AN: The chapter in which I suddenly remembered the existence of B PLOTS lol! xDDD I can have stories running CONCURRENTLY! What a wonderful concept! :D LOL. So here you go! A meaty chapter with some side dish! I feel the creative power flowing through meeee, I am on my A game here this week lol! 3
End of AN!
Skuld walked through the streets, following after Elrena.
"I hate this place...I hate this place...I haaateeee thiiiis plaaaceeee..."
Elrena trudged through the hot, deep sands, tugging at her own legs and brushing furiously at her skirt. She let out a high whine, raising a hand over her eyes and turning to look at Skuld with a pouting face.
"I think we're almost there," Skuld offered quietly, with a smile.
"Oh, are we? Greaaat! That makes the last seven hours out here allllll better!" Elrena exclaimed.
Skuld wanted to laugh. The old Skuld would have laughed - the teenage girl she'd once been, outgoing and sociable as she'd been, unafraid to voice herself. But the woman she was now...she just stayed silent.
She wondered if she was ever going to get back to really being how she was. If she could ever be that person again. Maybe not. Maybe it was just...that far too much had happened to ever go back. Too much pain, and loss, and years lost, and damage...
She could reclaim fragments and pieces of that girl - but the woman she was now...maybe it was just that that woman would have to build herself up on her own, and find her own way forward? Decide who she wanted to be, in absence of anything to guide her...
Skuld sighed, shaking her head and brushing back long dark hair - hot, sweaty strands under this world's heated, desert nature.
It was a familiar world to her - from the past, from the future. From the Book. From her missions for her Union...gathering Lux, slaying Heartless...
But this wasn't a projection.
This was real, and present.
They'd stopped by a few settlements - towns, and one large city - asking around for anything that might be...strange or different. Things to look out for, that the residents wouldn't necessarily realize were...
No one had said anything that sounded like any Darknesses - but there was talk of roaming spirits in the desert, that attacked people and cursed them into deep sleeps.
Nightmares.
And they had also learned of something that might be a sign of the Ultima Weapon's use here, a long time ago.
Old scripts and images of what looked like a Keyblade, talks of strange swords of light...
And a place deep in the desert sands.
A place called the "Valley of Glass".
It was a natural wonder - or maybe it was cursed grounds.
The way people had talked about it made it sort of unclear to Skuld...
"The one time...I wish I still had my stupid coat!" Elrena was ranting again, pulling Skuld out of her thoughts. "Of course, it's black, so it would just make everything a million times worse! But at least the coverage would be something...uuuuggghhhhh! Xemnas was an idiot for deciding our uniforms should be black, by the way! He sent us on recon missions all across these worlds in them - like it wasn't going to make us stand out from everyone else like a sore thumb!"
"Complaining makes you happy, doesn't it?" Skuld voiced.
"It makes me not want to die, yes!" Elrena responded, emphatic. "It's the only thing distracting me, so don't try and stop me, girl!"
"I wouldn't," Skuld said, with a small laugh. "I like you how you are."
Elrena stumbled, twisting to look back at her. "What?"
Skuld tried to give a small grin to the woman, reaching up to push her hair back again. "I like you the way you are, Elrena."
The other woman frowned. Then she shook her head and whirled away, hauling herself up a sand dune. "Whatever! Just going to chalk that one up to the heat getting to you..."
"Maybe it is," Skuld agreed, quiet. She climbed the sandy hill after Elrena, clambering up to the top. She pushed herself up and brushed at herself, straightening up again.
Elrena was frozen at the top, staring out in front of her.
Skuld followed her gaze, a soft gasp escaping her lips.
The "Valley of Glass" was apparently something literal.
It was a massive, deep...inexplicable valley, several hundred feet wide, and twice as deep. The edges were sharp and jagged, like upturned scales, or sheets of ice. Deep on the bottom of the valley, in the sparkling, gleaming depths, there were waves and furrows and tall, spiraling pillars of thick glass that looked more like actual ice or crystal than anything. There were pockets and smaller gorges and holes in the floor and the bottoms of the walls. Some of them even looked like far-extending tunnels...leading into shadows...
"Okay, even I've got to say it: hoooooly shit," Elrena uttered.
Skuld exhaled. "Holy shit," she agreed, in a murmur. Just to try it out, really; the teen girl she had been would never - but the adult woman she was? Maybe she wanted to try it on for size...?
"Welp, let's get down there!" Elrena exclaimed. She gathered her legs under herself, then exploded out of the sands and flew forward in a soaring leap of magical power.
Skuld coughed and sputtered, running dusty, sweaty fingers through sand-embedded strands of hair.
How many showers was she going to have to take to fix this once this was over?
Because, one thing that hadn't changed from girl to woman was the amount of pride she'd always taken in her natural appearance - especially her hair. It had always been an effortless beauty. A family trait - inherited from her mom - that even her sister had had...
It was being ruined now, though.
Skuld sighed again, heavily, dropping her hand to her side and starting down the sand dune.
The things she sacrificed to save the world, she supposed...
Imra's body shined with a light and a force of hot wind, the dark aura evaporating!
The cables snapped off of her, flailing in the air.
The yellow lines on her body glowed brightly.
The crystal on her forehead was crackling and shining.
"What the heck?!" Nightmare Chirithy squealed, stumbling back and falling onto her butt. She raised a hand, pointing up at Imra. "You- you...HOW?! You were in such a deep sleep!"
Imra hovered in the air, her eyes narrowing. Then she flew over Nightmare Chirithy's head, blowing past her with a burst of green jets from her feet. She raised her arms, and from out of her hands burst rippling green beams of energy that looked like fire. She slashed down at the back of one of the Nightmares in black coats, cutting it straight down and causing it to stumble forward.
The other Nightmare turned and sent out a dark circle with a Nightmare symbol on it, and four red and black tendrils curving out of it. The tendrils closed in on Imra like claws, trying to cage her as they got near her!
Imra twisted and boosted herself out of it with one leg, then flipped around and turned her swords into cannons. She fired rapidly at the Nightmare, striking it and sending it flying backwards with bursts of green energy with a gold aura.
The Nightmare slammed through a big metal machine, darkness eating away at it and making it fall apart. It continued on until it hit the far wall. It fell forward onto a knee...then it rose up and hovered a foot off the ground, and began to glide forward swiftly, like it hadn't even felt any of the damage!
"You really do ruin everything!" Nightmare Chirithy exclaimed. "Well, have fun with my friends! I'd love to stick around and watch them tear you all apart, but I've got places to be! See you never again!" She crossed her stubby arms and turned her chin up at them all, and then vanished in a puff of smoke!
A green glow suddenly surrounded Xion, and all the pain and blurriness faded away! Everything became clearer, breathing was easier, and the burning was gone.
She jumped up and flashed her Keyblade back to her hand.
One of the Nightmares sent out a dozen purple energy bolts for her, its red eyes gleaming at her!
Sora leaped in front of her, casting Reflect around them both.
The energy bolts hit his barrier, cracking it and breaking off pieces of it - a small hole appeared in it...then it burst open and evaporated in a flash of light!
Sora stumbled backwards, knocking into her with a gasp. "Oops - sorry!" he said, holding his weapon up and going into his battle stance again.
Xion stepped up next to him and raised her own weapon, determined.
A barrage of firebolts came flying across the room, slamming into the Nightmare and sending it staggering to the side. It flipped and twisted, dark tendrils coming off of it, unable to get its footing back. It fell down to one knee, its hooded head falling forward.
Then a swirling Keyblade of white energy flew across the room, tearing through it and snapping back again for a second strike!
Ven rolled forward into view, coming up in front of Sora and Xion, his weapon in his backwards grip. "These guys are way too tough - let's get outta here!" he called out. "Even I don't think I'm gonna be able to handle 'em! Maybe if it was just one, but two of them? Too powerful! All we can do is smack them around, but no way we're actually beating them!"
Imra twisted in front of the other Nightmare and hovered horizontally, kicking her feet across her enemy's face and burning it with the jets of green energy themselves. She landed and did a spin, crouching down with one hand on the floor, her feet kicking up sparks around her. Then she raised her free arm up as a cannon, and charged up a strong, green sphere of energy and let it loose into the Nightmare's chest!
The Nightmare flew back into the circular metal device that had once kept Imra trapped, crumpling it into twisted metal. But the Nightmare burned with a red and orange aura, melting it into nothingness and burning away the computers around it, too.
Imra did a big backflip that made her sail all the way over to land next to Ven, Sora and Xion, her hair flying out and shimmering.
Xion couldn't help smiling for some reason. This was the Imra she knew! The girl who moved so well and smooth and graceful, who was confident and precise and made everything look like...art? She didn't even know how she knew that phrase - maybe she'd read it a textbook, or a normal book at some point? - but she liked it. And she thought it fit Imra perfectly.
"Let's go then!" Imra said, in a firm voice of emotion and life, as she nodded to Ven.
Ven nodded back- then startled and looked down. His friend Chirithy, the grey one, was hugging his leg and blinking up at him with blue eyes. He bent down and awkwardly picked her up in one arm, holding her to his body.
Then the four of them turned and went for the exit together - Ven lagging behind to hurl out some more, powerful spells at the Nightmares that tried to follow them, blasting them back again (Chirithy clung to his arm, her high voice crying "Hey, don't drop me!").
They raced through the hallways together, and entered the room with the big door (and the melted, big hole in the middle of it).
Before they could reach the big door, though, it slid open on its own!
Dozens of armed warriors were coming down the wide, metal hallway on the other side!
Xion, Sora, Ven and Imra stopped.
Ven glanced back behind them, his eyes narrowed. "I think we lost those Nightmares - but...looks like we've got a new problem now." He turned to Imra, adding quickly: "We're trying not to hurt anybody, okay? Or, at least not kill anyone..."
Imra smiled at him, pushing back long red hair over a shoulder. "Don't worry: I'm a pacifist."
She bent her legs and blasted forward on green jets of energy, flying down the hallway! She raised her hands in front of her, and a green wall of energy appeared in front of her. It was curved and smooth, not like the magic hexagon shapes of Reflect spells or Barriers. The warriors fired their weapons at her, but they hit the energy wall and disappeared into it. Imra twirled herself horizontally in the air, letting her arms fall as she got close to the enemies. She flipped forward and landed in the middle of them, turning and punching one in the side of the head. She lashed out with a leg to send one flat onto her face; she kicked the woman in the head, knocking her out too. She raised her hands and threw them out to either side, and green energy rings flew out to bind two more warriors.
Ven aimed his Keyblade out, stepping forward. "Sleep!" he cried.
His spell fell over the enemies, and they all slumped down with a series of clatters and thuds.
Imra froze. She looked down around her. Then, over to Ven. She tilted her head at him. She let her arms fall and came walking back over to them. "That's a lot more effective than how I was going to do things," she said with admiration on her face. "I knew you Keyblade heroes had magic, but nothing like that."
"Maybe I could teach you someday," Ven said, grinning at her.
Imra blinked. She raised a hand to her cheek. "Can an android even use magic?" she asked thoughtfully.
Ven nodded to her with enthusiasm. "Sure! Anybody can learn to use magic - if you get the training in. Doesn't matter where you're from or- or what you're...made of. Magic's everywhere, all around us, and inside us all, too."
Imra beamed at him. Then she looked to Xion, stepping forward and reaching out to grab her hand. "I'd like to learn magic with you sometime."
Xion blinked at her quickly, a squirming in her stomach. She looked down at their hands. Then she smiled. "I'd like that, too!"
She could almost forget that she still had to tell Imra something terrible...
"So it is magic, is it? Magic and monsters," came a voice from down the hall suddenly!
They all turned to look, and saw a tall woman standing there in a fancy black suit. She had short dark green hair with a braid wrapping around on one side.
Ven held his Keyblade up in front of him, while Sora and Xion took their battle stances again.
The woman raised her arms up to them, away from herself. "I'm not looking for a fight - just a conversation," she called out. Her eyes fell to the warriors on the ground, roaming over them all. She moved forward slowly, and bent down to put her hand to one of their necks. Her expression flickered as she straightened up again. "Can we all have a reasonable discussion together?"
"Maybe...who're you?" Sora said, lowering his weapon.
"Commander Lyn Zahn," the woman answered. "Commander of this base."
Sora hesitated, looking to Ven. To Xion. To Imra.
"We did kind of break in..." Sora started.
"They kidnapped Imra - they locked her up!" Xion exclaimed, turning to point a finger back through the doorway.
"Something I'm willing to reconsider, and classify as a mistake," said the woman - Lyn. "If you'd be willing to sit down with me...and have a talk. Please."
"Imra?" Sora spoke, looking at the girl. "What do you think?"
Imra eyed Lyn, her eyes narrowing. Then she blinked, her body relaxing. "I don't think she can do much if she wants to put herself in a small room with all of us. She's putting herself more at risk than we are. I'm willing to talk - that's all I've tried to do with anyone for all these weeks. The problem is no one's ever wanted to listen to me."
"I'm willing to listen to you," Lyn said, firm and quiet.
Imra was quiet for a minute. Then she nodded.
It was a small room, Xion thought.
Sora had sat down in a chair immediately, putting his hands behind his head and leaning backwards.
Xion followed his lead and sat down next to him, putting her hands in her lap. She was glad all the flashing lights and loud noises were over now, if nothing else!
Ven sat down on Sora's other side; Chirithy sat in his lap, tilting her big head back to blink up at him.
Imra stood near the door with her arms crossed.
One of her arms was a big glowy cannon.
The woman, Lyn, walked around the small table and went to pick up a small device with a screen on it from a desk. Then she sat down on the other side of the table - facing them all. She tapped and moved her fingers across the screen, hidden from them. Then she looked at them all.
"Soooo...what did you want to talk about?" Sora spoke first, flashing a smile and tilting his head to the side.
Lyn eyed him strangely. Then she made a little noise, and set the device on the table, right in the middle.
"Did you know that four hours ago, there was an unauthorized access to a military terminal within one of our nearby outposts?" the woman began speaking quietly.
"Huh?" Sora sat forward, staring down at the screen. He picked it up and looked at it. "What's that have to do with any..." He gasped, his eyes going wide. "WHAT?"
"What?" Xion said, at almost the same time as Ven did.
"K-Kairi?!" Sora exclaimed. "But that's IMPOSSIBLE! She-"
"What do you mean, Kairi?" Xion said quickly, twisting to look at the screen too. Sora turned it to show her.
She stared at it in disbelief.
On the screen, there was a recording - a video - showing a hallway of metal that looked a lot like the ones here. There was a computer on the wall, with a big screen.
After a few seconds, a hazy purple darkness appeared in the hallway, and...Kairi formed out of it?
Kairi stepped up to the computer, tapping and frowning at it. She worked it with her fingers quickly and expertly. The screen flashed with images and words Xion couldn't make out. Then Kairi raised a hand, and tendrils of darkness drifted out and seemed to- enter the computer? After a moment she stepped away, turning away from it. Then she stopped, as several warriors with weapons came into view.
The girl who looked like Kairi tilted her head, as green energy blasts flew out at her!
They struck a dark purple barrier, splashing at it without doing a thing.
Then Kairi raised her arm, and several thick, purple tendrils of darkness shot forward; they moved through the warriors' bodies and curved upward, lifting them up into the air on them. The warriors squirmed and dropped their weapons - then the dark tendrils exploded, and so did they, in flashes of purple light.
Glowing purple light particles floated down to the floor in front of Kairi.
She lowered her arm, and then a dark smoke surrounded her, and she disappeared into it.
The recording stopped there.
Sora dropped the little device like it had burned him, turning to Lyn.
"You know this girl," Lyn stated. She wasn't asking a question.
"It CAN'T be her! It just can't be!" Sora said firmly, shaking his head. "It has to be some kind of..." He trailed off, looking to Ven. Then to Xion. "It's NOT her, no matter what. It's just impossible."
"Can I ask why?" the woman spoke. "There are many things we thought were impossible until recently - supernatural monsters, strange portals appearing in strange places, and now all of this...Chirithy, nightmares - teenagers with supernatural powers."
"We're from- different worlds," Sora replied, as Ven grimaced and looked away (Xion thought he almost rolled his eyes, too). "There are whole other worlds out there, with a lot of different people, with a lot of different abilities and powers. And these monsters - they're called Nightmares, with a capital 'N' - they come from out of people's dreams. Bad dreams. Nightmares with a LOWER CASE "N'. Their whole purpose is to spread more bad dreams, to make more of themselves."
"Alright. And that...'Nightmare Chirithy'? It's the one in charge of them all?"
"I guess so, yeah," Sora agreed.
Lyn nodded, taking a breath. "Let's talk about this girl again, then. What is she to you? A friend, or an enemy from some other...world?"
"She's- that can't be the real Kairi," Sora amended instantly. "But...the real Kairi is my best friend. She's a hero. She fights and protects people on all kinds of worlds. But the girl on that screen there...that's not her. It can't be. Literally."
"Why is that?" The woman seemed to be actually listening. Curious.
"Because the real Kairi is a Princess of Heart. She uses the power of Light. Her Heart is Pure Light. Darkness can't even touch her. It can't get inside her. So if this girl is using darkness...it's just not her. It's some kind of trick, or illusion, or- even a- like a clone. A person made to look like her, maybe even to think they are her...but they're not!" Sora finished firmly, loudly.
"I see. Could you tell me why this girl would want to access historical records on an ancient battleground site?" Lyn said.
"Huh...a battle?" Sora said, confused.
"Almost two hundred years ago, in a great war between our ancestors, someone unleashed some weapon of mass destruction," Lyn began. "Some accounts say it was a sword, but we're more inclined to think it was actually some kind of cannon, or explosive. Or even a pulse device of some kind, if soldiers of the time weren't mistaken about it being something handheld. Though how our ancestors could have come up with something that powerful, with that small of a size at the time...it wasn't in any of our power at the time, as far as anyone knows."
"A sword...?" Ven whispered. He glanced at Sora. "Sora, do you think it could be that Ultima Weapon - the one that Terra said that that Darkness was searching for?"
"'Ultima' weapon? Darkness?" Lyn inquired, frowning. "What is that?"
"I guess it could be," Sora said to Ven, nodding slowly. "If it is, that means we need to catch up to her - and stop her - whoever that is."
"What is this weapon, please?" the woman insisted.
"It's some really old, really powerful Keyblade - uh, like the swords we use - that's been used and moved between different worlds," Sora explained. "Apparently some really old, really bad guys are after it now. And if they've found it here, we have to stop them from getting to it!"
"The site has been thoroughly investigated and excavated over the last century; no remnants of the weapon itself have ever been found there," Lyn said calmly. She paused. "Though, if it's something supernatural, we might have missed something. Something we can't see, or touch...but you children could?"
"Maybe," Sora said. "Look, let us go, and we'll go after her. We'll stop her. And if that weapon is still around...it's better for all of you that we destroy it. You don't have to risk any more soldiers, going up against things and people and powers you don't have a clue about how to fight!"
The woman raised her eyebrows at him, gazing at him silently. She looked to Ven and Chirithy, to Xion, to Imra. "You're just children...but the way you fought, the restraint you all had today to not even kill a single soldier in this base...zero casualties...somehow you have more skill, precision, and moral conviction than most of my own soldiers - than half the people I've personally served alongside, in my younger years." She eyed Sora, and gave a small smile and a nod. "In respect for that - and the feeling that you'd all find a way to break out of here anyways if I refused you, just as easily as you broke your way in - I will let you go. You'll go straight to the battleground, and no one will give you trouble along the way. Your images will be distributed and entered into our military databases as...highly classified agents - to prevent any future incidents. Monsters, magic, other worlds...we don't want any more trouble with it all. Not here on ours. We have enough problems to worry about, to put it bluntly."
"And what about me?" spoke Imra.
The woman eyed her for a long moment. "You didn't kill a single person here, even after we captured you - even when it might have been easier to do so. An escaped captive would have been justified in her use of force...but you went out of your way to be non-lethal." She hesitated, then sighed. "But even if I believed you weren't a threat to us after all, I doubt I could convince my own superiors of the same. But...I think I can let you go again...and give you a bit of a headstart."
"Thank you. It's not much, but it is something, I guess," Imra replied, shrugging her shoulders and leaning back against the wall. "I'll just have to try not to get caught again," she added, with a small smile.
The woman blinked at her, surprise flooding her face. Then she nodded. "You're welcome...Imra," she said slowly, strangely.
Imra tilted her head. "Are you calling me by my name, or are you calling me your Intelligent Machine for Reconnaissance and Assault?"
"I don't know what I'd call you," Lyn replied, quiet, shaking her head.
"How about 'alive?'" Sora said. "She's a person, not just some robot - can't you see that? She thinks and feels, like anyone else does! You can't just treat her like some- object, like a table or a chair! She has a Heart all her own!"
Lyn stared at Sora, then to Imra. Her eyes flickered. "Maybe there is something more to her - I don't know. But, I am willing to be more open to the possibility, in light of recent events..." She brushed at her hair, standing up. "I'll escort you all to the front gates - and point you in the right direction of the site. If this girl of yours is there, if she is planning to find some weapon of mass destruction - the one from that day...then stop her. Or at least remove her from this world. Because this is all...far above even my pay grade."
"We'll do our best," Sora said, smacking a fist to his chest as he jumped to his feet. "This is kind of what we do!"
Lyn gave him a smile. "I'm relieved to hear that. Now come."
AN: Lol, now you finally get the full scope and origin of Imra! :D From her very conception back in Warrior Princess 3, when I brainstormed her character and backstory/world for a new Xion friend character, I had her in mind as a kind of obvious ASTROBOY/MEGAMAN expie lol. 3 Had to come up with the fitting acronym too! :) I was proud of myself for it. I guess it was easier to make her name first and then work BACKWARDS to get an acronym though? :D