BANG!
The door that initially held Sora and his friends suddenly flew off its hinges and smashed two of those Pirate-like Heartless into a wall, crushing their bodies into black smoke. "Knock knock." Yang said jokingly, rotating her arm. The blonde haired culprit behind the door's destruction immediately leapt into action, leading the charge against the heartless as everyone else piled out.
As the Heartless recovered, they raised their cutlasses high, only for several of them to be gunned down from Ren or end up frozen by Donald releasing a powerful blizzard spell. The latter were cut down by Jaune's blade, or skewered by Pyrrha's spear and Peter's dagger.
It looked like only two Heartless were left until more emerged from dark portals. Blake and Ruby had their weapons in melee form but unintentionally clacked them together in the middle of fighting their enemies. Not to mention the little space to work they left Weiss as she struggled to dash past them and join the fray. "Ruby! Watch where you're swinging!" she yelled in protest as Crescent Rose got a bit too close to her for comfort.
"S-Sorry, Weiss!" As if on cue, Nora accidentally bonked goofy on the head with her hammer, causing him to topple, though fortunately without any serious injury. As Nora gave a timid apology to the dazed guard captain, Ruby called out, "There's too many of us in these small spaces! Spread out!" Ruby said before blocking one Pirate's sword then pushing him back.
"That's easier said than done, Ruby!" Jaune said, raising his shield to block a strike from one of the Heartless. They didn't seem keen on allowing them to split up. Especially as when they took down one, two more seemed to pop out of the woodwork. Something Peter noticed as he looked at his sides, behind him then up front. Four Pirates, one in each direction sprinted for him and all tried to slash at him but when they almost cut him, they were confused to see he wasn't there. Above, Peter was flying!
Sora, being the first to notice, pointed up at Peter as he lifted off the ground. "Hey, look!" One by one, everyone followed where the boy pointed, and immediately they were struck with a mutual expression of awe. For whatever reason, Peter seemed to be defying gravity and moving about through the air, cutting or shanking more Pirate Heartless and moving with such agility that the Heartless couldn't even touch him.
At the corner of his eye, Sora noticed a Heartless in Pyrrha's blindspot trying to get the jump on her and aimed his Keyblade at it. "Stop!" Just as he'd hoped, the time distorting spell froze the Heartless in place. But to his surprise, it wasn't just the targeted heartless, but a couple others near it were frozen as well! "Whoa! I didn't know I could do that on more than one enemy." he said, looking down at his Keyblade with a surprised, and the pleased, expression.
Yang turned toward the frozen foes, fists clenched and ready to fight. But instead of doing her usual thing, she instead walked casually up to one of the pirate-like Heartless, and began to punch at it in a much more casual light. Almost as if she were training on a punching bag. "Heh. This spell's awesome, Sora!" she complimented, dealing a one two punch followed by an uppercut to the Heartless's jaw. "Kinda wish that they had some sort of reaction though. Would make this a lot more entertaining."
Blake meanwhile decided to be more serious about the frozen Heartless, slicing and dicing at a rapid pace before sheathing Gambol Shroud. As if by some perfectly cued timing, the instant the Heartless were unfrozen, the one that was pummeled by Yang lurched and jerked from the punches and strikes, before bursting, with the others dividing into perfectly sliced segments and bursting as well. Jaune couldn't help letting out an impressed whistle and giving a thumbs up to Sora. "Nice one!" he cheered. Even Weiss seemed impressed, though she tried not to show it.
But their celebration was cut short as suddenly, a shadowy figure appeared and latched onto Jaune's back. "Jaune!" Pyrrha cried out, rushing toward him to try and help him. "He-Hey! Get off me!" Jaune yelled, trying and failing to remove the Heartless that was on him.
Sora's eyes widened when he realized it was that shadowy doppelganger of himself that Riku created. Everyone else gasped with shock when they recognized it as well. "Wait a second! That Heartless looks like Sora!" Ruby exclaims, pointing out what everyone was thinking.
"Yes, I'm pretty sure we guessed that much, Ruby! I think what should be asked is WHY it looks like him!" Weiss exclaimed, raising her rapier to try and poke it off of Jaune. However, the dark doppelganger seemed to weave and dodged every thrust with little to no problem.
Of course that simply translated to it being more of Jaune's problem as Myrtenaster's blade and tip got WAY too close for comfort more than once. "Eek! Weiss, careful!" Jaune squealed out, trying not to get skewered himself by accident. The next moment, the...Shadow Sora for lack of a better name, lifted Jaune up with surprising strength before tossing him into Donald and Goofy.
In the wake of its maneuver, the Heartless started kicking its feet around as if it was dancing...or mocking them. "Alright, that's childish." Weiss said with annoyance before creating a glyph to give herself a platform to leap on then lunged at the shadow. Just as it looked like she was going to make contact, the shadow slipped aside and Weiss hit the top edge of a platform to another area of the ship.
The shadow seemed to be further mocking Weiss's stumble, but was cut across its arm when Peter flew by and sliced it with his dagger "Jeez. And I thought my own shadow was troublesome." he said as he attempted to strike it again, not having as much success this time.
As Sora shook off his surprise, he leapt up with a high jump on one part of the inner walls of the ship, then did so again to hit his shadow from the back. His keyblade struck true, but instead of it bursting, it simply...faded into the ground. As much as everyone was hoping it wasn't so, they knew they hadn't seen the last of that thing.
For now, everybody took a moment to get their bearings. Particularly Donald helping the dazed Goofy up and Sora casting a cure spell on Jaune to mend whatever wounds that shadow mirror image caused. "Ahh. Thanks, Sora." Jaune said, giving the younger boy a thumbs up.
"Alright, now that we have a moment of peace, can we address the shadowy Sora-shaped elephant in the room?" Weiss said, not wasting even a second to address what she knew was on everyone's mind.
A dizzy Goofy looked around the corridor in confusion. "Huuh? I don't see any Sora-shaped elephants, Weiss. You didn't bump your head or anything, did ya?" His inquiry drew forth a mutual sigh from Donald and Weiss, both of whom facepalmed with equal weariness. Either that or a blink or even a small chuckle or giggle from the other members of the group.
"Goofy, they're referring to the Heartless that looks like Sora." Blake clarified, earning an understanding, "Oooooh!" from Goofy...and an unamused scowl from Donald who felt it should have been obvious, despite Nora accidentally bonking him on the head.
Sora's expression fell as he took a breath to explain it. At least, to the best of his ability. "When I was on the main deck, Riku did something. I don't know what it was, but my shadow came to life right in front of me. After that, he dropped me down on top of you all." Before he could continue, Sora let out a startled gasp when he looked down to see..."Hey! I don't have a shadow at all!"
Sure enough, everyone else was just as surprised when they realized the lanterns around the room were casting shadows for everyone... except him. "But...How?! This defies so many laws of physics! Ugh...The oddities of these worlds never end!" Weiss said. One would think by now, she would have given up trying to make any kind of rational sense of these things after all the worlds they'd been to.
"Speaking of that." Nora said, pointing toward the other elephant in the room. Particularly, the fact that Peter was currently still flying through the air.
"So, uh, how come you can fly?" Goofy asked him, causing Peter to look down and hover closer to the ground to answer them.
"Anyone can fly," Peter told him like it was simple. "You wanna try?"
Before Weiss could attempt to argue his simplistic, downright nonsensical answer, Jaune and Ruby lit up with as much excitement as Sora, the three of them standing in a row when exclaiming, "Yes!" At that point, Weiss just pinched her brow and sighed in a 'Why do I even bother?' fashion.
Peter let out a sharp whistle. One which Tinker Bell answered as she flew in...still not in the best of moods. Especially since she knew what Peter was going to make her do. "Aw, haven't you cooled off yet, Tink?" he asked, though the answer was quite obvious. With a voiceless huff, Tink turned herself around, letting Peter grab her wings as if to say, 'Just get it over with.' "Just a little bit of pixie dust." Peter said, shaking Tinkerbell as he floated over everyone. A little shower of said dust fell from her body, raining down upon them like snowflakes, resulting in reactions ranging from fascination, to disbelief, to curiosity, to confusion. "Now you can fly!"
However when Donald tried to do so, he found that simply flapping his arms wasn't enough. For a moment later, he fell to the ground, looking up and tapping his finger on the ground as Tinker Bell laughed her head off at him. "Uhh, Donald? You're a duck. Shouldn't you be able to fly?" Blake's question resulted in a laugh from a few of the others much to Donald's annoyance.
Fortunately, he was saved as the sound of rustling, wood crumbling, and objects rolling and bonking about caught their attention. From what they could tell, it sounded almost as if it was coming from one of the other rooms.
"Hey, I thought I told you that that wouldn't work! We already tried it several times in different ways!"
"Okay, then what's your idea, monkey brain?!"
"Don't look at me! You're the man with the plan!"
"You try coming up with a plan surrounded by an absolute nightmare!"
"It's a BOAT! It's SUPPOSED to be on water!"
Sora, Donald, Goofy, and everyone else looked at one another curiously at the sound of those muffled voices. However, one person in particular managed to pick something up through the muffling. Blake's sharp feline ears perked up under her bow when she realized..."Wait...I recognize those voices."
"You do?" Donald asked curiously when looking to Blake.
Peter slowly levitated over to the door, peering inside. After stealthily examining the room, he whispered quietly to the others, "There's two weirdos in there. One with light blue hair and the other is blonde. But he also has a... monkey tail?"
Ignoring the 'weirdos' part, Ruby and all her friends' eyes widened with immediate recognition. "I knew it," Blake said as she casually strutted to the open door. Fortunately it seemed these doors were only locked from the inside as she waltzed right in. The two young men turned at the sound of footsteps behind them, striking with battle ready stances as they drew their weapons...only to blink in surprised relaxation when Blake gave a casual wave and spoke placidly. "Hey Sun. You and Neptune having problems?"
"Blake?! Oh my gosh! It's good to see you!" Sun said as he rushed up to her with a huge grin. He noticed the rest of the group just outside with an equally surprised expression. "Wow! The gang's all here!" he cheered.
An equally relieved Neptune walked up to the group. "Whoa! I didn't think we'd end up running into you guys here!" he said with just as much relief as his simian tailed faunus partner. His eyes, however, found themselves landing upon a certain Schnee, whose gaze was fixed upon him. "Weiss! Hey there."
His attempted start of a conversation earned a dagger-eyed glare from the white clad woman who crossed her arms and replied with a bitter tone, "Hello, Neptune."
The smile on Neptune's face died as he found himself unable to say anything more. Sora, Donald and Goofy got a rather uncomfortable vibe from the display as they backed away from Weiss. Being around her right now was probably a bad idea. "Did something happen between them?" Sora whispered, mostly to himself.
Sun finally turned to the four he didn't recognize then to Blake. "Who's the quartet traveling with you guys?"
"There's a lot we need to catch you guys up on. First things first. It's about Beacon and Remnant itself." Blake said as Peter decided to stay on alert outside the room just in case there were more Heartless on the prowl. Catching them up on everything was going to take a while.
Elsewhere, Captain Hook was having a discussion with Riku in his personal quarters. "What?! So Wendy's not one of the chosen ones?" Specifically, about the most crucial part of their group's overarching plan.
"There are seven, supposedly. And Maleficent says she's not one of them." Riku said, turning away from the confused captain. "Hoist anchor as soon as possible. Leave all the dead weight behind. Including her."
His dismissive tone and attitude was grating on Captain Hook's nerves, but now he was reaching his wit's end. "After the trouble of capturing her?" he asked indignantly. Though he thought himself above Maleficent's little schemes, clearly things were more important than he initially thought. Especially if her little pet servant was so adamant about this. "And why those seven? What is Maleficent planning anyway? More to the point, what about that Cinder woman's place in all of this is?"
"Who knows?" Riku commented ever so dismissively. But behind that was a fierce and focused determination. The determination to save the one person that mattered to him anymore. "As long as it means getting Kairi's heart back, I couldn't care less."
Hook scoffed at Riku's heroic prose. The fact even he didn't know made it clear to him that he really was little more than a pawn to Maleficent. "You're wasting your time. The Heartless have devoured that girl's heart. I'll stake me other hand it's lost forever."
Riku's gaze hardened and his fist clenched at Hook's words. He didn't care what Hook thought or said. But even if Kairi's heart was consumed by the darkness... "I WILL find it, no matter what." Riku didn't care what it took. And if Sora would rather gallivant around with those new friends of his, then he could do it for as long as he wanted. Kairi was all that mattered to Riku now.
"Uh, cap'n?" The discussion was interrupted by Smee's voice coming from the brass pipe.
"What?" Hook answered impatiently, hoping for Smee's sake that this was important.
"The prisoners have escaped. What's more, Peter Pan is with them."
Smee's report made Riku's brow furrow at Sora's persistence. It seemed he'd have to leave sooner than later. And that name was the last thing Hook wanted to hear. "Blast that Peter Pan!" Every single time, that boy found ways to foil him...but not this time. This time, he had a plan that would lead those little fish to flop right into his net. "Alright, then! Bring the hostage to me cabin, Smee! Hop to it!"