I'm showcasing Nehrut a little more in this chapter. I'm glad that a lot of you guys seem to like him so far. See what you think at the end of this chapter.

Nehrut: "DarthKingdom doesn't own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or anything else. Just the story, me, and the other O.C.s."

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Chapter 22: Psychic Swordsman

"Xaynew controls storms." Nehrut was saying.

The three of them were jogging along the streets to where they assumed they would find the others. "He can manipulate the weather into creating rain, thunder, or tornadoes. I suppose it suits him. For a Nobody, he's particulary violent."

He muttered under his breath. "He always was."

Sora and Kairi wondered what he meant by that.

"How do you know this Xaynew?"

Nehrut was silent for a moment, and Sora began to suspect that he wouldn't answer. But then he said something shocking, "He's my brother."

They froze, and stared at his back as he walked away.

His brother? He's going to have to tell us more sooner or later.

For now, they decided to put it aside. Now probably wasn't the best time for a story. In any case, there wasn't time for questions. About a dozen Heartless had materialized in front of them.

Sora observed his new companion's fighting stance. It seemed a variant of a classic fencing style. His glowing blade, instead of pointing at the enemy, was held away from the body, horizontally across his chest in one hand. He gazed calmly ahead at the Heartless.

The first Armored Knight rushed forward and brought it's sword down on his head. He lifted his blade to intercept it. He parried the strike, and sent the attack flying harmlessly to the right. Quick as a flash, he slashed the knight across the chest. It vanished.

Sora was impressed. That little engagment had lasted only four seconds. He smiled, and rushed toward the remaining Heartless with Kairi.

They worked very well together. They had just met for the first time less than thirty minutes ago, yet they were fighting as smoothly as if they had rehersed it. Their blades flashed all over the place, and Heartless fell. Eight Shadows, two Armored Knights, and three Minute Bombs later, the three humans were the only ones left standing.

"You two are good." Nehrut said. "I've never seen moves quite like that."

"Thanks." Kairi said, smiling. "You're pretty good yourself."

"You're too kind, Princess." He responded with a smile and a little bow. "And the best is yet to come."

"Really?"

His only response was a lopsided smile.

They continued on through the city, plowing through the downpoar (and a few Heartless). They searched frantically all over, with no sign of their friends. Sora was starting to get worried.

"How are we supposed to find any of them?" He asked.

Then he realized that it had gotten unusually silent. He looked at his friends, and discovered that Nehrut was kneeling on the ground, with his eyes closed. He traded a glance with Kairi, who looked just as confused as he was.

"Um..." He asked, "Nehrut? What are you doing?"

"Shhhhh..." He responded in a voice that could just barely be heard over the wind and rain. "Mens Quero Meditation."

Sora had no idea what he meant, but remained silent. Whatever he was doing, it was apparently important. They sat there for a few minutes.

Right out of the blue, Nehrut sprung to his feet, surprising the other two. He pointed to the northwest and said, "Riku, Yuffie, Barret, and Axel are fighting over there." He pointed to the east. "Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are searching for someone (probably us) over there." He pointed to the north, "Pete's blubbering over there." He pointed farther up. "And my dear brother is up there."

Their eyes widened. "How do you know that?" Kairi asked, astonished.

"The Mens Quero Meditation lets me link to other's minds for a few moments." He explained, "In my homeworld that translates into 'Mind Search'."

"So, wait..." Sora said, "You're like psychic, or something?"

"I told you the best was yet to come." He said with a smirk. "Riku's group is closest. Let's go."

Still astonished at their friend's revelation, they set off at a run through the city. They came across more rubble from the castle, and soon heard the sounds of a battle. They could distinctly hear someone shouting, "BURN baby! BURN!"

"Yeah, I think we're close." Kairi commented.

Soon, they could hear other sounds, like the rapid fire of a machine gun and the whistling sound of metal clanging against metal. Before long they arrived at the end of a long, wide street. No different from the rest of the streets on this dark world aside from the fact that it was absolutely packed with debri.

Riku, Yuffie, Axel, and Barret were fighting together against a massive group of Nobodies. Among them, Sora could see a variety of Nobody he hadn't seen before.

The Paladin Nododies were roughly human shaped, and silver (as was common among the lesser Nobodies). They were carrying golden double-bladed axes. Whenever they swung –surprisingly quickly- electricity crackled from the ends. The majority of the attacks missed, but when one of them scored a lucky hit against Riku's leg, he gave a few spastic jerks.

Minor electricution hurts. Especially when delivered by a sharp axe blade.

Sora held the Keyblade in both hands and rushed into the fray. Kairi and Nehrut fell into step beside him. When the Nobodies saw them, some of them rushed their direction. The fighting commensed, and Sora eventually found himself back-to-back with Riku on top of a large chunk of marble.

"Just like old times, huh Sora?" The silver-haired boy asked casually. Sora chuckled.

"What do you say we show them Eternal Session?"

"Sounds fun."

The two charged forward at a group of enemies hastling Yuffie and Kairi. "Out of our way!"

Sora delivered an upward blow that somehow caught two Nobodies at once. Riku followed up with two similar strikes that sent the rest of them into the air.

The two Keybearers then took to the air themselves, and flew all about the group of foes suspended in midair. They delivered dozens of lightning fast strikes at them, picking them off quickly one by one. Those particular enemies were down in less than ten seconds, and they had only finished the first tier of the Limit.

"Is that all you got?" Riku chastized, floating to Sora's side. They flew at another group of enemies that had just arrived on the battlefield. Before they had a chance to do anything at all, Riku and Sora were all over them.

The Keyblades flashed even faster, tearing the Nobodies to ribbons. They unleashed a flurry of high-speed stabs into them. More fell into place behind them to replace their fallen comrades. That was just fine with Sora and Riku, they weren't done yet.

They flew backwards quickly, and dismissed their weapons. They stretched out their hands. Their hands were immediately covered in dark fire. It was white-hot, but outlined with faint traces of blue and black. They aimed at the Nobodies, and football sized fireballs burst from their fingers.

They streaked at their targets and exploded on impact. The barrage of Dark Fire didn't cease for a long time, and when they finally did, the last of them was nothing more than a few smoking craters.

They turned their attention to a trio of Berserkers approaching Barret and Nehrut.

"Let's take 'em." They placed their Keyblades together, and in a surge of energy they transformed into a single huge blade. It shone blue like Riku's dark fire, but was outlined in pure gold light. Riku took the sword first, rushing toward the Berserkers with Sora floating behind his back.

He swung hard at the chests of the Nobodies. The blade covered a huge arc, tossing them backwards. He swung so hard, he rotated completely around in the air and handed it off to Sora. He swung it again in the opposite direction, tossing them back farther still.

The Nobodies were tough, but a few rounds of that was too much for almost any being. They were down soon.

They migrated to the center of the ring, where Axel was struggling against a group of the dark beings. They floated back to back and dismissed the blades again. Around them, thirteen scarlet energy blades rimmed with gold surrounded them, points facing up. They spun around them, then shifted to horizontal positions. As the two friends spun on the spot, so did the blades.

They cut through the Nobodies like a massive floating chainsaw. They sliced through even the Berserker's claymores, the Paladin's axes, and bits of building. Soon there were only twenty Nobodies left on the street, and it was time for the finisher.

Sora and Riku flew apart, and then swooped back at each other, tossing Oblivion and Way to the Dawn into the air. They hung suspended in the air six feet apart with their points facing each other.

"You're gonna lose it all!" Riku shouted. The blades started glowing, Oblivion was gold, Way to Dawn blue. The magical energy sucked all the surrounding enemies into the gap between the blades as the glow became stronger and stronger. Until eventually, it became absolutely blinding.

When the light faded they were gone, and Sora and Riku landed softly on the ground. "Time's up!" They said, and bumped fists.

The street was quiet again. "Is everybody alright?"

"Yep." Yuffie said. "And you guys totally owned that round! Nice job!"

The two gave overly theatrical bows to her, which caused more than a bit of eye rolling.

"You're milking it, man." Roxas said.

"If you two are done milking it..." Nehrut began, though he was smiling.

"You see?"

"We should probably find the King." He pointed to the east. "I can feel that they're fighting right now, and it's tough going."

"Um, how do you know that?" Riku asked, confused. Sora jumped down to Nehrut's side and gave him a pat on the back.

"He's psychic!"

When Riku raised an eyebrow sceptically, Sora tried to defend his words. "How do you think we found you?"

"We were making a lot of noise."

Slowly, Nehrut raised his right hand. The chunk of debri on which Riku was standing started to rise into the air. His eyes widened, and he tried to stabalize himself. It was to no avail, however. The slab flipped over when it got six feet into the air, dumping the boy mercilessly onto the ground.

"It's called telepathy, Riku." Nehrut said with a wide grin. He casually tossed the slab through the air, where it landed over fifty feet away (unknowingly crushing a few Heartless). "It runs in the family."

Sora and Kairi tried desperately to talk through their laughter. But Nehrut was sporting about it, and extended his hand to help Riku up. "C'mon, let's get going." Then he whispered very quietly to Riku, "Sorry I embarassed you in front of your girlfriend."

The group set off at a steady pace to the east, fighting off a number of Heartless and Nobodies as they went. It felt like an hour before anything particularly interesting happened.

They turned a corner, and were almost crushed by the falling claymore of a Berserker. They looked up at the building they had arrived at. It was five stories tall, and several feet wide. They heard the fighting of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy from the very top. It didn't take a psychic to tell that they needed help.

Kairi searched around for a way up, but found none. "How do we get up there?"

Riku and Barret looked at Nehrut. He cast looks in between the two of them, and smiled. He knelt down on one knee, and closed his eyes. "You might feel an odd tingling sensation."

Sora slowly felt himself leave the ground. Looking around, he saw that the others were floating as well, the looser clothing was billowing around them softly and slowly.

Wow, that is an interesting feeling.

The group floated up toward the building, but it was pretty slowly.

"Can't you speed this up any?" Yuffie asked. It was clear that she was itching to get into the fight. The hand holding her shuriken was twitching, eager to rid itself of it's burden.

"Ma'am would you like to drive?" He responded in an annoyed voice. But he was able to lift them a bit faster.

Thirty seconds later, they appeared over the edge of the building. The royal party was fighting off a group of both Heartless and Nobodies. Donald was nearest them, and as soon as he turned around and saw them all suspended in midair, he let out his usual cry of, "WAAAAAAK!"

Yuffie tossed her shuriken, Axel threw his chakrams, and Barret opened fire from his arm. Nehrut released them from his hold over the roof, and they charged into the fray.

Sora charged at the nearest Dusk, who "ran" to meet him. Less than one foot away, he twisted around, into a kind of spin around the Dusk (cutting a Creeper in half on the way). He wound up on the Dusk's other side. The Nobody looked back and forth for a second, wondering where he went. He had a good laugh at that, and cut it down before he could turn around.

Riku sent a barrage of dark fireballs at a pair of Dancers. The resulting explosions were enough to blow what was left of them completely off the building, and crashing to the street.

Kairi fired off Firaga spells left and right, incinerating them. A Paladin rushed at her, swinging a wide left-to-right arc. She met the powerful strike, holding her blade vertically, and keeping the axe away from her body. The electricity flowed into Kairi's Keyblade. She pushed the axe away from her, and took a huge swipe at the Nobody, frying it with it's own electricity. She smiled to herself and continued into the battle.

The skirmish was significantly shorter than the one they had foought in the debri-littered street. The attacking force was much smaller, and they were facing ten extremely skilled warriors. It was over pretty quickly.

The group looked themselves over. They hadn't sustained any serious injuries as of yet.

"Now what?" Sora asked. "Should we go after Xaynew?"

"Probably." The King said. "We may be able to get more information out of him. We know next to nothing of the Brotherhood, so any information we can get at this point would be invaluable."

"Good luck actually getting him to tell you anything." Nehrut muttered darkly under his breath. Then he sighed resignedly, and pointed in the direction of the ruins. "He's over there."

"Let's get going then." Sora said detirminedly, facing that area where the storm clouds had suddenly grown fiercer. All around him, weapons were drawn.

"And prepare for a storm." Nehrut added.

--

So how do you like Nehrut now? Do you think he might be too overpowered?I bet none of you guessed the brother thing, huh? Review please! And if you didn't know (and you probably didn't) 'Mens Quero' is loosely Latin for 'Mind Search'.

SamuraiJedi: Thanks, it's sort of a combination between other fictional weapons.

Shinku Ryuuga: Myrtle Beach sure blows my vacation out of the water. Lucky dog. And also, I'm glad to say that Shire Folk has!

Garuto: Thanks!

JoBrosCupcakeSwirl: Thanks about Nehrut, and as for Xaynew; You have no idea...

ConfederateofZ: You know, I didn't even realize that part about Axel until you pointed it out! And I'm sure you can finish something, and I'll be glad to help.

SuperLardBucket: I hear you. I just can't help myself. So, in future chapters it is toned down a little. Though this is under the 'Romance' category.

Krystal Lily Potter: Ha ha! I can picture that right now! And Nehrut and Riku are over on the side screaming at them to look over their shoulder and duck! And thank you about Nehrut, I put a lot of work into his story.

Shire Folk: I'm glad you like him! He did just what my friend would have done, poked fun at them!

Silver-Twilight: Thank you!