This chapter may end up a little short since it's mainly just winding down from the previous battle and setting the puzzle pieces into place for the next one.
Chapter 9: Radiant Garden:
Radiant Garden – Spaceport; Nine Days Later:
"Welcome to Radiant Garden," Sora and Kairi remarked with overdramatic bows as the Avengers disembarked from the R.L.S. Legacy into Radiant Garden's spaceport. After the battle against the Unchained Legion and the Hellfire Club drew to a close, Aqua arrived with a few ships from the Coalition Fleet to help with cleaning up and repairs. During their mercy mission to Turo, the blue-haired Keyblade Master managed to secure a treaty between the Daybreak Coalition and the Galactic Federation, and had remained behind on Turo with her family, preparing to send a delegation to Earth.
After a week of helping with the cleanup of the Battle of Turo, Kairi and Sora were eager to head home, and the five citizens of the Coalition extended an invitation to the rest of their travelling companions for a chance to tour the Daybreak Coalition before returning to Earth. The acceptance of their offer was unanimous, for a variety of reasons. Thor hoped to establish trade and military agreements between Asgard and the Coalition, while Fury hoped to come to a similar agreement in regards to intelligence on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony and Bruce wanted to examine the science and technology that the Coalition had developed (both were fascinated by everything from Gummi Ships to combat magic), while Hawkeye was motivated by pure curiosity and an overwhelming desire to play tourist.
Jake, Rose, and Natasha would have preferred to return to Earth and increase their defenses to guard themselves against the wrath of the Unchained Legion. But all three of them knew that was never going to happen. Between their sense of justice and the knowledge that the Legion would not stop coming after them until they were either dead or back under their thumb, they had no choice but to stand with the rest of the universe and fight back. And since the Coalition was already doing that anyway, sticking with Sora and the others was their best course of actions. Not to mention the fact that Rose and Natasha's intimate knowledge of the Legion's inner workings would provide the Coalition military with valuable information on how to cripple the enemy.
Tony and Bruce immediately began a rapid-fire string of questions about the flight schematics of the Gummi Ships before Sora put up a hand to stop them and promised to put them in touch with local Gummi engineer Cid Highwind. Steve insisted on informing the Coalition government of their presence and offering their services as long as they were there. It may have been overly formal of him, but the Captain's rationale had been that while they were guests in a foreign nation, they should be courteous and respectful towards the local government. Since everyone had their own plans for what they wanted to do, Kairi called ahead and had some of the Royal Guard escort the various guests to where they wanted to go.
As predicted, Iron Man and Dr. Banner went to discuss Gummi blocks and spaceship engineering with Cid (the three men got along like a house on fire, which was more than a little disconcerting for everyone who knew them). Steve and Thor were soon granted an audience with Ansem the Wise, while Fury, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and the Longs went to the local offices of Coalition Intelligence. While everyone had gone off to do their own thing, they all promised to meet up in the Marketplace for lunch. That left the Princess of Radiant Garden and her fiancé with a few hours of time to themselves. And after nearly a month without seeing each other, they were more than ready to make up for lost time.
The Realm of Darkness – D.E.S. Nathalis:
"We have confirmed it," Algrim reported to his king aboard the bridge of the Dark Elf flagship as it glided through the eternally dark skies of the Realm of Darkness. "What we seek is there." They had finally done it. After tens of thousands of years of failure, the Dark Elf race had finally managed to enter the Realm of Darkness. Now they were here to take back what was rightfully theirs. The liquid gem of Reality that King Bor had selfishly hidden from them in order to deny Malekith his well-deserved revenge. The Aethir. For so long, Malekith had dreamed of the day he would exact revenge upon the nine realms for their attempted genocide against his people thousands of years ago, and now that it was finally within his grasp, he had to fight hard to contain his excitement.
"Set course for the Lower Zone, then," The Dark Elf king ordered as he leaned back in his command chair, basking in the euphoria of a long-deserved victory. "Bring me the Aethir, Algrim. Bring our people the key to vengeance against Asgard for their crimes against our race." As the rocky structures of the dark realm rocketed past below his feet, Malekith could not help but feel an overwhelming sense of triumph. After thousands of years, he found finally have what he needed to avenge his family. His wife and son would not have died in vain. The only question now that he had achieved his goal was what to do now. It would be another four thousand years at least before the next convergence, meaning that he would have to use the Aethir to destroy all nine realms at once. That left only Maleficent.
From the moment Malekith allied his people with the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" Malekith knew that their alliance was one of convenience. Maleficent's cabal was a means to an end for the Dark Elf king, and now that she had served her purpose, it was time to dispose of her. The only question now was how. He knew that she was anticipating a coup by the Dark Elves and prepared accordingly, and he had likewise prepared his people for Maleficent's attempt to cut them loose. So a straight up coup de tat among the ranks of the Hellfire Club would be neither possible nor practical.
Subterfuge and deception wasn't going to be an option either. The witch had learned from her experiences with Xehanort and refused to be used as a pawn by anyone. She was too intelligent to fall for any trickery or manipulation. When the Nathalis began to carve its way through the ash-covered stone pathways of the hellish landscape as the warship came in for a landing, the answer came to him in a sudden rush. She already distrusted him, and would naturally treat anything he said with suspicion. If he could disguise his machinations by playing on her suspicion and mistrust, he could distract Maleficent long enough to destroy the Hellfire Club in one swoop.
Satisfied with his plan, Malekith stood up from his command chair and marched to the elevator that would take him down to where they had found the relic he sought. As he marched across the ashes that blanketed the ground, he caught sight of a familiar stone pillar sitting a few dozen yards away, the intricate burn marks of the Bifrost gate burned into the landscape around it. While Malekith's first impulse would have been to absorb the Aethir right here and now, he reminded himself that doing so would tip his hand and provoke Maleficent to open conflict with the Dark Elves. No. In order to play his cards right, he had to keep the Aethir contained for now and wait until just the right moment to play his hand. But he could deal with his impatience. He had waited over five thousand years for his revenge. He could wait a little longer.
The Lanes Between – Sol System:
"Are we sure he can be trusted, M'Lady?" Diablo asked once Malekith had strode out of the room. He and Hades had stood silently by on either side of Maleficent's makeshift throne in the heart of their new base as construction went on around them. The Dark Elf king had deliberate research had pointed to the theory that the Soul Stone, one of the only Infinity Stones that the Unchained Legion had not managed to get their hands on, had been hidden away inside Jafar's serpent staff all along. Maleficent didn't really believe that, but it did give her an idea for how to dispose of Malekith.
"Of course not," Maleficent answered as she stood from her throne and made her way down from the dais. Hades walked up beside her and slipped his wife's fingers around his own. "But this does present us with an opportunity to cull the treacherous elements of Malekith's inner circle. We'll let Malekith take his ships to Agrabah, tell him that he can bring us the Soul Stone as atonement for his failure to find it the first time. But before they leave, Loki will sabotage their black hole grenades to destroy their ships before they return to Agrabah. While they're busy going on their wild goose chase, we'll be sending a team to retrieve the Aethir. Once we've removed Malekith from the equation, we can retrieve the Soul stone for ourselves from its real hiding place."
"An excellent plan, babe," Hades commented as he leaned in and gave his wife and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I'll go let the green guy know. The only question that remains now is what to do about Demona."
"Oh I have something in mind for her," the Queen of the Underworld replied with a smirk. "She can only die if Macbeth kills her, but that doesn't mean we cannot imprison her in a sleeping curse as I did with Aurora."
"Brilliant as always, M'Lady," Diablo observed. "And with Seymour's execution over and done with, we can take back the Infinity Stones from the Unchained Legion. Once we do, all of reality will be yours for the taking, and all who stop you will burn in the fires of their own making." The three members of the Hellfire Club's inner circle turned to more mundane topics like Lily's desire to learn how to play the pipe organ, making sure that their secret conversations never reached Malekith's ears. But they failed to notice a shimmer of green as the disgraced prince of Asgard released his cloaking spell and teleported away to fill his brother in on everything he'd just heard.
We'll be skipping over the Avengers' tour of the Daybreak Coalition because not a lot really happens. We've got seven more chapters left and next chapter is when things get to the point of no return, although chapter 16 officially marks the beginning of the end. So now Malekith has gotten the Aethir, leaving the score in terms of the Infinity Stones as Unchained: 4, Hellfire: 1. But where exactly is the Soul Stone? Rest assured the sixth and final Infinity Stone will come into play before this fic is over. And its location will be a bit surprising to some of you. Anyway, since Malekith is aware that Maleficent doesn't trust him, he's making his own plans to strike back.
The internal power struggles of the Hellfire Club are about to come to a head soon, and things are going to get explosive. After the jaw dropping cliffhanger of this fic, I'm going to leave you all in suspense as to a certain character's fate and pull back the curtain with a story of what's going on back on Earth while everything is happening up here in space. After that, you'll finally get the epic conclusion to the saga that I've been building up to since before I started writing The Xehanort War. And don't worry about KH6 being short on action. The entire Kingdom Hearts 6 fanfic I'm working on is basically the last ten chapters of The Xehanort War turned up to 11. It's going to all end with one massive, twenty-fourchapter action sequence!
It's never clear whether the grey/white stuff on the ground in the Realm of Darkness is snow, dirt, or whatever, so I decided that given the at times hellish landscape, that ashes would be the most appropriate explanation for that phenomenon. I figured that Tony and Bruce would be really interested in Gummi Ship technology, and the thought of them interacting with Cid was just too hilarious an opportunity to pass up. Alas, I do not think I could do such a scene justice, so I leave it to your imaginations to figure out how that conversation would go down.
Again, nothing happened with Sora and Kairi there. Get your minds out of the gutter, people. I've established in previous stories that as much as some of you all want juicy implications of offscreen SoKai lemon scenes, it's not happening until after the wedding. And for those wondering when that's finally going to happen, let's just say that when Sora and Kairi finally do get married, it's going to be in the same vein as Will and Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Yes, you read that correctly. The wedding's going happen right smack in the middle of the final battle in KH6. As for why, that's something only my most genre savvy readers will pick up on.