Author's Note: I do not own ANYTHING pertaining to Kingdom Hearts. I only own Blastbone Clarkson, Charlotte Amaturie (to appear in later chapters), and their nobodies, as well as the Seekers…kinda…sorta.

Chapter VII: What a Surprise

Everyone but those who turned around watched as Blaster fell limp, dropping his keyblade in the process. Instead of disappearing in a shower of sparks, the Thirteen Order Crystal laid right where it dropped. Inferno stopped his swing, bent down and picked up Blaster's Keyblade.

"I told you that you would die," Inferno said to Blaster's corpse. "When I make a promise, I keep it." He gripped Blaster's blade, suddenly becoming shocked, as if he had been struck by lightning.

"You won't get away with that!" Sora shouted. "GIVE ME STRENGTH!" In a flash of light, Sora entered his Final Form again, Fenrir and Ultima Weapon floating, ready for battle. Sora jumped, did a loop, and glided through the barrier.

"Another challenger?" Inferno asked, dismissing Blaster's weapon. "What can you bring to the table?"

Sora angrily twisted in his glide, as if he was reaching back to grab a hold of his Keyblades. The blades glided through the air, flashing in the sunlight, rotating like fan blades as Sora aimed to tackle Inferno. Sora pulled up at the last second, watching as his two Keyblades were both deflected by Inferno's one. Sora flipped in the air again, and dove right down to land behind the red-armored Seeker, calling his blades to his sides again.

"Don't tell me that's all you've got," Inferno taunted. "A measly fly-by?"

Sora charged again, swinging both blades easily with his outstretched hands. Inferno parried each blow as Sora began to zip around him at lightning fast speeds. Sora lept into the air and, after back-flipping twice, divebombed, Keyblades first, towards Inferno.

"ENOUGH," Inferno shouted, expelling a burst of energy from his Keyblade It homed in on Sora, hitting him with enough force to knock him out of his Drive, leaving him panting.

"SORA!" Kairi called from the edge of the barrier.

"Oh," Inferno said, looking from Sora to Kairi, and then back again. "The 'Keyblade Master' and the Princess of Heart have feelings for each other. I guess it will hurt more if one of you were to…die."

Sora fell backwards, sitting with his Keyblade raised in a weak defensive position, as Inferno raised his blade for the death blow. Kairi couldn't watch, and turned her head to avoid seeing Sora die. Inferno swung, and, in slow motion, hurled his blade towards Sora.

CLANG!

Just a foot from Sora's head was the Sword of Justice, being held back by Blaster's Thirteen Order Crystal. Everyone turned towards Blaster's corpse as it began to get up.

"You have forgotten a couple of the most important rules of battle," Blaster said, shoving Inferno away from Sora with a mental blast as his body healed itself. Blaster then summoned the Thirteen Order Crystal to his grasp before saying, "Never underestimate your enemy. And, when you have killed your opponent, make sure he's dead before you continue. TRANSFORM!" Blaster once again returned to his Armored Wisdom Form, but the process was different again. This time, it was like the first time he reverted to his normal form, only in reverse, as the armor pieces flashed into existence and light gathered to give him back his Wisdom Form outfit. "That is my rule number two and three."

"What's rule number one?" Inferno asked, curiously.

"Save your secret/special abilities until the opportune moment," Blaster said, blinking his eyes back to blue.

The teeth of Blaster's blade turned white, and, like Sora's Wisdom Form, Blaster dashed around shooting bullets made of magic from the tip of the Keyblade. As each shot left the blade, the teeth one by one faded slowly back to purple. Inferno dodged two sets of 25 magic bullets before one hit him directly in the chest.

"Don't mess with aliens," Blaster threatened. The teeth on his blade suddenly turned from pure white to an icy blue, and the air started to condense around the teeth of the blade as the air around it got colder. "Especially ones who can control elemental forces. Blizzaga!"

Blaster swung as he shouted the incantation, releasing an energy arc of ice. Inferno dodged most of it, but his left hand was caught in the assault, and his fingers fell limp as if the hand had fallen asleep. Inferno dropped the Sword of Justice, and grasped his injured hand with his other. Blaster slowly glided forward, a hint of anger mixed with satisfaction

"You think you have won?" Inferno asked, cradling his injured hand in his chest, while he held his other hand in front of him as if he was holding a softball. "I will return, but, one of you will not live to see that day." A ball of pure darkness appeared in Inferno's hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sora slowly getting back up, using his Keyblade as a crutch, and thrust his hand out towards the Keyblade Master, sending the dark orb at him.

"SORA!" Kairi shouted again. Sora looked up and watched as the dark orb careened toward him as he stood, frozen in fear. Seconds before the orb hit, Blaster appeared in front of Sora and took the blast full in the chest, knocking him out of his form and into Sora. The two slammed into the barrier, crumpling into a human heap. Blaster brought his head up enough to see Inferno smirk before he was engulfed in a brief eruption of fire, disappearing within the tounges of fire. When the flames disappeared, the barrier fell, and everyone else came to the aid of Sora and Blaster.

"I'll be fine," Blaster said, clutching his chest as he used his Keyblade to help him stand up. "I think Sora may have a few broken bones, so make sure they are all set before you heal him."

Donald nodded and, making sure everything was in the right place, raised his staff and said, "Curaga." Sora's body healed, and an Ether helped him regain his energy. "Are you okay, Sora?"

"I'll be fine," Sora said, turning to Blaster. "How did you…?"

"Inside." Blaster interrupted Sora's question with a request. "I'll explain everything once we get back inside."

Sora was quick to enter the castle again, with Riku, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy quick to follow. Nox and Xarch followed after nodding to Blaster as if knowing his secret. Blaster followed last, closing the door and walking into the hallways that lead to the computer room. He walked faster until he was ahead of everyone. Under one of the lights Blaster stopped abruptly, but everyone lagged back, fearing the resurrected alien as he quickly turned around.

"I don't want anyone to heal me in any way once I do this," Blaster announced. "Can you do that for me?"

"Why?" Riku asked.

"Because of this," Blaster replied, making a dagger appear in his right hand in a flash of light then using it to slice off his left hand. Everyone but Nox, Xarch, and Blaster gasped as the hand hit the floor. Blaster held up his right hand, dropping the dagger, point down, to the floor. "Easy," Blaster assured. "It will be ok."

"Blaster, you just chopped your hand off!" Sora said. Kairi turned around because the scent of blood began to make her feel sick. "How will it be okay?"

"I did it as a demonstration," Blaster said, holding up the stump of his left hand. A few seconds after he held it up, the blood stopped squirting out as the bones began to slowly grow out from what was left of the arm. A large mass of bone the size of a baseball slowly whittled back down to the skeletal structure of a hand, as muscle began to weave its way back around the palm and individual digits. The skin was quick to follow, weaving itself back over the hand until the hand looked like it hadn't even been chopped off. Blaster flexed his new hand a few times until he could feel it again.

"You can heal yourself?" Kairi asked, trying her best not to vomit from the smell of blood.

"Yep," Blaster said, picking up his now useless hand from the ground and beaming away the blood. He continued to examine his severed hand as if it were some prized museum artifact. "I have an accelerated healing ability. Comes standard with the abilities I was born with."

"So, you lop off your hand, you grow a new one?" Riku asked.

"Yup," Blaster replied.

"Foot?"

"Yep."

"Rib?"

"Yep."

"Head?"

Blaster stopped looking at his hand to look at Riku.

"I haven't tried before, but I would think so," Blaster replied. "Either that or I would grow a new body from my head."

Just then, Blaster clutched his heart with his free left hand as if he had just been hit there by a heavy object, like a 20lb cannon ball tossed right to his chest. He moved his hand away just before tendrils of darkness erupted about a foot from his heart. Blaster did all he could to keep himself from screaming in pain, and, about a minute and several attempts to use a Cure or Potion on him later, the tendrils slowly faded and Blaster began to feel other things besides pain.

"Looks like some sort of curse," a voice said. Merlin appeared over near the door outside in his usual cloud of grey-white smoke. "Looks a lot like the Dark Heart Curse if you ask me."

"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" Nox screamed, running, hands raised in the air, towards the slowly rising form of Blaster. Nox was stopped by Xarch, who grabbed Nox as he ran.

"What is the Dark Heart Curse?" Sora asked.

"I have no idea, but I think Tron should have more information," Merlin replied.

"Other than symptoms of pain and tendrils of darkness erupting from your heart," Blaster muttered angrily. The group hurried down to the computer room, occasionally battling a few weak Heartless along the way. When the group entered the computer room, Tron's blank face faded as he finished looking at the information he was searching through.

"Search query complete," Tron said. "Would you like to submit another query?"

"The Dark Heart Curse," Blaster replied. "When you are done searching, send all the data you have obtained through your search, and send it to Pegasus please."

Tron's face went blank again.

"As soon as I get a hold of that Seeker, he's going to feel some pain," Riku threatened.

"You want to take on Inferno?" Blaster asked. Everyone but Merlin and Tron looked at Blaster, blankly, as if he had just insulted all their mothers.

"HE HAS A NAME?!" They shouted in unison.

"Yeah," Blaster said. "Oddly appropriate one at that."

"So, I'm going to take on Inferno," Riku said.

"He is way too powerful for us," Blaster exclaimed. "I battled him using most of my power, but I doubt he fought at half the strength he has. He could have easily wiped the floor with all of us without even breaking a sweat." Blaster paused for a second. "We need to train. And I know the perfect world to do so."

"I have finished with your query," Tron said. "Uploading to Pegasus data terminal now."

"Where are we going?" Kairi asked, looking from Sora, to Donald, to Goofy, to Blaster, then back to Sora, all of whom were grinning at each other. "HELLO?" She shouted, but everyone but Merlin was surrounded in light and ended up on the bridge of the Pegasus seconds later.

"Thank you, Tron," Blaster said, watching as Tron's face appeared on the large viewscreen at the front of the ship. "We shall return soon."

"The data you requested has been uploaded," Tron replied. "Good luck."

Tron's face disappeared from the view screen, revealing the Radiant Garden castle once again.

"Pegasus," Blaster said. "Plot a course to Olympus Coliseum."

"Destination coordinates have been received," Pegasus replied. "Engines online."

Blaster sat in his seat as the engines roared to life, and the ship began to move towards space, leaving Radiant Garden for what would be the first of many times.

(Insert Title Sequence: As the Pegasus billows through the clouds, one cloud re-forms into the roman numeral three (III) in the same design as the roman numeral two (II) in the Kingdom Hearts II title. The "III" becomes more pronounced as it moves to a clear portion of the sky, before becoming the same color as the "II" from KH II. The same grey heart from both Kingdom Hearts games appears with the title "Kingdom Hearts," and is left there as "Into the Fire" appears, drawn in red cursive, written in with red sparks. The whole title glints in the light once before the title disappears and the background fades to black.)

SPECIAL NOTE: This would constitute the official beginning, because the title sequence for the game has been revealed.

(Scenes from the next chapter.)

ON THE NEXT "INTO THE FIRE": Blaster has been cursed ("Looks a lot like the Dark Heart Curse if you ask me," Merlin said.), and his only chance to survive is scattered across the universe ("Based on the other data given, I can predict that these magical stones the article mentions have the same energy signature as the Crux Stones," Pegasus said.). Will he make it in time, or will it be too late (Replay of Blaster's first Dark Heart Curse "attack")? Tune in next week for an all new chapter of "Into the Fire." Fridays at 9/8c.

VIRTUAL JOURNAL:

BLASTBONE CLARKSON: An 18-year-old boy from Earth, he arrived here when his ship malfunctioned. He has been known to have Super-Human abilities, and a very interesting Regenerative ability which he has just revealed. What else does this "Superhuman" have that he isn't telling us?