Chapter 17
What's Left to Lose

Alexander, clutching his chest through his shirt, limped his way from the door to the Precursor Oracle's hut to Ashelin's Hellcat Zoomer floating just off the edge of the wooden walkway. Ashelin had offered to help him walk, but Alex didn't know when the darkness would force him to have another electrocution episode, so he insisted on walking under his own power. He basically threw his body across the small gap into the passenger-side seat of the personal cruiser, then groaned his way to an upright position.

When he was settled into his seat, Ashelin carefully took off into the air, moving below top speed so that they weren't jostled around too much. "How long do you have?" she asked over the sound of rushing wind. "Is is treatable?"

"I don't know... and I don't know," Alex muttered back.

Ashelin stared straight ahead quietly as the Palace gradually came closer into view. Eventually, she said, "There was a ship that crash-landed in the city this morning. Doesn't look like anything from this world."

Alex's eyes widened, and his head snapped towards Ashelin. "A Gummi ship?! Was it made out of, uh, soft colorful blocks?"

"Something like that."

The Interference stared distantly at the dashboard and put a hand to his forehead in shock. Who the hell would have followed him here?! And why now?

"I've got Jak looking for the passengers – they seemed to have escaped into the city before the crash. With any luck, we'll find them before my father's guards do."

The Hellcat flew into the Palace's shadow, meandering around to the front gate. Alex coughed hard at the pain in his chest and groaned, "Then why are we heading towards...?"

"Because the entire city is in danger, which means we need a truce." Ashelin hovered the Hellcat down to the base of the massive staircase leading up to the Palace's front gate. She hopped out of the driver's seat and marched around to the other side to help Alex out. "My father already knows that you're our best hope of getting out of this. We just need to make it official."

Alex grunted, taking Ashelin's offered hand only long enough to get his feet on the ground. The two of them climbed the steps. The enormous automatic steel door at the top flipped opened in response to the presence of their security passes. "'Out of this'... You mean giving Heartless free access to every location in the city? Out of that situation?"

Ashelin made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan. "No one ever accused my father of making the best decisions."

Before they passed through the gate, Alex turned around and stared at the giant stone statue of Baron Praxis between the Palace and the Port. It depicted him posing triumphantly with his sword in the air and his mouth open in a militaristic cry of victory. Alex's eyes lowered from the Baron's face to the round, concrete base of the statue itself.

"What are you looking at?" Ashelin asked behind him, her eyes narrowing at the portrayal of her father. "That awful statue?"

Alex turned back towards the gate. "Just reminding myself... of something for later." The two of them walked (or limped, in Alex's case) into the Palace's entrance hall.

Then Alex froze and fell to the ground, writhing with dark energy for a minute as his darkest thoughts screamed into his ears.

"Well, what do we have 'ere, ey?"

"Guh!" Lea flinched back and covered his mouth as an incredibly fat, greasy man in a hoverchair floated next to his booth. An ungodly stench followed a second later like a lagging aura.

The man reached out with a ring-adorned hand towards the side of Lea's head, making him draw further back. "Another short-eared whelp." His greedy rotten-toothed sneer fell into a contemptuous pout. "You're not from around here... and no doubt an acquaintance of that Alexander brat."

"What's it– kuh!" The half-second Lea took to uncover his mouth for a sassy response was too much for his unprepared nostrils.

The ugly, ugly man floated another foot lower and slammed a fist on the table (not that hard, in all honesty), making his flabby upper arms jiggle. "I don't care what that scurrying rodent says or what he tells you – NOTHING happens in this city without Krew's say-so. And everyone who underestimates me is expendable. Do I make myself clear?"

"Mffcrystal," Lea mumbled behind his hand. At this point, he would say anything to make this guy go away.

The opposite happened; the big fat man just got closer. "Now, I'm very tempted to throw you back out for the Krimzon Guards to chew on, ey? But I'm a generous sort, so I'll give you ten... no, five seconds to figure out a way you can be useful to me."

Lea's eyes narrowed. At this point, Krew was just getting on his nerves. He was mentally prepared to cut and run if it came down to that. But for the moment, he decided to lift his other hand and summon one of his chakrams in a wreath of flame.

Krew flinched back, but there was a grin on his face. "Ahhhh... More of that magic. Yes..." He finally, mercifully, began to float away. "Take care of a nuisance for me, and I'll let you hide out here. The most basic of trades, ey? Sig!" Lea noticed the dark-skinned armored cyborg-ish man stand up from the booth at the other corner of the establishment. "See to it that he tidies up the docks. If he gives you any trouble... toss him into the water, and let the mines sort him out."

Visibly swallowing a sigh or some other vocal complaint, Sig walked on over to Lea's booth and said in his deep voice, "Let's go."

Lea rolled his eyes. Another dirty job for another dirty boss. "This is apparently my lot in life..." he muttered, before sliding out of his seat and following Sig outside. As the automatic doors to the Hip Hog Heaven opened, Lea finally allowed himself a big gulp of air. The smoke-and-iron tinge of the city was at least leaps and bounds better than the... odor inside the saloon.

A couple of Krimzon Guards walked by, and Lea instinctively tried to slip behind Sig's armor. The guards stopped and looked in his direction.

Sig waved his hand. "He's with me, and you know who I'm with."

The guards immediately pretended they hadn't seen anything and kept on walking.

Smirking, Sig turned around and focused his red cyber-oculus on Lea. "So, cherry, you really one of Alexander's buddies?"

Lea raised an eyebrow and ran a hand through his swept-back hair spikes. "I'm really more of a scarlet. But yes, Alex is kinda the reason why we came here. You know him?"

Sig chuckled and shrugged back. "Good friend of mine took him under his wing while they were in prison. Worked with him a little bit. Hoping he can help me out with something down the line."

The words reached Lea a second late and he reeled back. "Wait a sec – prison?"

"Job first, answers after." Sig began walking down the street leading east. "Come along, cherry."

"Excuse me." Lea refused to budge, and instead tapped his temple with his trademark grin. "The name's Lea. L-E-A. Got it memorized?"

Sig looked back at him for a second, then dismissively kept walking. "Whatever you say, Cherry."

Lea slumped his shoulders in defeat. "Ughhh."

"Wow, you're AMAZING at this!" the mon-caw shrieked.

In quick succession, the glowing symbols shooting up from Onin's mystic bowl were shattered by the force of Aqua's precise concentration. The Keyblade Master knelt across from them, her blue eyes darting from symbol to symbol in rapid succession. The little game they were playing allowed for twenty lost targets or misfires. Aqua had missed two targets at the beginning and then never again. According to Pecker's little score-counting device, she was well over 1000 points.

Onin rather abruptly drew her hand to one side, and the symbols stopped appearing. Aqua blinked a few times in confusion, regaining her sense of awareness. Onin resumed making arcane gestures while Pecker watched them and translated. "Onin says," he said, "it has been so very long since a true master has challenged her humble games. She is very pleased, yes very pleased indeed by your skill and enthusiasm. She would like you to come back sometime later and make a TRUE test of your abilities. For now, however, you have earned a valuable prize."

The mon-caw flapped over to some boxes off to the side. He dug around, muttering to himself for a bit, before pulling out three orange metallic orbs with his wing and tossing them to Aqua, who awkwardly caught them one by one. "Here, these are Precursor Orbs. There used to be thousands of these things lying around! Now you're lucky if you can find 200 in a lifetime."

"Oh... okay," Aqua mumbled. "What should I do with these?"

Onin continued making strange gestures, and Pecker tilted his head and gave her a strange look. "Something about 'unlocks' and 'cheat codes'... No idea. I guess you could pawn them for a lot of cash! That's what I'd do."

Aqua frowned skeptically. She had just gone on a universe-trekking adventure – her munny situation would be good for a while yet. "I don't know... Maybe these could go to someone more in need?"

Pecker and Onin gave each other a wondering look. Then Pecker gestured towards the tent door and steepled his wing-fingers. "Sure, we could give it to some rrrrrandom citizen, awwwk! And watch them get taxed by the Krimzon Guard before you can say 'asset forfeiture.' The best thing we can do is get them out from under the thumb of Baron Praxis, but even that is a smaller problem than the Heartless for now!"

The Keyblade Master let out a defeated sigh and added the Precursor Orbs into her inventory. "Maybe I can use them as synthesis materials..."

Jak was having no luck finding any activity Zooming through the city. Any trails of chaos had already been swept back into order by the Krimzon Guard, and there weren't any situations cause enough for alarm besides the usual excessive show of force in the Guards' routine patrols.

"Finding a needle in a haystack oughta be easier than this!" Daxter quipped over the wind. "At least the hay won't call for armed bloodthirsty guards wherever you're tryin' to look!"

"Maybe they found shelter," Jak muttered. He tapped the communicator at his side, which expanded out into its floating-camera form and circled around the duo. "Let's ask around. Keira?"

The mechanic groaned as her communicator rose to life and floated around the Zoomer garage. Lucca reflexively moved towards the time machine's curtain just in case. "What is it now, Jak? Need another mountain moved?"

"What, it's always gonna be like this now?" the Ottsel's voice crackled back through the device. "We're in this together; can't we just WORK together?!"

"Yeah, you're right! So how about that advice I gave you earlier? How did that go? Oh, right! You stormed the Palace and put the whole city on alert, and now I've got Krimzon Guards knocking on MY door!"

"Are you in danger?" Jak's gruff voice asked.

Keira looked ready to toss her wrench across the room. "No, but...! Grah, that's not the point! Why are you even calling me? Shouldn't you be laying low or something after a stunt like that?"

"Look, another ship just crash-landed in the city. Might be allies. Do you know if anyone's tried finding shelter in or around the Stadium?"

The machanic glanced at Lucca, whose expression was unreadable past her thick glasses. "It's a terrible future. Everyone's looking for shelter wherever they can."

"Just a yes or no will do fine, Keira!" Daxter shot back.

"I'll look into this ship thing," Keira muttered. "I'll let you know if I find anything, or anyone. Just... don't rope them into your revenge quest, not when there's more important things to do!"

"Hey–" But Keira had already shut off the communicator. That was that.

Lucca stepped out from being halfway behind the curtain. "Friends of yours?"

Keira walked over to a nearby table littered with mechanical junk and leaned back against its edge. "Used to be." She let out a shallow sigh. "Back then, we were just... a bunch of kids, and my dad, trying to save the world from evil wizards. Now... everyone's lost, and crazy."

The inventor nodded knowingly and stared off into the middle distance. "Yeah, no one stays plucky adventurers for long. All of a sudden you're in the ruined future and watching the recording of the moment your whole world is going to end..."

Keira blinked, then let out an awkward chuckle. "I forgot... It kinda hasn't sunk in that you've done this already."

Lucca adjusted her glasses with a grin. "Don't worry about it. I'm just happy to have someone to talk to who gets it. And listen – if those guys call back, feel free to tell them I'm here. I can take care of myself, and making unlikely allies is half the fun of time- and space-travel! This one time, we got stuck 65 million years in the past, and in order to find our time machine, we had to join the conflict between our human ancestors and these advanced Reptites that were trying to wipe them out of the history books!"

The mechanic went wide-eyed. "...Wow. That's..."

"Heh heh heh. See? Just another day in the life of Lucca, time-traveling inventor extraordinaire!" She performed a little twirl and victory pose to punctuate her proclamation.

Keira couldn't help but laugh. "Alright, alright. I guess you've got a point there." She adjusted her lean and faced Lucca more directly. "So, were you sort of the mechanical support like me, or did you see some combat?"

The inventor reached for the Wondershot in its long holster and twirled it in her hand once. Her other hand strayed to her bag and its hidden supply of bombs. "Oh, I was mechanical support AND a frontline fighter. Monsters, mages, cosmic horrors, you name it. And it hasn't been too long since my adventure ended, so I've still got most of my experience."

"Wow," Keira said again, folding her arms and smirking. "If what you say is true, I'm starting to feel a little outclassed. I'm not really the 'get in there and punch things' type."

Lucca sighed and lifted her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose. "Well, in all likelihood, you've probably messed up less than I have... Back home, I had a reputation for making things that exploded. Even my breakthrough invention, the Telepod, only accidentally created a Gate through time, and after all this adventuring I'm pretty sure that was at least partially fated by the heart of our world... Sorry, metaphysical stuff."

"No no, this is fascinating stuff," Keira insisted. "Way better than trying to explain things to Daxter and hear him go, 'Huh? What? English please?'"

Lucca grinned and chuckled again. "See, that look of stupefaction is what I live for, sometimes."

Keira laughed and threw up her hands in surrender. "Okay, sure. Try that on Jak and Dax next time you see them. I'll bet it'll stop being fun real quick."

The two mechanics continued to laugh and bond and swap adventuring stories, while just outside, the city waited for chaos to erupt.

The Shadow, the younger past version of the Green Sage Samos, stared up at Goofy incredulously. Ex-Commander Torn beside him repeated his report. "He says he's one of the passengers of the ship that just crash-landed in the city, and one of Alexander's former comrades."

Goofy nodded enthusiastically. "Ah-hyup! The name's Goofy." He thrust out his gloved hand down at the diminutive fledgling sage and resistance leader.

Young Samos covered his mouth and muttered to Torn, "No doubt he's from another world – he's not all edgy and jaded like everyone else." Torn just rolled his eyes, and Samos gave Goofy an uneasy smile. "Well then... Goofy. Uh, is that a nickname, or...?"

"Nope! Just Goofy will do. I mean, I guess you could call me Captain Goofy of the Royal Knights, but that hasn't been my job title for a while, now that I think about it..." He covered his mouth. "Actually, I'm probably not supposed to talk about it...!"

Torn looked a little impressed, unexpectedly so. "A soldier, then."

"A soldier who uses a shield alone, no less," Samos noted, spotting the weapon on the interdimensional traveler's back.

"Oh, this? Yeah, I mean, it's no Lockshield or Keyblade, but I think it gets the job done!"

"Don't worry, Alex has shown us that a shield in the right hands can turn the tide of a battle," Torn assured him with a growing sense of pride. "If you'll lend us your strength, I think you'll fit right in with our cause."

"Great!" Goofy looked around with a hand on his chin. "What IS your cause, anyway?"

"We're the Underground, a resistance movement of Haven City," Samos explained, pacing around the central map table. "It's a lot to explain to a complete outsider, but long story short: The current Baron is a menace to every innocent citizen, and we seek to restore the rightful heir to the throne."

"We also help defend the city, when the Krimzon Guard are too inept or compromised to do anything," Torn growled.

"Hmmmmm," Goofy hummed in thought. "Donald always said not to get too involved... Has Alex been helpin' ya out?"

Torn and Samos gave each other an uneasy glance. Samos raised a finger and said, "Well, he did warn us about the raid on the Palace. That let us move our agents around ahead of time."

The ex-Commander let out a ragged groan. "He's moved on to playing ALL the factions, not just us. If what I'm hearing is right, he's gonna be running this city by day's end. Now that's a scary thought."

Samos looked back at Goofy and said, "Let's go with a 'yes.'"

"Works for me! What can I do to help?"

"Right now? Lay low and don't make too much noise," Torn answered, drawing his curved knife and inspecting it before heading for the secret door. "We're still waiting for the dice to finish rolling before we see where they land."

"Er, what he means is: Your time will come soon enough," Samos said quickly. "For now, though, erm... Actually, there IS something I could use some help with..."

Goofy saluted. "Whatever you need, Mr. Shadow Sir!"

Samos nodded and gestured towards one of the halls leading deeper into the Hideout. A short boy and a crocodog emerged from the lantern shadows. The boy's hands were clasped together nervously. "Are you any good with children, Goofy?" Samos asked.

"A-hyuck! Well, I'd like to think so!" Goofy replied, stepping over to the kid. He towered over the elf-eared child, but he crouched down and reached out his gloved hand to the little boy.

The kid seemed rather instantly enamored with Goofy, his big eyes widening and a silly smile growing. Before he could take Goofy's hand, though, the crocodog growled and lunged, chomping and squeezing Goofy's outstretched fingers in one crunching chomp.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-HOOOHOOOHOOO-HOOOOIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"

The gigantic metal door to the throne room of the Palace opened in pieces, the ostentatious seal rising upwards before the thick metal doors unsealed and creaked apart. Alexander Karsath stumbled through, a constant glare on his face as he clutched his chest. Ashelin followed behind him, looking equal parts concerned and determined.

A full platoon of elite, yellow-armored Krimzon Guards flanked the path to the throne, where Baron Praxis himself lounged impatiently, tapping the arm of his usurped seat. When he saw Alex, a sick sneer crossed his face and he leaned forward, shoulder-first. "Well, well, well. That chair doesn't seem so uncomfortable now, does it?"

Alex snarled and reached out a twitching hand that could, at any moment, turn into a sparking claw. "Keep that up," he grunted, "and the next time I have an episode, it'll be while my hand is around your neck."

Praxis chuckled and sneered even harder. "And with that, the boy has been burned away, leaving only a killing machine in its wake. It's... freeing, isn't it?"

"Go to hell, Baron," Alex muttered. "Or are you trying to pretend you didn't BEG me to come back?"

The despot's face fell into a deep scowl, and he sat back on his throne. "You know what I want. Let's make it quick."

Alexander dragged himself to the center of the room and stopped. "To be allies with the technical Lockshield bearer against the Heartless so you can fight them off? Sure, let's get through this with a bit of rules lawyering. But first... I want to hear a guarantee from the other guy."

Baron Praxis snarled for a moment, then slumped in his throne and pointed towards the door. "Guards. Leave us."

The elite Krimzon Guards filed out of the room, a little confused but well-trained enough to not show it too obviously. The massive gate shut behind them, leaving in the room only the Baron, Alex, and Ashelin, who was watching this all as calmly as she could manage. Then, a blue light flooded the room as a large projection of a giant Metal Head's face appeared in front of Alex.

"So, the time has come? Almost too late, Interference..." the Metal Head Leader snarled with its sharp-toothed maw and blank, glowing eyes.

Alex glanced back at Ashelin, who scowled at the projection. "I knew about this arrangement, but..." She didn't seem sure what to say, but she wasn't pleased. Alex wondered if this was perhaps this was her first time seeing the direct line between the two enemy leaders.

The Interference looked up and groaned, then glared back down at the Metal Head Leader. "If this is gonna work, you're gonna stay out of my way, and the way of any of my allies."

"A simple enough request," the Metal Head Leader replied. "The Heartless will be trouble enough for all of us."

Alex moved around the side of the Metal Head's face so he could address Praxis behind him. "I'm gonna need resources, access, comms, total impunity to run ops. But most importantly, and this is NOT negotiable... You're both gonna need to give up on the Precursor Stone."

Both would-be kings burst into outrage.

"What?! You upstart, impertinent–"

"You wouldn't dare, that stone is–"

"I KNOW! I know!" Alexander shouted them down, so angry that he didn't care that two mass killers were pissed off at him. He pointed at Baron Praxis. "You want the stone for your Piercer Bomb to finish the war once and for all." He turned to the Metal Head Leader, who was snarling at the shocked and embarrassed Baron. "And the stone is your whole reason for attacking and infiltrating the city in the first place! But too bad! You know why? Because you're both destined to die in this story."

Caught off-guard and doublecrosses revealed, the two leaders figuratively bit their tongues and glared at Alex.

"You want to live?" Alex asked coldly. "Then follow my lead. Because otherwise, it'll be your own actions that doom you. Stay out of my way. Give up on the Precursor Stone. And just maybe, MAYBE we'll get out of this."

"You obviously know where it is," Praxis grumbled. "How do we know you won't just take it for yourself?!"

"Because I don't give a damn about it," Alex shot back. Glancing at the Metal Head, he added, "Besides, what's inside the stone is not what you're expecting." He returned his gaze to the Baron. "And your stupid plan would blow up the whole world, not just the nest, you daft moron."

The Metal Head Leader snarled and turned its giant head toward the throne. "Make no mistake. Once this 'truce' is over, there will be no more 'deal.' We will RAZE this city and feed on every last resource you have. And you know as well as I that you don't stand a chance."Then the monstrous projection turned towards Alexander. "Finish off Even and banish the Heartless, and I will let you and your friends flee before the inevitable."

Baron Praxis bared all his teeth in an apoplectic snarl. "Why you...!"

"Done," Alex muttered. "The Metal Heads are now my allies."

The Metal Head Leader's face split in a beastly grin. "Now the war truly begins...!" The projection disappeared.

Ashelin put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "Not to criticize your negotiation style, but you do realize you just doomed us all, right?" The glare on her tattooed face showed she wasn't exactly happy with this.

Brushing her off, Alex threw up his hands and replied, "You asked me to bring these cards to the table. Here they are. Besides, there's already a counter for the Metal Heads when it's needed. Penetrating the nest is already part of the plan."

The Baron was sitting at the edge of his throne, clutching the armrests tightly and breathing heavily, his teeth grit hard. It took him a dozen seconds to stop seeing red, and he practically jumped out of his seat to storm down the steps. "You... traitor!" he declared, a big meaty hand straying to the hilt of his sword. "You gave away years of planning, and for WHAT?!"

Alex didn't back down. What else did he have to lose? He grit his teeth too and got right up in the Baron's face. "To show you I'm serious. I can do much worse than spoil the ending. Up until now, I've been going easy on you, Praxis. EASY!"

"Tough talk..." the Baron grunted, "for a kid with no powers or weapon, teetering on the edge of death."

"That just made it fun," Alex growled back. "Now I'm serious."

Clap... clap... clap.

"A stirring drama!"

All three of them turned around to see a swirling dark portal near the throne room's gate. Out stepped Even the humanoid Heartless, no longer in a plain black robe but a more stylish outfit somewhere between a lab coat and a royal raiment, adorned in golds, reds, and purples.

"GUARDS!" the Baron bellowed.

"Ah ah ah!" Even tutted, revealing the Heartless Seal Lockshield from behind his back. The sound of rifles banging against the metal gate behind him echoed through the hall, to no avail. "I've already Locked the door." A shimmer of light, a barrier, sealed the ostentatious, heavy door shut. "Let's just keep this between us, shall we?"

Alexander shut his eyes and groaned. His hatred welled up and overflowed from his exposed heart, flowing down his chest and his hands and legs, sapping the strength from him, even as a charge of Dark Eco primed to strength in his nervous system.

Ashelin drew a pistol and fired at Even. A red bolt of energy arced over to the Heartless scientist and then bounced away, revealing a magical shell of protection for a split second.

"There will be time to play in a moment, dear. The grownups are having an argument."

Ashelin said nothing and kept her gun trained on the sapient Heartless. Praxis drew his glowing green Eco-sword, pointing it imperiously at him.

Even continued walking towards them. When he got close enough to strike, Praxis lunged, but all he struck was black smoke. "You've really picked the perfect spot," Even noted from beside the throne. The back of the room was a glass enclosure looking out and down into the city hundreds of feet below. You could see almost every district in the light of midday.

Alex let out a cry of agony as the Dark Eco in his body responded to the darkness, zapping his body and frying the darkness away, so he might live a little longer.

Even raised a hand and sneered back at Alexander and the Praxises. "You can watch the whole city plunge into darkness." He snapped his fingers.

Out in Haven City, every so-called 'Dark Warrior' on patrol with a squad of Krimzon Guards turned on their so-called allies. A city-wide alert was raised in seconds. Four pillars of darkness erupted across the city, filling the sky with dark clouds that blotted out the sun.

Praxis kept his sword pointed at Even, but glanced down at Alexander's prone form through the metal plate covering his lost eye. "Alexander! NOW!"

Alex pulled himself together as much as he could, glaring hatefully at Even. "Krimzon Guards... on my side..."

Silently, he prayed that someone was out there, who could save the city...

Aqua felt it before she heard it.

"Oh, that's not good!" Pecker declared obviously as the ground shook.

The Keyblade Master was already rushing out of the tent, searching the skyline for the culprit when she spotted a pillar of darkness shooting up from another block of the Bazaar district. Screams of civilians, gunfire, and the skittering of shadowy monsters turned the air into a cacophony. But from the direction of the pillar of darkness, there were also booming steps that shook the ground further, and the sound of fruit stands being crushed.

Aqua readied herself and summoned the Master's Defender Keyblade to her hand. The moncaw flapped behind her and perched on her back, wings holding onto her shoulder.

"So... remember what I said about needing your help?" Pecker mumbled. "Now might be a good time."

Without replying, Aqua charged into the fray.

There was a rush of sound, and then screaming echoed across the northern districts.

"What in the world...?" Keira started to ask.

Lucca wielded her Wondershot once more, the light of the garage glinting off her thick glasses ominously. The power of Fire burned behind those eyes.

There was a beastly roar and what sounded like the beating of giant wings. A shadow passed over the Stadium.

Torn hid behind one of the rickety Slums buildings and watched as the Krimzon Guards struggled to shoot the Shadow and Soldier Heartless ducking and weaving around their group. The Guards' rate-of-fire was too slow, and their accuracy too poor when not shooting at unarmed civilians. Torn had no love left for the soldiers of the Krimzon Guard, but they were outclassed in a bad way.

"Chaaaaaaaaarge– Woooaaaoooooh!"

As he was barreling into the fray, Goofy tripped on an uneven patch of the road, falling onto his shield. He kept going, though, his shield scraping against the ground and bouncing with every bump, until he crashed into the whole fighting group, scattering them like bowling pins (and with roughly the same sound effect).

Young Samos peered around Torn for a moment, then gave Torn a look. "Are we sure he's on our side?"

The fourth pillar burst out of the water of the Port, sending the ships and workers and guards into chaos. Flying and aquatic Heartless flooded outward from the portal, wading into gunfire from the Krimzon Guards.

Lea and Sig crouched down behind a stack of shipping crates. "Was, uh, this part of the mission?" Lea asked half-sarcastically.

"I wish!" Sig muttered back. "We were just going to hunt for explosive mines in the–" A deafening bubbling sound nearly drowned him out. "What the...?!"

Lea and Sig peered over the crates to see a massive splash rise up from the center of the Port, as something enormous emerged from the depths and darkness. It was a pure black giant, water dripping from its deformed musculature, its hair a mass of briny tentacles the color of the deep sea.

Huh... a rogue part of Lea's mind mused. A water-element Darkside... What would you even call that, a 'Deepside'? No, focus! Lea shook his head and said, "I think that just became priority one!"

Sig watched around the corner of the box as the Krimzon Guards barely put up a fight against the invading Heartless. "This city might be doomed sooner than I expected..." He gave Lea as serious a look as he could muster. "I'm gonna be real with you. I've got an exit strategy if you want it, Cherry."

Lea scoffed and summoned his twin fiery chakrams. "Are you kidding?!" He leaped onto the crates and struck a fighting pose. "Lemme show you how we fight bosses where I come from!"

Despite what he'd just said, Sig quickly nodded and got into the fighting spirit. He cocked his Metal Head skull-adorned rifle and primed its laser. "That's what I'm talkin' about. Wastelander style!" He came charging around the corner of the crates, while Lea dropped down beside him, and they shot fire and lasers into the horde of flying Heartless.

The watery Darkside took notice of the two strong, fighting hearts quickly, and started creeping towards them, displacing ships and mines as he waded through the murky waters. The mines he displaced didn't so much as blink or activate, for they couldn't sense any heat.

Jak and Daxter had dismounted from their Zoomer in the Industrial Sector, clearing out a group of robotic Heartless that were dismantling a KG turret. With his extra early upgrades for the Morph Gun, Jak dispatched the group quickly and at range with the blue-Eco-powered Vulcan Fury, though it cost him most of what little reserve ammo he had. He'd need a refill soon, and down every path there was more and more conflict.

"Welp, the obvious thing happened," Daxter muttered resignedly. "Now what?"

As the hero compacted the Morph Gun and slipped it into the holster on his back, Jak's communicator chirped and floated in front of him. "Want to save the city, Jak?" asked a man's voice. "Meet me in front of the Palace. It's the only way."

The communicator closed, and Jak looked over at the Ottsel on his shoulder.

"Not gonna lie, that sounds shady. I'm open to other ideas, but..." Daxter shrugged.

The dynamic duo climbed back onto their Zoomer and flew at top speed above the fighting, setting a course towards the only source of hope on the horizon.