Flying heartless began to pour down from the giant airship overhead, leaving the crowd distraught.
"Everybody, stay calm!" shouted Zack into his mike.
Smaller pods deployed from the hull of the airship and pounded into the ground. From them emerged squadrons of shadows and neoshadows that began to swarm the crowd.
"I got these!" shouted Dan, water cloning himself and unleashing said clones into the oncoming force of the heartless.
"How are we supposed to get up there?" asked Kairi to Sora while looking up at the ship looming overhead.
"A little faith, trust, and pixie dust." Said Sora grabbing Kairi's hand, "Think happy thoughts." He commanded as he lifted up into the air.
Down on the ground Matt, Riku, Leena, Dan, and Zack desperately fought the force of heartless while trying not to accidentally cause any collateral damage, but after they destroyed one, others were soon to follow.
"Are they making these things up there?" asked Matt as he lunged through a neoshadow.
"Didn't think that that was possible." Shouted Zack as he smashed one in the form of a guardian type heartless.
"Hurry up, Sora." Riku muttered under his breath after striking down a heartless of his own.
Sora and Kairi nimbly dodged the oncoming heartless and dropship type vehicles and touched down in the hanger. Almost immediately they were met by a patrol of soldier type heartless, which they aptly dispatched. Sora was beginning to grow tired of running through the monotonous corridors and fighting a new breed of heartless that resembled a large armored figure with a greatsword in one hand.
At last the two reached the door to what seemed to be a bridge.
"After you." Said Sora offering Kairi to try her hand at opening locks with the keyblade.
She did and with a beam from the keyblade and a glow from the door, it was unlocked and the inside revealed as they though, a bridge. The bridge was empty sans a collection of terminals and chairs and other such equipment.
"Greetings, children." Said a voice from behind them, "Why now would you, assuming that you truly are the keyblade masters of light, break into an old man like mine ship? Have you forgotten your manners?"
"I think you're the one who's forgotten his manners!" shouted Sora turning to face him.
The man wore gold armor with crimson under garments and a crimson cape.
"Ahh, a fiery one; I like it. My name is Ghis." Said the man donning a large golden weapon from his back, and moving it in a taunting motion toward Sora and Kairi.
"Sora, be careful, he looks dangerous." Said Kairi forebodingly.
"I'll be careful Kairi, just be there to back me up." Stated Sora before violently dashing at his enemy.
Cid was sitting in the comfy chair of his house when the race that he had been watching suddenly switched with a news program that stated that the city was under attack from bizarre and unusual creatures. A mere moment later, the older man heard a fierce knock on his door.
"Wonder who that could be." He said, but instead of going to the door, he went directly to his garage and fetched a four-foot monkey wrench.
After that he opened his garage to see a platoon of heartless.
"Looks like fun." He said with a smirk and began violently pummeling them with his wrench.
Several blocks away Leon, Aerith, Yuffie, and Axel ran down the streets, taking down heartless with them as they moved. They still had no idea what the motive of these creatures was this time, but they knew that the people of Radiant Gardens had been caught in the crossfire. Houses were burning, but luckily the people who had lived in them were out at the time.
"We got one at two o'clock!" shouted Axel as an enormous heartless dove down from the group's upper right and pounded it's fat body into the ground, separating Yuffie and Axel from the other two.
"What happened to them!" shouted Leon as the dust from the impact slowly settled and he and Aerith took down the fat heartless.
Axel stood up on the other side of the dust cloud and heard Leon's call.
"We're over here, you two just go on!" He replied.
Yuffie was still out cold so Axel kicked her causing her to jump to her feet.
"What was that for!" shouted the ninja, calming down the fierce mood of the invasion for a short moment.
"No time!" shouted Axel as he began to run back down the streets of the residential district causing the ninja to run after him slightly startled.
At the same time in the market, Tifa and Cloud cut through the heartless trying to clear out the square in order to land a gummi ship there to help with the evacuation.
"What are these things?" shouted Tifa as she punched through a soldier type heartless.
"The heartless and that's all I got!" shouted Cloud sweeping his blade through a small group of shadows.
"That's all?" asked Tifa dodging the blow of a neo shadow and plunging her foot into its face, "Doesn't help much."
"Helps enough!" grunted Cloud as he parted his sword and scissor slashed a neo shadow.
Back with Cid, the heartless were beginning to wear him thin in his old age, and he felt that he would soon be overtaken. When he had been surrounded by the heartless, a welcome series of gun blasts.
"Vinnie-boy, I've never been so happy to see you!" roared the old man; the vampiric other simply sighed.
Then a large mechanical moogle rolled into the fray and took down several with an enormous fist. A small black cat looking figure peered out from behind its head and then jumped with joy at the sight of all the defeated heartless.
"Where've you two been?" asked Cid wiping some sweat from his brow.
"We've been…busy…" stated Vincent, calmly.
Onboard the ship, Sora, Kairi, and Ghis were engaged in a fierce battle. Sparks from the clashing of the weapons sprayed throughout the enclosed corridors. At last, Ghis had pushed the keyblade wielders into the opened bridge.
"Children, I'm afraid this is where we must say our good-byes." Stated the man in golden armor casually before he casted an offensive aero spell that flung the two youths to the open hanger door and they slid out, but Sora was able to hook the airship with his keyblade.
"Children, your resistance is not appreciated." Said Ghis slowly closing in on them.
Sora squeezed Kairi's hand even tighter than he had been to keep her from falling to her death.
"No." he said trying to pull himself back up.
But before he could finish any kind of action, a loud gunshot was heard and the lifeless corpse of their enemy dropped out of the doorway.
"Well Fran, I'd say we got him quite well." Said the suave voice of the man that Leon and Aerith had met on the street earlier.
"Balthier, you understand that now they will show no mercy to us under any circumstance?" asked the woman whose ponytail was undone and large white rabbit ears protruded from her head.
Sora muscled he and Kairi's way back onto the flat area of the hanger.
"Who are you!" he queried accusingly.
"Name's Balthier, but you can call me your hero." Said the black-coated man.
"Don't you think they already know too much?" asked the rabbit eared woman known as Fran.
"Naw, they are the good guys aren't they?" said the man in jest.
"Yeah, we're the good guys!" said Sora confidently.
"Did you hear him?" asked the man to his partner, "He said he's the good guy."
"Now listen here, I've rigged this place with explosives and they're set to go off in a very, very, short time, but being the good guys, thinking happy thoughts shouldn't be that hard."
"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Sora confused.
"I don't know, but it doesn't sound good." Answered his friend.
"All it means is this:" said the man before he aptly pushed the keybearers out of the vessel and shouted to them as they fell, "Think happy thoughts!"
With little hesitation, the duo found thoughts of which to console themselves in, both of which were of the other, and gently glided to the ground in the amphitheatre where the majority of their friends were fighting.
Suddenly, the heartless just began to move away and withdraw all across the city. In some places they left sooner than others, but they still left all the same.
From a perch in the distance, three figures armored similar to Ghis stood and watched the action across the city.
"Do you think we should help them?" asked the smaller male figure in the group.
"No." replied a larger male, "Our roles have already been cast, and we played them as well as we could. Now it's time for the next generation of heroes."
"Matsu, what if the keybearers are unable to unlock it?" asked a female figure.
"Iris, I thought I told you not to call me that; I'm Horus now, and if the keybearers can't do it, then they truly must not yet be ready." Stated the larger male.
HOLY CRAP!!! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?!?!? You all may have guessed who Ghis is, but how does he fit into the rest of the story. And who were those guys there at the end?