Hey everyone; merry (early) Christmas! :) As a treat - and reward for getting me to 200 reviews; thanks so much for that! - I decided to wrap up Space Paranoids in this chapter, which is part of the reason why it's so long. As a result of that - and the way I've planned this fic - Char won't be making any confessions until the next chapter. OH NOES. Lol.
Still, though, I hope you all like the little twist I added in the middle of this chapter.
(I also find it really ironic that I'm writing this particular world right after TRON: Legacy came out, but whatever. XD)
Enjoy!
Disclaimer- I do not own Kingdom Hearts. However, I've said it once, and I'll say it again - if I found Sora wrapped in wrapping paper on Christmas morning, I wouldn't give him back. xD
Mickey stopped the group before they could head to the computer room. "Oh, I almost forgot," the mouse said. "I have some presents for you guys."
"Presents?" Sora echoed, puzzled. He couldn't imagine that Mickey had shown up just to bestow gifts on them; but then again, the king had obviously fought his way out of the dark realm for a reason.
The question is, did Riku do the same thing?
"Uh-huh." Mickey nodded enthusiastically before reaching out one hand. A brief flash of light heralded the arrival of a circular piece of steel, with a lifted, azure center and with bright golden spikes surrounding that center. A new shield, Sora realized, even as Goofy eyed the new weapon with wide-eyed, open-mouthed reverence. Even Char let out a tiny "hm" of curiosity.
"Goofy, I took it upon myself to get you a new shield," Mickey explained rather obviously.
Goofy looked rapidly from inanimate object to sentient being, from instrument to mouse, from weapon to ruler, and then back again. At last, the situation seemed to sink in, especially when Donald shoved him and gave him a look that told him to accept the gift. Finally, Goofy settled his surprised gaze on Mickey again. "Your Majesty, are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure," Mickey chuckled. "Go on, take it."
Still, Goofy hesitated a moment before lifting it up and hefting it on his wrist. "Gee, thanks," he said, lowering his head bashfully.
Mickey nodded to acknowledge the dog's acceptance. Then light flashed again, and a broom-like staff appeared in his grasp. Much to everyone, particularly the recipient's, bemusement – although it was fairly obvious the weapon was for Donald – the mouse presented the broom-like staff to Donald. "Some of the servants back at the castle helped make this," Mickey said.
Char stifled a tiny snicker, which earned her a glare from Donald. As he appraised the weapon, he acquired a more skeptical expression than had covered Goofy's countenance. Odd, Sora thought, considering earlier the mage had practically pushed Goofy into accepting his own gift.
"I heard about your little weapon problem from Master Yen Sid," Mickey explained, before Donald could say anything. That quickly subdued the duck; he uttered a simple "oh" before staring at the book-cluttered ground, significantly cowed.
"This has stronger magic about it," Mickey went on. "Probably better than that Heartless one you've been carrying around."'
Reluctantly, Donald took the weapon, gazing at its brush-tipped head and handle-like grip with a less annoyed look than before, as though acknowledging its superior power to the fire Heartless' staff. (1)
Finally, Mickey turned to Sora. "And I wanted to give your clothes some new powers, Sora."
Sora's eyes widened in excitement. Merlin had used the exact same words when the old wizard had given him Wisdom Form, and while he hadn't had much time to use the gift that enhanced his speed and magic, he had looked forward to getting new abilities of the same kind. "Really?" he blustered.
Mickey smiled and nodded. He held out his hand and dropped a golden orb akin to the one the fairies had given him at Yen Sid's tower into Sora's palm. Like then, it promptly seeped into Sora's skin. "Yen Sid called that ability the 'Master Form,'" the mouse elaborated. "Try it out as soon as you can."
"Okay, I will. Thanks a lot!" Sora nodded eagerly. Master Form… sounds powerful, he reflected, and couldn't help thinking that now that he was so close to finding Riku and Kairi again – and maybe visiting the dark realm in the process – he might need all the power he could get.
Mickey glanced at Char then, guilt appearing on his round face. "I'm sorry, but I didn't bring anything for you, Char," he said.
Sora expected the arrogance-tempered response from her, but felt startled nonetheless when she fulfilled his expectations. For some reason, he hadn't expected to know this girl as well as he did in the scant month or so in which he had known her.
"Don't worry about it, Your Majesty," she waved it off. The corner of her lips twisted up in a wry smirk. "The way I see it, if Yen Sid had nothing to give me, then that means I'm well off already. Right?"
"I wouldn't say that much," Donald grumbled, barely audible.
Although Char didn't hear that doubtful little quip, Mickey did. The guilty expression dissipated in favor of a warm smile. "Go fulfill your promise," he dismissed them. "I'll be here when you get back."
Bidding Mickey farewell, the group made their way to the computer room. As they crossed over from erudite office to sterile laboratory, Sora fought back a shiver, his prior determination replaced by anxiety. He couldn't understand how Char had lived and worked so close to this place for most of her life. The surroundings were too mechanical for his taste, completely devoid of the life and warmth that had always marked his island.
He and Char differed in that way, though – she had lived her life here, in such isolation and strictness, amidst all these buttons and numbers. He had grown up among the sea and sand and paopu trees, with two best friends always at his side. It affected both of us, he thought.
Once he started contemplating that, though, her obvious reluctance to reveal her past – and the secrets she obviously knew about Xehanort's Heartless – returned to the forefront of his obligations. And at this point, he knew he couldn't afford to think about anything other than using the password to get into the dataspace and find a way to get Riku and Kairi back.
So he forced those thoughts into the back of his mind, for now. She'll tell me when she wants to, he told himself for perhaps the thousandth time since his heart had begun to swing the needle of its compass away from Kairi and toward Char. And for perhaps the thousandth time, he had to suppress the surge of impatience that promptly followed.
At Sora's side, Goofy stared in awe at the bright blue, cloud-like shield he now toted. "Gawrsh, Donald, the King sure is generous," he commented to the duck.
Donald shrugged, looking a bit grumpy despite the fact that his regard for Mickey should have immediately made him agree. "I guess so," he muttered.
"Hey, look at the bright side," Sora said, trying to reassure the mage, as he was eyeing the rather mundane-looking weapon with a hint of disdain. "If we go to any more worlds that need you to disguise us, you won't have to worry about it anymore." Down that road lay much bigger problems than the aesthetic factor of Donald's staff, the Keybearer knew. The memory of unexplainably finding Roxas in the Pride Lands with him – his dream self, somehow summoned there by the Heartless staff Donald was forced to use – ran through Sora's mind, and he shuddered at the inevitable thought of his ensuing concern and near-encompassing confusion.
"True," Donald acquiesced after a few moments.
Char had said nothing up until this point, and Sora looked worriedly at her. "Char, are you okay?" he asked.
She blinked a few times, as if he had dragged her from deep thought. However, her countenance held no trace of annoyance as she looked at him. "I'm fine," she said. "Just… thinking about how weird it is, that that world is inside the computer."
"Yeah, I know," Sora agreed. "Who takes the time to do all that, anyway?" Although he had to hide a cringe at the suspicious looks Char's words garnered from Donald and Goofy – clearly, they doubted that she hadn't known about Tron's world even now – the brunette's attempt to bring her spirits up didn't totally go to waste. Warmth surged distinctively within him at the smile his words earned, and he found himself returning that smile. Even if she was faking it for his sake, he appreciated her effort.
They rounded the corner and found Leon standing in front of Ansem's computer, his fingers already on the keys. Tifa hovered over his shoulder, looking curiously at the monitor, which was currently lit up with dozens of bright lights. Char could just see multicolored bars next to each other along the bottom of the screen, and recognized that the computer was giving them options. She and the other apprentices had seen those two little bars often enough, when looking up sources for research assignments.
When he heard them coming, Leon turned to face them. His brow was wrinkled just slightly, either in concentration at his task or in annoyance that Tifa was watching every keystroke he made.
"I think I found a way to put all four of you back in there," he said brusquely, immediately getting straight to the point. "But it's only giving me one destination to put you back."
Sora and Char moved closer, trying to get a better look at the screen. Char flinched as Sora's shoulder bumped against hers in his interest, but thankfully managed to ignore the heat his touch promptly sent to the area of contact.
"Pit Cell?" she repeated the name on the screen, and furrowed her brow in a frown of her own. "Um… is that close to the dataspace or whatever?" As she spoke the last part, she looked to Sora for an answer. He had pushed them good and deep into this venture, and he knew the most about how to solve this issue, having talked with Tron – who seemed to know the most about getting the information the Keybearer needed – and whatnot.
She had a split second to ruminate on the irony of Sora having all the answers for once before he met her gaze and responded. "Maybe," he said, "but that's where we last left Tron. If he's still there, we can give him the password."
"And he can show us how to get into the dataspace," she gently prompted.
Sora smiled a little sheepishly. "Yeah, of course."
The sound of Donald clearing his throat roused the two of them, and they looked over just in time to see the duck in question tapping his foot, his arms folded in slight impatience. "C'mon, you two," he said, narrowing his eyes.
"Right, right," Sora chuckled, despite the flicker of embarrassment – and concern – that he felt at the slightly disapproving tone in Donald's voice. In the past, the mage's teasing had had a relatively playful air about it, as though he recognized that Sora had begun to fall in love with Char and accepted that, even though he and Char didn't exactly like each other. Now, though, his words were clipped and terse, and carried only the suspicion he felt for the redhead. Goofy simply looked from one teenager to the other, before giving a resigned sigh.
Char only rolled her eyes before turning to Leon. "Send us there," she told him. "Even if Tron's not there, we can still look for him, right?"
She didn't mention the deranged Heartless commander that was probably running around looking for her even as they spoke. With deadly voltage-shooting Heartless at his side, no doubt.
Leon didn't quite look convinced, but he nodded nonetheless. "Alright. I trust you guys." His fingers moved briefly over the keys, and the computer let out a beep of acknowledgment to his commands. "Go stand in front of the machine," he said, signaling to the crimson orb on the white wall that had glowed when they had gone to the virtual world before. "I'll do the rest."
Sora nodded and looked to the others. "You guys ready?" he asked.
Donald and Goofy gave dual nods of agreement. Char merely angled her head to one side. "What do you think?" she queried dryly.
The return of her typical sarcasm soothed Sora's doubts at that moment. Sometimes it annoyed him, he had to admit, but at the moment, it only served as a sign reading that she was okay with this, despite the connection it had with her past. He offered her a reassuring smile and turned back to Leon. "Go for it," he urged.
Tifa watched curiously as the Gunblade wielder tapped a few keys, and the light that had divided the four companions into distinctive, transparent squares darted over them before engulfing them entirely.
Char had prepared herself for the landing this time. She had braced herself for the teleportation device to drop her as unceremoniously as it had when the computer had forced them in, and to take the same measures she had last time.
Fortunately, though, the four of them were simply taken to the pit cell area in a rather comfortable fashion. Maybe it was because the computer hadn't taken matters into its own hands this time around. She felt torn between annoyance that her mental preparation had gone to waste, and relief that she had escaped the humiliation that would likely have come with almost landing on her head.
In the end, she went with the latter.
She looked around the slightly cramped room, taking in the single, pathetic window and uniformly blue walls. She allowed herself only an instant or so to do even that much before mentally returning to the task at hand.
"So," she said, turning to Sora, "where is this Tron guy?"
Sora had copied her gesture of scanning the area, a look of confusion coming over his features. "I dunno," he answered. He smiled in mild embarrassment, lifting one hand to scratch the back of his helmet-covered head. "I guess he wouldn't have come back here, after we worked so hard to help him get out…"
Though he offered no further explanation than that, Char gathered that Tron had shared this prison cell with them when that Sark guy had arrested them. And you just up and ran. Coward, she chided herself inwardly, feeling warm shame trickle throughout her body at the thought.
But I'm not leaving this time, she thought, her self-contempt shifting into resolve in a heartbeat. I promised Riku.
And, in a way, I promised Sora too.
"Tron?" Donald had disregarded Char's lack of sardonic response to the Keybearer's lack of judgment in his own concern. The duck was currently wandering around the room as best he could, his feathered head swinging from side to side as though a shape clad in the same eye-burning armor as the rest of them would suddenly appear.
"Maybe we can use this to find him," Goofy suggested from next to Sora and Char. Turning, Char saw with a gasp that the dog already had his arms raised, ready to start pushing keys on the keyboard attached to the yellow monitor.
The one that had just teleported them in, not unlike the terminal she had found in the tower that had sent her back.
"Don't touch that!" she heard herself shout. Goofy immediately recoiled, staring at her in surprise and slight fear. Close by, Donald had jumped about half a foot in the air before turning to glare at her.
"What was that for?" the mage spat, sounding more startled than angry.
Char saw that Sora had all but copied Donald's movement. "Yeah, seriously," the brunette added, his voice a little high-pitched in the wake of his shock. "You scared me."
The redhead narrowed her eyes. "Maybe you needed to be scared." Stepping up to the terminal – Goofy dutifully moved aside to make room for her, though he looked like he had expected her to elbow him away – Char rested her forearm against the wall next to it, staring into the screen. A multi-colored circle swirled together on the monitor, stark against the rest of its darkness. She recalled the way the computer she had found before had been completely black, before it had come to life and sent her back to her master's study.
She glanced back to the others, and rolled her eyes at their identical expressions of bemusement. "Think for ten seconds, would you? I was messing with one of these things after I ran away from you guys. I don't know if I hit a button or something, but it's still the reason why I got back to Hollow Bastion before you did."
Sora still looked a bit confused, but had the expression of one with a dawning sense of understanding. "So… if we'd kept messing with this thing, it could have sent us somewhere dangerous?" he asked. Now that he thought about it, Char's newfound policy of carefulness made sense; maybe Tron had always pushed his way to these terminal things first for a reason.
Maybe he knew that Users like us wouldn't know how to use it.
Char nodded very slowly and derisively. "Give the boy a prize."
"Oh, brother," Donald muttered.
"Ignoring you!" Donald grumbled under his breath as Char brought her gaze to Sora's. He seemed slightly irritated at her contempt toward him, if the tiny furrow of his brow was any indication. Otherwise, though, that same look of contemplation and need to understand remained.
Char tried not to draw away, knowing this was the worst possible time for her treacherous heart to start acting up. Gods, but he even looks cute while he's pissed off.
Instead of moving back, Char pushed her hands into her pockets, her fingers instinctively finding the charm of the Keychain she still held captive there. It was a sick, stupid thought, but she felt almost like she was keeping Kairi away from him – or at least, the item that could resurrect his love for her. Idiot, letting your hormones control you, the dual wielder told herself for perhaps the thousandth time on this journey. (2)
Realizing the Keybearer still waited for her to continue, she hastily did so. "If this… MCP guy is really out to get you guys, then don't you think he'll be controlling those terminals, waiting for the chance to take you away somewhere you can't escape while he throws Heartless on you?" she asked.
Sora's eyes widened as the full implications of what they had almost done dawned upon him. "Yeah, you're probably right," he murmured.
"Gawrsh, Char, I'm sorry," Goofy said, sounding genuinely contrite.
Looking at the dog, Char couldn't help but sigh. "Don't be; it was a perfectly valid curiosity." She gnawed her lip as contemplation consumed her and she lowered her head to think more properly. The insane blue of this room wasn't exactly conducive to deep thought, though – it gave her a headache more than anything else.
"So if Tron's not here –" Sora was cut off abruptly as light flashed in the room. He pivoted toward the source, as did his allies, just in time to see the light fade away and reveal a man clad in much the same way as the group lying prone on the ground.
"Tron!" Sora cried, immediately moving to the man's side. Donald and Goofy followed close behind, with Char taking her normal spot at the rear.
So this is Tron, she thought, watching as the virtual world native shakily got to his feet. As she looked on, he swiftly turned down the offers from the trio to help him with just one wave of his hand.
"I don't understand," Tron said weakly. "Why are you here? The MCP –"
"We came to give you the password!" Sora interrupted earnestly.
Tron stared in disbelief at them for a few moments before shaking his head and palming his forehead. "Why didn't you just transmit the data?" he asked.
"Transmit?" Char asked, raising one eyebrow. Inwardly, she seethed, wondering why the hell she hadn't thought of that. She could have avoided coming back here, to the world her master had created to protect all his secrets, altogether if she had thought that far ahead. As always, though, she had failed to curb her impulses, and it was costing her.
Those dark eyes shifted to her. "Is that… the User you were looking for?" he managed to ask, just before fatigue overtook him and he staggered on his feet.
Quickly, Sora caught the man before he could fall. "You okay?" he asked, even though it was all too obvious that Tron wasn't. Something had clearly all but annihilated Tron's strength, and forced him back into this cell.
Gee, I wonder, the Keybearer thought, flashing back to agonizing shocks and a man clad in a bright red uniform.
Summoning his remaining dignity, Tron pushed himself out of Sora's supporting hold. "I'll be all right… once we access the DTD," he rasped. "I can get all my functions back there… and then we can stop the MCP."
"And get the information we need," Char cut in, eyeing Sora with a hard stare.
"Yeah." Sora nodded; he hadn't needed that reminder.
This time, Char blinked in slight confusion that he hadn't reacted indignantly to her attempt to get him back on track. She found herself smiling a little at the sight of his determination – the firm resolve that definitely wasn't just Roxas' single-mindedness shining through. This is all Key-boy, she thought, and was reassured.
"By the way," Sora said, already starting toward the exit to the pit cell, "yeah, this is who we were looking for." He hesitated. "Well… one of the people we were looking for, anyway. This is Char."
"The one who ran away from Sark?" Tron asked, following after the brunette with a stride hampered by invisible wounds. Donald and Goofy walked close behind him, ready to support him if he stumbled.
Despite his apparent anathema toward his new weapon, the former whipped the broom-like staff out and cast a healing spell whose green light rent the horribly blue air briefly before disappearing. Tron gave the weapon a curious look, but he was already looking better, and he seemed to decide to just accept that.
Char cringed, but thankfully managed to suppress most of her humiliation. "Yeah, kinda," she grunted.
"Just 'kinda.'" Donald snorted, even as he stepped onto the white disk behind Sora and Tron.
While Char glowered at him – a look he returned with gusto – Tron glanced back at her, envy and interest warring on his countenance. "Well done," he said. "How did you accomplish it, if I may ask?"
He didn't seem fazed when the disk beneath them abruptly whirred to life and began to soar across the sky at a brisk pace toward the canyon beyond; although that combined with his wounds should have all but made him fall, those wounds didn't even plague him now, thanks to the timely intervention of Donald's Cura. Char tried not to stumble, but eventually got used to the disk's movement. Its relatively calm path helped immensely.
"Um…" She hesitated. "I… kinda hit him in the face with one of my swords and ran for the nearest exit." That exit had taken the form of a glowing white disk that had taken her to the tower she had gazed at off in the distance while waiting for Sora to awaken from their fall into this world.
Sora laughed; he hadn't heard this part of the story. "That's Char for ya," he grinned.
"And just what are you implying by that?" Char huffed, folding her arms and looking away. However, Sora could see a grin quirking her lips upward from the sidelong glimpse he could get of her face, and knew she was speaking just as playfully as he was.
"Exactly what I said," he chuckled.
"Oh, right!"
At this point, the disk had arrived at its destination. As Char stepped off behind Sora and his companions, refusing to look down at the drop that awaited her if she took a misstep between here and the canyon, she realized it was the same place that the portal in Ansem's computer room had first deposited her and Sora.
Sora was still grinning a little from his conversation with Char when he looked over at Tron to see how the virtual program was faring. The Keybearer's amusement faltered when he saw Tron only eyeing him and Char with a strange expression. "Uh… Tron? Are you okay?" he repeated his earlier question stupidly.
Tron seemed to come out of a trance then, and he nodded. "Yes, I'm all right." (3)
"So… do you know where the DTD is?" Goofy asked shyly.
Though Char did not share Goofy's reluctance to get to the point, she did share his sentiment. Every moment she spent standing around in this place, she felt herself growing more and more anxious. She pushed her bangs back off her face in an attempt to focus better, though, as always, they fell right back into place. Pathetic as it was, she kept imagining Sark appearing with his Heartless at his side, the same sadistic gleam in his eyes as he watched them fill her full of shocks – his retribution for her escaping him and the MCP.
The MCP. Her agitation's source switched from Sark, to the master he allegedly served, according to Sora's retelling of the events. If she thought about it, the entire state of this strict, tyranny-filled world had come about due to that program taking over it. Char knew only her loyalty to Ansem made her want to eradicate the world he'd spent so much precious time creating of its threats, and she also fully understood the stupidity of it. But she still felt that way even now.
Even now that she was finding out secrets even she hadn't known about him.
Tron nodded in response to Goofy's question, soothing Char's raw nerves only slightly. "It's relatively close by, actually." He pointed to a building lined with bright red, which stood just up the stairs where the Heartless had first taken Donald and Goofy. "The dataspace should be in that building. We can access the DTD there."
"Should be…?" Char muttered doubtfully.
Seeing her uncertainty, Sora felt sympathetic. Acting on a whim, he reached over and squeezed her shoulder, trying to ignore how very warm it felt even under the fabric of his glove. "We'll get there," he reassured her. "If Sark comes back and tries to get us, we'll just take him down like we always do."
"Yeah," Donald agreed, and Goofy nodded on his other side.
Char looked from the hand that was still on her shoulder, to Sora, then to Tron, and back to Sora again. "I guess you're right," she said at last, though she still didn't sound convinced. "Oh, and, um, you can take your hand off now."
"What?" For the first time, he realized the truth of her words. Hurriedly, he dropped his hand back down to his side, feeling disappointment replace his previous desire to see her consoled. Even he knew the moment was lost. "Oh, right. Sorry," he laughed.
He turned to face the building and took a deep breath. Now that the answers he sought were so close, he could feel his heartbeat thrumming in his ears, assisted only slightly by the effect of his contact with Char. "Let's go."
Fighting through the Heartless that guarded the dataspace's entrance took longer than Char had first assumed. Mostly, that was due to the way Sora, Donald, and Goofy had balked at the sight of them, not wanting to be a victim of the electricity-harnessing Heartless' vicious voltage again. Fortunately, Tron had broken the spell by attacking one of their foes with a slicing disk he drew out from his uniform; seeing that these enemies could be stricken down so easily snapped the original trio out of their fear, and together, the five had taken down the Heartless in their way.
Now, standing in front of the brightly-lit barrier between him and the information he sought, Sora raised a hand to open the door – and hesitated.
"Sora?" Donald asked, craning his neck around Tron to look at the brunette.
"You okay?" Goofy inquired.
Sora knew he should give them the answer they needed to hear – the answer he needed to hear – but something held him back from uttering that oft-used lie. He knew what that something was, and had that knowledge reinforced when the source of his tentativeness shifted from behind Tron.
Char had kept her gaze on Sora the entire time, but even to him, it couldn't have been more obvious that something weighed heavily on her mind. Her pupils kept flickering from him to the dataspace entrance and back again, as though she were wondering about the extent of what information Ansem had hidden just beyond the portal Sora was blocking.
He shared her sentiment, more strongly than he would have thought possible. Though the concern about Char's strange absent-mindedness and desire to know the reason behind it remained, the desire to know what Ansem had to say about Riku and Kairi took the forefront of his emotions and stayed there.
And so in the end, he ran his eyes over the entire group and replied, if only because even Tron was looking a little impatient to get on with this. "Yeah, I'm fine," the Keybearer said, smiling and turning back to the door.
As he searched for a means with which to open it – a doorknob would have helped immensely – a frown briefly eclipsed his countenance. An instant later, though, Sora let out a cry and reared back as the door slid open beneath his palm, revealing a green-and-yellow-clad interior.
"Oh, yeah, those do that," Char said distantly.
Sora spun to stare indignantly at her. "A warning would've been nice!" he yelped.
In spite of himself, Donald sniggered, only to silence himself moments later, as if even laughing at Sora's expense was going along with the girl who was keeping so many secrets.
"The DTD should be just inside," Tron said, already moving past them.
Sora nodded, jogging to catch up with the program; he could hear his other companions following at his heels. Tron must really want his powers back, the brunette reflected. His fist clenched. Just like I want my friends back.
As the sound of their footsteps changed in accordance with the area, Char trailed along behind Sora and Tron, at the same time taking a good look around the alleged haven of her master's secrets. It was actually a rather refreshing difference from the neon-lined azure of the walls outside. Although the garishly bright green here still made Char squint her eyes a little, the sight of what awaited them just in front of those walls drew her gaze and held it.
As they drew closer, she saw that the object that had caught her attention was a set of computer screens, whose blinking lights signified that it had been active long before the yellow terminals had. Char guessed that those three screens corresponded to the three monitors that made up the majority of the walls around them.
Tron broke away from the rest of the group, walking with a strength he hadn't possessed before their walk here. He knelt down in front of the computer screens and began moving his fingertips against the middle one, whose surface rippled and fluctuated in response to his touch; Char guessed that was the command board for this place.
During his work on its invisible keyboard, a light flashed, and a white bar with a blinking cursor appeared. The white light reappeared just above the screens, and Char looked up just in time to see a replica of the computer screen Tron was typing on appear on the corresponding monitor.
"All right," Tron said brusquely, not even looking up. "What's the password?"
"Well…" Goofy lifted his hand and began to count them off on one hand. "It's, uh…"
"Belle, Snow White…" Donald began.
"Aurora, Alice, Jasmine, Cinderella…" Char continued, deciding to contribute to the remembrance of all seven princesses of heart. Although she knew that whatever lay within the dataspace, Ansem likely knew little to nothing about Riku and Kairi, the fact remained that Sora would find a plethora of information about the dark realm here.
At the very least, she thought wryly, it'll help him along in what I was supposed to help him accomplish in the first place – revenge on the Organization.
Tron had been frantically typing everything in, but now he stopped and glanced over, still not doing anything – perhaps knowing there was another part to this. Char looked at Sora, hating the way her heartbeat kicked up at his reluctance to say the final princess' name. Donald and Goofy copied her gesture before exchanging glances, as though trying to decide who should name the girl Sora had loved so much.
You know he feels the same way, Roxas reminded Char. It sounded more a mockery than ever now.
At last, Sora lifted his head and spoke quietly. "Kairi. The last part of the password is 'Kairi.'"
Thankfully, if Tron picked up the conflict between Sora and Kairi's name, he chose to say nothing about it. "Kairi, got it." He returned to his work, finishing typing in the names and tapping a button onscreen. An instant later, a small earthquake shook the area, unbalancing Donald, who would have fallen but for Goofy quickly reaching out to him, and Char, who caught herself in time.
Above them, the monitor on the wall flashed bright green before remaining that single color. Tron turned to face them, triumphant. "That did it!"
No sooner had he finished speaking, however, than a siren not dissimilar to what the group had heard prior to their first arrival here suddenly began to sound, rending the air with its cacophonic blaring. Goofy immediately put his hands to his ears, and Char winced.
"Now switching DTD over from hibernation to active mode," a disembodied, ambiguous voice intoned. "This process will take some time. Please enjoy a game while the process is running."
Sora paled visibly. "A 'game'…?"
Tron shook his head, his triumph from before replaced by urgency. "It's the DTD's final security routine. This is serious. Stay focused!"
"Right," Sora said, shaking off his previous dread and summoning the Circle of Life to him. Instinctively, Donald, Goofy, and Char called forth their own weapons, and the group moved to stand back to back.
Sora had expected a mass of Heartless to appear, but what happened was entirely different. Instead, silence reigned briefly before a voice distinctively different from the one just moments before spoke. With a jolt, Sora realized it was the voice that had first "arrested" them.
"Why have you Users returned?" the voice queried, calm fury in its tones.
Tron gasped. "The MCP!"
"Program, you will suffer immediate de-resolution if you do not stop assisting these Users," the MCP warned.
"I know that! But…" Tron hesitated.
"Oh? Do tell," the MCP prompted, mocking curiosity oozing over every word it spoke.
"I don't know, but… something in my programming commands me to do what is right," Tron confessed, looking Sora in the eye.
"Oh, really? And what code might that be?" Now the MCP seemed almost bored.
"Does it matter what code it is?" Char cut in angrily. "It's just something people are supposed to do." Even as she spoke, though, she was well aware of the hypocrisy of her words. Doing what's right doesn't exactly involve lying to your friends all the time, after all…
A pause. Then the MCP spoke again, and the note of newfound dangerous interest made Sora instinctively step in front of Char.
"Ah, you must be the User who escaped Commander Sark," the tyrant program mused.
The redhead narrowed her eyes, at the same time moving away from Sora and casting him a brief, hard stare that said she could take care of herself. "Brilliant deduction. It couldn't possibly be because I'm the only female User in here, right?"
"Such impudence must be punished," the MCP went on, acting as if she hadn't spoken.
That made Char blink, a newfound kind of slow apprehension beginning to spread through her. "Really?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from trembling. Although ordinarily she would have scoffed at the threat, she knew anything Ansem had set to guard his secrets wouldn't say such things lightly. "And how, pray tell, would that happen?"
"Don't!" Tron shouted, reaching out his hand; but it was too late.
The last thing Char heard before the light swallowed her vision entirely was Sora screaming her name. (4)
Sora whirled about, trying desperately to pinpoint where the MCP's voice was coming from, his blood beginning to roar in his ears. "Where's Char?" he demanded. "What did you do with her?"
The MCP let out a scornful "hmph" before replying. "I merely sent her to play a game for Commander Sark."
Again with the "games!" A sickening kind of horror rose within him and mingled with his rage, causing him to tighten his grip around the Circle of Life. The DTD's security had used the same term when describing its yet-interrupted final security measure, but Tron had defined it as a euphemism for something much more dangerous.
Beside Sora, Tron let out a gasp. "This isn't good," he murmured.
"What's gonna happen to Char?" Goofy asked, worriedly looking to Tron.
"If I know the MCP," Tron said, "then they've sent her to the game grid."
"The game grid…?" Even Donald sounded anxious at this point.
"The place they send errant programs who stray from the MCP's system," Tron explained, his distress making itself clearer in his voice by the moment. "There, the programs are forced to fight until…" He trailed off deliberately.
Sora finished the man's sentence in his head. Until they die. Or whatever equivalent for death that people had here.
He stared at his feet, despondency and grief and anger mingling all at once within him. He'd known Sark and the MCP had an extra eye out for Char from the very beginning, since she had escaped from the arrest that had led to Sora's meeting Tron. And yet the Keybearer had still allowed her to come along this time around, with that knowledge fully in his mind.
I promised myself I wouldn't let anyone else get hurt because of me, and now I might have just let the girl I love die. Sora would have mentally balked at the first clear definition of his feelings for Char, but right now, the image of Kairi's maroon hair and violet eyes flickered through his mind only briefly before vanishing in favor of his despair.
In the end, though, anger won the silent battle, and he jerked up to glare at the ceiling, where he gauged the voice was coming from. "Let her go!" he demanded pathetically; it was the best he could come up with at the moment.
He could almost see the MCP rolling its eyes. "I will consider… if you open the DTD."
"If we…?" Donald tried to ask.
The appearance of multiple Heartless cut the duck off, though. Immediately, Sora charged into battle, while his comrades quickly hastened to do the same. He knew it was a slim hope that the MCP would take Char out of the game grid as soon as he could access the DTD, but it was all he had right now.
As soon as the light covering her vision faded, Char dared lower her arm from where she had instinctively thrown it over her eyes. "Crap," she muttered aloud when only high walls and the bleak sky of this world greeted her eyes. She had figured as much when little light made its way past the boundary of her arm after the whiteness had disappeared, but she hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.
Glancing around, she wondered where exactly she had been taken. I remember the MCP saying I had to be "punished," and then… She couldn't help but wince a little; in hindsight, making flippant remarks to the tyrant who controlled this entire world wasn't exactly the best idea. It was too late to change that now, though.
"Welcome to the game grid," a voice suddenly boomed. Char stumbled in her surprise, a feeling that grew substantially when the ground beneath her abruptly lit up with a grid of neon-blue lines.
"Game grid?" she echoed, more confused than anything else.
"That's right," the voice confirmed, although not without a disdainful lilt to it. Char's eyes widened as she realized the voice belonged to Sark. Doubtless, he recognized her as the arrogant little User who hit him and then ran, she reflected with a guilt born of the danger her action had put her in. She found the courage whose façade she had maintained ever since they had seen Hollow Bastion wreathed in darkness from the Gummi ship faltering, and suddenly she wanted to find the nearest corner and hide there.
Her hasty attempt to crush that feeling halted instantly when another flash of light appeared in her periphery. Turning to detect its source, she tilted her head to the side, a frown wrinkling her brow. A motorcycle? It had just revealed itself at that very moment, sitting there in all its crimson-and-blue glory.
At first, relief surfaced in her heart at the thought of just hopping on and riding it far away from Sark and whatever he had planned for her. Then reality kicked in and she knew things wouldn't go that easily. The fact that the motorcycle had popped up in accordance with Sark speaking told her that much. Not to mention the walls that rose up around her as far as she could see blocked any visible exit.
Besides, even if she could manage to escape, there was no telling how many times she would almost crash the motorcycle before she got out.
Sark continued, "You've been chosen to play a few games. Lose, and you will be subject to immediate de-resolution. Win?" He chuckled derisively, and a shudder lanced down Char's spine at the sound. "Well, no one wins."
At his words, the redhead felt annoyance replace her apprehension. "Well, there's a first time for everything, right?" she spat. "Get on with it!"
Over the speakers, she heard Sark let out a tiny scoff. A pause ensued, and then a series of translucent dark spheres announced the arrival of a group of unfamiliar Heartless. The multitude immediately closed in on her, and she cast her blades to her in dual flashes of light. She had never seen these before, but knew she could probably easily take them down.
"Really now, this is the best you've got?" she snarled, and whipped one sword out to the side, fully intending to send the nearest Heartless to Kingdom Hearts…
…only for it to roll effortlessly out of the way.
"What the…?" Her words were cut off when one of the others shot forward and lashed out with one of its claws. She tried to twist out of the way, but the attack came too quickly for her to dodge, and her side got the full brunt of the blow.
Bringing a fist to her side to try to stem the flow of blood, Char saw why the Heartless moved so quickly. The light cast by the bright blue of the grid on the ground caught off the wheels that the enemies were moving on – the reason why they had so easily dodged and then attacked her.
"You'll have to do a bit better than that," Sark taunted from above.
She narrowed her eyes, only for them to fly open as three of the Heartless converged on her at once. Their claws snapped together harmlessly about an inch away from an area just a little below where the first one had wounded her; that area was quickly soaking the top part of her uniform, and throbbed fiercely with the heat of her blood rushing to it. The pain of it made her crouch slightly and try to catch her breath.
If I want to stay alive, I need a way to… Char's gaze suddenly lit on the motorcycle, which sat, mercilessly, just a ways away from the farthest Heartless. Of course!
Quickly, she glanced around before straightening and charging toward the vehicle. At once, the Heartless wheeled after her; but by some herculean burst of adrenaline she managed to dance around their blows and leaped for the motorcycle's seat. Admittedly, her first attempt didn't work so well – she ended up bouncing her leg off the side, and curses rent the air at the ensuing jolt of agony; it didn't help that it was the leg Hades had blasted, either – but the second time, she swung easily onto the vehicle.
"Okay," she muttered. At the same time, she mentally ordered one sword to disappear so she could place one hand on the handlebars. "Now how the hell am I supposed to –?"
While Char had never ridden a motorcycle before, and Ansem had removed any chance of them getting bicycles to ride around town with his proverbial ban on Christmas, she and Ienzo had seen people cavorting around Hollow Bastion's marketplace with motorcycles' less-powerful cousins. And so now she blindly put one foot against where she judged the pedals would be on a normal bicycle. Hey, she told herself, it's a little like a bike. She figured just feeling around with her foot couldn't do too much harm.
What she didn't count on was her current means of escape's suddenly revving up in response to the pressure of her foot.
"Holy –" The sound of the engine purring thoroughly drowned out the rather vulgar expletive that had come at the end of that sentence. "All right, then, you take me out of here," she shouted at nothing in particular. Inwardly, she cursed in disbelief, not believing she was screaming at an inanimate object.
And yet oddly, she didn't feel too shocked when the motorcycle obliged, letting out a roar of warning just before shooting forward. However, the sudden jolt did nearly unbalance her. Char found herself clinging desperately to the handlebars as her surroundings flashed by her in a blur. Suddenly, she regretted only having concentrated enough to put away only one sword; this thing almost needed both hands to drive.
And gods only knew she was a terrible enough driver as it was.
The thought summoned forth the memory of when she had driven the Gummi ship – the word "driven" being used in its loosest definition, of course. Along with that memory came the mental image of Donald and Goofy's horrified expressions, and Sora's futile attempts to pacify that.
Sora.
Immediately, Char found the mental stamina to regain control.
Steadying herself, she allowed herself to look away from the grid long enough to survey her surroundings. The Heartless had sped up in accommodation to her change in speed, she noted with brief irritation; already, they were approaching on one side of her – fortunately, it was the side of her that had the sword on it.
Clumsily, she lashed out with the three-pronged weapon, and felt the vibration of it catching against flesh. To her extreme gratification, when the Heartless she had slashed let out a mechanical cry and flew backward. "That's what I thought!" she screamed after it. She thought she heard a voice coming from above – Sark, probably – but to her immense relief, the motorcycle engine drowned out whatever condescending crap he was likely saying.
She looked back in front of her – and yelped, her voice leaping up a couple of octaves as the wall suddenly loomed before her. Throwing her sword-holding hand onto the handlebars to steer better, she strained to turn the vehicle away so she wouldn't crash it and effectively ruin her best chance of getting the hell out of here.
Much to her surprise, it responded rather quickly, darting away from the wall that had suddenly appeared almost the instant she twisted its front fork. Due to that quick response, she almost fell off the motorcycle again. After a few moments of desperately trying to regain her balance, she steadied herself, and took a deep breath to calm down.
After that, the "game" became almost easy. Swapping her remaining sword from one hand to another to combat the Heartless that kept moving up beside her was immensely facilitated as time went on, and she found herself almost enjoying seeing how close she could get to the walls that still rose up out of nowhere before she moved out of the way. Other than a few shallow cuts along her arms and legs from where the Heartless managed to claw her – along with that gradually-scabbing wound on her side, of course – Char managed to ride out of the initial mass of Heartless practically unscathed.
"C'mon, Heartless commander!" she shouted, hoping that bastard could hear her, wherever he sat watching. "This the best you've got for me?" As she spoke, the motorcycle continued to move forward, a fact that sent a mild surge of annoyance through her. Note to self – figure out how to stop this thing before I get done here.
Sark's response came in the form of a low growl from over the speakers; an instant later, a purple, quadruped Heartless appeared nearby. Char got a glimpse of the white ball of light that was coalescing between two of its glowing pincers before her common sense kicked in and she swerved the motorcycle out of the way. The attack sailed harmlessly past her, and she glared over her shoulder at the now-vanishing Heartless. Unable to resist another chance at a snarky remark, she snarled after it, "Hey, that could've killed me!"
Then she heard the sound of the wall caving in just in front of her. Hastily, she looked toward its source and saw the Heartless' attempt to kill her had successfully broken a hole in the wall.
There's my escape!
"All right," she muttered under her breath, her heartbeat suddenly quickening. She could feel her face tensing from its prior flippant expression into one of seriousness, and despite her abrupt change in disposition, she knew why it had come about.
She had to get out of here as soon as possible and get back to Sora, see what the dataspace had yielded to him in terms of knowledge.
It wasn't just because of her promise to Riku, although that was definitely a factor. Given that her motives for following Sora now ran much deeper than just a promise to his best friend, though, the agreement she had made with the silver-haired boy a month back had a relatively small influence.
The odds were, no matter what he found, she would have to explain what he didn't know about her. If Ansem had information about Riku and Kairi, Sora would wonder how to get to the dark realm to reach them, and then Char would have to tell him how. If Ansem had nothing about Riku and Kairi, Sora would still be damnably curious about Char's past, and then Char would have to explain everything to him, especially in light of what she had told him about "Ansem" being Xehanort's Heartless.
Either way, I'm screwed. A dry little laugh escaped her at the thought, that she was giving in so easily.
It only took ages of dancing around his inquiries, but I'm ready.
Char focused her gaze on the gradually coalescing walls just ahead of the break in the game grid's own boundary, knowing she would have to make her way through the maze to reach her escape. But she found herself not caring, so long as she made it.
Sora struck down the final Heartless with a swing of the Circle of Life. The Keyblade absorbed the electricity held within the enemy's body, and the brunette fought back a shudder at the feeling of it coursing through the weapon and into his hand.
Ignoring the unpleasant sensation, he raised the Keyblade and pointed it at the remaining monitor along the wall. He concentrated briefly – although that concentration was considerably hampered by the computerized voice repeatedly screaming a warning for them to stop – before a beam of light shot out of the blade and landed soundly at the center of the monitor. The crimson pallor that had taken over the monitor vanished immediately.
Behind him, Donald and Goofy let out dual sighs of relief and slumped against each other. Tron was handing them each a Potion to drink in order to heal the injuries they had sustained; Sora ignored that, despite his own minor scrapes, and instead chose to look frantically around, although he knew the MCP wouldn't show its face. "Okay, we unlocked the DTD," he yelled. "We did what you wanted. Now let Char go."
"Oh, I'm afraid that User is inconsequential at this point." At those words, Donald, Goofy, and Tron looked up, concern written on all their faces. Sora blinked and let out a tiny, anxious murmur; he didn't know what that entailed, but something in Tron's expression told him it could not be anything good.
"Now that I have full access to the DTD," the MCP said smugly, "my takeover of the system is now complete." Tron gasped, but the tyrant only ignored him. "I might have anticipated such a simple password."
Simple? Sora didn't know if that was exactly how he would classify it. However, dread immediately swept that minor bemusement aside. He didn't know much about this odd world inside Ansem's computer – had never cared much about technology to glean much knowledge about computers in general, in all honesty – but from what Tron had told him, if the MCP got access to the DTD…
Not only would this world be completely lost to the MCP's control, but any information Ansem might have had on Riku and Kairi would be completely lost.
"No!" Tron barked, and charged forward. He practically slammed his hand against the middle screen; in response to his touch, a white line appeared on the screen, tracing along the outline of his hand before flashing just beneath it.
"Program!" the MCP said, shock clear in its voice; Sora expected that it would have gasped, had it the ability to express such a human gesture. "You changed the password!"
Tron turned back toward them, a weary smile spreading across his face. "There; that should hold him back."
"Tron, what's going on?" Donald demanded, jumping to his feet now that the Potion's healing properties had made their rounds through his system.
The program swept his gaze over all three of them. "I managed to hold back the MCP before it could get a further hold of the town's defenses," he explained. "You all in the User world should be safe, for now." He smiled – a strange gesture for him – and clenched his fists at his side. "And all my functions have been restored, so I should be ready for whenever the MCP regains control." (5)
Sora smiled in relief, realizing that now Tron could fully combat the dictator who had taken over this world. "Thanks, Tron," he said.
"But what about Char?" Goofy asked.
The dog's words made Sora start before he looked down in slight guilt, while Donald only snorted. "She'll be fine," the duck muttered.
Tron put a hand to his chin in thought, though not without a hint of unease. "I don't know… The MCP might have lost control of the User town, but he still has a hold on the game grid."
"So you're sure she was sent to the game grid?" Sora asked, his fist clenching around the Keyblade he had never put away. "Can you take us to her?"
Tron's eyes widened as he stared at the brunette. "Programs can't willingly go to the game grid." The words they don't willingly go to the game grid were left unspoken, but they hung thickly in the air nonetheless. "The only way to get in there now would be if we idled near a terminal for too long, and then the MCP would take us there."
"Then where's the nearest terminal?" Sora demanded.
Tron hesitated.
The Keybearer struggled to keep a firm hold on his patience. "Tron, Char's our friend, too. We need to get her back so we can go back to the User world. We…" He swallowed past the sudden obstruction in his throat, the near crippling grief that throttled his breath and made it difficult for him to speak. "We need her." (6)
He half expected a scoff from Donald, but to his intense surprise, the mage said nothing. Sora did not check his friends' expressions; if he had, though, he would have seen equal sympathy on both Disney residents' countenances.
In spite of Sora's growing agitation, a few moments still passed before Tron responded in the form of a sigh. Immediately, Sora looked more alert. "The MCP won't stay back forever," the program reminded them. "And even if you manage to rescue your fellow User, there's no guarantee we all won't get stuck in the grid as well."
"I know," Sora said immediately. "Just… where's the nearest terminal?"
Tron took so long to answer that Donald began tapping his foot, and even Goofy started to look a little antsy. Then the program spoke reluctantly. "There's one in the communications room of the I/O tower," he admitted. "Our best bet is there."
"Okay." Sora nodded. He seemed to remember himself and where he was at that moment, and he turned to Donald and Goofy. "Are you guys okay to travel?"
"Yup, Sora, I think so," Goofy said.
Donald gave a terse nod of agreement.
Sora forced a brief smile onto his face – at the same time, though, that guilt from before scythed through him again – and pivoted to face the exit. "All right then, let's go."
"This is it." Tron patted the multicolored door at the end of the large corridor.
Sora eyed the neon-red-lined door, the fervent hope that Char could be found so easily taking hold of his heartbeat and causing it to accelerate once more. However, adrenaline had already served that same purpose, due to the Heartless that had gotten in the group's way.
They had stepped onto the white disc and allowed it to transport them to the I/O tower area. Donald had pointed out that this was probably where Char had gone when she had fled from Sark and his Heartless, an assumption that Sora had agreed to readily enough, seeing as this was the only other place with a terminal in it that he knew of.
Almost the instant they had arrived at their destination, though, the yellow, electricity-filled Heartless had appeared in droves once again. Fortunately, the fighting was made infinitely easier by the fact that Tron had regained his propensity for battle, and they had disposed of the enemies in their way rather quickly. Sora didn't know whether to count his own agitation facilitating the battling as a blessing or a curse
Inside, the hall took a largely circular shape – large enough for the purple Heartless that had attacked them earlier to comfortably move about and fire their energy attacks at them, Sora remembered with a wince. As if in response to his thoughts, the light injuries that the unfamiliar foes had given him began to sting again.
"So is the terminal really right past here?" he asked quickly, to avoid Donald inevitably getting ready to cast Cura. For some reason, he thought the duck's reaffirmation of his concern toward the brunette would make him feel guilty.
While Donald grumbled a little and lowered his staff, Tron nodded, the gesture visible only due to the light cast by the door he stood in front of. As this corridor had narrowed, giving only Sora and Tron enough room to stand where they were, the light had dwindled considerably as well. "If I'm correct," he said, "it is." He fixed Sora's sapphire gaze with his own, dark one, uncertainty suddenly returning to his expression. "Are you absolutely certain –?"
"Yeah," Sora cut in firmly, not wanting Tron's own hesitation to become contagious and seep into him as well. "I'm sure." He was well aware that he, Donald, and Goofy had accomplished their main objective here – unlocking the DTD and, therefore, obtaining the way to find out what might have become of Riku and Kairi. Tron had even given them further reason to get out of this world before things got worse, by rebuffing the MCP before it could cause any more problems. Under any other circumstances, Sora would probably have taken this opportunity to leave, with the relief of knowing he had only sustained minor aches and bruises this time around.
But these weren't any other circumstances.
I'm not leaving any more friends behind, he avowed.
Behind him, Donald and Goofy exchanged glances, the latter bringing a hand up to cover his mouth. "Uh, Sora –" Donald began.
"We have to help Char," Sora interrupted instantly, whirling to stare at the duck. To his credit, Donald only glared evenly back, albeit with a gaze tempered by hard-earned respect. "If it was Goofy stuck in there, you'd be the first to volunteer to go get him. Why is this any different?"
"Because Goofy's honest with us!" Donald exploded.
Sora drew back, a gasp escaping him; Goofy clasped his hand over his mouth more tightly and stared in shock at his longtime comrade, and even Tron's eyes widened. The brunette found himself putting one hand against the doorframe for balance. The mage's words cut him to the core; he had grown used to Donald's little outbursts over the course of their last journey, and even to his brutal honesty. But the way he had pushed directly to the crux of the matter – his and Goofy's seemingly unwarranted suspicion toward Char – drove something distinctively sharp into Sora's heart and twisted it. He could only appraise Donald in dumbfounded shock, his hands hanging limply at his side.
Goofy himself lowered his hand and found something very interesting on the bland ground. "Uh, Donald, couldja maybe leave me out of this?" he tried.
"No, I won't!" Donald squawked, clenching his fists at his side and transferring his glower to Goofy. The dog in question cringed back at the fire blazing in the mage's eyes. "You know she's hiding stuff from us. So do you, Sora!" He swerved back to the Keybearer, his chest heaving from the force of his fury; he seemed to have forgotten Tron was still there in the heat of his ire. "She might be involved with the Organization, and she's definitely involved with Ansem!"
At this, Sora had to take umbrage. "She knew him before he was a Heartless," he argued. "That doesn't really –"
He was saved from having to continue the argument – and from having to face the reality of Donald's words – by a distinctive thump from beyond the door he had all but forgotten about.
Tron immediately murmured, "Uh-oh," and pressed his palm against the door; a few moments later, it slid open with a mechanical whoosh. Sora pushed past the program, who was already trying to move into the room, only to halt abruptly in his tracks as he felt himself tread on something unfamiliar. Looking down and lifting his foot, the brunette saw a circular object a much lighter shade of blue than what he had become accustomed to. Bending down to pick it up, he realized it was a Keychain with a small, flat blue orb at its end.
He had a split second to wonder how a Keychain had gotten here of all places before something shifted out of his periphery and he saw the source of the noise.
The room he currently stood in was relatively small compared to the corridor they had just left, with its only truly notable characteristics being the terminal in front of them and the bright pink beam of light that shone down from above. But these went all but ignored to Sora's eyes, due to the dark crimson that had drawn his gaze.
He felt an uncontrollable grin begin to spread across his face as Char rose to her hands and knees, bringing one half-gloved hand up to massage her forehead. "Ow," she muttered. "Didn't think I'd crash the thing trying to get through the crack…"
Then she looked up and saw Sora standing there.
By this time, Tron and Goofy had managed to squeeze past Sora, who still obstructed the entrance; Donald squawked indignantly as he jumped up and down behind his three taller companions, trying to see what was going on.
Suddenly aware of the weakness of her current position, Char quickly got to her feet, ignoring the way the sudden surge of movement brought a fresh wave of pain to her wounds. "Hey," she said. Shame escalated within her when the remnants of the adrenaline that had fueled her fast escape made her voice sound more breathless than anything else.
"Hi," Sora answered, still not taking that idiotic grin off his face.
Char tilted her head to the side and appraised him with narrowed eyes. "Uh, Key-boy, you okay?"
"I don't believe it," Tron said, walking forward to stand in front of her. Due to the absence of one of the blocks in his path, Donald, who had been trying to push his way through to see better, ended up falling flat on his face. "How did you escape the game grid?"
Char blinked. "That's what that weird place was?" she asked, more for the others' benefits than anything else. "Huh. Well, a Heartless popped up and blew a hole in the wall, so I just escaped through there."
"Hm," was all Tron said, before turning to the terminal. "Well, now that you're here, it looks like we can send you all back to the User world."
"Huh?" Sora seemed to snap out of his stupor at the program's words.
"We can leave?" Char prompted him.
"Oh, yeah – you're right, we can." Sora smiled, albeit with a much lesser degree of relief than before. At the same time, though, disappointment flickered through him at her lack of response to that.
He turned to Tron, who had already knelt down and begun to ready the terminal for the group's departure. "Thanks, Tron. We really owe you for this."
Tron shrugged, not looking up from his work. "I'd say I owe you Users a debt as well. With all my functions restored, I think I've got a chance of getting system control away from the MCP."
"I'm glad you can fight again, Tron," Goofy quipped.
"Yeah," Donald nodded.
Char thought she saw a smile flit over the program's face, but it was gone so quickly she couldn't be sure. "I'd better get to work as soon as possible," he said, sounding as though he were thinking aloud. "Getting the system back to normal… It's what my User would want."
The redhead's eyes widened at the note of respect in Tron's voice. It made sense that he would feel obligated toward Ansem, but at the same time, her master had been the one to create the MCP within this world in the first place. She wondered if Tron was aware of that. "What Ansem would want…" she heard herself murmur aloud.
Hearing Char's words, Sora cast a hesitant glance over his shoulder at Donald and Goofy. They nodded encouragingly, and he turned back to Tron. "Um, Tron?" he queried. "About the password… we didn't get it from Ansem. We… just kind of found it."
"And Ansem was our enemy," Donald added.
"Yeah," Sora said. "Well… he still is. I guess."
At this point, Tron had finished his work on the terminal. He got to his feet and faced them, his tall form covering the bright light that had begun to shine on the terminal's monitor. "Well, actually… he's my enemy, too."
Char folded her arms, her surprise increasing. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"Ansem took ENCOM's original system and customized it for his own use," Tron explained. "I was part of the original system, and Ansem modified me, too."
Sora looked to Char to see how she was taking this new knowledge – of what her fellow apprentice had done to this place – but she had only inclined her head slightly downward, silently listening. Now, she thought, the long days she and the others had spent away from this area so Ansem and Even could add some new "updates" to the computer made sense.
They were making adjustments to this world, she realized.
"But Ansem is also the one who brought back the MCP," Tron went on. "The Ansem I first knew wouldn't do that."
That confused Sora. If Ansem – Xehanort's Heartless – had owned this computer and gone to the trouble of creating this entire world to guard his secrets, then bringing back a program that had made it such a lawless place and tried to kill them at every turn didn't make much sense.
Then again, if Ansem's name wasn't really Ansem, then we might not be even thinking about the same person… The thought was giving Sora a headache, and he crossed his arms, trying to ignore the pangs that he typically only got when Roxas was about to appear in his mind's eye.
Beside him, he heard Char draw in a sharp breath, as if having just realized something. He glanced at her, about to ask what was going on, Donald's words about how Char was hiding more than one secret from him echoing in his head more loudly than ever.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Tron said, ignoring Char's change in demeanor. He probably figured it was just a weird User thing, Sora thought with a brief, wry sense of amusement.
Meeting Tron's eyes, the brunette unfolded his arms. "That's okay, but… now I really don't get it," he confessed.
"Me neither," Goofy groaned.
"I don't… understand it either," Tron admitted, a little grudgingly. "But I think in the end, it'll be you – the Users – who finally figure it out." When even Char looked slightly curious, he said, "You have the ability to take illogical routes and still arrive at the answers you seek. Now go – before the MCP starts acting up again!"
Sora nodded, discarding his bemusement for now. "All right." He turned toward the yellow terminal. "Uh… how do we use this thing again?"
Tron smiled. "I thought you'd ask." He patted the keyboard he had just been tapping fastidiously away at. "I've already pulled up your destination. All you have to do is confirm it."
"Okay, thanks." Sora spared a glance at Char, wondering for a moment how she would react to this.
Sure enough, the force of his eyes on her was enough to drag her out of the fog of contemplation that had surrounded her – that was around her all too often, as of late. She blinked, her face obtaining a more focused look about it, then looked a little anxiously at Tron. "Are you sure we should mess with it now? With the MCP and everything…"
"Tron took care of it," Goofy told her with a grin. Belatedly, Sora realized they had yet to explain how the man had changed the password to the DTD and delayed the MCP's full takeover of the system.
"Oh." This time, she looked bewildered, clearly having not having anticipated that twist of events. Sora found himself smiling slightly at that.
"Well then, let's get the hell out of here," she said, moving to stand beside Sora. An instant later, though, she moved her head to examine his face better, raising one eyebrow. "What're you grinning about?"
With a start, the brunette realized that the visible evidence of the warmth he felt at the rarity of Char's acting flustered hadn't left his face. Hastily, he shook his head. "Uh, nothing."
"Sure," Donald muttered.
Sora cast the duck a slightly embarrassed grin, before stepping forward and surveying the monitor. As he stared at the two options the terminal was giving him, he lifted one hand, ready to select the one that confirmed his desire to return to the outside world. Finally, we can get at Ansem's secrets.
Then something hit him, and he looked at Tron. "How do we get at Ansem's data from the User world?"
"Any data you need can be directly accessed from the terminal you entered from," the program explained. "I'll keep a dedicated access channel open for you. I changed the password, so you won't have to worry about the MCP for a while."
Char blinked. "Access channel?"
Tron chuckled. "I knew you'd ask." He leaned down and reached past Sora to press the button that would send them out of this world. As the white light began to gather itself, visible in the cracks between the keys on the keyboard, Tron straightened and glanced over at them. "It's a very important link between our worlds. It helps us stay connected."
Light flashed up and surrounded the group, and Char actually started, the fear that had taken over her when this terminal had done the exact same thing to teleport her back to Hollow Bastion briefly flaring up before vanishing. Thankfully, she calmed just before Sora could notice. She told herself to relax; now that she knew Tron was controlling this thing, the knowledge that it would take her where she wanted to be came with that.
Of course… The inevitability of explaining everything she was withholding from the others – Ansem's true identity, Riku's location, Roxas' connection to Sora, Anxclof's connection to Roxas and why she was hunting Sora down – weighted heavily in the back of Char's mind. And suddenly, the readiness to confess that she had felt back in the game grid seemed worlds away compared to the return of the hesitation that had plagued her for so long.
Who am I kidding? I'm not ready for any of this – not to fight Anxclof for Sora's life, or to tell him everything. I'll probably never be.
Only Donald and Goofy seemed to sense her inner turmoil, much to her chagrin; she didn't need them feeling any more suspicious toward her than they did already. Thankfully, though, only the former cast her a squinty look; the latter's gaze held more anxiety as to her status.
Oblivious to the goings-on, Sora tilted his spiky, helmeted head to the side. "Okay, but… Tron, what did you change the password to?"
This time, the smile the program gave them was blurred slightly by the light that surrounded them and began to steadily consume them.
"You – my friends – are the new password," he confided.
Sora returned the smile. "Thanks, Tron. Take care!"
"You too. And give my best to the Users!"
He got just the merest glimpse of the man giving them a thumbs-up before the terminal's teleportation beam blotted out his vision entirely.
Tron is such a dork in KH2. I love him. -shot dead-
(1) The weapons Mickey gave Goofy and Donald are the Dreamcloud and Lord's Broom, respectively. Just thought they deserved a weapon change, because Goofy's been hauling the same shitty shield around since chapter 7. XD
(2) Yes, Char is the jealous type. Lol.
(3) While I was writing this scene, I realized just how, well... flirty the SoraChar banter scenes were. So I decided to have Tron's confusion as to what the hell these Users are doing sort of lampshade that.
(4) If the MCP being IC or not is a concern here... I kind of thought the same too, until I took the time to watch the original TRON. Recall the MCP's little "when someone pushes me, I push back" quote? Yeah, that's kind of what I drew on there. Sark, however, is an entirely different story. XD
(5) Why yes, this part IS deus ex machina on my part, why d'you ask? LOL.
(6) How many people want to bet he's thinking "I need her" at this part...
OKAY. Mass of A/N's aside, some good old-fashioned Char confessing should FINALLY happen next chap. It only took 40-some chapters, people, but she's finally made it.
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