I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters.
Swarm
Tyler stepped out from between the stands just as the blonde soldier from Hero's Duty, Sergeant Calhoun, punched Ralph, knocking him to the ground.
"Hope you're happy," she snarled. "This game is going down, and it's all because of you!"
"How many are there?" Tyler asked.
"Thousands," Calhoun said. "Good to see you three. You can help me cover this game's people while they evacuate."
Tyler swallowed hard. They couldn't fight thousands. They couldn't fight hundreds. Images of his world breaking apart began to fill his mind. But then, he looked at the scoreboard, seeing Vanellope's name in second place. She couldn't leave. Alice filled his head and he clenched his fists.
"Vanellope can't escape," Tyler said. "She'll be killed."
"And it's all this idiot's fault," Calhoun said.
"We need a beacon," Tyler said. "Is there any kind of portable beacon in your game?"
"No," Calhoun said. "Don't you think I'd have brought it instead of hunting the cy-bug?"
"Probably," Tyler sighed. "Can we make a beacon?"
"Do you have twenty pounds of uranium in your pockets?" Calhoun asked.
"I didn't mean an actual beacon," Tyler said. "I mean something like a beacon."
Before she could answer, cy-bugs began to explode out of the ground, swarming into the sky as the candy people around them began to scream. The cy-bugs were different. They looked like they were made of candy."
"Did they...mutate?" Tyler asked.
"They become what they eat," Calhoun said.
Tyler nodded, summoning his keyblade. "Everyone run! Get to Game Central Station!"
There was no argument. Everyone stampeded toward the exit. Ralph glanced at the map just as several cy-bugs landed on the finish line's arch. Tyler blasted them all with a lightning spell as Sazh, Lightning, and Calhoun all opened fire, Sazh and Lightning both using magic along with their guns.
"Ralph, we'll need your strength," Tyler said.
"What can I do?" Ralph asked.
"Wreck it!" Tyler shouted just as a cy-bug landed in front of him.
Ralph smashed both fists onto its head instantly and it popped like a zit. Tyler grimaced before jumping, splitting one cy-bug's stomach open then spinning and slashing two as they flew past. As he landed, one landed in front of him and he slashed it across the face in an upward strike, throwing it backward.
"This isn't working!" Tyler said, the swarm growing as more and more flew out of the hole. "Everyone retreat to the bridge!"
Before they could run, Felix shouted about the screen and everyone looked, seeing King Candy and Vanellope playing tug of war with a candy metal rod, Vanellope's cart stuck on the nose of King Candy's and Vanellope starting to glitch a little. Where the static over her when she glitched was blue, when it spread to King Candy, it was red, and for a brief instant, he looked like he was supposed to. White jumpsuit, white hands and face, white helmet, yellow eyes and teeth. Finally, he glitched enough that his disguise fell away completely and he looked down at himself before glaring at Vanellope. Then, he dropped back down, revving his car's engine and flipping her onto the side, Vanellope stuck in the driver's seat as it headed for a stone pillar in the road. Then, just before she hit, she glitched, teleporting out of the way, making Turbo swerve to avoid it, Vanellope pulling ahead again. Tyler grinned just before a spiked leg tore his side open. He shouted in pain, spinning and slashing the cy-bug before Lightning healed her, several cy-bugs flying at her.
Tyler's hand snapped out and a black sphere appeared behind them, dragging them all in and crushing them into tiny balls that dropped to the ground before exploding like goo hand grenades. Lightning smiled and nodded and Tyler looked up at the swarm. The entire swarm had started spiraling and was preparing to fly down at them. Tyler glanced back at the screen to see if Vanellope was okay, only to instead see Turbo drive into a cy-bug, being eaten hole.
"What happens if a cy-bug eats a person?" Tyler asked, blasting the swarm rapidly light lightning, fire, and ice spells.
"They don't," Calhoun said. "Why?"
"Turbo just got eaten," Tyler said.
"God help him," Calhoun said. "Come on! We gotta get out of here!"
"She's almost back!" Felix shouted.
"Bring it home kid!" Ralph shouted. "The finish line's wide open!"
Tyler glanced toward Vanellope just as more and more cy-bug geysers began to open along the track. Then, one opened under her, launching her into the lollipop trees nearby, smashing her cart into pieces.
"We're out of time!" Calhoun shouted.
"Go!" Tyler shouted.
Calhoun took off on a flying surfboard she had with her, Ralph and Felix running to Vanellope. Tyler looked to the cy-bugs, seeing hundreds scurrying along the track toward them. He grit his teeth, slashing his keyblade and sending fireballs shooting out of the blade, blasting the cy-bugs back. As he did, Lightning raised a hand, lightning beginning to rain down on the cy-bugs rapidly. Sazh, on the other hand, was sitting on the shoulder of a massive, red and black robot-looking thing with a huge pickaxe-shaped weapon with two barrels in the end that were rapid-firing fireballs into the swarm above them, Sazh doing the same with his pistols, the robot's free hand hurling much, much larger fireballs into the swarm.
"Felix, Ralph, now or never!" Tyler shouted.
However, just as he said this, a geyser opened below the finish line itself. Tyler swore and Lightning summoned Odin, collapsing against Tyler, who picked her up instantly, leaping onto Odin, who was in horse form, and Odin took off at a gallop, Sazh and his summon following as it scooped up Ralph and Felix, Vanellope teleporting onto Odin behind Tyler, clinging to his shirt. Tyler looked down at Lightning. She was pale and sweat was pouring down her face, but she was breathing.
"Lightning, you still with me?" Tyler asked.
"I just...overused...my magic," Lightning said, voice hoarse and barely above a whisper.
"Rest," Tyler said, taking her gunblade, which he was now glad he had asked to be taught to use. "I'll handle it from here."
Lightning sighed, drifting off almost instantly, Tyler keeping his free arm around her to hold her against himself as they rode. Finally, they reached the bridge, Odin stopping and allowing everyone to get off before transforming. Tyler gently lay Lightning down on Calhoun's hover board and summoned his keyblade, holding her gunblade in his left hand.
"Vanellope, can you get through?" Tyler asked.
Vanellope walked toward the gate but when she held her hand out, a wall of blue energy appeared, blocking her. He slashed it with his keyblade but it passed through harmlessly.
"It's alright, just go without me," Vanellope said.
"I can't do that," Ralph said. "There's got to be something we can do!"
"We can't do anything without a beacon," Calhoun said, holding a grenade. "We gotta blow up this exit. That should stop the cy-bugs from getting through before the game gets unplugged."
"A beacon?" Ralph said, looking toward the Diet Coke volcano. "Would a volcano work?"
"A volcano?" Calhoun asked. "Well...if it could erupt long enough, maybe. But that's assuming that the cy-bugs would be attracted to it at all."
"I'm assuming!" Ralph said, sprinting to Calhoun's hover board and passing Lightning to Tyler, stepping on and pushing off the ground, streaking away from the bridge they were on.
"Dammit," Tyler said, kneeling and setting Lightning down, leaning her upper body against himself. "Even when there's no heartless we're still fighting monsters to survive."
"I'll take cy-bugs over heartless any day," Sazh said, standing beside him, Odin on the other side and Sazh's summon, Brynhildr he thought it was named, on Sazh's other side.
Calhoun stepped up beside Odin and glanced at Tyler. "You know, if the point of my game wasn't an endless battle, I'd definitely hire you guys for real to help me win."
"With all of my friends present, we'd probably be able to," Tyler said. "Out of the six of us, we have four that can summon these things."
"You are all some very unique people," she said. "Is the horse yours?"
"No," Tyler said. "I can't summon. Odin is Lightning's."
Suddenly, cy-bugs began to land on the bridge, swarming toward them. Calhoun, Sazh, Brynhildr, Odin, and Tyler all opened fire, cy-bugs exploding rapidly, barely making any progress. But they did make progress. Tyler struggled to aim Lightning's gunblade with one hand, but he was holding Lightning against himself with the other and was too tired to use magic. His arm began to ache from holding the weapon outstretched for an extended period of time while firing it, his shots growing more and more inaccurate, bounding off of the cy-bugs hard candy bodies more often than actually hitting them, granted leaving cracks or small gouges, but still. Finally, he let his arm drop, setting the gunblade down and summoning his keyblade, which he had never really understood exactly how light it was, then hurled it into the cy-bugs, killing a few before summoning it back and hurling it again. After about the fifth time, he set it down, shaking his arm for a moment and picked up Lightning's pistol, shooting twice before lowering it and giving his arm a minute to recover. He fired again, looking to the volcano as a single cy-bug, who he could swear had King Candy's upper body in place of a head, flew high into the sky with Ralph in its hands.
"Ralph!" Vanellope shouted, trying to break out of Felix's grip.
Just then, Calhoun's pistol ran dry. He glanced at her, not having realized that her rifle had run dry as well, but it was lying on the ground. He looked back at the cy-bugs, which were creeping forward inch by inch.
"Tyler, we're about to lose the Eidolons," Sazh said, referring to Odin and Brynhildr. "Time's almost up."
"How much more ammo do you have?" Tyler asked.
"In our world, ammo's not a thing," Sazh said. "The weapons generate their own bullets. You may have noticed you haven't reloaded Lightning's gun yet? So a lot."
"Can you hold them back?" Tyler asked.
"Maybe," Sazh said. "Probably not."
"Calhoun, take Lightning," Tyler said, Calhoun doing so instantly, Tyler switching Lightning's gunblade to its sword mode and holding it in his left hand as he summoned his keyblade. "Sazh, shoot me, and we're not friends anymore."
Then, he sprinted forward as Brynhildr and Odin both disappeared in a flash of light, their final spell sending waves of flame and lightning blasting along the bridge, thinning the cy-bugs out a bit. Tyler reached them and began to hack and slash rapidly, slaughtering them as Sazh shot any he missed, careful not to shoot him. Tyler felt a clawed leg tear his side open and forced his body to move faster. Another tore into his right thigh, and he pushed himself faster. He refused to let them through. He had failed his world, but he wouldn't fail this one. He wouldn't allow Vanellope to be hurt. He wouldn't allow Sazh, Calhoun, Felix, or any of the other people inhabiting this world to be hurt. And he would be damned if he let Lightning be hurt again. His muscles screamed in protest, and his body was growing suspiciously cool. Each time he moved, instead of feeling the heat the cy-bugs generated, he felt a cold chill. His wounds didn't hurt anymore, which probably wasn't good. And the ache in his muscles was fading. Still he fought. Anything within range was slashed. He heard, more than felt, his left thigh be slashed, judging by the ripping sound. He felt something step on his right foot, feeling pressure more than pain.
Then, it was suddenly over. He was lying on the ground, feeling like he was lying in ice, and the cy-bugs were flying away, heading for the volcano, where boiling-hot Diet Coke was spraying into the sky a hundred feet. Tyler sighed, eyes shifting to the sky directly overhead. It was black, but there were no stars. He sighed. He loved the stars. It would have been nice to see them.
He forced himself to look to the side, seeing Lightning lying on the ground in the distance. Someone's legs appeared in front of him as they knelt down. He looked up, seeing Sazh. Sazh couldn't heal, though. Only Lightning, Vanille, and Tyler could do that. It was alright. Lightning was safe. He looked back at Lightning as her eyes slowly slid open. She stared at him for several seconds before her eyes slowly widened as she realized what she was seeing. She leapt up, sprinting over to him and looking at his wounds. Panic was written all over her face. He didn't like that. He wanted to see her smile. Just one more time.
He lifted a hand, reaching up to her cheek, struggling to tug the corner of her mouth up into a smile, succeeding only in brushing her cheek, some of his blood smearing onto it from his hand. tears began to leak from her eyes as he lowered his hand, staring at the blood on his palm. He tried to reach back up but his hand fell, suddenly feeling like it was made of lead. Lightning held her hands a few inches apart, face screwing up in concentration and pain as a ball of blue light formed between her hands. He knew what she was doing. If she used that spell, she'd die.
He forced his hand to respond, lifting it before letting it drop onto hers, the spell fading, stopping her before she could heal him. Her eyes widened, but before she could try again, another ball of light hit him, spreading over his body seconds before his vision faded anyway.
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