Update Feb 2014: There is an ASAS extra content for this sequence, which is ch25 (conveniently labeled "Extra Content: Beast's Castle")

Chapter 98: Haunted by a Nightmare

"No time to explain," the Mouse interrupted. "We've got trouble."

And, they really did have trouble. All the Heartless that hadn't been killed, and much more that had since joined them, were beginning to cluster together into one large group. Pretty soon, it was impossible to determine a single separate Heartless in the bunch. They were all conglomerating together into a larger form, which slowly reared up.

It wasn't long before Sora had to crane his neck to look at its face. Its eyes were glowing yellow, like all Heartless, and three large red horns were poking out of its head. It had a wolf-like muzzle, complete with teeth that looked like they would be razor sharp. It had a chain collar around its neck, and the chain dragged along the ground behind it. Its body was structured similar to that of a Darkside, though much more muscular, and it had red claws. Thorns were wrapped around its arms, though they did not seem to constrict it at all, and its feet were bound together with another set of chains. It also had a mane that was dark red in color and constantly moving like fire.

A shiver went down Sora's spine.

This looked exactly like one of the monsters he had imagined up when he was a kid.

He gripped his Keyblade tightly.

The man in the cloak chuckled, darkly. "Still scared of your old nightmares, Sora?" he taunted. Sora refused to look at him, but did catch out of the corner of his eye first recognition, then understanding cross the Mouse's face. Sora frowned slightly at that, but the sound of a dark corridor opening interrupted his thoughts. He turned, shocked, to find the man in the cloak disappearing through a dark corridor. He made a face, and then returned his attention to Heartless.

It's alright, he told himself. If this is just one of the monsters from my imagination, then I really don't have to be afraid of it, right?

But for some reason, he seemed to be a lot more afraid of it now than he had been when he was a kid.

It didn't help that it punched the ground with one of its gigantic fists, narrowly missing him. A pool of darkness formed in the ground around the fist and a few branches of thorns shot out of the ground and tried to grab onto him. Sora quickly stumbled away, slashing at the thorns angrily to keep them away from him.

He had seen enough thorns for his lifetime…

He glanced over at the Mouse, only to find that the Mouse was already attacking the Heartless, not at all fazed by how menacing or large it was. Sora grimaced, and then rushed in for an attack himself. He had to jump to reach any vulnerable part, though, and it kept swatting him away as if he were only a fly.

There was a sudden roar of fury, and Sora only had just enough time to get out of the way as the Beast lunged forward, attacking madly. He quickly collapsed though, and Sora rushed to hold him back when he tried to get up again.

"Stop it," he said, firmly. "You're hurt! You should get out of here."

"I will not… have the Heartless destroying my castle!" the Beast replied, though his words came out strangled.

"I'm sure Sora can handle the Heartless," Belle said, helping the Beast to his feet. Sora frowned slightly in confusion; he hadn't noticed her come over. However, he nodded, and then said:

"Yeah, I'll make sure the Heartless don't do any damage. You get somewhere safe."

The Beast looked like he might have protested, but Belle was already dragging him away. Sora returned his attention to the Heartless. He thought about trying to attack it with his blade, but then decided to shoot Fira at it instead. It didn't seem to do any damage.

"Well… crap…" he muttered.

"Ya havin' any luck?" the Mouse called. He had paused in his persistent attacking of the Heartless and cast a glance over at Sora. Sora shook his head.

"Me neither," the Mouse sighed. "I haven't seen anything like this before."

"I have," Sora replied. "When I was a kid. It was one of the monsters that showed up in my nightmares…"

That was only a half-truth, though. Yes, he had seen this very monster in his nightmares a couple of times, but shortly after the nightmares it had become the center of his childhood fantasies. This monster was the typical face of evil, the typical threat.

Guess that's why it's showing up now…

He didn't have a chance to say anything more after that. The Heartless formed a ball of energy that looked much like the fire that made up its mane. It sent a large blast of the stuff in Sora's direction, and Sora didn't have enough time to get out of the way.

He screamed once the energy hit him.

Though the energy looked like fire, it burned like darkness.

It felt like his entire body was on fire, every one of his muscles screaming, every inch of his skin in agony. And to make it worse, he could feel it sapping at his energy, pulling at his chest, raging through his heart. He might have screamed again, but he was in too much pain to notice. He was vaguely aware that he was on the ground now-

He could see, very clearly, the monstrous face of the Heartless before him. It looked very much like a wolf up close, and it even appeared to be grinning an almost doglike grin. Its breath was warm, and it smelled slightly. Sora shuddered, fear flooding through him, and the darkness eagerly latching on to that.

A ball of light came between him and the Heartless. The Heartless flinched away from the light, and Sora did too. The pain from the darkness stopped, but a different, almost sharper, pain shot through his head. He clutched his head, cringing away from the light. He couldn't take it.

"Fight it Sora! This is your nightmare!"

Sora almost laughed.

He thinks the pain is being caused by the Heartless, doesn't he?

That, somehow, it's-

Then it clicked.

Sora pushed himself up, eyes going wide with understanding.

Nightmare.

This Heartless, this monster, was his nightmare.

Was his monster.

Was his imagination.

And he knew exactly what he was supposed to do to stop it.

Not hesitating one second he rushed forward, half running half stumbling and finally just rolling past the Heartless' legs. He nearly tripped, but he didn't care. He picked up the chain that was dragging behind the Heartless, and pulled hard. The Heartless roared in fury as it was choked slightly. Sora grimaced, realizing he wasn't going to be able to actually pull it down on his own. That was something that would only work in a fantasy.

He quickly spotted the chains that bound its legs together.

That should do it…

"Get the chains binding its legs!" he called, though it probably sounded more like a scream.

He didn't see what happened next, but the Mouse did something that caused the Heartless to trip, and it fell over backwards. Sora only barely managed to get out of the way before it crushed him.

The battle went rather quickly after that. Tripping the Heartless let them reach its most vulnerable part: its face. They were able to get in a couple of combos before it got back to its feet again and they had to start the process all over.

The Heartless did, however, get a bit smarter as time wore on. It started using the dark fire attack more often, though Sora was much quicker to get out of the way, and not once did it hit him again, despite the Heartless' many attempts to make sure it did. The Heartless even went as far as to restraining him with thorns one time, but he managed to break free of them before the dark fire hit.

Fed up after about the fifth time of taking their Keyblades to its face, it began charging up a rather menacing looking attack. Sora threw up a Cure for himself and the Mouse so that they were prepared for what was coming next.

The Heartless roared, then pounded both of its fists into the round, sending a shockwave of the dark fire energy out. Thankfully, it wasn't too hard to jump out of the way of said shock wave. The shockwave was followed by blast after blast of the dark fire energy, but Sora managed to avoid all of those. The Mouse was grazed by one of the attacks, but he quickly summoned a bit of light to solve the problem. He grimaced and shuddered slightly though. The dark fire really was deadly.

They tripped the Heartless one last time, and after taking a few combos and blasts of light to the face, it let out a rather doglike whimper and then faded into darkness.