Keys of Destiny
Chapter 5: Threat
Being on board of the gummi ship that used to be the King's library was a less shaky experience when it ceased acceleration. The ship stabilised and switched to automatic pilot mode. Chip and Dale were inside the tiny main control room so no one could see them. Bookshelves lowered, revealing windows through which they could see the outside. All that happened within a couple of minutes. Only moments ago, Sora and his friends were at Disney Castle but now they were very far from it. Sora couldn't wait another second longer to find out what was happening. One thing for sure was the situation was bad enough for the King to flee his castle. "What are you doing King Mickey? Why did we leave Disney Castle?"
Removing his glance from the scenery outside, King Mickey looked up to Sora with a serious face. "There is a lot that I have to tell you. Here, take a seat," the King gestured Sora and Roxas to take a seat around the table where Queen Minnie and Daisy sat. Goofy and Donald were also asked to join them. Perhaps the King felt Moogly didn't need to be involved with the complicated issues he was about to discuss, he politely asked the little moogle to help with repairs down in the engine level. Moogly was happy to be of help. Pluto offered Moogly to ride on his back and they both took the stairs down.
"This young man is?" King Mickey asked once they sat down, acknowledging Roxas' presence. The few motional broomsticks on the ship delivered tea to everyone.
"I'm Roxas, Sora's Nobody," Roxas answered simply without hesitation. Everyone except the King gasped. Sora began recounting the story again, starting from when him, Riku and Kairi were attacked by NeoNobody. He told the King everything except the warning from Leon. Roxas shot him a look, daring Sora to tell the conversation with Leon. Sora ignored him.
"Thank you, Sora," the King nodded to Sora. He turned to Roxas. "Please to meet you, Roxas," the King said with a friendly smile. It made Roxas felt more relaxed and welcomed around the King than back in Radiant Garden.
When he finished his side of the story, Sora was eager to find out what the King knew. "Your majesty, can you please tell us why we have to desert Disney Castle? It is your home, isn't it? The Light is back there too. Also, how did you know we were coming?"
The King closed his eyes and sighed. "About how I knew you were coming, well, I wasn't completely sure. I didn't send Chip and Dale to look for you in case you may miss each other on the way. But I have faith in you. I know you'll try to find a way here if you run into the NeoNobody. So I waited. If you didn't come in time, we would still abandon the castle. There were too many NeoNobody back there. We had to. Fortunately no one was hurt, for that I am grateful. The Light is safe on this ship. As long as we have the Light, we can always rebuild the castle."
"But Your Ma-"
King Mickey cut off Sora. "The castle is something we can always rebuild, but life isn't. People come before everything else, Sora. The reason why we attracted so many of them was because I have the Kingdom Hearts. I have it right here on this ship."
"What!" Sora couldn't believe his ears. The last time he saw Kingdom Hearts was back at World That Never Was. When he thought about it, he couldn't remember seeing it when he went there with Roxas on the previous day. "But why?"
Taking a deep breath, King Mickey began to recall his story.
After defeating Xemnas, King Mickey returned to The World That Never Was. Knowing that Xehanort was a great researcher and scientist before he turned into a Heartless, the King suspected that his Nobody Xemnas might too have been a researcher, since one of Organisation XIII's purposes was to understand how the heart works. King Mickey flipped over every rock of the world of Nobody to make sure he didn't miss any spot. Even without the white castle of the organisation, The World That Never Was was still a big place. It took him two weeks to discover the existence of Xemna's underground laboratory. It was very well hidden. King Mickey didn't know exactly why the laboratory was outside the organisation's headquarters; perhaps Xemnas felt it was safer to hide it in town.
There was an incredible amount of reports and experiment results archived in the laboratory, stored on computer as well as paper. King Mickey spent another week going through all the data. It was seven days ago that he found a document titled Project Omega.
After the defeat of Vexen, Lexacus, Zexion, Larxene and Marluxia in Castle Oblivion, the head of Organisation XIII realised the need to prevent further corruption within the organisation. He needed a more powerful army that was stronger than the Nobody and would listen to every order he gave. Prior to that, he already unravelled the makeup of the soul and the body. It was the heart that he was never able to fully understand. He found a way to create a new kind of Nobody that had an ability that original Nobody didn't have. They were NeoNobody. By using Soul Shatter, NeoNobody could produce more Nobody by splitting up the three elements that made up a being – the body, soul and heart. Whilst the heart would turn what was darkness left of the being to a Heartless, the left behind body and soul would give birth to a new Nobody. It was Xemna's intention that shall all the members of Organisation XIII fail; Nobody will follow orders from the NeoNobody without resistance. Obviously, it was beyond Xemnas' prediction that Roxas would return and command his army of Nobody to eliminate the NeoNobody.
Omega and the NeoNobody had been given the same order – the retrieve Kingdom Hearts and eliminate all obstacles in the way. In order to achieve that goal, Xemnas input certain commands that would only execute under certain conditions. Omega was programmed to activate automatically shall Xemnas not give it new orders within a month's time. Riku and Kairi were mentioned in his plans, but he didn't give much detail about what he intended to do to them. He also made notes about producing replicas of the organisation's members, again not much information other than that was found.
As soon as King Mickey found out about Xemnas' backup plan, he brought Kingdom Hearts back to Disney Castle; even knowing it would attract Heartless, Nobody and worst of all – the NeoNobody. The Kingdom Hearts was hurt in the last battle. If proper care was not given, the balance between light and dark would be lost. King Mickey wouldn't allow it to fall into NeoNobody's hands either. Therefore he wrote a letter to Sora to invite him and his friends to discuss this matter. He didn't think the NeoNobody was this quick to carry out orders.
"You got to be kidding me your majesty!" Sora exclaimed. He couldn't image having to fight all those powerful Organisation XIII members again.
"Are we going to where Omega is right now? To destroy it?" Roxas asked.
King Mickey nodded. "Yes. However, Xemnas was cunning. He predicted his plans might be uncovered. So he made two hoax of Omega and put the three machines in three different dead worlds. We need locate the real Omega as soon as possible."
"But what about Riku and Kairi?" Sora couldn't believe the King still hadn't talked about rescuing them.
"Gawrsh, calm down Sora," Goofy said.
"How can I?" Sora yelled, slamming his fist onto the table, making all the teacups jump. Five pair of widened eyes stared at him. He muttered an apology.
King Mickey put a reassuring hand on the teenager's shoulder. "Sora, I suspect Riku and Kairi might have been taken to where Omega is. There is a high chance of finding them there. The most important thing now is for us to destroy Omega to stop it from making more NeoNobody. If we don't, we will all be turned into Heartless and Nobody."
"By the way, why weren't you affected by Soul Shatter? There must've been a thousand NeoNobody back at your castle," Roxas pointed out.
"That is not the way to address the King, boy!" Donald let out a frustrated quack, looking rather crossed. He could no longer tolerate Roxas not addressing King Mickey in the correct manner.
"Oh sorry, King Mickey," Roxas said, putting a hand behind his head.
"It's 'your majesty'!" Donald jumped up from his seat. Goofy was quick to refrain him from jumping onto Roxas.
King Mickey gestured Donald to stop. "Ah, thanks for bring that up, Roxas. I only discovered it when the day the NeoNobody came to my castle. I was worried about the Light, so I checked out on it. I noticed the NeoNobody didn't get close to the Light, like they were afraid of it. We will be safe as long as it is close to us."
He went over to the control panel and pressed a few buttons. A hatch opened up in the middle of the room, bringing up the Light from below. King Mickey asked Sora to touch it. Sora walked up to the giant glowing sphere and put a hand over it. It was so bright it was blinding. He closed his eyes. A warm sensation reached out to him, wrapping around his body like a soft feather blanket. When he opened his eyes again, he felt calm and refresh.
"Sora, you're glowing!" Donald remarked. He was right. A soft golden glow was emitting from Sora's body. The King told them the Light could protect them from NeoNobody's Soul Shatter as long as the glow remained. However, it wouldn't last forever.
When it was Roxas' turn to touch the Light, Donald pulled Sora to a corner. Goofy joined them out of curiosity.
"Sora, what are you thinking! We can't trust that Roxas boy. He's a Nobody," Donald put his hands on his hips. He wasn't happy.
"Gawrsh Donald, it's not nice to suspect our friends," Goofy said.
Folding his arms, Donald shot Goofy a glare. "He's not our friend!"
Goofy shrugged. "If he is Sora's friend; he's our friend too, right?"
"Thanks, Goofy. I don't think Roxas is bad. He helped me a lot. If it weren't him, I wouldn't have made it here so quickly. I was once a Heartless for a very short time too. Besides, I didn't have to fight alone like I did in Castle Oblivion, when you guys couldn't help me directly," Sora said.
"Castle Oblivion?" Donald raised an eyebrow. "We never went to such a place."
"Huh?" Sora gave Goofy a puzzle look, hoping for back up from him.
"I have never heard of such a place either, Sora," Goofy said with worry written over his face.
At that moment, King Mickey called them to gather around the table. He explained the plans he had in mind. Since there were three worlds where Omega could be hidden, they needed to split into three teams to try to find the real one. Donald and Goofy were put into team A. Sora and Roxas were put into team B. The King intended to make up team C by himself. Donald protested against the King's solitary action and Sora getting teamed up with Roxas. King Mickey refused to reorganise the teams, saying they must find Omega as quickly as they could or else the world would be in greater danger than it had ever been.
Growing impatient of Donald's constant complains, Sora couldn't hold back anymore. "Donald, we can't waste any more time. We need to save Riku and…" he stopped in mid-sentence, perplexed. "Riku and… huh?"
"What's wrong, Sora?" a concerned King Mickey asked.
"It's Kairi, " Roxas reminded Sora.
"Of course. Riku and Kairi. How and I ever forget?" Sora laughed, but he was confused. For some reason, Kairi's name didn't come to him when he tried to recall it.
Roxas could sense that something was not right. It was his connection with Sora that enabled him to feel certain changes in Sora. He spotted a group photo of King Mickey, Goofy, Donald, Riku, Kairi and Sora, hanging in a frame on the opposite wall. He asked the King if he could borrow it. The King said yes. He lowered his voice and asked Roxas to look out for Sora. Roxas promised he would.
Together they made their way downstairs to the departure level. The gummi ship's name was Royal Library. It had three floors: the top being the control and navigation level, the middle contained two rooms, a kitchen and a lounge, the bottom floor was the engine room. Chip and Dale worked very hard to repair Magus Hat to a flyable condition. Before they went, King Mickey gave every team a long-distance communication device. It was a silver badge in the shape of a crown. There was a mini speaker and a receiver inside the badge. Sora pinned it onto his jacket. He was told that once one of the team found Omega, the other two teams should meet up with the founder team. The King asked for no one to touch Omega until they meet up to work out what to do together.
After saying goodbye, the three teams headed off to different directions. Donald and Goofy took their old gummi ship. The King took the Royal Library. Sora and Roxas boarded Magus Hat, which was pilot by Moogly.
Their destination was already set for them. It was a dead world called Black Cosmos. Even with the newly installed turbo engine, the computer estimated it would still take them two hours to get there.
Sora felt a little disappointed about the short reunion with his friends. He wished he could be with them for a little longer. Not that he didn't understand how important their mission was; he couldn't help it. It was partly due to the bad feeling he had about what was ahead. He remembered something back a little while ago.
"Roxas," Sora asked his shadow counterpart who sat next to him. "Do you know about Castle Oblivion?"
"Castle Oblivion?" Roxas gave a slight frown. "I've been there a few times. It was one of the Organisation's subsidiaries. I wasn't stationed there though. Why?"
"Have I been there?" Sora pointed at himself.
Roxas shrugged. "You're asking me. How would I-" he paused to think. "Wait, I've heard you have from Axel." Roxas thought it was strange. Sora wasn't supposed to remember about Castle Oblivion. He heard that Namine erased all the memories in Sora of him being there. Namine was Kairi's Nobody. She was unknown to Kairi and got lost and helpless. No one cared for her. The organisation used her as a tool to lure Sora. Namine wanted Sora's attention so badly she used her power to put herself in Kairi's place, so Sora would stay with her. Doing so she replaced Sora's memories with fake ones she created. At the end, she realised what she did was wrong. She erased all Sora's memory of Castle Oblivion and restored his true memories.
It wasn't surprise to Roxas if Namine parted from Kairi after enduring the Soul Shatter on Destiny Islands. But he suspected Namine was meddling with Sora's memories again. He couldn't guess why she would. The most likely cause was perhaps she was captured and forced to.
It took them exactly two hours to reach Black Cosmos. Although none of them knew how the world was before it died, but it was certainly very dark and gloomy, just like its name suggested. Fallen buildings and craters covered the planet's surface. There was no sign of life or movement on there. Sora, Roxas and Moogly began to wonder if Omega could possibly be there. The ship landed gently, like a dragonfly on a lily leaf.
Author's rambling: There is quite a lot of explanation in this chapter. I hope I've covered everything I wanted at this point and it all makes sense. On the other hand, not much action in this chapter. But there will be in the next one. Review and review! They really make my day.