A/N- Happy reading!

Heart

Chapter 7: Ultimatum

Raven allowed a smile to creep onto her face as she blasted down the Heartless. They were going down very easily now, and she could see her teammates again amongst the dispersing crowd. They were gaining the upper hand; they were going to win.

She raised her hand in the air, summoning the white magic to her fingertips, but the magic fizzled and stopped when a hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her upwards into the air. Raven glanced backward and gasped. The hand on Raven's wrist pulled her arm and twisted it hard behind her back.

"Maleficent!" Raven heard Sora's voice ringing across the area. Raven tried to rearrange her face from its current fear into an expression of defiance, mostly for her team's benefit.

"If you come any closer, I'll kill her." Raven felt the rounded top of Maleficent's staff poke into her back and she did her best not to squirm. She knew how she could get out of Maleficent's grasp, but if the woman's instincts and reflexes were quick, it would only have a worse outcome with that staff pressed so hard against her.

"You wouldn't do that!" Sora called, still crouched in a defensive stance. "You need her, you won't kill her." He gripped his Keyblade tighter, pleased to see that the other titans had taken his hint and were standing down.

Maleficent chuckled dryly. "Yes, you are quite right. However, I will kill her in time, and I hope that the loss will be something devastating. I intend to leave you all to wallow in it." Suddenly Raven felt a pain in the back of her head, and she moaned, fighting to keep her eyes open. There was a purple smoke around them now, and she coughed ferociously, hardly fighting the arm that was pulling her away from the other titans. Finally, she couldn't fight back any longer, not when her body felt so weak, and her vision slunk away.

From all the purple smoke, the titans couldn't see Raven at all, and they fought their way through it until it became apparent that she was no longer there. Robin let out a noise of frustration and slammed his bo staff against the ground in an act of suppressed anger. Starfire walked to him and laid a calming hand on his shoulder.

"We will get her back. I promise you."

Robin sighed. "I sure hope so, Star. I sure hope so."

"Don't worry, I think I know where Maleficent went," Sora said with a grin, "Follow me." Without waiting for a response, Sora ran ahead, the other titans following close behind.

He led them to the outside of a bank that had recently been slated for demolition by the city, because apparently the structure was so old that it was likely to collapse.

"Raven's in a bank?" Beast Boy asked dubiously.

Sora chuckled. "Nah, just come on." He walked inside and the others followed, stopping in front of a curiously shaped vault. It was square like all the others in the room, but much larger, and dominated by a large key-shaped hole. Sora held his Keyblade up, aiming it at the keyhole, and a yellow light erupted from behind it. The vault swung open, revealing a set of stone steps.

"Awesome," Beast Boy breathed. Robin couldn't help but crack a smile.

"Now let's go get her back."

She couldn't feel anything restricting her body, but when she tried to rise her head spun violently and she found that her limbs felt so heavy that she couldn't even lift them. Raven moaned softly as her head rested back against the rectangular platform.

"Are you comfortable, my dear?" Raven stiffened as Maleficent approached.

"Let me go," Raven hissed.

Maleficent laughed. "Dear child, why would I go to such lengths to secure you only to then release you?"

"My friends will be here soon. They'll defeat you," Raven said. Maleficent grinned, bringing her face so that it was only inches away from Raven's. Raven did her best not to wince.

"That's what I hope, dear. I've been expecting them." Maleficent pulled her head away and walked towards the other side of the room.

Raven was concerned with how prepared Maleficent was for an attack. Maleficent needed to use her, but there was some kind of business that she need to conduct with Sora or the other titans. It was worrisome. Raven tried to rise again, but her headache only increased. This invisible force that was pressing her down was restricting her power, and she could feel her power welling up inside of her, pushing and fighting to get out. She moaned again, but tried to repress it now that she knew Maleficent was in the room. She'd never felt her powers held back in this way, and it was more than painful.

"The fools are taking too long. It seems I'll have to begin without them, hmm?"

Raven was about to reply, but suddenly the words couldn't come forward because of the intense pain that wracked through her body. It felt like her heart was straining under the pressure, fighting intensely to rip itself from her chest, and suddenly she found it hard to breathe. Her teeth were gritted tightly so Maleficent couldn't get the pleasure of hearing her scream, but with every second the scream built up bigger in her throat, too big to swallow.

Suddenly there was a crash and the pain in her body shuddered and jerked to a stop. Raven fought to get her breath back as she heard Robin's voice ring out. Just hearing his voice made her relax.

"Give us Raven, now." Raven hadn't heard Robin's voice sound this hard in a long time.

"I can't do that, silly boy. We need her for the key."

"What?" Sora yelled out, "We thought you were going to make her into a Heartless."

She smiled. "All in good time, she will form the perfect Nobody. But never a Heartless. And we need her heart to open the key."

"The key?" Robin asked.

"The key to the universe. To unleashing the strongest of evils!" Maleficent rose her hands in the air, a grin splitting across her face.

"But she's not a princess of pure heart! She can't be! Her heart is full of darkness," Sora exclaimed, "It doesn't make any sense."

"That's where you're wrong. The darkness in her soul was influenced only by the demonic presence of her father. When she exorcised this demon, her soul was proven to be pure. As you know, the princesses of pure heart are those who are born without any darkness in their souls. And besides that initial blemish, she is one of them."

"Well, you're not allowed to have her," Robin said.

"I'm sorry, but you don't have much of a choice."

"Titans, GO!" The titans rushed forward to attack, but froze when a yellow light washed over the room. When their vision cleared, in Maleficent's place stood a large black dragon, scales flashing in the light. The shock was obvious on all of their faces, and Robin was the first to snap out of his surprise.

"Titans, formation seven! Go!"

The resolve returning to their expressions, the titans rushed forward with Sora and his party to take Maleficent on.

Starfire pulled Cyborg up above Maleficent, and he shot his cannon down at her. Maleficent swiped her claw at them and Starfire lost her grip on Cyborg, and he crashed to the ground. Starfire had no time to catch him, still involved with dodging Maleficent's claws. A blast of green fire erupted from Maleficent's mouth, and Starfire, distracted, fell from the air. Robin caught her just before she hit the ground, wincing when he saw some dark burns on her bright skin. He laid her down gently, and turned back towards Maleficent. He was shocked to see Beast Boy, Donald, and Goofy already sprawled on the ground. Then he noticed Raven, still as stone on the platform, and his jaw tensed. He ran towards Sora, the last member of his team still standing.

They nodded at one another. They both could feel the pressure, but they'd never admit it to each other. Robin threw a freeze disc at Maleficent, and her feet were glued to the floor. Sora and Robin looked at one another, hardly able to contain their excitement. And then the glassy ice around her feet shattered, and her fire shot out directly towards where Robin was standing. The boy wonder fell forward, groaning. His head was buzzing and as much as he wanted to stand, to fight back, to save his friend, he knew that he couldn't do it.

Sora looked back at Robin and bit his lip. Sora looked back at Maleficent, who was being surprisingly still.

"Maleficent, you only need seven princesses of pure heart. I thought that with Ariel, you had all of them."

He was surprised when the dragon's scales slowly melted and faded into a black and purple mist, clinging back to Maleficent's human form as her robes.

"That silly fishgirl was not a princess of pure heart."

"She wasn't?"

"However, we already have eight princesses with your friend here included. We only need seven."

"I don't understand," Sora said, "Who else did you capture?"

"You have a choice, Sora. Two choices."

And then he saw the other platform, set so far back in the room that he hadn't even noticed it before. He could see the white shoes and the red hair, and his breath caught hard in his throat.

"Kairi…"

"Make the right decision."

A/N- I made this longer than usual to make up for the ridiculous amount of time that's passed since updates. I apologize for that. Once again, PM me if you're only knowledgeable of one fandom and you don't understand anything.