When the white smoke from Merlin's spell clears up, the wooden walls of the room I'm in are revealed. Am I back in Oogie Boogie's manor? I sure hope not. My fears are quickly relieved because the walls are smooth and polished unlike tree bark. A gentle swaying motion rocks the room.
I notice a nearby door and I'm about to open it when it opens, slamming into my face. I fall onto the floor rubbing my forehead. That's going to leave a mark.
"Kaze! It's you!" A familiar voice exclaims. I look up and see Sora standing over me. He gasps as realization dawns on him. "Did I just hit you with a door? Sorry!" I stand up shakily.
"Just don't do it again!" I growl. Sora seems to remember something.
"We have to tell Yen and Matt! They've been looking for you!"
They've been looking for me? After what I did? "Really?" I say. "That's great but, what about Raven?"
Sora looks down sadly. "Maybe I should let them tell you." He seems upset by this, so I don't push him. Why would he keep this a secret, though?
"Sora, come on!" I hear Donald yell in his usual annoying voice.
"We hafta go save Wendy and Kairi!" Goofy adds. Sora and I step out of the room and are greeted by strange expressions by Donald and Goofy. They quickly got over it, though. Now it is my turn to look down.
"Sora, Kairi isn't herself right now." I state
He turns around quickly. "What do you mean?" He asks.
"Maleficent told me her heart is gone. We have to go to a world called Hollow Bastion to save her."
"Then let's go! After we save Wendy!" Sora declares.
"Are you guys coming or what?" Asks a voice. A young boy in all green clothes comes flying around a corner. That's right, I said flying! A trail of golden sparkles follows him. "We don't have all day!"
"Kaze, this is Peter Pan! We're helping him save Wendy."
That takes care of the introductions, but there's still one thing confusing me. "One question, how are you flying?" Suddenly, a small yellow light also zooms around a corner. When it stops, I can see it's a fairy.
"Perfect timing Tinker Bell!" Peter says. "Do you think you can give Kaze here some pixie dust? Maybe he'll do better than his friends."
Tinker Bell flies back and forth in the air above me, sprinkling golden dust all over me. "Okay, now how do I fly?"
"You just have to believe you can," Peter answers. I jump into the air, but no flying comes. Peter Pan groans. "Not you too! Come on, we have to get going!"
We follow Peter all throughout what I now realize is a ship. Along the way, we had to fight off various heartless. We eventually come to a small room. To my surprise, Riku is waiting there, his back turned.
He turns around. "So, you arrived." He says. Something is off about him. I soon realize the problem. If I look closely, I can see an aura of darkness surrounding him.
"Riku! What are you doing here?" I exclaim.
"The same thing you're doing here. Saving Kairi." He frowns. "Or I guess I should say I'm the only one trying to help her."
Sora steps forward. "Come on, Riku," he pleads, "we can help her together!"
The aura of Darkness around him flares, though I suspect only I can see it as no one reacts. "Yeah right! All you two care about is running around with those Keyblades of yours!"
"Riku, that's not true!" I say.
"Save it! I'm saving Kairi, and you two should just stay out of my way!" The darkness surround Riku flares once more, but instead of going down, it moves to the side and creates a portal. Out of it steps two heartless. However, these heartless aren't normal; they look just like Sora and me!
"Have fun!" Riku taunts before disappearing into a corridor of darkness.
"Riku…" Sora and I sigh in unison.
"We have more problems, you guys!" Donald squawks. The portal had been summoning heartless identical to everyone in the room. Before we can even react, the room is almost full of them. Even the door is blocked off.
"Thunder!" Donald yells. A wave of lightning crashes through the heartless near the door, eliminating a few. Peter Pan tosses his dagger into the air and it gains a slight glow. He snatches it out of the air and slashes through the heartless, wiping out even more. Goofy jumps into the air, spinning around with his shield.
Sora and I summon our Keyblades and attack as well. Before long, we've destroyed most of the heartless, but the portal keeps spamming more. "Let's get out of here!" Goofy yells. We all rush out of the door, slamming it behind us. Sora and I sit down in the front of the door to keep it from opening, but the door keeps getting pounded on.
"How did Riku do that?" Sora gasps.
"It must have something to do with all of the darkness he now has." I say. "Who did that?"
"Male…ficent obvious… ly" I hear Vanitas say. His voice is cut off multiple times though. Like a broken CD. What's going on here? For now, I'll just go with Vanitas's explanation for now.
"It's Maleficent. She filled Riku with all of that darkness!" I explain.
"Maleficent?" Sora asks, standing up. "Why would Riku help her?"
"I don't know." I sigh. Wait a minute! All of those comments about saving Kairi alone and us not doing anything for her…
"I've got it! She's telling Riku that he's the only one who can help Kairi! She must have given him some darkness to help him!" Our conversation is cut short, however. The wooden door, held shut by our weight is now creaking with the combined force of our heartless doppelgängers.
"Run!" Donald yells. We dash away from the door just in time. The moment Sora and I leave, the door shatters and dozens of heartless spill out. We run away, hoping to find a safe place. The heartless clones are right on our heels, I can almost feel their incoming attack.
"Guys, up here!" Peter Pan calls out. He's at the ceiling a few yards away. Near a trapdoor! I've never been so happy to see a hole in the roof! Peter flies by and grabs Goofy to bring him up. Meanwhile, Donald, Sora, and I try to hold them off.
"Blizzaga!" Donald yells, casting a layer of ice over the hallway. The ice manages to wall us off from the heartless, but seems to be cracking. Fast!
Time to use a new spell! "Gravira!" Sora and I shout simultaneously. A dark orb appears around the first wave of heartless the moment they break through the ice wall. It pins them to the ground, stopping their advance.
While we have a chance, Peter flies off with Donald to the trapdoor. Now it's just me and Sora. The gravira spell wears off, so we cast more. "Thundaga!"
"Firaga!" Accidentally, the spells collide, but instead of canceling each other out, the lightning creates a cage around the fireball. The attack plows into the heartless, shocking and burning them at the same time. I suspect it has even more power than if they were seperate.
Finally, Peter comes for Sora and lifts him away. It's down to me! I fling various spells at the heartless, but they keep advancing. "Blizzaga!" I yell. I feel the familiar chill run through my body, but it stops at my fingers. I must be out of magic!
Realizing my distress, one heartless leaps straight at me. Ironically, it's one that looks like me. As it closes in, I remember one thing I have left. I pull out the red summon stone stone. "I hope this works!" The world around me turns completely black and everything disappears except for me and the stone.
I hold the small gem into the air and an aura of light appears at my feet. It rises up in thin beams of swirling light before combining above my head. Out of the bright light that follows, comes a small, square shaped robot. It's very rusty and it's head is just a pair of binoculars on a short neck. For feet, it has all-terrain treads on each side.
It holds out its three-fingered hand. "Wall-E." It says. I assume that's his name. I shake his hand.
"Let's do this!" The world turns back to normal and Wall-E and I immediately goes into action. His square body opens up as he rolls around the crowd of heartless. Impossible amounts of them are stuffed inside of his body. When he is full, the hatch shuts and Wall-E shakes wildly. His torso opens up once more and a compressed cube of darkness falls out. It quickly evaporates while Wall-E goes on to compress more.
We fight together until Peter Pan grabs me and flies off. Wall-E stops fighting and starts to glow. He soon disappears in a red light and he shrinks down, returning into a small ruby. It then flies right into my packet.
Peter flies up into the trap door and we slam it closed behind us. "I'm never fighting one of those again!" I pant heavily. That fight took a lot out of me! I look around to see we're in a large cabin. Two bunks are on either side of the room and a desk sits in the middle.
"Is this the captain's bunk?" Sora questions.
"Yes, but we have a problem!" Peter warns. I turn and see the heartless had apparently stopped trying to break open the trapdoor. Instead, they've turned back into darkness and are flowing in through the floorboards.
"This can't end well," Goofy says, stepping back. The darkness condenses into two spots, gradually becoming larger. In a few seconds, it has become two detailed clones of Sora and I, Keyblades and all. Curiously, they are holding Kingdom Key and Light's Power instead of the ones we hold now. Donald, Goofy, and Peter try to come to our aid, but a wall of darkness separates us from them.
"Is it just me, or do those clones stronger than the rest?" Sora asks nervously.
"They're stronger!" I say. Now would be a good time to try out that Keychain Kairi gave me! I summon Cloaked Light and hook the new Keychain on. In a flash of light, it changes.
It is now mostly white, with the exception of the tip of the blade, which is a bright red. The yellow guard and hilt resemble that of an ornate rapier's. From each side of the white, thin blade, a light blue thing shaped like a crescent moon emerges. Each supports three short yellow. Along the blade are two spirals, one yellow and one white.
Rising Sun. Wasting no time, I attack the heartless resembling me. Sora goes after the one that looks like him. I swing Rising Sun down upon my doppelgänger, but it expertly blocks my attack with the same amount of power. We both push as hard as we can, but we're too equal.
I leap back at the same time my copy does, each of us pausing for a second to find a weakness in the other. A quick glance confirms that Sora is having the same problem. I am forced to return my attention to my battle when the heartless attacks once more. I barely block the attack with Rising Sun. A jarring shudder runs through my body.
I continue to press on, but eventually, my muscles ache from the intense fight. Wait… If physical attacks won't work, then how about magical ones! "Try and beat my spells then! Firaga!" As soon as I cast the spell, Dark-Kaze sends out a darkened for firaga as well. The two spells collide in the air, creating a large explosion.
I am thrown violently against the wall along with anyone else nearby. Luckily, instead of hitting the ground, I landed on a bed. Dark-Kaze was not as lucky, however. It stands up, looking extremely angry for a thing with only eyes for facial features.
It raises its darkened Light's Power into the air and my hair stands on end. Lightning! I dive out of the way just as a humongous bolt of black lightning strikes right where I was standing.
How am I going to beat this guy? It can counter all of my attacks with equal power. It doesn't seem to get tired, though. I'll pass out from exhaustion long before that thing does, but I can't lose now! Kairi needs us!
At that thought, Rising Sun glows with a bright energy."Light… magic" comes Vanitas's voice. I narrow my eyes in determination. If regular magic can't beat him, then I'll use light!
I focus on the happy things in my life, drawing out the light. Sword fights on the island, playing video games with Sora, the secret cave, and most of all, hanging out with my friends. The light from my Keyblade grows stronger and brighter, forming a large orb around me,
"You're finished!" In one quick burst, I direct my light onto the Dark-Kaze. The light envelops it and I can see it be destroyed, evaporating into darkness.
Sora has too destroyed his clone. Instead of using a magic attack, his Kayblade was cloaked in light as he swung Kingdom Key straight through Dark-Sora. In a flash, the barrier preventing our friends from helping disappears.
"Good job destroying those heartless," Peter says. "I could have done it better, of course."
"Sure," I say laughing, "but we have to keep going. Wendy and Kairi are around here somewhere!"
"There's only one place left." Peter Pan says, "Hook must be on the deck."
"Then let's go!" Sora says. "Kairi isn't getting any help while we're here!" We open the door at the front of the cabin, ready to face whatever awaited us.
RAVEN
This city is too wet. The rain seems to show no signs of stopping. It has been an endless downpour sonde I arrived here. Even worse, I'd way too dark. I almost tripped like, five times!
For the hundredth time in the lat few days, I run my finger over the new scar I recently received. "Would you stop that?" A monotone voice from the shadows says. "It is just a scar."
"Easy for you to say. You have an X-shaped one over your face!" The speaker steps out of the shadows. As I thought, it was Saïx, the most emotionless person I've ever known.
"Which is exactly why it should be easy for you to ignore."
"You're used to it…" I mumble. Saïx opens a corridor of darkness.
"Come. I must bring you to the Superior." Saïx walks through and I follow wordlessly. I already know who the Superior is and why he wants to see me. In fact, what I'm about to do is so bad, the guys probably wouldn't want to see me again. Then again, I've already betrayed them.
-Flashback-
"Raven, what are you doing?" Matt asked. He looked frighteningly at the Keyblade held by a person he once knew as a friend.
"You'll understand someday." It hurt to do this, but I had no other choice. I began to swing the Keyblade down upon him, but a small fireball blasts me in the back.
"Raven, you don't have to do this!" Yen said in a normal voice. I turned to face him. He held his Keyblade firmly, but I could see he was scared. Scared to attack his former friend. "We can help you with whatever this is."
"You two will never understand!" They never will understand what's going on. What it's like to have no memories of most of your life. To only have half a heart.
"Maybe we won't understand, but you're going about this the wrong way!" Matt slashed his Keyblade as I turned to face him. I sharp stinging sensation ran through my cheek.
He attacked...
"You have done well, Raven." A new voice said. Before anyone could do anything, a Corridor of Darkness opened under my feet. Before I went under, the last thing I heard was Yen.
"Raven, why?"
-flashback end-
"You aren't still thinking about those meaningless children are you?" Saïx says, bringing me back to the present. "When you've done your part, you won't need any memories of those three. You'll remember your true friends." A brief flash of a memory runs through my mind.
Two boys about 15 years old. One with long blue hair, and the other spikes red. "Come on, Raven!" The red haired one yells before the memory fades.
I find myself on the ground, clutching my head in pain. "What was that?" I moan.
"Your memories."