Silver Linings
Chapter 27: "Your Time Is Up!"
A/N: So close! We're almost done!
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A few minutes before...
King Mickey, having slipped in too fast for even Organization XIII to react, was already at Naught's Skyway, the set of ramps outside the castle walls that led up to the second floor of the Hall of Empty Melodies. The ramps were chock-full of Creepers and the occasional Samurai, but this certainly wasn't Mickey's first rodeo. The servant Nobodies didn't stand a chance of slowing His Majesty down, much less stopping him.
At the top of the ramp, Mickey found the person he'd been searching for. DiZ was lying face-first under a pile of Dusks. Making short work of the enemies, Mickey offered DiZ a hand to get to his feet...or as far as Mickey's short stature could help the ex-enigma stand up. DiZ managed to get to his feet on his own. "Thank you, my friend."
Mickey admonished, "Why didn't you come to us before things got so bad?"
"Organization XIII's leader is the Nobody of Xehanort, my foremost apprentice. The burden was mine to bear."
Mickey wasn't fooled. "Is that all?"
DiZ shook his head. He'd never been able to hide anything from Mickey...but then how did he get away with concealing his identity in Castle Oblivion? Namine couldn't be to blame for all the memory troubles in the worlds, not when they started a decade before her creation.
No; that was a question for another time. "I won't deny there was more. I was...obsessed with thoughts of revenge. My apprentices took everything precious from me - my research, and my pride."
Mickey got worried. "Nothing good ever comes outta revenge."
DiZ chuckled. "Don't worry, Riku and that outsider...Lambda...set me straight in that regard. Thus, I must atone for all that those young people have suffered because of me. That is why I brought this." He took hold of a strange device that had been lying on its side next to him and set it upright. Then DiZ removed the bandages from his face, dispelling the illusion that hid his identity from Organization XIII. He had the same amber eyes, but his skin was much lighter than it seemed with the bandages on. His blond hair seemed slightly unkempt from spending who-knows-how-many days bandaged up, and he was in moderate need of a haircut. His well-trimmed beard was exactly how Mickey remembered it, though. Ansem the Wise was back in business.
But back to the device; how had Mickey missed that thing? It was painted mostly red and gold, and looked like a cross between a telescope, a crystal ball, a miniature galaxy, and a death ray. "What's that gimmick for?"
Ansem smiled at his masterpiece. "The Kingdom Hearts Encoder. It's a device to reclaim Kingdom Hearts and encode it as data."
Mickey tuned out; he'd never been good at techie stuff. But Ansem the Wise wanted to mess with Kingdom Hearts like that? "Gosh, sounds risky."
"I do not claim to know the outcome of this venture, either. The process of encoding hearts is incalculable...but as the inhabitants of my Twilight Town showed, anything that could conceivably grow a heart of its own will do so in its own way, making my goal even more difficult. I harbor no illusions that this device will be able to perfectly encode the thousands of hearts it needs to, but at minimum, it will inflict heavy damage to Kingdom Hearts, which should prevent Xehanort from achieving his goal. I just hope the fail-safes function as intended. Come, let us find an adequate vantage point to fire it."
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The Hall of Empty Melodies...
Ansem hefted the Encoder under one arm and strode into the next room, where Sora, Riku, Kairi, and the rest were battling the Heartless. Ansem merely chuckled and turned around, poking a nondescript section of wall to reveal a side passage.
Mickey hurried after him, asking, "Gee, shouldn't we help 'em out?"
Ansem sighed. "Sora and Riku are together. We have no part to play here."
Mickey informed him, "They've been working together since a couple worlds ago. Lambda and my other friends finally got Riku to stop running away from Sora."
Ansem smiled. A real smile, not the sad ones that accompanied his usual laughter. "All the more reason to believe in them and their talents, then. Come with me, Mickey, my friend. I would like your company as I play my own role in this."
"Gosh, ol' buddy, you don't have to ask." Mickey was about to bounce ahead again, but Ansem caught him by one of the King's massive ears, dragging him back to the doorway.
With a teasing smile, Ansem asked, "My apologies, friend, but do you already know where we are going?"
Mickey rubbed his nose sheepishly. "Well, um, heh heh... I'll try to walk slowly this time."
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Meanwhile...
Sora: Defeat Xigbar! Be sure to defend against his attacks.
Sora, Donald, and Goofy squared off against Xigbar...who suddenly vanished.
Riku called out from the next floor up, "Sora, look up! He's going to snipe you!"
Xigbar growled as he set up his combined arrow-rifle. "Ruin the surprise, why don't you!" He set his sights on Sora and launched a salvo of crystals, but Sora was ready for him and used a Quick Run to stay ahead of the shots. Xigbar realigned his aim. "Gotcha now!"
Rather than run away this time, Sora whipped his Keyblade around and batted the next shot back at Xigbar. Then he jumped after the rebounded crystal to hit it back again, but surprised himself when he managed something similar to Riku's flash-step move. Rather than ponder it, Sora warped twice more; the third whack knocked the crystal right into Xigbar's scope, stopping his attempts to aim through it.
"Clever little sneak! Do you have any idea how long it'll take to fix these guns?" Xigbar didn't seem worried.
"A long time, I hope!" Sora gestured for Xigbar to come down and fight him like a man...or a Nobody, or whatever.
"As if." Xigbar separated his arrowguns and swung them down to his sides, reloading them and repairing their damage with a pinkish flash. "There. All fixed. Now check this out!"
Xigbar warped back into the arena and simultaneously altered its structure like he'd done while fighting Riku's group in Twilight Town. The rectangular arena was now much shorter lengthwise, and had four holes in it. The new contours of the arena were covered by Dark Barriers, making sure Sora couldn't just jump over the pits.
"Heads up!" The Freeshooter fired into mini-wormholes, sending the shots to Sora's sides. Sora was in the middle of a Dodge Roll as soon as he saw Xigbar firing, though, and managed to avoid the attack.
Sora realized, "So that's your trick. Space powers, right?"
"If I said yes, would you hold it against me?" Xigbar fired more shots, which Sora blocked and returned. Xigbar took the entire volley to the face and lost his grip on his guns, which started spinning wildly but harmlessly over his head.
"Of course I would! You creeps kidnapped Kairi!" Sora moved in with an Aerial Dodge and laid into Xigbar with a full combo, ending in a flashy set of spin attacks. Xigbar lost his concentration, and the arena reverted to its normal shape.
(For those wondering, Donald and Goofy were there too; they tried to catch up, but Xigbar was too fast, either from his own teleports or from being dragged around by Sora.)
Xigbar finally managed to teleport out of the combo and get far away from Sora, teleporting again whenever the hero got close. "Agh! Yeah, that would get me banned from your friends list. Which was the entire point, of course. Shoving your Keyblade through all those Heartless to get to us really helped the Organization out! Now EAT THIS!" Xigbar recombined his guns and launched a massive blue energy bolt. The bolt missed Sora by a mile, but bounced off a Dark Barrier and headed straight for the Keyblade wielder, completely ignoring the physics for how things should usually bounce off surfaces. Sora hit it back at its source like the earlier sniper bolts, and did the same warp-step thing (which he decided to call Warp Snipe) to repel the attack two more times when it bounced yet again.
The reflecting bolt didn't do much damage to Xigbar, but Sora used the distraction from the last hit to get in another melee combo. The Keyblade wielder taunted, "So, do you have any more shot types I can hit back at you, or do you give up?"
"Give up? As if! I've got one more dance for ya!" Xigbar loaded his blue, defense-penetrating crystals and unleashed his Limit Break. The arena shrank to a tiny square, and Xigbar started firing wildly in a circle. Sora took to the air while Donald and Goofy hit the deck. Xigbar began teleporting around the sides of the arena and shooting inward, but the heroes stayed ahead of his aim.
"C'mon! Let's see how you dance, kiddo!" Xigbar floated in the center of the arena, firing countless crystals into wormholes that emerged from all directions. Just like Riku and Lambda before them, Sora and company did a good job of dodging...until they ran into each other. The shots focused on Sora, but also like before, the minor participant Donald negated the resulting heavy damage immediately with a timely Cure spell. Sora caught the exhausted Xigbar in one more combo, and finally felt that satisfying thunk of his Keyblade finally breaking down his opponent.
Xigbar fell to one knee and dropped his guns. He was already beginning to fade. "I lost? Me?"
Sora asked in a calm, curious tone, "Who were the 'other' people chosen by the Keyblade, anyway?"
"Heh...wouldn't you like to know." With one final trolling smirk, Xigbar faded away.
Sora groaned, "Cryptic and annoying to the bitter end, huh?"
Donald got his attention. "C'mon, Sora, we've gotta catch up to Kairi!"
Goofy pointed at the north door. The bridges leading off the arena had returned upon Xigbar's defeat. "Looks like we'll need to go that way and hope it loops around."
"Yeah. Let's go!" Sora charged ahead.
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Hall of Empty Melodies: Second Floor...
Sora pushed through the throngs of Creepers, Samurai, and Berserkers on Naught's Skyway, and got back to the Hall of Empty Melodies just in time to finish off the last pack of Shadows. "Riku, I made it!"
Riku smirked as he dismissed his Keyblade (while still getting over the realization that it was his Keyblade!), "Well, it's about time, Sora. Someone's been waiting for you for months." He gestured to Kairi, who stepped forward with an unreadable expression.
Sora found himself suddenly getting really nervous; he couldn't look Kairi in the eyes. "Kairi...I'm sor-"
Sora's completely unnecessary apology was cut short by the girl of his dreams (and of the dreams Roxas had hijacked from him) running straight into his arms and hugging him for all she was worth. Kairi breathlessly mumbled into Sora's shoulder, "You're really here... This is real..."
Not knowing what to say, Sora opted to tenderly return the hug without saying anything.
Riku, of course, looked for a way to tease the adorable lovebirds. For a moment, it was just like the three of them were back on the Islands. Well, except for one very important addition to the group. "So, Lambda, wanna make out and show them what they're missing?"
"Do I?" Lambda rhetorically responded. She strutted over to Riku and stood on tiptoes to smooch him right on the lips, turning Sora and Kairi cherry red. Riku wrapped her up in his arms and enthusiastically returned the kiss.
"Get a room, you two!" Donald squawked with his usual bad temper. Goofy covered his eyes with his fingers, but he was peeking.
Riku broke the kiss and offhandedly replied, "Later; Sora and Kairi would need the room more. Seriously, Lambda and I are way ahead of you in this whole relationship thing." Sora and Kairi graduated from cherry red to beet red.
Lambda confirmed, "Point: Riku-11. Current scores: SoKai, 1; Riku-11, 4. We've done hugging, kissing, and two dates, counting the resting time after Twilight Town was invaded, whereas you've just done hugging."
"Wait, did I hear that right? Not only did you start keeping score, but you came up with shipping names for all of us?" Kairi was still wrapping her head around the way Riku's girlfriend was sorta-kinda a robot.
"Yep. All of us humanoids, at least," Lambda unashamedly replied, then turned back to Riku. "I think I see why you like teasing people, dear."
"Then you should give us another point for calling each other 'dear,'" was all Riku had to say about it.
"Acknowledged. Do those times we slept in the same bed count, too?"
Jiminy Cricket got everyone's attention by springing up and down on Sora's spiky hair. "Hey! Sorry for interrupting, but maybe we should save this kind of thing for after we're all out of mortal danger?" With almost perfect timing, a group of Sniper Nobodies appeared to avenge their fallen liege, Xigbar.
"Fine, fine." Riku summoned the Way to Dawn and prepared to fight, but Kairi was already in the fray with Destiny's Embrace. She managed to beat one of the five Snipers before any of them had a chance to fire, but one of them took aim at her back.
Sora Warp Sniped the shot away, destroying the Nobody that dared to fire at Kairi. "Don't worry, Kairi! I'll protect you!"
Kairi rolled her eyes. "Sora, I have a Keyblade now. I don't need you to protect me anymore. I just need you. I never want to be left behind again."
Riku dismissed his own Keyblade, having polished off the other three Nobodies during that exchange. "I hate to break it to you, Kairi, but you are still new at this, and we're right in the middle of one of the most dangerous places any of us has ever seen. You're off to a good start, though. Sora can definitely teach you the ropes, too." Warping to Sora's side, he added in a loud not-whisper, "You're welcome."
"C'mon, lovebirds, let's go!" Donald march-waddled through the next door. Everyone else ran after him, hoping he hadn't gotten into trouble again.
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Proof of Existence...
As it turned out, Donald had managed to not ruin everything this time. The slanted room was empty, except for several weird metal markers arranged in rows like tombstones. Almost everything in the room was broken. On the floor in front of each marker was a silhouette of a weapon carried by someone in Organization XIII; most of the marks were red, but three were blue: a deck of cards, a big sword, and a pair of Keyblades.
Lambda puzzled out what it meant. "It looks like this room marks the status of the Organization members. The red weapons mean that member was eliminated, and their tombstones are broken. Hey, Riku, check out Zexion's." She gestured at the indisputably most broken mark in the room; the sign on the floor was burned, broken, and warped so badly that it was impossible tell what Zexion's weapon once was. "If I recall correctly, he got handed the most overkill of any of them."
"Totally worth it," Riku replied. "He was the one who played mind-games with me and pretended to be Sora."
"Hey, guys? Why is this tombstone glowing blue?" Kairi called everyone over to tombstone Number X, which was in perfect condition except for the middle of the marker being replaced with a translucent blue pane of energy.
Lambda scanned it. "Scanning...it's a portal. It'll probably lead us right to Organization XIII's Number X... Luxord, if I recall. He fought me once in Wonderland, but he got away."
Riku asked, "So, should we use these portals to beat the remaining members one-by-one?"
"I think we have to," Sora called from the top of the slope. "This doorway's sealed, and the Keyblade doesn't work on it."
"Then it's settled! Sora, after you. Ladies first, after all." Riku stepped aside and chivalrously swept an arm in the direction of the portal.
Kairi raised an eyebrow at Riku as Sora returned to the group. "Excuse me? I'm the lady here, not Sora!"
"Just get in there, everyone." Lambda pushed from the back of the impromptu huddle, shoving everyone into the portal.
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Meanwhile, on Naught's Approach...
"This spot should do." Ansem the Wise set up the Kingdom Hearts Encoder on a tripod, took aim at the moon, and activated the device. It fired a green beam that stretched all the way into the sky, connecting Kingdom Hearts to the Encoder. Dials and meters and globe-like spheres began to spin on various parts of the Encoder.
Mickey gawked at the device. "Is it workin'?"
Ansem frowned at one of the meters. "The connection is not quite stable. Some conversion is taking place, but the transfer rate is not one hundred percent. I fear for the lost hearts that cannot be fully encoded...but we must prevent Xehanort from laying claim to Kingdom Hearts at anycost."
Mickey nodded grimly...although he was still smiling, of course. "Hate to say it, but you're right. You just keep that machine runnin'; I'll keep a lookout for enemies."
Ansem held the Encoder steady; it had begun to vibrate an almost imperceptible amount. "Of course, my friend. Worry not; Sora will no doubt reach this place before long."
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Havoc's Divide...
Everyone spilled out the other side of the portal and landed in a heap on a large, sloped balcony (except Lambda, who simply walked through). Sora groaned a long-suffering groan as he felt Goofy's shoes on top of him and Donald's tail poking his side; these dog-and-duckpiles happened all the time, but why couldn't his party ever stack up from largest to smallest, just for once?
Sora pushed himself out of the pile. "What's that?" He pointed up into the sky, at a green beam that seemed to connect a side of the castle they couldn't quite see from here to Kingdom Hearts.
Riku replied as he dusted off his coat, "It's the King and DiZ - I mean, Ansem the Wise. They're probably ahead of us. Let's hurry and find out what's sealing that door."
Lambda confirmed, "Ansem's secret notes mentioned that he was going to try and virtualize Kingdom Hearts, or something. From what I can gather, that beam only has a 0.0002 percent chance to work; we've got to get over there before the attempt blows up in his face."
"What's the hurry? I, for one, have all the time in the world."
A swirl of Darkness preceded the arrival of Luxord, who immediately snapped his fingers and summoned two rows of giant cards that moved in front of and behind the pile of Sora's allies; when the cards moved all the way past the arena, they revealed that Sora and Luxord were now alone.
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The House of Cards...
Suddenly, everyone except Sora and Luxord found themselves in a completely different area. The space was a perfect fifty-foot cube with walls made of Luxord's cards. Since the cards were taller than they were wide, they bent in half at the ceiling to keep the height and length of the room constant.
Oh, and there were about twenty of Luxord's servant Nobodies, the Gamblers, in the room with the heroes. Everyone prepared for the battle...but it turned out to be underwhelming, since no new enemies replaced the defeated Nobodies. The Gamblers didn't even last long enough to attack.
"Is that really it?" Kairi asked. "I was expecting...I don't know what, but that seemed too easy."
"We're still stuck in here, though," Riku pointed out. "I think we have to wait for Sora to beat Luxord."
Lambda groaned. "This is going to be boring. So...anyone know any good jokes?"
Without missing a beat, Donald Duck replied, "Nope. Go fish."
Lambda stared for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Pfft... Ha! That...that was the perfect joke for this place!"
"Well, it's about time I got some respect," Donald smugly replied.
So of course, it was only a few seconds before a Time Break opened right over Donald's head, spilling a large visitor from the Azure Timeline on top of him. "Damn, should have watched that first step...Oh, COME ON! That portal led right from one doghouse to another? Is this Kokonoe's idea of a joke?"
The blue-haired man stood up, paying no mind to the anthropomorphic duck (whom he'd squashed as flat as one of the cards around him). He looked around at the crowd of kids around him, letting them get a good look in return at such features as his total lack of any shirt, his white coat that was worn more as a cape, his intricate full-body tattoos, and the muscles on top of his muscles on top of his muscles.
Riku nudged Lambda with an elbow, not taking his eyes off the intimidating stranger. "Do you know who this guy is?"
"Scanning...1 match found: Azrael. Identified as a human...Error. Anomalies detected. Physical strength: immeasurable. 1 Armagus found. Grimoire ID: Enchant: Dragunov. Limiter type; restricts threat level to SS. Maximum threat level without Limiter: unknown. Aliases on file: Mad Dog, Genocider, The Terror..."
Riku's pupils shrank. "Okay, I think I get the gist of it... You can stop scaring me now."
"Acknowledged."
Azrael glanced at Lambda. "Ah, so my reputation even precedes me here! If I'm not mistaken, you're a Murakumo Unit...but what's this? You smell...weak. Too weak; you're not even a light snack!"
Lambda scowled. "Don't rub it in. I'm working on it."
Azrael nodded. "Well, then, you're safe for now. It would be a waste to consume you now if you can still be toughened up for later! As for you two..." The Mad Dog turned his eyes on Kairi. "You have plenty of fighting spirit, but no real power yet. You look like you'll improve fast, too. But you..." Azrael grinned at Riku, showing far too many teeth. "You're the perfect appetizer to wet my chops while I wait! Come at me and let me sink my fangs into your flesh!" Donald and Goofy were frustrated and confused, respectively, that he didn't even mention them.
"Is the eating thing a metaphor, or - WAUGH!" Before Riku could finish his sentence, he was punched into a wall by Azrael, who seemed to simply appear in front of his enemy. Riku recognized a similar technique to his own flash-steps...after his head stopped ringing. But this enemy had no backing from the Power of Darkness, magic, or Ars Magus...he was just that fast.
"Come on, you can do better than that! Hit me with your best shot; I'll give you a freebie!"
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Riku: Fight off Azrael!
Riku got to his feet and summoned his Keyblade. "Fine. You asked for it!" He called up all his Darkness - every scrap of power he could muster. His shadow leapt off the ground behind him (but where was the light source to cast it in this place?), forming into not-Ansem's Guardian. The Guardian flew forward, then turned to face Riku, who summoned a blinding aura of Light. "All's End!" The Guardian's hands and the tip of Way to Dawn fired off opposing blasts of Light and Darkness, fueling the same pure destructive force that Riku previously needed to work in perfect sync with Sora to achieve.
Lambda recognized the attack instantly, and dove on top of Kairi just before the blast went off. Donald jumped on Goofy's back and cast Reflega.
When the blinding surge of power subsided, the cards forming the sides of this pocket space were all burned totally black, making the room appear to be an infinite black void. Lambda was burned all over, but not so badly that she couldn't repair herself, and she managed to save Kairi from most of the damage.
Donald had managed to perfectly time his spell to dodge the entire blast. Riku would have been impressed if he'd been looking.
However, Azrael still stood in the same spot, totally unharmed! His arms were raised over his head like a bear on its hind legs, and his tattoos floated off his body as a red-and-black aura. He relaxed his stance, and the aura turned back into markings. "In case you couldn't hear me over all that pointless sound and fury, I just used something I like to call Growler Field. I can expand the energy-absorbing effect of Enchant: Dragunov to absorb all kinds of projectiles. Just thought you should know. And also: Phalanx Cannon!" With a wave of his hand, Azrael launched a lump of that aura at Riku. The bolt traveled extremely fast, but the shadow Guardian managed to intercept it.
"Looks like projectile attacks are a no-go for both of us, Azrael." Riku raised his sword into his fighting stance.
Far from being disappointed, Azrael grinned gleefully. "Excellent! Now I have the pleasure of crushing you under my fists! Gustav Magnum!" He lunged forward with a fierce right hook.
Riku blocked it with the "sharp" edge of Way to Dawn (like any Keyblade, it was clearly a blunt weapon, but it could still cut through almost anything as though the key had an impossibly keen edge), but it didn't seem to do any damage to Azrael's fist.
Without missing a beat, Riku retaliated with a swing at Azrael's neck after flash-stepping behind him. This also did nothing, but Azrael used his own flash-step to reappear behind Riku in turn. That pattern continued, with the two combatants rapidly switching positions with each other and snaking backward around the room.
As he danced around the room, Riku locked eyes with Lambda, who realized what he needed from her. Perhaps the control protocol didn't need audible commands? Azrael, on the other hand, considered the other occupants of the House of Cards to be so far below his notice that he might as well have been alone with the dark hero. Riku was counting on that. Lambda started running her auto-repair and other internal functions.
Riku started zig-zagging around by appearing on Azrael's sides instead of behind him. As expected, Azrael was still able to follow Riku's every move.
"C'mon, kid. I know the chase is part of the fun of the hunt, but I'm getting bored. Stop running away or I'll MAKE you stop! SCUD...PUNISHER!" Azrael suddenly moved even faster, catching Riku with a palm jab to the gut...and leaving a visible dent in his abdomen. Riku doubled over in pain. "This next one's gonna hurt. Hornet Bunker!" Azrael knelt low, then slammed both fists upward into Riku's stomach, launching him right into the blackened ceiling. Then he jumped right up after him and delivered five more kicks to the same spot. "You were an amusing distraction, to be sure. But that's all you were."
From his position in a heap on the ground, Riku shot a lopsided smirk at Azrael and struggled to speak. "Y-yeah, I know. That was the...point."
Lambda spoke up. "Connection established. Kokonoe, I've got a stray dog here. His collar says 'Azrael'; is he yours? I'm sending you the coordinates."
"Goddammit, how did he escape!? Well, good job keeping him in one place. It turns out I've got just the plaything for him here on my bench! Now play dead, Azrael!" The Time Break that was still creeping outward from the very center of the room suddenly erupted with a ray of blue-white energy - Kokonoe had fired a souped-up freeze ray through the rift. It struck Azrael's readied Growler Field...and pierced right through, because any cold-based attack was a matter of taking energy and heat away from the target. At least, that's how it works with pure cold, as opposed to stabbing the enemy with ice like a Blizzard spell...
Azrael froze solid. Cracks were already appearing along the massive ice block in which he'd been imprisoned, but he flickered and vanished into Kokonoe's teleportation device (which had teleported itself under his feet; another masterpiece of science!). "There. I'll keep an eye on his cell for any more sudden Time Breaks. Good luck with...whatever you're doing, Lambda." The Time Break closed thanks to Kokonoe's Time Breaker Mk. II, leaving only Riku, Lambda, and Kairi in the House of Cards.
Riku groaned, "Okay, that was a bit too much excitement. Next time we're all trapped in a pocket dimension, I'll vote for being bored."
Donald quacked, "Curaga! Now you can't tell me I didn't help!" Riku's and Kairi's wounds were healed, and Lambda finished her auto-repairs. And finally, the card-space began to shuffle itself to let the prisoners out.
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Sora: Defeat Luxord at his own games!
Sora angrily summoned his Keyblade. "Where...?"
"I'd rather we just skip the formalities." Luxord slipped his deck of weaponized playing cards out of his sleeve and sent them looping around himself. Floating, translucent bars appeared over his head and Sora's. "The first to run out of time is the loser. Play well, and you'll keep your time while cutting mine; fail, and you'll suffer the reverse."
"For someone who won't tell me his name, it's awfully nice of you to explain the rules," Sora deadpanned.
"I prefer 'fair'. This next part will not be nice." Luxord cast a spell that turned Sora into a large die (the singular of "dice", not the present-tense of "died"). While Sora was still in shock at the sudden transmogrification, Luxord continued, "It's a dirty trick, but my Organization is at somewhat of a disadvantage with only three of us left."
Sora tried to move around, but could only do so by hopping repeatedly. Having few options at the moment, he jumped away from Luxord to avoid whatever his next attack would be.
Luxord simply stood there. "Don't squander your time! You've discarded your last move, while I still have many cards to play!" A group of three giant cards appeared around Dice-Sora, trying to cut into him with their edges.
My "last move"? Then there was something I could've done at close range... Sora decided to try jumping into one of the cards. As he thought, he was able to barrel right through it and break it apart. He could also feel the spell binding him into this ridiculous shape weaken as he dealt out damage, so he kept it up. Finally, the spell broke, allowing Sora to return to human form.
"My turn!" Sora launched a few Blizzaga spells at Luxord, but the spells didn't do much besides push the Nobody around. No wounds were inflicted, and Luxord's time bar barely decreased.
"Fine. Pick a card, any card. But do you know the rules?" Luxord created four cards behind him with their backs to Sora.
Sora pointed at the second one from the left. "That one?"
The card flipped around to reveal an "O" mark, whereas the other three had "X" marks. Luxord flinched as he glanced back at the result. "Good choice..." A swirl of blue magic surrounded Sora with numerals like the Stop spell he'd used back on his first adventure, and his time bar crept back up a little. Luxord was surrounded by a similar spell, only green, and his time bar fell. Now Sora had the advantage.
Sora capitalized on Luxord's shifted attention by moving in for a combo, which kept Sora's time bar static while Luxord's continued to fall. "It's over!"
"I won't fold yet. Take it from a time mage, boy: it's never over until it's over." Luxord turned himself into a card that tilted sideways to avoid the path of Sora's Keyblade, then summoned three more cards in a puff of smoke. "Watch closely..." The cards fell facedown and shuffled themselves along the ground, making Sora stumble away. Then the cards stood upright, presenting their backs to Sora.
"Second from the left again?" Maybe it was the same every time...maybe?
All three other cards seemed to say, "Not this time!" The chosen card revealed a red mark...and promptly exploded in Sora's face.
Sora shook residual ash out of his face and pointed at another card. "Okay...the one on my far right!"
"Ah, your luck has returned." Luxord revealed himself. The Nobody's time bar had fallen to a quarter. "I'd better step up my game!" He threw all fifty-two cards from his deck, scattering them across the arena. He then swept into a series of attacks while ducking under the cards.
Sora handily dodged the whole assault; this head-on rush was more his speed than those earlier wacky games of chance.
"The stakes are high now!" Luxord surrounded Sora with four enormous cards, showing one O mark rapidly shifting among three X's. "Catch four O's to win. Miss just one, and we'll play another hand...with your current time."
Sora poked the first O with his Keyblade easily enough. It stayed an O, and another O started shifting among the remaining three cards. Each time Sora got it right, the remaining marks sped up, leaving a pulse-pounding final choice as the last card simply alternated between X and O almost too fast to follow.
The key word there, however, was almost. Sora nailed the final O mark, and all fifty-two cards flew to his hand. He tossed them at Luxord, who took the full force of the entire combo, bumping his time bar down to nothing instantly.
"Congratulations...you play the game well!" Luxord's voice remained gentlemanly, as it had been the whole time, but his face was panicked as he summoned a tower of cards around himself as a desperate last defense.
"Game over! Give me back my friends!" Sora leaped at the tower and slashed right through it at the level of Luxord's neck. The card tower was cleaved in two, and Luxord collapsed.
"To think I'd lose to you...Roxas..." Luxord vanished into Nothing, but thankfully his other forty-eight cards remained long enough to sweep past the area and reveal Sora's allies, all standing in a group with confused expressions.
"Looks like you got him!" Riku clapped Sora on the back. "I knew you could do it!"
Sora humbly rubbed the nape of his neck. "Where were you guys? Were any of you hurt?"
Lambda answered, "We were stuck in Luxord's pocket dimension with a few Nobodies until you beat him. We also had to fight a nasty visitor from the Azure Timeline, but that's solved now, and we didn't get hurt any way Donald's spells couldn't fix. But it felt like we were in there for a long time. What took you so long?"
"What? I couldn't have taken more than three minutes; Luxord used his time magic to put a time limit on...oh, I get it."
"Oh," Lambda repeated in understanding. A powerful time mage like Luxord could easily make his pocket dimension run slower than the outside world. He probably used it to train when he wasn't kidnapping people. "How do we know he's actually beaten, and not just time-travelled back to before he kidnapped us?"
"We should go back to the room with the tombstones. That would clear it right up," Kairi suggested.
Riku teased, "Lucky you, Sora! She's a smart one! Maybe she'll round out your usual group of blockheads."
Sora retorted, "Yeah, starting with you. C'mon, let's get back inside. There's one other Organization member to beat before we can get to Xemnas...and we shouldn't keep the King waiting too long." After one more glance at the beam from Ansem's device, Sora led the way back to the Proof of Existence.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
A/N: Again, this took forever. There'll be at least two more chapters for Sai'x and Xemnas; I have some surprises stored up to go along with the absurdly long string of final bosses at the end of KH2, as well.
In the game, there's supposed to be a tearful reunion with Riku at this point, but since that already happened, more focus was placed on Kairi, who refuses to be left out again.
Luxord's fight is hard to render without mentioning a user interface. I tried my best to make a workaround, but I still feel like it's too much of a stretch.
See you all in...probably a month or two. I can hopefully work faster, since I've been visualizing the final few scenes of this fic for literally more than a year now, but Kokonoe's trusty Magic 8-Ball says "Outlook not so good."