As they stepped inside, Sora, Ruby, Donald, Goofy, and the rest of the young hunters found themselves within a void of dark streams that resembled the colors of the Heartless Insignia from the outside. But the worst thing they were faced with...a giant Heartless with a with a cyan body accented by a dark violet color on its muscular front legs and shorter rear legs. Its feet looked almost like brown and red hooves, but the most prominent features of this great behemoth of a Heartless apart from the familiar insignia on its chest, were its ice-blue upward curled tusks, and the a dark red colored horn atop its head. Its yellow eyes fixed upon the intruders who drew their weapons and it let out a monstrous bellow.
"Oh boy..." Jaune said with a nervous gulp.
"Uh oh." Donald with just as much nervousness.
"Oh no." Goofy added as well.
"OH YEAH!" Nora and Yang exclaimed. Well...at least SOMEONE was looking forward to this.
The Behemoth didn't waste any time as a stream of darkness surrounded its horn, followed by it lunging at them. "Scatter!" Blake yelled, prompting everyone to dash out of the way as it landed right where they previously were.
As Sora and his friends recovered, he noticed that behind where the Behemoth was standing was a solid Heartless Insignia floating at the other end of this void. "That must be the Keyhole." Sora said, turning back to their foe. "We've gotta take this thing down to lock it!"
The Behemoth turned to Yang and Ruby as it felt them firing upon it from a distance. "Easier said than done." Ruby said with worry before she and her sister scattered as it charged toward them.
Slowly turning toward it, Nora lunged at the massive Heartless and sideswiped her hammer at its face, making it lurch with the momentum of the impact. "Yeah! Take that!" Nora's confidence died when she saw the Behemoth's eyes turn to her, utterly unharmed. The creature responded by raising one of its legs to crush her.
Blake did and realized what it was planning, she used her Gambol Shroud in kusarigama form to catch Nora around the stomach with the rope. "Gwuck!" Letting out that guttural sound, Nora was pulled to safety. "Thanks Blake!" she called out as the faunus unwrapped her.
Utilizing her glyphs, Weiss glided across the ground and attempted impaling one of the Behemoth's hind legs. To her shock, she staggered back as the tip of her rapier bounced right off. "You can't be serious! How durable is this thing?!" she said gliding back to get distance from the foot that tried to kick her.
Sun and Neptune dashed around the creature, trying to find some kind of weakness. "It's like its whole body is those fat Heartless!" Neptune said as he and Sun's weapons bounced right off along with everyone else's.
Jaune and Pyrrha had been observing the entire battle, both of them all the more troubled as nothing seemed to be working on it. Their eyes widened when he saw something most unnerving. "Uh guys? That horn of his is getting brighter!" Jaune called out, raising his shield.
"Look out!" Pyrrha called out as well, raising her own. Everyone only had a moment to react to the assault that followed.
The Behemoth stomped its front legs again and raised its head with a mighty roar. In that moment, bolts of energy stormed down around it. Donald and Yang were caught in the blast as they fell back with shouts of pained dismay. "Donald!" Goofy ran to Donald, seeing his friend in poor condition, and used a potion on him.
Yang groggily stood up with Sora's help, thankfully kept safe from the worst of that attack by her Aura. "There's a way to hurt this thing, right?" Sora asked with concern before noticing the Behemoth walk towards them again.
Nothing they did against this Heartless was even remotely affecting it. More still, it was stalking toward them for another round of brutal assaults. Donald noticed electricity building around its horn and he immediately realized what it was doing. "It's using a big thunder spell! Watch out!" Donald warned.
Everyone else barely managed to jump out of the way of the large, individual bolts of lightning raining down from the void above. Everyone except Nora who gladly tanked the bolts as they rained upon her. "Alright. No more miss nice Nora!" she growled, heaving her Hammer up again, sparking with electricity. With the aid of her semblance, she lunged forward and slammed the hammer in the Behemoth's face. An attack which, while more powerful than the last...ended up being little more than a mild inconvenience for it. "Huh?! I don't get it!" Nora exclaimed as the Behemoth charged to gore her on its horn.
Ren quickly dove in and pulled her out of the way in the nick of time. "There's got to be some weakness to exploit on this thing." Ren said as he steadied the surprised Nora.
"Gah!" Sora was not so lucky with his evasion as suddenly he found himself getting struck by the last of the bolts of lightning. The bolt caused him to tumble to the ground with a cry of pain.
"Sora!" Ruby and Donald cried out as the Keyblade fell from hand and embedded itself in the 'ground'. Sora barely had time to push himself up before he saw the massive distorted hoof of the behemoth descend upon him. Were it not for a timely intervention by the three shield wielding teammates, Sora might have been crushed.
"We need a new plan, Sora!" Goofy cried out, protecting the Keyblade Master from another bolt of lightning along with Jaune and Pyrrha.
"No, I think what we need by now is a miracle!" Jaune exclaimed as the Behemoth bore down on him, Goofy, and Pyrrha. By now, it seemed like that was the only way they were getting out of this.
As Ruby dashed to help him up, Sora noticed a bright red wave of light emerge where his Keyblade was embedded. Next to it...was that Summon Gem Cinderella gave him. Right then and there, Sora knew what he had to do.
He spun the Keyblade around himself and raised over his head before sticking it in the ground. Gripping the hilt tight, he turned it like it was within a lock. The moment he did, a rush of smoke billowed all around where the Keyblade was stuck into, faint traces of embers rising up with it. A great spiral of smoke of rose up around before Sora before engulfing him in it. Out of the thick, black air emerged something that looked menacing to everyone: A large serpentine reptile with piercing yellow eyes and massive four-pronged claws.
Everyone stopped and turned to see what Sora had done. Or more accurately...what he had summoned.
"Is that a dragon?!" Neptune exclaimed in awe alongside an equally awed Sun.
"It's huge!" Goofy said, feeling a little intimidated size of the serpentine titan.
Reeling its head back, everyone stood back, preparing for it to release a massive wave of fire. To everyone's confusion though, the dragon suddenly...changed. Now they could see it more clearly. It had...spindly limbs, two-toed feet and four-fingered hands, dark red claws like the small tuft on the tip of its tail, yellow-orange colors on his belly similar to his two whiskers or two small, and sky blue horns with a dark blue tip on the top of his head. But the features they saw that...made him less intimidating were...large, close-set eyes that were a dark shade of brownish-red, his white teeth seemed to have a rounded sharpness from a big, happy smile, the violet-red nose that seemed bigger and more human-like and his dark red tipped ears seemed floppy.
But the most jarring factor was the fact that this creature, this dragon they'd expected to be a towering titan of fire breathing reptilian wrath was...Tiny. He was also so tiny that he could easily stand on top of Sora's head...which he was doing as he proudly introduced himself
"I am Mushu!"
Everyone stared with blank expressions at the...supposed summon Sora had brought forth. Nobody had any idea what to say, and as they looked at one another, the dragon spoke up again. "So tell me what mortal needs my protection. You just say the word, and I'm there!"
A collective, "Uhhh..." rang out among the group at the tiny dragon's bombastic introduction. Said dragon raised his hand up as if to silence them as he continued. "Ey, lemme say somethin'. Anybody who's foolish enough to threaten our family, vengeance will be MIIINE!" he proclaimed dramatically.
Even the Behemoth seemed to stop in its tracks, as the Heartless of all things was also confused by the miniature dragon. Of all the beings that had been brought forth by these summon gems, this one...definitely took the cake for strangeness.
The dragon, Mushu as he was apparently called, looked up at his audience, noticing their expressions as they stared at him. "What?" he asked, not sure why they were looking at him like he had something on his face.
Sora reached up and picked Mushu off his head, examining him in a rather undignified manner. "Sooo, the Fairy Godmother sent a lizard to help us?" he asked, dropping him on the floor, followed by poking one of the spines along Mushu's back.
Whether it was from the poke or offense at the comment, or both, Mushu turned to look at Sora and said, "Hey, dragon. DRA-GON. Not lizard. I don't do that tongue thing." Mushu corrected indignantly...only to flick a forked tongue out of his mouth like a lizard tasting and smelling the air, only to go back to his offended glare.
By now, the Behemoth seemed to remember that they were its prey and let out a fierce bellow, getting things back on track. "Can we worry about this later!? We've got a fight on our hands right now!" Weiss corrected as the group got back into fighting stances.
Mushu looked back at the big Heartless, tapping his chin for a moment and then grinned. "Ooohohoo, okay. I get the drift. I'll take care o' this." he said, running a hand along his head in an attempted smooth manner.
Everyone stared at the little dragon in disbelief at Mushu's apparent bravado before looking back at the Behemoth. "Yang! Nora! Keep him busy while Ren and Blake try and find a weak spot!" Jaune called out.
"Can do!" "You got it!" the girls replied.
Realizing he was being ignored, Mushu frowned and yelled, "Oh, y'all don't think I can do it?! Watch THIS here!" With a great burst of speed, Mushu stood atop Sora's head again. The tiny dragon made a deep inhale while reeling his own head back before lunging forward again. Mushu opened his mouth and suddenly released several rapid firing spheres of bright orange flame. Everyone, especially Sora, was stunned as the little dragon continued releasing the fireballs almost like a machine gun. Every single one of them was shot at the central horn on the Behemoth's head, the only one that was sticking straight out and colored black.
To everyone's further surprise, the massive Heartless flinched and let out a roar as if it was finally feeling pain. Mushu eventually stopped his rapid fire onslaught and the Behemoth stumbled back, shaking its head around as if trying to shake off whatever damage the dragon inflicted. "Ah-hah!" Mushu cheered as he looked back at the gobsmacked heroes with a confident smile. "Jump back, I'm pretty hot, huh? Don't have to singe nobody to prove no point."
Jaune was the first to shake himself free of the Mushu induced stupor as the dragon revealed to them the weakness of the Behemoth. "Okay everyone, new plan: Aim for that central horn! That's the weak spot!" he called out to everyone else. Now they could take it down!
As the group moved to surround the behemoth, Mushu watched them as his victorious expression drooped to an almost offended one. "Uh, you're welcome." he muttered as he crossed his arms. That's gratitude for you.
With their foes weakness revealed, Weiss unleashed a flurry of ice from her rapier, followed by bolts of lightning from Sora and a gravity spell by Donald. The Behemoth's recovery effort was hindered as it let out another roar of pain. But the next moment, it managed to recover before charging faster at them. Fortunately, they scattered, and as it charged, Ruby positioned herself to dash around back of the Heartless' neck before swinging away at the horn with her scythe.
The blade of crescent rose raked along the horn, leaving a noticeable mark upon its surface. The Behemoth roared out in pain from the attack, but it quickly recovered, slamming its front legs onto the ground to try and scatter everyone again. "Jump!" Jaune said as the shockwave blasted forth. Blake and Yang put more oomph into their jumps with feline agility and double 12 guage shell propulsion, followed up by a slash and a punch to the Behemoth's weak point. While it didn't seem to be as affected, they could tell from its reaction that they were hurting it.
Just as it was about to turn its attention to the girls, another fireball flew in its direction, striking the Heartless right in the face. "I'm on fiyah!" Mushu called out, pelting the Heartless with another fireball atop Sora's head. Nora couldn't help but nudge Ren in the ribs, saying, "Not so bad after all for a 'little lizard', eh Ren?" she said cheekily, earning a raised eyebrow from her friend. The roar of the Behemoth and the sudden streak of lightning bolts that the rest of the group was now in the midst of avoiding reminded them of the battle they were in the middle of. Like an animal annoyed by buzzing flies, the Behemoth was getting angrier and angrier as the fight went on. They needed to take this thing down quickly.
And in that moment, a spark of perfectly timed inspiration struck Jaune's brain. "Pyrrha! Goofy!" he yelled out, raising his shield as the Heartless began to rear up yet again.
"Right!" "Gotcha!" they replied respectively, following suit. Goofy threw his shield like a boomerang and caused a crack at the Behemoth's horn, making it roar furiously.
Weiss and Donald in that instant, realized what they were doing, and gave each other a firm nod. As the Behemoth prepared to send out another shockwave, they unleashed an even more powerful Blizzard spell, and an ice dust powered glyph to catch its right foot while the shield bearers intercepted the left. The Behemoth was vulnerable.
Realizing what they were doing, Ren turned to Nora and said with a smile, "It's all you, Nora." A statement that made Nora grin as she too realized what was going on.
Just as Goofy's shield returned to him, Pyrrha held her shield above herself for Nora smiled hopped on top before sending herself way over the Behemoth by launching herself with her weapon. Gravity eventually took effect and when it did, Nora switched her weapon to its melee form and raised her hammer for an absolutely titanic swing. "Nora SMASH!"
Coming into contact with the horn caused it to shatter. The Behemoth was dissolving away, leaving the heart all that was left before it vanishing into the air. Mushu cheered, still on top of Sora's head before seeing himself start to vanish as well. "Well? Guess my times up. Gimme a call next time ya need a mighty dragon's help. Bye-bye~."
"Well...He was certainly something." Nora said cheerfully as she dusted off her skirt. It was safe to say she enjoyed Mushu's company, short as his visit was.
"So were you, Nora. You never cease to amaze me."
The moment Nora heard that compliment in Ren's voice, she suddenly froze with wide-eyed surprise...and a small flush of pink on her cheeks. "Did he say I'm... amazing?!" Nora asked in astonishment as Donald, Goofy and Weiss walked over to her with...mild concern. "Ren thinks I'm amazing~!" she cheered as she found herself utterly overcome. So much so that she gave the closest of them - Donald - a big bear hug. The tiny duck was squeezed so hard that he let out a quack of pain before everyone heard something go SNAP. The realization came a bit late as she noticed she caused unintentional harm to one of her comrades. "Whoops. Sorry Donald." she apologized sheepishly.
Donald would have probably responded if his body wasn't sitting on the ground in a slump and his tongue was hanging out his open beak while his eyes rolled back. Goofy took out a potion and carefully poured it into Donald's mouth to swallow it. When it worked, Donald overcame his pain and shook his head before looking to Nora angrily. "Hey, what's the big idea?!" he asked angrily as he began going off into...what could only be called a quacking tangent.
They were likely going to be listening to that for a while as they recovered from that fight.