Music to listen to:
Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Lourde
Centuries by Fallout Boy
Ready Aim Fire by Imagine Dragons
Went back and removed one of the requirements to purge the brainwashing because it ended up being omitted from this chapter.
Chapter 7: True Love's Kiss:
"The great Inhuman Empire is dead. With the royal family massacred and the Unchained Legion declaring a campaign of genocide against Inhuman kind, our people are facing extinction. If my sister had lived, she would have been able to handle the situation much better than I. As it is, only myself and a growing caravan of refugees have thus far managed to escape the carnage as Atilan fell. With the Boltagon dynasty all but snuffed out, the Keyblade guilds wage their petty wars for scraps of the Empire's corpse, clawing and fighting over territory was never there to begin with. Medusa and Blackagar would be rolling in their graves at the fate of their civilization if there had even been enough of them left to bury. I curse Lady Invi for the role she and her kind played in my sister's death. Everyone knew that Blackagar's ideas of what was best for the empire would have gotten him assassinated eventually, but Medusa's death is something none of us can forgive.
And yet, in this time of chaos and strife, hope is not lost. More refugees are added to our growing band of survivors with each village we pass. Inhumanity lives on even if our nation has been destroyed. There are still difficult days ahead. Everyone makes sacrifices as we scurry and slither towards the outskirts of the empire. A secret, underground bunker in the southern province of the empire built by my brother-in-law as a military base to lead from as a contingency in case the capital were ever attacked. It has enough provisions to feed the entire population of Atilan for a year, a hydroponic garden to grow additional food, and enough weapons to arm half the empire.
If we are lucky and avoid the patrols of whichever faction controls the province for that day, not to mention stay clear of the fighting, we should arrive at the bunker by tomorrow afternoon. From there, we can barricade ourselves inside the mountain and ride out the storm. It will be difficult, but if my people remain united, then we can look after each other. Leopardos and Ursus only cared about Inhumanity as a means to an end in their war with Anguis and Unicornis, and none of the self-proclaimed "defenders of light" were willing to lift a finger to stop the prejudice and persecution Inhumans faced outside the empire's borders. If our people are to survive, we must do so on our own.
Crystal G. Amaquelin,
Written in the third year of the Keyblade War."
The Isle of Draco – Volcano Lair
Lerena grinned triumphantly as the excavation team emerged from the mouth of the mine shaft. Despite the chaos and fury of battle raging around them, they had done it. Her pulse quickened euphorically as she caught sight of the sparkling metal glove on the cart the Unchained miners were pushing. They had finally done it. After tens of thousands of years buried beneath the Earth, the Unchained Legion had finally discovered the legendary Infinity Gauntlet. Created from the strongest metals in the world, and forged in the heart of Kingdom Hearts itself, the First Master had used the gauntlet to design a near-omnipotent blade to serve as a vessel for the Heart of all kingdoms.
This was the power that had forged the X – Blade. That had shaped the world she and the other Legionnaires had been born into. She smiled a grin that would have made the Cheshire Cat of Wonderland jealous. And now we can use it to finally make things right again, she thought to herself as she created a corridor of Light in front of the mining team leading back to the chapel aboard the Ava. At the sight of the ancient relic, many of the Unchained not actively assigned to combat positions knelt in reverence as The Gauntlet was carried past. As they should, the Savage Nymph thought to herself. This thing is as old as humanity itself.
The excavation team gingerly placed it beneath the shrine erected for the gemstones that powered it. The Gauntlet may be as old as humanity, but what Asgard never realized was that the Infinity Stones were the fundamental forces of creation given physical form, in much the same way that the Heartless were the manifestation of the darkness and decadence in peoples' hearts. As the gauntlet was carefully lowered into place, the normally cold and ruthless assassin dropped to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes. She had been dreaming of this day for eight thousand years, and at long last, it had arrived. After taking a moment to compose herself, she hastily stood, knowing that the Novus Imperator needed to be informed.
"Imperator Skuld," Lerean began, taking a moment to wipe the tears of joy from her eyes. "We have it. I repeat. We have the Gauntlet." On a small skiff loaded with twenty of the Imperator's honor guard, Lerena's words elicited a roar of applause from the soldiers standing down on the deck. On the skiff's upper level, Skuld, Aurilam, and the Huntsmaster toasted with celebratory bottles of soda in honor of their impending victory. But inside, Skuld felt an intense feeling of foreboding. Despite her plans finally coming to fruition, the victory felt hollow and empty as her doubts continue to lay siege to the fortress of her mind. She was just about to order radio silence as her party neared the shores of Draco when she heard sirens beginning to wail on the other end of the call.
Meanwhile, in the palace of Draco, the fighting between the two Dark Elf factions came to a halt as Vanitas' C.I.N. team and Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. strike squad stormed into the fortress' courtyard. Algrim's forces quickly held up their hands in a gesture of surrender, one of them waving a white scrap of fabric dropped by a fleeing family as a makeshift flag. A dozen rebels were cut down by Malekith's loyalists in response, but S.H.I.E.L.D. and C.I.N. quickly got the message. With the added influx of heavily armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Malekith and his allies bade a tactical retreat aboard the Nathatlis.
Hades, Nebula, Diablo, and Helga had witnessed the entire Dark Elf schism from aboard the warhip's bridge. They were under no illusions as to their ability to hold off the fanatical elves in a sustained fight, but if they could steal the ship before anyone could board it, then they could be able to escape. Scooping up Lily in his arms, Hades conjured a wall of fire around himself and his daughter to ensure her safety just in case. Helga was about to take the helm of the warship when Nebula reported that Malekith had already boarded. The remaining members of the Hellfire Club quickly reassessed their priorities and made a full court press for the dagger ships. If they couldn't steal the mothership, they could at least snag a shuttle.
They felt the ship lift off from Draco as they made their way through the ship's twisting metal passageways, and had just reached the launch bay when Malekith found them.
"Get Lily to safety," Diablo told Hades firmly as he and Helga stepped forward. "Sinclair and I will hold them off. Hades nodded solemnly. He knew that the mercenary and his wife's familiar were volunteering to die in order to buy him time to get his and Maleficent's daughter away from this war zone. He would have protested, but Helga would have likely gotten shot anyway, and with Maleficent dead, Diablo wouldn't have it any other way. As Diablo and Helga charged down the corridor both literal and metaphorical guns blazing, the former Lord of the Underworld ducked into the ship. Lily's blue-skinned godmother took the helm, and the last Hades saw of his allies before the hatch closed was Helga slammed against the wall by Dark Elf rifle fire.
In the cacophony of sound aboard the Ava, Kairi moved silently towards the heart of the ship, once again shrouded from view by a Vanish spell. Now that everyone knew she had escaped, she needed to go back into stealth mode for the next phase of her plan. After knocking out a Legionnaire stationed in a blind spot of camera coverage, she used the Legion's emergency backup comms, which relied on Morse Code to prevent infiltrators from accessing the main comm frequency, to send a message that the escaped prisoner had been sighted heading towars the cafeteria. With the entire ship looking for her on the opposite end of the vessel, she made her way to the chapel in the heart of the warship, where she found the only person she wanted to see standing outside on guard duty.
Drawing on the visions she'd experienced years ago of the events surrounding Ava's death in conjunction with the ancient Atlantian script of the tomes stored in the Mysterious Tower, Kairi marched confidently down the corridor, releasing her cloaking spell as she went. Sora's eyes widened when he saw her, but she cut him off before she could say anything.
"Freight Car," she began in fluent Atlantean. Sora blinked at the words and pinched the bridge of his nose. Good, she thought to herself. It's working. The original version of the Faustus Method developed by HYDRA after World War II relied on passwords being spoken in Russian. Kairi had a hard time pronouncing Russian, so she was eternally grateful that the Unchained Legion preferred everything in Ancient Atlantean instead to flaunt how long they'd been around for.
"One," she continued. Sora placed his hand on his forehead, as if he had come down with a fever. Hang in there, she told him mentally. Almost there.
"Homecoming." Now Sora winced, like he was listening to a high-pitched whistle only he could hear.
"Kind-Hearted." Now he pressed his hands against his forehead, his eyes dropping lower with each word spoken.
"Nine," she went on, keeping her tone neutral through it all. "Stove. Dawn. Seventeen, Rusted. Longing." As she spoke the last syllable, Sora cried out in pain, hands clutched to his ears. Knowing that every Unchained within earshot would have heard them by now, she acted quickly. Before reinforcements could emerge to stop her, she walked up to her fiancé and gave him a long, passionate kiss. Sora's body went limp after a few seconds, and she caught him before he could hit the floor. She checked his pulse and was about to consider dragging his unconscious body into the chapel when she heard him groan.
"Kairi," he gasped weakly as his eyes opened, residual terror from the brainwashing methods still lingering in them as his frantic breathing slowed down. "Thank you." Tears welled up in both their eyes as they embraced each other happily. Sora apologized for what he'd been influenced and conditioned to do profusely as she helped him to his feet, and she reassured him that she didn't blame him for what had happened.
"Well isn't this just touching?" a voice remarked sarcastically from behind them. The couple turned in surprise to find Lerena standing in the door to the ship's chapel, six glowing gems implanted in the gauntlet running along her left arm.
Sora's free of the Legion's control. Yay! Told you it wouldn't be too long. Fair warning though, the scenes with Sora and Kairi trapped in the heart of the Unchained Legion's command ship in the next three chapters are going to be very emotionally draining for fellow SoKai fans, so just giving you all advance warning. Crystal is Black Bolt's sister-in-law in the Inhumans comics, and I wanted to have at least one member of the Inhuman royal family survive the siege of Atilan. Her middle initial being G is meant to imply that she is the ancestor of Shego and Team Go from Kim Possible. The bunker the surviving Inhumans move into is the precursor to Afterlife from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a first start before they rebuild elsewhere after the Keyblade War.
Anyway, now Hades, Nebula, and Lily live to fight another day. As for what happens to the rest of Maleficent's loyalists stuck on Draco? Well, you'll have to wait and see. Hades, Nebula, Lily, and Malekith won't be showing up again until the next saga I've cooked up in this universe, Invaders From Beyond. However due to various factors, I'm not starting that one until after Kingdom Hearts 3 finally comes out. On another note, enjoy the mental image of Larxene wielding the Infinity Gauntlet haunting your nightmares for the foreseeable future. Until next time!