Nexus: Heroes Will Rise

by tmb1112

Universal borders have been erased and beings from thousands of universes now live on the same world: Nexus. In the first Saga of Nexus, Awul was saved, but the mysteries of Nexus remain. Now our heroes sail across the sea to Aebrith to search for lost loved ones and save the world. MCs from DBZ, KH, Soul Eater, FT, Blue Exorcist, Bleach, 7DS, OP, Ben 10, SAO, HxH, and many more!

98. Nexus HWR 14-2 The Truth

Disclaimer: Haven't done one in a while, but you know, I still do not own any of shows, books, movies, comics, or games you might recognize characters from in this story. None of the characters are mine, nor are the original media they come from. K, enjoy!

Nexus HWR 14.2 The Truth:

8,500 Miles East, 2,000 Miles South of Pyraxas

"I can't believe you made it here," Liliruca Arde said, after running forward to a woman with long red hair tied in a ponytail that fell below her butt and a very curvaceous figure. "Are you alright?" Lili asked after hugging the older girl and leaning back to get a better look at her friend.

"I'm fine Lili," Yoko Littner said, reaching down and giving the girl a tight squeeze on her shoulder. Yoko had a long sniper rifle strapped on her back, wore a black bikini top with a bright red jacket on over it that was open down the middle, and she had on a pair of shorts so short that her entire thighs were exposed, though she was wearing leggings going down into her boots because of the cold. She had ammo mags strapped to both sides of her waist as well as tucked into the pockets of her jacket, each one packed full of heavy rounds for her sniper.

Standing next to Yoko was a tall man with messy blue hair and a pair of red-tinted sunglasses over his face that spiked up to the sides of his head. He had one arm held up over his right shoulder with a katana hilt in it that rested over the top of his back and extended out from his left side in its black sheath. Kamina had on a red jacket similar to Yoko's only his arms were not through the sleeves and it was much longer, acting more like a cloak or cape for him. He did not have a shirt on under it, but the right side of his torso and right shoulder were wrapped in white bandages that were reddest closer to his side just below his right armpit. He had on a pair of baggy black pants and wore boots similar to Yoko's, and he was grinning from ear to ear as he looked around the room. "This is what I'm working with? Looks good to me," Kamina said.

Lie Ren walked forward towards the man who just spoke. "You in charge here?" Kamina asked before the younger man could open his mouth.

Ren nodded and asked, "You're our reinforcements?"

"Reinforcements?" Kamina asked, lifting up an eyebrow then laughing. The twenty people already in the room when Kamina and Yoko arrived did not feel very reassured by the sound of that laughter. "We heard you needed some help up here, so we decided to come by," Kamina grinned and looked around some more. "You don't need more reinforcements anymore."

Ed Elric leaned back on the wall behind him and dragged a hand down his face. His younger, and taller brother at his right side glanced in at him in a more nervous than exasperated way. Al did not feel as light-hearted as the man who was acting like everything was alright now.

Yoko looked around the room after Kamina made his declaration, and she got a slightly confused look on her face. She turned to the black-haired man in front of them who had a grim look on his face, and she asked, "Where are the rest of you? I heard that there were four Squads up here who needed support."

Ren's expression stayed grim, but he responded in a serious and calm voice, "I am Lie Ren, leader of Lambda Squad. Those three," he nodded to his right where two men and an older woman were sitting at a table looking towards the new arrivals. "Are the only members of Beta Squad who made it here," Lie continued, and Yoko's eyes widened as she looked at them before snapping her gaze back to Ren to check if he was being serious. "The rest of the people here are either in my squad, or members of Omega who just like Beta, have lost their leader." Kamina lost his smile and stared at Ren in a more serious way as the nineteen year old continued, "Beta Squad's leader Dino, and Omega's Asato Kido are two of the many casualties we've taken."

Yoko almost did not want to ask, but she spoke up softly, "The fourth Squad?"

"Cloud's the one who let you in, he's on guard duty," Ed called over.

"He's the only member of Delta," Ren added in case the two in front did not catch what Ed was implying.

He's the only one left? Yoko thought sadly. Of all of Delta?

Delta Squad. I didn't remember that guy being in it, so maybe it changed up since I last saw them. There's no way, all those guys… Kamina frowned deeper as a few faces appeared in his mind.

"Are you actually members of the Resistance, or just freelancers?" A girl standing a few feet behind Ren asked. She walked up on Lambda's leader's side, and frowned at the two in front of her. She was the former second-in-command of Omega, and she had been helping Ren lead their combined forces since Kido's death. Kallen Kozuki was shorter than Ren and had dark maroon hair that pointed up after falling to her shoulders. She continued to the people in front of them, "We don't have a lot of money here-"

"We didn't come for money," Yoko said in a defensive tone. "We just came to help."

Kallen humphed as that implied they were not members of the Resistance either. "Well, the more the merrier," she said after a few seconds, before turning and walking to some of her Squad-mates who looked frustrated by this situation.

"It's been a long few weeks," Ren said and got the two in front of him to return their gazes to him instead of the girl who annoyed them by her attitude. "Everyone's a little high-strung at this point. Lili seems to know you though," Ren said while looking to Yoko, then back down at the short girl with pointed furry ears sticking out of her brown hair. Lili nodded at him a few times, and Ren looked back with a friendlier smile. "So I'll trust that you're really here to help. I'll show you around, and then you can tell me what you can do to help us."

Ren turned and called out, "Everyone back to work. Ed, Al, you make those parts we need to repair our tanks yet?"

"Um," Ed began, scratching the side of his face.

"Finished this morning," Al said before his older brother could give some sort of excuse. Ed spun to his younger brother who had a shorter cut of blond hair over his head, unlike Ed's long blond braid that fell in front of his right shoulder. Al rolled his eyes at him before calling out, "We just need help removing and replacing all the old broken parts now."

"Omega, Beta, help them out. We need those vehicles done yesterday, they're the only ones we have," Ren said. The members of Beta stood from their table, and Kallen called out in a firmer tone to her Omega squadmates who did not seem very motivated after Ren's orders.

Yoko and Kamina could tell from the first glance around that morale was low, which was why Kamina attempted to rise it as soon as he entered. After hearing why the base was so grisly though, he knew a few short words of encouragement from a stranger, as convincing and uplifting as he could be, were not going to fix the problem that quickly. Kamina and Yoko started following after Ren, but Ren stopped before he left the room and turned towards the members of his own squad. "You guys, if you're just standing around, why don't you help out Cloud on guard duty. The base isn't big, but he doesn't need to patrol the walls if there are four of you up there."

Wave, Gajeel, and Levy glanced around at each other, realizing they were the only three who Ren was speaking to. Ed and Al were heading off with the members of Beta and Omega, and Lili was following Ren so she could catch up with her old friend Yoko. "Let's go," Gajeel said, and he turned and started walking off with Levy running to his side then walking with him. Wave followed behind them, but he could see expressions on Gajeel and Levy's faces that made him feel anxious.

When they exited the base and entered the small area between the walls and the single building they had set up, Wave saw that Gajeel and Levy were not walking to the sides to go up the side walls, but straight ahead towards the front entrance where they spotted a spiky-haired blond standing above the gates. "I'll go guard the back," Wave said, and Levy turned and nodded at him before he jogged off. The black-haired man in a blue-jacket wore a red scarf around his neck with an anchor design at the bottom of it. He had a black short-sword at his waist that he lowered his right hand to. Wave held the hilt of his Teigu, or Imperial Arms, Grand Chariot, focusing on guard duty and distracting himself from whatever he thought the other two members of Lambda were about to get into.

"Hey Cloud," Levy called out as she got up on the front wall with Gajeel. The spiky-haired man with a wide bandaged-up Buster Sword on his back looked her way, and Levy gulped but kept the serious expression on her face as she marched forward with Gajeel.

"What?" Cloud asked.

Gajeel leaned forward as he marched up to Cloud. He had on a fur coat open down the middle exposing his large muscles, his black hair was long down past his waist and spiking out behind him the whole way. He had piercings all over his face, and a pissed-off expression on it. "We're going into another fight tomorrow. One of Father's Homunculi- Pride and his army." Gajeel glared at the man once he stopped in front of him, just a little taller than Cloud so he could glare down into the older man's eyes. "Before we go though, you're gonna tell us what we want to know."

"I already told you," Cloud said while looking right back into Gajeel's eyes unwaveringly. He glanced towards the base on his right and mentioned after brushing off Gajeel, "We're surrounded on all sides. I'm either impressed those two got in, or we should be interrogating them to see if they were let in for a-"

"Cloud!" Levy shouted. Gajeel was surprised and glanced to his left at the short girl who marched up next to him and glared at the spikier-haired man before them. It was a good thing Levy shouted at that moment anyway though, as Gajeel was just about ready to punch Cloud in the face. "We want to know. You can't avoid it anymore," Levy said, making Cloud turn and look the short girl straight in her eyes. "What you said about Gray, we can't give up because of it. You said he disappeared, right? Not that he was killed?"

"Yeah," Cloud replied in a low voice. He had a red cape flapping behind his back, and the cape was wrapped around the front of his face covering up his mouth so the people in front of him did not see it move. He had on steel shoulder pads sticking out from beneath that red cape, as well as sharp metal armlets on his wrists and brown fingerless gloves on too. "I told Gajeel, he just vanished. That all?" Cloud asked.

"No," Levy said, shaking her head at him. Levy McGarden was usually a cheerful and easy-going person, but the blunette was not going to let it slide that easily this time. "Because what you're saying doesn't make any sense!" Levy shouted at the older man who frowned down at her, but even though his eyes showed the frustrated feeling he had (since she could not see his frown), Levy continued staring at him in a firm way.

"Something about how everything went down really rubs me the wrong way," Gajeel said, leaning closer to Cloud and putting his face right up in Cloud's. "You get out of there, and the rest of Delta gets captured. Doesn't sound right to me," Gajeel remarked, and Levy glanced up at him hesitantly like she disagreed or felt he was being too harsh there. Cloud's face scrunched up as Gajeel said that too, but Gajeel reached forward anyway and grabbed him by the front of his red cloak in front of his neck. "You gonna stop dodging this now? I'm telling you I want to know what happened out there!"

"I told you," Cloud started growling back at him.

"What you told me isn't good enough," Gajeel snapped, tightening his fist into the red fabric of Cloud's cape. "We've been losing a lot of people in these fights, and if you've still got information that I want when you die, I'll be the one fucked for it."

"Gajeel," Levy said in a scolding tone.

Cloud's eyes got darker at what Gajeel was saying, and then the Iron Dragon Slayer snapped, "I want to know exactly how this weakling made it out when Black Star, Kiba, and Gray couldn't."

That pushed Cloud over the edge. He reached forward with both arms fast and grabbed Gajeel by the front of his jacket, then he shoved the mage backwards with a hard push. "You want to know what happened?!" Cloud shouted, stomping forward and glaring furiously at Gajeel. "You really want to know what happened to me?! They knew! They knew exactly where we were!" Cloud shouted. "How? How'd they know? It wasn't like we were sent with orders of where to go out that day. Axel just had us out searching for food so that we could hunt some monsters together and work on our team dynamic with him as the new leader. So how did they fucking know?!"

Levy stared at Cloud with wide eyes at the outburst from the usually stoic man. She had been trying to push him to open up, but the anger he had held back was much more than she was expecting. "What are you talking about?" Gajeel snapped as he took a step back towards Cloud, an angry look on his own face after that forceful shove. "What does this have to do with-"

"I don't know!" Cloud yelled. He breathed heavily a few times, then repeated in a more normal voice, "I don't know. Nothing made any sense that day. They knew exactly where we were. Their reinforcements showed up in minutes, seconds even. They knew I was there, or else he never would have come."

"What are you talking about?" Levy asked, and Cloud's gaze dropped to the wall beneath his feet. "Just tell us Cloud. We're on the same team now, and we need to trust you in the battles that are coming up. How can we do that when you're hiding the truth from us?"

"Alright," Cloud said, lifting his eyes to Levy's. "Makes sense. I'll tell you what happened. That whole, fucking mess of a day," Cloud said, shaking his head as he went back to the moment when things started going wrong. "The day I lost my closest friends…" Cloud muttered.

---

5 Months Ago

Something's coming, John Rambo thought, lifting up his assault rifles and darting his gaze across the horizon. His eyes came to a stop as they shifted over some small black dots in the distance.

"What are those?!" Soul shouted.

Black Star stepped forward next to Soul and put a hand up horizontally to his head. "Uh oh," he whispered, though his smirk rose and replaced the serious frown he had gained for a moment. "We've got trouble, and lots of it," Black Star grinned with a glint in his eyes, and he lifted up his twin scythes. Tsubaki told Black Star to be cautious, her voice echoing in her Meister's mind. I know, he thought back at her, but his grin only rose higher as he saw even more dots appearing in the distance.

Axel stared around at his comrades, then back at the distance figures heading their direction. The Plains are too open, there's nowhere we can run. We'll have to fight.

"Mama Mia!" Mario called out. He jumped forward into a triple front flip and landed with both of his white-gloved fists risen in a fighting stance.

The group started to get ready, then they looked closer behind the dark dots in the distance that were getting larger every second. More and more dots were appearing above and below the figures at the edge of their lines of sight. Kiba grimaced and took a step back, Akamaru growling from next to him. Akamaru had been leaning up against Kiba's back as they walked with its head on top of Kiba's, but when the two snapped their heads the same direction from what they smelled at the same time, both had gotten into more ready-to-fight stances. So many, Kiba thought, though he kept his breathing calm and matched Akamaru's breathing pattern.

"There's hundreds of them," Cloud muttered as he watched the distant objects getting closer. The plains of red grass stretched almost all the way to those distant figures which were starting to become more clear. Those things had just passed over the edge of a sparse forest to the north of them, and as Soul and Gon started talking about how the creatures were Chimera Ants, Cloud's eyes narrowed and darted around the enemies flying in a pack towards them. There's no hesitation in their flight pattern. Axel's noticed it too, they're heading straight for us. We're pretty far south of the Cataclysm too, still in Resistance territory, even if it's disputed around here. But how did they find us? Cloud's eyes darted around the comrades with him then back to the enemies. No one here would have betrayed us. Everyone looks genuinely surprised. So what is this, feeling of dread?

"Axel," Gray started, looking to the older man.

Axel did not look as nervous as Gray felt though- that impeding sense that something wrong was coming that Gray felt earlier being proved as more than just paranoia. Axel had a serious look on his face as he rose up his arms, "Stay together guys, don't go running off on your own." In his hands that he held out to the sides formed two circular chakrams covered in flames. The spiky weapons were designed to look like flames with their red and yellow patterns, but real flames ripped out of the sharp edges of the chakrams while he leaned forward with a glare towards the approaching Chimera Ants.

"You think they knew where we were?" Cloud asked, turning his head towards Axel who had a tone in his voice that matched Cloud's dark thought path.

"Considering they're flying straight towards us," Gray began, and he reached down to the hem of his shirt. "I'd say-" The mage's words cut off there, and his preparing comrades spun towards him, or they all spun towards where he was supposed to be.

Axel looked at his side with a dropped jaw and huge eyes. He darted them back and forth to the sides of the white puff of smoke, but Gray Fullbuster was nowhere to be seen. "Gray?" Axel whispered, staring back at the cloud as it faded away to show nothing inside except for a shirt that fell to the floor. The shirt fell on the red grass where there were two clear footprints where Gray's feet just stood. What? Axel thought as he stared blankly at it.

"Where did he go?!" Kuwabara shouted. His panicked yell was matched by the rest of his comrades who started calling out Gray's name and spinning around looking for him.

As everyone spun around though, Axel's gaze shot up in front of them at the sounds of screams and shouts coming their way. The Chimera Ants were descending from the sky, hundreds of them. On the backs of many of the ones that were flying were other Ants without wings that were holding weapons, raising their fists, and screaming down in animalistic and ferocious ways. "We'll figure it out later," Axel yelled as he heard Kiba shout asking where Gray had gone. "Right now," Axel's chakrams erupted in flames and the ground behind him flared up as well. "Attack!"

Gon had already spun back to the enemies like Axel, and he brought his hands down to his right side and hunched his body over as he collected energy. "Rockkk… Paperrrr…." A bright yellow light glowed inside of Gon's connected hands and all his comrades in front of him ran out to the sides while shouting at him to be careful. The ground shook beneath Gon as he collected more, and all the Chimera Ants diving towards them swerved out to the sides from where the kid covered in glowing yellow light was aiming. Gon snapped up and brought his hands out in front of him, but he did not punch a fist, instead shouting, "MACHINE GUN!" Little bursts of yellow light ripped out from the large condensed sphere of golden light in front of his palms that he had his fingers curled in around to hold it there.

The little shreds of light ripping off of Gon's attack flew up into the air and missed most of the Chimeras that had pulled to the sides. As soon as Gon started firing though, he dragged his extended arms in front of his body to the left, firing dozens of thin yellow beams out of the glowing energy ball and shredding through the wings of just as many Chimera Ants. The flying Ants started crashing down, while the ones riding on top of them either yelled at their rides to stay up or leapt off towards their enemies. Once they were off of the flying Ants though, Gon focused his attacks on them as they had no mobility in midair. He suddenly snapped his arms to the right though as the flying Ants that had cut the other way from the middle were much closer, and there were just as many of them on that side since they had been flying with the center of their pack aimed straight towards them.

"Save some for the main character!" Black Star shouted as he had just started sprinting towards the other half of the Chimera army, only for Gon's attack to start ripping through them as well. They had gotten much closer though, and many of the Ants on the backs of the flying ones were already jumping off down towards the boy who had just sprinted beneath them. Two Ants leapt off right before passing the kid who was running full-sprint below them. They led him completely, falling so that he had just sprinted by when they would have reached the top of his vision otherwise, then one slashed the scythe in his hands down while the other whipped a barbed tail at the kid's back.

Black Star did a little jump and three-sixty spin while in the air. He slashed his dual scythes behind him, cutting the bear Chimera Ant's scythe by the center of its steel shaft, and cutting the other one's barbed tail at the base where it stuck off the creature's back. One of them screamed while the other just went wide-eyed at how fast Black Star moved, though that one was also reaching down to its side where there was a blue pistol with a glowing orange light on the top of it. As his hand touched the gun, the pistol fell into three pieces and the Chimera realized that Black Star had sliced it twice before even cutting his scythe. Black Star finished spinning, but the chain between his two scythes wrapped around the heads of the Chimeras behind him, and when he kept sprinting away he moved too fast that he snapped the heads of the creatures that just landed straight into the floor.

After taking them down, Black Star spun back as he realized he had sprinted too fast and was about to sprint right by the back of the Chimera Ant pack that had flown above him. Other flying Chimeras were crashing down behind him, though most of them landed on their feet despite the pain they were in from small beams of light cutting through their wings. "All of you Ants picked the wrong…" Black Star stopped shouting and stood there frozen with his mouth wide open.

"Black Star," Tsubaki whispered inside his head. "What's going on?" The scythes in his hands asked.

Black Star and Tsubaki stared back past all of the Chimera Ants that had landed between him and the rest of his friends who he had sprinted away from. Flames rose up on the field from Axel's flashy attacks, and Rambo's gunfire slammed into the Chimera Ants that he had picked out seeing their skin looked thinnest, after even his armor-piercing bullets failed to rip through the flesh of some of the harder ones. Yells of his comrades and screams of pain and warcries echoed from the enemies. Black Star looked beyond even his friends though, to a distant part of the sky in the opposite direction of the Chimera Ants, a direction they had not look in in a few minutes. No one felt or saw them coming. When we noticed the Ants coming from so far away, we should have realized. "CHECK YOUR SIXES!" Black Star yelled out at the top of his lungs, needing to make sure he was heard over all the other screaming and fighting on the field

Anyone not in the middle of a clash with an enemy darted a glance behind them at Black Star's shout. The boy with spiky blue hair himself started sprinting back through the Chimera Ants, but a couple of them with thinner and more muscular legs sprinted in his way quickly, making him skid to a stop still-separated from his team.

Axel glanced back as he had just finished off the three Ants in front of him with a big fiery explosion. He looked behind him and filled with a much stronger dread than before. They had been faring well so far against the Chimera Ants, but he did not like the look of the flags and sails on the airships that were sailing towards them at a low elevation. The red sails had black circles in the middle of them. Those circles were filled in red too, except there was also a symbol of a black flame with three spikes in the center of each of them. What's the Fire Nation doing here? Axel thought. Actually, how did they come so fast? Did this Chimera army call for backup? Or is this a planned strike?

The airships descended and landed a few hundred meters behind the team of Resistance fighters who did not see them until they had almost started descending. "Everyone stay focused ahead," Axel called out as he spun to his left and slammed a flaming chakram into the face of a snake-like Chimera Ant who tried diving through the smoke leftover from his last fire attack. He pierced the Chimera by the chest, then its neck extended and wrapped around Axel's arm. It opened its mouth to show two fangs covered in purple liquid, then Axel's chakram that had pierced its rough skin burst into flames, and the entire snake-creature ignited as well letting out a shrieking hiss. Axel swung his arm and threw the snake-Ant back towards his other comrades, then he turned and started running for the airships where he spotted a large number of enemies exiting from.

"You said to focus ahead!" Soul shouted over his shoulder without looking back, as he had seen Axel spin through his peripheral vision. The white-haired teen with his right arm transformed into a long red scythe-blade slashed it to his right and a splash of green blood flew up, then he called out, "So what are you doing?"

"Someone needs to take the other enemies," Axel called back. He stopped jogging and started walking slower towards the enemies behind them. They had five airships in total, and he saw over a hundred figures exit them so far. As he slowed his walk though, the ones who were running his way slowed down too. The dark purple teardrop-shaped tattoos beneath his bright green eyes, the slender and tall stature that had him looking down at most of them, and the black cloak he wore with matching gloves and boots all added to the intimidating presence he was making them feel. Even the strongest enemies who had continued moving forward at first started to slow down as they got a better look at the man with huge spiky red hair sticking out in all directions above, behind, and to the sides of his head.

Axel narrowed his eyes at the looks some of those powerful mutants were giving him. I wear a black cloak over the one that hides my location from the Organization, but these guys must be around the others often if this gives off the same vibe. Axel darted his gaze around them but smirked as he did not see any black-cloaked figures among them. Despite that grin though, his dark look remained, How did they find us then?

A man ran up on Axel's left side and came to a stop with his hands out in front of his waist on the hilt of his giant, bandaged sword. "Thought I said to stay over there," Axel said while Cloud stood at his side with his Buster Sword extended in front of him. The giant sword had some blood on the white bandages wrapping it, but Cloud was not panting as he stopped at Axel's side.

"Gon and Black Star can handle it," Cloud said. "We don't know the power these guys have yet."

"So we're helping you out," Kiba added as he leapt over to Axel's side, appearing there fast with a ninja jump.

"Ruff," Akamaru agreed, appearing at Kiba's other side in a doggy-ninja jump of its own.

"It's the Fire Nation," Axel began. "I can handle the heat on my…" Axel faded off as he looked closer at the men and women who were walking forward from the airships again. The strongest ones who had moved to the front of the pack had kept moving forward the entire time, and most of their men were following behind them, but Axel was noticing that not many of them had on red and black armor that the normal Fire Nation soldiers usually wore. Even the most powerful enemies from what Axel could tell stopped walking his way though as someone called out from farther back towards the airships, and the enemies made a path as she started walking forward.

"I recognize that guy," Kiba growled as he looked towards one of the strong-looking men at the front of the pack ahead of them. "He's a mutant, name's Avalanche," Kiba said. He narrowed his eyes at the man in the silver helmet with steel plating around almost his entire body with some tight black armor fabric between the thicker sections, giving him better movement of his joints in those places, as well as targets for his enemies. Kiba's eyes darted around after looking at that man, and they started growing larger as he muttered, "Are all of them, mutants?"

"I don't see Magneto," Cloud said. "So there's one plus side," he clenched his sword's hilt tighter, imagining their situation had the leader of the mutants arrived. He would have lost his sword, Axel his chakrams, and he wondered if Tsubaki and Soul would have been affected by the man's powers. Kiba glanced up at the ninja headband on his forehead and grimaced as he imagined Magneta dragging him across the field, pulling all his ninja weapons out of his pouch and stabbing him with them.

Their relief at not seeing Magneto with the enemy army vanished as the woman walking through the army came into view. "Oh shit," Axel muttered, taking a step back with a bead of sweat rolling down his face. He kept a smile on his face despite his sweating, and he said with a laugh, "You just had to mention a plus side."

Cloud was not in the joking mood anymore. He rarely was, but the sight of that woman with long orange hair and a tight-black spandex costume around her body made him much darker than usual. "Axel, she's here," Cloud said. The woman looking towards them had a smile on her face, but her eyes were glowing pure white and her orange hair was waving around behind her head as if there was a constant gust of wind pushing against her.

"Is that," Kiba began, already feeling the sensation that the other two expressed, even though unlike them he had never seen this woman before. Kiba had heard stories though, and as Akamaru took two paw-steps back at his side, Kiba finished, "The Phoenix?"

"You can call me just Phoenix, boys," a devilish voice echoed into the minds of the three men facing her and even the large white dog that whimpered at her voice in its head.

"Oh," Kiba muttered aloud, not realizing that the 'The' was not necessary. "Okay then," he continued, while his mouth start lifting into a grin again. "What are we waiting for?" Kiba asked, leaning forward and putting his hands together in front of his chest. "Akamaru," he said, and the dog that had stepped back ran to him and put its paws up on his shoulders. "Shadow Clone Jutsu," Kiba said once he had his hands crossed over each other in front of him. Behind Kiba appeared three more Kibas, all three of which ran forward and jumped on top of Akamaru's back one by one, making the real Kiba hunch farther and farther down. "Combination Transformation Jutsu:" Kiba started shouting and a puff of white smoke surrounded him for an instant.

Phoenix lifted her gaze as did all the mutants behind her as the giant appeared before them. Instead of a weird-looking ninja with a dog and a few copies of himself on his back, Kiba had transformed into something that terrified most of the mutants. "FIVE-HEADED WOLF!" The giant white dog creature with five huge heads each baring sharp teeth roared out its center head. Each of the four muscular legs sticking out the bottom of the huge dog's body started bending down and tightening more, its claws digging through the grass and dirt beneath it while it bent its heads down and snarled at the mutants ahead of him.

"Keep the mutants off me," Axel said, then he sprinted forward before either of the two behind him could say a word.

"Coming at me on your own? I'm surprised, you don't seem like the suicidal ty-" Phoenix's mental connection with the man in front of her cut off as in the path directly between them, a black portal opened up that the man running her way sprinted straight into. Another black portal opened up behind Phoenix and she started turning as she heard all the thoughts of the mutants behind her who saw this man appeared. As she turned her head only sideways though, she saw Axel's body leaning out of the portal, his arms stretched out to the sides with flames bursting out of the chakrams already, though it still looked like he was just charging.

"Let's turn up the heat!" Axel shouted, slamming his chakrams together in front of his body and creating an explosion of flames twenty meters in radius around him that blasted dozens of mutants away.

One of the mutants close to him did not get sent flying though, instead raising his arms and gathering up the flames that just exploded towards him into a huge fireball in front of him. Axel started turning towards one side of the flames around him when he noticed them all pulling away, and the light was nearly blinding in that direction as the mutant with pyrokinesis smirked through the flames at him. Pyro rose up his arms and the fireball in front of him rose up too while getting even larger. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Axel jumped backwards, then it turned out he did not need to as a figure appeared behind Pyro with an amazing feat of speed.

Axel stared over as the man who appeared behind Pyro had the butt of his Buster Sword slammed hard into the mutant's side, a blow that Axel figured probably crushed some ribs from how fast Cloud was moving. The man with spiky blond hair sent Pyro flying, his giant fireball following him off until he hit the floor near one of the airships. A second later, that giant fireball slammed into the parked airship and created a massive explosion that shook the entire field. The sky filled with black smoke and ash while flames and debris shot in all directions. At the same moment back near the Chimera Ants, Gon had just gotten to a climactic clash with the Chimera Ant commander who had capable Nen abilities, and the two clashed with Gon using his signature Jajanken: Rock. The enemy was not expecting the amount of force to be in the explosion, getting blown away by the dome of red-tinted yellow light that erupted on that side of the field.

Avalanche slammed his steel gloves into the floor and they started vibrating. Powerful seismic waves exited his hands straight into the ground, cracking it in a dozen different directions, though completely crumbling it in a path in front of him where the grass and dirt shot upwards in chunks. A trench tore out of the ground towards the charging five-headed dog, only for Kiba to leap up right before the quake could hit him. "Fang Spiral Fang!" Kiba started spinning as he came back down towards Avalanche. He spun faster and faster until his body looked like a spiraling white blur of fur shooting down towards the mutant who rose up his arms. Avalanche planted his feet down hard in the ground in his metal boots and slammed his hands inwards on the front of the spiraling giant creature as it hit him.

For an instant it looked like he had caught the ninja, and then Kiba's body spun twice as fast as it already was and twisted Avalanche's hands right off of him, before Kiba slammed into the man and knocked him out of his placement in the ground and sent him flying into another airship that he smashed through the bottom right side of, making it start tilting that way before falling right into one of the other parked airships. The masts on those ships started to fall with the red sails catching fire from the explosion of the first ship. Kiba landed and his five wolf heads let out a few deep breaths, before all of them smirked mouths full of sharp teeth. A long tongue wrapped around Kiba's fore-left paw, and Mortimer Toynbee, or Toad, yanked Kiba's leg out from under him. The wolf was too front-heavy with all his giant heads, even if his body was very large to match it proportionately, but all that weight on his front left side without a leg to hold him up made the giant creature collapse down onto two of its faces, while the other three spun towards the one who had just taken him down.

Toad leapt up in the air and pulled his green-skinned head back, before snapping it forward. Kiba expected a long sticky tongue to snap out again, but this time it was a green liquid coming straight for the center wolf-head's eyes. Kiba turned his middle head to the side fast, then he let out a loud roar as the liquid turned out to be an acid that melted through his fur and started burning his flesh in seconds. Toad smirked as Kiba let out his roar, then the giant creature stomped its front left paw hard onto the already-cracked ground below it. All five of its heads turned their furious, snarling gazes on the ugly mutant whose eyes bulged out of his head at the sight of the terrifying creature. Toad had backup though, and a few dozen mutants all started charging at Kiba from various sides at the same time.

Kiba leapt in the air to dodge some ice and spikes flying towards him and his body started to spin in front-flips fast until he was spinning again only this time like a wheel. "Tail-Chasing Fang, Fang Rotating Fang!" Kiba slammed back on the ground and instantly shredded through it with his fast-moving body. He spun forward and mutants had to dive to the side or risk getting run over by the spinning giant furball that shot straight at Toad. The fleeing mutant turned back right as the ninja was about to hit him, letting out one last croak before Kiba hit him at full speed and knocked him off the ground and flying into the sky.

In the center of all the mutants running around and fighting their powerful enemies, Axel returned to facing the point in the center of the explosion he created. He had looked away when Pyro tried attacking him, but he did not risk looking away to find another fight again. He stared towards where the most concentrated area of his explosion was, and he grimaced as he saw the woman rising up out of the still-burning flames. Axel saw through his peripherals that the rest of his flames from the attack had already lowered down after burning up all the grass, and then he realized what the flames in front of him really were as the shadow inside them turned towards him and her bright white eyes glowed inside those flames.

The ground beneath Phoenix lifted up into the cosmic flames rippling around her, shredding apart and leaving not even ash behind as they completely burnt away. She pointed her hand at Axel and he lifted a guard to try and protect from those flames, but she never fired them at him, instead using telekinesis to lift him twenty feet off the ground in a single tug. "Gah-" Axel reached up for his throat as he felt it crushing once he was floating on Phoenix's level.

Phoenix flew forward with her cosmic flames surrounding her. "Slow!" Cloud yelled as Phoenix reached an arm forward, her powerful flames morphing into massive wings behind her. Her arm reaching out of the flames towards Axel slowed down, her eyes started shifting left towards the blond man who spun his sword around his head after calling out that spell. "Limit Break: METEORAIN!" Cloud slammed his glowing blue Buster Sword into the ground, and then Phoenix's slow-moving eyes shifted upwards as the sky above her opened up.

Time started moving again for the powerful mutant woman, right as ten meteors summoned out of the sky crashed into her and slammed her down into the ground below. Cloud took a few panting breaths, then he spun left and lifted his sword to block a slash from an enemy whose arms were as sharp as blades. Three women charged at his back who all looked like the same person, and Cloud spun around with his sword outstretched, parrying back his opponent with sword arms and slashing back the three copies of another mutant. As he turned again while feeling something coming, his eyes opened wide at the sight of a furious woman with flaming orange hair shooting towards him, the ground beneath her shredding apart as she smirked his way. Cloud tried leaping backwards, but as soon as his feet left the floor he was pulled the other way and Phoenix grabbed him by the front of his black cloak.

His clothes were made of some of the strongest material he could get from the Resistance, making his cloak more like armor than clothing. It shredded in under a second, and Cloud screamed as his skin started pulling off into the cosmic flames that were not even touching him yet but caused so much damage just being in the same vicinity. Phoenix smirked and her flames started to push towards Cloud, then she pulled her arm back fast, releasing Cloud and letting him drop to the floor below where he bounced backwards to create some distance again. Cloud looked up and saw the chakram that flew through the space where Phoenix just had her arm outstretched. The round weapon curved around the woman in the air and flew back to Axel's left hand which he caught it in before snapping it down to his side like his right already was.

"Alright, Phoenix," Axel called out, his entire body shaking intensely. Cloud lost sight of the two of them, as he and all of the mutants near them had to move back from the giant ring of flames that rose out of the ground while the air around them darkened. Through the flames, Cloud saw the red-haired man start running forwards, pillars of flames rising up from the ground all over the place inside there.

Axel's strong, but against the strongest mutant… Cloud lost his ability to worry about his comrades, as he had to spin and dive to the side in order to avoid an attack from the cloning mutant again who now had over a dozen copies all charging at him at once. He slashed them back and forth, but he saw the one in the back standing there smugly as more and more of herself ripped from her body and started charging his way. Cloud sprinted forward, slashing his glowing blue sword to the sides back and forth to knock all the clones away. He reached the girl who was stepping backwards in fear at how quickly all of her copies were defeated, and she let out a shriek as Cloud slammed the back of his sword into her side so hard that she bent over it, before flying off and tumbling across the ground a few dozen times.

As soon as Cloud hit her, he spun to the next mutant near him who he thought was about to attack. He froze though when he was only half-turned that way, the black wing sticking off his left side twitching as his entire body filled with dread.

Axel tried his best to match up to Phoenix, but it was not long before he was flying backwards, coughing up spit with a strong pain in his chest where he was just slammed by a giant invisible force. He flipped right before hitting the ground and landed on the soles of his black boots, but he still skid back several yards before dropping down to his knees. He snapped his gaze up fast as he expected the woman to come flying at him through their fiery battleground, but Phoenix stopped where she was and just started smirking towards him. What is she, Axel started thinking, then his thoughts froze and the flames encircling him dropped down. Walking towards Axel in the middle of the enemy forces below Phoenix, was a man in a black cloak with the hood up shadowing his face. While most of the mutants focused on fighting Kiba, this figure started sprinting at Axel and lifted up both hands at his sides.

The red haired man went even wider-eyed at the sight of a pair of Keyblades forming in the hands of the Nobody charging his direction. No way, Axel thought, then he had to lift his chakrams fast to block as the person in front of him slammed both Keyblades down hard and crossed them against Axel's weapons that he pushed right back. The Nobody who attacked him pushed down into Axel's chakrams, leaning his face forward towards his crossed Keyblades so that Axel could see up under that hood to the face that became less shadowed. Axel stared at that frustrated, furious expression, with the golden blond hair sticking down over his eyes and shadowing them even more. "Roxas!" Axel shouted. He almost sounded glad, but he was in way too much of a panicked situation right now to rejoice over seeing his old best friend attacking him. "You're with them?" Axel snapped, pushing back against the Keyblades and knocking the boy backwards.

Phoenix watched from where she floated in the air, her white eyes glowing and her smirk rising as she watched the men below. Roxas slammed his Keyblades out to the sides then brought them up in a stance, before snapping at Axel, "You're an enemy of the Organization."

"Don't mention seeing me to anyone!" Axel called out, swinging his right chakram to the side and stepping towards the shorter Nobody ahead of him. "I don't want to put Lea in danger-"

"That'll be the least of your worries when you see who just showed up," Roxas said, looking over Axel's head. Axel would not have been as unnerved by that statement if the smirking powerful mutant woman floating in the air behind Roxas did not suddenly back up while looking over them as well.

Axel spun around, staring back across the battlefield towards where the Chimera Ants had attacked them from. Most of those Ants were defeated now, but there was a new enemy standing where that fallen army lay. Cloud was twenty meters in front of Axel, having just frozen still as he saw the man who dropped out of the sky, a giant dark-bluish black wing sticking out of his right side that looked so familiar to the members of Delta Squad. As Axel stared that way, Roxas charged at him. Axel started turning back right before Roxas slammed into him. A portal appeared behind where Ace was just hit, and the shorter Nobody tackled them into a dark portal that vanished just as quickly.

Cloud saw this out the corners of his eyes as Axel was not directly behind him but a little to his right side. He did not turn back though, as he was frozen still at the sight of the tall man with long silver hair, a single dark wing matching his own, and a katana longer than he was tall in his left hand. "Get away," Cloud muttered, taking a step forward. "Get away. Get back! Guys!" Cloud shouted, a more panicked look coming to his face as the comrades between him and that figure started talking about this being a new enemy.

"If he's here with all of them, then he's my enemy!" Black Star shouted, a ravenous look on his face that was already splattered with many different colors of blood. He lifted up Tsubaki and she glowed bright before transforming into a katana, though one shorter than the man before him's. Black Star took a deep breath, then he started sprinting forward while zig-zagging across the burnt plain speckled in craters, leaving after-images of himself behind.

Mario had taken a step back when he first saw this man. Gon felt the same way, having felt every warning signal in his body go off, but Mario recognized the man's face on top of that. "Black Star, wait!" Mario shouted. "You don't-"

Black Star ignored his comrade as well as Cloud's shouts from farther back. He leapt up in the air and then appeared behind the figure using his amazing speed. As soon as Black Star's friends saw him appear behind the tall silver-haired man, Black Star's feet lifted off the ground again, his body arching backwards, blood splattering out of a huge gash going up his torso.

"Black Star!" Soul shouted, sprinting forward.

"Rei-ken!" Kuwabara yelled, lifting up his arms and reforming a huge sword of orange energy in his hands.

"Don't do it!" Cloud shouted as he kept running towards them.

Mario did not shout something similar, because he knew there was no other option. "We-a have to try something," the Italian man said in a heavy accent. Then he gulped and added, "Even if this is, Sephiroth, one of the Five Guardians of the Capital."

Rambo bit down hard and he reached to his side for a grenade he had yet to use. "Of all the bad luck in the last five minutes, this is the worst."

"We can take him if we work…" Gon faded off as Soul and Kuwabara both slashed down together at the Guardian whose bloody katana was held out to the side.

Sephiroth flew straight forward, looking past his other enemies and all the way to Cloud who was now sprinting towards him. Cloud had just reached in between Gon and Mario, and he was already bringing his Buster Sword around while the two started turning their heads inwards. As they turned their heads in, they caught out the corners of their vision where they were just watching: Soul falling backwards with his eyes rolling back in his head, and Kuwabara's Reiken splitting into five different pieces while gashes opened up around his body as well.

Cloud's sword glowed blue and Sephiroth's glowed a dark red, and the two of them clashed blades in midair. "Hello Cloud," Sephiroth greeted with an unnerving smile, while their clashed blades produced such power that Mario started skidding backwards, and John Rambo lifted off his feet and flew back a few meters before doing a backwards tumble into a one-kneed position that he slid back on, an arm in front of his face trying to protect himself from the wind. He had only skid backwards using one hand to dig in the ground, making sure to keep his crossed arm with the grenade in it lifted as best as he could. Just the swings of their arms are too much, they'll knock the grenade right off course. In that case, Rambo turned and saw Kiba being overwhelmed by mutants behind him, and he reached to his sidearm with his free hand that had blood coming out from under the fingernails now, and he started running that way while shooting mutants in the heads one by one.

The mutants spun, and then ten of them screamed out in terror. BOOM! An advanced grenade blasted a hole in the ground and sent shrapnel flying into all the enemies around it, while the explosion itself that was the most advanced part of the grenade exploded in a sphere with a ten meter radius. Rambo made sure that one of the first mutants he fired on was one who was holding a gun of his own, as Rambo's main weapons were discarded as soon as he ran out of all his extra ammo for them. He ran forward and did a forward roll, reaching out as he rolled and picking up the beam rifle of the mutant who was reaching for it on the ground. Rambo lifted the gun while crossing his sidearm across the front of his body, and as he stood up and rose his new rifle, he fired into the head of the mutant on the ground without even looking at him. Rambo dropped the pistol that he just fired the last shot out of, then he fired from across a forty meter gap to hit a woman up in the air with long claws sticking out of her hands that she was about to dig into Kiba's back. Blood splattered out the side of her head, then Kiba swung his left back paw out and hit two other mutants just about to punch him in the back of the knee to try and make his Five-Headed Wolf collapse.

Running low on chakra here. How many more mutants do they have? How many Chimera Ants are still back there that no one's coming to help me but for Rambo? A force of wind slammed into Kiba's side and his paws started skidding across the floor, while mutants around him were lifted up and tossed through the air. WHAT?! Kiba snapped his heads all to the right, where Cloud and Sephiroth were suddenly in midair with blades clashed only a few meters away from him. They slashed again and again, then Cloud appeared behind Sephiroth and slashed through his body, only for Sephiroth to appear behind Cloud and hit him in the back with the Masamune so hard that Kiba was afraid it would rip right through Cloud's body. Cloud was sent flying into the distance, then he saw a shockwave in the sky close to a half mile away, followed by a half dozen others, followed by a rain of meteors that Kiba felt were bigger than the ones Cloud usually called, and there were more of them than usual. The sky darkened in that direction, and Kiba was getting a bad feeling as his chakra reserves were running on empty.

"Mario, give the others some potions," Gon said to the man next to him while he spun and watched Cloud and the new enemy's path into the distance. "I'm going to help Kiba and John." Rambo was getting charged by a few mutants who the beam rifle he was shooting was having zero effect on, and Gon sprinted towards him first while yelling at Rambo to keep focus on protecting Kiba's back.

Gon made it to Rambo in time and punched back both of the enemies who were shocked by the kid's power. Gon turned to sprint towards the woman he had a terrible feeling was about to start getting serious, but that woman had her head turned a different direction than where Cloud and Sephiroth just flew off to. Gon spun while thinking, What now? Whatever it was that Gon thought Phoenix was looking towards, it was definitely not what he set his gaze on coming towards him from the northeast.

Most of the others stopped what they were doing as well. Soul had just sat up as Mario gave him some healing medicine, but the two of them froze where they were while looking the same direction as Gon and Phoenix. Kiba turned his heads and all five of his jaws dropped, right before his chakra ran too low to support the transformation any longer. He had upped his chakra supply over the past two years and could withstand three Shadow Clones at once now for his most powerful jutsu, but making that many heads and making his wolf that large took a harsh toll on his energy, and he was spent. Kiba appeared next to Akamaru who was also panting heavily with its tongue sticking out, but they were both sweating just as much from their exhaustion as they were from the sight in the northeast that was easily one of the worst things they could have imagined to be coming to their battlefield.

Inside of a dark realm separated from the field yet not necessarily in a different location, Axel swung his arms out to the sides and stepped towards Roxas. "What do you mean?! You don't have to do anything! Why are we on opposite sides of this thing? It's like we flipped!"

"I have no choice Axel," Roxas said in a dark voice. "You have to find a better place to hide. I was with Phoenix so I'm the only one who knows, but if I found you this easily, they'll find you for sure."

"Even if they find me," Axel said darkly. The conversation was much more serious than Axel wanted to have with his long-lost best friend. "They won't find Lea. How do they do it?" Axel asked, stepping forward and glaring at Roxas who frowned deeper at that question. "I've been keeping an eye on them, and I know the Organization are merging us with our Somebodies. How is that possible?" Axel snapped.

"It's, Xemnas he compl-," Roxas cut himself off and bit down hard. "I can't tell you anything," Roxas growled. "Right now, you're my enemy. That's all there is to it, and neither of us have any choice in the matter!" Roxas yelled. He lifted his Keyblades, then as he glared towards Axel, the taller man just lowered his arms down to his sides and frowned at the shorter Nobody. Roxas opened his mouth to shout, but the words would not come out as Axel stared at him like that. Slowly, Roxas lowered his twin Keyblades.

Roxas reached back and pulled up his hood that had fallen off in their fight. "You need to run," Roxas said, giving one last warning before he turned around.

"And leave my friends behind?" Axel asked as the other boy walked off. Roxas grimaced but kept walking, his teeth clenched in so much frustration as Axel continued, "I don't give up on my friends." Roxas froze where he was, even as Axel turned his back to him and opened a swirling black portal in their shared dark realm. "Got it memorized?" Axel asked. Roxas spun around, but the tall red-haired man was gone, his portal vanishing from the darkness.

Axel stepped onto a field covered in dead burnt grass, cracks cutting deep into the planet's crust, and rising flames from the mutants' destroyed ships. "Alright guys!" Axel called out right after he stepped through the portal. He had a lot to think on concerning Roxas and how he was going to help him after what he just told the younger boy, but there were pressing matters at the moment. "Let's…" Axel could not continue his call as he turned to his right and then lifted his eyes up to the massive black beast that just shot towards them so fast that a huge gust of wind almost threw him off his feet. Oh fuck me, Axel thought with sweat covering his whole face.

Above the battlefield, a giant black dragon flapped its wings and lowered its legs down to the ground. It dropped down and its claws dug straight through solid earth like it was made of butter. It had an eight hundred yard long wingspan that cast shade over everything for a few moments. Then its wings pulled in to its body, folding in on its back at its sides while it lifted its neck and pushed out its scaly chest. The giant beast looked down and all the Resistance fighters and their enemies stared up at its giant face. It had horns sticking out of the top of its head, dark glowing yellowish-red eyes, and its entire body covered in a bright orange glow as it leaned the front of its body up. It lifted its head and opened its mouth, firing a red beam of flames into the sky and then pulling its head back and forth to spray those flames everywhere, covering the sky in fire.

On the back of this dragon, a man stood and looked down off the left side towards a section of the battlefield. He held up his hand and a black glow surrounded it that caused the beast to stop spraying flames in the air, lowering its head down while bending its front legs to give the man on its back a lower drop to the floor.

"We are so screwed," Soul Evans muttered, lifting up to his feet despite the pain and exhaustion he was feeling. The potion Mario gave him sealed up his wound, but he had lost a lot of blood and was feeling pretty light-headed. Mario could see the teen's skin color getting closer to matching his hair at how pale it was, and the short Italian plumber darted his gaze around to see that Soul was not the only one on his last legs. Mama mia… Mario thought, as they had enemies in all directions.

Gon darted his eyes around too, realizing the same as Mario. We're in a triangle. Cloud's back there, these two are in front of us, but they stopped while leaving Phoenix and the other mutants in our way if we try to avoid either of them. A Guardian, a High Lord, and the most powerful mutant. How can we win this?!

"Bahamut," Sephiroth said while glancing over his shoulder. "Similar, yet not the same as the creature we could summon from our world," he looked back into Cloud's eyes with a knowing look, and Cloud grit his teeth in an even angrier fashion at his enemy.

Cloud dared a longer glance in that direction and stared at the beast, as well as the man on that creature's back. As soon as Cloud looked at the dark figure, that man's eyes glowed red and a sphere of black energy surrounded him. "No," Cloud whispered, and he started sprinting forward right as that sphere of darkness expanded from Zeref's body. Cloud made it a few steps before he saw the man out the corner of his right eye. He spun and lifted his Buster Sword to block, but Sephiroth was already slashing at Cloud's back, moving so fast that it looked like he teleported. Sephiroth slashed Masamune into Cloud's back three times, and then Cloud let out a yell of pain as he felt himself get slashed over thirty times. "Reaper," Sephiroth said, then he shot over where Cloud just started flying off and added, "Surging Sky!" He slashed down four times into Cloud in a combo that he tried blocking, only to be slammed into the floor so hard that the ground exploded and Cloud kept pushing down through it for over fifty meters.

Cloud stopped himself after crashing far through the earth, and his eyes darted around at the falling debris around him since the ground had split open where he fell through. Another cut in the earth split it perpendicular to the location he was currently standing, but he slashed up and parried the invisible slash that split a mile of the ground in both directions of the blond. Cloud shot up through the surface and came up behind Sephiroth, shouting, "Omnislash!"

Sephiroth turned fast and said in a calm voice, "Octaslash." The two of them clashed blades over and over in midair with slashes flying off of them so fast that they cut apart the ground beneath them and sliced it up all around. Cloud yelled out and pushed harder into one of his slashes than any of the others, and he pushed Masamune away for a second which made Sephiroth's eyebrows lift and his smirk reappear, right before Cloud's sword hit him and he was sent flying out of the air and into the planet below. Cloud flapped his demonic wing behind him and shot towards the part of the field where he saw his friends all laying on the ground moaning in pain. He saw Kiba curled up with Akamaru in his arms, but the mutants who were kicking him while he was down started backing off except for the two who began dragging him towards Bahamut and the man standing in front of the giant dragon's risen neck.

Everyone, Cloud thought, watching as Axel held up his hands and walked over towards the others, none of whom could fight anymore. Axel started talking to the High Lord, but Cloud was not able to hear what they were saying from this distance, or hear them at all. He flew closer to them, and he swore he saw Axel glance over his shoulder as if giving Cloud a signal that he was ready to keep fighting once they were together. Cloud put his sword at his side, then a shadow cast over him and he felt a slash in his back, one that cut through his skin this time from how unprepared he was. As he shot towards the ground he flipped over in midair, seeing the man who he thought would be out for the count or at least far enough behind him to give him time to regroup with his friends. "Sephi-" Cloud hit the ground and a crater blasted beneath him, then it tripled in size as the ground dented in farther to cushion his fall.

"As I said," Zeref told the man in front of him whose face filled with dread. The short black-haired High Lord knew what Axel was waiting for, and he grinned after seeing what Sephiroth did to that man. "I was led to believe that a member of Fairy Tail was here. One, Gray Fullbuster to be exact," he looked around at the prisoners gathered before him.

He saw their confused faces as they looked his way, and Soul muttered from his knees, "Don't pretend like you don't know, bastard-ahh!" He tried getting to his feet but the mutant who dragged him over kicked him in the back and he fell flat on his face next to an unconscious Black Star.

"Hey hey, we give up," Axel told the guy in front of him. "High Lord Spriggan, we know there's nothing we can do against you."

Cloud landed hard on his back, but he sat up and started staggering to his feet after only a second. He looked behind him over to where Axel was still standing despite the rest of his comrades looking drained on their knees or lying unconscious on their faces. Phoenix floated nearby, eying the dragon nervously as Bahamut looked straight at her instead of any of the other figures around the battlefield. Her smile was gone and she stared straight into the dragon's glowing eyes, drowning out all other sound around her at the sight of them. Cloud wanted to run towards them, but Sephiroth landed to his right and he had to turn that way instead.

"You think I did something to Gray," Zeref pondered aloud, not really paying attention to Axel who sweatdropped and then turned his head both ways as he saw mutants walking up to his back. He just said he gave up, but as they grabbed him by the arms he shrugged them off with harsh glares aimed at them. One woman rose her arms and vines came out of them, wrapping around the man, while the other stomped his right foot down and turned the ground beneath Axel into quick-sinking mud that he dropped to below his knees in. Zeref looked at Soul while this happened, and after a few seconds he leaned back and scratched his chin. "So, whatever happened to him must have just happened. Accusing me just tells me that you don't know what happened though," Zeref added in a disappointed tone, while at the same time humming to himself as it was an interesting mystery.

"Yeah, get off me," Axel said, snapping his arms out from his sides where they were being held tight. The vines around him burnt away and the female mutant stumbled backwards while screaming in pain. Axel yanked his legs up one at a time next then glared back at the mutant behind him, only for that mutant to stare forward with the most horror Axel could imagine being in a man's eyes. Unfortunately, his eyes were aimed above Axel's head and not into Axel's own eyes when he faced the man. "Huuffff, rrrff," Axel heard the deep heavy breathing then felt the hot breath on the back of his neck and through his entire body. He started turning and saw Rambo and Gon looking at him with wide eyes, and even Kiba and Akamaru who were just thrown down near them were not wheezing in pain anymore but frozen still while looking towards Axel.

Axel turned around and stared at the face of the dragon in front of him. It was several times larger that his entire body, many times as tall and much more than that wide. Its features from far away were terrifying, but its scales and spikes and the evil look in its eyes was made all the worse by its close proximity. Axel stared with a sudden inability of breathe at the beast in front of him, right as High Lord Spriggan walked up to the left side of its face and stared at Axel as well. "It is your complete defeat," the High Lord said, immediately followed by the loud sounds of gunshots. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG click-click.

Zeref had his left hand lifted up, and he slowly turned towards it and looked past at the muscular man standing despite his shaky legs and pointing a small gun at him. Rambo used the last of his ammo, and Axel looked out the corners of his eyes towards him in a panicked way, though there was no way he could actually turn his head with Bahamut still staring straight at him. Zeref opened up his palm and dropped all of Rambo's heavy bullets meant to pierce armor, all of them crushed like they were made of plastic. "Even if I wasn't immortal," Zeref said. Bringing his immortality up seemed to make him more annoyed, his red eyes glowing brighter and a black aura surrounding him. "Pathetic attacks like that would do nothing." The black aura around Zeref rose up and formed the shape of a hand. Rambo's eyes lifted and he took a step back, but the black hand was too fast and shot right over the other kneeling figures straight to him. It swiped across his body, also hitting two mutants behind him who had run his way to knock him back down.

The black hand of aura passed straight through the three figures and then disappeared just as quickly as it began. Axel, Gon, Mario, Soul, Kiba, Akamaru, and Cloud stared in shock as the man's eyes rolled into his head. His breath was gone, his heartbeat stopped, just like the two mutants who fell first behind him. His legs wobbled for a few seconds longer, his friends pushing themselves up or running towards him, and then John Rambo fell backwards and hit the ground with a thud. Mutants re-pinned Soul, Kiba and Akamaru, and Mario to the ground quickly. Gon was harder, finding a new source of energy that he used to blast the fat mutant that leapt on his back straight back into the sky with a hole in his gut.

Axel was furious though. His very first mission as the Delta Squad leader, and he had already lost someone. Damn it! DAMN IT! Axel spun towards Zeref after running only a few steps to Rambo, since he realized the man was dead before he even hit the ground. Axel glared furiously into the High Lord's eyes, and then a mutant girl younger than most of the others walked up behind the man solely focused on one thing, put her hands to the sides of his head, and Axel's eyelids closed as he passed out and collapsed.

Cloud kept sprinting though, for another second until Sephiroth appeared on his side. This time though, he was expecting it and rose to block on the other side where Sephiroth teleported to a second later with his incredible speeds. He slashed at Cloud, but even though the blond was prepared for it, it did not stop the blade from sending Cloud skidding back across the ground for twenty meters. Cloud turned to get better footing so he would not be hit so far the next time, then the sky opened up and meteors started falling. He rose his sword up a little to block the summoned meteors and slash them apart, and that's when he saw his fatal error. Sephiroth was right in front of him, bent down a bit with his sword already in mid-slash, while Cloud's was still rising up to slash at the first of the meteors. "Let's get somewhere more private, Cloud," Sephiroth said. The Masamune slammed into Cloud's chest, lifting him off the ground as he gasped, and then Sephiroth started sprinting forward so fast that the landscape around them was a blur. Sephiroth spoke as he ran Cloud to a more secluded location, "Have you come to accept it, Cloud? The darkness in your heart." Sephiroth slashed fully forward as he stopped, sending Cloud flying and tumbling over the green grassy ground once he hit down. "What I really am, and who you are?"

Cloud did not know where he was, but the fact that the geography looked so much different meant that Sephiroth had taken them far. He knew the direction they came from though and glared at the man in the way of him and getting back there. "I'm a member of the Resistance!" Cloud yelled, slashing his Buster Sword out to the side. "What I really am, is just that! You don't affect me anymore. I've given up on the darkness and chosen the light! I cast you out!"

"You can't get rid of me that easily, Cloud," Sephiroth said, lifting back up Masamune and holding it to his left side while a dark aura surrounded him. His long black wing stretched out one way, and Cloud's did on his opposite side as he lifted up his Buster Sword. "Not on this world. Not when our fight, is the very fight this world was made for."

"Shut, UP!" Cloud roared, shooting towards Sephiroth and slamming down with his Buster Sword.

Sephiroth rose his katana and blocked Cloud though. As the blond-haired teen leaned down towards his sword and pushed harder with both hands, Sephiroth just stared calmly up into his furious eyes, and he asked, "Which of us is the real darkness, Cloud?"

---

Present

"Spriggan and his dragon ended the last hope we had," Cloud muttered to the two in front of him. "With Phoenix, Spriggan, and Sephiroth all attacking at once, there was nothing we could do."

Levy had heard that Rambo had died during the failed mission, but having it described to her like that made it much worse. She held back the water in her eyes though and just said, "And Gray? Did Zeref know anything about him?"

"I don't know," Cloud replied. "I was too far to hear what they were talking about…" He turned to Gajeel whose face was still scrunched in what seemed to Cloud like a permanent scowl. "That's all I know," he told the mage. "Believe it or don't, I don't care which."

"I believe you, this time," Gajeel muttered, though his voice was still full of anger. But that doesn't give me any closure at all. Where the Hell did Gray go?! And, and how did something like that happen? Not just Gray vanishing, but that whole thing sounds funky.

"Maybe Gray disappearing was a good thing," Levy whispered, and Gajeel looked down at her in confusion before his gaze softened for the first time in over an hour. "Even if he was there," Levy continued softly. "Against those odds…"

"It wouldn't have made a difference," Cloud finished for her. Gajeel and Levy looked back at the man who just turned and gazed out past their walls and over the half-Scorched landscape around them. "That's what I tell myself at least, hoping that at least one of us made it out of there." The two Fairy Tail mages stared at Cloud with hesitant and softer looks at that statement, as he was not counting himself as getting out of that battle. Cloud stared into the distance though, wondering if at any second the enemy would come at them in full force. Because they know where we are, Cloud thought as he wondered why he was so paranoid. His fists clenched at his sides and he frowned even deeper, They always know.

---

A/N Back in chapter 6 (of original Nexus) we saw the very beginning of this, but the flashback ended right after Gray teleported to Port Royal in the middle of the fight. Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter, and I'll put a list of the characters below since it's a lot of new ones or ones who have not shown themselves often in the First Third. Anyway, this chapter was originally going to be this part about Cloud and friends and another part that also had to do with "The Truth," but the next part would have been a lot more to add so I'm going to just add a 14.3, (since I had planned on skipping a few decimals this chapter of skipping around, didn't need a full 10 parts for it). But next time will be Nexus HWR 14.3 Fear, so I'm going to start working on that tomorrow with the first day of my Spring Break here in Tokyo!

Gurren Lagann: Kamina, Yoko

Danmachi: Liliruca Arde

RWBY: Lie Ren

Akame ga Kill: Wave

Fairy Tail: Gray, Gajeel, Levy, Zeref

FF/Kingdom Hearts: Cloud, Sephiroth

X-Men: Magneto, Phoenix, Toad, Avalanche, Pyro

Hunter x Hunter: King, Chimera Ants

Rambo: Rambo

Nintendo: Mario

Yu Yu Hakusho: Asato Kido, Kuwabara

Hitman Reborn: Dino

Code Geass: Kallen Kozuki

Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood): Ed Elric, Alphonse

-As well as any others I may have missed, check the disclaimer^ and review asking where they're from if you don't know and I didn't write it here. Alright, time for review responses:

Limit-Breaking chapter 97 . Apr 24

Hey so I will ask a simple question can we get more seven deadly sins characters in this story to be one of the main characters. I just love the story of meliodas and he honestly has personality to his character and is so we'll written that I just want to see more of him in this story. The story is getting better and better and I think they can make the story more interesting.

We'll definitely be getting more of the 7DS throughout this story. It's one of my favorite shows right now too, and I've got some flashbacks/future plots with them in mind, so look forward to it! Thanks for the compliment and review in general, and for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Jokering chapter 97 . Apr 24

So the Wizard King Saga is over i like the way it was resolved since it was obvious from the Meruem v Wizard King fight that it would be pointless to go for a brawl, and i like that it opened up new plot points for the future. One of them makes me question: are Garp and Fujitora and Ryokugyu still in the One Piece world? Because they havent even been mentioned yet, it makes sense to not use the latter in the story since he hasnt even been officially introduced to One Piece's story yet but i am curious about the other two. I am still curious why Cartman didnt just tell Goku he could reach SSG with the help of 5 other saiyans but maybe he didnt know about it.
Finally a story about Awul, feels like its been ages since the last time we last saw them, and it had Mandy as one of the main characters for that chapter, love it. Also, you clever little sneak, you are taking your sweet time introducing what devil fruit power Mandy has arent you? I can only think of three that would combo well with her, and two have already been introduced as well as having their owners killed, but hey maybe you'll give her something i completly did not expect, i am only 65% sure of that.
But jeez things are going from bad to worse for the Resistance, hope it will change soon for the best, and from the pacing this is going the story mays as well have at least 130-150 more chapters. Great work

Glad to hear from you again, and that you spotted some of the plot points I was setting up in the arc. Not gonna mention anything about which characters are still on their worlds or not, but so far most main characters have shown up. I feel like people without a lot of light or darkness wouldn't be important characters if out of everyone on their worlds, they were the ones who got tv shows. Don't really know if that explains what I'm saying, but like in an anime where it's a war and there's a team of heroes, all of those heroes would likely show up even if they're not the MC, because they're still more impressive than at least like 60-99% of the other people in their worlds. Then again, not gonna say anything about characters who have not appeared, no spoilers after all. Would def wait until Ryokugyu appeared in the anime/manga first though, as I want Nexus to hold up to time and not have super plot holes like why Ryokugyu's got a dif Devil Fruit or looks dif or something. Happy you liked the Awul chapter, as I have had that one written for a long time and had tweaked it over the past half year or so while I caught up the rest of Nexus to where I planned on posting it. Mandy's Devil Fruit remains a mystery! XD, I mean with those actual Devil powers of hers, we've yet to see her use her Devil Fruit, but it will not stay a secret forever... Resistance shown to have it pretty rough again this chapter, but at least Kamina and Yoko are there to give some support! Thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter (and the next few).

joebob323 chapter 97 . Apr 24

Okay sloooow down... Doctor Nefario? Mizore? So many new characters, and all it's doing is making me think of the rest of the cast from those shows! I do think this is crazy though, recently it's been a huge mash-up of a power-scale. Ant-King beats Bardock, gets wrecked by Cartman, who brings up TFS(Mr. Popo), now there's Whitebeard and Nukes?! Man this is just a barrage of curveballs!

Characters everywhere! It is Nexus after all, a whole lot of people here. Awul was said to be the surface area of Earths, (I don't remember which characters said it to relate that continent's size to, but I think most fictional worlds from this are around Earth size even if they're not Earth). So if Awul's that big, then Aebrith's like 3 times the size of that, so there're gonna be a whole bunch of new characters showing up this Third of the Aebrith Saga, as we've hardly dipped into the giant landmass even 1.4 million words in XD. Mizore had shown up before in the other chapters where Ace and Sabo have shown up, (only two other scenes in all of Heroes Will Rise admittedly though). Whitebeard and Nukes, almost like the same things huh? What can it all mean? Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed!

asdf chapter 97 . Apr 24

I suppose this means you've finished Yu Yu Hakusho now. Did you watch the anime or read the manga? What did you think of it overall? Yu Yu Hakusho is one of the few anime where I find the dub to be better than the sub. What did you think of the Yusuke vs Sensui fight? They were just moving everywhere destroying mountains and altering weather patterns, it was so awesome! Last question: is Yusuke as strong as Raizen now?
I am gonna be a bit hopeful about Keiko considering that her death was not actually shown.
I suppose now I'll be patient until you finish reading Toriko (trust me they get a lot stronger than in the anime).

Unfortunately... still haven't finished. Only watched anime, not read manga. Yusuke vs Sensui was pretty cool, one of the last things I watched I think, then kinda faded off at the start of the next arc as he met the old Spirit detective chick. *sweatdrops* also haven't really started Toriko, let alone finish it. Sorry to disappoint, but Yu Yu Hakusho will continue being a big part of this despite having yet to finish it. I never finished Hitman Reborn either but Tsuna had a big role to play in Metropolis, and he's continuing to be so, though we'll have to see how he is after the Spire... Anyway, thanks for the review, sorry 'bout the lack of Toriko characters going to be showing up, but I hope you enjoyed the chapter otherwise!

flo463 chapter 97 . 3h ago

I wonder what kind of training Kirito will he choose first? personally I would say all for more versatility
_ To train in martial arts and develop his ki with Goku in first is the most logical choice (with the possibility of becoming a saiyan?)
_ Ninja arts with Sasuke (and obtain the Sharingan or better the...Rinnegan?)
_ Magic
_ Haki
Gurren Lagann is out (for the moment?), Mandy has the power that goes to her head and Aebrith is under the threat of nuclear armageddon, the situation isn't very brilliant for the rebels
I am curious to know which entity threatens all worlds?

Simon backs out of Resistance (under Rossiu's suggestion), but at least Kamina and Yoko are wandering around helping the good guys out on their own! Kirito's efforts to get stronger will arise as soon as the story refocuses a bit on the main group, as it was what he was thinking about at the end of the last chapter. The Darkness that threatens all the worlds, is something that I've kind of created on my own. Then again, there are like a thousand different places where the Darkness is something like what I made. I even used the Supernatural version of the Darkness and incorporated it in as being only a small part of the entity that's the villain in this destroying the worlds. Anyway, didn't feel like that was a spoiler since Sora had that chapter with the Gods, and they explained about the Darkness back there at the end of chapter 12. Thanks for the review, and we'll see which (if any ;) ) of your predictions for Kirito's training come through... Thanks again everyone for reading, faving, following, and reviewing. 'Till next time!