Jazzerman here, I do not own any of these characters, they are owned by their respected companies, as many as there are. You've heard this crap before. I DO own the OCs. If you'd like to use them in a fic, just tell me.
Am I Heartless?
Part 13
Meanwhile at Disney Castle things had been rather quiet. King Mickey had been patiently awaiting the reports from his court magician and the captain of the Disney knights.
Right on time both Goofy and Donald came in and hurried over to the throne. Silently King Mickey wondered if he could just move this throne towards the door a couple hundred yards. So people wouldn't have to run all the way over just to tell him what was going on?
"Your majesty! The Heartless are gathering outside the castle!" Donald quacked, trying to catch his breath once he had delivered his message.
"Are they getting in?" The King inquired.
Donald shook his head. "No, I think the Cornerstone of Light is keeping them out."
Goofy nodded, but he had to tell the rest of their report. Donald was out of breath. Absently Goofy thought that he needed to relax a little more often. "But there's this one big Heartless outside that keeps tilting its head to look through the windows."
King Mickey blinked. "How big is it?"
"Oh... Real big." Goofy said, pointing out one of the windows.
Outside the window they could clearly see a Darkside, an enormous muscular humanoid Heartless with a heart shaped hole in it's chest, a tangled web of tendrils that were a mockery of hair, and large yellow eyes typical for any Heartless. Its large glowing orbs were darting around the throne room this way and that, looking for something that clearly wasn't there. Before long the giant moved back to look into other room of the castle and could no longer be seen from the throne room, much to the relief of Donald, Goofy and the King.
"Keep your eyes open guys." The King said. "I don't want something to happen like when the Cornerstone was stolen to happen again. And I especially don't want THAT thing getting in."
Both Donald and Goofy rigidly saluted and began the long walk back to the main hallway.
---
Kairi, Sora, and Riku followed Yuffie along the rooftops. The ninja girl had insisted upon it, saying that it was 'quicker'. Just as Yuffie had told them, the Heartless were attacking everything. Some were clawing the buildings trying to get in, larger tougher Heartless were smashing open boxes and barrels to see what was inside then abandon the contents on the ground. But even though the townsfolk were outside and fleeing from the Heartless they still weren't paying the people any notice.
"Strange stuff..." The ninja girl muttered.
"Yeah. Usually the Heartless are only interested in Hearts." Kairi said. "It's unusual that they are passing up the opportunity to get them this easily."
"They must be looking for Orin. He said that the Heartless have been hunting him. But the real question is why?" Riku said, restating what Orin had told them on the islands to Yuffie.
Yuffie knew that part of this destruction was her fault. If she hadn't been so impulsive than this might not have happened. Still, the thought of all the work Leon would make her do once this was all over made it all to clear that she had to stop the Heartless now before they wreaked the whole town. Knowing Leon, Yuffie knew that if that happened than Leon and Cid would make her do all the heavy lifting for a week solid. Especially if he didn't see her helping out with this infestation.
Yuffie took a deep breath and hopped down as she threw her shuriken, taking out three Shadows before it returned to her hand. Undeterred, the other Heartless ignored her completely and continued their trashing of the town.
Riku and Sora looked at each other, and after exchanging shrugs they summoned their Keyblades and leapt down to help take care of the Heartless.
"What am I? Chopped liver?" Kairi complained to no one in particular. Then much to her surprise the Keyblade that Riku gave her back in The world that never was appeared in her hand. Kairi looked at it, it was about the size of Riku's Way to the dawn Keyblade, appeared to be made out of twisted wood, and had a keychain shaped like a Paopu fruit.
"Well... Nice to see you again." Kairi said to the weapon. Its appearance reminded her of the old Paopu tree that they used to hang around back when she and her friends were kids. "I think I'll call you... 'Summer days'."
And with that she joined in attacking the Heartless. Albeit not as gracefully as Sora or Riku.
---
"After a few tests I have found that contact living creatures results with a unique transformation. Upon said contact this special Heartless reverts to a feral Heartless form. Such transformation can be described as subject's skin turning black, glowing eyes, and claws forming from the subject's hands. After further testing I have concluded that the reason for this extreme reaction is due to the creature knowing that it is false. The heart beat of another being results in the subconscious realization that it is a Heartless, in other words suppressing the false memories I have implanted, and reverts to its natural state."
Orin stopped reading and punched the wall. Much to his surprise he had cracked the hard reinforced stone wall without injuring his hand. Orin held his head, he didn't feel well at all. He felt like his world had collapsed around him and was now in a terrifying bastardization of it. Was this book accurate or was that witch just in league with the writer of this book? Or for that matter had she just wrote it to mess with his mind? Orin shook his head. Something about this seemed to ring true. His lack of any non specific childhood memories, anything other than cold hard fact that is. He knew faces, names, places, what some of those people were like and what they did but nothing else. Some one could easily make that sort of information up on the spot if they had the time. Reluctantly he decided to continue reading.
"Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the very Heartless I had used to create this human like creature contains the heart of that pathetic janitor Jerrad. I can only imagine the irony, I had given this creature memories of being his own father. I can only imagine the look on its face if it every learned the truth. Oh delicious irony the gods weave..."
"I see you are still reading the journal of that egotistical fool."
Orin looked up to see Maleficent looming over him. Gritting his teeth he went back to reading much to the chagrin of the witch.
"I have read that book over many times." Maleficent said, enjoying the fact that she knew more about him than he did at this point. She was glad that she had decided to keep that old book. "So my boy, what do you think of yourself?"
"Shut up ya old hag." Orin muttered. He didn't appreciate her lording over him like this. Nor did he like her reminding him of his 'condition'.
Maleficent only smirked at his rude remark. In a way she was pleased to see that he was in such a foul mood. It meant that he had discovered what the book held in its pages. That he was nothing more than a little Heartless given the form and memories of a human that never truely existed.
Orin sighed, shaking his head. She wasn't going to leave him alone until he asked... "Okay... What exactly do you want from me?"
"Nothing at all my dear..." Maleficent cooed. "As I told you before, it is only a small task."
Orin groaned loudly. What choice did he have? "I'm listening..."
---
Slowly, with the combined might of Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, and Tifa the Keybladers were managing to drive the remaining Heartless away. The Heartless would find themselves in fewer company than they preferred to travel in and would disappear back to where ever they had previously come from.
Once the Keyblade wielders had stopped fighting they gathered outside Merlin's house.
"Hey Kairi, you were doing pretty good out there with that Keyblade." Sora congratulated his lifelong friend. "Isn't that the one Riku gave you back when we fought Xigbar? Xemnas's right hand guy?"
"You mean the gun toting eye-patch guy?" Kairi inquired, but she hated answering Sora's question with another question so she held up her Keyblade and added: "Yeah it is. I just... thought about helping you guys out and it just appeared in my hand."
Sora laughed. "Yeah, it takes a while to get used to that."
Riku smiled, seeing Kairi fight along side them was a major boost to his self esteem. He was proud of her. "Good to know there's another person that can help in a fight. You've toughened up Kairi."
"Thanks Riku." Kairi said, looking at her Keyblade. "So um... how do I get it to go awa- AH!"
Kairi yelped in surprise as her new Keyblade vanished in a quick burst of twinkling light. The boys just chuckled at her surprise, only to earn a lump on the head from the red head.
"Looks like you two need to learn how to treat a woman better."
All three Islanders looked back to see Cloud walking up towards them.
"Cloud!" Sora exclaimed. Once more glad to see the spiky haired swordsman. But only for an instant before he realized Cloud hadn't helped in the fight against the Heartless. "Where've you been? We could've used the help."
Cloud ignored nest head's irritated remark about him. He had something more important to say than an argumentative response. "The Heartless aren't retreating."
"What do you mean Cloud?" Riku asked, something about this guy put Riku off. Maybe it was that he reminded him too much of himself. "They ran off when they figured out they were kicking their butts."
"They're gathering around the remains of the old tower outside of town." Cloud stated bluntly. "They lost interest in the town."
To be continued...
A/N: Summer days is all I could think of to name that Keyblade Riku gave Kairi, since it was never named to my knowledge.
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