Consequences of Well Meaning Explosives

Sora was looking forward to this. He was reasonably confident he could handle Xehanort, at least chase him from this world, and as soon as he did, the Heartless would die down to almost nothing. His new friends could definitely handle that. And he would be able to go see Donald and Goofy and Kairi and Riku…

"Oh! Before you go!" He had forgotten another really important thing! "Robin, Red Hood, be careful not to strain where your injuries were too much. They're healed, but only by magic. They still need time to rest and naturally recover. Otherwise, they can reopen and only time can heal them then."

The two previously-injured people took a moment to consider. "How far can we strain them? We have to face this threat to Gotham now." Robin asked.

He thought back to his own battles and how the Cure spells had lasted. "They should be able to hold for most battles. I've fought Xehanort before on Cure and it lasted for every bit of it. I just thought I should mention because my friend Riku reopened his leg wound a little while ago."

Batman stepped forward, looming over Sora. "What were the circumstances for this?"

"Donald said it was probably because he was under a lot of stress. He was fighting Xehanort at the time and they have a bad history."

Hood nodded, his helmet bobbing up and down. "We'll keep it in mind. Now let's go kick some a-"

"Language!"

"-butt."

The docks had always been a favourite spot of Gotham's lowlifes, what with their rotting wood piers, murky water, and abandoned buildings. It was a spot recently visited by vigilantes and mobsters alike, and the Bat family couldn't help feeling a wave of familiarity as they stepped out into the cool midnight air. It was a cloudless night, and the area was quiet. Maybe a little too quiet considering recent circumstances. Bruce took a deep breath before turning to address his soldiers.

"I want to do this right, no careless moves" he gave a pointed glare at Jason, "and no rushing in without using your head." Damian gave the slightest of flinches at their leader's words.

"So what's the plan boss?" Asked an attentive Red Robin.

"Sora, Nightwing and I will be taking the roof, preparing to jump in for a surprise attack. I want you, Hood and Robin to go in for a distraction so we can enter during the resulting chaos."

Robin gave an obvious "Tt" of displeasure though all but Tim chose to ignore it, the latter giving the youngest a pointed glare before refocusing on Batman.

A few minutes of detailed explanations later, Sora found himself climbing down as silently as he could manage, into a maze of wooden support beams stretching out across the expanse of a vast warehouse's ceiling. It was a good thing he wasn't afraid of heights, because when he looked down, he realized they were about four stories up with very little between them and the cold concrete floor. Though, with a sinking feeling, Sora saw that there was indeed something between them. A collection of Heartless and Nobodies slithering around, twitching and slipping ninjas like into shadows. Ignoring these, he tried to spot who he was really looking for. Where was Xehanort? A minute of careful searching told him the man wasn't there. Or at least, he wasn't in the main part of the warehouse. Several doors lined the walls of the room however, and Sora guessed that the man they were looking for could easily be hiding within the depths of the old building. Batman was counting on that very idea, hoping that once the fighting began, the three of them hidden above could take him by surprise. Sora had never used strategies like this before. It felt weird, like he was deceiving his opponent. He knew that was a ridiculous though and that Xehanort wouldn't hesitate to do the same to him, but he couldn't help feeling slightly guilty. Despite the efficiency, this wasn't how he operated.

"You good Sora?" Nightwing questioned from his left. Sora hadn't even noticed the acrobat settle down next to him.

"Yeah, I'm ready." He said, readjusting himself to get more comfortable. "When do we start?"

In answer Nightwing gave a quick glance over at Batman who had a few fingers resting on his ear. Sora could just hear the gruff voice issuing commands.

"We are in position. Move in."

There was a brief moment of silence where Sora noticed how tense he had become. Then, suddenly several things seemed to happen at once.

A wall seemed to break apart, shards of metal and wood flying across the room violently, the unpleasant vibrations from the explosion making Sora tremble slightly. Small pops followed almost simultaneously, light flooded the room. Sora had to put a hand in front of his face because of the intensity of what he now realized were flash grenades. Heartless began to slither into the ground, becoming shadows, while the Nobodies conjugated at the enormous hole in the wall. If Sora hadn't been covering his face, he might have noticed small black projectiles flying into the room, resulting in several Nobodies vanishing on the spot. Then came the unmistakable explosion of Red Hood's guns. At this point, Sora uncovered his eyes to see Robin, Red Hood and Red Robin putting up a very good distraction. Though unfamiliar with the attack patterns of the Nobodies, Hood and Robin seemed comfortable fighting the Heartless and dodged them with ease, their attacks more often than not hitting their marks. Red Robin's analytical skills seemed to put him at an advantage from the start. He waited, letting the enemies come to him, and then did some experimental dodging, quickly figuring out the most effective way to combat his attackers. Watching the three of them work was amazing.

Then the motion of the room came to an unpredictably sudden stand still. It didn't make sense, one minute there was full blown chaos, the next the Heartless and Nobodies stopped in their tracks, becoming docile. The eerie creek of a door was the explanation. Sora looked to the right of the room, to a door that was slowly opening. He tensed involuntarily.

The door swung open, revealing Xehanort. His eyes gleamed as he gazed across the stilled battlefield. Well, mostly stilled. While the monsters weren't fighting back, Red Hood and Robin were stealthily attacking everything in sight. Red Robin had jumped onto some crates so he could get a better vantage point of the battlefield. Xehanort took all of this in, his eyes narrowing slightly when they rested on Hood. Then they moved on, sweeping to the rafters where Sora, Batman and Nightwing were hiding.

"You might as well come down." The amount of gravel in his voice could rival Batman, but while Batman's voice was flat, devoid of emotion, Xehanort's held a spark of manic revulsion. Revulsion for the light and all who served it.

More Heartless streamed from the walls, more Nobodies from the floor. Sora was so busy watching the battle below, he had missed the Dragoon floating behind him. He managed to bring his Keyblade up in time to block, but the force of the swing knocked him from his perch, sending him crashing to the ground, vapourizing two or three Shadows with the force of his fall. Jumping up as quickly as he could, he swept his Key in a circle, destroying all of the Heartless around him. They still weren't attacking, but he felt better with a perimeter. Nightwing was on the ground too, but Batman was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully still in the rafters. He didn't seem like the type to get surprised.

Xehanort was speaking again. "Much better. My failed vessel, I welcome you to the site of my victory. For it is here that I shall obtain the last darkness and bring about the Second Keyblade War." His eyes glinted dangerously. "But for now, I need to prepare for the end. Fear not, I shall leave you with plenty of entertainment." He disappeared through the door, the lock glowing as it was magically sealed.

Nothing my Keyblade can't open, Sora thought as he started towards the door. And was quickly stopped by an Invisible blocking his path. The silence which had descended on the warehouse when the Heartless and Nobodies stopped fighting returned just as quickly as it had vanished. Pandemonium filled the warehouse as the Nobodies slithered into motion, their quick, jerky, yet still fluid, movements leading to unpredictable and dangerous attacks. The Heartless were much less graceful, but no less powerful, overwhelming with numbers when strength was not sufficient.

The Bats were faster and more powerful however. Nightwing flew above the battle, jumping off of Heartless, landing to jab a Nobody or two with his escrima sticks, then flipping off once again. Red Hood fought them directly, a gun barrel pressed to a Dancer's head, and All Blade buried deep in a Neo Shadow's chest. Red Robin watched the enemies, noting each type's weak points before turning through the battle, bo staff and glider cape flashing. Robin preferred the deadly approach, simply slicing anything to cross his path in two, leaping above them to gain advantage of momentum. Sora's Keyblade slipped through the horde effortlessly. After so long fighting these creatures, knowing how to defeat them was almost second nature to him. Above them all, a shadow in the rafters smiled proudly.

Red Hood noticed when Batman dropped down into the fray. Presumably because he couldn't break into where Xehanort was hiding. Whatever that glowing keyhole meant, it was probably lock pick-proof. He shot another one of the white things (a Nobody probably) in the chest, and swung his gun around to the next enemy, one of those Myotises. Copycat bastards. He lined up his sights and squeezed the trigger, giving a frustrated growl when it just clicked. Stupid thing was jammed. He dropped it, grabbing another from his belt, dispatching the Myotis with his All Blade instead. Too bad he wasn't still bleeding; he could have powered up the All Blade and taken a group of monsters out in one swing instead of going one-by-one. An injury would just slow him down more than would be useful at this point, so he dropped that line of thinking and flew back into the fray. An explosion broke his concentration momentarily. His eyes panned until he found the source of the blast, getting one quick smile in before a massive Nobody with a claymore smacked him on the head. The helmet took the damage, shattering on impact. A piece of the shrapnel cut into his temple, the vicious river of a head wound starting up. Jason smiled a deadly smile and held the All Blade up, red blood dripping onto it.

Tim had ducked out of the fight quickly, trusting his allies and family to handle it. Instead, he grappled up to the second floor, staring intently at the door, determined to figure out how to make it open. From the way Sora was fighting towards the door, he knew of a way to open it and needed to be at the door to do it. Or he could just be after Xehanort and would get stuck when he reached the door like the rest of them were. The lock was still glowing and, knowing magic, lock pick-proof. Would probably electrocute whoever tried too. Or turn them into a kitten. Tim almost preferred the electrocution. Another few moments of thought and suddenly, an answer came to him. Taking out a few explosive batarangs, he tossed them at a spot on the wall which, according to the blueprint he had memorized, led to the next room. Checking to make sure no one was close enough to get caught in the blast, he pressed the remote detonator.

Nightwing was caught off balance by the resulting tremors of the building. He jumped into the air, and landed expertly on a nearby Neoshadow, righting himself in the process. He could see Sora stumble as he had been running towards the locked door, but the boy caught his balance quickly, swinging his blade above his head to avoid being slashed by one of those vicious bat Heartless. The room was suddenly covered in a cloud of dust and smoke from the explosion, and Nightwing could no longer see Sora or any Heartless more than 3 feet away from him. Flipping forward, he swung his escrima sticks with practiced ease at the sound of claws swinging towards him, or when he saw a flash of the black shadowy creatures through the cloud of dust. Thank you sensory deprivation training! He wanted to catch up to Sora and give him a bit of back up. Facing Xehanort alone was probably not in the kid's best interest.

"Oh crap, oh CRAP, OH CRAP! GUYS!"

That was Tim's voice! Nightwing felt his stomach twist into a knot. Looking around frantically his eyes stinging from the grit and smoke, he called desperately "TIM!"

His voice was drowned out, however, by a huge earthshaking crash. This time Nightwing couldn't help it. He fell to the ground, catching himself on his hands and knees, and looked up. Whatever had just caused that had also managed to blow most of the dwindling debris still present in the air away. Sora was lying on the ground about 10 feet in front of Nightwing, covered in broken pieces of wood and cement, and stirring slightly. Dick only had a moment to worry about that however, because as his eyes continued upward, he saw something that he swore made his heart stop. A huge black creature, arms the size of thick tree trunks, tentacles covering its face, twisted black wings jetting out from its curved back, and glowing yellow eyes that pierced the dark room with bone chilling celerity; it was crouched down staring straight at him. He didn't know it, but he was looking into the face of a Darkside.

Jason was having a very good time as he tore through the monsters surrounding him, the All Blades powered up by his own blood. He hadn't had this much fun in... well, who knew when. He didn't often get permission from the Bats to go all out and take down his enemies the way he wanted. Now however, he could fight however he liked. No holding back. As his sword sliced through yet another wave of shadows, darkness trailing behind it like blood, he noticed his visibility dropping. He coughed as dust and smoke from what was probably Tim's explosion reached him. Unfortunately he didn't have his helmet on at the time which would have kept his throat protected. Suddenly he heard the distinctive sound of flesh connecting with flesh and turned to his left, just making out the glowing eyes and pointy ears of Batman.

"We need to get to the door," the man said roughly between strokes of his enormous fists.

"I know." Jason spat. "But I saw Sora and-"

He had to stop as a Neoshadow rose from the ground right in front of him taking a cocky swipe at his legs. He simply kicked it out of the way seeing as both swords were preoccupied with enemies at his sides.

"- and Nightwing and Red Robin all over there. So with any luck they can handle their own until we get to them. Where's Robin anyway? I lost track of-"

This time something much bigger cut him off. He was thrown back violently by the force of it crashing down very close to where he and Bats were standing. He felt himself flying through the air and landed heavily against a metal wall. What the hell just happened? His vision was swimming, and he had to blink a few times to clear his head. What had enough force to knock him back like that? The visibility in the room seemed to be much clearer now, and Jason almost wished it wasn't. A huge black arm was drawing back towards that hole in the wall Tim just made. The arm of a huge black Heartless.

Jason sighed and pulled his grapple from his belt. "You got this B? Cause I have something in the Batwing that might help with that." Batman tossed him an Of-course-I-have-this look, punching another Nobody to the concrete floor. Jason smirked, aimed his grapple and took off, crashing through the window. He landed with a roll and took off running, towards the plane parked a half block away.

Popping the canopy, he jumped into the back seat. Riffling under his usual seat, he pulled out a rocket launcher and four spare rockets. He had used this one to blow up half of the Chinese mafia a couple of years back. Not as fun as Black Mask's office, but still one hell of a ride. Batman didn't know he had stashed it here. Ok, he probably knew, but he never bothered removing it, so whatever. Slinging his prize over his shoulder, he barreled back to the warehouse. He launched his grapple through the window he had broken earlier and, angling his body as much as he could, landed right in front of the Heartless blocking the hole in the wall. Hood lined up his sights, aiming right at the monster's head.

As soon as the rocket left the launcher, Hood grabbed one of his spares, sliding it into ready position. He needn't have bothered. The rocket hit the Heartless right in the eye, exploding on contact and blowing half of its head off. The creature dissipated. "Huh," he leaned on his rocket launcher, taking a moment to be underwhelmed by the giant, "that was easier than I expected."

Sora had been making his gradual way towards the Darkside. Jumping and gliding over the horde had been useless with Beserkers all too willing to knock him back down. So he had gone the ground route, taking Nobodies out one-by-one, Heartless out in groups (what did they expect, standing so close together?). He knew what the Darkside could do and he knew he had to stop it before it could fire dark orbs at his friends or summon more Heartless. He was more than half way there when a dark shape flew right towards the Darkside's eye.

Another explosion, blowing half of the giant's face off. Much faster than Sora could have done, the Darkside was defeated, slowly dissolving into darkness. Sora looked over to where the dark shape had come from, to see Hood leaning on a metal cylinder exactly like the one at his apartment.

Shaking his head (he had more important things to worry about right now), he ran for the now-clear hole in the wall, Red Hood, Nightwing and Batman in close pursuit.

The Heartless and Nobodies had finally stopped streaming into the room. From his vantage point above the battlefield, Nightwing was very pleased to see that entire sections of floor had been cleared away. Dropping his escrima stick onto another Nobody's head, he landed next to Tim.

"Red, Hood managed to get rid of that monster thing. Can you and Robin handle things here while I go in for Xehanort?"

Tim snorted, "These guys are cake once you figure out their patterns. Not only do they never deviate from them, but if you interrupt them, they'll try to pick up where they left off." Jabbing the electrical end of his bo staff into another Heartless, he twirled, intercepting a lanky Nobody as it started to curl around his body. "I got this 'Wing. You help Hood, Sora and Batman."

Using a Nobody built like Superman as a ladder, Nightwing launched himself into the air, landing on heads and shoulders as he made his way over to Robin. "Little D, me, Bats and Hood are heading into the next room! You finish up here and join us when you're done!"

Robin sliced a Nobody with swords in half. The fool things couldn't even wield a sword properly. "Fine, Grayson. But this is the last time I'm cleaning up your mess!"

Dick smiled. "You got it Robin!" Bouncing off of one last head, he landed right behind Batman and Red Hood. He had a feeling what was coming would need all three of them.

AN: Another day, another chapter. Hooray for the chaos in the midst of battle! Next time, Xehanort will monologue (as villains do) and someone probably gets stabbed. Who am I kidding, someone is always getting stabbed.

Hm. Now would probably be a good time to mention what time line we're using. Kingdom Hearts-wise, this is between Dream Drop Distance and III. So no, Jason does not shoot Xehanort in the skull. Tragic, I know. Batman-wise, it's new-52, before Endgame, before the Outlaws split up, but not too much before. I guess. Neither Dick nor Damian die ever, simply because the story demands it. Also, we're using the pre-52 version of Nightwing's costume simply because I like blue more. Arrow had no opinion on the subject.

As always, read and enjoy!