Kindred Hearts by Copper Thrice
Pt 3
The Keyblade
"David" led the three humans to a Heartless Drop-ship. The ship was long, smooth slab of dark metal with a slanted cockpit. With a wave of "David's" gauntleted hand, a door opened in the side of the ship into a rectangular room with a door to the cockpit.
"David" led the three humans into the ship, into a rectangular, plain room with a door to the cockpit. "David" closed the door behind him and opened the door to the cockpit. He entered the cockpit, closing the door on his way in, leaving the humans to the silence of the empty room.
Scott, Cathy, and Maria each took their own walls, silently thinking of their hometown and their destination.
The hours rolled by and they went into an uneasy sleep.
"David" sat at the pilot's console of the ship. It was a cockpit designed for up to three humanoid Heartless. One station, in front of the view into space, was the pilot's console. To the right side was the Weapons Manger console, where an additional pilot could man the top-side turret. To the left was a seat for a Heartless Receiver, who could receive long-range telepathic messages from Grand Kelm or a Heartless carrier.
After getting used to the controls, "David" put the ship on auto-pilot and leaned back into his chair. He turned his head to see the weapon's console and his reflection. He grew surprised; he had never really seen his face before. It was pretty much the only remnant of his past self, he could not remember his past life.
"David" ran his hand through his hair and along his chin and forehead. He had been born from Darkness with a mask that looked like the symbol of the Heartless, but it was damaged in an earlier fight. His face looked like it had similar features to the humans, especially the male. He supposed that he could make a new mask and helmet out of Darkness, but he couldn't help feeling that this face felt, well… right.
"David's" thoughts then went to the humans he had picked up. They confused him. His knowledge of humans was very sketchy; his Heartless knowledge only provided a few key concepts for his survival along with brief histories of his kind.
"I wonder if I should…," "David" thought, "No, it would be a waste of time. Although…" "David" looked at the Pilot console to check on the arrival time. There was still 184 rot.s (15 hours) to Grand Kelm at this speed. "David" then decided to ask the humans about what it was to be, well, human. No problem, right?
Maria woke from her uneasy sleep to see that Scott and Cathy were still asleep at opposite walls. She closed her eyes and hoped to open them to see her room back home in her bed after a whacked out dream. She opened her eyes to; once again, see the blank walls of the ship.
Maria sighed as she stood up and did some stretches to work the kinks out of her body. Only a minute afterwards did the door to the cockpit opened and "David" walked out. Maria jumped. Seeing David' head on a Heartless body was still kind of… unnerving.
"David" looked at Scott and Cathy and looked like he was debating something in his mind. Then he turned to Maria.
"I would speak with you for a moment, come," "David" said holding his hand out to the open door. Maria walked through the door and "David" followed.
Before the door closed, Cathy poked her head up and saw Maria with the Heartless. "Maria?" she asked lazily, watching the door close.
"Sit," instructed "David" pointing to the Receiver's chair. Maria did so and then she saw the view into space.
"Wow," she said, amazed at the vastness and emptiness of space. She couldn't believe it; she was actually in outer space. "David", however did not share her enthusiasm with space, so he began his questions.
"Is their something wrong with your… companions? I saw them lying on the floor, unmoving." "David" said.
"What, oh, no there's nothing wrong. They're just sleeping." Maria said, she turned away from the view to see that confusion covered "David's" face. "Oh, you see humans get tired and need to rest. You do know what its like to be human, right?"
"David" acquired even more confusion from that. "I was human?" he thought. Then it all made sense to him.
He had a human face.
This female had called him a human name.
He appeared on a planet where humans were the populace and he was probably made from one of those humans.
What was the name she called him? This female said it once or twice… What was it?
"I was human," "David" said, "My name was… David…"
Maria stood up, smiling, "You remember?" she asked excitedly.
"No…" "David" said, causing her smile to fade. "I just pieced together bits of information that I gathered."
"Oh," said Maria sitting down, then she grinned, "It's a start though."
"You shouldn't expect too much out of me," "David" said, "I was only born yesterday, after all. Now—" But "David" didn't get a chance to finish his question because Maria had burst out laughing. Suddenly, "David" went red and it felt very hot in the cockpit all of a sudden.
"What's going on?" David thought, "What's happening to me?"
"Scott! Scott!" yelled Cathy, trying to shake Scott into the waking world. Scott slowly opened his eyes. His night was not the most restful, his dreams were full of images of Heartless and other Dark things.
"What is it," he lazily asked Cathy while sitting up.
"Scott, I saw Maria being taken through that door over there with that, uh, Heartless thing. You know, the one that looks like David. Have we already gotten to that "Grand" place?" Scott could tell that Cathy was worried.
"Look," Scott said trying to calm her down, "If we were at the Heartless home world, the Heartless would have taken all of us, not just Maria. "Still…" he thought, "Why did the Heartless take Maria to the cockpit…?"
Cathy was breathing heavily. Scott tried a different calming tactic.
"Look," he started, "I'm sure Maria's fine. She can take care of herself, right?" Cathy nodded and calmed down a little bit. "Yeesh," Scott thought lying back down, "She was so calm back home, but now she's a wreck." He looked over at her. "I guess I can understand though, I don't even know why I'm taking all this in so calmly."
Cathy soon quieted down and the two sat in silence wondering what was going on in the cockpit. Then they heard the sound of Maria laughing and they just gave each other a look.
When Maria stopped laughing, she wiped a tear from her eye and "David" resumed his normal complexion.
Maria then asked her own question. "What was that thing you used to fight those grey guys back home? It was called a… Keyblade right?"
"David" sighed, he was all too glad for the subject change. He held out his hand and the black Keyblade blinked into existence. "This is a Keyblade," he said. Maria eyes followed its form back and forth.
"It is one of the few types of weapons that can actually harm Heartless and Nobodies. The Keyblade was the first weapon that humans found to use against my kind hundreds of years ago. That was when there were hundreds of Keyblade Masters." Maria nodded for him to continue.
"You see, the Heart is the core of a sentient being. It houses emotion and being. The Shell is the outer portion of the being. It houses memory and willpower. Between the two is Essence. This is a form of energy that connects memory to emotions. When the Heart is separated from the shell, the essence flows freely, trying to obtain form. It is then that it can be forged into a weapon. That is how a Keyblade is formed. I am the first Heartless to be born with a Keyblade in hand. It's a part of me." At that, "David" caused the Keyblade to vanish. "Now it has rejoined my Heart Core and I can call it out when I need it." The "David" thought of something. Why did he know so much about the Keyblade? That wasn't covered by the Darkness in the Abyss.
"Heh," chuckled Maria, "You probably got the Keyblade because you wanted one so badly as a kid."
"Huh?" "David" said confused.
Maria just shook her head. She then reached into her jean pocket.
"Do you have a name?" she asked.
"No… I don't." "David" said, "Only Heartless leaders or generals get specific names."
"Well then," Maria said standing up. "Your name is David," she said taking a step towards him. "And this is yours."
She grabbed David's gauntleted hand and that caused David to go red again. She put some kind of keychain in his hand. It was a four-pointed, black star surrounded by a silver ring and it had a red stone in the center. David eyed its form and he felt its smoothness.
"It belongs to you anyway," Maria said, "It was your good luck charm. You let me borrow it a year ago." David then looked straight at her.
"Wait," he said, "Did you know—" but David was interrupted by the sound of proximity alarms. David turned to his console to see red dots on the radar. Lots of red dots. Something in him told him that was not good; especially since three red dots just broke off towards the drop-ship.
"What's going on?" asked Maria looking around. David took over for the auto-pilot and opened the door to the back, revealing a very surprised Cathy and Scott.
"Get back there," David yelled at Maria, "I can't have you humans up here with me. You'd just be a distraction." Just then a grey fighter shot overhead. Seeing this, Maria went into the back and the door closed behind her.
"So," Cathy asked Maria, "What was with the laughing?" Scott also shared her confused look. Maria just dropped her jaw.
David put the charm on the console's corner and primed the forward weapons. They weren't much, but he had to work with them. He spiraled the ship's course and confused the Nobody fighters. The he whipped behind two of them and blasted them into space dust.
David smiled, this felt good. This was what he was born to do.
Kill Nobodies
Narax rose lazily from his plain bed in the Nobody Mothership. He looked sat up to the sound of proximity alarms. He moaned and tried to go back to sleep.
Then the door to Narax's room opened to reveal a slender, cloaked female figure.
She was a little older than Narax, but they both had silver-grey hair and she also had fair, although more feminine, features. Her attitude was quite a bit colder than Narax's though. Narax got out of bed when he saw her.
"Hey, Leenx, what's up?" Narax said.
Leenx turned her cold, golden eyes to him. "Ronx wants to see you in the meeting hall." She said emotionlessly.
"Okay, whatever you say, sis," Narax said folding his arms behind his head and following her. On the way to the hall, they passed all kinds of grey soldiers who went about their days silently working on the ship.
"What's with the alarms," Narax asked Leenx.
"We encountered a straggler Heartless drop-ship. Nothing to worry about," Leenx said emotionlessly.
When the two got to the meeting hall door, Leenx swiped her hand over the door and it opened to reveal a new cloaked figure. Narax's arms dropped and he looked at cloaked figure's face.
"I would like to introduce you two to our newest member and now the leader of our Organization Zero." Said the voice of Ronx sitting in the meeting hall.
"N-no way," Narax said, "You?"
David drove the ship in circles and loops to evade the grey fighters. He had managed to destroy the fighters that originally followed him, but seven more had broken off to fight him.
Before David had gotten a hold of things, he had almost all of them clinging to his tail.
"This is not good." David thought, "I'm a warrior, not a pilot!"
David brought his ship into a loop, in hopes of getting behind the enemy ships.
Mistake
A ship that was in front of David had let a volley of fire loose at the drop-ship. The connector for the cockpit to the carrier section was hit and destroyed in the attack. The carrier containing the three humans broke off from the main section of the ship.
David watched as the console read off the alarm for the damages. He should go back, he thought, he had to do something. Then his logic kicked in. No he couldn't go back. The connector was shot, literally. He couldn't do anything. He set his ship's emergency engines on max and shot out of the fight, leaving the carrier to the swarming grey fighters.
Scott slowly stood up. The room had just been rocked by a serious vibration and the three of them fell down. "What just happened?" he thought.
A few minutes later, the door opened. Maria almost ran to it to find David, but instead two grey guards entered. They were followed by a familiar cloaked figure.
"Well, well," said the smiling Narax. "We meet again."
End of pt 3