleaves his way through the horde of shadows with his old-time companions following close behind him. He splits a shadow in half and leaps over the one behind it, allowing Goofy to crush the small beast with his shield beneath his feet. No longer using his Knight's Shield, the captain carried his strongest shield in his arsenal, Save the King. Donald rushes to his side as his staff is shining in golden red, he skids the ground and waves his staff across the field, spraying a torrent of flames upon the dark beings. Like Goofy, Donald bears the most powerful staff within their gear, Save the Queen.

The new master uses several air-soldiers as steppingstones to cut down the flying wyverns rushing towards him. Sora slices through them as if his keyblade were a red-hot knife cutting through butter while he flips over them, reaching towards the skies to deal with the invisibles that were starting to form from the darkness along with some angel stars. The mockery of angels fires a barrage of blasters that homed on the boy.

Using the flying heartless to his advantage, Sora skilfully dances in the air around the blasters, allowing his heartless platforms to take the hit for him as he jumps towards the invisibles. Six of the pureblood beings swoop down to meet with the chosen master, bring down their dark blades onto his holy weapon. Sora swings his keyblade with both hands and not only does he decimate their swords but obliviated the invisibles as if they were nothing.

The angels all gathered to fire a more powerful blast, only for the legendary shield to blitz and ricochet from all seven of them and soar back down to the captain of the knights. Then all angels were gathered up in a vortex of pure white energy with sphered of red and blue rotating around it. Trapped and all bunched to gather like being stuffed into a small box, the angels were at Sora's mercy and received only a quick execution by the keyblade master.

Sora gathers energy within himself and rockets himself towards them with his keyblade held out straight. He pierces through all of them like a bullet piercing paper, appearing on the other side of the dogpile. They were vanquished and their captive hearts fluttered up to the skies to return to their hosts. He looks down at his two buddies with a grin and thumbs up, they, in turn, do the same before rushing to the aid of others while the young master resumes his task.

On the ground cutting through the hordes of soldier heartless, Gladiolus swings his giant sword across the field with speed he would never have been able to achieve in the past. He swung his sword so quickly it appeared as a razor-sharp gale slicing through even the heavy armored beings like they were nothing but minor pests. He grabbed the blade with both hands, performs a front flip, and brought down the massive blade right on the head of a large body, splitting in half and when his steel slammed onto the ground, he created a wave of small pillars of rock piercing the beasts.

In the hands of the shield of the king is a large buster like a sword, Blade of the King. Wide as Zack's own with two edges made of ebony steel, the tip curved like a katana while the body was grey steel with the same eagle design on it, the hilt golden and grey with the handle longer.

He spins around with a roar and decimates another large body, ripping through the rubbery fat and runs into the horde of armored knights. They struck at him with their smaller blades, Gladiolus, in turn, crushed their sword and their bodies with his massive blade, and spins around with only his right hand on the handle. He sweeps his blade and throws them aside thanks to a gust of wind created from his blade, throwing them or the blade ripped them apart.

One had leaped into the air to try and jump him, but the shield turned with his armored hand grabbing its head. He slammed the heartless into the ground, crushing its skull easily. Gladiolus turned behind him to see an assault rider rushing at him shoulder first. He meets the heartless with his armored shoulder with a roar, halting the larger heartless' momentum and not even budging from his spot. The beast tries to overpower the smaller being, yet Gladiolus is the one pushing it back.

He overpowers the heartless by throwing it off him, then punched it as hard as he could in the stomach. The attack winded the beast (if heartless could breathe) and left itself open for Gladiolus to plunge his giant sword into the heartless. The body evaporated into nothing as its heart fluttered to the skies, the shield grunted and backhands a shadow trying to leap onto his back. He was nearly crushed by a morning star from behind, and when he turns to identify it, it was already blasted into nothing.

Flipping in the air while firing sparks of lightning at the heartless, Mickey lands before Gladiolus, and together they fought off the heartless that were persisting in follow their dark master's command. The mouse king and shield of the chosen king were fighting in perfect harmony with each other, the king would flip and dance in the air slashing at the heartless while the shield would deal with the groundwork and destroy heartless left and right. Despite their clear differences in fighting neither is a hindrance to the other, none of the two had to worry about hitting each other nor did the impeding horde cause any hassle.

Mickey splits a neo-shadow in half just as Gladiolus destroys a large amour with one punch. The king looks to the skies and sees Sora being harassed and ambushed by all forms of that small element based heartless, nearly overwhelmed with little recourse. Seeing this, Mickey turns to the shield and gestures him to give him a toss. With a quick nod, Gladiolus grabbed the back of the king's collar and spun around and then literally tosses the king into the skies to join his fellow master.

Evading and dancing around the dual blades while at the same time slicing and cutting them into ribbons, Ignis flicks one dagger into the forehead of a dual-head before he kicks aside another. With a single dagger in hand, he quickly imbues it in lightning and begins to zip across the field, striking at the vitals of a dual blade heartless, armored knights and soldiers. The clumsy knights and soldiers had little chance to pick up Ignis' speed and even the superior combatant's dual blades had no hopes installing the man's dagger.

Ignis flips over one dual blade and recalls his second dagger, plunging them both into the back of satyr and killing it. Like his fellow Kingsglaive, he now carries new daggers made for him by Cindy, the Daggers of the King. They were as elegantly crafted as antiques but as lethal as a professional assassins' blades, singled edged and curved with the skull of glaives carved onto the hilt and pommel, steel silver and shining like a blade in the dark. They were nine inches long with traces of Lucis magic shrouding them.

He flips on in hand before he tosses them both across himself and striking two soldiers in their heads. Ignis' now empty hands as suddenly cloaked in violet flames as his eyes glow in dark violet, manifesting into large torches of flames. He leaped into the air and fired the dark flames with both hands, creating a massive torrent of flames that eats the heartless in a fiery hunger. The heartless surrounding him stood no chance of surviving his magic.

After that, he flips over a wyvern trying to attack from behind and uses the dark teleport to appear right as it flew beneath him, spear in hand. He plunges the lance into its back and forces it to turn and crash into one of the surveillance heartless. Ignis falls to the ground in time to meet with Axel roasting the heartless into nothing but ashes, chakrams in hand. The pyro turns around tossing one at a row of six behind the advisor, ducking under his attack, lopping off the heads of the soldiers.

Ignis repays his aid by firing a spike of dark energy at the armored knight behind Axel, piercing through the chest. He stands back to back with Axel as the heartless, neo-shadows, began to surround the two. In response, Axel gives the older man a smirk as he starts to spin his chakrams with his fingers quickly, and in turn, Ignis smirked back with his daggers, nodding.

"BURN BABY!", Axel cries as flames cloaked the two of them. He grabbed the chakrams, aimed one to the ground, and fired off flames into the earth, essentially turning it into a burning ground. The heartless around the edges were all consumed by a wall of flames that erected and created a sizable dome, entrapping the foolish creatures within it. The burning earth also played a part in incinerating a few but none of the tougher ones.

That is why the two guardians were here for.

Both jumped into the wall of fire, seemingly consumed together. In truth, the flames could not harm their creator, and Ignis had already erected a flaming barrier around himself via the darkness. They phased through the flames as if they were wraiths, appearing to cross the dome and into the wall of fire, leaving trails of flames to finish their work.

Trapped within the flames, the heartless were burnt to nothing thanks to the combined effort of the advisor and assassin. When they joined up into the middle of the dome, Axel lifts his chakram as Ignis crosses his daggers across his chest, the flames were flowing into their weapons. Now Axel wields a chakram of flames the size of a large round table while Ignis carried essentially swords in his hands. They both jump into the air, back to back, and together throw their burning weapons into the hordes. Axel throws him to the skies while Ignis burns the world beneath him.

The table-sized chakram immediately hits a dark ball group and detonates in a fiery explosion that probably could have destroyed half a village while Ignis' burning swords struck the ground and erupted into large pillars of flames, burning both foot soldiers and airborne heartless alike.

Back on the ground, they shared a fist bump and ran to continue their attack on the dark creatures.

Back to back, the former apprentice with her master stared down the neo-shadows that surrounded the two beauties of the light. Neither in their armor, as they were conserving power for the true battle that would unfold after this, keyblades held high in their stances. Kairi glanced at her master, and she, in turn, smiles in agreement to the unspoken question between them, they channeled their magic together.

Kairi rushes forth with Destiny's Embrace in hand, striking her heartless adversaries while her master dances with magic. Aqua cart-wheels around them while using Queen of Storms to cut down the legions of evil.

Kairi changes into her Strike-Form and brings out her Crossed Pike, splitting it in two, and like a wild hurricane, she strikes at them with raw power. The weapons were easy for her to manage despite the size and awkward method of uses of dual-wielding two at once, yet she balances this while combining them to give her all the strength and dexterous advantages she needed. Kairi stabbed one blitz spear in the stomach along with three neo-shadows behind it.

She releases her grip on her left pike and uses the right hand one with both hands, much like her Dual-Blade. The master spins the weapon around her body, effectively breaking and cutting down heartless that came near her, over her head, behind her or her sides, she was completely untouchable. A large body tried to body slam on her, but Kairi easily repelled it by spinning her weapon over her head, bouncing the monster repeatedly before she swung at it and knocked it into the skies.

She then throws her pike at the heartless while it was covered in lightning, it spins like a saw and cuts through the obese heartless. It hovers in the air spinning faster and faster until it expels lightning from the blades and fell on the heartless, shocking them and destroying several of them. She recalls her weapon back after the heartless perish, reverting to her normal form in time for her close friend to jump in and repel a lance soldier's weapon with a small barrier.

Once that heartless perished, the blue-haired woman narrowed her gaze at the bunch of heartless before her, her eyes seeing something shimmering amongst them, invisible yet she knows something is there. Aqua nods to Kairi and leaps to the shimmer, firing a spiral of ice at it. Like she had expected, the heartless moved and trampled some of its allies in its haste, but Aqua ruthlessly chased after it by blasting more magic at the beast.

Timed perfectly, one of her ice spells burst open upon hitting one solider and the radius was wide enough to hit the invisible creature. It revealed itself as steal sneak, one of the strangest heartless Sora had slain in his previous ventures through the worlds. It hissed at Aqua, standing up as its eyes shimmered with a strange light, then it fires two streams of light at her. Aqua swatted one aside and air-dashed around it, dived towards the stealth sneak and with a single stroke, decapitates the heartless. She front flips onto its back and leaps off it, keyblade glowing in the light before she unleashes a flurry of strikes.

A barrage of magical blade arcs struck the heartless below her, destroying the ground and heartless alike. Aqua descends onto one spear lizard's hear, knocking it onto its back and plunged her keyblade into its stomach to finish it off. Shadows attempted to dogpile on her, but her former apprentice appears beside her and throws her keyblade upward and uses her magic to send a ball of light from the tip of her keyblade.

The ball shines above the two, rays bursting through it and then exploding without harming the keyblade masters, the same could not be said for the shadows. Undeterred by their loss of numbers, the heartless kept jumping and running at the two, Kairi and Aqua meeting the reckless abandonment of their well-being with grace. Together they flipped, cart-wheeled, and danced around their spot, striking the heartless but keeping within their circle.

Like clock-work, both masters were using magic and keyblade at once, flipping over the other without hindering the other or forcing the other to adapt to their new strategy. Kairi ducks and Aqua would cut down a heartless and doing so Kairi easily turns and fires a burst of magic at the ones behind her friend. Aqua blasts their enemies in front, Kairi rolls to cover her flank, in turn, Kairi parries and counters the attack, and her friend strikes down the ones sneaking on her side.

They turned to see two purple metal gauntlets flying towards them, fired by a guard armor from a distance. They shared a glance and smirked together, Aqua instantly running to meet the fists. She easily destroyed the right hand with one strike of her key and with a blast of magic, Kairi destroys the other hand. Together rushing and cutting through the heartless, Kairi fires a low tier aero ahead of Aqua, which immediately sent her friend into the air, body coated with the magic from the Flowmotion.

Aqua flips and dives towards the torso of the guard armor while Kairi slides on the ground right under the heartless. She strikes the two metal feet and breaks them apart, leaving the torso exposed and Aqua quickly splits it in half before it could retaliate. The armor in half, cracks and falls apart, and the heart it kept prisoner flies to the skies. The two masters gave each other approving nods before they resumed their dance against the heartless.

One headshot after another, roll to avoid the big guys, then blow them up. These are one of the methods Prompto was constantly using to keep himself both safe and alive while making his friends' lives a little easier to deal with. Spinning his new gun in hand, Kings Sharpshooter.

The gun is a triple-barrelled, triple-cylindered revolver, ornamented with Kingsglaive patterns, a small skull in place of the iron sights on each barrel, and a silver chain in the shape of a behemoth with a wing hanging from the end of the grip.

The weapon is a semi-automatic, break loading revolver with three barrels and three cylinders, a large change from his usual guns. Capable of holding 18 shots at once, having six chambers per cylinder. The gun is reloaded by a braking mechanism that tilts the barrels and cylinders at an angle, allowing the ejection of spent cartridges and the placement of fresh rounds, ending with a flick of the wrist that snaps the barrels back into place. Three bullets are fired at once, allowing for only six shots per round.

He believed this is the fourth most beautiful thing his eyes had ever been blessed to witness. And the best part, since he has unlimited ammo, he could take three shots at a time with each pull of the trigger.

The gunner fires off more triple shots at the heartless, mostly dealing with the ones in the sky to give Mickey and Sora some breathing space while he would cover some of his friends with careful shots to avoid hitting them by accident. Air soldiers didn't have a chance to avoid his bullets considering their recklessness and with three bullets spreading out enough to take away any chance of swerving and dodging.

The lets out a small "yikes" when two hammer frames tried to hammer him into paste, he narrowly evades them by jumping back from them. Their hammer faces smashing into the ground just as six rabid dogs charge at him, barking and hungry for his heart. The gunner switches out his robotic limb and donned his gatling gun, already spinning with a low purr like sound. He aimed his arm and yelled: "The lead buffet is open for business!".

He unleashes a barrage of bullets onto the dogs, firing twenty shots per round and bringing them down one by one. Mowing down the heartless like it was nothing, Prompto took down the hammer faces as well and started to rotate on the spot, firing at the flying heartless and any big ones that stood out. Careful to keep the bursts of his gatling gun in control to not hit his friends, he mostly stuck with the heartless infested spaces without his friends nearby and kept hitting the big boys.

Prompto spins on his heels and aimed his gatling gun at his sneaking foe before he gulps when he sees looming over him was a rock troll. It brings down its axe on him, making the gunner roll away from being pummelled into the ground. He changes out his gatling gun and brings his fourth limb and slowly but surely a personal favorite of his. It is another robotic hand designed for combat, crimson red with streaks of blue and silver.

The youngest Kingsglaive aimed his robotic fist and fires his arm at the troll. The first collides with its head, making it stumble backward but it was not done. The fist then grabbed the top of its open helm and the jet behind it grows larger and more intense. It lifts the heartless off its giant feet and into the air. This doesn't go unnoticed by Riku, who was decimating the invisibles that plagued the group and sees Prompto's handy work.

He shares a glance to his gunner friend and sees the hidden request in his eyes to lend a hand. Riku jumps toward the troll, the Way to Dawn keyblade coated in a violet aura before he vanishes from sight. He appears as an invisible blur that cuts and slices the heartless with ease before he grabbed the flying limb and front flips from the heartless as its metal body falls apart. Standing before the gunner, he "hands" him his arm, and together they turn to see catastrochorus charging towards them, using its massive head to knock aside the heartless.

Riku gives the more worried Prompto a confident smirk and gestured the beast with his head, encouraging the gunner to make the first move. Feeling his confidence come back instantly, Prompto calls for Kings' Sharpshooter as he replaced his rocket arm with his normal part. He unlocks the gun and pulls out three blue bullets Cindy made him and inserts them into the cylinder, cocked the gun, and lowers it like he was about to draw.

When the catastrochorus was close enough, Prompto quickly draws his gun and fires the three shots at it. The three bullets fly and strike the beast in its large nose, sinking into its dark flesh and the ice from the bullets spreads quickly over the body of the dinosaur. With its upper torso frozen with legs slowly becoming frigid and harder to run, Riku took this opportunity to reel his right hand back with a growl. His body darkens with a violet aura and then with a yell and a single thrust, he fires off a blast of dark energy just as the monster reached them.

His strike is so strong it shattered the dinosaur in half, and in less than five seconds later the rest of its body evaporates into nothing. The gunner gave the keyblade master a thumbs up with a grin, Riku bumping his fist with his own before they turned onto the heartless again.

In the skies with Mickey and Sora, Noctis uses Night's Sky along with Ultima Blade to deal with the more persistent and trickier heartless. Aerial knockers, surveillance robots and fortunetellers, more tricky and cunning than the other aerial heartless, but ultimately fodder to the king's weapons as he splits and cuts down the aerials before they could even take a swing at him, the robots blasts were deflected easily, making them do the work of executing themselves for Noctis.

The fortunetellers were mostly dancing around him and firing freezing shards of ice that he phased through and retaliates by blasting them with roaring hot lightning. Using his Armiger to bring out only the first base of his true strength which allowed him to stay in the air with Mickey and Sora without using a heartless for steppingstone. Noctis could fly towards the heartless and bring them down with just two of his weapons as opposed to switching it out. He was saving that for a certain usurper.

When he destroyed another heartless, his blue eyes fell to what was potentially a real issue for the group right now. Standing out in the sea of darkness was a larger and without a doubt more lethal-looking heartless, towering over almost all of them. Kurt Zisa, a powerful heartless Sora likely slew in the past, and now it crawled back from the depths of the dark world for vengeance. Too bad it was leaving empty-handed.

Noctis immediately warp strikes to a few heartless before it, plunging both key and sword into two armored knights and standing defiantly before the large heartless. It hisses at Noctis, its neck suddenly extending like a snake as the cobra head lunges to the king. His majesty uses some of his reserved mana to easily phase through its quick and lethal strikes, weaving in and out of being physical and ethereal to try and wear it down.

He flips over the neck and then warps back a few feet from the munching fangs, its neck receding into its hole between the shoulders. It swings its giant silver crescent swords at the king, forcing Noctis to meet its steel with his. Their blades clashed feverishly and while its size should have overpowered Noctis, the king's attacks outclassed it and everything else it had to offer. With a yell as his weapons glowed in Armiger light, Noctis struck the two swords and shattered them into hundreds of pieces.

With a flick of his hand as the heartless stumbled back in shock, five of the king's Royal Arms appeared in crystal form, rotating around him. But before he could do anything to it, Kurt Zisa suddenly levitates, and a barrier of red covers its body. It floats away from Noctis, leaving trails of levitating spheres of flames for the king to contend with. Noctis hisses at this annoyance until he spots Ventus in the air.

Using his glider without his armor (something he learned to do during his training) he swoops into his king's aid and grabbed his hand. In the air with his pilot doing the guiding, Noctis aims his keyblade at the fiery mines and fires a torrent of water balls at them. Not only was he destroying at a distance but the moment they hit them they detonated with other heartless sprawled around them. The heartless turns to the boys in the sky as Ventus and Noctis jump off his glider. Reverting his glider to his keyblade, Ventus dives for the heartless' barrier and with a yell, he strikes.

The keyblade at first hits the barrier and nothing happened until it suddenly bursts like Ventus smashed his way through a glass wall. The heartless tries to grab onto the boy, but Ventus was too fast for it. He easily flips over the hands, simultaneously striking at the armored hands. His keyblade cuts and slices them off, and he did this repeatedly until none of its six arms remained and it is brought to its knees.

"Noct, you're up!", Ventus exclaimed, kicking off the head of the heartless to get into the air. Noctis jumps to the heartless, yelling a quick "thanks" to Ventus as his Royal Arms rotated around his body even faster. Calling each of them, Noctis strikes the Kurt Zisa rapidly with each arm until he grabbed both his key and sword and brought them both down onto the heartless from head to between its legs. Slamming the two weapons onto the ground as he descended, Noctis stands and walks away from the heartless as it splits into pieces.

The body evaporates and the heart is freed.

The king looks around himself and much to his dismay, the heartless army was seemingly unaffected by the vast executions of their allies, and despite taking down some of their strongest it seemed they were still insistent on fulfilling their dark master's command. He strikes down one zip slasher just as Gladiolus sweeps his blade to bring down a solid armor. The party all gathered up on the spot, weapons out as they all stared down the dark forces.

The chosen king hissed a growl through clenched teeth, realizing their efforts in slaying the heartless is ultimately fruitless. Cutting them down with this pace is doing them nothing but delaying the inevitable of their demise, for everyone they bring down more will take their place. He glances at the masters for a solution, but he frowns when it dawns on him their only solution would be using a spell that would wear them out too much. And having even one of their masters out of the fight before confronting the thirteen darkness was out of the question.

His eyes fall to Sora, giving the heartless a smirk as he eyed the king. He lifts his keyblade and cried: "Hop on!".

A burst of light shines from the keyblade as the king's ears picked up a sound of what sounded like a train whistle. He stares ahead of him to see railways forming in the air and through the narrow passage ahead of them, and a brightly lit colored steam train drives into the battlefield. Before the king could even question it, suddenly he and everyone found themselves in a single cart of the train with Sora leading them in the first one.

The large chimney of the train fired off several fireworks from its massive pipe, landing on the heartless horde with colorful explosions as the train honks. The train's rails go for all sorts of loops, hills, and slopes with amazing speed except unlike the teacups, Noctis feels the thrill of it. It is like going a roller coaster ride at a theme park, except instead of spitting on people at the park, he and the others are using magic and weapons to strike death from above on the heartless.

The combined powers of the thirteen and Sora's train had finally done in the army of darkness. From one final loop and descent to the ground, Sora used all the train's power to fire off hundreds of firework bombs onto the horde while Aqua and the other magic users along with Prompto's gatling gun rained hell onto the dark beings.

With the area cleared from the darkness and after Sora dismissed his train, the guardians gathered up to check on each other for wounds or worse. Luckily minus some minor injuries and weariness, none of them needed magical healing, using only potions to patch themselves up.

"Haha! Bet'cha old Xeha-jerk isn't gonna be expecting us so soon!", Prompto bragged with a single fist pump to the air, "We totally wrecked those heartless!".

While some shared his enthusiasm, Aqua shakes her head with a forlorn look. "Don't let this get to your head", she lectures softly, "Remember, this is only the beginning. And so long as we remain in this world, this will not be the end of the horde".

"Blue's right. That old bastard probably spent what time he had to gather up those little beasties", Gladiolus concurs, "And something tells me this tactic is gonna get old quick".

"And I fear Xehanort may push harder if he truly wishes to extinguish our light before the actual battle begins", Ignis adds, cupping his chin, "If this is only the start of what we can expect from the heartless, then I dread what lies in store for us".

"Then we'll just have to play it by ear", Noctis says, "Can't do anything about that now". The others agreed with their weak plan, and together the thirteen ventured through the cavern to the other side.

Once through it, they came to an open plain where more graves marked by decaying keyblade lied, surrounding them all. Up ahead of them they see the long stretch of the land, likely where Xehanort and the others lied in wait for them. None of the team sensed any more heartless around them, many surmising they were waiting in ambush for them. Up ahead of them before they moved on, Kairi immediately tensed up and readied herself for the next fight, calling everyone's attention.

Waltzing to them through the dust is Ardyn, casually approaching the guardians. The three of the kings' retinue immediately tensed at the sight of the man while Noctis stared down his ancestor. It should not have been a surprise the man of no consequences would be brave enough to greet the people he's tortured, even without his immortality. Even that said, Noctis frowned slightly when he looked at the man, sensing something very wrong.

Something had changed with Ardyn…and not just his eyes.

"Well this is quite the reunion to be having, now isn't it?", he asks with a sarcastic bow, smirking at the guardians. "Here we are, standing on the very ground where the first keyblade war occurred, thousands of hearts lost and keyblade masters perishing on these fields, fighting for whatever reason their small minds could come up with". He gave them all a darker smirk, as though the fight had already been won and he is merely giving them a sense of false hope.

"What a fitting place for you all to perish". He raised his hand and points at them, "For today is the day, you will lose it all".

"The hell are you talking about?", Noctis asked with a low growl. "Your boss, his duplicates, and apprentice all scurried away and left the heartless to do your dirty work, and you've still got the nerve to say we'll lose?".

"Of course. For you see, before you even face the thirteen, each and everyone one of you shall be ripped apart heart from the body", Ardyn promises. Riku then stepped forward and asked: "Has your boss forgotten to mention he needs to clash with us for the X-Blade? We perish, then all this is for nothing". Ardyn chuckled with a dismissive hand, as though the master's words were nothing of importance.

"Oh, worry not my boy, the X-Blade will still be forged, with or without you", he assured. "We're just not going to waste any more on you".

All eyes burned into this man, his words had fallen flat and his attempt to intimidate them go unrewarded with the desired effect he wished. "We're not going to lose to you", Sora replied with confidence and conviction, "You won't beat us, Ardyn". The man of Eos' smirk turned more wicked as his body is cloaked by darkness, and with a crooked grin, he suddenly vanished before their very eyes.

All but one pair.

Aqua sees him in time Ardyn appearing right before Ventus, Raksha blade in hand as he prepared for a swing. The master had only a split second to react, she quickly shoved Ventus aside and takes his place on the spot. No time to defend herself, Aqua received a devastating upward strike that cuts through her armored clothing and sends her flying across the field. She falls on her back as she skids the earth, coming to a halt slowly.

Ventus stared at his sister in horror while on his backside as the others finally registered what had transpired, Ardyn frowning slightly that he hit the wrong target. Likely he was not expecting Aqua to be able to react quick enough to spare her brother from his attack. He sighed in annoyance as some called Aqua's name while some turned their rage onto the man, now turning to face them all with a cruel smirk.

"That's it!", Sora shouts, calling his keyblade and rushing to him. He closes the distance with a swing, only his attack to be halted by an invisible force. The force lifts Sora into the air and throws him into an attacking Axel, sending them both aside with grunts of pain. The former chancellor turns to parry Ignis' daggers with a single hand, deflecting the speedy attacks from the man. He stabbed at Ignis, missing him thanks to his footwork and sidesteps the attack.

Ardyn swings his sword with enough force to knock Ignis back while he was guarding and manages to turn on his feet in time to lock blades with Mickey and Riku at the same time. He was pushed back by their joint attack, however, and he is forced to use his Armiger to phase through Prompto's bullets. He leaps back from the party, seeing Donald and Kairi rushing to Aqua to help her. Not wanting the superior keyblade master to return to the fray so soon, Ardyn stops phasing and warp-strikes towards the two.

But before he could get close to them, Gladiolus is already in front of his aim and with his blade out. His strike collides with the massive blade of Gladiolus, his attack did not even make him budge an inch. Strangely for the man, with superior strength, he should have broken through the shield's might easily like breaking a wall of sand. But Gladiolus' eyes were burning with unfathomable rage as he pressed his sword against Ardyn's royal arm, pushing *him* back.

The man clenched his teeth as he desperately tried to push Gladiolus, but like a mountain against the wind, Gladiolus refuses to bend to him. "Oh dear, have I touched a nerve? Did seeing that woman getting hurt upset you?", mocks Ardyn. He would soon come to realize he had made a terrible mistake. Gladiolus takes one step closer to Ardyn, easily pushing him back as his heels dig into the ground. The shield breaks the deadlock with a swipe of his sword, allowing Ardyn to strike at him.

Gladiolus raised his armored hand and swipes the blade aside, exposing Ardyn. He grabbed his giant sword and swings it against Ardyn's body, bringing it down from shoulder to his right waist and blasting him away. Ardyn cries out in pain, using his warping power to get further away from the enraged shield.

The man used his Armiger to quickly heal himself up as much to his annoyance and bafflement, Sora and Axel had gotten back to their feet while the two healers tended to Aqua. Here for the first time since his immortality had been ripped from him, Ardyn had realized just how poorly the odds had been stacked against him. They had greatly grown more powerful than their last clash, especially Gladiolus.

If the shield of the king can overwhelm him with sheer strength, then just how powerful had his descended had gotten?

Just as well, he thinks, he had some of his own tricks.

And the opportunity comes from the enraged Ventus who managed to get around him without him realizing it. The boy's speed should not be this swift but again, he surprises the man. But when Ventus tried to strike at him from the back, he was suddenly faced down flat on the ground with a loud thud. As if something had weighed down on him, earning a cry of his name from his friends. Ardyn gave the party a wicked grin, dark thorns matching the nobodies dancing around his shoulders as a figure manifested behind him.

"Oh, my apologizes, I forgot to introduce my companion", he says with a light laugh as Ventus is being held up.

He clutched his neck as a torso of a monstrosity appeared above Ardyn, despicably like Ansem's old guardian. Except it was not a heartless but a nobody version of it, muscular with silver chains around a grey heart-shaped hole in its chest, clothed in a white tattered robe with a metal muzzle. Its arms were bulky like Gladiolus except inhumanly large, but where one was clothed in a tattered robe, its left armor is decorated in the armor of silver and violet, cracked and broken like it endured a horrible beating.

"The hell is that!?", Axel shouts as the party was torn between worries for Ventus and shock for this new nobody. Sora and Riku shared a knowing glance, seeing this sort of heartless before, but unknown to them Noctis stared at the creature, and only when he sees its eyes does his heart feel like it had been torn apart.

Purple and blue eyes glowed within the cowl of the beast.

"Ravus…", gasped the king.

The party who journeyed through Eos looked at him in horror before they returned their looks to the nobody, suddenly seeing the resemblance. Ardyn chuckled amusedly as if he hadn't expected any of them to tell that this wretched creature was the nobody of Ravus. "Impressive insight, "King Noctis", quite the resemblance, isn't it?", Ardyn mockingly praised, "He had such a strong heart, obviously he would have an equally powerful nobody yes?".

"Ahh but alas, where his strength is great for fighting, his sense of self and will power leaves much to be desired. Easily to bind to my will thanks to Xigbar once we found him". Noctis felt the despair Vanitas had bragged about grabbing his heart, horror etched on his face when he watches the man mockingly bragged about his new pet, unable to sense anything of the old Ravus within this nightmare of a creature.

But then before he would unknowingly submit into despair, Noctis felt his power rise along with his anger. His fists clenched so hard the knuckles turned white, eyes burned with a raging fire. Once more, this wretched ancestor had the nerve to use more people he cared about against him. Warping and twisting them into something nearly unrecognizable, as if corrupting him into a heartless was not enough.

"ARDYN!", bellowed the king.

In a burst of speed, Noctis fires himself toward him and called Ultima Blade. He roars and brings his sword down onto the bastard of an ancestor, expecting him to call for his Raksha to defend himself. When their blades clashed, a cloud of dust exploded and blocked them from everyone's sight. Within the cloud, Noctis pressed his blade down on Ardyn, but when he sees what exactly had been used to protect the man who had brought so much pain to the chosen king, Noctis' eyes widened in disbelief.

The cloud dissipated and revealed the two, and the weapon Ardyn carried in hand. All eyes who witnessed it could not believe it. A keyblade. Much like the Royal Arms, it was a direct mock-replica of Noctis' keyblade Night Sky, except covered in dark red miasma and darkness. Ardyn's smug smile only brought back the king from the bafflement. As if this man couldn't possibly give another finger to the king.

"Surprised to see myself worthy of a keyblade, Noct?", he mocked.

"Worthy of a knock off? Not even remotely", growled Noctis, "But then again, you were always the winner of the silver medal most of the time".

Ardyn's smug smirk evaporated in seconds as his nobody guardian snarls at Noctis and raises its armored arm to strike at him. Only to be halted by Goofy intercepting the attack by jumping in front of the fist with his shield. The attack recoiled from the shield and threw the nobody's fist back while Goofy is thrown aside from the attack. But the captain of the knights called out for Prompto while he fell.

Ever the opportunist to land a good shot, Prompto already had his rifle out and takes one shot at the nobody's head. The bullet struck home and harmed the beast, it slammed its free hand over the struck head while Sora rushes in and brings his keyblade down onto the wrist of the hand holding Ventus. While he could not cut it, something told him not to, the strike was enough to free Ventus from its grasp.

The boy falls to his feet and almost stumbled to his knees, coughing but safe. With his friend rescued, Noctis dismisses his sword, and with lightning covering his right hand, he slammed his palm onto Ardyn's chest and discharges the lightning and blasts Ardyn away from him.

The man is pushed back to where he stood before his attack, now in pain and staring down the full force of the guardians of light. Sora and Noctis standing side by side as they did the first time they clashed with Ardyn, now more powerful and less than tolerant of this man's schemes. The chosen king of light aimed his sword at him, threateningly.

"You didn't stand a chance against me and Sora before, so unless you've got that X-Blade in your pocket, I've got a feeling you won't last long against ALL of us!", threatens the king. Ardyn stands tall as he dismisses his keyblade, smirking. "Rest assured, Noct", he patronizes, "That light of yours will be snuffed out…", he promises.

Before Noctis could demand an answer, Prompto yells out "heartless" and made him turn around to see a horde of shadows fluttering in the air like flocks of birds. Not only that but more and more of those heartless were coming from all over the place, gathering up around Ardyn. A dark corridor opens before him and as he enters it, he says: "Farewell, guardians".

With him gone, the heartless all gathered up into that spot, creating a large hurricane as more and more flocks were being absorbed by the hurricane. A ring of wind gathered around it as the hurricane grows so tall it rivaled the size of the skyscraper in the old nobody world, the darkness unimaginably powerful and the power from it could rival the most powerful heartless from the dark realm.

"You have got to be kidding…", Axel said, staring at it, "How the hell are we supposed to beat that?".

"There's gotta be…thousands of them…maybe even millions", Mickey gasped.

Sora stares at it tensely, grabbing his keyblade tightly as he realized that this was Xehanort's most powerful backup plan. Wear them down with the first batch, then wipe them out with a hurricane consisting nothing but heartless. If they get sucked in, there could be no chances of their hearts surviving it, not even Kairi's possibly. No wonder that old man was so confident in there is no clash between them, not with something like this at his disposal.

He glances back at the others, everyone either looking uncertain about their chances at winning or holding on to that small glimmer of hope that by some miracle they will survive this. The boy turned back to the hurricane just when Noctis stood beside him, looking at the hurricane pensively. "Sora, if you've got any more surprises up your sleeves…now's the time to dish them out", Noctis says. "I…don't have anything for this one…", Sora confesses weakly. Noctis in response chuckled weakly, his confidence steadily decreasing with each passing moment.

Behind them, Kairi bites her lip in contemplation, wondering if she used that "Holy" spell again, maybe she could bring it down a peg for the others. She turns to Aqua to ask for aid but sees her master's face had taken on a look of utter disbelief and despair. Her lips mouthed to utter a silent "no", her hand lowered as if she had seen the end times. The princess looked to see what was disturbing her master, and then her eyes widened in shock.

Swimming in the eye like sharks, gathering up is a flock of Anti-Aquas.

"Guys…", Kairi gasps. The rest of the party looked towards the princess' gaze and each held a similar reaction to Kairi and Aqua, excluding Gladiolus. His eyes narrowed darkly as he jaw tightened with rage. "Oh…great…", Axel groaned, "Hurricane of heartless and evil Aqua…what's next, a tsunami of evil Kairi? A thunderstorm of evil Noct!?".

"Don't jinx us!", Prompto complained.

The flock of Aqua charged toward the master, intending to rip her heart from her body. The first light will be snuffed out. "Move!", Mickey ordered as the party splits off. All but Aqua, however, standing there, shellshocked.

"AQUA!", cried Ventus.

The master's shocked state broke from the heartfelt cry, freeing her. As the flock got closer, she bared her teeth and raises her keyblade to strike back. With a cry as her keyblade bathed in magical light, she swings the keyblade down before her, firing a magical blade-shaped wave that sped towards the flock. All were ripped asunder like paper, their bodies disappearing like a shadow heartless as the attack clears the path before her.

The others all gathered in the air, staring down at the master with malicious glares despite the void emptiness in their golden eyes. Aqua raised her keyblade at them, challenging them to fight her will. "If you think I'll bend knee now just because there's more of you, then you're in for a very rude awakening!", she proudly proclaimed. The flock snarled at her and raced towards the master, only to be intervened by Gladiolus with a roar and a swing of his sword.

He cleaves through the flock while breaking the earth beneath him, sending cracks across the dried and dead ground. The flock of heartless tried overpowering him, but the shield's raw power and speed aren't just overpowering them, but their fragile forms were a guaranteed kill for him. When he sliced three down, they floated before the two, unwilling to risk combating the shield's rage and master's determination.

Gladiolus glanced back to Aqua and says: "I wasn't strong enough the first time I saw those wannabes…this time, I'll keep you safe". She gave him a light scoff as she joined his side. "Appreciate the sentiment, but if I can beat a stronger version of her on my own, these fakes won't be any different", she says. Aqua then gave him a soft but grateful smile in response to his words though. "But thanks for the offer".

Gladiolus rolled his eyes and muttered: "So much for being a gentleman".

Their banter was interrupted by tendrils of heartless breaking off from the hurricane and fluttering into the skies, surrounding the guardians. A flock flies towards them, Riku quickly stepping and striking them with the same technique he used with Prompto earlier to hold back the horde. He grunted with exertion when the flock refused to die out, pushing him back and more just infused with the flock to replace the ones his attack killed off.

Prompto calls for his gatling gun to hap hazardously fire at the flocks in the skies while Ignis and Donald used magic to try and pick them off while Mickey and Ventus took to striking them with their keyblades.

When Riku's attack sadly wore out, he was grabbed by the horde and taken to the skies. Not going unseen by Kairi, who quickly called for Goofy to for a boost. The captain heled his shield over his head as Kairi jumped and lands on it. Goofy then launched him and her off the ground as if his feet had turned into rockets, launching them both into the air. Kairi then leaps off his shield and lands on top of the horde of shadows, then she runs along with them while slashing and cutting them down on her way to Riku.

Even as the shadows tried to claw her and grab her legs, Kairi's march went unhindered as he divine weapon cut down their numbers on her quest to rescue her best friend. Managing to reach him before he was consumed by the darkness while going down fighting, she grabbed his hand and aims her keyblade at the "head" of the horde and fires off a burst of light the breaks Riku free from their grip. They both leap off the horde and sky-dive back down to the group, the heartless chasing them from above.

"Heads up!", calls Axel.

Two roaring flaming discs race between Riku and Kairi and detonated in a fiery explosion upon hitting the flock of heartless. The explosion consumed them all in flames just as the two masters land on their feet and re-join Goofy and Axel. With quick thanks given, they called their weapons as more flocks began to swarm around them. Riku grunts out a curse to the numerous numbers of the dark beings while Kairi's grip on her keyblade tightens, wondering just how many more miracles they could pull off before their bad luck would catch up on them.

Sora and Noctis stood back to back as the flock of heartless surrounded them, they would strike back them but for each they slay, more would just take their place. Sora could not even call for that roller coaster attack again, that one for whatever reason only came to him when it felt like it. With the number of times he could have used it in real pinches, their journey would have been far more forgiving.

"This is never going to end…", Noctis growls after a swing, "We can't fight all of them like this!". "But what else can we do?", Sora asks, bringing down four shadows. That is when he took another look at the storm, a memory of his awakening. "Noct…the hurricane…". The king glanced back at the storm then to Sora again with a: "What about it?". "Aqua said in the realm of darkness when she fought a demon tide like this, there was a core thingy within it! When she destroyed it, the tide broke apart!", he explains.

"So, what you're guessing is that hurricane is just like it? That its weak spot is inside it!?", Noctis questions, firing one of his Royal Arms at the flocks. "Pretty much!", Sora affirmed. The two looked at the hurricane, dawning on the fact they only way through would be ripping into the wall of shadows protecting it. Even Sora alone can't break through it, but with Noctis, the boy believed they would be more than enough to break it down.

But it could also mean they would perish during the assault.

At that thought of losing their hearts, it only took one potentially final glimpse at their friends fighting against the darkness for them to decide. Sora looked at his king with a face that said he was ready for this, and this close friend nods in agreement. "You sure?", asked the king. "Without a doubt", answers Sora. Noctis smirked and scoffs at the stupid question of his, both turning to the hurricane. "Then let's go!".

They broke through the flocks surrounding them and raced towards the hurricane. Aqua finishes off another Anti version of herself and sees Sora and Noctis rushing towards the hurricane. Her eyes widened in horror, realizing what they were planning. "SORA, NOCT NO!", she cried. She started to strike down more of her Anti versions in a desperate attempt to stop their sacrifice, yet the false imitations of her refused to give her a chance to save them.

Her cries reached the others, and many tried to follow and stop them, but like their companion, they were all barred and halted by the flocks. Kairi and Gladiolus being the most desperate to protect them, the shield practically calling the shadows every curse under the sun while like a wild beast ripping and tearing them apart as Kairi became a wrathful being of light.

The two reached the closing distance of the hurricane as the wind almost sucked into the hurricane as more towers tried to grab them. Both keyblade wielders stood together as the darkness blocks off any attempts of an escape or rescue on the other's part, cutting them off entirely. Together Sora and Noctis raise their keyblades as they both glowed in the light, the king in his usual blue crystal while Sora in a gentle heavenly glow.

Their light combined into a tower that reached above the wall cutting them off, like a beacon in the depths of shadows before their powers combined.

"NOCTIS!", cries Sora.

"BEHOLD THE POWER OF LIGHT!", roared his majesty.

A force of divine light tears the wall surrounding them and even eradicated the flocks and towers around them as they levitated above the ground, bathing in their respective lights while Noctis was surrounded by his Royal Arms and Sora with all his keyblades he gained from his third journey. Together they dived into the hurricane, breaking through the wall and right into the eye of the storm itself.

In the center with their weapons rotating around them as the heartless gathered around them, neither showing any fear that this could be their final contribution to the battle, only searching for the core. "Guess we'll have to do some extra work for it to come out", growls Noctis as his weapons rotated faster around him. "Looks like it", Sora agrees.

The heartless all charged towards the two warriors of light, immediately Sora and Noctis held their ground by allowing their weapons to fly around and strike at the shadows.

Explosions of blue and gold covered the air as they used their main keys and sword in Noctis' case to slay the heartless coming closer to them or slipping by their weapons. Together in the air, they rotate themselves to cleave, cut, slice, and eviscerate beings of the darkness. In the hurricane where the darkness was suffocating them and even feel the clawing on their hearts, they levitated in the air strong and resilient to the heartless.

Thoughts of their companions still struggling outside filled them with determination and will to go on, unrelenting their attacks on the darkness. Invisibles formed in the walls of the hurricane and rushed toward them, earning the king of light's wrath as he grabbed Ultimate Blade and vanished in blue light. He appears in several places at once, striking at each invisible with his sword and destroying them in single strokes of his kingly blade.

Sora, far more verse with flying than his royal companion, darts across the hurricane, and using his new abilities granted to him by the king fires his keyblades at each heartless that tried to hit him with either physical or magical attacks. Dashing and moving so fast it is as if he were teleporting, no heartless could even comprehend how he was moving at such speeds as he eradicated them. The boy looked down to see gazing up as it arose from the pits of the hurricane was a darkside, reaching for him.

Gazing at the long-time adversary of his, Sora grabbed his Ultima weapon in one hand and calls for Kingdom Key, crosses them both over his chest. As his body is cloaked in a golden aura, Sora yells and dives towards the darkside as it starts to stand on its bendy legs. The darkside swings a punch to the child of light as Sora crossed his keyblade over each over and opens them up. His attack destroys the hand as he speeds right past the darkside.

As Sora flies back up to re-join Noctis, the darkside is sliced in so many parts it explodes.

Back together, Sora and Noctis stare down at the heartless that still surrounded them, sensing their efforts were starting to show as the stronger heartless started to populate the walls of the hurricane. Their defenses tightened up only granted the two confidence their valiant deeds are bearing good hopes for their friends on the outside.

"We can do this!", exclaims Sora.

"We'll destroy you all!", cried Noctis.

Thousands of heartless charged towards the boys as their weapons in crystal light began to wildly thrash around them and create a dome to protect the two. While their crystal weapons shielded them, the two fired barrages of light-based rays at the heartless while spinning on the spot, effectively turning themselves into a small vortex of power.

The joint attack kept heartless from reaching them, yet even with the hurricane's shields waning the boys' light and power were slowly evaporating from their excessive amount of power usage. Between using their combined strengths to destroy the heartless and using the light to stay off the darkness from leeching off their hearts, it would not be much longer before they would be at the mercy of the darkness.

Both knew this and yet they refused to let up. Especially now when Sora called out that their final bastion had revealed itself to them, a true darkside. Larger than any other Sora had ever encountered, with red twisted tentacles around its face, violet arms, and its body cloaked in a dark violet aura.

The two boys stared at it as their bodies and hearts reached their limits, their last push.

Together their lights glowed and joined as one while their weapons all were drawn into their keyblades, even Noctis' Ultima Blade. They held their keyblades in both hands as their auras went crazy like wildfire, keyblades covered in their light's colors as they extended and widened into large swords.

They both yelled as they propelled themselves to the darkside and its charging fist. They collided with it with enough force that it shook the hurricane itself, breaking apart its windy walls and even demolished some of the heartless within them. The two lights against the violet darkness fist, Sora and Noctis roared as their aura extend and went more blazing.

They break through the fist and eradicated it, like arrows charging towards the head of the darkside.

"ITS OVER!", Sora proclaims.

"YOU'RE FINISHED!", roars Noctis.

Together with perfect synergy, the boys of light swing their weapons downwards and destroyed the darkside bastion, the body is torn asunder by the light of the king and master, dozens of heartless died from the outburst of the attack and some of the walls were beginning to break apart with large gaps within them, which would have allowed Sora and Noctis to escape…

As the bastion vanished into oblivion, the core Sora had been talking about had finally appeared before them, a dark reddish-orange and black ball that practically oozes the darkness. However, even right before them, Sora and Noctis' bodies have lost their powers, their auras fading out and keyblades disappearing from their hands, they levitating in the air as they slumped while they were slowly being surrounded by the heartless.

Noctis couldn't even warp himself and Sora to safety.

As they clawed hands grabbed onto them, the two were suddenly yanked from the heartless. Held by the collars of their jackets as they were pulled out of the hurricane through one of the small gaps, free from the suffocating darkness.

Sora weakly glanced to see Kairi in her armor and glider piloted by Ventus, flying to the group. The moment the glider was just a few inches above the ground, Sora and Noctis were taken by Ignis and Riku and lifted further away from the hurricane, the master yelling to Aqua. The two glanced to see Donald and Aqua both glowing in white light, magic rising while Prompto called for his bazooka and takes aim.

He fired one rocket at the hurricane, the wall destroyed in a fiery explosion and exposes the core. "DO IT!", cried Prompto.

Together, Aqua and Donald aimed their weapons as their magical potency had reached its full power.

"ZETTA FLARE/NEO ULTIMA!", they both exclaimed at once.

From the tips of their weapons, Donald fires a large beam of white with red outlining the beam while Aqua's beam is dark-greenish. Their beams struck the core with a shockwave the shakes the ground and impact could be felt from the party themselves, the large stone mountains behind them even cracked and began to break apart from the joint magical attack. The core struggles against the powerful magic before slowly but without a doubt, the beams begin to pierce through the blackened core.

The beams rocketed through it and into the sky as the hurricane falls apart with heartless either fading away to the dark realm or become nothing but ashes from the beams intense heat.

When the dust clouds passed, the remaining standing party stared in awe at the destructive power the two magic users displayed, the hurricane had been completely wiped from the face of this world. None could sense the heartless or even traces of the darkness from it. By some divine miracle, they had survived.

Aqua and Donald's bodies lost their light from their magical attacks, dropped their weapons, and collapsed. Donald falls face-first into the ground while Aqua falls to her knees, wiped clean of energy and stamina, but luckily they were still conscious. All the training to use even a tiny grain of their mana to maintain consciousness had paid off in the end. They were quickly checked by Gladiolus and Mickey, the shield fussing over her.

"Damn it, Blue…", he grunts, helping her stand on her feet by letting her lean on him. With a weak and weary giggle, she looks at him with a winning smile. "It worked…didn't it?", she asks. He pecks her forehead, muttering a "yeah" as Mickey loans Donald some of his magic to recuperate some of his magic. The duck pants and shakily stands but gave his long-time lord a thumbs up to assure him he wouldn't have to worry about him collapsing again.

With the two keyblade users, Kairi was already using her magic to help restore them and using her pure light to cleanse any traces of the darkness that clings to their hearts. All the while chastising Sora.

"You are an absolute reckless dummy!", she chastises, pouting at him as he gave her a sheepish smile. "You couldn't have just waited, or better yet TELL us what your plan is?". Sora rubbed his neck while Noctis snickered at the younger boy, happy the princess is more concerned about him to lecture him about personal preservation. That is until she snapped at Noctis and says: "Oh don't think you're off the hook, wait till Luna hears about this!".

And suddenly the king almost wishes he did perish…

"If I told you what we were gonna do, you would have stopped us…", Sora argued with his smile still gracing the girl. "No excuses!".

While their friends tend to the weakened and weary with spirits lighter, Riku himself could not help but smile at them. Until his eyes glanced to were once their doom stood, and suddenly all the cheer from this victory is drained as the smile on his face takes on a look of shock before anger takes over. Ignis looks and sees a figure within the cloud of dust dancing on the field, but senses darkness from it, likely another member of Xehanort's vessels.

"Everyone, we're about to have company", he warns.

All heads turned, but before the winded party could partake, Goofy immediately stands in front of Kairi while she quickly resumes healing the boys while Gladiolus hands over Aqua to Ventus and calls his shield. The rest of the guardians stepped up quickly, weapons drawn.

Strutting up to the guardians with his sword casually laying on his shoulder, a cocky, even arrogant, smile plastered on his young face is to the shock of almost everyone is Riku. Except younger wearing a dark and twisted suit of clothing that screamed the darkness. The silver-haired master's eyes darkened as he sees his greatest moment of weakness come back to mock him, smirking at the others.

"Well, well…three keyblade wielders down already?", he mocks, "I guess overestimated you guys". He aimed his sword at the downed Sora and Noctis, grinning. "Can't believe you of all people were made a master, when you're needed most you STILL end up being dead weight".

A loud bang boomed across the field and Dark Riku felt a sting across his cheek. He blinked and cheeked his cheek to see his dark violet blood leaking from him, and with a snarl turned to see Prompto with his gun aimed at him, smoke slithering from the barrel. "Big talk from over there, wanna come over and say it?", he asks, "Or just keep standing still, pretty sure super powered up or not, you won't walk away from a headshot".

Dark Riku gives the gunner a murderous look before he laughed darkly. "Ha, cute! Hope you enjoyed that moment because here is where you're all going to hell!", he proclaims. He growls as darkness manifests around him, slowly his dark shadow turns into a torso of a humanoid heartless with bright yellow eyes. It loomed over the party for a moment before it suddenly raises into the skies and like their first bout, rains down heartless upon them.

"AGAIN WITH THIS!?", Axel shouts, "How many of these things do you guys have!?".

Dark Riku laughed at the looks on the team before he re-joins the other members of the darkness, leaving the party to be consumed by the heartless. Nearly in an instant, the battlefield is covered in heartless as the day darkens, with the violet and dark blue walls blocking out the light and trapping the gang.

"Iggy, idea please!", Prompto begged.

"Form up, protect the others!", instructs Ignis.

Quickly the ones still standing formed a circle around the downed members while their guardians kept close. As more and more shadows started to form up around the guardians, they see numerous versions of the heartless were starting to appear among them. To Sora's horror, he was staring down every single heartless he, Donald, Goofy, heck EVERYONE had ever faced and slain. Big to small, powerful warriors to lethal mages and trickiest creatures he's ever crossed paths with, and one stood out as a new but potentially more powerful than them all.

Dark Inferno.

The heartless is a large, muscular, humanoid figure with a large, heart-shaped hole in its chest, like the invisibles. Raised portions and ridges on its black skin give it an armored appearance. Large, spiked horns on the sides of its head, and two more rising from its forehead which forms the shape of a heart; all four horns fade from black to red to yellow, giving them the appearance of heated metal.

Its tail ends in a bladed fin with a diamond-shaped hole through it. Its two-toed, clawed feet stand upon swirling vortexes of white energy, has undersized, purple bat-like wings on its shoulders and dull purple tendrils wrapped around its throat like a scarf, which drapes down on either side of its "heart."

It also has tendrils wrapped around each wrist, which fade to the same burning yellow color as its horns. In each hand, it holds a large blue sword with hook-like extensions near the tip and an exaggerated gold hilt with a knuckle bow.

From his spot, Sora could feel its monstrous power and feared it'd take almost four of them together to even stand a chance against it.

"This is cheating!", Prompto curses as he shoots one soldier, "How the hell are we supposed to deal with all this AND still fight Xehanort!?".

"Stop complaining and keep killing!", bellowed Gladiolus as he guards against a large body's body slam.

But Prompto's question did leave the group in a state of worry and fear. This is the third bout with an army, three keyblade wielders down and many of the guardians were getting closer to exhaustion. The numerous variety of heartless is staggering and too much for them, many of them range from being super being levels of strong. Even if they could manage to survive, how many would even have the strength to take on Xehanort and his vessels? And who is to say he did not have back up plans for it?

Sora looked to Kairi for encouragement, yet instead of seeing the worry dancing in his eyes, the girl was staring at him with acceptance, and fear is nowhere to be seen. He feels his strength return as Noctis stands up and called his sword with Aqua joining Gladiolus' side. She outstretches her hand to him and asks him with her eyes to join her on this journey, to see the end of this battle with her and their friends.

He looked at her hand before shoving his worries into the corner and takes her hand, letting her lift not just him back to his feet but his spirits up. As the thirteen gathered in a circle together, weapons out and striking any oncoming heartless, plans were being discussed.

"I can use Ultima again, maybe clear the area and someone could do something similar?", Aqua suggests as she repelled a neo-shadow. "And have you too tired to fight? Can't have that!", Ignis says, "Sora, do you happen to have any summons or by god more of those rides?".

"Nothing that'll clear all this!", reveals Sora. "Prompto? Don't suppose Cindy gave you a nuke for an arm?", Noctis asks as he shields the party with crystal barriers. "Sorry, buddy! We didn't get to that stage of development!", replied Prompto.

While the party still argued for plans, Kairi's eyes caught something shining above them and glanced up. A beautiful golden ball of light pierced the dark clouds and dives to the ground. "Everyone!", Kairi exclaims.

All eyes look to the dive bomb as it landed a few feet in front of the guardians of light, and when the shining light fades, to their surprise their saviors are none other than Yen Sid, and Lunafreya.

With a huff, Yen Sid raises his hand as they shined with a powerful light, and with an exclamation, he fires off a wave of light that repelled the heartless. The light formed a large circle around the guardians and created a pathway leading into the battleground where Xehanort and the others awaited.

"Go forth, champions of light", commands the old master. "We shall buy you as much time as we possibly can".

Noctis looks at Lunafreya, eyes glowing with concern at the words the master spoke. Even with two of them alone, there is no chance they could fend off this many heartless. "But master, you can't stop them just with the two of you!", Mickey said, pleadingly. Then Lunafreya smiled at her guardians and shakes her head. "You all have done enough, it is time for the worlds to defend their futures", she says warmly.

She then turns to the pathway and grabbed her trident with both hands and stabbed the prongs into the ground. Divine light shines from her as they hear her chanting in an unknown tongue, but the light she used felt different to Kairi's. Suddenly the guardians sensed more light coming from behind them, familiar ones too.

When they turned around to the back, they saw a large corridor of light shining behind. Before they could ask, suddenly warriors leaped out of the corridor just as Yen Sid lowered the walls to allow the heartless through. A gunshot was made accompanied by steel brandished on heartless foes, the sounds of punches landing on them and they saw shurikens flying around the area.

More heroes ran out of the corridor and started to wage war on the heartless.

The Radiant Garden Restoration Community.

Sora sees Leon slicing through the vast army of heartless, Yuffie disappearing and throwing her ninja stars at them, Tifa pummelling them all into a paste. Even Cid came out with a spear in hand, yelling profanities and destroy the heartless while the Gullwings jumped out and lend a hand to the defenders. Before anyone could ask, the guardians of light were suddenly cloaked in green tendrils and felt their strengths replenish. Exiting the portal is Zack and Aerith, the latter with a staff in hand and waved at the team.

The guardians looked to Lunafreya, who was sporting a cheeky smile. "I thought you could use some assistance", she mused, "And considering they know of other worlds, I'm not breaking any rules".

Never has Noctis ever wanted to kiss a woman so badly before.

The victorious joy of seeing their allies finally lend a hand to them is short-lived when the Dark Inferno breaks through Yen Sid's barrier and rushes towards the Oracle. Only to be stopped by a lone warrior who halts its rampage by brandishing his massive sword onto its twin blades. The Dark Inferno retreats from the warrior, now standing up and laying his buster sword on his back.

Cloud glances back to Sora over his shoulder. "Go. We got this"; he instructs. Before Sora could argue, Cloud turns back to the Dark Inferno and dashes towards it, bringing the battle to the air.

Seeing everyone fighting for them, and with their path cleared, Sora nods and rushes down the path, his friends by his side. As they rush onwards, the Oracle performs a prayer for them, her heart full of faith for their success.

*Nearing the Battleground*

Quickly the group raced to the final battle, hearts invigorated by the sight of their friends and hopes renewed at an all-time high. With Kairi alongside him, Sora kept his eyes ahead of him as they see the crossroads.

However, they would not make it there. As they neared the end, suddenly walls of stone rose from the ground. They stopped running as walls began to surround them all, some yelled in surprise. Then a wall erects itself between Sora and Kairi, cutting them off just as a tower of heartless surprised the boy and quickly grabbed him. Taken from his friends and to the air, Sora heard his name being called out by the others.

Noctis shouted for him before he warps strikes to the tower to rescue him. But in doing so when he reappears before the boy, he was tackled by another tower and separated from his friend once again. More walls began to form and rise around the guardians, the towers of heartless attacking and splitting the party up like chess pieces being put on certain spots of the board.

When he finally managed to wake up from being presumably knocked out, Noctis groans and pushes himself off the ground and shook his head. "Son of a…", he starts before his eyes drink in his new location. Towering over the king are walls that reached the skies, only a single path laid bare before him, and worst of all, he was alone.

He calls for the others but hears nothing bar his voice bouncing off the walls of this maze. When he stands on his feet, he worriedly deduced this was another plan from the old man to try and break the morale of the party, and what better way to harm a group like theirs than to keep them away from their friends? Noctis curses Xehanort's name and runs down the corridor of the maze, deciding that standing idly by will not bring him closer to his friends.

On the other side of the king is Sora running down his corridor, having just woken up sooner than his king and immediately springing into action. He feared Xehanort's plan of separating the gang is more than to induce solitude and isolation, but also to try and pick them off one by one without substantial aid from the stronger guardians.

Just thinking of Kairi on her own against someone like Xemnas, Ansem, or Young Xehanort with another member of the darkness had put him on edge. He races down the corridor at the same time as his king, both unaware of their coordinated race as they came to their paths. For Noctis he sees Riku and Ignis fending off against Xigbar, that false Riku and Ansem, while on Sora's end he sees Mickey, Donald, and Goofy going toe-to-toe with Marluxia, Larxene, Luxord AND Xemnas all at once.

They both raced towards their friends.

The clash between the thirteen guardians of light vs the thirteen darkness has begun.

A/N:

I AM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LONG!

Meaty chapter, first part of the Keyblade Graveyard is done, (THANK GOD!) and…yeah a lot of changes.

So, the first change is obviously there is no time travel here, explained later in future Author's Notes but simplified: I hated it. Not because it killed the party (my heart says otherwise but ya know) but because it just felt like an excuse for Sora to be Jesus. I know story wise it held a lot of significance but that is just me. But worry not, Sora will still have to use the Power of Waking. You will see!

Now I probably know what you people want but for fun, you get to choose whose fight goes first, Sora or Noctis. Let me know what you want in your reviews and the most wanted will have their fight done.

Before my questions, massive thanks to people!

Michael Chen for the idea of Ardyn getting a keyblade, it'll be a fun experience.

Jikker-Jack for the Ravus idea of becoming a nobody and helping expand on the idea, massive help!

VashTheStampede0409 for pretty much helping out a lot and the idea of the RC members coming to help. Originally we wanted to do something akin to the Avengers Endgame with all the Disney characters Sora has met…but that be a nightmare to do so…yeah.

Enough of my ramblings, QUESTIONS!

Q1: Thoughts on this chapter

Q2: Did you like the fights?

Q3: Hate me for the changes?

Q4: Thoughts on Ravus' nobody?

Q5: Prompto's new arm add-on?

Q6: How are you liking this arc?

Q7: What are most excited for in this one?

Q8: Do you want these chapters to be shorter in future?

As always everyone, thanks for reading! Stay awesome but more importantly stay safe!