Asleep at Dawn

Chapter 4: Five More Minutes

-"...Go Straight for the Boss and Defeat It!"-

A/N: Here we go again, with the remainder of Midnight Town and a bit of what comes next.

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Midnight Town: Office District...

It turned out that the large buildings Lambda had pointed out were a lot larger than she'd thought. As they kept walking, the diagonally-leaning chunks of a giant tower loomed larger...and larger...and larger. The wide road they walked along seemed to just keep going without ever actually reaching the tower. And all the while, Heartless attacks came more and more frequently.

Lambda spent the time training her stamina for magic use. She had a complete outline of how to cast Fire, but if she focused on the little details, then surely she could change how the spell worked. She went over the process in her head.

First, draw mana from your reserves. Then, focus on the image of a fireball and push the mana to your Keyblade. Yelling "Fire!" helps the visualization work. Finally, aim at something you don't like and release the energy once the spell is ready. Simple enough; what if I visualize something else?

"Blizzard! ...Yes, it worked!" Instead of a fireball, Lambda successfully fired a chunk of solid ice that flew forward as though being carried down a tube. The three Shadows she had lined up for this test were all hit and destroyed by the spell.

Kairi cheered, "Great work, Lambda! ...Oh, and you should probably take a look at this trick I discovered while I was on watch. Ignite!" She pointed Destiny's Embrace at a Soldier and lit the hapless Heartless on fire, then let it burn up while she focused on melee combat against two other Soldiers.

Lambda stared blankly at the burning Heartless. "...Wait, so you just shouted the wrong word, and it turned out to be a different spell?" Seriously? "So much for my carefully-crafted plan to learn more spells."

Xion held her Sonic Blade aloft and shouted, "Thunder!" Nothing happened. "...Nope, no spells for me, I guess. Not with this weapon, anyway." She switched to Ouroboros and tried again, this time bringing down a line of lightning bolts that passed over a Soldier and covered it in an electric charge. Another Soldier bumbled into the first victim, causing the electricity to discharge and shock them both into oblivion. "Okay, so Ouroboros works for magic. Funny; that was the same effect from the Panels I used to use, but I didn't use them this time."

Lambda copied her movements with Elysium. "Drift!" A black wave of energy spread out around Lambda, catching a Shadow that was sneaking up behind her. The unfortunate monster was bumped into the air, where it hung in place inside a glowing purple force field. Lambda swung her Keyblade at it, sending the Heartless spinning rapidly through the air until constant damage from the force field destroyed it. "New plan: shout random words and learn as many spells as I can."

Kairi groaned, "Good thing there seems to be no end to these Heartless, then." She cut down a few more Shadows with melee attacks, and finally no more spawned to replace them. "Um, or not."

Lambda looked down the road. "I'll scan for more...good, we have some breathing room. I vote we take a few minutes to rest. That tower is still another kilometer away, and the next patch of Heartless has different types in it."

Kairi tossed her Keyblade into the air and flopped to the ground, letting Destiny's Embrace dissolve into golden Light and flower petals as it hit the ground behind her. "Finally! I was about to give up on finding anything but Shadows and Soldiers!"

"Merlin never was the most creative guy when it comes to things that aren't magic," Lambda noted. "His naming sense is terrible, too. 'Bag of Holding', 'Pocket of Holding', 'Folder of Holding'... Riku and I had some dealings with him on our adventures. He's the one who gave Riku the blindfold to help him deal with the Darkness. He doesn't need it anymore, thankfully."

Xion grumbled, "He was tough enough to fight with it on! He beat my fake Keyblade barehanded and made it look easy."

"He's always made a point to be the strongest and coolest boy on the Islands," Kairi reminisced. "When Sora got the Keyblade, it must have made him jealous enough that the Darkness snuck in."

"Do you have any funny stories about Riku from when you all lived on the Islands?" Lambda asked. "I've traveled with him pretty much constantly since...Xion, do you still have that World Clock?"

Xion passed it to her, then remembered that she hadn't changed her shirt's slogan today. She concentrated, and changed it to say "No. i of the Tiger".

Lambda finished her sentence, "...Whoa, it's been exactly a year since I ended up in the Heart Timeline! Happy birthday and anniversary to me, I guess! And that means Xion's birthday would be...next week!"

"Um, maybe? I know I wasn't aware of pretty much anything before I met Roxas, but I could have spent a long time in Vexen's lab."

Lambda suggested, "Wouldn't the first day you became self-aware be a better birthday? That's when you started being you."

Kairi agreed. "That makes sense. But as for your first question, Lambda, I'm pretty sure Riku didn't get up to anything nearly as exciting on the Islands as the things you've done together. We played pretend a few times, and he made a point to utterly school all the other kids in play-fights every day for fifteen years straight. He always seemed restless, though. It was his idea to build a raft to leave the Islands."

Lambda tried to think of a question Kairi could answer. "Then, um... Oh man, I can't believe I never asked him about this, but what's his last name?"

Xion and Kairi raised their left eyebrows in perfect sync. "Last...name?"

Lambda was equally baffled. "Wait, you don't know what a last name is?"

Namine stepped into the conversation to clear up the confusion. "The Islands are a REALLY small world. Everyone knows everyone else, and everyone has a unique name, so there's no need to have a second name to identify which family you came from."

Lambda nodded in understanding. "Okay. That makes sense. It would've been so embarrassing to have dated him for a year without knowing his full name." Proximity alert. "Huh? The next wave of Heartless is almost here! C'mon, girls, this should be the last push before we get to that tower! Hopefully the boss is there; I can't tell if the massive Heartless reading I'm getting is from the boss, or just a whole bunch of flunkies."

She got back onto her high heels and summoned Elysium, launching a preemptive Fire spell at a little, floating, blue Heartless that popped in one hit. "It looks like this wave includes Blue Rhapsodies, Red Nocturnes, and Yellow Operas. I've fought them before. They all use different, color-coded magic elements, but they take forever to cast a spell. They absorb their own element to heal, but they're weak to the other two. You can probably just swat them out of the air to beat them, but they don't hold still for very long."

"So if we just wipe them all out before they cast a spell, then that's it, right?" Xion summoned Ouroboros and began floating in midair, holding the jaw-sword out in front of her with its jaws opened as wide as they would go. She began charging a ball of orange energy in the space between the teeth, just in time for a group of fifteen assorted spellcasting Heartless to hover into view from the side paths of a crossroads. "Ragnarok!"

Unfortunately, the swarm of orange trails Xion's attack released weren't evenly distributed; a mixed cluster of two Red Nocturnes, three Blue Rhapsodies, and a single Yellow Nocturne managed to avoid being targeted by any of the homing shots. "Kairi! Mop up the stragglers!"

Kairi watched the Heartless' erratic flight paths, then made up her mind. "Bind!" A yellow circle of energy, similar to Thunder but more wavy, appeared on the ground under the Heartless. Every Heartless in the ring was temporarily locked in place, throwing off tiny sparks at random. "Yes! I thought there would be a spell like that, since it's called a Keyblade, after all." She waded into the Bind effect, noting that it didn't have any effect on her, but it seemed to still be able to catch other enemies that could wander into it. As she started batting the immobilized Heartless out of the air, Namine called, "Lambda, can you step into the circle? I want to test something."

Lambda did as asked, stepping into the magic field with a bit of apprehension. "...I don't feel anything."

"That's a relief, then; I was worried that you might be able to hit each other with wide spells like this. I wanted to test it with something harmless."

"Good thinking, Namine. Now let me try something...Drift!" Lambda's Zero-Gravity spell took hold of the Heartless, regardless of element, and overrode the effects of Kairi's Bind spell. "Huh, so those spells don't work at the same time. Well, that's enough testing for now." Lambda jumped up and smacked both Red Nocturnes out of the air, then managed to stick the landing. "And I'm finally getting the hang of swinging this thing!"

Xion dove down on the last Heartless with her ScimitArs. "Isn't learning fun?"

"You know it!" Kairi jumped up and stabbed upward with Destiny's Embrace, then dismissed the Keyblade before she landed.

"...Was that some kind of victory pose?" Lambda asked.

Kairi grinned. "You should try to come up with one; it's fun!"

Lambda considered it...and came up with a few different poses to choose from. "Maybe I'll try one next time; we've still got some ground to cover."

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Arena Pillar Ruins...

Lambda repeated the name she heard to the others. "...So this was some kind of arena once?"

"You can hear that voice too, Lambda?" Kairi asked.

Xion looked around and asked, "What voice? I don't hear any voice."

Lambda explained, "It speaks up sometimes and gives me the names of places and enemies. It also told me that my 'Drift' spell was called Zero-Gravity, actually. I thought I was the only one who could hear it...but I don't think I'm going crazy. Relius said something about a power similar to the Azure... Oh, I'm sorry for rambling. I doubt I'll get to the bottom of this today."

"Whatever it is, it's pretty convenient," Kairi pointed out. "It told me that those lesser Nobodies were called Dusks when Axel showed up to kidnap me. Not that the info helped me get away at all, but it's nice to know."

"I've never heard a voice like that before, not even after we fused together," Namine added. "It must be tied to Kairi's heart somehow."

"Uh-oh, we'd better leave the speculation for later!" Lambda summoned her Keyblade. "The boss is here!"

From every upturned chunk of the Arena Pillar (each chunk as big as a house in its own right), large Heartless began to pour out. Each Commander looked like a Soldier, but they were three times larger overall, and were colored black instead of blue. Instead of heading for the girls, though, the Commanders clumped together a few yards ahead of them, crowding into a space that should have been too small for them all to fit.

Soon, the girls realized that the Heartless were actually climbing on each other's shoulders, stacking up into a single, larger collective. In no time at all, the whole army had formed into a single, bipedal monstrosity that towered over the fledgling Keyblade wielders. Two tiny, green Deserters scrambled up the giant's body and positioned themselves on its head like eyes, completing the formation.

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Defeat the Demon Army!

Lambda relayed what she could gather from her scan. "It's called the Demon Army, and it's an A-class threat. The Commanders that make up its body don't take damage individually, but I think we can break apart its limbs if we focus enough attacks in one place! On the other hand, there's definitely a more concentrated patch of Darkness on its torso somewhere. If we can find that weak spot, we might be able to take it down!"

One of the Demon Army's massively-multiplayer "arms" started coming down toward the girls, who all dove out of the way. Luckily, the giant took a long time to regain its balance after the attack, and it moved way too slow to hit a moving target. Rather than let it try again, Lambda jumped onto the back of its fist. "Kairi! See if you can use Bind on the next limb it brings down!"

"I'm on it!" Kairi waved her arms to get the boss' attention, then lunged in and laid a Bind field where its foot was about to stomp after her. She did manage to stick the giant's leg in place, but the shockwave from the stomp knocked her down. Even worse, the giant had lost its balance, and it was about to fall forward and crush her!

"I've got you!" Xion, with her Sonic Blade equipped, zoomed past the impact zone and pulled Kairi out of harm's way. Rather than set her on the ground, Xion pulled them both higher into the air to get a better view of the monster. She called down, "Hey, Lambda, what's that glowing orb?"

"Probably what's holding this crowd together, but I'm kind of busy right now!" Lambda had been on top of the Demon Army's shoulder when it fell, but before she could strike anywhere, the giant lost some of its cohesion in the impact, and she sank into the mass of Soldier-type Heartless. Lambda was immediately buried over her head in monsters. She was able to swing her arms around, but she couldn't do enough damage to break through the Commanders around her.

I need some kind of power boost, NOW! Lambda frantically tried to think of a way out. Release Restriction 13 and use the Power of Darkness? No, the Darkness was the opposite of powerful for her right now. Come up with some new trick with the Keyblade? No time for that. Even a new spell probably wouldn't be strong enough.

Wait, there was one more thing to try - the last weapon she had left from the Azure Timeline! She remembered saying back when she lost Murakumo: "IDEA Engine on standby, pending weapon link; unable to utilize in current format..." But now she had a weapon to link!

She called aloud, "IDEA Engine, activate! Link target: the Keyblade! Come on, work..." The Heartless had begun to notice the tasty heart trapped among them. Dozens of glowing yellow eyes blinked open, far too close to Lambda's own red ones.

Suddenly, a glowing field of green particles surrounded Elysium, making it visible even within the crushing Darkness around it. "Here goes nothing!" Lambda swung the Keyblade again, and this time she made headway. She hacked and crawled her way out of the Demon Army's arm, jumping free as soon as she saw the light of the moon overhead.

Overhead, Xion sighed in relief as she saw Lambda emerge from the mass of Heartless. "That was too close...! Hang on, Kairi, we're about to drop!" Xion switched from Sonic Blade to ScimitArs and immediately began to fall headfirst toward the orb on the Demon Army's back; luckily, the confusion caused by Lambda's escape had kept the Heartless too disorganized to make the giant stand up again. The Replica positioned all four blades below herself and began to spin as she fell, screaming, "I WISH I HAD A NAME FOR THIIIIIS!"

The impact let Xion drill almost halfway into the gooey blob of Darkness. Thinking quickly, Kairi disentangled herself from Xion's arms and drove her own Keyblade deeper into the core. "Haaah!" Something gave way under Destiny's Embrace, and the Darkness started bubbling and undulating. Namine warned them, "It'll explode! Get out of there!"

Xion flew them both out of the crater they'd made, just in time for the core to erupt in a purple-tinged explosion. The blast spread over the rest of the Demon Army, annihilating all the Heartless.

Lambda tried out a pose: she spun the Keyblade around her hand, stabbed it into the ground in front of her, and leaned forward over it. The particle effects from the IDEA Engine faded away as she did. "Yeah! Great work, everyone!"

Xion grinned and rested her Sonic Blade over her shoulder, allowing the sword and the wings to vanish as she did. Meanwhile, Kairi did the same victory pose from before.

Namine reminded them all, "The Practice Keyhole should be around here somewhere, right?"

"I see it!" Lambda pointed at a chunk of the Arena Pillar that had the word WELCOME carved into it. In the curve of the C, a glowing outline of a Keyhole appeared. "Kairi, would you do the honors?"

"Sure!" Kairi summoned Destiny's Embrace again and pointed it at the Practice Keyhole. Gold stars and blue-white Light gathered at the tip of the Keyblade, and then a beam of Light fired from there right into the Keyhole. "It worked! Now let's find a save point and get back to the hub room."

Xion asked, "'Save point?'"

Kairi sheepishly explained, "...It's another video game thing. I meant those green circles of Light, like the one back in the shopping square. We can probably get back to the hub from those. I don't think we could actually use them to come back if we die, like a save point in a game, but it would be neat if we could..."

"Hey, we're in luck! One of those 'save points' became active right near here when we beat the boss!" Lambda pointed towards an area relatively free of debris, where a glowing green circle swirled.

They all stood around the save point. Xion closed her eyes. "Let's see, how did Sora do this? There we go!" They all vanished in a burst of green Light.

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The Training Worlds: Hub...

The three girls reappeared back in the nondescript, gray room. Behind them was the door back to Midnight Town, and the door on its right now had a glowing sign over it, which read:

Training World 2:

Lotus Academy

However, the detail that captured the girls' attention was in the very center of the room, where Roxas was waiting for them. "Hey, girls! I see you got through the first world!"

Kairi bluntly asked, "Roxas, why are you here? Weren't you going to send us letters and stuff while Merlin trained you on the outside?"

Roxas rubbed his neck sheepishly. "Well, it turned out there were a few reasons why that wasn't going to work. First, I needed more time to learn this Observation stuff. In here, I have all the time in the worlds. I'll just be in that room over there..." Roxas pointed to a new door labeled Observer Training and Combat Simulator, "...doing my thing, while you girls are in the other Training Worlds. I'll be here to greet you each time you finish one, and I'll pass you some notes and instructions Merlin left with me. This is just so much more efficient than what we had planned before.

"Second, it turns out trying to communicate through that bubble caused time to sync up more than we wanted. Time was passing too quickly in here, and it makes it too easy for unwanted things to get in."

Roxas' tone became grim. "Which leads to the biggest problem: two intruders have already entered the Training Worlds. I couldn't stop either of them...they were just too strong."

Lambda got down to business. "What did they look like? Could they be working with Xehanort?"

Roxas replied, "I don't know for sure if they're with Xehanort. They had yellow eyes like his, but they also had green hair. I mean, who has green hair?"

Lambda's stomach dropped. "...I can think of two people fitting that description right off the top of my head. I guess I should have expected Hazama and Terumi to escape from Kokonoe's cage. Are they still working with each other? And what brought them back to this timeline?"

Roxas scratched at his messy hair. "I don't know. Merlin says there's no new Time Break, so they didn't come from the other timeline; they just suddenly started to exist in Twilight Town, and they came right here. Not at the same time, though; I had just gotten my breath back after the one in the yellow coat kicked me into a wall, when the guy in the black business suit casually kicked me in the same spot and moonwalked into the bubble. Neither one really said anything to me."

"Well, that's already odd behavior for them. They both love talking people's ears off about despair and their superiority and all that junk." Lambda growled at the memory of her first encounter with Hazama, back when Terumi was still fused with him. "Do you know where in the Training Worlds they are?"

"They couldn't have gotten into any worlds you haven't visited yet...you should have already run into them in Midnight Town, actually."

"Well, that explains it. Midnight Town is huge," Xion pointed out. "We could have scouted that place for days without even getting close to them."

Kairi worriedly asked, "They sound like really bad people. What should we do if we run into them?"

Lambda replied, "I don't think we stand a chance in combat with them, but running away is probably just as futile; the only reason they would want to be here is if they were after one of us. They're probably looking for me, though I have no idea why. They don't exactly have a high opinion of me."

"We should figure out what they want," Xion suggested.

"In some way that doesn't kill us, hopefully," Kairi added.

Lambda nodded. "Those are both good ideas. But I think we should stay focused on getting stronger for now. They came here immediately after appearing, which probably means they aren't ready to act. Terumi's an ancient incarnation of pure hatred who usually makes elaborate plans millennia in advance; if he's flying by the seat of his pants now, he's got to be in a position of weakness. Even so, he could probably beat us all as we are now. Even Riku at his full power couldn't keep up with Terumi. We need to get strong enough to beat him before he's ready for us."

Namine replied, "Okay, I think that makes sense, but what about Hazama? Is he an incarnation of evil, too?"

Lambda tried to explain it. "...Sort of. He's a living Azure Grimoire; a copy of the strongest Grimoire in the Azure Timeline, made of pure seithr. Given how Grimoires work in this timeline, that means he's literally made of the Power of Darkness. Terumi had him created as a vessel for his spirit"

"However, Hazama and Terumi were separated at some point before we fought them both in Twilight Town. They teamed up against Riku, but from what they said, their interests seem to have diverged. I think we'll need to handle Hazama completely differently from Terumi.

"That said, I have no clue what they're after. Terumi's final goal is certain, though: it's nothing short of absolute, all-encompassing despair. If Hazama's any different from Terumi, it'll be a better kind of different."

Lambda paused to catch her breath. "As for weapons, they both use twin butterfly knives up close, and a Nox Nyctores called 'Geminus Anguium: Ouroboros' at a distance. It has the shape of two floating chains, each with a snake head. Hazama and Terumi must have each gotten half of the pair. They can summon the chain from pretty much any place or angle they can see, making it tricky to block, and it has the special ability to 'attack the target's emotions directly'. Needless to say, don't let it touch you."

Kairi shuddered. "That's all...extremely scary. How am I going to get to sleep tonight...?"

Lambda forced a chuckle. "I know, right? Worst. Birthday present. Ever!"

Roxas blinked. "Um, happy birthday, Lambda?"

Lambda rolled her eyes. "Except for the last few minutes, yes. At least I got a bit of a head start on preparations; I managed to link the IDEA Engine to my Keyblade."

Bewildered, Roxas asked, "You did what with the what to your Keyblade?"

Lambda repeated, "The IDEA Engine. Long story short, it can give my weapon a temporary enhancement. Since I lost Murakumo, I linked it to my Keyblade instead. Even I don't know much more than that; Professor Kokonoe built it with the craziest quantum physics mumbo-jumbo that mad scientist could dream up. The fact that I even have it is another mystery; the other Lambda was the one who actually had it installed."

Kairi raised her hand. "Can we hold off on more explanations for now? My brain is full."

Roxas got back to the actual task. "Good idea; from the looks of this next Training World, you're going to need to make room in your brain." He pulled a notecard from his pocket. "'Wisdom from the mouth of the Great Wizard Merlin: Lotus Academy may seem to be a normal school on the surface, but it hides strange secrets. The world itself will immerse you in tests, and the first may be the toughest.'"

Roxas stopped reading. "Well, that was unsettling...and not very helpful at all. You might as well see for yourselves. Good luck in there; I'd better get back to my own training. Keep an eye out for Hazama and Terumi!" Roxas headed toward his personal training grounds, and the door to Lotus Academy began to shimmer.

Kairi grabbed the handle just like last time, but showed less enthusiasm in actually opening the door. "Great, we're headed back to school. I guess we'd better not be late..." Light poured out of the doorway, blinding all three girls.

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Lotus Academy: Atrium...

A red-haired girl blinked her eyes open slowly, seeing two other girls dressed in the same blue-skirted sailor uniform she wore. Oddly, the first thought that came to mind was that she was expecting them to have blonde and black hair, but they were both brunettes; one was shorter than the redhead and had pigtails, the other was much taller and had very short hair.

What was she doing here again?

The short one shouted with no regard to being indoors, "Carrie, we're going to be late! Stacy can't be late again, she's been late twice this week already!" The redhead - Carrie? Is that really my name? - realized that 'Stacy' referred to the speaker herself, not the other girl.

"You're such a zombie in the mornings, Carrie! C'mon, we're going to miss homeroom! Let's book it, Stacy!"

"Got it, Alex! Stacy's already there!" They both ran down a hall to the right of 'Carrie'; another, identical hallway extended to the left. Behind her were a very large set of wooden doors, probably the entrance to the school, and directly in front of her was a smaller door labeled Principal's Office. With no other leads on who or where she was, 'Carrie' followed after the other two girls. Maybe this was all a huge misunderstanding, or maybe her lost memories would return if she kept playing along.

None of this sat well with her, though. Her heart told her that something was very wrong...

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A/N: Plot twists ahoy! The next world's got some intrigue to it already; more on that in a month or so, as usual. Here's a freebie: 'Carrie' is actually Kairi, but with her memories suppressed. Hence the name 'Lotus Academy'. If there's an anime or something that already used that name, let me know, but this world is another original creation of mine. That said, there are going to be lots of anime cameos in attendance, and not just the "ordinary high school student" kind.

And yes, Hazama and Terumi are here. They're mean, lean, and green, and they've taken a keen - but separate - interest in the girls, and specifically in Lambda. They won't be left behind easily; expect to see them show up in person next chapter!