[DarthKingdom and the cast are sitting on the beaches of Destiny Island]
Five years! Holy crap, I didn't expect it to be this long…
Bariss: "Well, maybe it wouldn't have been if you would stop procrastinating."
Roxas: "Or if you had a computer that didn't have some random crap happen to it every few months."
Noted, moving on.
Nehrut: "On behalf of all of us here at BotD, thank you for your continued support!"
!
Chapter 131: Strongholds
"They're alright!?" Riku exclaimed.
"Yep." Roxas replied.
Several of the defenders of Radiant Garden had congregated at the Crystal Fissure, just south of the Great Maw: Riku, Yuffie, Axel, Roxas, Namine, Nehrut, Bariss, Maka and Soul, Sonic, Mario, Max, and Auron were catching their breath inside the multicolored crystal caverns. The shafts of brilliant light sparkled all around them, creating a calming effect that helped them wear down from the tension of battle.
The majority of the Heartless had been pressed to the northwest, back toward Villain's Vale, and the fortress. The remaining ones were being soundly dealt with by the rest of Radiant Garden's forces.
The thirteen of them were about to assault the rest of the Heartless in the Maw, and make a final push toward the fortress Pete had occupied. Hopefully with his defeat, the Heartless would retreat from the world.
"Well, things are looking up again!" Yuffie clapped.
"And of course, we have two more Keyblade-wielders." Nehrut pointed out. "Now, we just have to cross our fingers that the others can take care of business in the Dataspace, and we're good to go."
"And capture thisa' Pete guy." Mario pointed out in a very heavy Italian accent.
"Naturally." Nehrut agreed.
"I say we go ahead and start that now." Riku said. He summoned Way to Dawn, and walked to the end of the cave. He peeked just outside of the entrance, and saw a mass of Heartless milling around the Great Maw, as though waiting for them. "I'd hate to keep Pete waiting."
"Who's up for a bet?" Roxas asked. "Ten munny says he wets himself when we find him."
"Can I get in on that action?" Soul asked.
"Yeah, me too?" Sonic added.
"Me three?" Max agreed.
Riku rushed forward with Yuffie at his side before he heard the rest. The others followed almost immediately.
"First Light's Fire!" Riku shouted, holding his blade high. He enveloped his blade in enough Dawn energy to hide the metal of the blade from view. He had slashed three Morning Stars completely in half before they had even turned around to face him. Another three nimble strikes cut four Armored Knights into pieces.
By the time the rest of the Heartless were ready to fight, another ten had fallen. Riku struck his blade onto the ground, releasing the Dawn covering the blade forward into the creatures.
Yuffie's shuriken whizzed past his head, slicing the head off of an Invisible. She stood by Riku's side, and fought with him.
Together, the Keybearer and ninja were unstoppable. On the off-chance that one of them missed any of the Heartless they were aiming for, the other one would immediately step in to deal with it themselves. Any Heartless that approached them had no chance of touching them, and met with a violent end.
"So, having fun?" Riku asked her, stabbing through the chest of a Soldier.
"Are you kidding!?" She replied, throwing her shuriken into the face of a Large Body. "I live for this!"
"Axel!" They suddenly heard Roxas shout from nearby.
"I got your back!"
The two former Nobodies were near the very center of the Great Maw. Axel's arms were blazing with fire, and he was facing Roxas from about ten feet away. He thrust his hands forward, sending massive jets of fire shooting directly at the Keybearer.
Roxas crossed his blades, and raised them in front of him, catching the fire. It gathered around the Keyblades, and Axel didn't let up on the flames for a full five seconds.
Roxas' blades were completely covered in fire, and he held them out to his sides. He began to spin on the spot, releasing the fire all around him in the form of massive fiery tendrils.
The fires stretched over fifty feet out from his body. Any nearby friends had to dive out of the way to avoid being burned alive by the intense heat. The slower Heartless weren't lucky enough to avoid that fate.
Roxas spun the trails of fire quickly around his body, clearing and scorching the fifty or so feet around him, and destroying all of the Heartless within that range. He kept this up for almost a full minute, before flourishing his blades, and snuffing out the flames.
"Almost!" He said, as Axel ran toward him with his chakrams spinning at his sides. He connected the weapons with Roxas', and they were instantly covered with bright, blazing hot, blue-white fire.
The two rushed by each other, their blades burning with blinding flames. They spun their weapons around their bodies, forming what may as well have been an impenetrable wall of white-hot fire.
They moved into the Heartless, setting them ablaze if they got too close, or otherwise slicing them apart with their rapidly moving blades. They carved massive paths amongst the mass of creatures, engaging more of them than anybody else on the battlefield.
This went on for the next few minutes, before Roxas and Axel ran directly back at each other at the center of the Maw.
"Get THIS memorized!" Axel shouted, leaping over Roxas' head, and landing directly behind him. They stood back-to-back, and let their weapons float from their hands. The fire surrounding them intensified by at least ten fold, as they began to spin around the two of them in a wide circle.
They shouted, and thrust their hands outward. Their weapons flew out at the Heartless, massive fireballs now fully formed around them. The creatures in their path were decimated by the heat, which was approaching the temperature of the surface of a star.
Upon striking the canyon walls, the fires went out, and the weapons reappeared in the hands of their owners.
"Awesome, as always." Roxas said with a smirk.
!
"A little further." Sora muttered to himself, slicing through a Strafer.
After escaping the Game Grid, he, Kairi, Donald, Goofy, and Tron had immediately set out for the Simulation Hanger, where the Solar Sailor was berthed, and awaiting them. Heartless had dogged them at every step, and they had been forced to abandon their light cycles.
They were back by the I/O Tower, and in the hallway leading to the door of the hanger. Only a handful of Heartless were there to meet them, and they were soon dealt with.
Kairi ran over to the hanger door, Keyblade in hand. She stabbed it directly into the center of the doorway. The door fluctuated and shimmered for a moment, before completely vanishing.
"Who would have guessed the Keyblades work on computer locks, right?" Sora asked.
"Not me." Goofy answered.
"Everybody inside, hurry." Tron ushered them in.
Not far away sat the Solar Sailor, just as Sora remembered. It was a long, flat platform with reflective plates fixed to the back and front. A thin 'cable' made of energy stretched through it, and extended to a point very, very far off in the distance.
"This thing flies?" Kairi didn't seem to understand what she was looking at.
"In a way, yes." Tron replied. "But we need to hurry, time is a factor here."
They rushed down the walkway that led to the unusual craft, only encountering a foursome of Magnum Loaders to resist them. Tron sent them all flying off of the walkway into the virtual abyss below simply by throwing his disk at them. It bounced off of each of them, and knocked them all over.
No sooner had they stepped onto the Solar Sailor than more Heartless appeared to stop their takeoff.
"Keep them busy!" Tron said, running to the control panel at the front of the ship. "I need to begin the launch sequence."
"Take your time!" Donald quacked, shooting a Thunder spell into a trio of Strafers.
Kairi blasted a Devastator in the face with a ball of Light, and ducked away from a Magnum Loader that wheeled at her. It rushed onto the craft, which tilted slightly beneath its added weight. It returned to its natural balance when Goofy smashed his shield into the Heartless, sending it flying into the abyss.
"It can only take so much weight." Sora explained to Kairi, cutting a Strafer in half. "Make sure they don't get on."
"Got it." She agreed, cutting the head off of another Magnum Loader.
Soon after, Tron declared, "We're ready! Get on!"
They wasted no time complying, bringing down a few more Heartless just before the Solar Sailor rocketed out of the hanger at high speed. Kairi nearly fell off from the unexpected acceleration, and was immensely thankful that Sora was there to grab her before she went over the edge.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. But that was way too close." She replied, patting his shoulder.
Gradually, they all adjusted to the speed of the craft. But falling off soon became the least of their worries.
About a dozen of the Viral Heartless were fast approaching from behind, and they were firing rapidly at the Solar Sailor.
"I don't suppose that we have weapons on this thing?" Kairi said.
"I'm afraid not, Kairi." Tron said. "I'm increasing our speed, but we may have to defend the ship ourselves."
"I'm fine with that." Sora said, changing his blade into a Keywhip. The circuit line effect on the chains was a little dizzying. "Besides, I've got an awesome idea."
He summoned the Keyboard beneath his feet, and shot off of the Solar Sailor, and into the virtual sky. Naturally, the flying Heartless began attacking him, drawn to the Keyblade Master.
Sora threw the end of his whip at the nearest Viral, successfully wrapping the chain around the barrel of its cannon. He pulled himself toward it, and dismissed the Keyboard. With some incredible coordination, he kept the whip wrapped around the barrel of the weapon, and planted his feet firmly on top of the Viral.
As anyone with any experience could tell you, Heartless were dangerous, but stupid. The Viral and its fellows came to a complete midair halt, and hovered in place. Every one, save for the one that Sora was standing on, rotated its turret to point at Sora.
The instant before they opened fire, Sora jerked up on the Keywhip as hard as he could. The Viral he stood on reared upward slightly in response, and took the blasts itself.
Just one attack was almost enough to finish it off, but the ones that followed it really did the trick.
Sora sprang off of the Heartless just before it was derezzed. He spun through the air, and landed on top of another Viral. He hurriedly wrapped his whip around the solar panel on its right side, and gave a firm tug, just as it fired again.
The result was that it turned abruptly to the side, and fired directly into the cannon/face of the Viral to its right, making it the second one to be derezzed.
From afar, Kairi, Tron, Donald, and Goofy watched as Sora continued to devastate the airborne Heartless in similar fashion. Within a few minutes, there was only one of the Virals left.
Sora soon solved this problem by transforming the Keywhip back into a blade, and stabbing it repeatedly into the top of its body.
"Show off." Kairi smirked, as Sora flew back to them.
"But that's why you love him isn't it?" Goofy said, chuckling.
"Kairi, why do I detect that your body temperature is rising?" Tron asked curiously. "Are you feeling alright?"
!
"Show off." Bariss grinned, watching Nehrut telekinetically smash a Large Body into the side of an old building.
Everybody who wasn't stuck in the castle or the Dataspace was inside Villain's Vale, in the small village surrounding the castle at its center.
This village had once been a small settlement known as Cherry Blossom. It had maintained close ties to the city of Radiant Garden in the past. Unfortunately, when Xehanort had made a mess of things, it suffered the same fate as the larger city. Maleficent had then had her dark fortress constructed amongst the wreckage.
Everybody was now making their way through the remains of Cherry Blossom. It didn't at all seem to deserve its old name with all of the crumbling ramshackle buildings. Every step of the way, they were meeting tooth-and-nail resistance from the Heartless.
It was becoming increasingly clear that Pete was getting nervous. The two of them alone were surrounded by a few dozen of the creatures.
"You just wish you had telekinetic powers." Nehrut replied with his lopsided grin that she loved so much.
Bariss flourished her sai, and threw it with all her strength. It struck the Invisible flying toward Nehrut right between the eyes. The telepath flexed his hands, and ripped the blade free, tossing it back to her in time for her to parry the strike of an Armored Knight. He rushed forward, and sliced it in half before she could do it herself.
"So, think we'll survive?" He commented.
"Nehrut, I once beat thirty-nine fully armed and armored mercenaries, three tanks, and a chopper by myself."
"Big deal."
"With a broken leg." She finished.
"Will you marry me?"
She laughed, even as she struck the end of her whip into the side of a Large Body's face.
"No, seriously..."
Bariss froze for a split second, and Nehrut had to leap into the air and cut a few Rapid Thrusters that were moving toward her in half. He sliced apart a trio of advancing Shadows, and then turned to face her again.
"I may have put you on the spot a little..."
Bariss stayed frozen for a few more seconds, while Nehrut had to defend her with quick strikes of Presul. When two Morning Stars launched themselves into the air to crush them, Nehrut flew them both out of the way, and lifted them onto the questionably safe roof of a nearby ruin.
"Okay, you can say no if you want, just snap out of it." Nehrut gently shook Bariss' shoulders.
"Yes." She suddenly blurted out.
Now Nehrut froze. "...Really?"
"Yeah." She nodded slowly, a smile forming on her face. "I'd want nothing more than to marry you. The second we turn eighteen, deal?"
"Wow, you're actually going for this..."
"We've got about three seconds until the Heartless get up here, so just kiss me."
He did. They broke apart exactly two and a half seconds later, and stabbed the Dark Ball that had been about a foot away from them. They burst into action again with smiles on their faces despite the seriousness of the situation.
!
"Hey, we beat everyone!" Roxas cheered.
He and Namine rushed up the steps of the dark castle, to the high set of front doors. From such a close range, it was very clear that the old fortress had fallen into disrepair. Entire sections of stone were missing, and rubble littered the ground around it. A massive chunk of the front stairwell had fallen off. It was now clear why Maleficent had been house-hunting when she was last in action.
"Our castles were way better." Namine commented. "Granted, they were a bit sterile-looking after a while, but at least they weren't falling apart."
"Well, unless we're counting the mansion at Twilight Town."
"Ah, good point. Still, it had more class than this."
"The building inspectors could have a field day on this place." Roxas agreed.
They continued up the steps, easily slicing apart the Neoshadows that rose from the ground to halt their approach. They had just reached the doorway, when there was the sound of a loud bellow from behind them. They turned around.
A Behemoth Heartless had appeared at the base of the steps. Its beady yellow eyes were fixed on the Keyblades they held in their hands as it advanced slowly up the steps toward them.
Roxas ran at it, flourishing his blades. He covered the distance between himself and the Heartless fairly quickly, and pumped his legs, sending himself flying onto the top of its head.
He slashed repeatedly into its horn, and the purple flesh around it. Wisps of black smoke seeped from the skin with every slash he made, but he wasn't making much progress. The bony material of the horn was extremely hard, as was the thick, leathery skin around it. All the while, the massive Heartless thrashed its head back and forth to dislodge him.
Eventually, it succeeded, and Roxas went flying back onto the stairway. The Behemoth gathered crackling Dark energy to its horn and tusks, and formed a large ball of Darkness in front of its face. Seconds after Roxas hit the ground, it released it at the Keybearer.
Namine leapt over Roxas, and placed a large shield of Light between them and the blast. The Darkness exploded against the shield, which only faltered for a second. She launched the shield at the Behemoth, smashing it into its face.
She and Roxas ran at it together this time. Roxas went first, and harried the big Heartless with rapid strikes to its tree-trunk-sized legs. He hopped nimbly around the stamping hooves, and continued striking in between the attempted stomping attacks.
He knew good and well that these attacks weren't doing any serious damage to the Heartless. It was more to annoy and harass it while Namine did her part.
She was hovering directly over the creature's head, striking at its horn with Reminiscence, which was surrounded by Light. It carved deep gashes into the horn with every swing. The huge Heartless howled in pain with every chip into it. It thrashed its head back and forth, but there was nothing there that it could throw off of it.
As possibly a last-ditch effort to destroy them, it leapt high into the air, knocking Namine away, and pushing Roxas over with the down-draft.
It was amazing how high the giant thing could jump. It went nearly fifty feet into the air, before it began to fall back toward them. Roxas and Namine ran back up the steps to avoid it, and stumbled with it landed back on the steps, cracking several of them, and leaving a crater.
They hacked and coughed as a result of all of the dirt and dust it had kicked up when it landed. When they looked up, they discovered that its face was just feet away from them. It was gathering more Darkness to its horns, and was just about to finish them off.
When the ball of Dark energy appeared in front of its face, Namine punched out her hands. A similarly-sized ball of pure white Light shot forward, meeting the Darkness in a massive burst of energy.
The two former Nobodies threw themselves as far away from it as possible, pushed slightly forward by the force of the shockwave behind them. The Behemoth roared in its death throes, thrashing wildly as its flesh was disintegrated by the Light attack meeting its Darkness.
When the light faded, Roxas and Namine saw that most of its head had been ripped apart by the attack. It collapsed onto the ground, and began to fade.
Roxas stood up, and held out his hand to help Namine up. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. "Congrats, Namine. You just defeated your first major Heartless. What are you going to do now?"
Namine shoved him, though she was smiling.
"Wow, what have you guys been up to?" Came Riku's voice. The two blondes looked down the shattered stairway. The Behemoth was just a dissipating cloud of black hanging around the ground.
The silver-haired Keybearer was standing there with Yuffie, Leon, Max, and PJ. Nehrut and Bariss were just walking up.
"Destroying Behemoths." Namine answered. "What have you been doing?"
"I brought a building down on a pile of Heartless." PJ said.
"I destroyed eight Dark Balls and an Invisible with one throw." Yuffie said, tossing her shuriken between her hands.
"I popped the question." Nehrut said with a grin.
"And I said yes." Bariss added, smiling, and bouncing up and down a little bit.
As was not totally unexpected, Namine and Yuffie squealed, and ran over to hug her.
"Are you insane?" Leon asked Nehrut.
"Yes, but that's a completely unrelated question." Nehrut looked him in the eye.
"You're a little young, don't you think?"
"We're not getting married now. Just when we're ready." Nehrut shrugged. "We can get our affairs in order by that time."
"Well, whatever happens, congratulations."
"Same here." Max slapped the telepath on the back. "You actually hooked one!"
"Thanks." Nehrut looked at Riku and Roxas. "So... which one of you is going to be next to ask?"
The five of them all saw Riku's hand twitch slightly toward his pocket, and then hurriedly pull away. They also pretended not to notice.
"Come on. Pete's waiting for us." Riku said. "Girls, you can gush over the happy couple later, we need to go."
"Alright." They replied in mock sadness.
A nearby building suddenly exploded in green energy. They all immediately turned at the sight of this unexpected event. A few more spurts of the green energy shot into the sky from the wreckage of the building, and the sounds of a fist fight reached their ears.
Just a moment later, Kim and Shego came into view. The two were fighting back and forth at deadly speeds, each of them barely missing their marks with every punch, kick, or chop.
Roxas marveled at the skill with which they both fought. In its own way, it was almost beautiful. The pure savagery and boldness behind every cleverly aimed and delivered attack was amazing to behold, even as Kim delivered a devastating kick to the point of Shego's jaw that sent her sprawling.
!
The Solar Sailor came to a smooth halt at the end of the Central Computer Mesa. The housing unit of the Central Computer Core loomed before them, its thick walls stretching high into the virtual sky. A single column of red light speared into the sky from the opening in its ceiling.
Sora, Kairi, Tron, Donald, and Goofy stepped off of the Sailor, and onto the platform that led to the Core. The Keyblade Master found it suspicious that there was no sign of opposition. It had been the same way just before their battle with the MCP.
"I don't like this." Kairi said, holding her blade in a defensive position before her. "I'd almost rather be fighting Heartless than have to deal with this silence."
"Well, we'll probably be doing plenty of fightin' soon enough." Goofy said.
Tron led them to the Core, his identity disk already in hand. "Whatever happens, use caution."
They walked slowly inside. It didn't take them long to find the virus.
It was suspended directly over the pit where the MCP had once resided. It had a wide, barrel-shaped chest with red and violet circuit-line markings. It had a half-circle-shaped head at the top of its body, with no less than eight glowing red eyes all around it. It had an upside-down pyramid shaped piece on its underside, from which a series of cables protruded, and ran down into the pit to connect to its walls and rob control of the Dataspace systems. Four long, thick claws protruded from its torso, and were latched to the outer walls of the Core housing unit.
Its head swiveled around to face them, and all of its eight eyes looked at the intruders at least once. It uttered a noise that somehow mixed together beeping, humming, chirping, and growling, and a few of its circuit lines began to glow.
The entryway through which the Users and their program friend had just entered sealed without further warning.
"Oh yeah, this'll be fun." Sora said, falling into a fighting stance.
Panels in the virus's chest opened up, and an array of projectile weapons appeared. Each one of them targeted the newcomers. Without any further preamble, it fired upon them.
The first attack came in the form of small, rocket-like projectiles, which shone a bright red as they sped through the air. The five of them barely had enough time to leap out of their path before they would have struck them.
They exploded against the wall behind them, and they rushed into action.
Tron threw his disk at the cables latched to the walls of the pit below, surmising that the virus would lose control of the Dataspace if they were severed.
Unfortunately, the virus was a highly intelligent program. A cloud of chattel (small, metal pellets meant to throw off projectiles) burst from its underside, upsetting the course of the disk enough to send it wide of its target, and slamming into the side of the pit.
Tron quickly pulled it back to his hand, and used it to block a powerful laser that the virus sent at him.
Sora ran by him, and leapt up toward the nearest of its claws which was latched to the wall. He chopped down onto the center of it, hoping to cut it in half, and send the virus crashing down into the pit.
This is not what happened. The virus flexed its arm in a wave-like motion, and it slammed up into Sora before he could deliver his blow. It didn't even have to let go of the wall.
So, they tried attacking the main body next. Kairi fired small balls of Light into its torso, which deflected the blows while sustaining no apparent damage. Some of the weapons on its chest now turned to her, rapidly firing laser bolts at her. She was forced to backpedal, deflecting the bolts as they came at her.
A large, rocket-like projectile fired from its chest area, twisting through the air to strike her down. Goofy leapt in front of her with his shield held defensively in front of him. The rocket collided with the shield, but had enough power behind it to knock him backwards into Kairi, and send them both crashing to the ground.
When another one of the rockets flew at them before they could get up, Donald was forced to fire off an intense Thundaga at it, causing it to explode prematurely. Regrettably, Sora had been running by at the time, and was thrown toward the pit by the resulting shockwave.
He plummeted down into it, and only saved himself at the last minute by grabbing onto the last of the virus's cords which was stuck into the side. He looked down into the dizzying fall that he had narrowly avoided.
His Keyblade flashed, severing the cord he held onto from the wall. The virus shuddered, and uttered an animatronic howl. Sora dismissed his blade, and hurriedly shimmied up the section of the cord which was still attached to the virus's underside. The thing didn't seem to register his presence until he was directly beneath its underbelly.
Summoning the Keyblade back to him, Sora sliced off another three cords from the underside of the virus, sending them tumbling uselessly to the bottom of the pit.
Now the virus noticed him, and began shaking its body back and forth quickly in an attempt to sabotage his grip. But Sora held fast.
Kairi, meanwhile, flew up onto the top of the virus, landing right in front of its swiveling head. It fixed her with a cold, mechanical stare with three of its glowing eyes. The Keybearer held her blade aloft, and slashed down onto it.
The head retracted down into the torso, beyond her reach. An invisible –but very solid- field of energy suddenly burst from the top of the 'headless' torso. It hit Kairi full on, tossing her high into the air. She nearly left the Core housing unit altogether.
A few seconds after she began to fall, she was able to collect herself in midair, and turn her fall into a dive back toward the top of the virus, where the head had still yet to come back up. She dismissed her Keyblade. "Heaven's Blades!"
Her meter-long blades of pure Light appeared at her hands. Kairi held them out before her, and speared them down into the virus when she made impact. She had hit with enough force to shake the giant thing, and nearly break its iron grip on the chamber walls.
She wrenched her blades free, and began slashing viciously down onto the virus, finally seeming to do some damage to it. When she heard a loud humming noise, she leapt off of the top of the program, just before it released another wave of energy intended to smash into her.
The virus's head came back up from inside of its torso, its eyes flickering brightly. It suddenly lowered its body down, and then within the space of a second, shot itself upward, releasing its grip on the sides of the chamber.
The force of its abrupt movement knocked Sora loose from his grip on the cord below. He had just successfully severed the last of the cables which gave it control over system programs. Unfortunately, it still seemed to have a backup way of controlling them.
The virus anchored itself high above them, the severed ends of the control cables dangling uselessly beneath it. It twisted its body around, somehow moving its head to the bottom. Its eyes flashed brightly, and eight narrow red beams speared forward from them down at its five opponents.
Those below jumped and swerved around the beams as they tracked them across the chamber. Gradually, they herded them into a single section of the room, and moved in slowly to fry them.
Kairi erected a shield to protect them, throwing it up just before the lasers struck them. The lasers bounced off of the barrier, reflecting back into the face of the virus. It shuddered, and its head retracted quickly into its body.
"Sora!" Tron exclaimed suddenly, rushing forward to the end of the pit. "I need you!"
Trusting the program's judgment, Sora ran to his side, Keyblade in hand. "I need to get my identity disk up there. It has an anti-viral program loaded and ready that should be enough to destroy the virus, and debug the system."
"How are you going to get it up there?"
Without warning, Tron tossed his identity disk into the air directly over Sora. Acting completely on instinct, he smacked the disk up toward the top of the Core chamber, directly at the hanging virus.
At the moment before impact with the virus, the disk resembled a small, shining, bright blue comet. It was at its brightest just before it smashed into the spot over which the virus's head was concealed.
There followed a flash of blinding white light, as the virus bellowed its final cry of computer-speak.
Before it could even finish derezzing, Tron's disk whistled back toward him from the general direction of where the virus had been. He quickly patted Sora on the shoulder, and dove right down into the pit.
There was a bright flash of light, and Sora could feel his molecules splitting apart again. He smiled, knowing that it had been a successful mission.
!
In the fortress in Villain's Vale, Pete still stood over the strategy table. He was sweating profusely, and large drops of it were dripping off of his face. He was breathing heavily, as though he had been running for hours.
Everywhere he looked on the map before him, his Heartless forces were being soundly defeated. There were barely any of the creatures left anywhere on Radiant Garden, and his enemies were making their way toward him.
Pete gulped loudly, dreading the idea of returning to his inter-dimensional prison. This was going all wrong. He had to get out of here now, while he still had the opportunity.
"This is really not good…" He twisted around, and rushed toward the door at the end of the room. He threw it open.
"Hey, Pete." Nehrut smiled.
Inside of half a second, three swords, three Keyblades, a sai, a shuriken, a blaster, and a pair of gloved fists were pointed at him.
Another two seconds later, Pete was outside in the open air, suspended telekinetically over three-hundred feet above the ground by his ankle.
"Put me down!" He screamed. "Don't hurt me!"
Riku and the others stepped onto the balcony. "Why not?" The silver haired Keybearer demanded.
Pete considered this for a moment. "Uh, well I..."
"Solid answer." Roxas smirked.
"Now call off your Heartless within the next three seconds, or my grip might just slip." Nehrut said, emphasizing his point by dropping Pete a few feet.
"Okay! Okay!" Pete snapped his fingers. They all looked back into the room at the strategy table, and saw the small figures representing the Heartless vanish by the dozens, until there were none left on the entire map.
"Alright, that's better." Namine said.
"Now, what were you doing here?" Leon asked in a threatening voice.
"What're ya talkin' about? I was attacking the town! Those hunter guys let me free so I could do it."
"Why did you attack?"
Pete was silent for a moment. "Uh..."
The jaws of the people on the balcony slowly fell open.
"I, uh…"
"You didn't have any sort of plan when you came here, did you?" Namine asked.
Pete didn't say anything.
"You just did it because it seemed like something you were supposed to do, didn't you?" Bariss surmised, looking as though she had a headache coming on.
"I... guess so."
Nothing happened for a moment. Then Nehrut released his grip on Pete's ankle.
As Pete fell, screaming his lungs out, Namine hit him on the arm, and fixed him with a pointed look. The telepath sighed, and grabbed Pete again.
He slowly pulled him back up to their level. PJ sighed.
"That's my dad."
Just after the swooning Pete was dumped unceremoniously onto the strategy table, there was a flash in the sky outside of the fortress. All eyes gazed upon Radiant Garden's Keyhole as it formed in the bright blue sky.
"Can I do this one?" Namine asked. "I've always wanted to try it."
"Fire away." Roxas grinned, dismissing his Keyblades, and gesturing to the Keyhole.
Namine pointed Reminiscence at the Keyhole. Pinkish light began to form around the tip of her blade. It lingered for a moment, before it shot out, spearing into the Keyhole high up in the sky.
The Keyhole flashed, momentarily outshining Radiant Garden's sun. In moments, the sky was clear again.
The Battle of Radiant Garden was over.
!
Looking back now, I should have done some actual research on Tron and included some of those giant flying staple-remover things in the Dataspace… Well, too late now!
Hope that you all enjoyed it, and please leave a review!