A Storm Brewing

The Gummi soared through the darkness of space. Every once in a while it would shoot a rogue heartless, but for the most part the journey had been smooth. Inside the ship, Pete was whistling behind the steering wheel. Cloud and Auron would have told him to stop, but they were almost in awe with his piloting skills.

"Well Pete I have to admit, I didn't expect you would be such a good pilot," Auron said. Pete cringed a bit and whistled off key. He hadn't forgotten the first time he had met Auron, when he (Pete) was told that the strange man was, "The mother of all bad guys."

"I used to be a steamboat captain, and was the King's Admiral when ol' Disney Castle was first built…but then I got banished," Pete replied, "Really ain't much difference between this and a boat."

"Are we getting close yet," Cloud asked.

"Just a few minutes, that's it up ahead," Pete answered. Sure enough, Radiant Gardens was growing larger.

"So tell me Pete, why were you banished?" Auron asked, "If you don't mind my asking, of course." Pete shot him a quick look, clearly too frightened to decline. Auron seemed to notice this, "Don't believe whatever Hades told you about me. I may not be a hero, but I'm not a villain." Pete seemed to relax a little.

"Well it all started shortly after my promotion as Admiral of the King's Navy. Not a very big fleet, and I was put in charge of a bunch of dunderheads, really. That and the fact that we never really had much use for the Navy, you know? Hate to admit it, but I got jealous of the King…still am, come to think of it. Wasn't fair really, getting one upped by my old deck hand like that. I challenged the King for the throne, game of cards. He beat me fair and square."

"Was that why you were banished?" Cloud asked, "For challenging the King?"

"Nah," Pete said while deftly turning the Gummi around an asteroid, "little pipsqueak wouldn't a' kicked anyone out for something like that. Got in trouble for it though. I cheated, couple of aces up the ol' sleeve. I got banished for trying to take the kingdom over myself shortly after with the help of my crew, bunch of stupid weasels."

"Stupid weasels?" Cloud inquired, "You mean they ratted you out to the king?"

"Course not," Pete said, "They were literally stupid weasels."

"Why take over the kingdom?" Auron asked, "Did you think you could run it better?"

"HA!" Pete laughed, "I didn't think I could, I KNEW I could. And to be honest, it's just in my nature to start a little trouble every now and then. Heck, I don't think the King would have banished me if it would have just been me and the weasels. Probably would'a thrown me in jail for a while. But once I got the heartless involved, that was a different matter."

"Heartless?" Cloud asked him gravely.

"Yup. First time I ever did it. I was rallying up the weasels, see, and my speech must have filled their hearts with greed and darkness cause one by one they turned over. I found that the heartless weasels would do just about whatever I asked 'em to. Turned a few more people, town folk, and then went to the castle. I didn't realize the key blade was so deadly to Heartless, of course. Mickey made short work of them, and then he had ol' Yen Sid Banish me to the realm of Darkness. Maleficent learned of my ability to turn people into Heartless and rescued me a few years later. Been working for her ever since."

"Why though, Pete?" Cloud asked, "She doesn't appear to even like you. Why work for her?"

"She did me a huge favor, rescuing me like that, figured I ought to repay her. Not to mention she woulda turned me into raw hamburger if I declined. And heck, I was still mad at the King for banishing me like that so I figured it would be a great way to finally take over the castle. Now hush up for a minute, landing these things can be tricky sometimes." Pete swiftly went into a dive and broke the atmosphere. Pulling the Gummi level, he coasted into the hanger with relative ease. A nice, soft landing.

They exited the gummi and started walking through town. They saw the local shops run by Donald Duck's nephews, and beyond them was old Scrooge McDuck, Donald's uncle (who was looking after the boys). He gave a jump when he saw Pete.

"Well," He said angrily. The relation to Donald was uncanny as he stamped a foot down, "If it ain't Admiral Pete. When'd they let you out, you great oaf?"

"Nice to see you too Scroogie," Pete said, "I'll have you know I'm on a mission for the King himself. With these two, of course," he added pointing back at Cloud and Auron.

"Back in the good books, are yeh?" Scrooge asked him, "Didn't think that'd happen, I must admit. The King was a might upset about what yeh did all those years ago."

"Well it's kinda a big problem, and it seems I'm directly involved in one way or another," Pete replied, "They had to let me in on it. Speaking of which, gotta ask ya Scrooge, anyone in these parts got a keyblade?"

"Only person I ever saw round here with a keyblade was Sora," Scrooge answered, "But I haven't seen him in a while, to be honest."

"Well, thanks anyway," Pete said, "Suppose we better look around town then. Be a lot easier if we actually knew who we was looking for."

"I do," Cloud said, grimly "Follow me."

Pete and Auron glanced at each other quickly, and then followed. They worked their way to Merlin's house and Cloud opened the door. The blonde haired airship pilot and mechanic Cid answered the door, a cigarette in his mouth.

"Oh jeez Cloud," Cid said with a smile, "Thought you were that mad ol' wizard. He don't like it when I smoke in here. Your mission for the king over?"

"Just started," Cloud answered, "Where's Leon at? I need to ask him something."

"I think he headed up to the Bailey," Cid answered, "He's changed a little. Actually smiles once in a while, now that the town's back to the way it used to be. Could learn a few lessons from him, bud."

"Thanks Cid," Cloud said, and turned around. He stopped, looked back and said, "Be sure to tell Tifa I said hi, would you?"

"Sure will," Cid replied, "But you know what? You ought to do that yourself."

"See you later, Cid." Cloud replied. They headed towards the Bailey.

* * *

"I'm just sayin' that if the dame likes you, you oughta go with it. You'll never know if you don't give it a shot, right?"

"Pete," Cloud said calmly, "Shut up. Now." Pete became silent, but looked over at Auron and winked. Auron gave him a smirk as they rounded a corner and turned into the Bailey. There was no sign of Leon anywhere.

"Think he's further in?" Pete asked.

"Probably," Cloud said, "Might be good to split up and look for him. He's about as tall as I am, he's got brown hair, and a scar that runs down the right side of his face…" Cloud was suddenly cut off by the sound of shouting, and bangs. It was coming from the Dark Depths.

"That's probably him," Cloud said, "Let's go, it sounds like he's in trouble." They took off at a run towards the Dark Depths, but as they made it to the Great Maw, they suddenly saw what was making the commotion. Leon was being attacked by an extremely large group of heartless of all sorts, and among them were hooded figures wearing strange masks. Cloud, Auron, and Pete would have thought they were Organization 13 members, except that they knew that Sora had defeated them all, as well as Organization 13 members didn't wear masks. Leon was wielding a keyblade that looked remarkably like a gun blade.

"Suppose we oughta help him, huh?" Pete asked. As if to answer his question, his, Auron's, and Cloud's key blades all materialized. They dashed forward and joined the fray.

"About time you showed up," Leon said to Cloud as he sent heartless flying into the wall of the maw with the flat of his blade, "I've just about finished here."

"Just about finished?" Cloud said, "How many have you killed already?"

"Twice this many heartless," Leon answered, "The cloaked ones call themselves Death Eaters. They keep summoning more and more heartless, and they also know some pretty harsh spells. I've only managed to get one of them. Who're your friends?"

"Let's save introductions for later," Auron said, "We have a battle to finish." He swept his blade into the air and brought it down on a large Neoshadow, killing it instantly. The air was soon full of hearts returning to Kingdom Hearts as the four warriors made short work of their adversaries. At one point, Leon was surrounded and about to be skewered, but Pete appeared in the nick of time, a protective ball of energy surrounding him, and collided with enough of them that Leon was able to concentrate on the rest without fear. On the other side of the Maw, Cloud was swiftly battling one of the strange Death Eaters with little success. Every time he brought his sword down, the strange magician would disappear and reappear a short distance away and cast a spell towards Cloud, who would then barely have time to deflect it with his blade before countering. At one point, a second Death Eater joined their fray and sent a jet of green light towards Cloud, who didn't see it coming. But he was saved by Auron, who casted a shield around Cloud and took on the second Death Eater. Auron turned to Cloud.

"Are you ready?" Auron asked.

"Whenever you are," was Cloud's answer. They took off, each attacking identically and swiftly. One moment, they spinning, making blind sword strokes, and the next they were nearly flying towards their enemies, skewering them. After nine successive hits, their foes went down. Cloud and Auron landed, and Auron smiled.

"We'll have to come up with a name for that," he replied.

"Omni-shido?" Cloud suggested with almost a hint of a smile.

The Death Eaters apparently realized they were out matched.

"RETREAT!" One of them yelled through his mask, "The Dark Lord will hear of this, we assure you!"

"Wait!" Cloud started running towards the man, "What Dark Lord? Are you talking about Voldemort?" But the Death eater only stared at him for a moment, and then disappeared, along with all the remaining heartless and the other Death Eaters. Cloud turned to Leon.

"Leon, what happened here? Why were they attacking you?"

"No one calls me Leon anymore, now that the town has gone back to the way it was I've gone back to using my real name." Cloud raised an eyebrow.

"Which is?" he asked.

"Squall Leonhart," Squall answered, "And they appeared and attacked me about five seconds after I aquired this," he held up his key blade. "I see you all have one, so maybe you could tell me what's going on here."

They introduced each other and explained their situation to Squall, when they had finished, Squall asked, "So we're supposed to go to the other worlds and find anyone else who might have one?"

"That's right," Pete said, "And I suppose after we gather 'em all up we're gonna have to take on this Voldy-more guy."

"It's Voldemort," Auron corrected him, "And yes we will."

"Why isn't Sora with you, and his friend? I thought they would be front and center for this mission." Squall asked.

"They've got their own project," Cloud answered, "I'm not sure how long it will take them, but there's a good chance they, and the King, will join us before the end."

"We should probably get movin'," Pete said, "If those guys attacked you that fast, who knows how long we got before the next guy gets attacked."

"Pete's right," Squall said, "Let's hurry." They headed back into town.

* * *

OtO: The name of this chapter is a play on Cloud and Squall. I hope you got it, now that the chapter's over. More to come soon.