Everyone was shocked as to how fast the Radiant Garden filled up with people, ready to fight off Xehanort once again. Sure, they were expecting people to come, but definitely not this fast and this many. There were so many people; everyone was standing in front of Merlin's house, with barely any elbow room to move.
Roxas, Namine and Lea were looking around, probably most shocked over anyone, when they all noticed a familiar group of people talking in a circle. "Hey, Cloud!" Roxas yelled.
Upon hearing this, the spiky haired now keyblade wielder turned around with a grin. Standing by him was Tifa, Zack, Aerith, Cid, Barrett, Yuffie, Red XIII, Cait Sith, and Vincent, all ready for battle. "It's good to see you guys could make it!" Roxas and Cloud then did one of those weird guy handshakes before speaking himself.
"And let you guys fight alone? Like that it going to happen." Cloud spoke.
"Besides, we still kind of owe you guys one after you saved Edge and all that." Zack spoke up.
"You guys still think you owe us? Seriously?" Namine asked.
"Of course we do," Aerith said as Tifa continued,
"Without your help, there is no way we would have won that battle."
This time, Vincent spoke. "By the way, where's your pyro friend?"
"You mean Lea? He's right—" But Roxas paused when he looked next to him to see Lea was not there anymore. "Where did Lea go?"
Before anyone could speculate, they heard a loud scream from behind them. "HONEYBOO!" The scream caused them to turn around, seeing Lea picking up and spinning a familiar blonde haired Turk. Followed by her, were the other two Turks they all knew and loved.
"Reno, Rude, and Elena?" Yuffie asked, "I thought you guys said you weren't coming!"
"Please, that is only Tseng and Rufus, come on, since when were we ones to avoid the action?" Reno said.
"Besides, Elena was dying to see Lea again," Rude said this time. Upon hearing this, Elena blushed and Lea put her down.
"Aw, baby, you wanted to see me again?" Lea asked.
"Of course I did," she said with a smile, which made Lea blush as red as his hair.
"But, getting back to the point, we owe you guys one, so we'll fight alongside you till the end," Barrett said as Roxas, Namine and Lea replied with smiles.
Meanwhile, Aqua and Terra were walking together to look at the huge turnout of people when they spotted a familiar light green haired girl. "Terra!" Aqua said happily.
"I'm right here!" The male Terra said before realizing he was talking to the female one.
The female Terra then turned around and smiled. "Hey guys," she said happily as she pulled Aqua into a hug, "Nice to see you two again!"
"Great to see you too," Terra said. But before he could even ask how she was, another man with long blonde hair in blue armor with a blue cape came up to them.
"Why Terra, who is this lovely lady?" The man asked, referring to Aqua who could only blush at this. The girl Terra only rolled her eyes before saying,
"These are my friends, that's Terra and she's Aqua."
"Why it is nice to meet you, lass," the man then took Aqua by the hand and kissed it, which didn't seem to please the male Terra.
"You know she is my girlfriend, right?" He asked him.
"Oh, my humblest apologizes; you are one lucky man indeed." The man apologized.
"Guys, this is Edgar," Terra spoke, "He is from my home world and heard about the war we're going to and wanted to help."
"Nice to meet you, I guess…" Aqua said as she took her hand and wiped it against her clothes, trying to get the germs off of her. As soon as Aqua was done doing that, Tony came up to the group of four and said to the keybladers,
"Aqua, Terra, Riku wants you guys over by Merlin's house," he then looked over to the female Terra, "Hey Terra."
"Hello Mr. Stark, how are you?" She asked in a pleasing mood.
"Great thanks for asking," Tony said before noticing Terra glancing angrily at Edgar. "Is something wrong here?"
"This conceded jerk was just hitting on Aqua," she replied.
"How is that a bad thing? She is beautiful," Tony replied. Terra shot him a look of disgust when the words left his mouth and replied,
"What? She has a boyfriend!"
"Yeah, but can't you just complement the girl?" Tony questioned before he walked away.
"Darn, I was beginning to like him... turns out I'm stuck with two Edgars..." Terra muttered under her breath.
As Terra and Aqua left those two to argue, Ventus began to walk around, spotting a familiar group in the corner of his eye. "Tidus?" He asked.
The beach haired teen turned around to face Ven. "Hey Ven! Come over here!" Tidus said happily.
Ven smiled and began to walk over to the group. Tidus was standing by his normal group of friends: Wakka, Selphie, Lulu, Yuna, Paine, Rikku…
Ven stopped when he saw her.
"Hey, what gives man?" Wakka asked, but Ven did not respond. He didn't know why he was so attracted to Rikku, he just was, but he figured it had something to do with the fact that she was so beautiful that he couldn't think straight.
Taking in a deep breath, Ven walked over to the group, who welcomed him warmly. "You were introduced to everyone, right?" Yuna asked.
"Uh…" Ven tried to think, "Yeah, I think so, but I don't quiet remember," Ven pointed at Rikku, "Your name."
Stupid! Ven regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. You can't go up to a girl you are attracted to and say you forget her name! That'll only scare her off!
"Oh, it's Rikku," she said. She then looked at him awkwardly for a moment before saying, "Hey, you don't look so good, are you alright?"
Ven didn't even realize he didn't feel well until she pointed it out. "Ah, yeah, excuse me!" Ven then ran away, looking for the nearest trash can. Why did he have to get so flustered when he talked to attractive women that he had to feel sick to his stomach? Either way, he knew that he probably had just lost his last chance with Rikku…
In Merlin's house, Kairi looked at herself in the mirror awestruck because for the first time ever since she was tortured, she actually looked like herself. Sure, she was in a new outfit and her hair was shorter, but she looked like she hadn't been tortured at all. Her hair was now cut evenly into this cut style Serah found, and Kairi admitted, it was different, but it looked good. Lightning's sister also had found a new outfit for Kairi that consisted of a black leather jacket over a black tank top and black pants with biker gloves and black combat boots. Kairi wasn't sure about the whole idea of everything being black, but she really didn't want to upset Serah.
"I like the new look," Kairi turned around, seeing Riku was the one that spoke that leaning against the doorframe.
"Thanks," Kairi then took her jacket and began to adjust it, trying to break it in quickly. She didn't even know Riku had walked closer to her until she felt his hands on her shoulders.
"You know I am not going to make you do this." He said.
"Do what?" She asked.
"Make you fight," he responded.
Kairi rolled her eyes, "Riku, Bruce said I was fine to go fight, you can't talking me into not doing this."
"I wasn't speaking for myself," he said, "I was speaking for Sora."
Kairi looked up at him with wide eyes. "I know he wouldn't want you to fight, especially after what they did to you. Not only that but I do not think any of us would prefer a repeat of what happened at the Keyblade War." He continued.
Kairi paused. Dying wasn't exactly something she wanted to relive either, but she was stronger this time. Running her hand against the back of her neck, feeling the scar that now rested there, she spoke,
"They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so I guess Xehanort didn't look into that when he tortured me. And besides, since when did I ever listen to Sora?"
Riku laughed at this before taking Kairi's hand in his. "Then let's go fight this."
The two then walked out, hand in hand before they separated. Kairi didn't travel far from Riku, who was standing right in front of Merlin's house, but she kept a good eye on him at all times.
"Everyone, listen up please!" Riku announced. Instantly, everyone stopped talking. "Is everyone present that said they would be here?"
When Riku said this, he looked over at Rinoa, who volunteered to make sure everyone was here with the use of her clipboard. When she nodded at him, showing she was ready, Riku began calling off names. "Everyone from Edge?"
"Present and accounted for!" Cid was the one to say this.
"What about from Spira?"
"Here," Lulu spoke, her voice being just loud enough so everyone else could hear it.
"Everyone from this world?"
"Everyone plus one," Hope said, adding Edgar to the mix. Hope stood with Lightning, Serah, Snow and Stitch, who were all preparing their weapons.
"The Disney Castle residents?"
"You beatcha!" Donald rose his voice. He, Goofy, Mickey, Chip and Dale, and Oswald were the only ones representing that world, but Riku was fine with the turnout.
"The Keybladers?"
Lea, who had a hand around Elena's shoulder, gaped at this. "Well duh!"
Riku shook his head, "I didn't mean us."
"I'm here," a voice said from the back of the group. After a few people shuffled from their standing position, the spiky hair blond finally made his appearance. "I'm here," Avner repeated.
Avner then felt a hand on his shoulder. "I am here as well." Eraqus said smiling.
Riku nodded at this. "Any others?"
"Green giant and I!" Tony announced, which made the female Terra roll her eyes.
"Present," another voice said, who turned out to be Cecil.
"I'm here also," another voice, who belonged to Noctis said.
Riku then turned and whispered to Rinoa, "How many is that?"
"Fifty-two." Rinoa replied. It wasn't the turn out Riku was hoping for, but he was please none the less.
Riku took in a deep breath. "Okay, I know most of you didn't expect to be going to war again this soon, some of us even surprised we are even going to war. But as all of us know, we aren't going to war without a reason: Xehanort is back, he took Sora's body," Riku motioned to Sora's lingering will, who was standing in the darkness of a corner for most of the time. "And not only did he do that, but he is planning to release a god from the Realm of Darkness, that was locked away thousands of years ago because he nearly caused the destruction of the worlds! I know I speak for everyone when I say we can't let that happen."
Riku looked over at Sora's lingering will one more time before continuing. "A friend of mine once told me 'my heart may be weak, but it's not alone.' I didn't really know what he meant back then, but I understand now. It means that even though our hearts might not make a difference by itself, with other hearts fighting for the same cause, we can accomplish something greater than we ever imagined. Xehanort doesn't seem to think that, but we are here to prove him wrong" Riku then summoned his keyblade, and held it up in the air, "now will you fight with me?"
And instantly, cheers erupted from the group, and everyone brought out their weapons and raised them in the air.
Soon after that, everyone began to get on board the gummi ships the Disney Castle crew provided for the war. This was when Riku began to look around frantically for someone he needed to talk to, and when he finally spotted the black hair, he knew he had found her. "Xion!" he yelled.
Xion turned around at the sound of this, even though she really didn't want to listen o Riku right now. When Riku ran over to her, the only think she could say was, "What?"
Riku stared into her blue eyes when he said, "I know some of us might not be making this out alive, who knows, maybe even me or you—"
"I don't have time for this," she interrupted and almost began to walk away before Riku stopped her saying,
"Wait!" Xion listened to him and stopped. "I don't want to go into this battle on bad terms. I already know that I have screwed up my chance of us ever being together again, but I was hoping, that we can at least stay friends?"
Xion raised an eyebrow. Was this Riku's sneaky way of apologizing? The former replica only let in a deep breath before saying, "Alright, friends it is then."
Riku then held out a hand, which Xion didn't want to shake, but she shook it anyway.
And silently, without anyone noticing, Riku and Xion walked into the gummi ship hand in hand, letting that faint amount of feelings they still had for each other pour out as they prepared for war.
Lots of familiar faces! Anyone really happy someone finally showed up again?
Oh and I want to give shout out to The Unknowing Herald for helping me write that scene with Terra. Hopefully she is more in character now!
So if you guys are curious as to how Kairi's new outfit actually looks, her clothing is identical to Clary's from The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones movie. Her hair style is like Ashe from Final Fantasy XII's hair but red.
I have another new poll up if you guys don't mind voting!
So the final battle is going to start super soon! Like next chapter soon! But don't worry, it is bound to be at least 20 chapters long so don't panic! I promise to make it EPIC!
So be prepared for twists, turns, and many more in the next few chapters! So please R&R and look out for the next chapter!
