Author's note: Here's an update to this story, fellow readers.
I do not own Kingdom Hearts or the Mummy. Kingdom Hearts belongs to both Square Enix and Disney, while the Mummy belongs to Universal Studios.
Chapter 1: Strange Darkness.
As soon as he left Sora's group to handle Marluxia to rescue Namine, Axel decided that he no longer had any desires to be in this place, and since Castle Oblivion is like a giant maze, he couldn't find either the two 'guests' who came here earlier, or even what the Superior was looking for. The next thing to do was to make his report, report it to Saix, and then he can finally go home. On the other hand, he still couldn't find what he was looking for and decided to call it a day.
Hopefully he wouldn't be back here anytime soon.
He was walking through the halls which, though it didn't seem like it, were a total wreck and a hellva mess done by Sora and his friends.
"All righty then. Guess I'd better get my report together." Axel grumbled, "Man, what a pain." as he looked around the mess and damaged parts.
"Castle Oblivion...was completely destroyed by the Keyblade wielder. As for the Organization...I was the only survivor." Axel practiced his lines to write his report, though he could hear the commotion above him and the battle that was going on., including Goofy's screams, 'Gawrsh! Ah-hyuck!"
"Or soon will be." Axel muttered to himself.
Sighing and deciding to make sure that he would be the only one, Axel muttered to himself, "Man, I wanna get back and have some ice cream." before wondering if Roxas would still be at the Clock Tower after each of his own missions.
Just then he felt a pressence behind him. A dark pressence. It was so strong that he could smell it. As being one to have the power of darkness, Axel could detect at least a brief of someone else's darkness who weren't using black coats. His skills aren't as good as the late Zexion's, but the scent behind him...it was reeking and he didn't like it, and at this moment, he didn't need a heart to like it or not.
"Who's there?" Axel demanded as he whipped around to see who was behind him. He tensed a little as the figure before him was another person. His first thoughts were either Riku or the Replica, before realising that wasn't the case. The figure, obviously a boy in his late or mid teens, his outfit was similiar to the replica's, except it was red and black, and his head...
It looked like a bit of an older Sora's but black, and his eyes...where had he seen them before? Whatever it was, Axel could sense powerful darkness and he immediately could tell that this kid meant trouble.
"Who're you?" Axel asked again.
"Me?" The boy smirked. "I'm just a little ghost from this castle's past."
Before Axel could ask anymore questions, the boy held out his hand and a gust of wind and darkness bursted out, forcing the red-headed nobody only to shield himself with his arms while struggling against the winds, while behind him a corridor of darkness opening him that led to who knows where.
"W-what are you-!?" Axel gasped sharply as the boy suddenly launched forward and punched him in the stomach, which forced him to lose his footing and before long the redhaired man was swallowed up into the portal yelling as it closed with him inside.
The boy smirked evilly before opening another corridor of darkness behind him as he said to himself, "This'll give the master a bit of a heads up. I'd be changing the future, but so what?" before vanishing into the darkness himself.
It's been an hour since Riku and Mickey had met the travellers in a new they were in right now. Despite the risks of Riku getting detected by the Nobodies, and Mickey getting into trouble, the sun was so hot that wearing the coats was making them sweat and nearly dehydrate. So in desperate measures, both were given back-backs by Rick to put their coats in after taking them off to reveal their travelling clothes.
The two of them had decided to stick around since both had a feeling that whatever it was here in this ruins of the City of the Dead was very dangerous and would only warn Rick, Evelyn, Jonathan and the Warden if needed. Both of them helped to clean the mirrors since they had nothing else to do.
"Phew!" Mickey panted as he wiped heat sweat from his forhead, before trying to fan himself with his hand as he couldn't help but grumble, "Gosh, sure is hot around here."
"What would I give to swim at the beach back at home." Riku agreed. The heat was getting to him too, and the thought of cooling off always reminded him of the beach back on Destiny Islands, which also gave him memories of hanging out with Sora and Kairi.
When he had entered the illusion of his home back at Castle Oblivion, even though it was fake, Riku had never thought he'd miss the salty breeze of the winds and the smell of the sea air, the seagulls flying freely.
"You come from the seaside?" Rick couldn't help but have overheard, once he finished making sure that the rope was tight enough so that no one would be hurting themselves if the rope was loose.
"Yeah, I grew up on the islands." Riku replied with a nod.
"Like Fiji or something like that?"
While Riku didn't know where Fiji was, it sounded like his home, so he just shrugged with a nod. Before long he and everyone else began to carefully climb down the rope, down into the ground and into a dusty, dark, old and creepy ruined room. Instantly, Riku felt a mental flinch. The scene of the powerful darkness was stronger here, meaning that it was very close.
"Wow...sure is a creepy place." Mickey thought.
"Do you realise we are standing inside a room no one's entered in over 3,000 years?" Evy muttered with a smile, looking around.
"Whoo! What is that god-awful stench?" He asked as he panted and let go of the rope, shaking his hands to get rid of the rope burns. Jonathan then sniffed as the Warden climbed down the rope next to him, and realised that the smell came from the stumpy man.
"Oh." Jonathan said.
Evy then went over to one of the mirrors, dusting away the cobwebs and dust, turning to the sunlight above, saying, "And then there was light." and true to her word, the sun reflected off of the mirror and hit the others, lighting the room like a light off the switch.
"Wow!" Mickey said, amazed. "That's a neat trick!"
"I'll say. That's pretty cool." Riku thought, grinning. It made him mentally wish the Realm of Darkness had a neat trick like this. Then again, that realm had no sun, so it would've been useless.
"Oh my god." Evy gapped, stunned as she gazed around the room now that it was filled with light, which was added by the flaming torches. "It's the Sah-netjer!"
"Sah-what?" Riku blinked, confused on the word.
"A Preparation Room." Evy continued.
"Preparation for what?" Rick asked, as Jonathan lit another torch from his own.
"Mummies, my friends." Jonathan added, "This is were they made the mummies."
While Riku was dumbfounded by this, Mickey shuddered all of the sudden and from what the teen could see, the king looked actually spooked and freaked out, and was quivering as he asked shakily, "M-mummies? Right here?"
Realising that Mummies are in fact real, since Riku was never a believer in them until now, he kept a close watch around the area as he and everyone else followed Rick who, tensed at the mention of Mummies, pulled out a gun, just in case something dangerous attacked. No wonder Riku felt uneasy since coming here. If there were Mummies here, than there must be one that was evil and powerful, which meant it had a strong scent of darkness, and if the place was cursed, then Heartless would no doubt jump out and attack.
Still, Riku glanced at Mickey and whispered, "No offense, but you're scared of Mummies?"
"Well, sorta." Mickey admitted with a shrug, before whispering so that the others wouldn't hear them, "Heartless and other kinds of monsters I can handle, and other villians even though they are scary, but mummies and ghosts are different stories. They tend to jump outta nowhere and scare everybody."
"That's true." Riku chuckled. "Halloween Town had plently of ghosts all over the place."
The two then fell silent as they followed the others as they crept into the dark tunnel, the torches as their only source of light, ready for anything and everything to happen. Suddenly, they all heard a loud skittering travel through the air above them and all whirled around trying to find what was making the noise, before it fell silent again. Riku nearly summoned his Soul Eater and Mickey had been inches close in summoning his Keyblade. Thankfully both managed to hold their weapons off.
"What was that?" Jonathan asked.
"Sounds like...bugs." Rick replied.
Riku thought differently, though. To him and Mickey, it sounded similiar to Heartless, which meant that they were close. Not only that, when they eventually arrived in a another large room, and in front of them, was the legs of a large statue that was same as the surface. He remembered that Evy mentioned that the statue, Anubis, she called it, had it's legs buried underground, where the secret compartment containing the Book of Amun-Ra(whatever that was) was held.
"A-are you sure this place is safe?" Mickey asked, looking around nervously.
"Definately not." Rick answered.
'Yeah, I can smell very foul darkness here. It's worse than Ansem.' Riku thought to himself.
"The secret compartment should be hidden somewhere inside here." Evy said as they all moved closer. Suddenly, there was another sound, a distant wind and roar that made him all whip around and look again, but found nothing. Rick, Jonathan, and the Warden grew out guns, while Riku and Mickey both kept Evy close since they couldn't risk in summoning their weapons just yet. The moaning was getting closer as they all backed up to the wall of the statue, all preparing to take care of whatever's on the other side.
They all jumped out and were face to face with fifteen other men who also had their weapons out, except for one man in a red fez(or vez), all of them giving out yells, before all sighed in relief as they lowered their weapons. Everyone all sighed in relief.
"You scared the bejeuses out of us, O'Connell." One of the men, named Handerson, said in relief, as he and the others pulled back their guns.
"Likewise." Rick replied with a grin.
After a short pause, Mickey then said politely, "Well, hah, have a nice day fellas. We were just um-"
"Push off!" The man, in the red fez who was named Allen, told Mickey, "This is our dig site."
"That's not nice!" Mickey suddenly said, glaring. Immediately, the men with guns all raised at each other, leaving Riku, Mickey and Evy out of it.
"This here's our statue, friend." Another man named Daniels said.
"I don't see your name written on it...pal." Rick stated.
"Yes, well, there's only six of you, and fifteen of me." A whimpy, Arabain looking man named Beni replied, "Your odds are not looking great, O'Connell."
Rick turned his gun to Beni's face, and muttered, "I've had worse."
"So have we." Riku decided to add in.
"Riku..." Mickey whispered a bit warningly. He didn't want his friend to get involved in this.
"Yeah, me too." Jonathan agreed, causing Rick and Riku to look at him, dumbfounded, and he nodded at them with an expression that he did have worse, though it was rather unbelievable.
"Oh for goodness sakes," Evy stepped in, having enough of this. "Let's be nice, children. If we're going to play together, we must learn to share."
She then locked eyes with Rick and said, "There are other places to dig." while he gave the rivals an unfriendly smile and lowered his gun, as did the others who had guns.
Riku and Mickey both glanced at each other before sighing, wondering on how women always tend to take matters in their own hands. Then again, girls are always unpredictable and both of them should know, because they both hanged out with girls as well as other guys.
"Girls." Mickey rolled his eyes. It brought back some memories of when he couldn't understand Minnie sometimes.
"Girls." Riku agreed, thinking back of when Kairi would do something neither he or Sora would understand. Selphie too.
"Girls." Handerson grumbled, though he was heard and Evy gave him a fumed glare which made him nearly pass out.
A little while later, Riku and the others went a floor lower down and began digging through the ceiling which, according to Evy, they were underneath the statue and hoped to reach the compartment to get the book before their rivals did. But that's not what Riku was thinking they would find.
Something was within the ceiling. Something evil with darkness.
After a while, they took a break and Jonathan opted to play golf. The Warden had wandered off somewhere, and Mickey and Riku both hoped that nothing would happen. But they knew that if they went after him, they would easily get lost.
Evy was telling them and Rick about a few details on how mummies were made from dead people, which Mickey instantly knew that he was going to be having nightmares that were a lot worse than his horrible dreams of being devoured within the Realm of Darkness.
"So let me get this straight." Rick began uneasily, "They ripped out your guts and place them inside jars?"
"And they take our your heart as well." Evy continued.
"That's an information I didn't want to know." Riku cringed as he tried to shake away memories of when he had to fight to keep his heart from being controlled by Ansem, which he hissed softly as the pain of darkness hit him again, but he did his best to hide it.
'It's so terrible to take our people's hearts like that.' Mickey thought to himself. He knew that having a heart devoured by the Heartless was horrible enough, and he had certain memories of his previous adventures he didn't want to think about, before he became a Keyblade wielder.
To their dismay, Evy continued as though she was excited to reveal this other information, "Oh, and you know how they took out your brains?"
"Evy, I don't think we need to know this." Jonathan said as he looked as his sister.
"I certainly don't." Mickey agreed.
She ignored the two and concluded while mimicking in demostration, "They'd take sharp red-hot poker, stick up your nose, scramble things about a bit, and rip it all out through your nostrils."
Riku, Mickey and Rick all gently held their own noses in sympathy while becoming pale at the very thought and images that entered their minds. "That's awful." Mickey muttered.
"And painful." Riku agreed.
"It's called mummification. You'll be dead when they do this." Evy told them.
"That's it." Riku groaned, "I'm gonna be having nightmares for the rest of my life."
'That's worse than the nightmare I had of a mad scientest trying to use me and Pluto for experiments.' Mickey thought to himself, shuddering as though he was feeling cold.
"For the record," Rick spoke up to Jonathan, "If I don't make it outta here, don't put me down for mummification."
"Likewise." Jonathan replied, having the same thought as the rest of them. He then took another swing, and seconds later, for some strange reason, the force from it caused a large object to fall and crash down before them. Everyone's eyes widened in dumbfoundment, and Jonathan slowly turned around in a hint of embarrassment at what just happened.
Mickey coughed at the dust as it cleared, before asking, "Holy cow...is that a coffin?"
"Darkness...supreme darkness." The voice in Riku's head spoke again, and the teen had to shut his eyes tightly, before returning his gaze to the coffin that fell through the roof and realization hit him hard. So this is where the darkness was coming from.
But how? Dead people don't produce darkness...do they?
"Buried at the...base of Anubis." Evy realised. Wondering who it was, she then thought, while feeling rather uneasy herself, "He must've been someone with great importance...or he did something very naughty."
Mickey stepped cautionly closer, as he said, "I don't think naughty is the right word for this fella. I'm not sure why, but I gotta a feelin' that he did something...so bad that he was, um..."
"Evil." Riku concluded in agreement. "I don't like this one bit. Maybe it's best this guy is left alone."
"Oh for goodness sakes." Evy shook her head. "How can someone dead be any problems now?"
Oh if only she knew what they were in for.
Meanwhile, in one of the dark halls within the chambers, Axel had just been spat out of the corridor of darkness that kid in the red and black outfit, the Ansem/Riku wanna be, had shoved him into. Having landed on his back, he ended up hitting his head against the solid stone wall and groaned as the corridor closed.
"Ow..." Axel grunted, rubbing his sore head. "Okay, whoever that kid was, he's definately just as dangerous as Riku."
Pulling himself up and standing while groaning, Axel looked around and frowned. Wherever this place was, he didn't like it one bit. The corridor was so dark, though he could make out the stone walls and traces of aging cobwebs almost all over the place. Fortunately for him, being the flurry of dancing flames, and having the power over fire, Axel lit up a small flame in his hand to act as a torch and it lit up the room slightly, though it did give him a clearer view on where he was.
"Never heard of this world before." The redhead thought, and he knew that he was in another world. Suddenly he sensed something furrowed his eyes. There were two scents of darkness around here...
However, one of them was somehow blocking the other, which made it difficult to figure out what or whoever else here was. He should get out of here and head back, otherwise he'd be in trouble.
But when Axel attempted to summon a corridor himself, instead he hissed suddenly instead of the dark portal seeping out as he expected, a jolt of electricity shocked his hand instead, causing him to lose focus and nearly turn out his source of light. Shocked(no puns intended), he tried again, but was met with the same result.
"You're not going anywhere until the threat of this world is cleared up." A familiar voice spoke behind him.
When Axel turned to look, he glared as the same boy back at Castle Oblivion was there. Realising what just happened, the redhead demanded, "What'd you do, kid?"
"Oh, I just blocked out the exit of this world." The boy shrugged. "So meaning, no one comes in, and no one goes out, until this world's darkness is defeated."
"Oh, and you're suggesting that I handle it or just disappear here?" Axel said in sarcasm. "Sorry, kid. But I'm not hangin' around with some creep in a place like this. If I didn't know any better, I'd be going up against mummies or something."
The boy chuckled, before saying, "You're not the only one stuck here. There's another who had just returned from the darkness, because I can sense him. Not that either of you or anyone else would be leaving here alive."
Axel didn't like what he was hearing, and immediately he gasped in shock when he realised what this kid was talking about. The only other person that had escaped from darkness, other than King Mickey, was Riku. But how...
"See you later." The boy smirked as he disappeared into darkness.
"Hey!" Axel shouted as he rushed over to stop the boy, but was too late. Grunting in frustration, he sighed before looking around. If Riku was here...then something was wrong within this world.
Suddenly a scream was heard behind him, and when Axel turned around just as the Warden came from another tunnel, holding his head as he then ran into the direction into another tunnel as his screams continued.
Despite the sight being weird, Axel frowned again. It wasn't normal for people to hold their heads screaming like that.
This world must be very dangerous. But then...where were the Heartless?
A/N: I'm not mentioning Vanitas's name until later on because he is very mysterious. Everyone else were obvious. I'm hoping to get fighting scenes next in the next chapter, so please look forward to it.