Castle Darkhand

As Alan and Nadia arrived outside Castle Darkhand, they saw red skies on either side of the large, dark creepy old castle, a dried up moat just ten feet from the draw bridge they were standing on, and everywhere they looked, the land was dead, absent of any flowers, trees were dead and without bloom of leaves, and what's more skeletons were here and there across the chasms and rocks that made up the dried up moat. Castle Darkhand by far is a place that Alan and Nadia would have never imagined that existed or even was a myth at all. Nadia then said to Alan as they reached the door into the castle, "Alan…I'm scared." Alan rubbed her left shoulder and said, "I don't like it either. It gives me the creeps just looking at this dead washed up place. Oh well, may as well get this done and over with quickly before we really wind up into trouble." Yet as they approached the large open entrance completely dark and devoid of anything hopeful, they got a bad tingle in each of their spines. Yet Alan stomped on inside and Nadia ran as fast as she could after him.

Meanwhile upstairs on the third floor of the castle near the secret weapon Tyrannil was constructing, Tyra overlooked his security cameras and looked around the giant library room that they were in and said, "So it's finally come to this…death awaits for one of us Tyrannil. I'm not sure if you're feeling as fearful as I am, but I sure am not ready for this…" Tyrannil then said, "What choice do we have anymore? We agreed to fight with Oben… I mean Obeion and that's what each of us has done so far. But if you must insist on this now fine. Just read my manual and get busy on the machine. It's 98 finished so you better get cracking. If those kids find out about this thing you're finished, we're finished." Tyra then said, "So you're going to bide some time then huh?" Tyrannil looked away from Tyrannil as he said wielding his dark auras in the palms of his hands, "Let's just say that I've lost to those wannabe knights too many times…today it ends!! That is assuming that they can get past our first floor's security!!" Tyra and Tyrannil laughed horridly and pretty soon Tyrannil went outside to the room straight across from the Library which was a bedroom for some shut-eye.

Alan and Nadia arrived inside the castle seeing that there were candles held by metal hands on each side. As they kept walking on fine red carpeting across the hallway, they noticed a giant metal cage and door on the other side of it. Alan and Nadia rushed towards it avoiding the moat of acid that surrounded the cage. Alan tried to barge in, but the door was locked. Nadia then gave Alan the key that Pyraine gave to them before he passed on and he said, "Good thinking." Then as Alan opened the door, it shut back on its own, they turned around and noticed that the acid around the cage disappeared and the cage also disappeared and then Alan asked, "Wasn't there a cage here a second ago?" Then a mighty crash to the ground as Nadia pulled Alan out of the way and they were enclosed inside a humungous metal barring of sorts (pretty much that same cage). From the ground arose a giant red crab Viraltrooper with a giant Heart symbol on its back. "Just like old times Nadia?", Alan asked. Nadia smiled and nodded confidently as she said, "Just like old times!!" Then Alan transformed into his tree bark beige suit as did Nadia transform into her pink dress and they took out their keyblades and dashed towards the crab avoiding its huge scissor like claws. Yet as they did, the crab's razor sharp right claw stripped a tiny piece of Nadia's dress off to which she said, "Hey!! This is a polyester brand. Now I'm gonna have to find a good tailor for this or something." Alan then rushed at Nadia before she got snipped again by the monster and said just standing over top of her, "I'll get you a good new dress when we're done here, is that okay?" Nadia nodded slightly flustered at Alan in his confident regale state. She nodded and then they ducked and covered on either end of the giant crab Viraltrooper. Then as Alan and Nadia tried to zap the monster, it just walked on its side towards Alan crushing him in the process and leaving Nadia holding her breath as there was a huge amount of smoke covering the area. Then the smoke cleared and Alan was holding the crab's right claw at bay with his keyblade from snipping him like a piece of paper. Alan said, "Now Nadia!! I don't know how long I can keep this up!!" Nadia nodded and then jumped on the critter's back and zapped as hard as she could, but the crab's shell was too thick. Nadia yelled, "I can't do it!!" "What?! What do you mean you can't do it?", Alan protested.

"His armour is too thick!!", Nadia said. Then Alan smiled cleverly and said, "Of course! That's it! Nadia jump off his back!!" Nadia nodded and then as she did she asked, "You have something in mind?" "He's a crab right?", he asked. Nadia nodded. "And crabs are really powerful animals, except have the same weakness as turtles…on their shells are what protect their gentle skin and abdomens." Nadia nodded and then asked, "So how do we get its shell off?" Then Alan stabbed the keyblade into the crab's thick armour and it started to crack. He smugly raised an eyebrow on his left side and Nadia then rolled her eyes and said, "Okay okay, point proven." Then she jumped on the crab's back once more and stabbed the back of its body. A crack formed. Then she did it again. Another crack had formed. Then when she stabbed it a third time, the armour came off and exposed its weak point: the heart symbol. "Now Nadia now!!", Alan yelled. Then with one great zap, the heart appeared from the giant crustacean and both Alan when the crab disappeared got his bearings again as well as Nadia both shot the heart with their keyblades and unlocked it.

Yet the castle was still dark and creepy as before only that the cage disappeared along with crab and Alan then said to Nadia, "I got a bad feeling about this place. It's too dangerous and menacing to be real." Then as he said this, the door they unlocked swung open. They then ran through into the dark doorway and headed up a long set of medieval stairs up to the second floor of Castle Darkhand. As they did they found themselves inside a giant ballroom or at least what was left of it. There were torn up curtains to their left, a giant balcony 30x12 feet a quarter broken and destroyed to their right and they saw what were two brown oval shaped doors straight ahead of them across a golden plated floor. Alan then looked at Nadia who looked at him for some hope and he shrugged his shoulders as he stepped across. Then before they both knew it, Tyrannil burst through the door on the left with his book of dark arts and a rapier in hand and like the other members of the Knights of the Realm, his weapon was a matching colour for his silver armour. Alan then held out his right hand as a sign that Nadia should wait and she took ten steps back and sat on a sturdy, but old French designed like chair next to sawed in half table and table covering. "I see you came. That is good Alan. I was hoping it could end like this.", Tyrannil said calmly.

"Me too Tyrannil. It's funny, even though you are one of the Knights of the Realm, you don't seem so evil really. Hard as it is for you or Nadia to believe, I actually think you do have a heart.", Alan said. "What makes you think that then may I ask?", Tyrannil had questioned. Alan then summoned his keyblade and stared at it with great care and said, "The keyblade is glowing. It may be faint, but it's there. I made sure to take note of it as well. The keyblade has a great power not just to unlock hearts, but I feel that it can also sense darkness and light as well. I saw it ever since our encounter in Africa. You do have goodness in you." Tyrannil then summoned a barrier and said as he glowed with his sorcery backing him up, "A grave mistake trusting me boy. Your forgiving attitude will cost you your life one way or another. I'll demonstrate it for you by stabbing your heart and showing it to your lovely friend when I end this once and for all!!" The battle had been set: Alan and Tyrannil, men of great statures staring each other down, and Nadia, Alan's new found friend and lover, sitting on the sidelines hoping for the best and that things would go right. Little did they all know that this fight would set in motion the events leading up to the final fight with Obeion and their encounter in the Red Desert. It was all or nothing now.

(Now we have officially hit our break in the climax folks!! Everything from here on end will lead up to finding Obeion, struggling against him and finally beating him in the end. To recap, what Alan said has made me do a lot of thinking, throughout the Kingdom Hearts series, the keyblade has been told to have great powers and can unlock hearts, save and destroy worlds, etc. But has anyone ever thought of whether they could sense a person's/being's 'yin and yang'? It may seem a little out there, but I do believe it could be true. Try when Maleficent had her heart unlocked because of Riku when he was possessed and turned her into her dragon form. Or another incident was in the recently distributed pictures of KH BBS and when Terra mentions of sensing no evil in Snow White when he approached her, could that also be the keyblade's power at work? Or maybe when one has possession of such a great weapon they can sense all kinds of things about a person? I'm going to leave it at that and just say that expect that this story will end as I said with a happy ending, but not the way you would expect it to be.)

(Next Time: Alan vs. Tyrannil.)

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