"Any thoughts, Naminé?" Kairi felt slightly apprehensive as the water clones danced to Demyx's haunting melody.
"There's only one thing to do," Naminé replied, "ATTACK!"
"Don't have to tell me twice!" Kairi targeted the nearest clone and sliced the Keyblade through its thin permeable skin. The clone burst like a balloon, drenching her.
She spat out some water that got in her mouth. "Great, now my underwear's soaked," Kairi pouted. She rounded on Demyx. "Do you know how hard it is to dry cotton clothing?!"
"That's the least of our problems," Naminé said. "Just shake it off and keep going!"
Kairi shook her head angrily. "Forget this! I'm taking him down!" She leapt into the air and barreled down on her opponent. Despite its power, the Keyblade couldn't penetrate the invisible barrier surrounding Demyx. He didn't even flinch.
"Nice try, princess!" Demyx taunted, still absorbed in plucking the strings. "But as long as my water clones are around, you can't hit me!"
"Kairi, hurry!" Naminé shouted. "You have to destroy these things, now!" Kairi bared her teeth and started attacking the clones left and right. As soon as the last clone was destroyed, she whirled back to Demyx.
"Now to..." Kairi began. Before she could continue, Demyx started to string another melody.
"Dance, water, dance!" More clones materialized around him. "Ten in thirty seconds was way too easy. Let's amp it up, shall we?" This time, fifty water clones surrounded her.
"I knew this guy couldn't really fight," Kairi muttered. "He's just hiding behind these stupid clones!"
"Either that or he's toying with us," Naminé said. "There has to be a faster way!"
"What else can we..." Kairi stopped in her tracks. "Wait a minute..." The idea just popped into her head. She raised the Keyblade over her head. "This better work."
"GATHER!" Kairi's Magnega orb appeared, sucking in any clone that dared to dance in its presence. "THUNDER!" Lightning tore through the sky, ripping apart the captives within the sphere's orbit. Kairi spammed her spells, destroying the majority of the clones until...
"THUNDER!" Kairi shouted. But nothing happened. "Wha...THUNDER!" She swung her Keyblade around wildly. "THUNDER! THUNDER!" Kairi shook her head. "What's going on?"
"Kairi, you're out of magic!" Naminé explained. "You have to wait for it to charge up again!"
"Ten clones left," Kairi panted as she dashed toward the nearest target.
"Ten seconds!" Demyx sang. Kairi's composure was starting to crumble as she realized that she might actually lose this fight.
"Use your opponent's strength against them!" Naminé cried.
Kairi's Keyblade tore through another double. "What's that supposed to mean?!"
"I don't know! That's the only thing that came to mind!"
"But..." An image of Sora doing a "Wild Dance" flashed through her mind. Kairi's body trembled and it had nothing to do with being soaked.
As creepy and disgusting as it felt, she grabbed one of the water clones. It felt like a water balloon getting ready to burst. "Don't think about it, just do it," Kairi chanted to herself. Feeling silly and stupid at the moment, she gripped onto the struggling clone and started swinging it above her head like a lasso.
To her surprise, the technique actually worked for her. With two seconds to spare, she eliminated all of the clones. Kairi brushed some wet hair out of her eyes as she shifted her focus back on Demyx. "You jerk! Do you seriously know how uncomfortable this is? It feels like I wet myself or something!" She charged like a bullet train off-track at the Melodious Nocturne.
"I can't believe you just said that out loud," Naminé sighed. Before she could get within five feet of Demyx, powerful geysers erupted in front of Kairi.
"It's just water, right?" Kairi smirked. "What's the worst that can happen, I get soaked even more?" She ran blindly at the wall of geysers protecting Demyx.
THWHAM! Kairi felt the geysers' awesome pressure send her flying into the air.
Demyx laughed. "C'mon! I thought you'd have at least hit me once by now!" Kairi pounded her fist on the ground in frustration as she stared daggers at her opponent.
"This guy..." Kairi tried to regain her bearings and tried to prop herself up. "...is SO dead!"
Demyx hummed and strummed almost serenely. "Got you now!" Kairi was confused for the moment before she realized what was happening. She whipped her head around and realized that her opponent had summoned two walls of geysers that surrounded her in a pincer-type formation. The walls of water rapidly closed in on Kairi as she jumped back to her feet. Not knowing what else to do, she reacted by attempting an Aerial Dodge through one of the walls, but ended up being blasted sky-high again.
As she landed with a dull crack, Kairi couldn't help but think, "And here I thought water was the softest material there is."
Aerith and Cid finally made it to Ansem's Computer where Yuffie was waiting for them.
"What took you guys so long?" Yuffie greeted.
"Had a few roadblocks," Cid replied, "but nothing we couldn't handle."
"Has Tron been able to get the security system back online yet?" Aerith asked.
Yuffie nodded. "He's been working on it since the wedding disruption." She pointed toward the computer screen. "He should be done any moment now."
At soon as she finished her sentence, the alarm rang out.
"Greetings, friends!" Tron said. "I've just finished repairing the security grid! It should be active as we speak."
"Thank you, Tron," Aerith said. "We really appreciate this!"
"It's no problem. We're friends after all."
"Speaking of problems," Cid began, "has there been any trouble on your end?"
"Actually," Tron replied in a confused tone, "there hasn't been any anomalies since this event began."
"It's too bad you can't be here, Tron." Yuffie said. "We could definitely use all the help we could get."
"It's interesting you should mention that," Tron said. After he said that, the digitizer started to hum to life.
"Tron, what's going on?" Aerith asked. In response, the digitizer fired its scanning beam. Something was being materialized right in front of their eyes. After a few seconds, it was obviously human-shaped, but no one that looked familiar. One look at the stranger and it was painfully obvious that he wasn't from around this world.
"Greetings, friends!" the stranger said. It took a few moments for them to place the familiar voice.
"TRON?!" Aerith, Yuffie and Cid yelled in unison. Tron smiled.
"I want to help you Users fight," he explained. "I've done all I can from inside."
"It's great to finally meet you in person, Tron!" Yuffie said as she hugged him enthusiastically.
"So, what's the plan?" Cid asked.
"May I suggest that we meet up with our other friends?" Tron said.
"Great idea, but..." Aerith's face was etched with worry. "What do we do about the other Heartless and Nobodies? I need time to recover my power and Cid's airship had to land for repairs."
"Oh, don't worry about that!" Cid looked extremely pleased with himself. "I've got our secret weapon in case we get in trouble!" He reached into his pocket, eager to flaunt the goods. After a few seconds, his grin changed into an expression of confusion. "Wait," Cid patted down his pockets. "where'd all my Materia go?"
Yuffie grabbed Tron's hand. "C'mon, Tron! Time to go!" Before Cid could react, Yuffie threw down a flash bomb, resulting in her and Tron disappearing in a puff of smoke.
"Doggone it, Yuffie!" Cid began chasing after her out the door. "I was saving those Materia for Cloud!"
Aerith giggled. "Poor Cid. At least I still have my Holy Materia." She reached into her braided hair expecting to find her special Materia. Her eyes widened as she discovered that it was gone too. "Yuffie!" she yelled before giving chase as well.
Kairi swung her Keyblade in a downward arc, interrupting Demyx's playing. She was taken completely by surprise when he raised his sitar and blocked her attack.
"I guess we underestimated each other," Demyx grunted as he pushed back as hard as he could. Shoving Kairi off of him, he slammed his sitar into her side, sending her reeling. "You know, I kinda like you," the musician said, "in a respectful enemy type of way. I mean, if I wasn't being forced to kill you, I'd be asking if you wanted to hang out."
Kairi clutched her side in pain. "You've gotta be kidding me," she muttered.
Demyx twirled the sitar in a flamboyant manner and started to play furiously. Giant water bubbles formed up above and started raining down from the sky. Kairi leapt up to her feet and started to run, but a couple of water orbs slammed her back into the ground, soaking her even further.
Looking like a drenched alley rat and feeling the need for a warm shower, Kairi staggered back to her feet. "Is my magic recharged yet?" she asked Naminé.
"It needs a few more minutes," Naminé replied. Kairi shook her head.
"I can't wait! This guy's seriously ticking me off! And if I hear him say..." Kairi began.
"Dance, water, dance!" Demyx strummed his sitar again. Ninety-nine water clones materialized, lining the area's edge. "Can't attack me now!" he laughed.
Kairi let out a yell of frustration and annoyance. "Okay! That's it!" She stomped straight up to Demyx who was humming to himself.
"Kairi, what are you doing?" Naminé asked. Kairi glared at Demyx, fuming with anger. He barely glanced up at her.
"Running out of time, princess! And your attacks won't hit me while my clones are here!"
Kairi stood silent for a moment. "My attacks can't hit you, huh?" Then without warning, Kairi's hands shot out at Demyx's sitar and ripped it out of his grasp.
"Hey! What are you...?" Kairi held his weapon straight out in front of her and with a quick jerk over her knee, she snapped his sitar in two.
The water clones instantly evaporated into mist. As she threw the splintered halves away while still maintaining her glare, Demyx stood dumbfounded. "Wait...but...you can't..." he stammered. Kairi made the motion of rolling up her sleeves.
Demyx's eyes widened as she started tapping the Keyblade against her palm in a menacing manner. The last words out of his mouth were, "I knew they were sending the wrong..."