I really did put some of what we millennials pass off as "time and effort" into researching thundersnows, the nature and mechanics of lightning, and planetary atmospheres because I stress out a lot about accuracy and really want this to be as scientifically accurate as a science-fantasy story is allowed to be. Still, while science is awesome, it's also my worst subject ever and I'd appreciate it if someone science-savvy would meticulously point out every science-related thing I got wrong or right here so I can learn from this and not insult your intelligences any longer. SCIENCE!
Chapter Six: Nightmare over London
The nursery, on the third story of the Darling residence…
"That's quite the tale you weave," George charged Terra, "but do you really expect us to believe such poppycock?"
Mary, now holding Wendy after she finished mending Terra's wounds, stared incredulously at her husband. "George, after the things we've seen, how can you doubt this man's testimony?"
"Heartless, Keyblades, and doors to other worlds," George mused, "I'll readily accept that there are forces we don't understand at work here," he turned to Terra "—not the least of which being that sword you carry around," then back to Mary "—but how can we so gullibly believe they're as larger-than-life as the lad says? He's shown us evidence of some of the supernatural powers he mentioned, and I'm grateful for what he's done for us, but we've yet to see any proof of these greater forces which he speaks of. That hook-handed lunatic may have only been an escaped invalid who dabbled in black magic, rather than some 'Heartless general' who commands an 'army of darkness.' Just where is this army? And what of these other worlds?—are we to believe life exists on every star in the sky simply because this man—this supposed 'space alien'—tells us so?"
Terra mumbled, "I…never considered myself a space alien before, but when you put it like that—"
Mary countered her husband, "But you yourself demanded to know what he was talking about when he spoke with Hook about those things. You wanted to know how trillions of lives could've been lost when we don't have anywhere near that many people on Earth, but now that he mentions there being life on other worlds, it starts to make sense."
"Yet, the more I consider those things he and that 'Heartless' mentioned in passing," George returned, "the more probable it seems they were only using wild hyperboles to throw us off their real trail, whatever that may be, as professional liars do. These fantastical elements in his story may only be a cover-up for something happening right here on our own world. He could be a secret serviceman tracking England's enemies and throwing off witnesses with red herrings of outlandish tales. Or perhaps he's a spy gathering intelligence for the Germans for this blasted naval arms race—no good can come of all these recent militarizations and alliances, I'm telling you. The world's already in such a volatile state and perhaps on the brink of all-out war that it's not so difficult to believe he could be anyone working for any government and who knows how that may endanger us or all of England in the long-run? I'll not swallow this 'spaceman' tale so easily when other, far more plausible explanations exist."
Mary sighed as she gently rocked Wendy in her arms to help calm the infant. "George, you're making baseless accusations toward a man who's done nothing but help us. What does it matter where he comes from or what he believes in? He could be a wizard, a spy, or a spaceman for all I care, but that doesn't change that he saved your life and our daughter's."
George opened his mouth to retort, but thought better of it. At last, he groaned in exhaustion and looked again at the bandaged Keybearer sitting on the nursery floor. "I'm sorry for appearing inhospitable towards you, young man. But please try to understand I'm only concerned for my family's safety, and your story isn't without its questionable elements. It's not every day a pair of sorcerers break into my home and make a mess of things like this. Now, we've a madman's corpse plastered on our front yard and that's sure to draw attention from the neighbors and the police. Ah, well. But my wife is right. You did save us and that should be enough. Thank you."
Terra grinned through the pain. It was an almost surreal vision for the married couple to see a man with oddly silver hair, a missing right eye, fresh scar on his left cheek, and other recent wounds genuinely smiling in all his misfortune. Perhaps there really was something otherworldly to this visitor. "Mr. Darling," Terra started, "you have to be the most intelligent and skeptical-minded person I've ever disclosed the secrets of the universe to." He could even give King Triton a run for his money. Then he turned to Mary with that same smile, "And you, Mrs. Darling, you're probably the most kind-hearted and progressive-thinking emissary of a pre-Gummi society we've ever made first-contact with. Your daughter has a wonderful pair of role models looking after her."
Half-lifting his arm a moment, the Keybearer noted the blood on his gloved hand—George's blood from the gash Hook left in his stomach that Terra healed—and wiped most of the mess on the pant leg of the suit he borrowed from Xehanort and re-extended his arm to George for a handshake as Mary was occupied holding Wendy. "I'm Terra, by the way."
In all the excitement, the last thing the Darlings expected was a formal introduction from the bizarre visitor. Momentarily unsure, George recomposed himself and shook Terra's hand with his own. "You can call me George. How do you do?"
"Lousy," Terra answered with a smirk. "But pleased to make your acquaintance." Even in pain, Eraqus' former student understood gallantry.
"I'm Mary," the wife greeted, "and this is our daughter, Wendy."
"Charmed," Terra replied. He looked again at the three, and in the sentiment of the moment, it wasn't so difficult to envision himself in George's place, and standing beside him, where Mary held Wendy, he saw…
His heart warmed at the thought. "You're a beautiful family."
A distant sound, almost like the muffled ticking of a clock, followed by a distant human shriek, almost beyond hearing range, caught Terra's ear. His eyes widened slightly at the barely perceived disturbance, then more voices joined the discord and the Darlings could hear it too, alarming all in the nursery.
"What could that be?" Mary wondered, fear steadily creeping on her.
"More of your Heartless?" George suggested to Terra, only half-cynical.
Terra grunted. "Help me up," then he and George clasped arms and the father aided him to his feet, holding and allowing the Keybearer to lean against him for support, never minding the seeping blood which now sullied his own clothes. Though the distant shape beyond the window remained indiscernible, the three adults in the room fathomed a vast, white mass which hovered in the night sky. In the horror-filled seconds that followed as the being slithered ever closer through the air, a gargantuan fanged maw was comprehended by the onlookers, followed by two black, hungry, beady eyes, then a large, protruding spinal column and an extensive tail at the end of it that demolished the tops of structures high and near enough to be caught in the beast's peripheral flight path, scattering heavy debris in every direction onto the streets and into other buildings, endangering the people below. Every second the ghastly vision of the titanic crocodile from Hell glided nearer and the splitting cacophony of screams and police whistles woke London into a nightmare come true, the spectators in the nursery grew ever weaker in their knees under the overwhelming surge of terror. That monster was clearly flying towards them. Its jaws slowly opened and a low, unearthly growl shook the city.
Hands full with her child, willpower alone stifled Mary's intermittent shrieks and Terra felt George losing breath at his side. Remembering his obligation as their protector, the silver-haired man turned to them, "We need to leave right now," he urged with calm intensity. Mary seemed to hear him, but George only trembled and paled, stumbling Terra and forcing the wounded Keybearer to act as George's support. He clutched a hand at the older man's collar and repositioned himself between the petrified father and the window and exclaimed, "George!" he grabbed his attention. Now he needed only to direct him. "That thing's coming right at us! I need you to take your wife and child and get them to safety! Do you understand?"
Speechless though he was, George managed a trembling nod, then gradually quit his sniveling until he could look Terra straight in the eye and weakly asked, "But what about you? You don't mean to face that monster in your condition…do you?"
The question forced Terra to evaluate his situation. If Aqua was still out of commission and Ven and Xehanort were unable to reach him on Hooks' vessel, that would mean he was the only one responsible for protecting this world from its newest destroyer, and barely able to stand as he was…
Mary clutched George's shoulder with a firm hand and ordered, "George, grab Terra and let's go!"
Both men were amazed at her bravery under pressure, but with his wife's encouragement, George regained some of his own courage and nodded. He picked Terra up in his arms and followed his wife as they fled down the stairs and into the street, out of the sky-sized juggernaut's path. Terra never had the chance or the strength to object.
When they passed Hook's disfigured corpse on the pavement, Terra's sight lingered on it and he wondered, Could that be what the monster's after?
Seven miles overhead…
The Unversed magic fueling his Keyblade-glider roared to life, its nose spearing the black mist of storm clouds he raced through as he narrowly avoided the lightning that flared against his abyssal, murky helmet. Hail struck him all the same, but Vanitas was unshaken by the elements which sought his destruction as he expertly steered the sleek and angular hover-cycle his Keyblade transformed into. He knew his mission and the clock he raced against. Adrenaline forcing him onward, the masked rider continued his high-speed descent through the cloud barrier, dodging lightning strikes and restrikes, yet never fully certain or concerned he'd make it through alive.
Instinct warned him of a positively-charged surge of ionized air—a "leader" of what would become a lightning bolt—splintering upwards to meet him when there was nowhere safe to weave aside. Reactively casting a frenzied magnet spell at his cry, "Gather!" Xehanort's disciple influenced the ion charges of other nearby leaders in the cloud, turning their positive charges negative and thusly altering them into airborne streamers, those opposite charges which attract leaders, and forcing them to connect and release their electrical discharge prematurely, scarcely saving Vanitas from an almost certain death as the lightning he influenced blasted all around him.
With that final display, his vehicle pierced the end of the storm cloud barrier which separated the Jolly Roger from London and he set his sights on the titanic Nobody flying towards a three-story house several miles below.
"C'mon! Punch it!" he screamed at his glider—Void Gear—and the magic hover-cycle redoubled its efforts, streaking through the stratospheric air and falling snow at speeds that would topple any other rider. But it's been so long since I've been out of a cage. I need this. Even if the mission kills me, I need this!
In time scarcely fathomed, Vanitas descended past the toppled peaks of London's skyscrapers and trailed only a few hundred yards behind the crocodile, where he found a comrade he hadn't seen since his imprisonment began seventy-nine grueling days ago.
He pulled up his glider beside hers, but Aqua was the first to speak. "Vanitas?!" Just his presence affirmed that Ven and Xehanort's half of the mission succeeded.
The surprise in her tone was expected, but unreadable. No, distant—Vanitas told himself, unsure how he felt about it. That's all I ever was with Eraqus' kids. Distant. —It didn't help that they were both wearing helmets.
He pushed confused apathy aside and shouted over the high speeds, "Regroup with Terra and fall back to the Jolly Roger! Xehanort's orders!"
Even now, almost three months after they last saw each other under tragic circumstances with no guarantee of ever reuniting, Aqua was astounded at the boy's impersonal nature—how he was always either an aloof joker or a stone-hearted soldier, yet unpleasant all the same.
She tried to protest his interception, "But—!"
Vanitas snapped back at her, "I said ugly's mine!"
Without another word, Aqua reluctantly broke off pursuit, yet lingered long enough to understand her returned partner's motive. What's he doing? That monster's already beginning its descent, and before it even lands, it's gonna demolish dozens of buildings and take hundreds of lives just by its size alone. Does he really think he can stop it?
Vanitas blazed the remaining distance at a heartrate barely contained, weaving through the beast's towering spinal column and other protruding armatures that would've slain him on impact, all to the metronomic ticking and tocking of the warped and deformed alarm clock inside the monster's belly. At last, he overshot the Nobody's elongated maw, its groan deafening and physically disrupting, and he saw his target.
There, plastered against the pavement before a three-story home laid James Hook's sprawled corpse. A large part of Vanitas felt cheated he couldn't execute the captain himself after all the demi-Heartless put him through. He skidded his hover-cycle to a brief near-halt as he leaned over the side to snatch up the departed captain by his black-bloodied collar. Holding him up to look on his ex-captor's face in the glider's oblique turn, Vanitas was genuinely shocked to behold what Terra and the Darlings had done to him.
The captain's face was scorched beyond recognition and his hair all burned off—no doubt from a powerful fire spell of Terra's—and a bullet entry wound tarnished his already-charred forehead. The impact of the fall smashed the entire back of his skull open into black jelly with most of those spilled remains left as a puddle on the concrete. His death was clearly gruesome, but his face, his remains…those were beyond mortifying. At least Vanitas could hide his own torture-deformities behind a mask. In the fraction of a second before he returned to the present and his glider completed its rotation, Vanitas left Hook's lifeless gaze and regarded his appearance with one parting thought.
To be honest, I'm not sure which of us got the worse deal.
Then his eyes were back on the giant, who was only twenty yards away and already opening its maw for the meal the masked rider stole. Vanitas held up Hook before the crocodile to grab its attention. "You want this? Come and get it!" Then he forced his glider back to life and zoomed past the Nobody's side, flying out of reach of the six arms on its side. Looking back against the shearing wind, he found his ploy worked and the ghost-white behemoth—over 150 meters long, over twenty meters wide, and who could guess how heavy?—was already turning to pursue him before it could land and crush any other structures. Xehanort's disciple never bothered to guess how many lives he just saved.
It's not enough to get this thing away from the city. I need it off-world.
That's where Vanitas flew: upwards, through the snowfall and back to the ominous wall of clouds above and the lightning storm within. Aqua understood his intentions before he breached the storm. So that's what he's doing. Least the fool could've done is asked for a shield.
His glider neared the storm ceiling with the Nobody titan a shrinking distance behind. Seconds before entering, Vanitas remembered his last experience with the elements hardly minutes ago and how he was a prime target for smiting. I should've asked Aqua for a shield.
And right on cue, Aqua, landing atop a tall home in the neighborhood and reverting Rainfell to its Keyblade form, discharged a magic bolt from the weapon that trailed after Vanitas and encompassed him and Void Gear in Aqua's signature magic barrier to protect him from the winter thunderstorm. Entering the black ceiling and watching the electric volts splay chaotically but harmlessly against the shield around him, Vanitas breathed a breathless prayer, "Bless you, Aqua."
But the crocodile which dwarfed frigates broke into those same clouds, immune to the hazardous weather, and pursued the masked rider who stole his prize with a ravenous vengeance. It bellowed a blood-curdling roar which half-immersed Vanitas in an afterlife which seemed all too near in those moments, but he swallowed what fear he could and pushed on through the perilous black mist as the magic barrier slowly dissipated from damage and wear, the Nobody's jaws closing in.
They traveled miles in seconds and Vanitas was the first to reach the other side of the storm, his shield gone as he entered the mesosphere with the rancorous crocodile now a greater distance behind. A small victory, but hardly his final destination. His view of space was clear now, and he saw the glimmering celestial body which outshone all others. Once majestic and beautiful, the incandescent mass had become unstable and grotesque from Heartless domination. It was the perilous trapping-ground Xehanort designated for his disciple to lead the Nobody into. Vanitas regarded it with finality.
There it is. Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning. I can make it in half that time.
When the Nobody broke through the murky vapor and outstretched its hellish maw for another thunderous roar, Vanitas demanded the glider amplify its power output, and in time, the boy and his hunter reached the thermosphere, and 150 kilometers later, they passed into the exosphere, which gradually faded into the vacuum of space. Already, the Heartless Neverland seemed so much closer.
There was no record of time kept between the flyers in the shortening gap between them and the anomalous star. Not even the clock in the Nobody's stomach made a sound in the silent void of space. Yet in time unmeasured and fatigue ignored, Vanitas blazed closer to his destination until the star's malevolent glow gave way to detail of the undead shadowlands that comprised the Heartless world. Its ghastly corpse and the hell-spawns it birthed were leagues beyond the horror that became Destiny Islands, at least when Vanitas last saw it. Now, though, that unfortunate world was likely gone: just another vanished star. Vanitas brushed aside the memory of his greatest failure and focused on the magic seal Xehanort placed over the world long ago to prevent the Heartless from escaping.
Hook's deformed corpse still in hand, the masked Keybearer commanded the speeding vehicle, "Alright, don't fail me now! Bust that seal open!" and the tip of the Keyblade glider blazed with power and shot forth a beam of energy that revealed the Keyhole Xehanort locked. Void Gear's beam surged with intensified power as Vanitas directly fed more of his Unversed energy into it, and when only seconds of distance remained between the rider and the world's barrier, the lock finally gave and the magic dome quickly dispersed apart from the apex, opening hundreds of yards apart in seconds—enough for the titanic Nobody to fit through. Already, many winged creatures of Darkness flocked to the widening aperture in conflicting anticipation of freedom and warfare. Though space was opening to them, they understood the crisis of the incoming Nobody and his herald.
Skidding his hover-cycle to another extreme turn when the opening was within throwing distance, Vanitas lobbed the deformed corpse of Hook into the world's atmosphere as he screamed to the Nobody not far behind him, "Welcome to Hell, beastie! Enjoy the buffet!"
He smirked beneath the mask as he watched the winged Heartless react in what might be interpreted as terror. The crocodile would be upon them in seconds. Now just put the seal back up and watch 'em tear each other apart.
But a protruding scale of the crocodile's impenetrable armor clipped the back of Vanitas' hover-cycle, breaking apart the magic weapon's glider form and jolting the exhausted rider from his vehicle. He spiraled out of control, chaotically fumbling against the gargantuan crocodile's jagged hide as it descended at incredible speeds to the Heartless world, dragging the Keybearer along with it as he crashed and ricocheted from brutal collisions with the Nobody's spinal column and infrequent armatures. It was a miracle nothing was amputated.
He tried to distance himself from the host he unwittingly entangled with, yet never found the chance and could only hold onto a protrusion of its armor for dear life. The Heartless threw themselves upon the goliath—some landing far closer to Vanitas than he would've liked—and the nearer the warring company careened to the world's troposphere, the greater the sums and magnitudes of the Heartless became, until sable giants rivaling the Nobody's stature flew upward to meet them with savage ferocity. In the fray, Hook's corpse fell beyond reach and beyond sight, lost to a ravenous forest of shadows. Vanitas had no intention of joining the captain he reviled and so gambled with his own life and flung himself from the crocodile's form once more. Against every odd, he escaped the behemoth's vicinity without a further scratch, yet found himself freefalling helplessly in the air as the giants streaked faster to the ground, none paying miniscule Vanitas any mind. Seconds after he released his host and watched the titans plummet to Hell, the dethroned Keybearer beheld the black sea itself reach up to the crocodile with dozens of monstrous limbs and wicked teeth and watched it and the other Heartless pull the Nobody into the murky brine. The leviathan which unleashed an Armageddon of unyielding horror over London not so long ago now flailed and clashed for its un-life against forces far superior until the stronger demons prevailed and dragged it to the shadowy depths.
No longer aware of his own descent, Vanitas froze in terrified disbelief. It wasn't until his Keyblade returned to him of its own will that he remembered his status and his mission.
He reactivated the glider and tore through the air to flee the world before its forces realized he was there.
Its flyers found him anyway.
Stifling a yelp, he urged Void Gear to break its strained limits, yet found the glider's strength nearing depletion. He encouraged it—C'mon! Get us through this! We're not done yet!
And though the hover-cycle's speed only diminished, he cleared the world's border before the winged demons could reach him. Disengaging glider mode at once, he turned back to face the corpse of Neverland as he continued trailing away through space—an object in motion staying in motion—and outstretched the bladed form of Void Gear before him, releasing another surge of light from the Keyblade to reinitialize planetary lockdown. In seconds of power expended, something resembling a Keyhole reappeared over the world, and as the contour vivified, the hexagonal links which comprised the magic barrier rushed to converge on that point. Vanitas was grateful his efforts to break in only undid a fraction of the total barricade. Spent as he was, he'd never fully recreate Xehanort's work.
The Heartless hordes that pursued him on the other side screeched and howled as the barrier closed, but one made it through a millisecond before the seal was finished. Fatigued and off-guard, Vanitas cried in panic as the six-foot-tall, winged demon closed on him and soon had him in its merciless clutches, swatting the Keyblade away and gnashing at him with its sharpened teeth. There was no sound in space, but Vanitas could hear the bloodcurdling screams penetrating his soul nonetheless. Only by tired brute force was the masked boy able to stay the monster's fangs from his helmet—though, if the claws persisted, they would pierce his suit and expose his flesh to the cold void.
Thoughts raced under pressure.
Can't torch 'im off—no oxygen in space!
Too close for lightning—I'd fry myself too!
Oh, God—those eyes! Those teeth!
It was rare for Xehanort's most reclusive disciple to experience fear.
With a cry that could only be heard in his helmet, he forced back one of the monster's claws, and in the nanosecond that followed, coated his own fist with daggers of ice and impaled the Heartless' ribcage. It screeched in pain that space silenced, but Vanitas allowed adrenaline to force his hand again and he drew his arm back and then shot it forward to skewer the shadowy predator a second time—then a third—a fourth—a fifth—until the murderous vigor that fueled the monster's sallow eyes faded and death occupied those once shimmering orbs.
Breathless and horrified, Vanitas kicked the black form away and watched it sail through the void—its sable entrails spilling freely, almost gracefully away—until its corpse connected with the magic barrier and the collision shattered the rest of the beast apart, dispersing it into fractals and molecules, then nothingness. The demon's brethren watched its demise in horror and vengeance at the limit of the barrier, just inches apart yet forever separated, and they cursed the masked boy in their Heartless tongue. Clearly, these ones were advanced enough to form their own language. What that implied about Heartless evolution as a whole was a subject to fear for another day. For now, Vanitas only laid back, resting on the emptiness that carried him, and leisurely raised his frost-encased fist at the Heartless in a final taunt. A particularly elongated icicle in the center made the gesture appear obscene.
Void Gear returned to him, but there was no hurry to ride back to the others. The flight to Neverland likely spanned several hours—what difference would a nap make? He was tired and deserved this rest. Oh, how long it had been since he'd last seen the stars or anything beyond his cell…
Almost forgot how beautiful it all was. The sky…the stars… Damn you, Hook. You stole my face…a quarter-year of my life… I counted the days until my freedom—seventy-nine. That's how long I waited. I wanted nothing more than to repay every form of torture you inflicted on me tenfold. But now…nothing's as satisfying as just lying here, surrounded by everything you took from me.
He reached a hand upward for the morning star, forty-three trillion kilometers away, and slowly closed his fist around it, exhaling and shutting his eyes with the knowledge that nothing in the universe stopped him now.
This is freedom.