Rhiannon: So... I had this plan. Next week is my birthday and two days afterward I have this weird surgery on my mouth. The plan had been to updates as much as possible but ah... well... it kinda fell short of how much I wanted to post, but oh well. I might force myself to post at least once or twice next week...
Chapter 18—The Freeshooter
Leon stood beside Riku as the waited for the Huns to hit the crest. He shielded his eyes and watched, eyes carefully calculating their odds. Their very grime odds. Mulan walked passed him with a smile.
"Be prepared to run, the advance troops have already been sent back to the village." She smiled at him.
"What the hell?" They all watched as she ran up the mountain with only an explosive in her hand, she stopped carefully angling it. "She's smarter then she looks." He stated grudgingly.
"I'd say." Riku murmured.
They stood by watching idly, when she lifted it up and slammed it into the ground and fired. A large arching spark of dynamite hit the large snow covered rock. She'd started an avalanche. Leon ushered them back behind the rock pass and grabbed Mulan as she came running past. She smiled at the ruefully.
"That should take out most of his advance troops."
"I'd say." Sora whistled as he looked at the snow still flying over their heads.
"I have urgent news." A soldier came running up to them, the seal of the Emperor on his letter.
"What is this?" Shang opened it quickly. "This isn't good. Mulan, take them and go to the Imperial Palace. I'll take care of what's left of the Huns."
"Are you sure that is wise?"
"A man with strange creatures at his disposal is on the march toward the Imperial Palace. They need you."
"We'll go." Leon offered their services. "The people we're looking for aren't here anyways."
"Fine… I will take them to the Imperial Palace." Mulan bowed to Shang and then placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed tightly. "We will see each other again."
"I know." His smile was uneasy but he watched them go with a light heart.
Xigbar walked along the old Chinese roads towards the Imperial Palace finding nothing in the slightest bit challenging. His contacts had told him that the keyblade master was on this humble rock but so far he'd found nothing to keep him amused. Hell, even the nobodies that he were employing weren't being given much of a challenge. Of course, the keyblade master was probably distracted by the lovely Heartless that Shang Yu had made. The Emperor though, was supposedly very noble and gracious, turning him into a Heartless was going to be a bit of a challenge but he was up to it.
He pushed open the large doors that led to the courtyard and made his grand entrance sending his nobodies out ahead of him to do battle with the palace guards. He leaned against the wall and watched almost contentedly when a whirl of darkness appeared beside him and Zexion walked out.
"Seems like you're having fun." He murmured quietly.
"Here to actually fight for once?" Xigbar asked as he assessed the battlefield.
"I wanted to see what the keyblade master looked like for myself." He gave him a thin smile. "This poses the perfect opportunity to lead them to Castle Oblivion."
"If I don't win the battle. Adding him to Kingdom Hearts would be… profitable at this point." He gave the younger nobody a thin smile. "Then again, you prefer your schemes to actual battle. Why don't you go and mess with Marluxia's head?"
"Maybe I will." He gave off a secretive smile. "We're counting on you Xigbar."
It was nearing nightfall when they finally made it to the Imperial Palace. The Emperor and his best warriors had been blockaded inside the throne room, waiting for what seemed like the inevitable. Mulan stared in something akin to horror after the pushed open the place gates to see the destruction that had run rampant.
"Well… I'd say that Xigbar is having fun." Demyx commented as he looked around.
"How do you know which one it is?" Sora asked wide-eyed.
"We each have a type of nobodies that we control. I control the Dancers, he controls the snipers." He waved his hand out towards them. "If you allow me to, I can distract the lesser nobodies and we can actually do what we came here to do."
"Go for it." Sora stated in relief as Dancer Nobodies descended on the Sharpshooters throwing them all into mass amounts of confusion. They crossed the courtyard easily to find a figure in a black cloak watching them menacingly with a dark eye.
He threw off his hood to reveal black hair streaked with silver and a scarred face. He wore an eye patch over his right eye and Sora hissed. This was probably a well trained warrior, someone who'd endured much.
"I hadn't figured that you would betray us Demyx… or wait, I remember now. You got caught." His smile was predatory and his laughter harsh.
"Me? Captured?" The nobody laughed back at his former comrade. "I chose the winning side." It wasn't a complete lie, if given the choice, Demyx was not going back to the Organization.
"Winning side? I think you've ran into a bit of confusion. Allow me to rectify that." He lifted up his specially modified guns.
"He has the power of space." Demyx warned before they were pushed into separate arenas. The Trinity together and Demyx and Leon together.
"So… which one of you is the keyblade master?" He asked as he looked over the three of them. "It's one of you."
"It's me." Riku murmured stepping forward lifting the Way to the Dawn and glaring at him angrily.
"Bullshit." He looked the silver haired teen over. "Though your thoughtfulness is commendable."
"It's called 'having a heart.'" Riku stated lifting his blade higher before he leapt forward.
Xigbar disappeared right before his eyes and then it dawned on him. Xigbar has the power of space. He appeared in the cage that Leon and Demyx were currently residing in. He looked back and forth between the two of them
"What is your name boy?" He looked Leon over.
"Squall Leon Loire." He stated firmly, leveling his gunblade.
"Ah, the guide." He smiled at him rather angrily. "Your father gave me this scar and missing eye."
"He was a good guide." He shrugged.
"Laguna was a guide!" Demyx asked wide-eyed.
"Well… yeah." Xigbar looked at him. "Still not very bright. I'll have fun killing your charges in front of you. I think that's a suitable payback."
"I think they're stronger then you think." He swung his blade at Xigbar but the powerful nobody simply disappeared again.
"You can't hold us forever. You're power will dissipate."
"I could be long gone by that time… now couldn't I?"
"Still angry about the fact that Axel is more powerful then you?" Demyx laughed. "I still have connections. I know he went up against Ansem and lived."
"He didn't kill them." Xigbar pointed out.
"Neither did you. Saïx did and you barely escaped with your life. And the only reason Saïx won was because there was enough moonlight to make him neigh invincible." Xigbar appeared leaning against the wall of the castle, glaring at Demyx, wondering how the musician nobody had figured this out.
"I should kill you."
"Well, if we're going to fight can we do it sometime this century!" Sora asked, annoyance filling the usually happy boy's countenance.
"Aren't you a feisty one?" He smiled predatory. "This will be fun."
Kairi threw her keyblade the minute that Xigbar appeared, catching him unaware in the back. He jumped and turned and shot at her, catching her in the arm. She went down hard gasping in pain. Sora growled and went running forward but was forced to roll out of the way of a round of laser bullets.
"This isn't going to be easy." Riku muttered looking over where Leon and Demyx stood watching.
"No shit!" Kairi growled, holding her injured arm before running for her keyblade and picking up. She pulled a potion and poured it over the wound.
"Sweetie… maybe you should put that weapon down. You might hurt yourself." The sharpshooter nobody laughed.
Sora nodded to Riku. The two came running at Xigbar. Kairi lifted her arms, a spell coming to mind that Yuffie had taught her.
"Protect!" It didn't do as well as she'd hoped. But the bullets had been weakened for now. Not stopping the boys as they ran forward. Riku took a hard hit and went down and Sora jumped over him, knocking one of the guns out of the nobody's hand.
"Score one for us!" Demyx cried punching an energetic fist into the air.
"It's not over yet fool." Xigbar stood up and looked down almost mournfully at his broken wrist.
Sora knelt down next to Riku. "I'm all right." He pushed Sora into a standing position, holding a hand over a long cut in his side. "Focus on him, not me."
"Riku." Sora whispered but turned and faced the nobody. "This isn't going to end well for you."
"Isn't it? You're the only one not painful injured." Xigbar smiled. "Though you all are quite challenging."
"I'll show you challenging." Riku growled under his breath.
Riku looked over at his two partners and wished that Leon could help them in someway. Xigbar took a stance in the middle of the ceiling and spikes of light appeared on the various ends of the structure. The cinnamon haired teen looked over at Leon with wide-eyes. Leon looked back at him with equally wide eyes, filled with fear and worry. Sora gave him a bright smile that he didn't feel and took off running, attracting the firing light bullets to him as he ran desperately in circles to try and distract the bullets from Kairi and Riku.
Kairi stood up slowly, the potion having numbed her injury and stood carefully, moving slowly below the radar of the rapidly firing lights. She approached Riku and helped him to stand. "This is our chance, while Sora has him distracted. We can use our powers together.
"Deal." He squeezed her hand and they pointed their keyblades at him and sent a spike of pure power at the nobody.
The light disappeared as Xigbar fell down on one knee. The two stood there panting roughly. Sora smiled and turned to face the nobody, holding his arm that he was sure was broken. He walked forward, dragging his keyblade behind him.
"You know the one flaw in that attack? It only goes after the one it perceives as the most dangerous. It completely disregarded Kairi and Riku… big mistake. We're a team." He lifted up his keyblade and brought it down on Xigbar as he lifted his gun and shot Sora, the light flying through his back.
"SORA!" Riku gasped but Kairi held him back to prevent himself from injuring himself more. Sora pressed his hand to the gushing wound in his stomach and fell to his knees as the magical barriers fell.
"Get Riku." Leon ordered Demyx as he ran to Sora. He pulled the smaller boy into his arms and held him tightly with one arm. "Hold on, I've got an elixir here somewhere." He dug into his pockets.
"That jerk's gone right?" He asked softly, sucking in pained breaths.
"Yeah, you got him good." Leon spared him a small barely there smile as he poured the elixir over the wound and watched as it soothed his injures, closing off the wound swiftly, stopping the bleeding.
The bad thing about healing potions is that while they tend to swiftly close up wounds, they hurt, a lot. Sora moaned in pain and rolled into Leon, grasping his shirt squirming.
"Hey, you're going to be fine." Leon murmured and looked up to see Riku getting attended to. "Hey Kairi, do you have a potion so I can numb him?"
"Yeah." She dug in her bag and ran forward and poured it over the wound and Sora breathed in relief. "There Sora, you'll be all better in a little while."
Rhiannon: Thanks for reading! See you in about a week!