Song list: Hikaru Utada, "Simple and Clean"; Masato Nakamura, "Casino Night Zone"; Aspect, "Sky High Zone"; "Outer Senshi Henshin/Attack theme"; Hikaru Utada, "Hikari"; "Starlights' Henshin Theme"; Nightwish, "Sacrament of Wilderness"; "Diamond in the Sky"; Kelly Clarkson, "Breakaway".
It wasn't quite like waking up, since there were still elements of unreality to the situation, not to mention the whole issue of her having gone to sleep before this. It was still funny as hell, though.
"You- you're not really the one that I was expecting to meet, here."
It wasn't Ansem's voice – or Xemnas' or Xehanort's, whatever the hell he sounded like – or even Yensid. Well, there goes that wild mass guess, she mused, raising a metaphorical eyebrow. It was a dream; everything was metaphorical here.
"What's a wild mass guess?" the mysterious voice – it sounded like a boy's, early or mid teens if she was any judge – asked, and then continued before she had a chance to answer. "No, I can figure that out on my own. The real question is, why are you even here in the first place? Even you know that you don't belong here."
"You know, I would really love it if I could find someone who could tell me that," she said glibly. "It would make me very happy."
"You don't even know why you're here?" the mysterious voice demanded, then for the second time continued speaking before she had any chance to answer. "You really don't have any idea how you ended up here. This place... it was never real, not to anyone in your world. It was just... one out of thousands of different games. That's... that's really something," the voice said, sounding about as confused as Sarah had ever heard an omni-directional, non-corporeal voice sound.
"So," she said, not knowing just how one went about soothing the nerves of a benevolent, non-corporeal intelligence, but figuring that getting things back on track couldn't hurt. "What happens next?"
"Well, since I think you already know where you are, and I'm sure that neither one of us knows how to get you home, why don't we just continue where we left off?"
"Sounds fair," she said, watching as three short, silver-and-white pedestals rose out of the ground. Out of the stained- glass, rather. "And hey, at least this isn't Casino Night Zone," she said with a shrug.
"Casino-" the voice of whoever was behind all of this began, and then he laughed. "No, this is definitely not Casino Night Zone. Wow, that place is really weird. Nice music, though." And suddenly, the world was filled with it; the music of Sonic 2's Casino Night Zone filling the previously-quiet space. "There's so much of it," the voice said, sounding as if he'd entirely forgotten about her for the moment; the current situation was amusing enough that she was completely willing to forgive him for that. "Is all of it from Casino Night Zone?" Abruptly, the music of Sonic 2's Casino Night Zone was replaced by the Game Gear Sonic 2's Sky High Zone. "Oh, this one's called Sky High Zone. Or, is it just from Sky High Zone? Or is it both?" the mysterious voice sounded confused again, but then he chuckled. "I guess it kind of is both."
"You know, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to wake up sometime soon," she said, with a whimsical sort of smile. "So, if we could move things along?"
"Right, right," the mysterious voice said, and then laughed softly as the world around them fell silent again. "Well, since you've already been here so many times before – despite the fact that you've never been here at all, but let's not get into that – and you already know what you've chosen, let's short-hand this, shall we?"
With those words, an unportentous as they might have been, the Mickey-headed magic staff appeared in her right hand, and the shortish bastard-sword – the hand-and-a-half marked with the sign of the Mouse – appeared in her left.
"You've chosen Magic and Might," the mysterious voice intoned, as off to the side of her the shield continued its lonely revolution. "You choose to be the Fierce Protector; you choose to be first in and last out," he continued, obviously trying to sound tense and pretentious; he didn't quite have the pipes for it, but he was making the effort all the same, so Sarah decided that she wouldn't poke fun at him. "Your strength is best used for protecting others. If you remember that, I think you'll be all right. You'll always have people at your back that you can trust," the voice said, sounding like he was making a promise. "Your instinct and training will see you through, if you just listen to them," the voice said, sounding like he would have been smiling at her if he'd only had a face.
"Yes, mine is the Keyblade that will pierce the heavens," she said, unable to resist the urge, lame as the line might very well have been.
The voice laughed, but then he probably hadn't had the opportunity to hear many jokes while he was stuck in wherever-this-was all alone like this. "You know, it just might be."
Right then, just as she had started to wonder when it was going to happen, the stained-glass panel that she had been standing on fractured into uncountable shards.
"Looks like the ground's going," she said, taking a look at the shards of what had once been a sturdy-looking platform.
"Well, maybe you should take a Leap of Faith."
Laughing softly as the shards of the platform she had been standing on began to come down all around her, Sarah stood poised for a few moments on the last unbroken fragment of the floor, before she leapt clear; her arms spread wide as though to embrace the void all around her. Landing as lightly as you please on the next platform in the sequence, Sarah looked up to the black, empty sky all around her, smiling slightly even as she raised her eyebrow as if to say well?
"You've gained the power to fight," the mysterious voice intoned, as the Mickey-headed staff appeared in her hands. "I suppose I don't have to explain the concept of Mana – not Mana Points anymore, just Mana – to you of all people. But you don't know any magic right now anyway, so you're not going to be using that energy for awhile; at least, not until after..." the mysterious voice paused, sounding about as depressed as she had ever heard from him; Sarah figured that she could pretty much guess why. "All of that happens." And then, it was like the whole world sighed. "Are you sure there's no way you can stop it?"
"I don't know," she said honestly, thinking back to all of her earlier calculations. "Can I stop it without knowing the ultimate author of this world's destruction?" Which was likely enough Masker Xehanort, the utter, short-sighted prick. "Maybe; I think I might be able to do that. Can I do it without making sacrifices?" An apparition of Riku faded into being in front of her; there was a kitchen knife jammed into the apparition's throat, spilling illusory blood all down the apparition's neck. There was a look of pure shock on "Riku's" face, as if what had happened had come as a complete surprise. "I doubt it."
As long as she was wearing this face – this body – any drastic action that she took against Riku would come as a complete surprise; that was her greatest advantage.
"Let's not start planning anything drastic," the mysterious voice said, sounding honestly shocked by what he'd just heard and seen. "People who've been swallowed by the darkness still have the chance to come back. But, dead is," he paused as if overcome by what she had just implied that she would do, even to preserve a world that she had no real, personal interest in. "Dead is dead."
The apparition of Riku on the "floor" at her feet shattered just as the stained-glass platform that she had previously stood on, and the shards fell away to dust even as she watched.
"Would you have really done... something like that, Sarah?"
"Think about how many people there are, living on this world right now. Just people, nothing special; people who might be kind, who might be cruel, but each of them with lives and loves and hopes and dreams of their own. And now imagine someone who would sacrifice all of them – men, women, children just like himself – for the simple reason that he feels he's entitled to do so. And now tell me, honestly: does someone like that deserve the life that they were given?"
There was a long pause, during which the false world around her almost seemed to be holding its breath, and then the mysterious voice returned, sounding more subdued and more thoughtful than she had ever heard from him before. "So, for the sake of the world, you'd stain your own heart. That's..." another pause, this one shorter than the last though no less stunned-sounding. "That's really something."
"It's not that I'd be eager to do it, or anything." She'd decided to explain herself, so that the two of them would know where they stood. "Or that I don't know the consequences of those kind of actions-"
"I know," the voice said gently. "I know you know what you're doing. Just... be careful. Even with the best of intentions, Darkness can be dangerous. Maybe even especially with the best of intentions."
"Yeah, I know," she said, thinking back on all tropes and the many, many instances in history when people had committed horrific atrocities "with the best possible intentions". "That's why it's always important to pay attention. Too many people don't; they just spend their time sort of sleep-walking through life, only really waking up when they find themselves somewhere they don't like. And, even then, they don't stay awake for very long; mostly just long enough to get themselves out of whatever situation their lack of attention got them into in the first place. That's why the first rule is and always has been: stay awake. Pay attention to what's going on around you, and use what you can to either escape or improve your current situation."
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted," the mysterious voice said, sounding thoughtful again; Sarah smiled slightly.
"That about covers it," she said.
"Well, if you're going to work in the dark to serve the light, you're probably going to want to learn to fight it for real. This won't be just a video game anymore, Sarah."
"Yeah, I kind of noticed that," she said, turning her attention to the wide, empty expanse of the platform in front of her. Just before the Heartless began to appear, however, a new song began to play.
"What in the- is that music from Sailor Moon?"
"I thought it sounded good," the mysterious voice said, as the Outer Senshi Henshin/attack theme continued to play. "Besides," he said, with a soft laugh. "You seem to like to dance. So, show me how you dance, Sarah," the voice said, and for a moment Sarah could almost swear that he was smiling in fond amusement.
Maybe he was, or would have been under the right circumstances; those like having a face and all.
As the song – not a particularly long one and hence kind of odd to use in a battle – ended and the imaginary Heartless paused for a moment as if they were either confused or waiting for something, or possibly both considering the circumstances, Sarah made her way up to the forefront of the confused-seeming ranks of Shadows. Sure enough, just as she had begun to suspect would be the case, when the Outer Senshi theme began to play again, the Shadows surges forward to attack.
Moving with the rhythm of the music that seemed to be coming from all around her, Sarah slammed the magic staff down on the first Shadow that came barreling at her, then turned on her right heel and swept two more aside with a wide swing that would have been just as suited to someone with a Louisville Slugger. Stepping forward in time with the music that surrounded her dream-self, Sarah slashed, smashed, evaded, and engaged the dream-Shadows that were fighting her for supremacy in this place-that-wasn't-really-a-place.
Once the music had stopped, the last of the Shadows – the one that she had been too far away to tag in time – vanished like it had never been there at all.
"So," she began, feeling more refreshed than anyone could reasonably ask for after a fight. "How was that?"
"Good. That was good," the mysterious voice said, though he sounded a bit distracted; Sarah wondered why for a moment, before deciding that his thoughts were his own and she wouldn't pry into them.
She'd want the same courtesy for herself, after all.
Looking back down at the platform she was standing on she found that, sure enough, large blotches of darkness were appearing almost at random on the surface of the thing. Some of them would converge with each other, forming large pools or puddles of the stuff. It wasn't like normal darkness, which was just on absence of light; no, this stuff moved almost like a liquid, one that had been given sentience and a sort of animal hunger.
It moved like it wanted to consume everything. It was fascinating, in that same way that any wild, dangerous animal was; fascinating in that way that said look, but don't touch.
"I don't think I've ever met anyone who compared the Darkness to an animal before," the mysterious voice said, sounding thoughtful.
"Not many people would think to compare the two, I don't think," she said absently, most of her attention focused on the liquid-darkness swirling just around her feet; it hadn't moved to cover them or to pull her under yet, almost as if it was asking permission. "Most people who encounter this kind of thing are too busy trying to escape from it to consider just what it is that they might be dealing with. Other people try to control it and end up getting eaten, since the one thing you never want to do with a predator is try to forcefully control it when you're one of its chosen prey. You can only avoid being eaten for so long under those kind of circumstances."
"Why do you say that, Sarah?" the voice asked, as the liquid-darkness around her feet began to swirl more enthusiastically.
"Well, when you control anything through brute-force, the one thing you always fear is losing that control. It's instinct; even if the fear itself is only subconscious: because whoever is trying to control the darkness by force knows that they can never let their guard down, they can never rest, they can never really sleep again, or their hard-won control is going to slip and they're going to be devoured for it. At the same time, they know that it's impossible for anyone to maintain perfect awareness at all times of the day and night. Sooner or later, they'll slip; and if they're smart enough to know that, then they try everything they can to avoid that. That kind of thing makes them stressed, and that stress produces a fear of losing themselves. And, when you show fear to any kind of predator, but especially to a creature of pure instinct like a Heartless," Or a Hollow, she mused, staring down at the mass of swirling darkness around her feet for a long moment; she'd wondered if the bright, purple-violet light that she'd glimpsed within the mass had just been an artifact of gameplay, just something to show that the darkness was moving rather than just sitting there, and as it turned out it was. Just not in the way she had figured it would be: there was color within the darkness, but it was an indigo so dark that it almost looked black itself. "You're signaling that you're its rightful prey."
"I'd never thought of it that way," the mysterious voice said thoughtfully. "But then, I don't think I ever studied animals or anything like that."
"So you were actually someone else before you got involved with all of this," she said, looking back up and away from the interplay of color and darkness at her feet before she could become mesmerized by it again. "I'd wondered."
"Yeah, I was someone before I came here," the voice said, sounding as if he'd have been smiling gently if he could have smiled at all. "I just... don't remember who."
That melancholy feeling in the air, the one that the two of them never seemed to be able to escape, was back again in full force. She didn't even need to hazard a guess why: anyone would be depressed after talking about that kind of thing.
Now, however, since there was really nothing else for them to talk about, she looked back down at the darkness that was still placidly swirling just slightly away from the heels and toes of her feet. It was almost as if there had been some kind of mutual signal given between the two of them; and on reflection, Sarah realized that there probably had been.
The next thing she knew, the darkness around her feet had swirled up around her body into something that probably resembled a hollow black tube shot through with indigo to anyone who was there to see it from the outside. The darkness still didn't touch her, however, and when Sarah stuck her left hand out into the body of the cylinder, it only felt like she was holding her hand out into a thick, chill wind.
"Well?" she prompted, staring into the dully-colored walls of the cylinder all around her.
That seemed to be all she needed to do, since the cylinder closed over her head just after she had finished speaking. It was like jumping out of a plane at night, falling through the cold air and wind on the way to a destination that you couldn't really see. But, it was like falling and also knowing – with prefect certainty – that you would not only survive the landing, but that you would be perfectly fine wherever you ended up.
It took some trust in the process to be able to do that, but she had jumped out of a few planes in her time.
Landing in a crouch when she had finished falling, more due to instinct than any need to absorb a nonexistent impact, Sarah rose back to her feet and surveyed the new platform she found herself standing on. It all seemed to be pretty much in order, right down to the off-pink door standing just outside the absolute center of the circular platform. The only thing that was truly different between the two scenarios was the fact that this particular off-pink door wasn't translucent in the slightest.
"Still with me?" she asked, looking up in the general direction that the voice seemed to be coming from.
"Yeah, I'm still here," the voice responded after a moment. "I was just getting my bearings."
"That's good to hear," she said; and it was, if kind of a strange sentiment from a disembodied voice.
Then again, given the fact that he'd obliquely stated that he'd been a human at some earlier time, maybe it wasn't so strange at all.
Making her way over to the off-pink door, the one that she could almost swear was made out of some kind of marble – or at least would have been if any of this had been real – Sarah heard something from the voice that she hadn't ever heard before, and hadn't honestly ever expected to: he was laughing. Like someone who had either heard a funny joke or thought of one.
"What's so funny?" she asked, turning to look back up at the voice even as she stood in front of the off-pink door.
"This is not a field-icon. It won't show up on your Command Menu when you approach anywhere closer than a few feet, because you don't have a Command Menu anymore. Because this isn't a video game."
She tilted her head slightly. "It appears my inner-voice is a wiseass. However shall I react to that?"
"Please; your outer voice is a wiseass, Sarah. Now, would you kindly step through that door so we can start getting to know each other better?"
Sarah couldn't quite hold back a laugh as the voice used that particular phrase, and she wondered for a moment if he knew just what kind of significance it held – or if she should tell him – before deciding that that particular reference/in-joke required a bit more explanation than she really wanted to take the time for. "All right, but I'll tell you this right now: if this leads to some dippy personality quiz, I'm going to find a way to get to where you are so I can kick your ass."
"Yeah, I'm getting how much that thing irritated you," the voice said, after a few seconds' pause. "You're not going to find anything like that through this door. That wouldn't even have told me anything about you, anyway. The answers were all pre-set, and the questions weren't particularly relevant, anyway."
"That's reassuring," she said, making her way over to stand in front of the large, pale-pink double-doors that stood just off-center on the platform she had fallen onto.
It was now completely obvious that they would have been made out of some kind of marble if any of this had been real, and as she paused to consider that for a moment, Sarah wondered about the doors that had appeared in front of the cave that Sora, Kairi, and possibly Riku had covered carvings. And, even about the Door to Light itself.
Would they all manifest as double-doors made out of some kind of marble, or did that kind of thing just depend on the expectations of the person seeing them? If she concentrated on changing her own expectations, could she then make the doors appear as one of the sliding-doors on Star Trek? Or even a mini-Stargate?
She probably wasn't going to get the chance to test out her idea when the first real door appeared, since then she was going to be just a little bit preoccupied with the whole exploding-planet deal, but the Door to Light itself might be a good time, since things would have calmed down quite a bit by the time they all got there.
But all of that, as interesting as interesting a mental diversion as it was, was for later. Now, she had a task to complete. It might not have been the most vital of things out there in the "real world", but here it would take her one more step closer to waking from this strangest and most lucid of all dreams.
Pressing her palms against the cool, smooth stone of the doors, itself no more real than she was in this place-that-wasn't-quite, Sarah shoved them wide open while driving in a deep-forward stance. The expected flash of light near-blinding light came, no more painful than anything else that she hadn't really experienced here, but when it cleared, Sarah saw something that she hadn't been expecting at all.
She stood at the threshold of her own room, back in her house on the world that she was aiming to get back to at the end of all this. Everything was just how she had left it, or maybe she should say just how she remembered it. Because there was no way that this scene, as wonderful as it was to see, could be anything but a memory.
"You're right," the voice said, before she could start to wonder for too long where he was. "I pulled this memory out of your heart. I wanted to see what your house looked like, to see if I could get to know you better by seeing the place where you grew up. But, you didn't really grow up here, did you?"
She laughed softly, even as the remix of "Hikari" that played during the opening of the Japanese version of KH1 began to play in the background, as if to underscore just how deeply bizarre and completely unreal this whole situation was. "No, I definitely did not grow up here."
For a moment, the whole of the room she now stood in wavered slightly, becoming noticeably less-than-solid as she thought about the other rooms that she had spent time in while her eldest brother, her father, and the mother that none of them knew particularly well all worked to save up the money to truly establish themselves in their own space. None of those rented spaces had really been home, had really felt like hers, in the same way that this place – one that she'd carved out with tools and time and money – had always felt. The music that had been playing in the background, soft enough up to that point to be rather easily ignored, became louder then.
The song itself was just the same as it had been when she'd first noticed it, which made things a bit amusing for her for reasons that Sarah didn't particularly care to examine; but even as their surroundings became clear and solid once more, Sarah saw an apparition of herself in the middle of the room.
And the apparition actually looked like her, right down to the just-over-shoulder-length dark-blonde hair pulled back in a tight-ish ponytail at the back of her head. From her current distance she couldn't see the hazel eyes that the memory-her would have had – the ones that could look either light brown or light green depending on how the light hit them – and the long, buttoned-up white coat obscured the comfortable, casual clothes that she wore 99% of the time.
The reason that memory-her was wearing said coat, as well as the pair of plastic woodshop goggles that she currently had on, was made plain by the rather large chainsaw that she was currently jamming into a wall that was just as semi-transparent as she was.
"This might seem like kind of a strange question, Sarah," the voice said, sounding like he at least thought it would be. "But, why were you chainsawing a wall?"
"Renovation," she said plainly, as the memory-figure in front of her changed to one that was smoothing out the floor with an electric belt-sander. "You would not believe how small the rooms were in this old house when we bought it." Or he might, depending on the kind of house he'd lived in, back when he'd still been alive; but then he couldn't actually remember any of that, so it was really a moot point in any case. "I needed to knock down the walls to three of them, just so I could have a place I'd feel comfortable for more than just sleeping. Two of the others I use for a closet and a Costume Vault, and then there's my game room," she said, tilting her head and smiling in a fond, nostalgic way.
"Costume vault?" the voice echoed, sounding like she'd caught his interest. "Why do you have something like that? What do you keep in there? I mean, aside from the obvious," the voice finished, after a short pause during which Sarah thought that someone with a face would have looked sheepish.
Smiling a bit wider to put him at ease, and because it was seriously starting to amuse her how easy it was to hold a conversation with someone who wasn't actually there; pretty much like talking on the phone, really. "I use it to store what I feel are the best examples of my work, or just the ones I like better than any of the others."
"Your work?" the voice echoed, sounding ever-so-slightly confused; the same way that most people who were just getting to know her sounded when they found out that she had a job. Or, someone who'd only seen one side of her, when they found out what it was. "What do you mean by that?"
"Williams' Creature Shop; cosplay, cosplay accessories, special effects in conjunction with . You want something that doesn't exist? I can make it for you," she said, feeling a definite swell of pride as she completed the spiel, before realizing that she had probably sounded a lot like a used-car salesman and hence having to resist the urge to facepalm.
"Wow, that sounds interesting," the voice said earnestly, bringing the smile back to her face. "Can I see your costume vault?"
"In a manner of speaking," she said, even as the strains of "Hikari" playing in the background served to remind her of the unreality of their current situation.
Making her way to the far end of her remembered-room, to the same wall that her non-game TV rested against, Sarah turned a sharp right at said far wall and headed for the door in the wall perpendicular to it. The door itself was fairly plain, dark-brown and unadorned by any of the signage or posters that she had hung on the door to her room or the one leading to her workshop. But, in this case more than some others, it was what was behind the door that really counted.
When she opened the door to this remembered version of her Costume Vault, Sarah found that the light was already on. That fit, since whenever she opened the door to her Vault, the first thing she would always do before anything else was to turn on the light. The thing that did strike her as kind of odd about the Vault she was now looking into was the fact that none of the costumes she was looking at were covered in any way.
She had always kept them under opaque dust cloths, both for obvious reasons and to keep the ones she wasn't showing off for potential clients from being faded by the lights. The costumes she was currently seeing were all completely uncovered; but then she supposed that fit, too.
There wouldn't be any risk of dust or fading in a place that was made out of memories, and the dust clothes had never made much of a mental impact as compared to the costumes; Sarah really shouldn't surprised not to find them.
"So, who are all of these guys?" the voice asked.
Sarah almost smiled at the sheer, odd nostalgia of the situation. Looks like I have another client.
The voice laughed. "If that's how you want to think of it," he said cheerfully. "Go ahead, wow me with your mad sewing skillz."
Laughing softly as she made her way past the front of the group of freestanding, costumed mannequins, Sarah paused to consider them for a moment. "You know, if you really want to get the full effect of any of these costumes, you really need to see them with-" she fell silent for a long moment, because just before she'd said the last word of her intended sentence, a wig had appeared on the blank, faceless head of every mannequin that had been arrayed in front of her. Hair in a variety of styles and colors, some more outlandish than others, appeared to spill down the necks – and sometimes across the foreheads - of the mannequins in the Vault.
"Wigs," she finished, though there was no real reason for her to bother anymore.
The voice chuckled softly, sounding about as amused as she felt whole situation, and Sarah rolled her eyes briefly before making her way to stand before the red-and-black costume at the center-front of the room.
"This one here is Vincent Valentine," she said, looking fondly at the wine-red velvet and black cotton outfit that represented some of her best work to date. "It's mostly machine-made, but I did do some hand-stitching, too. Mostly around the buckles and clasps, but I also did a fair bit of it on the cape," she said, walking around to the back of the mannequin to display that very feature. "Now, much as it pained me to shred up a perfectly good length of velvet," she tilted her head wryly, inviting him to share in the joke the same way she had done with her other first-time clients. "That was what the costume called for. Of course, to make sure that the fabric itself didn't start to unravel, I had to stitch up parts of the "frayed" edges, but I made sure that that kind of thing wouldn't be too noticeable. Now, the main thing you want to be aware of when you're making a costume for someone is whether or not they want it to look like a costume. Some of these pieces are costumes, even in the series they come from: something that a character puts on and takes off. Something that has to be kept in good condition for presentation's sake. At the same time, some of these outfits here – like's Vincent's, for example – are working clothes in the series they come from. Something that the character in question has lived, worked, and even – most importantly with regards to both the costume and the character wearing it – fought in. so, depending on the level of realism you're looking for, you're going to be seeing frays, seams that might be coming loose, or even those that have started to unravel and had to be repaired – either by a professional tailor or the character themselves, if there's any real reason for them to have developed those kinds of skills – and ragged edges along the cuffs of the pants and sleeves."
"Wow," the voice said, sounding just a little overwhelmed. "I never knew there was so much to know about clothes."
She chuckled softly, having heard that sentiment and a few more just like it during the three years she'd been doing business for herself. Sometimes it could be annoying, but the voice hadn't sounded arrogant or dismissive, so Sarah in turn felt no desire to drive a ballpoint pen into his eye.
"There is when you're the one making them," she said, then smiled in rueful recognition. "But really, it's the same way for everything most people take for granted: it takes a lot more effort to make things than most people realize when they just look at something. That's why I try not to take anything for granted. I'm not saying I succeed all the time or anything, but I at least try to remember that."
"I guess that's all people can really ask: that other people remember them," the voice said, sounding like he was talking about something else entirely.
Sarah didn't have to think long at all to realize what that was. "Even without a name, I think it'd be pretty hard for me to forget you."
The voice laughed softly, sounding about as happy as she had ever heard him. "Thanks, Sarah. That means a lot to me."
"Anytime," she said, looking up in the general direction that the voice had always seemed to come from.
"You know, I think you might just be able to do this, Sarah," the voice said, after what had clearly been a pause for some needed thought. "Your heart might not be pure Light, but you seem to have a better relationship with Darkness than anyone else. The way you talk, I don't think you'll fall to it."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she said, smiling to take the sting out of what, under other circumstances, would have been a particularly sarcastic turn of phrase.
"Well, no one can really know what the future holds," the voice said, sounding like he'd have been smiling if that whole pesky lack-of-a-face thing hadn't gotten in the way. "Eve you don't; not really. You just know how they went for a Sora, during a game you played. You know the general shape of events, but just by being yourself and not Sora, you're going to change the specifics."
She chuckled. "True."
"Come on, I think we've talked about costumes enough," the voice said. "Why don't you show me the rest of your room?"
"All right," she said, pausing to brush an imaginary flake of dust from "Vincent's" left shoulder. "A tour it is, then."
The voice laughed softly, and Sarah turned to grin up in his general direction. But, just as she was about to start making her way out of her Costume Vault, Sarah found herself standing in front of the chest-high, Plexiglas-fronted-and-topped display case that stood at the near-center of her collection, right next to all of the Guyver figures. Sitting under a Plexiglas box – that in the real world she had to keep dusted – was a large, cold-cast resin piece that she doubted would ever lose its pride-of-place as the prize of her collection.
Of course, the fact remained that these shelves of hers were on the opposite side of the room from the door to her closet and Costume Vault; as well as being in the middle of the wall rather than the far right like the door to her Vault.
"Space is a bit wonky in here," she commented, wearing one of her more whimsical smiles.
"This is a memory, Sarah," the voice said, sounding like he'd have been smiling again if not for the whole disembodiment issue. "Space is what you make of it in here. Anyway," he continued, as she shot a Look in his general direction. "Tell me about these guys. The two in the middle look happy, but those two on either end of them look scary," he paused for a moment, and then continued in a far more subdued tone. "They look like monsters."
She smirked, though the expression was a bit more reflective than usual. "Most people seem to think that when they first see these two; even some of the people they're trying to protect."
"These four are heroes, you mean?" the voice asked, sounding curious but like he could be convinced. "All of them?"
"There's really only two of them present; those two armored-looking things on the far sides of the bench those two are sitting on are actually alternate forms that those two transform into to fight," she explained. "The technical term for that would be Henshin Hero," she said, with a semi-amused smile.
"Oh," the voice said. "Well, tell me about the two of them, then."
"This is Takaya Aiba, and his twin brother, Shinya," she said, pointing first to the red-haired figure sitting on the right-hand side of the sculpted bench, and then to the blond-with-green-undertones leaning against his back. "They're from a series called Star Knight Tekkaman Gemini. Now, this piece was a limited-run "OAV special" sculpt – one of only five hundred that were ever made – from Comic Con 2000. And, I've gotten completely off-topic again, haven't I?" she asked rhetorically, having a rather strong urge to either facepalm or roll her eyes.
"It's all right," the voice said, with that same understanding tone he'd had before. "I can tell how much it means to you. But really, five hundred pieces doesn't really sound that limited to me."
She laughed outright that time; she couldn't help it. "It is when you go to an even like Comic Con, believe me." She paused, smirking slightly. "Heck, given how many people show up every year, even one or two thousand pieces wouldn't last much longer than just the five hundred they made of this one."
"Wow," the voice said, sounding stunned by what he'd just heard. "I couldn't even imagine that many people in one place. That building they have it in every year must be huge."
"It's the San Diego Convention Center, made just for those kinds of events," she said, then chuckled softly. "Of course, lately there's been some talk about moving it out of the area, since all of the various events have started to spill out into the hotels surrounding the Convention Center."
"That's… I don't even know what to say about something like that," the voice said, sounding for once completely stumped.
Sarah laughed softly. "Not so many people on my world do, either."
"Each of these figures, they have a story behind them, don't they?" the voice asked, though the question itself sounded rhetorical.
Sarah somehow doubted that he was merely talking about how she'd gotten them. "Yeah. Each of these characters comes from a different series," she said, with a wide sweep of her right arm to take in the five shelving units standing side-by-side. "And all of them have had at least some part to play in their respective stories. Some bigger than others," she finished, as her roving eyes fell on eleven figures of The Doctor, some of his many, many Companions, and the TARDIS itself at the back of the group.
"I wish I could hear more of them," the voice said, sounding wistful.
"Who says you can't?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "This is a dream, isn't it? Time is what we make of it, here."
"You're partly right, Sarah," the voice said, still sounding wistful, but also like he'd have been smiling again were it only possible for him to do so. "This conversation we've been having may be happening at the speed of thought, but time is still passing in the outside world," the voice continued, and Sarah knew that he was just as interested as she had been in the conversation that they could apparently no longer have.
"Well, I suppose I'll just have to come back so we can continue this," she said, folding her arms behind her head and looking up in the voice's general direction.
"I'd like that," the voice said, though his tone sounded like he didn't think that that was particularly likely.
She'd just have to prove him wrong, then.
The room around her faded out into light, with the music that had been just loud enough to register on an almost subconscious level while she and the voice had been talking – and had still been "Hikari" on an endless loop – becoming louder in what she would have almost thought was an effort to call attention to itself in an actual, living thing, before fading out with the remnants of the light.
When the last of the light had faded away, Sarah found herself standing back on the familiar, brightly colored platform.
"I trust you know what to do?" the voice asked rhetorically, as the Mickey-marked sword appeared in her hands.
"Right," she said, sinking into a defensive stance as the telltale figures of Shadows began to fade into view; she was a bit curious about the sword thing, since the weapon that had usually appeared in her hands was the staff, since she had always chosen magic first for the sheer amusement of raining down fire, lightning, and other unpleasant things down on the heads of her enemies, but as another song started up – the Sailor Starlights' battle theme this time – and the Shadows jumped in on the attack, Sarah knew that it was time to stop thinking and start fighting.
Moving with the rhythm of the music, immersing herself in it she struck and dodged and struck again, Sarah reflected briefly that this was easier than any fight that she would ever encounter in the outside world. She'd no need to worry about catching her breath, not much about keeping her balance; and hell, she wasn't even burning calories and hence wouldn't need to eat more later. It would be all too easy for her or anyone to get complacent after too much fighting like this.
Once the last of the Shadows had been cleared from the field, with the song playing in the background having only had to repeat itself twice, Sarah allowed herself to relax, if only in a mental sense.
"You're almost there, Sarah," the voice said, sounding wistful again; she wondered a bit why that was, since it wasn't like the two of them would never meet again.
"Yeah," she said, watching in detached semi-amusement as the stained glass stairs formed out of the nothingness all around them, leading up and off to the next platform – the last platform – just out of sight. "One last stop, eh?"
"Yeah," the voice said, not sounding sad, but not sounding like he was particularly happy, either. "One last stop."
"Don't worry," she said, smiling up in the voice's general direction once again. "We still have a conversation to finish. You should know that I never leave a conversation unfinished if I can help it," she grinned. "It's against my religion."
Saluting the surrounding void with her sword, Sarah chuckled softly as she heard the voice's incredulous, cheerfully surprised laughter. Making her way up the stairs in front of her as the echoes of the voice's laugh died away, Sarah mentally prepared herself for what she would soon be facing. The Darkside; one of the most piss-easy and yet fuckhuge enemies in KH1.
She didn't know if that held true for the series as a whole, since she hadn't played much of said series, but then she wasn't going to be facing enemies from the series as a whole; just Darkside and his little horde of Shadows.
When she stood at last atop the final platform, Sarah looked out into the surrounding void and smiled slightly.
"This is the end-game, Sarah; the final test," the voice said, still sounding a bit depressed by the idea but nowhere near as down as he had before. "Are you ready for this?"
"Ready, willing, and able," she said, both to let the voice know how things stood, and to perhaps make him feel a bit better.
"All right," he said, and for a moment Sarah thought she could feel the false world around her shivering in anticipation. "Then, begin!"
Even expecting it the way she had learned to do from the last two times – or three, depending on whether one counted the instance beyond the door or not – the music that started after she had demonstrated her resolve came as something of a surprise. It was by Nightwish this time; the song called Sacrament of Wilderness.
A song that she had listened to several times while she had been beating seven kinds of crap out of "Ansem"-possessed Riku; it was a song that she remembered fondly.
Light flared behind her throwing Sarah's shadow out, long and distorted, on the platform before her. As the Darkside rose like some twisted, ancient colossus, Sarah gave ground so that she would have the room she needed to maneuver when the time came. She was already picking up on some differences between this Darkside and the one that Sora had faced in KH1.
This particular Darkside's head seemed to be smooth and completely hairless for one, a sharp contrast to the mass of writhing, dreadlock-looking tendrils that had crowned the head of what could have been called Sora's Darkside.
As this particular Darkside rose to its full, imposing height, Sarah looked up the length of the oversized Heartless to see if she could spot any other differences between the one that Sora had – or would have – faced, and the one that she was now facing.
What in the- I don't believe it, it's- "Mercer?" she finally said aloud, the sheer incongruity of her current situation finally overcoming her oft-stated resolve not to speak in battle unless she was taunting her opponent.
Okay, so it wasn't actually, Prototype's Alex Mercer, but damn if it wasn't a very good likeness; even on a creature made of darkness, Sarah could spot the details of Mercer's trademark outfit.
The folds of his untucked shirt, his hoodie, and the leather jacket that he wore over all of them were clearly defined on the Darkside she was facing, although they were smoother than they would have been on any human who had worn them; even those that had been on the in-game figure of Mercer himself. The Darkside's legs were perfectly smooth, and clearly muscled like the rest of the figure, but Sarah had the distinct feeling that if there had been a scrap of color on that Darkside apart from black and yellow, it would have been the faded blue of Mercer's jeans. The Darkside's yellow eyes glared down at her from the shadows of its deep, black hood; and even as she watched, four long, sinuous, barb-tipped tendrils emerged from the Darkside's back, two on each side.
Sarah knew those tendrils as well as she knew any of the other gameplay-elements of Prototype: these were the extra appendages that Alex used to grab his prey, to pin them down and hold them in place for a viral feeding-frenzy. She didn't quite know what the Darkside's tendrils would do if they managed to catch hold of her, but given what – or rather, who – the thing's form was based on, Sarah was willing to bet that it wouldn't be anything good.
Jumping back and out of the way as the Darkside-Mercer's pseudo-feeder-tendrils stabbed into the spot where she had just been standing, Sarah watched in mild surprise as four dark-portals appeared at the impact points and each spat out four Shadows before closing. I kind of wondered what else those things were going to be used for, she mused, as the Darkside drew itself back up to its full height and glared down at her with those freaky, empty yellow eyes.
Keeping a part of her field-of-vision focused on the Darkside so that she would know if it tried to do anything drastic and hence be better able to avoid it than she would have been otherwise, Sarah waded – slashing and hacking – into the fray with the Shadows.
The fast tempo of the music all around her served the same purpose as it had before, during the fight with possessed-Riku at Hollow Bastion: to energize and invigorate her so that she fight to the best of her ability. The Shadows put up a fairly decent fight, but without the limitations of the real world to hold her back, Sarah was done with them in what felt like only a few seconds.
When Darkside-Mercer slammed its tendrils into the ground all around her for the second time, Sarah decided to take a calculated risk. Grabbing the tendril closest to her, Sarah wrapped her left arm around the tendril and gripped the sword she'd been given all the more tightly in her right hand. Riding the ascending tendril up to Darkside-Mercer's hooded head, she let go just as the tendril began to thrash. Sarah ended up landing on Darkside-Mercer's left shoulder.
With barely a moment spent to steady herself after the landing, she ran across the shoulder and slammed her sword down on the oversized Heartless' head. Darkside-Mercer recoiled from the blow, and Sarah quickly grabbed hold of the thing's hood to steady herself as the creature made every effort to throw her off.
Using her handhold as leverage in a way that she never would have been able to if the laws of physics had been in full-effect, Sarah whaled on Darkside-Mercer with the sword in her right hand. She barely spared a thought for anything besides the colossus she was currently beating on, only sparing enough to ensure that she wouldn't be taken by surprise by any of the tendrils it was sporting. So, when thick, black smoke began pouring out of the thing's hood, Sarah took no notice of it at first, only continuing to pound away at her adversary.
It was only when her footing began to feel particularly treacherous that Sarah jumped free, landing in a low crouch after what she could have almost sworn was a backwards Leap of Faith.
Darkside-Mercer collapsed on his side facing her, huge yellow eyes boring into her own, and wisps of smoky darkness rising from its remains like steam. Almost as if the giant Heartless was being boiled away.
"Wow," the voice said, as Sacrament of Wilderness faded into the soundless – or mostly soundless – void around them. "When you get into a fight, you really get into it, don't you Sarah?"
"Sometimes," she said, as in front of her Darkside-Mercer evaporated and faded away into nothingness. "So, I guess it's time for me to wake up now, huh?"
"If you really want to," the voice said, though he didn't sound particularly enthusiastic about the idea.
Of course, given his rather unique circumstances, Sarah found that she couldn't really blame him. After being so completely alone for God-knew-how-long, and then finally finding someone to actually talk to rather than just lob exposition at… well, she might not have been entirely enthusiastic about the prospect, but then she'd never had any particular problem with solitude. Still, this being a realm of thoughts and memories and all, maybe she didn't have to just leave.
Not without giving a certain, mysterious voice one hell of a send-off, at least.
Concentrating, drawing on a memory that always – and probably always would – been one of her personal favorites, Sarah watched the stained-glass pillar they were standing on, as well as the empty world all around them, changed to a place that she knew quite well. Even after having spent such a comparatively short time in there, she remembered it well; scenes of happy memories always did seem to linger, she'd found.
"Another day is like a new beginning…" sang the new song that had started as the empty world around them both transformed into the cabin of a jet, cargo-bay doors opened on the warm, bright, breezy sky that practically invited one to leap out and embrace it on the way down; to feel the wind wrap around you, and catch you before you had fallen too far.
The sky was calling: time to fly.
"So, that's what you really look like," the mysterious voice said, and when Sarah looked over at him she found that she had to smile.
"That's an interesting self-image you have there."
And it really was; seemed a certain mysterious voice was well and truly enamored with the whole "mysterious man of mystery" thing. The Mysterious Figure – Sarah thought that since he actually had a figure now, changing his designation a bit wouldn't be too presumptuous – was dressed from neck-to-feet in an outfit that looked like some bizarre hybrid of motorcycle leathers and a wet-suit. The suit itself was sculpted to look like it had muscle tone, and on anyone else it would have looked completely stupid; and Sarah would have laughed at the wearer for their pretentious overcompensation.
Still, if a guy who didn't seem to remember what he'd looked like wanted to make himself look good, she wouldn't be the one to go stomping all over his fun.
"I don't think this is really what I'm supposed to look like," the mysterious figure said, examining his gloved hands with the blank, featureless motorcycle helmet he had for a head. "It's just… this is the first thing that came to me." He shrugged, seeming a bit helpless, even through the flat, featureless nature of his costume. "I don't know, maybe the person I was before met someone who looked like this."
"Could be," she said, noting that the music had stopped while the two of them had been talking, and restarting it with a thought as she made her way over to him.
"So, what are we actually do-" the mysterious figure trailed off, his body language expressing pure shock – rather eloquently, Sarah thought – as he stared out the open doors at the back of the plane. "Wow; we're really high up."
"No better altitude for sky-diving," she said, smiling as she adjusted the pair of mirrored, polarized ski-goggles that she had just manifested for herself.
There wasn't really much point to her having them, Sarah knew, since there was no actual wind to whip past her face as she fell; witness the complete lack of noise in the cabin, aside from the music and the two of them speaking at points.
"Sky-diving?" the mysterious figure echoed, looking from her to the vast expanse of air between them and the tiny-looking ground so far, far below them.
"Yeah," she said, nodding as she manifested the snowboard that she had used for this particular dive; or really, the dive that this memory of hers was based off of. "It's something fun to do, back where I come from."
"The people on your world have weird pastimes," the mysterious figure said, continuing to stare out the cabin doors, even as a snowboard – black like her own, and hence fitting in really well with his whole ensemble – appeared in his hands.
She laughed. "Well, not everyone in my world likes to go sky-diving," she acknowledged, still smiling. "In fact, it's kind of considered a strange hobby back where I come from, too."
"That makes sense," he said, as she joined him just at the threshold of the open doors. "I think it also explains you fairly well, Sarah."
Clasping his right hand as the mysterious figure offered it to her, Sarah laughed, wordlessly conceding the point. As the two of them mutually pulled each other from the plane, falling through the silent air and music, Sarah kick-flipped so that her feet – now strapped to the snowboard beneath her – pointed toward the ground far below them.
"You know, this actually is kind of fun," the mysterious figure said, laughter in his voice as the two of them continued their descent. "It's almost like flying!"
"I know!" she called back, as the music swelled around them, and she swung her body around to send herself into a controlled spin.
It was kind of strange, not hearing – or even feeling – the loud rush of the wind as it blew past her, but at the same time it served to remind her of the sheer unreality of her current situation. It was a lot like the music she kept hearing, really.
When the current song began to wrap up, Sarah mentally prepared herself for the awakening – possibly a rude one; there was no real way of knowing, given how much she had already changed things – that she was sure was soon to follow.
When the mysterious figure clasped her hand again, the two of them falling together as the last strains of "Diamond in the Sky" played out around them, Sarah looked over at him and could have almost sworn that he was smiling at her.
"Thanks, Sarah; this has all been really special to me. Even if you do forget about me later, I know that I won't ever forget about you." He tilted his head slightly, and Sarah had the very clear impression of his smile widening. "So, since you showed me something that was special to you, I'll show you something that feels special to me."
The music around them swelled again, but it was a very different song that began to play. As the landscape beneath them changed from your standard-issue empty grassland that always seemed to be used as the skydivers' go-to LZ into a small trio of islands, and grew several times closer on top of that, Sarah chuckled softly. It almost figured that the Destiny Islands would show up again, somehow.
-Grew up in a small town, and when the rain would fall down, I'd just stare out my window.-
The two of them surfed the remaining distance to the main island, their snowboards kicking up rooster-tails on the formerly placid water.
-Dreaming of what could be, and if I'd end up happy; I would pray.-
They walked beside a row of palm trees, back out to the old plank bridge that she had crossed sometime earlier back in the outside – she hesitated to say real, since while that place was certainly a reality, it wasn't her reality – world.
-Trying hard to reach out, but when I tried to speak out, felt like no one could hear me.-
Standing for a few moments on the tiny islet that she had really only been to once, Sarah was faintly surprised when the mysterious figure took her right hand in a gentle grip and settled his own right hand on her left hip. Mimicking his actions with a certain amount of amusement for what she now knew he was about to do, Sarah took a moment to be profoundly grateful that this was all just a dream; ballroom dancing was not her forte.
-Wanted to belong here, but something felt so wrong here, so I pray, I could break away; I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly, I'll do what it takes till I touch the sky.-
The two of them traded roles, her leading for a few rounds as the mysterious figure leaned in closer; his entire bearing spoke of loneliness, so for his sake Sarah smiled as they danced.
-Now make a wish, take a chance, make a change, and break away. Out of the darkness and into the sun, but I won't forget all the ones that I love; I'll take a risk, take a chance, make a change, and break away.-
He was leading again, his blank, featureless helmet allowing no reflections, but even in spite of that, Sarah could almost swear that he was smiling. Maybe he was.
-Want to feel the warm breeze, sleep under a palm tree, feel the rush of the ocean. Get onboard a fast train, travel on a jet plane, far away.-
The landscape around them blurred slightly as they spun around one another in the dance.
-And break away; I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly, I'll do what it takes till I touch the sky; now make a wish, take a chance, make a change, and break away.-
When the mysterious figure took her hands, holding them with the same gentleness that he had displayed while the two of them had been dancing, Sarah smiled wider; she didn't quite know what he was planning, but she knew at least enough to know that she didn't have to worry.
-Out of the darkness and into the sun, I won't forget all the ones that I love. I gotta take a risk, take a chance, make a change, and break away.-
The mysterious figure swung her around again, giving Sarah another nearly complete view of the small islet they were dancing on.
"Buildings with a hundred floors, swinging 'round revolving doors; maybe I don't know where they'll take me, but gotta keep moving on. Moving on. Fly away. Breakaway," the mysterious figure sang, as he continued to lead her through the dance. "I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly," the mysterious figure continued, leaning his head against her collarbone. "Though it's not easy to tell you goodbye," he straightened up and continued, though he held her a bit closer than before. "Gotta take a risk, take a chance, make a change, and break away. Out of the darkness and into the sun, but I won't forget the place I come from." He pulled her closer, moving more slowly as the song came to a close. "I gotta take a risk, take a chance, make a change, and break away." He moved closer, slowing the dance until the two of them were barely moving at all. "Breakaway," he held her close, the two of them no longer moving at all, and his head resting on her collarbone again. "Break away."
The dream-world fell silent as the song ended, and then the world itself began to fade to black as the dream that they had met in ended at last.
However, when the world around her was as dark as the space underneath her blankets when she slept, Sarah heard the mysterious voice speak for a last time: "Abandon your fear; look forward."
Sarah thought that she had to have smiled. "Go forward; never stand still."
"Retreat and you age."
As she began to register physical sensations again, and just before she could be forced by her own body to acknowledge them, Sarah spoke the last words of the oath; the promise that had tied two others together, though not in circumstances quite like this: "Hesitate and you die."