On Today's Episode: The trinity returns to Grace Field House, only to find the whole place going up in flames! It seems like Emma's big plan has begun, but now the trouble is in getting all of the kids to safety when they're being followed by Isabella's eyes, and even possibly another member of Organization XIII. Can the wayward children manage to find a successful escape route amidst all the chaos?
For Today's World: We're returning to the world of The Promised Neverland, and we're covering the events of the final two episodes of season one. If for whatever reason we return here in a future story, I may decide to do something different, considering how divisive season two was (and I still need to read the rest of the manga, lol).
Episode 15: Search and Rescue
"Oof, this place still gives me the creeps, now that we know what it's for," Maylin admitted as the trinity all disembarked in the forest just outside Grace Field House.
"I sincerely hope that nothing happened while we were gone," Haruka quipped. "I know time gets wonky while we're out adventuring, but..."
"Wait, wait, I wasn't here for your first visit," Ellen stated. "What, exactly, does this house do?"
"...they raise orphan children to be food for demons," Sophia sighed.
"...they do what?!" Ellen shrieked.
"Calm down, Ellen, we don't know if anybody over there can hear us," Nick stated. "Not much we can do about it right now. Let's just go find Emma, Norman and Ray and see if they've made any progress with their escape plan."
With that in mind, the trinity all crossed over the hill towards Grace Field House and headed inside to get a grasp of the situation.
However, inside the dining room, another mysterious figure in a black coat was waiting for them.
"Can't we go just one freakin' visit without running into you monsters?!" Maylin groaned as she summoned Counterpoint to her hands.
"Oh, we're the monsters, are we?" No. 3 laughed as he turned towards the trinity. "You're the ones who are trying to deny us the chance to change our horrible fates."
"Whatever happened to all of you, that can't possibly justify all of the chaos and bedlam you're causing across god knows how many worlds," Nick growled as he aimed Oathkeeper for No. 3. "Just what the hell do you freaks really want?!"
"That's an easy one," No. 3 proclaimed. "Kingdom Hearts."
No. 3 jumped down from the upper balcony before pulling his hood down to reveal a bird-like humanoid with blue fur and piercing green eyes.
"When Kingdom Hearts belongs to us, we can exist fully and completely," Revali proclaimed. "Then, we can avert our greatest mistakes. So why don't you do us all a favor and just die already?"
Just then, a group of new Nobodies materialized around the trinity to block their way. This new type of Nobody was a thin, dragon-like creature with silver and purple skin, a thin purple tail and sharp white wings with purple tips lined by spikes resembling those on the Nobody symbol. Its real face was a small round and black head with a closed jagged mouth located within its hollow neck, while its draconian "head" acted as something of a helmet, said "helmet" sporting a jagged open mouth at its end, no eyes and lined by thin spikes. Its upper body and "neck" were covered in magenta straps and the Nobody sigil was imprinted on its left thigh.
"We're too stubborn to die," Sophia retorted, a phrase she'd picked up from Ryuji, as she summoned Super Yo-Yo to her hands.
One of the Dragoons swung its lance towards Sophia, but she swung Super Yo-Yo upwards to deflect the swing, only for the Dragoon to leave an orb of light behind. Instinctively, Sophia reached out to grasp the orb and felt a strange power transfer to her.
Just as the Dragoon resumed its attack, Sophia used this new power to leap high into the air almost instantaneously, then come charging back down like a spear to impale the Dragoon from above, destroying it handily.
Another Dragoon attempted to spin its lance like a discus around it, but Nick jumped over the attack and whacked it in the face a few times with Uber Sheep before laying into it with an Aerial Finish, destroying that one as well.
Two more Dragoons attempted to dive-bomb them, but Maylin quickly countered them with a Thundara spell that allowed Haruka to finish them off with a jumping slash each.
"Now are you gonna get down from that perch before we have to turn you into fried chicken?" Ellen taunted as she aimed her free hand towards Revali, a dark glow surrounding her palm. "And don't think we won't do it."
"Oh, we'll clash soon enough," Revali chuckled. "But if I were you, right now I'd be more worried about my friends."
Before the trinity could wonder what he'd meant by that, Revali had already retreated through a corridor of darkness.
"Do you have any idea what he just said?" Ellen wondered.
"Not really," Maylin sighed. "Those weirdoes really made no sense regardless."
"At least now we know for sure that they're after Kingdom Hearts," Nick quipped. "But why do they need it to 'avert their mistakes'? Because as powerful as I'm sure Kingdom Hearts is, I'm also pretty sure it can't time travel."
"Maybe because of..." Sophia started, but before she could offer her theory on the matter, they all heard a loud, piercing shriek from somewhere upstairs.
"What the heck was that?" Ellen gasped.
"Not good," Nick responded. "That sounded like Emma, and it sounds like she's in trouble!"
The group all raced up the stairway, and it seemed that Isabella had heard the same thing, as she was running towards the source of that shout as well.
When they came to the room where Emma's shriek had come from, they could all suddenly smell something really bad.
"Oh, this could be trouble," Nick groaned.
Knowing there wasn't a second to waste, Haruka decided to forego subtlety and kick the door down, only to find an inferno of flames swallowing the room, and Emma was on her knees in front of the fire shouting Ray's name over and over again.
"Emma, are you all right?!" Isabella gasped as she ran over to check on Emma.
"Seriously, what the heck happened here?" Maylin wondered.
"Please, somebody, you've gotta help Ray!" Emma exclaimed, too grief-stricken to move.
Isabella looked down at her pocket watch, trying to use its radar to find Ray. Did he actually set himself on fire? Isabella thought as she ran out of the room for a moment.
"Mommy, what's happening?" Gilda asked.
"There's no time, Gilda!" Isabella responded. "Take the babies and get everybody out of the house!"
While Gilda took care of that, Isabella ran back into the burning room to try and put out the fires.
"If nothing else, I have to save the brain," Isabella quipped to herself. "Why aren't the sprinklers working, though? What happened?!"
"Don't worry about that," Maylin chuckled as she raised Counterpoint. "You've got a portable water cannon right here."
To prove her point, Maylin cast a Water spell, surrounding herself with an orbiting barrier of water so she could move into the flames without getting burned and hopefully save Ray.
"Emma, you need to get out of here, too," Isabella proclaimed, only to turn around...
...and see that Emma had already vanished.
While Maylin snapped Counterpoint down to cause her water barrier to explode outwards and extinguish the flames, Isabella ran out to see where Emma's signal was, only to find it just ahead of her.
But Emma wasn't there... only a conveniently-placed bucket with her cut-off ear in it.
Isabella's face contorted in a twisted expression of rage when she realized what had happened.
Back in the burning room, now that Maylin had extinguished the fires, she noticed the spot where Ray's "body" was, only to realize that it wasn't actually his body.
"Wait, hold on, that wasn't Ray?" Maylin wondered.
Nick and Haruka both glanced at each other, giving a cheeky smile when they realized what had actually happened.
"Looks like Emma and the kids put their plan into action," Nick quipped.
"We'd better vamoose ourselves," Haruka stated. "Just to make sure that the Organization can't possibly muck this up."
With that, all five of them dashed out of Grace Field House and into the forest before Isabella could realize their own hand in all of this.
About halfway into the forest trail where Emma most likely was, Maylin motioned for everybody to stop in their tracks, having seen the telltale swirl of darkness that usually signaled the appearance of the Heartless.
"...huh, it's gone," Ellen quipped.
"I'm not so sure," Maylin answered. "There's something here."
Deciding to try something and see if this was the Heartless she thought it was, Maylin walked up to a nearby tree and knocked a branch off with a swing from Counterpoint. Sure enough, other branches on nearby trees exploded, and a bunch of Armored Knights and Neoshadows spawned in alongside a very peculiar-looking Heartless.
This one resembled a red and silver gashapon machine with a rectangular, tooth-filled glowing mouth, yellow eyes set in its base, a large lavender knock just above its base, and a huge glass sphere with a silver cap placed on top of the machine with the Heartless emblem imprinted on the front of the sphere. The sphere itself was filled with round capsules of a variety of colors, including yellow, blue, light green, and pink.
"Okay, that's... not like any Heartless I've ever seen," Nick admitted as he summoned Starlight to his hands.
"This one's a Bulky Vendor, and yeah, it's pretty unique," Haruka explained. "It won't really try to fight you, but instead it'll hop around and use other Heartless as a distraction. If you can catch it before it escapes, it'll give you rare synthesis items. But try to wait until it's just about to escape, and you'll get much better prizes."
"We'll take care of the scrubs while you do that!" Maylin chuckled.
As the others moved to fight the Armored Knights and Neoshadows, Nick watched the Bulky Vendor's movements, deciphering when would be the right time to grab it. He noticed that after every few seconds, the Bulky Vendor would hop up into the air and then start moving a bit faster.
With that in mind, Nick waited a few more hops until the Bulky Vendor started to get much faster. When it did its last hop, Nick ran over to catch it as it fell down, grabbing it by the sphere and slamming it into the ground so he could keep in place, allowing him to turn the knob and make it drop synthesis items before it vanished.
"Ah, I see you figured it out pretty quickly, huh?" Maylin giggled once the rest of the Heartless had been dealt with.
"Yeah, once I got the pattern down, it was easy to predict," Nick answered. "Now let's hurry and find those kids."
Thankfully, it didn't take much longer to catch up with the Grace Field kids, and every single one of them appeared to be present and accounted for, with one glaring exception.
"Hey, you all made it, too!" one of the kids laughed, having remembered the trinity from their last visit when they'd saved the kids from the Shadow Stalker and Dark Thorn.
"Wouldn't miss this great escape for the world," Ellen responded.
"Wait, where's Norman?" Sophia asked.
The look on Emma's face told the trinity everything they needed to know, so they decided to change the subject and avoid bringing up any bad memories.
"So, Ray wasn't burning alive, huh?" Maylin quipped, also noticing that Emma was holding the left side of her head, most likely to stop the bleeding from what remained of her ear.
"Nope, it was all a setup," Emma giggled. "And mom fell for it hook, line and sucker. Ray wanted to burn himself alive, but I wasn't having any of that."
Ray couldn't help but instinctively touch the cheek where Emma had slapped him for even suggesting that.
"Are you seriously still planning on dying, you idiot?!"
"So, me and a couple of the little ones created a dummy that would burn instead," Emma stated. "I guess I was lucky you all didn't seem to show up until after we'd already done it, huh?"
"Well, we did get sidetracked by a member of the Organization," Sophia responded.
"Believe it or not, Norman was the one who came up with my new plan," Emma giggled, recounting exactly what Norman had told her in that last note from him.
"To my dearest Emma, I'm going to give you a new plan for you to follow. Ray intends to die himself, most likely so you and I won't. He didn't include himself in the numbers because he doesn't plan on escaping. He's planning to set himself on fire to distract mom so we can run away, but I won't ever allow that. That's why I'm writing down this new plan for you. It'll happen in about two months before Ray's birthday. So, I want you to stop Ray and escape with everyone. You've got more than enough time, so don't worry. Oh, and by the way, I got an unexpected... let's call it 'gift' from Sister Krone. Please take care of Ray and everybody else and finish what we started. I'm counting on you, Emma."
Sophia jumped up the branches of a nearby oak tree so she could look out into the distance, where she clearly saw Grace Field House burning down, just as Emma had planned.
"All right, everyone, time to go," Emma proclaimed. "Let's head for the walls!"
A chorus of cheers came from the kids as they all started running alongside Emma, aside from Ray, who was still dumbfounded at how much Norman had planned ahead.
"Hey, Ray, if you don't move your butt, we're gonna leave you behind!" Maylin called out, and that spurred Ray into motion, running ahead to catch up with the kids.
"Hey, Don, do the other kids know about the house's secret?" Ray wondered.
'Yeah, Emma told them," Don answered.
"I figured the other kids weren't as immature as we thought," Emma admitted. "And since we're gonna be running from monsters, I figured they deserved to know what we were up against so they could join us willingly if they wanted."
"You really thought of everything, didn't you, Emma?" Haruka laughed as she jumped to cut down a Neoshadow that had been flying towards them.
"Really, Norman was the planner," Emma giggled. "I'm more of a doer."
"Ah, escapees after my own heart," Nick teased as he sent a Dragoon flying with a Guard Break so Sophia could finish it with a Kougaon spell.
Emma made it to the wall first, where she imagined Norman standing next to her and gently guiding her onward, towards their freedom.
"All right, Nat and I are going to go up first, and we'll help you guys when we're at the top," Emma proclaimed. "Don't worry, we're all gonna escape together. That's a promise!"
Back at Grace Field House, Isabella was standing outside the burning building, staring blankly at the carnage that Emma and Ray had caused.
"Oh, my darling Ray and Emma," Isabella giggled in a dangerous tone of voice. "I will never let you escape. You'll see! There is no way out!"
Isabella's eyes briefly shined bright yellow, and from somewhere deep in the forest, Revali noticed that.
"Oh, that's quite interesting," Revali chuckled. "I did try and warn her, after all. You say that you've already made every possible precaution, but even the most thorough plans tend to fall apart when those keyblade-swinging brats are involved."
Revali didn't even need to look into her eyes to see that Isabella had already given herself over to the darkness in her madness.
This was going to be fun.
Back at the wall, while Emma was helping the other kids climb the ropes up to the top of the wall, Ray realized something. Namely, that not all of the kids were here as he'd thought.
"Wait, where are kids who are four and under?" Ray asked.
"I decided to leave them behind for the time being," Emma answered. "Despite what you may think, I did give what you told me some thought. I know they could get killed if they came with us, but they would get shipped out of we left them behind."
"That's definitely a conundrum for the ages," Haruka admitted.
"But then Gilda told me about the kids at the other plants," Emma continued. "So I told Phil about everything we'd discovered... and he just said 'I knew it'." He figured it out after we started playing tag to train everyone. So, I decided to leave it to Phil, since he's the only one still left at the house who knows the truth. I don't plan on ever giving up."
As the kids began running across the top of the wall, they heard alarms blaring in the distance.
"It looks like the jig's up," Ellen stated. "Time to beat feet, everybody!"
"We're not even close to the bridge," Ray proclaimed. "How do you think we're gonna get out now?!"
"Oh, we're not using the bridge," Emma responded, pointing towards a forest on the opposite end of the cliff from where they were currently standing. "We're going to be crossing here."
"Are you nuts?!" Ray shouted.
"Hey, don't worry, we trained for this, too," Don quipped as he threw out a rock tied to a long cloth string towards a tree on the other side of the ravine and Nat tied the other end to the closest tree, creating an improvised zipline across the cliff. Two of the younger kids even used makeshift bottle rockets to create additional ziplines.
"Wow, you really did think of everything," Maylin chuckled.
Despite his shock at everything, Ray couldn't help but smile as he watched the kids ride the ziplines one by one. Of course Norman had thought of this, the smug little...
Eventually, the only one left to slide down the zipline was Emma.
"Oh, hey, Emma, before you head down yourself," Nick stated when he remembered something. Haruka knew, too, activating her wrist device to teleport something down from the Gummi Ship into her hands.
Emma gasped in surprise when it turned out to be Connie's plush bunny.
"We found this before we left the last time," Haruka answered. "And we figured we'd hold onto it until we came back."
"But we think you should have it," Nick stated as he handed the plush bunny off to Emma to put in her backpack. "That way, Connie can always have a place with you guys."
Despite her surprise, Emma couldn't help but smile, even letting a few tears fall.
"Feet up, peeps, we've got company!" Maylin exclaimed as she summoned Counterpoint.
Emma turned around just in time to see Isabella standing there and staring her down.
"...oh, I don't like that look in her eyes," Maylin admitted. "Something happened to her since we escaped."
Emma took one last look over the horizon at Grace Field House, which was almost completely burned away by this point.
Goodbye to our home, to the place we grew up in, to all the memories we shared.
"And of course... goodbye to you, too, mom," Emma proclaimed defiantly as she grabbed her hanger and slid down the zipline to join the rest of the escapees.
"The game's over, Isabella," Nick proclaimed, aiming Starlight towards Isabella. "They're not under your control any longer."
In response, Isabella slumped over as if accepting her defeat...
...but when she looked back up, she had a manic smile on her face and her body was now exuding an aura of darkness.
"Oh, crapbaskets," Haruka gasped. "Did the Heartless get to her?!"
"It looks more like she willingly gave herself over to the darkness," Maylin quipped. "And honestly, that's so much worse."
"You won't take them..." Isabella rambled, her expression slowly getting more and more manic. "They're mine, not yours! YOU WON'T TAKE MY CHILDREN AWAY FROM ME!"
Darkness exploded outwards from Isabella, forcing the trinity to take a few steps back. When the flood of darkness subsided, it revealed that Isabella had transformed into a massive tree-like Heartless with a wooden brown face, bright yellow eyes and a jagged mouth, its bottom resembling a stump with scales and green markings, surrounded by a "mane" of green leaves with four long arms emerging from the "hair", each one green and tipped with black fingers with purple fingertips. The Heartless emblem was imprinted on its forehead.
"Oh, jeez, that's an ugly one," Haruka quipped.
Much to their surprise, instead of immediately attacking them, the Grim Guardianess floated over the ravine and started making its way through the forest.
"Not good," Sophia gasped. "She's going after Emma and the kids!"
"Then let me make a bridge," Nick quipped as he switched his keyblade to Uber Sheep before aiming it at the ravine and firing a beam of light across, creating a long bridge of light much like he'd done to cross to Hector's castle in the World of Journeys. "Now let's move!"
The trinity all crossed the light bridge to get to the other side of the ravine and chase after the Grim Guardianess, hoping they weren't too late.
"I think we're almost to the last gate!" Emma shouted.
"Um, Emma, why is there a tree following us?" Nat asked.
Emma chanced a glance behind her and almost screamed out loud when she saw the Grim Guardianess flying towards them at full speed.
("Touch Off" by UVERworld plays)
Just as the Grim Guardianess took a swipe at Emma and the kids, Maylin cast a Reflect spell just in time for the Grim Guardianess to hit the barrier instead, causing it to turn around and face the trinity.
"You're not smothering them with your twisted form of 'love' any longer, Isabella," Maylin proclaimed.
"W-Wait, that thing's mom?!" Gilda gasped.
"And you know what they say," Nick taunted, raising Uber Sheep to go on the offensive. "If you love something... set it free."
The Grim Guardianess roared in rage at that statement and raised its upper hands to sprout large and intricate vine cages around the surrounding area, effectively trapping the kids in that spot.
"You all get somewhere to the side where you'll be safe!" Haruka shouted. "We'll take care of this thing."
Emma motioned to lead the kids away to a hopefully safe part of the area still inside the vine cage so that the trinity could engage the Grim Guardianess.
Maylin began casting rapid Fira spells to take advantage of what she hoped was its elemental weakness as the Grim Guardianess started swiping its four arms towards the trinity in wide sweeping strikes.
Nick swung Uber Sheep to parry as many strikes as he could before moving in closer, noting that there was a blind spot right in front of the Grim Guardianess. The beast let out a roar that sounded disturbingly like a distorted version of Isabella before twisting around and trying to grab Nick, but he responded by knocking it back with a Blizzara spell to the face.
Sophia continued the attack by summoning Pandora and casting a Kougaon spell onto Super Yo-Yo to bolster its power before striking at the Grim Guardianess' side.
After a few more hits, the Grim Guardianess turned around and slammed its head into the ground, scattering weird pollen from its mane. When a pollen puff hit the ground, it erupted upwards into razor-sharp vines topped with roses.
"Yeah, I'd stay away from those," Nick quipped.
"Let's see how you like the darkness, you loony!" Ellen exclaimed as she took a step back, bringing her hand behind her. The Grim Guardianess started flying towards her, only for Ellen to thrust her hand forward and launch a Dark Firaga, a blue-and-black ball of dark fire, straight into the Grim Guardianess' face, causing the giant Heartless to reel.
"Nice shot, Ellen!" Nick laughed.
"Hey, I'm a basketball player," Ellen giggled. "Great shots are kinda what we do."
The Grim Guardianess recovered and decided to turn its attention to the kids, since there wasn't really anywhere they could run thanks to the vine cages.
"Oh, no you don't!" Maylin shouted as she aimed Counterpoint for the Grim Guardianess and blasted it in the back with a Thunder spell, causing it to look back at them. "Eyes on us, not them."
The Grim Guardianess simply glared at the trinity before rushing forward to attack, its whole body spinning like a drill. When Nick avoided that attack, the Grim Guardianess reached down with its lower hands to rip one of the nearby trees out of the ground and throw it at them.
"WHOA!" Nick shouted as she swung Uber Sheep upwards in a Slapshot to slice the tree in half, the halves landing safely away from them.
"Now you're just being rude," Maylin growled. "What do you say, Nick? You wanna go Wisdom Form and put this thing in its place?"
"I was thinking pretty much the exact same thing," Nick chuckled.
Maylin ran forward, ducking under another swipe from the Grim Guardianess, then leaped forward to hug Nick so they could merge into Wisdom Form in a flash of light.
The Grim Guardianess roared and opened its gaping maw wide to unleash a storm of dark birds from it.
"Don't think we're scared of lame birds, lady!" Wisdom Form Nick proclaimed as he glided forward and cast a souped-up Firaga spell, surrounding him with two concentric rings of eight orbs of fire, easily incinerating the swarm of 'birds'. Not waiting for the Heartless to close its mouth, Wisdom Form Nick cast a Thundaga spell directly into its mouth, causing explosions inside of it and making the beast dip backwards in pain.
"Yeah, I hope that hurt, tree boy!" Don shouted.
Just then, the Grim Guardianess responded by climbing up the trees to hang just over the battlefield. It began shaking its "mane" to drop berry-shaped explosives that rained down from the sky and exploded on contact with the ground.
"Get to the back of this area! They're not falling there!" Wisdom Form Nick exclaimed. Emma and the kids obeyed, quickly running over to where Wisdom Form Nick had indicated so they could stay safe until the Grim Guardianess had finished its attack.
Once that attack had been spent, the Grim Guardianess turned itself upside down and started dropping more pollen puffs.
"This fight isn't gonna go anywhere if that thing won't get back down here!" Haruka shouted.
"Then let's knock it down a few pegs," Wisdom Form Nick chuckled as he raised Counterpoint to cast Thundaga, dropping a spread of five wicked lightning bolts directly on top of the Grim Guardianess, shaking it off some of the trees.
Ellen quickly continued the combo by using Dark Break, in which she leaped high into the air and came right back down to spike Starlight into the Grim Guardianess' head, only to leap back up and repeat the strike multiple times, acting almost like a pogo stick. Eventually, Ellen landed one final slash that sent the Grim Guardianess crashing back to the ground, destroying the trees it had been perched on.
"Now you're mine, buddy!" Haruka exclaimed as she ran forward to put an end to this, only for the Grim Guardianess to throw down a strange flower into her path.
"Get away from that thing, Haruka!" Wisdom Form Nick shouted too late.
The flower suddenly sprouted a vine that lashed out and trapped Haruka in her spot. Despite her best efforts to break free, the vine yanked Haruka into the flower so that the Grim Guardianess could rip it out of the ground and throw it into the edge of the vine cage, exploding on impact and leaving Haruka dazed.
"All right, now you're gonna get it," Wisdom Form Nick growled.
"I'll go and heal Haruka, okay?" Sophia offered. "You just go and finish that thing off!"
Wisdom Form Nick nodded and glided forward while Sophia moved to cast Diaharan on Haruka, bringing her back to full health.
"You okay?" Sophia asked.
"I should be," Haruka admitted. "That was... definitely a new experience."
The Grim Guardianess attempted to throw down another flower trap, only to have Wisdom Form Nick incinerate it with a Firaga.
"End of the line!" Wisdom Form Nick shouted, raising Counterpoint to trap the Grim Guardianess in place with a Magnera spell.
Four magical orbs, colored red, green, yellow and blue, materialized around Wisdom Form Nick before beginning to circle around them.
Emma and the kids wisely decided to back away from the area.
"O power that lies at the root of all creation," Wisdom Form Nick chanted. "O memory inscribed in ages past... hear my call and arise before me!"
As the four magical orbs closed in, Wisdom Form Nick formed a Reflect barrier around himself.
"Ancient Catastrophe!" Wisdom Form Nick shouted, the orbs all colliding with the Reflect barrier and exploding outwards as a devastating flash of magic that blasted the Grim Guardianess and sent it flying into the vine cage.
Its energy gone, the Grim Guardianess roared in disbelief before somersaulting down and falling flat on its face. The vine cage surrounding the immediate area collapsed into shards of tree bark as the Grim Guardianess rolled over one more time and disintegrated completely, leaving only a defeated Isabella with her hair down.
Despite everything that had happened, the kids all still rushed to check on Isabella. After all, even with the whole purpose of Grace Field House, she had still raised them.
"M-Mom?" Emma gasped.
"Well... that's it, then," Isabella sighed. "It... looks like I've lost. Run, then, my children. I pray that one day, you will find true happiness and light. Be careful... and be free."
With that, Isabella had spoken her last, giving one last beautiful smile as her body faded away, a large heart escaping into the sky.
"Wh-what happened to mom?" one of the kids asked.
"...she's gone," Haruka admitted. "The Heartless got to her in the end."
"From what she said before she went away, though, I think she conceded that you all beat her at her own game," Maylin stated after she and Nick separated from Wisdom Form. "So, if you wanna honor your mom, then do what she said to do and keep running, got it?"
The kids all nodded.
Emma reached into her backpack and tossed something over to Nick. "I was making this while you guys were gone," Emma quipped. "I figured I'd give it to you now before we hit the bricks for good."
Nick caught the token in mid-air and attached it to his keyblade, swinging it horizontally to transform it mid-swing. This new keyblade had a handleguard shaped like the boy's bottle rockets, the hilt was shaped like the key Isabella had used to access her secret room, the blade was a long, slightly-opened book, the teeth resembled a fireball, and the token, shaped like Connie's bunny plush, was connected to the keyblade by three long strands of cloth wrapped around each other. The words Gilded Cage came to Nick's mind as he studied the weapon.
"You all should probably keep going," Sophia proclaimed. "Don't worry about us, we can take care of ourselves."
"You just get out there and carve your own path in this world, got it?" Nick responded.
"Well, obviously," Ray chuckled, to which everybody laughed.
The trinity watched Emma and the kids as they continued to run until they couldn't be seen on the horizon any longer.
"Well, looks like that means we're done here," Maylin quipped. "Let's get back out in the open so we can get going, shall we?"
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me," Haruka answered.
The trinity all walked through the forest and back across the light bridge to the top of the cliff wall, and from here, they could see what little remained of Grace Field House still burning down.
"Oh, jeez, I just realized something," Maylin gasped. "What about the little guys and girls that decided to stay behind? There's nobody to take care of them now that Isabella bit the big one."
"I'm sure they have other 'mothers' at the other plants," Nick conceded. "And I'm pretty sure the other plants know what happened."
"Yeah, I guess there's not really much we can do about that, huh?" Haruka sighed.
"Wait, somebody's here," Sophia proclaimed.
Sure enough, a corridor of darkness opened up a few feet away from them, and out of it stepped Revali, the Organization member they'd confronted at Grace Field House.
"Well, well, I should have figured you'd all be here," Revali chuckled. "I had a feeling you'd be taking care of Isabella soon enough."
"Wait, what does that mean?" Nick growled. "Were you the one who corrupted Isabella's heart?!"
"Oh, not by any means," Revali retorted. "She simply gave herself over to the darkness, and I just stood back and watched the fireworks."
"I'm more surprised you didn't go after the kids," Ellen proclaimed. "You bastards seem like the kinds of sickos that would do that."
"Excuse me, but I'm not like those stupid Heartless," Revali countered. "I may be in the Organization, but I have standards, for crying out loud. Besides, those kids barely have any darkness in their hearts anyway, so it wouldn't do me much good."
"All right, then, what's your aim?" Sophia wondered. "Because I'm pretty sure you didn't come here just to chat."
"Very astute observation," Revali quipped, his smug grin turning sinister. "I'm here to put you little punks in your place."
Not waiting for a retort, Revali raised his hands and caused six miniature tornadoes to spawn around him, a vortex of wind spiraling around him. Eventually, the mini-twisters dispersed to reveal Revali's lances, the Lindwurm.
Each lance's main shaft was periwinkle in the center, with each of the ends being purple, the periwinkle and purple sections being separated by a small gold band. One end of the lance was shaped like the top half of the Nobody symbol colored purple and the other end resembled a strange combination of the lower half of the Nobody symbol and a Dragoon Nobody's "head", also colored purple.
"You won't be as lucky as you were with the others," Revali proclaimed. "I always was the best fighter of my fellow Champions."
"Does that even really matter right now?" Maylin taunted. "We're still taking you down!"
"Oh, but where's the fun in that?" Revali laughed as he caught two lances with his hands, the other four floating around him.
Nick decided to strike first, running forward and juking back and forth to keep Revali guessing. After a few jukes, Nick leaped forward to attack.
"Wind, guard me," Revali proclaimed as a rotating sphere of wind formed around him, blasting Nick backwards before he could strike.
"Looks like priority one is getting rid of that barrier," Haruka noted.
"But how?" Ellen asked.
Revali didn't wait for them to figure that out, instead swinging his lances in wildly different patterns to keep his opponents on the defensive. To his relief, Nick found that he could parry a strike from the lances...
...and then he saw two orbs of light near the lances, much like Sophia had done against the Dragoons earlier.
Remembering what Sophia had done, Nick reached out with his free hand while Revali was recovering his poise to absorb the two orbs into himself.
"You're wide open!" Revali laughed as he swung two of his lances overhead to try and chop Nick in half.
Nick simply grinned a cheeky grin before using this new power to leap high into the air almost instantly before coming down on top of Revali with a downward stab that broke through his wind barrier and dispelled it, then performing it again to actually damage Revali.
"I see our chance!" Ellen shouted as she ran forward to start striking at Revali before he could recover, whacking him with Starlight four times before ending the combo with a diagonal spin attack that trailed dark energy around her.
"Clever girl, using the darkness against me," Revali chuckled.
"Hey, I accept my darkness," Ellen proclaimed. "I won't be tempted by false promises ever again."
"Jeez, can the dramatic speech, you sound like him," Revali quipped.
"You're wide open, bird boy!" Maylin exclaimed as she blasted Revali away with a Thunder spell, then followed up with a Magnet spell to keep him trapped in his spot for a few seconds.
Naturally, Sophia took advantage of this opportunity to summon Pandora and blast Revali with Kougaon, and she was glad to see how much it had hurt him. She knew that all the Organization members were pretty vulnerable to light-based attacks, steeped in the darkness as they were.
"Little girl, you're going to regret that," Revali snarled.
"Excuse me, but I'm humanity's companion, thank you very much," Sophia retorted as she jumped into the air and struck Revali with a horizontal slash to the left, followed by a horizontal slash to the right, an angled vertical slash down, and ending with spinning Super Yo-yo above her head like a vertical buzz saw.
"See how you like this, then," Revali proclaimed as he spun one of his lances in his hands to fire a trio of wind spheres towards Sophia.
Maylin countered by casting Thundara to dispel the wind spheres just as Revali put up his wind shield again.
Remembering how their first battle with Ripto had gone, Sophia decided to cast Rakunda on Revali, and was pleased to see that it got rid of the barrier again.
However, Revali went back on the offensive, twirling his lances around in multiple different directions, though Sophia managed to swiftly dodge each swing.
As focused as Revali was on attacking Sophia, this left him open from behind, a fact which Nick too full advantage of by jumping into the air and hitting Revali three times before laying into him with an Aerial Finish.
"Should have watched your feathered backside, buddy," Nick taunted.
"All right, enough of these games," Revali growled as he grasped all six lances in his hands. Before the trinity could wonder what he was up to, Revali started wildly swinging his lances with reckless abandon, up and down and in all different directions, leaving absolutely no room for them to go on the offensive.
After a few seconds of dodging this berserker attack, Revali threw his lances into the air, where they all joined together in a snake-like form so he could ride on it and fly around the cliff wall, eventually going down below it.
Revali and the lances came back up with the front lances having become a dragon-like mouth construct that was rapidly building wind energy in its maw.
"Now you shall all wear the face of despair!" Revali exclaimed as his construct fired a massive, spiraling beam of wind from its mouth and started sweeping it across the cliff wall.
"Everyone, get close to me, quick!" Maylin shouted as all five keyblade wielders quickly huddled up together so that Maylin could cast Reflera, the upgraded form of her Reflect spell, around them.
And it turned out that she had acted just in time, as the wind blast swept across the Reflera barrier, and thanks to it being much larger and sturdier, it thankfully held strong. Maylin was sure that a regular Reflect wouldn't have been enough.
"Not bad, little brats," Revali admitted.
"You ain't seen nothing yet," Ellen proclaimed as she ran forward while Revali was recovering, striking at him four times before flipping Starlight into a reverse grip and lunging forward with a massive slash that trailed dark energy.
Much to his surprise, Revali was still standing after that attack.
Ellen just smirked. Wait for it.
"Sorry, little girl, but you didn't..." Revali taunted, only for Ellen's attack to take effect at that moment and ravage Revali with a storm of dark slashes that proved to be the finishing blow.
Revali stumbled backwards, all six of his lances stabbing themselves into the ground around him. Revali looked up and saw that little gusts of wind were escaping his body.
"N-No... no, this can't be..." Revali gasped. "I... I can't be beaten... not by somebody... that's not him..."
The lances turned into upward-shooting beams of energy as Revali let out one last howl of disbelief before he fell backwards, his body fading back into the darkness and his lances disintegrating soon after.
"That was way more dramatic than I thought it'd be from that guy," Haruka admitted once the battle was over. "He always seemed so smug and confident..."
"Bad combination to have when it makes you arrogant and vulnerable," Sophia answered, having seen that more than a few times during her tenure with the Phantom Thieves.
"Speaking of which, that finisher was awesome, Ellen," Nick laughed. "You never cease to amaze me."
"Oh, stop," Ellen giggled, actually blushing. It had been far too long since she and Nick had gotten to just act like the boyfriend and girlfriend they were. "I'm glad you liked it, though. And trust me, it was a bitch and a half to learn. The movies make it look easier than it actually is."
"How many members of the Organization have we pasted now?" Maylin wondered.
"I believe six of them," Sophia answered. "We've taken out about half of them now."
"Ooh, I hope they're quaking in their boots, wherever they're hiding," Maylin cackled.
"I wouldn't get too cocky, Maylin," Nick quipped. "I'd say that was probably our toughest fight with them yet, and considering that we're thinning their ranks pretty quickly, the remaining members are probably gonna forego any concept of 'mercy'."
"Hey, I'm ready for them," Maylin chuckled as Haruka activated her wrist device to teleport them all back to the Gummi Ship.
Before they could move on, though, Haruka noticed that strange reading from earlier on the map screen.
"What's up, Haruka?" Maylin asked.
"There's that odd reading I picked up earlier, after the big battle in Lost Jerusalem," Haruka answered, pointing out towards the strange blurry structure at the opposite end of the Ocean Between. "I thought it was a glitch at first, but this means it's probably real."
"Yeah, but look at it, it's all cloudy and kinda fuzzy," Maylin quipped.
"I wonder why that is?" Sophia wondered.
"But there is one thing I've noticed, though," Haruka responded. "Every time we come back to the Gummi Ship after helping a world out, the reading gets a bit stronger."
"Hey, you think that big thing might be the Organization's stronghold?" Ellen gasped. "It would make the most sense, right?"
"Regardless, I don't think we can actually storm the castle just yet," Haruka admitted. "Something about the way that structure looks just tells me we can't actually go there right now."
"I guess all we can do right now is keep doing what we've been doing until we can head on over there," Nick stated.
"Yeah, let's just keep going," Haruka stated. "We'll figure this out soon enough. We always do, don't we?"
"Damn right," Maylin proclaimed as Haruka piloted the Gummi Ship towards Azabu Juuban.
To be continued...
Keyblade acquired!
Gilded Cage
Strength: 9
Magic: 0
Length: 110
Ability: Finishing Plus (Unleash successive finishing moves after combos. Equip more to enable more consecutive finishers.)
Description: A keyblade representing the children who pledged to break out of a demonic system and carve their own place in the world.
On the next episode...
Maylin: ...all right, who made Usagi upset?!
Haruka: I think it was Mamoru. He seems to be avoiding her for some reason.
Maylin: Ooh, if he's mistreating her, I'm gonna bonk him. They just got back together, didn't they?!
Ellen: I dunno, Maylin, I have a feeling it's not that simple. ...hold on, when did Usagi have a cousin?
Nick: Wait, wait, I've seen that girl before!
Sophia: You have?
Nick: Yeah, when we went back to Traverse Town after helping Usagi take down Queen Beryl. She said something that made me think she had a connection to Usagi, and I don't think they're merely cousins.
Haruka: Sounds like we've got a bit of a mystery to solve here.
Maylin: All while dealing with the literal personification of death itself! JEEZ, that Heartless looks freaky!
Nick: We'll figure this out one way or another, next time on Kingdom Hearts: Key to Her Heart re:Verse II, "Can't Fight the Moonlight"!
Nick, Maylin, Haruka, Sophia and Ellen: May your hearts be your guiding key!