To Adventure We Go
Alan and Nadia slowly came to as they saw they were on a beach of the sort. Alan of course noticed his hand on Nadia's right hand as Nadia saw her right hand on Alan's left hand and they sarcastically removed their hands from the brief warm comfort with Alan saying, "That must have been some fall we had huh? What are the odds?" Nadia then replied, "Err…Yeah, right. Not to get too off topic, but where are we?" Alan slowly took a look around him and noticed nothing, but palms trees, a large sandy beach, a giant tree at the centre of the island, and a huge expanse of ocean in all directions, except the sky was covered in a red hue and there were multiple amounts of dark, soot appearing clouds blanketing the sky to add to this mysterious experience. Alan then replied, "Kind of looks like a beach, but it seems a little dark for my taste." Nadia then replied with a cold chill, "It's kind of creepy if you ask me." Alan then snapped his fingers after a brief pause and then said, "I know. I'll just use that watch Aranse gave us. Maybe it can shed some light on this situation." Nadia nodded and replied, "Good idea."
Alan then stood up and took out that 'watch' Aranse had given them. As he took a look, he saw two red dots on a red circle. In this sense Alan then said, "Hey Nadia take a look at this." Nadia slowly got up and then looked at the watch Alan had in his hands and Alan said, "It looks like these two tiny red dots here are us and this red circle is the planet we're on. It also doesn't look too far away from Earth either." Nadia then nodded as Alan pointed to the tiny red dots and the big red circle and then noticed the green circle and said, "I guess that's Earth then huh?" "Yep. Just like Aranse said, any world cleared of those things will glow a green colour. I still wonder though…" Nadia stared at Alan's serious face as he looked straight at the watch and asked, "You wonder what?" Alan then replied, "I wonder why those things would want to go after peoples' hearts. If they're so powerful as a virus, why would they want a heart or hearts for that matter?" "What are talking about? Those things are just a sickness. They don't have feelings or emotions like us, do they?" Alan nodded and then said, "You got a point. They are just a sickness, but there has to be a reason though."
Before they could get into any more details, they heard a large panic of screaming coming from the other side of the island. Alan then put the watch into his pant pocket and replied, "Oh well. No time to think about that though. Let's go kick viral butt." Nadia then drew out her keyblade as did Alan in kind and they ran off into the jungle depths of the tiny island looking for any signs of screams they had just heard. They then heard the screams again and Nadia pointed to her left yelling, "Over there!!" "Right.", Alan replied. They jumped out of the thickets and then saw more of the same Viraltroopers as they had seen on Earth surrounding a girl in a tacky set of beach clothing and a guy next to her wearing an identical pair of striped clothing. Alan and Nadia then zapped each of the creatures surrounding the guy and the girl and then the girl then replied as they stood up, "Thank you so much. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't been here." Alan then asked, "What happened here anyway? It's darker than a new moon is back where Nadia and I come from." Nadia then replied, "How rude of us though. We haven't even introduced ourselves, don't mind me saying this. I'm Nadia and this guy next to me is Alan." The girl then said, "I'm Annabelle and he's Marcus." "Listen, I know it's not much, but maybe you guys could come to our campout for the night and maybe have a quick bite to eat or whatever floats your boat.", Marcus added. Alan then said, "We're not really the kind of people that like to be a burden though and…" "Oh nonsense. Even in these dark times, we're not afraid to be nice to any new visitors." Alan and Nadia then looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders as they then asked, "So what's on the menu?" On the way Alan and Nadia explained their purpose behind travelling to their world and what the keyblades were (or rather are at present).
A couple of hours later, all four of the newly introduced friends sat down around a nice warm fire sitting on a couple of fine chopped logs as they drank down some hot chocolate and ate some chicken. Then Alan asked, "I hope I'm not being intrusive, but how'd those things get here anyway?" "It's a long story Alan. The only thing I can say for sure is that Marcus and I were just doing what we usually did at the beach on a Sunday afternoon and just played some volleyball. Then we saw a huge black cloud come out of nowhere and it started to rain sludge. The next thing we knew those things you call 'Viraltroopers' just came and attacked the people on some of the other random parts of the island.", Annabelle stated. Nadia then replied, "That's terrible." "Yes and unfortunately none of us on Destiny Island (that's right it's Destiny Island.) have any weapons to beat those things. In fact those things are so powerful we were sneaking around to build some better weapons from the wood and stones we collected the other day and then those things showed up and attacked us to which you guys then showed up and kicked their little keisters out of here." Alan then put his cup on the ground and then asked, "Where's the majority of them attacking people?" "Just on the other side of the island to the north, there's a huge amassed army of battalion of them crawling all over the place. You not actually going to fight them though are you?", Marcus asked. Alan nodded and everyone, but Nadia gasped as Alan replied. "I don't really have a choice in the matter Marcus. Nadia and I have been given a weapon of great power. So with that power we are now responsible for your well being." Nadia stood up and then said, "If you want to stay here that's fine, but Alan and I got a job to do." As they began to head into the ocean, Marcus yelled, "Wait!!" Alan and Nadia turned around and then Annabelle said, "We're coming too. There's gotta be something we can do to stop them." Then all four of the bonded friends swam off for the island just north of them.
As the group reached the shores of the island, they saw a whole group of at least five dozen or more Viraltroopers heading their way. In the centre of them all was a purple sludge octopus as well. Nadia then drew out her keyblade once again as did Alan in kind and even Annabelle and Marcus took out a couple of wooden swords to at least put a fight. Marcus and Annabelle then split up and told Alan and Nadia they'd go try to rescue some of their buddies and Nadia and Alan then rushed in slicing a couple of the Viraltroopers in half and saw two hearts float in the sky and create the beings they belonged to. Alan then replied, "Well that was unexpected." Then one of the Viraltroopers clawed at Nadia's keyblade and as she kicked the thing into the sky and zapped the heart right out of it, she then replied, "Let's take care of these guys first before we ponder on any new things we discover." Alan nodded and they both ran into the centre of the groups of Viraltroopers on the island defeating the whole lot of them one by one. The only one left was the purple octopus.
Alan then jumped onto the creature, but it grabbed Alan effortlessly with its oozing, black tentacles and began to squeeze the life out of Alan. Nadia then ran around in circles around the octopus with its giant tentacles following her step by step. Nadia then replied, "Now's your chance Alan. While I distract this guy, you go find where the heart it stole is in its body and pluck it out like a rose petal, okay?" Alan nodded and then sliced the tentacle holding him captive and backflipped to the ground below. He then noticed a purple light glowing in the monster's belly and then aimed the keyblade for its stomach and shot a white light from the keyblade itself to the beast. The heart flew straight out of the octopus and as the creature dissolved the heart then had a lock symbol appear on at its core and Alan and Nadia then combined their zapping light to break the lock and unlock the heart. As it began to glow and shake the planet to its core, the clouds disappeared and the red sky became blue. Then an implosion occurred inside the heart and the only thing that remained was sparkling stars falling from the core to Alan and Nadia's feet. Both Alan and Nadia also felt the gentle breeze of the wind slap their faces as Annabelle and Marcus arrived at the shore with dozens of people clapping and cheering. Alan and Nadia also smiled as well knowing that they did 'good' in the end. Alan then took out the journal given to him by the SPC and as he wrote, Nadia asked, "What's that you got there?" "It's a journal given to me by the SPC as Aranse was talking about. I'm supposed to write in any new discoveries that I have encountered, but you can also write in some things too if you like." Nadia smiled as Marcus and Annabelle then ran towards them out of the crowd and Marcus then said, "You guys have been a great help. I really don't know how we could repay you guys. You've done so much as it is and…"
Alan then closed Marcus' lips with his right hand and said, "Don't think anything of it. Mark my words, I will end this conflict and defeat this virus…" Nadia then cleared her throat on purpose while nudging Alan and he continued, "…with some good, but equal, nevertheless, assistance from my partner here. Listen well people of Destiny Island!! A new era has been proclaimed. A new set of warriors has arisen and like the knights in castle, we shall take up that similar form and fight honourably like they do. This weapon, Nadia and I possess is a weapon of great honour and power. You must never speak of it to anyone else who comes to this world. The consequences could be dire if anyone else were to find out about this weapon and use it for their own gain." The entire island then cheered as Nadia took out the watch and saw the circle of Destiny Island turn green in an instant. Alan then pressed the red button and saw two other buttons: a green one to check their progress in the worlds and a yellow button for teleporting to the next world. Alan then pressed the yellow button and Nadia and Alan disappeared as quickly as they had arrived in Destiny Island.
Meanwhile, overlooking the turn of events on the island through a computer screen in a dark room were five armoured knights: one was red, one was blue, one was yellow, one was silver, and the last one was gold. The gold knight said, "Well that stinks. Those two kids have swords that look like weird keys and yet they took out our troops like swatting flies to the ground." The yellow knight replied, "Don't forget that when the boy used that key thingy it zapped light into that heart our octopus stole and unlocked the heart of the world." The blue knight then asked, "I wonder if those two are the same culprits who got rid of our precious troops on Earth? And how did they create such a brilliant weapon? It looks as if they were carved out of steel or some other fine metal." The red knight then raised his left hand in the air and yelled, "Enough!!" the rest of the knights turned their attention to him instead of the computer and then he continued, "Thank you. Now then, we have no idea what powers these kids may possess, but we'd better take care of this problem quickly. If the master finds out about this, not only will I most likely get a majority of the blame put on myself, but he'll have all of our heads as chalices on living room wall once he's done with us. We need a new plan to take care of this little…infestation. We've lost two worlds to those wielders of the key and I do not intend to lose another one with it." The entire group of knights huddled in to come up with their next plan of attack, constantly looking for the 'master' at all costs.
(So how about that? It looks like Alan and Nadia have a lot more trouble a brewing than we thought. You guys also probably noticed Alan unlocking the heart of Destiny Island since as stated by Ansem that every world has a heart, not just the inhabitants. This is really significant, since Kingdom Hearts doesn't exist, how could the hearts of worlds possibly exist either? I guarantee this is also connected to the 'five disasters' I was talking about in prior chapters and those doors to Love, Fear, Happiness, Anger, and Sorrow. More to come yet so stay tuned.)
(Next Time: Unlocking the Door.)