Happy Summer everyone! Are you all done with finals, school, or work? Or are you on the way to vacation season? Or maybe you're still working or have been on vacation for awhile already? Wherever you're at, do your best and have a great time!
So, after so long a wait, we're finally here! A brand new chapter! If you read my other story, "Grandpa Ven," you probably saw that I mentioned I had two chapters in the works for this. This one is finally, I can say done. But satisfactory? Yeah, I'll leave that to you to decide how it went.
Well, it's been too long a way, so let's see how Sora's Journey to find Kairi's heart petal pieces goes!
*NOTE/SPOILER WARNING: It takes place AFTER KHIII*
NOTE 2: Lots of retelling of the experience of "Player" in KHχ[Chi] but in Sora's View.
NOTE 3: Sora is NOT Player, he's just got similar experiences. Player exists somewhere doing the main story, but they don't cross paths... I Think...
NOTE 4: SPOILER WARNING again- Re:Coded, BBS, and Re:Mind content mentioned!
DATE: June 19, 2024
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Chapter 19: The DatEscape
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"Four down, only three to go."
That's what Sora had said in what felt like hours ago. He was getting rather on edge as he found no sign of any heart petals around. There was also another reason for why he felt this way. It's cause since the fight ended, there were a lack of heartless of any kind. I mean, he didn't think too much about it at first, but when wandering through the empty town and loneliness starts kicking in, it got him realizing just how off everything felt.
The first time around when he gathered Kairi's heart pieces, he faced a constant onslaught of the heartless, nobodies, and unversed. But here, nothing. No pure heartless, no emblem ones, and not even those new glitchy and boxy looking ones. Nothing was here. Why? Did this world just not follow the same rules as when he used the power of waking? But then again… He didn't use the power this time. This was a data-world, one that copied the real world and the future. Did that mean there was something else awaiting him? Or was he thinking too much about this?
Making his way back to the plaza, for however many times he's done it already, the scene plays out before him once again. Thankfully, its in silence since he couldn't bear to hear how hurt and scared Kairi was over and over again. He finally concludes that there's nothing to gain after having combed the town over, searching every hidden spot he was able to find. It was time to explore the one place he had avoided until now, Radiant Garden's Castle and its grounds.
So off he went, walking around to the east gate and making his way through the castle gardens. He decided to try going this way because when he passed, the gate was wide open, unlike the west and the south gates. Now there was one for the north side somewhere, but he didn't see any as he walked around town. It was probably just hidden better than the other three he passed by, or it could possibly be a private one that leads somewhere within the grounds.
After his little jog and occasionally stopping to admire the greenery of the gardens, he finally makes it up to the front doors. Honestly, the ones at Disney Castle were much more impressive, but it was still quite a sight to see how big doors had to be on castles in general. As he admires the sight, a strange glint of light caught his eye, one he recognized.
"Wait, is that? Those are glitches!"
Off to the right, a little close to the gate, he sees the static lines. As he inches closer, a new scene plays out and he becomes surprised to find some familiar faces.
"Aqua?! Kairi?!"
She's standing on guard as the young girl stays close behind her. In front are the creatures, the unversed, attempting to attack them both as she fends them off. Sora watches, still trying to make sense of what is happening.
"Aqua?! She was here before? Wait… She did mention back at the Mysterious Tower that Kairi was someone she saved. So, this must be what happened in the past."
Whatever was happening here, it was clearly a lead to a new memory and a heart piece. So, he steeled himself to watch the scene play, to see a scared Kairi and a battle ready Aqua doing all she can to protect her. So, he watched how she was scared and how vivid the unversed looked in this memory. He observed how Aqua preformed attacks and used various shotlocks to keep the enemies at bay. He saw in great detail the number of cuts and bruises they caused, especially when they clawed at Aqua's metal shoes when they meant to scratch her legs. When it was all said and done, Mickey appears and he sees how Kairi is mystified by the duo. His final moment to witness was the scene of Kairi giving a bouquet she had recently picked from the garden, looking much like the one from the previous memory. She thanked Aqua and ran off when her grandmother called. Sora smiled as they walked away together and the scene ended.
As he thought, a piece appeared, again with another musical note, but also stylized to look like a kind eye. Then, the petal flew off, ready to fill in a new detail for the memory. But just before he went to chase it, another strange glint of the light caught his eyes. The door leading inside the castle looked off somehow. The crack lines that dimly glowed from the door felt slightly off and broken. It almost reminded him of looking at a straw through a water glass, with the straw not aligning with what he could see under the water.
So, instead of following the heart piece, Sora peered closer. As he reached out his hand to touch the door, the light from the cracks grew brighter and the door burst open. He flinches back at the sudden brightness and to shield himself from the flying wood, only, there was nothing hitting him.
"Huh?"
Slowly lowering his arm, Sora sees the door now had a large gaping hole with glowing white crack lines. Inside the hole looked like a void and had a bunch of red letters and numbers floating all around it. Curious, Sora cautiously sticks his hand in the space, thinking maybe it was a way into the castle. Unfortunately, this wasn't the brightest decision he ever made as all around him, a soft green light glowed under his feet. More lights surrounded him and pulled him up off the ground, teleporting him away.
When the lights finally dim down, and Sora is unceremoniously dropped, causing him to land face first, he finally sees just where he ended up.
"Woah!" Was all he could say as all around him a moving wall of red and black cubic like patterns filled the room, and the ground was oddly patterned like a computer.
"Why does this remind me of those Dark Cubes from Hiro's world? But this place reminds me more of Tron's. Am I in another version of Tron's world?" He thought at first, but that was quickly answered when a strange black window with blue outlines popped up with a clear objective in mind. It read:
[Objective: Debug the sector.]
Sora questioned, "Debug? Sector?"
Thankfully, another window popped up and explained.
[SYSTEM SECTOR: The datascape created from The Book Of Prophesies requires code to run. This code is housed in special areas called system sectors.]
Sora is a little lost, but then another window pops up.
[SECTOR DEBUG: Glitches in the datascape are caused by abnormal enemies inside the system sector. Defeat these bug baddies and debug the sector to return to the main data-world.]
Sora hums, "Well, I don't really get it. But, if I defeat these, "bug baddies," Radiant Garden will be fixed?"
The window does not appear, making him take that as a yes, that is the answer. So off he wanders into this strange red room. There wasn't much to see, it was just a room with a large depression in the floor. In a way, it kind of reminded of a ring, just the stage being in the ground instead of elevated on a platform. When he goes down into it, several Shadow Heartless begin to appear from the ground. He gets ready and fights, swinging carefully at each one. That's when he sees for the first time, a heartless that is unlike the rest. Yellow windows of letters and numbers of code surround the creature as it attempted to attack more violently than the usual pattern of Shadows he grew so accustomed to fighting.
"That must be the bug baddie then," Sora mused to himself before refocusing on the battle to eliminate the heartless from this room.
As he cleared the heartless away, as well as the bugged one, more heartless appeared as they too were bugged and aggressive. The battle was a lot tougher than he gave it credit for, but fortunately as he took down the last, the room glowed a bright white. Then in a moment, it turned blue, the ground filled with a neat grid-like pattern instead of those puzzle piece-like lines from a moment earlier, the code glowing a bluish green flowed neatly straight across each of the grids.
He took a moment to be in awe of the space as he watched a strange pillar of sea-green light appear before him. As he looked, a new window popped up in his view.
[LINKS: This System Sector contains multiple floors. Defeat all the bug baddies on one floor to reveal a link to the next.]
Sora thought for a moment, "So I have to keep going through this until I reach the end of the floor and clear out all the heartless. Okay, no biggie! It's just like every other mission I've been assigned since coming here, so it's not like anything could be different now? Right?"
Unfortunately, Sora would regret those words as he proceeded to travel floor after floor, clearing the bugged heartless. Some that he fought, he found rather difficult as their windows glowed red. He learned quickly that these heartless were more relentless than the last, attacking non-stop and were stronger than they should have been. There were ones that had blue glowing windows, those were funny because they hardly moved to attack him. Their demeanor became more docile, reminding him of the behavior of a curious puppy. If he had his Gummi Phone with him, he definitely would have taken a selfie since it was a rare moment to actually get a fun picture with the creatures. But he still did his part and defeated the bug baddies all the same.
It was when he reached floor fifteen that he encountered the worst heartless he could ever imagine. It happened that this floor was much bigger and had many more rooms to navigate. He was getting turned around, feeling a little lost because all the rooms had a similar layout to one another. It was about ten minutes or so when a new window popped up.
[Caution! A Powerful Enemy Is Near!]
Sora looked around, then out from the corner of the room, he saw a big red knight with an angry dog on the shield. At first, he thought it was a Defender, but seeing as it was a completely different color, it must have been a variation of that heartless. He remembered encountering the purple ones a lot back in Hollowed Bastion when trying to get to Riku. Beast was a great help there, cause those were so difficult to fight. But the fact that a warning was given could only mean, this one was very much stronger.
But despite the window's warning, Sora attempted to fight with all his might against the creature who had teleported right behind him when he blinked. A strong thrust of the dog shield was all it took from the red heartless, somehow its name was supplied in his mind, known as the Eliminator. That attack nearly knocked the wind right out of him, gulping up a huge chunk of his health. He got out his best medals and used the attacks in a rapid succession. Unfortunately, the Eliminator wasn't going down easy and its attacks were too strong to combat.
So, Sora ran. He made his way from room to room, as the creature managed to keep pace and chase him through. Finally though, he made his way to a new red room, one that needed debugging. Tired and frustrated, he plowed through whatever heartless were there. It was a good thing they were glowing blue, so it wasn't much of a problem. The bigger one happened to be the Eliminator that was still trying to interfere and teleport so close to him as he fought. It was a long, hard battle, but Sora was able to avoid the teleporting heartless long enough for the room to glow white and a new link to appear. Without hesitation, Sora dashed for the link and got beamed away to a new floor. He learned his lesson to not linger so long on each floor, otherwise strong enemies could appear at any given moment.
He passed through many more floors, wondering how long it would take him to get to the bottom and fix whatever this code was that was affecting the system. After the last link, he finally got his wish for the final floor. Upon entry, a new window popped up,
[TERMINALS: Defeat the last of the bug baddies inside a system sector to reveal a terminal some-where on the floor. This is your way out.]
"A way out? Great!" Sora sighed in relief, but then took notice of the new room. It was a single room, no glowing white doors to anywhere, and no obstacles or elevations of any kind. It was one flat room, possibly meaning this was an arena for whatever battle was up ahead.
Slowly, as he approached the center, yellow and red windows appeared and there materialized a glitching heartless… no, it wasn't a heartless. It was appearing in three parts, but the clear view of the emblem gave it away.
"An Unversed?!"
The creature's parts floated and transformed into arms, legs, and a head. It was huge and reminded him a little of the Guard Armor that he fought when he first met Donald and Goofy in Traverse Town. But where that one was purple and remind him more of a pawn chess piece, this one was more like a knight. It was black and red with some yellow trimming around some portions of armor. A fiery blue guard adorned its neck and red flame like eyes painted its sharp helmet. All around the creature, the windows glowed either red or yellow, signaling the hostility of those parts.
Sora readied his stance as the creature attacked with gusto. It released several fireballs in his direction and he dodged each one of them. It moved fast when it saw the attacks missed, and separated its parts and transformed into a cannon charging energy for a strong blow. Sora took the opportunity to use his strongest medals and attack, causing one of the pieces to disappear. That seems to have worked as the unversed was temporarily not attacking, in favor of transforming into something else. But the moment was short lived as the armored unversed's parts changed into spinning tops, wildly hitting the invisible barriers of the room and bouncing all around to try and hit him.
Dodging left and right, waiting for their spinning to calm down, he rushes in, firing off several Firas and a Blizzard, before going into a sliding dash which stunned another part. With the given chance, he rained down a series of attacks taking down another piece of armor. The final that remained was the head piece, desperate to stay in the game as more red windows popped up all around. It spun wildly, as a series of lasers bounced all around the room. Sora dodged, jumped, and avoided all he could. Some had landed their mark and he quickly rotated through his medals to get to his Curaga, renewing his energy and healing the worst of the wounds. Once the head piece had stopped spinning and began moving with more precision, Sora quickly predicted its movements and took down the giant unversed once in for all.
Like all the rooms before this, a brilliant white flash engulfed the room and soon it returned to its blue grid-like state. Then, over in the center of the room, a pillar of white light with glowing letters and numbers appeared before him. A new windows pops up reading:
[Objective: Complete!]
[Reward: Kairi's Heart One Of Seven - Piece Of Perception]
[Ability: Restoration of those surrounding in a forgotten memory.]
In front of him, a piece of Kairi's heart materialized, the petal again had a musical note, but this time it almost looked like a little face was made out of the musical note. He held it in his hand and watched as another window appeared. This one simply reminded him that terminal was the way out.
"Phew! Now that the bug baddies have been completely eliminated, this data-world should be restored." Wasting no time, Sora rushes over to the pillar of light and makes his exit out.
Upon exiting and being led back to the Radiant Garden Castle doors, Sora observed the crack as it now glowed with the same soft blue of the sectors with little white lines of code floating all around it. That must have meant the space was safe once again. The piece in his hands vibrated and he watched as the petal began to fly away. As he it chased down, he barely even noticed the silently stares he received from a pair of oddly familiar looking guards who became baffled as to where he came from and why there was now a glowing hole in the door. When he came back to the plaza, the two pieces joined together with the rest and full memory began playing out.
Kairi came running from the west district again, but only this time, Sora saw all that followed her from behind. As he though when he heard the sounds of chittering, it was the Shadow Heartless chasing after her, and she briefly stopped when new ones rose out of the ground. She paused, scared, but navigated her way around. As she rushed towards the gates to the castle, he follows. Sora watches from the bridge as young Kairi desperately shakes at the gates, unable to get them open. At the sound of more chitterlings and heavy footsteps, he watches as a person somehow managed to escape his sight and come slowly into view. Sora couldn't believe it, that was,
"Xehanort?!" He recognized him because that was the portrait that once hung on the wall of Ansem the Wise's study. "How?"
The man merely stared down at Kairi in all her fright. She was so scared as she closed her eyes to the hand that was slowly reaching out to grab her. Sora was angered by this. Xehanort had been messing with Kairi even before they met. He summoned his Starlight Keyblade and began to charge in and protect young Kairi from that man once again. But before all else, the memory became distorted, glitching out and pausing. That got him to stop. His hand was nearly at Kairi, but in-between the two, Sora saw the space become discolored. Reaching closer, he sees it swell and soon burst into a large crack, exploding with red letters and numbers all over, much like the one at the castle doors. But what was different from this was that the void was a strange color, one that reminded him of an ocean and sky, almost like where he found himself and met Ven's Chirithy.
He thinks, "Maybe that's where the last piece is?"
Looking into the void, he steps closer and raises his hand to enter. As he does, he voices aloud determinedly,
"Hang on Kairi, I'll get you out of this."
TBC
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This chapter, I have had the idea for such a long time. But my writing just hasn't been agreeing with me lately. I'm not really sure why?
But anyway, here we see Sora is having the Coded/Re:Coded experience, with him getting a turn to experience what his Data-Self version got to experience. I've had this idea planned for a long while, but the directions I took to get here just veered off course in the previous chapters. But we're here now!
I threw in the Eliminator cause I still have yet to beat it. So, if I can't, Sora can't. xD But really, the final boss at the end of the Sectors is the version of the Trinity Armour from the Mirage Arena. This is one of the glitches that messed up Radiant Garden's code, making everything feel so empty. But now that he fixed it, it restored the people, except for one place. We'll get to see the conclusion next chapter, which I am aiming to be before July. If I can't, my other aim is early August. Those are my goals at least, but I can't always tell when plans change.
For now, that's all I got. If you have any ideas, suggestions, questions, or any comments for this story, feel free to let me know.
Thank you so much for all who gave a favorite, follow, and or a view! Thanks for stopping by! You are all amazing! Have a Happy Summer everyone! :D
