Chapter 117: Eternal Grave

The soft wind blew lightly within the bright grassy savannah, the sounds of the animal kingdom living happily as they enjoyed the fresh water and bright sun, serving its great purpose within the circle of life. Walking within the tall grassed savannah was a bright blonde fur coloured lion, looking as if they had just reached the size of a two year old. The lion slowly made his way across the large savannah, looking down at his feet every now and again, looking back at the armour piece on his shoulder before sitting down, watching as a beam of light appeared. Ventus could only laugh as he watched Hikari, Donald, Max and Goofy beam down onto the grassy surface, watching as Hikari and Max attempted to walk in their new animal forms. He shook his head in humour, his blonde spikes bouncing around as he did, as he slowly walked towards them. "You guys took your time." He chuckled.

Hikari could only groan as she tripped over her own feet, ignoring the multiple amounts of laughter coming from Donald and Goofy. "I should have stayed on the gummi." She growled with annoyance as she tried to stand up. It was only when she fell to the ground again was when she noticed her appearance change. "I'm blue…" she trailed. Rather than changing into a lion like Ventus, Hikari had changed into a light blue snow leopard as her blue hair and spots blended in nicely with her white fur, being the size of the one year old cub.

"At less you're not a turtle." Max muttered, looking similar to his father's form except that his shell was red and that he was convinced that he couldn't use his weapon, let alone move. His skin is the same black colour as his fur and his limbs are transformed into stocky legs, each with three toes and blunt, light grey nails. The underside of his shell is pale brown, while the top side of his shell is red with white highlights.

Goofy chuckled at this. "We're tortoises, Maxie!"

"I still can't move." Max pointed out with his frustration as he attempted to move with his body.

Donald flew around happily, snickering at the two teens that were having trouble in their new forms before noticing the beam of light appear once more. "You took your time."

The Aversion Endless didn't answer, looking down at his new appearance and slowly trying to walk on paws again. His fur was a bright shade of red, though his toes, belly, and the fur around his mouth are white. His mane is shaped like his normal hairstyle, being the same auburn red colour. He still wore his black glove, covering his Endless markings, while looking around the grassy area with his bright blue eyes. "The last world." He spoke.

Hikari pushed herself up as she slowly approached her friend with concern. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." He lied. He wasn't alright. He had just remembered who Aiddie was to both him and Nikolai, only to discover that he couldn't save her from the darkness when her own brother had intrusted him to look after her. He couldn't blame Nikolai for whatever he was doing; he just wished that he could make it up to his old friend. He looked over to Ventus, seeing that he was patiently waiting. "Did you find anything?" he asked.

"No sign of the keyhole yet." He told him. "But we might be able to get some clues over at Pride Rock." He noticed his head over to the huge rock in the distance.

Brian turned his head over to Pride Rock, only to get a sharp pain stuck into his head and heart, causing the lion to lose his balance. "Owww…" He whined slightly.

"Dude!" Max managed to speed over to Brian with haste. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." He groaned in pain before looking back at Pride Rock. "That place just looks familiar."

"Ah yuck! Maybe you came here with your father." Goofy suggested.

"Or the Order even." Donald added.

"Maybe." Brian pushed himself up, with the aid of his friend. After thanking Max for his assistance, he looked back at Pride Rock in thought. "I wonder…" He muttered

Hikari looked up at the gigantic rock in the distance, thinking hard on what this place could do to trigger Brian's memory off. She figured that he must have come here before he came to Little Devon but other than that, she was just a clueless as he was. Her feline ears twitched from the sound of movements within the tall grass. "You guys hear that?" She looked back at the tall grass, looking at the area suspiciously.

"Hear what?" Ventus easily caught Hikari's expression and quickly turned his attention to the tall grass as movement was heard from it again. It continued to shake with movement until something appeared from the grass; they were surprised that all the movement within the grass was caused by a baby zebra.

"Watch out." Brian's voice was filled with sarcasm. "It could properly smell fear."

Hikari shook her head at her friend before she slowly began to make her to Pride Rock. "It's better to be prepared for surprises."

"What surprises?" Brian raised his eyebrow as he and the rest of the group followed. "Any Order member would be crazy to come down here without protection." The group went on, listening to Hikari and Brian's debate on whether there is danger on this world or not.

The tall grass shook again, causing the baby zebra to run away in fear in search for its mother. The grass continued to shake violently until another animal burst through the grass, landing on the ground roughly. His white fur stood out to the grassy surroundings as the feline tried to get back on his infected grey paws. His green eyes looked up to see a scaly form appearing out of the grass and slamming into his, striking as if his grey snow leopard spots were like targets to the scaly creature. The infected snow leopard attempted to back the scaly creature away as he begged. "Stop! Please!"

"Why should I?" A western accent spoke as the scaly creature backed away from the snow leopard, allowing it to come out of his crocodile form into their full Endess Outburst mode, grabbing the feline's neck with his infected claw just as quick. "I could have crushed you that day! Just like any other bug and be done with you."

The snow leopard gasped as he tried to breathe, "Why didn't you just kill me when you had the chance?" He choked.

"And getting rid of a prefect endless slave?" The crocodile like endless dropped the snow leopard, listening to the animal recovering his oxygen. "Where I come from, we don't waste the cattle."

"Screw you, Snake." The leopard growled.

"Now Storm, you remember our agreement, right?" Major Snake looked down at the mammal as he spoke. "Unless you follow my EXACT orders then stories or no stories, I will not only kill you but I will kill your precious sister and friends. It's the whole reason you joined the Order in the first place, right?"

The Shock Endless remained silent, looking down at his infected claw in thought. He remembered Hikari's expression back at African Depths, he wanted that moment to be the moment he said goodbye to his sister. The moment that the gummi ship had went off with his sister on broad, he could feel the earth around him turn against him, and he could feel his death coming as the scars of Snake's whips stung his body. When he thought that he was going to die, to be able to finally rest, his could feel the dragon like Endless throwing him through a portal, a smirk plastered on his face. Ever since then, Snake had created a lie that Storm had lured the Keyblade Master and his team to Storm once they had managed to escape, allowing entrance to the Order. At first, he thought that he could use this chance to be in the inside to help his sister win against the enemy but finding that Nikolai wasn't exactly an enemy and that Jenova was as innocent as he was, he knew he had to try to save them too. He wanted to free both sides.

But now he knelled before the snake once more, looking up to him like some puppet master. "Your wishes?" He spoke with venom of hate for the endless in front of him.

Snake smirked at this before looking at Pride Rock. "The Aversion Endless will recover the truth here. Be sure that he doesn't leave this world."

"You mean kill him?" Storm looked at the dark brown scaly Endless in shock and disgust.

"I want him like road kill, boy." Snake looked back down at him. "Since your previous plan to spy on my actions for the Colonel seemed to fail, you won't mind doing this instead."

"Never! I wouldn't even-AHHH!" He didn't expect to be stepped on by a huge hard shelled dragon's claw.

"I'm sorry, Storm. I must have misheard you saying that you wanted me to kill your sister. Could you say that again?" He chuckled as he adjusted his hat.

"Okay! Fine!" He yelped, freeing himself as the Persistence Endless released his foot. "What about the keybearer?" He asked.

"I'll deal with him." He said before glaring at the feline. "Now remember, your mission is to kill the Endless. Nothing more." He backed away before he continued. "Now if you try to warn your dear sister, you're dead. If you wanna die, you might as well enter the Outlands."

He could only raise an eyebrow at this. "What's wrong with the Outlands?"

The Major only smirked at the question. "You will know soon enough." And with that, he turned back into his animal disguise and disappeared into the grass, leaving the Endless within the animal kingdom.

BOWBOWBOW

"Brian! For the last time, there is a possibility that Endless might come here!" Hikari's voice held her annoyance as the ground approached Pride Rock. "It can happen!" She protested.

"Hikari's got a point." Max added. "Some Order members might not know about the Outlands."

"Well, if an Endless was to be stupid enough to go into the Outlands without protection then they might as well kill themselves there and then." The red lion growled.

Max raised an eyebrow at his friend's cold attitude. "Dude, what's with you? You've been acting cold since we got here."

Brian simply shook his head. "It's nothing."

"Yeah right. There is defiantly something." The archer huffed at his friend's lie.

"Look!" Ventus grabbed their attention, lifting his paw up to point towards a fully grown lion with auburn red hair. "Is this who we're looking for?" Ventus asked them. From the sight of the lion, Donald and Goofy grinned happily as they ran over to the lion shouting 'Simba' happily, catching the lion's attention. Ven could only chuckled at the two, "Well that answers that question." He spoke in a humorous tone as the four caught up to Donald and Goofy.

Simba looked at Donald and Goofy with both joy and confusion. "Donald! Goofy! How have you guys been? Where's Sora?" He asked them.

Goofy chuckled slightly before answering. "With Riku and Kairi."

"You mean Sora found them?" Simba sighed in relief. "I'm glad that he found his friends." He looked behind from Donald and Goofy to see the other four animals travelling from behind. "Who are these guys?" he asked.

Donald nodded to the felines, annoying the awed expression coming from Brian as he looked up at Pride Rock. "This is Ventus, Brian and Hikari." He introduced, each of them greeting the lion king.

"And this is my son Maxie!" Goofy said proudly, causing Max to chuckle out of embarrassment.

"You're a father, Goofy?" Simba simply looked at Goofy as if he was sent for his greatest wishes. "Thank god! I have so many questions."

"He's not really the best person, dude." Max simply muttered, hiding in his red shell from further embarrassment.

"So you're a father?" Hikari simply asked, judging from his reaction to finding out that Goofy was a parent. "What's the problem?"

"There isn't really a problem. It's just Kiara always likes to explore and I want to keep her safe, especially when we have Kovu around." Simba tried to explain to them.

"Is Kiara your daughter then?" Donald asked, receiving a nod from his friend

"Why? Who's Kovu?" Ventus asked.

Simba growled slightly as he mentioned the boy. "He was chosen to follow Scar's footprints but he claims that he has left the Outlands. The only reason I let him in was because he saved Kiara." Simba suddenly halted his speech as he noticed something odd. "What is he doing?" He spoke with confusion and worry, looking onto of Pride Rock.

The group looked up to the top of Pride Rock, only to see Brian standing right at the edge. "Brian!" Hikari yelled up to the red lion, blaming herself for not keeping an eye on him when they started talking to Simba. "What the hell?"

"I'm looking at the view!" He shouted down.

"Why?" Max simply yelled back up.

"To see the Outlands!"

Ventus could only shrug at the red cub's strange behaviour, looking back at Simba's confused expression. "I'm not sure myself." He grinned. "By the way, do you know where the keyhole might be?"

Simba pondered the thought, trying to remember where he had seen the keyhole. "I'm not sure it's in the Pride Lands…" Simba's eyes widened as he looked back at the others. "Can you guys do me a favour? Can you keep an eye on Kiara and Kovu for me? You might find the keyhole." He asked.

"Sure. Not a problem." Ven grinned before looking at the others. "Right guys?"

"Sure." Hikari nodded to the idea. "Me, you and Brian will keep an eye on Kovu and Kiara while Donald, Goofy and Max look for the keyhole."

"Great!" Simba grinned. A couple of lions walked up to the red main lion, quickly mentioning something to him before running pass the group. Simba sighed. "I gotta go. Some Outlander causing some trouble. It might lead to the cause of the fire yesterday." He began to walk towards the direction that the other lions headed off too. "I'll catch up with you guys later!" He shouted to them before running towards the savannah.

Brian watched the lions head off before looking down to his friends. "As much as I would like to babysit a couple of lions, I would rather stick by Pride Rock." He spoke with a sarcastic tone.

Hikari raised an eyebrow at this. "You sure?"

Brian nodded. "Remember the story about my father fighting against the Colonel. I think this links to it." He told her. "Go on without me. I can look for the keyhole here."

"You sure?" She repeated, slowly starting to believe that the amount of flashbacks have finally driven him insane.

"Just go!" The Aversion Endless shouted down before disappearing from view.

"Cool! That means I can help you guys." Max grinned, trying to join Ventus' and Hikari's group. Before he could though, he felt his feet leave the ground, making the archer panic slightly. "Ahh, Donald! Put me down." He whined as Donald and Goofy began to make their move with Max in their grasp. "NOOOOOOO!

Ventus smiled, watching Donald, Goofy and Max disappear, before turning to face Hikari. "Is Brian alright?" he asked with concern.

Hikari nodded. "He gets like this when he remembers something. He has been acting like this since we fought Abroc." Hikari looked up at Pride Rock, watching Brian looking down the sides of the rock and into the distance before pacing backwards and forward. "From his behaviour, I think I know what it is." She said mostly to herself.

"What is it?" Ventus asked.

"It doesn't matter. It's for Brian to remember." Hikari took his sights off the rock and began to make a move. "We better look for Kovu and Kiara."

"You sure we can't help?"

"Trust me. I've tried."

"Okay. Only if you're sure. "Ventus nodded as the two began to make their way.

From above, Brian watched his friends make their way, waiting for them to be too busy with their tasks to look back. He looked behind him, checking to see if the other lioness weren't looking at him weirdly, only to gasp in shock. "Abroc.." He chocked.

"You promised your master on this day that you will live on until you had performed your destiny." A voice echoed coming from the transparent shadow. It began to fade away from Brian's vision, repeating the phase over and over until he disappeared.

"The memory…" Brian widened his eyes as he looked down as his surroundings, imagining the great lively savannah as a dull, empty wasteland with bones everyone. "He died here."

A/N: Sorry for not updating lately, trying to fix the storyline for the world in as well as a list of other things. Hope to update soon. Catch you guys later

Kingdommad