Second chapter down! xD Sorry for it taking so long. It was going to be different then this, but it got to long so I split the chapter up some. I hope this helps a little. And yes... I know its probably really long compared to other writers. Dx Thats just my style I guess. Sorry for the wait.
Btw, this story is based after the second game, but the ventus game/3ds game never happened in this story, because honestly, I haven't played them yet and I know nothing about them. I guess I could read about them, but then that would ruin the game for me I guess. :] Please understand.
Thirdly, I have dedicated this story to my older sister, because this idea was started with the two of us years ago. She was actually the beginning of it and it just grew from there. We role-played this many different times and finally, after she went out into the world to start her own life, I finally perfected the idea. So hopefully it makes more sense then what we had in simple role-playing. Thanks Sis. :] I miss you and I hope you are doing well.
DISCLAIMER;; I do not own Kingdom hearts or anything that is associated with it including characters, worlds, original storyline, and original evil creatures.
CLAIMER;; All other characters, worlds, storyline, and new additions to the story belong to me and my sisters! Thanks!
There was so much noise in the room that Sora was starting to get a headache on top of his other fighting wounds that he gained trying to bring Roxas back to the gummy ship. With Riku carrying Roxas and Sora fending off the shadows and nobodies around them, it took them much more time to get back to ship, with more scratches, then just getting to the room in the first place. Not to mention the irritating concept of memory illusions. They just had to hope that they didn't loose any memories in the process of getting there. It definitely wouldn't be the first time that happened.
The noise of the two other teams on the ship was making his head spin like a colored top and sting as if a thousand nettles were just tossed carelessly into the inside of his skull. He gritted his teeth shamelessly as he sat towards the front of the cabin with the rest of the teams doing something to help keep the gummy going. This particular gummy was much bigger then the usual gummy and it was run by multiple people. Not quite big enough for a nation to be on it like on Star Trek, no it was much smaller then that, but it held about ten to fifteen people on board.
Feeling pretty overwhelmed Sora got up from his seat and walked over to Riku who was controlling the ship and taking them back to their headquarters in Radiant Gardens. The base had originally been created there to keep Leon, Yuffie, Tiffa, Aerith, Sid, and Cloud happy and to agree to accept the jobs offered to them as leaders and teachers of the World Watchers group. [That was what the students decided to called themselves.] Which was proving harder then they originally thought.
The mission they were currently on was a search mission, in which they were scouting for some new recruits. They found some in Neverland and then, as their search had been short, Sora decided that now would be a good time as ever to grab Roxas. Besides the three new recruits and Roxas, there were two teams of four within the gummyship. Sora and his team of three, and Riku and his team. Both teams were on the ship for the recruit recon mission.
As Sora went to sit right next to his best friend, he found it hard to look at Riku's own blank expression. Being the one to carry Roxas, Riku had sustained some pretty harsh blows. None that the young warrior couldn't handle of course, but they would both still need some healing. Sora's own magic was quite depleted and he was low on potions. He managed to save one maga-potion, but kept it handy in case he would need it for some serious injuries on the way back to base. He wasn't sure about Riku, but right now wasn't the time for Q&A, especially while he was driving.
"Sora, could you come and check this? You might find it useful."
The beautiful ringing voice caught Sora's attention and he turned in his chair to find out who it was who wanted to see him. The girl, who looked to be about fourteen years old, was calling to him from where she stood beside a table that Roxas rested on. Just above his yellow blond head was a silver bowl. Suddenly feeling curious, Sora stood from his chair and walked over carefully to stand with the young girl. Not much older, maybe even a bit younger, then when he himself started his first adventure. She stood out in almost every way. Her hair was a white platinum blond and her eyes went well together with their icy blue light. Even her clothes were nice. She wore a knee high snow blue spaghetti strapped dress, with red and white tinsel as the trimming on the bottom and the collar. On her legs she wore silver stockings that shimmered with the light and white elbow high gloves on her hands. How she battled in this outfit was still quite a mystery to him. Then again, he preferred baggy clothes for his field wear.
As he approached the table he began to study the greenish liquid within the silver bowl. A mega-potion hand made by a christmas magician. Incredible. That was totally like Abigail. Always taking initiative and trying to help in any way she can. She was a wonderful asset to the team. Even though she was much younger then most of the current trainees, she was, in most ways, much more mature in her personality. Though she was raised by the Claus family, so that could be where she got it from.
He listened to her calmly as she said, "What do you think? Could this help Roxas at all?" Sora then smiled an uneasy grin, despite his physical pain, but then sighed and shook his head at her. Then he turned his gaze back onto Roxas and watched him for a brief moment. He was in pain, according to the expression on his face, which was twisted with the look of determination to survive. Sora wondered about everything Roxas had gone through. He thought back on the memories that the real Roxas had given to him. So much anger and bitterness for a nobody. And yet it seemed that that was not an uncommon thing within the Org. He definitely couldn't blame the kid for being so bitter when everyone around him was, even though they said they couldn't feel anything.
"Its a wonderful thought Abbi. I couldn't expect any less from you, and I thank you, but Roxas is a memory. A Potion won't have any effect on him. Not unless the potion itself was, maybe, a memory. No, this is a job for Namine. Perhaps, since he is technically me, she can strengthen the memories of him to be stronger then now. The problem is, I don't know how long he will continue to exist. I should have waited until I had Namine here to attend to him on the way back. But seriously. Thank you."
As he finished speaking, she smiled at him and nodded. "We all make mistakes Sora. Thats a part of life. If its memories your looking for, I believe I can I help in some small way. I can at least sustain his memories until we get back. I'll just get Kassie to help sustain my own magic. Maybe it won't keep him from becoming non-existent, but I can slow it down until we get back."
"How can you do that?" Sora asked, a little skeptically, although not unkindly.
She smiled in return, not taking to heart his hesitation. "Lets just say I'm in league with the Ghost of Christmas Past. I have a couple 'memory' talents that I don't normally advertise. I promise I won't do anything drastic. Just give his memory energy so he can survive longer."
Sora glanced down at Roxas, wondering what the better solution was. Should he trust a fourteen year old to do the job correctly? Especially since he had never seen this kind of magic work before, despite his knowledge of Namine's influence on his own mind. Still, what else was there to do. This Roxas was only a memory, definitely not the real Roxas, who was back with Sora. There was still a chance that the organization would recognize that and reject him as a nobody, and ruin the whole plan. If they could find Axel, it probably would be a better plan, but no one has seen the flaming red-head since his empty shell dispersed after he overexerted himself with a particularly big spell, saving Sora in the process. Other then that about two years ago, there was no sign of him.
"Alright," He decided, "go ahead, there isn't much else we can do for him. Please, just don't cause him to disappear." She nodded at him and began to start her spell with ease. She took her candy cane wand and began to wave it around softly and her blue eyes began to shimmer with light as the spell began to take effect. A thin glow floated around the blond memory and just so that he didn't have to watch anymore, he looked around to find a young girl who appeared to be about 16 years old. Her hair was an aquatic blue color and her eyes washed a sea green. Her locks fell to her lower back, even though It was tied in a pony tail. She was tall for a girl, but not so crazily tall that she stood out in a crowd. On her wrist was a lovely bracelet made entirely out of pearls. This, as Sora understood, was her source of power. She wore a normal blue strapless tube top shirt over a light lavender short sleeved shirt. On her legs were silvery blue leggings that cut off just after her knees. Over the leggings was a short jean skirt and there were black converse on her feet. A bright smile lite up her face and she held herself high and confident.
"Kassie." Sora called to her and she got up from where she was working with food supplies and walked to him.
"Yes Sora? What do you need?"
Sora glanced at Abbi with a slightly nervous look. She was concentrated on the spell, which put her into a slight trance. Then he turned back to his own trainee. "Could you keep her from running out of energy and make sure she doesn't accidentally cause him to disappear or go into a wack attack or something."
Leading with a smile Kassie obliged, but before she left to go stand beside Abbi, she spoke again, this time with worry in her voice. "I think you should talk to Hayner. He seems a little upset about something, but he won't tell me what it is. He keeps glancing at Roxas with this weird expression that I can't describe or interpret. Then again, I'm not the best at reading faces."
Sora paused, thinking about what should be done. "I'm going to have to do it later tonight." He said thoughtfully, "There are some things that need to happen today. King Mickey is arriving at the hotel today for a leadership gathering. Thats going to have wait until tonight after the meeting. I promise I'll get to him before lights out. I know why there might be some tension between the two, but he'll have to deal with it for now. He may not even know why there is this strange feeling between them."
Glancing over the cabin, she bobbed her head briefly and turned to help Abbi out. Satisfied with the last few moments Sora walked over to the front of the ship to sit next to Riku, his eyes clearly fixed on the screen in front of him as he dodged floating objects. There was a brief silence between the two as Sora averted his gaze onto where he saw his friend watching. Something was wrong. Heartless had been coming back just recently. Almost as soon as the Organization appeared. Sora couldn't figure it out. As his eyes flew across the screen after a few moments he finally realized the problem.
"Where are the flying heartless that like to terrorize us when we go from world to world?" He looked at Riku, who in turn didn't reply right away. The silver haired boy shook his head and shrugged.
"No idea, but we'll have to worry about it when we talk to King Mickey later today. How is Roxas?"
"I don't know..." Sora said carefully. "He's in pain, thats for sure. I have Abbi and Kassie taking care of him right now with a memory spell, but I'm sure Namine can make things as they should be. The problem thats been bothering me is, What if the Organization realizes that He isn't real? And that he's just a memory. Then the whole plan won't work. I'm also bothered by the fact that we don't know who's memory Roxas is, if we get him all the way to Namine and she can't help him because he is someone else's memory, then what? I'm guessing the memory belongs to Axel but no one has seen him. We can't even be sure if he appeared with the rest of the group, or if he will appear and hasn't yet. Or was chosen not to appear by this new leader."
Riku was quiet for a moment then replied with something different then what Sora was really looking for. "Why are you worrying so much? Sure those are issues, but you never really worried about that kind of thing before. In fact, most of the time, you embraced the fact that an obstacle got in your way. What happened to change that prospective?"
Not in the mood to talk, not to mention he was sure the feeling had several reasons to it, Sora ignored the questions and changed the subject. "Lets just get Roxas back to Namine. Everything else can come later." Showing that the conversation was over he crossed his arms and glared at the screen. Riku couldn't help but feel worried about his friend. There were multiple reasons why Sora would act this way. One was that their long time friend Kairi was missing and hadn't been seen in about six months. Which was about the same time that the Organization and the heartless started coming back. Not to mention he was now the leader of an entire group of about 30-40 people, one from each of the original worlds. Who knows how many worlds they had missed.
Though he wasn't sure why Kairi being missing should bother Sora, it didn't bother him before when both her and Riku were missing. Why should it bother him now? He was always strong when it came to harder situations. But maybe everything that was piling up was getting to him now. Unless there was something else that Sora wasn't telling him. He had been acting very secretive recently and would often disappear when the time was most frustrating for him. He would be gone from minutes to hours and no one would know where he was or when he would come back. Riku had begun to become suspicious that Sora had gotten himself into something really dangerous and couldn't tell anyone for any reason. But there wasn't much Riku could do to get the man to talk. Sora may be bubbleheaded, but he was stubborn as all get out when he wanted to be. Not to mention he had incredible determination, as shown the first time Riku and Kairi went missing.
"Alright, Radiant Gardens coming right up." Riku said as he spotted the beautiful world they called headquarters, and plenty of their team called home. When Radiant Gardens came into view the two men could hear many voices of excitement coming from the crew of the gummy. Riku grinned and Sora smiled too. Radiant Gardens was a safe place that was not yet covered by the irritating heartless that tended to overrun some of the other worlds. Getting back to safety would be a good break to how long they had been out, which was merely a day, but felt like a week because of the traveling, waiting, searching, and fighting they had to do while they were out. Exhaustion was one of their greatest threats. It would be good for some time off. Other teams were out fighting the heartless, but they would be back soon because of the meeting that evening. The other teams had duties around the hotel that they called headquarters, like cleaning bathrooms, making dinner, and grooming the hotel gardens. Only the members of the World Watchers could stay in the hotel. It was built especially for them.
"Ready for dinner Watchers?" Sora asked in an excitedly heightened voice, hoping they wouldn't disturb Abbi, Kassie, and Roxas. The two teams of trainees that were used to coming back to the Gardens agreed ecclesiastically. The other three kids kind of looked at each other uncertainly. Sora shrugged and laughed full-heartedly at his crew. Not much else he could do, but to roll with it.
Second chapter finished! :] Please stay tuned for their time in Radiant Gardens. In this next chapter you'll meet some more characters so try not to get too overwhelmed with all of them. I'll try to keep it slow in coming. Also, If you would like to know some back story about any of the new recruits in particular, please let me know. I would love to do a one shot for you. :]
Lastly, Please review and critique! I would love some feedback on this story. :D Thanks guys!