A/N: Shit, this chapter took forever to get out. Got diagnosed with ADHD, never knew I had it but there were signs. Hey, guess it's official now huh? Since being medicated I found it easier to write out DBX, so hopefully it also translates well to this story.

Building on what happened last chapter is also kinda hard, since the revelation was hard to write alone. Hopefully I did a good job, but I think I might need to be on the lookout for a beta reader again. I used to have one, might need to get one again.

Crossposting on AO3 is going to stop. Not a fan of that site honestly, so I think just posting here will be fine. Anyway, enjoy the chapter.


The whale ship continued traveling through the darkness of space, two lights on the ship illuminating the pathway forward in the place of the lacking sun in the region they were in. As they went farther, darkness seemed more apparent, causing a worried Alina to peer out of the ship with a frown on her face before turning back to the captains chair, where their robot companion was currently sitting as he drove the ship.

"It seems like the farther out we go, the stronger the darkness becomes", Alina muttered.

"It makes sense", Gamma responded in as comforting of a tone that his artificial voice box would allow him. "As we go farther, we begin to approach the source where all of the darkness and evil is currently coming from. We would do best to be cautious."

Alina nodded at that, before turning to where Ren was sitting. The young boy looked lost in thought, causing her to walk over and tap him, though this in turn made him jump a bit. "Ren? Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I am fine, Alina", came the reply, though this was for sure a lie and they both knew it. Ren's head was currently a war, after all how do you just deal with the fact that you were a product of a failed possession? Ren shook his head before standing up and walking towards the window, though the white mage in their group decided not to believe his lie. To be fair, though, it was a poorly executed one.

"Munny for your thoughts?"

Ren sighed, not knowing how to tell these two anything but at least deciding that if he couldn't hide what he was going though, he needed to tell them something. "Well, I found an old letter that was written by my mom before she died. In it, she said something about how my father wasn't in the picture, so to say. It's just hard processing it, that's all."

Alina didn't reply at first, staring out the window into the depths of space alongside her companion. When she did speak, Ren could sense a bit of pain behind her voice. "When I was young, my mother decided that she wasn't going to stick around. She was a mage, just like me, and I got my latent talent and abilities from her... I also guess I got my sense of adventure from her, I mean what am I doing here if not just going on a big adventure? But, my mom, she went about it the wrong way. She just put on her blue robes and left shorty after I was finally off milk. Two years later, some of the castle guards found her hat and staff, covered in dried up blood. We never found out what happened for sure, but it was believed she died of her injuries caused by some strange creature she might have countered. A few months after that, Garland managed to slay a troll, who was terrorizing a nearby village and hoarded treasures from his victims. Among the treasure was my mother's robes, which confirmed she was killed by the troll. Dad always blamed himself, saying that if he didn't try and force her to raise me she woulldn't have been out of practice, though I blamed myself for the longest time... took me years to finally realize that I had done nothing wrong just by existing, after all it wasn't me who decided to come to life..."

"I'm so sorry", Ren said, his eyes wide. "I-I didn't..."

"You had no way of knowing", Alina replied, her dual colored eyes sparkling a little as starlight shined off them. "My father really did think my mother was ready to settle down when she gave birth to me, but I don't think anything could've taken the adventure out of her sails. Got her killed in the end, and I am not sure she was too happy raising a baby. I think the best complement I ever got about her was people saying that I was beautiful, just like her. I apparently have her hair and my blue eye matches hers, and even my green eye might be slightly from her since it's lighter then my father's green eyes."

Ren looked out the window along with her, sighing a little as his heart seemed to lighten. "Guess we both have parental issues, huh?"

Alina laughed at that, before doing something surprising and leaning her head on Ren's shoulder, causing the young boy to blush a little beneath his slightly tanned skin. "Regardless of your father, or lack thereof, it doesn't change the fact that you are here now and doing good for all worlds, Ren. Just like how my mother abandoning me doesn't change who I am deep down, and that I am aiding you in saving the worlds from the fiends."

Ren didn't reply at first, but eventually figured that if he was this deep in, he might as well tell her a bit more. "Apparently I get my darkness from him, at least that is what my mom said in her letter. I managed to memorize it before the ink became too faded to read... exposed paper that went though the end of the world can't have been good for it, after all. One of my caretakers read it before I did, so it was never sealed properly... wasn't good for it."

For a few moments, neither one of them moved, before the shifting of metallic joints caused them both to jump apart from one another and blush deeper. They had completely forgotten they were not alone, their tender moment being brought to a sudden end. "Did I interrupt something?" asked the clueless machine, but he would receive no answer from either of the blushing teenagers. After a moment of awkward silence, Gamma let it go and changed topic. "We are heading to a place called Agrabah. I sense a vast amount of darkness there, along with Sora and his two companions... however, our goal is on a different part of the world. I doubt we will get to see him... sorry, Ren."

"Don't be", Ren breathed a bit in relief. "Honestly, I think I need to process some things before I see anyone from Destiny Islands again. Let's just hope we don't run into Riku there, or Kairi... oh god please not Kairi, she's too stubborn for her own good."

"Anything else you can get from the world?" Alina inquired, looking over at the large screen where the world of Agrabah was showing up with some information. "Maybe what fiend we might be facing next."

"Unfortunately, all of them have similar darkness signatures and thus it will be impossible to determine which one is on that world", Gamma replied as he walked over to the computer, pulling an cord that popped out of his right hip and plugging it into the data terminal on the machine. Controlling it with his mind, the screen flickered a little bit to show some text on the screen. "We just trapped Tiamat, the Fiend of Wind, into one of the crystals, which means we still have to deal with the Fiends of Fire, Earth and Water. I highly doubt we will find the Fiend of Water until we reach a world with an vast supply of water, so we can safely ignore him for now. That leaves the Fiends of Earth and Fire, and since either can be on this desert world I guess I should go over them both."

"Water doesn't do well in the desert, so it makes sense to discuss either Earth of Fire", Alina nodded in confirmation. "So, what are we looking at?"

"First is the Fiend of Earth, Lich", Gamma explained, pulling up his information and picture. Ren couldn't help but feel slightly intimidated by the skeleton figure, wearing purple robes and looking like he was the Grim Reaper himself, minus the scythe. "He seems to be defacto leader of the Fiends as well, so there's only a slight chance it is him given the darkness signature we are tracking not being too much stronger then Tiamat. Still, bette to go over him then to be sorry later. He's very magically talented, but is incredibly weak to light based magics, more then the other fiends are."

"He shouldn't be too much of an issue then unless his darkness can overpower us", Ren replied, feeling a little more confident about the undead fiend. "So, what about the one of fire?"

"That is Marilith", Gamma informed him as the screen shifted again to pull up the Fiend of Fire, and the image caused Alina to jump a little in discomfort. The woman that appeared on the screen had a snake like lower body, purple in color with a coral underbelly that traveled into her humanoid body, attached as if it was some crude science experiment to where the snake neck and head should be. Despite part of her looking human, her skin was color colored and she had six arms, three on each side. Wild looking yellow hair matched her completely yellow eyes, "She and the Fiend of Water, Kraken, are about equal in terms of power. Being the Fiend of Fire, she is incredibly adapt at wielding fire magic, and the heat and dryness of the desert would only amplify her spells... hence why it is logical to assume that she will be the fiend that we are facing on this world. Our best bet is to use water and ice magic, as well as physical attacks to weaken her enough for Ren to cast Drain to seal her into the crystal."

"We still don't really have another way to seal them, do we?" Ren asked Alina, who shook her head.

"No. I keep trying to find any sealing spells in my spell books, but I am drawing blanks. Unfortunately, I think the best thing to do is to use darkness to seal them after all. I might not like it, but if darkness is being used to save the world then I guess I can learn to live with it."

With a plan in action, even if a crude not well thought up one, the only thing left to do was to wait as Agrabah came into view and the ship came to a stop just outside of the atmosphere. Stepping onto the platform, Ren felt his body dematerialize as it was beamed down to the world, where sand kicked up all around them as they landed, causing Ren to sigh in annoyance. "Sand... great, not the biggest fan honestly. It's course, rough and irritating... and it gets everywhere."

"We should head that way", Gamma pointed towards a bunch of mountains looking structures in the distance. "I sensed the darkness coming from one of the caves over there."

"Can we hurry up then?" Alina asked a bit annoyed, pulling out a water sack and taking a large swig before speaking again, her voice sounding less hoarse after she did. "I don't think this dry air is doing me any favors." With that, the trio headed off into the dunes of the desert, occasionally stopping only to fight heartless that dared to get in their way. This didn't do the two humans any favors, though, who had to stop to drink water so often that by the time they got to the cave, both of them had to go into separate areas and relieve themselves as Gamma kept watch for any intruders, muttering something about how he didn't understand the human need to use the bathroom after drinking water if water was required for them to survive. Once the trio was ready, they entered the caves, Alina and Ren both holding orbs of light magic to have a source of illumination, and Gamma's eyes glowed like flashlights to farther give them light. The farther they traveled into the cave, the more dense the air seemed to get until suddenly a rush of hot air caught their attention as they began approaching a light source. Dispelling the orbs of light as Gamma turned off his eye flashlights, they approached the exit of the cave to see a large, dessert area surrounded by mountains and rocks. Gamma stopped them from leaving the cave, however, and Ren saw why as the purple snake body was just passing them, a hissing voice coming from the owner.

"And tell me why I ssssshould watch my back!" Marilith was hissing, anger clear in her voice. "You don't have faith in me to ssssslay our adversariessssss?"

"It is not that I don't have faith in you", came a voice that caused Ren's skin to become covered in goosebumps. When the purple snake tail passed them, Ren clearly saw Lich hovering there in the center, his eyeless sockets pointing towards the Fiend of Fire as if actually looking at her. "Tiamat should have been able to dispose of those three without issue, but he failed. I am just advising you to be cautious, Kary."

"I told you not to call me that!" the fiend hissed again, her anger intensifying. "I am going by my other name now! Besssssides, Tiamat was nothing more then a weakling, and those three idiots had help from that demigod Hercules. Here, they will have no such help, who else but that other keyblade wearing idiot and that street rat are here to assist them anyway?"

"There's the genie", Lich advised before pausing for a moment. "But we have taken measures to ensure that the fools that hunt us do not cross the path of the king's lackeys and their little street rat friend. Seems to have worked too, I can sense them and they are alone while the king's lackeys deal with Jafar."

"Then leave, fool!" demanded Marilith, turning to him and placing all six of her hands on her hips. "You will find that you and that good for nothing Kraken will not be needed after this. I shall dispose of them myself!"

"Temper, temper", Lich calmly replied, unbothered by her disrespect to his authority. "Remember, the revival of our master is priority number one. Even if you fail, the revival of Master Garland comes before all us."

"Doesssssn't matter if he is revived or not", Marilith cackled with a sinister grin. "Hisssss revenge will be dealt by my handsssss!"

"Then have fun", Lich chuckled, turning to the mouth of the cave where the trio was camping out. "Here me, Warriors of Light! Should you survive here, it will not matter! Master Garland's revival is assured, and either way you will be vanquished!" With that, the Fiend of Earth vanished into a sea of darkness.

"How did he know we were there!?" Ren asked, emerging into the dessert area and summoning his keyblade, flanked on either side by Alina and Gamma, who got ready to fight as well, with Alina summoning her staff and Gamma reading his guns

"You are not dealing with good for nothing heartlesssssss or the idiot Tiamat here, boy", the snake lady said as she took her stage at the center of the dessert area. "Allow me to introduce myssssself. I am Marilith, Fiend of Fire! You will not find me so easily defeated. With your death, I ssssshall have gathered enough darkness to single handedly revive my master and being about total darknesssssss to all worlds! WIth that, I shall overthrow Lich as Leader of the Fiends and rule by my master's ssssside!"

"We won't let you!" Alina called out, glaring at her. "You hear me you witch!"

Marilith snarled at that, holding up her hand which formed a giant fireball, and launched it directly at the group who had to scatter to avoid the blast, the intensity of the heat alone causing Ren to begin to sweat. The hot, dry dessert air was amplifying her power, as a stream of fire was breathed out from her mouth directly towards Alina, who managed to create a magical barrier around herself to deflect most of the fire, though the intense heat still affected her and caused her robes to be drenched within a matter of seconds by her own sweat. Gamma caught her attention by shooting her with bullets, earning himself a fireball to the torso and a knock back into the cliffs, even his heart resist metal seeming to become scuffed and affected by the intense fire.

"Blizzara!" Ren shouted, pointing his keyblade at her. The ice blast shot out and slammed into her, but the intense heat of the dessert seemed to weaken the blast, cause although it did affect the Fiend of Fire, she swiftly turned to Ren and slapped him back with a backhand from one of her many arms, the keyblader flipping in the air and bouncing off the wall, before rolling on the ground and facing her in a battle stance. Alina screamed "Watera!" and shot forth a torrent of liquid, but that too seemed weakened and proved less effective then the mage would've liked, which only made the large creature laugh as she attempted to scorch the mage with a fire blast, though she missed when in a twirl of her white robes, Alina dodged out of the way.

"She's got too much of the edge here", Alina panted, her throat dry and her eyes watering in an attempt to keep them moist. "The air is making her fire spells strong and weakening our ice and water magic. This is way more intense then we anticipated... we need to try something else."

"Remember, she is also made of darkness", Gamma advised her, standing up from the spot where he fell. "She might have an elemental advantage, but she can never rid herself of her disadvantage of being a creature of darkness."

"Right", Alina smirked, aiming her staff again. "Luxra!" A orb of light shot out of Alina staff, slamming into the Fiend of Fire and causing her to yell out in pain. Angry that she was now getting hurt, she summoned six swords in a stream of fire, one in each of her hands, before slashing wildly at Alina. Despite the mage using a barrier to reflect most of the attack, she was still sent flying back, though managed to land on her feet a distance away from the snake lady.

"You dare hurt me!" screamed the serpent. "I'll kill you for that!"

"Luxra!" came Ren's voice, and his attack too slammed into her and caused her to yell out again in agony. Gamma shot at her, though his bullets bounced off the snake scales with minimal effort. Still, his attack was meant to serve as a distraction, and it worked because Ren and Alina managed to get a few more good shots in before finally, a snarl escaped from their adversary.

"Enough of thisssss!" hissed Mariith, her swords glowing red with heat. She grinned maliciously, slashing at the air and causing it to ignite. Despite seeming like she was just slashing the air wildly, missing her targets, each slash caused a stream of fire to shoot out, heating up the air around them. Alina and Ren were panting, the intense heat beginning to affect them, though notably Alina was more affected then Ren was, the boy being used to heat more then her. Ren growled, a dark aura appearing around him again as he decided that he had to act fast before Marilith turned this place into an oven.

"Blizzara!" Ren shouted, pointing his keyblade and shooting his ice attack, however to the shock of them all the ice fizzled out due to the intense heat in the atmosphere. Marilith laughed at that, turning to Ren and slashing all six of her swords down at once. A sea of fire shot out and approached Ren, the boy barely able to react in time. "Dark Reflega!" He held his left hand out, and a dark barrier appeared in front of him, the fire bouncing off and heading back to Marilith. The inferno collided with the snake, though she laughed as if being tickled as the flames scorched her snake skin, grinning all the while as she eyed Ren.

"Ssssso, you can use darknesssss that effectively?" asked the witch. "I was warned by Lich that was the cassssse. No matter, in this environment you are tiring, while I gain more ssssstength from the heat of the fire! Your time has come, Son of Darknessssss! Die!"

"LUXAGA!" Alina's voice cried out, and to the shock of all of them a pillar of light shot out from Alina's staff. The mage had found her second wind, shooting a powerful sea of light out which caused the snake creature to howl out in pain, her voice raspy from the agony she was in, the light torturing her. "NOW REN!"

Ren took a moment to process the sudden use of the more advanced spell, but he acted quickly by pulling out the crystal and holding it in his outstretched hand. "DRAINAGA!" cried out the twilight keyblade wielder, a sea of darkness coming out of the crystal and hitting it's target, who began to get sucked in tail first into the crystal.

"T-thisssss isn't over!" the Fiend of Fire cried out. "Darknesssss will blanket all worldsssss, and my darknessssss will revive the master! Your end isssss approaching, Warriors of Light! You will die at the handssss of the great one!" With that, she got fully absorbed into the crystal, which shined a scarlet red color before taking on the red coloration in replacement of the dull gray one it once had. Ren turned, dispelling his dark aura and holding up the crystal to his two companions.

"Mission complete! Two down, two to go!"

"Shower... need a s-shower" panted Alina, who collapsed onto the ground, taking out her water sack and chugging it as if her life depended on it, letting some of the water drip down her chin and attempting to continue to drink even when there was nothing left in the pouch, her muffled cries of agony coming out as she kept her mouth on opening long after it ran out.

"I will call the ship for an emergency exit", Gamma replied to her, pressing a now open panel on his arm as Ren looked with wanting at the sack as well, knowing it was empty but being extremely thirsty himself. The three instantly vanished, getting beamed back onto the ship which departed shortly after their exit from the world. Ren and Alina wasted no time, with Alina immediately heading towards the showers and Ren practically throwing himself at the fridge to pull out a gallon of water and begin chugging from the container. "Humans", Gamma muttered at this display before turning back towards the ships controls and sailing along in the ocean of dark space. About an hour had passed before Gamma saw Ren and Alina again, exhausted but well hydrated after their showers, drinks and many trips to the bathroom, the two humans collapsing into chairs on either side of the captain's seat where Gamma sat.

"So, where to?" Ren asked, his confidence back after the success of their mission.

"I am not sure where Lich ran off to", Gamma advised, staring at the screen. "What shocks me even more was that he was on Agrabah... the scanner did not pick up on his darkness, so either he was casting his image out to speak to Marilith, or he can somehow hide his darkness. However, I think it would be best to seek out the Fiend of Water first." On the screen appeared a blue squid creature with ten different tentacles acting as his arms and legs, with red eyes and many teeth coming from his mouth.

"Ew, he's hideous", Alina recoiled, looking at the image with distain and disgust.

"Because he is aquatic, I venture to guess that we will find him on any world with an excess amount of water on it", Gamma explained. "I have set the scanners to begin scanning all water based worlds in an effort to track him down. He shouldn't be harder then Marilith, but given that we discovered she was using the desert to her advantage even more then we had initially anticipated, I am going to guess Kraken will be doing the same for any water world we find him in."

"So, whats the game plan for this one?" Ren asked them, looking at Kraken as well. "We went into Marilith unprepared for the possibility that she would use dry heat to not only augment her fire based magic, but weaken our ice and water based magic attacks. We know for a fact that this guy will be in the water, but he might also be accounting for his own weaknesses and preparing a defense. We should prepare for that possibility or we might be caught off guard again."

"I agree with you", Gamma spoke. "Unlike Marilith, though, he isn't really magic based and will use his tentacles to attack us. He is weak to thunder based magic, and of course light based magic, so we should use that to our advantage and figure out if we could get around a counter to his thunder weakness. Since it's electricity generated though magic, it shouldn't hurt to use it underwater despite water conducting electricity, though I'd rather not use real electricity if we can help it, less we get hurt too."

"Anything else we should know about him?" the mage inquired.

"Yes, actually" Gamma turned and pointed to the creature. "Since he is squid based, he will use ink in an attempt to blind us, so it is best we watch out since he can use that to his advantage as well. Also, another thing to note is that it won't be easy for me to help in this fight."

"Why?" Ran asked, looking at him confused.

"I am a robot", replied the machine. "I am not built for the water. My creator did supply me with a submarine type body that I can control remotely, but my main body will have to remain here. I will be little help in that body, but I can shoot energy bullets like I normally can do. However, that is the most that I will be able to do. I will have no arms and legs to punch and kick with, so sadly you will have to do most of the physical fighting, Ren, especially since this submersible will not be as durable as my real body is."

"Darn, that alone might make this fight more difficult then Marilith was", Alina sighed, looking worried at the image of the squid shaped fiend on the screen.

"Ah well, what choice do we have?" Ren muttered as he stood up and looked over at them. "Let's do this, guys! We have two fiends already down, so I know that we can do this!" Alina smiled up at him and gave him a nod, as Gamma turned back to the ship controls and continued to seer the ship. Despite not finding out more about his past, Ren did get a clue from Marilith calling him Son of Darkness, and while that was something that was currently bothering him, he found it more important to focus on the task at hand. He got the feeling that Lich or Garland himself would be the ones to have the answers he wanted, and Kraken was just a road block that needed to be gotten rid of.

No matter what it took, Ren needed his answers, and the darkness would help him get what he wanted, just like it did before.


A/N: So yeah, Agrabah was just the Fiend of Fire fight. I knew I wanted them to fight here there since dessert heat would make her more powerful, but wasn't sure if I wanted anything else to do with that world. I enjoy the individual worlds in KH2 more then I do in KH1, in fact I barely remember some of them, Agrabah included.

Sorry if this chapter seemed a bit duller then past chapters, but I needed to move the story along and of all the fiends, Marilith is actually my least favorite. I didn't know what really to do with her other then make her a tough opponent, so this is the result of that. Kraken might end up the same way sadly, but I got big plans for Lich and what happens after he is dealt with, so stay tuned for that!