Alright, everyone. The preparations are complete. Now it's time for the battle to begin. Sorry this chapter is so short but I've been away from the house and spending time with family today, so I had to cut some stuff short.
Part 2: Invasion:
Chapter 4: Turning the Tide:
New York City – Stark Tower
Kairi took deep breaths as she paced back and forth across the common room of Stark Tower. She'd been tossing and turning with worry every night for the last four days, and now she couldn't take it anymore. Between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers handling the fight against the Hellfire Club loyalists, Coalition Intelligence trying to prepare for an all-out assault on the Isle of Draco, and the Unchained Legion completely underground, there was nothing to do. She felt as if she was helplessly waiting for the bad guys to make a move. Compounded with the fact that they were doing Kingdom Hearts knows what to her fiancé, and she was beginning to get a little stir crazy. There was only so much she could do as a tourist to lift her spirits before she began to feel bored.
Suddenly, an idea popped its way into existence inside her head. While she and Sora had been preparing for their wedding and writing up their vows, they had come across an old Radiant Garden proverb talking about your home being where the people you loved were. Since the Door to Light transported people to wherever they considered home, then theoretically, she could use that proverb as a loophole to get the door to take her right to Sora's location. There's only one way to test it though, she thought to herself before movement in the hallway leading into the common area snapped her out of her thoughts.
"Kairi?" Riku called out groggily as the silver-haired Keyblade Master walked into the room behind her. "What are you doing up?"
"I have an idea to find Sora," she told him excitedly before explaining her plan.
"Kairi," he replied. "I get it. We're all worried about him. But running off without a plan is just going to get you killed."
"I know that Riku," she retorted. "But I have to do this. We've just been sitting here and hoping for good news all week. I need to do something and not just sit here waiting for the green light to take the fight to the Legion. I'll be careful. I'm not going to try and stop them all by myself. I'm just going to get in, grab Sora, and get back out. I'll be back within a day, already." Riku's concerned look softened slightly as he let out a sigh. He knew that once Kairi had set her mind to something, there was no stopping her.
"May your heart be your guiding key," he told her, using an old saying that Aqua had learned from Eraqus that had fallen out of use decades ago that Mickey and Aqua inadvertently brought back in recent months. After a few seconds of concentration, a Door to Light appeared against the glass, lighting up the room as bright as a spotlight.
"And yours as well," Kairi replied, recognizing the phrase. And with that, she stepped through the door as the light vanished behind her. Be safe, Kairi, Riku thought to himself as he went to wake the other Keyblade Wielders and inform them of the Princess of Heart's decision. Whether she returned with Sora or not, Riku had a feeling that she was going to need a whole lot of backup either way.
Earth – D.E.S. Nathatlis
"So," Malekith remarked as he paced back and forth across the bridge of the Nathalis. "Your armies are broken, your hiding places rooted out, and so now you turn to me. How ironic." Outside the window, explosions bloomed up and down the shoreline as the Unchained warships continued to fire upon Draco. Occasionally, the Nathalis would rock from the force of a cannon blast impacting against the ship's defensive shields.
"How do you think I feel?" Hades replied bitterly as he stood with his arms clasped behind his back, flanked by Captain Hook and Diablo as he attempted to negotiate an uneasy truce with the man who murdered his wife. But unfortunately, desperate times called for equally desperate measures. The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. had completely annihilated the last remnants of HYDRA. All that was left of the Hellfire Club were about a hundred Leroys, Nebula, Helga, Gaston, Scroop, Hamsterviel, and the remnants of Maleficent's inner circle. The rest of Maleficent's council had pressured Hades into negotiating a truce with Malekith's defectors in a desperate gamble to maintain their power.
"Even before I killed Maleficent you tried to destroy me," the Dark Elf king began. "So why should I ally myself with someone who has sought my extermination? Who has attempted to undercut me and remove me from your ranks?" The ship rocked again as another round of Unchained artillery struck The Nathalis' shields. Sirens began to blare alerting the bridge crew to the fact that the rear starboard energy shields were failing. Hades smiled the grin of a shark smelling blood, or, given Hades' personality, a salesman who knew that he was about to close a deal.
"Because no matter how much you despise us, you still need us," the former lord of the dead answered. "Even if you manage to hold off the Legion for more than a few hours, S.H.I.E.L.D., The Avengers, the Asgardians, and the Coalition are coming to take the Gauntlet from us. You may be able to hold off one group for a few days, but not all of them at once. The only way to survive this is to help each other. So, do we have a deal?" Malekith desperately wanted to reject Hades' offer out of hand. To refuse to have any ties with a deity who had ordered the annihilation of his army. But there were too many arguments against it to reject the offer. Reluctantly, he held out his hand.
"We do," the Dark Elf king said through gritted teeth.
The Lanes Between – G.S. Stormfall
"Alright everyone, listen up!" Riku began as friends and acquaintances from across Coalition space gathered in the hangar bay of the Stormfall as it orbited the Earth. After the Unchained Legion's attack on Earth's moon, Aqua had pulled Coalition forces back aboard the Gummi battle cruiser in preparation for just this moment. A small platoon of U.C.A. troops stood at attention as they waited for instructions, while Vanitas and a dozen C.I.N. agents watched from the catwalks overhead as they prepared for their own phase of the plan. Even a few members of the S.A.C.K. were present, exploring Gummi Ships for the first time as they waited for the briefing to begin.
"I'm aware that right now, things look bleak," the silver haired Keyblade Master went on. "Maleficent may be dead and the Hellfire Club fractured, but the Unchained Legion has managed to obtain all six Infinity Stones, and Sora has been taken prisoner. We don't know to what end, but we all know that it can't be anything good. Right now, a splinter faction of the Hellfire Club has taken an island called Draco, believing that the Gauntlet of the First Keyblade Master is buried there." A hologram of the world with a blinking red dot to indicate Draco appeared over his head to emphasize his point.
"Given the fact that Unchained Legion is desperately laying siege to the island, there's a high probability that the Gauntlet really is there, so we'll need to act quickly. Our fighter squadrons will be providing cover fire so that our troop transports can reach the island and keep the artillery fire away from the soldiers on the ground. I'm not going to sugar coat it, ladies and gentlemen. The odds are against us, and casualties are going to be high. But if we don't take the island and get our hands on the Gauntlet before any of the forces of evil do, then the worlds as we know them will never be the same."
On either side of him, Terra, Aqua, and Mickey nodded their heads in agreement. It was all hands on deck for this mission, and Riku was ready to make sure that they finally snuffed out the Legion for good. Everyone on this ship knew the risks when they had agreed to join the voyage to Earth. They had all made the necessary preparations if any one of them perished today. Leadership of their delegation to Earth had been passed over to Ienzo, while Roxas, Xion, and Lea had been called out of hiding to help protect Coalition territory. Terra and Aqua did not wish to leave their son an orphan, but the worlds needed them right now, and if both of them were to die today, Queen Minnie had been named as his guardian in their will.
"So," Riku added after another dramatic pause. "Let's do this!" A roar of applause went up from the assembled army as each division loaded up into the dropships waiting to ferry them all to Draco. Up above, Coalition Intelligence agents climbed into Starfighter cockpits as they readied themselves for battle. Vanitas warped down from the upper levels of the hangar as the Keyblade Wielders present gathered around for one final pre-battle discussion before they had to board their respective ships (or in Vanitas' case, take a Dark Corridor down to Draco with a handpicked team of C.I.N. agents for a stealth incursion).
"I still don't think Kairi should have gone alone," Aqua commented.
"I don't like it any more than you do, Aqua," Riku replied. "But we all know that once she sets her mind to something, there's no stopping her. And she's convinced that she can rescue Sora and deal some damage to the Legion behind the scenes while she's at it."
"It's dangerous," Mickey agreed. "But also a risk worth taking. If she and Sora can deal enough damage, they can cripple at least one Unchained ship and help even the odds for the rest of us."
"Either way," Terra added. "The only way to know for sure is to get down there and find them both. Agent Romanov's comm channels indicated that all the Unchained are there surrounding Draco. I doubt they would have left their prisoners behind unguarded. So we get down there, and we'll find them." Everyone nodded in agreement before saying their final goodbyes before the battle. Terra leaned over and gave his wife a pre-battle kiss. Riku gave Mickey a reassuring handshake.
"May our hearts be our guiding key," Mickey, Riku, Aqua, and Terra said in unison before heading to their respective Gummi ships.
"Yeah, yeah," Vanitas remarked snarkily as he opened a Corridor of Darkness in the back of the room. After days of planning and preparation, it was show time.
And with that, the three-way Battle of Draco has now officially begun. This is going to be a lot like a cross between the Keyblade Graveyard and Cable Town battles in The Xehanort War combined and on steroids. Expect lots of explosion and long chapters of action with every major and minor character present for this fight getting at least a paragraph of focus in the lengthy final battle. I had an uneasy alliance between the two splintered factions of the Hellfire Club so that I could have all the bad guys in one place for this fight without leaving anyone out. That whole paragraph thing applies to the villains too, so look forward to some more bad guy introspection as well.
Okay, so with the final trailer for Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue skyrocketing my hype levels for the game to come out (only need to save $61 until I can buy a PlayStation 4), I decided to throw in the "May Your Heart Be Your Guiding Key" phrase that Mickey, Aqua, and the Master of Masters from KHX were throwing around in the trailer as a nice little mythology gag. Although I try to keep my stories as canon-compliant as possible, 2.8 was announced after I was already a third of the way through writing The Xehanort War. Since I had gone too far to go back and re-write the affected aspects of the story and I had no idea what would be included in 0.2 or Back Cover, I kept things as they were. Nevertheless, I do like to include the things introduced after I started writing this crazy intricate universe last year.
From here on out, it's going to be almost entirely action and battle sequences. And when I say battle sequences, I am talking about something on the scale of the battle of New York in The Avengers, or the Resistance attacking Starkiller Base in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, or the Battle of Hollow Bastion in Kingdom Hearts 2. The final battle of this saga is going to be long, drawn out, and epic. So prepare yourselves for several weeks of brutal Keyblade-on-Keyblade warfare, harsh betrayals, second chances, and one hell of a ride. Be afraid everyone, be very afraid.