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?

8. Dreams of Falling

Asleep at Dawn

Chapter 8: Dreams of Falling

-"Be Careful Out There."-

A/N: Sorry for the extra-long wait. More Xenoblade updates, Hyrule Warriors being released again, and just plain procrastination are to blame.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Spring Falls: Area 1-1...

After entering the new Training World, Lambda had just one thing to say. "What the hell am I looking at?!"

Xion replied, "I think that's...us? It all looks...flat, though."

"But if that's us over there," Kairi wondered, "then who are we out here?"

Hazama chuckled, "Well, if I signed on for new experiences, I guess I got 'em."

The new world wasn't much to look at: just a grassy block of dirt that stretched as far as they could see to the left and right. What had the trainees' attention was how they were looking at it; like an out-of body experience, each of them saw the same view from a short distance away. Their own bodies were standing on the platform, and they could move themselves normally and feel things they touched, but their senses of sight, hearing, and smell were all from this third-person view, and there was no depth to that view at all. The partly cloudy sky behind the platform seemed like wallpaper. For each of the explorers, the others' voices seemed to come from off to the side somewhere, but nothing they tried could change their view to see anything else. At least, not until Kairi stepped forward a few paces, which moved the viewpoint to follow her while keeping the rest of the group in sight. "Ha! I thought so!"

Lambda asked, "Kairi? Do you know what's going on?"

Kairi replied succinctly, "Two words: action platformer."

Still confused, Xion asked her to, "Explain, please?"

Namine replied, "She means this is even more like a video game than usual." As soon as she started speaking, though, she made everyone jump in surprise as a translucent, yellow-orange hologram appeared along the bottom of the "screen" - overlapping everyone's view of the platform - which filled in with the words she was saying. On the left side of the text box was a picture of Namine from the shoulders up, wearing a neutral expression. The picture shifted to a concerned expression when she said what everyone was thinking: "What...? Everything else about this world is weird, but this is crazy!" One second after she finished talking, the text box shortened to nothing and disappeared.

Kairi shrugged. "I guess you're our mission control, Namine. I hope the text box doesn't distract us from platforming."

"But what is platforming?" asked an exasperated Lambda. This world's crazy setup rubbed her the wrong way, sort of like her experiences in Wonderland.

Kairi explained for the benefit of the non-gamers in the party, "We'll have to make our way to the right by jumping on these platforms, while trying not to fall in the bottomless pit below us, and probably fighting enemies along the way. Then there'll be a boss at the end, and we'll be done."

Xion arched an eyebrow. "I find it hard to believe that the pit under this platform is bottomless. Where does the gravity come from?"

Kairi allowed, "Well, interpretations vary. There might be ground of some sort down there, but it would be way too far down to survive the fall. Regardless, if you fall in the pit, either you lose an extra life, or it's Game Over."

Hazama noted, "This must be what Roxas meant when he said we might cause a lot of resets in this world. So, girls, how good are you at jumping? In my case, I have an Ars for that." He hopped into the air and demonstrated his basic double jump and air dash Ars Magus tricks. These Ars came bundled with every combat Grimoire ever created, along with a limited Barrier and an emergency Burst, because who would want to do without those basics in a fight if they had the choice?

Lambda hesitantly replied, "I...used to have an Ars for that." She tried it, and it...well, it didn't work. She got almost a foot off the ground. "Drat. My jump is pathetic."

"It's still better than mine," Kairi replied.

Namine added, "My jump is the same as Kairi's, although it's not really relevant right now."

"Well, I'm set to go." Xion effortlessly jumped twice her own height, did three Air Slides, and then used a Glide to reach the edge of the camera's range, cramming the others on the left side as she inspected the first bottomless pit they'd have to clear. "The Organization's agility training was brutal. They said it was to help us compensate for the fact that Nobodies are generally bad at blocking. I'm not sure I can give you two any pointers, though."

Refusing to let Xion stay ahead of her forever, Lambda scanned her. "Scanning...analyzing...that's neat, it looks like you're using magic for mobility! Come to think of it, I bet I could mimic the Ars I used to use with a magic effect...maybe I should fuel it with the Power of Light, to keep my mana free for spellcasting. Simulating...confirmed. Designing custom effect...done." Lambda jumped again, and this time managed to match Hazama's performance.

"What should I do, then?" Kairi asked. "At this rate, I'll be left behind again."

Lambda smiled at her. "Namine, please do that thing where you copied Sora's knowledge of the Fire spell into me."

"Yes, that should work." Namine's picture disappeared from the text box, which then displayed, "Copying data...done! Save changes? Yes / No? Saving...done!" Namine's picture appeared again. "Why did it...I just want you all to know that using my power doesn't feel like copying files at all. But I think it worked."

"How in the worlds would you know what copying files 'feels' like?" Lambda asked.

Namine's picture looked down and frowned with the same somber expression she'd worn most of the time while working with DiZ. "From reading your memories, actually. I've been passing the time by reading everyone's memories I can reach, which is almost everyone in the worlds except Hazama, since he still isn't connected to Sora directly. I'm sorry I didn't tell you all."

Lambda replied, "Makes sense. I suppose it's good that you told us before it became important. Please at least mention it next time you want to poke around my memories, okay?"

Xion's view on the matter was, "I would be more surprised if you had managed to avoid seeing all my memories, after all the work you needed to do on Sora."

Kairi added, "You needed to fix my memories in Lotus Academy, too. Besides, I'm already trusting you to share space in my own heart. It would be kind of silly to try and keep that part of my heart off-limits."

Hazama smirked. "Unlike the rest of you, I am very glad I'm immune! Not that anyone asked. Besides, if you tried to poke around in my memories, either you'd be stuck doing that for years while trying to read them all, or you'd go insane right away."

Namine's picture shifted to a teary smile. "Thank you all for trusting me. And thanks for the warning, Hazama."

Kairi put on her best Sora grin. "It's no big deal. But that means we're all set to go platforming, right?" She ran to the front of the group and jumped over the pit...only to fall just short of the edge and drop offscreen.

*KZZZT*

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Mission failed. Try again.

After the reset, Kairi sheepishly rubbed her neck. "Oops. I can make it with an air dash, though!" She ran at the ledge again, and this time she managed to clear the gap.

"Whoa!" Lambda yelped as she and the other trainees were shunted along with the edge of the "camera", almost falling in the pit. "I guess the view follows whoever is in front, and the rest of us can't go out of sight." She jumped over the pit and waved for the others to follow.

"Except if we fall in the pit, obviously," Hazama reminded them as he touched down. "Try not to fall in again until we find a save point, hmm?"

Xion stuck the landing after three Air Slides. "Yeah, that would be a pain."

Kairi nodded as they approached a new obstacle: three lines of tiny platforms that slowly moved up and down in alternating columns, forming a conveyor of sorts to carry unwary jumpers offscreen if they took too long. Kairi watched the pattern carefully. "Whoa, that's quite a difficulty spike! ...Okay, I think I've got it. Follow my lead, everyone."

Kairi jumped on the first platform, rode it down until the next one was in reach, rode that one up nearly to the top of the screen, jumped to the last column, and quickly jumped off it to reach the solid ground on the other side before she could be carried too low.

Hazama grinned. "I've got a better idea." He waited for a specific opening and launched Ouroboros, threading it between two of the platform columns. Before the opening moved on, the chain latched onto thin air and yanked Hazama forward, letting him sail over the last column to safety. "It's safe to say that having a swinging tool in this situation is pretty much the coolest thing ever."

Xion clapped. "Neat! Let me get over there real quick." She High Jumped straight up to the top of the screen and made it across with one Glide.

Lambda used Kairi's route to follow. "Gliding just has to be cheating somehow," she grumbled.

Xion shrugged. "Oh, that's nothing. I would have used Sonic Blade to fly across, but I'm being blocked from summoning that specific weapon. I guess I can blame Merlin's foresight."

That got Hazama's attention. "Speaking of other weapons, I got a book about transforming the Keyblade into everything from a space-traveling Glider to Dual Yo-Yos while we were back in Midnight Town. Who wants to read it first?"

Lambda quickly replied, "I call dibs!"

Hazama withdrew the tiny, cardboard-paged book from one of his jacket's many hidden pockets and threw it at Lambda, who caught it and placed it in her new Bag of Holding for now. "Annnd sold, to the blonde girl in the green dress!"

"You're going to have to wait to read it until we get out of this third-person view," Kairi pointed out as she started walking forward again. "And it looks like we have company to deal with first."

The platform they were currently on was larger than the screen, leaving plenty of room for five Shadows and two Tornado Steps to share the platform with the trainees. Everyone readied their weapons and joined the fight...except Hazama, who pulled himself up to the top of the screen and hung there to watch. "I wouldn't want to hog all the foes to myself, now would I?"

"No problem." Xion repelled a spinning tackle from a Tornado Step with her Keyblade, causing both fighters to rebound from each other, then spun her blade with that momentum into a lunging stab that took the Heartless out.

Kairi air-dashed over Xion's head and came down with a leaping slash to take out the Tornado Step in the back of the enemy group.

However, Kairi and her look-alike had neglected to pay attention to the weaker Shadows, which pulled themselves flat to the ground like they usually did...but from this perspective, that trick made them completely invisible, allowing one to surprise Xion from behind.

"Option!" Lambda caught the little Heartless with a lunging stab before it could deliver a sneak attack. She summoned a basic Option drone on the tip of her Keyblade, while it was inside the Shadow. The hapless Heartless exploded from the inside, and the newly-created Option zipped around to catch each of the other Shadows right as they surfaced. "Elimination of targets confirmed."

"Thanks for the save, Lambda." Xion dismissed her Keyblade. "That was sloppy of me."

"Any time. I was wondering when I would get to save you for a change!"

At the far side of the platform, Kairi noticed, "Hey, shouldn't the camera have moved to the right more than this? Maybe this is the edge of the map..." She hesitantly walked out of sight, causing everything to go black for a moment.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Area 1-2...

"GREAT BOUNCING BULLY DOGS I'M BLIND! ...Oh wait, we're fine now." Xion stopped randomly waving her arms as the screen faded back into view.

Lambda facepalmed. "Seriously, Xion, you need to chill out a little. Remember that everyone's ears are right next to you."

Kairi ventured forward. "It looks like we've made it to a new area. I wonder what new challenges will be in our way?" The only real difference they could see from here was that the sky behind them was now a brilliant red-orange sunset.

Lambda warned everyone, "Proximity alert. Heartless inbound. Type confirmed: multiple Rapid Thrusters. Unable to determine total number of enemies." Just as she said, several of the bee-like Heartless came spinning onscreen from somewhere up ahead, steadily flying at random elevations and making no effort to turn toward the trainees. Lambda watched them all fly harmlessly overhead.

As the first few went out of sight to the left, more came in from the right at different heights, including one at floor height. Kairi jumped over it, but Xion smashed it with her Keyblade. "They're just going to keep coming, aren't they? What a pain."

Hazama shrugged. "Eh, we needed some way to spice this up. Now that the novelty's wearing off a bit, this world seems too easy." He used Ouroboros to pull himself to the front of the group, revealing the next challenge: "Well, this is a pickle. I said 'spice', not 'spikes!'" The next gap was fairly small, but both edges of the platform on the other side had sharp-looking metal spikes growing out of the ground, leaving only a small area in the center of the platform to make a safe landing.

Kairi wasn't surprised to see the new hazard. She made an air-dash to the safe spot. "The question is, will those just hurt us if we land on them, or will they force the world to reset like an instant death trap?"

Lambda carefully aimed her jump and double-jump to avoid the spikes. "Let's not find out; we can't afford either of those outcomes."

Xion disengaged a Glide and fell straight down when she was over the correct part of the platform. "I know I don't want any spikes stabbed through my shoes!"

"See you on the other side!" Hazama launched Ouroboros diagonally and swung all the way over the platform, pulling the camera forward to reveal a scattering of smaller platforms, some of which were completely covered in spikes. He landed on one of the closer platforms, then skipped an unsafe platform to reach the middle. "C'mon, are you girls so scared that you have to stop and catch your breath after every obstacle?"

Xion jumped and did an Air Slide to speed up her Glide. "You take that back!"

"You'll have to catch me first!" Hazama grinned and led Xion on a chase over the hazardous terrain.

"Hey, you two, wait up for us!" Lambda yelped as the camera nearly dragged her into the first platform's spikes. She and Kairi, with their comparatively lower mobility, were forced to hop from platform to platform almost too quickly to think through their moves or dodge the spikes, let alone the Rapid Thrusters, which were harder to avoid when the platforms the girls needed to land on were all at different elevations. They were forced to cut a few of them in midair to clear a path.

Eventually, they made it to another large, safe platform, where Xion poked Hazama's shoulder. "Caught you!"

Hazama dramatically pressed the back of his gloved hand to his face. "Oh, I am slain!"

Lambda huffed, "That...was more stressful...than jumping across the buildings to reach Xemnas!"

Kairi agreed, "I can't believe we made it...but we did! Hooray for us!"

"Congratulations! Let's show the bitch what she's won!"

Terumi sauntered onscreen from the right. "Oh, isn't that grand? It looks like you've won a painful death!"

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Defeat Terumi!

Lambda defended, "Take that back! Kairi is the least deserving person I know of that insult. Besides, 'bitch' is so overused. Don't you have anything original?"

Terumi growled, "Really? That's your response? Guess I'd better remind you how terrifying I can be!"

Xion jumped to the middle of the platform and summoned Forget-Me-Not. "Terumi, I demand a rematch! Leave my friends out of this!"

Terumi raised an eyebrow, but obligingly pulled out his knives. "Really? Well, that's fine. You're just making it easier for me."

Kairi cried out, "Xion, what are you doing?! He just beat you two rooms ago!"

Xion winked at her. "I know something he doesn't know~! Just watch for now; don't jump in too soon."

Lambda blinked. "Huh? Just...don't die, okay? You won't get to reset."

"That, I can promise." Xion leaped into battle the same way she did last time, but when Terumi began spinning a bit of Ouroboros' chain around his hand, she aborted her slash and used an Air Slide to land behind him instead. When Terumi canceled Venom Bite and turned around, he took a Fira in the chest. He shrugged off the weak spell and ran at Xion, leaning way forward and dragging one knife along the ground with a horrible grinding noise. When he reached Xion, he swung into a roundhouse kick, followed by a kick with the other leg, and finished with a swing of the knife he was dragging. While Xion was able to avoid both kicks, the knife cut across her cheek, making her yelp in pain.

"Serpent's Laceration!" Terumi pressed the advantage by sweeping Xion's legs out from under her, then stomping on her face - over, and over, and over again. "Take that! And that! And a few of those! Still feeling cocky?" He finished the combo with a mocking kick to the head.

"C-Cure." The bruises on Xion's face healed and the cut on her cheek closed up, but she still had a nasty headache. Staring up from the ground, she gave Terumi a lopsided grin. "You're going to have to hit harder than that."

"Gladly! Twin Fangs!" Terumi scooped Xion up into the air with his feet and kicked her twice, coating his legs in slimy magic to eat away at her flesh. Then he sent her crashing back to the ground with an axe kick. "Gleaming Fangs!" As she hit the dirt, he crashed down on her with his whole body covered in a snake-like blob of slime, bashing her into the air again. "Serpent's Cursed Sting!" He fused both of his knives into one giant, slime-covered blade, then cleaved into Xion as she fell down again, pressing her up against a green glyph. He stabbed her with two slimy tendrils and pulsed all the power he had left directly into her body. As the glyph disappeared, he kicked her away to land in front of the others. Her body was a mangled heap of wounds that released bits of sparkles and water vapor. "*Huff*...And that's what you get for mocking me, you bitch!"

Xion tried to laugh, but it made her whole body hurt. "*Cough*...Too bad. It looks like...you're all out of power." She was more injured than she'd ever been, but unlike the time she'd died in Twilight Town, her wounds didn't spread any further.

Terumi's jaw dropped. "WHAT?! Why won't you DIE?!"

"Come on...I thought this was something...you knew about...dummy."

Lambda realized what was going on. "The life-link...!"

Terumi hissed. "Seriously?! To who?"

Xion weakly raised a finger. "To...ouch...'to whom'. Grammar is important. Ow."

Everyone behind Xion couldn't help but chuckle, despite her serious injuries, but Terumi made a noise like, "ARRRGUHGUR!"

Kairi decided that now was the time to lend a hand, while Terumi was tired and everyone's hatred and fear of him were at a minimum. "Bind!" Terumi's limbs were locked in place. He normally would have been able to escape, but he was physically exhausted and depleted of mana and excess Darkness, having just wasted all of his resources on a target he couldn't kill. "Curaga!" Kairi used up the rest of her mana to heal Xion's wounds completely. "Xion, do you have anything we could use to finish him off?"

"Well, there is one thing..." Xion hopped to her feet, jumped as high as she could, held both hands out to one side, and summoned her Final Weapon. The sword was too big to even lift, much less swing, but when Xion simply dropped it, gravity handled the rest.

*CRASH! RUMBLE RUMBLE...*

Xion landed, eyeing the dust cloud and the floating yellow sparks from her enormous sword's dismissal. "I was hoping you would use that Holy spell instead of healing me right away, but hopefully this worked."

Terumi's voice came from the middle of the cloud. "Ouch...son of a BITCH that hurts!"

Lambda groaned, "Oh, come on! That wasn't enough to kill you?!"

The dust cleared, revealing Terumi from the waist up, with a single, deep cut all the way down the front of his body that exuded green smoke instead of blood. His jacket was in tatters and his hood was down, allowing the girls to see that the upper-left quarter of his face, which seemed to be framed in shadow before, was actually made of shadow, or at least some kind of tar-like evil goop. A flat green spot glowed on his face where his left yellow eye had been.

"I haven't been taking you girls seriously enough...but thankfully, while you need to cheat with a life-link, I'm simply tough enough to take the hit. I'm still going to have to go power up before our next encounter, though, so I can kill you and kill you and KILL YOU ALL until I break your will to fight!"

Kairi yelled at him, "Just get out of here before the dust settles! I do not want to see what's become of your pants!"

"..." Terumi couldn't argue with that, so he vanished in a haze of green flames without saying anything.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Keep going!

"We did it!" Xion punched the sky.

Hazama approached the group. "Well, color me impressed! You've provided me with yet another reason to stay on the winning team. Real talk, though, who's the other end of the life-link?"

"It's Roxas," Lambda informed him. "Which is why I'm not very worried about Terumi figuring it out. He already had the best opportunity he'll ever get to kill both of them at once, and he wasn't strong enough."

Kairi admonished Xion, "Don't scare me like that! Your plan got you seriously injured!"

"I'd argue that no injury is 'serious' if only one half of the life-link gets hurt," Hazama pointed out.

Kairi wasn't convinced. "She could still be disabled, and Terumi flat-out told us he'd keep on hurting her just to cause more pain if he got a chance. Xion, If you're volunteering to be our team's tank...er, that's a term for the one who takes all the hits so the fragile ones don't have to, you'd better focus on ways to heal and defend yourself, not on inventing new tricks with your extra weapons."

Xion agreed...but with an impish grin, she changed her shirt to read, "HP: Yes".

"Or I could handle it," Lambda pointed out. "Cure Option!" The halo-like variant of Lambda's Option hovered into position over Xion's head, bathing her in constant healing magic.

Xion pinched her arm to check how fast a Cure Option could heal her, and was satisfied with the result. Even in the process of pinching herself, the Option numbed the pain. "Yep, that works."

"Okay, now that that's mostly settled..." Lambda hopped over to the next platform, noting that the impact from Final Weapon had caused massive damage to the foothold, even on the next platform over. In fact, the damage was so severe that when she landed on the platform, it fell apart, dropping her into the abyss below. On the way down, all she could say was, "...Seriously?!"

*KZZZT*

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Mission failed. Try again.

The reset brought the party all the way back to the start of Area 1-1 and made Lambda's Option disappear for now. Xion apologized profusely for causing the problem as they made their way back to where Terumi appeared. "Sorry about that! I really had no idea the platforms could actually break!"

Namine told her, "No one's blaming you."

Lambda agreed. "Yeah, if anything, we should blame Terumi for adding a mid-boss encounter where there shouldn't have been one."

Luckily, Terumi wasn't at the same spot this time. Kairi sighed in relief. "Thank goodness. He's probably off in Midnight Town, stealing a new outfit. Hmm, if that's the case, it means that by leaving the world, he wasn't affected by the reset."

Lambda checked. "Observing...confirmed." He'd gotten himself a Black Coat in the interim, thankfully, or Lambda would have seen things mortal minds were not meant to witness.

Hazama chuckled. "You're just as sharp as a butterfly knife, aren't you, Kairi?"

Lambda made a dismissive gesture. "I prefer broadswords and buzz-saws, personally."

The party passed the edge of the map before anything more could be said; there wasn't anything special about the series of platforms that had broken before.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Area 2-1...

"Well, if you like buzz-saws, you're in luck," Xion told Lambda as the group approached the next obstacle: four consecutive platforms with loud, sharp buzz-saws endlessly circling around each foothold's perimeter.

Lambda grimaced. "Only if they're used on things other than myself. This, though? This is going to suck."

"For me, this obstacle is no different from the others." Hazama snickered as he used Ouroboros to vault over the dangerous blocks, once again pushing the others into action by dragging the screen with him. Xion skipped the first three platforms with her Glide, making an easy crossing, but Kairi and Lambda had a bit more trouble again.

"Hey, don't just...!" Kairi saved her breath for dodging the whirling blades of death. All four saws moved at the same speed, but at slightly different positions on the platform, which made the timing tricky to get all the way across. To be absolutely sure, she had to backtrack in the middle.

Lambda followed her lead, getting a better grasp on the limits of her own aerial mobility in the process. Specifically, she had to lunge her legs forward to avoid clipping a buzz-saw during one of her landings. Kairi was a bit more naturally agile than Lambda, so there was a slight difference in what they could achieve with Lambda's mobility Ars. In the end, however, all four rookie platformers made it across the buzzing platforms of doom without injury.

On the next large platform, they had a short breather to take in their surroundings, which now seemed to be inside a cave, though an absurdly spacious one. Glowing blue mushrooms along wall in the background provided plenty of illumination to see, but some hung down from the ceiling up ahead, dripping some kind of luminescent slime at regular intervals. Xion mused, "I wonder what happens if we get hit by those drips? Poison? Blindness? Hallucinations?"

"I think your Glide ability is making you a bit complacent about the potential dangers here," Lambda grumbled.

"Well, you cross first on the next obstacle, then," Xion replied.

Kairi took the lead instead. She ducked past the dripping slime and motioned everyone else to follow, but the next pit seemed impassable. There weren't any enemies to hop on, platforms to scale, or...

*Blip*

A tiny, square platform appeared with a white flash...

*Blip*

...Only to disappear again. "...Oh, no," Kairi groaned.

"I think I see what the next obstacle is," Lambda muttered with equal disdain.

*Blip*

The platform reappeared, and another one showed up right past it, blinking in and out at a different interval.

Xion scratched her head. "Huh, this is a doozy. We can't even see the whole sequence of disappearing platforms from here."

Lambda asked, "Hazama, how long can you hang from Ouroboros in midair?"

Hazama provided an odd frame of reference. "Long enough to stalk someone during a secret meeting, why?"

Lambda explained, "Could you hang out a bit further ahead to see more of the puzzle? It would help a lot."

"Why, certainly. You just try not to fall. It would be a real pain getting back here." Hazama launched Ouroboros and zipped half the screen's width ahead, revealing seven more blocks, but it was clear that there was still more of the puzzle they couldn't see.

"I...can't guarantee I'll make this on the first try," Kairi hesitantly admitted.

Lambda agreed, "Yeah, especially with two of us trying to fit on those platforms. I wonder...yeah, that should work. Custom Option design finalized. 'Tow Option', standing by." A new, purple Option type appeared over her shoulder in a flash of purple light. It was shaped like an upside-down bowl, or perhaps a jellyfish, considering the flexible, hook-ended cable dangling down from somewhere inside it. The Option hovered over behind Kairi and hooked onto the black hood attached to her dress' straps, then rose up and lifted Kairi with it.

"Whoa! Give me some warning next time!" Kairi grabbed her dress around the skirt to stop it from pulling up too far.

Lambda shrugged. "Couldn't you tell what it would do by its shape? I just figured your hood should be useful for something, since you never seem to actually wear it. Anyway, the Tow Option type can't be used to carry myself, so I'll do the actual platforming alone while the rest of you fly or swing over. Route and timing confirmed. Beginning advance."

Kairi dramatically moaned, "Nooo, my accessories have betrayed me!" She made it obvious that she was joking, though, since Lambda actually had a good point.

Lambda hopped on the platforms with perfect timing. Forward, forward, two forward, one back, two forward, forward, pause a little longer, forward.

Hazama dropped from his chain momentarily before launching himself farther ahead. "Wow, this section just keeps going!" Ahead were eight more platforms, along with more dripping mushrooms on the ceiling. Hazama squinted at one (which was hard to discern since his eyes were always shut anyway), then leaned away from it in disgust. "Definitely not edible."

"Would you have actually eaten it if it was?" Xion asked as she Glided over to him. She couldn't Glide the whole way across the pit, so she touched down on one of the platforms before jumping again and hovering in place, ready to match Lambda's pace.

Lambda picked a platform with a particularly fast vanishing rate and hopped up and down on it as she calculated the next route. "Beginning advance." Forward, forward, forward, two forward, pause, skip the spikes, forward, up and back, forward...

"Ack!" Kairi yelped and thrashed about as a drip from one of the mushrooms landed on her face. "Ew ew ew, it's gross! ...Huh? I can't see anything! Well, except what's right around me, which isn't very helpful."

Forward, forward, two forward... Lambda continued to platform without getting too distracted. "Really? I guess it only affected you. I was worried that anything that affected vision would hit all of us, since we're all sharing the same view."

"Did you let that drip hit me on purpose?! It tastes awful!" Kairi tried to wipe the gunk off her face with her hands, which didn't work very well, but it vanished on its own after a few seconds, allowing her full range of vision to return.

Lambda shot back, "Of course not! What if it did blind us all? Or cause hallucinations? And I didn't want you to get hit with it either way. I'm really sorry. I guess I didn't split my focus well enough to fly you along at the right speed." Luckily, the disappearing block section finally seemed to be coming to an end. "Phew! Solid ground! Cure!" She cast a minor healing spell on Kairi, just in case the shroom juice caused any damage.

The Tow Option set Kairi down on the large, solid platform at the end of the pit, then vanished with another purple flash. The Princess of Heart smoothed out her dress, took a deep breath, and calmed down. "...Okay, I believe you. At least we seem to be getting close to the end." She pointed at a swirling green save point just up ahead.

"Or this could be the middle," Xion pointed out.

"We'll see." Lambda touched the save point, causing it to swirl up into a bright pillar of Light for a second. "At least we won't have to do the disappearing blocks or the buzz-saws again before dealing with whatever's up..." She suddenly received a proximity alert. "Threat detected. If I can sense it before we can see it, it must be strong; maybe it's the boss! Scanning...scan complete."

Surprisingly, a green-bordered window popped up in the upper-left corner of the screen, titled "TARGET DATA ACQUIRED" along its top border. Inside the window was a picture of the enemy in question, along with the following information:

"Target ID: Heartless

-Type: Violet Toadstool

Threat Level: S

Physical strength rating: A

Magical strength rating: A

General defensive rating: S

Mobility: S

Notes: Capable of releasing a large cloud of poison unless attacked constantly. Immune to all available status effects. No notable weaknesses or resistances detected.

Recommended strategy: position allies to cover likely escape routes.

The picture showed a roughly human-shaped and human-sized Heartless with a round, black head showing the distinctive yellow eyes all Heartless shared. Atop its head was a wide, red cap with swirly, black markings that did make it look like a mushroom. Furthering that impression, the rest of its body was covered by a vivid purple cloak that dragged along the ground, obscuring whatever its feet might have looked like. It didn't have any visible claws, jaws, or weapons, and its arms looked like floppy noodles. All in all, the Violet Toadstool didn't seem very intimidating at first glance. But it was rated as an S-tier threat?

Xion asked, "Is that what your scanning protocols look like to you, Lambda?"

"That's all of the kinds of information I usually get from enemies, but it doesn't usually create a pop-up in my field of vision. I guess that's just how Merlin translated it to something your meat-brains can read."

Hazama chuckled. "Do I detect a note of superiority in your voice?"

Lambda shrugged. "More like the pendulum is swinging the other way; I started out feeling pretty inferior to pretty much everyone due to not being human, but Riku pointed out all the advantages I have. Then again, humans would probably be able to figure this stuff out without needing to do the scan, so it all evens out. I'm still the best hacker in our group, though."

Xion wondered, "Is my brain made of meat, ice, or what? I'm pretty sure my mind works differently from a normal person's, since all the memories I've...received...are perfectly organized."

Kairi shrugged. "There's no way to know what your brain looks like unless your reckless streak gets your head split open. Well, there'll be time to wonder about that later. Let's fight!"

She dashed forward, and as she did so, the camera zoomed out to show the whole boss arena: three medium-sized platforms, with the middle one placed slightly lower than the two on the sides. The Violet Toadstool bounced up and down on the middle platform, appearing just as it did in Lambda's scan report.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Defeat the Violet Toadstool!

Kairi scored a leaping slash on the mushroom Heartless and then continued attacking, but it didn't do anything in response. It did make a funny *squeak* sound every time it was hit, though. "Am I doing any damage?"

Lambda replied, "Scanning...yes, but not much. Its durability is almost off the charts. Hopefully we can keep it tied down..."

Of course, at that moment, the Heartless seemed to bounce off Kairi's next attack, sailing over to the right-hand platform. Xion used a few Air Slides to catch up. "I got it!" A few attacks later, it bounced again, this time to the left-hand platform. "Lambda, it's coming your way!"

"Fire Option!" A fireball-shaped Option appeared over Lambda's head, dousing the Violet Toadstool in a stream of flames as it approached. Unfortunately, although the fire did a lot of constant damage, it didn't make the Heartless flinch. It leaned in and wobbled its arms at Lambda, who tried to ward it off with her Keyblade. One of its arms got under her guard, however, dealing an attack that seemed to be a gentle brush, but had enough force behind it to blast Lambda to the edge of the platform. "Ouch..."

Hazama crossed his arms at Lambda's sloppy swordplay. "I'd pick up the slack, but you girls have to be the ones to beat the boss. Now, if you'll excuse me..." He launched Ouroboros at the center of the ceiling and stayed there for the rest of the battle, just in time for the Heartless to start stomping the ground and blowing out a huge, purple cloud of poison.

Coughing, Lambda jumped out of the cloud and air dashed to the center platform. "Whoa, I'm already dizzy...my auto-repair is handling it, though. Tow Option!" She created the jellyfish-like Option from earlier and set it hovering between the two platforms. "New plan! If we can blast it out of that cloud, I can catch it mid-jump!"

"I've got you covered! Holy!" Kairi pressed a hand to her chest and closed her eyes in concentration, bringing down a massive pillar of Light onto the platform occupied by the boss. As she expected, this wasn't enough to destroy the annoying mushroom, but it was enough to make it jump to another platform.

"Gotcha!" Lambda's plan bore fruit as the boss' trajectory passed right through the hook of her Tow Option. Snagged by the underside of its cap, the Violet Toadstool was left to dangle helplessly in midair. Lambda had kept her earlier Fire Option active, so she had it fly out of the poison cloud and start torching the boss. "Just a few more seconds and it'll be ready to slice and serve!"

"I'll do the slicing!" Xion leaped at the hapless Heartless and cleaved it down the middle with Forget-Me-Not, releasing its heart. "Another one down! That's three Training Worlds completed!"

Kairi pulled out the TP Tracker she'd bought on the earlier shopping trip and checked her score. Shared TP: 5500. She reported, "We've almost doubled our TP! That boss was worth a lot of money, like any good pinata enemy. But where's the Practice Keyhole?" Luckily, she didn't have to worry for long.

The screen began to shake as sections fell off the background, revealing nothing but pitch blackness behind it. The fallen were in the shape of a Keyhole. Lambda dismissed her Options and pointed Elysium at the background. "I'll lock this one." She fired a Release beam from her Keyblade, which traveled a deceptively long distance before striking the giant Keyhole. The blackness behind it brightened into a blinding Light that drowned out the whole screen.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

The Training Worlds: Hub...

When the party could all see again, they were back in the familiar hub room with its normal rules of perspective and motion. "That's convenient; we didn't need a save point to come back this time." Lambda sighed in relief. "That world was stressful."

Roxas was there to greet them again...and the first thing he did was punch Xion in the shoulder. "What were you thinking, letting Terumi beat you up so badly? What if the life-link didn't work as advertised?"

Xion frowned seriously. "If it didn't, then we would've been doomed anyway. I'm sorry I made you worry, though."

Hazama pointed out, "You wouldn't necessarily be doomed; I was there too. Let me have a shot at kicking his ass next time!"

Roxas maintained his glare at Xion for a few more seconds, then cracked a grin. "I forgive you, but at least try to defend yourself next time, okay?"

"Sure thing. I'm already treading too close to some dangerous anime cliches by wearing a T-Shirt that says I'm invincible." Xion changed her shirt's slogan to read: "Only Mostly Invincible".

Roxas chuckled. "Ha ha, very funny."

Kairi cut in, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I could use some shut-eye. Can we head to an inn in Midnight Town?"

"Sure, I'm exhausted." Lambda headed over to the first door.

Hazama agreed, "It has been a rather exciting day. A day for me, at least. You three have been at it for a whole week." He pulled the World Clock out of his jacket with a flourish. "And before you ask where I got this neat doodad, Xion's pockets don't do crap to stop pickpockets. Try actually using that Bag of Holding you have."

He tossed the clock to Xion, who stuffed it in her blue-laced pouch. "...I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Let's get some sleep."

Lambda opened the door and sent the party back to RE: Midnight Town.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

A/N: Holy procrastinators, Batman, it's been almost three months! At least I have some idea of what the next Training World will be like already.

Special thanks to FierceDeityMask for steadfastly fighting the insidious forces of procrastination, and for helping me design the Violet Toadstool!