This is it folks, the halfway point of the story as the Battle of Knowhere comes to its dramatic conclusion!
Chapter 23: The Road To Knowhere:
Knowhere Mining Station – Docking Bay:
"PUSH FORWARD!" cried United Coalition Army Captain Squall Leonhart as he fired his Gunblade at the advancing line of Dark Elf forces. So far, the invasion of Knowhere was going fairly well. Despite the lack of information about the Dark Elves' strengths and weaknesses, the Coalition army had yet to take any casualties. Nevertheless, Leon was keenly aware that because of the high concentration of Hellfire Club forces, this stroke of fortune could change at any time. After six years and three months of training and fighting together, the soldiers of the Coalition's armed forces moved and fought like a well-oiled machine. Of course, despite the conflicting personalities involved, so too did the armies of the Hellfire Club, although their camaraderie was almost non-existent, replaced by cold professionalism united towards a common goal.
The Coalition Navy had arrived in orbit of the disembodied, emaciated head known throughout the galaxy as Knowhere at just the right angle to take Maleficent's fleet completely by surprise. All but three enemy spacecraft had been swiftly destroyed in the opening salvo of the battle, while Mindy-class Gummi Ships shuttled troops into the station. While Leon's unit was pinned down by a platoon of Dark Elves, General Shang and his wife, Captain Mulan fought their way through a swarm of Heartless along the eastern perimeter of Knowhere, allowing the rest of the strike team easier access into the station. With the landing zone secured, more Gummi Ships full of Coalition soldiers glided into the empty docking bays, disgorging more warriors to join the fight.
From there, Mulan's unit circled back around to where Leon and his men were pinned down, cutting their way through the Dark Elves with frightening ease. Mulan held a deep grudge against Malekith and his people for their killing of her father, and she was inclined to repay them in kind as she fought her way through the elven warriors like a woman possessed. With his unit free to move about the station once more, Leon thanked Mulan for the assist and offered some advice on dealing with her anger over her father's death before taking his squad deeper into the station. With any luck, Sora, Riku, and the others had already struck at the inner circle in this "Collector's" museum.
This meant that all the army had to do was surround the perimeter of the museum while Maleficent and her advisers were busy fighting off the warriors of the Keyblade, and close the net around the villains as tightly as possible. Leon motioned to his unit to keep moving towards the museum. While they worked their way through the abandoned streets, Cloud announced over the radio that his squad had encountered a large compound of human Hellfire Club soldiers bearing some kind of skull and tentacles emblem and wielding energy weapons of unknown make. Leon grudgingly announced that he was close by and would be there shortly. After checking to make sure his troops had overheard the conversation, they moved out towards Cloud's position.
His frustration wasn't with the fact that Cloud needed backup (although he would have bragging rights to saving his ass per the unspoken rules of their little friendly rivalry), but simply because the longer it took to secure the planetoid, the greater chances of the Hellfire Club's leadership getting away with or without the Infinity Stone. Oh well, Leon thought as he charged into the square where Cloud Strife was dual wielding the different components of his Fusion Sword as he danced between two of the unidentified shock troopers, slicing apart their weapons like a hot knife cutting through butter. Just need to hurry up and get these guys taken care of quickly, then. Because of the fact that the mission had been put together in an hour, there hadn't been time for Coalition Intelligence to give the full briefing on just what these stones were. But right now, all that mattered was that these things were phenomenally powerful and needed to be kept out of the hands of Maleficent and her ilk at all cost.
Knowhere Mining Station – Museum Entrance:
From the moment, the Legion entered the fray, all of Knowhere was thrown into chaos. What few residents who weren't hiding in their homes after the Hellfire Club's occupation of the decomposing Celestial head began were now running frantically for shelter as the fighting spilled out of The Collector's Museum and out into the broad streets and narrow back alleyways of Knowhere. Sora and Maleficent remained locked in combat, with Donald and Goofy jumped in to help their friend. Meanwhile, Kairi had bravely engaged the man clearly in charge of the Legion's troops herself.
The princess of Radiant Garden was beginning to have some suspicions about who the Legion's members were and what it was they wanted. Unfortunately, without solid evidence or a confession from one of their Legionnaires, her theory was little more than idle speculation. So she tabled her thoughts for another time as she dodged a blow from the High Praetor's wicked looking scythe, the pink blade biting deep into the metal of the walkway they stood on. While her opponent pulled his weapon out of the floor by its green handle, she charged forward and caught him with a flying kick to the stomach.
As the man doubled over in pain, Dilan came charging up from behind in an attempt to take out the obviously high-ranking Legionnaire while his guard was down. Unfortunately, the hooded commander wouldn't be that easy to kill, as proven when he whirled around and blocked the former Nobody's lances with the flat edge of his scythe. As he did so, however, the recoil of the block dislodged the High Praetor's hood, sending it tumbling backwards, his pink hair visible for all to see. In a brief respite from his battle with Maleficent while Donald and Goofy kept the witch busy, Sora looked up at the man and felt a surge of recognition as he remembered where he'd met the man before. Castle Oblivion.
"Well, well, well," the former Whirlwind Lancer remarked without a hint of surprise in his voice. "It's been a long time, hasn't it, Marluxia?" Organization XIII's ex-Number eleven smirked in response, not even bothering to hide himself any longer now that the jig was up.
"I haven't gone by that name in a long time, Xaldin," the former Graceful Assassin retorted with a sneer before firing off a wave of energy that sent the Captain of the Radiant Garden Royal Guard sliding backwards along the walkway.
"Oh, I'm well aware of that, traitor," Dilan snapped. "Xemnas may have played us all for fools, but I'm willing to bet that you and Larxene have had ties with this Legion since the very beginning. That your becoming Nobodies was engineered so that you could plant spies in the Organization's ranks and destroy Xehanort's underlings from within."
"Guilty as charged," Aurilam replied smugly. "And the best part is that unlike you, I didn't need to have my Heart consumed by the corrupting filth of Darkness to become a Nobody." Dilan would have asked what that meant, but he knew that there was no way the Organization traitor would be expected to give a straight answer. So he simply lashed out with his lances and called them up into his usual wind shield. While Marlxuia – sorry, Aurilam recoiled from his scythe bouncing off the Aeroga barrier, Kairi went in with a few Firaga spells to keep the former Organization member off balance. While Aurilam was busy fighting Kairi, Dilan came in from behind and forced Aurilam into a corner.
Meanwhile, Sora was facing a bit of a conundrum. Vanitas had broken off from his duel with Loki (ostensibly because he was outmatched, but in reality so he could find a quiet corner from which to relay his informant's latest info-dump to Cassim), while Donald and Goofy had been sidetracked by the intervention of Demona. This left Sora to face Maleficent and Loki alone, and while he knew Maleficent's fighting style well enough (even if she had been training in hand-to-hand combat during her six years off the grid, she still mostly relied on her spell-work), Loki was a complete unknown. Sure, he was aware that the Asgardian prince was Vanitas' mole in the Hellfire Club, but he also knew that Loki needed to put up a decent fight with Coalition forces in order to maintain his position within the organization.
So the Keyblade Master dodged and deflected as the "Mistress of All Evil" and the "God of Lies" backed him into a corner. Sora was only able to get a reprieve when Riku came charging in to lighten his best friend's load, having slipped back to Radiant Garden via Vanitas-summoned Dark Corridor to drop off the package before coming back to help. The Battle of Knowhere continued to rage, even with the additional Coalition troops swarming in after clearing the Hellfire Club forces out of the spaceport. As the number of minions participating in the conflict rapidly dropped, the Club's leadership became more desperate, and the battle itself more chaotic. Friendly fire was happening all around, from hero and villain alike.
The battle clearly lost for them, the Hellfire Club began warping out with Corridors of Darkness, Maleficent, Malekith, and Loki staying behind to cover the retreat of everyone else. Then, as she dove into a corridor of Darkness, Demona inadvertently tripped Maleficent from behind with her tail. The green fairy went down hard on the metal floor, a glass cylinder coming loose from the belt under her robes as she fell. Sora sprinted forwards as the cube bounced off the ground and shattered, sending a small cube sailing through the air. The brunette Keyblade Master dove forward and caught it, oblivious to the consequences that only four in the room fully understood.
In an instant, Sora screamed at the top of his lungs in agony as pain lanced up his arm like fire as a beam of blue energy shot up from the cube in his hand towards the roof of the decaying head. But just before it hit the alien skull's ceiling, it spread outward like water pouring out form a waterfall, revealing what looked like a field of stars, nebulae, and black holes wreathed in electric blue fire. Just when the pain seemed to be dying down, Sora felt the distinct sense of weightlessness as he watched the world whoosh by as he was dragged up along the energy beam. The last thing he heard before consciousness left him was the sound of Kairi frantically screaming his name.
CLIFFHANGER! DUN! DUN! DUN! In all seriousness, no prizes for figuring out where the Tesseract sends Sora. It's already blatantly obvious. From this point on, the story will be switching back and forth between Sora working with The Avengers on Earth while trying to get home, and Kairi and everyone else back in Coalition space juggling organizing a search and rescue mission with the war against both the Legion and the Hellfire Club. Things are going to be moving a lot faster from here on out. And speaking of Earth-based chapters, we're finally heading back to Earth next chapter to see where exactly Sora lands. This is the last we'll be seeing of the Daybreak Coalition for the next six chapters.
And yes. That's right, everybody, Marluxia is back! Those of you who remember some of my cryptic references about his past from The Xehanort War can now start fitting the pieces of the overarching conflict together now. Remember, DO NOT SPOIL FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T FIGURED IT OUT YET! Anyway, Human!Marluxia's name (and backstory which I will add in a few chapters) comes from the Kingdom Hearts fanfic Morning Glory by fall from starss, which casts Marluxia's human self as the boyfriend who Megara sold her soul to Hades for in Hercules only for him to run off with another woman. It's a really good fic. Anyway, rest assured that the loss of at least one Infinity Stone is going to really piss Maleficent off, and the Hellfire Club will start to fracture a little bit more.