Yen Sid acted immediately, raising a hand, encircling the Darkness in a wall of golden, shimmering light.
The Darkness turned its head, looking straight at him. Then it stepped forward, passing through the wall of light as if it didn't exist at all.
Yen Sid gasped, stepping back. "What...?"
"We are formless; we cannot be contained by any magic or power you possess," the Darkness spoke idly.
"Cut the shit and skip to the part where you tell us why you're here," Luxu said, in a voice of undisguised rage and disgust.
The Darkness looked back at him. "The apprentice, Luxu - it's been a long time."
"Sorry, am I supposed to know you? You bastards all look the same to me," Luxu responded, flippant and short. "Just a bunch of interchangeable, worthless fucking parasites, leeching off of others' Hearts."
"Worthless parasites? No, we are superior to you humans," the Darkness stated, as if simple fact. "We are eternal, invincible, undefeatable, untouchable-"
"That's not true," Amaya spoke, with a laugh. "I trapped and destroyed four of your kind, in Daybreak Town, before. I trapped one in Scala Ad Caelum, as well. And I destroyed another when they came for my Xehanort on Destiny Islands, more recently than that. You can be tricked, you can be trapped, and you can be killed. You're not invincible or infallible."
Xehanort startled at her choice of words in that moment, unwanted emotions flaring in his Heart.
The Darkness looked at Amaya. It strode toward her, slow and purposeful. "A bold claim - but clearly it's false. The fact that you're still standing here proves that."
"If that helps you cope," Amaya responded, with a look of disdain upon her lovely face. She stepped forward, herself, standing tall over the Darkness. She looked down at it, unafraid and strong. "But trust me...by the end, I know you're going to show just how pathetic you are, becoming a blubbering, screaming mess, begging for mercy that I won't give. A toddler's tantrum. I've seen it three times before, from your kind, you Darknesses. The moment that your almighty facade crumbles...those are memories I've relished across my lifetimes."
"You shouldn't stand so close to me - you're practically inviting me to step foot in your Heart," the Darkness replied.
"I am inviting you to," Amaya stated. "I'd love nothing more than to watch you try and fail to take over my Heart. You'll cry, and rage, and in the end, you'll die."
"Brave words," the Darkness said. It vanished, reappearing in the window sill. "But I didn't come here to fight any of you."
"Then why have you come, dark spirit?" Yen Sid demanded.
"Simply to scope out the competition," Darkness answered. "To see what we'll be dealing with, in future. But I also learned something else that could be useful to us. This 'Ultima Weapon' sounds like a very powerful weapon...in the right hands."
"Hah. Go for it - and good luck with that!" Luxu barked a laugh.
"We don't require luck - only time," Darkness said simply. "We-"
Young Terra moved suddenly, in a blink of an eye, his body shrouded in a glow of red energy. He flew past the Darkness, reappearing behind it, his weapon held out. A streak of burning energy was left in his wake; the Darkness's form broke into two clouds of darkness, before reconnecting and reforming again. Terra straightened, turning to gaze at it with clear shock.
The Darkness turned its head, meeting Terra's gaze. "What did you think that was going to accomplish?" it spoke, amused. "You don't understand the concept of 'invincible' do you, human. If this is what we face, this is going to be easy..."
Slowly, the Darkness vanished into thin air.
"Is it gone, or just invisible?" Amaya said, looking to Xehanort - to both of them.
"It's gone," his younger self was the one to answer, prompt and unnerved.
"Good..." the woman sighed, turning and throwing her arms around him, pulling him close to herself.
Young Xehanort went rigid, his face going blank. "Stop that."
Amaya released him, stepping back with a frown. But she said nothing, ultimately.
Terra frowned as he let his weapon vanish, shaking his head to himself.
Master Xehanort gazed around the room. He sighed. "Now, before we were interrupted: what is to be my fate, then, exactly? Is it decided yet?"
"We will give it time," Yen Sid spoke. "An ultimate decision will not be made until after the 'Replicas' are completed, and the young people most deserving have been restored to what they should be. We would not take your life without giving you a chance to say farewells - to make amends, however much you are capable of doing so." He gazed into Xehanort's eyes. "I know the pain you have kept locked away inside. I would not deny you an opportunity for closure."
Xehanort flushed, looking down and away. "Nyeh..."
"As for this ancient being - this...Darkness-" Yen Sid went on. "it appears that they intend to make themselves very troublesome, sooner rather than later. If there is any chance that even a being like them may be found worthy of obtaining and wielding the Ultima Weapon...however small..."
"We find it first?" Luxu said.
Yen Sid regarded the man critically. "If possible, yes. We must win this race - and, at the end, we will destroy the weapon, ending its bloody history once and for all, as well as keeping it out of the hands of this...unknown enemy."
"I can give you the names of a few worlds I heard it might have popped up on," Luxu stated. "but nothing more than that. It's not even certain if the calamities and tragedies were caused by the thing, or if they were misattributed. I didn't investigate it."
"But perhaps another has," Yen Sid replied, turning his gaze to Master Xehanort. "How far into your search for the blade had you gotten, Xehanort?"
Master Xehanort clenched his teeth. He looked to where the Darkness had once stood... He let his aged body relax again, letting out a coarse laugh. "No further than Luxu, it would seem. I had only gathered rumors on a handful of worlds, in my attempts to trace its path through history and the World."
"But perhaps, among them, we will find a connection that will lead us to its final resting place," Yen Sid said. "Very well, then." He paused, looking to Luxu once more. "This Darkness spoke in plural - they work with others of their kind?"
Luxu shrugged. So maddeningly blase. "Who knows? I don't know just how many are out there, where they're lurking. But they used to be part of some hivemind - all connected, mentally and whatnot. Might just be a habit...or more likely, an attempt to keep sounding scary and mysterious. Intimidation tactics have always been their thing. They love to prop themselves up, as you might've noticed."
"There are probably more than you'd think," Young Xehanort murmured.
"Cryptic; elaborate," Luxu said, turning toward him. "Now."
Young Xehanort pressed his lips together. He shook his head, and a blank look came over his features. "After battling with the Darkness on the rooftops of Scala Ad Caelum's highest tower, in the moment I hesitated to strike it down, it took advantage of that to draw me into a shared mental space," he spoke, flat and emotionless. "The creature claimed it was not the Ancient Darkness we thought it was. It was a Darkness, yes, but something new and more recent. It claimed to have been formed from, not only Baldr's darkness, but the darkness of all of us around it. It said that Baldr had taken all of that darkness, born of intense negative emotions - doubt, uncertainty, fear and rage and grief, and most potent of all, animosity - into his Heart, and made it his own, and from that the creature was born. It claimed that this is how their strength and numbers increase, True Darknesses or otherwise - the 'otherwise' being fledgling new Darknesses like itself, I assume. Not external beings who invade the Heart of a host, but beings born from and within a host's Heart."
"Motherfucker - are you kidding?! And you just kept this little revelation of the universe to yourself, for all this time!" Luxu exploded. "You didn't think that was some real important shit to inform the whole World about - your Master, your friends?!"
"Calm yourself, Master Luxu!" Yen Sid spoke, hard and admonishing. "It is understandable, at very least, why Xehanort would not have wished to revisit the memories of that particular day. However, I do agree that the worlds would have been better served if this information had been shared with them."
"You know what, dude? The second I get home, I'm having Namine go over your Heart with a fine comb," Luxu exclaimed. "If the nature of Darkness and the universe is the level of shit you're keeping to your chest here, who knows what else we'd all have been way better off knowing?"
"Do what you will, then," Master Xehanort growled, turning his head aside. "As if I've the ability to stop you now."
"Those things can fucking breed-" Luxu went on, harsh and furious.
Yen Sid raised a hand sharply to Luxu. He gave a nod to Amaya, and to Terra. "As we discussed - I think this meeting is best cut short, before our emotions get the better of us."
Amaya thrust out her weapon, creating a light portal. She took the arm of Young Xehanort, giving a tug. "Come with me now."
Master Xehanort watched his younger self vanish into the light with his- with her. A twinge of regret and longing rose in his Heart...
"As for you - you're coming with me," Terra spoke, stepping forward, his eyes on Xehanort's.
Xehanort turned to regard the boy. The young man. Standing so tall and powerful - so certain, now. So confident. After ten years of being locked away in darkness, after an endless struggle for control...Terra had somehow clawed his way back again, and seemed to be better off than he ever was. Xehanort doubted he could have ever manipulated the young man before him, as he had the boy, once. He doubted, even, that he could have had a chance at wrestling control of this man's Heart, either...
"Hm. Lead on...Master Terra," he said quietly. "It seems I will be entirely at your mercy, then?"
Terra gazed at him. A little half smirk came to his lips. "It's not my mercy. Trust me on that."
"Hmph..." Master Xehanort waited for the young man to create a portal, and he strode through it unprompted, his aging back hunched, his hands clasped behind it.
If the witch of memories was going to be scouring every inch of his Heart soon...he would have no secrets anymore - not a one.
His entire life, thoughts, and emotions would be picked apart by another, and laid bare. And he doubted he would even realize it was happening at all (when she had intruded upon his mind earlier, to push memories into it, there had been no warning or indication that she had delved into it - it had simply happened from nothing).
Yet...he could not find it in himself to care.
Kairi dove through another swirling tunnel - this time with much more grace and ease than the first time.
She flew down, down...avoiding debris, fighting off Nightmares.
She thought she was actually going to have it easy for a change - until the giant Bee Nightmare showed up again, flying into the tunnel from the side.
"Ugh - buzz off!" she shouted down at it. Then she blushed, feeling glad neither Sora or Riku were there to have heard her say that. It would have been fuel for teasing for days.
She darted down at the giant Nightmare, sending out spiraling Firaga blasts that exploded on either side of it. She boosted her speed and landed on its body, slashing rapidly at it before doing a backflip and sailing away.
The Nightmare wriggled and shrieked, and summoned over a half dozen smaller Bee Nightmares out of thin air, which promptly flew at Kairi in attack.
Kairi looked around at them, focusing, then shifted her body in the air and darted forward, swathed in orange light, using her Seven Wishes technique. She blitzed past one enemy, then flew back the other way, tearing through another - then on to the next, and the next, and another...until the final blow and a boost of speed and power that obliterated three at once. She spun around out of the attack, immediately conjuring Light Blades around her, sending them at the Queen Bee. They embedded themselves up the front of its body, causing it to stagger backwards in the air.
She transformed her Keyblade into her Blasters, taking aim and firing off twin beams. Then she reverted them, flying forward. She brought out her Whip Transformation, lashing out for the Bee's midsection. The pink energy strand wrapped around the Nightmare's cinched waist several times over, tightening and burning into it.
Kairi grinned to herself, then summoned all the magic she had to increase her strength, as she pulled the whip taut, and began to spin the giant Nightmare around in the air. She spun once, twice - then she let go at just the right moment as they continued to fall together; the Nightmare flew off to the left, slamming into a whole stone building, and then a second one came flying up to smash into it, smooshing it between the two.
Kairi reverted her Keyblade to normal, then flew for the Nightmare, going into Seven Wishes a second time again. She flew left and right, back and forth across the Nightmare, leaving great energy streaks across its form, burning orange. She came out of it and flipped up over its head, then came falling back down, dragging her blade down its whole backside.
The Nightmare shrieked and shuddered- and then it froze. Smoke rose from it, and then it exploded into light and fragments.
Kairi floated there in the air, sighing in relief at her victory. Her gaze found the several, huge Dream Pieces - pulsing red, like rubies, and others that looked like DNA strands, with pink and blue strands woven around each other...
She drifted forward and gathered the large pieces in her arms, holding them close. She shut her eyes, focusing her mind and Heart, remembering times when she'd flown, and when she'd fought, and...
The Dream Pieces began to fuse together in her grasp, a light shining out. They rose up away from her, higher up in the air. Crystals swirled and flashed, spinning around each other-
And then a Dream Eater appeared.
The same Dream Eater as the one she'd just defeated.
A huge, fashionably dressed Queen Bee.
Except the symbol on this one's dress wasn't the Nightmare symbol: it was the Spirit's version of the emblem.
The colors were also different. This giant Spirit wasn't wearing a purple and magenta dress - but a purely yellow one, with black trim. The giant pearly collar also wasn't white, like the Nightmare's, but was jet black now. It was like some of the colors were just plain inverted, really. The antennae weren't yellow into green, but now yellow into lightest purple, or lilac. And the giant gem on the horn/crown wasn't emerald, but purple now.
Those big, pure red eyes were still exactly the same, though...
The giant Spirit wriggled and bobbed in the air in front of Kairi, its spike-ended arms at its sides.
If it wasn't for the clear Spirit emblem on its dress, Kairi really would have been a lot less calm in that moment.
As it was...she took in a breath, and she looked the creature in the face.
It- they-
She. Queen Bee, in that amazing dress...
Kairi smiled at the Spirit, drifting closer in the air. "Okay - you need a name," she said aloud. "Queen Bee probably won't cut it. You have that really great yellow dress going on, so...how about we keep it simple and just go with - Daisy or something? Or-" She stopped. She glanced around. "Beatrice."
She wasn't ashamed of it.
And she was willing to take any and all teasing for it once she got back home again.
If those two dolts would be willing to tease her about it once they saw she had a giant bee monster for a pet now! Hah!
Kairi looked down past the new Spirit, seeing purple rings forming below.
That was it, then.
The sign to go - she'd reached a new world.
"Come on, Beatrice," she told the Spirit, flying down past her and beckoning with an arm.
The giant Spirit dutifully followed after her, giving a high trilling noise.