I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters. I don't know if I ever mentioned which Gummi Ship it was, so picture Falcon Peak from Kingdom Hearts 2.
Ambushed
Tyler tried to move, to call out, but he couldn't. No sound passed his lips, and his body was immobile. He could only watcha as the darkness closed in around Lightning. He couldn't look away. Couldn't blink. He couldn't do anything to save her.
"Tyler!" Lightning called out, her voice shaking with fear as she walked through the black void, looking around and stumbling several times. Her eyes were wide with panic, and Tyler could see her shaking, even from the distance he was at. "Tyler!"
Darkness, visible even in the otherwise black void as being darker than the rest of the void, began to close in on her from all sides.
"Tyler, please!" Lightning pleaded, tears falling down her cheeks. "Please, come back! Don't leave me! Help me!" She fell to her knees, sobbing, and darkness began to gather on her legs, spreading upward. "Where did you go?" she sobbed. "Why? Why am I alone? Where are you!?"
The darkness swallowed her entirely just s Tyler's body began to respond again.
"Lightning!" Tyler shouted, sitting bolt upright, eyes wide and looking around his suddenly bright surroundings frantically and keyblade in hand.
"Tyler?" Lightning asked, sitting beside him in the bed, the sheet pooling on her legs as she set a hand on his arm, making him lower his keyblade and turning his head to her, resting her forehead against his. "I'm right here. Everything's okay."
Tyler swallowed hard, letting his keyblade disappear before cupping her face and closing his eyes, trying to fight back the tears in his eyes from the terror and the ocean of guilt still crushing him from the nightmare. He focused on her presence. Her smell, her warmth, the feeling of her skin under his hands and her hands gently trailing up and down his upper arms. Slowly, he began to calm.
"Talk to me," Lightning said. "What happened?"
Tyler shook his head, wiping his eyes. "It was just a nightmare. It's nothing."
Lightning nodded, kissing him for a few seconds. "We should get cleaned up. Do you mind if I use your shower?"
"Sure," Tyler nodded.
Lightning smiled and kissed him before standing and walking to the bathroom door before pausing and looking back at him, seeing him admiring her still-nude form. She smiled knowingly. "I could use a hand getting my back."
Tyler grinned instantly and stood, joining her in the bathroom, all thoughts of darkness and nightmares gone from his mind.
Lightning kissed Tyler one last time before leaving his room in her pajamas from the night before, heading back to her own room to get dressed, and he turned to his dresser, pulling out the crystal keychain from Atlantis. He summoned his keyblade and swapped the keychain, the keyblade instantly being enveloped in light, leaving a different one behind. This one had a guard formed of elongated crystals, spiked on the ends and with about eight sides in the front and back, then crystal reaching off of the tops and bottoms to connect them with a round, blue crystal grip in the center of the guards. The blade was a formed of roughly-cut crystal that reached about three feet long, the blade being jagged along both the front and back edges, then had several crystal spikes sticking out of the back and angled inward so their points were near each other as the teeth. However, as soon as the keyblade had assumed this form, the tip of the blade clicked against the floor as its enormous weight dragged his hand down.
He could feel his magic practically racing toward the keyblade, but when he tried to lift it with both hands, he found he could barely do so. He groaned. That was just stupid. What use was a keyblade that high in magic if he couldn't even aim it at his target? He sighed, switching the keychain back. He'd have to settle for using his magic with his free hand instead. Magic or no, he still needed to be able to actually use his keyblade. He sighed. Maybe he'd find a better keychain. Or maybe he could make one at a synthesis shop. He sighed, standing and getting dressed before brushing his teeth and doing anything else he needed to do to get ready for the day, then walked up to the main cockpit of the ship, leaning on the railing and looking out of it. They were drifting past several clouds of darkness, of basically every color besides blue or black, and it occurred to him he didn't know where they were going.
"Hey, where are we heading?" Tyler asked.
"Twilight Town," Oswald said.
Tyler nodded. He would have preferred to settle down somewhere a little more tropical than Twilight Town, but it was safe there, so he could accept it. After a few minutes, Lightning wrapped her arms around him, kissing him on the back of the shoulder.
"So, you find out where we're heading?" Lightning asked.
"Twilight Town, apparently," Tyler said.
"That works," Lightning nodded, looking past him out the window, then stepped around him, frowning. "Hey, is it just me, or is that cloud of darkness getting closer?"
Tyler followed her gaze to a massive cloud of green and gold darkness, and nodded slowly. "You're right. Oswald, there's a darkness cloud coming at us from the left."
"What?" Oswald frowned. "They don't...move." His eyes widened slowly as he stared at it before he swore harshly, yanking a chain over him, a siren blaring instantly as he swerved away from it, kicking the ship's thrusters to full power and speeding around another cloud.
Tyler and Lightning clung onto the railing as they were nearly thrown to the floor in the sudden acceleration. Before Tyler could even consider asking what he was doing, a roar rang out from outside the ship, the sound vibrating the ship He swore, he and Lightning sprinting to their seats and strapping themselves in.
"I'm sending you to the auxiliary guns!" Oswald shouted before pressing a button on the ship's yoke, the floor under their seats opening and both dropping into them.
A moment later, their seats dropped into a pair of small glass bubbles on the underside of the ship, which Tyler always forgot they had. Each glass bubble was able to turn and rotate almost a hundred eighty degrees in any direction below the ship, and there were two on top that mirrored theirs, and each had four Fira-type Cannon Gummis placed around them. Tyler swung his guns around behind them and his blood ran cold. There was what Tyler assumed was a Heartless following them that looked like it was made out of some kind of thick black goo. It was more than three ties the size of the ship and had the general form of a centaur but with its four legs on the sides and bending more like an insects, strings of goo attached between individual segments here and there, a long tail ending in a point that was flailing and waving behind it as it flew after them, a pair of black, solid, round spikes jutting out from the sides of its waist where the two species' bodies joined, arms made entirely out of goo with blobs in place of hands and bits of dark goo falling off of them and being left behind, spikes similar to those on its waist extending from its shoulders, a head that was little more than a mound of goo atop its body with more goo endlessly running down it and its mouth open as though in a permanent moan, green light glowing from inside but strings of goo stretching between its lips like stitches, a pair of glowing green eyes set into a glare, and five flattened, blade-like spikes extending up from its upper back and spread out in a fan.
Tyler and Lightning both opened fire at it, and after a moment, two more streams of Fire-type magic blasts joined in from the top of the ship as well. The blasts slammed into the Heartless rapidly, bursting into small fireballs on impact, and after a moment, the ship's pilot-controlled cannons also opened fire, the Gravira-type cannons forming much, much larger explosions. However, it was doing nothing, and the heartless was gaining rapidly. It swiped at the ship with its right arm and the ship lurched violently as it avoided the arm, and the rain of blobs of black goo it sent at them following the swipe. Tyler did his best to shoot the blobs, scattering them, and the others did the same. The Heartless moved to strike again as the ship was upside down compared to the Heartless, and Tyler focused his fire on it's upper body's head, for lack of a better idea. The shots had no more effect than before, and after a moment, Oswald began to once again avoid the swipe and subsequent rain of black blobs. Finally, just as he stopped swerving, a second head suddenly protruded from the front of the Heartless's animal body, the head forming something like a cone-shaped head with the mouth reaching almost to the body and with strings of goo stitching it closed like the other head's mouth, then a pair of glaring eyes. However, unlike the upper body's head, this one had yellow light glowing from inside, as opposed to the upper body's green, and had pointed black teeth inside its mouth. Everyone instantly focused their fire on the head, only for it to, once again, have no effect. Then, the new head's mouth stretched open, a roar echoing out that Tyler could feel vibrate the ship, before a sphere of darkness began to form in the thing's mouth. Tyler and the others all targeted the sphere and the inside of the Heartless's mouth, but after a moment, the sphere fired into a beam of darkness.
Oswald swerved, but the blast managed to clip the back of the ship, blasting a gaping hole in the hull and obliterating the engines. A magic barrier sealed the ship instantly, but they were hurtling through the void between worlds now with no way to control their flight. Suddenly, Tyler's seat jerked into motion, rising back to the cockpit before the floor closed and he found the others all present, Lightning, Fang, and Noel all returning from their guns at the same time as him.
"What do we do?" Tyler asked, seeing the Heartless still chasing them as they spiraled through the void, and seeing a cloud of darkness approaching rapidly from the other side.
"Pray!" Oswald shouted over Alice's hysterical screaming and crying, as well as the alarms blaring, telling him more systems were beginning to shut down, including life support.
Then, they passed into the cloud of darkness and the ship suddenly lurched violently and Tyler's head slammed into the back of his seat, rendering him unconscious instantly.
Tyler groaned, raising a hand to his head, which was pounding like he had a severe concussion, which he probably did. He opened his eyes, looking around slowly, and found they were all still in their seats, and he was the only one conscious. The glass dome of the cockpit had shattered, but they had crashed into a world, apparently, since he could see ground outside. It looked like some kind of barren wasteland, but he would accept it if it meant getting away from the giant goo Heartless that had been chasing them. He summoned his keyblade, focusing before green light flashed from it, shining from all of them as he healed them all. Then, he let his keyblade disappear and unhooked his seat's restraints. The ship had the front left side plowed into the ground, resulting in it sitting at an angle and with the ship buried up until the break in the dome, so getting out wouldn't be a problem. He gently shook Lightning's shoulder, and she stirred, groaning, then looking around.
"Well, any landing you can walk away from, right?" she groaned, unhooking herself. "Let's get the others off the sip."
Tyler nodded and they began to get the others and carry them off. Tyler started with Vanille and Oswald, since Oswald weighed about a grant total of twenty five pounds at most. He slid down the slanted floor carefully, then walked a short distance from the ship and lay them both down, returning to the ship as Lightning arrived with Alice and Dajh. Alice woke as soon as Lightning set her down and began to cry, Lightning beginning to comfort her. Tyler brought out Fang next, then took Alice from Lightning, rocking her in his arms gently and getting her to stop crying within a couple of minutes.
"I've got to help Lightning get everyone else outside so they can rest," Tyler said. "Wait here for me, alright? I'll just be a couple minutes."
Alice nodded, sniffing, and Tyler smiled.
"That's my girl," Tyler smiled, setting her on her feet.
He headed back into the ship and grabbed Noel as Lightning left the ship with Serah. Then, as Lightning was checking on everyone, Tyler went back for Sazh, bringing him out and doing a quick headcount.
"No one's hurt," Lightning said. "Did you heal us?"
"Yeah," Tyler said. "Help me wake everyone up."
Tyler nodded and they quickly began to wake everyone. Most of them woke up about the same as Lightning, except Fang, who asked if they could go again, and Sazh, who was worried about Dajh even before himself, understandably.
"I can't believe we survived," Oswald said, standing and looking around. "It's a miracle we found a world to crash on before that Heartless caught us."
"What was that thing, anyway?" Tyler asked.
"I have no idea," Oswald said. "I've never seen something like that before. I've always known those darkness clouds were dangerous, but I had no idea they could actually form Heartless. Especially one that massive and powerful."
"What do we do?" Tyler asked.
Oswald shook his head, looking around again before going rigid. "No. It can't be."
"What?" Tyler asked, following his line of sight and spotting what looked like a dried, dead twig in the distance, blurred by the heat waves, but standing atop a low hill in the distance. "What is it?"
Oswald didn't answer. He walked forward in silence and Tyler looked to Lightning, who shrugged. Tyler followed Oswald, catching up to him at the hill and stopping, eyes widening as he stared out at the field of ancient, rusted, abandoned keyblades before them. All of them had sharpened blades, all of their keychains had long-since rusted off, and all of them looked like they'd just been driven into the ground and abandoned. However, there were thousands of them.
"What...what is this?" Tyler asked.
"It's the Keyblade Graveyard," Oswald said darkly. "Long ago, there was a Keyblade War here. These are the keyblades of those who fought and died here."
"Should we be here?" Tyler asked.
"No," Oswald said darkly. "We need to leave."
"How?" Tyler asked.
"Tyler!" Lightning's voice shrieked suddenly.
Tyler spun, left hand snapping up just in time to form a barrier, which barely stopped the punch the Darkside Heartless suddenly behind him threw. Then, Oswald leapt at it, slashing it's face with his keyblade and destroyed it, flipping and landing on his feet as Heartless began to appear around the ship, including between it and Tyler and Oswald. Oswald swore, swiping his left hand as Oswald aimed his keyblade at the sky, lightning bolts striking the ground over and over in a pair of trails leading from them to the others, clearing them a path. Both of them sprinted through it instantly, reaching the others and turning just as the path finished closing off behind them with new Heartless. Tyler swallowed hard, scanning the Horde. There were Shadows, Soldiers, the ones that looked like knights and had swords, floating jars of various colors, and as he scanned, Darksides began to rise from the horde as well. He took a steadying breath before stilling his thoughts, as he had against Axel. He couldn't afford to be afraid, and he couldn't afford to hesitate. He tightened his grip on his keyblade's grip just as a portal of darkness appeared off to the left, a man wearing the same type of black cloak as Axel wore, but with long blue hair and an "X" shaped scar centered between his eyes stepped out, surveying the group in silence, the Heartless paying him no heed.
"I see," he said finally. "That explains how you were able to survive in Hollow Bastian. There are two keyblade wielders. You have proven yourself to be rather dangerous, Tyler. Our organization would appreciate your help-"
"I'll never work for you!" Tyler snapped. "Take your Heartless and get the Hell out of here!"
"My Heartless?" the man asked. "Why ever would you assume that?"
"Don't give me that shit!" Tyler spat. "They're completely ignoring you, and haven't made a single move to attack since that one Darkside's greeting because you want to chat. Just take a hike!"
"I see," the man said. "You're sharper than we were let to believe. Well, you won't be able to refuse us so easily. You see, your task is quite simple. We just need you to kill Heartless for us. Without being tended to, they will overrun worlds like weeds in a garden. But that's where you Keyblade Wielders come in. We could have done this the easy way, had you accepted our proposal, but you decided on the hard way. Now, thanks to a very opportune run-in with a particularly dangerous Heartless, you no longer have a choice. We need you to kill Heartless, and you wish to survive." He opened a new portal behind himself. "You may begin."
He backed into it, and the moment the portal closed, the Heartless charged. Tyler swore, swiping a hand and sending several bolts of lightning exploding down into the Heartless from above. Then, as he and the other close-range fighters charged, Sazh quickly ushered Dajh and Alice back into the ship, then stood in the break in the dome, firing out over the others.
Tyler slashed a pair of Shadows, then spun, blocking a knight's sword, twisting his hand and deflecting the blade downward before slashing the knight across the chest. A pair of Soldiers leapt at him and he flexed his right hand a ball of Gravity Magic appearing behind them and pulling both in as well as several from below and around it, crushing them all before fading. A floating red jar above him launched several large fireballs at him as he turned to slash another Knight that was moving to pass him and he raised his left arm, forming a barrier that blocked the explosion, which instead killed the Heartless immediately around him. he let the barrier fade and channeled magic into his legs, leaping off the ground and splitting the jar on the way up before focusing magic into the tip of his keyblade as he fell. Then, he slashed, the blade slamming into the ground and sending out an explosion of pure Magic Energy, clearing the area around him. He looked around, seeing the others were all staying close to the ship as well. However, the Dark Sides were closing in, and more Heartless were beginning to form at the back edge of the horde.
He deflected a pair of knights blades and leapt backward before holding out his right hand, sending a Firaga into one and blasting the area around the two. He growled in annoyance and focused, sensing for the light inside of himself.
Alexander, he called to it. We need you.
A blinding light formed before him before fading and leaving Alexander, who waded into the Heartless instantly, slaughtering them. A moment later, the others' Eidolons were there too, all of them wiping out Heartless rapidly. Tyler sighed, falling back toward the ship with the others, then waited. For a couple of minutes, the Eidolons did well, and between the five of them, not a single Heartless was able to get through. Then, they reached the Darksides. Alexander met one with a punch to the face, sending it crashing to the ground, only for two more to grab his arms. He roared, swinging both arms forward and smashing their heads together before both lost their grip, sailing through the air and crashing to the ground. However, while they were distracting Alexander, the smaller Heartless had slipped past him. Tyler glanced to the side and saw a similar situation with the others, though most of them weren't literally throwing around the Darksides. He said most, of course, because Bahamut was. But then, Bahamut was also at still raining blasts of flames on the minor Heartless, as well as exploding balls of blue flames, and massive spheres of blue lightning magic.
Tyler slashed several Shadows and Soldiers before forming a barrier to block a handful of knights' swords. He slashed as he let the barrier fade, knocking their blades aside, then slashed back the other way to kill them. He swiped his left hand, several lightning bolts blasting the heartless around him, then slashed several more Heartless. Suddenly, Hekatoncheir, Vanille's many-handed summon, roared in pain as a Darkside slammed a ball of darkness into its chest, the ball exploding and sending it crashing into Sazh's summon, Brynhildr. Both crashed to the ground before fading in a pair of flashes of light just before a Darkside's fist cratered the ground where they'd been. A moment later, Alexander roared. Tyler slammed his right hand into the ground, forming a massive, spiked ice formation to buy him a few seconds, as well as lift him up over the Heartless, and looked over to Alexander, who was being held down by half a dozen Darksides. He roared again, managing to throw the three on his right arm, but before he could free the other arm, a seventh Darkside formed a massive sphere of darkness in its hand and moved to slam it into Alexander's head.
Tyler held his hand out instantly, releasing Alexander's summon, and the attack missed as Alexander disappeared. Tyler sighed, looking down at the Heartless below him before dropping off and channeling magic into his keyblade before slamming it into the ground, massive spheres of magic erupting from the impact point and slaughtering the Heartless around him as they spiraled around him and spread outward into the Heartless for a few feet. He leapt backward, away from the horde, and regrouped with the others, looking around. Oswald was out in the middle of the horde, jumping and flipping around, slaughtering Heartless everywhere, and Bahamut was doing exceptionally covering the quarter of the circle around the ship they'd left to him, but the others weren't doing well. Even Odin was struggling. Granted, he was struggling against most of the Darksides, who had gone to take him down, but he was struggling all the same.
"This isn't good," Tyler said. "We need a way out of here, now."
"Where's Lightning?" Serah asked suddenly.
Tyler's blood ran cold and he looked around. After a moment, he found her. She'd been cut off from the others, and was surrounded by nothing but knights, who were rushing her constantly. She was doing well, and he though he could see an aura of magic around her, as he had used in Hollow Bastian, but there were simply too many. And as if that wasn't enough, a pair of Darksides were walking toward her.
"Go!" Noel said, sending a barrage of fireballs out into the Heartless from his new sword, which was identical to his last set. "We'll handle things here!"
Tyler nodded, focusing his magic into his body instantly and forming his own aura before taking off. He shot forward, tearing into the heartless instantly. They surged toward him but he spun, ducked, and flipped around them, his keyblade tearing them apart rapidly, his left hand blasting further away groups with spells any time he leapt over the rest. However, he wasn't moving fast enough. He could feel it. He was too slow. Just as he reached the back of the swarm of knight Heartless, the first Darkside reached the circle Lightning was fighting in and punched the ground, making it lurch violently, even as far away as Tyler was. He stumbled, receiving a gash in the side for it, then spun, slashing in a circle before driving his keyblade into the ground, a pulse of magic energy shooting out and clearing the Heartless within five meters of him. Then, a cloud of darkness formed on the ground and a Nobody, one of the white creatures they had fought at Hollow Bastian, burst out of it, slashing at Tyler. Tyler grabbed his keyblade's handle with both hands and blocked the blow, being hurled backward by the force. He flipped backward and landed on his feet, driving his keyblade into the ground to stop himself skidding backward, and stared at the thing. It looked like a human-sized version of the giant Nobody that Oswald had killed in Hollow Bastian, which had had the blue tentacles around its neck like a scarf. Except that this one's scarf had no six fin-like wings spreading behind it, three per side, its legs were slim and more like a person's, it had a pair of short spikes off the backs of its hands, held a white version of Caius Ballad's sword in its hand, and had messy dark grey hair falling from the back of its head. Tyler's gut dropped. When Oswald had explained that Nobodies were created from the bodies of strong-willed people that lost their hearts to darkness, he had had a suspicion that Caius had a Nobody out there somewhere. However, he'd hoped to never run into it.
He swallowed hard as Caius's Nobody roared and shot forward, his body deforming and flexing as though he had no bones, then slashed, his sword fracturing the ground when it hit, missing Tyler by an inch. Tyler swore. He didn't have time for this. He needed to get to Lightning. He slashed at Caius and Caius deflected it, then stabbed at Tyler. Tyler deflected the sword to the side and spun around him, slashing again. Again, Caius deformed, stretching around the keyblade before slashing back. Tyler flipped backward, hurling a fireball at Caius, and the explosion sent him spinning into the air, only to suddenly stop and seem to swim through the air back toward Tyler. Tyler swore, slashing several Heartless as he landed before diving out of the way of Caius's blade. Just then, Lightning screamed and Tyler looked over, seeing a Darkside lifting her in its hand, already squeezing and Lightning's face contorted in pain. Panic and desperation flooded Tyler instantly. His dream returned to him, Lightning's voice begging him to save her.
I need more power! he thought, shoving more magic energy into his body, speeding up and strengthening himself. More! I need to be stronger! I have to save her! Please! Someone help me! Give me the power I need to protect Lightning!
As he moved to slash Caius, his keyblade suddenly shone just before connecting and Caius rocketed away, exploding through the Heartless, hitting them all hard enough to destroy them. Tyler didn't even hesitate as he charged, his increased magic aura sending him rocketing forward. he tore through the last of the Heartless in his way and leapt into the air, focusing his magic into his keyblade, noticing in the back of his head that there was barely any resistance compared to before. Then, he slashed the Darkside across the face and light shine from the gash, the Darkside staggering backward before bursting into a cloud of darkness. The other Darkside stepped up to attach Tyler, but he slashed it across the face as well at the same time as sending an Aero into the ground below Lightning to catch her. The Darkside burst into a cloud of darkness instantly as well and Tyler dropped to the ground, darting over to Lightning just as the Aero faded, catching Lightning carefully.
She winced, then opened her eyes, smiling up at him, despite the pain. "You saved me again."
"Hold on," Tyler said. "I'll heal you once we're back to the others."
Lightning nodded just as Odin flipped over them, crashing down in the middle of the Heartless between them and the others and spun, forming a massive tornado of Aero magic, slaughtering a huge group of the Heartless before sending Lightning blasting into the heartless toward the ship. Tyler lifted Lightning instantly, grabbing her gunblade on the way past, then leapt at Odin, who caught him on his shield, then flung him at the ship. Lightning squeezed her eyes shut, but Tyler flipped, landing lightly beside the others, who had fallen back even more, the Heartless closing in further. Tyler lay Lightning down gently and raised his keyblade, which shone green before matching light shone from Lightning, who sighed in relief as her injuries healed. Then, she stood, accepting her gunblade back from him before staring at his keyblade.
"Did you get a new keychain?" Lightning asked.
Tyler shook his head, glancing at the keyblade. it was a fair question. It was completely different. The tip of the keyblade was now a blue circles with five small points sticking off of it like the tips of a star, a golden five-point star inside the circle, then the blade was three sweeping blue lines that reached down from one side of the circle and sweeping back and starting to spread, a pair of yellow lines emerging from between them, then curling forward again and ending at the base of the blade, giving the blade the appearance of a shooting star. At the top of the grip was a silver five-point star on each side with the interior of the star shining with dozens of colors, three short, curved silver lines reached up from the back of the silver star, curved opposite the bottom curve of the blade, then the grip was a metal ring that was silver at the top, then faded to the same light blue as the blade with five small spikes aligned along the bottom, getting larger as they worked their way inward with the keychain extending from the bottom. The charm was yet another five-point star, this one identical to the one on the top of the grip, but a little smaller, and with a small gold diamond-shaped piece at the top to connect to the chain and a small silver arm along the gold diamond's lower sides. There were also three gold diamonds spread along the chain.
"I was desperate to save you, and it just became this," Tyler said.
"It evolved," Oswald said, landing beside them, breathing hard. "It's rare, but it can happen when a Keyblade Wielder's keyblade is in perfect sync with its wielder. It's proof of the wielder's strong heart, and their keyblade's desire to aid their wielder in whatever they do. It's a unique, and extremely powerful bond between blade and wielder, and it's very rarely seen in someone who's not at least on level with a Keyblade Master. You're a very interesting person."
Tyler glanced out at the Heartless, seeing Caius's Nobody fighting them in the distance, drawing the attention of a lot of them, though the rest of the Heartless were still closing in, despite the others' best efforts. "We won't be winning this."
"No, we won't," Oswald said. "Everyone, cone over here! And recall your summons!"
Fang and Lightning both released their Eidolons' summons, then all followed Oswald into the ship. he quickly moved to his pilot's seat, then pressed the self-destruct button, a two minute count-down beginning.
"What the Hell!?" Tyler asked.
"Relax," Oswald said, holding out his hand and forming a portal of darkness. "Everyone into the Dark Corridor!"
"What!?" Tyler gaped. "You can use darkness!?"
"Darkness is a means to an end," Oswald said. "It's a power source, neither good, nor evil. It's simply harder to control than light. Now do you want to stand here and argue about it and get blown up, or do you want to leave!?"
Tyler scooped up Alice instantly, then turned and aimed his keyblade out of the break in the dome, sending a barrage of blasts of Light Magic out through it, blasting the Heartless that were about to reach it, then ran into the Dark Corridor after the others. The portal sealed behind him and he looked around. It wasn't what he was expecting. Instead of darkness, or instantly stepping out of the portal in a different world, they were in a sort of tunnel swirling darkness forming the walls of the tunnel, the darkness a light blue ahead of them, then a light red behind them. However, they were standing about the middle of the tunnel on a near-invisible floor of sorts, only being visible by the faint symbols spread here and there, though Tyler couldn't see them well enough to tell what they were.
"So, this is a Dark Corridor?" Tyler asked.
"Yes," Oswald said. "It's a tunnel between world made by forming darkness into a literal corridor. It's not an instant means of transportation, but it's fast, and it got us out of there. Also, it's not without its risks. Here, any Heartless or Nobodies that sense us are free to form from the darkness and attack, and will be stronger. And if we stay for long, the darkness will try to invade your hearts."
"Why not yours?" Tyler asked.
"This cloak protects against the corruption of darkness," Oswald said, holding a hand to his cloak, the same kind Organization XIII wore. "It's probably why the Organization wears them. Now let's go. Once we get there, I'll explain anything you want to know."
Tyler nodded and they all followed Oswald along the corridor for about five minutes, not seeming to actually go anywhere, before a second portal appeared in front of them. They all walked through and stopped, finding themselves in a garden surrounded by the walls of a castle. The center of the garden was a huge hedge shaped like a smaller castle, then there were other hedge sculptures around it like band members, tea cups, and a few other things.
"Where are we?" Tyler asked.
"Disney Castle," Oswald said. "My home, before I was banished from it by Mickey. We'll be safe here, once I convince Queen Minnie that I mean no harm."
Tyler nodded and they followed him through the garden and into the castle.
Leave a review. I based the giant goo heartless in space off of the Kentauros design Xemnas was originally supposed to use to fight Sora and co at the end of Kingdom hearts 2, obviously except that I swapped bits of a city for goo.