Chapter 75: Endless Rat

This is easier than I thought! Lizza smirked as she watched the rain storm become stronger as the world began to unbalance. Thunder bursts through the dark, think clouds that began to form again; beating the fog away as the light of the world was being transferred into the crown that Ratigan was currently holding. She looked back at Ratigan and Fidget, watching the bat trying to grab the rat's attention as his body began to tense from the power and pain that was shooting through his body. Not long before he gets what he asks. Lizza laughed to herself at this as she made sure that the dirigible stayed in place.

Her claw glowed, wiping the smirk off her face. She stormed over to Fidget and threw him over to the steering as she passed Ratigan and stared back behind them. The Endless looked out into the storm, searching for whatever was out there. "So much power! I have the power! All of Mousedom will be mine!" Lizza looked back angrily at Ratigan as she could see that the anger that he normally holds in was beginning to show as the darkness in his heart transformed.

"Of course you do." Lizza shrugged off, not realising what danger she had created. "Stupid sewer rat..." She muttered under her breath. Ratigan froze in place, dropping the crown, before glaring deadly at Lizza. The Endless gulped; maybe she shouldn't have said that.

"AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Both Ratigan and Lizza turn in shock to see a huge force of wind heading straight towards them. With the strong winds and the rain now shooting at their faces, Figdet was blown off the dirigible, meaning no one was driving and the winds blew the airballon right into the clock tower.

Slowly after the crash, a small matchbox that was kept afloat with half a dozen balloons and a Union Jack flag holding the balloons all together. When it got close enough, two mice jumped off the matchbox, the two being Basil and Sora. Both of them had returned to their original attire. "We don't have much time." Brian told them aboard the floating matchbox, he had chose to stay in his customized look of his old green jacket, only taking the bandana and the extra glow off. "The world is close to Level 4 and we don't have time to get Kairi." The two nodded as Brian pulled the hot air-balloon, leaving the two to proceed.

"Woah..." Sora said with wonder as both of them stared in shock and amazement at the gears and cogs surrounding them. From being distracted from the inside of the clock, Basil was easily kicked off the side. "Basil!" Sora called out before turning to see Lizza laughing at her act.

"I'm surprised that you managed to survive that death trap. I have to say, I'm impressed." Lizza winked at Sora, making him want to gag. "One thing that I can't wait for is to report your heart's content to the other members as well as that little claw of yours."

Sora quickly looked down at his grey claw that was hardly noticeable with his grey fur. He looked back at Lizza, seeing her show her glowing pink claw before disappearing before him. "Wait!" He stepped toward to try and stop her but she had already fled. Sora chose to forget about the Order at the moment, his worry for Basil crossing his mind. He looked over the edge, seeing Basil looking at where he was but also saw that Ratigan was right behind him with the crown in one of his paws, the other ready to strike Basil. "Fire!" Sora summoned Kingdom Key and shot at Ratigan, making the rat drop the crown. "Stop!" Sora casted on the cogs, halting them so that he could quickly jump down to the cog that he stood next to Basil, "Basil!" Sora called out, signalling the start of a limit.

"The game's afoot!" Basil smirked as he stood behind Sora with a number of test tubes and chemicals. Basil quickly covered Sora with a red liquid, allowing his Keyblade to have a fire after effect when he attacks Ratigan.

Since Ratigan had the crown in his hands, he seemed to glow a certain colour, allowing him to block any other attack. At the moment, Ratigan was glowing yellow, meaning Sora's fire based strikes were easily being blocked. "Thunder!" Sora shouted to Basil. Basil quickly threw a yellow chemical over Sora, changing his keyblade to thunder based attacks. Now, Ratigan couldn't simply block the attacks as Sora managed to strike him a couple of times before he glow changed to blue and appeared behind him, striking Sora violently. Basil quickly created a chemical bomb and threw it at Ratigan, blinding the rat as he strikes Sora off the side of the cog.

The limit disbands as Sora loses the range with Basil, landing hard on the cog below. He looked up as he watched Basil dodge Ratigan's attack, grabbing his cape and placing it in some cogs. This caused Ratigan to gag from the lack of air and grabbed his cape to preventing himself from getting cause in the cogs, meaning throwing the crown away. Sora tried to turn into his wind element so that could fly up and catch the crown but soon remembered about the rule. Sora saw a chain that lead to the top of Big Ben, right where the crown landed while near the edge and risk of falling. He rushed over and began to jump up the chain at high speed and reached the top. He saw that the crown was about to tip over the side, he quick dashed over to the crown and dived just in time to grab the crown. As the Keyblade Master sighed in relief, the chain that Sora had jumped started to rapidly move upwards. Basil ended up jumping on the same platform as Sora and rushed past him, he quickly assumed that Ratigan mustn't have escaped from being caught between the cogs so he quickly joined Basil with the crown in hand.

Basil and Sora quickly halted as they came to the end, being on top of the clock tower that a mouse could get. "GUYS!!" The two looked to see Brian slowly approaching the two, "Throw the crown and I'll help you up." Brian told them. Sora quickly threw the crown to Brian, who placed the crown in his brown bag, and jumped on the hot air balloon. Since Basil didn't have any jumping abilities though so Brian held on to the air balloon while holding Sora as they tried to grab Basil to safety "C'mon Sora, reach."

"I'm trying!" Sora's hand nearly reached Basil's before looking behind Basil, "Look out!" Basil turned around, only to receive a spear off the side. "BASIL!! We have to help him." Sora tried to control the air balloon.

"Sora! Stop!" Brian warned him. Sora ignored the cries of the Aversion Endless as he cast 'Aeroga' to control the air balloon at a fast speed. The Union Jack air-balloon speeded downwards show that they were in front of one of the clock faces of Big Ben. "Look!" Sora pointed over to the hour hand on the clock face where Ratigan and Basil fought, he halted his magic so that they would remain in front of that hand.

"This is when things get interesting." Brian smirked as he summoned his staff and began to cast 'Blade' at Ratigan, who simply dodged and noticed their existence. "God damn it! We were too late." Brian growled as both of them noticed the change in Ratigan's appearance. The light from the crown had took an massive affect on the rat as his rage became his ally as red shadowed marks and veins covered his entire body with the pure red eyes to follow. "There is no way Basil can beat him. We need to help." Brian said.

The Keyblade started to glow brightly, making Sora gasped but could also feel the power within the Keyblade. Even though Sora couldn't use his drives or element ability in this world, maybe he could try something else. "Wish me luck!" Sora suddenly said to the mage.

"Wish you luck? What do you-" Sora began to run as he jumped off the side. "SORA!" Brian ran over to the side to see that Sora was sky falling towards the world below. Brian's mind and heart reacted as a flashback crossed his eyes, showing him another person falling from a cliff with the Colonel at the top of the cliff. Brian quickly snapped out of his daydream and looked back down, seeing that Sora was actually moving upwards. What the-???

"HOW DO YOU CONTROL THIS THING!?!" Sora shouted as he speeded past him. Brian was shocked to see that Sora was trying to ride his keyblade which had enlarged by three times its size. What shocked him more though was the fact that Ratigan was shooting a huge number of red blood needles at him, trying to blown the hot air balloon. The Endless decided to try and protect the balloon, knowing that Sora will help Basil and himself.

The Keyblade Master was currently hanging onto his keyblade as he could not get use to the control of the damn thing, causing him to flip upside down by mistake. He pushed himself onto the key once more and calmed his mind in hope to gain more control. He quickly opened his eyes to see that he was heading straight for the Tower Brigde, not realising that he had speeded away from the battle. Sora kneeled down slightly, tilting the keyblade to the right so that it would he would just miss the bridge. "I've got no time to lose." He said as he began to speed his way back to Big Ben, feeling the rain getting heavier.

"There's no escape this time Basil!" Ratigan hissed, pulling his attention back towards Basil.

Basil slid down the hour hand and tried to put distance between himself and the raging rat, but he stood in front of him once more, blocking him. Ratigan held out his hand and unsheathes his razor-sharp claws, hitting Basil twice with such force it sent him flying back. Brian tried to get close to Basil to help but Ratigan quickly notices him and begins to fire more needles at him. Brian had no choice but to back the hot air balloon away, even though he could see that Basil couldn't hold on for much longer. Before he can even stand, Ratigan hits him several more times, almost knocking him off. Basil quickly looked down below him before climbing back up, clutching his arm in pain. He looked up, exhausted as Ratigan hits him again, sending him over the edge. Basil managed to grab the tip of the hand as the clock's chimes begin to sound, holding on for dear life. "So long, Basil of Baker Street." Ratigan said with hatred as he prepared himself to strike Basil down to his death.

"LIGHT!" A bright light blinded Ratigan as he shielded his eyes. When he opened them, he found that Basil was no longer hanging off the hour hand. "Hey! Ratigan!" The rat turned around and stood shocked to see Basil safety on the hot air balloon with Brian curing his wounds and Sora floated in front of him on the Kingdom Key. "Looks like your time is up." Sora smiled innocently as he placed his hands behind his head casually.

On cue, one of the hour hands struck twelve causing Big Ben to ring to its loudest. As human, it didn't bother Sora as much but as a mouse, it felt as if the noise was trying to destroy his mind. Ratigan's reaction wasn't any different and with all of the energy that he had absorbed from holding the crown, he grabbed his head in pain. He feel to his knees and rose his head up in pain, revealing his heart that must have appeared from the noise. Sora quickly aimed the Kingdom Key towards Ratigan, shooting at his heart so that it would fade away to Kingdom Hearts, similar to what they had done for Sa'luk. Ratigan's eyes turned white as the light energy that he had absorbed burst out of him, returning to the heart of the world and halting the storm. As soon as the light had left Ratigan's body, his body began to fade to the darkness as he fell over the side as he collapsed.

Sora watched Ratigan's body fall within the fog, fading into the dark at the same time before looking at the clock face to see that the keyhole was shining brightly. "Sora! Close the keyhole!" Brian reminded him. Sora flew over to the keyhole, still a little wobbly on riding the keyblade before casting a blue light into the keyhole. He watched the keyhole balance the light and darkness with the world before the light beam turned white, locking the keyhole shut.

As Sora closed the keyhole, Brian quickly looked in his blue notebook as he ticked off the world item of Mousedom:

Gypsy Gold: Check
Family Aura: Check
Hand of Midas: Check
Davy Jones' Heart: Check
White Rabbit Pocket Watch: Check
Gorilla's Hand: Check
Mouse Crown: Check

BOWBOWBOW

A light blue portal appeared within the halls of Castle Oblivion as well as three members of the former Organisation XIII. Roxas looked around, not finding the surroundings familiar, while Axel and Xion looked for the memory that would produce the Heart Shard. Roxas watched Axel and Xion walk onwards, "Guys! Wait up." He called out. The three of them have managed to gain three more Heart Shards as they visited memories from different worlds where Sora mentioned about looking for Riku. Roxas was starting to wonder though, even though they had to fight some enemies in the other worlds, there was no sign of the soul. If the soul is not even trying, does he know what we are up to or is he too caught up in trying to control the heart…I need to reach Sora fast!

Axel seemed to be expecting the place, "Not sure what floor this is." He said, "At least we're not in the basement." Xion nodded in agreement.

"Where are we?" Roxas asked after catching up to them.

"Where else? Castle Oblivion." Axel simply answered. "I took you here once for when we was looking for Xion but for some reason you blacked out." Roxas seemed to notice Xion looking away for a second, he didn't chose to ask though.

"I'm still wondering how all of this could be happening?" Roxas' guilt started to hit him as he looked down towards the floor. "I was supposed to make sure that this doesn't happen but I never would have thought that it would turn out like this. The soul used to guild us but now…he could become more powerful than Anti-Sora."

Xion placed her hand on her forehand as she though, "That makes me wonder; you would think that we would have thought that we would have come across Anti-Sora." Axel and Roxas looked at Xion with question, "I mean, Anti-Sora is supposed to be the darkness with Sora's heart, the Heartless, yet we haven't seen any sign of it." She pointed out.

"I fought it right at the beginning of this mess." Roxas said, "I placed it back in its rightful place."

"Knowing what trouble the soul is causing, I think that Anti-Sora must have been set free again." Axel said, "It's the only way for the soul to mess with the heart's connections without changing the chain of memories."

"We would have seen the Heartless by now if it was set free, it must have been caught." Xion mentioned.

"Maybe the soul is stealing Anti-Sora's strength and life force since it's a part of Sora's heart." Roxas suggested.

"Maybe it's the soul's pet." Axel commented.

Both Roxas and Xion turn to him to give him a weird look. "A Pet?!?"

"We shouldn't be questioning where Anti-Sora is anyway." Axel pointed out, "We all know what is happening to Sora but the real question is which path the soul is going to take."

Xion raised an eyebrow at this, "What do you mean?" she asked.

"From what we know, there are three types of Endless. A normal Endless, a Neutral and a Heart-Struck. We don't know the different between a normal and a Heart-struck but we know for a fact that Roxas wouldn't have been sent to Sora's forgotten memories if the virus that has affected the soul was at a Neutral status." Axel explained with his eyes closed in thought, "It's obvious that we are dealing with something that is out of our league if it explains the reason for the Heartless' disappearance."

"It just means that we need to gather the Heart Shards quicker. Riku will be able to help us." Xion said confidently.

This seems too easy...Roxas thought before something catches his eye, he turned to see a white portal, viewing the outside world. "What's that?" Roxas pointed out.

"Okay, now I'm judging this." Axel commented, "Within these forgotten memories, that portal allows you to speak to the person for a short amount of time." Roxas didn't waste time to run towards the portal, seeing the chance to speak to Sora and maybe even the chance to warn Naminé about what has been happening. Axel shook his head at Roxas' impatience as he quickly followed him with Xion by his side.

Xion watched Roxas and Axel stand by the white portal, Axel telling Roxas about the portal, when she felt something off. She halted her running and looked behind her, only seeing the colourless walls of Castle Oblivion. She still felt uneasy though and stared at one of the doors, as if someone was there. "YO! XION!" The Nobody snapped out of her thoughts as she faced Axel, who had called her. It looked like Roxas had already gone through the portal. "Hurry up before our luck runs out!" He shouted before following Roxas through the portal.

"Coming!" Xion took one last look behind her, feeling the uneasiness again; she nodded her head before running towards the portal and joined her friends.

BOWBOWBOW

The three heroes of Mousedom had returned to Basil's house on the quick to have a quick break before heading back to the gummi ship, it wasn't like the guys were ready to face the girls yet. "It may have been hard to fight Ratigan but we managed to pull through...Ow!" Sora twitched as Basil examined his un-infected arm, seeing that it was currently bleeding from the ride back. "Brian, tell me again. Why did you push me off the hot air balloon when it was about to land?" he questioned as he glared at an innocent looking Brian, who was dusting his jacket.

"It was funny." Brian smirked as he tried to hold back the laugher that he had shown from pushing Sora off, "Besides, you would have done the same thing with me or Riku." Sora was about to argue back but he was right, maybe waiting until they were closer to the ground but still right.

"Well it was all in a day's work." Basil finished up stitching up the wound, still wondering why either of them bothered to cure it themselves. "But I have to say, I couldn't have done without you." Brian and Sora smiled at this. "You were great assistance in defeating Ratigan." He added, leaving the two gasping.

"Assistance?!" They repeated.

"We had done more than assist." Brian told the mouse detective as he placed his purple robe on and lit his pipe.

"Hmm...Perhaps you did." Basil said before taking a puff from his pipe. He quickly glazed at Sora before taking the pipe out of his mouth and looked at Brian, "Devon, could I speak with you for a minute?" Brian wondered what Basil would want to talk about but stepped out of the room with Basil to talk to him.

As soon as the two have left the room, Sora sighed as he brought his claw in front of him, looking at it with pain and despair. He had managed to figure out what was going on from watching the recording of the fight, as well as noticing the signs that he was showing in the recording for the Endless Virus. He knew that confronting Kairi would be difficult as she deserves the truth for his actions but the truth means placing her into danger and the risk of losing himself forever. He didn't want to hurt his friends, in any form of way and he knew that they should know the truth but how can he if has no way in getting rid of the virus that has infected him. Because of this, he sighed again, bringing his hands to his face as despair hit him futher, "What am I going to do?" He asked himself.

Tell her the truth. A familiar voice told him.

Sora's hands shot away from his face as the look of surprised stayed on his face, ROXAS?! I'm so glad to hear from you. Sora smiled with joy, starting to feel better.

Look Sora, I don't have much time. Roxas told, making Sora take everything to heart from the next words that he said. The soul won't risk revealing himself. You can't let your friends suffer. You need to bring your friends back to your heart, especially Kairi. If you want to virus to slow down then you need to keep her close otherwise that dream will become a reailt- Roxas' voice was cut off.

Roxas! ROXAS?!

"Sora!" Brian shook Sora as he seemed to just be staring at space.

"Huh?" Sora snapped back into reality as he looked at Brian strangely, seeing him knell beside him as he must have dropped to the floor from the shock of hearing Roxas again. "Brian?"

"You seemed to blank out when I came back in." Brian explained to him, "Are you ok?" he asked with concerned.

"Yeah...I'm fine." Sora quickly pushed away, he didn't want Brian to worry.

Brian said though his facade and sighed, "Look, I'm sorry for snapping at you while on this world. I've just been angry from what you said to Kairi and I'm just worried about her." Brian admitted. Sora clenched his fist subconsciously, nodding to what Brian was saying. "Tell you what." Brian quickly jumped up to his feet. "Let's start again. Call a truce so that we can both deal with the girls without biting each other's heads off. Besides, Hikari will properly murder after I tell her that I've forgotten all of the good memories that we have had."

"Wait, you're going to tell her?" Sora asked.

"Well she deserves to know and either way feelings are going to get hurt so it's best to tell them before things get more difficult." Brian answered honestly, making Sora think. "So what do you say?" Brian held his hand out to Sora, "Truce?"

Sora looked at Brian's gloved hand with thought. He knew that Brian was right, they needed to get on the right side of the page if they are going to rely their lives with each other and he did help out Kairi when the virus was affecting him. Brian is also looking at this in a mature way, trying to form a truce so that no more fights would be caused between them, knowing the fact that more fights are yet to come. Sora took in his thoughts in and smiled at Brian. "Yeah." He agreed to as he grabbed his gloved hand, making both of the claws glow and giving both of them a huge headache.

They watched in terror as the heart-shaped moon was shattered right in front of their friends' eyes. The Order laughed as the destruction of Kingdom Hearts began to change to world that it was as millions of Unbirth began to form as well as an army of Endless soldiers behind the six Order members.

First, the army took out a blonde keyblader before proceeding before the others. The last form of light that would be seen is a comet that broke of Kingdom Hearts when it was destroyed, shooting in a random part of the universe.

"Woah!" Brian and Sora jumped away from each other from the shock of the vision before looking at each other's expressions, "Did you just see that??" They both asked each other.

A/N: Sleep mode....zzzzzz

Soragirl4ever: Life is good thanks. ^^ YAY! COOKIES!!

Artism: I want to watch that film but I'll just wait for it to come DVD.

Future Keyblader: Remember that she's still upset about her brother and the fact that she was trying to cheer up Kairi. She's good...in her own way.

Kisdota-The Freak Gamer: According to the re-correction of the checklist, I'm half way ^^

Celticskyedancer: Thank you

Grey vs Ale: We will see the next chapter if Brian decides to tell them.

Island-style-girl: The song is great. I just got the cd ^^

Sgt. Reynol: Don't worry, I don't write to get reviews anymore. I write it because this story will be the best. =P

Kingdommad