Chapter 19

Sora, King Mickey, Donald, and Goofy had been searching for only a few minutes when they stumbled upon a large room not too far from the control room. It was sparse, but what had caught their attention was a glowing circle in the corner of the room. It was pulsing with flames of black and green, and an ominous aura could be felt coming from it.

"There…what is that thing?" Sora wondered. He had felt the aura, and was a little wary about getting anywhere near it.

"This is it, I'm sure. This is the portal to the dark realm, to the stronghold of Organization XIII. Are you ready?" King Mickey asked, speaking to all three of them and no one at the same time.

"As we'll ever be, your majesty," Sora said. Clearing his throat loudly, Sora slowly raised his hand towards the dark portal. As soon as he came within inches of it, he felt his body being sucked towards it.

He tried to fight the feeling, but he heard King Mickey say, "Don't fight it; let it draw you in." He looked around to see his friends, but only saw the room around him fading into the darkness. The pull was stronger now, and he felt his feet leave the floor as the room turned completely black. For a moment, Sora couldn't tell up from down or even feel most of his body. He was spinning, flying, soaring through dimensional space. It was disorienting, and making Sora feel vaguely nauseous.

Without warning, Sora felt his feet slam down onto the ground, making him fall forward onto his hands and knees. He quickly looked around to see that they were in an endless plain; not even any kind of ground underneath him could be seen, as if he was walking on air. Behind him was the portal they had just come through. All around it shone in whorls of light pink and white that were constantly moving and shifting, whereas in front of him were swirls of black and gray in the same endless motion. Standing up, he saw his friends near him, adjusting to their new environment. "What is this place?" he asked King Mickey.

King Mickey had been peering around, searching for something. "This is the place between the realm of light and the realm of darkness, and in the middle nonexistence, nothingness. If you were to choose a doorway to either side, you would end up in the light or dark realms. However, we need to find a doorway in the middle; since Nobodies don't really exist, I doubt their stronghold really does either. So, that means their stronghold is somewhere right here, in the middle."

"Well, I don't see any other portals," Donald retorted. "So what do we do now?"

"Make one somehow," King Mickey said. "There are no open portals; you must create them to use them. The way is open; it just needs to have a physical doorway."

"So how do we do that?" Goofy asked.

"Well, I don't really know. I used to be able to open portals using the dark power, but since I revealed myself at Hollow Bastion I can't do that anymore. I guess we're kind of stuck at the moment," King Mickey said uneasily. However, their predicament was short lived because at that very same moment hundreds of Dusks began appearing all around them.

"Just what we need," Sora moaned. Despite the Dusks annoyance, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and King Mickey fought as hard as they could against them. But no matter how many Dusks they would destroy, three more would take its place. It was a never-ending battle. "It's no use!" Sora cried. "There are too many!" The four of them were now surrounded by a sea of gray.

"Don't stop moving, or the darkness will overtake you!" someone shouted. Searching for a voice, they saw Axel suddenly appeared in front of them and took out ten Dusks at once with his chakrams. "Get going!" he yelled at them, his green eyes blazing with an emerald fire.

"Why?" Sora questioned him, still wary of him even though he was a rebel of the Organization.

"Don't ask, just do it!" he ordered. Diverting his attention from his attackers for just a moment gave the Dusks the perfect opportunity to overwhelm Axel, jumping him and attacking him with their sheer numbers.

"Axel!" Sora shouted. He ran forward to deflect the Dusks, Goofy and Donald right behind him. Swinging his Keyblade, Sora defeated the mountain of Dusks that had dog piled onto the Nobody. "You okay?" Sora asked him.

Axel sat up, staring at Sora. "I kidnapped Kairi, but she got away from me. After that, Saïx caught her." He pounded his fist into the invisible ground. "He's another member of Organization XIII, Saïx. Got it memorized? Now go and save her!" Sora could see some hidden emotion, if Nobodies actually had any, emanating deep within Axel's eyes. From behind him, a swirling portal opened and out jumped a Dusk, heading straight for Sora's back. In the nick of time, he turned and sliced it with his Keyblade.

"Leave us alone!" he shouted. Sora, Donald, Goofy, King Mickey, and now even Axel fought as hard as they could against the ever rising numbers of Dusks. After a while, Sora and Axel ended up fighting back to back.

"I think I liked it better when they were on my side," Axel said with a grimace.

"Feeling a little…regret?" Sora asked him, his voice laced with sarcasm.

"Nah…I can handle these punks. Watch this!" he said with a wink. He leapt away from Sora and into the midst of the sea of Dusks. He let go of his chakrams, and they floated next to him as he summoned every ounce of power and control he had over his element of fire. Raising his hands, his chakrams began to glow and spin, faster and faster, until they looked like the fiery wheels of Helios's chariot. He suddenly pulled the power in unto himself, his strength rising until it burst forth from his body. Giant pillars of fire surrounded him, and a brilliant flash of light accompanied his destructive attack.

Moments later, when Sora could finally open his eyes, he was astounded at the scene around him. The army of Dusks had been disintegrated; the entire void they were in was completely empty except for himself, King Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Axel lying prostrate on the ground in front of him. Sora ran over to him, seeing that his body was beginning to diminish, a few flames still burning on him from his kamikaze attack.

"You're…fading away…" Sora said, unsure of anything else he could say as he kneeled next to the brave Nobody.

"Well, that's what happens when you put you're whole being into an attack," Axel said with a wince. "You know what I mean; not that Nobodies actually have beings, right?" He looked away for a moment. "Anyway, I digress. Go, find Kairi. Oh, I almost forgot…sorry, for what I did to her."

"When we find her, you can tell her that yourself," Sora said with a small smile.

Axel turned his head and looked towards the swirling sky above them. "I think I'll pass. My heart just wouldn't be in it, you know? Haven't got one." He began to laugh, strain evident in his voice.

"Axel, what were you trying to do?" Sora asked him. Goofy, Donald, and King Mickey by this time had come up to stand behind him as he spoke his last words to the dying Nobody.

"I wanted to see Roxas," he stated simply. "He…was the only one I liked…he made me feel…like I had a heart. It's kind of funny, in a way. You make me feel…the same." Sora shifted uncomfortably, the piercing gaze from the Nobody made him feel as if he were looking into his very soul. Suddenly Axel blinked, ending the uncomfortable eye contact. "Kairi's in the castle dungeon. Now go." In the middle of the corridor, just next to him, Axel raised his hand and opened a portal to the stronghold of the Organization. Once finished, his hand collapsed to his side, and he disappeared in a haze of darkness.

"Axel…" Sora whispered. He bowed his head, thinking of how Axel had gone from his enemy to his friend in such a short time. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, he saw King Mickey standing next to him.

"We can't let his sacrifice be in vain," he said quietly. "The portal won't last too much longer, and we don't have any other way in. It's now or never." Sora nodded, standing up. The walked towards the portal Axel had made for them, using the last of his strength. Feeling the familiar pull of the portal, Sora let it claim him. The disorienting feeling wasn't as bad as before, and before he knew it his feet had landed him in a dark alleyway. He looked around, seeing that Donald, Goofy, and King Mickey had arrived safely with him as well. King Mickey walked ahead, as if he knew the area already. He stopped where the alleyway turned, and was looking up at something.

Sora raced down the alleyway, but halted in his tracks when he followed King Mickey's gaze. A giant gray castle shone in the distance, and high above them a heart-shaped moon cast a gentle glow onto the darkened street.

"A gray castle and a moon shaped like a heart. This has to be the place Geni was talking about!" Sora said, his heart beginning to race. "Axel said that Kairi was in the dungeon."

"Then we had better find a way to get to that castle!" King Mickey said. The four of them began to walk through the streets of the deserted city, each corner dark except for some areas where neon signs glowed with a quiet buzz. After a while, they entered a large open area, a skyscraper dominating the other buildings in the area. Several large televisions sat on top of it, their screens fuzzy and garbled. Sora felt strange, as if he had been to this place before. He stared at the skyscraper, wondering where this feeling was coming from. He shook his head, and began to walk again as he heard a shout from behind him.

"Sora!" Goofy cried out. Two Soldier Nobodies had their swords crossed in front of them, barring them from passing.

"Donald! Goofy! King Mickey!" Sora shouted as he ran back to help his friends. However, his progress was halted when the area around them began to grow hazy. Sora looked around for the cause, and was surprised to see a member of the Organization step out from a dark portal behind him. The member's hand began to glow in an eerily recognizable fashion. "A Keyblade?!" The individual's Keyblade was black, with a dark blue gem inserted into the pommel. Sora quickly called forth his own Keyblade. They jumped forward and their Keyblade's met, resulting in a large explosion of light all around them.

Suddenly Sora found himself on a large platform, running towards the stranger. The grappled for a moment before Sora demanded of the stranger, "Who are you?"

"Someone from the dark," the person said forebodingly. The struggled with each other for a moment, until they threw themselves away from each other, to opposite sides of the platform.

"You can't be Riku?!" Sora said incredulously.

The person straightened, looking Sora in the eye, if you could have seen them. "Riku? I defeated a Riku once."

"You lie!" Sora shouted.

The person in black prepared their two Keyblades, crouching low. "Tell me…tell me, why did he pick you!" He began to run towards Sora, trailing his Keyblades along the ground and creating sparks with them. Sora blocked his first attack, but had to jump out of the way to miss the second. He twisted around and blocked the stranger's attack from above, and swung around to pin his other Keyblade to the ground. The individual in black pulled his Keyblade free and jumped back a ways. He suddenly dashed forward, causing Sora to jump high in the air to avoid his attack. The person followed suite, the fight now continuing in mid-air. Sora did a Matrix, twisting around to block the Keyblade while he was upside down. However, the other person struck so hard Sora fell back to the ground, thankfully landing on his feet. He prepared himself for another attack as the member of the Organization stared at him from high above.

The member paused, looking at the stain glass floor beneath him. Sora stood amid the pictures of his friends from a year ago: Donald, Goofy, Kairi, and Riku. "I see. That's why." He quickly floated down to the ground and resumed his attack, thrusting, swinging, and blocking like an intricate dance between the two of them. He stopped Sora when he began to pound on his one Keyblade with both of his, alternating attacks but never letting up on Sora. Sora blocked as best he could, his knees coming closer and closer to the ground. At one critical moment, Sora's knee gave out, giving the other the chance to knock Sora's Keyblade out of his hand. It clattered to the floor at least twenty feet away from him.

Sora dashed over, hoping to retrieve his Keyblade, but the member stopped him using his own Keyblade to pin it to the floor. Sora felt his anger rising, as the member pointed his other Keyblade at him dangerously. He felt his fist clench painfully, before he opened it and called to his Keyblade with his heart. His Keyblade vanished from the floor and appeared in his hand.

"What?!" the member shouted in disbelief. Sora took this one vital moment and slashed at his opponent with all of his strength. The person paused, his Keyblades falling to the floor and vanishing. He stepped past Sora and fell to his knees, his hood falling off to reveal a young man with spiky brown hair. He shakily stood back up on his feet, the platform beginning to disappear in a tornado of light. "You make a good other," he said to Sora as he turned slightly, giving Sora a brief glimpse of his face.

Seconds later, Sora was once again staring up at the intimidating skyscraper. "You make a good other," Sora quietly repeated to himself.

"Are you okay?" King Mickey asked worriedly as they came up behind him.

"What…just happened?" Sora said, unable to make heads or tails of his previous situation.

"Gawrsh, I don't know. You just disappeared, and we had to fight some Nobodies."

"Oh. He said…he defeated Riku…"

"Who did?" Donald asked.

"That guy. The one in the black coat."

"But nobody could defeat Riku," Donald said confidently.

"Yeah, you're right." Sora felt a little better from Donald's reassurance.

"A black coat means Organization XIII. He must have been trying to trick you," Goofy added.

"Yeah, that must be why we didn't see him!" Donald also said. "You must be tired from all of this battling, Sora."

"Come on, let's find a way to get into that castle!" Goofy said. They all agreed, and began once again their long trek to find the entrance to the castle. As they were walking out of the square, Sora paused, once more staring at the skyscraper.

After another half and hour or so of searching, the four of them came to a dead end. However, this dead end ended on the edge of a large precipice, at which the center was the enormous floating stronghold of Organization XIII. "End of the road?" Sora surmised.

"There has to be a path somewhere," King Mickey said, scratching his head.

At that same moment, Kairi was sitting in a purple cage in the dungeon of the castle with Pluto. He had been doing tricks like somersaults and doggy dancing to entertain her, to keep her from feeling sad. She smiled, patting his head as he came to sit next to her. Suddenly, his ears perked as he heard someone outside of their cell. Kairi jumped up, hoping Sora or Riku had finally come to rescue her. Running to the bars, she looked through only to see her jailor, a blue-haired man with a cross shaped scar across his face.

"What are you going to do with us?" she demanded of him.

"You are the fire that feeds Sora's anger," he said straightforwardly. "But, you are not the only kindling for that kind of fire." With that said he turned and left leaving her in a state of fright.

"No…Sora's in danger…because of me," she said, her voice quivering slightly. Suddenly, Pluto started barking behind her. She turned, seeing one of those dark portals opening in the wall behind her. A girl in a white dress was standing in it, beckoning her to come.

"This way!" she whispered.

"Who are you?" Kairi whispered as well.

"Believe in yourself. Come on, hurry!" She held out her hand to her. Kairi hesitated for a moment, but swallowed her fear as she walked towards the portal. Slowly taking the girl's hand, a light emanated from their handshake, enveloping the cell around them.

Outside, Sora noticed that one of the lower points of the castle began to glow. His Keyblade suddenly appeared in front of him, floating in mid-air. Not quite understanding what it wanted him to do, he grabbed it. He felt the Keyblade, its gentle tug pulling his hand in the direction of the light. Pointing it, the Keyblade emitted its light from the tip in a swirling beam, a path emerging from the edge of the precipice they were standing next to and ran all the way towards the castle. Lowering it, he said determinedly, "Kairi…we're almost there."

Just as Sora, King Mickey, Donald, and Goofy had done before, Geni emerged into the basement of the identical Twilight Town. She also bore witness to the demolished computer, knowing that the portal she had just used would not be her way back home. Walking around the basement, she didn't see any signs of her friends. "I wonder where they could be? Did they find the –" As soon as she said this, she stepped into the large room and beheld the flaming portal in the corner. "Aha! That must be it!" Stepping towards it, she felt the ominous aura resonating from it.

"This definitely must be it by the feel of it." She stretched out her hand, recalling memories from entering into portals similar to this during her time with the Organization. This also prepared her for the fading room and disorienting feeling that accompanied her when she touched the portal. For her, the feelings were slight because she had been through them so often before, unlike Sora and the others.

Emerging into the voided space, the barrier between the realms of light and dark, Geni was unsure of what to do next. Here the details of what happened had always been a little fuzzy. Whoever she was with had brought them here, then they had walked towards the light side and opened a portal to the realm of light. On the way back, however, she didn't remember completely going over to the side of the realm of darkness, but rather somewhere in between. Also, since she could not create a portal of darkness, how was she supposed to get there in the first place? "Good going Geni. You've gotten yourself stuck in the void; wonderful."

Geni was also slightly fearful, because here the Heartless and Nobodies were in free reign. They couldn't get to the realm of light without a doorway, but they could come between the realm of darkness and the void with relative ease. If she stayed here for too long, they would be after her heart – my mistake, half a heart – in no time. Walking around, she looked for any indication of a leftover portal she could use her magic on, but found nothing until she saw something black on the ground in front of her. It was a small piece of black cloth, similar to that of the Organization's coats. Picking it up, the piece began to glow red hot in her hands. She dropped it and a bright light exploded from piece of cloth. She shielded her eyes, but soon opened them seeing that the void around her seemed to be flowing backwards. A time spell? Geni wondered. She looked around and suddenly saw Sora kneeling in front of her talking to a member of the Organization who was fading away into the darkness, as King Mickey, Donald, and Goofy stood next to her. As soon as she realized who it was, she gasped out loud. The time spell froze, now sending time forward so she saw the demise of the red-headed member of Organization XIII.

"Axel," she whispered. The remnants that had been fading into the air paused, and began to swirl around in a small tornado, shaping themselves into an unknown object. In a moment, Axel was standing in front of her, Sora and the others long gone. The whorls all around her had resumed their normal course as well.

"Hey," Axel said, waving.

"Axel? But I thought…" Geni left the sentence hanging, unable to grasp the right words to say.

"That I was dead, right? Bingo. However, I had the feeling you would be following Sora, so I left just a piece of my power behind. How are you doing, kiddo?" he said with a smile.

"Alright," she said as she walked up to him. You could see straight through him, and she tested this theory by sticking her hand through his chest.

Axel laughed. "That tickles."

"Just had to be sure," she said with a shrug.

"Very funny. I know poking me fun of me is quite entertaining, but you need to get going." Axel raised his hand, and like before he opened up one last portal to The World That Never Was. "Hurry, before Sora gets into real trouble."

"Axel," Geni said, staring at the portal. "What will happen to you now?"

"Don't know. Maybe I'll go to where all Nobodies go when they're destroyed. Maybe I'll find my original self somewhere out there, like Roxas and Naminé did." He shrugged, his eyes belying his calm expression. "I don't know…"

"Axel?" He looked at her, seeing her sad smile. "You always did make the best fireworks in all of Hollow Bastion." Axel's body began to dissolve into thousands of little pieces. "Please rest in piece, my old friend." Bits of black swirled around her until they disappeared altogether into oblivion. Geni was sad that one of the nicer members of Organization XIII had passed away, but hopefully his last acts of redemption had earned him a place in the light. Feeling a lump forming in her throat, she shrugged off the constricting feelings and headed towards the portal Axel had formed for her.

The portal had led her to the right world, but what she was unprepared for was the place she had landed in. The dark alleyway had no signs, no landmarks she could make out telling her where she was. Since the alleyway was a dead end, she strolled forward until a turn showed her exactly where she was. In the distance was a glowing gray castle, the moon above her in a heart shape.

"I'm back," she said quietly to herself. Looking around, she realized she had entered in on the south side of the city, several miles away from her destination. "Figures," she mumbled.

Following the somewhat familiar streets, she made her way slowly through the city. The Heartless and Nobodies seemed to be out in full force, as if they felt the presence of those with hearts just ripe for the picking. She destroyed a few along the way, but didn't want to risk an encounter with one of the patrols', which would only lead to her discovery. Besides, the trek up to the castle was taking quite a toll on her anyway; not only physically, but she had used a lot of magic to make the original portal from the Disney Castle to Twilight Town. Thank goodness the next portals had done all the work for her. She also let her magic charge up normally, preferring to walk it off rather than use any unnecessary bottles of ether. Geni's only hope is that she would make it to the castle in time.