Chapter 7: Into the Void

"So, what is the mining deck like, Isaac?" Isaac turns to look at Kairi as she fiddles about with the armour on her shoulder. "I know it's a place where you do mining, but who does it work?"

"I've been wondering about that too. Does the Ishimura land on the piece it pulls up?" Sora asks as well, hand on the chin of his helmet. Isaac looks between the two before giving Sora a slight chuckle.

"Well, you're not too far off. While the Ishimura doesn't land on the chunk it pulls up, it does use smaller gravity tethers to pull up pieces into its underbelly where it is melted and broken down into minerals we can use." As Isaac explains, the tram begins to slow before the door opens to a dimly lit and misty station. "It's better if you see it rather than me explain it." The couple could only give intrigued hums as they follow Isaac off the tram while he opens a commlink to Kendra. "Alright, we're here, Kendra. What do you need us to do?"

"Glad you arrived there safely. I still haven't gotten in touch with Hammond yet, but we can worry later." Kendra replies before moving to answer Isaac's question. "There is an asteroid loaded up in the mining bay, ready to be smelted. It must have been one from the debris field after they popped the cork. If you attach the SOS beacon to it and launch it, it will be able to make a clean broadcast. Not that we can do any replies ourselves until we fix the array, but we can worry about that later as well."

"Where is the SOS beacon, Kendra?" Sora asks while looking around the tram station, the duty smoke making it seem darker than it probably was. "I doubt it would just be lying around in the open."

"I'm afraid your right, Sora. The beacon is on the Maintenance sub-deck. Stay with Isaac; he will show you where it is." She checks her screen for a second before suddenly cursing in frustration. "Bad news, guys, the control room is locked. You'll need an emergency access key to get inside."

"There is always something…." Kairi deadpans while looking around, senses on alert. They hadn't been attacked at a station yet, but she was not going to take that chance. "Do you know where it is?" Kendra looks over her screen again before nodding.

"I do; it's on the Processing sub-deck. Just once, I wish things were easy. I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"Well, you're not the only one. We'll keep in touch, Kendra. Wish us luck." Isaac says before ending the call. With grizzled resolve, the three follow the ever-familiar narrow passageway into the mining deck, coming into a sizable room, with one side leading into a designated RiG room. "We'll need to pass through the RiG room to reach the mining deck. Keep your eyes peeled; this place has some of the tightest corridors in the Ishimura."

"More so than the Engineering deck?" Sora asks dryly as they enter the RiG room. An elevator with a red light glowing upon it is at the far end. To the left and right are smaller rooms, one with a series of lockers along its wall and two vents, with Isaac aiming his cutter at them, while the other has an assortment of toom and worktops, along with a bench. "Hey Isaac, there's another bench here. How many Power nodes do you have?" The three walk up to the bench as Isaac pulls out the power nodes he had found.

"I've got ten. I think I know what to do with them." He replies before inserting the disks. While he found it easy inserting two disks into his armour, he found it more difficult for Sora and Kairi. Their armour was not simply upgrading after the shop stops; it was as though it was changing into something completely different. He hadn't noticed it back on the Bridge after they got the upgrades; trying to get the ships ADS back online and saving their oxygen were more pressing than looking over a uniform change, but now that he looked at them in a bit of calm, he could not help but wonder. Was it to do with their Keyblades? They said they were supposed to have armour that allowed them to travel in their reality. Could this be it? He could ask them about it later. "Alright, vitals will be easier to see, and we have hit our air limit; we now have 130 seconds of air to use."

"Well, it's better than nothing." Kairi replies while looking over the sixth light on Sora's back. She will never understand how these lights work. "By the way, what upgrades did you give your cutter?"

"Well, more ammo and damage for one, but for the other two, I decided to go a bit differently. One node now allows the Cuter to form plasma much faster, allowing me to fire more shots with less time between them. In contrast, the other allows the empty plasma pack to be ejected out more efficiently, allowing me to reload much faster." Isaac explains while showing off a hologram of the power nodes' spots.

"Something tells me we will need those extra shots, Isaac. I don't know about you two, but I feel as though I'm getting watched." Isaac and Kairi look at Sora, who has his Keyblade pointed at one of the vents on the other side. He wasn't sure if he imagined it, but Sora swore he could see a pair of red glowing eyes from behind it before vanishing.

Putting the troubling comments aside, the three move towards the elevator, noting another vent in the shaft. The elevator was already moving up towards them, to their confusion and surprise. For a second, their hearts surged at the thought of finding a survivor, only for them to be dashed as the elevator arrived, with a miner bleeding to death in agony, his arm and leg missing from his body.

The poor man could only look at the three in pain before finally succumbing to his wounds. The three, for their part, could only close their eyes in pain, mourning the death of another, before moving onto the lift. At the same time, Sora rolled the body onto its back before placing his remaining hand on his chest just as Isaac started the lift, taking them to the Processing deck. Kendra then suddenly contacted them, informing them that the mining deck was offline and that she was trying to run a bypass.

No sooner did she finish her transmission than a Slasher burst out from a vent above them, only to be suddenly flung into the wall by a burst of Gravity from Sora. No sooner had he done that than another Slasher charged from another vent, the length of the elevator shaft requiring the need for multiple vents before it found itself frozen by Kairi. A third tried the same tactic but saw itself in pieces by Isaac's cutter before hitting the floor like its fellows. As they passed the final vent on their way down, two Slashers smashed through it, landing on the elevator platform in front of Isaac. The engineer had no space to raise his weapon as the two Slashers readied to strike him down until they found their heads and arms sliced off by Sora and Kairi, forgetting about the couple standing behind them.

"Nice strike, you two. Thought they had me there for a second." Isaac comments on the two as the lift stop at the Processing deck. Nodding to each other, the three slowly work their way off the lift and onto a catwalk, instantly coming to an intersection. After Isaac checked the waymarker on which direction to go, unfamiliar with the Processing Deck, the three turned right, following the catwalk and reaching a corner. Circling it, they could see another room before them, littered with dead bodies and offline terminals, while the deep groans of another creature echoed down the hall. "Heads up, you two. We may be walking into a trap." The couple nod at Isaac before advancing slowly. Entering the room, they see another catwalk connecting it to another room, housing a Pregnant version. It didn't even have time to acknowledge the three before Isaac shot off its head and arm while leaving its bulging belly intact.

It was then that the Slashers in waiting stuck, charging at the three from the darkness with lightning speed. But instead of finding their blades slashing into flesh, they instead found themselves battered by a sphere of wind that raced around the three, cast by Kairi. The boy took the opening formed by her, with Sora freezing two of them as Isaac blasted the other two in the arms.

"You're picking up on the spells quick, Kairi." Sora comments proudly to his girlfriend. "I think there is one more spell you can learn, and you'll know all the spells I knew during my first journey." Kairi chuckled bashfully at the comment. She had been hitting the books hard after the fight at the Keyblade Graveyard, learning about the other spells they could learn. But these were the first times she was trying them out, barring Gravity which no one seemed to talk about.

"And which one is that?" Isaac asks, genuinely interested. Sora bashfully rubbed the back of his helmet before explaining he was talking about time magic, or rather the spell Stop. A spell that could freeze a target for several seconds or longer depending on its strength, allowing the user to land any number of hits before time resumes, with all hits striking at once. But since the magic needed was a high cost and took several seconds to cast, it was purely situational. Isaac could only shake his head in amusement. Was there anything they couldn't do?

"Well, let's keep moving. Who knows, there may be a chance you can use that spell." Sora nods confidently at Isaac before he and Kairi follow the engineer down a descending catwalk and into another corridor, with the roar of plasma behind a screen of metal fibre. "Sound like were near one of the gravity beams. Whatever you do, stay as far from it as possible." The couple gives Isaac nervous hums before following him down the corridor on their right, the left side blocked by debris. A lone Slasher waddles around a corner in front of them, only to find its arms burnt to a crisp by Sora and Kairi. Turning around said corner, they soon discover a gaping hole on the side of the protective wall and a rogue piece of rock the size of Isaac embedded in the wall next to it. Beyond it, the corridor continued but was blocked by more debris. Sora walked over to the rock, wondering what had happened down there.

"What happened here? Did this come from the debris field when the ADS was done?" Sora asks a concerned Isaac, who walks over to the hole before entering the gravity tether room proper. The couple looks to watch over before sighing and following Isaac, seeing the gravity tether in full force, surrounded by several rings keeping it in place, all the while several more rocks floated around the room. A door leading into the control room is on the other side, but it was locked down. "The door is locked; how do we get it open?" Sora asks Isaac as he floats towards a platform with a terminal. Above it is a red screen saying four dangerous anomalies were in the room and had to be dealt with before gravity could be restored. The couple looked at each other, pondering what it was talking about until Isaac floated back over to them.

"Well, to answer your question Sora, we need to get rid of these chunks of rock before we can restore gravity." Isaac motions a hand to a passing rock before gripping it with Kinesis and throwing it into the gravity tether. The moment the rock hit the tether, it began to heat up as it travelled down the beam, becoming glowing red until it disintegrated into dust. "And that is what happens if you get caught in the beam." The couple rapidly nods their heads at Isaac, their appreciation for gravity reinforced with fear. Following Isaac's lead, Sora and Kairi each grab a piece of floating rock and toss it into the field, followed closely by the last one from Isaac. Giving a nod of approval, Isaac flows over to the terminal before restoring gravity while activating connection bridges between the platforms. Their joy was short-lived, however.

No sooner had the bridges connected, than three Leapers and two Lurkers broke from the vents and charged across the wall near Isaac. The engineer turned his cutter on the creatures, ready to fire until they were suddenly pulled from the wall and into the air. Isaac could only watch on in bewilderment as the creatures were dragged into a weirdly shaped and translucent star, with several blue and orange orbs spinning around it, right next to the gravity tether. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the shape vanished, and the creatures found themselves pulled into the gravity tether and pulled along it, disintegrating along the way.

"You okay, Isaac?" Sora asks as he and Kairi rush up to him, Keyblades in hand. Isaac could only nod numbly at the two before looking back at the spot where the singularity was. "That was Magnet. It pulls anything towards it for a short while and was a spell I sued a lot during my second adventure, along with Reflect." Isaac looks at Sora, wondering what else they could do as Kairi asks Sora if she could learn it as well. But any chance of conversation ended as more of the creatures charged at them from the hole in the wall to vents around the room. A Pregnant led the charge as Exploders and Slashers ran along the connection bridges towards them, their backs against a wall and locked door.

Not saying a word between them, Sora and Kairi called down bolts of thunder of the bridges, hitting some of the Exploder's arms off and detonating them, taking out several Slashers along with the Pregnant. However, its abdomen was ripped apart by the blast, unleashing a horde of Swarmers at them, to which Isaac blasted at them with his cutter as Sora threw his Keyblade at the remaining Slashers on Isaac's side. Kairi copied Sora's action, severing off the last Exploders arm and grabbing the pod with Kinesis before firing it back at the Exploder as two Slashers run up past it, taking out all three in on blast.

The three huddle together, watching each angle as they wait. Seconds pass with no further attacks coming, allowing the three to breathe easy. They had survived another ambush, but they could not help but worry. The creatures were attacking with more every time. How long would it be until they attack with enough numbers to overwhelm them? Especially Isaac. Sora and Kairi turn to look at him as he begins to walk along the catwalk to the command room, worry etching on their faces. How far could he have gotten if they weren't there to help? Let alone speak too.

"Isaac, you doing okay?" Sora asks as they enter the room. Isaac turns to look at him, surprised at the sudden question but asks why he was asking. "It's just; I can't help but feel like this is taking a strain on you. With being constantly attacked without warning and with limited gear, it can be good." Isaac looks at Sora, the sound of machines moving in the background the only thing breaking the silence until he sighs deeply.

"Honestly, I would be a lot worse if I was by myself." Isaac finally says before leaning next to the wall, the weariness of it all plain to see. "If I was by myself, I don't think I would be this calm. Even now, I can feel my hands wanting to shake in fear, the urge to jump at any sound echoing around us. I would be very paranoid about my surroundings as well." He stands up straight, holstering his cutter before placing his hands on the couple's shoulders. "I know I said it before, but even so, I'm glad you are here with me to keep me grounded and watch my back. Just like how I've got yours." Sora and Kairi smiled under their helmets at Isaac; his will and determination remind them of their friends in reality. A sudden small light glistening next to a bench catches Kairi's eye, however, drawing her over while Isaac and Sora look at her befuddled.

Bending down, she finds a small device next to a severed hand. Wincing at the hand, she picks up the device before walking over to Isaac. "Do you know what this is, Isaac? It looks important." She hands the device to Isaac, who looks over it with a calculating eye before nodding in satisfaction.

"That I do, Kairi. What you have found is the mining access key. With this, we can head to the mining floor." Kairi beams in delight as she fist bumps the air while Sora looks at her happily. "We still need to get the beacon, but we now have the key to the control room. Better let Kendra know." He soon activated his commlink, letting Kendra know they had the key.

"That's brilliant, you three! Once you have the beacon, we are in the clear. There is still no reply from Hammond, but I did find more on what happened on the planet. Apparently, the dementia started when the Marker was brought up."

"It always comes back to the Marker, doesn't it?" Sora comments while cupping his chin. Everything seemed to revolve around it, the outbreak of the dementia, the appearance of these creatures, the two of them arriving in this realm. Yet, it always comes back to it. Why?

"Thanks for the info Kendra, and keep trying to get in touch with Hammond. We will head for the beacon now." Isaac closes the com channel before leading the two out of the room through a different door. Walking down the corridor, they soon come across a door with no power and dismembered feet lying right next to it. Suddenly, the lights go out, plunging the hall into darkness, only illuminated by the lights on their helmets. They instantly raise their weapons as a hungry growl echoes through the vents. Stepping clear of the vent above the door, Isaac and Sora glared at it while Kairi watched their back. Suddenly, the duct is smashed open, but nothing comes through. Instead, only what sounded like mocking laughter came from the hole.

"That's…new." Sora comments as the door before them suddenly powers on. "Do you think they are catching on to us?"

"No, Sora. Most likely, they are toying with us." Isaac grimly replies before opening the door and revealing the man's corpse, who had lost his feet. Offering a silent prayer to the fallen soul, Isaac leads them back to the lift, worryingly absent of any ambushes. As Sora and Kairi glance worryingly over the bodiless elevator, commenting how the other dead creatures were also worryingly gone, Isaac glances over the elevator controls. The mining deck was still unavailable, but the Maintenance deck was. Clicking on the Maintenance icon, the lift began its slow descent towards the bottom deck. However, as they passed by the Mining deck, they could faintly see the silhouette of a creature waiting for them as it growled in the dimly orange light—a silhouette of a Hunter.

"T-That wasn't a Hunter variant, was it?" Kairi asks worryingly as she hides behind Sora as he instinctively places his arm out in front of her. Just the mere sight of it sent them into panic mode. They look at Isaac, silently pleading that it wasn't what they thought it was and was only a trick of the light, only for him to slowly nod his head.

"I'm afraid your right. That WAS a Hunter." Although he tried to remain calm, Isaac could feel his legs tremble. They barely survived their first encounter with the Hunter, and now it's after them again? Unfortunately, things had just gotten worse. "Kendra, bad news. There is another Hunter variant on the Ishimura."

"Say again, Isaac?! Did you say there is ANOTHER regenerator loose on the ship?!" Kendra's panicked voice echoes through the elevator shaft as it reaches the bottom level, its three occupants trembling as they step off the lift. Isaac sadly confirms that another Hunter is on the Ishimura. "Shit! Just when we thought ONE was bad enough, but now there are TWO!" she sighs angrily before checking the Medbay logs, only to feel a pit form in her stomach. "Wait, Isaac, there isn't two on the ship. It's the same one you froze in Medbay. Mercer had unfrozen it and let it loose!"

"Of course…" Isaac depends before ending the call. "We have to keep moving. The sooner we get that beckon and send it out, the sooner we can get off this hulk and away from that psycho and his creation." Sora and Kairi didn't say a word as they quickly followed Isaac onto the growth infested deck. Several miner corpses litter around as two Infectors burst from the vents, screeching in glee at the banquet before them. Only to soon find themselves frozen in ice by Sora and Kairi, who then threw their Keyblades at the blocks of ice, shattering the Infectors to bits as Isaac dealt with the corpses.

With that dealt with, Isaac led the two into the Maintenance Bay gangway, where another poor soul was tied to the wall in the process of becoming a Guardian. Isaac ends his suffering with a single shot as Sora uses Kinesis to drag the gondola over to them, allowing them to cross the yawning abyss. Along with the gondola, two long platforms are used for gondola repair, while more growth springs from it like support beams.

"Bit of a tight fit, isn't it?" Kairi asks as the three of them step onto the gondola, barely able to move about in the confined space. "Is this really designed to hold three people? Feels like it can barely hold two." Isaac could only shrug, as much as he could in the space given, before activating the gondola. Slowly, it began its long and plodding track across the void, all the while pods that the Guardians formed rained down on the support platforms around them. Usually, with the three of them, they could handle them no problem, but in the tight space of the gondola, the couple had little to no room to use Strike Raid, and with how thin the tentacles were, trying to hit them with a direct spell would be hard. There wasn't even room to use any of the more powerful spells like Gravity. Only Isaac could fire at the offending pods while the three took spike after spike from them. Sora and Kairi did think about using Reflect to protect them or Aero, but they did not want to risk the spells damaging the gondola.

In the end, Isaac managed to kill the pods, but all three of them found their RiGs glowing in the yellow.

"Sorry we couldn't help, Isaac. There just wasn't any room." Sora says as the gondola comes to a stop at the end. Isaac pats him on the shoulder in response.

"Don't worry about it, Sora. We are still alive, and that is all that matters." He then turns his attention to the exit, noticing the barriers have not lifted. "That's weird. The barriers should have opened up the moment we got to the end, so why haven't they?"

"Could there be a problem on the outside? With all this growth in here, it is possible that something could have caused it not to open." Kairi suggests, motioning to the growth all around the room. Isaac hums thoughtfully as he scans the room. It IS possible it may have caused it to glitch out. If that's the case, then a simple hack from him should fix it. But before he could rip open a panel next to him, the barriers suddenly opened up as the sound of footsteps drew their attention. Turning to the right, they see to their joy, stepping past a protective screen, Nicole, Riku and Aqua walking into view.

"Nicole!"

"Riku!"

"Aqua!"

The three named faces turn to look in their direction, relief and joy written on all three.

"Isaac! Is that really you?" Nicole asks as she walks to the edge, accompanied by Riku and Aqua. "It feels like so long…."

"You had us worried, you two." Riku comments while folding his arms. "When we saw what had happened, we knew we had to come to help you; exam be damned."

"You gave us all a scare, but it's alright now." Aqua consoles while placing a hand on her chest. "We will get you out of here." The couple shares a happy sigh before looking at their two friends, their eyes brimming with joy.

"You have no idea how happy we are to see you two." Sora comments while Kairi gives an excited nod. "But how did you even get here?"

"We can explain that at some other time." Riku replies before looking around. "We better move, though; those things could come after us at any moment." Nicole nods at Riku before turning her eyes to Isaac with a loving gaze.

"I know we have only just reunited, but I can help you in the next area." She then suddenly runs off back the way they came, Riku and Aqua following her, RiGs visible on their backs. Isaac looked at the couple before nodding and walking off the gondola into the next room. Said room was divided in two with a bottomless bit. On Isaac's side was a locked door, while on Nicole's was a large console.

"The beacon is on the other side of that door. Give me a moment, and I'll try to hack it open; Riku, Aqua, keep watch for me, okay?" The two masters nod at Nicole before summoning their Keyblades, Braveheart and Stromfall. Sora and Kairi summon theirs and stand in the centre of their side of the room, gazing at their vents while Nicole works on the door. It was not long until the monsters started to arrive.

They landed on Nicole's side before shuffling over to the three, Riku and Aqua blasting fire and water at the Slashers, ripping their limbs off with each burst. Slashers appeared on Isaac's side but not from the vents. Instead, they leapt up from the abyss onto the railings before vaulting over, catching the three by surprise until they encountered the shield of wind from Sora, leaving them open to Isaac and Kairi.

What felt like ages passed as Slashers continued to come into the room, some getting worryingly close to Riku and Aqua, who seemed more interested in casting spells instead of swinging their blades, which caught Sora and Kairi by surprise. Even they used regular strikes to conserve mana, so why weren't they? But finally, after what felt like hours, the swarm of Slashers ended, and Nicole unlocked the door.

"It's done, the doors unlocked." She says with relief before sporting a sad gaze over the abyss. "I'm sorry, Isaac, but there isn't a way for me to reach you." Isaac tightened the grip in his left hand at the comment. They had just reunited, goddamn it!

"Don't worry, Isaac, Aqua and I will look after her. We will meet up with you some other time." He holsters Braveheart on his shoulder to prove his point while giving his usual smirk. Aqua shares his smirk before looking over at the couple.

"Sora, Kairi, don't do anything reckless okay? We will get through this and be home before you know it." The two didn't have a chance to respond before Nicole, Riku, and Aqua hurriedly left the room, their questions still unanswered.

"She's alive." They turn their heads to Isaac, who seems to be holding his head. "She is alive, thank gods." The couple gave each other small smiles, even if they couldn't see them, before walking up to Isaac.

"That's one less weight on your shoulders, isn't it, Isaac?" Sora asks confidently as they walk up to him. "Don't worry, Riku and Aqua will take care of her. They are Masters, after all." Isaac gave a happy chuckle at the remark before turning to enter the storage room behind them. They could link up with them later. Right now, they had a beacon to fire off. Finding said beacon was no trouble, with it being left on a large table at the back, which Kairi happily picks up and attaches to the back of her suit.

"Kendra, we have the beacon. We are on our way to the Mining Deck." Isaac reports as the three leave the room and head back to the gondola.

"That's great, you three! You had me worried there when I lost your signals for a bit." The sudden comment stopped Isaac in his tracks. How did she lose track of their signals? A glance at Sora and Kairi told him they were just as puzzled. They probably didn't even know that the suits had trackers in them anyway. "Anyway, head to the Mining Deck and get that beacon planted. I've been running the numbers and simulations and got a trajectory calculation all ready to go. If we launch soon, we have a good chance of it getting far enough to start transmitting."

"R-right. Of course. We're on our way now." Isaac says before he abruptly ends the call. "Something doesn't add up. How did Kendra lose our signals? The room we were in was just a standard room." The three settled into an uncomfortable silence as they made their way back to the central lift, worryingly not encountering a single foe out to stop them. "These things must be getting wise to our strategy. They are probably waiting to ambush us as a large group to divide our fire." Isaac suggests as he walks over to the lift control panel as Sora and Kairi scan around them.

"Just when these things couldn't get any worse…." Kairi remarks as the lift begins to rise slowly. "Other than placing the beacon on the asteroid, what else will we need to do?"

"The asteroid is probably being held in place by some gravity tethers. We will need to deactivate them or take them out to release the asteroid." Isaac replies as the lift stops, opening up to the third and final floor. Thankfully, the Hunter was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't mean it was not there. Wildly since what looked to be a dust storm raged around the entrance to the deck. That was then that the creatures charged at them. Two Slashers, one practically crawling along the ground with a single arm, and two Lurkers ran out of the dust at the three.

And they ran straight into a Reflect Barrier, falling to pieces the moment the barrier exploded around them. Sighing deeply, Sora and Kairi slouched their shoulders a bit, feeling the drain on their mana starting to kick in. The sooner they have a chance to rest, the better.

Activating his waymarker, Isaac led the two into the dust cloud, walking past pillars that seemed to be funnelling molten rock, before turning left to a service lift that was without power. Sighing irritably at the situation, the three retrace their steps before taking the right path into an open area, like on the second deck. Another lift led upwards at the far end, but more importantly, a blue power cord led to a working battery. Using Kinesis to lift the battery out of the wall, Isaac begins to move it towards the other lift, only for a Pregnant to ambush them in the dust cloud.

Thankfully, the tightness of the room prevented the lumbering beast from using its bony arms as intended, and it soon found itself turned into a popsicle by Sora before being shattered by Kairi. Nodding his head in thanks, Isaac continued to move the battery until it was placed into the socket in the wall, powering up the cargo lift. Descending, the three enter into a long gloomy corridor, thankfully free of any sign that the creatures had been here, but it was a cold comfort.

Walking down, eyes peeled for ambushes, the three soon reach what looked to be an airlock, with Isaac stepping in front of it before turning around. "Alright, you two. This is where we take asteroids or pieces of the planet to break them down. It will be a Zero-G area, so keep your eyes alert for any Leapers, understood?" The couple nod at him before he turns around and activates the blue icon, opening the door to the room. Instantly they are greeted by two dead miners floating in the Zer0-G next to the door, to which they give silent thoughts before respectively passing by them.

The room they entered was large and dominating, with a giant circle opened to the vastness of space, with a giant asteroid taking up nearly the whole immensity of space. Were it not for the two semi-sphere rods with spikes going back and forth over the asteroid. On the side of the room with the door, two gravity tethers, one on the floor and one on the ceiling, are connected to the asteroid, keeping it in place as a smelting beam fires into it, slowly melting away at the giant hunk of rock. Around the asteroid is a gravity field, keeping the air in while allowing physical objects to pass through. And below the asteroid is a glowing console.

"So, what should we do first?" Sora asks as he looks around the giant room. "Deactivate the tethers or plant the beacon?" Isaac places a hand on his chin as he looks around. Taking out the tethers first would be easy, but that could result in the asteroid getting jettisoned prematurely and with one of them still on it. On the other, it will be hard to get past the spikes to get outside and place the beacon. Sighing reluctantly, Isaac makes a decision.

"Kairi, hand me the beacon. I'm going to plant it on the outside." Kairi looks at him, conflicted, but reluctantly she unclips the beacon from her belt and hands it to him.

"Are you sure, Isaac? One wrong move, and those things will crush you."

"True, but I'd rather it be me than one of you two. You still have a long life, and I will not see it get snuffed out." Isaac says resolutely before leaping towards the asteroid, despite Sora and Kairi calling for him not to. He hits the asteroid near the gravity field. Isaac sprints through it before the rotating spikes crush him. Taking a moment to catch his breath as his onboard air supply activates, he takes a moment to look above and admire the stars. Isaac smiles a little at the sight, a calming peace in the horrible storm he was trapped in. But he couldn't stand around forever, as much as a part of him wanted to. Isaac had a beacon to plant. Grabbing the beacon from his belt, he thrusts it into the ground before activating it, its lone tone chiming through his helmet. Smiling to himself, he turns to re-enter the ship, only to see another gravity tether on the outside tethering to the hunk of rock.

Shit. He thinks to himself before jumping toward it. I completely FORGOT that there are two more out here! He glances at the time in his Hud, 91.4 seconds and counting down. Curse yourself about it later, Isaac! Gotta take these down fast! Raising his cutter instantly, Isaac blasts several shots at the exposed tether, destroying it, before rushing over to the other one on the opposite side. Thankfully, he only needed to run halfway before he had a precise angle, and before long, the second tether was down. Jumping onto the asteroid, Isaac re-enters the ship after waiting for the spikes to move again. What he found inside, however, was carnage.

The creatures had launched an ambush on Sora and Kairi. All around the room were the floating bodies of dead Slashers, Leapers and Lurkers, while the couple stood back to back, firing fire and ice at the remaining Leapers in the room. But they were not ordinary leapers—they were pitch black with burning red eyes, the same kind as what they briefly fought on the Medical Deck as Captain Mathias was reanimated.

Cursing to himself, Isaac shoots a blast of stasis at one of the Leapers, slowly it down and leaving it open to a blast of fire from Kairi, before doing the same to the last as Sora freezes it in place before throwing Kingdom Key at it, shattering the Leaper. Seeing the danger had passed, the couple relaxed while sighing loudly before glancing at Isaac as he floated back down to the floor.

"Are you two alright?" he asks worriedly. "Had I known those things planned to ambush us, I would have stayed behind."

"Don't worry. We're alright." Sora says before looking at the tethers in the room. "By the way, do you know why the tethers in here suddenly stopped working? We were a little busy trying to stay alive to try to activate a comm to you." Isaac looks at the gravity tethers in the room before realising they had shut down. He mentally cheers at the back of his mind with the stroke of luck before deciding against it.

"I'll tell you later, but right now, we need to send this asteroid off. So let's head back to the upper level and head to the other cargo lift. I'll carry the battery with us again." Not needing to be told twice, Sora and Kairi follow Isaac as they retraced their steps back to the upper level, with Isaac removing the battery again before moving on back to where they found it. Although they had some trouble in the dust-filled room, with fires erupting from the two slag pillars, none of the creatures made any more to attack them.

Placing the battery back into its former slot and restarting the lift, the three rise up to the Mining Control Room floor, with Isaac using the key they recovered from the second floor to open the door. Inside, as Sora and Kairi flank Isaac, ready to defend him, Isaac activates the mining console, while before them is the same room where the asteroid was being broken down. With a simple press of a button, the asteroid, to which the A.I. system called it payload 8772, was launched away from the Ishimura, beacon in tow.

"And that's that…." Isaac says before activating a video call with Kendra. "That's the asteroid away, Kendra. How's it looking?"

"All functions normal, and broadcasting wide band. Now we have to hope somebody is listening." Her smile soon turns into a frown as she sighs deeply. Kairi catches on, asking if she is alright. "I'm fine, Kairi. Or at least I think I am. I just saw my brother again. He even waved at me like nothing was wrong. But it still can't be him…." The three share a glance with each other, thinking back to how the colonist had suffered. Could Kendra be getting those same symptoms? They would tell Kendra that they had encountered their friends but decided against it. It did not feel right at the moment. "Anyway, just give me a minute to activate the-" her sentence dies as an error message appears on her screen before she slams her hand down on the chair she was in.

"What's wrong, Kendra? What's the problem now?" Sora asked as a slight fear crept into the back of his mind. What could have failed now? Was it the ADS? Had oxygen been contaminated again? Part of the ship breaking free or-

"The comms array receiver isn't responding." Or it could be that. Sora took a moment to calm himself down as Kendra continued. "We need that array online, or we can't receive any signals from anyone responding to that signal. Back to the bridge, you three." Sora and Kairi inwardly groaned and followed Isaac back to the tram station. Just what else could go wrong?

They would soon wish they never asked that question.

Our heroes have managed to find Nicole, Riku and Aqua, but are quickly separated again! And no the Hunter is out on the hunt, but is taking its sweet time this time around. Will they be able to get help? Or will they instead be adding only more bodies?