I followed Rachel, but true to her word she led us to the other side of the blocks and into the alley behind the hotel.
We caught up to Sora just as he was headed underground to have a meeting with some people. I met several people including: Leon, Cloud, Yuffie, Cid, Aerith and Merlin.
"We need to get out there and fight back against the heartless before they overrun that world!" Leon stated, being extremely ominous.
"Well yeah," Sora muttered.
"That's our home Sora!"
"Okay, okay." Sora held up his hands in defense. "So we have to go back?"
"I don't like ye facin' all that danger," Sid muttered. Rachel rolled her eyes and I shifted uncomfortably. "The old routes you took are full of heartless. It'll be incredibly dangerous."
"What do we do about it?" Goofy asked.
"If ye can't get through, go around," Sid said simply, "If you go into the cavern and retrieve the gummie I hid in the wall there I'll install it in your ship. Heh, never thought a kid woulda been the one to use it."
"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" Sora yelled, his fist clenched in front of him.
"Calm down spiky," Rachel laughed, he turned to face her.
"You be quiet, you…. You figment of darkness!" He said. Rachel's eyes didn't even flash, instead she raised an eyebrow and smirked. Sora backed up. "Right."
"Alrighty!" I jumped in, "Rachel lets get going. You said you know the way to the end so we'll go to Hollow Bastion before Sora gets there and clear out some of the heartless."
"Sounds like a plan," Nessa jumped in, she grabbed Rachel's arm and dragged her away. "We'll see you later Sora!" Sora waved goodbye to us and then started to run into the back of the cave to retrieve Cid's gummie block.
We boarded our ship and Nessa flipped on the warp drive switch while I read the navigation map and worked in the coordinates for Hollow Bastion.
"Fasten your seatbelts please!" I shouted back into the cabin where I knew Rachel would be up and around checking out all the cupboards again. I heard her feet moving about. "That means you too Rachel!" I shouted back. I heard her grumble but flop down in a seat and put on her seatbelt. "Taking off in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" I hit the button and the ship launched into the air. "I love this thing." I said to Nessa. She smiled.
We flew through space and heartless zoomed around us everywhere though for some reason they didn't attack the ship. They avoided it. I saw Rachel get up in the mirror and sit by the window, her hands moving like she was pulling the heartless away from our ship. I tugged on Nessa's sleeve, she just nodded and smiled.
"I knew she would be fine," Nessa mumbled. I raised my eyebrows but she didn't say anything else.
Landing in Hollow Bastion was simple enough. The heartless actually moved away from the ship, creating a circle around it. We didn't bother with the garage we just landed at the front gates.
"So, uh, where is the best place to start removing heartless?" Nessa asked.
"Why do we have to go around killing them if we have Miss Darkness here who can control them?" I asked, looking at Rachel who was facing a rather large dragon heartless and they just stared at each other.
"RACHEL!" Nessa yelled. She spun around.
"Hm?"
"What are you doing?"
"Talking to it."
"How do you talk to it?"
"I don't know. They just know what I'm thinking and I know what they're thinking," She answered, "it's handy."
"Well what is it saying?"
"It's saying they were released by Ansem right before Sora released Kairi's heart and now they are guarding the gate to get to the heart of the world."
"So if they're supposed to be guarding it, why are they out here?" She shrugged, turned to face the heartless and studied the heartless again.
"Because there is someone else in there they don't know and everyone else, besides me, is gone."
"Well that makes a lot of sense!" I grumbled.
"Who is the person inside?" Nessa asked. A pause.
"A person in a black cloak, they're standing in the chamber where you destroyed Maleficent."
"Let's go! I took off into the crowd of heartless that parted out of my way. Rachel and Nessa followed closely behind me and I had the sneaky suspicion the heartless were following Rachel.
The chamber where we killed Maleficent looked incredibly empty. The high walls stretched up into a black ceiling and with only Nessa next to me I felt small. I looked over my shoulder, Rachel was standing in the doorway with the heartless. She didn't want to walk into the room any further, she almost vomited at the entrance, something was wrong.
Nessa felt nauseous too, but not nearly as bad as Rachel. She grabbed my arm to keep me leading her forward. I felt fine, in fact I had never felt better than the time we had entered this room. It emitted a gray that I felt comfortable in.
"Uh guys!" Rachel yelled from the back of the room. We turned to face Rachel she had a wall of heartless in front of her, they stood protectively against the white, liquid figures that faced her. "TURN AROUND!" She screamed.
We turned quickly but we were not expecting the tall cloaked figure that was before us. Towering above us the man inside the cloak let out a laugh that made me stand up a little straighter and stare into the blackness of that cloak. Nessa's head turned to the side and she vomited.
Rachel made a hiss of disgust and the loud ping of her sword as it came into her hands echoed around the room. I heard her push through the lines of heartless and take some of the white creatures out. Then she was up beside me.
The man took a step back.
"Finally, the three who wield the powers of life," He inclined his head towards us in a mock bow. "It's an honor." Rachel swallowed hard. He let out a laugh again.
"Who are you?" I asked, seeming to be the only one who could talk.
"Not a who, but what. As for a name, it is of no importance," He said. His voice was deep and familiar. Like I had heard it before in a dream. I was drawn to it.
"Well then what are you?" Rachel asked.
"Nothing. The gray screen between the powers of light and dark." The heartless and the white creatures lined the room, facing each other in a stand off, waiting for one command. "And one of you is also nothing, but everything." Nessa's shield was growing brighter and brighter as the tension in the room rose. Rachel and I stood next to each other, tense and waiting. "It is not her, the one with the control of the light. See how it glimmers and denies me any comfort from it," He said, sounding deeply upset, "and do you feel the darkness, girl of dark? Do you feel how it resists to encase me in its splendor and power?"
Rachel stayed silent she stared up at him and I copied her blank expression. She was trying to keep us together. By not saying who controlled the darkness she left him guessing who he was looking for.
"Soon, when the key arrives and seals it is then I shall know who is the nothing and who is the dark. Until then," The ground became unsteady and a portal opened beneath our feet. We dropped into the darkness.