Ruby's eyes fluttered open. She leaned up and let out a loud yawn with her arms stretched out. She still felt drowse after her rest. Still, if she awoke it was probably time to get up. She opened her eyes completely open to find, to her surprise that she was surrounded by darkness. Nothing but inky blackness as far as the eye could see. This darkness, it felt familiar to her. Almost like that one dream so long ago. As her hands reached the ground, she felt glass. Realizing this familiar sensation, she pushed herself up and looked at the floor below her was made out of glass
"Am I really back in this place?" She asked herself as she looked around once more
She seemed to be on a glass pillar, just like that dream. To the point where the glass stain picture looked incredibly similar to her pillar in the dream. The circles with both of Crescent Rose's forms, the thorns and roses, her teammates pictures not being in a compass formation. There were a few major differences, however. Ruby was no longer in the center of the glass, she was leaning to the right side, while a figure in a black coat that looked like an organization 13 coat leaned on the other side, leaving the woman in white all alone. Ruby slowly walked towards the new mysterious figure's portrait and noticed it shared the few things that made the girl she saw earlier stick out. In fact, she was sure it was the girl from earlier. Her coat wasn't zipped up all the way and even with her hood up you could still see the same nose and the same lips as before
"Why is that girl in the picture now?" Ruby asked out loud, confused as to why the dream changed something so small yet so big
Suddenly, Ruby felt a strange presence right behind her. She quickly turned to see a somewhat familiar face, an organization member, standing on Ruby. Specifically, this was the exact same one in the picture and the one she saw hours ago
"You?!" Ruby addressed the mysterious girl "Why are you here? Both in front of me and in the picture?!"
Like before, the girl didn't say a word. She just stood there, staring at Ruby. The team leader got in a battle ready position and was ready to grab Crescent Rose if she tried anything funny. The coated girl simply raised her hand, similar to last time but instead of offering it to Ruby she looked like she was reaching out to something. Than a flash suddenly appeared, temporarily blinding Ruby
The flash started to fade though and Ruby was soon able to examine her surroundings once more. At first everything was as it was before, including the organization member, until Ruby realized that the girl had something in her hand. A pink sword that greatly resembled a cross, much like the pins on Ruby hood, with a gold handle that made it look like...
"A keyblade?" Ruby finally spouted out
(Insert The Other Promise from Kingdom Hearts 2.5)
The enemy pulled another one out of thin air in the other hand, spun them both and got ready to fight Ruby. Ruby, in turn, pulled out Crescent rose and instantly changed it into scythe mode. While this would normally intimidate anyone else, the black coated girl simply stared at both it and Ruby before charging right at her with her dual keyblades dragging on the ground, letting the sparks they created fly behind her. When the organization member finally came up to Ruby, she swung her right keyblade down, which Ruby dodged and blocked when both blades tried to slice her. The cloak broke free of the clash and turned to swing her right blade which Ruby blocked again and brought it down with the tip of her scythe. With her opponent wide open, Ruby swung Crescent Rose across her chest. Ruby could hear a grunt from the enemy as she switched her weapon's sides and sliced her again. Ruby brought in up and just barely missed the girl as the tip of the scythe grounded itself onto the glass. Giving her no time, Ruby shot the girl 3 times, hitting her directly in the chest, pushing her back with each shot. The organization member stopped her acceleration by slamming the tips of her blades as she landed right in the middle. Ruby tried shooting her twice more, but they keyblade wielder deflected them both, the first she used her left and the second her right. As she blocked her attacks, Ruby could hear frustrated grunts as the opponent defended herself
The girl pointed one of her blades right above Ruby's head and shot a beam of light from it that went above Ruby and caused an explosion that hurtled the red huntress towards her range. Ruby quickly looked up to see that her opponent was about to swing both of her weapons down on her. Ruby also got the tiniest glimpse of her face, only really able to tell from one of her eyes that she had blue eyes. Ruby rolled away from her attack and proceeded to relentlessly slice her with Crescent Rose, with the final slash uppercutting her and sending her into the air, where she proceeded to just float there with no decent. Once again she was making frustrated sounds and started trembling and shaking in rage. Her opponent let all the frustration and anger she was building up and let it all out and a shout to the sky
Darkness started to swarm around her as she did, forming a sort of cocoon of darkness. Ruby didn't like the looks of this, so she charged to the cloaked girl and got ready to slice it. Light started to form in the cocoon, though, and Ruby could see her figure has changed somewhat, but it was hard to tell how it changed. She could see though that the organization member pointed one of her blades to the sky as she shot a beam of light, with her surroundings following the beam. As they reached the top, they split up and scattered across the pillar, changing the sky as they did so. Ruby was so distracted by the sudden change that she didn't notice the X of light coming right towards her. It hit Ruby right in her midsection, knocking her back almost to the edge of the arena. She got back up and looked back at her opponent. Her weapons had temporarily disappeared and she seemed to be wearing armor. This armor's helmet had a giant pink cross in front of the face with black and sharp pointed ends. When looking at the body parts of the armor though, it looked, strangely enough like...
Sora
It looked like she was wearing a metal version of his clothes with a pink and platinum scheme to them. The shirts, the pants, the boots. They weren't exactly the same, but they were similar enough that you could make the comparison. She didn't give Ruby much time to take in her new form though, as she clapped her hands together and called upon 4 streams of light in separate directions as they rocketed towards the red hooded girl. Ruby jumped out of the way in the nick of time, but that wasn't the end of it as she started charging blue energy spheres in both hands. She threw one from one hand and the other and they kept on coming. Using her semblance, Ruby was able to evade these as well, tipping her toes across the edge of the battlefield. More and more kept coming, but Ruby was hardly loosing any breath. At some point, the armored girl stopped attacking and Ruby stopped running
With her hands now free, the organization member threw her hand towards Ruby, seemingly doing nothing. Ruby decided to run and attack once more, but she tripped and was pulled back right where she was. Ruby looked down to see some light circle was below her feet and pulling her in like a magnet. Her opponent called her 2 blades back once more and raised them both to the sky. The light circle reacted to this gesture and started becoming brighter and created a huge explosion that spreader light across everywhere. The organization member relaxed for a bit, knowing that there was no way she could have survived that attack
She was proven wrong when a red bulled with rose pedals behind it rocketed itself towards her. Out of the bullet emerged a silver eyed girl with a scythe who spun said scythe and sliced across her helmet as she passed by. Ruby slammed onto the ground, catching her breath with how close she was to being toast. Her opponent also crashed on the ground. Ruby heard a crack and looked back to the kneeling enemy. Her back was turned towards Ruby, but she could see that her helmet had cracked, shattered and its remains landed on the floor. This didn't seem to phase her as much as it first looked though as she slowly rose up with hardly any sweat broken. From the back, Ruby could also see that her hair was black and as short as hers. They both just seemed to stand exactly where they were for a moment
"I can feel it" The mystery girl finally spoke "It's nearly back'
"What are you talking about?" Ruby asked, having no idea what that had to do with their fight
"It's slowly starting to come back to me. I can feel how close it is"
The girl started to turn around, so Ruby prepared for an attack. What she wasn't prepared for was her opponents true face. On the contrary, that was shocking enough for Ruby to carelessly drop her weapon. Her opponent's face...
looked exactly like Ruby's face. Her skin had turned pale as her own skin, there were hints of red highlights in her hair, and while one of the eyes were blue like she saw, the other eye was silver like her own. Ruby just stood there, unable to comprehend how her opponent looked
"How close is it for you?" The girl asked, the voice at the very least didn't change to Ruby's voice
The look alike called back one of her blades, held it with both hands and charged at the shocked red hooded girl
(End The Other Promise)
Ruby jerked herself up, gasping for air with a cold sweat coming down her forehead. She looked around to see she was back at the team's campsite. Weiss, Blake, SKRL and Oobleck were all fast asleep and Yang was on watch duty. Ruby sighed in relief, being thankful it was all just a dream. Though, when she looked around the room again, Ruby noticed that a certain lovable corgi was missing
"Zwei?" Ruby quietly called out, trying not to wake any of her friends up or distract her sister
Ruby assumed that her pet must have gone outside to go to the bathroom or something. She quietly got out of bed, grabbed crescent rose in case there were nearby grimm and went outside to see if her suspicions were right
Ruby peeked out of their building and looked around for her dog "Zwei? Where are you? Zwei!"
It didn't take long before Ruby noticed that the little Corgi was indeed going to the bathroom on a rusted metal beam. Or at least, it now was rusted. The little dog gave a quiet but happy ruff when is owner came by, to which she tried to quiet him down once he was done with business
"Zwei, this is a wasteland. You literally could have done that anywhere"
Ruby walked up to Zwei, keeled down and let the corgi proceed to lick her face. She laughed and retaliated by petting his favorite spot, the neck
"Man Zwei, I had the craziest dream" Ruby started to do more do talk "I saw that girl from before and we fought, and than it turned out she was me.. or I was her? Well whatever it was, I'm glad it's over"
Zwei stopped licking the young girl's face and freed himself from her pets, looked ahead and growled, something that this dog specifically almost never did
"Zwei, what's wrong?" Ruby looked ahead and instantly understood her dog's anger
There she was. Right in front of her once more. The girl in the organization cloak she saw earlier and the same girl she fought in her dream, with her hood covering up her hair and eyes once again, and her skin changing back to how it was today. Was she the cause of that dream? Was she trying to tell her something? Did she want to scare her? But out of all the questions racing through Ruby's mind, the one that popped up the most was 'Why is she here and what does she want from me?'
Without even saying a word, the girl quickly turned around and ran back in the direction she supposedly came from. Zwei gave a bark and followed the cloaked girl
"Z-Zwei, stop! Wait up! Sit!" None of Ruby's commands seemed to stop neither the dog nor the girl
Fearing the organization would try to dissect her dog or something, and not wanting to either loose track of the organization or have the organization come to them, Ruby started running and tried her best to catch up with them both. She didn't want to use her super speed just yet, as the girl and Zwei kept making very sharp turns through the destroyed city, but at some point the organization member had stopped at one of the still standing buildings. Ruby grabbed Zwei just before he was about to charge at her. The dog constantly barked and tried to wiggle its way out of it's master's hands, but he had very little luck with that
"Who are you?" Ruby tried getting some answers from this mysterious member "Did you have anything to do with that crazy dream I just had? Are you an Organization 13 member?..." The girl remained silent, refusing to give Ruby an answer "Talk already, will ya!?"
Like she did just a few hours ago, the mystery girl extended her hand out to Ruby. And once again, Ruby was drawn towards this extension. She had no idea was, there's a very high probability that this girl was just as evil as the one from the dance. But there was some familiarity that Ruby's subconscious wanted to figure out the answer. Her curiosity left her hands more loose, allowing Zwei to escape and charge and charge towards the cloak
Ruby snapped out of her trance "Zwei!"
The dog leaped head first into the girl's midsection and... phased right through her, leaving some kind of static pattern where he leaped. Ruby was of course surprised by that, and how the girl retained her pose. Ruby was starting to ask if this girl was even real. Deciding to test her theory out, she fired a few sniper bullets at the supposed real girl, both times phasing through her and both times leaving the girl with a glitchy static pattern. Than suddenly she just vanished all together, leaving Ruby amazed but mostly confused
"So, was she some kind of illusion?" Ruby asked herself
"Yes, unfortunately that's the best I can do for now"
Ruby heard some guy's voice echo through the ruined city. Zwei heard it to as he started to bark again. Behind her, Ruby felt a more real feeling presence. She turned to see a dark portal with a black coat coming out of it. Ruby could tell that this guy felt more real that whoever that girl was
"A shame Vexen is no longer one of us" The man continued on "We would have been able to use real replicas that wouldn't be broken. Instead, until one can create one with ease, we're stuck with holograms"
Ruby changed Crescent Rose's form and got ready to slice this guy up if something happened "Who are you?"
The organization member was quiet for a moment, as he examined the girl's scythe "I like your style kid. But I think I prefer mine"
A pink rose petal suddenly flew by the black coat. The organization member grabbed the petal as it turned into a long and gigantic scythe. It's length was very long, much longer and slightly more bent than Ruby's. A big part of that come from the skinny green stem he held with one arm. The attachment ring looked like some kind of white cross, with a pink blade that looked so sharp, it was easy to wince just by looking at it
"What are you guys doing here?" Ruby asked
"Rushing our original plans" The organization member coldly said "His theory on you better be right, otherwise you're both in a lot of trouble"
"Who's he?"
"I'll introduce you"
The organization member vanished into thin air, leaving Ruby baffled. Zwei barked up to the sky, so Ruby looked up to see the same scythe wielder floating in thin air. He held his weapon behind him, like he was going to give a giant swing to the air. He did swing, but a sharp looking pink shock-wave came out of the blade, down where Ruby stood, knocking the young huntress from her feet and dropping her weapon. The earth beneath her and Zwei started to crack and just like that it gave away, leaving a big empty hole. Ruby was able to hold onto an end of hole with one arm and held Zwei with the other. She threw Zwei up back to safety, and tried to pull herself back up. Sadly it was in vein as the piece of ruble she clenched onto gave way and she fell down. Zwei whined and gave a bark down in the hole. Even with his canine intelligence, he knew he had to run and get help
"Go ahead, mutt. You can get them, but they'll be too late"
Ruby rubbed her head as she got up. She hit it real hard on the way down. She looked around her surrounding and was quite surprised to find that there was another destroyed city right below their destroyed city, with the main difference being this one was in a cave. Before Ruby could examine her surroundings further, she noticed a red bullet of some kind was fired next to her feet. She looked around to see where the bullets were coming from. She found her answer when she looked up to the air
(Insert Xigbar's Theme from Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance)
She saw a face that she hadn't seen since that night where she learned everything. That same one eyed jerk who was scared at Ruby for whatever reason, hanging upside down in thin air, with his weapons pointed at Ruby
"You!" Ruby addressed the man
Xigbar de-attached himself from the air and landed on his two feet, grinning his teeth
"Hey there, little red. You seem to have gotten yourself lost"
Ruby was ready to pull Crescent Rose out and slice this guy into tiny pieces. Just one problem, her weapon was nowhere to be found. It must have still been up on the surface. Xigbar grinned even more at the defenseless girl in front of him
"Don't have your toys either? Shame" He dismissed his weapons into thin air
Refusing to be intimidated by this jerk, she charged up to him and threw a punch right in his torso. He hardly even moved. She tried punching him in his stupid face, but he caught the fist and just punched right right back, knocking her down to the ground. The impact was so strong that she had a hard time staying awake or get even farther than kneeling, so that's what she did allowing Xigbar to mock her right in her face
"And it looks like you're practically nothing without them either. Ha! This is going to be easier than I thought"
Ruby simply glared at the man with rage building up. That angry face. It made Xigbar show almost just as much enjoyment as Ruby was
"I know I'm right about you. I can only see that pipsqueak face when I see you" Xigbar got up out of Ruby's face and looked down on her
"Alright poppet, nap time's over. It's time to wake up, Xion"
Ruby was more than a little confused "My name's Ruby, not She's On"
Xigbar almost slapped his face. Ruby could tell he was very frustrated with her
"I told Xemnas we wouldn't get her that way" Xigbar started talking to himself "It didn't work with Sora, why would it work with here. Especially considering how slow old poppet is"
For some reason, Ruby felt her fists clench as he said those things about whoever he was talking about. She couldn't explain why, she just was
"Guess that's another thing she has in common with Roxas..." Xigbar continued "They're both too slow for our plans, on top of annoying to deal with"
"It takes one annoyance to know another, Xigbar,"
Without even thinking about it, Ruby just spoke. She spoke in a voice that wasn't even her own. How did she say something she didn't think to say or say it in a voice that isn't her own? Whatever the reason, she saw that this sudden outburst pleased Xigbar more than annoyed him
"Guess I owe him one. And a few bucks for Luxord"
"Wh...why did I...?" Ruby still had a hard time comprehending what "she" just said
"Still confused?" Xigbar regained her attention "Let me explain, or remind you, in your case. See about a year or so ago, Organization 13 didn't have 13 members. We actually had 14 members. The 14th being a little girl named Xion. Sure she was a pain, but she could use a keyblade, which was very good for our cause at the time. At first things went smoothly with her, but one day she met someone who was impersonating as one of us, and it all went down hill from there until she disappeared and was never seen again, with most of us assuming she was offed on some foreign world we'd never find her in.
Now at the time, Xemnas and Vexen said that she was a manifestation of some of Sora's memories that we'd been keeping track of since he started his adventure, and for a while we all believed that's how Vexen made her. However, that started to change when I saw you, Little Red" Ruby's hearts started beating faster as Xigbar put her in the spotlight
"When I first saw you that night where Xehanort exposed your friends and you all tried uncovering some of the White Fang's plans, I was reminded of that brat's face. And whenever I see the brat's face, I always see Mr. Angry's face. I thought it was impossible, but the more and more we looked into it, the more i started becoming convinced. The visions Fall Maiden said you presumably have with Sora, the familiar face, and how you have some kind of familiar feeling with the heartless and your new friends even though, as far as you know, you've never even met them in real life. A lot of traits that have some connection to Poppet"
"But I've never even heard about you guys before Sora came!" Ruby tried making her own case "Even than, I would never join the likes of you!"
"Maybe you yourself wouldn't, but depending on your nobody you could have"
"Nobody?" Ruby asked, confused by what he meant
"Yeah, you know a nobody; when the heartless get your heart, the body that's left behind starts moving on your own. Sometimes they end up different than how they were before, sometimes they remain the same, memories and all, so maybe something happened to you or Vexen did something when he "created" Xion"
Ruby was having a hard time processing all of this. New creatures called nobodies, an old 14th member, her being that 14th member. It all sounded crazy! But no matter how convincing Xigbar tried to be, Ruby knew for certain one thing
"You're lying!" She retorted to the organization member "I was never attacked by the heartless and I never became this Xion girl. You're just making it all up!"
"Oh, am I?" Xigbar started to sound annoyed with her "Than answer me a few questions. Why were you so drawn to Marluxia's illusions? Why did you keep asking it questions that should be obvious or how she, according to you, was in your dreams? Why do you seem to have some kind of tie with Sora? Why do you even care about any of this when neither ours or her plans directly involve you at all?"
Ruby let her frustration towards Xigbar hell her get back up "I don't know how to answers any of those questions, but I know none of it's true. You probably somehow put those dreams in my head"
"We didn't do anything. Either you came up with those dreams, or Xion is trying to tell you something"
"LIRE!"
Xigbar simply gave a smug grin to the rage filled girl "Well I guess there's only one way to see which one of us is right. And sad to say, if I'm right, it's not going to start out great start for you"
(End Xigbar's Theme)
Just like Marluxia, Xigbar disappeared as fast as he appeared, right above Ruby. He called his weapons back and pointed them down to Ruby. He didn't shoot directly at her, but he did start shooting his 6 bullets around Ruby in a circle. As soon as he finished, the bullets all vanished and were replaced with 6 black coats Ruby knew far too well at this point. Most of their hoods were up, except for one, who was Young, staring at Ruby with that classic blank stare of his
"Sleep" Young commanded as he waved his hand in front of the girl's
Before Ruby could even do anything, her head started becoming lighter, her eyes became tired, and her legs caved to gravity. She had no idea how, but she became incredibly tired. She could barely keep her eyes open enough to see Xigbar was outside the crowd around her, grinning at how helpless Ruby seemed to be
"Pleasant dreams, kiddo" The trick shooter told the team leader before she collapsed into a deep sleep
Author's Notes:
BOOM! Plot twist! Yes as many have been theorizing already, Xion is Ruby's nobody...
Are any of you mad or frustrated? Well guess what, it's a kingdom hearts fanfic that focuses on the plot, frustration is a given. I'm sure many of you have questions like "Ok, when and how?" Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough, my friends. Soon enough
Anyways, this chapter was a lot of fun. This might have been my favorite fight I've written yet, as I took a lot of inspiration from my favorite KH Boss, Roxas in KH2 Final Mix, music and all. Ever since I came up with the Ruby Xion twist, this fight has been super anticipated on my part and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I also really like the idea of Marluxia or Larxeen taking notes from their castle oblivion days and try their hand at replicas or clones, but aren't yet at the level Vexen was. That'll come back once in a while, by the way. Also, writing exposition Xigbar with his nonchalant attitude is just the best. What will happen to Ruby you might ask? Well I think most of you know, but the rest of you will find out soon enough
As for now, can we talk about the new KH3 trailer? It looked so good, and I personally always look forward when we can see more of the cut scenes of the different worlds, and the ones in both this and the last trailer have been great. Especially since we finally get to see some cut scenes from the Tangled world and after it was initially teased so many years ago we finally get Big Hero 6! I was trying to get this chapter out before the trailer dropped because I wanted to give my 2 cents on the Xion theories, and I'm really glad that Xion isn't the last vessel. A couple reasons, besides how that would effect this fanfiction. Mainly because she is one of my favorite characters, but it wouldn't really make sense if she was a vessel because, in canon, she is forgotten. So I'd find it really weird and hard to believe that the organization was having tea or something and Xemnas was like "Oh yeah, I remember this 14th member we had who was made out of Sora's memories. Do you think she could make a vessel?" I feel Data Riku being a vessel is also a great way to give Re:Coded more relevance to the plot because I feel the community can sometimes be a little harsh on how important it is. Also it works perfectly for some rough draft ideas I had at very early on, but felt i had to drop it with how much KH3 news we were getting at the time (also the recoded blocks are almost a perfect fit for the big hero 6 world to be enemies.)
Something else I really enjoyed about the trailer is how it seems Sora seems to be connecting to all the disney characters on a one-on-one level. He's talking to Anna about Elsa by himself, talking to Hiro about Tadashi with only Baymax and Go Go in the background, having to earn Buzz Lightyear's trust, and it looks like he may or may not dance with Rapunzel at the festival, but that's only judging it based on a thumbnail. It feels more personal and that they're going to explore more of the levels the characters Sora meets will have, which something, admitably , the other games don't really do. They don't really explore, say, the isolation Ariel feels, or the want to be loved from Aladdin, or how dishonorable Mulan's actions truly are. Sometimes they get it close enough like how Jack Skellington becomes blinded by over ambition, or Stitch becoming less monstrous and more friendly. Sometimes they'll even expand upon the plot and characters, like how overworked Hercules feels and give Belle and The Beast more to work through together, but that's very rare they do that. I feel part of the reason being that, for as great as those movies are, many of them are relatively basic in terms of structure, context, and messages. The Little Mermaid doesn't really have too much else besides "Become human, defeat /ursula, /happily Ever After." Peter Pan is just "Go to Never land, have fun, watch out for hook." Not all of them are as simple as that, in fact I'm probably over simplifying those films, but the newer films they're exploring to have more of a natural and personal feel to them because of the events that happened, such as the separation of 2 siblings, the death of an older brother, having to say goodbye to a loved one, and so on. The exploration of these characters is probably one of the things I'm really looking forward to, because I like it when a disney spin off goes beyond just being diet versions of their movies
I'm also really curious on the status of the other members. I mean on the surface it looks like Demyx is a Xehanort, but if you look closely, you'l see that Vexen's eyes are Xehanort gold in this new trailer, even though he should be back to normal and Xehanort already has 13 if we decide to include Demyx. Like, did a little bit of Xehanort linger on into their reformation? Is Ienzo secretly tricking Sora and isn't really on his side? Was it all just a flash back to some time with Vexen and Demyx? I have no idea, and I must know asap! Anyways, the trailer looks great, there are some really pretty shots, don't want to know why Lea's crying, please let us save Aqua. Now for some reviews
YamiChaos27: Yeah, my bad. It's just a little confusing when 2 brand new ps4 graphic projects are released on the same game that both have about the same amount of significance to the story. Also, I still am doubtful of Aqua. Maybe it's just my love for the character, but there's still at least a tiny part that still has hope. Though honestly if she is Norted, than that could really help with my plans for her and make her moments later on even more interesting, but we'll have to see
Corrinlover: what about master form? I mentioned it already
Last thing real quick, I'd like to try and get the last few chapters out before KH3 comes out, but with my consistency when it comes to writting and releasing, as well as my personal life, I don't know if I can keep that goal. I hope I can do that, but we'll see. If you liked this chapter, leave a follow, a favorite, a review, and I'll see you all next time