I am disgusted by the shortness of this chapter. I'll try to update sooner to compensate for it.

Riku: "Four pages… Yeah, that is short. Why is it so short?"

I try to break up the chapters so that they feature the more significant events. Still, this came out too short.

Riku: "Okay, then. DarthKingdom doesn't own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or anything else."

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Chapter 90: Deception

Triton got up from his throne and swam toward Eric, embracing him like a long-lost son. "We were worried about you, son! Everybody went out to search for you! What happened?"

"Well, I hope I haven't become too much of an inconvenience." He said. "You see, Morgana attacked my ship on the way here."

Triton growled, and clenched his fists. "Blast that wretched sea-witch! She'll be the death of us if we don't act soon."

"I'm sure we'll find her eventually." Eric said, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "But for now, shouldn't somebody go and get the others? I'd hate for something to happen to them on my account."

"Ah, yes of course." Triton agreed. He swam past Eric to the far side of his throne room. "Flounder, are you still there?"

A few moments later, the young Flounder swam into the throne room. His eyes lit up when he saw Eric back safe and sound. "Eric, you're back!"

"Hey, little guy."

"Flounder," Triton said, "I need you to tell the others that he's returned. Start with King Mickey's group, they're somewhere in the city right now."

"Alright, Your Highness!" He gave a funny kind of salute, and swam away.

"Now, then Eric..." Triton began, turning around. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Eric holding his trident in both hands, smirking horribly with a glint in his eye that he didn't like.

"Eric, what are you-?"

He pointed the trident at him, its three-pronged end glowing. He laughed, and fired a beam of golden energy at him.

It struck him full in the chest, sending him flying backwards across the room, and into a pillar. All the breath was knocked out of him, and sank down to the floor.

"This was completely worth the work!" Eric commented, holding the prongs of the trident up to his face. Triton started to move, and he aimed it back at him. A second beam of golden energy shot from it, and connected with Triton's chest. This time, the king was surrounded by the same golden energy.

Eric lifted him up into the air via the beam, and slammed him down into his throne forcefully.

"Guards!" Triton managed to cough out. "Guards! Subdue him!"

Moments later, six of Triton's personal guards rushed in, their short swords brandished.

"Fools." Eric said, smirking. "You can't win against the power of the seas!"

He aimed the trident again, and fired. This time, rather than the gold energy that he'd used against Triton, super-cooled ice particles burst from the end. They collided with the guard in the lead, and burst, forming a thick layer of ice around him, and trapping the one next to him, as well.

The others swam around their frozen comrades, and continued toward him. One swiped vertically at his neck. But Eric easily avoided the attack, he bent backwards to nearly a ninety degree angle, and the sword passed harmlessly over him.

Eric flourished the trident, and hit him under the chin with the blunt end. The force of the attack threw the guard flying out of the room, and who knew how far away.

Two more of the three guards charged at Eric as one. They stabbed together at his chest, but he casually side-stepped the attacks. He brought the trident up quickly, knocking the swords from their hands. With another clean swipe, he knocked both guards out cold with the blunt end of the magical weapon.

And now, only one guard was left. Eric smirked at the very pale guard. "Boo."

That did it, and the guard turned and swam away. Eric pointed the trident at him. Suddenly, a whirlpool appeared around him, and dragged him back into the throne room. The trident began to glow, and the golden energy shot out into the merman's face, throwing him into a pillar.

Eric gazed into the glowing light of the trident, and laughed. "This is going to be fun!" He turned around, and looked at the semiconscious Triton. "Later, old man."

He walked out of the throne room, the trident slung over his shoulder.

!

It was nearly ten minutes later that Riku, Yuffie, and Mickey regrouped at the gates of Triton's palace. The beautifully crafted, columned gates stretched high above their heads, opening up to the magnificent building's entrance hall.

"Let me get this straight." Riku said to Flounder. "Eric is back, safe and sound? Without a mark on him?"

"Um, well yeah. Why?" The young fish looked puzzled.

"Something doesn't seem right about that." Yuffie muttered, almost to herself.

"You're right." Mickey agreed. "He's been gone all this time, and then suddenly reappears unharmed as if nothing were wrong. I have a bad feeling about this whole thing."

They swam to the palace gates, and past a few merpeople milling about the area since the end of the concert nearly thirty minutes previously. They came to a sudden stop when they saw a man exiting the palace with the trident over his shoulder.

A man who the trident did not belong to.

Flounder (innocent and trusting as he was) swam up to Eric, covering the distance between them as quickly as his little fins would allow. "Hey Eric!"

"Flounder." He responded curtly.

"Why do you have the trident?" He asked curiously.

"Oh, King Triton gave it to me to... keep. He's not feeling so well, maybe you should check in on him."

Immediately, Flounder swam around him, and into the palace.

"He actually bought that?" Yuffie sounded incredulous.

"He's just a child." Mickey defended. "He wouldn't expect a close friend to lie to him over something so important."

Eric walked casually on, but soon found Riku, Mickey, and Yuffie blocking his path. "Hello guys. You should probably-"

"Don't give us that crap." Yuffie snapped, flourishing her shuriken threateningly.

"You're not Eric." Riku said, glaring at him, and summoning Way to Dawn. "Your scent is too different. It's darker."

"Not Eric?" The accused responded, as if surprised that the Keybearer would think such a thing. "Who else would I be?"

"Morgana." Mickey summoned Kingdom Crown.

A wicked smile appeared on Eric's face, and he pointed the trident at Riku's chest, the three prongs crackling with golden energy. "Good answer."

He fired the energy at Riku, who summoned the Guardian quickly to block the attack. There was enough energy in the blast that it actually forced it backwards a bit. Riku fired a blast of Dawn at Eric from behind the massive creature, which narrowly missed.

Eric leapt backward from the strike the King had aimed at his waist. He parried another two blows with the trident, before counter-attacking with a stab at his face. Mickey weaved to the side of the attack, avoiding the sharp prongs completely.

At the same time, Riku and Yuffie struck down toward Eric's head. The trident came up, blocking their blades. He forced their weapons off of his, and dove backwards away from them.

King Mickey was holding still now, gripping his blade tightly with both hands. The blade was beginning to glow, and it was getting brighter and brighter all the time. He lifted it into the air, and the golden glow left the blade, forming into a small ball of Light directly over the blade.

He lowered it, and pointed it at Eric, who was once again fighting off both Riku and Yuffie. He took careful aim, and when he finally saw an opening, he shouted, "Holy Light!"

The ball shot from the blade with blinding speed, and impacted with Eric's chest. It hit him full on, knocking him backwards, but the more interesting thing that happened was that something flew out of his back.

It looked like Morgana, almost. It was a shadowy, featureless copy of the sea witch.(1)

"He was possessed!" Mickey shouted to the shocked Riku and Yuffie, who were now looking at an unconscious Prince Eric.

The trident lay on the sandy floor at Eric's feet. He had dropped it when Mickey's attack struck him. Carefully, Riku bent over and picked it up with both hands. The metal was surprisingly warm to the touch.

"Let's bring this back to-"

A shadowy figure shot forward, yanking the trident from Riku's unprepared grasp. A huge cloud of black, inky smoke obscured his vision before he totally realized that it was Morgana's shadowy duplicate that had taken it.

A burst of Light from Mickey's Keyblade cleared away the ink seconds later, but Riku didn't like what he saw.

He, Yuffie, and Mickey were surrounded by Heartless, and Morgana's duplicate was nowhere to be seen.

Growling in frustration, Riku called Way to Dawn back to his hand. He parried the strike of a Screwdriver, and stabbed through its stomach. Two Sea Neons approached from behind him, but he spun and took them out with one clean swipe.

Yuffie took three kunai, and tossed them in all directions. She was pleased to discover that they were somehow functioning as she wanted them to even underwater. One caught a Screwdriver in the throat, another struck a Kraken in the eye, and a third struck a Sea Neon full on.

She then took her shuriken, and dove to the sea of a charging Great Black. She drove the weapon into the top of its head as hard as she could. Black smoke leaked from the wound for a few moments, before the Heartless faded away completely.

King Mickey dueled with a pair of Screwdrivers, blocking their tridents easily every time. He stabbed forward, removing one from the picture, and then beheading the other. A Kraken shot it's tentacles forward in an attempt to catch him, but missed.

The oldest Keybearer swam toward it, Keyblade raised. He brought it down hard on its head, cutting it clean in two. Both halves sank to the ground, before vanishing in Darkness.

Riku ducked under a charging Aquatank, stabbing his blade into its stomach as it passed over him. A handful of Sea Neons and Screwdrivers swam toward him, perhaps seeing him as the greatest threat. He stretched out his hand.

"First Light's Fire!" He shouted. A large plume of red-orange fire burst from his palm at the Heartless. It roared toward them, and incinerated them easily upon impact.

The Wielder of Dawn smirked, flexing his fingers.

The fighting lasted only minutes before the Heartless were completely and utterly defeated. But, the damage was done.

The trident was in Morgana's hands now.

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See? Short. It gets better though.

1) Wwecat's idea. Imagine this as something like that featureless Jafar-lookalike in KH2.

Please review!