It's that time again! So Roxas, the disclaimer please!

Roxas: "Alright. DarthKingdom doesn't own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or anything else he wants to use... You know, now I think you're just getting lazy with these disclaimers."

I knew I should have asked Kairi...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 40: Nessus

Back at the Coliseum, spectators were filing into the stands. Waiting in the atrium with Kairi, Riku, and Hercules, Sora figured they'd be in for a show.

"So who do you think this guy is?" Riku asked to whoever may have an answer. He wasn't the type of guy who could wait patiently for a fight. He had to actually get in there. He was pacing up and down the room, a sure sign of anticipation and nervousness. It didn't help matters that his girlfriend had gone down into the Underworld where who-knows-what could find her.

"Didn't Hades say he was 'eager to meet you again' Hercules?" Kairi asked. "Is there anybody you know who might carry a grudge against you?"

"Have a few days? I must have a hundred creatures who'd like nothing better than to tear my arms off and beat me with them."

"Join the club." Sora said. "I've had computer programs, a jaguar, undead pirates, lions, and an evil genie after me. The list goes on for a few miles. Once I was attacked by a cave." (1)

"Well, your enemies are a lot more diverse, I'll give you that..."

Then Phil walked in, and the debate on who had the better enemies ended. "You guys ready?" He asked. "Feeling confident? 'Cause the guy is here."

"Never better." Riku said somewhat bitterly.

"Yuffie will be fine, Riku." Kairi said, latching onto his chain of thought.

"So who's our opponent?" Hercules asked.

For some reason, Phil let out a short, harsh laugh. "You remember your old pal, Nessus?"

"Hades sent him here?" Herc said with a smug smile. Then he laughed in relief. "Oh man. And here I was starting to get worried."

"Nessus?" Sora asked.

"He's a centaur I met once a while back. He acts tough, but he's really just a big thug. He'd captured Meg last time I met him, but I beat him easy enough."

"Nothing to worry about, then?" Riku said.

"Nope," Phil said, "I'm gonna introduce you guys soon, so be ready." He walked out.

The four of them waited for about five minutes before they heard his voice amplified again. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to start the main event! You've seen him battle here day after day after day after night! He's the true hero who hasn't lost a match yet! You know him, you love him... Hercules!"

"That's my cue." Herc said. He walked out confidently, and the crowd screamed like never before.

"And now for his partners!" Phil continued once the applause had died down somewhat. "You've seen him battle in this coliseum before –even go toe-to-toe with the champ! He's the chosen wielder of the Keyblade, and he's saved the universe twice... and he's only fifteen! Give it up for Sora!"

Sora summoned the Keyblade to his hand and winked at Kairi and Riku. He put it over his shoulder and strode out. While the applause wasn't quite as loud as it had been for Hercules, it was clear that the audience remembered him.

He gave them a wave, and stood next to Hercules, who smiled at him.

"And now, two newcomers to the coliseum!" Now that he had a better view of the coliseum, he saw Phil standing high, high up in the stands in what looked to be a commentator's box. He was holding an old-fashioned megaphone cone-like instrument. "They're Keybearers too, and definitely no strangers to combat! Make 'em feel welcome people! Riku and Kairi!"

Whether the crowd was extremely pumped up, or just had to listen to Phil, Sora didn't know. But they cheered excitedly as Riku and Kairi walked into the arena with their heads held high and Keyblades in hand. Riku stood on Hercules's other side, and Kairi next to Sora. They waved at the crowd, finding that most of them were off their feet, and jumping up and down.

But Sora could hear one dissatisfied voice, "What's a girl doing in the colleseum?"

Apparently Kairi heard too. Her head snapped in the direction of the voice, and they saw a fat, balding man in the front row glaring at her. "Get out of the arena, girly! This is a man's game!"

In response, Kairi pointed her Keyblade at the man and blasted a fireball at the wall two inches away from the man's body. That shut him up quite nicely.

Sora grinned widely and put a hand on Kairi's shoulder. She smiled back at him. Riku smiled approvingly, and Hercules gave her a thumbs up.

Phil continued, "Our four champions will be facing an old goon from the stinking Underworld team." Phil's tone became much less enthusiastic at this part. "Introducing Nessus."

Through the doors at the other end of the arena came their opponent. Nessus was a large blue centaur with blue-grey skin. His hooves were the size of anvils, and made a loud noise with every step he took. His hair was jet black, and flowed back his head down his back. His beard was at least two feet long. He wore chain bracelets on his muscled arms, and he was sneering.

He raised one of those arms and pointed an angry finger in their direction. "Hercules!" He snarled.

He wasn't impressed. "Hey, four-legs." Sora suspected that this was some kind of inside reference.

"Get ready for a stomping!" Nessus growled. And without any further preamble, he charged at them.

Fearlessly, Hercules charged right back, for some reason head first. The three Keybearers followed in his wake, weapons ready.

Nessus and Hercules picked up speed, and met with a resounding crash in the center of the arena. Herc's head had smashed directly into the centaur's gut. Nessus let out a huge burst of air, and flew across the air back in the direction he came from.

"Yeah! Way to use your head champ!" Phil exclaimed from wherever he was. "Oh, geez I'm still holding this, aren't I?"

Nessus staggered back to his four feet, clutching his stomach with both hands. But he was smirking. Lifting one of his hands, he snapped his fingers. A dozen Nobodies appeared all around the arena, surrounding them.

These Dark Knight Nobodies were about the size and build of an average human man, and were of course mostly silver. Their faces, however were covered by a jet black Nobody emblem. That black symbol was repeated on their chests. They all carried identical black swords that resembled elongated Nobody symbols. (2)

"Can't handle us on your own, tough guy?" Hercules mocked.

Nessus laughed heartily. Suddenly, he seemed to ooze darkness. Sora recognized the symptoms. The look of pure hatred and fury, the aura of darkness, not to mention the diabolical laughter. Nessus had become a semi-intelligent Heartless like Shan-Yu and Scar. He lifted his hand into the air, and pointed at the Keybearers, "Get them!"

The Nobodies sprang to life and rushed at the trio. Sora blocked a very fast horizontal strike from a Knight, and then a strike from the opposite direction from another Knight. He jumped into the air over them, and shot a fireball at them while in midair.

Unfortunately, the Nobodies simply teleported to a safe distance ten feet away. The fireball scorched the ground where they had stood. Sora landed just in time to block twin strikes at his back. He spun around and stabbed one of the Knights in the shoulder, not enough to kill it, but enough to get it off his back for a moment. He focused on the other one.

His blade was a blur as he advanced on the other knight, striking from every angle. Eventually, his blade found it's mark: the neck. The Nobody's head flew briefly through the air before disappearing along with the rest of the body.

The wounded Knight took up it's blade again and rushed at Sora as it happened. Sora ran to meet it, and just before the Keyblade cut through it, the Nobody teleported to Sora's other side and struck at his back. He was able to leap away, but he felt a shallow gash on his back. Another Dark Knight ran directly at him with it's sword ready.

He slipped to the side, and cut it in half as it passed him.

Kairi ducked under a horizontal swipe, and stabbed forward with her blade. The Nobody went down hard. She jumped at another one, blade coming down. The Knight blocked this and threw her blade up, lunging forward. Kairi threw herself backwards to avoid the blade and smacked it out of it's hand and onto the ground.

She delivered what should have been a killing blow, but it teleported away. It went behind her and picked up it's fallen blade. She turned around and engaged it, and it was soon joined by a second. She ignited the end of her blade with fire and slashed horizontally. The fire sprayed off of it and hit both Knights, sending them staggering backwards.

She rushed forward and put her blade through the first one.

Riku swept at the legs of a Knight, and his blade was blocked. He followed up with a strike to it's head, which was also blocked. So, Riku engulfed his fist in dark fire and bashed into it's face. The Nobody fell backwards, writhing and clutching at it's face until it disappeared. Riku twisted around and disarmed an oncoming Nobody, and then slashed it across the chest.

The Nobody teleported away and picked up it's blade. It teleported behind Riku just as another one appeared in front of him. Riku extended his left hand, and blocked the front attack with a dark shield. He moved his arm almost casually around and intercepted the attack from behind with the Keyblade.

A burst of dark energy from his hand sustaining the shield caught the Nobody in front right in the chest. He spun around and dueled with the other one.

Nessus was actually giving Hercules a hard time. As a Heartless, he had gained a new measure of strength and speed. He rushed at Hercules and threw swift, heavy punches at the hero. Herc weaved in and out of them, and delivered punches of his own whenever possible.

Nessus reared back and punched the ground, creating a shockwave powerful enough to send everyone stumbling, and even upset the spectators in the first row. Nessus ran forward and tried to stomp Herc into a pancake while he was down, but he rolled away from the smashing hooves every time. He managed to roll underneath his body, and kicked up with both legs into his underbelly.

Nessus cried out in pain as he was thrown bodily across the arena. When he landed, he crushed one of the Nobodies Sora had been fighting. The Keybearer flourished his blade and unleashed a barrage of attacks on the centaur, Hercules joined in soon. Nessus had gotten himself stuck in a corner during his landing, and could do very little to defend himself from the Keyblade and fists.

Kairi and Riku worked to take out the remaining four Dark Knights while Nessus took his beating. Riku beheaded one, Kairi set another on fire. The Princess of Heart jumped over one that charged at her with it's blade ready. When she landed on it's other side, she assaulted it with strikes from her Keyblade. It flailed about until she finished it with a burst of electricity from her palm.

Riku locked his blade against the other one's. They struggled for dominance, pushing the other's blade as hard as they could. Riku ruined his opponent's concentration by surrounding his blade with darkness. With one mighty push, he knocked the blade spinning away totally out of the coliseum. He followed up with a powerful blow that cut the Nobody in half.

Hercules finished the whole fight off with a devastating punch to Nessus's jaw, nearly breaking it. The centaur fell to the ground, unconscious. A fine trickle of drool fell from his slack mouth.

There were a few long seconds of total silence, as if the crowd wasn't sure it had ended. Then they all burst into deafening applause, cheering on their champions. Sora could see the man who had wanted Kairi sent out of the arena actually jumping up and down in enthusiasm.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Phil said again, "Our champions! Hercules, Sora, Kairi, and Riku!"

The four of them waved briefly at the crowd, before the Keybearers walked quickly back to the atrium. Hercules gave the crowd one more arm flex (just a little something for them to chew over) and then scooped Nessus up over his shoulder and followed them out.

They walked through the atrium and out into the courtyard, and dumped the centaur onto the ground. Phil and Meg walked out to join them with buckets of water in hand. They stood over the unconscious Nessus and emptied the buckets onto his face.

He flinched, coughed, and raised his head. He was clearly trying to focus on them, but suddenly had his windpipe stepped on by Herc's foot. "And now, four-legs, you're going to tell us all you know about Hades's plans."

**************************************************

Thousands of miles away from Olympus and the coliseum, the ocean was in chaos. A demonic creature pulling a demonic chariot flew fifty feet above the churning waves. In the chariot were Hades and Ruxik, practically shivering in anticipation. Pain and Panic were shivering in fear just behind them.

The chariot stopped in a specific area over the ocean, no visibly different from any other bit of sea. Hades smiled and lifted both hands. The ocean below became three times more violent. It started bubbling, and frothing, sending gouts of water into the air.

The water began to separate, forming a circle empty of water nearly two hundred feet across. Below was a horrible sight; a cage of lightning was covering an opening in the sea floor far below. Behind that, four gigantic figures could be seen, each with glowing eyes peering out.

"Brothers!" Hades called, his face lighting up with manic pleasure. "Titans! Look at you in your stormy prison! Who put you down there!?"

"ZEUS!" Four loud, chilling voices cried out.

Ruxik lifted Way to Dusk into the air, and pointed it down at the opening. A beam of light shot out, mixing with the cage lightning. There were a few seconds of chaos below.

"And now that we set you free..." Hades went on, "What's the first thing you're going to do!?!?"

"DESTROY HIM!!!" The voices proclaimed. Four giant fists smashed through the lightning.

Hades smiled. "Good answer."

Do we actually know what happened to the Rock and Ice Titans after KH1? There was no preamble or anything, they were just there.

(1) Sora: "Seriously!"

(2) In case you still haven't noticed, the Nobodies are named after FF job classes. I'm doing my part to continue the trend.

Please review!