I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.
Heartless
Tyler knelt beside the king as he watched Rourke, Milo, Helga, and Kida sink into the ground. Rourke had punched the king, but being fifty thousand odd years old, the equivalent of about a hundred in normal people time according to Milo, the old man's frail body hadn't been able to take the blow. It was shutting down and bleeding internally.
"Hang on, we can heal you," Tyler said, summoning his keyblade and casting the usual healing spell.
The light faded after a moment, however, and left him in the same state.
"I...I don't understand," Tyler said, looking to Lightning and Fang, who wore matching emotionless masks. "Why isn't it working?"
"Even magic can only heal so much," Lightning said. "He's beyond our help."
"What if we both tried?" Tyler asked, Lightning shaking her head.
"You would only tire yourself out," Lightning said. "You're going to need your strength."
"For what?" Tyler asked.
"Stopping Rourke," Lightning said.
"But the king-"
"Will die either way," Fang said. "Think about it Tyler. Rourke is taking the crystal. If he succeeds, even if you healed the king, the entire city of Atlantis, to include the newly healed king, would die anyway. We can't let Rourke escape."
Tyler nodded, staring down at the King, who stared back up at him knowingly.
"Save my daughter," the king said. "Please, save Kida."
"We will," Tyler said.
Just then, the circle of stone rose back up to them with three people and what looked like a woman made of crystal. It took Tyler several moments to realize that the crystal woman, who was now walking toward the bridge, was Kida.
"Milo, what the hell happened?" Tyler asked.
"She fused with the crystal," Milo said as they all walked away.
He followed, leaving Tyler and his two companions behind with the King and Sweet, who was tending to the king.
"Your majesty, may I ask a question?" Tyler asked.
The king nodded.
"Have any other outsiders passed through here?" Tyler asked. "A young girl, or a woman with pink hair like my friend?"
"No," the king said. "Why are you looking for them?"
"They were taken by creatures called heartless," Tyler said. "I haven't seen any heartless here, but I thought maybe our family might be."
"You mean the dark ones," the king said. "The crystal holds them at bay."
"What?" Tyler asked, eyes widening as Lightning and Fang both stared at him.
"Before the crystal, the dark ones invaded our world," the king said. "They destroyed everything they touched. They turned our people on each other, brother against brother, friend against friend. They turned them into monsters. We could not hold them back. But then, we found the crystal. It possessed the power to drive back the dark ones, and since then they have not returned. I fear without the crystal, the dark ones may return. If your friends were taken by the dark ones, then I'm afraid they are not here. I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Tyler said. "If the heartless return before we can get the crystal back, we'll deal with them. It's kind of what we do."
Just then, the ground shook with an explosion. Tyler looked to Sweet, who didn't look surprised.
"That'll be the bridge," Sweet said. "Rourke's plan to keep the Atlanteans from following us after the crystal."
"Your majesty, do you have another way out?" Tyler asked. "Anything we can use to go after Rourke without the bridge?"
"There should be some fliers left on the far side of the city," the king said, pointing. "You will need crystals. My guards will accompany you."
The two guards, twins with matching "J" shaped tattoos on opposite sides of their faces, nodded. Tyler, Lightning, and Fang left, following the guards until they found a couple dozen stone sculptures of fish and hammer-head sharks. They all walked to one of the sharks, staring at the writing and design in front of what was clearly a seat.
"What is this?" Tyler asked. "This is a flier?"
He brushed his hand over the design, wiping off a layer of dust before pulling vines off of it. He looked around. The area they were in had been under water earlier, but it looked like the water had all disappeared without the crystal, just as the cavern had darkened. Tyler found a small slot and stopped.
"I think I need a crystal," Tyler said.
"You do," Milo said, walking toward him with a crystal. "Place your hand gently on the pad, insert a crystal, half a turn left, quarter turn back. Then you can take the crystal out and still fly it."
"Is there a limit to its battery?" Tyler asked.
"Not sure," Milo said.
"Is the king..." Tyler trailed off as Milo stared at the ground.
"We need to get moving," Milo said.
"Right," Tyler nodded as Atlantean warriors began to walk over, one of them handing Tyler, Lightning, and Fang each a crystal, which only glowed faintly now, as opposed to their bright luminescence before.
All three pulled the crystals on, watching as Milo started up a fish, lifting off into the air. The others quickly doing the same. Tyler glanced at Lightning and followed Milo's instructions, his shark lurching forward and into a wall. He groaned, gently setting his hand back on the pad and focused, thinking what he wanted the vehicle to do, and the vehicle responded. He lifted his hand and thought, again it responded. He smiled.
"Not so hard," he said. "Milo! We may get some unwanted guests that try to interfere with the mission! They're not human so leave them to me, Lightning, and Fang!"
Milo nodded as the vehicles all lifted off into the air before speeding away from the city. Before they were even at the edge of Atlantis's raised section, darkness began to condense on the walls of the cavern and the ceiling above them, hundreds of thousands of glowing yellow eyes appearing in it. Heartless began to pour out of the darkness, humanoid ones with white and blue striped bandannas with purple bat-like wings, ones that looked similar but with a brown leather cap with a propeller on top and smaller brown bat wings, giant dragon-like creatures with shredded wings in place of front legs, larger similar creatures in a variety of colors and with crooked tails, spiked tails, barbed tails, and one tail on fire. There were heartless that looked like knights in several colors of armor and in several sizes, all of them wearing spiked knuckle guards and with a pair of massive spirals as wings. There were pot-shaped heartless that came in blue, green, yellow, and red. There were heartless that looked like humanoids but with a pair of horns, more spiked bat wings, sharp teeth, and claws.
"Heartless!" Lightning shouted.
"What are those things!?" Milo shouted.
"Keep going!" Tyler shouted, summoning his keyblade. "We'll handle them!"
Milo nodded and Tyler's group arched up at the cloud of heartless above them, screams echoing from below. Tyler slashed his keyblade, focusing hard and sending out several fireballs, gritting his teeth as he felt the drop in his strength. The fireballs exploded among the heartless, destroying a dozen, and the concussion shook Tyler's vehicle. He reached down instinctively, placing his hand on the pad again, a beam of energy shooting out of its mouth into the heartless, blasting a couple dozen of them in a line. He grinned, flying into the gap he had made, the heartless ignoring the city in favor of the closer target. A heartless flew at him from the right and he slashed it, destroying it. Another flew at him and he slashed that as well, then slammed his hand into the pad again, blasting even more. He shot along through the cloud, slashing a line of heartless before the cloud began to disperse, thinning rapidly as bullets began to fly past, along with energy blasts and spells. He launched a fireball into a group of them and they were destroyed, revealing Fang flying toward him, staff spinning rapidly and slashing anything that got close to her.
Tyler blasted more with his vehicle's cannon and they were replaced by a gigantic, red, dragon-like heartless that flew down at them, bellowing a deafening roar. Tyler shot up at it, Fang dealing with the heartless below him. As he neared it, Tyler fired an energy blast into its face, the blast exploding and the heartless roaring in pain before a wall of fireballs shot down at Tyler from above. He slashed one, the keyblade sending it flying backward into another, both exploding, then shot around another, getting up beside the heartless and slashing, carving its side open from neck to the tip of its tail, where Tyler veered away from it. The heartless roared, curving around and flying at him again, only for him to send a bolt of lightning into its head from the tip of his keyblade. He fired an energy blast into the heartless ahead of himself, clearing himself a path as the creature roared, flying after him. A smaller tan one flew at him from the right and he slashed downward, forcing it into the larger one's path where it was crushed by the larger one's teeth. Tyler flipped his shark over, blasting the heartless again as he rolled right-side-up again, slashing along its underbelly then removing its right foot. It roared again just as Lightning burst out of the cloud of heartless, opening fire with her gun, the bullets tearing into the heartless at the same time as both she and Tyler blasted it with their vehicle's energy blasts.
The creature roared, beginning to fall only to snap its wings open, streaking around at Lightning as a massive fireball formed in its jaws. Tyler hurled the keyblade, the weapon spinning as it flew into the fireball, causing it to explode. Pieces of the heartless's head flew in every direction as the body faded into smoke and shadow, Tyler summoning the keyblade back to himself in time to slash a pair of flying knight heartless out of the air.
"There are too many!" Lightning shouted as the cloud above them began to press downward, both diving and blasting their way through the heartless until they found Fang, clearing a space around her before forming into a V and taking off into the heartless again, blasting and slashing their way through them.
Finally, a light began to shine from below and they dove, breaking free of the heartless and looking around, seeing a massive sphere of energy, with a ring of energy spinning around it, sending out beams of light into the heads of a couple dozen massive stone statues that began to walk toward the edges of the pillar. At the same time, beams of light began to be fired into the horde of heartless, destroying them rapidly and causing them to retreat back toward the spots of darkness they had formed.
"We won!" Tyler grinned just as one wall exploded, massive chunks of molten rock flying inward as lava flooded out of the hole.
Below them, the statues held their hands out, forming energy shields that began to grow, blocking molten rocks and quickly forming a dome.
"Get inside!" Tyler shouted, the other two both nodding and streaking downward rapidly.
A single heartless, a dragon-like one with a purple body and a blade-like tail, shrieked as it shot down from above, passing Tyler and ignoring the energy blast he sent into its back as it shot toward Lightning. He swore, pushing his flier to go faster, feeling it beginning to shudder beneath him. Lightning shouted in surprise and pain as the heartless flipped and slashed with its tail, splitting her back open and destroying her flier. Tyler leapt off of his, summoning his keyblade in time to drive it into the heartless's thigh, pulling himself downward. He could see Lightning, now struggling to keep from slipping off the heartless's snout and into its mouth. He pulled himself up, gripping the front of the heartless's wing and ripped the keyblade out, driving it into the heartless's chest, twisting and making it curl, roaring in pain. He pulled himself to the keyblade before focusing and spinning, ripping his blade out of the heartless just as a sphere of gravity magic appeared around the heartless, rapidly crushing it into oblivion.
Tyler looked around wildly, seeing the dome rapidly nearing completion below them, Fang inside now, and Lightning tumbling above him, seeming unconscious. He spread his arms and legs for a moment, catching her as she passed, then tilted his body, shooting sideways to the flier that fell lifelessly beside him. He shoved his crystal into it, starting it up, and clung onto it with one hand and Lightning with the others, shooting downward rapidly. Just as they reached the dome, he dove off with Lightning, the pair slipping through the last of the opening less than a second before it closed and the flier exploded against the dome just before lava surged over it. Tyler turned so that he would crash down first, for what little good it would do, only for Fang and Sweet to reach them, flying downward and grabbing the pair, leveling out just before hitting the ground then landing. Tyler dropped to his knees, his entire body trembling and weak from the after effects of nearly falling to his death, and set Lightning on the ground, healing her. For a moment, nothing happened. Finally, her eyes fluttered open just long enough for her to smile up at him before she passed out again.
"She's going to be okay," Sweet said. "Whatever you did, she's fully healed now."
"The heartless wasn't able to infect her either," Fang said. "She's going to be fine. She just needs rest."
Tyler nodded as he stared up at the already solidified lava around them, and at Kida, who was still glowing like the sun. Just as he did, cracks began to spread over the stone before it crumbled away and water surged outward from the center of the raised area once again, steam shooting up to fill the area for a moment. Tyler sighed as he saw things were okay again just as a beam of light reached down from the ball of light above them. After a moment, Kida floated down from the steam still filling the air above them and Milo rushed forward, catching her when she reached him. Tyler smiled as she stirred, staring up at him.
"Milo?" Kida whispered, seeming exhausted.
Milo smiled until she held up a small bracelet, tears forming in her eyes. He hugged her and she cried into his shoulder for several minutes until he pushed her back and nodded past her. She turned to look and smiled, seeing that her city was back to how it should be, the Atlanteans waiting below the cliff they were on and cheering when Kida stepped up to the edge.
"We should probably go soon, shouldn't we?" Tyler asked.
"Yes," Fang nodded, pulling her and Lightning's crystal off. She reached for his but it flashed, light passing along the blade of his keyblade for a moment before fading. She grinned. "Looks like you found a keychain."
"Really?" he blinked, staring at it. "If you say so."
Fang handed her two crystals to Kida who smiled and accepted them, nodding, before Fang walked back over to the others, pulling out a small crystal sphere, their mysterious pilot's face appearing in it.
"We're ready," Fang said.
The pilot nodded and a moment later, the three of them were enveloped by light and teleported back to the ship.
"No sign of them?" Vanille asked.
"No," Tyler said, picking Lightning up gently. "I'm going to put her in her bed. Then I'll fill you guys in."
Vanille nodded and he walked out of the room.
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