Chapter 17: Arabian Dream:
Agrabah – The Desert:
"There it is," Ven called out over the communications link as the two Keyblade Masters flew across the Agrabah desert towards the Cave of Wonders. The it he was referring to in this case was the large Hellfire Club spaceship from San Fransokyo hovering right before the tiger head-shaped entrance to the cave. Given the size of the gargantuan craft, it was very hard to miss. Ven looked over to where Terra was flying beside him atop his own Keyblade Glider and nodded. Nothing more needed to be said as they raced ahead to battle these Dark Elves. A Gummi Ship full of Coalition soldiers was following close behind to provide reinforcements in the coming battle. A few minutes later, the duo landed on the sands at the mouth of the giant sand tiger that served as the entrance of the Cave.
Not wanting to blindly rush in and walk into a trap, they waited the extra two minutes for the Coalition Gummi Ship to land and disgorge the complement of troops. Captain Tidus of Destiny Islands was in command of the unit, and after a quick check to make sure everyone had enough healing items, the group descended into the cave's labyrinthine depths. Between the two dozen Coalition troops and the two Key bearers, fighting their way through the Heartless that seemed to always pop up inside the Cave of Wonders (Even theorized that the collective greed of those who had perished in the cave over the course of the last several thousand years was strong enough to ensure a steady population of the little demons, but nobody was really inclined to care about such ideas at the moment) was as easy as pie.
Twenty minutes later, they emerged into the cave's large treasure room at the bottom of the Chasm of Challenges and found themselves confronted by a strange sight. Dark Elves were searching through the heaps and piles of treasure scattered all over the massive room. In the center of the room stood the familiar pale face of Malekith, directing the whole operation. What he was looking for though was a mystery, one which nobody present expected the elf to ever reveal willingly except as a means of psychological warfare to achieve a completely different objective. But Malekith wasn't alone. By his side stood a figure who was clearly female, but definitely not human.
Her skin was a light blue. Not the deep ocean blue of Master Aqua's hair, but the lighter blue like the hair of Seymour, a disgraced priest from Destiny Islands who was exiled after he was discovered selling Coalition secrets (specifically military intelligence used in planning the defense of member worlds ranging from weapons specs to patrol routes) to remnants of the Hellfire Club. Point being, the woman's skin was the same color as Seymour's hair. Her hair, on the other hand, was as blood red as Lea's, and that of his father, Reno. She wore what looked to be a loin cloth around her pelvic area with a similar cloth wrapped around her chest. A long, reptilian looking tail flicked back and forth behind her, and her purple-membraned wings were wrapped around her shoulders like a cape.
Deciding to break up the search before the villains found what they were looking for, Terra, Ventus, and Tidus led the charge into the room and began fighting Dark Elves left and right. The element of surprise enabled the group to get in close quick enough that their foes couldn't bring their black hole grenades to bear in the confined space. Not without risking the death of their leader and the potential destruction of whatever it was they were looking for. While the troops kept each other busy, Tidus, Terra, and Ven went straight for the leaders.
"Your interference was amusing the first time, boy," Malekith remarked with a calm smirk as the three swordsmen advanced on his position. When they got close enough, he leaped out of the way and opened a Corridor of Darkness with a wave of his hand. "But it is quickly becoming annoying. Demona, dispose of them."
"With pleasure," the blue woman, who Terra and the others now recognized as a Gargoyle, answered with a grin that most would be inclined to call sadistic while her apparent superior vanished through the dark portal, presumably back to his ship. Terra and Ventus quickly raced forward to face Demona while Tidus radioed the Coalition naval forces stationed in orbit to commence orbital and aerial bombardment of the Dark Elves' warship before Malekith could get away. With that pressing issue taken care of, he jumped back into the fray.
The battle itself was fierce but brief. Demona fought like a demon (which was how she'd earned her name in the first place), but none of her moves were threatening enough to two Keyblade Masters in full battle armor who could block and counter her razor sharp claws easily. While gargoyle claws could normally slice through even solid stone, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus had upgraded their armor after making contact with Goliath's clan, anticipating just this situation where they had to fight a gargoyle allied with Maleficent. Now, Keyblade Armor was strong enough to withstand everything from gargoyle claws to a chainsaw.
The battle finally ended when Demona conceded that she didn't stand a chance on her own and fled through another Dark Corridor. As she escaped, Tidus radioed in to the fleet to check on the status on the bombing of the spaceship, only to discover that the ship had a built in force field protecting it from all the Coalition fleet's airstrikes. Then, it had vanished into thin air like a Stealth Sneak Heartless to disguise itself while it took off for parts unknown. With nothing else left to do since the Dark Elves had all escaped through Dark Corridors on their own, Tidus lead the group back up to the mouth of the cave and told the troops to take a few hours to unwind after the battle. While he was off calling his girlfriend Yuna to see if her job with the Intelligence Network would permit her to come visit Agrabah for an hour or two, Terra and Ventus flew off in their Keyblade Gliders to talk to Mickey and Oswald. They needed to figure out what the Hellfire Club was after, and they needed to do it quickly.
The Lanes Between – D.E.S. Nathalis: An hour later;
"This could be a problem," Seymour remarked as he looked at the report Malekith had received from his spies on the world of Saint Canard. The informants the Elven king had placed throughout the worlds of the Daybreak Coalition gave the Dark Elf king an advance warning system for when the Coalition tried to bring the hammer down on the Hellfire Club, but they also kept him appraised of what was happening. And it would seem that now they had some further competition in the form of this "Legion." What this group's goals were and what they hoped to achieve, but either way, they were most certainly an obstacle in his quest to plunge the universe back into eternal night.
"One more human or a thousand makes no difference," Demona remarked. "They'll all die regardless." After the rest of her clan was slaughtered and the survivors cursed to sleep in stone, she'd lashed out, blaming humanity for the slaughter of her kind. While humans did deserve some blame for their crimes against the Gargoyle race, Demona's actions ended up being what provoked the humans in the first place. The Wyvern Massacre, as it later came to be known, was only possible because Demona had tried to lure her clan out of the castle so that they would be unable to return by day and the humans who had belittled and insulted them would be long gone and lead away in chains by the time the clan returned.
Unfortunately, her mate, Goliath, had insisted on the rest of the clan stay behind at the castle and went out himself with Hudson to harry the Vikings who were planning to attack the castle while they were still farther away. Demona tried to get the rest of the clan out, but unfortunately only she had survived. From there, she had set her own rogue clan, and they eventually formed a tenuous alliance with Macbeth, the rightful king of Scotland in his fight to claim his rightful place on the throne. From there, things had been peaceful, until Macbeth's rule was challenged by Canmore, the son of his cousin Duncan, who he'd taken the throne from. Macbeth's advisors attempted to convince him that Canmore's English allies would leave them alone if they severed all ties with the gargoyles.
Demona had overheard the conversation and realized that even if Macbeth dismissed the possibility now, it was only a matter of time before he decided that his alliance with her kind was not worth the effort to maintain. So she and her clan broke away first. In the battle against Canmore's forces that followed, Macbeth (and Demona who attempted to kill Macbeth herself for his perceived betrayal) discovered that he and the Gargoyle woman were immortal unless one of them killed the other. From there, Demona spent the next millennium covertly accumulating power and influence for herself as knowledge of her race faded away into human myth and legend. Then, eight years ago, she had been contacted by Malekith with an offer she couldn't resist.
"True, Lady Demona," Algrim interjected. "But this particular group, and based on what our spies have reported they are entirely comprised of humans, could be a serious threat to the achievement of our objectives. Until we know what exactly we are dealing with, we must treat cautiously." That was what Malekith valued about his second-in-command. He stated the facts and kept a realistic view of what was achievable under the circumstances. Some villains would have preferred sycophants who sucked up to their superior's every order and idea. But one thing that Maleficent and Malekith had in common despite their ideological differences was that they preferred having advisors who were willful enough to keep them grounded and remind them when an idea was idiotic or simply couldn't be achieved.
"And when combatting a poison such as humanity, it is best to understand what makes your enemy tick before striking in order to eliminate the plague entirely," the Gargoyle added as she conceded the Dark Elf's point. Having been alive for over a thousand years, Demona was an expert in the art of stealth and war. Despite her burning hatred for humankind, she had survived long enough to know not to underestimate your foes, and made her plans accordingly. Through the company Nightstone Unlimited that she'd set up decades ago, Malekith and his conspirators had eyes and ears from New York City on Earth to Radiant Garden itself. Malekith turned from where he stood gazing out the window into space and turned to face his inner circle of rebels.
"And I have discovered an artifact that will aid us in our investigation of The Legion," the Dark Elf king remarked. "On a nearby world which is fairly new to Coalition rule is an artifact that can produce an army of undead warriors. Since we do not know what this Legion is capable of, I propose that we acquire this Black Cauldron and use the warriors it conjures as cannon fodder to probe the defenses of the next Legion base we can find. They must have a hidden compound somewhere, and sending waves of expendable meat shields at their forces will allow us to monitor how they fight and learn how to protect ourselves should we ever come into open conflict with them."
Demona, Algrim, and Seymour nodded their agreement at the elf's plan as Algrim relayed orders to the Nathalis' Helmsman to set their course for the world of Pyrdain. Their circle of conspirators was small, and most of them weren't even present aboard the ship at the moment. While most of them had been recruited by Maleficent or Hades, ultimately their loyalty lay with Malekith. Each and every member of his inner circle had thrown their lot in with his planned coup attempt because they all had the same thing in mind. They didn't want to simply rule the universe, they wanted to extinguish it.
Rejoice, fellow Gargoyles fans. Demona has arrived. She's not going to be a major player in terms of the overall conflict but I figured that because of the fates of their species, Demona would be a likely ally for Malekith, and decided to throw her in there. There will be a bit of a subplot for the Gargoyles once Goliath learns what his mate has done and what she's become, but she's not going to take center stage as a major villain. And speaking of villains, the Legion will be showing up on the Black Cauldron world as well in an attempt to destroy the cauldron before the Hellfire Club can get their hands on it.
Demona's backstory is a slightly distorted version of her backstory from the show. And by distorted, I'm referring to the fact that one of her defining character trains is a pathological inability to admit responsibility for her actions. Sure, the way most humans treat Gargoyles in the series makes her attitude towards mankind understandable, but flashbacks pretty much show that Demona is her own worst enemy. Her actions only cause more problems for the Gargoyle race, and she can't bring herself to accept that, so she projects the blame onto the human race at large rather than face the consequences of her decisions. Which is why the explanation of her backstory is tinted towards her point of view while also acknowledging most of what really happened.
And yes, I did decide to throw in Maester Seymour from Final Fantasy X. I felt that we needed some more Final Fantasy characters introduced in this story. It's fun to fight Sephiroth, but in future KH games, we need more Final Fantasy villains. Seymour felt like a good start because he has similar "destroy everything" goals to Malekith and Xehanort, and would fit right in as a semi-major/minor member of Malekith's inner circle. And people have presumably been trying to find a way to include Reno in Kingdom Hearts fanfics for a while, so I thought that since Tetsuya Nomura definitively stated that despite the similarities, Lea IS NOT Reno, I thought that making Reno Lea's dad would make sense as a way to include both in the setting while also explaining the similarities.
Tidus being a soldier in the coalition army made sense to me given his role as Yuna's Guardian (basically bodyguard in all but name) in Final Fantasy X. And yes, he and Yuna are together in this universe. That was part of my motivation for explaining how Yuna, Rikku, and Paine were all so small in KH2. I started playing FFX while planning this story and my heart immediately melted at those two together.
That's right people, after the Toy Story world comes The Black Cauldron. After that, our heroes are literally going nowhere (Marvel Cinematic Universe reference for those who didn't figure that out) for the conclusion of the first half of the story. The Toy Story world is going to be a bit of a breather episode for the sake of Sora, Donald, and Goofy going on a lighthearted adventure just like old times before we get neck deep in the action and drama of the rest of the story. Every Kingdom Hearts game needs a breather level/world that's disconnected from the overall plot to give players (and the characters) a chance to blow off steam from the emotional moments of the story.
Speaking of which, I've come up with an interesting way of incorporating the Toy Story world into the KH verse even though all the Tethered worlds have been un-tethered at this point in time. If you're familiar with Kingdom Hearts games previously, you'll have a bit of an idea as to how that'll work. I leave it to you to figure out what that is.