The Time Break Saga 3D: Asleep at Dawn

by The Unplanner

Organization XIII was defeated, Kingdom Hearts was destroyed, and the Time Breaks are all closed, but it's too early to celebrate. Unfortunately, it's also to early to send the newest Keyblade wielders off to war. Can Kairi, Lambda, and Xion stop tripping over each other's weapons in time to stop the Keyblade War?

3. Sleep In

Asleep at Dawn

Chapter 3: Sleep In

-"Don't Bother With the Smaller Enemies..."-

A/N: Chapter 3 is pretty late again. Blank page anxiety, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again...

The Training Worlds each have a unique gimmick to keep the girls on their toes. Midnight Town's gimmick is a simple one: it's a really, really big world. So big, in fact, that clearing it will take multiple chapters.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Midnight Town: Shopping Square...

The girls opened their eyes in the first Training World. Lambda summed it up: "When I saw the name of the world was 'Midnight Town', I expected more buildings."

The Shopping Square was little more than a circle of tents huddled around a glowing safe zone. Beyond the glow of the green circle, there were only ruins as far as the eye could see, which wasn't very far. A full moon lit up the starry sky overhead, but the whole world was otherwise shrouded in perpetual night.

A few people in ragged clothes wandered around the tents. Kairi went up to a nice-looking brunette lady and asked, "Excuse me, we're new here. Can you point us toward a big Heartless?"

Xion facepalmed at Kairi's lack of tact, but the lady's response was even weirder. "Welcome to Midnight Town! Not much here at the moment, sorry."

Kairi insisted, "But there must at least be Heartless around. You know, the scary monsters with glowing yellow eyes?"

"Welcome to Midnight Town! Not much here at the moment, sorry."

"..." All three girls just stood there for a moment and stared as the nameless lady walked around in a circle. Once she wandered back to where Kairi was, she said again, "Welcome to Midnight Town! Not much here at the moment, sorry."

"...Well, thanks anyway!" Kairi hurried back to the rest of her party. "I guess we're on our own."

Namine pointed out, "Roxas did write that the people here wouldn't have much to say..."

"I'll scan for Heartless," Lambda volunteered. "...Whoa. This world is a lot bigger than the ones I've seen before! There are lots of groups of Heartless in basically every direction."

"Let's start by clearing each group. Eenie, meenie, miney...this way!" Xion pointed in a random direction and started walking.

"I can find this place again, so no worries about getting lost," Lambda added as everyone followed Xion out of the square.

"I hope we don't have to just clear out Heartless one by one until we find the group with the boss in it..." Kairi groaned.

"The 'boss'?" Lambda asked. "Heartless don't normally order each other around."

Kairi elaborated, "You know, like a video game. At the end of the level, there's always a big, strong enemy to beat, and then you move on to the next level."

"...You play video games?" Xion asked after a moment.

"It was the closest thing I could get to going on an adventure like Sora does, okay?" Kairi huffed.

"Well, if it prepared you for the sort of test we're going through now, then I say good for you," Lambda appeased.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Midnight Town: Ruined Alleyways...

Defeat all of the Heartless!

By now, the girls had left the Shopping Square far behind. Ruined buildings loomed on either side of the street they were following, but every door was blocked by rubble. Without a light source, it was hard to see much of their surroundings...but the eyes of a dozen Shadows stood out like streetlamps.

Kairi summoned Destiny's Embrace and ran in swinging, taking out three Shadows in the first lunge. "This is easy enough."

Xion tried to summon a Keyblade - any Keyblade - but it didn't appear, so she summoned her Ouroboros jaw-sword instead. "This will have to do for now." The large, unwieldy weapon was slow to swing, but it had enough reach to keep four of the Heartless at bay with horizontal swings. She then brought it down vertically and pulled a lever on the hilt, causing the scary jaws at the tip of the weapon to bite at a fifth Shadow.

Lambda summoned Elysium and took a few swings of her own, but unlike Kairi, it took her more than one swing to finish off one Shadow. Frustrated, she gripped the Keyblade in both hands and swung with all her might at one of the last three Heartless, but it flattened itself against the ground and slipped behind her. Meanwhile, the momentum of the swing kept the Keyblade moving, and Lambda lost her balance. When she looked up from the ground, the pesky Shadow had resurfaced and was in the middle of pouncing...

Kairi cut the monster out of the air. "Be careful, Lambda!"

Xion finished off the last two Shadows, then offered Lambda a hand to stand up. "Are you okay?"

Lambda accepted the help, then dusted off her dress. "I'm fine, but that was so embarrassing."

"It looks like you need this training the most," Namine spoke up.

"I thought I knew my way around swords, but I guess not," Lambda admitted. "I've never actually held a weapon in my hands before...but maybe it's not just that. In the weird Keyblade worthiness dream sequence I had back at the Altar of Naught, I took the staff and gave up the sword. The weird voice called it 'The Power of the Mystic. Inner strength. A staff of wonder and ruin'. What does it mean?"

Kairi considered this information for a moment, then replied, "...I have no clue what you're talking about."

Lambda asked, "Didn't either of you have a weird dream where you were standing on a pillar made of stained glass?"

That actually rang a bell for Xion. "Sora did! It was a day before the Destiny Islands were destroyed. Kairi called him a lazy bum when he woke up, but he was really freaked out."

"...How do you know all that?" Kairi asked suspiciously.

Xion hesitated; this was a complicated story, but she didn't see any way out of telling it. "You know how I was created as a Replica of Roxas?"

Kairi remembered Xion saying that at one point, but that didn't mean she understood anything about it. "I think my brain shorted out the last time you explained this."

"Maybe I can explain," Namine interjected. "I'll start with my part in it. I have power over memories. Sora's memories, specifically, and those of people connected to him. At one point, Organization XIII coerced me into taking Sora's memories apart. That's why everyone forgot him for a while, remember that?"

"Oh yeah, I remember! I was the only one who even remembered there was another boy who left the Islands besides Riku."

"Sora had to go to sleep in a pod for a while while I fixed his memory. But while he was sleeping, Organization XIII had Xion going around with a fake Keyblade, and she started accidentally gathering up the lost memories, so Sora couldn't wake up."

"It was...a bad time for all of us," Xion picked up the story.

"Understatement," Lambda interrupted.

"At least that mess has all been sorted out," Xion continued, "but I do still have Sora's memories all neatly organized in my head. Or copies of them, anyway. I remember everything that he knew up to the point where Roxas and I were separated from him again. So if you want to know what Sora was up to for the last year, just ask."

Kairi nodded. "Weird...but convenient! Okay, Xion. So, as you were saying about that dream?"

Namine was the one who answered, "It can't be a coincidence. Not when Roxas ended up in the same dream while he was under attack by Nobodies. His version was a little different, though; he only had to pick a weapon, not give one up."

"Xion, do you remember which weapons Sora picked?" Lambda asked curiously.

Xion replied, "He picked the shield, and gave up the sword. I remember he was really frustrated, trying to whack Heartless with a shield, but he stuck with his choice: 'The Power of the Guardian. Kindness to aid friends. A shield to repel all.'"

"I was watching Roxas in the dream, and he picked the sword: 'The Power of the Warrior. Invincible courage. A sword of terrible destruction.' Maybe that means Sora has all three now?"

"But what do they all mean?" Lambda wondered.

"Well, the sword and staff seem pretty self-explanatory to me," Kairi pointed out. "Combat or magic; whichever one you picked should be easier, and the one you gave up should be harder. I can feel the Keyblade helping me swing it sometimes; maybe it's working against you instead because you gave up the sword."

"But, Kairi, you never had the dream, so which one did you get? All three?"

Kairi shrugged. "I'd be fine with that. Riku just handed me a Keyblade he picked up from somewhere; whatever process was supposed to happen, I totally skipped it."

Lambda groaned. "So in summary, I'll always be at a disadvantage unless I learn how to use magic? That's no good. Magic in this universe is still a total mystery to me."

"And what's the Power of the Guardian?" Xion added.

"It probably boosts support and non-combat abilities, like Sora's Dodge Roll thing," Lambda guessed. "But further discussion will have to wait." She pointed out another group of Heartless that were trying to sneak up on them. Fortunately, the Shadows' eyes still glowed while they were flattened. "Let me try this again, and if I screw up, bail me out, okay?"

After getting nods from the other two, Lambda ran into battle. This time she made sure not to overextend herself with her swings, but she found that she was too slow to block when three Shadows pounced at once.

Xion blasted through the group with Sonic Blade (a speedy air-to-ground lunge attack using her sword and wings of the same name) ending the battle before it could get out of hand. "Even without the Keyblade, I can hold my own just fine!"

Lambda held her side where a Shadow had managed to nick her. Even if they were illusions, these monsters certainly hurt like the real deal...but oddly, the Heartless' claws didn't damage her clothes or break her skin. "Thanks, Xion. I'm sorry if I end up holding us all back."

"No need to apologize. Actually, if I have to bail you out of deep enough trouble, maybe my Keyblade will appear!" Xion joked.

Lambda rolled her eyes. "I hope it doesn't come to that, but I've got to figure out magic before I can really fight. Namine, do you know anything that could help?"

"Well, there's my Panel Grid, but you shouldn't need to rely on that. Sora certainly learned how to use magic, but he's not here to share what he learned. Come to think of it, this would be a perfect job for Merlin. How is Merlin supposed to train us in anything if he's not here?"

Kairi asked, "Namine, you have power over the memories of people connected to Sora, right? What can you do with those powers?"

Namine explained, "Why are you asking now? Anyway, I can read people's memories, disassociate some memories from others so they're forgotten, create fake memories, and even transform objects that hold significance to Sora, like erasing Jiminy's Journal or turning your promise charm into a different shape, since those are like physical memories. And I can do all of this without the victim ever realizing I tampered with their heart. What I can't do is actually destroy a person's real memories; any little reminder would eventually undo any changes I made. By the way, all of us are connected to Sora. If Lambda wasn't at first, she certainly is now that she pulled Xion and Roxas out of him. But I'm not going to meddle with your memories ever again."

Kairi yelled, "You messed with my promise charm?! ...No, I know you spent all year atoning for that. I certainly don't have a reason to get jealous of you as you are now." Kairi breathed out and calmed down. "Anyway, can you copy memories from one person to another? If you can do that, you can give Lambda a starting point to learn magic."

"That's...I actually can! Here it goes, Lambda; I'll try to draw your attention to the new memories, so just try to relax. Do I have your permission? I did just promise not to meddle with your memories, but..."

Lambda smiled and nodded. "Go ahead."

Unexpectedly, Namine's transparent image manifested next to Kairi, sitting cross-legged on the ground and hunched over her sketchbook. She didn't seem to notice that she'd manifested, engrossed as she was in her task.

As Namine sketched twin crayon drawings of Sora and Lambda shooting a Fire spell on facing pages of the book, Lambda felt an intense sensation of pressure on her skull. "Ow, that hurts! No, I have to relax...and remember..." The pressure suddenly disappeared, leaving Lambda with a burst of inspiration. "I get it! It worked! Thanks, Namine!" Lambda tried to hug Namine, but ended up falling through her. "...Oops."

"Tee hee! You're welcome. And thank you, Kairi, for finding a use for my power that doesn't make me feel like a monster. I feel like a whole new person!"Namine's projection vanished with a smile.

"I think I understand how to cast Fire now, so now I've got to practice. Let's scan for some Heartless...found one!" Lambda pointed her Keyblade at a small pile of rubble and called, "Fire!" A ball of flames shot from the tip of Elysium and homed in on the pile...or rather, on the Soldier Heartless hiding behind it. The fireball burst into a small explosion that scattered the rubble and revealed the monster, which jumped up as though startled, then started running at the girls with a weird gait between prancing and waddling. "Fire!" Another fireball zeroed in on the Soldier; this time, Lambda scored a direct hit and destroyed the monster.

Kairi clasped Lambda's shoulder. "Nice job, Lambda! Keep it up and see if you can learn other spells."

Lambda grinned and saluted. "Will do! This has been a productive day, but I'm still raring to go! And there are...there are a lot of Heartless left to practice on." Her enthusiasm deflated a bit upon scanning the area and finding so many enemies, but she put on a determined smile. "We can take them all!"

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Two hours later...

"Can we take a break?" Kairi moaned, her Keyblade drooping in her grip.

"It feels like we've been at this all day..." Xion fished the World Clock out of her pocket and glanced at it. "It's only been two hours?!"

Lambda's shoulders slumped as she finished blasting the last Soldier of the current enemy set. "Maybe we should rest for a bit. We have no shortage of time, after all." Casting magic drained her mana, which was like tapping a reserve of energy that Lambda hadn't even noticed having before, but it also tired her out physically. She could only shoot about ten Fire spells in a row before needing to rest for almost a whole minute to recharge her mana.

Another gaggle of Soldiers pranced around a corner up ahead; Kairi stepped forward to deal with them, but Xion jumped over her head, dual-wielding huge scimitars. "I'll stand first watch; I've got to test out this Ars Arcanum manifestation, after all. I should come up with a name for it, too."

"How about 'ScimitArs?'" Lambda joked.

"That's so corny it hurts," Kairi complained as she unclipped her purse from one of her dress' straps and laid down with the bag as a pillow. "I'm gonna take a nap, 'kay?" she slurred as she fell asleep right away.

"...I like that name," Xion decided. She continued chopping up Heartless with both hands while Lambda laid down on the bare ground and entered sleep mode.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Three hours later...

"Kairi...Kairi, wake up!"

Kairi rolled over and mumbled, "...Pass the Sora sauce..." She was then jolted to wakefulness by a rap on the head.

Xion slowly came into focus, rolling her eyes. "What the heck were youdreaming about? Never mind; it's your turn to take watch, you lazy bum."

Kairi suddenly remembered everything with a yelp. "Oh, right! We were training with the Keyblade!" This whole ordeal was still a dream come true for her; she had been worried that she would wake up in her own bed on the Islands with Sora still missing.

Xion winced from Kairi's volume, but shrugged and dismissed her ScimitArs. "I'd say to keep it down because Lambda's still sleeping, but you both slept through five waves of Heartless, so I don't think you'll disturb her. I just didn't have the heart to wake you up, but now I'm the one who's dead tired." She summoned her Black Coat into her hands, already nicely folded, and laid it on the ground as a pillow. "Wake me when it's time to go." Xion turned over a few times, but finally fell asleep.

Right then, a mixed group of Shadows and Soldiers appeared. Kairi muttered, "Are there only two kinds of Heartless on this world?"

She made quick work of the Heartless, feeling reinvigorated after her nap, but then she was left with nothing to do. "Namine? Are you awake?"

"Zzz...No, stop that, you'll ruin my organization scheme..." The sound of snoring coming from her own heart was kind of unnerving for Kairi, but she wondered what Namine was dreaming about. The words "organization scheme" had her a bit worried, too... She concentrated on Namine, and suddenly found herself in her own heart!

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The Station of Awakening...

"So this is what they meant about the dream..." Kairi's shoes touched down on a stained glass surface surrounded by puffy white clouds, through which rays of warm Light occasionally peeked from random directions. The picture was of Kairi herself as she looked right now, in her current outfit, holding Destiny's Embrace. Unlike other Stations, Kairi's eyes were open in the picture, gazing down softly at a trio of circular frames with Sora, Riku, and herself inside, appearing as they had before all these adventures started. The bottom half of the background was a walled city covered in fountains and flowers that Kairi didn't recognize, surrounded by a sparkling, tropical ocean that she knew very well; the top half of the background was solid pink.

Namine was lying asleep right in the middle of the pillar; above her head was a blurry bubble showing her dream. Peering into it, Kairi was relieved to see Namine chewing out Riku for setting her crayons out of order on a white shelf, not anything related to Organization XIII. Riku was even in his new clothes instead of a Black Coat, suggesting that this wasn't a memory at all, but merely a flight of fancy. Kairi giggled to herself, then looked around for a way out of the Station. "As much as I'd like to explore my own heart for a while, I have to keep watch so everyone stays safe. How do I get back out...?" In response to her wish, a spotlight shone down from the clouds overhead, illuminating a swirling circle of green Light like the one back in the Shopping Square. Kairi stood in it and felt herself vanish into sparkles, returning to awareness in her real body.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Back in Midnight Town...

Kairi woke up just in time to block a Soldier's claw. "Whoa, that was lucky!" She got down to business trying to refine her swordplay, which still felt rough around the edges. Sure, she could hold her own against these things, which were the most basic kinds of Heartless, but she knew there were stronger types out there.

After dealing with the nuisances, Kairi sat down and twiddled her thumbs for about half an hour before another group came running at her. "Maybe I should try magic? Ignite!" She realized she had probably said the wrong word just after saying it, but she surprised herself with the effect.

Instead of her Keyblade shooting a fireball from its tip, the Shadow she pointed at spontaneously burst into flames that ate away at it over time. By the time the rest of the group reached her, the burning Shadow had popped from the continual damage. Kairi dealt with the other enemies with normal attacks.

Twenty minutes passed by before another group appeared; Kairi passed the time by thinking of new physical moves to try, and she was eager to test them. However, most of the moves she came up with turned out to take too long with unnecessary spinning and flourishes to safely use in combat; she found herself having to stumble out of the motions and defend herself from interruptions, so she discarded most of those ideas. Spinning her whole body around with the Keyblade held out and hitting enemies all around her seemed to work, though, which helped at one point when she was surrounded by Shadows. "Is it just me, or are the waves of enemies coming faster?"

Ten minutes later, a wave of Soldiers appeared in puffs of Darkness right next to Kairi, apparently replacing some of the ones that had been beaten earlier. "Um, Spark?" Kairi held up her Keyblade and tried to cast Thunder, but what happened was that an eight-sided crystal of solid Light appeared and spun around her while leaving a trail of rainbows, bashing the Soldiers away. "Not what I had in mind, but I'll take it!" The new spell had taken a lot of mana out of her, however, so she opted not to try and cast/invent any more spells for now.

"Maybe I should wake up the others." Kairi turned around, only to find that Lambda was already awake.

"I got a proximity alert; did the Heartless get too close?"

Kairi nodded. "A bunch of them popped out of nowhere! I think they're respawning as we beat them, which means our plan to take the groups out one by one isn't going to work. Plus, it looks like the other groups found us because we stayed in one place too long."

"Yeah, now that I think about it, taking a four-hour break is ridiculous. I'll wake up Xion so we can get moving, then. Hey, Xion?" Lambda nudged Xion with her foot, causing the raven-haired Replica to suddenly wake up...and immediately go on the offensive, swinging her fists around wildly. Luckily, she didn't summon a weapon, but Lambda got smacked by one of the Protect Chains on her wrists.

Thankfully, Xion soon calmed down and realized what had happened. "Oh Light, I'm so sorry! I got in the habit of attacking whatever woke me up while I was stuck without a Keyblade in the tunnels of Twilight Town. I had to wander around there for several days before Namine found me. I know it doesn't sound like a long time, but it was a pretty large part of my life if you consider that I'd existed for less than two months before that."

"Wow...just wow. Now I feel worse for you than for my cheek," Lambda replied, "but remember: you aren't alone anymore. We'll keep you safe."

Those words... "I'm not alone..." Xion held a hand over her chest, trying to name this overflowing emotion. "This feeling is...gratitude. Thank you, Lambda."

Lambda pointed at Kairi. "Don't thank me, thank her; she was the one on watch, keeping us safe. I'll take first watch next time."

Xion nodded seriously. "That's true, but still - I wouldn't be here in the first place if all three of you hadn't helped me, along with Sora and Roxas. I can't thank you enough."

A group of Shadows rose out of the ground, surprising the party. Xion summoned her ScimitArs again. "Geez, ruin the mood, why don't you? Ars Arcanum!" Her blades glowed yellow, and she leaped into the air, spinning wildly at the Shadows and blending the monsters into swiftly-evaporating paste.

"Hey, watch it!" Lambda yelped as she ducked under the glowing scimitars.

Xion dismissed the ScimitArs and bowed apologetically. "Sorry! I guess I should use a different weapon when we're all in a group, huh?"

Lambda nodded. "Good plan. Anyway, didn't you have four scimitars when you first used them?"

"Yes, but I also had four arms to hold them."

Kairi stared incredulously at the Replica. "...What."

Xion suddenly realized that everything she had done back then was totally weird. "...Let's just pretend that fight never happened, please? I don't think I can turn into that form again, anyway."

Lambda suggested, "Maybe you can make the other two swords float behind you? All the other Organization members could levitate their weapons somehow."

"Maybe..." Xion stepped away from the other girls and re-summoned the ScimitArs, this time with the full set of four blades. Two of them floated over her shoulders, and by pretending to swing imaginary arms, she could send them sweeping around her.

Kairi nodded appreciatively. "Whoa, cool!"

"I had one other form, too, but it was really different from the others. I wonder if I can..." Xion stepped further away, faced away from the party, and summoned a truly massive sword with a Keyblade-like round handguard.

Its blade was silver and its handle was gold, both with a red hue near the bottom. At the tip of the blade, it split sideways into three red spikes, like a cross. However, it clearly wasn't a real Keyblade. It didn't have a Keychain...and it was more than twenty feet long! Its handle was as wide and tall as Xion herself. She almost immediately fell over forward, dropping the impossibly heavy weapon with a thundering crash.

The sword vanished into the same yellow flakes as the other weapons, and Xion sat up, rubbing her sore arms as sparkles drifted past her face. "So, that...um, happened. I guess I'll call that one 'Final Weapon', since if I can ever hold that thing, I'll probably be the strongest girl in the World. I was in a giant monster form when I wielded two of those back then."

"Are your arms okay?" Kairi asked.

Xion replied, "I'll be fine in a minute; I can walk. Can you and Lambda handle the next fight, though?"

Kairi smiled reassuringly. "Sure thing; take it easy for a bit. My arms are getting sore just thinking about how heavy that sword must be. I'm surprised you held it up as long as you did."

"Okay, now that that's all sorted out, let's move on." Lambda pointed slightly to the left of where the party was facing. "There are ruins of bigger buildings over that way; maybe we'll find the boss there?"

Kairi nodded. "It's as good a plan as any." The girls set off.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

A/N: To be continued in Chapter 4, where we'll meet the first boss!

Sorry this took so long to get written. The stupid part is, when I actually get down to writing, I can get the whole chapter done really fast. There's just a long, LONG stretch of time I always spend planning out what'll happen while staring at a blank page.

Our heroines are all quite unique, even for Keyblade wielders. I still have a few more tricks and benefits planned for each of them...which means their enemies won't be this weak much longer, either.

I don't have any idea what the "Sora sauce" Kairi mentioned tastes like. Other phrases I considered included "Five more minutes..." (too overused), "No, I couldn't eat another bite..." (also too overused in anime and such, even though no one I know would actually say that), and "I can't go to school today, Dad, I've got hibernation sickness..." (too verbose for a half-asleep character).