Chapter 6 A Scheme Ten Years in the Making
As they hurry down the streets of Hollow Bastion, Sora keeps his eyes locked on Zack. He looks different from the last time Sora saw him. His hair is shorter and in a messy style that left a few pieces hanging in his eyes. He is dressed for fighting in dark blue combat pants stuffed into black boots. Over top a blue sleeveless shirt he wears shoulder armor that is scuffed and dented. The hand still holding tightly to Sora's jacket is gloved and on Zack's muscular arm Sora can see half healed battle scars.
"Where are we going?" Sora asks as Zack drags him around a corner.
"Some place the heartless haven't gotten to yet," Zack replies. A single Soldier heartless comes running at them and with practiced ease, Zack stabs through it without breaking his hurried stride.
Running behind Sora and Zack, Goofy asks, "Why do you stay on this world if there are so many heartless?"
Zack glances over his shoulder. "And who are you?"
"I'm Goofy, one of King Mickey's Royal Knights and he's Donald, the Royal Magician ," Goofy replies, pointing to himself and then to Donald.
"You're from Mickey's home world?" Zack says in surprise.
"You know King Mickey?" Donald says. "Have you seen him?"
"Not in some time," Zack says. He peers around one corner and seeing it deserted hurries forward. Sora tries to slip out of his grip, but Zack narrows his eyes at him and tightens the hand on his jacket. "To answer your question, I stay in Hollow Bastion because I'm working on something here."
"Does it have to do with Ven?" Sora asks. "Master Yen Sid didn't exactly explain everything." He immediately regrets bringing up Ven as the muscles in Zack's face tighten, drawing his eyebrows together.
Sora can hear the pain in Zack's voice when he replies, "Yes."
Zack doesn't elaborate and Sora refrains from asking anymore questions. Donald and Goofy follow them in silence, exchanging a glance with each other.
"It's this way," Zack say quietly, heading down an alley that brings them right to the castle at the center of the city. The wall the alley backs against has a crack in it large enough for someone to slip through. Zack lets go of Sora and motions for him to go first. Giving him a slightly apprehensive look, Sora ducks his head and squeezes through the crack, trying not to think of the crumbling castle falling in on him as he enters what must have been a hallway of the once grand structure.
Donald and Goofy follow him with Zack coming in last. They let Zack take the lead again, following him down dim hallways where the only light came cracked lamps on the walls. No one speaks and the only sounds are their footsteps on the tiled floor. The hallways of the old castle are almost maze like and completely underground. Zack seems to know where they are going and in less than a minute they come to a stop before a door. Opening it, Zack goes in and the other three follow him, blinking in the brightly lit space.
"The ruler of this world before it fell to darkness was a brilliant researcher named Ansem the Wise," Zack says glancing around the room. "This was his study."
For a moment, Sora can picture the room as it once was, with shelves stacked neatly with books and immaculate diagrams hanging on the walls. Now the walls are bare and dirty. Shelves are broken and books lie on the floor. A painting leans against one wall, turned so Sora can only see the back.
"What happened here?" Sora asks.
"It's hard to explain," Zack says moving to the desk where a stack of papers sat. "It would be best to start at the beginning, before all this happened." Zack gestures the the wreckage of the study. "You mention speaking with Master Yen Sid. Did he tell you about the final battle with Xehanort and...what happened to Ven?"
"Yeah, he told us all about it," Sora says softly.
"Then you know that Aqua put his body somewhere safe, but vanished before she told anyone where," Zack says.
"Master Yen Sid didn't know what happened to her," Sora says. "She left to find Xehanort in Terra's body in Radiant Garden, but never returned."
"Sora, this is Radiant Garden," Zack says earning a surprised look from Sora. "When it was taken over by the heartless, its name didn't seem fitting so it changed to Hollow Bastion. That is why I first came here a few months ago. I have searched many worlds for any trace of where she put Ven, but I always came up empty. I decided to come here to try and track down Aqua instead so she could take me to him, but that hasn't been much easier."
"You don't know what happened to her either?" Sora asked.
Zack sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "You should sit down Sora," he says pulling a chair that had been by the desk over to Sora.
Sora looks at him with growing fear. He has already heard so much bad news. He isn't sure he can take anymore. Slowly, he sinks into the chair, leaning forward and staying tense as he waits for Zack to continue.
"I found her armor and her keyblade in the basement here," he finally says. "It was the only trace that she had been here at all."
"Her armor and her keyblade?" Sora repeated, trying to understand what Zack is telling him. "Why would she leave them here?" Zack doesn't reply and just lowers his head. Realization hits Sora like a punch to the gut. She wouldn't just leave her keyblade behind. She wouldn't just disappear when Ven needed her most. She had come to this world to battle Xehanort and the fact that she had never returned could only mean one thing. "No…" Sora leaning back in his chair. "Aqua...is she...did she lose?"
"Xehanort won their battle," Zack said, spitting the words out like it hurt him to say it. "And we can only assume the worst about Aqua." Getting to his feet, Zack walks across the room, leaving Sora to try and make sense of it all.
A hand on Sora's shoulder makes him look up. "I'm sorry about your friend Sora," Goofy says in a comforting voice.
"Yeah, me too," Donald says. "I only met her once, but she seemed like a good person."
"She was," Sora says softly. He frowns, thinking about his words. "She is a good person," he says lifting his head up. "And I don't believe she is gone forever. She's out there somewhere and she's strong enough to make it back someday."
"I hope you're right Sora," Zack says in a voice that makes it clear he isn't as confident as Sora. Sora looks over to see him standing by the turned around painting. "But there is something else you need to know. It's about Terra." With that, he spins the painting around and Sora's mouth drops open at the sight.
It's undeniably Terra. But his hair is silver and he has the yellow eyes of a much eviler man.
"That's not- who?" Sora says jumping to his feet and pointing a shaking finger at the portrait.
"Aqua told Master Yen Sid that Terra had been possessed by Xehanort," Zack says, returning the painting to its position facing the wall. "The man, Xehanort, you see was the result. He was also an apprentice to Ansem the Wise after Aqua's disappearance. This painting is more evidence to the fact that Xehanort was the victor of his battle with Aqua."
Sora closes his eyes and bites his lip so hard he nearly draws blood. How could Terra, the friendly, laughing Terra of his memories, be possessed by such an evil man? He opens his eyes and in strained voice, Sora forces himself to ask, "And what of him?" He gestures to the painting. "Do we know where he is?"
Zack slowly shakes his head. "Xehanort lived here less than a year under Ansem the Wise. During that time he helped with Ansem the Wise's research into the power of hearts," Zack says, sitting on the edge of the desk facing Sora. "However, from what I understand, Xehanort started looking deeper into the darker corners of the heart against Ansem the Wise's wishes. It had been proven that heartless are born of a person's lost heart. Xehanort's theory was that along with heartless being created, something he called a nobody was also formed from the body. In an effort to understand, Xehanort undertook a horrific experiment to create nobodies of himself and a few others. The man in this painting no longer exists. He was killed and split into a heartless and a nobody."
Sora stares at him in astonishment for a moment before asking, "How do you know all this?"
Zack gets to his feet and moves to a blank wall next to the desk. "This way," he says and presses his palm against the wall. Sora hadn't been able to see a switch there, but when Zack touches the wall, there is the whirling of gears and a loud click. The wall swings open like a door that Sora follows Zack through with a look of awe.
Sora, Donald, and Goofy go to the railing of the glass walkway they are on and look down at an enormous room full of rust machinery on the walls. "Those machines were used to fabricate heartless for Ansem the Wise's research," Zack says giving the machinery a glance. "It doesn't work anymore. I made sure of that."
Zack opens another door and Sora, Donald, and Goofy hurry after him. A large computer takes up one wall with a window that looks over the machinery bay below. On the wall opposite the computer is a complex device with a glowing center. "What is that?" Sora says.
"That is a digital transporter."
Sora jumps at a new voice. Whirling around, he falls into a battle stance, ready to summon his keyblade at a moments notice. Goofy and Donald do the same, but Zack beckons him over. "Come here Sora."
Confused, Sora slowly walks over to Zack glancing around in case someone is lurking in the corners. "Meet Tron," Zack says gesturing the computer screen.
Sora looks at the screen which is a blank desktop then back at Zack. "Huh?"
"Greetings new users," the voice says again and Sora's eyes turn back to the computer. The voice is definitely coming through the speakers.
"Tron, this is Sora, Donald, and Goofy," Zack says. "They are looking for the same information I am. Do you have any new data to report."
"I do indeed Zack," the computer, Tron, says. A loading bar appears at the top right corner of the screen. It is only at 4%. "This file was buried deep inside the dataspace. As you can see, it is encrypted. I will be able to crack it, but it may take some time."
"Alright," Zack says nodding. "Do you anything about the file? Does it have a name?"
"The name is encrypted as well," Tron replies. "However, I can tell you that it was created by User Xehanort."
"Xehanort?" Sora says, still confused, but tensing at the name.
Zack turns to him. "When Xehanort was an apprentice under Ansem the Wise, he used this computer to store many files. Most are research on hearts, heartless, and nobodies, but some of it concerns Xehanort's plan to turn himself and the other apprentices into heartless and nobodies. Since finding this, I've been going through everything stored in the computer. With Tron's help of course."
Sora puts his arms behind his head and leans back. "So...the Xehanort you are talking about is really old Xehanort who fought with Ven and the others possessing Terra's body?" Sora says trying to make sense of everything Zack is trying to tell him. Zack nods and Sora continues. "And this new Xehanort killed himself to make himself a heartless and a nobody? So where are they?"
Sora lets his arms drops and looks to Zack for an explanation. Zack moves to the keyboard at the computer and starts to type too fast for Sora to keep up. The screen changes to the feed from multiple video cameras both inside and outside the castle. Some are just fuzzy screens, but most are still working, showing empty and dark rooms.
"Tron," Zack says to the computer. "Can you the video you put together of Xehanort's demise."
"Of course," Tron says and a new screen opens. It starts off black, but then turns into the view of the machinery bay below. The time stamp shows this was recorded a little less than ten years ago. For a moment nothing happens and then two boys coming running up a set of stairs, one with red hair and one with blue. The video has no sound so all Sora can see are their mouths moving. They race out of frame as someone else comes up from below. Sora can't help but gasp at the sight of Xehanort. He looks so much like Terra, but even in the bad quality video, Sora can see Xehanort's evil yellow eyes and the silver hair. Xehanort walks calmly and in his hand is a monstrous keyblade the tip of which is stained with blood.
The picture jumps to a feed from the same computer room they are in at the present to see the two boys run in, startling the blond man working on the computer. Xehanort enters and the boys cower in fear. The blond man doesn't seem scared and turns his back on Xehanort. It is a mistake as Xehanort raises his keyblade to strike the blond man.
Sora cringes in the expectation of the deadly attack, but Zack taps a button and the video freezes just before. "It's really graphic," Zack says and Sora looks at him in surprise. "Maybe it's better if you don't see it."
"I can handle it," Sora says reaching around Zack to start the video again. He cringes at the death of the blond man at Xehanort's hand. He continues to watch with wide eyes as the two boys escape only for a man with dreadlocks to meet the same end as the blond man.
"That's Ansem the Wise," Zack says when the video cuts to Xehanort confronting a blond man with orange eyes in the office they had just left. They argue for a few minutes, but the silent video makes it impossible to know what they are talking about. Just when Sora thinks Xehanort is going to stab Ansem the Wise like the others, the door to his office opens and a group of six enters, including the two boys from before.
A black portal appears behind Ansem the Wise and he disappears into it. Xehanort seems unbothered by his disappearance and turns to the newcomers. The two boys from before and two other younger boys seem to be in the custody of a teenage boy and a man wearing the same uniform as the man with the dreadlocks who had been killed.
The camera jumps back to the computer room as they all enter. The four captive boys are forced to stand before Xehanort. A moment later, Xehanort slaps the smallest one with the slate colored hair falling in his eyes. The dirty blond boy jumps in front of the small boy, taking the deadly blow from the keyblade meant for his friend.
Sora gasps and hears Goofy and Donald behind him do the same at the young boy's death. After that everything happens so quick, Sora can barely keep up. The redhead and the boy with blue hair try to escape, but both are stopped and killed. The smallest boy had collapsed beside his protector, and does nothing save glaring at Xehanort. A swing of Xehanort's keyblade and he is dead as well.
The two remaining standing seemed to have been working with Xehanort, but he shows no hesitation in killing them as well. He then turns the keyblade on himself and his body falls to lie with the others.
Sora watches in shock as the bodies start to glow and a pink heart floats out of reach. From the below the machinery room, three more hearts came up to join them and all thirteen raced out of the computer room.
The video jumps to outside the castle to see its doors blown off as the hearts come rushing out. The sky darkens as the hearts rush upwards. A view over the city shows huge heartless forming and attacking the townspeople. Going back to the front steps, a man stands there with his arms crossed and a triumphant smile on his face. He has silver hair and yellow eyes like Xehanort, but has lost some of his resemblance to Terra.
Zack pauses the video. "This is Xehanort's heartless," he says pointing to the evil looking man.
"That guy's a heartless?" Donald says. "I've never seen a heartless that looks like a person before."
"It's uncommon, but not unheard of," Zack replies and resumes the video. It jumps one last time back to the computer room in time to see the bodies fade away. "Everything besides the heart of these people were taken to another realm where nobodies are created."
"All of them," Sora repeats sadly. "But why? Why did Xehanort want to make all of them into heartless and nobodies?"
Zack starts to type again and screenshots of each person including Xehanort take up the screen. Twelve faces fill the screen. "My only guess is he is hoping the eleven nobodies he has made will become eleven of the thirteen darknesses he needs. Including himself that would make twelve and he would only need one more," Zack says and Sora tilts his head in confusion. "Master Yen Sid told you about the X-blade right? Did he tell you how it can be reformed?"
"Yeah," Sora says thinking back. "It was something about darkness overwhelming Ven. That Vanitas would beat Ven and get the X-blade."
Zack nods, rubbing his chest like it suddenly pains him. "That is what Xehanort attempted to do, but there is another way to bring back the X-blade. Thirteen darkness and seven lights clashing would also create it."
"So that's Xehanort's new plan," Sora says looking at the faces on the screen.
"I believe so," Zack says. "If his goal is for the thirteen darknesses to be nobodies, I can only assume his heartless will be pursuing seven lights."
"Who do you think these lights are?" Goofy asks and Zack shrugs.
"Could be lots of different people," he says. "Anyone with a light filled heart could work in theory. If I had to guess, I'd say he's going after these seven." Zack taps out another command on the computer and it changes to seven new pictures. Six of them are young girls, looking to be around six or seven years old for the most part. The last picture is black with a white questions mark in place of a face. "I found a reference in some of Xehanort's files to what he called the Princesses of Heart. He had gathered a lot of lore about them. Supposedly, at any given time there are seven girls with hearts of pure light. Most of them are really princesses, but don't have to be."
"And these are them?" Sora says looking at the unfamiliar faces with names under them. Alice, Snow White, Cinderella, Jasmine, Belle, and Aurora. "What about the last one?" He asks, pointing to the picture with the question mark.
"These were the six Xehanort was able to identify," Zack says. "It's been ten years since then so all these girls have grown since then. I believe the missing last one is the reason Xehanort's heartless hasn't tried to gather them yet. He needs all seven to create the X-blade." Zack taps a button and the pictures vanish, leaving the desktop and the loading bar of the file Tron is decoding. It's up to 10% now.
Sora fidgets with the zipper on his jacket, keeping his eyes on his shoes. He feels like a failure. Here he is, a keyblade wielder, growing up in a bubble without a care of what happens outside his little world. Xehanort, well his heartless and his nobody, has been a threat the worlds for years and he has been doing nothing. He looks up at Zack with a stubborn frown already set and asks, "What can I do to help?"
Zack studies him a moment. Sora worries he is about to tell him he's only a kid and should run back to Traverse Town so the grown ups can take care of everything. His worry proves to be ungrounded as Zack says, "You could take your ship and travel the worlds. Look for clues about Ven and warn any of the princesses if you find them."
Sora grins, Zack wants his help, but his smile slips away. "I...I thought I would stay here to help you." He isn't really sure where the feelings are coming from, but something inside him is very disappointed to be leaving Zack.
For a moment, he sees the same feeling in Zack's eyes before he turns away. "I have everything covered here. There's still a lot on the computer that might be helpful in finding Ven and stopping Xehanort, but someone should be out there looking for Ven's heart."
Sora nods. It makes sense. Zack has Tron to help him, and although the computer seemed to hold lots of answers, it couldn't know everything. The worlds need him, Ven needs him, so Sora pushes aside his selfish wish to stay with Zack and says, "Alright. Where do you think we should start?"
"If you're looking for the one with Ven's heart, try the Olympus Coliseum. I've looked there a hundred times, but…" Zack trails off and looks away, but not before Sora can catch a glimpse of the look on his face. Olympus Coliseum is something important to Zack, something that reminds him of Ven. "I just think it's a world his heart might have gone to," Zack finishes softly.
"That'll be our first place to look then," Sora says grinning widely in the hope of getting a smile out of Zack. "Olympus. Got it."
The corners of Zack twitch up for a moment. "Be careful, Sora."
"Don't worry," Goofy says throwing an arm around Sora's shoulder. "We've got his back."
Zack almost smiles at that, but then turns away and nods towards the door of the computer room. "I'll walk you back to your ship," he says and leads the way out of the ruins of the castle.
Back in the empty city, he quickens his pace and says over his shoulder, "If you move quickly, the heartless are too slow to keep up."
Sora, Donald, and Goofy match his pace, glancing back to see heartless pop up in their wake before quickly sinking back into the ground.
"You asked me before about Mickey," Zack says to Donald and Goofy. "Since you asked, I'm guessing you haven't heard from him either."
Goofy shakes his head sadly and Donald asks, "Do you know where he is?"
"Not exactly," Zack says leading them down a shortcut back alley. "He came here a few months back to see how I was doing and if I had found anything new. He spent a few days here, reading through some of the research I had found, but then he left saying he was going to explore the worlds on the edge of the universe. They are darker worlds that are usually forgotten." Zack stops and looks around. "I didn't see exactly where you guys landed. This is where I found you."
"This way," Sora says pointing down the street. A few blocks down he could see the glowing green circle that marked the transporter of the ship. They run towards it and Sora asks, "Why would Mickey go to those worlds?"
"Partly to look for the one with Ven's heart like you," Zack replies. "But he also said something about finding another ally to join the fight against Xehanort."
"Who's this ally?" Donald asks.
Zack shugs. "No idea. He just said it was someone that might know more about what's going on then we do."
They reach the green circle and stop. Sora, Donald, and Goofy step onto it leaving Zack standing alone. The same wave of sadness hits Sora as before at the thought of leaving him. "We'll be back Zack," he says. "When we find some clues."
He looks at Zack and for the first time realizes just how miserable he is. Circles under his eyes and pale skin show he isn't taking care of himself like he should. His mouth is set in a perpetual frown like he has forgotten how to smile. And his eyes are empty, missing a spark of life, of hope, that should have been there. "We'll find him," Sora says hoping the determination in his voice will give Zack some confidence. "I promise."
Sora thinks he sees the spark return to Zack's eyes, but it is gone a moment later. Still, Zack forces a half smile. "Thanks Sora."
Sora grins and the green light of the transport beam surrounds him, Donald, and Goofy. It whisks them away and Zack stares up at the sky where he can just make out their ship flying away. Part of him wishes he hadn't told Sora to go, but part of him knows it's for the best. "I'm sorry Sora," he says in a whisper to himself. "I can't have you around. You remind me to much of Ven."
He turns his back on the ship retreating into the distance and walks back to the secret room hidden in the castle. He doesn't hurry like before, daring any heartless to attack him. Right now, he would like nothing better than to take all his anger out on the little bastards. It doesn't take long for him to get his wish with ten heartless rising out of the ground. Raising his sword, Zack charges, knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that killing heartless isn't going to make him feel any better. But it is all he can do, and anything to keep him from feeling useless, like a failure, is good enough for him.
CatLoverx33: Zack! He will be back again real soon with more sadness about missing Ven.
TopazDragon98: Lol!
ShyloTD: Not a hundred percent sure what you mean by wanting to be an OC, but I'm going to have to say no. I already have the OCs for this story figured out.
LightzMusic22: I swear I will finish Winter Wonderland...soonish…
kage kitsune no yami: AHHH! Thanks so much for catching that. I went back and fixed it. The X-blade is made up of seven lights and THIRTEEN darknesses. Idk where nine came from. Also Meow Wow stays with Yen Sid again. I only threw him in because he's just so damn adorable.
HAPPY 2014!
Sorry for the long wait for the chapter. I didn't have as much time over the holidays to write as I thought I was going to.
Also this chapter was a giant info dump, but it was needed so I'm not going to feel too bad about doing it. Hopefully it all made sense. If not, let me know.
If you didn't read A Man Named Ansem I suggest you go read it, or read it again if you don't really remember it. It explains the video Sora watched in this chapter. Some character motives will also make more sense later on if you've read it.
My New Years Resolutions:
Finish Those Seeking Answers by the end of the year and start the third book in the saga. Finish The Ruins of Radiant Garden by the end of the year. Finish Winter Wonderland really soon 'cause it was supposed to be done by Christmas, but that didn't happen...
In addition, I have a AkuRoku one shot idea in my head that needs to get written down. And I want to complete the first draft of a novel (not a fanfiction) I'm writing.
Wow. That's alot of writing. It's funny to think that I only started writing a little over a year ago and it has already taken over my life completely.
Oh yeah, one more resolution. Go to college. Yeah that's a good one too.
Next chapter coming soon! Until then, leave a review!