Before we begin, I'd like to clarify all of the oc's that have popped up lately, as well as say that in the , Hollow Bastion/Destiny Islands… thing… Kairi and Naminé are not sisters. As for the oc's, well, I am sad to say that nobody quite guessed me right there. I am not Virgil. I meant for myself to be Raine. Of course, I never could pull off self insertion, so I'm going to drop that.
Um… I have eleven oc's planned for this. All of them are in the 14-15 age range, and I just realized I made a huge typo and said that Virgil was 11. My bad.
Finally, I would like to ask if any of you would like to see the Fall of Radiant Garden and the failed attempt to retake it. If so, I will post them as new stories, as not to totally mess up the continuity present in this one. This will be a tell all chapter for a lot of the background of the OC's and the characters from the other worlds, so on with yet another weird chapter based on a series that does not belong to me or anybody I know, though I do know people that are deserving of it…
Chapter 11: Star by Star
"This all started about twenty years ago, five years before we were born. Our parents were around our age, and these worlds were at peace." Started Storm, Leon and Lightning's daughter.
"Twenty five years ago, three people named Ventus, Aqua, and Terra, all keyblade wielders, uncovered a plot by the Master Xehanort to attempt to quantify the darkness within the human heart, measure it, give it a physical form. They attempted to stop him, but to no avail. Terra's body was stolen by Xehanort, who had been an old man sick of his body, and Ventus and Aqua had disappeared, there last known location being the Land of Departure, which had just changed into Castle Oblivion.
The experiment was carried on, and the first Heartless was born from the darkness within Xehanort's heart. Soon, he had forced all five of his apprentices to undergo the experiment as well. What they did not know is that by undergoing this experiment, they had transformed themselves into Nobodies.
What they also did not know is that Xehanort gave birth to two Nobodies, one from his own heart and the other from Terra's. The one from Terra's came into being in Twilight Town, and took on the name Xemnas. Xemnas formed a group called the Organization XIII, made up of Nobodies that swore to fight the Heartless. After their birth, the Nobodies of the apprentices fled to Twilight Town and became the founding members of the Organization XIII.
As time went on, more and more Nobodies were created, and the ranks of the Organization swelled with Dusks, the lowest order of Nobodies, Midnights, the middle class of Nobodies, and then actual members of the Organization itself, which grew to fourteen members at its peak. They had moved their headquarters to The World that Never Was, and had a base on the Destiny Islands, Twilight Town, Radiant Garden, and Castle Oblivion.
Eight years later, however, the Heartless under Xehanort's Heartless and the Heartless of his original apprentices took Radiant Garden in a massive attack in which about half the population were either killed or became Heartless. Most of the elites stationed in the capital escaped, with the exception of Aerith, who was stabbed from behind by a sword while casting Holy. The survivors fled to Traverse Town and the Destiny Island's, while the surviving Nobodies, along with the many, many new ones created in the fighting, dispersed themselves among the bases of the Organization, spreading word of what had happened on the world now known as Hollow Bastion.
Then, Sora, Riku, and Kairi stepped into the picture, along with their companions Donald and Goofy. All three of them wielded keyblades, like the Organization's resident wielders, Roxas and Xion. They wanted to join the Organization after their hometown had been sacked by the Heartless and their parents killed. This was especially difficult on Kairi, who had been one of the survivors of the Fall of Radiant Garden, in which her parents were killed. Apparently, in the raid on their town, Kairi had also had her heart removed from her body and placed in Sora's, leading him to use Riku's keyblade to sacrifice his heart to free hers.
When Sora did this, he also created two Nobodies… Roxas for his heart, and Naminé for Kairi's. Naminé never joined the Organization… she came into existence on Castle Oblivion for some reason… anyway, they turn up and want to join the Organization. Xemnas decides to put them through a test to see if they can handle being in an Organization of Nobodies while still having hearts (at this time Nobody knew the connection between Roxas and Sora). They took one look at Kairi's heart and decided that she passed. Sora and Riku, however, had a much rougher time of it.
They were placed in Castle Oblivion, Riku in the basement levels and Sora on the main floors. With each level up the Castle that they advanced, they would lose a small portion of their memory, with any memories pertaining to Kairi having her replaced by Naminé, whom the Organization had found within the Castle and discovered that she had powers pertaining to memories of people connected to those three.
Sora, Donald and Goofy eventually got up to the thirteenth floor, where they found out that Naminé had been controlling their memories all along, and was being forced too by the Organization. Sora defeated Marluxia, hr controller. After spending some time with Naminé, they face their final test: regain their memories from outside the Castle and lose those of what happened within, or vice versa. Sora, his heart torn in two, decided to have his memory restored. Naminé, heartbroken by his choice, still did as he asked. Before she did so, however, Sora swore that he would remember her. When he came to, he remembered Kairi, and he remembered Naminé. He knew that Riku loved Kairi, and that she loved both of them, so he let Riku have her.
As soon as he woke up, he went in search of Naminé and found her crying in a corner of the Castle, an aura of loneliness and angst surrounding her. Naminé, expecting Sora to not remember who she was, said but three words: I love you.
Sora responded with two words: I know.
Riku, however, had it a bit different. He started on the twelfth basement and made his way up to the first floor. Along the way, Vexen of the Organization used his heart to create a Replica of him. That Replica fought Sora several times, and faced a duel to the death with Riku after Sora had met Naminé. Repliku, as he was known as, was killed, though with his dying breath he told Riku of Sora and Naminé. Riku decided, upon reaching Floor One, that he would finally admit his feelings to Kairi. He did when the test was over. Kairi, her heart torn, saw how happy Sora was with Naminé, and reciprocated Riku's feelings.
They had all passed the test, and discovered that Naminé also had the ability to wield a keyblade. By the end of the test, Sora wielded the Oathkeeper keyblade, Riku the Keyblade of People's Hearts, Kairi the Destiny Place, Naminé the Lost Memory, Xion the Two Become One, and Roxas the Oathkeeper and the Oblivion. Thus, Sora, Kairi, Riku, Donald, Goofy¸ and Naminé were allowed to fight with the Organization XIII.
Star by star, they fought the Heartless, finally managing to turn the tide upon discovering that the keyblade collects the hearts of the Heartless in battle and returns them to Kingdom Hearts.
Eventually, however, a stalemate was reached. The Heartless, you see, are eternal. As long as the darkness and light in the hearts of living creatures remain out of balance, they shall exist. Even a heart filled almost to the brink with light will create a Heartless, as the stronger the light, the deeper the shadow cast. For it seems as if the most radiant of light will always contain darkness, and the deepest of dark will always retain a small candle of light.
There seemed to be no answer to their dilemma. Fight the darkness with the light, and more darkness is created. Fight the darkness with the dark, and more darkness is created. Eventually, after years of conflict, they decided that the only way to win was to strike at the source: Hollow Bastion. All of the Heartless were coming into being there and spreading to the other worlds.
The entire Organization, including Sora and his group (except Naminé), along with their human elites (the Final Fantasy members), and about ten million regular Nobodies set off from the Destiny Island's. They were slaughtered almost to a man, with only two ships managing to return, bearing a mortally wounded Kairi. She managed to deliver the weapons of the Organization members, as well as the keyblades, to the Destiny Island's before succumbing to her wounds.
Only three able bodied leaders of the Nobodies and their allies were left: Naminé, who chose to stay behind to protect Destiny Island's and watch over our ten year old selves, Ansem, who was leading the attack on the forces above the world of Hollow Bastion and managed to pick up Kairi from the planet, and Setzer, one of the humans who managed to make it out on his ship, the Black Jack.
For about four years after that attack, it seemed as if they had succeeded in their mission. The Heartless appeared in vastly reduced numbers. Unfortunately, about a year ago, they began appearing in greater numbers. With so few heroes left, we were hard pressed to do anything about it. Then, Naminé discovered that you guys existed in that alternate version of Earth. For some reason, somebody from one of these worlds created your world with you guys as you are about 20 years ago."
They all took turns telling the rather long tale. After giving the rather confused group a minute to digest what they had just said, Raine cleared his throat.
"So, who wants weapons?"
The confused look on the faces of the group from Earth was priceless.
"Xemnas, you get these two Ethereal Blades which are totally not knockoffs of lightsabers from Star Wars. Xigbar, heres a pair of Sharpshooters. Xaldin, the magical lance Lindworm is , the shield Frozen Pride is for you. Lexaeus, the tomahawk Skysplitter is yours. Zexion, you get a book named the Lexicon as your weapon. Shocking, ain't it? Saíx, the claymore Lunatic is for you. Axel, you get the chakrams known as Eternal Flames. Demyx, the sitar Arpeggio is for you. Luxord, a set of playing cards known as Fair Game. Marluxia, the scythe Graceful Dahlia is to be wielded by you. Larxene, you get these knives known as Foudre." Explained Maske as she handed out the weapons, which had been previously in the pedestals.
"Now, onto the keyblades, which complicates things…"
I am going to end this chapter for now. The next one will be all about keyblades. Til then, please review.