Usagi: WELCOME BACK! This is the chapter you've all been waiting for…at least…the one two people have been waiting for…

Sora: and you're one of those two?

Usagi: yes…it's the return to the Netherworld! Finally we get to know why Demyx is so scared of going there and I'm going to make up for the long chapters with nothing but talking by adding a battle scene and revealing who the Mysterious Stranger is!
Mysterious Stranger: yay!

Demyx: No way!

Usagi: But first…a message from Organization XIII.

Enjoy:

Chapter 6

Demyx's Secret

As our heroes were on their way to the demon's home world, at another dark and creepy world a small ottsel was running trhough the hallways of the Castle that Never Was.

Xemnas was pissed. At least he would be, had he had he ability to feel emotion, instead, he just acted pissed, that tended to give him more attention from his subordinates, regardless if he was now way shorter than he was two years ago. He still managed to keep his authority, even though Xigbar made fun of him now and then.

But this time the cause of his would-be-annoyance was not the nobody turned wolf, but a certain pink rabbit that had been causing some headache for the organization.

"Where is he?" Xemnas asked the moment he spotted the husky-Labrador-mix dog, who was apparently conversing with a troop of Berserker nobodies.

"The lesser nobodies haven't found him yet superior" Saïx said. "But rest assured we will find the traitors and give them what they deserve."

"You said that two years ago" Xemnas said. "I hadn't expected Marluxia to be able to stay low for that long".

"He's got to get tired of it one day" Saïx said as the berserkers dispersed again. "Meanwhile we've gotten reports that some other of our enemies are on the move again."

"Really? Well keep an eye on them" Xemnas said. "And make sure they're not just travelling from place to place because they are bored again… it's like they've forgotten we existed".

Gordon's ship sure was bigger than the Highwind, but it wasn't faster.

"Are we there yet?" Sora groaned.

"Now boy, this ship might not be the fastest thing around but it sure is solid" Gordon said.

"Hey Riku, you should get one of those" Axel said, and earned himself a smack.

"Don't worry kids, its not that far" Jennifer said.

"Beep Beep. Expected arrival in ten minutes" Thursday said.

"Great!" Sora said.

"Hurray" Demyx muttered. "Why couldn't I just stay in Radiant Garden?"

"If you want to be part of the gang you have to join in a few adventures. What are you so afraid of anyway? We've been in the Netherworld before and nothing bad happened" Riku asked. "Its like Flonne said, demons aren't all bad."

"It's not the demons I'm worried about" Demyx said.

"Then what?" Riku asked.

"Its… forget it, you'll find out soon enough" Demyx said.

"There it is. Home sweet home" Etna said, pointing to a planet some distance in front of them.

From a distance it looked almost normal, it had water, forests and deserts just like any other world, but there were also quite a few red streams flowing trhough the landscapes, molten magma flowed freely on many areas, making the planet look rather unpleasant. But of course for the demons this was how they liked it.

Gordon landed his space craft near the overlord's castle, or more precisely, where the overlord's castle USED to be, since now it was only rubble.

"Wow, this looks bad" Riku said. "I don't want to be the ones that have to rebuild this".

As he said that the prinnies started crying.

"Now where did that fox go?" Sora asked.

"We don't know. It ran of after destroying the entire castle, along with the guy who controlled it" Etna said. "You should try asking the prinnies that came out of the rubble first".

"I have an idea, let's not go looking for it" Demyx said.

"Did anyone see the direction it went?" Sora asked the prinny-squad, ignoring the beaver.

"I think I saw them heading towards those mountains dood" one prinny said.

"It almost looked like it was searching for something dood" said the other.

"I wonder what that might have been" Sora thought out loud looking over at the mountains that the prinnies mentioned.

"Well I don't know, what DO heartless normally search for?" a new, strangely familiar voice asked.

The group turned around and saw a man wearing a dark blue cloak standing on top of Gordon's space ship.

"Hey get down from there!" Gordon yelled.

"That's him! The stranger with the demon fox!" Flonne said.

"Who are you?" Sora asked.

"You don't know who I am?" The stranger asked. "I am the Sea of midnight! I am the tiger rider! I am the shiny diamond! I am the morning racer! I am the star of the masquerade! I'm the unholy diver! I'm the…"

"The one with so many titles yet still bothers to memorize them all?" Etna interrupted him.

"Looks like a loony to me" Riku said.

Demyx however suddenly turned very pale. "That's….its… No way…" he stuttered.

"Well if it ain't the melodious nocturne. I didn't expect you to come here…well actually I did see it coming but I'm surprised you dared to show your fuzzy face" the stranger said in a mocking tone.

"Demyx, do you know this guy?" Axel asked.

"Know me?!" the stranger said before Demyx had time to reply. "The beaver-boy and I go waaaaaaaay back". He then pulled of his hood, and removed the sun glasses he was wearing.

"What the? Does Demyx have a twin?" Flonne asked.

And it sure looked like that. The man standing on Gordon's ship looked almost exactly like Demyx, only his hairstyle looked sharper and the eyes were yellow.

"Goodness you're stupid" the stranger said. "Why don't you introduce me to your new friends Demyx?"

"H-he's not my brother" Demyx stuttered. "He's my…my heartless! Deym!"

Usagi: dundundunduuuun

Zakura: okay… know you like cliffhangers but this isn't even two pages long!

Usagi: sigh…fine.

"That guy is your heartless?" Sora said in disbelief.

"Odd isn't it?" Deym said. "Such a good looking guy like me and a little wimp like him was once one person. Its strange how bodies and hearts part sometimes."

"Perfect, another humanoid heartless" Riku said. "And I hoped Xehanort was the only one."

"It won't be for long" Etna said. "Prinny-squad! ATTACK!"

"For the Overlord!" one of the prinnies said, the others just stared at him. "…Well okay if you don't like him…Do it so we won't get beat up again! Dood!"

Some of the prinnies jumped up on the space ship and started beating on the heartless with fish and whatever else they had in their pouches (which turned out to be a large arsenal of weapons one wouldn't think they could fit in there).

"Be careful with my ship!" Gordon said.

The group of prinnies surrounding Deym was suddenly thrown out of the way and fell of the space ship, soaked in water.

"Why do we have to fight? Why can't we be friends?" the heartless asked.

"Maybe because you attacked our friends first?" Sora pointed out.

"Oh right…Fuck, LET'S ROCK!" Deym yelled summoning a guitar similar to Demyx's sitar, only red and black, similar to the heartless symbol.

"Fine you asked for it" Sora said and summoned his keyblades, his friend summoned their weapons too, Etna pulled out a spear and Flonne a staff, whilst the prinnies readied their… fish.

Gordon's team readied too, Gordon had his gun out. "You'll pay for…standing... on top of my ship…scaring the girls" he said.

"We're not scared of him, just shot him already" Etna said.

Goron directed his gun at Deym and shot, but the bullet was washed away by a flow of water that seemed to come right out of nowhere.

"Not bad, now look what I can do!" Deym said and played a tone on his guitar, giving of an electric sound. Tons of water suddenly busted out of the ground forming a huge snake-like figure.

Sora and his friends, even the demons, couldn't help but gasp in shock as the water formed a gigantic dragon, which roared at them, how it was capable of doing so was a bit of a mystery, since it was made up solemnly of water, but that didn't make it less intimidating.

"Why didn't I ever think of that?" Demyx said.

"Probably because unlike with most heartless and nobodies I actually got the brain" Deym said. "Time to rock my water-dragon!"

The watery creature turned downwards to face the group.

"Oh no you don't!" Etna said and threw her spear towards it, however it went right trhough.

"You can't touch it! It's made up from nothing but water!" Flonne said.

"Then how are we going to beat it?" Jennifer asked.

"I have an idea" Sora said and pointed his keyblade towards the creature that was now moving towards him. "THUNDAGA!" he yelled as a gigantic thunderbolt hit the dragon, the water monster twisted and eventually vanished, nearly flooding the area where our heroes were standing, all of which were now swooped of their feet by the sudden fast water current.

Even though the entire area was now covered in water, it wasn't more than a couple of feet deep so Sora quickly got back up, Axel climbed up on his shoulder to avoid the water.

"Who's laughing now heartless?" Sora asked.

"Why don't you just start bragging after you've defeated the enemy?" Deym asked.

"What are you talking about you freeaaaaaaa" Riku said as he suddenly found himself flying trhough the air, as the water he had been standing in suddenly flew into the air like he was standing on a geyser, throwing him into the ground a few metres away.

"You're forgetting you're standing in my element you know" the heartless reminded them as the rest of the party also got thrown into the air the same way.

The demons came prepared however, folding their wings out to prevent hitting the ground, Flonne grabbed Sora's hand before he hit the ground, and Etna did the same to Riku as he got thrown into the air for the second time.

"Sora! Riku! This is a good time to try out those wings of yours" Etna said.

"Are these wings even big enough for that?" Riku asked.

"If your transformation spell worked correctly you should be able to make them bigger" Etna said. "And you better do it fast because you're heavy!"

Just as she said that Riku slipped out of her grip and fell towards the water again, just where a couple of sharp stones were coming up.

Crap! Now or never! He thought and tried to concentrate on making the tiny red wings on his back bigger, he felt himself slowing down until he finally dropped down softly on top of the rocks, he found some flatter ones, and used them to stand on, a few metres to his right Sora dropped right back down into the water, and Axel landed on his back.

Thursday had pulled out a propel on his head and Gordon and Jennifer held on to him, it was evident however the robot was struggling as the trio landed.

"I think water has gotten into his machinery" Jennifer said as the robot safely landed on a rock, just a few centimetres above the water. "All this humidity isn't good for him."

"Oh my heart cries miss" Deym said, another current flew out of the water hitting the robot, and threw him back into the temporary dam. Thursday gave up a few sparks and then his lights went out. "THURSDAY!" Jennifer screamed.

"Leave to a human to be more worried about a chunk of metal than her own pathetic life" Deym said, sending another water current towards Jennifer, Gordon quickly pulled her out of the way.

"Now why did you have to do that? Thursday hadn't even done you anything!" the defender of earth said.

"Geez, I don't know, could it have something to do with me being a heartless?" Deym said, still playing on his guitar. Then Riku noticed something.

"Say Sora, isn't that an electric guitar?" he said to his friend.

Sora looked up and sure enough the guitar both looked and sounded more like an electric one than a regular wooden guitar.

"Hey you're right…are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Sora asked.

"I think I am" Riku said smirking. "Ready to give these wings a real test-run?"

Folding out their newly acquired demon wings the two keybladers flew on top of the space craft where Deym was standing.

"Are you in a hurry to loose your heart again? Cause I can arrange that" Deym said.

"You're going down heartless!" Riku said as both friends directed their keyblades at him.

"My name isn't heartless, and I don't remember applying for a name-change" Deym said as he readied his guitar again. Two water-clones, similar to Demyx's showed up next to him.

"Why did it have to be water-clones? I would feel so much more useful if they were made from wood" Axel said, he was still hanging onto Sora's shoulder.

"Aw… Is the little ottsel scawed of water?" Deym asked.

"No, but I have power over fire! What the heck can I do against water?" Axel said.

"You could always drown yourself" Deym suggested, and a flow of water pushed Axel of Sora's shoulder making him fall of the space ship and down into the water again.

Being so small he was unable to stand up over the water like the others, so instead he swam to the surface till only his head was sticking up. "You'll pay for that! GET HIM ROXAS!" Axel yelled.

Sora just sighed. "If that wasn't my plan from the start that would have been rather annoying" he said. "Let's rock!"

"That's my line!" Deym said as the two water clones attacked the boys.

These clones seemed much stronger than Demyx's ones, and clearly needed more than two blows to defeat them.

"So where's that beating you promised me? Or do you have your hands full?" Deym asked mockingly.

"Not quite" Sora said, while he was still using the Kingdom Key to block the water clone's attacks, a light shone from his left hand, which transformed into the Oathkeeper.

He threw the Oathkeeper keyblade towards Deym, the heartless tried to dodge it, but found himself too close to the edge of the space ship so he fell of.

Sora and Riku couldn't see him land, but they could hear a splashing sound, and soon the water clones melted back to normal water.

"Did it work?" Sora asked. The Oathkeeper rematerialized in his hand.

Riku went and looked over the edge, and smirked.

"Perfectly" he said.

Deym was sitting in the water, that itself didn't seem to bother him but his guitar was giving of sparks and was obviously malfunctioning.

"No WAY!" he yelled. "You'll pay for that!"

"You'll be the one who has to pay if you mess with out friends, got it memorized?" Axel said, he had found a small rock he was standing on, right next to Demyx, but then he accidentally knocked the beaver of, so he fell into the water.

As Deym's monsters turned back into liquid water the currents were getting stronger, and Demyx found himself flowing towards the space ship before bumping into his heartless.

Deym screamed and got up. "You stay away from me you little freak!" he said before disappearing into a dark portal.

"What… what just happened?" Etna asked.

"Looks like Deym is as scared of his nobody as Demyx is of him" Riku said. "But whatever, we still beat him!"

"Yeah, but we didn't figure out where Laharl is, or Kyuubi's heartless for that matter" Sora said. "Also since he ran of we can't use him to get Demyx his heart back".

"No way! I told you I don't need it!" Demyx said. "If getting my heart back means fusing with THAT guy I'd rather stay a nobody for the rest of my life".

"You're kidding right?" Axel asked. "Apart from the "trying-to-murder-us"-thing he's at least way cooler than you. Even though he does say a lot of weird things…"
"Oh that…he likes to quote song lyrics" Demyx said.

"Sora! Riku!"

Kairi suddenly came running trhough the quickly disappearing water, with Zexion close behind.

"I told my mom I was going to bed early and sneaked of here…what happened here?" she asked.

"And what's with all the water?" Zexion asked, stepping carefully as trying to avoid getting his feet wet…but since most of the ground was still covered in it that was pretty useless.

"That's a long story…" Riku said.

Usagi: How did you like that? It didn't even end in a cliffhanger…not a real one anyway…

This chapter is 4.5 pages long and still Laharl hasn't showed up. Where is he you ask? I'm not telling…but there might be a hint to whatever happened to him on my DeviantArt-account.

Sora: I think I have an idea…

Usagi: as for Demyx's heartless….you weren't expecting THAT now where you? Neither did I…I'm not gonna take full credit for him, it was Rilaveke who first made him like that, and I just found him so cool I asked to use him in my fic as well. He's nearly the complete opposite of Demyx when it comes to personality, and yes…he quotes song lyrics…most of them are from Smash Mouth-songs… but a few others sneak in too.

It was probably a bit too ironic that his weapon is an electric guitar while his element is water…so I just had to make a joke out of that XD

Deym: My guitar! D:

Usagi: That was all the action we had for you today. Tune in next time for more…

Gordon: doesn't anyone want to know what happened to poor Thursday?!

Usagi: no.

Gordon: D: That's not very nice.

Sora: Usagi isn't very nice Gordon.

Gordon: that's not good at all. You are a very mean little girl.

Usagi: I know. And you are an idiot so I guess that makes us even.

Gordon: ...how does that change anything?

Usagi: Please review people! And tell me what you think about the fight scene! I don't do many of those…