Chapter 26: Avengers Assemble:
Earth – New Avengers Compound; Living Room:
"Any idea what this is all about?" Steve asked as he and the rest of the Avengers, both current and retired, were gathered in the common room of Avengers HQ. Thor had called an unofficial team meeting and requested that everyone be there. All the Asgardian would say about the subject of the meeting was that he had an announcement to make. True to form, Tony Stark had already started up a betting pool on the topic. The leading bet was that his wife Jane was finally pregnant. But because of the secrecy, Steve had a completely different theory on what he was. And besides, he wasn't a betting man.
"Nobody knows." And speak of the devil, Iron Man himself sauntered over and plopped himself down in his favorite chair, Pepper Stark joining him in her own seat by his side. "All Point Break said was that he had something important to tell us and he wanted the whole team to be there so he won't have to explain this once. A hundred bucks says Jane's pregnant." If Steve were a betting man, he'd say the odds were favorable that Tony was right, but something in his gut told him that there was something else going on. Not that he wouldn't be happy if Jane and Thor were having a baby. His instincts were simply telling him something different. At last, the rest of the Avengers trickled in and sat according to their own personal preferences.
For all the good they'd done in the last few years, the team's growth had been in relatively small increments. Bucky, Wanda, and Pietro had joined after the battle in Sokovia back in 2015. Former thief Scott Land joined three months after that, and Prince T'Challa of Wakanda signed up a year later. And then in 2017, they were joined by an illegal genetic experiment from outer space who'd been living in Hawaii since 2002. Hope Pym was recruited the following year under the moniker of "The Wasp," leading to the current Avengers roster arrayed before him. Each member of the team had been visiting the compound (along with their significant others in some cases) for the day and were all on hand for Thor's meeting.
Tony and Pepper were naturally seated together. Steve sat opposite them, Sam and Stitch seated on his left hand side, with Bucky and Natasha on his right. Bruce, Betty, T'Challa, and Rhodey sat next to Tony, with Kim and Ron seated in the middle of the lopsided circle opposite Hope and Scott. Wanda sat between Kim and Stitch, while Pietro was couched between Hope and Natasha. Jane sat wedged between T'Challa and Scott opposite the vacant seat usually claimed by Sora. After a few more minutes of waiting, the god of thunder himself walked into the room trailed by two people most of the team had never seen before. One was an Asian-american man with black hair streaked with green, who Clint, T'Challa, and Natasha recognized as Jake Long, husband of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Rose Long.
The other, however, was a complete and utter mystery to just about everyone. The man's short brown hair spiked out in every direction. His outfit consisted of a black t-shirt with a short-sleeved black and red jacket draped over it, the hood fluttering behind him in the morning breeze coming through the open window. He wore baggy black pants that went down to his ankles and a layer of what looked like armor wrapped around the side of his legs. Red and grey gloves went up to his elbows, while his feet were covered by black and yellow shoes that looked like a cross between a sneaker and a boot. None of the Avengers could ever say that they'd seen him before. All except for one, that is.
"SORA!" Stitch cried as the little blue alien bolted out of his seat and tackled the brunette to the floor, licking him like a dog as his way of a greeting. Everyone else present wore confused looks on their faces at the fact that Stitch apparently knew who this man was. But before either Tony or Steve could ask who this guy was, Thor put his hand up.
"My friends," the prince of Asgard began. "I understand that you all have questions about who our guests are and why Stitch knows them. I cannot answer the latter, but I have a story to tell you all by way of explanation for the former." Once he had everyone's attention, the warrior prince continued. "Eons ago, at the very beginning of Earth's history, mankind lived in peace. In those days, people believed that an unseen land known as Kingdom Hearts was the source of all Light in the world. I am not referring to light as in sunlight, but as the universal force of peace, order, and creation. Kingdom Hearts was said to be protected by a mystical weapon known as the X – Blade, a sword of phenomenal power, greater than anything in the nine realms can ever hope to match."
"But like beings everywhere," Thor went on. "Humankind began to get greedy. Different factions began coveting the light of Kingdom Hearts for themselves. Over time, war broke out between those who sought to defend the light from those who would misuse it, those who actively cultivated the Light's opposite, Darkness, those who sought to end the conflict and achieve a peaceful solution, and those who desired power for its own sake. The conflict came to be known as the Keyblade War, for those who fought in the battles did so wielding man-made facsimiles of the legendary weapon. The war was long and bloody, and eventually, it tore the planet apart, sending fragments of the world hurtling off into space."
"But the light in the hearts of seven maidens who would become known as the Princesses of Heart allowed mankind to survive on the scattered fragments of the planet, of which Midgard is merely the largest. The surviving warriors, as a means of atonement for their actions, turned their Keyblades towards defending the fragments." Thor finished the tale and gave the rest of his teammates time to process the truly massive info-dump he'd just dropped in their laps. Most of the team had looks of awe and curiosity on their faces. Clint and Natasha kept their faces carefully neutral. Steve and Bucky appeared like they were stoically attempting to take everything in. Only Stitch displayed an expression that wasn't analytical or shocked.
"Heimdal cannot see the fragments of Earth that have drifted beyond the nine realms," the alien prince explained. "But he can sense the actions and locations of Keyblade Masters across the galaxy." At this point, the brunette stepped formward. "The reason I called this meeting is because a young Key Bearer named Sora was stranded on Earth last night. I wished to bring him under the protection of the Avengers before HYDRA or any other nefarious groups learned of his presence on Earth." For a moment, everybody sat and stood in silence as they grappled with the ultimate question of whether to accept someone they'd never met.
While it would be the right thing to do, they only had Thor's word that Keyblade Wielders were guardians. Every group had its bad apple, and for all they knew, this guy could be one of them. On the other hand, Stitch clearly knew him and liked him. While Stitch was as bad as Tony when it came to behavior towards the rest of the team, the little blue alien was still a good judge of character. So one by one, they each cast their vote. Tony, Rhodey, Sam, Clint, Kim, Hope, and Pietro all voiced their concerns, but ultimately went along with the majority decision to let Sora stay with them at the compound.
With that decision made, Stitch skittered over to the kitchen and dragged over an extra chair so that Sora could sit down while Thor introduced the rest of the group to Jake Long and explained the abduction of the man's wife by the same faction that orchestrated the attack on Asgard. Once the meeting had concluded, everyone split off to do their own thing. Pepper and Hope stepped out for Stark Industries and Pym Tech conference calls respectively. T'Challa, Bucky, and Natasha went to speak to Jake about figuring out what happened to Rose. Clint, Sam, Rhodey, and Scott walked over to the bar, in need of a strong drink after everything that Thor had just told them. Pietro, Wanda, Betty, and Bruce just decided to deal with the impending mental freak outs later and went to grab something for dinner.
Meanwhile, Tony, Jane, Stitch, Kim, and Ron crowded around the brunette Keyblade Master asking him about the lore and mechanics of the Keyblade. While Sora wasn't sure how much to tell everyone right off the bat, he decided to start with the basics to satisfy everyone for now. Everyone had agreed to let him settle in before they asked him to spill his whole life story, so he stuck with things like the Keyblade's powers, the existence of the Daybreak Coalition, and what little he knew about the lore of Kingdom Hearts. Steve sat alone in the now empty circle of chairs, looking like he wanted to ask Sora a question or two he didn't want to talk about in front of the other Avengers.
Sora was relieved to see Stitch there at the Avengers' headquarters, glad to have another friend so that he and Jake didn't have to deal with everything on his own. Sora's natural charisma and optimism proved to be infectious, if the rest of the team's rapidly warming attitudes towards him were any indication. Sure, almost of half of them still seemed suspicious of him, but that was understandable. Nevertheless, everyone was quickly coming around, and nobody on the team, not even those who still didn't trust him, could honestly say that they disliked him. And so later that night, the twenty-three year old Keyblade Master went to bed feeling slightly better about his situation. His heart still ached to get back to Kairi, but now he had a stable place to stay and more people willing to help him find his way home.
The Land of Departure – Forecourt:
"I'm glad you're okay," Ventus greeted as he wrapped his girlfriend in a tight hug once she stepped off the Gummi Ship. "I've missed you." Yuffie responded by planting a long, romantic kiss right on his lips.
"I missed you too, Ven," she replied with a smile. She'd been assigned to gather intelligence leading up to the Battle of Knowhere, and had only gotten three days off for her trouble. She'd spent the first day in Radiant Garden with her friends from the Restoration Committee, and the second day was spent aboard a commercial Gummi Ship here. "Did you…"
"Buy you coffee?" The blonde Keyblade Master finished as he pulled a steam-emitting paper cup from the bag at his feet. "Why yes I did." It had been a running joke between them even before they'd started dating. Since their educations had been stalled by his coma and The Fall, respectively, they'd both been enrolled (largely at the behest of Leon and Aqua, who insisted on the two of them getting a proper education) in the Radiant Garden Academy once the building had been restored. Yuffie grew so bored of the routine on the first day that she had taken to falling asleep in class. One day, she talked Ventus into buying her coffee. Some sarcastic banter, a few more months of coffee later, and the rest was history. Yuffie squealed in delight as she reached down to pick up the coffee, only for the blonde Keyblade Master to pull it back at the last second.
"What are you supposed to say?" he asked sarcastically.
"Caffeine me up, pretty boy," she retorted teasingly before reaching over and snatching the steaming hot cup right out of her boyfriend's hand. "I thought you learned by now never to keep me from my coffee, Ven."
"Must have slipped my mind," Ventus joked back in a tone that clearly suggested that it hadn't. "Although I will say that you without caffeine doesn't even compare to Terra's cooking."
"So I've heard," Yuffie laughed as they sat on the low stone wall that ringed the courtyard of the Land of Departure's castle, headquarters of the Order of the Keyblade. The past six years, while far from perfect, had practically been a golden age compared to the chaos of The Xehanort War. But now, with the resurgence of the Hellfire Club and the emergence of the Legion, Ven thought that it was time that he and the others went out and finally started training apprentices. While he and the others expected to live for years longer, Ventus felt that it was better to start selecting their apprentices now so that if one or more of them were killed in action in the wars to come, the survivors could begin training the next generation of Keyblade Wielders.
But right now, he was simply content to enjoy spending time with his girlfriend on her last day off from her career as a C.I.N. agent before she was sent out to scout for Hellfire Club activity or possible leads on the origins and location of the Legion. So once Yuffie finished her coffee, they walked up to the old training ground on the mountaintop. They'd both spend some time on the practice targets for fun later tonight as a little competition, but for the time being, they were simply content to just sit back and watch the sunset together.
Okay, I take back what I said last chapter about the little extra scenes. At least partially. I'm cutting back on the villain scenes, but the chapters set on the Kingdom Hearts side of the galaxy will have some fluff scenes of Sora interacting with the rest of the Avengers outside of all the action. Just so I can show some the way the team reacts to the Kingdom Hearts elements of the story. I threw one in this chapter so that I could have some scenes of Ven and Yuffie before the next big action sequence gets started. In terms of the scale, it's going to be comparable to the Battle of Hollow Bastion in Kingdom Hearts 2, or the Siege of Cable Town from The Xehanort War.
In retrospect, my decision to pair Ventus with Yuffie was inspired by the friendship between them in the second Remember The Tides sequel, On the Way to A Smile. So I threw in the coffee jokes as a shout out to that influence. Speaking of shout-outs, Terra being a terrible cook is a reference to this really cute/hilarious piece of fan-art I discovered on DeviantArt showing Remmy from Ratatouille doing his whole "hair-puppeteer cooking" thing from the movie on Terra instead of Linguini. The image stuck with me and Terra being a horrible cook is now in my head canon until the games mention otherwise.
I was debating whether or not to include Black Panther in this since Civil War doesn't happen, but I decided to include him anyway. I felt that given what happened at the end of Civil War, he'll probably be an Avenger when Infinity War comes out.