7. Home Field Disadvantage
Sora hadn't been afraid of the dark since the second grade, when Riku had declared that he was no longer afraid of sleeping without a nightlight. Sora decided that he couldn't let Riku have such a distinct victory over him, so he forced himself to stay up all night without any windows open or the nightlight plugged in. Ever since then, the darkness had held no terror for him, not even when it took a physical form and tried to carve him into Keybearer McNuggets.
Nor was he claustrophobic. What he truly feared now was wide open environments with no cover. That was the fault of the Heartless. Sora had become instinctively afraid of large areas. The Heartless juggernauts that represented the final force on a world always resided in huge, cavernous arenas. In the absence of a hyper-powerful enemy colossus, the lesser Heartless forms would attack him from every angle. Sora had learned to take his fight into confined spaces to avoid such assaults. As much as he hated close-quarters combat, it was a survival tactic. In a hallway, the Heartless could only come from two directions: in front and behind.
However, he did not like zero gravity. He preferred to be, as the station's Marines said, 'boots on the ground'. The constant falling sensation agitated him to no end. Zero-G work was hit or miss. Either a person got used to it quickly or they never got used to it. Some people simply weren't cut out for the final frontier. Sora was one of those people.
He knew he was not afraid of the dark and was not claustrophobic. But the hallway he was floating down was dark, cramped, and in the total absence of gravity. His helmet light did little to illuminate the oppressive blackness surrounding him. The triple threat of no light, no maneuvering room, and no gravity sparked a deep sense of dread within him. Every shadow was and enemy; every sound a footstep.
Kairi, unaware of Sora's fear, was checking the station layout on her helmet display. To get to the power core, they'd have to turn twice more in this hallway and then force their way past a decontamination room. The doors would be locked shut; a fail-safe procedure when they lost power. Luckily, both Sora and Kairi had universal keys. Locks weren't the problem. The problem was that the doors were a foot of solid stainless steel with an inch-thick coating of titanium on either side. The entire assembly easily weighed half a ton. Simply getting it to move would be a colossal challenge.
Seeing that they were nearing the first turn, she tapped Sora on his suit's shoulder. Startled, he spun out of control in an attempt to face her. His helmet's faceplate bounced off the corridor's ceiling, slowing him down enough for Kairi to grab hold of his leg and bring him to a halt.
"Sora! Sora, calm down. Calm down, it's just me. Are you alright?"
Sora shook his head in an attempt to refocus himself. "Yeah. I just don't like being in a dark hallway with no gravity."
Kairi let out a pitying giggle. "I meant your head."
"Oh. Oh, I'm fine. These helmets are like tanks."
Breathing a small sigh of relief, she sent him the station map with their location highlighted. "We're in hallway P-02. We need to turn twice to get around part of a cannon assembly, then force our way through this decontamination room," she said, highlighting a door symbol with a 'D' overlaid on it. "The doors are strong enough to withstand any of Hayner's destructive brews, much less demolition equipment. It's going to get interesting once we get there."
Sora nodded, wondering how they would get those doors to open. By his calculations, any such doors would have to weigh over thirty tons. But his calculations were rarely accurate.
The pair of them pushed off the walls and floated down the hallway. As they approached the bend, Kairi noticed something on the map. She tried to get Sora's attention, but it was too late. He had already gotten to the turn.
He looked down the hallway to see a pair of yellow lights hovering near the left-hand wall. The sight of two yellow pinpoints of light had been burned into Sora's psyche long ago. His subconscious mind sent a message to his muscles: Enemy ahead. Attack.
Summoning his Keyblade, he sprang off the wall behind him, hurtling down the dark passage. His right arm drew the Keyblade behind him in preparation for a devastating single-swipe attack. His left arm followed, ready to swing around and provide extra momentum. Even in zero gravity, the motion was incredibly fluid. He was no longer just Sora. He was a razor-honed instrument of destruction.
The motions had become so subconscious that he even knew what it felt like when the Keyblade obliterated a Heartless. He had memorized the exact amount of resistance each 'species' of Heartless had when the Kingdom Key sliced them in two, which is what made it surprising when he felt the Keyblade come to a dead stop in mid-slash.
Kairi turned the corner to see the teeth of the Kingdom Key stuck a half-inch into the metal wall of the passageway, directly between a pair of LEDs flanking an emergency notice. Because of the magical weapon stuck into it, the notice now read POWER FAILURE WHEN LI HTS FLASHING.
She floated up next to him. "There are notices like this spread around the station. They come on along with the emergency floodlights. They just haven't installed the floodlights in these hallways yet."
Sora grunted, trying to extract the Keyblade from the wall. "Why did it have to be two yellow lights? And how are they even on? The power's out."
"Emergency generators and solar panels."
Sora scowled as he yanked on the blade's handle once more. He felt it budge slightly, so he grasped tighter and pushed off the wall with his legs. Kairi saw what he was doing and tried to stop him.
"Sora, if you do that, you're going to fly into-"
She was interrupted by a cry of victory as Sora managed to free the Keyblade from the metal panel. Instead of soaring headfirst into the opposite wall, as Kairi had expected, he stayed anchored to the spot. She looked at his boots and saw them wedged under a pair of handholds designed to allow mechanics access to the infrastructure above the hall's ceiling panels. Sora turned around, very pleased with himself.
"I know what you were thinking, and I beat you to it. Remember when Riku bet me that I couldn't pull his sword out of the sand on the island with the paopu tree? I pulled really hard, thinking that he had buried it really well. But he only heaped a bit of loose sand over it, and I fell into the ocean. It turned out he bet Wakka that he could make me fall into the water without pushing me. I never got fooled by that again." He smiled a self-satisfied grin and continued down the corridor.
***
Captain Darrin was very displeased. The sudden loss of gravity had turned the choke point into a mess. Barricades floated off of the floor, shells that hadn't been loaded into magazines yet were drifting out of their boxes, cables that had previously been on the floor were now snagging passers-by, and now she had to reorganize everything so that they could have defenders on both the floor and the ceiling.
Though each Marine stationed on an orbital platform had been exhaustively trained in zero-G maneuvering and combat, the sudden and unexpected shift from stuck on the ground to free-floating was something for which one could not train. Even the most battle-hardened soldier experienced a concentration-murdering sense of vertigo for the better part of a minute. It made things dangerous.
Luckily, the sensation worked both ways. If the Heartless in this particular area weren't expecting any gravity loss, they too would be confused and disoriented. But if it were all part of a grand plan, they would have about thirty seconds during which the Marines would be considerably less effective. That made Captain Darrin very unhappy.
Sure enough, within a few seconds, a pair of Shadows came tumbling down the hall, short stubby limbs flailing. They were dispatched by a pair of bursts from a platoon sergeant. The shell casings ejected from the weapon skittered around in zero gravity, eventually either being collected or floating down the hallway past the barricades. The incident brought this new company into focus. They were fighting a real enemy with live ammunition. This was no drill.
Word had spread through the company that Sora and Kairi were onboard and trying to retake the power core. Supposedly, they had been given instructions to turn on the main lights before they powered up the artificial gravity generators. That did little to placate the soldiers who were now on the 'ceiling'. In zero gravity, 'up', 'down', 'floor', and 'ceiling' had little meaning, but once the gravity came back on, the Marines who were 'above' their squad mates would quickly be 'below' them. Darrin had intentionally staggered the lines to prevent anyone from falling on anyone else.
Darrin had been in contact with Kairi momentarily to confirm that the company was still ready to go, but that was it. Since their check-ins with the various defenders, nobody had heard from either of the Keybearers. The captain, who had been in the power core more than once, wondered how they were going to get past the massive blast doors that led to the decontamination rooms. The things could resist every conventional explosive known to man. They might even survive a nuclear blast, provided that they weren't on ground zero. As far as doors went, those ones were as indestructible as they get.
As the minutes ticked by, the platoons manning the barricades switched with those that weren't. Every so often, a few stray Heartless would wander too close and were dealt with quickly and efficiently. The few enemies they encountered couldn't even be considered scouting parties. They were so few and so weak that there was no chance for them to report their findings. They never tried to escape. If one or two managed to survive the first shots, they instantly charged. In short, their behavior was normal Heartless. There was absolutely no evidence of a greater plan or controlling entity. It was as if someone or something had put a great deal of effort into landing Heartless on this platform and neglected to make a plan for when they eventually got them there.
One thing was nagging at the back of Captain Darrin's head, though: if Sora and Kairi had survived so far, they should have made it to the core by now. She hoped that they were simply held up by the doors. If those two fell, any bright, shining hope that Aegis still had would be considerably dimmer. It was something that kept people up at night. The fate of billions of people rested on the survival of two people who were barely past puberty.
She shook her head to clear her mind. She could not afford to needlessly worry about their fate. Whether they survived or not, it was her job to defend this passage with her life. Being distracted by anything could be fatal. She refocused her mind, ending her train of worried thoughts with the hope that it wouldn't be much longer until the gravity came back.
***
"So, do we just point the Keyblade at it and hope for the best, or is there someplace special to unlock it, or… what?"
Sora and Kairi examined the solid slab of matte-gray metal, trying to discern a locking mechanism. As far as they could tell, it was a single piece of unadorned titanium. No markings. No imperfections. Just a flat, impenetrable surface.
Kairi brushed her glove over the metal, trying to find a groove or a hole; anything that might be a clue. "I don't know… This is weird. Why would they lead us here and then not give us any instructions as to how we should get past this?"
In his puzzlement, Sora summoned the Keyblade. He had begun to twirl it when it shot off to his right, pointing his arm straight towards a keypad cleverly camouflaged into the wall. The seams in the metal were nearly invisible, and the etched numbers were only visible from a near-direct angle. The familiar sensation of energy gathering in the blade's tip flowed through Sora, and he watched as a laser-thin line of blue light shot from the Keyblade's tip and into the keypad. Several numbers on the pad glowed blue in sequence, then there was an incredible BANG as enormous locking rods disengaged, leaving the gray door free to move.
Sora shrugged and pushed on the door. Not surprisingly, it didn't move. Sora then tried pushing to the side, realizing that he didn't even know which direction the door moved. It still stayed put. Though it was unlocked, Sora couldn't get enough leverage off of the ground to move the door in any direction.
He tried in vain for ten minutes to get the door to even budge. All his attempts were fruitless. In desperation, he grabbed a handhold on the wall and flung himself at the door, bracing for a jarring impact.
Instead, he felt himself continue floating forward. Just as he realized this, he ran headfirst into a large object. The impact had turned his helmet light off, and he was plunged into complete darkness. He couldn't see Kairi's light anywhere.
"Sora, what just happened? Where are you?"
He activated his helmet radio. "I'm not sure. I don't know where I am."
"Are you okay?"
"My head hurts a bit, but I'm fine."
There was a relieved sigh over the radio. "Sora… is your helmet light on?"
Sora pushed a small button on the side of his helmet. "It is now."
"Look behind you."
He grabbed hold of the large object in front of him and spun around. Behind him was a dark oval of scintillating blacks and purples. Light seemed to flow around it, like oil slipping off of water. It was hard to pinpoint its exact location, as it seemed to waver in and out of existence. Reality distorted in proximity to it, as if it were the event horizon of a wormhole. Sora had seen this many times before, but not in years.
A dark portal.
Sora felt his jaw drop. There was a dark portal here. How was there a dark portal here? There were two people on this station that were proficient in magic, and the one that wasn't Sora was a Princess of Heart. Neither of them were capable of manipulating darkness is such a manner.
The only things on this station capable of harnessing darkness like that were the Heartless. But why would they give him free access to the power core? It was the one advantage they now had. If the Heartless controlled the gravity, they controlled the station. If anything, they should be resisting him with everything they've got.
This doesn't make sense. Why would they take the power core and then just give it back? It – wait a minute…
"Kairi! Get through the portal. Now!"
"But-"
"Just do it!"
Sora saw Kairi's helmet light as she floated through the portal, which closed behind her.
"Sora, what's going on? Who did this?"
He wrapped an arm around her and pushed off the object, sending both of them into the wall they had just gone through.
"What are you doing, Sora? Are you crazy?"
Sora held his Keyblade in front of him. "It's a trap! The Heartless only took the power core to lure us in here!"
As soon as Sora demonstrated his knowledge of the situation out loud, the darkness around them became peppered with little yellow lights. They bobbed up and down, slowly floating in every direction. Kairi looked around in fright.
"Sora… those aren't warning lights."
The only thing Sora could do was nod. He had faced large numbers of Heartless before, but never in darkness… and certainly not in zero gravity. He didn't think he could handle this, even with Kairi helping.
He tried to think of a way to fight so many Heartless in a dark, zero-gravity room with no cover. He racked his mind for any tactics that might help. No, it was useless. The Heartless had a 1000 to 1 tactical advantage. All they had to do was fling themselves at him until he couldn't move his arms anymore. The only thing he could do was fight strategically. Planning. Deception. Turn the enemy's advantages into your own.
Maybe if I had a week to plan, I'd have a chance. How do I turn their advantages into mine? If I could get some lights in here… He looked around, waiting for the Heartless to attack. One pair of eyes became larger and larger, eventually manifesting as a Shadow in Sora's light. He swung the Kingdom Key once, turning the dark creature into a mist.
He swept the room with his light, looking for anything that might help. Kairi swiped at an attacking Shadow, destroying it as well. A patch of color caught Sora's attention. There, on the wall fifty feet away. A panel with color-coded regions.
That must be the control panel for the core. Of course! If I can turn it on, the lights and gravity will come back!
As Sora prepared to dive for the panel, the Heartless lunged forward as one. Both Keybearers desperately swung their weapons at the attacking horde, trying to protect themselves. Sora grabbed Kairi's wrist and jumped towards the panel. Hundreds of Heartless that missed the pair crashed into the wall, bouncing off and gyrating into the blackness.
The two Keybearers made it to the panel as the Heartless were recovering from their first attack. Sora turned to Kairi.
"Can you operate this?"
She answered by turning to the panel and pushing a series of buttons in the red area. All Sora could do was fend off the waves of Heartless that attacked from every direction. They came off the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the object in the middle of the room, everywhere. More than once, Sora had to use a Protect spell simply to keep them at bay long enough to tell where the next attack was coming from. The hexagonal shield segments emitted a small ping every time a Heartless bounced off of it.
"How much longer, Kairi?"
She tapped a button twice. "It's done! It just needs a power boost!"
Sora swung the Keyblade viciously, ending his series of blows with a magical blast that sent the nearby Heartless tumbling backwards. When he had sufficient time, he pointed the Keyblade towards the ceiling.
"Thunder!"
A thick bolt of yellow lightning struck the control panel, arcing over its surfaces. The room began to vibrate as a deep rumbling resonated through the object in the center of the room. The sound and vibration became more and more powerful, eventually overwhelming their senses. The object began to glow a dim blue, growing stronger by the second. It soon became so powerful that it hurt to look directly at it. The faceplates on the Keybearers' suits polarized to the maximum setting.
They could now see just how large the room was. It was at least as wide as a hangar bay and as tall as four bays stacked lengthwise. However, the space still seemed cramped because of the massive cylinder in the center, pulsing a bright blue. It was an odd contrast to the brown-gray metal of the station. And, scattered around everywhere, there were hundreds of confused Heartless. The sudden light had come as a surprise to the creatures.
A computerized female voice emanated from the control panel. "Core online at 97 percent functionality. Warning: station gravity offline. To restore, reset region Blue."
Kairi grabbed hold of the panel and punched the RESET button in the blue-colored area. Almost instantly, she could feel the gravity returning. It began as a slight tug, and then grew stronger and stronger until her feet were planted firmly on the ground.
Sora would have shouted for joy at the return of gravity if he weren't already doing so while watching the Heartless fall from the air, impacting the ground and turning into little clouds of black fog. It was like a bizarre hail. One of them bounced off his head. Kairi giggled at his odd twist of fate. Both of them were absolutely giddy. They had been staring at hundreds of potentially lethal enemies, and now they were all falling like flies.
Kairi activated her helmet radio and called the nearest company. "Captain Darrin! We got the gravity back!"
"Yeah, we know."
***
"Captain Darrin! We got the gravity back!"
Darrin looked at her squads, which were in shambles. The men who had been posted on the ceiling were now crumpled on the floor, groaning from their fall. Those who were on the floor were trying their hardest to suppress laughter as they continued to hold their defensive posts.
"Yeah, we know."
If it hadn't been such a defensive hazard, Captain Darrin would have found the scene quite comical. There were fully armed and armored Marines lying on the floor, groaning. There were barricades bolted onto the ceiling above them. Someone had managed to get his weapon stuck between two of the metal barriers on the ceiling, and was now jumping to retrieve it. It looked like someone had flipped the floor onto the ceiling and put all the soldiers on the ground.
She needed to get her Marines back into shape, or they might be caught with their hands tied. "Marines! Get up and get back on those posts. We may have the gravity and lights back, but we're far from done here. We just stopped their advances for now. They're still liable to attack us with their full force. Next person to laugh will earn a one-way ticket to the nearest airlock, and you'll be taking the express back to Aegis. So keep your eyes downrange and your trigger fingers ready. We've still got us a station to retake!"
A/N: Another long break between updates. With school starting again soon, I'll be back into a more regimented schedule, so I'll be able to delegate more time to writing on a regular basis. In a little over a week, you can expect regular updates again. I know it seems backwards, but I write more regularly when school is in session.
Anyway, this just about marks the halfway point for this story. There will be seven or eight more chapters, based on how I decide to go about telling the rest of it. Thankfully for me, there will be very little zero-gravity from here on out. Writing actions based on a zero-g environment was a unique challenge, because it's so different from everything we know here on the planet's surface. I think everything is correct, but I've never been in zero-g myself, so I don't know. It would be fun, though. Hope to post the next update within two weeks!