"Incoming!"
As was to be expected, the group's search for Kairi, Belle, and the other princesses wasn't going quite as planned. As they marched up the stairway that circled fountain in the center of the foyer, they found themselves at another roadblock. More Heartless.
Half a dozen Darkballs, as the spherical Heartless ones were labeled for simplicity's sake. Along with them, two of those shield-bearing Defenders, and three newer Heartless floating beneath the Darkballs. They had small torsos and thin arms with wide, three-fingered hands upon their equally wide forearms. Their upper bodies and arms were covered by gold belt adorned, high-collared purple coat with the Heartless Emblem on the chest and thin white lining at the bottom. Upon their heads were wide-brimmed, conical hats with a thin curled tips that hid the upper portion of their black, spherical head where their eyes would be. Each held a a tall staff with bat-like wings protruding outward at the tip where an orange orb was placed within their hand.
"They look like wizards." Juane observed curiously, yet cautiously.
"What, was Donald not enough?" Sun questioned as he switched Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang to nunchuck mode, striking and snagging one of the Darkballs, leaving it open for Neptune to thrust Tri-Hard and impale it for a finish.
"Hey! I'm the only REAL wizard around here!" Donald said confidently, unleashing a Thunder spell. Much to everyone's shock, the new Heartless weren't even phased as the electric bolts struck them from above. "Wak! It didn't work!? Let's try this then!" With a wave of his staff, he unleashed the frigid volley of a Blizarra spell. But the result was exactly the same. Not a single scratch on them.
"Donald, stop doing that! It's not working!" Jaune exclaimed as he and his teammates fought along with Sora, Goofy, and Team RWBY against the rest of the Heartless.
Donald didn't hear her as he was so distracted by his annoyance and frustration that he flew into a rage that looked more like a comedic tantrum as he ran up to one and started smacking it silly with his staff. While it had more of an effect than his spells. Once the Wizard Heartless had a moment to recover, it vanished into thin air. "Hey! Where'd he go?!" Donald exclaimed, still furious and wanting to vent his frustrations.
Out from the side, a whirling flurry of ice flew at Donald and knocked him down as he squawked in pain. The Wizard hovered quickly to Donald just as he got up to return the previous strike with his own staff.
"Donald!" Ruby cried out, rushing forward with her Semblance to intercept the Wizard before it had the chance to pummel him while he was helpless.
Shaking his head to get rid of his dizziness, Donald hopped to his feet and turned toward the other Wizard who turned toward Ruby as she cleaved the first Wizard in two. Raising his staff, he confidently swung it to unleash a Fira spell upon the Heartless...only for the exact same result a third time. "WAAAK! Why isn't my magic working!?" Donald yelled, gaining the attention of that Wizard as it disappeared just as Ruby was about to tackle it next.
As Ruby skidded along the floor with another burst of her Semblance, she looked up to see the Wizard reappear over her. Seeing it unleash a blast of fire in her direction, she reacted immediately, leaping out of the way as Sora ran to assist her with a rotating airborne strike of his Keyblade. "Guys, be careful! Those Wizard Heartless are immune to magic!"
"Yes, I think Donald figured that out for us the hard way, Sora!" Weiss exclaimed as she switched off the Dust on Myrtenaster. No point wasting it. Chances were if they were immune to magic, they'd be immune to Dust as well. As the second Wizard attempted to recover from Sora's strike, Weiss finished it off before it could unleash another spell.
Beast squared against the Defenders, snarling as he kept them focused on him. Which was just enough of a distraction for Blake and Ren to sneak attack two of them, leaving the one in the center for Beast to lunge for as it got distracted. It narrowly lifted up its shield to block him, but that only left it vulnerable to Yang who jumped up, flipped off of Beast, and brought her foot down in an axe kick to the Heartless's head, slaying it on the spot.
Nora smirked as one of the Darkballs rushed for her, gnashing its teeth. She lifted her hammer up, revving it up to strike like a baseball bat. "HOME RUN!" she yelled out, slamming the Darkball with her hammer and sending it flying. Jaune and Goofy, who were both preoccupied with the last of the Wizards let out a silly squeak of shock as he was forced to duck under that very Darkball flying at mach speed. The Darkball impacted against the last Wizard, destroying the Darkball on impact.
"Nice job!" "Way to go, Nora!" Goofy and Jaune cheered, giving her a thumbs up. Nora, who took to striking a victorious giggle accentuated pose, didn't notice that the last wizard was still active. And that it was raising its staff in the air, shaking it.
"Look out!" Pyrrha cried out in warning as she used her Semblance to pull Jaune and Goofy by their shields, out of range of the lightning bolts. Nora was too distracted to notice them in time as they struck her body over and over and over again. The heartless didn't realize however that it made a grave mistake.
As Blake sliced another Darkball in two with Gambol Shroud, she caught wind of the menacing grin and cackle Nora gave off. "Oh boy..." she muttered, backing away in time for Nora to run full tilt at the Wizard, and smash it her hammer with even greater momentum than her recent Darkball. She didn't stop there as she zoomed up behind the last Defender and brought the hammer down on top of its head. Nora wasn't done yet, however. Far from it.
"Alright, that's more like it! Keep it up, Nora!" Jaune cheered with glee.
His glee was short lived however as Ren suddenly called out, "We have more Grimm incoming!" Sure enough, as if out from the shadows of the pillars, emerged several varieties of Grimm.
"What kind of Grimm?" Sora asked, looking upon three different variants of the pitch black monstrosities.
Ren looked toward them with a frown as he called them out. "Creeps, Boarbatusks and Ursas."
"Oh my..." Pyrrha said anxiously. Just when things were looking up too.
Yang, however, smiled with excitement as she saw the next batch of enemies. "I say bring em all on!" she cheered as she reloaded her gauntlets and dashed to punch the first Creep in the jaw.
Sun finished off the last Heartless with Neptune's help, only to see their problems growing at an alarming rate. First more Heartless, now more Grimm! They didn't have time to deal with so many all at once. Fortunately, as he looked back down at the fountain, he got an idea. "Neptune! Use your semblance!"
His friend turned to him with his Tri-Hard in gun mode as he shot at an Ursa's chest. "What?! How?! There's no water, here!" he exclaimed. Unfortunately, he'd realize he was TERRIBLY wrong as Sun pointed to the fountain. Neptune yelped and backed away, attempting to make any kind of excuse not to go near the water. "Um... how about we just keep doing what we're doing? Sound good?"
"Dude! Come on!" Sun said as he avoided a Creep's bullrush then smacked the claw of a Beowolf away and shot at its leg to cripple it. "Just gather enough to push the Grimm back and give us some openings!"
As much as Neptune really didn't want to go near the fountain, he knew that Sun was right. The Heartless were problematic enough, but if these Grimm decided to keep pouring in, that would REALLY exacerbate things. And so, against the urges of his phobia, Neptune jittered over to the fountain, the tip of Tri-Hard sparking with electricity. And with great reluctance, he stuck the sparking tip into the water, making it surge with electricity before using his Semblance to manipulate it and fling it toward the Grimm.
One by one, the Grimm were struck with it, leaving them stunned and vulnerable to the strikes of everyone else's weapons. Though one of the ursas managed to avoid getting struck. This one was attempting to blindside Blake, only for it to be intercepted by Beast as he dove in front of her and locked his claws with the ursine Grimm's. Both bestial contenders roared at each other as they pushed back and forth, neither willing to give in to the other. With the two of them locked in a stalemate of strength, Blake quickly capitalized on the Grimm's vulnerability and sliced at its belly, allowing Beast to overwhelm it and throw it over the railing. And as it attempted to get up, Pyrrha quickly finished it off with a rifle shot to the head, joined by Ruby. And just like that, the Grimm attack was fended off.
Though everyone was more than a little winded from the encounter. "Phew. That...was close." Neptune said, panting quite hard.
His statement earned him quite a glare from Weiss and Sun. "What're YOU complaining about? We were up here fighting our butts off, Mr. Hydrophobia." Sun complained.
"Y-You have no idea what I just went through! For your sakes! I'd appreciate a little recognition, thank you very much!" Neptune countered, though that only succeeded in making Weiss roll her eyes.
"Come on, guys. We've gotta take a moment to rest before moving on." Sora said, getting things back on track. A suggestion that Ruby and her friends nodded in agreement with. They were in the belly of the proverbial beast, so it likely wouldn't be long before even more creatures tried to attack them at the rate things were going.
"In here." Beast said, pushing open the door on the left side of the second floor of the foyer. Everyone piled in quickly, not eager to be swarmed for a third time by Heartless and Grimm. Once everyone made it inside, Beast slammed the doors behind them.
Hopefully they'd have some respite for a while.
As everyone took a moment to catch their breath, Blake looked around their new location and her face immediately lit up. "We're...in a library." In response to her words, everyone looked up and saw the awe-inspiring sight of bookshelves lining the walls of the warm, inviting room they found themselves in.
"Wow...You're right, Blake. There's gotta hundreds of books here. Maybe thousands." Ruby said, almost as joyful looking as Blake was while squatting and looking to the lower cased ones at another shelf. "I wonder if there are any storybooks here?"
"Maybe." Blake said as she traced her hand along the spines of the books ever so tenderly. Affectionately, even.
Watching her sister and team partner admire the sea of literature made Yang grin cheerfully. Though she wasn't the only one. The Beast was staring at them as well with an unexpectedly...nostalgic expression on his face.
Hey, look at this!" Nora called out, standing in front of a large set of windows looking out toward the desolate "You can see so much of the landscape from over here."
Everyone else wandered over to the windows, and immediately were taken by the view. "Whoa...It's just like back home." Weiss said, before squinting as her icy blue eyes at another sight that caught her attention. "Is that...a town?"
Sure enough, everyone followed her gaze and saw, what looked to be a desolate, abandoned town amidst the vast, barren landscape. "Doubt there's any people there though, given how Maleficent is nearby." Sun remarked.
"You're probably right, Sun" Ren said as went to lean against a nearby pillar. "Maleficent probably made them all Heartless by now..."
As awful as that sounded, there wasn't anything they could do about that now. For now, they needed to get some rest before continuing on.
As the group all took up places to relax, Pyrrha found herself examining the bookshelves along with Blake. Pyrrha stopped when she found one that caught her attention. A book with the word 'Salegg' written on it. Curiosity compelled her to examine it. As she took the book off the shelf, she couldn't help noticing something peculiar about the library as a whole. "This place looks surprisingly intact. It's like the Heartless haven't touched it at all,". As she looked around, she noticed that Sora was staring at a table and chair underneath the stairs with an expression of...recognition? "Sora? Is something wrong?"
Sora didn't seem to register Pyrrha's concerned inquiry as he approached the familiar table and chair. This place...he was certain of it. "This is the place where Kairi's grandmother told her that story..." he mumbled with realization.
Ruby, Donald, and Goofy noticed Sora's rather faraway expression as he looked at the seemingly unremarkable furniture. "Uhhh, Sora?" Goofy called out.
When he didn't answer, Ruby stepped forward and gently piped up, "What's the matter, Sora?"
"You're not daydreaming again, are you?" Donald, of course, was the one to assume Sora was just getting distracted...which normally would be a fair assumption.
But for once, Sora didn't lash out at Donald in irritation. He was too focused on what he was piecing together at this very moment. This place...this world... "This was Kairi's home."
"Huh?!" "What!?" "Wak!?" His three friends all exclaimed with shocked surprise.
Pyrrha of course was much more composed as she stepped closer to Sora with a more subtle but visibly surprised expression. "You're certain, Sora?" Sora could only give a small nod, but that alone conveyed his certainty. This was definitely where Kairi originally came from.
Everyone else's attention, sans Beast, was drawn from what they were doing as they shuffled in to find out what was up. "Uh, did we miss something, guys?" Sun asked.
"So Kairi isn't from the island you and Riku are from?" Pyrrha asked. That definitely caught everyone's attention. Sora hadn't spoken of the Island he came from very much. Though given what they were doing, they didn't really have much time for storytelling.
"No. When Riku and I were kids, Kairi suddenly appeared one day after a meteor shower. The mayor of the town on the main island took her in as his own and...well, none of us really knew anything about her. Even Kairi didn't remember a thing about her home, even after years of living with us." Sora explained. He had no idea how Kairi could have forgotten all of this.
Jaune looked around the library and said, "Given how grand this place is, assuming you're right about it being her home, I find it surprising she'd forget a place like this."
Donald crossed his arms and tapped his webbed foot against the floor, thoughtfully. "I'd bet my uncle's entire fortune that the Heartless had something to do with it." he said with a tap to his beak.
"Yeah. I'd bet all of Ren's pancakes that's the case too." Nora said in agreement...drawing a very befuddled look from Ren in the process.
Though curious about this mention of an uncle, Weiss realized something. "There's another factor we haven't taken into account. What if this Ansem we keep reading up on had something to do with this?"
"Ansem?" Sora asked her curiously.
Weiss gave a firm nod as she answered, "Yes. He was studying the Heartless. Remember? All those reports we've been collecting?"
Ruby realized that Weiss might have been on to something. But at the same time, something about it just didn't seem right. "Leon said Ansem was a philosopher of their world, though. That he was a wise and good leader. I don't think he could've been doing anything bad with them."
Goofy nodded in agreement. "Ruby's right. I mean, the first report, he spoke of wanting to keep his people safe, so he's gotta be a nice fella, right?"
"Maybe at the start." Weiss interjected grimly. "Let's not forget, the Heartless and the darkness they're tied to has corrupted a lot of people. What if he fell from grace in the middle of his experiments? Why study creatures as dangerous as the Heartless in the first place?"
Weiss's retort put Ruby at a loss for words. She wasn't sure what to say in response. Could Ansem really have been corrupted by the darkness and used the Heartless for some wicked purpose?
Pyrrha broke the silence that followed, saying "Leon also said that Ansem sacrificed himself to save his people. Knowing that, I don't think he was corrupted. Perhaps he was merely a curious researcher who dug a little too deep. Some say 'the best intentions can invite the worst troubles'. Perhaps he wanted to find a way to keep his people safe. The same way people back in our world of Remnant studied Grimm, only to find ways to handle them?"
Now it was Weiss' turn to be at a loss for words. She sighed and sat at a table, one arm to it as she propped her head. "Hmm...I suppose either is as likely a possibility. It's not like we can find him and ask him personally, anyway."
Neptune leaned against the staircase and turned to Sora, getting back to the initial topic. "So Sora, that 'Kairi' girl. How do you know this world is her home, anyway?"
Sora paused, unsure as to how to convey it to his friends. He still didn't quite understand it himself. "I...don't really know how to describe it. I...saw something back in Traverse Town when we were waiting for Cid."
Donald and Goofy looked at each other, thinking back to that moment. "You mean when you were forgetting the rule about no frowning and no sad faces?" Donald teased.
"Hey, I'm serious!" Sora protested with embarrassment, earning a chuckle from Donald. "But...yeah. It was...I don't know. A vision of some kind. Kairi when she was small talking to an old lady. Her grandma. At least that's what I could tell from it. And...I don't know why, but somehow, feeling so familiar with this place just...it makes me think that this is where Kairi came from."
Everyone paused as they listened to Sora's unusual explanation. "That...doesn't really make a lot of sense." Weiss said bluntly.
"But it's the only real explanation we have. We don't know Kairi like Sora does, so maybe we should just take his word for it until we learn more." Jaune interjected. They hadn't been steered wrong by Sora so far...or at least not in a while...or in any way that was critically detrimental. But that wasn't the point.
"Yeah. I mean, Sora wouldn't make stuff like this up." Yang agreed with a nod shared by the rest of Team JNPR.
"I mean, you guys already know Sora better than us, so I guess we'll take your words for it too." Sun said with a shrug.
"And hey, maybe when we find Kairi, you can ask if she remembers anything, Sora." Goofy said encouragingly, patting the boy on the shoulder.
"Hey, where'd Blake go?" Nora piped up, looking around. Blake was right beside them moment ago listening to Sora, but now she was just gone.
"Huh? Blake?" Ruby said, looking around for the feline faunus.
"Oh. She went upstairs." Yang said, pointing up to the second floor.
Upon the second floor of the library, Blake was still admiring the sheer amount of books lining the shelves. "What a collection. I don't think even the library at Beacon had this many books." she said out loud, her voice filled with awe as she admired the long stretching, filled bookshelves. She perked up at the familiar heavy footfall of Beast who seemed to be staring at her with a...wistful expression. "Uh...Beast? What is it?"
"You...love books?" Beast said with a much softer tone in his voice. One that sounded...nostalgic.
Blake wasn't sure where he was going with that question, but nodded and answered, "Umm...yes. Why?"
"Nothing. It just...reminds me of Belle." Beast said before glancing to the shelves that were full to the brim. "I've never known anyone who loved books half as much as her. I believe you and her would get along well."
Hearing him say that, Blake couldn't help feeling a bit flattered. And all the more interested in meeting the woman that their furry companion was so determined to reunite with. "Belle...she really is important to you...isn't she?" she asked.
"More than anything..." Beast answered with a solemn nod as he looked along the bookshelves. "I remember the day I gave her permission to use my castle's library. That everything within it was my gift to her. When she told me how wonderful it was, and thanked me for it, she...smiled so brightly...so beautifully." The shadow of a smile seemed to touch the edges of his lips...but it never seemed to cross the threshold into a true smile. "One of my favorite activities was reading those stories together. She...even taught my how to read again." His head hung with that longing expression dominating his entire being. "I want to have moments like that with her, once again. I want to hold her in my arms and have more time with her as part of my life. And I will make it happen again, once I rescue her."
Blake couldn't help feeling a pang of familiarity with the Beast. Particularly his love and devotion toward someone who shared her passion for literature. But that was a minor one compared to...whatever it was that she found herself focusing on. Something about the Beast reminded her of...someone she preferred to forget...but more with...what she hoped could have been. She banished those thoughts as best as she could as she stepped forward and lay her hand on Beast's shoulder. "I know you will, Beast." she assured him, drawing a morose...but grateful glance from the ferocious yet tender blue eyed creature.
Ruby, Yang, and Pyrrha watched the pair from the side, feeling great sympathy for the Beast...but also feeling rather...uplifted by how deeply he cared for Belle. "I think Belle is more than just a friend to him." Ruby whispered dreamily.
An observation which, perhaps was quite obvious. But one that Pyrrha agreed with wholeheartedly. "Yes...I think it's love." she observed with the same dreamy air as the red hooded huntress beside her.
Yang simply looked between the two with a silent smile. Her gaze eventually shifted to Blake, happy to see her still coming out of that shell of hers. And though Yang didn't say it out loud, she couldn't help thinking that when her favorite Faunus truly reached out to people like this...Blake really was a remarkable girl.