There's always a level of bittersweet joy that arrives as I near the end of a piece. For so many months a project will have accompanied me; regular updates, editing, idly drafting scenes and concepts; to approach the end and know that the pieces that make up the story will no longer be as prevalent in my thoughts as they once were will never cease to make me feel a bit sorrowful.
Edit: You know that fun American holiday called Labor Day? Yeah, that whole week was an absolute cluster truck for me. Next chapter should hopefully come out on the 26th.
Several thoughts passed through her mind as they took those first few steps towards the writhing mass of Shadows. The first was how wonderful it was to have Ven by her side once again. The second, whether or not he would be able to keep up with the spellfire she and Grima could put out. Third was how strange it was to once again be fighting against this whirlwind of Darkness, especially in a place of stone and dirt rather than sand and water.
A jagged chunk of ice flew from her hand, exploding against the leading core of Shadows mere moments before an angry red arrow sunk through the mass of Shadows and into the core itself, the mist of blue disappearing underneath a cloud of red and orange.
Aqua dropped an Aerora at her feet, the whirling wind gathered from the spell sending her further into the air than an aided jump could have. Ven joined her a moment later, and aided by minute applications of Aero to their limbs, the two of them slashed away at the lump of Darkness, additional casts of Aerora or even Aeroga providing them the necessary height to stick to the massive horde of Shadows. All the while, arrows of alternating colors slipped past them.
When the horde suddenly stilled as if a decision had been made, Aqua adjusted her path through the air to land on the horde itself, ignoring the growing sensation of coldness at her feet as the Shadows she stood on attempted to claw at her. Ven joined her a moment later, letting out a grunt of discomfort.
"What next?" he asked.
"Hold on," she grimly muttered in response. Whatever passed for sapience within the horde twitched once more, the mass spiralling upon itself rapidly before rushing towards Grima's position. The dragon bound in human form merely raised a hand, a dome of vibrant purple and red forming around him, even as they rushed down his position. Once, twice, three times the horde tore through the air. Each time, Ven's grip on her shoulder tightened to secure himself. Only when the horde calmed down after it all did she start slashing her way up the tendril, leaping off the end and blasting the core with a Blizzaza once Ven was clear.
"Aqua!"
Riku's shout made her turn around, a Barrier thrown up before her mind recognized what the creature before her was. A giant heartless with a double sided, multi-toothed axe bore down on her with a vertical strike, whatever material the weapon was made of halting completely against her magic.
A whirling blade of light cut against the side of the Rock Troll's face, an array of similar blades shooting out at the moment of impact and arcing back into the creature's face, each metaphysical blade jostling its head with every strike before Ven's initial blade knocked it towards her on its return.
She stabbed her keyblade forward, ice magic flooding through and exploding across the Heartless' body upon contact and encasing it in a frozen prison, one Riku and Mickey immediately took advantage of with a passing thanks.
Aqua turned around once she was sure the immediate threat was handed, taking in the cacophony of various lights exploding from the others briefly. Her true goal lay in the center of the battlefield, diving in and out of the ground in ineffective attempts to drown Grima under a rush of bodies. "Wait for an opening, Ven."
"Got it!"
She shot forward a Blizzara, the rotating sphere of ice leaving a rail of ice in its wake. As she slid back towards the battle, Aqua bore witness to a massive crack of lightning spearing straight through the entirety of the Shadow horde, the full might of an Ignis boosted Mjölnir causing the just emerging tendril of Shadows to shed nearly half its mass from one spell.
"Robin!" She leapt off the rail and landed with a roll, Master Keeper snapping forward as soon as she rose. "Blast it!" Golden ephemeral chains shot out from her keyblade as she leveled it at the nearly exposed core, cutting it off from the rest of the Shadows. For a brief moment, rather than a surrounding of dirt and stone, Aqua found herself on an expansive beach, isolated from the rest of reality and nestled within an endless blue sky.
"Fall before my unholy wrath!" A pulse of Fell energy destroyed that illusion. Grima rose into the air, stopping once he was level with the temporarily sealed core. Even through her armor, the sheer build up of magical energy made the hair on her skin raise. Despite the beating in her chest warning her to evacuate the area, Aqua warped up to the core, Master Keeper pulsing with a longing to destroy the ball of Heartless as it once had.
She couldn't say who sent out the first cast of magic; who led their assault against the core. She could only say that at some point, translucent blades of light began mixing in with their elemental attacks, tiny things of paracausal origin that slipped between their swathes of flame, ice, and thunder. A maelstrom of energy, that at its end, resulted in her and Ven below the still sealed core, unleashing a spiralling multitude of Pearl, even as Grima let loose an eruption of Fell energy. Upon landing, the three of them formed back up: keyblades in front and bow at the back.
"It still persists," Grima stated.
"It did this last time I faced something like it." Aqua adjusted her grip on Master Keeper, watching as the chains around the core began to fracture with every twitch.
"Why aren't we attacking it now?"
"Because last time when it became more enraged, it unleashed enough energy to knock both me and Mickey into the air," she answered Ven. Despite the chains of light around it that should have kept it from moving, the core rose slighting into the air, visibly vibrating and causing the chains to further crack. Aqua moved to summon her armor back on, stopping when she realized that the mana flowing through her body was heavily Light aligned. To reverse the process now would take time, and it wasn't as if the enchantments brought about by her mantle weren't useful in an offensive aspect. But to continue forward without her armor? One that protected her for such a long time?
"Aqua."
She dared not glance back at Grima, though she could afford to tilt her head slightly.
"Do you remember what I told you those many nights ago? 'Faith can be a stronger weapon than any would expect'. Do not falter now, now that we're at the precipice of victory. If Light should be your path, then embrace it fully. If Darkness shall guide your way, then it too shall be your beacon." Grima notched an arrow made of raw Fell energy, strands of mana curling off the projectile and twirling in an unseen wind. "You are a Master of a pact weapon borne of a soul. Carve your beliefs into the world, that all may not deny them."
Ven chuckled from beside them. "You two must have had a serious discussion while I was asleep. But Aqua?" Though she couldn't properly see him in the corner of her eye, she knew that Ven's stance had tightened. "I trust you. Just because Terra could use Darkness didn't make him a bad person, and I know the same goes for you. May our hearts be our guiding key."
In her pocket, her wayfinder burned eagerly. "May our hearts be our guiding key," she parroted.
The chains shattered. The core dove into the ground. A moment later, the entirety of the floor around them was buried underneath a viscous blanket of Darkness streaked with violent red. The next, the Darkness surged back towards where the core dove in, spitting it back out with a density of energy so heavy, it glowed with a malevolent light.
Much as she wished to have struck first, a torrent of propelled Shadows kept her from doing so. Aqua threw up a Barrier large enough to protect the three of them, gritting her teeth when the sheer volume of bodies began pushing them back alongside creating cracks amongst the various panels of her defenses.
Layered planes of purple and red formed on top of her shield, matching the same dimensions of the individual sections. "Aqua, reduce your coverage! Share the burden!"
"Ready?" At Grima's reply, she refocused her Barrier into only a handful of sections, trusting the layering of Pavise and Dragonskin to hold where hers wouldn't. A few moments later, when the force storage of her spell was filled to the brim, Aqua pulled the panels together and let loose the self-shattered shards of mana, eviscerating the handful of lagging Shadows before them.
"Is it spitting out balls?"
Aqua took only one look at the whirling horde before sending out a Blizzara. "Stay on the move!" she shouted, heeding her own advice.
It was almost graceful in a way, how the replica cores of Darkness arced into the air and lazily fell towards the ground like petals in Spring. Less graceful was said balls erupting out of the ground randomly around her, some forcing her to abort her ice line and forge a new one. It was during one of those recasts that she vaguely noticed Ven soaring through the air behind her, moving at a speed more appropriate for if he were falling directly downward instead of parallel to the ground. Whatever she wanted to say on the matter was completely forgotten when a mire of Darkness instantly formed underneath her, the sheer force of the discharge of energy launching both her and Ven high into the sky.
From up here, the battle felt almost like a dream. Close to the crevice from which they had entered, a trail of Light zipped around, Sora briefly materializing to land several acrobatic blows or spells against whatever target he was focusing on before zipping off once again. Closer to the wall on the left hand side, wide covering flame attacks tore out, knocking Heartless around if not outright destroying them, all the while a trail of Light similar to Sora's zipped around in a much more confined area, revealing the pink form of Kairi who laid into her targets in a less refined but no less effective manner.
"Aqua!"
Taking inspiration from the two islanders, Aqua teleported herself onto the back of the winged, green creature, channeling a Thundaga through Master Keeper and into the monster's back, crippling it and starting it on a direct path into the maelstrom below. Twice she repeated this process, using the other two times to fire off Thorons at the bigger Heartless her fellow keybearers were dealing with before disabling her mounts and taking to the air.
She briefly tensed as a figure came flying out of the whirlwind, relaxing slightly when she realized that it was only Grima. "How was it looking?" she asked when he landed beside her and Ven.
Grima frowned slightly as he rose from his crouch, flexing his fingers slightly as if unsure whether he wanted to continue using raw spellfire or swap back to his bow. "The exterior shell has been expunged through my efforts. The interior shell is another matter."
"Have anything for it?" Aqua threw up another Barrier, focusing only on the front this time with the knowledge that the Heartless would be flying too fast to take advantage of their exposed flanks.
"I can think of a few things," he muttered, a pink ethereal haze enveloping his form. "But how shall you finish it off?"
"I can think of a few things," she parroted with a smirk. "It'll be a bit off without Terra, but think you can pull off a Trinity, Ven?"
Ven spun his keyblade in place and grinned. "Of course!"
"On my mark!" Aqua brought her keyblade to bear, chains of light once again spiralling out from her keyblade. As with before, the chains visibly cut the core off from its surrounding vortex, this time a fine lattice of smaller chains weaving through the space of the main, thicker chains. "Go!"
The skies darkened as she and Ven approached, the build up of energy making it harder to breathe. Aqua scrunched up her face in both concentration and distaste at the metallic sensation in her mouth, shouting out a warning for Ven to cover his eyes.
The boom was deafening. Directly underneath the sealed core of writhing Shadows struggling to escape, a crater of tiny branches of glass formed below it, the formations crunching underneath her feet as she slid to a stop.
Peace. Hope. A longing for calmer days. Light coursed through her body with every beat of her heart, welling up until she could hold it no longer. The magical array, in ways far more complex than those of Robin's yet at the same time far more simpler, formed at her feet, one of the purposely empty circles centered on her. Wordlessly, she met Ven's eyes as the magic pouring from them and through the circle began welling up from the center of the glyph, gathering as a giant sphere directly above their heads. With a shared nod, the two of them brought the tip of their keyblades to the sphere, turning the restrained velvet light into an unlocked pure white.
"Light!"
Their Trinity Limit resonated with the chains, unleashing a series of explosions that rocked the core away from them. "It's still not defeated?!" she shouted in frustration as the ball of Shadows wiggled weakly, looking sparser than she'd ever seen it. Flecks of purple Darkness flew out from the core as the Heartless appeared to coil in and out rapidly, almost as if fearful of their imminent demise.
"Hurry and expire already!" Grima leveled a hand at the core, aborting whatever spell he was about to fire in favor of throwing up a wall of Dragonskin when it started writhing about rapidly, leaving behind a fresh trail of Shadows in its wake as it began looping in on itself in a spiral.
Aqua dug her feet into the ground as a pulling wind began to pick up, sucking both dirt and ambient Darkness into the rapidly growing cyclone. Master Keeper did the same the moment she noticed a winged Heartless fly past her, comically trying to escape even as more of its brethren suffered the same fate. "Grima!" she shouted, uncaring of the desire for secrecy in face of the ever growing twister of Heartless before them.
Grima grit his teeth as several tendrils of Shadows flew out from the tornado, snapping off a few quick bolts of Thorn at them as they passed by. "I highly doubt you would like my answer to this," he retorted.
"And dealing with this is preferable!?" she shouted, one part confoundment and one part need to be heard over the growing wind.
"It is highly debatable!" he shouted back, a hint of anger in his voice.
"If it means this tornado's gone, then let's just take it!" Ven interjected, forcing Wayward Wind deeper into the ground as the gale grew ever stronger.
"I'll stop it!"
"Sora?!" Aqua stared in dumbfoundment as Sora charged forward headlong towards the cyclone, an air of confidence in his movements that she had no clue where it came from. When the first tendril of Shadows emerged from the horde, she continued to do nothing but stare. When the second flew out, only then did Aqua start to move, only to be stopped by Grima's hand.
"The Light," he murmured contemplatively. "It reeks."
She stared at him, once again stunned by the sheer absurdity of his statement. Aqua turned her head away from the tendril of Darkness that flew at Sora as he leapt through the air, his keyblade brought over his head in an attempt to slash through them. "What do you mean it reeks?"
"Aqua, look!"
She snapped her head back towards Sora, following Ven's pointed finger and feeling her mind go blank at the erupting of light from Sora's form.
"Children of Light," Grima continued to murmur, turning around and staring at the sky above them. "Whose call is it that you have answered?"
What had to be hundreds of glimmering lights sparkled above them, all spiralling in towards the cyclone. As they began circling counter to the whirlwind, Aqua realized that they were not just any lights, they were keyblades, keyblades that were rapidly joining together into a single amorphous torrent of shimmering gold.
"Sora! Up!" With only those two words, Grima rushed towards Sora, leaping into the air as the stream of keyblades approached them. With an ease that she wasn't aware Grima had, the two each landed on a keyblade, riding them much like one of the skateboards she'd seen around Twilight Town.
From the ground, all Aqua could do was watch helplessly as the mass of keyblades spiralled around the cyclone one more time before diving directly into the top of the storm.
/ - /
Three hundred ancient souls, reawakened by the burning beacon before me. Perhaps some part of my ancient soul simply desired for a chance to atone, even if the sin wasn't of my creation. "Sora." My voice felt not my own. So many lifetimes, confidence was something that should be etched into my every action. Yet here, as unearthed Lights awaited their chance to aid us, I found myself trembling. "Strong as these remnants of your progenitors may be, you cannot do this alone."
Twin tendrils of Shadows lanced towards us. Even as I brought my magic to bear, a translucent image of my unholy visage briefly appearing in defense of our paracausal transport, the soul blades held strong and retreated not, an act the boy before me mirrored. "Go! Prove to your ancestors that their efforts have not been in vain!"
For a brief moment, as a quintet of kindred keyblades arranged themselves before Sora in a pentagram, I felt as if I was once again fighting by the Shepherds. An unwavering valor in the face of a much greater foe; trust in those around them that might be called friends. Whispers of regret and anguish whispered underneath it all, but above all was the unified desire to repel the Darkness that threatened to consume the remnants of this world.
The exterior wall of Heartless slowly began resisting more and more against the torrent of transient blades fired out by the lingering wills carrying us, an act that simply couldn't be. The five soul blades before us, translucent petals of my creation having long since connected the blades into a proper pentagram, grew in distance to accommodate my power, shining vividly and almost in harmony with the undercurrents of Fell energy gathered within the glyphs.
At my behest, a torrent of elements rushed out, instantly drilling through the wall of primal monsters and providing us the opportunity to slip through and meet the hungry orange core of compacted Darkness. "Do not falter now, Children of Light!" A vigor not my own flooded through my body as I spoke, an excitement I had not felt since Lucina had last asked me to spar with her coursing through my veins.
This deep within the whirlwind, it was not mere tendrils of Shadows that attempted to strike us down. Miniature spheres of Darkness fired out constantly from the main core, all of them either repelled by my projected Dragonskin or avoided by Sora's own evasive maneuvering.
"We're almost finished!" the boy cried out as the final layer around the core was sheared away.
I reached forward and placed my hands on the boy's back, instantly analyzing his mana flows and how best to work with them. "As one, Keybearer!"
The Light burned. Once upon a time, on a whim, I had once grabbed hold of the Kingsfang to see how it would react. Even in a timeline where I had not done anything to the world, the burns had not dissipated for well after a week. But it was a pain I could manage. For the sake of the survival of those I cared for, the soul deep sear that my antithesis caused was bearable.
Pink translucent petals, borne of my energy fed through the link to so many souls, began spiralling around us, colouring the beam of otherwise pure white. With a cry, the boy directed us straight through the core, the hundreds of keyblades trailing after us unleashing the magic within each with their own unique taste.
/ - /
Aqua stared in wonder as Grima and Sora landed, the keyblades that had gathered forming into a chandelier above them. "Lights from the past," she whispered in awe, finally able to see them properly.
Grima stared in bemusement as one lone keyblade broke off from the arrangement, whirling to a stop in front of him. "...nephew?" Grima cradled the weapon for only a moment before it floated out of his hands, joining the spectacle overhead. With the display once again complete, the keyblades flattened out into a single layer, shooting out towards whatever resting place they once lay.
Yet the moment could not last. Kairi pointed towards the path ahead, crouching over slightly in anticipation. "Hey, there's someone else."
Grima clicked his tongue as yet another dust cloud faded away, revealing a younger version of Riku garbed in a colored Dark Suit much like hers. "I'm quickly beginning to tire of this parade of foes. This should be a battle, not a soirée."
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Lea chimed.
"You!"
"How does it feel looking at your stronger past self?" the younger version of Riku asked, bringing his bat wing blade to rest on his shoulder. She hadn't noticed it before, but the weapon had an eye in the center of the cross guard that was disturbingly similar to the eye she'd seen on Master Xehanort's keyblade.
"Stronger past self?" Riku huffed in disbelief. "Relying on Darkness like that, that wasn't strength, it was weakness!" he shouted.
"You sure?" the younger version taunted. "How about we find out!?" Much like the versions of Xehanort they had faced earlier, Darkness flooded out from the avatar before them, though this one felt much more malevolent. Unlike the summoning of dark creatures though, this one formed one single entity: a massive featureless silhouette of Master Xehanort himself, one that loomed over them with arms spread wide. "A real test for the Mark of Mastery!"
"What was that?" Riku retorted.
"We gotta make sure you're not blundering your way towards a second failure."
Aqua frowned as a familiar figure appeared. Sporting an eyepatch over his right eye and a long scar going along the left side of his lower face, the Nobody she'd learned was named Xigbar stepped out from a Dark Corridor, the man locking eyes with her and chuckling.
"Blundering?" Lea leaned forward, his gloved arm briefly moving through her peripheral vision. "I'll have you know we failed with style, chief."
"At least you admit it," Xigbar responded. "Well if you guardians think you brought the goods, you'll have to prove it to the old guy one last time." He turned around and laid a hand on young Riku's shoulder before disappearing through another corridor. "Kid, take it away."
The avatar let out a mirthless laugh before giving a primal scream, the Darkness he was exuding exploding in power. The manifestation of Master Xehanort tripled in size, turning the skies above them a dark blue and once more reminding her so much of the Realm of Darkness. Writing towers of Shadows formed from nothingness, moving around almost hypnotically were it not for the knowledge that the near blurs of yellow lights were creatures that wanted nothing more than to devour her.
"I am rapidly becoming rather aggravated!" Grima shouted, flinging out a handful of viscous balls of flame at the living towers.
When the first Shadow began falling from the sky, Aqua leapt back a step, taking in as much of their surroundings as should could with a glance. "Form up, now!"
Ven let out a grunt of exertion as he swung out, felling an approaching Shadow with the one swing. "How many times are we going to have to do this?!"
"I would hope one less time that we will actually!" Grima followed up her Firaga with several arrows of ice, each arrow exploding into small glaciers and momentarily locking Heartless within them. "Aqua," he whispered to her, "other than Ven, the others are not yet aware of my existence." Her long range Magnera was followed up with a single Thundaga heralding arrow, the bolt of lightning arcing out destroying several more Heartless. "I fear that discussion is one we might have to deal with now rather than never."
"Are you sure they can handle it?" she whispered back, utilizing Master Keeper to fire out a repelling Arcwind.
"In a situation like this, I believe they would be forced to."
Aqua stopped attacking as she took in exactly what was going on. Their situation was rapidly becoming exactly like that of the Realm of Darkness. An endless writhing blanket of beady eyed monsters around them, a cold that was rapidly settling within her bones, and a creeping exhaustion that she could do nothing about. At the furthest edges of the horde, she could even see some bipedal forms rising up from the ground, streaks of blue adorning their distant forms. With everything that had happened, she hadn't even had a chance to down an elixir, let alone an ether. While she had no doubts she could force herself to continue fighting, with the knowledge that there was still at least one more fight ahead, she was reluctant to do so. Aqua took in a deep breath before nodding resolutely. "Do it."
Grima nodded as well, dismissing his bow and taking a single step forward. "Very well. Then I— oh?"
At any other time or place, she would have found the way he tilted his head and looked up comical. But as things were, all she could do was find herself once again confused.
Exactly as a wave of Shadows began to swell forth and threaten to drown them underneath its mass, a ball of green tinged energy fell down from the sky, parting the clouds and bathing the area in its light. Said ball crashed into the ground before them, unleashing a flurry of magical energy that had what was undoubtedly Grima ducking behind her and prompting her to throw up a small Barrier, despite the fact that all the energy was directed away from them and towards the carpet of Heartless.
"Master Yen Sid!" several voices said at once. Both hands emitting sparkles of raw Light, Master Yen Sid thrust his hands into the air, magic rushing out and repelling the Heartless a rather significant distance away.
"Go, my young champions! I will hold them here for as long as I can."
Aqua spared a glance at Grima to confirm his safety before looking forward. "We can't leave you behind, Master."
Donald and Goofy stepped forward, taking up defensive positions behind Master Yen Sid. "You guys go on ahead," Goofy said.
"Yeah!" Donald added. "The two of us will back up Master Yen Sid!"
"Donald, Goofy..."
"You're a whole pint by yourself, Sora." Donald smiled and gave Sora a nod.
Goofy gave thumbs up. "Don't worry. We'll catch up with you all in just a bit!"
Aqua narrowed her eyes as the defensive barrier Master Yen Sid cast began to retreat, the Heartless chasing after the empty space left behind. "As happy as I am for you guys, I don't think this is quite the time!"
"As Master Aqua said," Master Yen thrust his hands forward before returning them to their skyward position, clearing the path once more, "make haste!"
"So," Ven began, speaking between breaths, "Grima, was it?"
"Another time," he responded, clicking his tongue in annoyance and electing to instead move with them by way of a cloud of Arcwind. "Perhaps after all is said and done."
"Maybe we can have that talk at Le Grand Bistrot," Aqua added, sparing a glance for the handful of Neoshadows that were slowly creeping their way towards the Master. "It's probably a conversation best had over a meal."
"If it's anything as confusing as people calling me Axel when I'm actually Lea, then I'm all for it!"
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Aqua couldn't help but laugh. "Let's make sure to give advance notice, then. I'm sure their cooks wouldn't like it if we all arrived without warning."
New release date will be September 26th.