Chapter 114
The Drowned Bird
Shang pushed himself to his feet and ran up the stairs, only to charge headfirst into the barrier and fall backwards again. Sora and Mulan caught him before he could tumble down the stairs again. Shang swung his sword in an attempt to break through the barrier, but to no effect.
"It's no use, Shang. You can't break through it. We've tried," Sora told him.
Shang cursed. "That magician is going after the Emperor, and we can't even go through the same door as him!" he complained.
"Tell me about it." Sora shook his head in annoyance. "We need to find another way in."
"If Riku weren't preoccupied, he could just create a dark portal that leads right into the throne room," Mickey muttered.
Mulan turned to Sora with a smile on her face. "The front door isn't the only entrance," she said. "Remember when the doors were locked and we had to warn Shang and the Emperor about the dragon?"
Sora nodded, recalling how they used a pillar to climb up to the roof.
"The doors were locked? Why didn't you use the Keyblade?" Kairi asked.
Sora blinked, then grunted and slapped himself on the forehead. He shook his head, deciding to beat himself up over the goof later. He glanced around and saw a long flag hanging vertically along the front wall in either direction. He jumped off of the stairs and, using a small amount of Aero magic and also reducing the force of gravity on him, glided over to one of the flags. He ceased his spells and grabbed onto the flag. Turning himself so that he had his feet pressed against the wall, he pulled hard on the flag, ripping it free, and propelled himself away from the building. He beckoned for his friends to join him. When they did so, he gave one end to Kairi and had her help him stretch it out while Mulan cut ribbons out of it. He and Mulan passed a ribbon to each of their companions. Kairi, Mickey and Aqua looked at the ribbons in confusion, but Donald and Shang smiled, Donald recalling their entrance and Shang quickly figuring out what Sora and Mulan had planned.
Shang led the party around the building until they found a row of columns against the wall. Mulan advised Kairi, Mickey and Aqua on the plan, then she wrapped her ribbon around one of the columns. Pulling the ribbon tight, she set her foot against the column, then brought her other leg up to a higher position. She slid the ribbon up as she climbed higher, and repeated the process all the way up to the top, where she switched one end of the ribbon to her other hand and reached up to grab the lip of the roof, then dropped the ribbon and pulled herself up with both hands.
The rest of the group followed her example, climbing up the pillars in a row. Kairi nearly slipped, but she caught herself by pulling herself tight to the column, then set herself right and finished her ascent, joining the others on the roof. Mickey and Donald finished last due to their stature.
When they were all standing on the roof, they saw four Heartless materialize. These Heartless resembled Red Nocturnes, except their bodies were dark blue save for imprinted designs resembling colorful fireworks explosions on the lower part of their bodies. One of the creatures shot a crackling burst out of its antenna. The burst exploded into a dozen pyrotechnic sparks a few feet in front of Sora, who dodged to the side in time to avoid getting hit with the fireworks.
Donald and Kairi cast Blizzard spells at the Festive Fireworks. Sora and Aqua attempted to deflect the fireworks attacks, but they exploded on contact with their Keyblades. Mulan and Shang maneuvered around and slashed at the Heartless. Mushu spat a fireball at one but noticed that it either had no effect or it actually healed the Heartless. Mickey threw himself at it and delivered a flurry of slashes, then threw two Pearl spells at it. Aqua finished it off with a combo. Kairi cast Thundara, and watched in bewilderment as two bolts hit one of the Festive Fireworks and caused it to explode. Sora noticed this, equally shocked, and swung his Keyblade back, charging it up with Thunder magic. He threw it and let it fly around, slicing through the Heartless, each one exploding after being struck. After the final Heartless was destroyed, the Keyblade returned to his hand.
The party ran up the roof and climbed into a window. After navigating the upper level of the building, they dropped into a hallway. Three Mamluks stood in front of the doors that led to the throne room. The zombies jumped in surprise, but quickly composed themselves and raised their swords. However, the party quickly defeated them, and Donald and Aqua froze their severed limbs to the walls to prevent them from attempting to pull themselves back together. Sora pulled the doors open and they ran into the throne room, only to stop when they saw what was happening.
Using magic to hold the Emperor in the air, Mozenrath sent searing energy through the old monarch's body. Despite the obviously agonizing torment, the Emperor did not show signs of pain. His body was rigid and his arms appeared to be shaking within the large yellow sleeves of his robe. His eyes were shut tight, and there was no way to determine his expression from his mouth, which was obscured by his chest-length white beard and pointed moustache, but Shang wondered if he would betray how much he was struggling through the torture if his mouth were visible. Mickey was immediately impressed by the Emperor's strong will.
"You're still silent, huh? Fine by me. I can do this all day," Mozenrath taunted. "You'll tell me where it is soon enough. Every man has his limits." Xerxes laughed.
Rather than announce his presence like last time, Sora threw his Keyblade at Mozenrath while the sorcerer's back was to the party. Xerxes turned around and saw the attack. He let out a yelp in an effort to warn his master, then flew into the Keyblade's path to try to disrupt the raid, only to get slapped to the ground as the teeth struck him from above. Mozenrath turned around to see what was going on, and just in time. He brought his gloved hand around and raised a shield to deflect the Keyblade. As this action diverted his focus, his torture spell over the Emperor broke and the old man fell to the floor.
Mozenrath scowled. "You don't know when to quit, do you?"
Sora shook his head. "No. We're stubborn like that," he retorted. He summoned his Keyblade back to his hand while his friends drew their own weapons.
Mozenrath chuckled. "Then you'll just have to learn." He fired an energy bolt from his gloved hand, only for Sora to block it. Shang ran around the sorcerer and helped the Emperor to his feet. Wrapping the old man's arm over his shoulder to support him, Shang led him to the exit.
Mozenrath fired several more spells, but the party dodged to avoid them and blocked a few. Sora, Aqua, Donald, and Kairi fired some of their own spells back at him. While he was preoccupied with countering their spells, Mulan slipped behind him and moved to attack him. However, Mozenrath recognized this effort and, without even looking back, pointed his gloved hand back over his shoulder and blasted her back with a burst of energy. He then made his hand into a fist and brought it down to the floor. Bursts of dark flame shot up from the floor beneath everyone's feet, launching them into the air. Sora, Mickey and Aqua realigned themselves and landed on their feet, but Kairi and Donald hit the ground face-down.
The sorcerer waved his hand, causing eight Nightwalkers to materialize. "Take their hearts," he ordered. "Or just kill them. Whichever you prefer." Xerxes, who had regained consciousness, cackled hoarsely.
The Nightwalkers floated toward the party, which moved to engage the Heartless. Sora threw his Keyblade at one of them, conjuring wind magic to make the weapon fly around it and slash at it several times. While his weapon fought the Heartless, he threw himself at Mozenrath and threw a punch to his stomach. Mozenrath charged his glove up with electricity and attempted to slap Sora, but Sora grabbed his arm and pushed it up out of the way. He then elbowed his enemy in the chin, dealt a flurry of punches, and kicked him in the side. Mozenrath punched him in the shoulder. Sora prepared to throw another blow, but Xerxes wrapped himself around his wrist and pulled back with all of his strength. Sora struggled to break free, but was surprised by how strong the eel was. Instead, he jumped, using Xerxes as a pivot axis and performing a backflip, kicking Mozenrath in the chest and face as he threw himself up and over. Mickey cast a Fira spell at Xerxes, causing the eel to release his hold. Sora landed on his feet and rushed over to Mozenrath again, striking him with a roundhouse kick, grabbing his arm, and, twisting around and setting his foot back to the floor, flipping him over his shoulder. When he threw his opponent, Aqua cast a Blizzaga spell at him, striking him in midair. Sora then walked over to the Nightwalker that was under assault by his Keyblade, willed his weapon to return to his hand, and then finished the Heartless off.
In the meantime, Mickey, Aqua, Kairi, Donald, and Mulan defeated the other seven Nightwalkers. With the monsters vanquished, the warriors encircled Mozenrath, pointing their weapons at the sorcerer. Mozenrath pushed himself up to one knee and glared at his enemies, gritting his teeth. After a moment, his expression relaxed and he let out a laugh.
"You think that old man is safe?" he taunted. "Now he's out in the open, and you're all in here." As his foes wondered what he was talking about, he wrapped himself in darkness and vanished through a dark Corridor.
While everyone tried to figure out what Mozenrath was going to do next, they heard a loud, high-pitched screech. They could not see what had made the noise, and they noticed that it felt as though the entire palace shook from the power behind the screech.
Mickey gasped. "Where did Shang take the Emperor?" he asked.
"They must've gone outside," Mulan replied. She gasped as she realized what that meant. "That noise came from outside!"
"Well, come on! Let's hurry!" Kairi said. All in agreement, the party ran out of the throne room, through the corridors, and out through the front doors. Much to their relief, they saw that the barrier had been removed. As they ran down the stairs, they noticed that it was raining.
"I don't recall it appearing overcast when we got here," Donald commented.
Just then, something cast a massive shadow over them, accompanied by the sound of wings flapping, causing them to look up in shock. The silhouette of a massive bird passed over them, flying over the Imperial City. As it passed, they saw a stream of water follow it from behind, leaving a path of suspended liquid that very much resembled a floating stream from an Agua spell. The party ran down the stairs and through the courtyard. When they reached the bridge that joined the courtyard with the rest of the city, the bird flew in an arc, turning around and giving them a better view of it.
The bird, which was large enough for its wingspan to stretch over seventy feet, had black and blue feathers. It had a short, fat beak that was dark gray in color, and the inside of its mouth was a bright red. Its eyes glowed a bright yellow. Its feet each had three talons pointing forward and one talon pointing backward. The water stream materialized and coalesced from the tips of its three teardrop-shaped tail feathers. While an emblem was not visible from their vantage point, there was no doubt that the giant fiend was a Heartless. Mickey guessed that the emblem would be on the creature's back.
When it saw them, the bird let out another screech. Raindrops formed into spheres of water around them and flew at them. Mickey jumped up and, in a spinning slash, cut one of the spheres in two, causing it to collapse. Aqua cast Blizzard to freeze another one, then struck it, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Mushu spat fireballs to destroy three others. Mulan scanned across the city and gasped. "Look!" she shouted, pointing toward a sphere of water floating above the street. Shang and the Emperor stood trapped within the bubble, which appeared to be a six-inch thick barrier of water formed into a perfect sphere with a pocket of air inside. Shang attempted to cut through the bubble with his sword, but this seemed to only let rainwater enter and fill the bubble more. Mozenrath floated in front of the bubble, facing the Emperor with his arms crossed. He could not make it out from so far away, but Sora had no doubt that the sorcerer was smirking.
"Okay, it looks like this thing's water-based," Aqua mused. "So we should use Thunder magic to deal the most damage?"
"In the pouring rain? Are you sure about that?" Kairi argued.
Aqua blinked as she reconsidered her idea. "Point taken. That's a terrible idea."
"Let's get close to it and figure it out from there," Sora suggested.
They ran through the city and climbed up onto the roofs of some of the buildings. The Heartless flew around, leaving a winding path of water in the air. In its flight, it swooped down and strafed the roofs, forcing the party to drop onto their stomachs until it passed. It looped back around and flew back toward them.
Mickey jumped up to strike the bird's face as it approached, but it opened its mouth and caught him in its beak. It then veered upward, flying high into the sky. It released him, and he fell out of the Heartless' mouth and into a section of the water stream, where he was carried away by the current. Donald screamed in horror as he watched this happen. Fortunately, several seconds later, Mickey was able to spin himself, carving through the stream with his Keyblade and destabilizing it enough for him to fall out. He fell a hundred feet, but before he could land hard, Riku appeared and caught him, landing safely on a roof. At the same time, Goofy climbed onto the same roof and ran over to make sure his king was okay.
"Okay. Don't let it grab you," Sora advised, shouting so that everyone could hear.
Aqua nodded. "That would be wise."
They waited for the Heartless, which Sora elected to call "Water Wings", to swoop by again, at which point they lashed out at its wings and neck. When it passed directly over them, Sora, Aqua and Mulan dropped flat and slashed at its stomach. However, it flew too fast, and it passed by before they could do much damage. They then had to roll out of the way so that they did not stand up and become swept in the current.
"We need a new plan," Mulan said. "We won't be able to stop this thing unless we can slow it down."
Aqua examined the water stream in front of them, then let her gaze follow the flow. She smiled and turned back to face Sora and Mulan. "I have an idea." She succinctly explained what she had in mind, and they agreed with the plan. Mulan sheathed her sword and threw her arms over Sora and Aqua's shoulders, while the Keyblade wielders each wrapped an arm behind her back. "One… two… three…" They jumped, Sora and Aqua lifting Mulan with them into the air. Aqua pointed her Keyblade down and cast Blizzaga, freezing a section of the stream, which they landed on top of. Aqua positioned herself in the direction that the Water Wings had flown, and released a jet of Blizzard magic from her Keyblade, freezing the water ahead. Meanwhile Sora, facing the opposite direction, transformed his Keyblade into a bo staff and began to spin it, using Aero magic to blast air out and propel them along the freezing path. Mulan stood in the middle, holding onto them and making sure that they moved as one. Mushu picked Ethers out of their pockets and used them on Aqua and Sora every so often so that they did not run out of magic power. The path wound around in the sky for some time, but they stayed on top and traveled along at an incredibly fast rate. Sora drew wind from in front of Aqua to push backward to limit wind resistance.
The Water Wings flew over the roofs and pecked down to grab Kairi, then found a section of stream to drop her in. Goofy chased her down, jumping between rooftops to track down where she was going to end up. When he reached his destination, he fired himself like a rocket, blasting through the stream and grabbing Kairi as he passed through.
The Heartless witnessed this rescue and, annoyed, conjured balls of water to drop on its adversaries. Riku blasted two of the spheres with Dark Firaga. Mickey sliced through another one. Donald destroyed three with Fire and shot two Firaga spells at the Heartless. Kairi froze two, which Goofy proceeded to smash.
Eventually, Sora, Aqua and Mulan caught up to the Water Wings. Sora decreased the speed so that they were going at the same speed as the Heartless, rather than overtaking it and crashing into it. Counting to three so that they worked in unison, they jumped off of the ice slide, Sora adding a burst of Aero to propel them and Aqua ceasing her Blizzard jet, and landed on the Heartless' back, which did indeed have a Heartless emblem painted on its feathers.
Aqua cast a Blizzard spell in the form of a mist, which spread over the rain in front of them and froze them into tiny ice needles which fell and struck the Heartless' back and head. After the effects of that trick faded, she and Mulan moved to slice at the Water Wings' back and wing joints while Sora slammed his staff against the body like a baseball bat and jabbed the tip into the joints. The Heartless let out a screech, letting them know that they were doing damage. In retaliation, it conjured balls of water to attack them. However, Mushu destroyed most of them, and Sora froze the last one, jabbed the tip of his bo staff into it, and swung it down like a hammer onto the Heartless' back hard enough to shatter the ice. The bird squawked in pain and dropped several feet. Sora, Aqua and Mulan grabbed onto the feathers so that they did not lose their footing as it dropped. After a few seconds, the bird regained its bearings and tried to resume its flight, only to crash its head into a section of the frozen stream. The ice shattered on impact, but the Heartless was left in pain and disoriented, decreasing its speed.
"Now's our chance!" Riku shouted. As the bird flew around, strafing the rooftops again and trying to avoid any more obstacles, Riku, Mickey, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy attacked it from below, the Keyblade wielders using a mix of sword strikes and spells, Donald throwing a barrage of Fire spells, and Goofy punching upward with his shield, spin-attacking, and throwing his shield.
As it suffered more injury, the Water Wings tried to keep at a distance and avoid flying over its enemies. However, it was distracted when Donald shot another salvo of Firaga spells at it and Mulan stabbed her sword, which had once again been lit ablaze by Mushu, into its back, and it crashed into another section of frozen water stream. Sora lost his footing and stumbled off of the Heartless' back, landing on a roof. He used his staff as a support to stand back up, then changed it back into its normal shape. Wrapping the Keyblade in flames, he threw it at the Heartless' stomach several times.
Kairi jumped between roofs, catching herself on the ledge at one point to avoid falling. When she was under the Heartless' feet, she pointed her Keyblade upward. "Let's try something different," she muttered. "Blast!" A sparkling bolt shot out of the tip of his Keyblade, flying straight up and hitting her target right above its legs. The bolt exploded into sparks, igniting its feathers in effect. The fireworks sparks then exploded into numerous smaller bursts. Water Wings let out a screech in pain.
"Nice one, Kairi," Sora commended. Kairi giggled and flipper her hair back. She watched him jump up and slash at the bird's stomach. She jumped up as well and delivered a set of blows to one of its feet.
Aqua noticed that its wing flaps were getting weaker, and the rain was starting to let up. "We've got it on the ropes! Let's finish this!" She ran up the Water Wings' back and stabbed it in the neck, pushing her Keyblade down to the hilt, then pulled it out and jumped off, slicing its wing on the way down. She landed next to Sora and shot a Firaga spell up at the bird. She and Sora high-fived, then threw their Keyblades at the Heartless.
The party continued to deal damage to the Heartless. The Water Wings eventually tried to dive down and grab Sora in its beak, but Mulan ran over its head and sliced her sword through its face, leaving a burning wound across its beak. Screeching in agony, the bird flapped its wings and tried to flee, but it had lost most of its strength, so it was only able to hover up and down ineffectually. While the Water Wings screamed, Sora threw his Keyblade into the beast's mouth. Feeling the weapon rip into its throat, it realized that it was not going to survive the fight, so the bird tried to build up the strength to teleport away. However, Donald let out a fierce cry and, the fire within him boiling over, shot a Firaza spell at the Heartless, hitting it square in the chest. The powerful flames enveloped and burned through it, and the giant Heartless exploded into flames.
With the Heartless destroyed, the rain stopped, and the clouds that it had conjured began to fade away. The water sphere that Shang and the Emperor were trapped in, and which had by then been filled a third of the way due to Shang's efforts to escape and kill Mozenrath, began to dissolve. Noticing this, Mickey jumped down and cast Zero Gravity on them the moment the sphere collapsed, then eased them down to the ground. Enraged that his efforts had been thwarted, Mozenrath tried to blast Mickey, but he was hit in the chin with Goofy's shield, which bounced off and flew back to its owner. Gripping his jaw, which felt as though it had been cracked, he glared and attempted to retaliate, only to find all of his adversaries aiming their weapons directly at him. Some soldiers had also appeared on the scene and had drawn their own swords. Xerxes gulped, realizing that they were outnumbered and outmatched.
"So much as raise that glove, and you get the same thing!" Donald threatened. He had no idea if he would be able to carry through on his threat, but he was sure that Mozenrath would not risk it. Sure enough, the sorcerer reluctantly wrapped himself and his eel in darkness and vanished.