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Published:
2021-12-19
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2024-01-11
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36/52
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Total Kingdom Hearts

Summary:

He was just a cringy awkward kid. He was never meant to be the hero, and yet, the Keyblade chose Cody of all people. Despite everything going against him, he's determined to find his "friends", Gwen and Trent, and save all the worlds from darkness. Whether anyone believes he can or not.

A Kingdom Hearts remake crossing over TDI with whatever I feel like.

Originally published on FFN back in 2008 and revamped and rewritten from the ground up because the pandemic broke my mind. It's not necessary, but recommended to read the beginning Author's Note before venturing further to get the full context.

Notes:

This note is going to be far less elaborate than the one I put up on FFN, lol.

Okay, since this is a different site, I want to make this as short and simple as possible. Back when I was like 12, I was really into TDI and made a Kingdom Hearts remake fanfic featuring the characters. And I had fun! As I entered high school, I began to suppress my love of TDI because the internet spaces I went to was slowly deciding it was a "cringe" show, and since KH has its own share of outside mockery, I decided this fanfic was the dumbest thing ever made and I should probably preserve my dignity and stop writing it.

Truth is, this fanfic became a comfort daydream, and even when I entered college, I kept expanding on it in my head because I was convinced I'd never let it see the light of day ever again. And when the pandemic started and everyone was desperately falling back into their childhood hobbies and fandoms just to stay sane, I realized, "Screw it, Cringe Culture is dead. Let's do this shit." And with that, I just decided to redo and rewrite my dumb fanfic I made as a literal child.

My goal with this fic is to try to keep going with it for as long as I can and make it as notorious as stuff like those Smash Bros and Loud House fanfics that have way too much effort put into them than neccesary. I have everything planned up to KH III and I have no clue how long I'll last, but I just want to finally get this all written down somewhere.

I currently have two ridiculously long outlines written out for TKH I and CoM and I plan to make ones for the other entries too as I go along. If you're interested in this fic, but have 0 interest in following it, feel free to PM me for the links. I also have a document archiving the original FFN upload version of this fic in case anyone is interested in that.

Whelp, I tried to shorten it and it still came out as way too long. Anyways, enjoy.

Chapter 1: The Dream

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Once upon a time, there existed but one world.

In this world, not one person was the same. There were different cultures, different species, different lives and meanings. In this one world they all shared, they lived in harmony…

…Until they no longer did.

As the age and lives of the inhabitants of the world grew, so did their greed and vices. They began to segregate themselves, shunning all who were different. It was no longer a shared world for all who roamed it. It was now a divided land of “us” and “them” and “our” and “their”.

If it belonged to “them”, “they” wanted it.

If it did not resemble “us”, “we” had no duty to comply.

As the inhabitants grew older and older, wars and chaos would plague the generations that followed them. To the elders, the olden days were merely a foolish fable of the past. Who could possibly live in a world like that? They happily embraced the darkness as it slowly consumed and devoured all.

But to the youth, the ones who had no memories of those days of bliss, they rejected this endless cycle of destruction. This war torn world that was shattered and corrupted by the dark, seemingly beyond repair, was embraced by the warmth of their light.

Putting together all their hopes and dreams that had miraculously survived in a realm where light was no longer supposed to exist, the youth slowly rebuilt what their elders had destroyed. And the world was whole again…

…But then it wasn’t.

The might of darkness proved much too strong, but the strength of light continued to fight on. In the end, the original state of the world was just as the elders decided; it was a distant past much too difficult to truly return to. And in order to prevent the darkness from consuming everything once more, the world was no longer one.

It was now many. Many worlds, all filled with their own light.

Just as one day the darkness may come back to devour everything piece-by-piece, one day the worlds may become connected again once more.

Someday, somewhere, somehow.

Someone out there will one day have the key to do just that.

…Are you ready?

oOo

 

TOTAL KINGDOM HEARTS

 

oOo

 

A young teenage boy was falling.

Not through the air or the sky or anything really.

He was falling in a void encased in pitch blank. Right then and there, nothing else but him existed in this plane he inhabited.

It was because of that that when he finally found himself landing gently onto a flat surface, his mind was almost sent into a frenzied state of shock.

Cody’s eyes shot open. He took deep labored breaths as he examined the area surrounding him. He was now standing atop what seemed to be a platform, but that did nothing to change the overall scenery that haunted him. He was still but the only person here in this mysterious world of pure nonexistence.

He looked downwards at what appeared to be a massive glass tapestry. It depicted a girl in red with her eyes shut tight and her hands together in a fist. Her pink hair fluttered in the wind and a circle of purple diamonds surrounded her as if they were shields for a battle ahead. He squinted, wondering if this image was perhaps a sign for his strange summoning to this unknown realm. There was nowhere to go but this one platform. Perhaps this was a puzzle of some sort?

Shrugging, his first instinct was to try repeating the girl’s pose. He took a deep breath in preparation and shut his eyes once more.

…Something was strange.

In his concentration, he could almost hear a faint sound. A voice perhaps? The more he zoned in on the sound, the more it seemed someone was trying to call out to him specifically.

...r…….ad…

A…y….re….

A…e…yo….re….y…

Are you ready?

His eyes jolted forward once more in fear. He frantically reexamined the space, desperately praying to find a source for the voice.

His search however drew to a quick close as the sound of small shimmers distracted him towards the opposite end of the platform. A trail of smaller glass surfaces were arranged into an aerial staircase leading to another large platform up above. Cody’s confusion and fright was now replaced with a cocky sense of pride. He had seemingly solved the puzzle. He gestured a silent fist pump before continuing onward.

Step by step, feet by feet, he continued on ascending through the seemingly endless set of floating stairs. No matter how much further he went, the distance between him and the next platform never seemed to close. In his head, he’d even swear it was growing. Cody could do nothing but blink in frustration. He craned his head backwards, fully expecting to see the previous platform just inches before him; a sure fire way to know he’d foolishly fallen for a trap.

In fact, it was an entirely different kind of trap.

The previous platform was gone and nowhere to be seen, as were the several dozen steps he diligently climbed.

Panic arose in him. After having spent who knows how long going upward at a below average pace, he now flew into a sprint. He could feel and see several dozen more steps pass by him and disappear just like the ones before. And all the while, the next platform still never came closer.

Curious.

…That voice?

Who is that?

You see that you cannot move forward. You know in your heart you can quit with no consequence. There is no air nor an end here, so you cannot fall if you leap. Yet you’re still moving on regardless.

Suddenly, at a speed too fast for a blink, Cody was propelled upwards through the steps as if he were being shoved by a fierce gust of wind. After all that time he wasted climbing that hopelessly endless staircase, he now made his first steps into his next destination.

Still disoriented by what had just transpired, Cody once again took to checking his surroundings. Yet another empty platform in a sea of endless dark. He sighed in exasperation and gazed downwards towards the ground. There was a new character and scene on display in this tapestry etching. A young child who appeared to be a white witch of some sort sat triumphantly on her broom as she waved her arm excitedly in the air. A trail of musical notes swept out of hands, slowly forming into the colorful pattern that circled around the edges of the glass,

Cody scratched his chin. The previous puzzle was as simple as repeating the pose laid out in front of him. Perhaps the same would go for here. With a light shrug, Cody took a deep breath and stretched his arm into the air as far reaching as he could. His eyes once again circled around. And around and around.

Nothing was happening.

He breathed out a strained sigh as he allowed his arm to collapse. Yet right at that moment, something peculiar happened. As his hand wiped down past his eyes and vision, a door newly presented itself on the other side.

He blinked. The door clearly did not lead to another room. If anything, if he sauntered on through, he’d probably once again be stuck in the unknown inbetween of falling and floating in the pitch black void. Still, there were no other leads on this stage, and he quickly decided there was no other choice but to continue pressing on.

Be certain you want to open that door ,” the voice returned, halting Cody in place right as he was about to turn the knob. “ I will ask you once more…

“Are you ready?”

Did he have a choice?

Cody flung the door open, barely taking any heed to the words the voice was carefully laying out for him. There was a new platform before him. Whether or not he was “ready”, this was obviously his next destination.

The door he entered through faded away in a gleam of light, much like the impromptu staircase from earlier. He of course launched into the same routine of a doomed to fail search before once again looking into the tapestry for guidance.

A young pigtailed girl with an almost doll-like head, much too big for her body, stood plain and alone in a forest that shimmered like peridots in the glass arrangement. A circle of seemingly random objects surrounded her. A shovel, fishing rod, net, slingshot, stepladder, what did this all mean?

Cody scrunched his face. He couldn’t make heads or tails at what he was looking at. The previous two platforms, all he had to do was repeat the poses in front of him. But this girl here was simply standing idly. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

The heck does it want me to do? He wondered as he furiously straightened his back. Minutes, or the equivalent of such assuming this place had a concept of time, passed by, and of course, nothing happened.

There had to be something he missed. He searched the platform again and again but to no avail. No matter how much he looked, how much he ran, and how much he shouted in frustration, there was nothing. The teen’s back arched downwards in defeat as he aimlessly paced around back and forth. Was he stuck here for good? What was he supposed to do next?

THUD!

He yelped as he felt his body crash to the floor. Or at least that’s what he would have preferred. Instead, his stomach was caught on the edges a thin metallic object, keeping him from falling face flat, but forcing him into an uncomfortable and agonizing sensation where it felt like his body was mere seconds away from being sliced in half. He wearily lifted himself up, wincing at the stubbed sore in his foot that had not yet dissipated. Any and all pain he felt flew fastly towards the back of his mind however as he finally got to look at what he had stumbled over…

A small shield.

He picked it up with a puzzled glower. It was small enough to be mistaken for a children’s toy, but based on the material, it was for all intents and purposes an actual functioning shield fit for combat. But what was it doing here?

As he took another look at his surroundings, he could feel his stomach churn. Far off from where he was, two more items manifested in two separate locations; a sword and what appeared to be a wizard’s wand. Just like the shield he held, they were small in size enough to resemble toys and discount curios, but their substance and texture pointed to the opposite.

It didn’t take a genius to realize that if actual weapons and armor appeared before him, shit was about to get down.

And before he could make a mad dash for the sword, a burst of light erupted from the grounds below him, engulfing the entire scene. It was so instantaneous, there was almost no time to process the kind of terror and panic any normal individual would have in that situation. One moment, Cody was trapped in the most intense blinding light imaginable, too overwhelming to even move. And the next, he was whisked away to a completely new platform with yet another new pattern. This time, a girl dressed in pink, with a build that seemed both lion and simian-like, kneeled on the ground as she definitely raised up a staff of her own.

The message was clear as he saw what was beginning to form in front of him. A darkened stain slowly emerged at the tip of the staff as if the glass girl was actually summoning it herself. A strange slew of pure black figments crawled out of the stain, mulling in the plane of the glass as if they were mere projections just there for show. But the true horror came when they emerged to life. They were no longer mere ink blotches spreading on a tainted canvas but actual gangly monsters flailing around like newly hatched insects. Their unnaturally yellow eyes glowed like shaking spotlights as their disturbingly fidgety bodies made their first real steps.

Cody knew what kind of message this new tapestry was trying to communicate with him.

Fight.

The monsters practically flung themselves towards Cody, and he was quick to hide behind his shield, forcing the creatures to smack right back down to the ground. He was already cursing under his wincing breath, wondering why he couldn’t have tripped over the sword instead. He was a sitting duck in this mess of mad monsters.

What the heck am I supposed to do? Cody darted his eyes rapidly back and forth. The monsters just kept coming and there was no clear way out. He would’ve expected some kind of exit to appear by now like the times before, but it appeared that whatever force controlled this space no longer had any mercy for his current situation.

The monsters only kept creeping forward, and all he could do was stand there pathetically with a shield no larger than a toy. He was drenched in sweat, completely unsure of what his next plan of action would be. As if sensing his blatant fear, one of the monsters took this as an opportunity to latch on to his arm like a bug ready to infect its prey. He screeched like a wailing banshee as he flailed around wildly, only having the sense to knock the creature away with his shield at the very last second.

There was no way he could stay here. He didn’t know where he would go, but he was as good as dead if he just continued standing idly by.

…!

It was a dumb idea, but he did indeed have one.

He charged right into the gooey mass of pitch black sentient shadows, smacking them hard with his shield as he went. With how little damage they felt to even a hard metal shield, he had doubts how much better that sword would have fared, but there was no time to think about combat.

Now was time for his escape.

Cody leapt off the edge of the platform, returning to the airless plane that was neither a sky nor anything at all. It was just like the voice said much much earlier. He had no danger of falling or dying here. This was his safest bet.

Interesting decision I must say. I can’t say I was expecting it.

However, this is not what needs to be done.

No sooner had Cody escaped the mass of black that he landed feet first on to a completely new glass tapestry. It was like the forces beyond had scrambled to fix a contradiction he just created. And unlike all the previous tapestries before, this one did not greet him with the might and story of an unknown heroine. Rather it contained all of the previous four heroines all in one place, now gathered around the center in a deep sleep.

Cody gulped. An image as ominous as this could only mean something even worse than before was about to transpire.

A dark stain tainted the glass just like before. But unlike last time where the creatures came crawling away like droplets in a spreading splash, this remained a dormant stain that only grew larger and larger. So large it almost encompassed the entire platform itself.

This was the most fear Cody had ever expressed in his life. He backed away, hoping to escape this cursed task only for his back to be met with the touch of a wall. A wall that didn’t exist yet existed all at once. He was trapped.

The stain was finally taking form. Instead of the same insect-like creatures, a more threatening figure sprang to life. It was the very manifestation of a nightmare. A godlike creature with a face that posed no known human emotion, but a stature that spelled out an overwhelming sense of dread. It peered down below towards Cody, its malformed head winkling in the nonexistent sky like tattered ribbons.

This was the monster known as Darkside.

The tables had turned. Now Cody was the mere insect.

Darkside slammed its flat onto the platform, just barely missing Cody who leapt as vigorously as he could. With how violently the world shook, it was almost a wonder how the glass platform itself didn’t shatter from the force of the attack.

In his heart, Cody knew that the battle was lost as soon as it had begun. And he was right. He was so distracted by this new foe that he didn’t even notice the cursed ink stain was still alive and well and spewing out dozens of the smaller creatures like a factory pump. Darkside only had to repeat its actions twice before it knew that their overwhelming numbers could take the scrawny teen all on their own.

He couldn’t describe the feeling he had as the creatures piled onto him like a swarm ready to feast. It was like drowning in a vacuum that was squeezing the very essence of his soul straight out of his body. And as he met his end being buried alive in the stain, all he could do was stare at the blank expression of the large monster above.

Until there was nothing left.

This entire time, you’ve refused to answer the question I repeated over and over again.

But seeing that display…I already have my answer.

“... Cody… Cody…”

“Man, he is really knocked out, huh?”

“Should we just leave him?”

“He does this all the time. Don’t worry. He’ll be up in a sec. Just you wait.

“Yo, wake up dude!”

Notes:

I feel this is important to point out: Only the first season of Total Drama is canon. TDDDDI and beyond never happened and this fic will work on the assumption that the ships and character relationships of S1 are still intact.

Chapter 2: Camp Wawanakwa: A Pair of Outsiders

Notes:

So for the record, the first eight or so chapters are going to be absurdly long because I wrote these chapters with the intention of replacing the eight already uploaded chapters that were up on FFN. Back then, my writing style was simplified enough to fit a world into two chapters which is obviously not the case now. Starting with Chapter 9 and onwards, worlds will generally be around 3-4 chapters in length.

Chapter Text

In a sensation that felt as if he was grasping for the last bit of air he’d ever breathe, Cody sprang awake. He could feel his body burning up and drenching in hot sweat, yet at the same time, he felt as cold as a dying corpse. His mind was cloudy, still processing the nightmare he just escaped from. As a young child, he always found it difficult to remember his dreams the night before which always made him jealous when his classmates would share their weird misadventures with anyone who would listen. These days, he envied his younger self.

Night after night. Death after death. The same dream over and over and over again. It had gotten to the point that he could remember every little detail that would occur like it were a video he would leave on constant replay in the background while fiddling around with something in his room. Clearly, this wasn’t normal.

It was just a dream...right?

“...Hey...Cody? Are you alright?”

“Yo… Earth to the Codester? Did that shit make you go deaf?”

Cody turned around, still a little disoriented. His vision slowly started to regain its composure as he saw a familiar pair right beside his bed.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said he wakes up like he’s dying,” the girl said with a mix of amusement and incredulousness. “Does he have, like, sleep apnea or something? Did you guys check?”

“I mean, if he does, I’m not going to be the one sacrificing my sleep to find out,” the guy replied. There was a harshness to his statement, but his tone sounded good natured despite that.

“Trent?... Gwen?... What are you doing…?” Cody was still feeling weak and dizzy, but sure enough, he was regaining his sense of self.

“It’s almost three in the afternoon,” Trent replied. “You were knocked out cold last night during the Survive-Chef’s-Cooking contest. We wanted to check up on you to make sure you weren’t dead or something.”

Oh right, Cody thought. Man, that was a mistake.

“Did I win?” Cody asked in a mix between a moan and a yawn.

“You literally went down as soon as you took one bite,” Gwen answered. “Even Noah lasted longer than you.”

Even Noah.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Cody facepalmed.

“I mean, it’s not like winning that would’ve net you any social points or anything.” Gwen rose up from the chair she was leaning on and started towards the door. “Well, since you’re okay, might as well hurry up before the ‘Not-Chef-Food’ is all gone.” She gestured for Trent to follow her.

Before the two could make their leave, Cody quickly sprung out of bed, full of life as if his traumatic nightmare and the physical toll it gave him had never occurred to begin with. “Hey, wait up! If you guys haven’t eaten yet, I’ll join you.”

Gwen stopped in her tracks. “No uh,” she started with a mix of annoyance and guilt in her voice. “We actually ate already. We were going to help with clean up duty in the woods.”

“Well, mind if I join you guys? I kinda don’t wanna think about food after last night. Plus, I’ve got nothing to do.”

Gwen was about to say something, but quickly gave it up and shrugged in both pity and defeat. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Gwen eyed her boyfriend who had a look of amusement. He could tell she was hiding how annoyed she was and rather than sympathizing with her, he just found it funny. Gwen gave him a half scowl in response and signaled for him to hurry up as she rushed out of the cabin. Trent continued carrying his bemused face knowing that Cody would easily catch up with the two no matter how hard she tried to brush him away in the nicest way possible.

And sure enough, the duo once again became a trio for the day.

 

oOo

 

CAMP WAWANAKWA

 

oOo

 

For the past few months, a large group of teenagers had taken residence on the island campgrounds of Camp Wawanakwa to compete on a reality TV show. The place was dingy, lethal, and an all around terrible spot for casual living, yet here they all were spending their last few days together. A ventilation issue drove the teens out of the resort villa they were supposed to spend the rest of their time in, forcing them back to the place none of them wanted to return to. While everyone arrived moaning and groaning two days before, the tone shifted dramatically in almost no time flat. Soon, they were partying away all throughout the night and day, knowing their time with one another was soon drawing to a close.

They knew ahead of time that they would only know one another for barely a few months, but that was enough time for most to unwittingly meet lifelong friends, companions, and then some. Cody was never great at connecting with others, so even he was surprised at how quickly he latched onto some of his fellow campers. If they were going to be parting ways soon, he wanted to make sure the time they still had with one another would last.

Or at least that’s what he felt.

Gwen eyed a stray pair of tattered underwear laying on a log. Of course she wouldn’t dream of touching it in the first place, but the more she examined it, the more horrified she grew at all the unknown liquids and muck that surrounded it. “What in the hell?”

All the partying led the area surrounding the campgrounds to devolve into an absolute pigsty. No one was allowed home until everything was properly cleared up. And unfortunately for them, the majority of the show’s staff members quit and fled before they had a chance to dump the task on to them as would have been expected.

“I am not touching that,” she winced. “Trent?”

“Yeah, no, I’m good,” he waved off. “Whose even is that?”

Trent called out to Cody. “Hey, dude, you wanna pick this thing up?”

Cody ran over. “Pick what u-uhhh, wh, ew! Whose is that?!”

“Right?”

“Are you picking it up or not?” Gwen interjected.

“No, of course not!” He wasn’t sure if the pungent smell he was starting to notice was coming from the underwear, but he quickly pinched his nose. “Whoever made that mess is dealing with it. Not me.”

An idea struck Gwen.

“Yeah, why don’t you go back to the camp and maybe try to suss out who we’re blaming this on? Trent and I will work around it.”

“I mean, I just got up. I don’t want to leave all the work on you two so soon,” Cody replied, not sensing Gwen’s true intent. “What if we just cleaned the whole area except for that? They’d have to notice.”

“No, no,” Gwen tried again. “Leaving us with all this wouldn’t be a problem. You looked pretty messed up earlier, so maybe take it easy a bit and head back?”

“Nah, I’m used to it. I’m telling you, I’m a-ok to help.”

“Yeah, but you nearly died eating Chef’s food. If we run into something grosser than that, I don’t think you’ll be able to handle it.” Gwen was growing more annoyed by the second.

“I’ll be fine! It’s not like I’m going to eat it.”

“Okay, then how about you head back to camp and ask around about the underwear and get them to eat it?” Her eyes narrowed. Could this boy read the room?

“Why would I do--”

Trent calmly placed his hand on the geeky teen’s shoulder. Cody looked up quizzically. Trent had his usual calm face, but even he was getting exasperated over the shorter boy’s denseness.

“Hey, look. Gwen and I? We wanted alone time. Alright?”

The bluntness of his words caught Cody off guard. He was now starting to see the forced kindness on his friend’s face and the look of pure irritation from Gwen. His face flushed in embarrassment and he was left stammering a quick apology before taking his leave.

It figured he didn’t get the hint. He didn’t even get the hint when Gwen kept making it clear she wasn’t interested in him weeks ago. And he didn’t get the hint all those times back at home when he was being a nuisance either. Cody was never exactly a people person. Not because he was antisocial, but he honestly never knew how to act around others. He knew the big goal in life was to make friends and build connections, but it had never been a strong suit of his. He’d spent years hiding behind masks trying to be accepted only to realize he went and did the wrong thing. The few people he did happen to befriend were just the ones who were somehow even denser than he was to fall for his disguises.

Cody looked around. The vast majority of the campers had settled into their typical groups, goofing off at the beach. Cody sighed knowing he didn’t really belong to any of them in a strong capactiy.

Being his awkward dorky self chased people away, and pretending and failing to be someone who was the exact opposite did as well. It seemed he was just cursed to be that guy people tolerated but never anything beyond that.

“What was I even doing here?” He mumbled as he found a spot to doze off.

Slept until three and taking a nap already? The heck is wrong with me? It’s never been this bad.

I’m just gonna have that same nightmare again too…

He was right.

Mysterious voice. Mysterious black creatures. Mysterious everything. Fighting. Darkness. Death. Rinse and repeat.

Darkside once again towered over Cody’s dream self as he hopelessly became consumed by the dark creatures once more. Most nights, his dream self failed to meet a graceful end, often struggling through the hoard of creatures in a cowardly manner. Today however, Cody reached out towards the giant staring down at him. It’s expressionless face always seemed like it was mocking him. One of these days, he’ll finally take it down. And when he does, he’ll say goodbye to these nightmares for good.

You really are an interesting one, aren’t you? ” That voice again. “ Yet you are still not ready…

“...Co...hey…

“...I’m...bite...face...up...hey…

“BOO!”

“AAAAHHHHHH!!”

Rather than waking up feeling like death once again, Cody was instead greeted by the sight of the island’s resident weirdo, Izzy, just inches away from his face. Not much different from the feeling of sudden death to be honest.

“Izzy, what the hell?!” Cody cried. “You don’t just do that to people!”

“Yeah, but you were all twisting and turning and scratching and screeching. Were you being, like, possessed by a ghost or something? I used to be a spirit medium you know. Beat up a bunch of ghosts in my time.” Izzy was speaking several minutes worth of words per second and no matter how many times Cody tried to swat her away, she avoided it to continue her motor mouth.

“And like, you’re here alllll alone being all ghost possessed and stuff. Like, everyone just kind of walked away except for a few of the guys who wanted to dunk a bucket of piss on you, but you started freaking them out enough to scare them away. Why were you napping alone on the beach anyway? Did Gwen and Trent shake you off? I guess you can’t really have a party with just yourself especially when no wants to join.”

He had enough.

“Will you just go away?!” Cody shouted.

Izzy jumped in surprise. Cody was normally a pretty friendly and easygoing  guy. Or at least that’s what he hoped everyone saw him as. In the time everyone had known him on the island, they’d never seen him get angry once. Izzy quickly got the hint and flashed him two cheeky thumbs ups before skipping away.

Cody groaned as he sat upward, reflecting over things yet again. He knew he was a loser. He knew it more than anyone else. He didn’t need someone with as little regard for tact as Izzy to hammer it down on him.

“At least I’ll be home soon,” he sighed.

“...Hey, Codester?”

Cody perked up. It was Trent.

“Oh, hey,” he replied awkwardly, still embarrassed over his very own lack of tact earlier.

“Were you sleeping again?” Trent chuckled as he sat down next to him. “Man, how are you still tired? The sun’s already setting. You’re gonna be up all night at this rate.”

“Trust me, that won’t be an issue,” he sighed once again. “I don’t know why, but I’ve been sleeping like crap the past few months. But, like, not in the normal insomnia way. I clock out the second I hit the hay and then it’s like I’m in a coma. I can’t even force myself to wake up on time. And then for whatever reason I just don’t really have an appetite anymore either. I thought it was nerves over being on the show, but it never went away even after I got eliminated.”

Trent raised his eyebrows. “Shouldn’t you get that checked? Sounds like some kind of weird disorder to me.”

“I mean yeah but,” Cody continued. “Do you trust the medical staff enough to deal with a potential chronic illness?”

“Didn’t you get mauled by a bear?” Trent chuckled. “I’m surprised you don’t trust them enough even after that. They were pretty damn handy all those times I broke my bones.”

“You know what I mean,” Cody responded. He quickly began to chuckle as well. “Man, you and I got pretty messed up here on the island. I mean, everyone else did too, but us in particular.”

“God, don’t even remind me. I don’t know how I’m still alive.”

The two boys shared a small round of laughs as they reminisced before settling into a bout of awkward silence. There was a reason Trent was here.

“Hey uh,” Trent began. “Sorry about earlier.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Cody sighed. “That was my bad, really. Sorry I’ve been forcing a trio between the three of us the whole time we’ve been here.”

“Hey, you haven’t been third wheeling us that much.”

“I hope I wasn’t,” Cody grumbled. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed but I suck at talking to people.”

“I’m pretty sure everyone’s noticed.”

“What?” Cody jolted upwards, face hot. “Was it that obvious?”

“You go around trying to get people to call you Codemeister .”

“Oh come on, that’s a cool nickname!” Cody leaned backwards, lying on the sand as he blankly stared up into the maroon early night sky. “You know, I don’t like to admit it to people, but I know how lame I am. I try not to be, I really do. I’m always trying to be the popular cool kid, but it’s obvious I was never meant to be one. Every time I say or do anything, I’m always trying to be someone I’m not.” He laughed deprecatingly. “I guess if it was obvious to everyone else, that really explains why I’ve never really made any friends before. Not even here on the island. If someone isn’t calling me annoying, they’re internally cringing at me.”

Trent joined him on the sand. “I know that feeling. I guess without the whole ‘making everyone cringe at me’ part.”

Cody turned his head over, eyebrows raised. “What?”

“The whole friendless background and faking everything stuff.”

Huh?!

“You?!” Cody sat back up from the sheer shock. “Mr. Popular?”

“Hey,” Trent shrugged. “I didn’t get that reputation because I wanted it if that’s what you were thinking.”

Trent turned away for a brief moment. Cody sensed a moment of hesitancy from the guy and was ready to drop the conversation altogether. Before he could change the subject however, Trent went right back right into it.

“To tell the truth, I’ve always just been faking through life. Acting the way I know people are supposed to act. Speaking the way I know people want me to speak. Like if I just tell people I don’t give a shit about them or anyone, I know people are going to look at me funny. Who wants to deal with that? Better to just smile and pretend I care about the same stuff every person is supposed to care about.” Cody couldn’t see it, but he rolled his eyes. “And in the end, apparently I was good enough at faking it to turn into ‘Mr. Popular’. Who knew all you had to do was pick the right answers everyone wants to hear.”

Cody blinked. What was he hearing right now? “So, wait, like...do you not care about people?”

“Don’t care about people. Don’t care about anything in life in general,” Trent answered bluntly. He finally turns to look at Cody, a sarcastic grin on his face. “Freaking you out?”

To be honest, he’s feeling some kind of unease from this, but he’s not going to tell him that of course. “I guess...I…so like, is that the way you feel about Gwen too? Nothing?”

“Believe it or not, she’s the exception. I can’t explain it, but there’s something about her that makes me want to trust her.”

“Uh...huh. So...does Gwen know about this?”

“Nope.”

“But you’re telling me?”

“Eh,” Trent shrugged. “We’re leaving soon, so I just kind of felt like it. I’ll tell her eventually. Just don’t know when or how. Definitely can’t be as casual as this.”

Cody blinked. He never expected to hear this out of Trent of all people. It felt like he was unlocking something that he wasn’t meant to unleash. But even then, he was almost touched that Trent picked him of all people to open up to, even if he was doing his best to brush it off as nothing.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting any of that, but,” Cody said as he returned to lying on the sand. “In a weird way, I’m kind of relieved to hear someone like you going through something similar-ish to me.”

“I guess, yeah,” Trent gave a slight smirk before changing his face to a dark deadpan. It wasn’t the look Cody was used to seeing from him, but now that he had revealed what kind of person he really was deep down, he realized exactly what Trent meant when he said he was constantly acting as a people pleaser. This look felt more natural to him than the regular old cool smiles he normally saw on the guy.

“Man, how did either of us get this far in life?” Cody mused. “I wonder if I’m just going back to the whole same-old same-old once school starts up again.”

“So, is that your big end goal here? To get popular?”

“Yeah. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s like a bad habit I can’t break out of at this point.”

“You gotta snap out of it somehow,” Trent replied in a surprising sprout of encouragement. Or at least surprising in hindsight given how much this conversation had revealed about him.

“Yeah? And you got a solution to your whole personality problem there?”

“Well,” Trent started to zone out into the sky. The sun was almost gone entirely and stars were very slowly making their way to take its place. “It’s just a hunch, but I’ve always felt traveling around might do me good. Seeing different sights, checking to see if new experiences trigger anything in me. I’ve never really felt like I belonged where I came from so...maybe I would somewhere else.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“Burn everything down I guess.”

“Damn, that’s harsh,” Cody laughed.

Another short string of silence passed by before Trent finally decided to get up to leave. “I’m starving. You?”

“Nope.”

“Weren’t kidding when you said your appetite’s all messed up, huh?”

“I wish I weren’t,” Cody replied. “I think I’m just gonna lie around here a bit longer. If I’m not back in the cabin in an hour or two, just tell one of the guys to grab me.”

“Got it.” Trent made his first few steps before taking a pause to speak to Cody one last time. “This probably goes without saying, but don’t tell Gwen about anything I said. Got it?”

A quick thumbs up from Cody, and Trent was off.

With him long gone, Cody was left to stargaze all on his own. His mind rewound to every moment of his earlier conversation. It wasn’t anything he expected to hear out of anyone on this island, but the heart-to-heart surprisingly did put him in a better mood.

And hey, Trent had to count as his first real friend after all that, right?

“I wonder if there’s somewhere else I belong too...”

 

oOo

 

In a far off land in a far off world, another bright and bustling day shined on in the vast Pokemon Kingdom. At the same time every morning, colorful creatures of all shapes and sizes begin setting up shop for the day in both quaint and oversized buildings. They happily conversed with everyone who passed by as if everyone in the town had known each other their whole lives. The children run around every nook and cranny until they ultimately get scolded for accidentally aiming an attack at public property. This was the typical morning in this world that felt nothing but peace for what felt like forever.

In the centermost of the town stood a towering castle. In most kingdoms, this building would either represent the pride of the land of the scourge of the masses. Here however, it was no different from another part of home. In fact, the castle denizens were no different from those outside the walls in the way they greeted, laughed, worked, and had fun with each other. Just like how the castle was akin to an extension of home, everyone was like family.

Almost everyone.

A much smaller than usual Alakazam walked through the halls, his head deep into the book that he telekinetically floated right in front of him. Occasionally, he shifted his eyes when he passed by other castle residents. Most of the time, they were already deep in conversation with their companions and paid him no mind, but on the few occasions someone did try to greet him out of obligation, he tried his best to pretend he was deep in work and study when in reality, he was hiding behind a comic book.

Alakazam stopped in his tracks, sighing. He’d been an advisor here for a long time now and yet he still felt like an outsider. Everyone here had a deep history with one another and he was the guy who just waltzed in for a job. If you’re in a town full of your friends, of course no one is going to pick the guy they knew the least about to spend their day with.

Alakazam eyed the massive doors across from him. Despite everything, there were at least a few Pokemon who made him feel at home.

“Ugh, he was really worried last time I showed up all gloomy,” the psychic Pokemon muttered to himself. After sighing once more, he immediately stood up straight, narrowed his eyes, and puffed out his chest as he attempted to psyche himself up before entering the room.

With the strength of his telekinesis, Alakazam brushed the doors wide open, revealing a vast yet modest throne room. He put aside the book he was using as a social shield and began to awkwardly march in.

“Good morning, your Majesty,” he greeted, his proud but meek voice echoing within the hallowed halls. “Some of the paperwork from last week got sent back. Don’t know what happened, but we’re probably going to have to go through everything again a lot more careful…”

No one was sitting on the throne.

Alakazam blinked. Was the King late for his daily briefing?

“Do...I just wait here?” Alakazam looked around. “He’s never been late the whole time I’ve been here.”

Even though the King was not present, someone else was. And that someone was ready to pounce on the unsuspecting Alakazam with mischievous glee.

“GOOD MORNING!!” Skitty screeched as she leapt out from behind the throne and on to Alakazam’s head. Despite not even being a third of his size, the Pokemon screamed as the pink feline’s sneak attack forced him onto the ground.

“Skitty!!” He cried, prying the adorable jester off of his face. “What the heck are you doing here?!”

“Gooooood morning!!” She repeated, completely ignoring his question as she jumped on his body.

“Hey, you, ow, answer me, oof, where is, ack, WILL YOU GET OFF OF ME?!”

All his patience lost, Alakazam slapped Skitty off in the most gentle way possible. Skitty landed smoothly just a few feet away, still in a giggling fit over her childish prank.

Alakazam was ready to start telling the court jester off, but his attention was taken away by something that had fallen to the ground after Skitty was swatted into air. It was a letter encased with a thunderbolt seal. This could only mean one thing.

“Is this from the King?” Alakazam asked as he picked it up. Skitty grinned in response before skipping away.

Alakazam stared at the letter in confusion as he carefully tore the envelope open. What could the King have possibly wanted to tell him that he couldn’t do in person during their daily morning briefings?

…?!

Whatever was written in there, it was enough to make him run.

Oh Arceus, this is really bad , he desperately thought to himself. No, no, no. Do I...no he’ll kill me. The Queen maybe? But I don’t wanna be the one worrying her this early in the morning.

In the end, there was only one person Alakazam knew to tell right away. It wasn’t another member of royalty, another advisor, or even a member of the guard. No, it was another fellow outsider. The bard.

“Loudred!!”

A large purple Pokemon, much larger than usual for his species in fact, slept lazily under the massive apple tree in the castle’s inner garden. Circlets of Everstones dangled around each of his limbs and antennae, and they roughly pushed alongside the wind as the large mouthed pocket monster snored and snoozed.

As Alakazam approached, he tried everything he could to wake the big guy up without causing any bodily harm. No dice. Shaking his head in disbelief, he started focusing his telekinetic energy, readying his last resort. Luckily, whatever he was planning on doing would not come to fruition as Loudred had already started to stretch his body awake, having woken up from his own volition.

“Morning, Al,” Loudred yawned. Due to the nature of his species, his voice just naturally held a higher sound frequency than normal; a fact that Alakazam began cursing in his head for not remembering sooner. “A bit early to be freaking out this much, huh?”

“No, no, Loudred, you don’t understand. This. Is. Urgent!! Listen. What I’m going to tell you, I haven’t told anyone else yet, so you better keep your mouth shut about it!”

“Not even Queen Lopunny or Piplup?”

“No! And I told you already, be quiet!”

“Why not though?”

“Because if they find out, they’re gonna be questioning me and if they question me, I’m going to stress out and make you take over, and then we’ll both be going down!”

“Well, I wouldn’t be going down if you didn’t come to me first. I’m just a bard after all,” Loudred laughed.

“That’s not--- didn’t I tell you to be quiet?!”

“If it’s that important, I shouldn’t be the one to know about it first. Go tell the Queen and I’ll find out later. Good morning, your majesty!”

“I TOLD YOU TO BE---”

Wait.

Alakazam turned around in a jerky manner. Queen Lopunny and Captain Piplup were quietly standing there watching the two outsiders perform their comedy act. In fact, all the Pokemon he alerted through his frantic jog over here were watching on as well.

Alakazam was drenched in cold sweat. He wanted to do this as quietly as possible, but it was clear he already screwed himself over right from the start.

“So, uh,” he nervously cleared his throat as he began to slowly hold up the letter. “I have a message from the King.”

Chapter 3: Camp Wawanakwa: The Last Day

Chapter Text

“Honestly, I’m impressed with your valor.

“Time and time again you come to this same dream world knowing what your fate is.

“Time and time again, you pick up your weapon despite knowing what end awaits you each and every cycle.

“You were clearly never meant to win this battle, and yet you’re always here to fight it.

“Striving for a role of a victor, a role you were never meant to have.

“You truly are impressive.”

 

oOo

 

The same nightmare, the same monsters, the same darkness, the same sensation of doom and death as he woke up in the coldest yet warmest sweat imaginable.

Cody looked at the clock. It was already four in the afternoon; somehow, even worse than yesterday.

“Went to bed early and everything,” he grumbled to himself as he sluggishly slung his clothes on.

Cody stepped out of the cabin and yawned as he let the afternoon sun bring him back to reality. He had a cool face now, but deep within him laid a genuine concern that something was truly wrong with him. He wasn’t even feeling anything after going a day without any food.

“Hey there sleepyhead!” A familiar overly chipper voice greeted him.

“Morning Izzy,” he yawned again, too concerned about his questionable health to face her.

“Man, you look aaaawful,” she snorted. “A bunch of the guys from the Gophers were talking about how you were twisting and turning and clawing all night long. I’m telling you, if you’ve got a ghost issue, I can eat them for you.”

He wanted to think it was too early for this, but it was already mid afternoon.

“No, Izzy,” he sighed, rubbing his head. “It’s just...a bunch of bad nightmares, okay? I always die in them so my brain thinks I actually died and I get bad reactions from it. That’s it.”

“Hmm, maybe you got some brain worms in you? Need some deworming done?”

“No Izzy,” he groaned, turning his head to finally show her to her face how much he did not appreciate her banter. “No, I do not---”

The frail tech geek was immediately greeted by the violent hissings of an enraged raccoon, causing him to topple over. Izzy held it tightly in her arms like a new pet while she hung upside down from the cabin rooftop.

“Settle down George,” she patted the raccoon’s head, enraging it further. “Cody’s a friend! No need to get all rowdy. Here, catch!”

Izzy tossed the raccoon right towards Cody’s body. He’d suffered enough physical and mental trauma from wild animals that summer and stealthily dodged the creature like his life depended on it. After the raccoon landed onto the cabin floors rather than his face, he slammed the door shut and trapped it inside the musty building as it rocked the door, furiously trying to smash its way out.

“Well, I guess I can’t go back to bed even if I wanted to,” Cody said nervously.

“Oh yeah,” Izzy began again as she lifted herself back onto the roof. “Gwen and Trent are at the beach right now if you wanna go crash their make out session.”

That’s the last thing he wanted to do after yesterday.

With Izzy gone, Cody was left alone to mull over his day all on his own. Today was supposed to be their last day on the island before everyone was gone for good. Thanks to the absolute trashing of the island, any and all plans for one final party were cancelled lest they get stranded here for another week picking up trash in the forest. As usual, everyone was off to their usual groups and pairs. And then there was him.

Cody sighed. Maybe there was still some trash left over? He slowly trudged off, trying his best to hide the feelings of dejection that still lingered from the day before.

 

oOo

 

Am I going crazy?

Is this what happens to people before they start having breakdowns?

It’s not normal to have the same exact dream for months, right?

It’s not normal to have a voice talking to you in your dreams, right?

You’re supposed to be able to control your dreams, aren’t you? Why is this happening to me?

Clearly, wandering off on his own was a mistake because now poor Cody managed to think himself into sheer mental exhaustion. So many things were causing him to turn into a ball of stress and there wasn’t anyone around he could reach out to calm him down.

…?

Cody blinked. In front of him was a cave he’d never seen before. He swore he ran around like an idiot around these woods long enough to have seen every nook and cranny of them, but it seems there were parts that still alluded him.

After being mauled by a literal bear weeks earlier, you’d think the teen would make the wise choice to run as far from the cave as possible, but there was a strange feeling about it that kept pulling him in despite all common sense. Taking a deep breath, Cody walked in.

As it turns out, even if he had never seen the rocky structure before, everyone else on the island had. The walls were filled head to toe in crude cave doodles and chalk drawings. Everything from amateur anime chibis to autograph practice sessions from the various campers lined the walls. It was apparent that this place must’ve been a popular secret hangout session for the contestants, yet here he was discovering it for the very first time, having never heard a peep about it from anyone else.

He trudged further into the cave, admiring the bountiful cave scribbles along the way. To his surprise, a door lay at the furthest depths. Was this a hidden crewmember room for the show? Why would everyone hang out this close to the show’s staff? He didn’t notice any cameras anywhere, so maybe this area was a blindspot?

Cody slowly shifted his eyes over his surroundings, making sure that no one else was in the vicinity. With the coast clear, he gingerly turned the knob.

No dice.

“Figures,” Cody shrugged. The door was locked tight. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting.

With his one plan of mischief foiled, he collapsed to the ground in exasperation. He took another long look at the scribbles which nearly piled up towards the roof of the cave. He recognized the doodles and writings of everyone there. No one seriously thought to tell him about this place even once? What did that mean about his standing in anyone’s life? Heck, even Ezekiel managed to leave a mark here. But him?

Cody glanced across the cave. There was a small little section reserved for what was clearly all artwork drawn by Gwen. Near the very bottom was a very intricately rendered heart that contained yesterday’s date alongside Gwen and Trent’s signatures.

He knew he had no business to butt into her life like that, but seeing all that probably got to him the most. He really did assume the two formed some kind of a bond until he was foolishly proven otherwise just yesterday. To him, this cave was just a reminder of his lack of meaningful connections. Just what he needed to see on a day where his mood was already so full of self loathing.

Cody eyed a corner right near the mysterious door. It was one of the few patches of rock left relatively unscathed. With a frown, Cody reached into his pockets for a Sharpie pen. There was no reason for him to do this, but he felt like he needed to leave a proper mark on the island. A single piece of proof that for a period of time, he existed in the lives of everyone here.

He glanced at the finished drawing and frowned. He had attempted to draw a small cartoon monkey, but his lack of artistic abilities resulted in a crude dark scribble that was barely a few steps off from a stick figure. Even worse, the black Sharpie pen he used failed to make the drawing pop out in the dark corner of the cave. This cavern had been thoroughly covered by chalk and paint; and then there was his dour doodle hidden away, nearly blending in with the nothingness altogether.

“Might as well sign it,” he chuckled weakly. He was used to faking himself in front of others. Now he was trying his best to fake amusement to himself.

...There was a rustle.

Cody turned around, expecting one of the several couples of the group to kick him out for privacy. His eyes widened and his face deflated as he instead gazed up at a tall and unfamiliar figure in a pitch black cloak that hid away all traces of an identity towering over him.

His first instinct of course was to scream.

“Who the hell are you?!” He cried out as he snatched the largest rock he could find as a makeshift weapon.

The cloaked figure continued staring at him in silence. Cody was beginning to suspect this was a ghost and desperately tried to steady his shaking arms as he readied himself to attack. He flung the rock, and it failed to reach its target in any capacity as the figure began walking towards the door instead.

Cody continued shaking in fear as he observed the stranger shifting their supposed blank gaze from him towards the door. His mind was a jumbled mess. Should he run? He should run, shouldn’t he? Oh God, he needs to run away right now before---

“Tell me, what do you think is beyond this door?”

Cody blinked. He was too frozen to utter a response.

“Too speechless I see?” The figure continued. “I suppose someone as insignificant as you would never understand.”

“U...understand wh-what?” Cody stuttered.

“It is of no concern of yours nor is it within your field of comprehension.” The figure placed his palm on the door. “This is the true key to this world. Beyond it is nothing but darkness.”

What?!

The figure turned towards him once again, causing the poor teen to stumble backwards in fright. His feet caught on to a small string of pebbles and forced him to topple over to the wall behind him. He closed his eyes shut as he winced in pain. Now wasn't the time for clumsy injuries however. He needed to leave NOW.

Cody opened his eyes once again, ready to evade anything the figure would do to him.

...Only to see that they were no longer in sight.

Cody darted his panicked face in every direction. The figure could pop up from behind to kill him at any moment, he just knew it.

The cave was completely silent aside from his beating heart and labored breaths. Several minutes passed. They never came back.

I have to leave, he thought. In fact, he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done so already. Cody dashed out of the cave as fast as he could, still convinced the stranger would come back at any second to finish him off. In his panic, he didn’t even notice Gwen walking past the entrance until the two collided against one another and to the ground.

“Ow! Watch where you’re going!”

“I am so sorry,” Cody replied aghast. “Sorry, there was like a guy in there. I don’t know who the hell he was but he was definitely not a crewmember. Where did he go? Did you see him? He was here, right?!”

“Calm down!” Gwen shouted loud enough for his adrenaline to dissipate. “Look, I heard you screaming and ran over here to check what’s up. Didn’t see anyone other than you leave that place.”

“B-but,” Cody bluthered. “That means he’s still in there, right?”

“Cody, there’s nothing in there anyone could hide behind. Not even any larger rocks. If you didn’t see anyone on your way out, then there’s no one in there.”

“I…” He was so confused.

“Hey,” Gwen restarted with a calmer tone. “I know you’ve been having a ton of freaky nightmares recently. Maybe you were just hallucinating it?”

“I…” Was he? “I guess…”

Wait, Gwen was right in front of him.

“Shit, wait, I’m so sorry,” he stammered.

“What? I don’t even have a scratch on me. It’s fine.”

“No, no, I mean,” Cody grasped his head in an exasperated manner. Here we go… “I mean yesterday. I’m sorry about being, well...stupid.”

“Oh, that,” Gwen bit her lip. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. I probably came off a lot harsher than I meant to.”

“No, but like, I’ve been misreading everything the whole time I’ve been here. You can just forget about everything, alright? You won’t ever see me again after tomorrow.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Gwen quickly gestured her hand for him to stop. “Look, I get it. You don’t know how to people. It’s fine, alright? Trent told me everything. You don’t mean to be cringy on instinct, but you do. I get it. Just leave it, okay?”

Cody blinked. Apparently the promise he made Trent to not let Gwen know anything about his real self did not go both ways.

What a dick.

“You’re, uh,” Cody scratched his head. “Has anyone ever told you you’re surprisingly forgiving?”

“No, I’m not. Have you seen me and Heather?”

“Aside from her,” Cody continued. “Like, you’re still tolerating me despite everything. Even I would’ve started avoiding me at this point.”

“Well for one thing, you’re giving yourself way too much grief than you should,” Gwen responded. “Second of all, I don’t know, hearing what Trent had to say about you, I guess I could relate a little.

“I was really sick as a kid. I had some kind of weird rare disease and pretty much lived in the hospital. By the time I left, I had no clue how to really talk to or get along with other kids. Several years go by and,” she gestured towards herself, emphasizing her gothic attire. “Well, all this baggage and rotten attitude happened.”

If he wasn’t expecting Trent to open up to him yesterday, he certainly wasn’t Gwen to do the same today. “Really? You don’t look sick.”

Gwen shrugged. “I just got over it one day. Never had a relapse. Heck, I barely even get like ‘normal’ sick anymore. Don’t even know what happened.”

Gwen yawned as if this conversation was dragging on past her own personal convenience. “It should go without saying, but don’t tell Trent about that. I’ll let him know on my own eventually.”

Luckily, this time Cody didn’t have any deeply personal backstory to be ratted out later in exchange.

“Of course,” he smiled. He laughed lightly. “It’s funny. All three of us are really just weird loners with issues, huh? What a coincidence.”

“All three?”

Oops.

Even if Trent didn’t bother keeping his story a secret, he was smart enough not to reveal that guy's absolute mess of a background. His eyes shifted around, panicking as he tried to come up with any solution to distract Gwen. “Uh---”

Luckily for him, or not luckily at all, that distraction came in the form of mysterious rustles. Suddenly, his mind no longer looked for ways to change the subject. Now it was reminded him that just moments before, he was being confronted by who-knows-what who had run to who-knows-where. Were they back?

Gwen saw the panic in his face. She didn’t believe in the mysterious stranger Cody claimed to have seen, but the frozen terror he displayed right in front of her was infectious. Things got worse as soon as the two began to hear muffled ambience. The mutual look on their faces told them both that they needed to leave.

Unfortunately, they decided on this much too late. The rustling quickened to a vigorous pacing and the muffled noise drew nearer by the second.

Fortunately, it was just Owen being mauled by the rabid raccoon from earlier.

“GET OFF OF ME!! OWW!! I SAID I WAS SORRY!!” He cried as he passed by the two like they weren’t even there.

Izzy quickly followed from behind. “Aren’t you glad I told you to get those rabies shots now?” She laughed as if watching her maybe-boyfriend getting attacked by a possibly diseased animal was the most entertaining thing in the world.

Cody and Gwen were left standing in silence. They both had an urge to break into laughter, but neither wanted to possibly be the only one laughing.

“... Hey,” Gwen began.

“Yeah?”

“That guy you said you saw earlier in the cave? Was he wearing a black trenchcoat?”

Oh shit.

“Do you know who I’m talking about?!” Cody replied frantically.

Gwen facepalmed in stress and aggravation. “Oh God, I saw someone walking outside last night, but I thought it was Duncan.” She rubbed her temples. “Shit, is there another serial killer here? Why is this happening to me?”

“We, we just have to survive until the boat gets here tomorrow morning, right?”

“Have you ever watched a slasher flick?” Gwen snapped. “Until tomorrow morning is more than enough time for someone to wipe out half of us.”

She began to run off. “Go help gather the others. We are not having a repeat of the serial killer challenge.”

She was already too far gone for him to ask questions. Neither of them were even sure if this stranger was there for blood, but neither wanted to risk it. Cody started running off as well. Owen and Izzy couldn’t have gotten too far. He’ll warn them first.

He blinked. A small drop of water landed on his cheek. Then came another. And another. Soon, a steady stream of rain enveloped the entire island.

“Seriously?” He whined. Possible serial killer and rain, huh? What an awful combination.

“Is this going to delay the boat too?”

 

oOo

 

Hi Al,

Sorry to spring this up on you without warning. I meant to tell you before I left, but I’m afraid there’s no time for that.

I’ve noticed the stars slowly blinking away. I don’t know why, but it can’t be anything good. I’m leaving to consult my teacher. After that, I’ll probably be gone for a while.

I hear that there’s supposed to be someone with a key. Whoever they are, they’ll be the key to stopping this. If it’s not too much trouble, no, you and Loudred have to find the Keybearer or everything will be lost.

Here are the coordinates to a place called Traverse Town. Head over there as soon as possible and find a man named Leon. He’ll point you two to the right direction.

Good Luck,

King Raichu

P.S. Can you say sorry to Lopunny for me? And I know Piplup’s going to be pretty mad too, so sorry if he gives you any grief. ^_^;

 

Piplup finished reading the letter in an unimpressed tone.

After the ruckus in the garden, Queen Lopunny had ordered Alakazam and Loudred to move over to her personal quarters. With the contents of the letter now revealed, it was now obvious to everyone else why Alakazam was in such a panic.

“He just up and left?” Lopunny squeaked. “How are we going to let everyone know?”

“More importantly,” Piplup interrupted. “This big world saving task the King is going on about? Why is he entrusting it to them?!” He pointed across the room to where Alakazam awkwardly stood twiddling his hands and Loudred sat down, looking as if he was going to fall asleep again. In comparison to them, Piplup commanded a much stronger and ferocious presence despite the two easily towering over the tiny penguin.

“He could have asked for me, he could have asked for Gremninja or Charizard or Infernape or literally anyone else but he asked for you two?!”

“Now now,” Lopunny calmed the small Pokemon down. “I’m sure he has his reasons. We have to trust his judgement.”

She turned to face the pair. “You know what this means, right? The two of you will have to leave immediately.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Alakazam coughed. “Look, I’m with Captain Piplup. Do not send me off. I’m not made for this kind of thing.”

“You’re right you aren’t,” Piplup mumbled under his breath, earning a light shove from Lopunny in response.

“Look,” Alakazam continued. “I’m an advisor. I don’t want to suddenly leave you alone with all the paperwork and any possible panic this is going to cause.”

“You know I’ve taken over for him before. Don’t write me off that easily,” Lopunny giggled. “The King asked for you, didn’t he? That means he thinks this is a task only you can handle.”

“Yeah,” Loudred nodded in agreement. “This means he has faith you can help him save the day. He’s King Raichu, right? He’s always believed in you, so have faith in him.”

Alakazam stood in silence, mulling everything over. It’s true that the King had always believed him when no one else did. Everyone knew he owed a great deal to the King which was why he was always so loyal and faithful to serving him despite being an “outsider” in this castle. If the King believed that someone like him could help with this important task, then he had to believe in his friend’s judgment.

Alakazam closed his eyes and took a deep breath before responding. “Fine, I’ll go.”

“Alright!” Lopunny squealed.

“You better not mess this up,” Piplup harrumphed.

“You’re gonna do great! Best of luck to you,” Loudred chimed in. This triggered daggers from Alakazam.

“Why are you acting as if you’re not involved in this too? Come on!”

Alakazam activated his telekinesis and dragged Loudred alongside him as he marched out of the room.

Soon, the two arrived at the castle’s hangar; the topmost portion of the castle that was the bridge between them and the stars. Any nervousness Alakazam once had was now gone as he eyed the area with childlike wonder.

“Oh man, Loudred,” he said excitedly. “That’s the new model they brought in last month, right? Is that what we’re riding in?”

“Haha, you’re such a kid,” Loudred laughed. “You’ve seen the Gummi Ships before. Though I guess this is the first time you’ll be on one as a co-pilot and not a passenger. Hope you’re a quick learner.”

“As if you know how to pilot one,” Alakazam snapped back.

As the two settled into the ship, it suddenly dawned on them that, indeed, neither of them had ever piloted a Gummi Ship before. Alakazam glanced at Loudred awkwardly who just bursted out in guffaws in response.

“Don’t laugh! Seriously, how are we supposed to pilot this thing?”

“Hi guys!!”

The two jumped. Skitty leapt upwards from her hiding spot from under the dashboard. She definitely was not supposed to be here. In fact, was she even allowed in the hangar??

“What the? Get out of here!” Alakazam attempted to shoo her away, but, to his horror, she  began to slap her tiny legs and her oversized tail alongside the dashboard controls like they were her own personal playthings. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“Hahaha, I guess we’ll have to learn as we go along whether we want to or not,” Loudred chuckled heartily as he pointed at the front window. The ship was getting ready to take off and the workers in the hangar had begun opening up the exit in response.

“NO, NO, NO, STOP, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!” Alakazam screeched as Loudred continued to laugh without a care in the world.

Back within the lower floors of the castle, Lopunny and Piplup walked through the halls, getting ready to properly begin their temporary kingdom takeover. Lopunny suddenly stopped in her tracks.

“Maybe I should’ve sent some others with them. I don’t even think either of them have piloted a Gummi Ship before.”

“See?” Piplup huffed. “I should’ve gone on this mission! They’re an advisor and a bard. They don’t have any experience.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Lopunny responded. “They’ve been on adventures with the King before. You should have the same faith in them as the King does.”

All of a sudden, a loud mechanical burst erupted outside. The two exchanged grim looks with each other before running towards the nearest window to assess the situation. The Gummi Ship the pair had been assigned to zig zagged wildly in the sky. Lopunny and Piplup’s faces slowly turned into panic. Were they going to crash? Was this journey over before it even started?

The two were mentally debating with one another to send for a rescue team immediately, but after a few more tumbles, the ship finally made its way smoothly out of the atmosphere.

They both took a long string of silence to take in what just happened. They seemed to have had things figured out when they left, but...were they really going to be okay?

 

oOo

 

It turned out, Cody didn’t have to worry about spending enough time on the island for the supposed killer to get to him. Nor did he have to worry about the sudden storm delaying the ship. In fact, the ship was here way ahead of schedule.

The heavy rainfall had suddenly turned into a storm akin to a typhoon in no time flat. Despite that, Chris and Chef requested the ship to get them all out of there much earlier than expected. There were apparently some concerns about the storm causing a possible landslide in the portion of the camp right where Chris and Chef’s cabin lay and neither of them wanted to deal with that for even one night. Of course, none of the campers were happy about this. The were all pretty unanimous in pinning this evacuation as a suicide mission.

“Are you insane?!” Courtney screamed. “Do you see this storm? We leave now and we are going to die!”

“Seriously,” Leshawna added. “I knew you two were crazy, but this is a whole different brand of crazy!”

“It’s just a storm,” Chris brushed it off. “Chef’s rode through hurricanes back in...whatever war he said he was in. Ain’t that right, Chef?”

“Yeah, let’s go with that,” Chef loudly responded as he carefully began preparations in the wheelhouse.

“Just a storm?!” Heather screeched. “Do you see this?! I already suffered enough on this hellhole of an island. I am not dying on it!”

“Technically, you’d be dying in the water, not on the island,” Harold interjected.

“Who asked you?!”

“You goddamn psycho shitfaces!” Eva growled. She began to move towards the boat with her fists tightened into wads of veins. The storm was the only barrier between her and possibly killing Chris, and he was more than aware of that.

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t come any closer!” He warned and attempted to maneuver through the wobbling ship to gain more space between him and Eva.

As Chris continued antagonizing the frustrated teenagers, Cody stood in the back and darted his eyes everywhere in search of Trent and Gwen. He didn’t realize it when he got there, but the two of them were the only campers who weren't present. He bit his lip thinking back to the cloaked stranger. Was there a possibility that they got to them? Gwen was trying to warn the others about them. Did they stop her and Trent was out there trying to save her? Either way, he dragged her into this, so he had to help.

Cody looked back at the crowd. Eva had begun hurling stones at the boat while a bunch of the guys seemed to be joining her in assaulting the TV host and his death trap. It didn’t look like things were going to resolve soon, and frankly, Cody had the same desire to board that thing in the middle of this hellstorm as everyone else. With that, he snuck away from the crowd and towards the woods.

“If none of you guys want to leave, then we are leaving without you and we’re not sending another boat!”

“What?! You can’t do that!” Owen cried.

“Yeah,” Izzy added. “Do that and I’ll alert my lawyers to break out of jail and send their followers to convert you two!”

“Wh-what?” Owen blinked.

“My lawyers,” Izzy happily stated matter of factly. “They both got really into alternative religions in law school and decided to start one themselves. I’m not religious, so I wasn’t into it, but they’re so good, they’ve managed to convince all of their clients to…”

Izzy spotted Cody running off. What was he doing?

Her eyes widened. There was something even more peculiar than Cody fleeing the scene. Blobs of deep black were manifesting out of nowhere. The larger they grew, the higher they elevated until they ultimately took the form of shadowy pitch black creatures; unbeknownst to them, the same ones from Cody’s dreams.

No one believed Izzy at first when she called the group’s attention to them. It was Izzy after all. She was always spouting crazy shit. But when they turned around in curiosity, the truth seeped into their terrified faces. Suddenly, the teens who were so desperately attempting to stop the boat from leaving were now desperately trying to make their way onboard. Chris and Chef were much quicker on the uptake however and were already drifting away, much too far for the teens to jump on.

They were trapped.

 

oOo

 

Crap, where would she be? Where would either of them be? Cody frantically thought to himself as he dodged his way through the rain and wind while he navigated through the dark woods. It was already easy to get lost in here, but now that the storm was causing everything around him to flail around, it was near impossible.

Cody’s ears perked as he heard rustling from behind. He instinctively turned around and his face morphed into a look of horror as he saw what was behind him.

Those creatures. The ones from his dreams. They were getting closer and closer to him.

He experienced that same dream enough times to know what would happen if they got to him. In fact, he stood there and assumed they were going to fulfill the omen right now. Cody shut his eyes and braced himself for the end. He could hear the rustling continue past him however as the creatures advanced forward like a path of pitch black writhing.

“What the?...” he breathed. Something was formed in his head. His dream, the creatures, the mysterious figure. Were they all connected somehow?

He took another breath. He figured there was a chance he’d regret this, but he decided to follow the path of black in hopes it would lead him to something. Anything.

And in the end, it led him to the very top of the peculiar cliff that lay on the island. Trent was sitting at the very edge.

“Trent!” Cody mustered all the strength in him to outrun the Shadows and towards the other teen.

“Trent, Trent,” he wheezed as he stopped to catch his breath from behind his friend. “Gwen...I can’t...I don’t know where she is...There was...there was this guy...Trent, we have to find her!”

No response.

…?

Trent had not budged at all. There was an eerie lack of any sort of reaction from the sullen teen. He sat there chillingly nonchalantly despite Cody’s panicked words and the chaos of the weather.

“D...dude? Hey, Trent! Did you hear me? Gwen is---”

“I'll find her.”

Huh?

“I’ll find her and bring her with me.”

What in the world?

Trent’s words were icy. Cody couldn’t tell if he was acting strange or if this was the “true” him he told him about yesterday.

“What are you talking about?!”

Trent finally got up and slowly turned to face Cody with the icy movement to match his unusually cold and hollow words. The expression on his face showed no hints of any emotion despite the small smile that was plastered on.

He held out his hand.

“You don’t have anything that matters in this world right? How about you leave this place too?”

Wh-what? What is he talking about?

… Is he going to jump?!

Cody wasn’t sure how to process anything that was occuring. And when a stream of Shadows erupted from the waters behind Trent, he was even less certain. A wave of Shadows was hurtling towards them. Trent did not seem to be in the right state of mind to move out of the way. Cody knew what those creatures were capable of. They could kill him in his dreams over and over again, but he wasn’t going to let them get his first friend.

He reached for Trent’s hand, ready to snatch him away from the wave’s path.

But he was too late.

Cody couldn’t feel anything. His body and mind were quickly numbing. It was just like his dreams but only now, it was final.

Was he going to die for real this time?

...No. He still had to find her.

If he died, no one would care, but if she did?

She was someone who needed to live.

The numbness continued, but something was happening alongside it. Something that had never occurred before in any of the countless nightmare simulations Cody had faced in the past few months.

There was warmth.

“Perhaps I was wrong about you

“Or perhaps I wasn’t.

“I’d love to see you prove me wrong.

“You’re much more interesting than I could have ever imagined.”

…!

There was a burst of light.

He opened his eyes.

He was alive.

He eyed the surrounding area. There was no trace of the torrent of Shadows that threatened to kill him and Trent.

...Trent!

Cody searched frantically. Where did he go?

His time to piece together what had occurred unfortunately ran out. Shadows manifested from the ground around him and replaced the hoards that had disappeared into thin air. Only something was different. The Shadows earlier completely ignored him. It caught him off guard as they always chased him around like magnets in his dreams. These new Shadows however were operating in the same wavelength as the monsters he was familiar with.

A Shadow leapt upwards, ready to pounce him. Cody yelped and swung his arm on instinct. That’s when it finally occurred to him.

He was clutching tightly on to an oversized key. And that same key had just destroyed the creature.

With the Shadow gone, more slowly replaced it. Cody had attempted to fight back against these creatures countless times in his dreams, but they were all fruitless efforts. He never knew they could actually be killed until now.

Their numbers steadily increase. Cody cringed. Even though he now had a means to protect himself, his limited knowledge of combat was no different from the sloppy shield whacking he performed back in his dreams. There was no way he was going to be able to fend them all off. He had no choice but to run.

There he was running frantically through the woods once more. There was so much going on and no time at all to think things through lest the Shadows caught up to him. He was searching for Gwen, but where on Earth would she be? And where did Trent go? Did he have to search for him too? In fact, should he even be worried about searching for others in the situation he was currently in?

Cody skidded to a halt. He managed to circle back to the cave that he discovered just a few hours ago. A lightbulb lit up in his head. If Gwen was going to be anywhere, she’d probably be there. Cody turned around and made sure that he lost the Shadows for good before quickly shuffling in.

Lo and behold, there she was at the very end of the cave’s short pathway, standing towards the strange door.

“Gwen!” Cody ran forward. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I found Trent and…”

He hesitated. He still wasn’t quite sure what occurred back there. Was Trent even still with them? He didn’t want to think of that possibility, but it was best left alone for now.

“Look, we have to get out of here. There are monsters everywhere!”

...No response.

“Hey...” He reached forward and grabbed her shoulder on the off chance that she just didn't hear him the first time around.

She turned around.

Cody froze. Something wasn’t right. Gwen had that same icy look that Trent held just earlier. Only somehow, she looked even icier; as if she was both waking up and falling into a deep coma right in front of him.

He was taken aback. After what had just occurred with Trent, he wasn’t sure how to handle her current demeanor.

“Hey...are you okay?”

Gwen’s eyes stared blankly in his direction. Her lips pursed, mouthing something that was too soft in volume to decipher. He couldn’t even ask her any more questions because he was witnessing something far more alarming.

Gwen was fading.

What the hell?!

His first instinct was to try to reach out to her, but yet another alarming incident occurred, putting a stop to that.

The door burst open.

He wasn’t sure if it was the might of wind or pure darkness, but he was soon sent flying. There was no time to grab ahold of Gwen to move her away from harm. There was no time to figure out what exactly happened to her.

All he could feel as he hurtled across the air was the same warmth he felt right before he reemerged with this key he was wielding.

Cody crashed to the ground. He had managed to make it back to the main campgrounds. Only things were not quite the same as when he left. The chaos from the campers desperately fighting against Chris were now replaced by the chaos of the campers fending themselves off from the shadow creatures.

There was nowhere to run. The monsters were gathered at every inch of the area. People had gathered on rooftops, crawled under the cabins, and some had even run towards the woods he had just been thrown out of. Off in the distance, the boat had steadily floated away, or at least as best as it could against the strong winds of the storm that were only intensified by the second. They had been left for dead.

And if things weren’t bad enough, they were going to get even worse.

From the grounds, a new blob of pitch black formed. Only this one did not result in one of the many shadowy creatures that now infested the island. This void grew and grew and grew. When it finally took form, Cody could do nothing but let out the most horrified scream that ever left his body. He stared at the new monster that towered above him.

It was the same tall monster from his dream. The same one that would end his life over and over again while it stared down at him in a mocking fashion, knowing it would always win.

Darkside.

“What the hell is that thing?!”

“We’re all going to die!!”

“What are you just standing there for? Kill it!!”

“You think I can do anything about that?!”

Cody stood frozen in place. He had the means to fight back now, but all he could think about was the predictable outcome that would come from a fight against it. He had witnessed the same scene enough times to know he had no chance. His peers were right. They were going to die. He was going to die.

Darkside lifted its fist into the air before crashing it down back onto the ground, right where Cody stood. He managed to just barely miss his demise. The monster repeated this process again and again as if it were attempting to break apart the island itself. The tremors were strong enough to cause tidal waves in the water, sinking Chris and Chef’s getaway ship instantly. Cody could do nothing but prance around in panic. He knew he was going to die, so why was he trying so hard to live? There was no way he would survive this fight. He might as well just stand still and let it happen.

Darkside lifted its fist once again, getting ready to pound the very ground the scrawny teen stood on. Behind its emotionless face, Cody could see the same expression he projected on to it every time it killed him in his sleep; the smug feeling of an effortless victory.

He was so sure this was his last moment alive that he and the creature mirrored the same look of shock as a rabid raccoon smacked straight into the fist, causing Darkside to briefly lose balance.

“You’ll never take me alive!!” A familiar voice screeched.

Cody turned. Izzy had somehow managed to nab every single powertool and then some from the arts and crafts cabin and appeared in what almost looked like a full suit of armor made up of hammers, chainsaws, and drills.

Izzy glanced over at Cody. “Hey, you’ve got a weapon, right? Come on!”

She let out a blood curdling battlecry before dashing forwards towards the dark giant. Darkside was overwhelmed by her attacks, but not in a way that seemed like they were actually doing anything. It looked like it was swatting away a persistent mosquito that was much too fast to kill. Truly, this strange key he held may possibly be the only weapon that could actually harm it much like what happened earlier with the tinier Shadows.

Cody gawked at the scene. What was he doing? Why was he so ready to throw away everything?

He was going to live.

Everyone here was going to live.

This was the day he would finally defeat Darkside.

Darkside had finally knocked Izzy away. As the giant began to refocus itself onto its real target, in that split second where it was still wide open for an attack, Cody charged forward.

Everything after that was a blur. He wasn’t sure how the battle concluded or whether or not he won or lost. All he knew was that he was alive as pure light engulfed him, the island, and the rest of the world itself.

Perhaps you truly aren’t ready. But I believe you will pull through even if you aren’t.

Even if you never will be.”

Chapter 4: Traverse Town: Welcome to the Worlds

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Loudred, look at all the humans,” Alakazam poked his companion like a kid in a candy store.

“Yes, I can see them.”

“There’s so many of them.”

“Yes, I can tell.”

The comical Pokemon duo had arrived at the city of eternal starlight. Despite typically being a goal focused Pokemon, Alakazam was jumping around in excitement leaving, ironically, his more laidback companion to reign him in.

“Okay, okay,” Alakazam breathed. “Focus. This is a really important mission. No time to admire the scenery.”

Alakazam lifted his head upwards as he went to straighten his back. Right at that moment however, he witnessed something truly disturbing. One of the brightest stars that lit up the sky had suddenly gone out.

“Did you see that?” Loudred gawked right beside him. “They’re going out, just like the King said.”

“We have to hurry,” Alakazam stated in a tone that sounded like he was trying his best to remain composed.

Skitty hurtled past the duo, nearly causing Alakazam to fall backward. “Hey, watch it!”

At that point, Skitty was already too far away to hear Alakazam’s scolds.

“Shouldn’t we go after her?” Loudred pointed.

“Leave her,” Alakazam grumbled. “This is more important. We’ll grab her on our way out.”

Alakazam had already begun to walk towards a completely different direction and left no room for Loudred to protest.

The purple Pokemon shrugged before following after him. “If you say so.”

 

oOo

 

TRAVERSE TOWN

 

oOo

 

It was a strange sensation.

There were no glass platforms of intricate tapestries. No Shadows, no Darkside challenging him to a fight he was destined to lose.

Most other people would not be conscious enough to register this, but Cody had been plagued by those nightmares for so long, he could mentally feel the difference right away.

Those nightmares were no more.

This called for a celebration

In fact, he was going to celebrate with the best damn dream he could think of. He’s going to have a massive party populated by every goth cartoon character that's ever graced the internet. He'll be buff as hell and be stinking rich on the largest yacht imaginable. This'll be great. Finally, a normal ass dream!

HEY ARE YOU DEAD ?!”

So much for that.

Cody screamed himself awake. So much had changed yet so little at the same time.

He glanced onto his lap where a cheeky pink kitten grinned  mischievously.

“Who said that just now?” He mumbled.

“Me! Who else would it be?”

Did that cat just talk?

It was already weird enough that there was a cat with what seemed  to be naturally pink fur, but…

Did that cat just talk?!

Cody responded in the most sensible way possible. He screamed again and tossed the cat into the air as he fled the scene.

“Rude!” Skitty mewed.

Cody’s eyes darted in alarm the more he ran around the area. Where in the world was he? The last thing he remembered, he was fighting off a giant monster threatening to destroy Camp Wawanakwa in the middle of a crazy storm. Now he was in what seemed like an old European city he’d never seen before. Did the storm somehow sweep him here? No, that wouldn’t make any sense.

And why the hell was this giant key still here?!

Cody screeched to a halt as he entered what appeared to be the city’s main plaza. Familiar faces were abound, all sharing the same sense of confusion Cody held.

Relief entered his face upon the realization that he was not the only camper who had managed to stumble into this strange new city. But that feeling soon faded as he realized this was not the complete set of acquaintances in front of him.

“Bridge!” Geoff cried out in desperation. “Bridgette, where are you?!” The tall blonde quickly crumpled into a sobbing mess on the ground.

Bridgette wasn’t the only one missing. Katie and Sadie were shallowly horrified at the loss of their favorite eye candy, Justin. Izzy was searching high and low for Owen. DJ was wondering why Courtney wasn’t trying to help reign everyone in only to realize she was missing as well. Same with Duncan, Tyler, Eva…

He was pretty sure Chris and Chef drowned back at the island, but who cares about them?

Cody was desperate to see Gwen and Trent if only because the last moments he remembered sharing with both of them spooked him up to his core. He had no clue if they were even still alive at this point, and if that turned out to be true, he wasn’t ready to mentally process the emotional gut punch that he may have very well witnessed their last moments.

“Calm down,” Leshawna said to a still crying Geoff. “She’s probably in another part of...where the heck are we?”

“Traverse Town.”

The large group shifted their attention to the unfamiliar voice. A muscular blonde teen with mismatched pants walked into the plaza, taking the center of the plaza to ensure he had everyone’s attention.

“This place is Traverse Town, a world for those who have lost their worlds.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” Beth asked.

The boy had a briefly nervous look as if he wasn’t willing to blow everyone’s mind with the next bit of information. “Well…

“You’re all here because your world is gone.”

... What?

“Your world was destroyed.”

What?!

“You’re all the last remnants of it.”

WHAT?!

“Alright, you better not be messing with us, or I swear,” Leshawna angrily marched towards him, utilizing her hope that this wasn’t happening to fuel her anger.

“Whoa, whoa,” the boy stopped her. “Look, before your world was destroyed, it was invaded by a bunch of black creatures, right?”

Leshawna paused as did everyone else. How could they forget?

“Well...they won is what I’m saying.”

A new sense of sadness entered the plaza. And something dawned on everyone that no one was willing to admit. Cody was not willing to admit it especially.

“So,” DJ began. “Everyone else on the island, does that mean?...”

The boy responded with a soft smile. “Sounds like you were all on at the same place? Don’t worry. As long as you were at the crux of the end, you’re good. Your missing friends probably got scattered off to different worlds.”

A large wave of relief flowed through.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” the boy grinned. “Name’s Tidus. I’m the ‘welcoming committee’ for these parts. You guys probably all have a ton of questions, so---”

“Well hello Tidus,” a girly coo startled Tidus as Katie suddenly grabbed ahold of his arm with an overly flirtatious expression on her face. “Yeah, I have a ton of questions.”

“Me too,” Sadie grabbed ahold of Tidus’s other arm with an expression just as lustful as her friend’s. “Tell us everything you know.”

Well, it looked like they got over Justin pretty quickly.

“Uh,” Tidus blinked. “You ladies mind backing off a bit?”

Tidus was losing his hold on the group the more flustered he got at Katie and Sadie’s intrusiveness. Cody had zoned out and once again investigated the new area they had been thrusted into. He then glanced over at the other campers and gauged  their reactions to this mess. Some zoned off just as he did. Some still carried worried looks. Geoff still sniffed his nose out. And Heather, the island’s local witch with a capital “B” bald,  scowled as if this whole ordeal was merely an annoying inconvenience to her.

...There was something nearby.

Cody’s eyes widened and his body slowly started to tremble. The monsters were back.

Heather caught his stare and responded with a nasty face. At this point, she was used to the occasional glances and snickers from the other campers over her newfound baldness. Even now, the others were using her past misfortune as a means to keep themselves amused and sane in this strange calamity. And she was having none of it.

“Look away right now before I poke your eyes out,” she snarled.

“B-b-b-be-hind,” he wasn’t really in the right mind to be forming complete sentences at the moment. Heather just continued giving him daggers and he kept nervously observing the Shadows manifesting in the distance.

They cocked their heads towards him in an army movement so synchronized, it sent shivers up his entire body.

He wasn’t sure why, but he was certain they were staring at him specifically.

And they were out for blood.

There was no time to think. Cody followed his instincts and ran the heck out of there.

“Fucking dweeb,” Heather muttered.

Any and all attitude she held quickly dissipated as the long trail of Shadows swooped past her to tail Cody. Heather let out a blood curdling scream, causing a domino effect amongst the ex-campers who recognized the monsters on sight.

“What kind of stupid timing?” Tidus groaned as he reached out for his sword. “So the first thing you guys’ll need to know about are the Heartless.”

 

oOo

 

He really thought it was over. He thought with the dream gone, he was rid of these creatures for good. Yet there he was, fleeing through an unknown city with an ever increasing trail of Heartless behind him.

This was probably a bad idea, but he quickly glanced behind him to check his distance.

The horde had not only increased, but the flurry of Shadows were now also accompanied by soldier-like creatures of darkness as well. All the people he ran past fled in panic. He gulped as he felt guilt for all the chaos he was causing. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder…

Why were they after him specifically?!

Cody slid into an alleyway only to be greeted by a small crowd of Heartless that floated in the air like dolls in dresses. Why were there even more of them now?!

His adrenaline rush was only going to last for so long. How could he escape these things? Cody eyed a building from the lower decks and noticed an open hatch. This was crazy, but he wasn’t going to get anywhere by just running around. Mustering his courage, Cody leapt off the railings and into the hatch as he reached out for the handle to ensure the building was sealed off.

He crashed onto a store shelf, scattering broken pieces of mechanical gizmos everywhere. Perhaps being on that stupid reality show had one benefit. After all the injuries he’d received on it, this jump that really should have broken every bone in his body didn’t seem to do anything other than a lot of surface level pain.

“What the hell are you doing?!” The store owner screamed at him. You broke my entire stock!”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Cody yelped in stutters. “Monsters. Monsters were chasing me and---”

Glass shattered from above as Heartless entered the scene, forcing the shopkeep and his customers to evacuate in record time. Cody couldn’t even tell if this was the same group that chased him earlier or if it was a newer bunch entirely. Either way, it looked like hiding was not going to be an option.

 

oOo

 

“So, no one with a key has checked in?” Alakazam asked.

“Nope,” the young bellhop rolled his eyes like he was praying for the Pokemon to leave as soon as possible.

“Like, it’s supposed to be a really special key. I don’t know exactly what that means, but it’s not a normal key.”

“Nope,” the bellhop groaned once more.

“I don’t know, the letter was really vague. Maybe it’s not even a traditional key. Maybe it’s a key card or---”

“Sorry for troubling you,” Loudred nervously laughed as he dragged his partner away and out of the building.

“Al, I know you like to be thorough, but you don’t have to ask them the same thing ten times.”

“You only think that because you never take anything seriously. This is why you’re a bard and not an advisor!”

“If you say so…”

The pair looked off in the distance and spot a commotion occurring in the shopping district. They looked at each other. Should they go to investigate?

“I say we go!” Loudred decided.

“No way. We still haven’t checked every square inch of this block---”

“We can check every square inch over there instead!” Loudred jovially picked up his friend and slung him on his arms as he continued forward, ignoring all of his friend’s violent protests.

If only they had stayed for even a minute or two longer because barely even a moment later, Cody charged right past the dingy hotel, still struggling to shake off the Heartless horde he had amassed.

Cody had never been an athletic person. In fact, if you were to look up antonyms for “athletic”, he’d be the top result. His energy was fueled by fear and it wasn’t going to last him forever. He was already beginning to feel his body fatigue and his vision growing hazy.

It wasn’t ideal, but he ran into the next closest building he could get into. His hiding spot last time worked out disastrously, and he didn't expect any better this time around, but he had to do something.

SLAM!

Cody immediately collapsed onto the floor. He could feel the door thumping behind him as the Heartless did everything they could to break in. Huh. Strange how they could break glass yet this simple door was giving them issues.

“Hey, are you planning on buying something or are you just going to lie there and scare the customers, nyo?”

“What customers, nyu?”

“Shouldn’t we ask if he’s okay, gema?...”

Cody glanced upwards. Behind the store counter were two little girls clad in adorable kitten themed attire. One had bright lime green hair and wore a poofy maid outfit while the other, clearly way younger than the already young looking green haired catgirl, was an emotionless looking brunette adorning a simple sailor uniform.

And then there was the creature floating right beside them. A yellow orb with an upside down face.

Another monster.

So, nyo?” The lime green maid continued smugly. “Are you going to buy something or---”

Cody made a lame attempt at a battlecry and swung at the floating creature, startling everyone.

“What are you doing?! What did I do, gema?!” The orb cried.

“Why won’t you guys stop chasing me?!” Cody cried in desperation.

The brunette toddler performed one single jab to his guts and he was down on the floor and pacified.

“Alright, wiseguy. Either you tell us why you charged in here like a maniac or we’re launching you to die in space, nyo!”

“M-monsters,” Cody shook. “They’re everywhere and they won’t stop coming.”

The trio blinked.

“They’re right outside!”

The lime green child laughed. “You think there’s monsters out there, nyo?” She sauntered off towards the door. “There aren’t any monsters, you weenie, nyo.”

“No, don’t!” Cody shouted as the child carelessly opened the door.

The Heartless were still there.

SLAM!

“Ciiiiiiiiiiiiiid!!” She shrieked in fear.

The employee door beside the counter opened up and revealed a man who looked both lean and burly and likely in his middle years.

“What?” He said in annoyance. “I’m trying to craft back here. If you can’t handle manning the store, then I ain’t paying you three zilch.”

“The Heartless are back and they came back in thirties, nyo!!”

Cid paused and looked around the room to assess the situation. He took a moment to note Cody and his pathetic display.

And that key…

Cid focused back on the wailing catgirl and lazily scratched the back of his head. He gritted his teeth as he spoke. “You’re the one with the freaky eyes. Why are you crying out to me for help?”

Awkward silence.

“You’re dumb, nyu,” the toddler mocked the green maid girl.

“Shut up!” She shouted back.

This time, she snatched the door open, and after taking a deep breath…

“LASER EYE BEAM!!”

...She shot lasers straight out of her eyes like she was a living sci-fi gun. And with that, all the Heartless that had chased Cody at a seemingly endless pace were all decimated.

He was so stunned and terrified, he couldn’t even piss his pants.

While Cody continued to struggle processing literally everything that had occurred since his last hours on Camp Wawanakwa, he felt a light poke on his cheek. The young toddler catgirl stared at him with her big cold eyes.

“Are you okay, nyu?”

“Oh, uh,” his breath was still stilted and he was caught completely off guard that this uncaring looking child was the first person to show him kindness since this nonsense started. “Yeah, thanks.”

The man named Cid walked over to him with a bottle of water in hand. “Here,” he started. “Looks like they were after you for a while, huh?”

Cody nodded weakly before immediately downing the whole bottle in just a few gulps.

“And you,” Cid turned over to the lime green haired child. “How long have you been here at this point? I have you on watch specifically so you can take down any threats that come by.”

“Yeah,” the floating orb nodded in a similar sentiment to Cid. “You need to learn how to take your job more seriously, gema.”

“Don’t think you’re off the hook,” Cid pointed to the creature. “You’re supposed to be her guardian, aren’t you? If she’s not doing her job right, make her until she does.”

“Oh, shut up, nyo!”

Cid returned to Cody. “You’re new in town, right?”

He nodded weakly.

“Yeah, I figured.”

“What were those things?”

Cid blinked. “Tidus is supposed to explain that kind of stuff to you, not me. Didn’t you run into him when you first got here?” He sighed. “Doesn’t matter now I guess.

“Those things are Heartless. I’m not good at explaining the particulars, but they’re creatures of darkness that exist to consume worlds. This world’s supposed to be a safespot, but that doesn’t mean those pests don’t try to take it down anyway. And honestly, these days it feels like they’re really making an effort.”

He held out his hand. “Name’s Cid. I run this here shop.”

“Uh,” Cody reached for Cid's hand and shook it nervously. “I’m Cody.” He glanced at the brunette toddler who still stared blankly at him and then tilted his head to take a look at the other girl and the floating orb who had apparently started a pointless spat about “responsibility” in the meantime.

“Oh and these three,” Cid said in a mix between a chuckle and sigh. “They’re just a pack of nuisances. No need to introduce them.”

“Hey!” The green haired girl screeched, as she marched on over. “That is no way to talk about a princess!”

“Princess?” Cody asked quizzically.

“Yeah, believe it or not, she’s a bonafide princess, gema,” the yellow orb followed after her.

“I’m Dejiko, nyo!” The green haired catgirl held out her cat paw gloved hand.

“I’m Gema, gema!”

“Puchiko, nyu.”

Cody was still very unsure of these three. Despite looking human, there was still something very strange about the two girls. And of course there was the case of the floating...thing…

“So, are you gonna shake my hand or not, nyo?”

“Your screechy voice and constant whining probably scared him,” Cid stated as he busily gathered materials and store goods in the back. As if he knew she was going to try to get into yet another argument at him over that poke, he continued on speaking so there was no time for her to butt in. “Those three are kind of like you. Their world was ate up by those Heartless. Since those two are apparently royalty, their kingdom did everything they could to make sure they escaped the world safely and sent them here.”

“‘ Apparently’ , nyo?” Dejiko jerked at this word.

“I mean,” Gema interjected. “You don’t really behave very princess-like, gema.”

“Yes, I do. Everyone loves me, nyo!”

“The Heartless sure love you,” Cid grumbled as he walked over towards Cody and the group with a full burlap bag in hand. “I swear, they doubled in numbers the moment you showed up.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult, nyo?”

“Definitely, nyu.”

Cody laughed. These weirdos were starting to grow on him. He reached his hand out towards Dejiko who had already given up trying to fetch a handshake from him. The strange trio blinked as they took in Cody’s calming mood and happily shook his hand with smiles.

“So what are you going to do now?” Cid grumped.

“Well,” Cody finally stood back up. “I guess now that all those ‘Heartless’ things are gone, I should probably head back to the others…”

“Well, if you’re gonna leave, you should take these with you,” Cid held out the bag to Cody’s confusion. Before he could take hold of it, the bag took on a surreal liquid-like form before quickly morphing into a solid cube the size of a small keychain toy right before his eyes.

“Holy shit…” Cody gawked.

“Guess your world wasn’t great in ways of tech, huh?” Cid guffawed. “Small enough to fit in your pockets. Filled it up with a couple of snacks and medicinal drinks. This shop stocks up on any and all items and equipment you need to protect yourself from the Heartless, so feel free to stop by here any time you want.”

Cody grinned as he nodded and happily took the cube from Cid’s hand. “Thanks! I will.”

And with that, he was off.

Cid sighed while he stared down to the floor. He had hid quite a lot from Cody the entire time he was here. While Cid was gruff and no nonsense, he was a kind fatherly guy underneath, and it was hard to have to conceal so much from a kid as naive and clearly unprepared as Cody was.

Cid recovered to his usual stance and headed to the phone by the counter.

“...Hey, it’s me, Cid. That Tidus kid, he said he might’ve seen a boy with a key, right? Well, luck may have it, he just left my shop. Should still be nearby… Yeah… Uh huh… Do me a favor and go easy on him, alright? Trust me, you’ll want to too the moment you see him.”

Cid put the phone down and sighed once again.

“You guys can be pretty mean sometimes, nyo,” Dejiko observed judgmentally.

“This is something that has to be done, gema. Adults have to make hard decisions sometimes. You’ll understand when you’re older, gema.”

“Do you even count as an adult, nyo?”

“Quit chattering and get back to work, will ya?” Cid barked at the two as he started making his way back to the other room. “Puchiko, you were restocking the shelves earlier today, right? I saw some of the potions were a bit mixed up in the back. It was just two or three and I know reading some of the labels might be a bit hard on you, so don’t worry too much about it. Just be more careful and take your time.”

After ruffling the small child’s head, Cid was gone, and Dejiko and Gema noisily returned to their stations behind the counter, having apparently found a new thing to bicker about in the background. All the while, Puchiko continued to stand in place as she stared daggers towards the other side of the store where all the medicinal drinks and potions were displayed. There was something about what Cid just said that jolted a memory in her, but she couldn’t quite place it. Why was she so pressed about it?

...Oh, that’s right.

“I think he drank a sleeping potion, nyu.”

Notes:

So yeah, in case you were wondering what kind of cringy shit is going to be in this fanfic; yes, there are Di Gi Charat characters in it.

This is your one warning.

Chapter 5: Traverse Town: The Journey Begins

Chapter Text

Cody walked aimlessly in the city streets, no doubt all emptied out because of the commotion he accidentally caused with the Heartless chase. He really should have thought this out better. His goal was to regroup with the others, but he himself had no knowledge of how to even navigate through this world. At this point he was hoping to run into someone, anyone he could recognize. Heck, he’d be happy to run into Heather again at this point.

Most of all, he was reaching for that last bit of hope that he’d run into Gwen or Trent. He was still haunted by those last images of the pair and wanted all possible assurance that they were alive and well. That Tidus kid mentioned there was a possibility that they simply wound up in a different world. He could only pray that that was the case.

Cody yawned. He rested back at that shop, but the unwanted workout seemed to have taken a major toll on him. In fact, he somehow felt even more tired now than before. He had to find the others fast. The sooner he did, the sooner he could find a place to really lay down and nap and hope everything would go back to normal when he woke up.

The extreme fatigue was starting to affect his sense of direction as he twisted and turned through the endless alleyways. Despite it all, Cody eventually finally found his way back to the main plaza. At that point, all the former campers who had populated it earlier were now gone. It figured. How long was it since he ran out of here anyway? And how was he going to find everyone now?

He peered his lurching eyes down at the oversized key that he had almost instinctively lugged around this entire time. This was seemingly his only means to fight against the Heartless, but he was much too cowardly to do so. Instead, he resorted to running and running and running… In his heart, he knew he should’ve blamed his own weak will, but in a mix of his drowsiness and general disorientation over recent events, he couldn’t help but direct his anger towards the object as it had made its appearance right when everything started to go wrong.

He sluggishly walked off again and swooshed the key around in an almost drunkenly frustrated manner as he sneered and cursed at its very existence.

“Hey, watch where you’re swinging that thing,”

Cody rubbed his eyes. In front of him was a man who looked to be in his mid twenties. With his hair in an almost raven-like shape and hue, dark attire filled to the brim with belts and buckles, and a scowling face that complimented the nasty scar that ran down his forehead, Cody would’ve been forgiven for being terrified at first glance. That was if he was actually in the proper state of mind to register how threatening the man looked. In his worsening mental condition, all he could do was say every word that came to his head without taking any consideration towards consequences.

“Sorry for scratching up that face,” Cody droned. “Or like, was it already like that? Sorry.”

The man visibly twitched. “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m Cody.”

He facepalmed. “Well, Cid did warn me.”

The next thing the man did finally put sense back into the tired teen’s head.

He pointed his sword just inches away from Cody’s face.

“Wh-what are you doing?!”

“Well the plan was to spar with the Keybearer so we can get a good assessment on how screwed we are,” the man replied matter of factly. “If this isn’t enough to wake you up, I don’t know what is.”

The man slashed the sword upwards, only for Cody to tumble backwards in the nick of time; an act that seemed both accidental and strategic. There was no time to breath as the man lunged forward for another attack, forcing Cody to bounce off once again.

“You’ve got a talent for dodging, I’ll give you that,” the man mumbled. “That’s at least something.”

Cody began to increase the distance between him and this madman who had attacked him for no reason. If he was going to keep charging at him, he might as well make himself harder to reach.

The man smirked as he did something completely unexpected. He held up his sword like a revolver…

...And shot out balls of flame.

That sword was also a gun.

Cody yelped as he ducked and rolled away from the incoming explosive impact. This gave the man more than enough to charge back up and close the gap between them.

Cody could feel his brain screaming at him to do something. He had a weapon with him, why wasn’t he using it? His body was betraying all instincts. Despite being mentally wide awake, he could feel himself physically losing all sense of himself. The last thing he saw before collapsing onto the ground in a sleepy mess was the man getting ready to lunge another attack on him.

THUD!

The man blinked in astonishment. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Hey.” He crouched to the ground with a small twinge of panic and tried to shake Cody awake. “Hey, are you alright?”

A snore came out in response.

“...Seriously?”

“Leon, did you kill him?!” A new voice chimed in, this time coming from a girl.

The man turned around. Before him stood a girl with a jet black bob who looked to be around Cody’s age. Her outfit was of conflicting features, clearly being built for ninja activities yet clad in a loud yellow color scheme that fit her personality more than her profession.

“No, I,” he stopped. This was going to sound ridiculous. “I was facing him and he just collapsed. And he’s not dead. Can’t you hear him snoring?”

Right on cue, Cody croaked out the loudest snore possible.

“He fell asleep in the middle of battle?” The ninja girl griped. “Man, when you said this whole sparring thing was to see how screwed we were, I thought you were joking.”

“So was I…”

The two continued on their negative evaluation of the weak geek. And all the while, Cody continued to enjoy the second most peaceful dream he’d had in months.

 

oOo

 

“So a kid crashed down from the rooftop hatch…”

“...And he brought a ton of ‘Heartless’ with him?”

Alakazam and Loudred found themselves at the scene of Cody’s misadventures in the shopping district. The shop owner had gotten right to work trying to fix everything up, and he was more than happy to dump his frustrations on the pair.

“Yes, exactly!” The owner gruffed as he continued to pick up the endless slew of broken gadget parts from the ground.

“So a troublemaker, huh?” Alakazam said in sympathy with the man. “What an awful kid.”

“Did he happen to be carrying around a key by any chance?” Loudred added.

“How should I know?” The man brushed off the query. “He just came crashing down and then the whole damn building was in chaos. Don’t know if he was carrying shit, but he better not come back here if he knows what’s good for him.”

The man looked like he was getting just as frustrated at the pair’s questioning as he was with the kid he was accusing. They quietly took the hint and made their leave.

“Why did you bother asking him about the key?” Alakazam scoffed at Loudred. “That kid was obviously a villain. Why would the King have us search for someone like that?”

“I don’t know. I just kind of had a hunch.”

“A stupid one. This is why I’m the brains here.”

“Got it.”

In the near distance, a tiny creature peered at the two from the shadows of the alleyways. It gingerly eavesdropped on the two with its enormous rabbit-like ears and picked out the keywords from their conversation; “King” and “key”... Are these the two they were supposed to be expecting?

“This is not our day,” Alakazam groaned, his head in his hands.

“Maybe we should try looking for that Leon guy instead?”

Keyword number three set! The small creature happily jumped in the air in celebration, causing small rumblings among the trash bins it was surrounded by. Alakazam and Loudred were quickly notified of the creature’s presence.

“Hey, Skitty, is that you?” Loudred shouted out.

Unfortunately, due to the naturally loud nature of his species, this statement that would’ve been merely an above average tone to him was strong enough to send the poor creature flying backwards. While the creature’s giggles echoed through the barren streets, the two Pokemon panicked and ran after it, making sure Loudred didn’t send it hurtling towards a brick wall or worse.

Lucky for them, rather than a brick wall, the creature neatly bounced on to the arms of a friend.

“Hey,” Loudred cried out as the two arrived at the scene. “Are you alright?”

“Quit shouting! You’re the one who sent it flying in the first place!”

“Excuse me,” a soft feminine voice greeted them.

The pair looked forward. The creature they had chased after wasn’t their friend, Skitty, though it did have a similar catlike face. Rather than a pink cat, it was a white rabbit-like creature with both ears and feet that looked comically large in comparison to its diminutive size, and a rounded body with a ruby red gem that glistened on its forehead.

The creature sat snugly in the woman’s arms as she gently patted its head. She had an almost fairy tale-like beauty to her with her outfit of pinks and reds and her golden brown braid that stretched just below her waist. There was a bit of uncertainty in her face as if she was examining the pair to make sure they could be trusted. Even then, it was unable to hide the general kind aura that radiated from her.

“You two wouldn’t happen to be looking for a man named Leon, would you?”

“Uh, yeah,” Alakazam stammered. “How did you know?”

“Well,” she giggled lightheartedly, leading the white creature to imitate her. “He’s a friend of mine actually. Your king told us all about you two. If it’s alright, could you follow me? You guys probably have a lot of questions, so it would be better if we talked somewhere private.”

The woman lightly sprinted away, a surprising amount of spunk in her steps that contrasted with the dainty impression she gave off.

The two looked at each other. They could tell she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would lie. After all the fruitless effort they’ve wasted trying to find the Keybearer, it was nice for them to finally have some semblance of their mission progressing. Without much else to do, they hurried along after her.

 

oOo

 

“...Hey, wake up.”

Cody slowly lifted his eyes. It’d been so long since he had a peaceful wakeup, he’d almost forgotten the sensation entirely. Everything was still a blurry daze. He laid on the beach of Camp Wawanakwa, no doubt giving himself a nasty sunburn in the process, and a familiar goth girl peered at him from the pier right beside him.

….Wait.

Gwen?

Was...it all a dream?

“Keep sleeping like that and we really will all be doomed,” she called down.

This is real, right? None of that stuff had actually happened, right?

“G…” Cody sounded out, still in the process of regaining full consciousness. “How...are you still alive?”

“The heck does that mean?”

“I...you...saw you disappear.”

“Well that definitely didn’t happen.”

She acted like her normal snarky self rather than...whatever that was back in the cave. And if she had no memory of what happened.... There was no question. That was all just a dream.

Cody sang a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you’re not dead, Gwen.”

“...Gwen? Who’s that?”

...What?

“My name’s Yuffie.”

Suddenly, the blur from his surroundings started to fade. He was no longer lounging on the sands of Camp Wawanakwa. Instead, he laid flat on a bed in what appeared to be a colorful dollhouse-like hotel room. A girl in ninja attire was right beside him, taking advantage of her skills to perch on the top railing of a chair, probably out of boredom from watching after the sleeping teen.

Who in the---?

“How did you mistake me for an Asian girl?”

Cody was completely taken aback. Not only was the Gwen earlier just an illusion of his dream, there was a new Gwen leaning against the door. Was this the real one? Was this Gwen fake too? Either way, with his mind supposedly woken up, he couldn’t help yelping in shock at the sight.

“Gwen?!”

“Hey, Leon,” the mysterious girl called out to the other side of the room. “You sure you didn’t conk him on the head during that fight?”

“Positive.”

Cody turned to see a man leaning against the wall near the corner of the room. And it wasn’t just any man; it was the scary one who attacked him out of nowhere.

Cody was set into a panic. His eyes darted everywhere around the room. What was going on? Who were these people? Why did that man go off on him? Why did they kidnap him? Why was Gwen with them?

...Wait, where was Gwen?

She was no longer in the room, no matter how much he continued repeatedly examining every nook and cranny of it. Was he going insane?

“Hey, hey, calm down,” the girl said as she jumped off from her perch, afraid Cody might accidentally knock the chair over in his manic state.

Calm down? Calm down?!

“You!!” Cody pointed accusingly at the man. “What the hell do you want from me?!”

“Hey, cool it, alright?” The man walked forward slowly, possibly with similar fears as his female companion did.

“You guys literally kidnapped me!!”

BONK!

The girl had grown tired of his outburst and pounded his head just lightly enough that it wasn’t going to knock him out again.

“You fainted in the middle of the city with no one around. It would’ve been worse if we just left you there.”

...She did have a point.

Cody gulped. He was getting himself into something and even if he wanted no part of it, it didn’t look like he had an option. “So...who are you guys?”

The girl beamed. “That’s more like it.” She jumped and flipped over and above the bed before neatly landing neatly on her feet right beside the man. “I already said it, but just in case you were still too messed up to hear, my name’s Yuffie!”

“Leon,” the guy added flatly with as little effort as possible in his introduction.

“Uh.” He still wasn’t sure what to make of this situation or if he could trust these two. Then again, he had similar sentiments towards the crew at the shop he rested at and that turned out fine in the end. Maybe this would too? “My name’s Cody.”

Yuffie snorted. “The name of a dweeb too.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Now that we finally have introductions out of the way,” Leon started, brushing aside Yuffie’s rude remark. “Let’s move on to why you’re here.” He pointed towards an object right beside Cody’s bed.

The key.

Cody was almost startled at the very sight of it. He had held on to it so instinctively, he didn’t even realize it was no longer in his grasp when he’d woken up.

“You were holding on to this thing so tight, we almost had to use pliers just to make you let go,” Yuffie groaned at the memory. “When its owner holds on to it, that thing’s like a beacon for Heartless to come at you as they please.”

Cody’s face flushed in embarrassment. Well that explained a lot. Turns out instincts couldn’t always be trusted.

“So I have to get rid of this thing? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Absolutely not,” Leon halted. “You need that key. We need it. Everyone does.”

Cody gulped. He knew this was going to turn into something too big for him to handle. “So then...what is it?”

Yuffie smirked. “You’re in for a ride.”

 

oOo

 

“What you’re looking for is called the Keyblade,” the woman, named Aerith, explained.

In a hotel room, right next to the one Cody was situated in, Alakazam and Loudred were seated with both concern and anticipation as the full extent of their mission was slowly unveiled to them. Aerith had poured the pair tea and laid out cookies to try to lighten the mood. In the end, only Loudred opted to take the tea, purely out of politeness, and the cookies were quickly consumed by the white rabbit creature and no one else.

“‘Blade’? So, it’s kind of like a sword?” Alakazam inquired.

Aerith shook her head. “No. It acts like a sword, but it’s an entirely different class of its own.

“You may have seen shadowy monsters around town. Those are the Heartless. They can be hurt and defeated by most any other weapon if the wielder is skilled enough, but the Keyblade is the only thing that can take them down from the source.”

“But why?”

“The Heartless are the manifestations of darkness, of the negative energy that collects in the unconscious. And the Keyblade,” Aerith smiled. “Is the complete opposite. A weapon of pure light.”

“So then,” Alakazam continued. “What exactly are those Heartless? The King was talking about blinking stars. Are they responsible?”

“Well…”

 

oOo

 

“I’m hoping you stuck around with Tidus long enough to know why you’re here in the first place,” Leon said.

Cody nodded having more or less gone completely silent as he slowly took all this information in.

“So you know how there are other worlds, right?” It was Yuffie’s turn to lecture.

He nodded again.

“Well all these worlds, every single one, are able to exist because of light. Light brings life. Flowers would die without sunlight. You get the drill.”

“And the Heartless,” back to Leon. “Their very existence hinges on destroying all light. If light is gone, the darkness takes over, and the world is gone. That’s why they flock to any and all worlds they can find. They’re attracted to the light like flies and want nothing more than to destroy it. And this,” Leon turned back towards the Keyblade. “Since it’s a weapon of light, they become attracted to it too.”

“It’s like a mouse trap,” Yuffie explained. “Mice sniff out the cheese, but they don’t realize it’s a fight they can’t win until it’s too late.”

“So,” Cody spoke softly. “If they’re attracted to light...wouldn’t that mean they’d be everywhere?”

“Not quite,” Leon answered. “When flies start zoning in on a single source of light, they only do that because the room is already dark. The darker a room is, the easier it is to pick out the parts of it that aren’t.”

“In other words,” Yuffie nodded. “Once the Heartless sense darkness in someone’s heart, they use that as a means to gather and spread.”

Their words were simple, but this was still a lot for the teen to take in. Just yesterday, he was in a normal world where things like this would only exist in games and movies. And now he was expected to rewrite everything that he’s ever known to be normal with the world?

While Yuffie and Leon allowed Cody time to breath, the ninja had formed something else in her brain. There was something she figured might be worth asking Cody, though she doubted that he’d have any clue what she’d be talking about.

“Hey, have you ever happened to hear about a guy named Ansem?”

 

oOo

 

“Ansem?” Loudred cocked his head.

Aerith noticed he had just finished his cup of tea and was right on to pouring him some more.

“He was the ruler of the world my friends and I used to live in,” she replied. “He was a brilliant researcher, and before things went wrong, he was studying everything we’ve been talking about. It’s just a hunch, but we think if we can find out more about him and his research, we might be able to get rid of the Heartless for good.”

Alakazam and Loudred glanced at each other, both looking like they felt guilty for not knowing anything.

“Sorry,” Alakazam scratched his head. “Honestly, this is the first time we’ve heard about any of this stuff.”

Aerith shrugged, keeping her smile despite her slight disappointment. “I kind of figured. It was worth a shot though.” She stared up at the ceiling in deep reflection. “All his research data was probably lost with our world anyway. But you can’t help but at least hope for a miracle, right?”

A lightbulb went off in Loudred’s head. “Maybe the King went looking for them!”

“You think?”

“Yeah! He was always traveling around worlds talking to big, important people. Maybe he knew this Ansem guy too.” He laughed heartily in excitement, any tenseness in the room now gone. “In fact, maybe we should go and help him. He’s not exactly the lone wolf type like he tries to be sometimes.”

“You’re forgetting something,” Alakazam jabbed. “We still need to find the key.”

 

oOo

 

“So,” Cody breathed. “Back to this key… Why do I have it?”

This is when Cody could start seeing visible nervousness in the pair.

“Well…” Yuffie wanted to tell him, but seemed very hesitant. It looked like it was time for Leon and his dangerous bluntness to take over.

“The Keyblade chooses its master. Supposedly, it goes to someone with a pure heart; someone with the right drive and courage to wield it.”

The key word was “supposedly”. Cody started to cringe. He knew what was going on.

“Yeah, you’re,” Yuffie was still hesitant to bring it down on him. “You’re not what we were expecting. Like...at all.”

Well, he could have told them that all on his own.

“Look,” Cody sighed. “This was all cool to hear about and all, but if I’m in charge of all this, we’re doomed.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Leon agreed, earning a glare from his younger companion.

“Then you take it.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

Leon reached out and held the weapon only for it to disappear from his hand and straight into Cody’s.

“Like it or not, it chose you.”

This couldn’t be happening.

He lived his life trying and failing to act out a confident cool guy persona. Sometimes, he was naive enough to even believe that lie. But after everything that’s happened, he had to be honest with himself. He was not meant to have this thing. Pure heart? Courage? What the hell were they talking about? He was a coward trying to be someone he wasn’t and he’ll never will be anything more.

There had to be a mistake. This was supposed to go to someone else on the island. Owen? Leshawna? Bridgette? Geoff? Trent would’ve been the obvious choice just a few days ago, but he’s not exactly sure the “pure heart” angle fit the dude.

...Gwen. This was supposed to go to Gwen.

Despite all odds and all her rotten attitude, she came out looking like a hero on the island. People wanted to support her even if she didn’t want it. She was supposed to be the hero, not him.

“You really think that highly of me, huh?”

Cody jumped. There was her voice again. There she was once again, leaning against the door. He rubbed his eyes just to check, and as quickly as she appeared, she was gone.

Is this what a panic attack was like?

Yuffie tiptoed over to the side of Cody’s head, her mouth just inches away from his ear.

“Hey.”

He jumped and screamed.

Yuffie giggled cheekily while Leon could do nothing but bemoan his own presence in this room.

“Okay, you need to be psyched up, right? You think you’re not up to the task and you’re ready to call it quits right here and now, right?”

“I’m not doing it.”

“So I get the feeling you’re the nerdy type, right?”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Well, you know how in some nerdy books, the main character is a boring and useless schoolkid who gets sent to a different world where he’s completely out of his element?”

“I’m not doing it.”

“And then in no time flat, he’s like mowing down enemies like it’s nothing and he’s the true hero of the world and all the ladies fall over themselves for him?”

“I’m not doing it.”

“What I’m saying is, this is 100% the same situation you’re in!”

“I’m not…”

Wait.

It kind of was, wasn't it?

Leon gawked. That kid couldn’t possibly be falling for this.

“This could be your big moment, you know!” Yuffie continued to egg him on. “All your life, you’ve been a complete loser and starting today, you’re going to be the biggest badass possible. You’re going to save the day, get the ladies, and be the best ‘you’ you’ve never even dreamed you’d be.”

“Yuffie, this is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard,” Leon snapped.

While the two spilled into an argument over their current situation, Cody took serious consideration into Yuffie’s words. Sure, she only said all that to butter him up, but he could feel some semblance of sense in them. Maybe this strange situation he found himself in was the chance encounter that he’d been waiting for his whole life. Maybe this was going to be the changing tides he’d always longed for. Maybe this was how he was going to turn into someone worth remembering.

Even if he couldn’t be a popular cool kid… Even if he couldn’t be the kid everyone would flock to… Even if he couldn’t be the winner of a reality show… Even if he couldn’t be anyone’s first choice to talk to…

...Maybe he could be an unlikely hero?

Cody opened his mouth. He wasn’t sure how the two would respond or if any of this was going to work out in the end, but he’d made his choice.

THUD!

Cody jumped.

“What was that?” Yuffie said as she quickly procured a small ninja star from her pockets and enacted a battle stance.

There was a commotion downstairs. Lots of muffled voices and sounds of furniture crashing, cracking, and getting thrown everywhere. Leon drew his gunblade and very carefully trudged over to the door. He gave a stern and knowing nod to the two younger occupants of the room; a sign that they had only the time between him reaching for the knob and opening it to prepare themselves for whatever would happen next. Yuffie was ready the moment she felt danger was near.

As for Cody? As usual, he and everyone else could tell he wasn’t ready, but even if he wasn’t he’d have to try his best to fake it.

Leon turned the doorknob and…

On cue, a small slew of Shadows broke into the room as if they’d been waiting right outside this entire time. Leon and Yuffie were quick to the draw. Cody was frozen solid, but now with the new resolve he made within himself, there was no way he would run away and hide like he did earlier. He had to harness his courage; the same courage that made him crazy enough to face Darkside on the island. The courage that cured him of his nightmares.

The trio made quick work of the small fleet that entered their meeting place. While Leon and Yuffie of course did most of the work, Cody was finding confidence in himself. If he could take these little guys on, he could take on all the worlds. Keep them coming.

And sure enough, more did come.

And more.

And more.

And...more…

Remember how he wasn’t going to run away this time?

Well, screw that!

Cody dashed out like a speeding bullet. He could barely hear Leon’s yells as the man tried his best to get the amateur to stay put with him and Yuffie. In the hallway, Heartless knocked down any and all furniture they could find, furthering the distance between Cody and the duo significantly.

“For fuck’s sake,” Leon snarled under his breath the same moment he took down another Heartless with a swing of his blade.

Right at that moment, the door from the room right beside the one Leon and company had been occupying slammed straight open. Aerith, a staff in hand, slung out a flurry of magical spells and attacks and decimated the majority of the Heartless in the vicinity.

“Leon,” she turned to him. “Where is---”

“He ran off.”

“What?!”

A ninja star flew right past Aerith’s face and struck down a Heartless that was almost ready to get her from behind.

“Just up and ran!” Yuffie elaborated. “I couldn’t believe it was even possible for someone to just go past this many Heartless without getting a single scratch on them.”

Aerith grimaced before she faced back towards the room she came from. Loudred and Alakazam were psyching themselves up to join her in battle.

“Leave through the window!” She cried to them as she simultaneously fended off more approaching Heartless. “If you hurry, you might be able to get to him on your way out.”

Alakazam was about to protest this order, but Loudred grabbed hold of him and tossed him out the window himself before he had a moment to open his mouth. The large purple Pokemon gave the woman a happy thumbs up before joining his friend. And unexpectedly, the white creature, who was still munching on cookies amidst the chaos, followed them.

 

oOo

 

During his botched “fight” against Leon, he recalled a point when the sullen man praised his dodging skills. Even if it was sarcasm, Cody admittedly didn’t realize how right he was until this moment. Using his Keyblade to knock a nearby cabinet flat onto the ground --- squashing a trio of Heartless on its way down --- Cody created a path for himself amongst the thick paths of Heartless that covered every inch of the hallway. He hopped amongst their heads like rocks on a riverbank. It was a feat even the most experienced Heartless fighters would gawk at.

A small group of red doll-like mages, Red Nocturnes, quickly came approaching the boy from the air. They all shot out pellets of fireballs, causing him to panic and lose his minute focus on his hopping scheme. One Shadow was finally able to grab hold of his leg and he wailed as he tripped and tumbled down the stairs and crashed into the walls of the lobby.

Cody’s mind and vision were a blur. How embarrassing that his first major injury from all this madness wasn’t even from one of those creatures themselves. He furiously shook his head. There was no time to waste waiting for his senses to come back. The last thing he needed was for him to pass out again.

His vision returned to full function just in time to witness something that would haunt him for the rest of his days.

Right on top of the check-in counter, an unfortunate bellboy was surrounded at every angle by sludges of black. The heartless clawed their way onto the surface. The surrounding area was so thick with Heartless of every kind, the poor boy knew in his crying heart that he was doomed.

If only Cody fell into the lobby even a moment sooner. It was too late for the bellboy. The swarm of pure black monsters groveled onto their victim who could do nothing but scream as he tried and failed to swing them off. Soon enough, there was no longer a counter or a poor hotel worker; just an ever growing pile of darkness.

Cody was completely frozen in place. This was an image all too familiar to him. He dreamed of this scenario time and time again. All he could see was himself being devoured, like he finally witnessed one of those dreams from an outsider’s perspective all the way to how he would wrangle his arms in the air, trying to grasp for the last bits of light he could see.

This was the moment he would finally see what came next.

With every last inch of the bellboy now consumed, the Heartless pushed the mass he had stood on downwards until nothing more could be seen but a puddle of Shadows pouring off of the countertop. And in their place was a new monster. One that wasn’t quite as small as them or as large as Darkside. It was a Neo Shadow; a being that looked like man morphed into a crouching figure of darkness.

Of course, the Neo Shadow jumped towards Cody on sight. Cody made a high pitched yelp as he rolled off the floor. He made up his mind that defeating these things would be his big life changing goal, but even still he was hesitating. Leon and Yuffie weren’t here. He ran away from them like he usually did. And he was also going to run away from this terrifying beast 

Cody was out the door and ran into a near identical situation as he was in just hours ago. Was he really going to be the one to defeat all of this? He must’ve been completely out of his mind when he agreed to it. Yuffie was hoping he’d take her bluff and he was dumb enough to believe in her. Was this his road to becoming a hero? Or was he playing a part he was never meant to be yet again?

Cody skidded off into an open area where a large clock tower and a series of peculiar sculptures lay. Aside from his labored breaths. everything was silent. Unlike last time, he seemed to have succeeded in running all the Heartless off.

He knew this wasn’t the time to just stand and rest, but after the endless conga of shocking swerves, he felt he sure did deserve one. Cody stood and peacefully took in the silence. He took a better look at the sculptures. They were all purple and resembled pieces of armor. He wasn’t an artist, so he could only imagine what kind of weirdo decided it’d be cool to just litter a bunch of giant body parts into the middle of the city. He then looked up at the tower. He knew he’d been there for at least a couple of minutes now, yet the hands never once moved. Even stranger were the figures who appeared to be fighting against some Heartless on the railings of the tower itself. Cody squinted his eyes. Were those two Leon and Yuffie? What was that white thing? Who were they?

Cody couldn’t hear it, but Alakazam and Loudred were squabbling amongst themselves over the white creature’s company interfering with their ability to fight. The pair had made their way up there thinking it’d be easier to pick out the Keybearer from up above, but not only did Alakazam just then remembered his crippling fear of heights, this turned out to be a horrible spot to fight off Heartless. It was no wonder that the two plus one were soon punted out into the air…

...And headed straight towards Cody who was now too caught off guard  to put his above average dodging skills to use.

Cody could feel the weight of the three crushing on him as he laid at the very bottom of the pile. Why did all these weirdly comical injuries always have to happen to him?

Alakazam and Loudred groaned as they slowly regained themselves. The white creature, who conveniently landed at the very tip of the tower, laughed obnoxiously. Alakazam was ready to angrily shush him, but was distracted by the tug of Loudred’s arm that directed him towards something that sat flat on the ground.

“The Key!!” The two exclaimed simultaneously.

Are...are these guys with Leon?

Cody’s eyes shifted towards the oversized key that his arm held outstretched on the pavement. But before he could form any more thoughts, a pair of summer stilettos blocked off his view.

“Well, look who decided to show his stupid face again,” a familiar queen bee grumbled as she stared down at him. “Thought you were being slick running off like a little bitch before those monsters came without telling anyone, huh? And now you’ve found a trio of freaks to buddy off with.”

“Hi Heather,” Cody rolled his eyes. She was even more irritable than earlier. He never even did anything to piss her off. Why was she giving him so much crap now?

“Hey,” Loudred tumbled off the pile, managing to keep the white creature neatly on his head. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“Yeah,” Alakazam came off next. “He’s the Keybearer! Show some respect.”

Heather’s eyebrows arched in both confusion and disgust. “Did you actually manage to trick these things into thinking you’re cool?”

The white creature giggled and cheekily pointed to Heather’s head. “Bald.”

To say she snapped would be an understatement.

Cody would normally try to move as far away from this conflict as possible, but something distracted him. Something in the near distance. The avant garde sculptures that littered the area had begun to move. At first he thought he was just seeing things, but his eyes returned to a frightened state as he witnessed the sculptures float into the air to come together like a disassembled toy. Even Alakazam and Loudred, who were busy talking back to Heather just seconds ago, stopped to witness the moment.

“What are you freaks staring at?” Heather turned around.

Cody knew what was going to happen next. He witnessed it right at the hotel lobby. He was not going to have those images embedded into him again. He and others all closed their eyes shut, shielding themselves away from what was going to transpire right in front of them.

There was a scream. When they opened their eyes again, all that was left was the terrifying gaze of Guard Armor.

The four looked upwards at the armored Heartless. There was a similar sense of fear and dread in all of them; this was their first big fight in this mission of theirs and there was a chance they just might die right at that instant. Despite that, Alakazam, Loudred, and, consequently, the white creature, charged forwards, knowing they had to push forward even if the odds were stacked against them. Cody just stood there, gaping.

He was just an average nerd after all; not a hero.

It was clear the Pokemon had no real plan running into this fight as the duo shot out mixtures of psychic and explosive sound blasts at random pacing. Anything to knock this thing down. But even then, their attacks just barely made dents on it. It was practically a living shield after all.

The monster tossed its dismembered limbs violently into the air, damaging nearby locales with the sheer force of its swings. Cody was ready to dodge a claw that was headed his way, but was shocked to see himself glowing and floating away from the body part instead.

Alakazam stayed on the ground and used his telekinetic abilities to juggle everyone else away from the armor parts in the air. An airborne Loudred shot out Supersonic screeches towards nearby armor with the creature that lay on top of him seemingly imitating his movements, only shooting out red laser beams instead.

Seeing that its separation strategy was not proving as useful as expected, Guard Armor reassembled itself and returned to its series of frantic limb swinging.

Cody was now back on the ground. As much as he’d love to leave the fight to his clearly more battle ready acquaintances, it became clear that the disorganization was wearing them down. They had no clue how to take this thing down or if their attacks were even effective against it.

“Hey, Key Kid!” Cody’s ears perked up, noticing Alakazam calling out to him. “Are you planning on helping anytime soon?!”

He was just an ordinary guy. He couldn’t take down a giant monster. Did he even take down Darkside back on the island? Why couldn’t he remember?

Alakazam kept calling out to Cody as the kid continued to have a mini panic attack on the battlefield. The psychic Pokemon was quickly growing frustrated. This was the guy his king told him to seek out? He was ready to give the boy a piece of his mind, but was interrupted by the force of Loudred’s body smacking straight into him. This in turn sent him flying towards Cody, leading them into a similar pile as the one they found themselves in just moments ago. Even the white rabbit creature was proudly stooped on top of them once again.

Guard Armor approached the group. This was it. Things were ending before they even began. It figured. How could these outsiders ever think they had a chance at saving anything or anyone? They all braced themselves for an upcoming attack…

...Only to hear the clanging of armor as the giant was forcibly pushed away from them.

Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith had all entered the scene, shooting simultaneous attacks of flame bullets, ninja stars, and magic blasts at every inch they could hit off the Guard Armor. The giant slowly walked backwards in response and shielded its upper body with its arms.

Leon looked at the sorry pile he and the girls had walked into. “What the are you doing? Get up and fight!”

Alakazam, Loudred, and the rabbit creature, once again resting atop Loudred’s head, charged right back into battle. The encouragement of the three new fighters reinvigorated them.

And of course, the unheroic normal teenager was still frozen solid.

Leon furiously grabbed ahold of Cody’s shirt, lifting the kid off his feet, and bringing his meek frown just inches away from Leon’s snarling face. “I knew all that enthusiasm you were showing Yuffie meant nothing, but you are more useless than I could’ve ever imagined. If you’re going to just insist on doing fucking crap while holding the one weapon that can tear that thing apart like nothing, then at least get the hell out of here so none of us have to see that pathetic face of yours.”

Leon carefully pushed Cody aside and ran into the thick of the battle.

What am I doing here? Cody thought to himself.

Leon was right. He was nothing more than a liability. Where was that drive that woke him back in the hotel when he was promised a future of heroism?

Where was the courage when he boldly ran up to Darkside back on Wawanakwa?

Where was the determination he had when he dared to take down Darkside in his dream just seconds away from a death he knew was coming?

Where was the guy who risked running around in a crazy storm of Heartless just so he could find Trent and Gwen?

Cody gripped the Keyblade. He was sick of all these false starts. This was it. It was time for him to act the part.

He was going to play the role of a hero even if it killed him.

Cody ran towards Guard Armor. He had no plan, and with the shocked look on everyone’s face, they all could tell he had no plan. Loudred desperately cried at a paralyzed Alakazam to lift Cody upwards as he approached the monster. Guard Armor was readying its loose claws to slam into the spot right in front of it. Unless Cody went airborne, he was done for.

Alakazam did just that. Once again, Cody was glowing and floating around in the air. His one plan of action was to attack. Make any kind of attack. It didn’t matter how, what, or where. And thus that one attack landed on Guard Armor’s head.

Guard Armor stumbled backwards wildly. No one could believe it. Cody’s dumbass move found them a weakness.

The entire tone of the battle shifted dramatically. The group was no longer attacking wildly and randomly. Each move was making their way towards Guard Armor’s head. The Heartless’s attacks were growing less and less in frequency as it shifted itself into an defensive position.

Loudred saw Cody charge towards the Guard Armor once again. He grinned, knowing exactly just what to do. Once again, he called out to Alakazam to do his thing and once again, Alakazam telekinetically lifted Cody up into the air.

And once again, Cody struck its head, knocking it down for good.

The armor pieces that were once floating around with life suddenly halted into stillness before toppling on to the ground like hollowed out metal. Before even clattering to a halt, the pieces dissipated into the air like sand sculptures wearing away from the wind. And with that, Guard Armor was no more.

“...I beat it,” Cody breathed and dropped onto the ground just like the Heartless had. He pumped his fist into the air. “I actually beat it!”

Yuffie laughed as she joined him. “We weakened it way before you did.”

“Yeah, but I found the weakness!”

Aerith extended her hand down to Cody. “Hey, you’re Cody, right?” She smiled. “I’m Aerith. Sorry you got stuck with Grumpy Pants over here to guide you around.”

Cody grinned in response as he took her hand and lifted himself back up. “Eh, it’s all good. Turns out, ‘Grumpy Pants’s grumpiness was just what I needed.”

Leon harrumphed, leading the rest of the group into a laughing mess as they released all the stress their battle had given them.

Only one last thing to do. Cody turned towards the non-humans of the group.

“And you guys are…?”

“Alakazam,” the psychic type nodded.

“And I’m Loudred,” the normal type chuckled. “So you’re Cody.”

Cody was taken aback by Loudred’s unexpected volume and shielded his ears ever so slightly. “Yeah… Hey, back when we...ran into each other… It sounded like you guys were looking for this.” He motioned towards the Keyblade. “Why?”

“Oh that. Well, we---”

“We’re looking for our king,” Alakazam interrupted Loudred’s answer, shifting the moment into a more stern and serious tone.

“Your...king?”

“Yes, he sent us on a mission to retrieve the key. You’re here now, so now we have to go look for him.”

“Look for him...where?”

“We’re searching through all the worlds of course!” Loudred finished.

Cody blinked. Oh right. This wasn’t just any city he was in. This was a completely different world from the Earth he called home for the past 15 years of his life. And beyond here, there were countless, no, limitless number of worlds out there that were filled with places and inhabitants he never once imagined would ever exist. All these worlds out there and these two were planning on searching through all of them for their king?

Cody thought back to what Tidus had said when he first arrived here. This may have been the world where those who are lost gather, but there’s still the off chance someone could have landed somewhere else.

There was a chance Gwen and Trent were out there.

“Go with them,” Leon spoke from behind. “We don’t even know where to begin to fix this mess we’re all in. The best thing you can do now is help these two.”

“...I’ll go on one condition.

“These two...friends of mine. They’re missing. If I go searching for your king, we go searching for them too.”

Alakazam blinked. This wasn’t part of the plan at all. Searching for others? That’s a major mission diversion! He was about to talk back, but his mouth was clamped shut by his partner’s enormous hand.

“Sure thing!” Loudred happily replied.

“Oh, before I forget!” Aerith chimed in.

On that cue, the white creature that had inadvertently joined in on their battle leapt from behind and neatly into her lap.

“This is Mokona! His master’s magic is the one thing singlehandedly allowing everyone in this world to break past the language barrier, and he can do the same for you too. Plus he makes for a good luggage case too! Completely multi-purpose. He should be helpful for your journey.”

“I’m Mokona!” He happily chirped with a childish salute.

Cody stopped to think. So much had happened in so little time. He knew earlier at the hotel he was getting into something he wouldn’t be able to turn back from, but right here at this moment, everything felt like it had finally pieced themselves together.

A castle outsider…

A lowly bard…

An indescribable creature…

And an awkward teenager who was never meant to be a hero…

...This was the start of their journey.

Cody grinned. “Alright! Let’s get this party started.”

 

oOo

 

She couldn’t believe this.

Heather gingerly touched her head. After all this time spent slowly getting used to the ridicule her peers had thrown onto her…

Her hair was back.

“You weren’t kidding,” she gasped. “You’re seriously a witch. A real deal witch.”

“Yes,” a sly and mysteriously sultry voice replied.

A woman with horns of the devil appeared before the girl. Her skin was a faint pale green, and her eyes were somehow even paler, giving her the illusion of a ghostly vision contrasting within the darkness of her phantomonic cloak that hid all traces of her shape. She was the embodiment of the monster that haunted the dreams of children from birth to adolescense. She was the shadow that loomed in the corner of the room at night time that you would convince yourself was just a figment of your imagination. She was the disturbing image that would be the last thing you witnessed in your slumber before waking up with an aching and pounding chest.

She was the demonic witch, Maleficent.

“Now about my proposal,” Maleficent had smiled this entire time, yet even Heather could tell those smiles were nothing but hollow masks underneath. “I was shocked when I saw that you were able to avoid losing yourself to that Heartless when you yourself have long ago given away your heart to the dark.”

Heather winced. She thought back to her last moments in Traverse Town. She swore that thing was ready to kill her. Yet when it was right in front of her, it stood its ground. Before she knew it, was transported to this strange castle, no doubt because Maleficent found her interesting enough to pluck from the stage.

“Furthermore, the Keybearer,” the witch continued. “It seems you know him. You see, he possesses a key that I will need to retrieve for my plans. It would be useful having someone who has better knowledge on how to crush that boy best.”

I don’t know him that well, Heather thought. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was too scared to say it out loud. Who knew what this witch would do to her if she realized her captive wasn’t quite as useful as she’d predicted.

Maleficent held out her long bony hand. “If you choose to become my apprentice, you’ll gain power beyond any realm of your comprehension. You’ll conquer worlds and rule over all light.”

“And if I say no?”

Maleficent provided no answer. She just continued waving around that fake empty smile.

This was too insane, even for her. All her life, she’d filled her life with bitterness. She was more than aware of the true nature of the world. The heroes that existed in all those stories did not exist in real life. Reality was where the ones smart enough to manipulate others thrived. That was how she had survived this whole time. But that was just school and a grounded social life. In front of her was a witch, a real witch. She wouldn’t just be torturing a nerdy kid out of his self esteem like she normally would; she would be destroying him.

She wasn’t actually going to go that far, was she?

Heather gazed at Maleficent’s face again. Her smile remained. She was the face of pure evil; something way beyond anything Heather would’ve ever dared to become back at home.

...

Heather copied Maleficent’s smile to the tee and took her hand.

Maleficent had thus gained another ally in her conquest for all the worlds.

Heather; A teenage queen bee who was willing to do anything and everything to get what she wanted.

Tabuu; A unworldly humanoid fiend that spoke no words and gave no pity.

Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik; A mad scientist who could turn even the most useless scraps of junk into vicious mechanical foes.

Medusa; Another witch with a serpentine glare that perfectly matched her sadistic glee and lack of empathy.

Reala; A literal being of nightmares that took the form of a killer jester.

And finally, Maleficent’s other young witch apprentice. She had a gloomy demeanor which contrasted against her cutesy dollike figure. She had an outfit of blaring bright red colors as if she were merely roleplaying the role of a villain. She had a pair of long tangled black locks that stretched down to nearly the length of her entire demure body. She was a force to be reckoned with despite her size and stature. She had joined this group with little hesitation and had already been proven to be the most loyal asset. She was a teenage witch here for power and nothing else.

Her name was Ashley.

 

oOo

 

Where was he?

Trent frantically examined his surroundings. Rather than the musty island he’d called a temporary home for the past few months, he was in an eerily fantastical setting with floating boulders and walls of waterfalls. A sinister castle loomed in the distance.

There was no one else here.

Just him.

It was ironic. All his life, he never once felt a true human connection. He was always surrounded by others but would rather be alone where he wouldn’t have to deal with their mundane beings. Yet here he was, terrified at the thought that he landed in this strange new world all on his own.

His first instinct was to call out to his girlfriend, Gwen. She was the one person in the world that mattered. She had to be here. Gwen had to be here. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do without her.

He called out her name over and over again to no avail. He knew he was here alone. He knew Gwen wasn’t with him, yet he kept grasping on to that one glimmer of hope that she was.

“Gwen!” He kept crying out. It was useless. He knew it was.

Gwen…

Gwen…

Gwen…

...And at one point, he tried a different approach and called out for Cody instead.

Chapter 6: Mystery Treasure Dungeon: Peculiar Accusations

Chapter Text

“We’re doomed. We’re dead,” Leon groaned and massaged his temples as if everything that just transpired had taken years off of his life.

“Don’t say that,” Yuffie moaned in response. “Seriously, you’re acting even more emo than usual.”

Cody and company left just moments before. The Traverse Town trio had taken the moment of peace to sit down and relax in the small cafe situated in the city plaza. This was supposed to be their big gameplan meeting now that the true battle up ahead was finally taking its course. Instead, it had turned into another round of Cody dunks.

“I’m not sure if you saw how he performed back there,” Leon continued. “Or at the hotel. Or against me. Or, heck, that giant citywide Heartless rampage earlier was probably his fault too. But both his strength and conduct will sooner get him killed than do anything to help us.”

“I mean, he did pull himself together in the end. That’s gotta be something.”

“He was motivated by that stupid promise of grandeur you were tossing on him,” Leon barked. “He’s doing this for all the wrong reasons. How did someone like him end up with the Keyblade in the first place? What a dipshit.”

As Leon continued to assess Cody on and on, Yuffie’s light defenses on him quickly drifted away as even she had the same bitter skepticism her older friend did the moment she laid eyes on poor Cody. That left Aerith, the one who barely even talked to him, to jump in to defend his honor.

“Hey, if it chose him, it must have done it for a good reason.”

“Oh come on Aeri, you don’t have to sugarcoat it. It’s not like he can hear us. Who knows how far away he is by now.”

Aerith giggled sweetly. That was true. There was no reason for her to be nice to someone who wasn’t here, but it’s what she truly believed.

“No but,” she started. “Isn’t the Keyblade tied to the heart? That’s how it judges who gets to take it?”

“Yeah, and it clearly chose wrong,” Leon grumbled.

“Listen, Leon. What if the Keyblade saw something in him that no one else can see? Some untapped potential hidden deep inside him that it knows there’s something more to him.You guys saw him during the battle. He literally turned the tables as soon as he joined in.”

“Girl, that was a fluke and you know it,” Yuffie said.

“...Still...

“I know for sure he’s going to turn into something great.”

 

oOo

 

This was insane.

Just yesterday, all he knew in life existed only in the confines of the one world he grew up on. And now he was traversing on a spaceship beyond any stars he could have ever hoped to see in the skies back at home. Beyond the lone galaxy he learned about in class. It was a breathtaking sight.

“Pay attention!”

Or at least it would have been if he didn’t have to listen to Alakazam lecture on and on and on.

While Loudred piloted the ship, Alakazam was doing all that he could to teach fighting basics to Cody. The kid had managed to learn how to summon the Keyblade in and out of hammer space, but as for actual combat skills…

Alakazam wasn’t much of a weapons based Pokemon himself, so he resorted to using his telekinesis to control a small army of spoons to face off against Cody in the most milquetoast training session possible. And yet Cody still stood there looking all beaten up because he couldn’t even fend off well against a bunch of kitchen utensils.

“How are you this bad? I don’t get it.”

“No offense, but you just keep swinging those things at random,” Cody grumbled. He’d barely spent any time with the psychic type, yet he already knew him well enough to know they were not going to get along. “It’s one thing to train me in combat. It’s another to just toss spoons straight into my face.”

“A real battle is going to be random and in your face,” Alakazam twitched. “Do you have a problem with my teaching methods?”

“You said you helped with paperwork in your world, right? Why am I even training under you? I’m not gonna learn anything. It’s better if I just charge right into battle.”

“Assuming you don’t wait until fifteen minutes after the battle’s already started to charge in.”

The air grew cold. Tension quickly built up between the two. Even Loudred who was at the very front of the ship could feel it. He was about to happily interrupt them with a cheerful non sequitur like he normally would, but their fourth companion, Mokona, beat him to it.

“Hey, hey, I wanna play next,” Mokona whined as he bounced between Cody and Alakazam.

“We’re not playing,” Alakazam sighed. “This is fighting practice.”

“Oooh I can do that!”

“Sure you can,” Cody lightly laughed in response as he gently patted the rabbit-esque creature’s head.

As if to prove Cody’s obvious sarcasm wrong, Mokona immediately changed tone. Suddenly, his eyes were wide open, revealing an almost uncanny pair of eyes that did not match the cute exterior of his body. He widened his jaw and contorted his face into a nightmarish expression. The red jewel that lay on his forehead glowed a bright crimson.

Cody had a feeling he knew what was coming and he wasn’t going to like it.

Mokona began to rapidly maul against Cody while also shooting red bursts of magic out of his gem. Alakazam couldn’t help but smirk as Cody fell on to the floor screaming as he tried his best to get the furball off of him. Mokona probably wouldn’t kill him. He’ll be fine.

Probably.

Alakazam marched over to Loudred as Cody continued squealing helplessly in the background. “Are we near anywhere yet?”

“As a matter of fact, we’re arriving somewhere right now!”

“That’s good.” Alakazam’s eyes squinted as he glanced at Loudred and then at himself. “Hey, you know how Traverse Town was mostly full of humans?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, that place was like a hub world, right?”

“Yeah?"

“Well...odds are, aren’t we going to stick out like a sore thumb?”

“What’s the issue?”

He couldn’t be serious. “We can’t just waltz into any world like this. These people can’t know there are other worlds out there. We need to keep a sense of order!”

“And?”

“YOU AND I ARE GOING TO BREAK THAT ORDER AS SOON AS SOMEONE LAYS AN EYE ON US!!”

“Oh, I can fix that,” Mokona stated as he effortlessly switched back to his normal adorable self like it was nothing. He bounced off of Cody who writhed in pain and trauma on the ship floor. “My master gave me magic that can change our bodies to fit whatever world we land on.”

“See? Nothing to worry about!” Loudred laughed as he flashed Alakazam a thumbs up.

“I suppose…” Alakazam stared down at Cody. He wasn’t sure if the pained expression the teen had was from actual pain or just sheer embarrassment over what he just suffered.

“Get up. We’re heading to our first world. Remember, if the inhabitants haven’t already figured it out themselves, don’t reveal to them anything about other worlds or why the Heartless are here. Or else.”

He was like a stern father hammering down points he knew his bumbling son was destined to fumble. As Cody slowly recovered from his paralyzed stance, he couldn’t help but make mocking faces behind Alakazam’s back as the Pokemon made his leave.

“I’m not that stupid,” he grumbled.

 

oOo

 

MYSTERY TREASURE DUNGEON

 

oOo

 

THUD!

“Oooh, just like last time! How nostalgic.”

“Why am I on the bottom again?...”

“Why is Loudred second to the top?!”

“Hahaha, sorry guys. Guess I’m still getting used to the whole piloting thing.”

“Oh shut up! I’m piloting next time.”

“Haha, you know you can’t do that.”

“Guys, seriously, I’m being crushed down here...”

“Mokona, stop jumping!”

“Hey, the kid’s just having fun. Let him be.”

“Whee!!”

“Please...I’m begging you...I will die .”

The group landed in their first world much like how they all first met; crushed together in an uncomfortable pile. Cody couldn’t believe his luck that he was once again pushed to the very bottom. Something felt very different however. He felt so much more pain and pressure from his companions’ added weight. He knew he was a weakling, but he couldn’t have possibly gotten even worse in between his landing here and his time in Traverse Town.

Cody glanced upwards. They seemed to have fallen through an open skyline of a large and spacious cavern. Unfortunately, the roof of the cave was at the height of a skyscraper and the skyline didn’t seem all that bigger than a slightly larger than average door. In fact, it was a miracle that they came out of their landing relatively unscathed. Him especially.

“Hey,” he said as he turned to face the others. “Any of you guys happen to have a compass or something with…”

...Why were Alakazam and Loudred staring?

“Is something on my face? Did that fall give me a cut? Oh no, do I look like Leon now?”

“No, no you look fine,” Alakazam replied, barely holding back his laughter.

“In fact, you look adorable!” Loudred added.

...Huh??

Why did they look bigger than usual? He was short for his age, but he clearly remembered those two not being all that different in height from him.

Cody noticed a small puddle nearby from water that dripped down slowly from a cluster of sturdy stalagmites. When he got up to walk over to it however, he felt an unyielding level of unsteadiness. Strange. Despite his difficulty balancing himself, he didn’t feel very dizzy. He didn’t even hit his head on his way down.

After much struggle, Cody finally made his way to the puddle.

Rather than his usual dumb babyface,he saw the head of a brown fox-like creature.

He screamed.

“Like my work?”

Cody jumped. The voice, face, and glowing red forehead gem were clearly Mokona’s, but his body had been morphed into a crowned egg. He was utterly mortified to realize the two of them were now easily comparable in size.

“An Eevee and Togepi,” Loudred chuckled as he marched right over. “Pretty fitting!”

“What a weird coincidence,” Alakazam said, still sounding like he was repressing a laughing fit that could start at any second. “I would’ve thought we’d be more likely to land in a human world, but I guess there are other worlds with Pokemon too.”

“Why are you brushing this off like it’s nothing?!” Cody cried. The two were now giants compared to him and he was not having this. “Mokona, please turn me into something cooler!”

Cody tried to stand upwards again, but the overwhelming imbalance caused him to immediately fall flat onto the ground.

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to go on all fours,” Alakazam informed him. “I’m impressed you managed to walk that far on two feet to begin with.”

This couldn’t be happening.

A small pile of rocks gently tumbled over. Everyone jumped and carefully looked over their surroundings. Heartless could be anywhere and everywhere. Were they in this world too? Seconds passed by with no further movement, and Loudred decided that he would have to volunteer himself to investigate or else they’d be stuck standing there frozen for who knows how long.

Loudred crept over to the fallen rock pile and slowly peered behind the mess. He expected a Heartless to jump into his face at any second. Instead, he was greeted by the sight of a lone Cubone.

“Guys, it’s okay! It’s just another Pokemon!” He called back before turning his attention back to the small creature. “Hey there! Do you live here? Could you tell us where the exit is?”

No response.

“Oh, sorry, we were making a ton of noise earlier and must’ve scared you, right? Don’t worry. We’re good guys!”

Still no response.

He was at a loss. Maybe the Cubone was waiting for a proper greeting?

Loudred held out his hand. “Where are my manners? My name is---”

The Cubone jumped towards him mid sentence and struck him with the bone it held. Normally, Cubones walked around with diminutive bones that were no larger than the frail Pokemon themselves. This one however held one that was akin to a scythe, all rough and jagged in texture and bent like a claw.

Loudred was sent flying towards the others. Alakazam was ready to tell off the much smaller Pokemon, but was startled to see how unusually black in shade the Cubone was. Its body fidgeted in an erratic manner and its eyes glowed a bright shade of gold not unlike those of the Heartless.

They all collectively gulped. This wasn’t an ordinary Pokemon.

As if they were waiting for the Cubone to make its first move, several waves of Pokemon jumped from the higher freights of the cave and into the fray, all appearing to have the same level of Heartless corruption as the Cubone.

This was not good.

If they struggled with fending off against normal Heartless, they were even worse off here. Alakazam and Loudred were technically the most at home with this crowd, but their lack of previous fighting experience stacked themselves negatively against the monsters who were seemingly bred to kill. Mokona meanwhile struggled to reacclimate himself to the powers his new body both lacked and gained. Then there was Cody who was in a frantic state. He already struggled to fight in his regular form, but now he had to learn how to use the Keyblade on all fours on the fly.

How am I even supposed to hold this thing? Cody griped in his head as he attempted to wield the blade from his mouth with limited success.

Suddenly, several large bursts of noise erupted from the center of the room. Loudred released a flurry of Uproars, causing all the enemy Pokemon to flounder around in paralyzed shock over the intense vibrations. Loudred’s companions didn’t fare all that better from his charade, but if there was a time to run, it was now.

They hastened through the cave’s corridors, desperately looking for an exit only to be greeted by Heartless crazed Pokemon, and eventually pure Heartless themselves, at every corner.

“Why are they all trying to kill us?!” Cody screamed.

“I’m too young to die!” Mokona chimed in, though probably not as sincere with his distress as the others.

…!

The quartet could hear murmurs of a conversation nearby. There was somebody here. Somebody who wasn’t a Heartless. Somebody to help them find a way out!

In the near distance, three Pokemon held a tense conversation. A young Pichu looked to be on the verge of tears while the two who accompanied her, a Treecko and a Chimchar, tried their best to look away from her, as if they could feel the shame just from seeing her crying face.

“I promise, I didn’t do anything,” Pichu sniffed. “You have to believe me.”

Chimchar gulped. “We believe you. It’s just that…”

“This is our mission for the day,” Treecko finished glumly.

Pichu turned into a sobbing mess. The two slightly older Pokemon could barely contain their guilt. It was like arresting a child who ran up to them for help.

“Look,” Treecko crouched down and patted the small mouse’s head. “When we get back, Chimchar and I are going to sort things out. We’re not going to let anything bad happen to you.”

Pichu’s eyes dried up ever so slightly as she looked up at the two expectantly. “Really?”

“Promise,” Chimchar smiled.

Treecko and Chimchar held out a pair of intricate badges. In any other world, this would have been a bizarre gesture, but in this one, this was their way home. The trio soon faded into a bright white…

“Wait!” Cody cried out from a distance. They were just far enough away that they weren’t sure if the three could even register their pleas for help. “Take us with you!!”

“Loudred, now is the time to open up your big mouth!”

“H-hey!! Don’t leave yet!”

It was too late. In a quick flash of light, the three were gone.

The group of four halted to a stop. That was their ticket out of here and now they were gone.

Silently, they all slowly turned back around. They knew all the several dozens of Heartless they fled from would be waiting for them, but if they wanted to get out of here, there was no other option.

This was going to be a long day.

 

oOo

 

The sun had already set by the time the four finally made their way out of the cavern and into the closest town. Their fur and skin were all ruffled and bruised and their movement was sloppy and labored. After so much bickering amongst themselves during their seemingly endless string of battles, their faces all showed the same message; We’re tired and hungry, so let’s hurry up and find food and an inn so we can finally rest and forget all of that ever happened.

Their uncomely hygiene and stances made them the talk of the town as they made their way searching for the cheapest grub possible. It even managed to land them plenty of pity discounts, but even then they struggled to stock up on full and filling meals that would last them for the night.

Cody eyed what appeared to be a shop’s leftover boxed lunches from earlier that day. His stomach growled ferociously at the sight. Alakazam, Loudred, and Mokona had decided to make do with whatever tiny berries they could manage to gather, but after all the brawling they’d been through, that obviously wasn’t going to do much.

“You want those?” A voice spoke.

“You look hungry.” Another.

Cody looked up. Manning the stall was an Azumarill and Azurill sibling duo.

“Uhh, yes, but,” he looked away awkwardly. He already saw the prices. They were much more than any one of them could afford at the moment. “We’re kind of flat broke, so I think I’m good.”

“That’s fine,” Azumarill smiled. “You can just take them.”

Cody’s eyes widened. “R-really?”

“Yeah,” Azurill happily chirped, bouncing up and down on her sphere-like tail.

“B-but, these are so pricey…”

“You and your friends are new in Treasure Town, right?” Azumarill continued. “Think of them as welcoming gifts.”

“That and the day’s almost over anyway,” Azurill sheepishly added. “If we don’t get rid of them now, we’d have to throw them out anyway.”

There was no room for hesitation. Cody quickly grabbed as many boxes as he could carry. The weight was so beyond his meek body, he toppled around in place. He called out to his friends to carry them in his stead. They were going to feast tonight.

“Oh right,” Cody turned back to the duo. “Do you guys know a place we can stay for the night? Uh, preferably on the…less than cheap side.”

“You guys are an exploration team, right?” Azurill jumped.

A...what?

Well, they explore worlds. That counted, right?

“There’s a guild HQ near the edge of town. Giant Wigglytuff shape. Can’t miss it. As long as you let them know you’re fellow explorers, they’ll let you stay as long as you need.”

“For free?”

“Yup!”

That’s all that he needed to hear.

Cody thanked the siblings graciously before rushing away. He had no clue what the heck a “Wigglytuff” was, but he was going to let Alakazam and Loudred handle that. All that mattered to him was that all the food he was going to shovel into his mouth tonight.

“Hey,” Azumarill called out as Cody ran off further into the distance. “If you happen to run into a Treecko and Chimchar while you’re there, tell them we said ‘thanks’ for the other day!”

 

oOo

 

“So, that’s a Wigglytuff?” Cody gawked at the tacky building decor. It was modeled directly after said “Wigglytuff” to the point that it more closely resembled a fun house meant for young children at an amusement park rather than a headquarters of any kind.

“So pink,” Mokona cooed.

“If you think this looks nuts,” Loudred began with his signature laugh. “You should see some of the buildings back in our world.”

“You said this was an ‘Exploration Team’ guild?” Alakazam questioned.

Cody nodded. “We are on a journey, so I figured we could flub our way in if anything.”

Alakazam grumbled as he shook his head in disapproval, earning a crestfallen look from Cody. “They’re probably going to look for identification that we do not have. This is an awful idea.”

“Oh come on, lighten up,” Loudred said as he loudly smacked Alakazam’s back, causing the poor dude to keel over in pain. “We can’t call it a bad idea yet if we haven’t even walked in yet.”

Mokona was the first to bounce on over towards the entrance with Loudred following not long after. This gave time for Cody and Alakazam to briefly stand alone with one another. A similar sense of begrudgement and unease from the pair’s failed combat training filled the air between them. They barely knew each other and they were already quite sick of one another. After exchanging some quick glares, the two continued on their way.

As it turned out, even if the guild was supposed to check for official identification, that was not going to be enforced today. Right beyond the entranceway of the building and in the center of the main lobby, a commotion brewed and nearly every inhabitant in the building was in attendance. As Cody and the group sauntered in, Alakazam took this as a relief and ordered the others to sneak by as quickly and undetectably as possible. Cody however couldn’t help himself and purposely tiptoed around just to check out the situation.

Right at the center of the crowd was a large weighty cat that gave off the essence of an uppity attitude just from sight alone. And to Cody’s surprise, opposed to her were the same three Pokemon he and the others had witnessed leaving the cavern earlier that day; Treecko, Chimchar, and Pichu.

“I am telling you two, that little demon is a felon! If you do not allow her to be arrested, then---”

“Look, Purugly,” Treecko sighed in exasperation. “Stop repeating the same things over and over again. Do you even have proof?”

“You dare cut me off?! Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, you’re the duchess of the town north of Treasure Town, one of PokeZine’s ‘Top 10 Least Attractive Creatures’, and an overall pain in the butt,” Chimchar whispered in a bored fashion, gaining giggles from a previously teary eyed Pichu.

“What are you giggling at, you little monster?!” Purugly barked at Pichu and caused her to burst right back into tears. Chimchar instinctively jumped in defensively in front of Pichu while Treecko readied himself for another round of angry retorts.

Yikes, Cody grimaced at the scene. Don’t wanna get involved in whatever this is. He started to hurry along, but as quickly as his decision to leave came, he stopped to a halt as he overheard the next bits of the clash.

A large pink puffball, Wigglytuff, and a parrot like Pokemon, Chatot, interjected themselves between the four in hopes of preventing a much more violent outcome. “Please, settle down,” Wigglytuff said. “I’m sure we can probably smooth this all out.”

“Wait, are you two actually taking her seriously?” Treecko said, aghast.

“If you could please provide us with the context behind your accusations, we will do our best to sort everything out,” Chatot explained to Purugly.

“That thing ,” Purugly sneered at Pichu who understandably whimpered behind Chimchar in response. “Tried to tear my heart straight out of me!”

Cody gasped.

Tearing out her heart.

Like...a Heartless?

“You really think this kid tried to do that to you?” Treecko aggressively rolled his eyes. “Just look at her! You’re over four times her size.”

“Just say you hate kids or something,” Chimchar added in annoyance.

Purugly breathed out and seemingly attempted to regain any ounce of composure so she could properly recount her accusation. “While I was taking a peaceful stroll through the Glistening Caverns yesterday, I ran into this demonic Pichu who just ran up to me and tried clawing away at my chest. She was clearly trying to mutilate me! And when I ran out of there, she had the nerve to run away screaming when I spotted her again.”

Cody knew what was up. In fact, the others did too. They’d just spent an entire day fending off endless hordes of Heartless taking the form of common Pokemon. What that so-called Pichu tried to do to Purugly was make her one of their own. Of course, they couldn’t just say all of this out loud.

Or could they?

“That was a Heartless.”

Alakazam froze. He did it. The boy actually did it. He turned around. It was far too late to deflect. An entire building’s worth of Pokemon were all gathered there and now an entire building’s worth of Pokemon stared straight at Cody, expecting answers.

Wigglytuff was the first to break the stunned silence. “Excuse me, could you repeat that? What attacked Purugly?”

Alakazam looked over at Cody. His face was just as stunned as the ones on the very Pokemon he had addressed, as if it just hit him how horrible an idea this all was. There’s still time to save this mess, he thought. Alakazam had begun to trudge over to him only to stop when the temporary Eevee just had to open his dumb mouth again.

“The-the thing that attacked her was a Heartless. Because, like,” he stammered. “She said it was going for her heart, right? Well, Heartless are all about corrupting hearts and...stuff.”

Stares.

Oh God, they must think I’m crazy, Cody thought. It was then that it really sank in what he’d done. He had broken the biggest and most obvious rule for this whole adventure. And to think, literally right before they landed, Alakazam had…

Cody turned his head to see a reddened Alakazam glaring furiously at him.

Any panic or guilt he had was now replaced with the sheer spiteful thrill he got from making his naggy teammate look that angry.

Let’s push his buttons further.

“Okay, so,” Cody returned to his explanation. “They’re these creatures that are mostly all pitch black, and they usually have bright yellow eyes. Though in this case, it seems it took a form of a Pichu specifically to help blend into this world. Earlier today, I fought against a ton of these fakers.”

“Yeah, we were there too,” Loudred butted in alongside Mokona who enthusiastically bounced on his head. “We can vouch for him.”

Alakazam was in a mood beyond furious at this point which only fueled Cody’s confidence further.

“They go around feeding on the darkness hidden in hearts so they can just keep spreading and spreading.”

Purugly ruffled her nose. “Excuse me? What are you implying here?”

“That that Heartless thing could tell you're an awful excuse for a Pokemon and that’s why that thing attacked you in the first place,” Treecko stated in a smug manner.

“Yeah,” Chinchar added with a cheeky grin. “You could say you yourself are more to blame than Pichu here.”

“Silence,” Purugly screeched. “This is all nonsense! None of this is proof. You’re just pulling excuses out of nowhere for the sake of defending this delinquent.”

“Then how about we get you that proof?” Chatot barged in as he flew right in front of Purugly’s line of sight. “We’ll have Pichu under house arrest here while our two teams here go and search for this Heartless that attacked you.”

“Rather presumptuous of you to already decide that this Heartless thing is real,” Purugly huffed. “Very well. I suppose I will allow it. But if your lot don’t have anything to show me by this time tomorrow, I’ll have it that your precious guild members will be arrested as well for aiding and abetting a criminal.”

Chimchar choked at the proposal. “Now wait just a---”

“Deal.”

It was a circumstance even Chatot and Wigglytuff were ready to reject on their behalf on the spot, but Treecko, who was now mere inches away from Pururgly’s face in a brutal staredown, seemed more than willing to show off the old cat in her own game.

It looked like everything was set.

The crowd slowly but surely dispersed. Purugly was now out the door and the main hall was now occupied only by the exploration team duo, Pichu, and the Keyblade Gang.

Pichu timidly approached Cody “U-um, thank you for helping me out.”

“Yeah,” Chimchar smiled. “Who knows how all that would’ve turned out if you didn’t butt in. I swear, I thought Treecko was going to sic a Quick Attack on her. That would’ve killed off our case for sure.”

“Shut up,” Treecko sighed before holding out his hand to Cody. “Name’s Treecko and this is my partner, Chimchar.”

“Uh, hey,” Cody awkwardly lifted his paw to Treecko. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to this body. “I’m Cody.”

His companions followed suit.

“Loudred!”

“Mokona!”

“Alakazam,” he forced out a greeting like it was an obligation he couldn’t break out of. None of this was going as planned. He could care less about what was going on in this, or heck, any world. He wasn't supposed to care anyway, it was the rules. He just wanted to find his king.

“Thank you so much!”

Alakazam looked down. Pichu had gone around the group showing her appreciation individually. She had the sweetest smile like she was greeting heroes who just saved her from a death sentence. Alakazam knew he wasn’t supposed to care, but truth is, this innocent kid was making it really hard not to.

“Excuse me,” Chatot flew back into the main hall. “You four need a room for the night, correct? Follow me. Best to head off to bed now so you can get up bright and early tomorrow morning for your mission.”

“Right,” Cody nodded.

As the group made their exit, Cody tried to flash a thumbs up to Pichu, but found he had no clue how to imitate the gesture with mere paws. While Treecko and Chimchar raised their eyebrows in confusion, Pichu merely giggled, assuming he was waving, and wished everyone a good night. She really was a nice kid. He was glad he’d be able to keep her spirit up.

...Now there was the concern of Alakazam…

 

oOo

 

When the group arrived in their temporary abode, they immediately started to devour the small tower of box lunches they brought with them. The dinner was lively yet dead silent. Even Loudred and Mokona, the two who would most certainly find fun in a feast with friends, were hesitant to make a peep. They knew what was coming and they knew any accidental irritation could make things worse. By the time all the bento boxes were cleared, there was no more obstacle to shield away the big elephant in the room.

“What were you thinking?!” Alakazam screamed. “You think you’re so high and mighty playing ‘Hero’ all because you have the Keyblade. You can’t even fight properly!!”

“Hey, what do you want from me?” Cody mouthed back. “You just wanted me to stand there? She looked like she needed help and I---”

“Like I said; playing ‘Hero’ thinking you’re all that. I saw you looking at me back there. You were doing all that just to spite me!!”

Well, he wasn’t lying.

“And you have absolutely no grounds to stand on. I literally told you before we left that we have to keep everything on the downlow, and you go blabbering off anyway!”

“Hey, Al…” Even with his naturally loud tone, Loudred was having a hard time taking Alakazam’s attention away from Cody.

“So you would’ve preferred if we just let a kid go to jail then? Huh?!”

“No, but you know what? We can’t solve everything bad that happens in every world and we especially can't help them in worlds we don’t belong in.

“Al---”

“So you’d rather we don’t help out at all? You trying to get the Heartless to come for you or something?”

“Excuse me?!”

“Hey, guys---”

“Like you think they wouldn’t be gathering to you with your cocky little attitude! You think that Keyblade of yours is going to save you?”

“I do actually! Pretty sure this Keyblade and wanting to save a kid is going to do a hell of a lot more for me than your selfish advising ass!”

“Hey now, isn’t that a bit---”

“Selfish?! Do you even know why we’re here right now? We’re supposed to be finding the King and this is going to waste up any time we could be using looking for him. He could be in worse trouble than some kid getting thrown in jail for all we know!”

“Just some kid?!”

Before things could get any more dire, Loudred burst out the largest Uproar he could muster that could possibly stay within the confines of the room. Cody and Alakazam who looked like they were ready to get into a fistfight at any second now desperately clutched their ears in agony.

“Listen,” he cleared his throat. “I understand you’re both frustrated at each other, but...”

Loudred gestured over to Mokona who snored soundly on one of the room’s four nested beds, the most blissful smile on his face.

“How did he sleep through all that?” Cody gaped.

The three all looked at each other. Loudred was right. No matter whatever beef they had going on, it was still time for bed. And after today, they could all really need a good night’s rest now. Despite that, Alakazam took one last snipe before putting everything to rest.

“First thing tomorrow, we’re leaving to search for the King. Got it?”

Cody made no response aside from a snide eyeroll, but both of them were clearly too tired to restart their rage. After all the craziness that occurred that day, as soon the three hit the hay, they were knocked out flat and cold.

And in Alakazam’s dreams, he laid there reminiscing on the hopeful face young Pichu had given him. His mind was already adrift, yet he could still feel himself wondering; how much of what he said did he really mean?

Chapter 7: Mystery Treasure Dungeon: The Demon in the Dungeon

Chapter Text

In the midst of the night, the bustling town of Treasure Town shifted peacefully over to clean and quiet streets. All the booths and shops were now shuttered shut and the only Pokemon around were the occasional street vagrants who prowled the ground, searching for any bit of anything forgotten on the ground after the last minute rush of the evening. There was one Pokemon however who was not among the vagrants. The silent pastel Hatterrene floated daintily past the town and into the far outskirts. Her motives were much more sinister.

The Hatterrene continued on into a cave filled with glistening stones. Just like the cavern Cody and company were trapped in earlier that day, this one too was filled with lingering Heartless, both pure and Pokemon. Unlike our heroes however, these creatures paid little to no mind to the Hatterrene.

She finished her journey at the furthest room in the dungeon. She looked up. Far up on the cave walls was a sizely collection of glowing gems and crystals of various shapes and colors. And right at the center of the collection lay a peculiar stone in the distinct shape of a keyhole.

This was the place.

The Hatterrene breathed in and suddenly, she was no longer a Hatterrene. Instead, there now stood a young girl with a bright red gothic dress and a monstrously thick pair of twin tail hair.

It was the young witch, Ashley.

And she wasn’t alone.

Green flames in thorny shapes erupted right next to her, revealing her master, Maleficent.

“You know what to do, correct?”

Ashley nodded. “This room has to be completely consumed with darkness. We do that and this world will be doomed, just like all those others.”

“And,” Maleficent looked down on the small teenager with judgeful eyes. “You’re certain you know how to summon the demon of this world?”

Without a world, Ashley summoned her wand and held it out confidently in front of her. The ruby red gem that sat on top glistened in unworldly ways, and the space around it reacted accordingly. Soon, a large gust of wind slowly trickled in the closed space and quickly spread into what felt like a mini tornado all in one room. Maleficent and Ashley would’ve made their painful ends in this storm if it weren’t for the forcefield that Ashley had placed atop of them.

As the one room storm continued, a strange presence could be felt entering the room. The two witches couldn’t see it, but they knew where it was and they knew they now had it in their hands. Ashley’s wand glowed once more, but rather than a glow of bright light like before, it was a deep hue of darkness.

And before they knew it, the entire dungeon was consumed.

 

oOo

 

The sun had barely finished weaning away the dim of dawn by the time Cody already began to tiptoe out of the guild. It was an unusual act for him. He could barely remember the last time he woke up this bright and early out of his own volition.

Though in a way, that wasn’t necessarily the case. Alakazam had more or less threatened to pull him out of this case last night. He had to make sure he began his evidence gathering even earlier than anyone would have anticipated.

“My freaking back,” he groaned in pain. He assumed taking the form of a four-legged creature would’ve automatically made him acclimated to sleeping like one too. Thought wrong!

“Hey, you alright?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. It’s just…”

Treecko and Chimchar were right in front of him.

Cody blinked, wide eyed. He really hadn’t expected to see them. “Y-you guys are up early.”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Treecko rolled his eyes. “You guys were practically screaming right next to us. We’re lucky your little in-fight didn’t echo through the walls the entire night.”

Cody blushed in embarrassment. “So, you two heard that, huh?”

“Yeah,” Chimchar nodded knowingly. “That Alakazam guy was really adamant on making you guys drop this, right? We figured you’d probably be trying to avoid him on your way out. So here we are.”

“You guys really didn’t have to…”

“Hey,” Treecko said. “I was the one staring Purugly down last night. We started this, not you.”

“Besides,” Chimchar laughed. “You’re not from Treasure Town, right? You probably don’t even know where to investigate.”

Well, he got him there.

“Thanks,” Cody sighed in appreciation. “Not gonna lie, I got beat pretty bad yesterday, so I was getting a little worried about heading into this all alone.”

“Well,” Treecko chuckled as he pointed behind Cody. “Even if we weren’t here, looks like you wouldn’t have had to worry about that at all.”

Cody turned around and lo and behold, Loudred giddily trudged over to him with Mokona in tow.

“Good morning!!” The two shouted simultaneously.

“Hey, not so loud,” Chimchar shushed nervously. “It’s barely even morning.”

“What’re you two doing here?” Cody gaped. “Won’t Alakazam get mad?”

“Bah, who cares? It’s not like we’re attached to the hip or anything. I see a sad kid, I help them!”

“Yeah, we’re not meanies,” Mokona affirmed.

Cody smiled. He wasn’t going to lie; some of the things Alakazam said last night really did get to him. It may have been a little selfish, but it really was nice to have the others here if only for validation. As he let the more experienced exploration team lead the way, Cody felt that despite all the faults he knew he possessed, he’d done the right thing.

 

oOo

 

Time passed. The sun was now bright and shining in the sky. The real morning had begun. In the halls of the guild, Pokemon began to slowly trickle in and out of the building, ready to fulfill a new round of requests and missions for the day.

And then there was Alakazam who shook angrily as his achingly twitchy eyes threw daggers onto the paper he was just a few careless movements away from tearing apart completely.

What was supposed to be a note from Loudred explaining the situation was instead a messy bout of random crayon doodles, no doubt drawn by an illiterate Mokona. But even with the questionable messaging, Alakazam could tell exactly what the rest of his team had just done.

“They just left me back here!!”

Yes, he made a big deal last night about how they should abandon the inhabitants of this world in favor of searching for the King and the King only. Yes, he may have gone out of line with some of the things he said to Cody. Yes, he was a stubborn mule who refused to admit he was not and never would be the main authority on anything.

But like hell was he going to be left alone here.

After haphazardly gathering details on the rest of the group’s possible whereabouts, he comically sped out and into the distance.

 

oOo

 

Almost an hour had passed since the group started their trek. Cody had never been one for extended periods of physical activity, but he would’ve assumed all the running he’d done the past few days would’ve done something to him. Apparently, not only had Cody not miraculously become acclimated to sleeping like an animal, but he wasn’t used to being on all fours for extended periods of time either.

“Hey, are you alright?” Treecko asked in worry. Cody had managed to lag far behind enough that Treecko, the loner who purposely kept his distance from the others, caught up to him.

“Uh, yeah,” Cody replied with feigned positivity.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m still sluggish from yesterday is all.” He knew that wasn’t the reason, but any ounce of honesty would risk revealing himself. He may had already decided to head face into this world’s affairs, but even he wasn’t dumb enough to go further than that.

Treecko raised his brow. Cody couldn’t help but feel that the grass type Pokemon still had suspicions, but it didn’t appear he was willing to press further.

Silence settled between the two as they continued to walk at their own pace. Up ahead, Chimchar, Loudred, and Mokona were already well acquainted with one another, happily roughhousing and laughing amongst themselves as they carried along. It was a steep contrast to the blank and almost dreary atmosphere that surrounded the two in the back.

Cody was sweating. Things were getting awkward.

“S-so,” he began. “Chimchar’s your Exploration Team partner, right?”

“Yeah. And?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking how it was kind of funny how different you two are despite everything. How’d you guys team up anyway?”

It was time for Treecko to be uncomfortable. “Well, he was the first Pokemon I remember meeting since about a week ago…”

“...Huh?”

“...”

“You’re not gonna elaborate on that?”

“...”

“Well? Treecko?”

“...”

“Hey, Treecko---”

“I have amnesia, okay?” Treecko blurted out in frustration.

Oh?

“And are you going to elaborate on that?”

“Has anyone ever told you how nosy you are?”

With that, Treecko skipped ahead to catch up with his fire monkey friend. Despite how gloomy and unapproachable the small green reptile seemed, he looked relaxed and at ease with his much more excitable partner. Cody couldn’t help but smile seeing the two. Even with their contrasting personalities, they were like two halves of a coin. Their interactions seemed natural with one another as if they’d been friends their entire life.

Must be nice , Cody thought.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was jealous.

Cody blinked. The others up front had stopped in their tracks. And it was no wonder. Right in front of them was the entranceway to a cave that was drenched in pitch black. It was like the road to hell was laid out neatly in front of them.

“That’s...quite a cave,” Loudred laughed nervously.

“What he heck?” Treecko mumbled under his breath.

Loudred looked at Treecko in shock. “Uh, is this place not supposed to look like this?”

“Definitely not,” Chimchar replied with a tinge of fear in his voice. “This place is known as ‘The Glistening Caverns’. The whole cave is supposed to be covered head to toe in jewel encrusted rocks and boulders.”

“There were teams here just yesterday. Nobody reported anything weird going on here,” Treecko added.

“This couldn’t have happened overnight, could it?”

Cody gulped. As did Loudred and perhaps Mokona as well. They knew that whatever happened here overnight, it was the Heartless’s doing. With what they seemed to be capable of, would they be ready to fight what laid ahead?

No one dared to take the first step. It was as if  they worried the cave would consume them as well. Eyes constantly shifted amongst themselves, trying to mentally push each other to take one for the team. After a while, Mokona appeared to be the sole volunteer, but he was quickly pulled back as the worry continued that walking into the dark would end their very existence.

Alakazam finally entered the scene, rolling his eyes at this sorry sight. “You made such a big deal about going against me and you guys won’t even walk in?”

The group jolted at his voice; his fellow teammates especially. They fully expected the guy to just stubbornly go about his day without them.

As Alakazam approached, Cody couldn’t help but wince thinking the dude was ready to unleash part two to their raucous debate. Alakazam however simply walked past him to become the first real entrant into the cursed looking cavern.

“Hey, Mokona,” he called out, prompting the temporary Togepi to bounce towards him. “Aerith said you’re multi-purpose, right? Any chance you’ve got a camera function or…”

“Camera?” Cody blinked. 

Alakazam gave him a face as if Cody just said the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “Well duh. How else do you expect to gather evidence? How dumb can you get?”

Cody wasn’t sure what he was more stunned by; the fact that Alakazam was very blatantly continuing to openly roast the ever loving heck out of him or the fact that he was willing to help enough to smooth over an oversight he and the others missed.

“Well,” Mokona tilted his head in thought. “I don’t have a camera, but…” He crouched down as if he were harnessing energy before allowing a light beam of light to reflect from the beaded gem on his forehead. Before them was a translucent image of Loudred and Chimchar spewing out over the top faces to one another; no doubt a memory from their horseplay from earlier.

“If I concentrate on something hard enough, I can embed the image into my memories like this.”

“That’s perfect!” Loudred praised as he happily grabbed Mokona to allow the small creature to perch on his head like usual. Apparently Alakazam’s first steps gave him enough courage to follow the two into the entranceway.

“That’s some Togepi,” Chimchar mused in awe before following as well.

Cody and Treecko were once again left straggling behind. Cody was completely taken aback by Alakazam’s sudden change in tune and acted almost apprehensively at it. Although he offered no words of support, it was as if Treecko stuck around as a means for Cody to bounce his muddled feelings onto. The duo gave knowing blank stares to one another before they too finally entered the cave as well.

The contents of the cavernous dungeon were no different from the one they explored just yesterday. At every corner they crept towards laid constant swarms of Heartless and corrupted Pokemon. The only huge difference now was the added on threatening aura that the pitch blank darkness created. Who knew how worse off they would’ve been if Chimchar’s own built-in flame tail wasn’t lighting the way.

The group fought and provoked enemies for what felt like hours on end. In turn, Mokona constantly bounced around from battle to battle, trying to capture as much “footage” as he possibly could. Despite all the time and effort however, they knew nothing they’d gotten would be enough for Purugly. All they needed was to run into that Shadow Pichu the feline had described, but not once did they come across a Pokemon that was even remotely similar. It was next to impossible to tell what time it was with the area’s condition, but they knew that they were quickly running out of it.

“All this and still not a single Pichu,” Treecko grumbled.

“Well,” Chimchar said shakily, knowing his positive spin would be fruitless. “We have so much evidence of other Heartless. Maybe that would be enough?”

“You know it won’t be,” Treecko griped back. He had more than enough energy left over to continue his rant, but he settled for massaging his head instead.

Cody cringed. Treecko and Chimchar assured him this morning that this predicament was just as much of their responsibility as his, but even still, he couldn’t help but feel guilt for their current situation. Not even theirs; Pichu’s situation. If they didn’t deliver, she was doomed. Maybe if he’d shut his big mouth last night, there could’ve been a better way to save her?

He glanced at his teammates. Loudred saw his weary eyes and could only respond with an apologetic look. He knew that this wasn’t working. The perpetually energetic Mokona already seemed worn out, no doubt from all the memory overload they already forced on to him.

And then there was Alakazam who set things off with one phrase.

“I knew this was a waste of time.”

Any anger Cody was ready to throw at him was immediately beaten out by the sheer force of Treecko’s own emotions.

“What are you even doing here?” He smacked at the larger Pokemon.

“Me?” Alakazam arched his eyebrows, surprised that the small gecko dared to start something with him.

“Yes, you!” Treecko snapped. “I saw the look on your face after that meeting with Purugly. I heard everything you said last night. If you’re clearly so above ‘interfering’ with stuff that doesn’t matter to you, then why are you here? Why are you here claiming to help and then giving up and saying saving a little girl is ‘a waste of time’?!”

He really dug into him. Treecko now defiantly stared him down the same way he’d done to Purugly last night. Only now, it was against someone who was supposedly his ally.

“I didn’t say saving a kid was a waste of time,” Alakazam replied in confused arrogance.

“What other meaning could you possibly get out of that then?”

This is a waste of time.”

This is our only way to save the kid. Just admit you’re a heartless jerk and quit pretending you care!”

Loudred gulped. Alakazam was not known for his leveled temperament and he could already tell the psychic Pokemon was ready to strangle the much smaller Treecko. He instinctively ran over to his friend to hold him back; a good call as Al was already trying to get up close and personal to the gecko.

“H-hey,” Chimchar breathed. “Treecko, he just said that because he’s tired. We all are. Please, we can’t be fighting like this.”

“He’s right though,” Cody mumbled.

Loudred started to sweat profusely. With Cody’s entrance, he knew exactly what was coming. Alakazam was set off yet again and the two launched into the same screaming match they had last night; only now there was a third player in the pack. Poor Loudred and Chimchar were left struggling to contain the three while Mokona just lazily sat aside and spectated like he was watching an intense drama.

“For the last time,” Alakazam growled. “You have severe delusions of grandeur and you never went into this with pure thoughts to begin with. Stop pretending like you’re the better one out of us!”

“Oh shut up! You have piles of stupid excuses why you can’t be bothered to save not even just Pichu but any person who needs help. At least I had enough sense to know she needed my help!”

“Yeah, and I showed up too! What more do you want from me?”

“You showed up just to complain,” Treecko grumped. “You’re doing this out of obligation, not because you actually want to save her.”

“No I’m not!”

“Prove it!”

“Why I outta…”

“Guys, seriously, please stop,” Chimchar started to look like he was about to cry. He felt so helpless just watching this turmoil explode right in front of him knowing that all three were too heated in their verbal match to listen to reason at this point.

Loudred saw the tension in Chimchar’s face and decided enough was enough. He was going to end this the same way he ended things last night. After taking in a deep breath, Loudred started to ready himself for the loudest Uproar he could muster. Everyone’s hearing abilities were in danger now.

Luckily though, the Uproar never came because the petty argument was instead interrupted with a shadowy creature charging right between them, giving them just mere seconds to dodge the tips of its claws.

Everyone shifted looks amongst one another as they attempted to process what had just occurred. Alakazam however was quick enough on the fly to locate and examine what exactly split right past them. It was no doubt yet another Heartless corrupted Pokemon. It was distorted in dark colors that contrasted against its bright yellow eyes that glowed in the darkness. Its hands were morphed into disturbingly intricate claws which almost comically clashed in size compared to the creature’s demure body. It was like a tiny little demon with horns that helped double its height alone.

Even with its mangled looks, Alakazam could tell that they had finally found their Pichu.

He desperately pointed towards its direction as the small Heartless made a mad dash out of there. “That one’s a Pichu! After it!”

Still disoriented from the might of the previous argument, the others trailed behind Alakazam as their chase through the cave began. The tiny dark creature zipped through every opening and crevasse it could find to shake the motley crew off but would continuously be ratted out time and time again by the bright flash of Mokona’s red light sifting through. Unfortunately, even if Mokona gave them an advantage, the sheer speed of the shadow mouse made any effort for him to take a proper “picture” of the Heartless naught.

“Hold still dangit,” Treecko grumbled as he activated his Detect ability, allowing the group to more easily pick out pitch black creature from the equally pitch black backdrop.

Chimchar loaded up balls of fire both to help make the Heartless Pichu more legible in sight but also to shoot flames at it itself. Of course, none of those flames would land on the creature that shifted its pace and position by the second, and soon, the Pichu lunged its claws towards the monkey in a crazed manner as if it were preparing to gouge open his chest. At least there was no doubt that they were indeed fighting off against the very monster that had attempted to take out Purugly’s life.

Chimchar winced while the others could only run desperately towards the two in the few moments they had before his end would come.

Chimchar slowly opened his eyes. Rather than the sight of a diminutive demon tearing him apart, he instead saw its snarling face desperately grasping towards him as it floated around suspended in midair.

In the distance, Alakazam was holding his arms outstretched as he telekinetically held the overly energetic creature in place. Even with its small size, the sheer franticness of the creature proved to be difficult for him to contain.

“Hurry up and take its picture,” he barked over at Mokona.

As if Alakazam turned on a switch in the small guy, Mokona excitedly sprinted from his spot and flashed his gem light at a rapid pace as he built up their pile of evidence. Even as Alakazam began to lose his grip on the Heartless, forcing the others to fend off whatever lightning sparks and claws it threw onto them, Mokona continued to diligently snap shot after shot all the way to the false Pichu’s demise.

With the Heartless now gone and their mission more or less complete, Alakazam enthusiastically fistpumped in celebration only to look away sheepishly after catching a blank stare from Treecko.

“Alright,” Cody cheered. “I was worried there for a sec, but it really did work out in the end.”

“It sure did,” Treecko mumbled, still exchanging awkward glances with the same guy he’d been yelling furiously at earlier.

Treecko reached under his scarf for his badge; their easy ticket out of here. Things of course could never end simply. A strong gust of wind suddenly pushed through the caverns, knocking the badge straight out of the gecko’s hands. He blinked in utter confusion. How in the hell was there wind this deep into the cave? The rest of the group seemed to have the same reaction, all except Chimchar who was stunned into dread.

“We have to get out here,” Chimchar griped. His level of fear earned increased confusion from the group. “What? Do you guys really don’t know?”

Blank stares.

Chimchar groaned. “I expected Treecko to be clueless, but you four too?"

“There’s this omen with Exploration Teams; the big reason why they always tell us to finish our missions as soon as possible. If we linger around remote areas we’re not native to, a demon Pokemon will lurk in the shadows and blow us away.”

“So, it would just shove us towards the exit?” Cody said. “That doesn’t sound bad. Honestly, we could use that right now.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Chimchar cried. It’s like being sucked into the eye of a hurricane and there’s no telling when you’d get out. Come on Treecko, we need to get out of here as soon as---”

Right as Treecko began to walk over to pick up his badge, mostly to shut his partner up if anything, another large gust of wind billowed by. It not only blew the badge further off, but it carried it away as if someone had just snatched it. Everyone gaped in shock while Chimchar continued to cower in fear. That was their quick ticket out of here. If they tried to navigate the caves with their own devices, they were doomed to miss the deadline of their mission. If they didn’t chase after it, they were screwed.

So of course, they ran like hell.

If there was any doubt that there was a mysterious force behind the wind, it blew away alongside the badge the further they ventured off into the dungeon. There was a lingering thought amongst all six of them: This was a path they were following, but where was it taking them to? They wondered to themselves if they should stop in their tracks, weary about what exactly this supposed demon had under its sleeves. And when they found themselves at a dead end, their unease only escalated.

Just like the rest of the cave, the spacious room was walled in pitch black with the vast majority of the glowing jewels having lost their shine from the overwhelming gloom. In the upper crust of the wall opposite of them, however, lay a single cluster of gems that had miraculously survived the cave’s makeover, shining like a keyhole constellation in the vast night sky. Cody stared in awe at the display, completely distracted from the blister of wind that continued carrying the badge throughout the confines of the room.

The badge frantically flew across every corner of the strange area and the breeze of each movement quickly culminated into an insular tornado. Everyone had given up trying to go after the badge and shifted their focus to making sure they didn’t get carried away by the peculiar storm themselves. The wind kept getting stronger and stronger and stronger…

Until right in the middle of the lit space stood a towering juggling stickman in red and black stripes; Trickmaster.

“What the heck?” Chimchar breathed. The entire day, they’d fought nothing but Heartless that resembled the fellow Pokemon that he and Treecko were used to interacting with on a day-to-day basis. Not only was this their first true blood Heartless, it was their first real glimpse at the true terror that endangered their world.

Treecko was the first to take action and ran towards the monster as he shot out a small string of Energy Balls. Chimchar took his partner’s lead and let out Ember flares, only to be horrified when it tossed his attacks right back at him. Trickmaster wasn’t just a juggler; he was a fully pyrokinetic one. That meant Treecko was in grave danger.

Before Chimchar could even cry out for help, Mokona rushed in and shot a force field right in front of the grass gecko before flames from Trickmaster’s erratic dance could rain on to him. Mokona gleefully continued taking more memory snapshots which prompted Treecko to tell him to move out of the way in annoyance.

Alakazam and Loudred quickly joined the fray. Now that they knew exactly what kind of monster they were dealing with, it was apparent their newfound friends wouldn’t be able to get much done on their own.

Cody once again stood quietly in the back, quivering helplessly in place. He wanted to charge forward alongside his companions, but the same frozen anxiety that built up in him back at Traverse Town returned in full force. Cody admittedly hadn’t been much of an asset at all since they arrived in this world. He knew he was a triple threat of disappointment here. He was already below an amateur in combat, but here, he also had to learn how to shoddily fight on all fours with his weapon in his mouth. He actively tried to pass most confrontations on to his peers in an attempt to fight as little as possible.

During the battle at Traverse Town, he kept telling himself that he wasn’t going to run away anymore. He never wanted to have that same sense of paralyzing fear and helplessness ever again, but there he was, and like hell if he hadn’t been running away the entire damn time.

It dawned on him.

Maybe Al was right.

Everyone must’ve caught on quickly that he avoided almost every fight. Loudred and Mokona said nothing out of politeness, but Alakazam knew Cody had a responsibility, and he refused to let his behavior slide. This whole time, he’d been against his companion because he felt he did nothing but beat him down when in reality, he was just trying to pull his head out of the sand he dug himself into. They both knew deep down that Cody wouldn’t be the one truly doing the saving in this mission, yet he brought it upon himself anyway.

He was, wasn’t he?

“Get out of the way!”

!!

Cody was suddenly slammed straight on to the ground, having just narrowly missed an enormous ball of flame that engulfed the spot where he once stood.

He wearily regained his stance and he audibly gasped at what he saw. Alakazam groaned in pain as he laid down, all scratched up with small trickles of fire sprinkled throughout his body. He had just pushed Cody out of harm’s way.

“Wh-why didn’t you just push me out of the way with your mind?”

“It was literally right about to hit you. No time to concentrate,” Alakazam groaned as he smashed his tired hands onto his flames to put them out. “Look, I get that this is your first time ever being in a body like this and there’s no easy way for you to suddenly know how to fight. Just be more careful if you plan to lay low.”

Something in his head just clicked in him. He didn’t want a repeat of Traverse Town, but this was most assuredly worse than what happened in Traverse Town.

So he decided to do the exact same tactic as back then.

He ran into the thick of battle, blindly and furiously.

Alakazam slapped his hand on his face. “Idiot…"

Cody bit onto the handle of his keyblade like his life depended on it as he slashed and sliced sloppily on to Trickmaster’s lower body. He knew the amount of damage he was doing was probably worse than miniscule, but he refused to just stand there and do nothing. Something about his sudden valor sparked light in the rest of the fighters. Even if Cody’s attacks did nothing, the increasing force of the others’ gradually wore on the monstrous performer. Trickmaster’s juggling began to lose momentum, and the flaming projectiles he held simply fell limply on to the ground.

Loudred smirked. It looked like they were ready to take it down.

After giving a quick warning to the others to scatter off, Loudred wailed out an Uproar that blew through the Heartless almost as strongly as its own wind did earlier to Treecko’s badge. All juggling had now seized as it toppled around the room, dazed and confused.

Cody yelped in surprise as Treecko and Chimchar lifted him up into the air. He looked at the two who had the cockiest grins on their faces.

“Wh-what the heck are you doing?”

“That thing’s strong against grass and fire, so your sword key thing will probably finish it,” Chimchar explained.

“Huh?”

“We’re throwing you at it,” Treecko clarified bluntly.

“What?!”

And with that, Cody was launched straight into the air and towards Trickmaster. The sheer vertigo forced his mouth to lose grip of the Keyblade as he spiraled downwards. He summoned it back in a panic, forcing it to reappear, dangling on his tail.

And something else happened as he plummeted downwards into a powerful strike.

His tail morphed into a strange stance. What was once a thick patch of fluffy fur was now turning into a hardened metal with a shining luster.

He hit Trickmaster square on the head with a double whammy of the Keyblade and Iron Tail.

Trickmaster flailed around wildly, mimicing a dying screech with its body that had no mouth. A final flurry of wind erupted in the closed space, forcing the group to brace themselves as the last spray of flames came raining towards them. In that moment, there was a fear that their battle was for naught; that they would meet their demise even as the monster came crumbling down. But as the balls of fire began shrinking into glistening sparkles of light, those fears faltered. The wind slowly died down as Trickmaster’s form quickly faded away from sight. Soon enough, the last remnants of the Heartless were twinkling lights that lit the once darkened room like fireflies and shooting stars.

It was hard not to stop and stare breathlessly at the sight. It was like they had their own piece of the night sky right in this cave. And at the upper crust of the artificial scene were the gems that miraculously survived the cave’s corruption, gleaming brilliantly like a fabled constellation.

A constellation of a keyhole.

Cody couldn’t figure out why he got such an indescribable feeling about the jeweled arrangement, but what he did know was that there was a part of him that kept urging him towards it. It was like he was possessed by his own Keyblade. He wasn’t sure why he pointed the key upwards at the rocks as if this was the most natural thing to do in the world. And what followed he was even less well equipped to describe.

The bejeweled stones were no longer mere glimpses of light; they were morphing into light itself. In their place now laid an actual keyhole that blared at the group with the brightest warmth most of them ever felt.

Cody blinked. This was the same feeling he had back on the island when he first came in possession of the Keyblade. The moment when he thought he had met his end and a literal miracle saved his very existence.

Whatever this was, it was the true power of the Keyblade.

A soft beam of light trailed out of the tips of the key and towards the lighting lock. A final burst of light erupted in the room, engulfing the cave of darkness like the morning sun.

By the time everyone’s vision returned, the cave was no longer the haunting dungeon of never ending darkness they’d entered. The gems that the walls and ground held now glistened brightly in their natural state. The Heartless that tainted this beautiful cavern were no more.

Treecko turned his attention towards the ground. They were all so distracted by the mesmerizing sight, they’d almost forgotten why they were here to begin with.

He walked up and picked up his worn badge.

It was time to head back.

 

oOo

 

Purugly could do nothing but twitch aggressively as she witnessed the act right in front of her. Cody and the gang had all returned just in the nick of time and were happily putting on a show of their triumphs for the entire guild to see. Cody and Chimchar recounted their adventure in increasingly exaggerated ways while Mokona flashed through his visual manifestations of his memories like a slideshow. Loudred blasted music in a massive fanfare which increased in intensity as the wild presentation continued. The whole scene was the very definition of mockery.

Purugly was fuming.

“None of this is evidence!” She cried. “That Pichu could’ve been a completely different one.”

“And where’s the evidence saying it wasn’t?” Cody smirked. “A scary and monstrous Pichu that was trying to claw its way into ripping our hearts straight out of our chests. Matches your description, no?”

There was really no reason at this point for Purugly to continue pressing the issue. She had no real personal vendetta towards Pichu nor did she personally know the child either. But to her, all of this was a direct attack on her pride and as if she was going to let these clowns get away with it.

Purugly marched menacingly towards Pichu. Her movement was heavy and full of force. The confusion towards her actions forced everyone in the room to spring into action much too late as they all witnessed the feline raise her claws at the cowering mouse. With his quick wit, Treecko Tackled her away right as her swipe was about to connect. The vengeful cat was left stumbling pathetically around the room in a dazed fury.

Alakazam grabbed hold of her before she could accidentally hurt herself. She glanced at the psychic type and could see nothing but pure loathing in his stern eyes. He spoke no words, but the message was clear. It was time for her to give up.

“Pichu is innocent,” she grumbled in defeated contempt.

 

oOo

 

“Thank you so so much,” Pichu cried for what felt like the umpteenth time.

The sun had begun to set and Cody’’s group and their three Treasure Town acquaintances occupied the fields leading out of town. Treecko and Chimchar had suggested the four stay for at least one more night, but with more mysteries added on to their journey, the group decided it was best to leave as soon as they could.

“Don’t mention it,” Alakazam mumbled in embarrassment as he gently patted the small rat’s head. Treecko exchanged a smug smile towards him which caused his face to grow red.

“You sure you guys can’t stay another day or two?” Chimchar chimed in. “We’d love to go adventuring with you guys some more.”

“We’d love to, but,” Loudred grinned. “We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”

“Yeah,” Mokona jumped excitedly. “We’ve gotta kick Heartless butt and save every single worl—”

Alakazam quickly smacked his hand on to Mokona’s mouth which forced the small egg to flail energetically in muffles as the larger Pokemon started to drag him away. With that, it was their signal to finally leave for good. Not without Cody leaving with the last words of course.

“Hey, Treecko,” he called out. “You’ll get your memories back. I know you will.” As he began to make his leave, Cody attempted to flash a hearty thumbs up at the three just like he did the night before. Once again, his paws failed to create anything discerning, gaining a triad of amused laughter from Treecko, Chimchar, and Pichu. The three repeated the same awkward gesture back at their new friends; a sign of their farewell and newfound bond.

“Man,” Cody chuckled lightly, turning towards his more permanent companions this time. “I cannot wait to get back on the ship. If I have to sleep on all fours again, my back’s gonna crack for good.”

They clearly weren’t far away enough to be having this conversation.

Treecko and Chimchar glanced at each other, eyes wide.

“Wait,” the monkey cried out, almost ready to sprint after them. “Did you used to be human?! Treecko used to be human too. Please, come back. We could use you hel—”

Just as immediately as he shut up Mokona, Alakazam focused his telekinetic energy around the entire group’s bodies and forced them to speed off into the distance before anyone could give a proper answer. The three remaining Pokemon were left staring wordlessly into the distance as the peculiar quartet quickly left their field of visions.

It was such a bizarre exit, all Treecko could do was smirk. “What a weird bunch.”

 

oOo

 

Maleficent and Ashley stared at the foggy vision in front of them that chronicled the tribulations their foes just faced. Based on their performance back at Traverse Town, they fully expected the four to fall at the hands of a mere corrupted demon.

None of that went according to plan.

“Ha,” a third voice interrupted from behind. “Some half baked plan that was, Ash. You’re her top apprentice, right? Can’t say I’m impressed so far.”

The diminutive witch was fuming. She shot eyes of fire towards her new colleague, Heather. She had merely been brought in to learn and observe and there she was already acting as if she knew she was about to take her place in the castle.

A normal teacher would’ve told her students to simmer down, but a being of doom and chaos like Maleficent welcomed the clash. To her, inciting pointless hatred and distrust was all part of the training regimen. As the two junior witches glared menacingly at one another with body languages that were ready to break into a fighting stance at any moment, Maleficent nonchalantly made her exit and passed by another one of her conspirators along the way.

It was Tabuu’s turn now.

Chapter 8: Smash Stadium: The Right to Brawl

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Just like days before, Cody and the gang resumed their cruise through the stars. Tensions unfortunately hadn’t settled down much since their last time onboard. In fact, despite the lack of bickering, things had probably gotten worse. In the back, Cody and Mokona cheerily replayed the battle against Trickmaster again and again alongside rounds of boastful chatter. And in the front, Loudred, acting as the pilot once again, awkwardly tended to a perpetually sneering Alakazam.

“Two big bosses down,” Cody laughed in a haughty manner as he playfully tossed around his Keyblade into the air in an almost rhythmic pattern. “Can’t believe Yuffie was right. I really am going to turn into a hero.”

Mokona, who’d been projecting his memories for the two to view, jumped happily up and down as they once again reached the moment Cody laid his final two strikes. “So cool!”

“Heck yeah, I’m the coolest!”

Loudred tried to stay in his default state of lackadaisical smiles and composure, but as he shifted his eyes towards Alakazam, even he couldn’t help but feel nervous. His friend was trying his best to block out Cody’s arrogance, but at the same time, he barely tried at all. It was like he wanted to relish in the teen’s stupidity just to purposely fuel his anger. Loudred might as well have been sitting next to a leaking time bomb.

Mokona’s slideshow suddenly jumped over to the last bit of their Mystery Treasure Dungeon adventure; the moment none of them had any clue what to make of. They were consumed into warmth and light, and the Keyblade performed an act none of them could quite make out. Cody’s boasts subsided as he took time to seriously examine the scenes. What happened back there? None of the crew could provide an answer, and the mystery of it all made them all unwilling to try to attempt one themselves.

“Hey, we’re about to land!” Loudred called out, almost relieved he was going to escape the suffocating negativity in the ship.

Cody and Mokona jumped. They were approaching a brand new world. Cody quickly erupted into a cocky smirk.

“Don’t get too excited,” Alakazam grumbled. “We are sticking to our search this time, got it?”

He wasn’t actually facing Cody when he spoke out to him, his built up spite wouldn’t take it, but even then, he could sense the eye rolling.

Boy was Loudred glad they could all finally get off that ship.

 

oOo

 

SMASH STADIUM

 

oOo

 

In the upper depths of the sky, a grand platform lay suspended in the clouds. And on it laid an even grander stadium.

Cody eyed the massive structure in excitement while Mokona bounced along, copying his enthusiasm even if he wasn’t quite sure why. Loudred couldn’t help but grin at the two as if he were a proud father taking his kids to a theme park for the first time.

And then there was Alakazam whose attention was occupied at the very edge of the platform. His eyes bulged out in terror as he marveled at the ground deep down below.

If he was so scared of heights, why was he willing to look down at the ground anyway?

“Hey, are you coming?”

Alakazam was snapped out of his internal turmoil by Cody’s voice who called back at him in an annoyed tone. The rest of the group was already further up ahead, heading towards the entrance of the lavish building. For once, Alakazam was too taken in by his own state of mind to give Cody another snide remark as he hurriedly shoved the boy aside while he rushed past the others.

“A simple ‘excuse me’ would do,” Cody angrily yelled in response. The usual bickering he expected never came as Alakazam just continued along his way in frantic silence.

Loudred leaned towards Cody. “He’s deathly afraid of heights.”

“What? Seriously?”

“Yeah. That’s why he never uses his telekinesis on himself.”

“He was looking at the edge with his own free will,” Mokona chimed. “What a dummy.”

“Yeah, he does that. Guy’s got a bad habit of indulging in stuff he knows he’ll hate.”

Cody blinked in surprise. Alakazam, in all his tightwad glory, always seemed like he was on top of everything that came his way. There was a part of him that was glad to finally discover a weakness in that overserious head of his.

“Hey, are you three coming or not?”

Alakazam echoed the same calls over to his three companions who had lagged behind just to gossip.

“It’s not just that idiot not taking things seriously this time,” he shook his head.

And with that, the four made their way into the stadium

 

oOo

 

“Who even are these people?” A young woman furrowed her brows as she hunched behind the lobby’s reception desk. Her waist long sky blue braid bounced in the air as she rapidly reviewed the documents that cluttered her computer screen over and over again. She bit her lips and frumpled her light white dress in frustration. Entry after entry were images of mysterious creatures cloaked in black and bright gold eyes.

She didn’t know it at the time, but they were all Heartless.

“Literally all these entrants and only one normal looking dude? Somehow just that makes him even more suspicious. Who is he?”

“HI, EXCUSE ME, COULD YOU TELL US WHERE WE ARE?”

She screamed.

Alakazam elbowed Loudred while he, Cody, and Mokona all covered their ears in pain. “How many times do I have to tell you? You’re a lot louder than you think you are.”

“Sorry,” Loudred responded a lot more cheerfully than he should have.

“When you say it like that, it doesn’t sound like you mean it,” Cody snarked.

“Uh, excuse me?” The woman started, steadily matching her wavelength with the mood of the new group in front of her. “Are you four here for the Newcomers Tournament?”

Cody blinked. “Tournament?”

Alakazam jolted in disdainful worry.

“Do you not know where you are?” She laughed as if that information was the most obvious thing in the world. “This is Smash Stadium; a world in the crossroads between worlds where heroes gather to train and fight.”

Cody’s interest piqued.

Alakazam knew what was coming next.

“How do I enter?” Cody leaned forward, his grin large enough to tear the corners of his face.

“Whoa, calm down,” the woman giggled. “Unfortunately, the next tournament is going to start really soon, so most of the normal registration methods are already closed.

“But,” she winked as she snapped her fingers. “We have a system set up where certain staff members can get fighters in based on recommendation. Groups are fine too. You just gotta come back here with an entry sticker and you’re good to go.”

Alakazam wanted to halt this conversation right this instant, but Cody’s enthusiasm was much faster than he could handle. Loudred and Mokona, who were much more indifferent to what was being entailed, simply snickered mischievously beside him.

“So who do I go to for a sticker?”

The woman pointed to her right. “There’s a guy named Seth who should be working down the hall right now. Just tell him Bianca sent you guys.”

Cody shot a quick pair of finger guns as thanks before skipping along. Any protests Alakazam could’ve made were for naught as Mokona forcefully hitched a ride on his head while Loudred pulled him along. Bianca could hear his complaints alongside the happy duo’s cheerful noises as the four made their way out of the lobby.

She smiled, sat back down in her chair, and lightly rested her head in her hands with strangely intimate thoughts mulling her head. “Something about the guy feels kind of familiar…”

 

oOo

 

The moment Loudred and Mokona both let go of him, Alakazam was on his usual shit once again.

“I thought I told you we were going to be serious this time,” he shot at Cody, who was having absolutely no issues ignoring him. “The last world, sure, we saved a kid, but what does anyone have to gain with us entering a fighting tournament?”

“Don’t be a killjoy,” Mokona bounced on to him once more, forcing a shrill screech from the Pokemon.

“Yeah, this sounds like it could be fun,” Loudred added.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alakazam gaped.

“That’s three against one,” Cody mocked from up ahead. “Like, come on. Every kid grows up watching anime with tournament arcs and stuff. Can’t blame me for getting excited.”

“Yes, I can,” Alakazam grumbled inaudibly.

The group slowly halted in place as they noticed a new figure up ahead. A guy with a mess of bright orange and blond streaks and a white sleeveless trenchcoat that just barely draped on to the floor was meticulously arranging a bulletin board display. This was the first person they ran into on their way through the wing, but there was still some skepticism abound. He looked even younger than Bianca. Was this really Seth?

A loud bang could be heard from the men’s bathroom just a couple of steps away.

“Yo, Seth, uh, one of the toilets is, um, really clogged. Uh…can you get someone else to do this?”

The young man groaned and without leaving his eyes from his workspace, he shouted back, “You guys are the cleaning slaves. Just grab a plunger and deal with it yourselves.” He continued on with his commanding tone as the two voices in the bathroom continued yammering.

Cody squinted. Those voices were strangely familiar. But more importantly, this was seriously Seth?

He felt a hard push from the back from what felt like a rabbit foot. After giving an incredulous look at Mokona, Cody nervously approached the young man supposedly named Seth.

The closer he got, the more he got a sense of just how small the guy was. Cody was considered fairly short for his age, but this guy, who sounded like he wasn’t too far apart in age from him, had almost the stature of a child who just barely hit puberty. The trenchcoat didn’t drag near the ground because of its length but rather his whole attire was made up of clothes much too big for him, all baggy and stuffed in attempts to falsify a look of normalcy. He wasn’t going to lie, he felt a bit nervous when he was told to practically beg for an entry sticker, but the image laid in front of him proved to assuage his fears.

Or at least they did until what transpired next.

“Um—”

“Whatever you guys broke, I don’t care,” Seth cut in almost instantaneously. “Could you just move that display case back there a bit?” Seth flew his thumb over his shoulder towards the bulky furniture sitting on the opposite side of the hall. “After they spruced up the walls around here, the feng shui’s been throwing me off. Just move it a tiny bit to the left, alright?”

Cody blinked and gave a quick look to his companions. All he received in return were shrugs.

Might as well I guess.

He may have become a fighter in the past couple of days, but even he knew that he was still relatively useless when it came to heavy lifting. He quickly shuffled next to the case, took a deep breath, and…

…His brows started to sweat and his muscles ached like hell. Just about what he expected.

“Hey, uh,” he winced over at Seth. “Sorry, it’s a bit too heavy for me. Could you get someone else—”

“What did you say?” There was a sudden coldness in Seth’s voice.

Cody blinked. “Uh…it’s too heavy?”

Too heavy? ” With his eyes shut tight and his fist ready to snap the pen he held in half at any second, Seth furiously swung over to Cody.

I’ve been training each and every one of you for how long and this thing is too heavy for you?! You’ve gotta be kidding me. If I were in a worse mood, I would’ve kicked you out of the Brawlers right this second! Do I have to double all of your training regimens just so I know all of you can push over a measly display case? How about triple them?!

He opened his eyes.

Cody looked like he just pissed his pants.

“Oh, I thought you were one of them. My bad, “ Seth concluded nonchalantly before he turned his back and resumed his errand like nothing happened.

Seth sighed and turned around once again. He didn’t have to check to know that Cody was still there.

“If you’re trying to get last minute seats or something, ask Bianca at the front desk.”

“Uh, actually,” Cody coughed. He was caught so off guard by Seth’s outburst that he failed to regain any sense of composure. “She told us you could get us an entry sticker, so…”

There was a brief moment of silence as Seth stared off into space trying to process what Cody just requested of him. In an instant, his poker face distorted to a cynical and almost cruel amused grin.

“You’re kidding me,” he snorted. “You couldn’t even push over a display case and you expect to survive in a tournament?”

Well you didn’t have to laugh in my face about it.

After wiping away a tear, Seth’s face of bemused mockery quickly flipped over to a similar one of anger and annoyance he held earlier.

“Listen, I take my role as a trainer seriously.”

He trudged over to Cody in a threatening manner. Despite the fact that the other teen had to tilt his head upwards just to look Cody in the eyes, even he could feel the air of authority and superiority from him.

And it pissed him off.

“If you think you can just waltz right in here with the body strength of a slinky made with string cheese and beat people up just for fun, I’m going to ask you get out of my face and don’t come back.”

“Hey, back off,” Cody spat. “You can’t just judge how tough I am based on that. I’ll have you know, me and my crew…” He gestured over to his three companions who had largely stood around awkwardly in silence this entire time. “We’ve been traveling around and beating tons of monsters left and right. We’re more than qualified to fight.”

Seth eyed the three and gave a disdainful grimace. “You’ve got Pokemon with you too? How original. Maybe you four might be interested in volunteering as assist items instead?”

If Cody couldn’t deal with Seth’s attitude, Alakazam and his short temper were certainly having none of it.

“Alright, that’s it,” he grumbled as he made his way towards the display case. Just like Cody, he manifested what little body strength he had into his push, but to no avail. He even resorted to using his telekinesis, nearly forcing his eyes to bulge out of their sockets in agony as he tried his absolute damndest to do anything to this stupid thing. And of course, that didn’t do anything either.

“Mind helping?” Al choked as he motioned his eyes, tearing up from all the pressure he exerted, towards Loudred. He, and even Cody nearby, jumped at this request. They were already distracted at their amazement that his stubbornness himself was actually entertaining this, but he actually seemed determined to make it happen.

The bulky Pokemon hobbled on over and shoved his shoulder alongside his companion against the frustratingly secure case.

“Hey, Mokona,” Loudred called. Al gave him an odd look. The heck can Mokona help in all this?

Mokona rammed his head at lightning speed towards the case, frightening the two Pokemon as they bolted away mere seconds before his impact. Mokona was like a cannonball and even then, nothing happened.

Seth looked on in a mix of mirth and pity. “These have got to be the weakest Pokemon I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, and you can do better?” Cody sneered.

“Of course I can.”

Just like the four who came before him, Seth confidently marched on over to the display case and held out his arms.

… Perhaps he should use his shoulder instead?

…His back?

Hmm.

The Keyblade crew all glared at the teen’s flustered face with the coldest eyes possible.

“Okay, okay, I see your point,” Seth threw his hands up in frustration. “But still, if you think I’m just going to hand out stickers to a pack of randos willy nilly, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“I told you, we’re not just some ‘randos’,” Cody replied. “We actually have something going on.”

“Yeah, sure you do.”

“Just hand us the dang sticker,” Alakazam snarled, once again surprising the others with how invested he’d become.

“Threatening the head honcho? You guys definitely aren’t getting stickers now.”

“What?!”

“Ha ha, we’ll just ask Bianca to give us one then,” Loudred stated as if he had made a brilliant breakthrough. “She’s staff here too, ain’t she?”

“Actually,” Seth pulled arrogantly. “She’s kind of been promoted recently, so handing out entry stickers is no longer under her jurisdiction.”

“But there’s literally no other staff here,” Cody griped.

“Well, tough luck.”

 

oOo

 

I’m going to kill that kid!

I’m going to kill him first!

The group had made their leave out of the building, and Loudred and Mokona could do nothing but gape at the sight in front of them. Their entire journey thus far, Cody and Alakazam shared nothing but friction with one another. But here for the first time, they were finally united by a common enemy.

“That’s it,” Alakazam raged. “We’re getting in that tournament. I don’t know how, but we are getting in just to rub it into that shorty’s face!”

“I was expecting him to just shuffle us off into a different world,” Loudred mused over to Mokona who nodded sternly in agreement.

“You two!” Al pointed towards the much more mellow duo. “Give us a plan. Now.”

‘How about,” Mokona breathed heavily with a carefree grin. “You guys all hop into my gem here and I sneak onto the field and vomit you all out?”

“Hahaha, that’s horrifying,” Loudred happily gave his feedback. “How about I go and spam Uproar and take everyone’s eardrums hostage until they let us in?”

“You idiot,” Al shook his head in disapproval. “You’ll be taking our eardrums hostage too!”

With his head in his hand, Cody also tried to come up with a plan…but his attention however was taken away by something off in the distance.

His eyes were wide. Gwen was right by the side of the stadium building peering towards something that caught her attention further back.

Was that really Gwen?

Cody blinked his eyes feverishly. Just like back at the hotel, the familiar goth disappeared just as quickly as she was there.

The same sense of confusion and delirium he had the last time he saw “Gwen” resurfaced. Was that her? Was it not? Was he going crazy? Was she really here?

…Should he check?

Cody glanced over towards his companions who were absorbed in a heated discussion for their gameplan. It didn’t seem like any of them were likely to break out of it. He’d be sure to get a thorough recap later.

Cody quietly pranced over towards the side of the building. A barrier was built opposite the walls of the stadium, likely to prevent any unfortunate accident from occurring in case anyone happened to find their way over here. What resulted however was a space that greatly resembled that of a shady city alleway.

Gwen wasn’t here.

But someone else was.

And then and there, Cody could tell skipping out on the group huddle was a mistake.

A man stood, no, floated in the middle of the cramped space. If you could call it a man. He was like an ephemeral digital being with bluish “skin” that floated along in the air like the drapes of a ghost. He looked up at his frightened new visitor.

Cody couldn’t tell, but Tabuu truly didn’t expect to run into the teen this soon. He had merely hid there for meditation.

Regardless, it was now the perfect time to initiate his plan.

Cody would’ve screamed and run as fast as he could, but that would’ve been no match for Tabuu’s speed. If you could call it speed. The unknown being that was further into the alleyway enough to resemble a ghoul earlier was now right in front of him as if his very being had no real concept of time and depth.

Cody thought he was dead on the spot.

…But rather than killing him, the being held out his hand instead.

It appeared to be a small sticker.

Cody’s mouth wobbled. His head was too dipped into fear to properly process this moment. In his head, if he didn’t take this offering right this instant, he was going to face a fate worse than death.

His shaky hands sloppily plucked the sticker out of Tabuu’s open palm.

And without even a blink, Tabuu was gone.

Cody was sure he pissed himself this time.

“Hey, Cody!” He jumped at Mokona’s high pitched call. The familiar voice grew louder the closer the rabbit thing got. “What are you doing over there?”

Cody turned around and did his absolute best to hide all the fear in his face and stance. “Uh—”

“Hey,” Loudred pointed at the geek’s hand. “What’s that?”

Cody looked down. He was so frightened by the blue being, he didn’t even realize what he just took. In that instant, all the fear he tried to hide truly was gone. It was all replaced with excitement.

“I…I found this sticker while I was over here,” he grinned and shook with anticipation.

Alakazam snatched it right out of his hand and pumped the sticker right into the air like he was showing it off to the heavens. “Wait’ll that jerk gets a look at this!!”

 

oOo

 

“How the heck did you four…?” Seth gawked at the sticker he held mere inches away from his twitching eyes.

The gang snickered at him with faces even smugger than all the looks Seth had given to them combined. Cody and Alakazam in particular took their gloating expressions to whole new levels.

“So,” Cody chuckled. “That means we’re in the tournament, right?”

Seth took another look at the four. After a brief pause, he finally slouched in defeat and spoke in a tone that attempted to mask his reluctance with any ounce of dignity he could still muster.

“Yeah, fine, yes. Just give me the rest of your stickers.”

…What?

“What do you mean ‘rest of our stickers’?” Alakazam blinked.

Seth squinted. Did these guys not…?

He regained a bit of his usual authoritative stature. “Stickers only cover one fighter. I need three more.”

“But didn’t Bianca say this tournament accepted groups?” Loudred tilted his head.

“Yeah, and you still need four separate stickers. These things are for recommendations. I’m not going to let a crappy fighter in just because their friend is decent.”

“Oh come on!” Cody and Al cried out simultaneously. Mokona joined in as well, though his tone felt more like he was doing it for fun rather than genuine frustration.

“Sorry, rules are rules,” Seth replied, his smirk going against the lawful neutral tone he held.

Soon enough, another argument broke out amongst the five. In the relatively quiet halls of the stadium wing, their yells and threats of violence echoed past every wall. It was unsurprising that the commotion would even attract the attention of the lone receptionist who was stationed all the way in the main lobby.

“What in the world is going on here?” Bianca snapped, shutting everyone up instantly. It seemed that even with his high and mighty nature, there was still someone who could manage to reign Seth down if even just a little.

“Bianca, Bianca,” Cody called out, hopeful she would side with them. “Okay, so we got the entry sticker but this dude still won’t let us in.”

“Because you need four stickers, genius!”

“Why didn’t you say that to us earlier?! You did that specifically to sabotage us,” Alakazam yelled.

“I specifically remember using plurals. Maybe your ears are about as strong as your psychic abilities.”

“Why I oughtta…”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Loudred cried out in a panic. “Al, calm down. You don’t need to hit him.”

“Hit him!” Mokona egged on.

“Go ahead! It’ll probably feel just like a pillow.”

Quiet!

The five once again answered Bianca’s demands.

The blue haired woman sighed before looking over at her coworker. “Look, I sent them over to you because I know you’re frustrated at the upcoming tournament lineup. We both are. Are you really going to be this stubborn now?”

“Stubborn?” Seth scoffed. “Hey, rules exist for a reason. I’ve worked my ass off all these years making sure this place upheld its reputation. What kind of example would I be setting if I started making exceptions?”

“Is this really the time for that? Seriously, Seth?”

And for the third time in a row, the bickering resumed, only with Bianca now joining the fray. With a sixth player officially in the verbal battle, the raucous scuffle quickly evolved into an uproarious storm. The spacious halls only amplified their thunderous voices further. If this continued, soon, no one in the entire building would be unaware of what was going on.

Shut up!

And just like when Bianca made her entrance, everyone in the vicinity switched off.

A man with spiky blonde hair scowled menacingly at the six. With his overwhelmingly dark clothing and a tattered auburn cape that fluttered ever so lightly in the wind, one could not be blamed for assuming ill intent just from a quick glance at him. His cape that thoroughly covered both his neck and mouth helped amplify the daunting rigor of his eyes of blue flames. It was like they were being stared down by a deadly intruder, ready to strike at any moment.

Except Seth and Bianca knew that this man had every right to be in the building. It was a fact they were reluctant to accept.

The two shuffled out of the man’s way. Surprised that the thick headed duo were so quick to give in to the man’s unspoken demand, Cody and company followed suit.

Silence remained amongst them even minutes after the man left the area. Normally, Seth would’ve restarted his quarrels and Bianca would’ve been ripe and ready to reel him in. This time however was different. Bianca and Seth glanced amongst one another. The slightly older woman could sense the teen’s still lingering reluctance, but even he started to give in.

Seth sighed. Might as well have those four in on this too.

“Okay, listen,” Seth leaned towards the four with an almost uncharacteristically soft tone. “Our next tournament is…not full of what either of us would consider ideal entrants.”

“Yup,” Bianca nodded seriously. “Just tons and tons of weird black monsters. And when they all signed up, he came with them.”

That was all the four needed to hear. The Heartless had made their way to this world too.

But what about that guy?

“Is he with them?” Cody arched his brow.

“That’s the thing,” Seth answered. “We have no clue what that guy’s story is, but with everything that’s going on, all the monsters, how empty this place has been, can’t blame us for being suspicious.”

“So the Newcomer Tournament,” Bianca continued. “It’s designed to allow winners to join the ‘Brawlers’ group that gathers here.”

“Basically a collective of heroes from all across the worlds,” Seth took over. “And if that guy turns out to be bad news, who knows what’s going to happen once he gains access to that space.”

“Originally, we made today’s tournament special in that the winner can only be crowned if they win the exhibition match at the end. Our personal failsafe. But…” Bianca’s eyes motioned down to her coworker who still looked like he held some forms of reluctance in him.

“Truth is, we need more assurance against that guy. The fighters we got on hand right now can take those monsters down easily. But him? We’ve seen a bit of what he can do in battle and we’re not positive the manpower we have right now is enough.”

Cody blinked. Does this mean what he thinks it means? “So, then…”

Seth let out a defeated sigh. “If you guys are as tough and amazing as you claim to be, take him out, tire him out, just do anything to help us keep him from winning.”

Despite knowing that they’d just taken on another unexpected mission, the four began to glow. They were actually in. The sheer fact that they were going to participate seemed to trump any and all implications of what their role was going to be.

Seth sighed once again. “Now hurry along to the waiting room before I change my mind.”

And they did just that. Despite nearly getting into multiple violent altercations with the teen, Cody and Alakazam voiced out their thanks to Seth while Loudred and Mokona flashed excitedly appreciative gestures as they all quickly made their leave from the wing. The wing that was once bouncing with reverberating swears and insults was now calm and peaceful as Seth and Bianca were left gathering their thoughts and impressions on the motley crew.

Seth groaned. “What did I just do? Those guys aren’t gonna do shit.”

“Come on,” Bianca patted his back. “I think you’re selling them a bit too short. I sent them to you for a reason. I’m not the toughest fighter in the world, but even I can pick out heroes from the crowd.

Seth looked up at his coworker with a serene and almost nostalgic face. The complete opposite of any and all expressions he’s made that day. “Trained from the best, right?”

“Yup.”

 

oOo

 

On a normal day, the waiting rooms of the stadium were filled to the brim with humans and creatures of all different sizes and forms. When Seth and Bianca stated that this was a place of heroes, they did not exaggerate. This was a world designed to train them for the hardships that awaited them back home, and just walking through past the walls of the stadium was enough to imbue a sense that one would witness legends in the making. On a normal day, the waiting room was like an overwhelming cluster of hope and valor.

This was not a normal day.

And to be frank, the stadium hadn’t had a normal one in a while.

The room that was built to hold the enormous batch of fighters that typically occupied the building throughout the year was in a sorry state of near desolation and abandonment. The room that was normally kept in tip top shape was quickly collecting dust and grime in every corner and beyond, no doubt because the lack of occupants made constant upkeep increasingly demotivating. Ironically, even though a dim and dark setting would have perfectly completed the look, the lights were bright and in full operation.

Three individuals gathered in the center of the room; not even a splinter of a fraction of the capacity these walls were used to.

“Okay, this is way too weird,” A young brunette angel squeaked. “Where is everybody?”

“I know Seth said they were short on fighters but,” a tall kid in traveling gear and a red baseball cap darted his eyes across the barren room. “I don’t know about you guys, but I haven’t seen anyone else in days.”

“Popo and Nana were around a few days ago,” A fully armored woman stated. “Though by the sounds of it, they haven’t been back to their world in a long time. I wonder why.”

“Maybe the mountains here are more fun to climb? Oh, maybe they’re on vacation or something?”

“Pit, that’s dumb…but is it really a coincidence that we’re the only ones who are free at the moment? I know we’re all heroes here, but—”

“With all due respect, Red, you’re not really a traditional ‘hero’ like the rest of us. You having more free time than everyone else is pretty normal.”

“Wow. Harsh, Samus.”

“Uh, excuse us…”

Cody and company timidly entered the room. Despite only being face to face with three fighters, they could still feel the might of their presences.

The angel zipped over excitedly and began to yap like a puppy. “Ohmigosh, are you guys here for the tournament? It’s been ages since we’ve seen someone new.” He hooked his hands tightly onto Cody’s and shook him like he would a can of soda.

“Oh nice, are you a Pokemon trainer too?” The kid in red admired Alakazam and Loudred who were clearly unamused by the query. “What kind of Pokemon is that?” He pointed to Mokona.

“I’m not a Pokemon. I’m Mokona!”

“Hi Mokona!” Pit’s face beamed as he finally let go of Cody to happily shift his focus to the small white creature, giving Cody further vertigo as he was grounded just as abruptly as he was in motion.

“I’m Cody by the way,” the geeky teen said weakly as he attempted to reign in his oncoming nausea at the same time. “Those two are Loudred and Alakazam.”

“And I’m Mokona!”

“I’m Pit!”

“Red.”

“Samus.”

Cody, Alakazam, and Loudred all glanced around the room, really taking in the unexpected spaciousness in comparison to the grand collective of heroes they were hyped up about. But that wasn’t the most important thing here. Alongside the several dozens of fighters that should’ve been here, there was one in particular who was oddly absent.

“Hey,” Loudred spoke. “Is that guy not here? The one with the spiky hair?”

The room that already possessed limited energy was now dead as the three veteran fighters all shifted their looks uncomfortably amongst one another.

“You mean that Cloud Strife guy?” Red nervously scratched the back of his head.

“Uh, yeah, uh,” Pit fumbled. “We don’t actually know where he is. We just know we’re supposed to beat him.”

“Since you’re asking, I’m assuming that’s why you four are participating as well?” Samus asked.

“Good guess,” Loudred laughed in an attempt to bring any sense of levity back to the room. “Seth said you guys were supposed to be the big barrier to keep him from joining your club or whatever, but he brought us on too to help.”

“We’re the failsafe!” Mokona shouted in glee.

“No,” Alakazam groaned. “They are.”

Cody, who was still feeling a bit queasy, looked up at Samus for guidance. Obviously, all three of them had to be experienced warriors and adventurers to be able to hold the title of a Brawler, but something about her in particular made him really feel he was standing amongst the greats. And if he was going to get any reassurances on what they were dealing with, it would probably be from her.

“So, what exactly do you guys know about him?”

“Suspicious and likely a threat,” Samus responded flatly.

“Other than that I mean? Like, what’s his deal?”

No one could really see her true expression under her armor, but if they did, they would’ve seen an almost concerned and gentle sigh.

“We’re treating him like a high security threat, but if I’m going to be honest…he just seems like a moody kid to me.”

 

oOo

 

Cody groaned and gripped his stomach tightly as he slipped off towards the men’s restroom. Pit’s excited puppy dog gesture really should’ve been harmless, but his weak body was of course not taking any of that motion sickness lightly. In fact, he was amazed he’d been doing relatively well on the Gummi Ship.

As he pushed open the door, he began to hear the same pair of voices he heard earlier when he first met Seth. He remembered feeling oddly familiarized with these sounds, but he just couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

He got his answer the moment he stepped in.

“I am not touching that stall. Do you think these perfectly toned hands of mine are made for this kind of crap work?”

“I already fixed up nineteen stalls today. How much you got done, pretty boy?”

Oh. My. God.

Cody burst into a gasp of laughter. He would’ve been hollering hysterically if it weren’t for his still nauseous stomach that caused him to keel over as his chuckles mixed in with ill coughs.

“What?!” Chris and Chef shouted as they turned towards his direction. Their eyes soon widened.

“Cody?!”

“Pipsqueek?!”

“Y’know, I honestly forgot you two were missing too,” Cody choked out between gags. It was impossible to hide his constant tilts to retching, but it was just as impossible for him to stop grinning.

“Dude, what are you doing here?” Chris asked frantically as he grabbed a hold of the teen’s shoulders. “Wait, forget that. Just get us the heck out of here!”

“No,” Cody burped noxiously, forcing Chris to back off in disgust.

“What?!” He screamed, his outrage mixed in with his revulsion at the tinge of incoming vomit.

“You two have put us through hell this whole summer. This is just karma coming home to roost.”

“Karma?” Chef snarled. “I’ll show you karma.” He approached menacingly as he aggressively smacked his hands together.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Cody halted the man. “You sure you want to do that? Won’t you get in trouble with Seth? After all, I am a competitor.”

Their jaws dropped.

“Now if you’ll excuse me.”

There was no way he could hold it anymore. Like the speed of a river stream in a storm, Cody slammed right into the first bathroom stall he could reach and spat out chunks after chunks of muck and grossness; a total waterfall of disgust.

He was going to be there for a while.

Chris could do nothing but weep. He had just cleaned that stall.

Notes:

This marks the end of the "remake" chapters. Everything beyond this point is all shit I've kept bottled up until now.

Chapter 9: Smash Stadium: Storm Cloud Strike

Chapter Text

Cloud Strife was never known to be a particularly friendly person.

From the distant days of his childhood, Cloud was the odd one out amongst his peers. It wasn’t like anyone found him to be scary or threatening. To them, he was just awkward. Idle speech was more than just an annoyance; it was discomforting. And everyone was quick to catch on.

There was a part of him that regretted his attitude. Everyone made sure not to bother him more than they needed to, even within his small circle of friends. But still, the long moments when he submerged in silence by himself, the moments where he could stare blankly off into space without a care while his friends chattered off to the side, they became familiar moments of comfort. One would think he would naturally gravitate towards others like him. Others who knew how to appreciate and revel in quiet solitude.

That was not the case.

He would never admit it, but he hated loners. He never admitted it because he was one himself. The parts of him that grew accustomed and appreciative to loneliness were the parts of him that he hated most of all. He couldn’t understand why anyone wanted to live like this. He couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to embrace a life being just as unpleasant as he could be.

With that hatred in his heart, he could feel nothing but disdain for his current client who silently floated across from him in the dark arena entranceway. The audience bleachers just outside had long since been filled in anticipation for the tournament that would begin any minute from now. Those were all just muffled ambience in the distance to Cloud however. There was nothing to drown out the overwhelming sense of bleak nothingness that emanated from Tabuu’s very being.

In his heart, he knew he shouldn’t have taken this job.

But for someone as pitiful as him, choice was a nonexistent luxury.

Tabuu tilted his head towards the sullen blonde man. No sound left or ever would leave his mouth, yet Cloud could understand everything just from the cold gazes alone.

“That kid I ran into earlier. You need me to steal away his key, correct?”

Tabuu nodded slowly.

Cloud recalled the very brief meeting he had with the teen. If you could call it a meeting. He merely passed by the guy on his way to this irksome meetup. He couldn’t think of anything notable about him. Just a loud and annoyingly excitable youth who traveled far to this world for an adrenaline pumping brawl.

Cloud wasn’t stupid. He knew the moment he took on this job that he wasn’t giving assistance to anything good. Seeing his would-be victim in person only confirmed it.

“Pathetic,” Cloud gritted his teeth before taking his leave. “Waste of my goddamn time…”

Tabuu stared coldly as he watched Cloud blip out from sight. He knew he took a gamble by recruiting this one.

How annoying.

It didn’t matter though.

He knew what he had to do if he failed to comply.

 

oOo

 

“Welcome sisters and brothers to this year’s Newcomer Tournament!”

Seth’s enthusiastic shout boomed throughout the arena. It was almost hard to believe that this amount of zeal and ardor was coming from someone as petty and irritable as that dude. But if there was anything Seth was good at, it was showcasing the guise of a professional. And in this case, he knew what the people wanted. Every statement and boast he made was met with thunderous roars from the fervent masses. They knew they were in for a show.

“As you all know, all winners will be inducted into the elite Brawlers group and forever having their name etched alongside the greatest heroes the worlds have ever known.

“Well we’ve got a surprise for you all this year. It’s not enough to be the best. A true Brawler must prove they’re as strong as a hero too! So for the first time ever, we are introducing a new exhibition match where the top contender will fight to the top against some of our valiant Brawlers themselves!”

The crowd’s excitement was through the roof.

“Without further ado…

“Ready?

GO!

And with that, four statues were immediately shot into the air and towards the arena grounds. They were like mere toys being playfully tossed into a child’s playpen. And as their golden pedestals landed neatly on the platform, the frozen forms of Cody and his crew came to life. This bizarre entrance was a tradition of this world, yet Cody and company could not help but feel disturbed and disoriented from the sensation.

“The heck was that?” Cody quivered as he frantically inspected his body.

“Felt kind of like a Pokeball,” Loudred mused.

“Like you’d know,” Alakazam grumbled. “Felt more like nausea if you ask me.”

“Look!”

Mokona directed the group’s attention towards the small army of Heartless that inched right towards them. In the past, they would’ve panicked on sight at these swaths of dark Shadows and Soldiers, but there was none of that this time. With confident swings of keys, fists, and spoons, they charged on forward. They were all down in minutes like the small fry they were. Cody couldn’t help but smirk at this accomplishment. Just a few days earlier, he cowered around in fear at the mere sight of these things. Look at him now.

And just listen to the chants of the audience.

Just as the gang began to celebrate amongst themselves, their vision and senses quickly distorted. The loud and raucous arena setting was instantaneously replaced with the hallowed walls of the waiting room. But that didn’t mean the enthusiasm was gone.

“Whoa, you guys took them out like it was nothing!” Pit flew excitedly towards them. “It was like a whole army of them and then, BAM!”

“I gotta say, that was pretty impressive,” Samus walked over alongside Red, both more than happy to praise the group’s victory. It was their first impression of their fighting skills after all. A good one.

There was very little time for the four to bask in their little ego boosting session. Seth’s voice could be heard from the LED screen that towered over them from the upper walls of the room. The man named Cloud had taken his stance in the arena. Cody squinted his eyes knowing that this was their chance to really examine what exactly they were up against.

Cloud had a blank poker face as if his very participation was nothing more than an annoyance. It gave the impression that he was merely going through the motions of something he couldn’t get out of.

What exactly was this guy’s deal?

Cody’s mouth gaped as Cloud’s opponent materialized. Right in his eyes was the familiar sleek purple form of Guard Armor’s limbs. He and his allies struggled greatly against that menace and now they had to witness a suspicious stranger attempt it all on his own.

“Have you fought that guy before?” Red asked as he noticed the shocked looks on the quartet’s faces.

“Yeah,” Cody nodded. “That thing nearly kicked our butts.”

“We beat the sock out of it!” Mokona gleefully boasted.

“Yeah,” Loudred added. “And it only took seven of us.”

“Seven?!” Pit exclaimed. “And he’s taking that thing down on his own?”

“I see,” Samus sighed as she lightly planted her hand on the face of her helmet. “He’s really trying to get rid of the guy, huh?”

The room tensed. Cody and company remembered their fight against it well. They expected a lengthy and arduous struggle to unfold right in front of them.

What they saw instead was a few quick swings of an enormous sword while pieces of armor collapsed near instantaneously.

Red coughed. “Well, uh,” he glanced towards the Keyblade Crew who all shared the same faces of horror and regret. “Even if you guys can’t take him down, there’s still us.”

That was the least of their concerns.

Right now, they were just hoping they wouldn’t die.

 

oOo

 

“What the hell was that?” Seth breathed uncomfortably as he struggled to take in the speed of Cloud’s battle. His fingers quivered on the railing from his box seat as he eyed the now empty arena platform down below incredulously.

Seth lightly slapped his hand onto his dreary eyes. He may have been harsh on those four to an almost cartoonishly stubborn degree, but even he was aware he may as well had given them a death warrant when he tossed this task on to them. “Those guys are so screwed.”

“Hey, you should have more faith in them,” Bianca chimed in beside him. It sounded like her statement came more from an instinctive reaction rather than sincerity. Her strained and nervous face mirrored her coworker’s almost to a tee.

The tournament raged on. The two tried their best to assuage their worries as they tentatively observed Cody’s group perform above Seth’s initial expectations. But as soon as Cloud returned to the field to obliterate his opponents in record time, they were back to their negative states. Trying to deny the clear contrast in skill was impossible.

“For crying out loud, I even fixed the brackets so he’d get the tougher looking matchups,” Seth let out a pained groan. “I guess I’ll be relying on the Brawlers after all.” He glanced over at his partner. “You briefed those three on him earlier, right? How’d they react?”

“Well,” Bianca gritted her teeth ever so slightly. It wasn’t like she had any more bad news, but one of the reactions she received was fairly unexpected. “Red and Pit were just as you’d expect. Samus though? She had a weird hunch on him.”

“A bad one?”

“Nope. Good…ish?”

“The hell does that mean?” Seth raised his eyebrow.

He returned his gaze onto the battlefield. “Well whatever ‘hunch’ she had, we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens.”

“Wait and see if he kills those four or spares them?”

“You sent them to me, so if they die, you’re paying for their funerals.”

“You let them in though!”

“You were forcing them onto me.”

“Why are we even talking about this? I can’t even tell if we’re joking. Seriously, I hope they don’t die.”

 

oOo

 

No, they did not die.

But it certainly felt like they did.

Before long, their matchup against Cloud finally arrived. And before long, it was as good as over. It happened much too quickly for Cody to understand exactly what happened. One moment, Cloud was in front of him and his crew, drawing out his Buster Sword, the largest goddamned sword Cody had ever seen in his life. The next moment, he was sent into a whirlwind of every memory from his short, and admittedly paltry, life his mind was willing to toss at him. Evidently, it was true what they said about your life flashing before your eyes when you’ve reached your death bed.

Except Cloud wasn’t cruel enough to kill him of course.

Cody landed hard on to the platform in an almost deafening thud. Pain seared up every inch of his body upon impact. He could hardly believe he didn’t permanently snap his back in half right then and there. His companions were in no better condition as they too laid cold and injured on the ground beside him. The question was less how they got knocked down but when. Were they down before him? After him? At the same time? Everything felt so instantaneous, it was impossible to tell from a victim’s perspective.

Cloud slowly inched towards the teen who writhed on the ground in pain. Cody winced in fear that the man would go even further and that he would enter a second round tumbling humiliatingly through Memory Lane.

But again, Cloud was not as cruel as he appeared.

He stared at the key that, despite everything, was still held firmly and tightly in Cody’s grasp. Obtaining this trinket was his mission. He could just snatch it right this moment and everything would be done with. But he also looked at the Keybearer himself. Just as expected, he posed no threat to the merc, but despite the fear that was clear as day on his ragged and worn face, he could still see a spark in Cody’s eyes; A spark to survive, and a spark to fight back despite the knowledge that he couldn’t.

It was then Cloud made up his mind.

He drew down his sword. Screw the job. As far as he was concerned, this battle was over.

…Or was it?

A faint scream could be heard from the audience, just loud enough to avoid being completely drowned out by the bustling ambience that surrounded it. That scream spread until haunting fathoms of fear overwhelmed the stadium. As pained as they were, Cody and company needed to see what happened. As they weakly lifted themselves off the ground, they began to feel their straining bodies quickly heal themselves as if adrenaline was doing its job to prepare them for the scene they were about to witness.

An enormous dark pterodactyl-like creature tore down into the stadium.

Loudred was the first of the group to yelp. “What is that?”

The screech of Seth’s microphone billowed into the air and competed against the crazed commotion that consumed the entire arena. “This is an emergency,” he stated in the calmest voice he could gather. “Ridley has escaped captivity and is currently flying around the arena. We request that every attendee evacuate the stadium. I repeat, everyone, please evacuate the stadium, now .”

Cody and his crew could do nothing but gawk. The gigantic reptile wringed around wildly in the skies as it crashed its body and wings into the bleachers that were quickly emptying out like a wriggling spout. And alongside the creature, way up in the sky, was a silent blue figure that stared sternly down towards the arena platform. With his ghostly existence and, of course, Ridley running amok, it would be easy to miss his presence altogether. But to Cloud, he was the one that posed the biggest threat here.

“Can’t say I wasn’t expecting this,” Cloud mumbled as he lifted up his Buster Sword once more.

Cody jumped as Cloud leapt up towards the sky, nearly causing the worn teen to topple over once more. The blonde merc bounced off any loose platform he could find to further propel himself upwards as readied himself for a devastating strike against Tabuu. There he was, just inches away from Tabuu’s still and eerie face, when Ridley’s tail effortlessly smacked him straight back down into the arena. The Keyblade Crew may have just been beaten senseless by the guy, but even they were aghast at the sight.

“Hey, you four!”

They all turned around to see Bianca, who now wielded a sword, rushing over alongside Samus, Red, and Pit.

Samus was the first to make a move as she deftly shot out lasers from her arm cannon and avoided Ridley’s movement just as she had many times before. Pit flew to the skies armed with a bow and celestial arrows while Red tossed three Pokeballs into the air to reveal a Charizard, Squirtle, and Ivysaur. Bianca meanwhile decided to check up on the knocked down merc before she too joined her fellow fighters in their efforts.

“Hey, hey, are you alright?”

“Is,” Cody stammered. “Is there anything we can do?”

Bianca looked up at him and the others. None of them were in any condition to fight.

“You four take this guy with you and get the heck out of here.”

“But,” Loudred winced. He looked over at the fight that was ensuing. The heroes were already struggling; even Samus who seemed to have the most experience against this foe.

Just then, Ridley roared and turned its attention towards the ground where they stood.

“Crap,” Bianca cried as she quickly jumped up into a fighting stance. There was no way she’d be able to look after Cloud’s body like this.

“What are you guys waiting for? Go!”

They’d gotten used to joining in on the life threatening battles that it was almost disheartening to be rejected from another one. But of course, a man was down, and if they weren’t careful, they would be too. Loudred sloppily slung Cloud on to his shoulder as the four made their departure.

If the arena had suddenly turned into a den of chaos, the lobby wasn’t much better. Every nook and cranny of the building was filled with attendees racing through the halls, hoping to leave the world before Ridley could get ahold of them first. It was almost impossible for the gang to walk through without being nearly tripped or stampeded over by another group of rowdy evacuees.

“This way!”

Their attention turned towards a familiar voice. Seth, who was directing the masses to safety, desperately attempted to make them follow as well.

“We, we can’t just,” Cody stuttered. “We can’t just leave.”

“They’re going to get ripped into pieces and swallowed whole!” Mokona shrieked.

“Didn’t you guys just get knocked out by Sleeping Beauty over there?” Seth nudged his eyes towards Cloud who continued to lie limply over Loudred. “If that thing knocked him out, you guys sure as hell won’t do any better.”

“But you had this whole plan because you weren’t even sure your guys could take him out,” Alakazam retorted. “Doesn’t that mean they’ll all get knocked down too?”

Seth’s eyes twitched. He had a point. Normally Samus could take the thing down on her own, but alongside all the craziness that was occurring, the creature had become much more rowdy and threatening than usual. That’s why they opted to keep it tightly captive here and away from her world to begin with. If it was strong enough to break free, even Samus and the others might meet their match. But he wasn’t willing to admit that. No, he was the manager of the stadium. His main concern was everyone’s safety. Even theirs.

“Hey, you two!” Seth shouted towards the exit where Chris and Chef were most definitely trying to mask their escape with the crowd. The duo jolted as if Seth himself was much more frightening than the current situation.

“If you’re going to try and fail to leave your posts knowing full well neither of you have a way out of here, ” he emphasized his words harshly before pointing towards Cody and his crew. “Take those five with you!”

“What, hey! You can’t do this!” Cody cried out as Chris promptly began to usher him out.

“Sorry bro,” Chris replied. “Dude’s scary as shit if things don’t get done right away.” He leaned closer to the teen’s ear. “Hey, you guys got a ride, right? Mind letting us mooch off of you?”

Man, screw this guy.

The group continued to voice their displeasure all the way to their unwilling exit. All Seth could do was sigh and shrug.

“Our world, our problem. Not yours.”

 

oOo

 

After they forcefully shook off the pair of wannabe hitchhikers, Cody, Alakazam, Loudred, Mokona, and a still resting Cloud were left mulling over themselves just right outside the doors to the stadium.

“Maybe Seth has a point,” Alakazam said quietly, earning gasps from the group. “This is their world. They know how to handle stuff like this. And the people in this world are way stronger than we are now. Maybe we should just go.”

“How could you say that?!” Cody shouted. “We need to figure out how to get back in there, not leave!. I know you’re a stickler for this whole world order thing, but now’s not the time for that.”

“I think you guys should all hop into my gem here so I can sneak onto the field and vomit you all out!” Mokona yipped.

“How about I go and spam Uproar and take everyone’s eardrums hostage until they let us back in?” Loudred added.

“Again with this?” Alakazam quickly snapped out of his uncertainty in time to once again fume at their stupidity. “Now’s not the time for any of that either!”

Cody bit his lip. This scene reminded him all too well of what transpired back on the island; panic and chaos that soon devolved into a ruined world. This wouldn’t have been the first time he’d be rushing into a battle outmatched and unprepared, but he was worried the outcome would result more closely to Darkside than Guard Armor; an unknown victory leading to a lost world. The dumb luck he relied on had no real place in a fight where the consequences were so dire. He’d just chastised Alakazam about this moments before, but Seth’s words rang in his head. There was no real reason for them to chip in. To the inhabitants of Smash Stadium, they were no different than the scrambling audience members. Was it right to just leave things here?

Suddenly, Cloud coughed harshly as he scrappily forced himself off of Loudred. Cody tried grabbing ahold of his arm to keep him from losing balance while he limped around. Their difference in size and physique however nearly caused him to be the one to lose his footing instead. “Are you alright?”

No response. Instead Cloud continued to push forward and shoved Cody aside.

“Hey,” Loudred called out. “You’re still hurt bad. Come back.”

“So are you guys, and yet you won’t shut up about wanting to fight,” Cloud mumbled. “I started this mess. If I leave this place now like this, I’ll regret it.”

And so would they.

As if on cue, the four revved up their romp forward as well.

Except they knew they were going to need more than just a brave march to break in.

Cloud yelped as he was once again toppled over Loudred’s arms. The large Pokemon was the first to charge forward, followed by Alakazam, Mokona, and Cody at the tail. They screamed out as if initiating a battlecry and ripped past the entrance and lobby like a speeding bullet. Seth, Chris, and Chef had no chance of stopping them in this state.

Soon enough, they were launched right back into the arena, ready to help end this battle.

Chapter 10: Smash Stadium: Newcomers Join the Battle

Chapter Text

Things were much more dire than they expected.

Samus and Bianca knelt with rugged stances while multitudes of scratches now adorned their armor. Red was knocked straight to the ground, his Pokemon having long retreated to the safety of their Pokeballs. Pit crawled over to the kid in a slow but painful motion. His tattered wings drifted weightlessly in the air. And the enemy in question, the daunting winged reptilian beast named Ridley, continued roaring on and on. Its body was just as encoated in scars and gashes as the heroes, but while they looked ready to collapse at any moment’s notice, Ridley was still a ways to go before giving in.

And it was going to be their job to finish it.

Bianca was the first to notice their entrance. Her eyes widened with concern. They weren’t supposed to be here. Not just four but five injured fighters had entered the playing field.

“I told you guys to leave! Why are you back?”

“W-w-well, we…” Like the flip of a switch, Cody was already back to his nervous and stuttering state.

“We’re here to take questions and kick some giant lizard butt!” Mokona shouted like a warrior.

Bianca continued looking over the group. Alakazam, Loudred, and Mokona were pumped and ready to rumble. The most natural reaction in this situation would be to roll eyes and continue pushing them back. But then she took a look at Cody. He had the least amount of composure of the batch as he shook with labored breaths and cringed in worried anticipation. It would be easy to brush him off as well. But despite the fear, there was a fire in his eyes. A flame that was determined to help and push forward despite the odds stacked against him.

The temporary member of the group, Cloud, zoomed right past her, having completely ignored any need for approval from the stadium receptionist. That indifferent action was enough to finally push her to her final decision.

“Samus,” Bianca commanded. “Pull back. We gotta get the boys to safety. These guys’ll take over.”

Samus repeated the same looks and glances as Bianca had before simply nodding and running to retrieve the other two Brawlers. In the meantime, Cody and the rest ran up to meet up with Cloud near their crazed opponent. Soon, it was just the five of them against it.

“Anyone got a plan?” Alakazam attempted to get the battle ready and organized, but was quickly met with Cloud ignoring him completely to hit the lizard head on and Cody making a mad dash for cover behind a stack of debris. Mokona couldn’t help but cackle at the immediacy.

“Well, those certainly are plans,” Loudred shrugged in amusement.

There was absolutely no time for him and Mokona to share their laughter and for Alakazam to display his annoyance. Ridley screeched out laser blasts from its mouth, and one of them was headed right at them. They promptly rushed over to Cody’s side.

“Hey,” Cody glared. “You guys can’t just share my spot.”

“Oh, we’re reserving hiding spots now? Were you planning on waiting until the battle was halfway over again?” Alakazam sneered, earning uncomfortable gazes from Loudred and Mokona.

Cody looked pissed, but there was no time for another spat. He knew that with his track record, his first gut reaction certainly looked very bad.

But he did actually have a plan this time.

Ridley’s next blast was aimed right where they hid. The large number of occupants was an easy alert for the monster. Alakazam, Loudred, and Mokona flailed around, but Cody already began to make his way behind another set of debris.

Cloud pulled back. Ridley’s flurry of blasts made it difficult for him to land a solid hit on the creature. But then he took a look at Cody. The small teen dodged through the field like no problem and gradually inched closer with each new hiding spot he fled to. Underneath his scarf, Cloud wore a slight smirk. He had the right idea.

Soon, Cloud repeated Cody’s little game of hide and seek. The two were mere steps away from Ridley by the time the others realized their little scheme. Loudred and Mokona looked on in admiration while Alakazam couldn’t help but gaze in surprise that the kid who often cowered around and ran away from countless battles actually had a strategy up his sleeve.

Cody and Cloud struck Ridley simultaneously in a cross slash. Its cries of pain allowed enough time for the other three to send off ranged attacks as follow ups. They repeated this at least three times before Ridley finally caught on and started to engulf the entire field in blasts in an attempt to eliminate any and all debris for the five to fall back on.

There was once again a mass panic within the group who desperately ran away to try to escape the continuous laser. Cloud was able to push forward and attack Ridley while it continued doing its thing, but just his buffering alone wasn’t enough to stop it.

Loudred noticed a path of debris narrowly towards the edge of the field, right beside Ridley. The rubble avoided complete destruction despite everything. It was the reptile’s blind spot. The Pokemon noticed signs of Ridley about to take flight. If he didn’t do this now, it would be more difficult for them to continue on.

Loudred charged towards the pounds of chipped rocks and concrete leapt on to them one after the other like a staircase. Right when Ridley began to spring its wings into a flying stance, he jumped and latched right on to its back. The monster noticed something was wrong, but wasn’t sure what. As it flailed around crazily, its flight was canceled and the attacks against it pursued.

Loudred had meant to Bite and Bulldoze Ridley’s back while he was riding it, but the overgrown lizard twisted and turned so much in attempts to throw him off, he was more concerned about not falling if anything. Unfortunately, with one fierce swing accompanied by a bone chilling screech, Loudred was finally flung away and sent tumbling to the ground.

Now back in action, Ridley decided to shift its strategy. Rather than attacking everyone, it would take them down one at a time. And its first victim would be the lone soldier whose bites hurt the most.

Ridley swiped and pounded its claws where Cloud stood. Normally, he’d have no problem dodging through all this, but the pain from earlier was finally starting to take a toll on him. His movement was a lot slower than he needed it to be. That was enough for Ridley to take him down. With a swing of its tail, Cloud was sent crashing straight into the stadium walls.

He winced in pain, barely finding the strength to lift himself out of the crevasse his impact created. Ridley however continued to push forward, seemingly to headbutt itself straight in his direction. His struggles to lift up his Buster Sword became desperate. He knew if he didn’t move or deflect, it’d be all over for him. And with his weakened body failing to act, it may very well be.

Luckily, Cody slid right between the two.

Cody smacked his Keyblade straight on Ridley’s head like he was aiming for a homerun. It didn’t go flying of course, but it was enough to send it stumbling backwards in confusion.

Now it was all over for Ridley.

In its dizzied state, it was met with a constant throttle of Alakazam’s Psybeams, Loudred’s Uproars, and Mokona’s very own laser beam blasts. Any moment it had to steady itself was lost within the chain of attacks that never ended, made even worse with Loudred’s disorienting wails.

The creature that did a number on the stadium now pathetically spun around in a delirious fashion. With another small hit from the Keyblade, it finally collapsed, knocked out and unconscious.

Cody stared at the giant reptile’s body before looking back down at his Keyblade. He had celebrated after every big battle he went through, but something about this one felt special.

This time he actually knew what he was doing.

Cody leapt up into the air in the loudest cheer he could muster.

...But his feet never met the ground. That jump was the last thing his body needed before it just shut down from exhaustion. Rather than a normal graceful landing, he fell bottom first onto the ground like he’d been pushed off a cliff before collapsing altogether. 

And his three companions who would’ve been more than happy to celebrate with him joined him, passed out and worn down.

Don’t worry, they’re just sleeping. It’s fine. Really.

Cloud blinked blankly at the sight. These were the guys who just finished off Ridley. These guys, who snored obnoxiously in the middle of ruin and rubble with skin and clothes that looked like they just barely survived death itself, defeated Ridley.

These were the numbskulls who just saved his ass.

Cloud was glad he was the only one present who was still up and conscious because right then, he burst into the most genuine fit of laughter he’d had in years.

 

oOo

 

Hours later, the crowds had long fled the premises and the arena was still in tattered shape. There would be no exhibition match. As far as anyone was concerned, the tournament was over. So now with the lack of fervid cheers and a proper pedestal, the winners were being crowned in the hallway just inches away from the restrooms.

“Alright,” Seth coughed, having just wrapped up his usual congratulatory spiel with only Bianca, Samus, and beaten up Pit and Red as proper spectators. “Once again, congratulations on winning the Newcomers Tournament and proving yourselves to be shining heroes to be.”

He flashed four cards to the group. “These are your membership cards for the Brawlers. Use them whenever you’re here and you’ll get special perks for training, food, and housing. And signing up for upcoming matches of course.”

Alakazam was, shockingly, the first to snatch up his card and begin jumping around joyously like he’d just won the lottery. While Cody and Mokona happily joined him, Loudred stared tepidly at his card.

“We didn’t win though?” He wondered.

“Hm?” Seth arched his eyebrows. It was true that in what was supposed to be the very last round, they were indeed taken down fair and square. From that front, they weren’t winners by any definition. “Oh, right. We actually tried handing one of these to that Cloud guy earlier, but he just brushed it off.”

“The mission was a success in the end, I guess,” Bianca laughed weakly. In an ironic twist, they had mellowed out to the idea of letting Cloud run free whenever he wanted in the premises only for the man himself to turn them down in the end. Still, they had a feeling they’d be seeing more of him in the future.

“Who cares about the tournament though?” Pit flew over to Cody, once again going against any sense of personal space. “You guys kicked Ridley’s butt, first try! Oh my gosh, we totally have to take each other on.”

Red and even Samus soon joined in on the angel’s string of praises. At that point, Cody was reaching peak cockiness and an idea sprung into his head.

He quickly strolled over to the nearby display case. Just as it was many hours ago, it was still unmoved, still off balance, and still as seemingly impossible to budge as usual. Cody gagged just as hard as he did during his first attempts and all the impressive sense of heroism and glory that he thought had emanated off of him minutes before were gone. Now everyone just stared incredulously at the scrawny teen who was failing to move a single piece of furniture.

“Fighting a half beaten alien isn’t going to suddenly give you superhuman strength,” Seth snarked.

“Wait,” Bianca blinked. “Were you trying to get them to move that thing earlier? No wonder they were so mad at you. I’ve been meaning to check if it’s been straight up bolted into the floor.”

“Wh-seriously?”

“Oh yeah,” Samus nodded. “The placement looked so off after renovations finished. I tried pushing it months ago and got nowhere. Completely forgot about it.”

“How did they even fix the walls then? Did they just work around it?” Red asked in genuine confusion.

As the residents of the world had begun to express their confusion to one another over the case’s weird quirk, Cody was still killing himself trying to get to move even just a little. After everything, he would’ve figured he’d be able to lift this thing at this point. He swatted away Ridley like flicking away a fly after all. This didn’t make any sense.

“I can’t watch this,” Alakazam sighed as he joined Cody in his seemingly futile efforts. Of course, it still remained stiff and firmly stationed. Alakazam’s added strength did nothing to help.

And neither did Loudred’s.

And Mokona…

…!

In the blink of an eye, the display case slid past the floor like it was speeding through a sheet of ice and crashed violently into the wall several dozen feet away. The trophies and photos that once occupied the case were left scratched and snapped in the congregation of newly shattered glass that now adorned the floor. Cody and company meanwhile were now flat in a pile on the ground, having easily lost their balance the moment the all their weight lost its medium. Normally, the scene would’ve devolved into an uproar with Seth furiously screaming his face at their negligence. Right now however, everyone was frozen in place. The very fact that the case moved at all was enough to set off alarms in their heads. And even more alarming was what was revealed to be hidden behind it.

A large keyhole was etched perfectly into the wall; completely identical to the one back at the Mystery Treasure Dungeon.

Cody cocked his head and carefully lifted himself from the pile as he leaned in to examine it. He knew exactly what he was supposed to do. The images from last time replayed in his head over and over again. Gently, he summoned his Keyblade, and the room was soon engulfed in a sea of light.

Their visions slowly resurfaced. The walls glimmered with a fresh new sheen, and the display case that was just destroyed was now fully repaired like new. To Cody and the crew, this was not an unfamiliar experience. Yet the same confusion and bewilderment they held last time was just as strong as ever. And to the residents of this world, they simply had a feeling…

“Hey,” Bianca broke the silence. “You guys...you’re a part of something bigger, aren’t you?”

Cody was at a loss for words. Yes, he knew he had some kind of duty to save every world in existence, and, yes, he knew that the Keyblade had chosen him specifically to do this. But after all this time, he still had a hard time truly understanding what exactly waited ahead of him.

His companions however were more than happy to boast on his behalf.

“Yup!” Loudred shouted happily. “This guy here,” he gently slapped Cody’s back. “Is the Keybearer.”

“He’s gonna save everyone everywhere everything every day!” Mokona jumped eagerly.

“We’ll see,” Alakazam finished with a shrug.

The denizens of Smash Stadium all looked at each other. Given the nature of this world and its inhabitants, they were used to stories of destined heroes tasked with stopping world ending catastrophes. Heck, most of the Brawlers themselves were those heroes in question. But there was something very different about this situation. Something possibly even bigger than any of them could ever really comprehend.

Seth flashed a warm smirk. “Well, this world is a training ground for heroes, so…

“Whatever you guys are up to, if you ever need any help, you’re always welcome here at Smash Stadium.”

 

oOo

 

“Did you really have to do that?” Cody pouted as the group made their way over towards the Gummi Ship.

“What?” Loudred asked.

“You know… That .”

“I don’t get it.”

“He means acting like a pair of embarrassing parents,” Mokona gleefully elaborated.

“What’s the problem?” Alakazam snorted. “Isn’t that how you already talk about yourself?”

A small spat between the two was about to erupt once again, but Cody’s eyes shifted right at the nick of time. Leaning against their ship was a familiar brooding blonde.

“Hey,” Cody walked over. “Cloud, right? What’s up?” He grinned. “Wanna come with?”

“Nope,” he slowly shook his head. He hesitated before continuing. “I just wanted to...apologize. Before you guys left.”

“Hey man, don’t look so down. You turned yourself around in the end, and that’s all that matters.”

“You carried a large chunk of that fight to be honest,” Loudred added while Mokona enthusiastically chanted in the background remarks on how much ass Cloud kicked.

Cloud sighed with slight frustration before looking away. “Don’t forgive me so easily.”

Cody examined his face. Most of it was of course covered by his enormous auburn scarf, but even just looking at his eyes and the furrows of his brows, he could see the clear frustration he was trying to hide. Frustration towards himself.

“Are...you okay?”

Cloud glanced down at the shorter kid. Normally, he’d brush a question like that off before dramatically taking off, but it wasn’t just anyone he was talking to. This kid saved his life. And honestly…

He had a feeling that this kid had a tremendous future ahead of him.

“I’m searching for something,” he softly responded, looking upwards towards the sky. “For my light. I’ve been trapped in darkness for way too long.”

“Wanna come with us?” Cody offered. “We’re searching for stuff too. Well, it’s people in our case and not a concept, but you get the idea.”

Cloud took yet another good look at the four beside him. Loudred had a dumb and jolly look while Mokona bounced away happily atop his head, excited at the prospect of having a new traveling companion to annoy. Alakazam had an initial look of hesitancy, but his scrunched up face softened as the idea of someone as powerful and no nonsense as Cloud tagging along quickly began to look much more attractive in his head.

Honestly, Cloud wanted to laugh at their earnest and goofy reactions.

But he’s Cloud Strife and he had an image to keep up.

And in the end, Cloud did indeed take off dramatically. His final farewell for the time being was a faint thumbs up; a sign of good luck for both of their journeys ahead.

And as they took off, they knew in their hearts they would meet up with the mysterious merc once again.

And as they left, unbeknownst to them, Tabuu observed from the distance, frustrated at his failure. They didn’t know it themselves, but they would meet up with him again too.

And after they were gone, two figures came out of the stadium building, desperately shouting and pleading at the ship that was far beyond the reach of sound.

“Come back here, dammit!” Chef yelled while he shook his fists.

“Stop,” Chris wailed, on the cusp of a breakdown. “Don’t just leave us here, dude. Take us with you!!”

Sucks to suck.

Chapter 11: Green Hill Zone: The Speed of a Clash

Notes:

So first of all, I feel like it's worth clarrifying what exactly all the worlds and represented franchises in this fic are. All but one of the worlds were already picked out when I was in middle school/early high school, so they're reflective of what I was into back then. Which meant a lot of video games. And anime. Honestly, TDI was like the only non-anime cartoon I was really into back than, haha. So, sorry if anyone was hoping for things like Steven Universe. That didn't exist yet. There's exactly one cartoon based world coming up, but the way it's going to be presented might be a bit weird.

So yeah, if you were wondering why things like Di Gi Charat and the CLAMP mascot are here, just understand that I have been an obnoxious weeb for a very very long time.;; When I said I was ready to finally publish this knowing just how absurd it was, I meant it.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

What transpired back at Smash Stadium was a miracle of sorts. Since their first shared battle, Alakazam made it pretty clear what his opinion of Cody was, and he was sure to share that opinion of his at every chance he got. The constant deluge of judgemental comments built up tremendously within the relatively short time they’d had with one another, until it all boiled down to what laid out between them now. Any place and moment where the two shared even a few feet of space between another felt like being forcibly shoved into a train cart knowing that a rugged cliff was on the other side of the tracks. It was a source of dread that was almost inevitable.

When Loudred saw that Alakazam was, to everyone’s shock, completely on the same page as the naive nerd, he thought they were making some kind of progress, that the two may have an actual chance of seeing eye-to-eye. That they might finally get along.

That this oppressive tension in the Gummi Ship would finally go away and leave him to pilot in peace.

“Okay,” Al cleared his throat. “We have gotten severely sidetracked two whole worlds in a row. Next world, we are getting serious , got it? No extra missions, no tournaments, just serious searching. Capiche?”

“Such a killjoy,” Mokona giggled.

Over at the bridge, Loudred could already feel his back straighten in worried anticipation. Mokona technically wasn't part of the problem, but that little guy sure did know how to unintentionally activate it. Or at least he hoped it was unintentional.

“Killjoy?” Al grumped. “Am I really the only one here taking this interdimension saving journey seriously?

“You!” He pointed towards Loudred at the other side of the ship. “Are you fooling around too?”

Alakazam typically knew the older Pokemon as a constant source of lackadaisical temperament. He was the kind of guy who helped mediate dire situations and helped everyone relax.

If only he could sense just how stressed out he was at that moment.

Don’t bring me into this, don’t bring me into this, don’t bring me into this…

“Oh, come on,” Cody began. “Lighten up, would you? You had fun in the last world too.”

Loudred remained steady and in place as he continued to pilot diligently, but boy did he want to plant his face into his palms. With Cody’s proper entrance into the conversation, they officially reached the cliff at the end of the road.

“Lighten up?” If Alakazam’s tone wasn’t already stern, it was now rock cold. “Listen, that was a one time thing. If you haven’t noticed, both of our derailments so far have been because of you.”

“And again,” Cody leaned forward, an uncharacteristic glare in his gaze. “You had fun too.”

Mokona looked up at the two who had stopped exchanging remarks to simply stare each other down. He wasn’t foolish enough to assume this moment of silence would last. No.

He knew the “fun” had only just begun.

And just like that, a violent verbal spat erupted right in front of him.

“Literally, what is your problem?!” Cody pointed accusingly. “You have been on my case since the moment we met.”

“Well maybe you should’ve given me a better first impression then, huh?!”

“Shut up! And what were you even doing back at the stadium? You were mocking me in the middle of battle. In the middle of freaking battle!!

“So what? You’re the kind of person that needs to be talked down to just to know how to act.”

Well if that didn’t trigger something in the socially awkward geek.

Please let this end, Loudred mentally gulped as he continued staring forward and away from the spat in a forced composure. At this point, even Mokona was getting scared.

“You’ve been prancing around like a kid in a candy store. Do you even understand the gravity of this mission?!”

“No, because I’m not from your fucking kingdom!”

“And those friends you said you were looking for, I haven’t heard you say a peep about them since we left Traverse Town. Like heck you’re actually looking for them. You’re just using this as an excuse for a road trip!”

That does it.

Mokona’s mouth quivered wide open. What started off as a shouting match escalated into a physical struggle. The two pushed each other, kicked each other, dragged each other down. This was the worst it’d ever gotten.

“Loudred, help!!” Mokona squealed.

Loudred gulped, not just in his mind this time. This entire time, he prayed that if he just hurried along to the next possible destination, things would settle down enough that it would never reach this level of vitriol. Clearly, he could no longer ignore it. Slowly and timidly, like a struggling screw getting unwound for the first time in years, he turned around to assess the situation…

…And witnessed the two hurtling right towards him.

Now, the four were left tumbling violently in the ship as they crash landed into the next world…

 

oOo

 

Ashley bit her lips. She and Heather were engaged in combat; a simple training activity to help acclimate her new fellow witch to magic. She was, of course, supposed to act as something of a teacher in this activity. But as she felt the crushing menace of Maleficent’s silent fury off the corner of her ears, it was no wonder her mind wandered elsewhere. She carelessly flicked away spell after spell towards the screechy amateur witch as she backed away towards the wall and eavesdropped away on her master’s current meeting.

“What a disappointment,” she heard Maleficent say with the smooth cadence of dripping venom. “And to think I had high hopes for him. All that promise, and for what?”

“Don’t you worry,” an almost comically gruff voice responded. She’d never really spoken to him much, but she knew that this was that Robotnik fellow. Personally, she always felt out of all of Maleficent’s conspirators, he was the one with all bark and no bite. “It appears that those riffrats have landed themselves in my territory. Tabuu failed to utilize the full potential of the Heartless. I on the other hand have integrated them into my work and pushed them to their fullest potential. This time, we’ll be able to crush that hedge— er, Keybearer.”

“I trust you’ll hold on to that promise,” the hauntingly pale witch responded in a tone that felt like a threat of force itself. “Failures have absolutely no room here.”

And yet Ashley was still here.

Ashley could feel both her master and colleague’s presence make their exit. She pursed her lips. She knew if she didn’t play her cards more carefully in the future, those words Maleficent used against someone as intimidating as Tabuu would soon be directed towards her.

“Hey, would it kill you to quit hitting so hard?!”

Ashley’s attention snapped right back to her task at hand. Heather stood furiously as she scowled against her new would-be rival. Her skin was bruised and her clothes were all beaten and tattered from the flurry of spells Ashley thoughtlessly ping ponged all across the room.

Ashley scowled back as she flicked yet another orb of magic towards her. The bratty nuisance’s pained frustration would be the one thing that could calm her down for the time being.

 

oOo

 

GREEN HILL ZONE

 

oOo



“HEY, WAKE UP!”

SMACK!

A rabbit foot jabbed into Cody’s guts like the stab of a blade, prompting him to snap right out of his unconscious state. He could feel a tinge of annoyance as he achingly prompted himself onto his feet. He’d just recovered from his sores and injuries from Smash Stadium only to gain them anew thanks to their botched landing.

…Wait, where were they?

He twisted and turned and examined his surroundings. Emerald green pastures stretched out far and wide, and a serene river of waterfalls drummed in the distance. At first glance, one could easily mistake this for a normal plain or meadow. Until one got a better look at the mountainous paths that boasted peculiarly checkered patterns on their mounds of dirt. It was almost as if the entire area was a meticulously built track with how perfectly squared off the tracts of land were. Heck, he could even see paths that spiraled off into unnatural corkscrew trails and a towering loop.

“Hey guys,” he started. “Where are we this…”

His words trailed off. This entire time, he assumed the full crew was here, but it turned out to just be him and Mokona.

“Where are the others?”

“Probably bounced off to a different part of the world after we crashed.”

His first instinct of course was to panic and try to piece out where the other two may have landed. But then something much more devious popped in his head.

Alakazam wasn’t here.

But Mokona was. The multi purpose creature was not only their portable luggage case and makeshift camera….

…But he was also their de facto universal translator.

Cody flashed an evil grin.

“Finally some peace and quiet.” He stretched out his arms. He thought back to the spat that transpired between him and Alakazam earlier and a sense of prideful mirth stretched on his face knowing that this dumb luck of his could count as a “win”.

But then his mind trailed back to his words.

“And those friends you said you were looking for, I haven’t heard you say a peep about them since we left Traverse Town. Like heck you’re actually looking for them. You’re just using this as an excuse for a road trip!”

He frowned. There was a part of him that knew his frenemy had a point. But of course he wasn’t willing to admit it, even in his own mind. He rationalized to himself that his next course of action was of his own volition and started off. “Alright, I’ll start looking for Gwen and Trent then.”

“Shouldn’t we be looking for Ally and Loudred?”

“Ehh, those two are fine on their own. We’ll find them when we find them.”

“...Okay!”

A decent person would have started to chastise Cody’s pettiness, but Mokona wasn’t decent. He was Mokona. The two happily trotted along side-by-side without a care in the world.

“...Hey what’s that?” Cody peered his eyes. Off in the distance, a small group of figures steadily approached. Normally, he’d assume they were Heartless and brace himself accordingly, but while their movements were irregular and unnatural like a Heartless’s would be, there was a different tone to these things. Their rugged steps were rigid, almost mechanical.

Mokona cracked his eyes open and dilated his pupils into a nightmarish size. For a few seconds, he observed the group just as intently as Cody was before he shut off his mental binoculars and turned to address his companion.

“We should run,” he replied casually.

“Huh?” Cody blinked. “What? Why? What are those?”

He took another glimpse, and lo and behold, the figures submerged into the ground just like a common Shadow would and began to crawl towards them at a rapid pace.

“Oh crap.”

The two were just about to make their escape when the approaching new enemies effortlessly caught up and surrounded them. As they resurfaced, Cody gritted his teeth in both fear and confusion. Rather than the sentient masses of dark energy that teetered in between the lines of organic life and pale copies of one like he was used to, he was instead greeted by cold, dark machines. Their toy-like designs almost clashed against the classic Heartless markings that covered them. It was as if someone had forced the darkness into their shells and haphazardly spraypainted the emblems to resemble the real deal.

He summoned his Keyblade. It wasn’t what he was used to, but that didn’t change the fact that they needed to be taken down.

Cody and Mokona diligently clashed against the robotic copycats to the very best of their abilities. They were of course in much better stance and shape than when their journey first started, but it was clear the loss of half their fighting force was putting them in an awful disadvantage. And of course, it didn’t help that Mokona himself was only ever meant to be a support fighter rather than a full fledged combatant.

Cody was in the middle of fending off a small subgroup of the machines that had taken it upon themselves to target him specifically. Overwhelmed, his eyes glanced over towards Mokona in worry. The tiny rabbit creature did his best kicking the heads of the bots and shooting them when he could, but his size proved to be a major snag. Even more robots approached him, and he could barely keep up with their numbers. Cody tried to break free of his own cluster. Mokona needed assistance or he’d be in serious trouble.

…!

It happened so suddenly.

A gust of wind swirled through and an azure streak shot through the air. A large sphere of spikes charged like a deadly bullet and knocked down robot after robot as it bounced off the strange amalgams like a pinball hitting flaps. By the time Cody’s brain could connect two and two together with what was transpiring, all the robots that were just inches away from crushing him before had all but perished. He quickly jumped up and assisted this mysterious force with taking down the last of the robot-Heartless hybrids, and soon, it was all over.

Mokona looked over the battlefield in awe. The two of them struggled so much, but in the blink of an eye, the battle was won.

A soft gloved hand playfully nuzzled the top of Mokona’s head.

“You alright, little buddy?”

Mokona and Cody looked over to the new voice. He was a bright blue anthropomorphic animal with a playful yet noble grin. And they had no doubt in their minds that this guy just saved them.

“Holy crap, that was so cool,” Cody ran up to their new unknown ally. “You took down like half a dozen of them in seconds. How’d you do it that fast?”

“Being fast is kind of my thing,” the blue blur chuckled. He held out his hand. “Name’s Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog.”

“I’m Cody,” he took Sonic’s hand graciously with the same kind of geeky fervor one would have to meeting a real life superhero..

“I’m Mokona,” he happily bounced up and down, earning a soft laugh from the hedgehog.

“So,” he turned back towards Cody. “Are you guys lost or something? You’re both pretty far into this zone. And to be honest, you seem kind of lost.”

Cody’s mouth twitched. It was pretty obvious, huh?

“Yeah, uh,” he scratched the back of his head. “We may have just crashed into here.”

“Like, BOOM, BAM!” Mokona flailed around for dramatics.

“We’re looking for some people. You happen to see a goth girl named Gwen or a dude named Trent?”

“And Loudred and Al-”

“Yeah, Gwen, Trent, and Loudred!”

If Alakazam were here, perhaps Cody wouldn’t have been as reckless with hinting at the true nature of their sudden entrance into this world. Neither Cody nor Mokona seemed to have realized the slip-up, and neither of them seemed to have noticed the slight arch of an eyebrow Sonic gave in response. But luckily for them, Sonic was the kind of guy who was more than willing to let a peculiarity like that slip. All he saw was a pair that needed his help.

“Well, I haven’t personally seen any new faces around here besides you two,” Sonic shrugged apologetically. “But my buddy Tails told me he picked up a pair of weirdos a little while ago. Maybe they’re any one of those four?”

Sonic could sense the pair’s excitement and flashed them a kind smirk. He turned around, crouched, and gestured the two over. “C-mon, hop on.”

Cody stared incredulously. He would’ve assumed he was offering Mokona a piggy-back ride, but it was clear this offer extended to him too. He wasn’t dangerously worn out from the battle to need a helping hand, and more importantly, even with his height, he was still much taller in stature when compared to the hedgehog. How would this even work out?

He opened his mouth, ready to voice his concerns and protests. But another hard kick from Mokona, this time like a whip crack to his back, forced him to tumble forwards anyway. As caught off guard as he was by his friend’s rude action, he was even more bewildered by what happened next.

Sonic sprinted and…

…He wasn’t sure what was happening.

The world was a string of whirling colors, and the wind splayed on to his face like the eye of a rushing tidal wave. The only sound he could hear was the muffled hum of the air and the ring of Mokona’s gleeful cries twisting in the void as if he were miles away rather than right beside him. It was like his very soul had been sucked into a corporeal tunnel. It was nothing short of a miracle that he managed gasps of breath as the wind forced its way into his very being.

Sonic screeched to a halt.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, but the evergreen image of the green hill fields was swapped out completely for the fresh sight of a bustling seaside town; Emerald Town.

Mokona excitedly bounced immediately like they’d reached the destination of an arduous car ride.

Cody barfed.

Sonic scrunched his face and tried to ignore his acquaintance’s sad moment in an awkward attempt to preserve his dignity. With a slick snap of his fingers, he pointed expectantly at the building before them. Large and wide with the sheen of amber, it reminded Cody of the almost fun house-like demeanor of the Wigglytuff guild headquarters, only now resembling a young fox.

“And here’s our destination!”

Still coiled from his nauseated state, Cody weakly trudged over towards the door while his hand wriggled around in concentratedly random motions.

His ears perked up. A small commotion could be heard inside. What started out as mild rounds of frantic chatter quickly erupted into uproarious shouts. The natural reaction would be curiosity at what could be transpiring inside, but that was secondary to Cody’s main concern.

That was Alakazam and Loudred.

Mokona jabbed him for the third time that day, this time at the back of his head. He felt himself planting himself face first on to the cold metallic floor, just right after painfully forcing the door right open, while Mokona happily yodeled himself inside.

He weakly peered upwards. Copious amounts of tools and bizarre knick-knacks lined up on every corner of the quaint garage. Any space that would’ve been free and open was instead occupied by enormously intricate computers and hardware. It was clear the shack before him was akin to a lab or workshop, but it was a wonder how anyone could find the right mind to work in that stuffy closed space.

Sonic tiptoed through and stood alongside a pair, a yellow twin tailed fox and a pink hedgehog wearing a ruby red dress. The three whispered amongst themselves, the two new figures having just held surprised faces at the scene in front of them. Mokona and Loudred bounced around in their joyous reunion, making the cramped space feel even more constricted.

Then there was Alakazam whose face drooped as he noticed just who exactly laid flat on the ground in front of him. Just the glares the two exchanged between themselves were enough to ruin the mood of the moment as Mokona and Loudred quickly simmered down to reluctantly greet the awkward atmosphere they had unfortunately grown accustomed to.

To think Cody was almost glad to see him again.

Ever the observant, Sonic quickly scrambled to get a lively conversation going. “So, I met these two when I was over at Green Hill. Said they were looking for some of their friends. I had a bit of a hunch and brought them here.”

The two other anthropomorphic fellows shifted their eyes towards the duo that was shooting deadly sparks at one another. It definitely seemed like they knew each other at the very least. But “friends”…?

Cody lifted himself upwards and confidently walked over to his two new acquaintances, as if he was attempting an air of superiority over his seemingly unwilling ally. He flashed a bright smile. “Hey! Name’s Cody. I guess you already know Alakazam and Loudred? That little guy’s Mokona.”

“Hi.”

The fox smiled lightly. It appeared some sense of levity was able to be restored. “I’m Tails.”

“And I’m Amy,” the pink hedgehog followed. “You two came at the right time too. These two were really starting to get at it.”

“Yeah, we found them in the middle of town just repeating their names over and over again. Nothing we said seemed to be connecting with them either.”

“And Grumpy Pants here was getting fed up and nearly blasted this place earlier,” Amy chidingly smacked Alakazam’s back who could only react with an embarrassed face.

“I can understand them fine though?” Sonic blinked in confusion.

“Yeah, that’s what I don’t understand,” Tails responded. “It’s like a switch flipped on the moment you three got here.”

“Oh, oh, oh, that’s me!” Mokona waved his hand excitedly. “I’m a walking translator!”

Alakazam’s eyes grew wide. Unbeknownst to him, this wasn’t the first time their cover had been blown in this new world, but he of course was not the kind of guy to take chances. He abruptly smacked his hand on the small creature’s mouth before desperately throwing out words. “Right, right, right, so everything’s a-ok now. Thanks for finding us. Everything’s hunky-dory, we gotta go.”

Mokona yelped. Alakazam snatched the poor guy up and was ready to make a beeline out of there. Unfortunately for him, Cody’s reflexes had improved enough that he too was able to hook his hands around Mokona before the two were even close to the door.

“So, Sonic, those two other friends I was talking about; would you mind helping me look around for them around town?”

“Oh no you don’t,” Alakazam growled, gripping his hold on Mokona even tighter. “There’s something more important we’ve got to do.”

“Oh come on, weren’t you berating me for not being serious about finding them just earlier?!”

A tug-of-war competition erupted between the two, and poor Mokona could do nothing but make soft screeches as he was stretched back and forth between the two. Sonic had a fairly decent tolerance for nonsense, but now he could only look over awkwardly towards Loudred who carried a pained and exasperated expression like he was witnessing his own children embarrassing him in public.

Yeah, this was ridiculous. Time to step in.

“Hey, look, you two need to—”

“You two need to cool off!”

Under everyone’s eye, Amy slipped between the two and stealthily elbowed the two bickering brats; just enough to force their grasp off Mokona. She graciously caught him in her arms, and he was quick to dub her his hero in a continuous chant.

It appeared even that wasn’t enough to satiate their feud. Cody and Alakazam were more than ready to launch themselves into another fight. And this time Sonic was the one to blow out the fuse proper.

“Hey, look,” he nudged towards the psychic Pokemon. “I don’t know what kind of thing you two have going on, but this guy…” He pointed towards Cody. “I kind of made a deal to help him out. So how about this? You can go ahead and do what you came here to do while I go and help him out here in town. It’ll give you two time to cool off.” He gave a lighthearted wink. “Trust me, we’ll be done before you know it.”

“It’s true. He runs around like VROOOOSH !” Mokona wriggled around in Amy’s arms.

“What?!” Amy gasped. “But Sonic, you promised you’d go out on a date with me.”

He was taken aback. “I what?”

“Don’t tell me you forgot!”

“I, uh, sorry, Amy. They need my help. We’ll hang out some other time, alright?”

“That’s no excuse,” she pouted irritably. “Don’t they need this little guy to understand  anything anyway? How can that work if you split them up?” She gently lifted the rabbit thing up for emphasis.

Alakazam practically gagged when he realized just how futile his attempt to hide their situation was.

“Oh, don’t worry. I know how to make you all temporarily understand each other without me.”

Cody blinked. “Wait, why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

There was no real response. Right before everyone’s eyes, Mokona’s face started to morph into a disturbing state. His eyes reddened into blood velvet as they pulsated and bulged into indescribable shapes. His teeth caved in like raging sabres as they clawed into his mouth that had grown to the size of his own body. The ruby shard on his head pulsated like a heartbeat until a massive gasp of scarlet engulfed the room.

They weren’t sure what exactly happened, but they all knew none of them ever wanted to witness that again.

“Hey, uh,” Tails tiptoed over to the white rabbit-thing who had reverted back to his natural state just as quickly as he changed. “While you’re all out doing your thing, mind if I take a look at your friend here? Just wanna research him for a bit.”

“Sooooonic,” Amy whined. “Can’t we go on our date first? You’ve been pushing it back for almost a whole month now.”

“I’m sorry, Amy. A lot of people rely on me, you know?”

“Do you even want to go on our date?”

A strong gust of wind blew out towards the door, and Sonic was gone.

“Are you kidding me?!”

Amy was now fuming as she grumpily stomped over to the nearest chair to sulk. Tails had already begun to calmly tinker away with Mokona, no doubt much too accustomed to similar occurrences at this point. That left the last three outsiders to make their move.

Like clockwork, Cody and Alakazam were once again back to their usual borderline immature glares and sneers, and Loudred was once again left to awkwardly feign soft laughter. The duo marched, ironically, in sync with one another as they headed towards the exit. The two jammed right into the doorframe, and they continued to jab and cuss each other out until they finally squeezed their way through and out of sight.

Loudred could only wave apologetically to the equally mentally exhausted Tails and Amy before he too made his leave.

Notes:

Sonic is surprisingly hard to write.

Chapter 12: Green Hill Zone: Petty Divisions

Chapter Text

“What if I just chucked him off a cliff? If he's dead, the Keyblade would have to pick a different guy, right?”

“Haha, good joke, Al. Just remember that’s literally murder.”

Having already had their fair taste of Emerald Town, the Pokemon duo found themselves venturing into the seemingly endless Green Hill pastures. In their minds, their mission was to search for their king, but actually walking alongside the two would paint a better picture at what was going on. Alakazam was a leaking fuse and was wasting all the energy he normally would have spent on the task at hand instead in scaring away the fresh air and fauna with his rigorous rants and roars. All Loudred could do in the meantime was accompany his friend, while he waited for the moment the psychic type would finally collapse with all his energy spent.

So they were technically slacking off.

Of course, don’t tell Alakazam that.

“Just think; all these worlds and all these people who live in them and we get stuck following around some dumb kid with a hero complex,” Al weightlessly flailed his arms around. “Why aren’t you as angry as I am about this?”

Loudred shrugged. Just like back on the ship, he still maintained the same straightforward smile even though his mind was an exasperated tumbleweed. “If I’m going to be honest, I think everyone’s being way too harsh on him. Poor kid just got flung out of nowhere into this mess. You can’t expect him to just ease into things like he knows what he’s doing right away.”

“This is, what, his fourth world? That’s more than enough time!”

“Hey, stuff like this takes time to click. It’s not just a new situation for him. Everything he knew about how reality works got thrown out just like that. You can see it in him when we’re in battle. He’s freaking out on the inside, but he’s doing his best to force himself to fight.

“Honestly, I thought you of all Pokemon would be more sympathetic.”

I messed up, huh? Loudred thought to himself.

“What are you saying?” Alakazam creaked his head towards his back and eyed Loudred head-on with a vacant glare. “Are you saying he and I are alike?”

Outwardly, Loudred was as chill and jovial as he usually was. Inwardly, he was sweating buckets.

Don’t make it worse, don’t make it worse, don’t make it worse…

“Yeah!”

Why?

It was like the peaceful backdrop they strolled through was forcibly shaken awake at the crack of dawn. Light trembles surged in the grounds before they gradually grew to violent sways. Rocks and dirt trickled into the air while the grass pointed furiously to the sky like they were on the verge of being torn straight out of the ground. Alakazam launched himself into a screeching tirade, but the sheer pressure of mass that was being yanked from the grounds was like a ringing cyclone, and all words that left his mouth were lost to wind. He was in a state so infuriated that even Loudred wasn’t sure how he could possibly stamp his tantrum out.

So it was almost a blessing when a ball of red erupted out of the grounds, having been accidentally caught in the childish maelstrom Alakazam’s telekinesis stirred.

A red echidna crashed on to the ground, just as abruptly as he’d been forcibly pulled from below. Loudred and Alakazam jumped, the latter switching off his power like a simple finger snap. After all the nonsense Al had forced the scenery to endure, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

“Alright,” the echidna coughed as he trudged off the ground. “Who do I have to blame for getting my back slammed through fifty-something tons of dirt and then getting thrown back down face first from twenty feet up in the air?”

It wasn’t just his fur. His whole expression was a nasty shade of red. Alakazam, who had emanated just as much anger a few moments ago, could only meekly raise his hand upward in response.

“Great! I hope you have a good reason for ticking me off out of the blue today.” His face was only getting redder.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Now this was the Alakazam Loudred knew; serious and headstrong, but ready to break at a moment’s notice. As his partner was left hapless and stuttering at the mercy of the red echidna, he couldn’t help but wish Cody was here to witness this moment. Perhaps if Al was forced to show the Keybearer a true moment of vulnerability, they’d finally make a good first step to simmering down the tensions between them.

?!

Loudred turned around. It seemed their echidna “friend” wasn’t the only one who was disturbed by Alakazam’s immature little huff earlier. A small army of robots slowly creeped into the scene. And it only took a quick glance at their emblems and color scheme for him to realize these weren’t just any other robots they were dealing with; like the almost demonic Pokemon way back in Mystery Treasure Dungeon, they were infused by Heartless essence.

“Hey, uh, we’ve got company, you two.”

Alakazam and the echidna halted their one-sided quarrel as they jumped at the sight. In no time flat, they were almost completely surrounded by the strange bots.

“These guys again?” The echidna nearly choked. “Hey, Psychic Guy, mind doing what you did earlier to these things?”

“Uh, n-no, th-that was a spontaneous thing. I can’t just—”

A Heartless-bot lunged between the two, its arm now sporting the look of a spiral drill drenched in oil. Alakazam barely missed getting a nasty scratch on him and was shielded only by a spiked punch from their new echidna companion. This was apparently not the first time he’d encountered these foes as he had already launched himself into a brawling state while he smashed his clawed knuckles into as many robot chests as possible. The Pokemon duo were nothing more than extra support in this fight, and even then, they were being overwhelmed. More of the mechanical Heartless hybrids came piling in. The typically prideful Alakazam cursed at himself for possibly being the source of their wrath. There was nothing more they could do than to retreat.

 

oOo

 

“So, where do you think is a good place to start?”

Contrasting with the chaos going on all the way in the hills, Cody’s romp through Emerald Town was leisurely in comparison. It took him a bit to finally hunt Sonic back down after his emergency escape, but now that the two were together, it was almost like he was on a tour through town with a newfound friend as his guide. Yet again, there was a part of him that desperately pushed himself to take things seriously like that guy kept nagging him to, but yet again, he couldn’t bring himself to stoop as low as to admit that that really annoying guy had a point.

“Could you describe them again for me? A bit more specific this time,” Sonic asked. “Give me enough to work with and we’ll be done in a flash.”

“Okay,” Cody clasped his hands together and bit his tongue. It’d been a while since he’d seen either of them, so he needed to get his concentration going. “So Trent; medium-ish black hair, weird mullet thing going on, lots of green, some camo, uhhhh, surprisingly kinda emo. You probably wouldn’t tell just by looking at him though.

“And Gwen.” The corners of his mouth curved into a cheeky edge. “Black and teal hair, pale skin, fishnets, kickass combat boots, she’s even taller than me, she’s got that look that says she can beat the snot out and you’ll probably enjoy the finishing blow, oh, hair’s about yay high, that’s important, eyes that look like they can stab you if you look at her the long way, and you’d probably enjoy that too, super super gothy, probably the Hot Topic kind, lots of gothy makeup, actually, I’m not sure how much of that pale skin is natural and how much is just really busted up powder, and I can’t emphasize this enough, she is really really really really—”

“Two edgy looking teens, gotcha.”

Without even letting Cody finish, Sonic dashed off into the far distances of the city and left only fading remnants of lagging colors and light in his place. And even before those could fade away from view, he was already back and standing just as soundly in place like he did before.

“Yeah, I’m sorry to say, but I don’t think your friends are here.”

“Wh-what?”

What just happened?

“Want me to check again?”

The hedgehog once again broke the barrier of light to speedrun not one but multiple citywide excursions. When he finally returned and called it quits, all he could do was raise his hands in an apologetic frown.

Cody was disappointed of course, but the fact he got to witness something as intense as Sonic’s speed seemed to lighten the blow. “Yeah, I kind of figured.”

“Sorry, bud.”

“Hey,” he bounced back with a soft smile. “Since that flew by so quickly, at least you can have that date with that Amy girl.”

Sonic coughed.

…Did I say something wrong?

“Uh, sorry. Kinda slipped my mind again,” he muttered, followed by an awkward whistle and rapid foot taps. “I, uh, guess I’ll head back for that.”

“Do you, uh…not like Amy?”

Sonic’s eyes widened from the blunt query. “What? No no no no no no no.” He rapidly shook his hands. “She’s great. Just…she can be a bit much sometimes, you know?”

“How so?”

Sonic gave Cody a reluctant look before heaving out a collapsed sigh, seemingly glad he had an outsider to help get this off his chest. “So, that date; yeah, I agreed to it and I feel bad for always pushing it back, but whenever we’re together, that’s all she talks about. She keeps bringing up all these places we’re going to go to and I swear she bought a planner just for a single date, and just thinking about going on this thing makes me feel exhausted.”

“I mean, it sounds like she’s just excited.”

“It’s not just that though,” Sonic looked around in guilt like he was making sure no one else was here to hear him spill the rest of his grievances. “She sees me in the distance and she just drops what she’s doing to run for a hug. That’s a normal greeting for her. And in the first place, this date is only happening because she’d ask for one every time we’ve seen each other. She’s my friend, so of course I’m not gonna rip into her or anything, but I wish she’d tone it down a notch.”

As Cody continued listening, his mind began to wander. He still processed everything Sonic said, but in his head, the words were no longer about the pink hedgehog girl named Amy. No, a horrifying realization dawned on him.

“Oh crap, I’m Amy. Shit, I’m a guy, so I’m even worse than Amy!”

Sonic’s thoughts trailed off. “Huh? What?”

Cody keeled over while his hands and arms tried their best to hide away the mess of embarrassed blushes that were heating up his face. This wasn’t anything new. He always knew the kind of person he really was; annoying, always in over his head, overeager where it didn’t count. He thought back to how annoyed Gwen was during those last few days on the island. And even before then, just how much and how long was he a sore blotch in her sight?

“Holy shit. She thought I was a creep, didn’t she? Oh my God, just end me…”

“Hey, uh,” Sonic awkwardly patted his back. “I mean, I said Amy’s still my friend. I’m sure you weren’t that bad.”

Cody blinked. A new memory emerged within him. At the time, he foolishly took it in stride, too drunk off of the promises that starring in a reality show would bolster his standing no matter how he chose to act on TV. Now, he was both stunned and perplexed as to how his past self actually went and did the deed with a straight face.

I asked her for her bra!

Even Sonic couldn’t sugarcoat that.

Thankfully, or in actuality, unfortunately, a small chorus of screams just a few blocks down was enough to snap the internally humiliated Cody right back to reality. Without even thinking, he  reached out his arm to manifest his Keyblade. And on the same exact wavelength, Sonic reached for his other arm and slid them right to their battleground.

Another set of Heartless-bots had gathered in an area filled with shops and fleeing innocents. Much smaller than the mob they faced back in Green Hill Zone, the duo made quick work out of them. While Sonic bounced and kicked against the outer circle of bots, making sure none of them had an opening to leave the vicinity, Cody engaged in close combat to the ones at the center of the pack. His movements of course were still amateur in speed and ability, but that didn’t deter from the confidence of his movement. Any time a swing failed to land, he turned it into a feint that led the bots to clumsily bolt against one another. And any time he fell, he would turn his own blunder into a weapon and dodge movements meant to pin him down and force the enemies to face a hard whack on the back before smashing to the ground. In no time flat, the streets were cleared.

“The Badniks are showing up in town now, huh?” Sonic, arms on his hips, tapped his foot rapidly while deep in thought.

“Badniks?”

“Yeah,” he nodded sternly. “That dunce Dr. Eggman sends these dudes out on the regular to kidnap animals and mess everything up. Only now, these things have started getting really freaky with what they can do. They can crawl on the walls and sneak up on you like nothing. They’re a step up from the usual ones. How did Egghead manage to do that?”

There was no doubt in Cody’s mind that whoever this Eggman guy was, he seemed to have direct access and control over the Heartless. His face scrunched up. This entire time, he assumed they were mindless monsters that merely acted and spread on instinct. How was someone able to control them enough to breed an entirely different species subset out of them?

He was about to ask Sonic for more information. Who exactly was Eggman? Where could they find him? And just like the screams of the citizens from earlier, it was a combined stroke of good and bad luck that led to his answer.

A garish fissure sounded into the air. All the TV sets from a nearby electronics store emitted waves of static. Each screen displayed the same agitated patterns in an uncanny sync. By the time the crackling ambience faded and the chaotic pixelations started to level out, every single screen formed a combined wall of the same bald mustachioed man.

“Greetings citizens of Emerald Town. And a special nod to a certain meddling hedgehog.”

“Speak of the devil,” Sonic spoke under his breath.

“I’m sure you’ve all seen my latest models out and about by now. A lot more vicious than usual, yes? Well…” He launched himself into a disgustingly self congratulatory fit of laughter. “That’s a sign you’ll all fall down to me much sooner than you’d expect. These aren’t just your normal run of the mill machines. They’re fused with the power of darkness.” He took a pause before leaning forwards with a sinister grin. “And if darkness can make my beauties this ruthless, think of what would happen if I used them alongside the Chaos Emeralds too.”

Sonic’s jaw dropped. “He didn’t…”

Eggman resumed his loathsome laughter. “Yes, right under your nose, I’ve managed to collect all seven of them. Soon enough, this whole world will be covered in darkness and it will all be mine! So, Sonic the Hedgehog, if you’re watching this, and I know you are…

“Let’s see just how fast you are.”

Eggman’s image quickly fizzled away on the TV sets until Sonic and Cody faced nothing but darkness.

Cody was agape. “W-wait, what does that mean? What are ‘Chaos Emeralds’? Th-this is bad, isn’t it?”

“A challenge huh?”

Cody blinked. Sonic didn’t break a sweat at the ordeal. In fact, he smirked like his victory was a given.

“If he really wanted to be serious, he should’ve invited me in person.” He motioned over to Cody. “Ready for some fun?”

“I…uh…I guess??” And Alakazam thought he was the cocky one.

Nearby calls of Sonic’s name blew through the air. True to his name, Tails, with both Amy and Mokona in tow, helicoptered his way over to the duo with his own twin tails. He waved around some kind of transmitter device.

“Sonic, we’ve got an urgent call from Knuckles! He’s over in Green Hills right now.”

Sonic took hold of the transmitter and the screen suddenly flashed to a frantic scene of battle. The camera shook violently. Its wielder obviously must’ve been having difficulties balancing between the call and the danger that was right in front of him. A pair of distraught voices could be heard in the background as Heartless-bots bounced around in the chaotic backdrop.

One robot edged itself close to the camera before it was smashed down cold by a pair of sharpened fists. Finally, the one named Knuckles managed to find time to position the camera towards him, though the random flails and shakes continued throughout the call whenever his attention was needed elsewhere.

“I see you’re having fun over there.”

“Can it, Sonic,” Knuckles responded before he landed another smack at a nearby bot. “I finally got a lead on where the rest of the emeralds are.”

“Yeah, Egghead kind of already revealed himself earlier.”

“Look, I’ve been snooping around this place all day, and I think I finally found where the Doc’s been…” Before he could finish his thought, Alakazam came flying right towards him and nearly knocked the shorter echidna to the ground. “Hey, watch it!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!!”

Any surprise Cody had to his companion’s presence was overpowered by schadenfreude.

“You need help over there, buddy?” Sonic asked his friend, flippantly.

“You think?!”

The transmission was over.

“Well,” Sonic glanced at Cody. “Not just Knux, looks like your friend needs a hand too.”

“Ptht, that wise guy can handle himself,” he scoffed in return.

“Hey, trust me, I think it’d be hilarious to leave Knux alone too, but if I did that, I’d regret it.”

Without even leaving a single second for him to protest back, Sonic nabbed Cody’s arm and sped off into the distance as the whirring echoes of the teen’s screams trailed behind them. Back at the starting line, Amy pouted her face, annoyed Sonic didn’t even say a word to her in that whole exchange. But even so, she diligently held on to Mokona as Tails once again lifted them up into the sky as they followed along.

 

oOo

 

“You literally shook the ground earlier! What do you mean you can’t do that again?”

“I told you, that was an emotional response!”

“And this isn’t making you emotional?”

“Hey, uh, Knuckles, was it? I think you’re starting to make Al cry.”

Having fled from the wide open fields, Knuckles, Loudred, and Al were all cornered in front of a walled cliff. Just like before, they were surrounded by seemingly endless droves of robots, and their numbers only increased the more they fought.

Knuckles glared towards the ground. The three were situated above a metal hatch marked with a red mustachioed emblem. No doubt the growing numbers of enemies was all because the three managed to stumble upon their nest. This wasn’t just a random mob; it was the enemy’s line of defense. If only they could find a way to break into there. He already attempted to coerce Alakazam into using his telekinetic abilities to force the hatch open, but the useless psychic had suddenly become too frazzled to focus. Knuckles however stayed firm. The transmission he sent moments before was less of a cry for help and more of a trigger.

If anything, Sonic arrived on the scene much faster than he expected.

Sonic immediately launched into a barrage of homing attacks and took aim at any bot that was unfortunate enough to be within his proximity. Cody meanwhile, completely overwhelmed by the extreme momentum he was forced to endure, was sent crashing violently into a large mass of targets as if Sonic had planned to use the poor dude as a living projectile from the start.

He groaned as he slowly lifted himself up from the newly formed pile of scrap parts. He was at a point where the near slapstick nature of the pain he received from combat left aches that felt nothing more than irritable knicks and scratches. However, that didn’t mean his stomach was faring any better. His hands passed over a peculiar liquid, and his still noxious face quickly switched over to disgust, realizing what exactly that implied.

And then he looked over at Alakazam who, while not drenched, had enough questionable fluids dripping off of him to reasonably hold intent for murder. Cody couldn’t decide whether to bask in the satisfaction of once again pissing off this douche or to gag in shame.

The space between them was equal parts rigid and disgusting. Time stood still as they initiated their staredown that was mixed with both animosity and the pure shock that Cody had actually projectile vomited on to Al in the middle of battle. Their glares grew all the more unyielding, and the awful smell around them began to fester.

Loudred body slammed all three of them straight to the ground. While the two were busy letting their differences and the smell of barf garble around, a crowd of Heartless-bots gathered around them completely unchallenged, and Loudred had just saved them from being roasted on the spot by laser blasts. Still, even he wasn’t immune to the spreading puke stain, and they honestly should have been lucky he and his huge ass mouth didn’t add on to the already revolting atmosphere.

“Wow, you three smell like garbage!”

Mokona stood in front of them and grinned like he was meeting up with friends for a picnic rather than joining them in battle.

Alongside the unhelpful mascot, Tails and Amy finally arrived at the scene. Tails was quick to join in on Sonic and Knuckles’s little fighting corner. The two who’d been mostly squaring off in their own separate battles were now joined into a perfect trio. Tails, still in flight, grabbed hold of both Sonic and Knuckles and tossed them around like a kid in the playground slinging dodgeballs at unsuspecting passerby. They were completely in sync. In comparison…

Amy reviewed the scene in front of her. While Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were united in their efforts, the remaining four chucklefucks were way too absorbed in whatever intergroup drama they had going on to actually be useful. The Heartless-bots replenished their numbers just as fast as they were losing them, and having half their manpower lazing around did them absolutely no favors in changing that.

She puffed her cheeks. She couldn’t find the right words to describe how she felt in this situation. Not quite angry. Perhaps annoyed? Either way, her hands gripped on to the handle of her oversized Piko Piko Hammer, and with all her might, she swung her way into a spinning spiral.

And that’s when the tables turned, almost too suddenly.

One smack of her hammer easily sent the enemies flying. Strange pulses of light bounced off with each impact, as if her hammer was adding an extra kick to her attacks. As she spun and spun and twirled around the battleground like a petite pink tornado, a trail of white aura followed her with each strike and swing. They quickly went from a seemingly never ending slew of bots to virtually none at all.

Seemingly out of instinct, Amy braced herself for one final blow. She leapt into the air and smashed her hammer right on to the center of the hatch. Even she probably expected to just make a small dent. Instead, a burst of light spewed right out of the point of impact like an ill timed landmine. She yelped out in high pitched confusion. The broken metal cracked and crumbled like glass, and everyone was forced to tumble down into the unknown.

Chapter 13: Green Hill Zone: Deep in the Nest

Chapter Text

They weren’t quite sure how large of a fall they took, but one thing was for sure; they all smelled like shit.

“I’m almost impressed with how weak your stomach is,” Loudred laughed, apparently so bemused by the situation that he had begun to playfully smack Cody’s back while completely ignoring any possible consequences.

“I, I swear I didn’t barf this time.” He was telling the truth. A combination of the wafting raw smell and all the stray fluids mixing sloppily together during their collective tumble had caused the putrid stench to spread to everyone. And if Loudred kept up with the pelting, perhaps Cody really would make it worse soon.

“This is the worst!” Amy cried, her hands clasped against her head. “I just wanted to go on a nice date and now I’ll probably have to spend the rest of the day in the shower.”

“Hey,” Sonic lightly tapped on her shoulder. “Don’t look so down. That was amazing what you did back there! You took all those badniks down even faster than I would have.”

She blinked. “R-really?”

“Yeah, you wiped them out like it was nothing,” he grinned before waving one of his signature thumbs ups.

This was far from the first time she’d seen or heard him praise her. Yet each and every time, she was reminded why exactly she was so attached to him. He had an aura around him that exuded pure positivity; like just being around him made anyone feel things would be okay. Sure, she might’ve smelled like a toxic waste basket right now, but the only thing that mattered at the moment was that she was here with Sonic.

And well…

She’d really like to get that date eventually.

The complete opposite of tension was forming between the two hedgehogs. Growing increasingly flustered, Sonic stammered off, in a poor attempt to clear his head.

“So, where the heck are we?” He haphazardly asked.

Even if he just needed a cheap way to change the subject, it was a valid question based on their surroundings. Endless tiles of metal paved the walls and ground. They had the uneasy look and luster of rusted down ores despite clearly having been only recently erected. Two dimly lit  tunnels were laid before them with curves that slid downwards like they were slides in a haunted playground. It was impossible to tell what laid beyond them, or rather, beneath them. Sonic and his usual company were used to mucking around in evil lairs, especially Eggman’s, but there was something weirdly sinister about this place.

“This is one of Eggman’s bases, isn’t it?” Tails flew over beside his friend. “Judging by what happened earlier, it might even be where all those robots are being manufactured.”

“Not just that.” This time Knuckles trudged on, holding out a green gem that shined so brilliantly against the drab walls, it might as well have been their sole source of light. “I’ve been trying to track the other emeralds all day. This thing kept going crazy when I got to Green Hills. This might be where he’s hiding the rest of them.”

Sonic raised his eyebrow in an unimpressed fashion. “Didn’t bother challenging me in person and he lied about having all the emeralds. Not a good day for the Doc here.”

“Hey, take this seriously,” Knuckles lightly shoved Sonic’s shoulder. “This is the last one he needs. We gotta find the others, asap, or who knows what he might do with them.”

“Well, you also happened to deliver the last one he needed right to his doorstep,” Tails mumbled hesitantly.

Knuckles twitched.

Sonic once again glanced over at the twin tunnels; the peculiar underpasses that only darkened with each flickering glow against the metallic stains that rotted like dried blood. Sonic had a bad feeling about those new badniks for a while now, but now seeing the uneasy state of their homebase, he could only imagine what laid below..

“Hey,” he turned around towards the Keyblade gang. Left to their own devices, they had once again devolved into their typical group bickering. “You guys are experts on those things, right?”

They collectively blinked.

“I know they’re not just any ordinary bots.”

“Who are you four anyway?” Knuckles eyed them suspiciously.

“Oh yeah, Knux,” Sonic added. “These guys have been helping around with beating those things down. That’s Cody, Mokona…”

“Hi, I’m Mokona.”

“And you already met Al and Loudred, yeah?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I said I was sorry,” Alakazam silently whimpered.

“Anyways,” Sonic gestured back at the ominous tunnels. “We’re going to have to split up if we want to cover all our bases.”

“It’d probably be best to split you four up again just so we can make sure we’re prepared in case something that would fall more on your expertise pops up,” Tails chimed in.

Alakazam shifted his eyes towards a certain someone who responded with a simple stink eye. Everyone braced themselves for yet another round of yelling and cussing, but it surprisingly never came. Alakazam simply stomped off on his own towards the right most tunnel. Each step heaved deep tempered breaths that threatened to break out and really start a fight. Even in his silence, the unspoken ire did more than enough to sour the air.

Well, except for whatever Mokona breathed. Always one to march at his own beat, the strange rabbit creature gleefully bounced along to Alakazam’s trail without a care in the world.

“Well that works out, I guess,” Knuckles sighed. “Hey Amy, I’m probably gonna need another heavy hitter to make sure those two don’t fall over themselves. Mind coming with?”

“Uh, I actually do.” She took a quick glimpse at Sonic. If she had it her way, she’d happily shove her way into Sonic’s group.

But duty called.

“Fine,” she griped as she and Knuckles made their exit.

With the group now smaller and quieter than it was before, Sonic gave a slight smirk to his friend and his two new pals. “Alright, we’re going left then.”

“Hey, uh,” Cody weakly raised his hand. “Remember when Mokona did that…thing to help us understand each other?”

“What about it?” Loudred tilted his head.

“I don’t know. I feel like those effects would be wearing out by now. Isn’t keeping us separate kinda bad?”

“Oh! I almost forgot,” Tails exclaimed before handing a small star shaped keychain over to Cody.

He dangled the trinket like a toy pendulum. His eyes shifted towards the fox child in confusion. “Uh, what is this?”

“Remember when I asked to borrow your friend earlier? I found a way to compound his powers into mass. All you have to do is pop in any kind of food and it’ll convert it into candy that’ll have the same effect as his translation ability.”

And just like that, Cody clicked the plastic star open. Out came a small shielded indent that popped out a pair of pastel colored gumballs from its flaps. Both Cody and Loudred went wild.

“Put a few starter candies in there too of course!”

“This is amazing!” Cody excitedly shoved the candy into his mouth.

“You made this in just a few hours? You’re really something else, kid,” Loudred ruffled this fox’s fur with paternal glee.

Tails responded with a soft grin, both pleased and embarrassed with the attention he was getting. “Well, enough of that. We should really start heading off.”

“You don’t have to rush through compliments, you know.” Sonic said this with an air of genuine encouragement. But despite that, he was the first to slip off towards the mysterious darkened tunnel that laid ahead.

The others wordlessly followed without complaint, and the newly equipped keychain dangled along in the rough and arid underground breeze alongside the sway of the Keyblade.

 

oOo

 

“Look out behind you!”

Amy slammed her hammer straight into the head of a Heartless-bot that was just moments away from sinking its metallic claws into Mokona. Just like before, a distinct stream of light floated in the atmosphere while the robot’s crushed parts slowly crumpled onto the ground.

Knuckles looked around. The four had run into another small group of badniks just now and Amy was able to decimate them in what felt like seconds. She was giving Sonic, the “Fastest Thing Alive” himself, a run for his money.

“Man, that hammer of your’s really packs a punch against these guys,” he nodded in amazement. “Have you been working out or something?”

“Oh, you know.” Amy rested the head of her hammer on to the ground as she began to lean on the handle and cheekily take in his words. “A girl’s gotta make sure she stays in top shape.”

She looked across from her. While Knuckles was left in astonishment at her sudden fighting prowess and Mokona was launching himself into a near incomprehensible string of compliments, Alakazam was the only one who remained silent at her accomplishment. She grinned and leaned forward as she coaxed him for a response.

Al’s eyes were wide and his head was trickled in cold sweat. He made a terrible mistake. He was so transfixed on his petty hatred of a certain bratty Keyblade wielder that he took the first chance he got to get as far away from him as possible and wound up in an even worse situation; he was stuck with two people he barely knew. And one of them he had already pissed off much earlier. Sure, Mokona was here too, but the little guy was such a behavioral anomaly, his presence made absolutely no difference in breaking any ground between Al and the two other colorful mammals.

Amy stifled back a giggle. She could practically see how panicked Al was on the inside at his current situation, and she teasingly leaned even further just to freak him out some more.

“Um, uh,” his eyes darted rapidly across the steep corridor. “You fight really…cool?”

“Why thank you!” Amy squealed in genuine appreciation.

Completely energized by her compliment fishing, Amy hopped back into a proper walking stance while she spun her hammer gracefully like a baton before letting the handle land gently on her shoulder. After their short little break, the four were back to their expedition.

“Today’s turning out much better than I thought it’d be,” she mused playfully to herself. “I’ve gotten so much stronger lately, even Sonic’s noticed! He’s going to have to take me out after this.”

“What?” Knuckles’s face morphed into a mix of concern and amusement. “You’re still going on about that? It’s gotta have been at least two months at this point. That date is not happening.”

Amy stopped in her tracks and pouted aggressively at her friend. “Says you!”

Alakazam scrunched his face. He recalled back to his brief time at Tails’s workshop and during the brief moments he wasn’t distracted by how much he hated that stupid Keyblade wielder, there was very very brief drama going on between her and Sonic. A missed date, excuses, obvious reluctance to reschedule; honestly, the whole situation seemed asinine.

“Does he even like her?” He meant to keep that thought in his head, but he assumed Amy was distracted enough by her friend’s earlier statement to miss his quiet mumbling.

And boy he was wrong because she now pouted aggressively at him instead.

“Of course he likes me! What kind of question is that?!”

“Uh, um, uh.” Back to sweating. “I…I don’t know. It just kind of sounds like he hates you.”

Alakazam winced. He perhaps anticipated some lengthy screaming from the pink hedgehog’s end, but nothing ever came. Instead, she merely looked on to him in an almost understanding mind, even if she was frustrated.

“Of course he doesn’t hate me. We’ve been friends for a long time now. He might do dumb insensitive stuff every now and then, but we wouldn’t be around with each other all the time if he hated me. Who does that?” She pointed towards Knuckles. “Like, Sonic drives him crazier than he ever would with me, and he’s still here.”

“Boy do I know it,” he rolled his eyes.

She continued to stare at Alakazam, this time with even more empathetic eyes. His body heated up when he realized where this conversation was heading.

“Maybe someone was doing a bit of projecting back there?”

Yup. There it was.

He could imagine how this conversation would’ve gone had Loudred been the one uttering those words. No doubt, there would’ve been a lot of yelling and manic fury, and perhaps a frightening show of telekinetic power like back up in Green Hills. That was someone he’d known for a while though. He couldn’t just blow up in front of two people who were practically strangers to him. They shouldn’t have even existed in the same realm as him.

She continued to stare, obviously awaiting a response. “People can have issues with each other and still be friends, y’know. Whatever’s going on between you and Cody is probably dumb anyways.”

He twitched. “We are not friends.”

“But you travel together?”

“Not by choice.”

“And?”

“Shut up!!”

His cries that would usually be filled with spitefully haughty anger instead became increasingly frazzled. He was used to Loudred attempting to get the two of them to get along, but there was something deeply humiliating about a complete outsider trying to insist upon it.

“Come on, you gotta care about him even a little bit,” she continued to egg him on.

“Absolutely not!!”

He couldn’t remember a single pleasant moment with the dude. There were all the moments Cody cowered around in battle, all the moments they broke into fights with one another, even in the middle of combat. When they were united in their determination to get into the Newcomers Tournament back in Smash Stadium, it was because they both happened to be hating on the same guy. There was nothing more to that. And when Cody was struck with a sudden four-legged handicap back at the Glistening Caverns, he shielded him from that nasty burn because he couldn’t risk the Keybearer dying on him. There was nothing more to that too.

Nope, they could never be friends.

Not at all.

“Wow, you’re more stubborn than the knucklehead here,” Amy sighed sarcastically.

“...Wait, are you talking about me?”

Knuckles was just about to protest, but a far off cry forced them to halt their chatter altogether. While the three of them were busy conversing, Mokona had gone on way ahead and now jumped excitedly as he prompted the others to follow. Knuckles ran along and Amy giddily pulled Alakazam, still very disoriented with social awkwardness. She obviously wasn’t done messing with him just yet.

As the four carried on along, Amy continued to yap as much as she pleased. Mokona would continuously flip-flop around between a brainless yes-man to her antics or an active assistant in her teasing. She somehow became the group leader, and Knuckles and Alakazam could do nothing but go along with it.

And through it all, Al couldn’t decide if she was impossible or easy to talk to.

He turned his head away and uttered a mumble even he wasn’t sure if he intended to be heard or not. “Friend or not, I still think he’s treating you like garbage.”

It was something to think about, but even then, Amy couldn’t help but smile.

 

oOo

 

Unbeknownst to them, far in the deepest trenches of the trek to hell, a man chuckled sinisterly. The shines of his goggles and navy blue glasses gleamed against the light of the monitors that tracked all of his adversaries’ moves.

“You’re usually a lot faster than this, hedgehog,” Eggman couldn’t help but gloat to himself. “Hurry down quicker and you’ll get to see exactly what I have in store for you all.”

Eggman continued laughing to himself like a madman as he found entertainment in mocking their movements. And meanwhile, right in the center of the hallowed lab he was situated in, a large egg-like structure lay dormant while surrounded by the shines of six emeralds.

 

oOo

 

The going-ons in Cody and Sonic’s team were no different than Al and Amy’s, save for the almost ridiculous quick successions of killer robots. The further down the spiraling slide path they went, the more badniks they ran into. The more badniks they encountered, the more bot bashing that ensued.

“Nice!” Sonic high fived Cody after their round. “When you’ve got your head in the game, you guys are unstoppable.”

“Yeah,” Tails nodded happily in agreement. “How long have you been fighting these guys? You’re like experts.”

“Well,” Cody grinned slyly, slicking back his hair. “I don’t know. This is like our third, fourth worl—”

Loudred loudly slapped his back, forcing him to keel over and realize what he almost did. The two proceeded to give each other confused looks, hoping that one of them could come up with a good bluff.

…Nothing but awkward silence.

Sonic and Tails gave each other cringed glances before they continued on their ways.

“...You didn’t have a cover story ready when you shut me up?”

“I’m sorry,” Loudred sighed. “I’m not usually the one handling things like this.”

The two also began to carry on, albeit from a noticeable distance between them and their two furry companions. If they had any better tact, they probably would’ve realized just how much more suspicious this made them.

“Should we like…rehearse this kind of stuff?” Cody scratched his head. “Come up with premade excuses?”

“Man, if only Al were here. He probably would’ve stopped you before you even opened your mouth.”

Like many times before, Loudred laughed at his own statement despite how far from amused the other party was. Cody was at a point that just the mention of his name was enough to sour his mood. Despite only one half of the equation present, the feeling was now almost the exact same as the oppressive setting of the Gummi Ship.

Loudred took a deep breath. Unlike Al, Cody was probably less likely to blow up in his face about this topic.

“Hey, uh, when we wrap this up…do you think you and Al could maybe try talking things out?”

Cody scoffed. “As if. You think he’s going to want that?”

“I’ve known him for a while. I can try to talk him into it.”

“And why do you think I’d agree to it?” Cody eyed him with an unimpressed stare.

Loudred took another deep breath. “Look, I’m gonna be honest with you. He’s literally just a kid having constant tantrums. If you just try to talk to him, he’ll calm down eventually.”

“Well maybe he should act his age.”

“No, um,” he scratched his head. How should he put this? “So first of all, in our world, life spans probably work a lot more differently than yours.”

…Wait.

Cody quickly swung his head in confusion. “What are you getting at here?”

“How old are you?”

“15??”

“Okay, so if we proportionally scale down his lifespan, he is most definitely younger than you.”

You’ve gotta be shitting me.

“But he’s so big!”

“Yeah, force feeding yourself Rare Candies will do that to you.”

“What does that even mean?!”

“You know, he’s considered pretty small for his species. Guess even forced evolutions can’t speed that up.”

“What are you even talking about?!” Cody, eyes wide, slapped his forehead in disbelief. “Are you telling me I’ve been arguing with a ten-year-old this entire time?”

“I wouldn’t say he’s that young,” Loudred snickered. “But yeah, he’s the very definition of a scared child trying to act twice his age.”

Cody eyed his companion suspiciously. “How old are you then?”

“Don’t push it, kid.”

Loudred was earnest in his attempt to convince Cody, but the conversation was soon lost in a puzzling interrogation over their differences in living functions. No matter how hard he tried to nudge things back on track, Cody went back to asking questions that he knew he’d get mind bogglingly incomprehensible responses for. This was how the group carried on for a while. The two of them continued to trail in the back, deeply entrenched in their own conversation, while Sonic and Tails led the way, growing more curious of their friends’ true natures the further along they went.

…?

Cody’s ears perked. Beyond the echoes of their feet clangs on to the metal and the incessant idle chatter, he could hear a soft buzz fading in and out in the distance.

“Do you guys hear that?”

Silence fell upon them, and the strange buzz grew louder now. No; a buzz wasn’t quite right. Perhaps a fissure or screech? They readied themselves as if anticipating an attack, but no matter how much noise changed its pattern or increased in intensity, it never once felt like something was about to approach.

“Do you guys think they’re fighting something further down ahead?” Tails inquired.

“They were quicker than me?” Sonic responded.

“We were stopped by a lot of bots. Maybe they were a lot luckier.”

“Do you think they need help?” Cody asked.

Sonic nodded. “Probably. We gotta get further down and try to reach them fast.”

He’d just begun to mount a sprint when something else forced him into a pause.

It was Amy’s scream.

Whatever happened down there, it did not sound good.

Sonic resumed in a panic and blasted through without even a word to his companions. The wind that resulted from his force slapped on to them and nearly forced the three to stumble sloppily to  the ground. They shared worried expressions amongst one another and followed helplessly through the path, unsure if they’d even be able to catch up to Sonic in time to lend their hands too.

 

oOo

 

Al, Amy, Mokona, and Knuckles had arrived right at the footsteps of an ominous sealed entrance. Perhaps it was accidental arrogance from Amy’s various victories along the way, but after fight after fight of cracking scrap metal and robotic limbs, they were now surrounded.

Knuckles gawked at the strange creatures before him. To Al and Mokona, they were an annoyingly familiar face, but to him and Amy, they were like moving nightmares. The gangly figures of the Shadow masses twisted and contorted in unnatural angles, avoiding every single smack to the face the echidna attempted to slug on to them.

“What the heck are these things?!” He eyed Al and Mokona incredulously. These were most definitely not the badniks he was used to maiming.

Alakazam stammered while he haphazardly unleashed his psychic abilities on the enemies. As accustomed as he was to fighting them at this point, it was clear even he was caught off guard by their sudden appearance.

“I…uh…um…” Even now he desperately tried to keep the two in the dark about everything.

“They’re Heartless!!” Mokona squeaked.

The little guy flopped his rabbit feet across a Shadow’s face, but was immediately sent flying from a retaliating swipe behind him. He was just inches away from being ripped apart by the deformed hands of a Shadow, but was saved right in the nick of time by a familiar large hammer. Like all the times before with the robots, the impact of Amy’s swing to the creature emitted a surreal blink of light. She caught Mokona by the ears and cleared a safe path for him before letting him free.

“Will these things stay still?” She cringed. Her attacks packed just as much of a punch as they did before, but the new foes proved to be even more annoyingly flexible than their mechanical counterparts. She was lucky to land a quick hit on any of these things , and even when she did, they fidgeted just fast enough to move less painful positions..

Alakazam gulped. As he and Mokona were the only ones with real experience against these guys, a strange sense of guilt and responsibility had built upon him. He revved up his telekinetic abilities and tried his best to freeze the enemies up enough to give his teammates room to attack. Despite everything however, it was a familiar situation as before when they were way above their current location. The Heartless just kept going and going and going. There was no doubt that something was beyond that closed entranceway.

“Amy,” Al called out above all the chaos. “They’re trying to protect whatever’s up ahead. Smack that hatch down!”

“Got it!”

That was a mistake.

With Amy’s hammer up in the air and ready to bring the house down, a strange and bizarre hissing fissure crackled from beyond. There wasn’t any time to register or even realize what exactly was beyond that door. Because the hatch burst right open all on its own, and a flurry of mechanical tendrils with streams of electrical currents that circulated throughout their slender lengths spread throughout the cramped corridors.

The immense crackling of sparks encircled them and flailed around, allowing the currents to surround and overwhelm them in makeshift electrical cages. With their prey trapped, the wriggling arms coiled and forced Al, Knuckles, and Mokona flat on the ground.

Ever quick on her impulses, Amy swung her hammer frantically; half as a counterattack to the metal tendrils, and half as a flimsy shield. The currents buzzed violently in her ears as if they were looking to intimidate and take her down specifically. Her face dropped the more she fought. What prowess she had against the badniks and Shadows did absolutely nothing on these things. She put up a valiant if futile fight, but even she found herself tied up and defenseless against their clutches.

A cartoonish fit of laughter boomed. On the opposite ends of the tendrils, a small circular vehicle floated through the entranceway and revealed a certain man who was all too familiar to two of the fighters.

“You!” Knuckles snarled as he writhed on the ground.

“Splitting your lot up worked out even better than I thought,” Eggman mocked. “I didn’t even have to face that wretched hedgehog.”

“Why you…” Amy winced.

Eggman twitched. He was so taken into the moment, it didn’t occur to him just how foul and hellish the corridors reeked. His face crumpled up and he quickly pinched up his large nose. “What in the world is that stench?! You all smell disgusting!”

I’M GOING TO CAVE IN YOUR TEETH!

Fueled by her aner, Amy wriggled around and tried her damndest to break free. All her efforts however were met with even more electric tendrils snaking out of the bottom hatch of Eggman’s Eggmobile. They viciously crushed and twisted around her body, forcing out a bloodcurdling scream as the newly added currents shook her up.

All the guys could do was watch helplessly.

“What the heck are you doing to her?!” Knuckles fumed. If he wasn’t tied down by his own spring of rough currents, he would’ve ran right up there and beat the shit out of him.

“There’s no need to worry,” Eggman smirked almost tauntingly.“We need her for much bigger plans, so I don’t plan to end her.”

“Shut up!!”

“You meanie!” Mokona added on his own ills. “I’m going to bite your face off and leave one eye on you so you can watch me slowly chew and digest your flesh while you writhe in unimaginable pain only known to mortals meeting their slow untimely deaths!”

The doctor genuinely winced.

“Well with that, perhaps it’s time to leave.”

The electrical currents around her weakened as Amy’s body grew limp. Her hammer landed on the ground in a dull thud. The Eggmobile quickly backed away into the darkness of the mysterious lab beyond, taking both Amy and copious robotic tendrils along with it. Now free from their clutches, the boys made a mad dash to save their friend, but were stopped by the Heartless; the monsters that laid so creepily dormant during that ordeal, they nearly forgot they were even there.

A Shadow crawled around, flattened on the metal plates of the ground. When it materialized just close enough to Knuckles to trip him, it nabbed the Chaos Emerald he carelessly brought along to his trek and fled away to the lab.

“Hey, you can’t just—” Knuckles’s upset outburst was interrupted by Mokona’s body flung hard into his face.

Alakazam, who had remained silent from both literal and metaphorical shock during this entire ordeal, stared wide eyed and aghast at the dark room where Eggman and Amy made their exit.

He screwed up.

He really screwed up.

He kept harping on and on about responsibility and keeping a low profile this entire time, and now she was captured because of him .

He reached out his hands and concentrated as hard as he could in the small glimmer of hope that he could maybe pull her back. But with the Heartless and the chaos of the moment surrounding him…

…This was all his fault.

The ground slowly started to shake.

 

oOo

 

Sonic skid to a halt.

He had reached the very end of the tunnel and was met with a ledge that led to a nearly pitch black room.

He carefully peered around. They were lucky to have had any kind of light at all in the pathway that led him here. He could barely make out even the wall. It might as well have been a pathway to the edge of the world.

Suddenly, a fierce shroud of light came from below.

Sonic’s eyes quickly darted downward.

All seven Chaos Emeralds were placed neatly around a large and mysterious mechanized egg.

…Wait.

He had all seven now?

“Oh crap.”

He was faster than anything known to man, yet even he was too slow to stop the turbulent power of the gems that powered up whatever the hell that thing was.

The room that once resembled endless dark was lit up in a glorious blaze. The mechanical menace cracked out of its dormant posture, almost tripling in size. It had the same bloody purple hue and aesthetic as its much smaller counterparts that they’d been smacking around all day, but this one had a much more slender build than any of Eggman’s past inventions; as if it were the undead skeleton of a mecha long destroyed and rebuilt. It was so unlike anything Eggman had previously made, it gave Sonic doubts that its current look and form was even built as intended.

This wasn’t Eggman’s handiwork.

He didn’t know it, but the Egg Ghoul was much more Heartless than mech.

A lone digital eye sprang up like a projection on its round dome-like head; the only indication that this thing ever originated from the Doc’s messed up mind. It shuffled around its thick and gangly clawed arms like it’d just woken up to limbs all numbed up from slumber.

This was his chance. Ever the go-getter, Sonic already rared himself up to fight this new foe.

But then he tumbled over.

The ground shook violently.

Cracks formed in the brass and metal walls and fixtures. Even the eye of the mech hesitated. Dust and debris clouded the area, yet not in the way Sonic would have imagined. Everything was pulled upward into the air.

And everything started to develop a faint telekinetic glow.

All of a sudden, the climax of the pull erupted. Everything shot upwards; Sonic, the mech, the emeralds. The entire facility became undone.

And soon enough, Cody, Sonic, Al, Loudred, Mokona, Tails, and Knuckles all laid flat on the familiar grounds of Green Hill.

This was their next battlefield.

Chapter 14: Green Hill Zone: Mecha Madness

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Knocked down and half conscious, Cody wearily motioned his hands and took in the mess of grass that mixed in with all the dirt and metal debris that rained in the area after the lair’s implosion. In his head, he knew something else was here. There just had to be. But after being forcibly pulled lord knows how many feet up from the Earth and crashing straight to the ground like a slab of meat being prepped for the grill, it was hard to blame him for being reluctant to jump straight into another round of pain and hurt in such quick succession.

Maybe if I keep my eyes closed, it’ll go away .

It was a joke, but as he groggily trudged his eyes open, he sincerely hoped whatever was there would just get the hint and leave.

But when he first feasted his eyes to the ghoul, a strange mix of emotions raced in him. Yes, there was fear and terror. But also…

…That was a freaking mecha.

“Holy shit,” he jumped straight into standing position while his eyes sparkled in awe over the towering sight. “A mech, an actual mech. Holy crap!”

Mokona had just woken up when he was inundated with Cody’s misplaced glee. “Mokona, look, a real life sized mecha!”

“Oh, that thing’s totally gonna kill us!”

“But it’s so cool!”

“Hey, hey,” Loudred slapped the boy’s back. “This is exciting and all, but we’ve got a job to do.”

The large Pokemon gestured ahead. Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails, the experienced heroes that they were, had already charged head first into battle. It was obvious what the rest of them needed to do next.

“Right, got it,” Cody nodded a little too enthusiastically before he returned to his feverish fanboyism. “This is so nuts,” he breathed. “Maybe if we’re careful enough, we can salvage it and make it pilotable. Oh my gosh, I would pilot the shit out of—”

Will you be serious for once?!

Here we go again.

They were separated for so long, Cody almost forgot about his unwanted companion. He rolled his eyes, took a deep breath, turned around, and readied himself to perform yet another terrible display of so-called “teamwork”.

But with that face in front of him, how could he possibly fight back?

Alakazam was an absolute mess. Red and frazzled from frustration, the Pokemon who usually carried himself in a more haughty and stern poise was now on the verge of tears. For the first time, Cody saw it. He looked exactly what Loudred tried to paint him as.

A scared little kid.

A sudden thought came to him. Sonic and the others were already up ahead, but they were down one very important member.

“Hey,” he started carefully. “Where’s Amy?”

It was like a switch flipped right in the psychic Pokemon’s head. Just one utterance of her name set him off. In a surprising turn of events, he completely ignored any sense of irritance towards the Keyblade Wielder and ran off, intent on venting his anger on the stupid creature his friend’s stupid kidnapper unleashed on them.

The remaining trio were at a complete loss of words. All they could do was share a single quick glance between one another before they too charged off into battle.

Al slung countless slews of Psybeams and Psyshocks and whatnot. Anything to vent off all the mental stress he accumulated in just the past couple of minutes. As blast after blast bounced off of the behemoth like insignificant stones, his outburst looked no more than just that; sloppy and chaotic attacks with no rhyme, reason, or results. And it wasn’t just his efforts. The entire assault looked just like that. Everyone just charged head on with no real plan of attack.

The mech loomed silently like it was still in the process of learning what retaliation was. This was their early battle handicap because before they knew it, its digital cyclops eye blinked open and a threshold of missiles clanked out from its newly unsheathed launchers that encircled its neck and shoulders. The mech itself remained barely mobile, and yet, it was already doing more than enough damage to bring cause for worry.

As small bouts of explosions blew up throughout the grounds, the majority of the group had no choice but to pull back. All except Sonic of course. He sped off throughout the mess and deftly slid and zoomed past blast zones long before the missiles hit their targets, even boldly leaping and bouncing off of them. He launched him into a spiraling trail around the ghoul’s own skyscraper sized body.

Sonic ran along the mech like a twisting corkscrew. Each time he found himself on a new body part, he bounced right into his signature Homing Attacks as he tried to hit as much damage as he could while he had the chance. All the while, the ghoul’s eye darted and fidgeted around erratically. The once mostly immobile robot now swung itself wildly as it desperately tried to force this mangy rodent off of it.

Sonic was eventually flung away. Tossed several feet across the field, he forced himself into a screeching skid and stopped neatly besides his familiar group of comrades. With its sole inconvenience now far and away, the mech resumed its crazed missile launching, now much more intense than before.

“Don’t suppose you could try that a few more times?” Cody pondered.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Sonic smirked before once again charging forwards.

Unfortunately, things were not quite that simple. The ghoulish cyclops blinked again while it focused on Sonic’s trail. During the last round, it would’ve been impossible for it to even figure out where Sonic was headed in time to detect him. But just as planned, the speedster’s pace was impeded just enough from the heightened missile launches for its self defense functions to kick in.

The mech raised its bulky arms into the air before slamming them to the ground. The cascading tidal wave of shifting dirt and rocks forced Sonic to retreat lest he wound up being caught in earthquake crevasses. He made attempts to restart his spurt, but the same pattern kept repeating.

“Mighty confident back there, weren’t you?” Knuckles grumbled.

“Yeah, I’d like to see you doing better.”

“How are we supposed to even get close enough to touch it?” Cody bit his lips.

Tails peered into the distance towards the bot’s head. He had closely examined its movements during Sonic’s full on assaults. As intimidating as it was, this mechanical giant’s programming was a lot simpler than he thought.

“The eye,” he pointed. “It needs to calibrate the area for targets before it decides on what to counter with.”

“So we stab it in the back then!” Mokona shouted while he pantomimed a violent pound towards the ground.

“Not exactly,” the fox shook his head. “Its head is a dome, so it's likely it can move its eye around in all directions wherever it can sense an approaching enemy. Probably even above it.”

“So you’re saying we have to strike it at opposite ends then,” Cody said.

“Exactly!” Tails motioned to both sides of the mech. “Sonic, Knuckles, and I will hit it at the right. You guys can go to the left.”

“How do you expect us to dodge these things though?” Cody glanced uneasily at the raining missile flurry just ahead of them. Even then, they were only a few volumes away from just straight up screaming out their words by how deafening the constant detonations were.

“You’re pretty good at dodging,” Sonic answered. “You might be able to make it.”

Cody blinked. “H-huh?!”

“He’s right though,” Loudred laughed. “That’s the one thing you’re good for.” Even with all the noise, Loudred’s tone and volume felt the same as it ever was.

“I can’t get through all this just from dodging. Are you guys insane?! Besides, that’s not gonna stop you guys from getting hit. We need a better plan of ac—”

“Oh shut up!” Alakazam shoved the geek’s back forwards. “I’ll handle things. Mokona, you can do that weird shield thing or something. Just move already!”

Whether he was mentally prepared for the task or not, Al had already forced him into the field of attack. Just like Sonic suggested, he slid past the blasts much easier than he could have ever expected to. Perhaps it was the fear and adrenaline that carried him. More realistically, it was probably Al’s assistance. The Pokemon did his best to telekinetically stall the impact of as many missiles as he could, just long enough for the group to pass safely. Mokona acted as a shield buffer as he created a translucent celestial forcefield from out of his red gem whenever the blasts were ready to set off.

It was just as Tails described it. Forced to split its attention between two far off target groups, the dreaded ground slam never came. After much effort, both teams were sided at opposing ends of the mecha and delivered full throttles of attacks towards it in its vulnerable state. It looked as if the battle had been figured out and won. But of course, the Egg Ghoul had one more trick up its sleeve.

Its one giant eye, which shook furiously in place while its systems failed to decide on a target, started to blink like it was on the verge of a breakdown. And during its chaotic episode, the eye split off into two.

The mech bent over and crashed its palms to the patches of ground at both its left and right and clawed around for good measure. The groups were caught off guard and found themselves falling over in scratches, just barely missing even more fatal wounds from the mech’s rigorous scraping.

The mech was back up and standing tall. That blow was just enough time for it to resume its previous missile circus. As they escaped, the two teams converged together. They all exchanged the same faces of worry and determination. They couldn’t just keep running away like this. They knew they almost had it right there.

“Try more sides this time!” Cody shouted as loudly as he could.

It was worth a shot.

They halted their retreat and turned back as they scrambled around in all different directions. Al and Loudred took the left, Knuckles and Mokona to the right, Tails took to the skies, and lastly, Cody and Sonic stood boldly in the front. Or at least it should have been the two of them.

Sonic felt a glint of light at the corner of his eye. It was an emerald. It appeared all the Chaos Emeralds became scattered around the zone during all the confusion, and Eggman was already on his way to collect the powerful stones with four emeralds already resting neatly in his Eggmobile.

He frowned. He definitely couldn’t let this slide.

Sonic made a sharp turn away from the fight and completely ignored Cody’s confused cries.

“Where are you going?!” He shouted helplessly.

A loud crank sounded from above which caused the frail fighter to jump. He looked upwards and saw the domed head craned down towards him. Tails threw bombs from above, damaging the monster’s surveillance system in the process. Its eyes frantically sped across the surface and struggled to focus itself. It seemed like they had it down this time, but Cody could see right through it. The eyes weren’t just glitching. They were morphing. They were attempting to multiply like they had done before.

He gulped before readying his Keyblade and charging forward. If they wanted to win this fight, they would to have to get this done as soon as possible before things got worse.

Meanwhile, right as Eggman was about to snatch another Chaos Emerald, Sonic grappled the front of his Eggmobile with both the one gem and the other three he had yet to search for in hand. The doctor and his vehicle stammered and clattered around in shock.

“You!” Eggman roared.

“Yes me,” Sonic replied. His verbal encounters with his arch enemy were usually a lot more tongue and cheek and full of snark, but there was a distinct tinge of irritantance in the hedgehog’s tone. “I’ve gotta admit, after that video message and nabbing all the emeralds from right under my nose, I was already pretty annoyed. But now we’ve got all this…” he gestured to the Egg Ghoul. “...this nonsense going on and, you know what? How about you just hand the rest of the emeralds over, tell me where Amy is, and we’ll just let today go past us. Okay?”

“You think you can get out of this that easily?” Eggman sneered.

He slammed on to his dashboard and allowed the electrical tendrils from before to rise out from beneath his ride and towards his foe. In the end however, it was the furthest possible thing from a wise choice. With Sonic’s speed and reflexes, he snaked around the carrier, causing the entire vehicle to shake and fizzle in a frenetic frenzy. Eggman wailed while Sonic did his best to maneuver around the mess to grab the emeralds from the cockpit.

Back at the ghoul fight, things got uncertain. It wasn’t just the mecha’s eye that fidgeted now; the entire mech jittered sporadically. Its inner systems struggled so hard to track down a target, it was on the very cusp of overheating. The machine was breaking down, yet this was clearly its most dangerous form. The parts were malfunctioning and attempting to attack anything and everything in a last ditch effort to follow its programming. The six of them were giving it their all to take it down, but the mech’s sudden swings and twitches were almost as lethal as its missiles and ground poundings from earlier.

The reverberating eyes intensified. At this point, the pupils bounced around randomly across its spherical projector. It was doing its absolute damndest to lock on to anything, but ironically, now that its foes were forced to move and dodge around, it had an even harder time zeroing in on someone. The closest thing to a stationary target wasn’t even in its general vicinity. Off in the near distance, the Eggmobile twisted and twirled around in the air, unable to stop its predicament and unable to advance.

That one would have to do.

In a final attempt to reboot its system, the Egg Ghoul shot out a single missile towards the distant target. Eggman was already having trouble controlling his ride from the crazed mechanical tendrils and the hedgehog that forced them into their insanity. But with the added intensity of the missile blast blowing around, it was impossible to keep things afloat. Heck, it was impossible for his precious vehicle to even survive. He crash landed right at the very edge of the large gaping hole that had formed from his lair’s demise. His arch nemesis on the other hand wasn’t as lucky.

Sonic desperately held on for his dear life. His fingers were already at the brink of slipping. And he knew that a certain mad doctor was going to make the situation even worse for him.

“Well look how the tables have turned!” Eggman grinned.

Sonic frowned. “I don’t suppose you’re here to help?”

Of course not.

With a simple kick, Sonic was sent falling down into the pits of the Earth.

Eggman turned around towards the battle in triumph. The Egg Ghoul may have gone awol for a second there, but it seemed like it was a well worth sacrifice. Having managed to reset even a semblance of its primary settings, the mech regained its hold against the gang who’d lost their key formation during the chaos of the moment. He grinned. Perhaps it was time to end this once and for all.

“Egg Ghoul!” He shouted with deep intensity. “Get ready to fill everything with darkness NOW!!”

The ghoul’s eyes blinked rapidly before once again morphing back into one. It slid rigidly to the topmost part of its axis and glowed an ominous plum shade. Small swirls of black haze started to encircle the sky. In no time, those same swirls formed into massive black storm clouds that filled the grasslands with a grim and stormy scene. Eggman couldn’t stop shouting delightfully. He was just inches away from victory.

If only he’d realized what seven pieces were now nowhere to be seen.

A brilliant golden streak erupted from out of the makeshift abyss. Sonic was not the only one to have fallen. The Chaos Emeralds had met him at the bottom and the same powers that helped bring the Egg Ghoul to life in the first place were now his as well.

The darkening skies were met with a clash of glowing luster as Sonic immediately flew his way over to the tip of the mech, slamming down on its ominous eye and head.

This was exactly the opening the rest needed. Now preoccupied with Sonic’s interference, the rest were left to resume their concentrated attack formation. Loudred and Knuckles took to the left. Tails and Mokona took to the right. And Cody and Alakazam…

The two made a quick glance at one another. There was a strange sense of understanding between them that wasn’t been there before. Whatever happened to Al in their short time apart, his whole demeanor was changed. He was no longer a strict and stubborn perfectionist who yelled at any little sign of weakness.

Just a strong and determined kid.

Cody smiled and gave a quick nod. The two charged forward.

The mech quivered and shivered in irregular spasms. While it had returned to its normal programming for just a brief moment, it hadn’t received enough recovery time to properly cool down. Now forced back into a compromising position, even more intense than before, the machine was at its very limits.

There was a thunderous click; a dangerous sound that normally followed with explosions. Only this time, it wasn’t flames and frying metal that spewed around in the air. It was the very essence of darkness that was used to fuel its body. The black mass fluttered and sauntered around aimlessly in the air as they made their last grasp at the world before fading out all together. The gloomy skies were no more, and the bright shine of the setting sun embraced the now peaceful fields of Green Hills.

All Eggman could do was pound on the ground and cry.

 

oOo

 

“Aaaaaaaaamy! Hey Amy!!”

Sonic wasted no time to launch into his search party mode. After losing his “Super” form and returning to his normal blue hue, he made a mad dash back into the ruined underground lair and sped around checking and double checking every nook and cranny for any sign of his friend.

He was quickly joined by the rest of the crew who also searched high and low for the spunky pink hedgehog. The sun soon set and their search grew dim. The frantic and panicked search dissipated to a sluggish crawl. It was just Sonic and Al who still rushed around flipping over every metal plate and stone.

Cody, Loudred, and Mokona looked at each other nervously. Sure this wasn’t their world and sure they hadn’t known her long enough, but they’d already realized how futile this search was and how upsetting it was going to be to break the news to their new friends.

She was dead. Definitely.

Well, they don’t know the true answer just yet, so just bear with them for a bit.

Cody tiptoed over to Sonic. The normally lively speedster’s efforts weren’t as energized as they once were. Perhaps he too had begun to realize the horrific possibility and was slowing down to take it all in.

Cody gave an awkward cough before wobbling his words. “Hey… Sonic…About Amy, I don’t think—”

“It looks like I’m gonna have to let you guys finish this job.”

Cody blinked. “Huh?”

Sonic turned around. It wasn’t a look of sadness or desperation but one of trust and admiration.

“You guys aren’t from this world, are you?”

Well, that was unexpected.

“No offense,” Tails laughed hesitantly. “But you weren’t exactly the best at hiding it.”

Well…shit.

“You think she’s in a different world now?” Cody asked.

“Well, yeah,” Sonic nodded confidently. “I know Amy. She’s not the kind of girl who’d go down that easily. But I’m pretty sure this whole cosmic world hopping stuff is more your thing.”

“And you trust us enough to find her?”

Sonic cocked his head almost pleadingly. “Well, will you?”

“We’ll find her.”

An unexpected voice rose from beside him. Cody was so used to Alakazam brushing off any and all inconveniences to their main goal that he jumped over hearing his response. And even more shocking was how tall the Pokemon stood his ground; his eyes burning with the deepest determination and vigor.

Sonic smiled. He marched on over to a nearby pile of rubble and rummaged around carefully before pulling out and tossing over a large weapon; Amy’s prized Piko Piko Hammer.

“Give this to her when you see her. She’s probably gonna need it. And uh…” His voice lowered and he scratched the back of his ear. “Could you tell her I said sorry?”

“I’ll tell her you’re going on that date with her when she gets back,” Al responded as he clutched the hammer tightly.

Sonic grinned. “Right.”

“Hey, guys!”

Everyone turned around. While they had their little chat and epiphany, Knuckles had gone and retrieved the emeralds that followed Sonic down this ravenous hole much earlier.

“I finally managed to find all of the—”

Something weird happened. Like magnets near their medium, the Chaos Emeralds began to rumble excitedly in the echidna’s arms before flying out of them entirely. They floated around in the air, formed a perfect circle, and gleamed bright beams of chaotic light into one another. The energy between them grew and grew until they reached their peak and slew a pounding force of mystical energy onto the surface below; the very platform that once held the hellish Egg Ghoul.

It was a mark in the shape of a keyhole.

The three anthropomorphic mammals admired the formation in awe and confusion. The Keyblade Crew on the other hand, while still clueless at the true intent, were already certain of what needed to be done next.

Cody was just about to do his thing when he was interrupted once more by Alakazam’s uncharacteristically soft spoken voice. “Hey…

“I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting this whole time.”

I’m sorry ; the two words Cody never would have expected to hear from the guy. In the past, he would’ve taken this moment to gloat and laugh, but now things were a little different. There was no need to swallow up any pride. It was time to start over.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Cody replied. “I’m sorry that I’ve been a bit of a—”

“You don’t have to do that,” Al shook his head. “Let’s just keep working and fighting together. Side by side. Okay?”

“...Right.”

With a content smile, Cody lifted up his Keyblade and let the world be engulfed in light.

 

oOo

 

Amy’s body slammed to the floor. The mechanical tendrils had been long replaced with rope and twine, but that didn’t mean she was free to run and escape anytime soon.

“Let go of me this instant!” She screeched. “Who are you people? If you don’t untie me right now, you’re gonna regret it!”

The girl who’d gone to the cruel effort of tossing the prisoner into this new world pinched her own nose furiously. “Oh gross, what the hell is that smell?” Heather scowled over at her partner, Ashley. “Go be useful and throw some water at this disgusting rat.”

“Excuse me?” Amy gaped. “What did you call me?! Say that again to my face!!

With a quick flip of Ashley’s wand, a zipper magically appeared over the hedgehog’s mouth, shutting her up for good. All Amy could do was grunt and struggle helplessly on the ground.

“Hmph,” Heather flipped her hair, displeased that the other witch prioritized a different annoyance. “I bet you’re used to snorting down garbage like this, huh?”

Maleficent could only shift her eyes away from the vexing bickering that was bound to brew between her two apprentices. She had more important things at hand.

“I suppose he wasn’t a complete failure if he managed to grab one of the princesses,” she murmured to herself. “But the fact that he fell so pitifully, not even by the sole hands of the Keybearer.” She sharpened her eyes as she made her exit. “Obviously, I will have to vet my accomplices much more carefully.”

Maleficent faintly strolled through the endless corridors of the castle, as if she were the very apparition who haunted the desolate halls. As she made it to the deepest reaches of the walls, she passed by an eerie row of containers, four of them housing maidens who lay motionless like idle dolls…

…A pink haired ninja girl in magenta red garb…

…A blonde child in an elegantly white witch uniform…

…A pig-tailed kid with a head that felt comically big for her body…

…A girl in pink with a form that resembled both lioness and simian in shape…

…And in a room just beyond this hall was where a gothic teenager in teal and black laid sleeping. A boy her age watched over her still form with an unreadable expression.

Notes:

There will be more Total Drama elements soon, I swear.

Chapter 15: Traverse Town: A Quick Detour

Notes:

I made some changes to the fic tags. Originally, I wanted to contain the fandoms to just Total Drama and Kingdom Hearts, but I didn't want everything else listed as "Freeform" so they're now part of the central fandom tags too. (Sorry, I've literally never posted on Ao3 before this fic, so I don't know how a lot of things here work.) And I guess it'll get me closer to fulfilling my "turn this into the next big bile curiosity internet thing" goal if there's more eyes on it.

Also, the character tags are a little more bloated now. I'll try to keep it condensed to only characters I think are absolutely necessary. So ones that have any kind of significant role in the either the overall plot or individual worlds.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“So like…rounded down and proportionally speaking… Are you 10?”

“No.”

“11?”

“No.”

“12?”

“No.”

“13?”

Alakazam drilled his exasperated gaze to Loudred’s back. “Did you really have to tell him?”

“Well you guys haven’t fought once the whole time I’ve been piloting, so I think it was well worth it!”

Al rolled his eyes.

After an eventful adventure at Green Hill Zone, the four of them were once again back aboard their Gummi Ship traversing the universes. The awkward tensions and raucous scream fests that normally accompanied their trips seemingly became a thing of the past. Cody and Al had done the impossible and spent an extended amount of time just chatting idly and normally like they finally managed to form a normal friendship. And it was a good thing their feud winded down too.

If they made even one wrong move, the very foundation of the ship could fall apart on them and cause them to die stranded in space.

“Are we there yet?” Cody groaned.

“Just be patient,” Loudred laughed unevenly. “After that crash, it’s a miracle this thing is even still flyable.”

“Surely we can go maybe a little faster?"

“Do you want to die?”

“No, sir.”

“Hey, I think I see Traverse Town!” Mokona excitedly leaped onto the dashboard; a move that set the entire ship into a crazed panic.

“Mokona, what are you doing?!” Al grabbed his head in distress. “Get off, now!”

“Huh?” The rabbit stepped on another set of buttons. “Why?”

“Mokona, please,” Cody begged.

“But look!” He hopped around jovially as he turned to point happily out the window. Each movement he made earned another bout of fright from the rest of the passengers. “We’re almost there!”

Loudred reached out his arm in an attempt to grab hold of the noisy creature. But as he was still trying to keep a steady grip on the fragile steer, Mokona easily slipped off and started to wreak even more havoc across the dashboard thinking it was all just a game. Things went south fast. Their first peaceful ship ride in what felt like forever devolved into a nightmare.

 

oOo

 

“Hey, Aeri. you’ve seen Tidus recently, yeah?” Yuffie asked while she tugged on to a small bag.

“Yeah. What about him?” Aerith shifted around her own bags over to her opposite arm as she took a quick nibble of a crepe.

“Those two girls are still hanging on to him,” she snorted. “I saw him hiding in the back of an alleyway just earlier.”

“Since when was Mr. Star-Blitzball-Player afraid of girls, nyo?” The youngest member of the group, Dejiko, munched loudly and messily on her own cream filled crepe.

“Guess he finally met his match, huh?” Aerith giggled boldly.

“As long as that ego of his shuts up, I’m all for it,” Yuffie concluded.

A brief moment of peacefulness had returned to Traverse Town, and Aerith, Yuffie, and Dejiko had taken the opportunity to enjoy a nice stroll around the area. These days, quiet moments of leisurely shopping and play became few and far between. To those who had no choice but to call this world home, they had to make the most of what little they had. It wasn’t uncommon for mass Heartless outbreaks to devastate a district one day and for denizens to lull around as if nothing happened the next. The whiplash was never ending, but after all this time, they had no choice but to accept it.

Aerith stopped in her tracks as she finished off the last of her crepe. She stared up at the perpetual starry skies above.

“What’s up?” Yuffie asked.

The other two girls stopped alongside their friend and tried to make out what exactly caught her attention. Lo and behold, up in the stars, a strange object jutted around in jagged motions.

“Is that a ship?” The ninja tried to peer further.

“What a crappy pilot, nyo.”

The object quickly grew larger in appearance and its movements more erratic the closer it got to landing into town.

Or rather, crash landing.

“Wait,” Aerith coughed in realization. The ship’s design looked awfully familiar. “Isn’t that their ship?”

Alarms rung through all three of their expressions, forcing them to race all the way to the next district over where the ship was projected to “land”.

Not that they had any power to help them even if they wanted to.

Closer…closer…closer…

The three braced themselves. They were about to witness a tragedy.

SSSCCCRRRREEEEEEeeeeeeeeeccccccchhhhhhhh…

It was truly a miracle. Not only had the ship managed to ground itself without any deaths or explosions, it halted in place just inches away from slamming straight into a brick wall. The four occupants popped out, two of them waxing praises to every conceivable god for their safe(ish) arrival and the other two laughing like madmen.

“We’re alive.” Tears erupted in Cody’s eyes. “We’re really alive.”

THUD!!

The ship finally gave in and fell apart.

“What in the…?” Yuffie gaped.

“A-are you guys okay?” Aerith ran over with the intent to perform first aid, but was completely taken aback by Loudred and Mokona’s deranged laughter.

“...I’ll go get Cid, nyo.”

By the time the man arrived, alongside Gema and Puchiko for extra assistance, his face contorted in all directions. He wasn’t sure whether to marvel at this miracle nightmare or start screaming his head off at the careless pilot and passengers.

Alakazam looked sheepishly at the three new witnesses. One looked just about ready to tear them a new one, one was so shocked, he seemed about ready to have a heart attack, and one stared eerily like she was showing off her disgust as politely as possible. And of the three who were already present, two were ridiculing them and one was keeled over in distress. There was no way to explain why the ship was in such a state without making absolute buffoons of themselves.

“So, uh,” he coughed. “Cid, right?... Can you fix it?”

“Fix it?” Cid scrunched his nose. “Boy, I might as well be building a new ship at this point.”

Despite his complaints, Cid already started to slog over to the wreckage and signaled Dejiko, Puchiko, and Gema to follow. In almost no time flat, the four began to work, silently and diligently.

Cody had a feeling they were going to be here for a while.

“Hey, uh,” he tiptoed nervously towards Yuffie and Aerith. Believe it or not, there was another reason why they were there. “Do you guys know where Leon is?”

 

oOo

 

“Aaaaaand here we are!” Aerith jumped ahead of the group and proudly presented a dark waterway entrance at the end of a secluded canal.

Cody, Loudred, and Al glanced at each other with furrowed brows. This place was a lot more shady looking than they expected.

Yuffie snickered before she leaned mockingly against the meeker teen’s face. “What? Are you chicken?”

“Look, guys, I know it looks bad, but this place is 100% safe,” Aerith said reassuringly. “Just ask Mokona. He’s been here plenty.”

“Yup, yup!”

“If you say so.” Cody replied roughly.

The teen and the Pokemon were still visibly reluctant to enter the watery gate, but the girls and Mokona had already skipped along giddily inside. It was a wonder how they could enter what looked like a would-be murder scene so merrily. The trio gave each other another quick round of glances before holding their breaths and following along.

“Seriously,” Aerith smiled while rolling her eyes playfully. “It’s really a nice place.” She softened her face and looked around the damp and gloomy walls with heartfelt nostalgia. “We were all pretty young when our world fell. A small group of kids suddenly ripped away from their home before their very eyes…we needed a quiet place to cool down and destress. One that even the Heartless didn’t want to come near.”

Cody frowned as he contemplated his friends’ situation. He was still haunted by the last images he held from his world; the lost friends, the dying light, the unfathomable amount of monsters that just crawled over and destroyed everything that was familiar to him. He couldn’t imagine how it must’ve felt going through that as a child. And to live year after year in fear of those same monsters stealing away the new home they were forced upon? He could only assume the countless struggles that drove mere children into seeking a decrepit place like this as a refuge. He and the others already started to feel guilty about the fear they expressed earlier over this sacred place.

Yuffie puffed out her cheeks. There was something about their special hideout being met with a pity party that really pissed her off. “This place is pretty cool y’know,” she pointed out the countless rows of drawings and graffiti that lined the walls. “It’s like our secret hideout. We used to play here all the time.

“And now…” Yuffie pointed forward confidently where Leon stood swinging around his Gunblade. “We use it as a training ground.”

Leon was as stern and intimidating as he ever was. Even as the large group made their way into the widened passageway, he paid them no mind and continued on as if they weren’t there.

Cody gulped. The last time the two of them were near each other, he snarled his face off at him during their fight against Guard Armor. After a botched first meeting, constant fleeing, and that pathetic display from way back when, he knew for certain that the man already had enough of his shit.

Sweat trickled down his nervous face as Cody lifted a weak wave over to him. “H-hey, Leon.”

Leon’s practice session came to a stop. After one last swing, he coldly turned towards the others, his face already ripe with disdain. Yup. It was exactly how the teen expected him to be.

“I’m surprised you’re all back in one piece,” he muttered.

“Oh, you should’ve seen us earlier,” Loudred laughed. “Believe me, I’m just as surprised as you!”

Alakazam stomped on his feet.

Leon shook his head and sighed. “So, what do you want?”

“Well,” Cody bit his lip before flashing out his Keyblade and showing it off quizzically. “You know a lot about this thing, yeah?”

“Did it react around a strange keyhole?”

The teen’s eyes widened. He rapidly nodded in response. “Yeah, what’s the deal with that? There’s been one in every world we’ve been to so far. What are those things?”

“Keyholes. Exactly what they look like,” he shrugged matter-of-factly. “They appear where the hearts of every world is. Lock them up and you help shield the world away from the Heartless for good.”

“Seriously?” Cody attempted to hide the slight grin that formed on his mouth. “So we saved them all?”

There was the cockiness Leon couldn’t stand again. He shook his head as he grunted out a forced “Yeah…”

Leon stared off into the distance and suddenly slipped into a much softer tone. “There should be one of those here too…”

Should be,” Yuffie rolled her eyes. “Like we’re ever gonna find it.”

“You guys don’t know where it is?” Al asked. With how long they had lived here, he was genuinely surprised.

Mokona’s body drooped to the ground like he was forcing himself to melt. “Nope…”

“We’ve been searching for years and there’s still no sign of that thing,” Aerith sighed. “It’s a shame too. People come here expecting it to be a safe haven, yet the Heartless come and go however they please.”

“I swear, the swarms have gotten even worse lately,” Yuffie whined.

“Well, how about we help you guys look for it?” Cody piped in. “I’m the one who can seal it after all. You guys have helped me tons so far, so it’s the least I could do.”

“Thanks, but no,” Leon shook his head once more. “You have a bigger mission up ahead. We’ll fend the Heartless off in the meantime. After all…” He stared over towards the scribbled walls, a sign of resignation in his eyes. “We’re used to it.”

Leon was no longer in the mood to talk. He sheathed away his Gunblade and began to make his way out with the girls following after him.

“...Oh. Almost forgot.”

The sullen man halfheartedly tossed a beaten book back behind him which forced Cody to scramble around before it hit the floor.

“Mind delivering that to a woman named Yuuko? Her shop should be deeper into the cavern.”

Mokona, who had been forcing himself into an almost flattened state on the cobbled floor, perked up in an energetic fervor. “We’re gonna visit my master?!”

With no room for explanations, Mokona instantly bounced off into the distance. The others called out to him desperately as they hurriedly trailed behind.

Jeez, how big is this place? Cody couldn’t help but think to himself the further away they were from their entry point.

Lost in his own pace as usual, Mokona continued on the path that he remembered oh so thoroughly. They had long left the sewer like tunnels. The area they were in now had a strange natural veneer to it. The trickling waterway paved way to a bountiful lake with small grassy islets scattered about. In an image that resembled something straight out of a fairy tale, a lone Japanese styled building laid in the very center of the makeshift lagoon. This was Mokona’s home.

“Hey,” Cody gasped for air, having expended much more energy than expected in this unprompted chase. “Could you…slow down…just a little…”

Completely out of breath, he stopped just short of the platform passageway leading towards the mysterious house. His companions sped right past him without a second thought.

Hands on his knees, he weakly lifted his head and examined the area. As one should be, he was completely taken aback by the sudden pastoral scenery. One would expect any sort of greenery in a place like this to be nothing but muck and moss, but the patches of small meadows were just as natural as any other. It was hard to understand how they found a way to thrive despite the musty air and lack of light. There was almost a kitschy sense of charm seeing the misplaced pastures alongside the graffitied walls.

The crude writings and doodles had lined every inch of the cavernous waterway, and the walls of this strange lake were no different. Cody thought back to the nostalgia that beamed from his Traverse Town friends. He had started off being weary of this dark and damp hideaway, but he now began to see its allure. There was even something about it that felt comforting. Almost familiar.

“It’s kind of like that cave back on Wawanakwa. The weird one.”

…?!

Cody gaped at the figure beside him.

It was Gwen.

Was it?

“A lot nicer looking I guess… Er, sorry, I guess you’ve only been there like twice, huh?”

He couldn’t believe his eyes. This was far from the first time she’d appeared before him, but now she was there right next to him. His thoughts were cloudy. It was like he could sense she wasn’t there even though she was. If so, who was speaking to him right this moment?

Cody opened his mouth but couldn’t find the mental drive to ask one simple question:

Are you really here?

BOO!!

No words came out, but a flailing cry of surprise took its place. The hallowed lakeview was soon filled with the echoes of a high pitched cry for help alongside small waves of water splashing and splaying about.

He splashed around and spat out every ounce of liquid that entered his mouth (sure, this looked like a lake, but you could never be too careful). He rubbed his eyes that now stung from the unexpected clumps of questionable liquid that had entered it. And of course, by the time his vision regained itself, the phantom Gwen had once again slipped away from under his thumb.

Standing before him instead was a familiar redhead who looked oh so proud of the mischief she just pulled.

“Izzy?!”

“Heeeeyy, whaddup, my dude?” She waved her hands and cackled as if she were completely unaware at just how displeased her victim was.

Cody continued looking at her with eyes of contempt even as he lifted his completely drenched self out of the artificial spring. Knowing Izzy, there probably wasn't any point to try to get a reason for her actions or an apology.

“What are you even doing here?”

“Training with my master of course, duh!”

Huh?

With a snap of her fingers, a green puff of smoke surrounded Cody. His face stretched in horror, and he almost instinctively started to cough and ag at whatever noxious chemical she must’ve hit him with. And when the smoke finally blew away…

…He was all dry now?

Cody desperately grabbed around his clothes and skin in complete disbelief. “Wh-huh-how did you?...”

“Helloooo? Did I miss some water in your ears? I already told you, I’m training under Master Yuuko. Speaking of which…” She pulled out a sketchbook from behind her and spun it around on her fingertip like it was a sports ball. And it wasn’t just any sketchbook. It was the same book Cody had been carrying up until his watery tumble, not a wet stain in sight. “Thanks for the delivery! Don’t think you’re unionized though, so I don’t feel like tipping you.”

Cody grabbed around his body once more and attempted to rationalize with himself that the book in her hand was fake. “How-I thought I had it-what??”

“If you want a tip, you’ll have to beg Master Yuuko for one!” Izzy continued to yell non sequiturs while she leapt platform to platform all the way to the strange Japanese building.

Despite having had his entire life completely upended thanks to all this Keyblade nonsense, there was still nothing else in all the worlds that puzzled him more than Izzy. Frazzled and confused, as was normal when being around her, Cody hobbled along through the same path.

He wasn’t exactly sure what to expect within the building. The entire area surrounding it gave a bizarre and surreal air like it wasn’t supposed to exist to begin with. In this world that was made up of the broken bits and pieces of countless others, this quaint little structure was somehow the odd one out.

Cody took a deep breath and pulled the door open…

…And was sent into a coughing fit the moment the immense wafts of smoke blew onto him.

He rubbed his eyes once more, this time from the irritation the very atmosphere around there was giving him. The inside of the house was so clouded in mist and a distinct tobacco scent, that it somehow seemed more mystifying inside than out.

Al and Loudred were of course already situated inside, marveling at the exotic drapes and woodblock patterns that lined the floors, walls, and furnishings. Izzy had already taken to introducing her own brand of nonsense to the two; something that seemed to fill Loudred with much amusement and Al with much displeasure.

And in the very back of the small antiquated flat was a woman lounging around on an intricately designed couch. She was someone who commanded a graceful yet unnerving allure through her very presence. Her long and slender form was adorned comfortably in an extravagant red kimono. Her hands that sheened with the skin of an almost snow white tone lovingly caressed the fur of the now tamed Mokona who rested peacefully beside her. She brushed aside her long ebony hair before resting her shoulder in an almost seductive manner on the arm of the couch, a thin pipe in hand.

“Hello there,” she smirked. The stare of her blood red eyes nearly sent shivers down his spine. “Welcome to my shop.”

Notes:

I have not watched xxxholic since I was like 14 and I don't wanna bother rewatching it just for this dumb fic.

Chapter 16: Traverse Town: The Reunion and Seven Lights

Notes:

I lied. I did skim through the first episode of xxxholic just so I could refresh myself on stuff like the shop. Have any of you guys seen that show lately? I forgot how freakish the body proportions were. I felt squeamish just watching Watanuki move

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

…Who exactly was this?

In any normal situation, Cody probably would’ve drooled all over her. But finding her here in this almost eerie patch of the town, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more to her than just someone Leon happened to know. Her general demeanor was an uncomfy mix of welcoming and deadly. He was almost too afraid to talk back, like he were an animal praying its foe would lose sight of him if he stayed frozen.

“...A—”

Cody tried to let out a sound, but the overwhelming fumes of mist and tobacco forced him into pained gags.

The mysterious woman tittered almost mockingly. “Perhaps you’d like me to put my pipe away?”

“Yes, please,” he wheezed.

She shrugged casually. “Very well then.”

With a light tap of her finger, the antique pipe she held disappeared without a trace. That did absolutely nothing to the smoke and stench that was already present in the building, but it was something at least.

“Are you Yuuko?” The squeamish boy nearly choked those words out.

“Yes,” she smiled like an idle viper. “Yuuko Ichihara at your service.” She peered behind him where the Pokemon duo and Izzy were engaged in a very colorful conversation. “You’re the Keybearer Leon spoke about, correct? I just had a quick chat with your two friends back there before you came in.”

“Yeah, uh…” He continued eyeing her curiously. “Who exactly are you?”

“My master of course!” Mokona chirped from his fancy seat, earning an encouraging pat from Yuuko.

“I’ve been helping out this town in the background for a very long time,” she responded and held out her hand. “You know, Leon and the others were around this tall when I first met them.”

Wait, how old was she?

“He once asked me how old I was and I very nearly drowned him.”

There was something very scary about how she could just say that so casually with a smile.

But also, the fact that it happened to Leon of all people was very funny.

“Ah, you’re laughing,” she mused. “See? I don’t bite.”

“Oh, yeah, uh,” Cody was sent into a skittish blush. “Sorry. I was just a little intimidated is all.”

“Why?” She laughed. “Did you think you walked into a specific kind of shop finding such an exotic beauty inside?”

Wh-what?

No??

“I kid, I kid.” Her laughter remained in a dignified tone, but he could tell she’d gotten a real kick out of teasing him.

“Y-you,” Cody was reduced to a stuttering mess. “You keep avoiding the question.”

Yuuko sighed and leaned her head to the side with a disappointed face. He was no fun.

“Like I said, I help this world in the background,” she spoke while waving her arm around in an animatedly flowing manner. “There’s a magical barrier over the world that acts as a universal translator similar to my little pet here.”

“Like me!” Mokona mewed.

“And if it weren’t for me, the number of Heartless here would be unmanageable. There’s another hidden barrier built to ward off their energy. To the best of my abilities of course.”

“And the best of your abilities couldn’t prevent that walking armor from swinging around?” For as powerful as she claimed and appeared to be, Cody wasn’t particularly impressed.

“If it weren’t for me, you probably would have had to deal with two of them,” she retorted icily.

POOF!!

“Are you trying to pick a fight with my master or something?” Right before his eyes, Izzy popped in from a wave of pitch black smoke and wisps, arms crossed and in a sour defensive position. While Cody yelped at her dramatic arrival, his two friends in the back could be heard going nuts over her exit.

Yuuko was facepalming. “Isadora, what did I tell you about teleportation magic?”

“Aaah, don’t you worry,” she responded playfully. “There wasn’t even a Heartless this time. Watch, I can even do long distance now!”

After mashing her hands together, her body acted as a conductor to balls of green and black that circled around her hands. She heaved her arms backwards and prepared a massive push before shoving them forward once more and creating a large flaming black spiral that consumed almost the entire corner of the room. Izzy’s eyes burned with gusto, and Yuuko could do nothing but let out a sigh of regret.

At this point, Al and Loudred had quickly joined Cody in viewing this flame in trepidation. The closest thing the dark flames resembled were the Heartless themselves. And based on Izzy and Yuuko’s banter, there was no telling what would be conjured out.

Imagine Cody’s surprise when a familiar stout teen came crashing out instead.

“Owen?!”

“Cody! Dude! Where’ve you been?”

He’d apparently been munching on a sandwich before getting rudely dragged into this house. The ingredients all mixed messily onto the tatami mats, and their grime and juices spread even more as he got up to excitedly greet his fellow former camper. Yuuko’s head was now placed firmly on her hand.

“Friend of yours?” Loudred asked, eyeing the new face in amusement. Al meanwhile, being his usual self, glared with suspicion.

“Kind of. We’re from the same world. But…” He turned back towards Owen. “You were MIA back then. How did you get here?”

“You can thank little ‘ol me.” Izzy vaulted up from behind her maybe-boyfriend and landed in a triumphant sitting position on the edge of his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Owen nodded in fervent adoration. “I was stuck in this really creepy castle for days . There were a bunch of weird people walking around and saying a bunch of ominous stuff. I had to hide in the library for what felt like forever. I mean, it was next to the greenhouse, so at least I had stuff to eat the whole time.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Cody shook his hands around in disbelief. “Hold on. Izzy, you teleported him here from another world?”

“Yup, yup!” She lounged on Owen in an almost feral animalistic position.

…Could it really be that easy?

This was the first real glimmer of hope he’d seen since his journey first began. If Izzy could drag Owen across countless worlds to where they stood now…

She could do the same for them , couldn’t she?

“Hey,” he continued with a renewed sense of determination in his eyes. “Listen, I’m going to be real. Not everyone from the island got here safely, right? If you can teleport them over…”

“You wanna be all Mr. Steal-Your-Girl with Gwen, right?” Izzy grinned suggestively.

He gawked. “What, no. I want to bring Trent back too.”

“Ooh, a threesome?”

NO!!

“Whaaaaatever,” she cheerfully rolled her eyes before wriggling her fingers around in anticipation. “Some missing campers, coming right up!”

Pearls of darkness once again took form around her delicate hands. The locks of unknown energy waxed around in the air, trying to build up as much momentum as it could. Cody watched the building threads with such bated breath, it caught on to his three companions who also stood around in awe.

Owen, who still acted as the young sorceress-in-training’s pedestal and cushion, began to sweat up a storm being right in the center of her conjuring. A memory was flooded in. “Hey, Izzy,” he gulped. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Whaaaaat? Pssh, it’s fine.” She brushed his worries aside. “It worked the first time, it’ll work again. I’m gonna bring everyone back, baby!”

“Absolutely not.”

Yuuko’s hand clasped firmly around both of Izzy's, which forced the black threads to tear and waft away weakly into the misty room. Izzy stared, stunned. Yuuko carried around a soft yet icy face, not quite exasperated, but very clearly stern in her disapproval.

“Wh-wh-wh-whyyyyy?!” Izzy griped like a petty child.

“I would best advise not to request such a task from my apprentice again,” the older woman explained carefully to Cody. “Teleportation magic requires channels to be opened in a realm that every world shares. As a Keybearer, you should probably have recognized what that might mean.”

The crew gulped in realization. That gut feeling they had earlier concerning the familiar dark nature of Izzy’s little parlor trick seemed to have been correct.

“Just getting Isadora’s friend here,” her eyes motioned towards Owen. “Caused quite a calamity. Heartless after Heartless were storming the town. And he didn’t even come with them in her first dozen attempts. You four are honestly very lucky you got here after Leon and the others finally calmed the storm.”

“Oh man, don’t even remind me,” Owen moped around dramatically. “One moment, I was flipping through some comics while downing a fistful of carrots. The next, whoo boy, I was nearly drowning in the canal just outside the hideout, and this giant black monster was about to eat me.”

“But it didn’t!” Izzy yelled, apparently taken aback that even Owen turned against her over this. “I punched it before it ripped your guts out. It wasn’t that bad!”

Yuuko tightened her grip which elicited a tinged squeal of pain from the chaotic girl.

“Well, if you’re looking for any kind of praise…” With a snap of her fingers from her one free hand, the elusive sketchbook magically manifested. “I suppose the sudden information gathering was worthwhile. Thank you for the delivery by the way, Keybearer.” Her slight blank expression changed to an almost seductive smirk. “Unfortunately, I don’t do tips.”

Cody cocked his head. To be honest, he almost forgot about the thing despite being the reason why he was here in this bizarre cottage to begin with. “There a story behind that?”

“I was lounging around by a pile of books when Izzy pulled me here, so they all came with me,” Owen laughed it off like a humorous memory.

“Luck will have it,” Yuuko continued. “The books that happened to come with him were all intriguing finds. Some, like this one, have mysterious mystical qualities. Others seemed to be old research notes that tie into our little Heartless predicament here. Unfortunately…”

Yuuko, who had been twiddling around with the musty book, carefully maneuvered her fingers to display the pages wide open. While it wasn’t surprising the pages themselves were all crinkled and creased based on the general condition of the volume, the real alarming sight were the abnormal splotches randomly slapped and splayed around page-by-page. It would’ve been easy to assume they were mere ink blots carelessly splattered about, but for our crew, they could sense their true nature instantly.

“...Because of how world jumping works, they all ended up stained by the darkness. Not to mention waterlogged from their unfortunate train stop.”

Yuuko clasped the corrupted pages shut and forced the entire sketchbook itself to warp away from vision. What took its place however was a new book, one that more closely resembled an unkempt diary with its messy and protruding pages that seemed to extend beyond the number the book originally came with. Yuuko held out her hand and offered the boys their next delivery item.

“Leon, Cid, and I have been going back-and-forth trying to salvage whatever we can from these things. I just finished my ounce of work on this one. Would you mind taking it back to Leon? He’s especially curious about it.”

“I guess we’re a lost-and-found now,” Loudred lightly joked around, earning a typical eye roll from his psychic companion.

Just as Cody reached over to take hold of the book, an unfortunate incident brew before them. While Yuuko was busy filling in the gaps for her guests, her grip on the maniacal teen had naturally waned over time. There was nothing to stop her now, and with the added annoyance towards how harshly her powers were denied just a few minutes beforehand, she wasn’t going to hold back.

Izzy’s hands broke free in a powerful charge that forced her entire body to propel forward and for Owen to tumble to the floor. Just as quickly as they left, the pure black essence built up once again and threaded themselves into a larger and larger curl of dark energy. This time, it wasn’t just a quick throw to the ground like when she summoned Owen to the house.

This one was practically a hecking energy beam.

A pillar of darkness blasted right through the building with overwhelming force. The door crashed straight open which allowed the shadowy splurge to continue out into the wild in a cascading river of unlit grime. It was already an alarming sight, but a trained eye could see that this little portal didn’t just spit out droves of black muck. These garbled splotches were Heartless; an entire river of them had just been let loose into the Traverse Town team’s watery lair.

Cody and the others gaped in horror. They remembered how Aerith and Yuffie lovingly described this space. It was a place of safety and calm, somewhere where even the Heartless couldn’t find them. And with how Yuuko alluded that her presence helped to keep these monsters at bay…

…Those things just broke past the tightest barrier in the town through a careless loophole and stumbled into somewhere they were never supposed to enter.

“W-we gotta go!” Cody squeaked, tucked away the bloated journal, and made a mad dash out of there.

In an instant, the number of occupants in the building were suddenly halved. When the Keybearer left, his comrades went with him; Yuuko’s own little pet included. Now, the shop’s mistress was left alongside two teenagers flailing around on the ground; one who snorted out prideful screams of mania and one who continued to spread the mess of sandwich condiments that came with him much earlier into a gross mush across the floor.

Yuuko stood silently with both the indifference of a disconnected bystander and the chagrin of a disappointed mother.

Izzy had been her apprentice for less than a week and Yuuko was already intent on sealing off at least half of her abilities for good.

 

oOo

 

It was just as they’d feared. Right by the initial entranceway of the hideout, a huge crowd of Heartless had gathered after Izzy’s little stunt, threatening to break free out into the open. It was already bad enough that they’d invaded this place of peace. They knew they had to take them out as soon as possible.

If they didn’t, Leon and the others would freaking kill them.

They split into all corners of the room and hacked, slashed, bashed, and blasted. With all the experience that they’d gathered thus far, it was a breeze; a surprising difference compared to how much they struggled to take on even the smallest groups back when their journey began. Even so, numbers were numbers, and they could only keep going for so long before their movements started to grow careless. To think, if Izzy had summoned this mess at any other part of town, it would’ve been much much worse.

Cody, stationed near the rear end of the room closest to the tunnel they arrived from moments before, was just about ready to finish off his set. His movements became menial and sloppy, and his sense of awareness was replaced with nothing more than a desire to just quickly wrap this incident up. By the time he’d seemingly finished off his last Heartless, he’d already mentally tuned out of his physical stance.

And he was left completely unaware of the one stray Heartless Soldier that was about to slash its mangy claws into his back.

The others cried out in alarm. He was out of his battle-ready state and responded with a confused pause before he realized the world of hurt that he was about to be in. Those tiny seconds were enough to turn the tables. Cody forced himself into a defensive position and slung his Keyblade in front like a shield, hoping to mitigate as much damage as he could.

The attacking soldier was no more.

Its shadowy entrails fazed out in the hazy air, a rugged earth green saber having slashed right through it.

Cody couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Whoo,” Trent cooly swept a slight glimmer of sweat off his brow. “Got it just in time.” He flashed a friendly, and almost relieved looking smile. “‘Sup, Codester?”

Holy crap.

“Trent?!” Cody’s mouth flew wide open, his eyes soaring around his friend while he made sure he was actually there.

…Was he? Was he going crazy again? Was this a matching Trent to the phantom Gwen?

Cody grabbed hold of Trent’s cheeks and pulled them out as wide as he could.

“Wh—” Trent quickly slapped him off. “Dude, what the heck?”

“Oh shit, it actually is you,” Cody continued to gape in disbelief. “You’re not dead!”

“Why would I be?”

“Back on the island, when I found you at the cliff…” Perhaps this wasn’t the best time to bring that grim moment up. “You know what? Never mind.” In his continued excitement, he turned towards his other friends and frantically gestured for them to join him. “Guys, it’s him!”

“Who?” Mokona asked as he and the others skipped over. 

“Trent!” Cody waved his hands, enthusiastically presenting his friend. “This was one of the guys I was searching for.”

“Uhh,” the taller boy cautiously raised his eyebrow as he looked over the colorful cast of otherworldly creatures that approached him. But true to form, despite his utter confusion at the current situation, he floated right back to his typical laid back smile and gave out a small wave. “What’s up?”

“Oh, yeah, Trent, these are my buddies, Alakazam, Loudred, and Mokona.”

The three greeted him in their typical animated manners; Al with a shaky and awkward stance that feigned dignity, Loudred with an over friendly cheer like an embarrassing dad meeting his kid’s schoolmates for the first time, and Mokona with his signature hyperactive glee.

“...Huh…”

“Dude, you gotta come with us,” Cody continued, still heavy with enthusiasm. “You and Gwen were just straight up missing, so we’ve been traveling world-to-world looking for you two.”

“And the King,” Loudred piped.

“Yeah, yeah, him too,” Cody waved the reply off flippantly before directing his attention back to Trent. “So, how about it? You’ve already got a weapon too, so why not?”

“Weapons, huh,” he commented. “You’re fighting those little guys on the regular then?”

“Yup,” Cody nodded before flaunting his Keyblade around in boastful twirls and flutters. “Saving the worlds with this Keyblade here. We aren’t just traveling around; we are kicking ass!”

“...Uh huh…”

“So, come on. Join us! You and the guys will get along great.”

“Hey, I never okayed any of this,” Al furrowed his brow. He was about to voice a long trail of complaints, but was quickly cut off by Loudred’s much friendlier tenor.

“We’d love to have you! Hopefully the ship won’t be too cramped.”

“Ehh, Cid’s basically building a new one for us,” Cody added. “Maybe we can ask him to give us more space.”

“Leon’s gonna keep calling you names if we’re stuck here even longer for repairs,” Mokona giggled like he already anticipated it.

…Oh wait, shit, Leon.

“Oh crap,” Cody bit his tongue before reaching for the tattered journal. He was so taken in by the shock of reuniting with his first friend that he’d almost forgotten about the new task he was entrusted with. As much as he wanted to catch up with Trent, he had a job to do.

“Hey, if you want to come with, we’ve got a ship near the edge of town, right by the plaza. Er, uh, at least I think we still have one. Long story.”

Cody sprung off into a quick sprint with the rest of his three companions following suit. His last lines echoed off through the old and musty walls.

“We’ll meet you there!”

Trent waved them off with the usual soft and friendly smile he was known for. That entire conversation, he kept up his image and acted as relaxed as he normally would, acted as calm and collected as he normally would…

…He was irritated.

His kind smile slowly fell into a spiteful frown. There was no need to keep up appearances. That entire exchange was equal parts exhausting and maddening. He was used to going with the flow and hiding his true demeanor, but there was something especially exasperating about this instance. It was partially the sudden whiplash of being thrown into a new world with freakish new faces. It was also the flow of words and info with little to no real explanation behind them.

But what probably irritated him the most was Cody himself.

He remembered the little heart-to-heart they shared the day before everything happened. They talked about their general friendless backgrounds, their inability to really connect to the world and people around them, their disillusioned sense of selves. And yet, he spoke so comfortably with those strange new friends of his, feverishly flaunting around his new hero role like it was absolutely nothing. Even worse, he tried to invite him into that nonsense as if he didn’t remember a single thing from their little talk. Normally, he’d just roll his eyes, bury his grievances, and move on, but…

“What a load of crap.”

A burst of dark energy erupted beside him, much like the otherworldly portals Izzy carelessly tossed around earlier. Only this time, it wasn’t an unwanted crowd of Heartless or a friendly face popping out. It was the sinister witch who’d taken control of the castle that Trent was stranded in just moments before.

Trent let out a low aggressive sigh before cautiously side eyeing Maleficent. “For the last time, I’m not joining your little Bad Guy Club.”

“Such a thorough response. And after all the trouble I went into fetching you after your sudden disappearance.” Maleficent spoke with her usual stone cold veneer, completely unwavered by Trent’s blunt rejection. She had the look of someone who was certain everything would go her way even in the worst possible scenario.

Deep in his heart, Trent realized he was probably doomed to fall under her the very moment he landed himself in that cold and desolate world. Even if he kept refusing, she knew he had no choice but to fall under grasp.

He would have to if he wanted to save Gwen.

Maleficent remained silent as she continued studying him with her hollow and frozen gaze.

 

oOo

 

“Please stop crying,” Aerith rubbed her temples with a mix of concern and desperation.

“Please. I will get on my knees and beg for you to stop,” Yuffie added with a much less compassionate tone.

“Leon, say something,” the kinder girl urged.

“Aeri, he’s gonna make it worse. You know that.”

Leon twitched.

Off in the town plaza, the trio had arrived at their usual cafe for a quick lunch. Their time of peace was over before it even started. Right in the center of the establishment, far from the other patrons who just barely tolerated his outburst, a teenager clad in summer party gear and a cowboy hat made an absolute mess of his table while he wailed like a waterfall during a rainstorm.

“This guy normally loiters at the cafe down the street, doesn’t he?” Yuffie asked while rubbing the sides of her head in prep for an oncoming migraine.

“Guess the owner finally got sick of him,” Leon groaned quietly before gently placing his head in his palm.

“Bridge,” Geoff choked out an almost indecipherable plea while he continued to sniffle up a storm. “Where are you?”

“There you guys are!”

Cody and his team clamored over to the spacious cafe setting, all full of smiles and eagerness, before realizing just how much a certain moping teen’s routine meltdown had brung down the mood. Leon and the others could only greet the group with frowns and uncertain shrugs.

“Oh, thank God, you guys are here,” Yuffie said as she grabbed ahold of Mokona. She desperately waved around the little creature in a haphazard attempt to cure Geoff’s sorrow fest with sheer cuteness. Of course, nothing came of her attempt. In fact, he may have even started to sob harder.

Cody peered over at him with a tinge of embarrassment. Geoff’s issues had absolutely nothing to do with him, but the very fact that he knew the guy well enough to figure out why he was like this was enough to make him bemoan what little association he had with him.

“He’s from your world, right?” Aerith looked over towards Cody. At this point, the hands she had used to massage her head had moved over her ears. “Do you know anything that can calm him down?”

Cody cringed. “Yeah, uh, he’s probably upset that his girlfriend’s missing.”

“I can’t do this alone, babe,” Geoff once again sobbed out garbled sounds that vaguely resembled words. “Bridgette, please come back.”

“Poor guy,” Loudred said while he loudly slapped Geoff's back. It may have been a prompt for motivation, but everyone knew he was just making things worse. “I guess they were really close, huh?”

“You’re telling me,” Cody replied. “They haven’t even been dating for a whole month and I can barely remember a moment where the two weren’t making out. I don’t even know if they actually talk to each other with how much they smack their lips.”

Leon had heard enough. He stormed off in disgust towards the opposite end of the building while his two companions continued their futile attempts to stop the living fire hydrant.

“Hey, wait up!” Cody shouted off as he and his crew followed.

Leon sighed, leaned against the balcony railings, and gazed up at the endless night sky. Geoff’s little episode could still be heard whirring around in the background, but for now, this was good enough for a quick moment of peace.

“Still stuck at six…”

“What’s that?”

Leon looked over his shoulder and struggled to hold back a sigh. Cody and his merry pack of morons had come to bug him some more. Just like that, his few seconds of peace were over.

“The clock tower,” Leon mumbled. He pointed plainly towards the highest building in town. “Never budged an inch since we’ve been living here. Always six on the dot.”

“Huh,” Al mused. “Come to think of it, it was six back then too.”

“Yeah,” Loudred chuckled. “Back when we got knocked straight off of there.”

“That was super fun!” Mokona cooed while Al shuddered silently beside him.

“You four didn’t come here for small talk,” Leon cut the three off. The sooner he figured out why they were there, the sooner they’d leave. “What do you want?”

As friendly as ever , Cody couldn’t help but grind his teeth at the awkward affair. He reached for his pockets and presented the small yet bulky journal to the daunting man.

“Yuuko said you guys were recovering a bunch of books? Apparently, it’s your turn to handle this one.”

Leon snatched the book without even a word.

A simple “thank you” would’ve been nice.

“Is that it?” Leon eyed the young Keybearer who he hoped would’ve just left right away.

The meek teen sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “Well, Yuuko said that the books you guys found have info relevant to, well, everything that’s going on. So…”

“Spill the beans if you know what’s good for you!” Mokona squealed.

A brief pause blew by before Leon settled on a resigned shrug. “Well, there’s no reason not to tell you, so I don’t see why not.

“Do you happen to remember that Ansem guy Yuffie brought up back at the hotel?”

Cody bit his tongue. “I think?”

“He was that researcher guy who led your world, right?” Loudred chirped. “Aerith let us in the know too.”

“Right,” Leon nodded. “Well believe it or not, guess who happened to be the owner of that mini library that popped out of nowhere.”

“Oh wow,” Cody said in admiration. “Now that is lucky.”

“Aerith said Ansem might have knowledge on how to fix all this, right?” Al asked. “Did you guys get anything good?”

“Have you heard of the Princesses of Heart?”

The four looked at one another with blank expressions.

“According to Ansem’s research, every world has a so-called ‘Princess’. Someone who represents the very embodiment of their world’s light. In a way, you can think of them as living Keyblades. They’re both the natural enemies to the Heartless but also their prey.”

Cody scrunched up his face in wariness. There was something about this little info dump that bothered him. Like he could feel there was an answer to a question none of them ever thought to ask.

“So…the Heartless are coming after them just like they are with my Keyblade. There’s something more behind that, yeah?”

Leon was almost taken aback before answering with a nod. He was surprised that the lackluster wielder was perceptive enough to piece that all together. “According to the reports, among these princesses, there’s these ‘Seven Hearts of Pure Light’. From what I understand, they’re a select group whose hearts shine brighter than the rest. And well…” His face that was already in a fairly sullen state sunk into an even deeper frown. “We have reason to believe they’re major targets for something larger.”

Alakazam was the first to react. His eyes bulged and his body jolted in a delayed sense of shock. That nagging feeling Cody had spread to the rest of the gang. There was something weird about what transpired back at Green Hill Zone. The way she so easily plowed through the Heartless even when the rest of them struggled; the way that her capture was prioritized for seemingly no rhyme or reason; the way she just up and vanished after such a forceful exit.

Could Amy have been…?

The air grew cold and still as the four eyed each other knowingly with haunted expressions. Leon watched over them in confusion. This simple info sharing moment suddenly made an unexpectedly serious turn.

“Someone’s kidnapping them, right?” Al practically barked at Leon, startling him. “What are they planning to do with them?”

“Uh,” he seriously didn’t expect the four to take this so seriously. “That, I don’t know.” Leon held up the journal that Cody had delivered just moments before. “We’re trying to figure that out as we speak. My guess though; just like how the Keyblade can lock and unlock darkness, those seven must be able to give access to something.”

“That’s all?” Al groaned impatiently. “You don’t even know who’s doing it?”

“Hey, Al, come on.” Loudred eyed Leon apologetically while he attempted to calm his friend down.

“Sorry,” Cody spoke wearily. “There’s a huge chance we might’ve met one of these Seven Hearts.”

“And?”

“She went missing.”

Leon sneered and pinched his nose in frustration. This time, it wasn’t in irritation over the crew’s incompetence or antics. With what they just revealed to him, he understood why they were quickly thrown on edge.

“So someone’s already started then.”

“We’re,” Cody gulped. “We’re planning on bringing her back.”

“You’re gonna have to do more than that,” Leon shook his head. “Who knows how many of them they have already. You might just have to preemptively look out for them the moment you head back out… Speaking of…”

The group’s attention moved beyond and below the tiles of the cafe. A familiar pair of catgirl children, their supposed spherical guardian, and their actual guardian all waved expectantly near the gates of the plaza. It was hard to imagine, but it appeared the four had rebuilt their entire ship in record time.

“Well, I guess we can’t keep them waiting,” Loudred was the first to speak and led the rest to follow him out of the building.

The three nonhumans of the group gave their quick goodbyes to Leon before skipping over Geoff’s table to do the same with the ladies. Unfortunately, Aerith and Yuffie were still much too preoccupied with the party teen’s increasingly blaring predicament to give them a proper send-off. They could only give strained nods and smiles as their hands had long been glued over their ears for defense.

The Pokemon took the hint and made a swift departure. Mokona however, seemingly insulted by the low effort farewells, prompted to launch himself out of the room by using Geoff’s head as a platform. As he propelled himself out and away, the poor guy’s head was forced hard onto the table, knocking him out in a daze. Yuffie wasted no time to begin cheering uproariously while Aerith was split in between joining her or reacting to Geoff’s injury in aghast.

Cody, the one straggler left behind, watched the scene with the strange mix of fascination, dismay, and amusement. He tried to keep a sense of outward dignity, feigning sincere sympathy over Geoff’s dilemma, but once one snort left his mouth, a larger outburst followed. As quickly as his little chucklefest began however, it just as soon fizzled out. He had to remember where he was, or rather, who he stood next to.

Leon stared down at the young teen. His gaze wasn’t full of contempful judgment like it normally would be. But it was Leon. Just being around him and having his full attention was enough to fill Cody with anxiety.

“I…I gotta go.” he tiptoed away. “See you, I guess.”

Leon looked back at the clock tower. The moment they’d discovered the Keybearer, they all knew things were going to accelerate. Whether or not they were as prepared as they thought they were was another question. These new developments seemingly popped out of nowhere, and, as much as he hated to admit it, all he could really do was sit back and watch.

It was all up to that guy from here on out.

“Six o’clock as always…”

 

oOo

 

Al’s eyes shined like the excited yelp of a playful pup. He ran around and examined every nook and cranny of the new and improved ship and cooed over it all like he’d just received a new toy.

“How did you guys make it so fast?” He asked with an elevated pitch.

“Well, there’s four of us,” Cid replied. “I’d be disappointed if we didn’t patch it up quickly.”

“Unpaid child labor, nyu,” Puchiko added with a flat and monotone voice, completely impossible to tell if she had genuine resentment or not.

“This is impressive even with four pairs of hands,” Loudred lauded as he admired the handiwork just as fervently as the other Pokemon was. “I really thought we were gonna be stuck here for days.”

“Well, what can I say, nyo?” As she swung around a wrench with little care, Degiko laxly leaned against the ship with a smarmy self congratulatory look that looked completely out of place with her cute and petite looks. “A real star has to be the best at everything, even mechanic work, nyo.”

“You accidentally hammered your fingers at least a dozen times, gema.”

“Oh who asked you, nyo?!”

“Hey, kid,” Cid shouted out in a panic. “If you shoot out those eye lasers of yours, we’re back to square one!”

“I can shoot out lasers too!” Mokona giggled thoughtlessly while he hopped furiously against one of the wings.

Much too traumatized by their recent near death experience, Al created a small telekinetic field around the rabbit mascot and furiously tossed him like a football into the ship before he even had a chance to cause actual damage.

The tone was both celebratory and rowdy. Cody’s crew continued thanking and marveling at the skills of Cid and his workers while the latter group just kept eating it up. In a moment that should’ve been joyous to mark their return to their journey, Cody was left standing around awkwardly, routinely shifting his eyes throughout the area and being left puzzled each and every time.

“Whatcha doing, kid?” Loudred suddenly popped in beside him, causing the meek geek to jump.

“Oh, uh, nothing. I guess…” He bit his lip. “I guess Trent’s not coming with us, huh?”

“Oh, that guy? He just got here, right? He’s probably out exploring the town right now.”

“Yeah, but,” Cody crossed his arms uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I would’ve figured he’d want to find his girlfriend.”

“Trouble in paradise perhaps?” Loudred suggested jokingly.

“I, uh…you’re not serious, right?”

“If you find her first, maybe she’ll even let you take his place.”

A voice screaming “Absolutely not” kept ringing in Cody’s head.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Loudred brushed his perhaps ill fitted jokes aside and pulled Cody along towards the ship. “Can’t dawdle around! What are all the worlds and princesses gonna do without the Keybearer saving them?”

The loud and raucous scene ended, and the ship began to make its way out of the town’s sight. The excitement that Cody’s arrival brought subsided, and all of their Traverse Town friends and acquaintances returned to faking lives of normalcy. All was quiet, all was calm, and not far from the ship’s zone of exit, a certain someone looked on towards the trail of the ship with resentment.

Notes:

Whelp, that was the most disjointed chapter yet. All because I was desperate to wrap the revisit up within two chapters.

Also, according to my outline doc, I'm apparently a quarter of the way into the fic. I doubt it'll happen, but it'd be nice to wrap this up within the year.

Chapter 17: True Cross Academy: Delinquents

Notes:

Here it is folks, your next big endurance test. If you were able to survive the absurdity of a Total Drama Kingdom Hearts fanfic starring Pokemon that also happens to feature characters from Di Gi Charat and xxxholic, let's see if you can survive all of that PLUS they're visting a world based on Blue Exorcist. Can you physically handle reading Cody Total Drama talking to Rin Okumura?

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

oOo

 

TRUE CROSS ACADEMY

 

oOo

 

The campus town of True Cross was not always the bustling mecca it was known as today. Contrasting to the vast reach and scope of the town, which could honestly struggle to justify not labeling it a city, True Cross had once formed its roots as a market town, too small to even bear a proper name. In the past, the businessmen and wage runners who now populated the area would’ve been farmer families and niche craftsmen attempting to sell their wares to anyone who happened to stumble upon their land. At some point, a new school was proposed to act as the centerpoint monument; a marker and a, perhaps naive, declaration for their growth from a dying valley to a capital of the future. The skeptical citizens expected a ramshack structure to reflect the compact state of their nameless domain, but somewhere along the line, the building came to more closely resemble a booming castle than a simple school. And the area around it quickly came to reflect that. There were rumors the project was being backed by a group of wealthy religious clergymen, but somehow the progression felt natural. For this town that was once too obscure to be named never quite left its roots. Food stalls lined the streets and shop fronts were proudly displayed with the utmost of care.

To most people, it was the country’s premiere marketplace. For some, it was a hub for easy open thievery.

A young brunette shifted her eyes around. She walked confidently through the crowds with the poise of a prim and proper citizen. To an unassumed individual, they could have easily mistaken her for one of the many affluent young students who attended the famed academy. Perhaps she would’ve fit that very description if this were her original world, but for now, it was far from the case.

She stopped and began to idly rummage through the fruit and veggies of a fairly popular open air grocery. All the while, she still carefully took glimpses around the area.

…There he was.

A hooded boy around her age leaned around conspicuously, near enough for the two of them to be aware of each other yet far enough that no one would be none the wiser. For as much as he apparently wanted to hide himself, she could see him clearly giving her a quick cheeky grin. It seemed he was desperately daring her to look him right in the eye while still trying his damndest to keep his face as hidden as possible.

The girl couldn’t help but roll her eyes. He was being careless. They stole that hoodie specifically so he could hide his hair, yet here he was angling his head just enough that you could spot a quick glint of lime green if you paid close enough attention.

No matter. It didn’t appear anyone was sensing anything out of the ordinary.

She went back to her little fake shopping session and meticulously picked through the fresh bin of apples. She lined through the reds and hybrids, then towards the yellows…

…And finished off with the greens.

That was his signal to go.

The young man suddenly slammed against the display closest to him, knocking both the shelves and the wares down and putting the nearby shoppers into a shocked halt. He rushed down and nabbed as much of the mixed goods as he could before moving to thrash another nearby stall. And then another, and the next.

At first, the shoppers assumed he was merely a clumsy customer and only paid him the barest minimum of curiosity. But as his actions repeated in more violent escalations, they all dropped what they were doing and hounded him. They gathered around him like mice to a trap, but most seemed more interested in veering out scolds than any serious attempt to intervene. It took until the market’s organizer to finally give him a real bodily threat, but by this time, he was already more or less free for the count.

A small chase ensued. The boy had to relieve much of his loot in order to gain a safe momentum away from the crowd, but the large and unusual structure of True Cross ultimately played to his advantage. There was absolutely no shortage of slim alleyways for him to zip past, and by the time he made it to a remote and almost eerily quiet part of town, his pursuers had long disappeared into the distance; no doubt left in dizzy messes just from the act of navigating through their maze of a town.

“Sucks for them,” he laughed proudly to himself as he took a fresh bite of one of his freshly stolen artisanal snacks.

“That’s all you could grab?”

He turned around to see his female companion look at him with a stern face as she kept two thick bags full of food wrapped around her arms.

“Oh, shut up,” he pointed at her accusingly while bits of his snack flew out of his mouth. “I was the one who made a scene. I’d like to see you do better, toots.”

“Yeah, about that,” she continued. “That was not the plan. Could you have at least tried to hide yourself? We literally just got you that hoodie. Do you even remember how hard it was to steal one of those the first time around?”

“Blah, blah, blah,” he shook his head while he continued to stuff his face. “You’re so damn uptight. Maybe this’ll lighten you up?” He reached into his pockets and presented a luxurious necklace. “Nabbed you a gift, babe.”

“You idiot,” she groaned. “How many times do I have to tell you we’re only stealing necessities?”

She continued to scowl, yet the more she admired the necklace, the quicker she fell to her thinly veiled vices.

“Well,” she grabbed it with a resigned tone. “I guess the color does go well with my skin.”

“See? I know what you want,” his tone wavered between loving affection and a taunt. “Not so goody-two-shoes now, hu—”

She harshly clasped her hand against his mouth. Someone was nearby.

Even worse; four people were nearby.

“Hey, Al, I know you’re serious about saving Amy, but I don’t think you need to carry her hammer around.”

“Yeah. When I first met Cid, he gave me this weird little hammer space cube. We can just toss it in there. Save you the trouble.”

“I’m a hammer space too! Let me eat it!”

“That is the last thing I want to do!"

The two thieves crept at the very edge of the alley wall, eyes wide. What was he doing here?

“You sure you really want to drag it around? You’re looking kind of pale,” Cody said to Alakazam.

“I…I’m fine,” he huffed back while he very clearly struggled to keep the weight in his arms. “It’s a strong weapon, so we might as well use it.”

“But…you’re not even a melee dude.”

“I’ll learn. How hard can it be?”

Back at the slim alleyway, the pair of wannabe bandits were in a state of shock.

“I can’t just let someone from our own world see me with stolen goods!” The girl loudly whispered.

“Calm the hell down,” her partner replied. “We’ll just ignore him and stuff these back at our hideout.”

In their panic, the boy accidentally elbowed against a nearby trash can that a split tailed black cat had taken as his napping spot. Frightened and furious at his unprompted awakening, the creature gave no hesitation to immediately start clawing against the punk boy’s face. He could only scream in unimaginable pain.

“Oh, for crying out loud!” The girl forcefully yanked the feline off her partner in crime, but not without a decent bout of effort of course.

At that point, it was already too late.

Cody stood in front of the alleyway, just inches away from Courtney and Duncan, mouth hanging and stunned. The two could only stare like a pair of doe caught by the light during nightfall. None of the three could figure out how to carry out from here. Should they talk? Should they yell? Should they flee?

They fled of course.

“H-hey, wait!”

Cody jumped into a desperate sprint and quickly signaled the others to follow. But just like how the town’s maze-like layout drew Duncan’s earlier chase to a close, they too struggled to keep the two within sight. And luck would have it, rather than keeping the duo in view, they wound up running straight into a small pool of Heartless to defeat.

These small skirmishes had grown fairly routine at this point. They’d all found their own little patterns and techniques to help whittle down their foes. But for Alakazam, what should’ve been an easy fight turned into a struggle. He was making a genuine effort to work with the Piko Piko Hammer and was failing miserably. Swings would be interrupted by the crashing gravity forcing his arms to collapse. Any attempt to lift the oversized weapon was met with messy foot stumblings and dizzying twirls as his body struggled to account for the added weight. The last time any one of them witnessed the hammer in action, it knocked these monsters senseless, no problem. Of course, back then, it was being wielded by a Princess of Heart and not a lowly advisor.

“Just drop the hammer already,” Cody slapped his face.

BANG! BANG!

The four jumped. The last few Shadows, namely the ones in Al’s little area, collapsed to the ground. Newly formed holes expanded in their hollow bodies which slowly forced tiny fissures of black specks to float off before their bodies themselves became lost to the open air.

“Are you alright?”

Before the group stood a pair of twins, one with a gun in his grip, having taken down the last of the Heartless before them, and one who had only just arrived at the scene after him.

“Uh, y-yeah,” Cody replied nervously. He took a quick glance over at his companions who seemed to have the same looks of anxiety on them. Each new meeting in each new world meant a new cover story every time. Lying on the spot was never going to get any easier for them.

“I’m Yukio Okumura of the Japan division.” He held out his hand.

Cody couldn’t help but blink in confusion at the orderly and prompt introduction. With his perfectly trim, official looking uniform, and his neatly shined glasses, Cody could hardly believe that he seemed to be no older than he was. He felt like a more refined version of the preppy kids back home who took the student life so seriously, they could be easily mistaken for teachers themselves.

So like, people who were even lamer than him.

“Shake his hand,” Alakazam tapped the hammer onto his shoulder.

“Er, uh, y-yeah,” he stammered before he quickly initiated the most awkwardly stilted handshake ever. “I’m Cody, and those guys are Loudred, Alakazam, and Mokona. And, uh, who are those two?”

Yukio looked over his shoulder. His twin brother was a much more messy looking dude compared to him. He wore his simple school uniform all loose and unkempt, and he stood with a purposeful hunch, topped off with what appeared to be a slim red lacrosse bag strapped behind him. And alongside him, a third face had arrived at the scene only seconds before. She was a frail girl with a blonde bob, and she slouched over with labored breaths the moment her feet stayed put. With her pink and blue floral kimono and her traditional zori sandals, it was no wonder she arrived as delayed and depleted as she was.

“These are two Exwires under my care; Rin Okumura and Shiemi Moriyama.”

“‘Sup,” Rin could be heard giving a gruff greeting under his breath.

“I’m rather impressed,” Yukio continued. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an exorcist who could handle commanding three familiars at once.”

Cody looked on quizzically. “Huh?”

“You’re the Vatican exorcist we requested, right?"

“I’m a what now?”

Alakazam jabbed his back.

“I, I mean, yes! I'm from the Vatican! I know the Bible like the back of my hand!”

Lord knows how anyone bought that.

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” Yukio crossed his arms. “The town’s been overrun by those strange monsters you were dealing with just now. They don’t resemble or behave like any kind of demon we’ve encountered and we’re at our wit’s end trying to deal with them. I wouldn’t suppose you have any idea on what these things are?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Mokona leapt from behind Cody and landed like a toy ball atop his head. “Those are the Hear—”

Alakazam instinctively swatted Mokona off his makeshift pedestal. The small rabbit was luckily saved from suffering the fate of a failed projectile by the firm grip of Loudred’s hand. The purple Pokemon in turn flashed Al a disapproving frown.

Quite honestly, there was no real reason to keep going to such lengths to hide the details of their existence. Al seemed to realize this and let out a sigh, signaling an okay to go on.

“They’re called Heartless,” Cody finally responded. “I, uh, don’t really think they’re the same as demons, but, yeah, we know how to handle them.”

“So then what’s the first plan of attack?”

Here goes, Cody took a deep breath. “Okay, so there’s this guy and this girl.”

Cody’s three friends looked at each other in confusion.

“The dude’s hecking scary looking, green mohawk, piercings, will probably spit at you for no reason. Girl’s got slightly dark skin, looks nice and pleasant but will also probably spit on you.”

It was Yukio and his crew’s turn to look confused. “Th-the thieves?”

Thieves?! “Yeah! Exactly!”

“What do they have to do with any of this?”

“They have everything to do with this!”

Mokona looked up expectantly. “How though?”

Cody punted him like a soccer ball.

“They’re involved in this in ways you can’t even comprehend.”

The three world denizens continued to look at one another with skeptical faces which caused a brief moment of quiet as they awkwardly eyed one another. In the trio’s heads, they kept urging anyone to make a decision to break the silence.

The timid girl, Shiemi, was the first to speak with stilted words. “W-well, they did pop up in town around the same time the, uh, Heartless did.”

“Come to think of it,” Yukio calmly proceeded to add on, though it sounded more like he was desperately trying to convince himself that any of this made sense. “That is suspicious.”

“Sounds like bull to me,” the last of the three, Rin grumbled lightly.

A bead of sweat dripped down Cody’s brow. He really hoped none of them would question his bluff. “W-well, it’s not.”

Rin’s nose twitched, forcing his face into what seemed like a nasty sneer. Cody gulped. The guy had a very vicious vibe around him in comparison to his more clean looking brother. He was almost an entire head taller than the Keybearer, and despite being the shorter of the twins and being buffered by a slightly lurched back, Cody felt like he was staring into the eyes of a riled giant.

Just like all those kids who used to shove him in a locker!

“Rin,” Shiemi spoke reassuringly. “This is our first real lead. It doesn’t hurt to at least give it a try.”

“Alright,” Yukio nodded. “Rin, Shiemi, the two of you go searching in town for those two. The majority of those ‘Heartless’ creatures seem to be spawning around Mephhyland, so Cody and I will head over there to investigate for further leads.”

Wait, this wasn’t part of the plan.

Cody opened his mouth, ready to bull his way into getting what he wanted once more. He didn’t expect to be beat out by a heated outburst from Rin.

“What?!” The rougher twin spat out. “I want to go where the action is, not running around hunting down a pair of thieves.”

Yukio’s brow twitched. It appeared he was regularly vexed by his brother’s antics on a daily basis. “Rin, are we really going to do this now?”

“Come on,” he switched to a more teasing tone. “You know you’re gonna need me.”

“Yeah, and I’m going to need you to go search for the thieves .” Yukio sounded like he was ready to blow a gasket.

“Uh,” Cody awkwardly wobbled his hand upwards. “If it’s alright, I’d rather go searching for the thieves instead.”

The poor nerd had to deal with the terrifying situation of having six whole pairs of eyes looking on at him with bewildered expressions.

“...They’re…really important…”

Yukio let out an exasperated sigh, and waved Rin away while he took his leave. “You know what? You’ll be on search duty with Cody instead. Shiemi and I will check the theme park.”

The authoritative boy silently walked away with a stance that almost seemed like he was just barely keeping himself from stamping in frustration. Shiemi trailed along, her kimono sleeves flapping along in the air as she turned around to give an apologetic wave and a quick “Good luck”. The two were soon far off in the distance, leaving a frantically stammering Rin to helplessly cry out to them from afar.

Their transition to a lowly search party was almost instantaneous. Rin was much too pissy to throw any direct complaints at the “Vatican Exorcist” and his “familiars”. And Cody and the others were too taken aback by the violent faces and expletives he gave off to dare to speak to him face-to-face. Several minutes in, an enormous gap had formed between the group and the haughty schoolboy. If Cody had it his way, he would gladly make that gap larger.

For fear Rin would shove him in a locker of course.

“So, uh,” Al clumsily nudged Cody’s shoulder with the edge of the hammer’s head. “Why’re we doing this?”

“Those two we were chasing; they’re from my world. I can’t just leave them running around here. We have to take them back with us to Traverse Town.”

“If you say so.”

“I just wish we could’ve had some…more savory company.”

Cody looked over his shoulder where Rin straggled along. He stopped muttering to himself, but was now scowled on ahead. He drilled his eyes angrily in Cody’s direction, causing him to jump back forward in fright.

“He totally wants to beat me up. What is his problem?!”

Meanwhile, Rin was stuck in that annoying state between wanting to sneeze and not having enough of an itch to do so.

“You can’t just judge a book by its cover, kid,” Loudred remarked.

“Oh yes, I can. All my years in high school, middle school, and elementary school are all the proof I need.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, Loudred,” Al wheezed as the weight of the hammer started to heave on to him once more. “He doesn’t look like he’s here to make friends.”

“He looks like he’s gonna eat me!” Mokona shivered.

Meanwhile, Rin cursed up a storm in his head over how bad allergy season was this year.

Loudred was usually the understanding type, but it started to grow very apparent to him that he was the only voice of reason alongside the literal band of children he was traveling with.

“We should give him a chance. We’re going to be searching around town with him after a—”

Loudred’s foot ran smack on to a mysterious surface, forcing him to stumble asunder. Stretches of black goop had manifested on the dirt paths and stone pavements. Nearby, a little girl stood stunned and distressed in the center of a tight circlet of shadowy blobs. Her eyes grew wider and more tearful with each wriggle and sway the rising bulbs blubbed. By the time the creatures finally took shape into blue Bandit-like forms, there was nothing for her to do but wail in terror before the scimitar wielding Heartless.

Cody and company were, of course, already on the job. The three nonhumans assigned themselves to the copious fiends scattered around near the shops and general scenery. The Keybearer himself charged forward, ready to come to the girl’s rescue.

Or at least that was the plan until a certain delinquent took the fight instead.

Passing by Alakazam, who had wound up dropping the Piko Piko Hammer in yet another hopeless attempt to master the bulky weapon on the spot, Rin snatched the hammer up like the weighty mass didn’t affect him at all. He raised it upwards and slammed it down onto a Bandit, crushing it in one strike alongside the splintered gravel. And he did it again and again and again. None of them ever had a chance. Any moment they wasted trying to slash their adversary’s face was quickly met with a preemptive smack and blow. One by one, the Heartless, both surrounding the girl and otherwise, were crushed and crippled.

Viewing the fight grew to something akin to witnessing a massacre. When Amy was the one wielding the hammer, there was knightley grace in its movements. Rin on the other hand moved and tousled it around in a wild and brutal fashion. Any unlucky Bandit who was left a paralyzed mess instead of a lifeless corpse under the head was met with perhaps an even more agonizing death; getting kicked and hit over and over again by the hard stomp of Rin’s feet. If Heartless had bones, then there would’ve been an entire chorus full of the cracks and shatters of crushed skulls and dismembered limbs.

The others stopped what they were doing to gawk at the scene in terror. It didn’t matter that Rin technically just saved a child’s life. The dark fissures of fading Heartless corpses began to more closely resemble blood splatters. They had fought and defeated these monsters time and time again with no remorse, and yet here they were feeling pity for them.

It was then and there Al decided that perhaps the Piko Piko Hammer should be put away in storage after all.

Notes:

You might be thinking, "Wait a second. Blue Exorcist wasn't the same time period as Total Drama!" The Blue Exorcist world was originally something else, but I changed it once I got really into the anime when it started airing in 2011. I was only updating the fic like once a year at that point but I was still in fact intent on writing it. Let it sink in that high school me didn't realize how dumb an idea BlueEx/TDI was (said me of the present who is actually writing and publishing it now).

Chapter 18: True Cross Academy: Flames Unsheathed

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Traversing through town alongside Rin Okumura was turning out to be an extremely stressful experience.

The Piko Piko Hammer incident was not a one-time thing. Even after the oversized gavel was safely stored out of sight, Rin’s entrance into any and all battles they confronted was a thing of nightmares. At first, he instinctively fought back with the force of his own feet, kicking and stomping on nonexistent Heartless guts. Halfway into his second skirmish however, he had the bright idea to start conking the heads of the soot monsters with the hilt of his lacrosse bag. For as gruff as the delinquent teen seemed, the sheer resourcefulness he had with turning random objects into impromptu weapons of Heartless murder was almost scarily commendable. He would toss wooden crates, then use the jagged edge of those snapped planks to mimic knives. He would find loose bricks near construction sites just to chuck them hard into the monsters’ uncaring eyes of gold. He would trap them helplessly under trash cans and leave them to be slowly crushed into sable mush while he used the lids as mallets.

Forget shoving nerds into lockers; this guy was a straight up demon!

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Cody wheezed with his hard grasped firmly on to his head.

Having just taken down another Heartless schism, Cody’s group of four had taken a quick break to sit and rest. Or more accurately, they needed time to process all the brutality they’d witnessed over and over again in quick succession.

“Like, imagine if Kevin from fifth period trig started doing ‘roids. This is worse than that,”

“I don’t know who that is,” Alakazam mumbled, sitting around in a daze.

“What’s ‘’roids’?” Mokona cocked his head.

Loudred was split. He gazed off across the street towards the small plaza where Rin had taken to entertaining a small group of children, all freshly saved from yet another Heartless attack. Here he was acting like an absolute ball of sunshine, yet the main image of the boy that came to Loudred’s mind was that of unhinged fury. Still, he had to be the sole voice of reason in this group, and despite everything, he had faith that what he saw before him painted a fuller picture of what this Rin kid was really like.

“Hey, maybe we should give him a chance,” he nudged towards his friends. “If we’re going to be hanging around with him for a while, we might as well try to get to know him better.”

“Are you insane?” Cody’s eyes darted up towards him and his glance protruded with the utmost seriousness.

“He looks around your age. He can’t be that bad.”

“That’s what makes it worse!” He bounced right into an accusatory pose with one hand pointed and the other in a tight fist. “You don’t know what high schoolers are capable of. You don’t know all the messed up shit that goes through their heads!”

“Yeah,” Mokona peeped. “Like ‘roids!”

“Listen,” Al interjected. “He hasn’t bothered talking to us, so we don’t have to bother talking to him. Let’s face it. He’s nuts. One wrong move and he’ll probably rip us in half. Let’s just wait this whole thing out and keep it at that.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Cody nodded. “We can just pretend he doesn’t exist for now and go on our merry w—”

“Hey, you four about ready to head off again?” Rin asked nonchalantly.

Cody yelped like a dog that just narrowly missed a van.

He blinked. “Um, uh, sorry. Were you guys in the middle of something?”

Crap, he’s actually talking to us.

“No, no,” Cody attempted to regain composure. “We were just, uh, discussing our game plan.”

“Cool. So, what is it?”

Four pairs of eyes darted around each other like a box of ping pong balls thrown carelessly on to the table.There was no plan. Of course there wasn’t.

But Mokona, master of tact, brewed an idea that he really should have kept to himself.

“You should stop fighting.”

The mood between the five was a mess. Cody, Al, and Loudred were left gaping over the fact that their partner would dare to suggest such a thing while Rin was in an absolute tidal wave of confusion, shock, and insecurity.

“Wh-what?!” He choked out. “What did I do wrong?”

“Everything!”

“What does that mean?!”

“Let me level with you,” Al awkwardly butted in a he tried his best to hide just how petrified he was on the inside. For all he knew, Rin could probably blow up at any second. “You’re way too destructive. It’s…distracting.”

“Oh, give me a break!” An almost comically audible tremor bounced off the moment Rin stamped his foot onto the ground. Al was forced into a squeamish flinch. “I didn’t even mess up any shops or got people hurt or nothing! Those Heartless things are screwing around town and we have to beat them. That’s exactly what I’m doing!”

“Could you maybe do it a bit less though?” Cody responded both anxiously and thoughtlessly.

Huh?!

Cody was trying his best to keep himself together, but he knew deep down inside, he was ready to shit himself.

“I’m not as dumb as you think I am. I’ve noticed that you four have been on my case this entire time,” Rin continued to fume and grobble. “What the heck did I even do?! Look shorty, just because you’re some bigshot doesn’t mean—”

This was too much.

Cody’s arms flung over his head into a stick thin shield. He looked away and bent over in the closest imitation he could make to an upright fetal position. Rin’s rant was put to a halt, now replaced by a conflicted face. He finally put two and two together. Here he was surrounded by three familiars, one who looked around completely unsure of what to do and two in varying degrees of silent panic, and one supposed bigwig exorcist who cowered around as he softly chanted “don’t hit me” over and over again.

Shit, he did it again…

Rin gulped and heaved in a deep glut of air. It was his turn to be nervous. His face that was filled with anger and bile just moments before was now timid, tense, and uncertain. He bit his lip and extended his hand over to Cody. His gesture shook just as much as the other teenager’s entire body did.

“H-hey…”

“Get out of the way!!”

Courtney and Duncan shot right between the two boys and forced any gloom and tension between them to tear apart while they struggled to regain their footing. Even worse, a vile lineup of Bandits and Knights hobbled along in a freakish trail, the thieving duo having apparently angered their lot not long ago. Cody was no longer worried about possibly getting socked in the face by some dude he just met. Something worse would happen to those two if he and his gang didn’t do something. Fast.

He made a dashing sprint alongside the bizarre Heartless parade an struck down any stragglers along the way. The rest of his buddies followed along, and Rin was left taken aback at just how quickly the four bounced into action.

“Hey, wait up!”

Rin’s cry was completely ignored while the others were already in their momentum. He was just about to join them in their current clash, but a thought put him at a halt. He thought back to the fear that was on everyone’s faces, and he thought about just how familiar those faces were. Time and time again, he would screw up and go way too far. So what was he supposed to do now?

Rin just simply ran along on the side while the others paid him no mind.

 

oOo

 

Meanwhile, way up ahead, a certain crass couple desperately scrambled around to try to shake the chaos cavalcade off their backs. As if their serial thievery hadn’t already screwed around with the townsfolk, their unwilling game of Snake was single handedly distributing the rogue monsters off into every corner and district they trampled off to. If it weren’t for the Keybearer and his associates cleaning things up all the way in the back, their little stunt would have doomed the town right then and there.

“Why are there so many today?!” Courtney screeched in frustration, barely stopping herself from tearing apart her hair as she ran and ran.

“Quit whining and run ,” Duncan barked back.

The young ruffian looked on ahead. The tall gates of the town’s prized academy were just up ahead. He remembered when he and Courtney first found themselves in this world and her first instinct was to attempt to seek refuge there. Duncan, the trained truant, was wholly against it. But after being so thoroughly tossed away by the school’s security even after the two went out of  their way to make it in through completely normal means, he had at one point made it a goal to break in purely out of spite. Now seemed as good a time as any for just that.

Duncan built up a small jump of momentum and leapt right on to the bars, quickly dragging himself to the top. Courtney, ever the fast learner, followed diligently alongside him. She reached for his outstretched arm, and the two quickly bounced right onto the neatly lined pavements.

The Heartless were left wriggling around behind the flimsy barrier, but in the pair’s heads, the chase was still on. They continued on their rowdy ruckus. Students were harshly shoved to the side, the odd flowerpots and other menial ornaments were sent shattering on the ground, and of course, any lingering valuable was privy to Duncan’s keen and grubby hands.

“For the last time,” Courtney’s shrill snarl sounded off as they sped through. “ Only the necessities!!

“Christ, will you get off my back, woman?” Duncan harshly replied. “You literally just smacked that kid back there into a brick wall. Are you telling me stealing a wallet with 500 yen in it is worse than that?”

While the criminal couple found themselves lost in their lover’s quarrel, they neared an unexpected reunion with an old friend. Annoyed and distracted, Duncan’s foot landed flat on to the tail of a split tailed black cat. In a snap, the immature bickering was replaced with Duncan’s screams of torture. His face had barely recovered from the last lashing, and those fresh scars were sure to grow deeper.

“For crying out loud. Again, Duncan?!” Courtney grasped on to the cat and used all her strength to make him budge even a tiny fidget off his victim. Her efforts were fruitless, but the cat did release himself on his own accord. Just to shift his clawing and mawing on to her instead.

“Hey, get off of her, you mangy cat!”

With screams and cussing mixed with mewls and flailing, it was no wonder the trio couldn’t sense the obvious danger that was approaching them. The ground bumped with each pounding stomp of the golem’s foot. By the time they finally took a hint, its movements were akin to a mild earthquake. The looming shadow of the six-armed warrior fell upon them, and they could only muster one combined bawl once they realized they were under Kurt Zisa’s wrath.

 

oOo

 

It wasn’t hard for the group to figure out where the duo had wandered off to after the Heartless lineup was caught in an abrupt halt. All gathered around sloppily in front the school gates like a nest of confused wasps, they were easy pickings for the heroes. One by one, the last remnants of the creatures fell, leaving only our four Keyblade companions to pant and croak from their Heartless mowing marathon.

And the one outsider, Rin, was left to launch himself on to the bars of the gate while he climbed and yelled expletives at their two targets who were much too far away to hear him.

“Once I get through these, you two assholes are going down!”

Loudred eyed the act curiously and barely managed to contain a small snort. “You’re a student here, right? Why are you trying to break in?”

Rin jolted in shock. He had a point.

“Let’s…” Cody coughed and gagged as he still tred to level off his breathing. “Can we take another quick rest before we…”

Al tapped him on the shoulder and spoke to him in a somewhat hushed breath. “Do you hear that?”

Indeed, a peculiar mumble bounced on and off in the background in a tone that felt neither close nor in the distance. Loudred and Mokona, the keenest listeners of the bunch, perked their ears. They couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it was definitely laughter.

Condescending laughter.

POOF!

The Keyblade Quartet let out combined yelps as they jumped back while Rin was sent toppling off the gate bars and splat onto the cobblestone pavement, back first. A new face had popped in right before them. An impish looking man draped in all white stood just above the gates. Or rather, his feet lounged daintility on the very tips of the bars while he sat in the air in a prim and proper manner, legs crossed and tea in hand.

Just the sight of the guy already sent Rin into a fight or flight stance. He effortlessly hopped off the ground and pointed accusingly at the mysterious man. “Mephisto! What the hell?!”

“A pleasure to see you today too, Okumura,” he tipped his top hat in a way that read much more snidely than gentlemanly.

While Rin continued to fume, Mephisto’s view shifted over towards the four strangers. And of course, a certain Keybearer in particular.

“And who might you be?”

Cody’s back straightened, twisted, and cracked all out once at the mere mention of his own name. “I, uh, um, uh.” What was it again? “I’m the, uh, an exorcist from the…Vatican?” He continued to stammer as he motioned towards his three non-humanoid companions. “And these three are my, uh…”

“Familiars,” Al coughed near inaudibly from behind.

“Familiars!” Cody excitedly exclaimed. “Yes, I’ve got three of them.”

“A Vatican exorcist, you say?”

Before he even had a moment to flub his way further, Mephisto, against all concepts of time and logic, suddenly leered forward right at the boy’s spluttering face. His chin in his hand, and his mouth twisted into a sly grin, everything from his expression to his posture exuded the very essence of the word “smug”. Cody could feel the man slowly lean closer and closer. His Cheshire Cat smile dared the boy to spout some more nonsense out of his mouth.

Whoever this guy was, he was not falling for Cody’s piss poor Vatican act.

“Hey, asshat,” Rin cried out. “I know you’re not here to help. What are you even doing here?”

It was like being released from a chokehold. Mephisto returned his attention to the haughty lad, and Cody was left to silently gag and reflect on the years of his life that staredown just took from him.

“I heard there was a bit of a commotion in town. I was curious and thought I’d take a peek. Imagine how amused I was to see that little Pied Piper scene back there.”

“Yeah, and we took them all down,” Rin responded with a firm grunt. “If that’s all you’re here for, you can beat it now.”

“Took them all down, you say?” Mephisto’s mocking smirk continued to contrast against his noble voice. “Then what’s that large, obnoxious golem that’s wreaking havoc on my campus?”

Cody was taken aback. “Wait, what?”

“As we speak, a six-armed monstrosity is tearing apart the courtyard.”

Cody and his crew faced each other with worried looks. Did they miss one?

“Why are you acting so calm about this?” Rin asked in outrage. “It’s your school, isn’t it?”

“Well, I would do something about it myself, but we have a ‘ Vatican exorcist ’ here,” he waved his hand off flippantly and earned a pained squint from Cody at the mere mention of his so-called profession. “He can take it down, correct? Hopefully he’ll be quick on his feet too. Last I checked, that monster was harassing a poor cat and a pair of trespassers.”

Cody slapped his head. If the town-wide Heartless march they caused wasn’t enough... “Okay, then let’s—”

“Wait a minute, that’s my cat!!”

After all the terror their eyes were subjected to today, this was somehow the most infuriated any one of them had seen Rin. Without even a second thought, the enraged exwire smashed his foot on to the gate with the intensity of a wrecking ball. The metallic bars dented violently forward before snapping off from their main foundation and forming clouds of dirt and dust as they clanged loudly on the ground. Mephisto made some offhanded comments about destruction of school property, but Rin had shot through the newly formed opening so fast, it was doubtful any consequences were mapped out in his head when he vandalized on instinct. This time, the crew was almost too startled and confounded at what they just witnessed to be frightened by the guy’s strength. It was now their turn to follow on behind.

As they made their way through the academy’s sprawling quad, signs of mayhem slowly piled up one by one. Crevasses and indents caved into the surrounding walls and brick pavements. Books, stationary and various other curios were left abandoned and scattered around; no doubt a result of dozens upon dozens of students fleeing the scene all at once. The antics Courtney and Duncan briefly pulled during their short excursion were now hidden and replaced by the much harsher deeds this new threat had throttled around.

They continued to trudge forward, and each new step was met with increasingly intense tremors. Perhaps what was even more disturbing was how quick in succession the throbs and quakes were. It dawned upon them that those grounded indents they saw were mere footsteps, not the results of Heartless mischief, and it sank in that this thing was not alone.

“Don’t drop us! Don’t drop us!!”

“Watch it, you stupid cat. That thing nearly knocked us off!”

Is that them? Cody thought to himself as they neared the scene of the fight. Cat??

Before them, two behemoths exchanged swipes and snarls, face-to-face. One was just as they imagined; a clay molded juggernaut that swung and exchanged its twin hook-like sword amongst its three pairs of arms. The other, a giant split tailed cat, snarled its demonic face towards Kurt Zisa like it faced death itself. His dark gray fur was dirtied and ruffled and his body swayed along with labored breaths. This massive feline did its damndest to hold off against his foe, but the poor thing already reached its limit.

“Don’t yell at him, Duncan. He's our lifeline right now!”

“Well it should do a better job at— HOLY SHIT, WATCH OUT!!”

Straddling desperately alongside the massive cat’s back were, of course, the inconvenient duo they had searched high and low for. The more the cat continued his harsh endeavors against Kurt Zisa’s thrusts, the more Duncan and Courtney’s shrieks of terror overcame the noise of crumbling bricks and gravely mews.

The tremors from their steps intensified into a full-on simulated earthquake. Cody and friends struggled to keep their footing, but even worse off were, of course, the two teens who were left flailing around with their wobbling grips that just barely held on to the tips of frayed fur. The cat grew weaker and more ragged by the second, and the screams circled and shook throughout the scuffle.

“Hey,” Rin shot daggers over at Kurt Zisa while he attempted to level himself from the shifting grounds by treating his lacrosse bag like a walking stick. “What the hell are you doing? Leave Kuro alone if you know what’s good for you!”

No amount of yelling was going to persuade this mindless colossus. Its onslaught continued on without mercy, and soon enough, Kuro the Cat was done. With one final slam of paws, the cat painfully keeled down into a defensive crouch, and the enormous cat monster shrunk to the size of a regular kitten. Duncan and Courtney toppled on to the ground, their addled cries never once letting out. It was a battle lost, and yet, Kurt Zisa refused to relent.

Oh no, oh no, oh no! Cody bugged out at the scene. If they didn’t intervene now, those two weren’t going to last even another second. He frantically turned over to his team and prepared himself to lead them over to the wounded trio.

Rin however was already way ahead of him.

Cody gasped. Sure, they were constant witnesses to Rin’s terrifying might and ferocity throughout the day and knew just how strong he was, but even then, he was just one kid. One angry fifteen-year-old determined to save his familiar was not going to be enough to fend off the incoming slash from a scimitar that was large enough to slice down a small building.

It was a mad dash between the four to save the boy from his own dumb act. Unfortunately, Rin’s speed and prowess was far beyond anything Cody and Loudred could hope to catch up to, and the stress of the situation forced Al’s telekinetic abilities into an awkward stilt and Mokona’s entire being to a frozen and shaken state. The oversized blade drew closer and closer. As Rin rushed to shield Kuro, everyone else could only watch at the horrifying slice-and-dice that was about to occur.

…But the moment the Heartless should’ve landed its easy strike, something strange happened. A clanging shing pierced the air, and an unusually large cloud of smoke and dust erupted at the impact zone. Azure ashes spread throughout the courtyard as the winds made small dents into the thick dusty storm of debris. The more the dust cloud faded, the more the smell of burning cinders grew and permeated.

Burning flames of bright blue surrounded the spot Kurt Zisa had struck. And standing triumphantly within them stood Rin Okumura, his form now revealing vaguely demonic features. A feral face, bulging veins, pointed ears, and a messy long tail; his current composure fit perfectly with the ferocious fighting spirit he held throughout the day. The lacrosse bag he toted around was laid flatly on the ground and the item it had held, a katana, was cleanly unsheathed and emanated a further blare of pure blue fire. Everything they saw from him today was him just holding back and improvising. This was his real power.

Without a second thought, Rin ran forward and aimed a gashing strike on to Kurt Zisa’s confused body. Despite its gargantuan size, the blade managed a deep cut into its clay mold. The heat of the sweltering flames engulfed its wound and forced the giant into distressed delirium.

Rin smirked, thinking he just made an early win. But the golem was not going down without a fight. Kurt Zisa juggled around its scimitars at a rapid pace and created its own personal barrier that prevented the boy from inflicting any further heated fractures. His confident fury switched over to stressed flinches and squeaks, but his stubborn attitude prevented him from pulling back, and he launched himself into a rapid fire flurry of clashing blades that just narrowly missed flesh and body.

Throughout this whole ordeal, the Keyblade Gang gawked at the sight. Their eyes were filled with shades of blue as the flames flared between each hit. Between that and their shock at Rin’s sudden change, it was practically sensory overload. Al was the first to snap out of it. With a shake and self inflicted slap, he quickly urged the others to help the dude out.

Kurt Zisa was now up against five fighters. Its artificial barrier could only do so much. Loudred, Mokona, and Al did their usual thing, distracting their enemy with a healthy mix of loud noise, flashing lights, and interrupted movement. Cody slipped into whatever openings he could fit through and landed a small series of scratches throughout its earthen body. It didn’t seem much, but it added up where it counted. Rin’s flames continued to spread and consume its body, and they only proved to intensify each time he found another moment to strike. Its innards softened and filled up with smoke. The small cracks and gnashes all around itself built up into entire patterns of splitting slits.

The juggling subsided. Kurt Zisa had barely any energy left in itself to hold its body together let alone fight back. Cody and Rin both made their final strikes at the crackling corpse-to-be and sent its remnants into one final explosion of fire and dark energy. A puff of navy blue fizzled out in the wind, and Kurt Zisa was no more.

“We did it!!” Mokona squealed at the top of his lungs. The others quickly launched themselves into exuberant victory jumps and celebratory high fives.

And during the commotion, two certain someones tried to make their leave unnoticed.

“Hey, you two!”

With just the sound of Cody’s voice, it was Duncan and Courtney’s sign to book it. They already managed to survive all this bullshit. Like hell they were going to get caught by Cody of all people.

“Where are you two going?”

Suddenly face-to-face with the Pokemon who could not control his own personal sound volume, it was like they ran straight into a jump scare. Just like that, it was all over. Mokona hopped on through and sent them both straight to the ground as he bounced off their heads while they were still in the middle of their screaming shocks. A floating string of rope, courtesy of Al, wrapped itself neatly around the two like a store bought bow. The two’s reign of petty thievery was officially over.

It was a small task in comparison to the prior duel, but their capture called for another quick round of commemoration for a job well done. If only the two captives in question weren’t so…verbally resistant over their fate.

“What are you clowns throwing a party over?” Duncan barked. “You think you did a good thing catching us? What are you? Cops?”

“Look, bud,” Al replied in a harsh tone. It was obvious they weren’t going to get along just based on personality alone. “You two almost wrecked the whole town with all the Heartless you were leading around.”

“Oh please,” Courtney rolled her eyes. “You’re assuming we were doing that on purpose. Which we weren’t!” Personality wise, he probably wouldn’t be getting along much with her either.

The bickering and blathering continued on. At this point, Cody had found a spot away from the others to give himself time to heave out uneven gasps over all the physical stamina he’d just spent. I swear, I better come out of this adventure ripped , he thought to himself as he barely contained a small baby barf from coming out.

“...Hey, are you alright?... You sure?”

Cody looked towards the corner of his eye. While his buddies had gotten into pointless arguments with those two, Rin tended to the wounds of the split-tailed cat, Kuro. He was used to hearing Rin at his absolute screamiest. It wasn’t that he was surprised at hearing him be all soft and caring, but…

…He really messed up, huh?

“Alright, just make sure you rest up at the dorm for the rest of the day, okay?” Rin gave a kind wave and smile as Kuro pranced off into the distance.

“Uh, hey…”

Rin jumped and nervously cocked his head over to Cody with a chilled face. He had put his sword away a while ago and returned to his normal state, but his tail was still out in the open, and it sprung up fiercely like a danger warning.

“Look,” Cody began. “I’m really sorry about—”

“I CAN EXPLAIN!!”

Huh?

Rin twitched and sweated as if he had stepped into a life or death situation. “Th-that was, uh, something I learned in class, and uh, totally not suspicious at all, and, uh…” His eyes dilated in horror once he noticed his own tail jittering around. He quickly yanked it and stuffed it haphazardly under his shirt and away from sight. He continued to stare at Cody like a deer in headlights, completely unsure of what to do next.

“...Please don’t report me,” Rin finished with the tiniest of whimpers.

“What? Why would I do that?”

Rin was startled. Was this a lifeline? “Uh…because you saw all that back there?”

“All the fire and stuff?”

Alright, what’s going on? “Why aren’t you scared?”

“Why should I be? You’ve got, like, demon powers. That’s cool as heck!”

….This was not the response he expected.

“...Hey, hey, whoa!” Cody jumped back. In almost an instant, tears and snot poured out of Rin like a fountain pipe. “Uh, don’t cry!” And this was not the response he expected.

Cody scratched the back of his head. “Look, I’m really really sorry about how I was acting around you. Please stop crying. I’ll try to make it up to—”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my powers,” Rin sobbed.

“...Huh?”

Like the turn of a faucet, Rin’s tears were capped off. He sternly clasped his hands together and flung himself into an apologetic bow. “I am so sorry for freaking you out! I’m not proud of it, but I guess I just naturally come off as all rough and tough around people, and I’m always messing things up because of that. People always assume the worst, but I really don’t mean it. I’ll do better next time, I swear!”

This was truly a startling sight. He thought he had Rin figured out the moment he laid eyes on him. Rough and rude with a gangly hunch that forced his towering height into a leered loom; he knew from experience what kind of people that tended to be. Yet this guy was in front of him, stammering and yipping with utmost sincerity like a hyperactive pup. To think this was the guy he labeled a bonafide Heartless Murderer.

Well, he still was, but Rin Okumura was also kind of adorable.

…Is…he laughing? Rin gulped in confusion.

Rin peered upward. The other boy indeed tried his best to stifle back a chuckle. “I, I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m not laughing at you or anything. It’s just… Holy cow, I judged you so wrong. Sorry about that.”

“N-no I…” Rin was still taken aback. “I’m surprised at how fast you’ve turned around.”

“Look, man,” Cody wiped a tear as his little fit subsided. “As long as you don’t shove me in a locker, we’re golden.”

“Shove you in a…?” Rin tilted his head. It was now his turn to stifle back laughter. “Damn, you’re starting to remind me of my brother.”

Just a few moments ago, Cody and Rin were like a jittering rabbit standing alongside an idle wolf, but now, they hit it off as if they were long time school friends. With their main deed done, their chat trailed off into plain goofing off. Boorish guffaws filled the air while the two dumb boys began to devolve into typical dumb boy talks. It only got more rowdy as the three “familiars” joined in on the fun, having lost all their patience dealing with their two captives. Duncan and Courtney could only look on at the scene in annoyance, seeing the five completely eschew all responsibilities despite the state of both their own situation and the ruined grounds that surrounded them.

Surely they had something better to be doing right now. Right?

“Man, you are a riot, Rin,” Loudred howled and enthusiastically slaped against the teen’s back; the only back slapping victim who has never winced in pain from the action. “To think Al here thought you were going to tear us in half.”

“H-hey, don’t just say that out loud,” the other Pokemon side-eyed quietly in response.

“To think you didn’t eat us!” Mokona chortled.

“What kind of guy did you four think I was?...”

“Uhm, Rin, is that you?”

A meek blonde girl peeped over towards the group and nervously observed the wrecked school grounds as she carefully made her way over. Shiemi poked over behind her friend who proceeded to jump and stiffen in response.

“Oh, Shiemi Moriyama, right?” Cody greeted her.

She bit her lips timidly. “U-uh, yes! Um, Yukio sent me over to get you four. We found a stray familiar while we were patrolling the park, and, well..” She eyed the tied up duo off in the distance who, despite everything, had not shut up even once since their capture. “It looks like you’re done with your mission, so maybe you can help out?”

“Maybe. I don’t know,” Cody frowned as his eyes circled around the area. “Technically we’re done, but this place is a mess. Maybe we should stick around a bit longer and—”

“No, no, I think we’re good to go,” Rin pushed Cody aside with awkward and stilted candor. “We can definitely help out. Just lead the way!”

It was the same kind of hinted panic in his voice that Cody had every time he attempted to pass off that Vatican bull. He looked over at his newfound buddy whose face was equal parts pale and pink. Rin could barely hold back an overeager smile, and the bushy demon tail that had been hidden away under his shirt had leaked out from an earnest puppy wag.

Oh.

So that’s what’s happening right now, huh?

Gotta support your bros.

“Oh no you don’t!!” Several feet away, Courtney was sent into a further fury as she overheard the group’s upcoming plans. “You’re not just going to tie us up and then waltz away like it was nothing. So help me, you are going to let us go right this instant if you know what’s good for you. This entire place is swarming with monsters, and I have on good authority that you’re liable for negligence if you even step away from here for even a second. You better stop looking at me like that. You are not on higher moral grounds for this. I will have you know that—”

With a quick flick of his wrists, Alakazam sent the two flying through the air, Courtney’s endless nonsense replaced with a familiar pair of wailing, and into the firm grip of Loudred’s arm and shoulder. Honestly, her release demands grew more tempting by the second.

“How can you treat me like this? How can you treat anyone like this? We were only stealing necessities. Duncan is one thing, but don’t you lump me in as a common criminal for just trying to survive. I bet you’ve all done tons of property damage, swinging your weird little swords around. You have absolutely no right to be manhandling me like this, you pack of hypocrites!”

Stay strong, friends.

Notes:

Apparently the guy Kurt Zisa was named after is a fellow Long Islander. Bro, that's wild.

Chapter 19: True Cross Academy: Mischief in Mepphyland

Notes:

I kind of feel like I've been a bit mean spirited with the way I've been writing the Total Drama characters who aren't Cody, Gwen, and, uh, maybe not Trent I guess. This was not my intention. I'll try to lighten up on those guys going forward.

Then again, let's be real, Total Drama is kind of a mean spirited show all on its own, so you can't put all the blame on me...

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

All the way back when Yukio divided the groups up, he had mentioned a place called “Mepphyland” as a destination of note. Cody and his gang assumed it was some kind of local park. Something homely and unremarkable, but just the right amount of charm and atmosphere to earn the continued loyalty of the nearby townsfolk and no one else. What they actually got…wasn’t exactly what they were expecting.

“What in the world?” Alakazam gaped.

The park grounds stretched to the size of a nationally recognized football stadium. The buildings, all gaudy and hard to look at with their repeating oversaturated candy colors, were stretched and plentiful enough, one could argue that this space would’ve been better used as an extended housing area rather than a theme park. If the garish colors weren't enough, the same crude mascot with a devilishly sneering grin was plastered on to every attraction, as if the original designer was convinced brainwashing the park goers would be the only way to get them to waste money at the gift shops. To top it all off, a hunking gold statue of none other than the man who scared Cody half to death earlier, Mephisto, looked over everything at the park’s main plaza like he had declared himself king of the world.

“So,” Cody started unevenly “Mepphy is short for Mephisto, right? That guy from earlier?” This whole theme park is his?”

“Yes,” Rin groaned. He and Shiemi, the two who were the most familiar with the man himself and his grounds, stood around in embarrassment. They seemed to be sorry Cody and his crew were unfortunate enough to find out such a place existed at all.

“Pretty big ego, huh?” Loudred mused.

“If you stuffed that ego of his into this place, there still wouldn’t be enough space,” Rin grumbled.

“Rin, don’t say that,” Shiemi lightly pushed back.

“He’s not here,” he shrugged. “I’m not gonna get in trouble.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you think so highly of me.”

Suddenly, Mephisto popped his pompous being into existence right alongside the lot. Just like earlier, Rin found himself slamming straight on to the ground in alarm, back first, while Cody bounced up in fright. With no one prepared to properly catch the boy, Loudred nabbed him in a tight grip with his one free hand, the other still keeping Duncan and Courtney at bay over his shoulder. With how stick thin Cody was, it looked like Loudred toted around a fragile club.

“M-Mr. Mephisto, sir,” Shiemi rapidly bowed over in panic.

“Are you actually helping this time?” Rin weakly bleated as he continued to rest painfully down below.

“Not at all,” the man replied with the same backhanded veneer as before. He gleaned his eyes over to Cody. The boy already looked pretty pathetic being wielded like a living lollipop, but now, his anxiety was almost too much to contain. “Just wanted to check up on our honored guest, the ‘ Vatican exorcist ’.”

“Y-y-yeah, that’s me,” he quivered on instinct. He was doing a poor job stringing this lie together as is, but now it sounded like he was just at the cusp of caving in. To make matters worse, there were two individuals here who had all the power to end this farce at a moment’s notice.

Duncan lurched his head over towards Cody in confusion. Vatican exorcist? What the literal hell is he talking about? The Keyblade gang all collectively realized the predicament they were in. Al and Mokona were ready to try any boneheaded maneuver they could think of to make sure he didn’t rat them out, but luck may have it, either his partner wasn’t as concerned about that odd detail or she was way too fixated on her own personal goal to give a damn.

“Excuse me,” Courtney spoke up as she attempted to gather up any dignity she could have in her current position. “Are you the highest authority figure here?”

Mephisto tilted his head over to her. He looked like he was just made aware of a disgusting fly that he could no longer ignore. “Yes. And who might you be?”

“Yes, where are my manners?” Courtney smiled. “My name is Courtney Valequez. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Mephisto.”

“Mephisto Pheles.”

“Mr. Pheles. My apologies.” She seemed to be in her element. “My friend here and I found ourselves in your town a while ago with no real resources to fend for ourselves and, unfortunately, we were left with no choice but to resort to unsavory methods to get by. But we mean no harm, and I kindly ask you to consider granting us a temporary sanctuary. At least until we’re able to get back on our feet on our own of course.”

“No.”

“Thank you very—wait, what do you mean ‘no’?” She flipped, completely taken by surprise that her negotiation skills were so bluntly rejected.

“The two of you are not from here . I have absolutely no obligation to help keep either of you away from harm.”

“Y-you can’t be serious,” her mouth widened. “Whether or not we’re from here, it’s your business if we wind up dead .”

Mephisto rolled his eyes. Apparently, Courtney wasn’t even worthy enough to be met with his smugness at top form. “You’ve got the Vatican exorcist here with you. That’ll be your protection. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

With a quick snap of his fingers, Mephisto was out of sight. Courtney cried out, hoping she could nab his attention at the very last second, while Duncan started to shout off expletives just a bit too late for the man to register them. Cody and the rest didn’t particularly enjoy dealing with Duncan and Courtney, but they could all agree they enjoyed interacting with Mephisto even less.

“What an ass,” Duncan continued on in disbelief.

“He’s got a really punchable face,” Alakazam nodded.

“I’d bite his face,” added Mokona.

“Agree to the punching part,” Rin groaned while he struggled to lift himself back up. “A little help here?”

Shiemi, with the sweetest little smile, laid her arm outstretched towards him. Rin’s energy quickly returned to him alongside the same flushed face he had held earlier. The others could only look on with teasing smiles. By the time he was back up on his feet, Rin, realizing just how obvious his infatuation was, had to swiftly shuffle Shiemi back to leading their way before she even had a chance to notice everyone’s suggestive expressions.

They moved on over by the merry-go-round where Yukio was standing around like a frazzled first time babysitter to the tiny red demon beside him who was leaking endless buckets of tears. He was a guy who was used to being on top of everything, but now, all one could see was a dorky teenager who desperately wanted to be anywhere but there. When he caught sight of the others approaching, the only thing holding back a relieved smile was his pride.

“I see you five have found the thieves.”

“Can it, four eyes,” Duncan shot back. He and Courtney were prepared to launch themselves into another complaint fest, but were deterred by the overwhelming hollers of the toddler-like demon.

“Who’s this?” Rin yelled, his hands clasped tightly over his ears.

“Moriyama and I ran into him earlier. Appears to be a familiar whose lost track of its exorcist. I’ve just been called in for some urgent issue with misfiled paperwork. Would you mind helping her out with finding its master?”

Rin’s face drooped into a disgruntled frown. “Yeah, you would just bail from a crying baby at a moment’s notice.”

Yukio gave a forceful shove against his brother and left the premises with no further explanation.

“Hey!” Rin barked back aggressively. “Don’t you just leave like that.”

The Keyblade crew looked on with equal parts pity and confusion at the small demonic child. One by one, each of them quickly resorted into also shielding their ears, whether it be through simple hand grasps or desperately curled rabbit ears. Loudred was unsurprisingly the only one unaffected, but the same couldn’t be said for the two teens slumped on his shoulder whose defenses were left wide open with their hands and arms tied up and out of commission.

“Hey, we’ll definitely help, but,” Cody faced Shiemi, his voice giving slight squeaks as he attempted to overpower the demon kid. “Why are you guys prioritizing this over investigating the park?”

She responded with an apologetic sigh. “To be honest, we haven’t run into a single one of those ‘Heartless’ things since we got here. This place used to be swarming with them, so we’re not sure why it’s so empty.”

She was right. Aside from the young demon’s endless bawling, the area was as peaceful as could be. Aside from their small little gathering, there was no one and nothing else in sight. The entire park was practically a ghost town.

Just like Yukio before, all the guys were left both uncomfortable and dumbfounded at the presence of the inconsolable infant. Shiemi was the first to make a real effort to calm him down, but her motherly efforts were only able to do so much to quell the tantrum. They were going to have to do more if they wanted to communicate with him.

Loudred gently placed their two arrogant prisoners off to the side and began to imitate various silly sounds, blasting them off from his stereo-like ears. As meaningful as his efforts were, the loud noise did nothing but return the demon back to his more miserable state from earlier, earning Loudred disapproving glares from the others. For his Plan B, he resorted to holding Mokona in front of the child like a comforting stuffed animal. This was an even more awful idea. Mokona’s face morphed into a terrifying image, more demonic looking than the demon itself. The new round of whines and weeps was near deafening.

“Will you two knock it off?” Alakazam scolded them. “It’s like you guys are making it worse on purpose.”

“I’m sorry,” Loudred gulped. “I swear, I didn’t mean to.”

“I did!” Mokona hummed, oh so proud of himself.

“You have to be more gentle,” Shiemi urgently suggested. She once again lovingly cradled the creature and whispered calming words. The demon child returned his volume to a more manageable level. “Rin, Cody, how about you two give it a try?” She offered.

Cody shook his head rigorously. “Nuh-uh. I’ve gotten one hospital visit too many from crying babies. This is not my department.”

He expected Rin to follow him in his footsteps, but to his surprise, Rin knelt down earnestly with a confident smile. He waited for the baby demon to recognize his presence before holding out his hands. “Hey, kid. You wanna see a magic trick?”

Behind his tears, the demon sniffled in anticipation.

Rin balled his hands into fists and did the oldest trick in the book; the good ‘ol disappearing thumb. And against all odds, the demon’s tearful stream finally stopped. He looked on at Rin with awe. The teen grinned triumphantly.

“Do you think I’m five or something?” The demon asked accusingly.

Everyone coughed.

“Wh-what?” Rin stammered. “Hey, I’ll have you know it took me a while to figure out how to do that right! Give me some credit!”

“That’s sad. What are you? Five?”

Rin opened his mouth, seemingly ready to get into an argument with this young child. Moments passed by however, and his scowl slowly loosened into an exuberant bout of laughter. Something that was contagious enough to make the young child himself drop his attitude and join in as well.

“I’m glad you’re in better spirits now,” Shiemi beamed kindly. “Would you be alright telling us your name?”

The diminutive demon took a quick look around the motley crew with both curiosity and trepidation. Between Rin’s goofiness and Duncan’s distant death stare, it was impossible to read exactly what kind of weirdo pack he found himself with. Still, there was something about Shiemi’s gentle warmth that wriggled into him, and he carefully slipped into a smile as he answered.

“Red!”

“Hi, Red,” Shiemi giggled. “I’m Shiemi Moriyama and this…” She gestured over to Rin. “...Is my friend, Rin Okumura.” Next she motioned to Cody and company. “And they are…”

“Cody.”

“Loudred!”

“Alakazam.”

“Mokona!”

“You don’t need to know who those two are,” Cody pointed back towards Duncan and Courtney who were, at this point, far too fed up to even throw back insults in response.

“H-hello,” Red waved.

“How did you get here, Red?” Shiemi continued to question him with a soft tone.

His face dropped once more, and he tried his best to hide the crackling in his voice. “I don’t know. I was at home with my master, but these black monsters just suddenly started swarming everywhere. I was so scared. Next thing I knew, I was here, and I couldn’t find my master anywhere.”

Shiemi and Rin continued to listen intently, but off to the side, Cody and the rest looked amongst themselves with raised eyebrows. If it wasn’t enough that Duncan and Courtney were stranded here, this little Red fella was clearly in the same boat. For all they knew, his so-called “master” might've not even been in the same realm as him right now. But after all that crying, how would they just go and tell him that?

“Could you tell us a bit about what your ‘master’ looked like?” Rin asked. “Ya know, so we don’t just go blindly looking around?”

Red bounced around excitedly. “Long, messy hair that looks like a pair of black bushes, stumpy red dress, and she always looks like this. ” He took a deep breath and put out the most exaggerated pout.

“Alright,” Rin started jogging in place, all raring and ready to go. “Let’s go find ourselves a missing exorcist then.”

“A witch,” Red peeped. “She’s a witch!”

“Yeah, witch, sure, whatever.”

“Maybe we should move out of the park then?” Shiemi suggested. “I don’t think there’s anyone here aside from us.”

“Y-you never know though!” Cody slid between the three with a thinly stressed face. “She could be snoozing in a small corner and you’d never even notice!” He and his companions all knew that an earnest search for whoever this was would most likely prove fruitless, but none of them were willing to say it out loud.

“True,” Rin nodded. Boy, he was stupid.

“Can’t really get out of investigating, huh?” Shiemi smiled.

She gestured to Red to hop on to her shoulder and soon took off. The clatter of her geta sandals clicked fervently as she continued on her way. But even with her head start, almost immediately, she started to trail behind the others, preferring to spend her energy conversing with the tiny demon instead. Soon, the group had left the scene as their trek around Mepphyland began.

There were two, however, who were left to involuntarily linger.

For the past few minutes, Courtney had kept quiet. But now, her flooding frustrations were at their absolute limit.

“Are you serious?!” She bellowed out. Her screams were almost as ear splitting as Red’s sorrowful cries just earlier, but no such attention was spared for her. They had to be doing this on purpose.

“Babe, give it a rest,” Duncan sighed in defeat. “Look, we can just break free on our ow—”

“How dare you just leave us behind like that?! First we’re chased around town, then we’re tossed around in the middle of battle, then you go and tie us up? So help me, the moment I get out of here, I am taking every one of you to court!!”

“Please, just shut up…”

 

oOo

 

“She’s the absolute coolest! She’s the scariest person I know. The best kind of witch there is!”

“I see. I’d love to meet her!”

“Yeah, yeah! I bet she can teach you all sorts of cool spells.”

“She really must be something if she has a familiar as great as you. Oh, I have a familiar too! Do you want to meet him?”

“Oh, heck yeah!”

Cody took a peek behind him. Shiemi had found herself at the very back of the pack and gave more care and attention to befriending Red than putting a real effort into their largely unstructured recon mission. She had just summoned a creature of her own, an adorably grassy fellow around Red’s size named Nee, and looked like the protagonist of a magical girl anime with two plush-like friends palling around on her shoulders.

“Sooo…” Cody turned back around and nudged Rin playfully. “Saccharine sweet’s your kinda thing, huh?”

The black haired boy erupted into a boiling red hue. Redder than Red himself. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a worse liar than Cody,” Al shook his head.

Rin’s face simmered. “S-so what if I like her? Got a problem with that?”

“What? I’m just trying to make smalltalk, dude,” Cody shrugged. Perhaps he enjoyed the act of distressing the guy he mistook for a bully a little too much. “I mean, personally, I’m more into sexy badass types. Like, cartoon princess girls are fine, but I don’t really get the hype.”

Alakazam was situated right next to Cody and was forced to endure this embarrassment of a conversation. For now, all he could really do was react to each further development with an unimpressed face.

“What?!” Rin coughed, probably taking too much offense by that statement than he should have. “What’s not to get? She’s pretty and really, really, really nice, and she, uh, she’s got surprisingly really, uh…” His face cycled through 20 different shades of crimson, and this time, he had no one to blame but himself.

“...Oh… Oh!

Alakazam wanted out. Now.

“Really? That kimono hides ‘em good.”

“Right?” Rin’s tone of voice switched from nervous shakes to a raunchy snickering.

“Butts are better though.”

If Alakazam could launch himself straight out of this world’s stratosphere, he would do it.

“Would you two quit acting so gross?” The psychic found the strength to blurt out.

“You’ll understand when you’re older ,” Cody responded condescendingly.

“Excuse me?!”

“You know,” Loudred began. He started it off with his typical jolly tone, but it was easy to tell even he was pretty annoyed by this immature exchange. “I can turn around right now and let her join in on this little chat you two are having.”

“Don’t you dare,” Rin’s eyes dilated.

Cody was genuinely weary. “Come on. You’d get it if we were talking about girls from your species.”

Mokona, who was riding snugly atop of Loudred’s head, turned around with an almost wicked smirk, and opened himself up like a megaphone. “Hey, Shiemi!”

The two horndogs were sent into silent hysteria. While Shiemi skipped over to them without a single clue, the other three observed the incoming trainwreck with looks of both pity and satisfaction.

“Is everything alright?” She looked at the two quizzically.

The duo kept eyeing one another, desperate to throw away all the blame like a sad game of Hot Potato. He had yet to put up a flight, but Cody was already reduced to mangled stutters. “I, uh, we, see, um, y’know, uh, you, eh—”

“Look over there!!”

Jaw clenched and his fist in a firm ball, Rin flung his other arm forward and pointed at nothing in particular with full conviction. It would’ve almost felt like an heroic moment if the situation wasn’t so sad.

Still woefully clueless, Shiemi stepped forward. They’d just made their way to a large mock temple, and with no other major landmark nearby, she could only assume Rin was referring to it. She squinted her evergreen eyes and attempted to parse anything through the darkened windows. Just like one would expect from a local theme park, the shrine existed purely for aesthetic purposes. The structure and material seemed to be made in the most cost cutting way possible and more closely resembled an oversized playground house than an actual shrine. Ironically, there was no way to actually waltz in and play make believe in the glorified play fort outside of climbing up into the child sized windows. Too cheap to even be a solid mass of prettied up plastic and plaster, it now laid waste as an empty hollow.

Poor naive Shiemi continued on her little detective stint. The boys had just enough time to continue on their juvenile spat right behind her back in muted shouts. By the time her investigation was over, their fumes had run loose. They were more than willing to just leave this dumb little event behind them and move on. But believe it or not, Shiemi actually came back with results.

“There’s something in there!” Her sudden exclamation nearly caused the others to jump. Her tiny little familiar kept repeating livened “Nee nee”s just in case they didn’t get how serious she was.

“Yeah, yeah,” Red scooted forward past the side of her head. “Something just walked on by past the window!”

“In there?” Al raised his eyebrow. Could anything even get in there?

“You sure it wasn’t just a bird?” Cody asked.

“It was too big to be a bird,” Shiemi responded. She pressed her fists into her chest and puffed out her cheeks, ready to defend her find further.

Red bounced excitedly. “It’s my master. It’s gotta be her!”

“Could she even fit in there though?” Al continued to look on doubtfully.

“Oh, heck yeah. You wouldn’t believe how tiny my master is!”

“What are we waiting for then?” Rin said, probably more desperate to leave their past conversation behind than actually convinced. “Let’s go check it out!”

Of the remaining four, Mokona and Loudred kept to their nature and went along with the idea more out of amusement than anything else. It was just Al and Cody who were left behind as the lone skeptics. They glanced at one another, almost taking in how ironic that they of all beings seemed to be the ones on the most common ground. The duo silently laughed it off with resigned shrugs and lingered alongside the rest.

Rin scrunched his face and craned his neck upwards at the crummy play building. Even he had begun to put two and two together over the proportional issues.

“So, uh,” he started timidly. “We’re not all gonna cram ourselves in there, right?”

“One giant mesh of flesh,” Mokona cackled, much to everyone else’s discomfort.

“I think some of us can still fit through,” Loudred stated after closely examining the puny windows some more. “Mokona, Red, and that little green thing, definitely. Shiemi and Cody can probably cram in too.”

Cody balked at his own name drop. “Hey, I’m not that small!”

“Dude,” Rin looked down on him almost pitifully. “I could probably snap you like a twig.”

They were cool now, but that still sent shivers down the little nerd’s spine. Because he knew Rin was right.

“Well, I don’t want to have the little ones all on their own in there,” Shiemi perked up. “I can go in first if that’s okay.”

No complaints there.

Red and Nee clung on the hems of her kimono tightly while Al and Loudred struggled in their task as a makeshift ladder. Her traditional sandals unfortunately kept her balance all messy and wavy, and the shape of her dress made most leg movement difficult. Alakazam was ready to just telekinetically lift her in himself and was only deterred by the disapproving looks of his peers.

Shiemi crouched into the opening and basked in a bit of gleeful satisfaction over this tiny achievement. The instant she started to settle in however, she was shot with a fit of coughs. The soot covered air thrived in this eerily secluded space. It was difficult for her and her tiny friends to keep their stinging eyes open let alone keep their bodies fed with what tiny gasps of air they could find. Shiemi took a careful sniff just to make sure they weren’t accidentally poisoning themselves with moldy fumes. Luckily, or unluckily, all it was was a room that hadn’t faced maintenance since the day it was erected into this horrid park.

She and her two tiny pals slowly looked over the tight artificial attic. It was just as someone would expect from a room that felt like a newly discovered ancient burial ground. The dust that threatened to cloud their lungs piled the creaky wooden flooring, and the pots and vases that filled the corners, probably props long forgotten in storage, were in decrepit states, like newly unearthed artifacts. It was because of the predictable setting that made its one peculiar trait all the more glaring.

A lone shining trail lay in the center of the room, the dust neatly swept and lined off like a fancy fence along the road. At the very end of this guided path was a chunky burlap sack that slumped against the wall. Shiemi gingerly unraveled the knotting and held her breath in case she was accidentally unleashing some kind of horror. Perhaps what actually sat within confused her even more. Inside were piles upon piles of junk food, all unopened like they were freshly snatched off a grocery shelf, alongside the odd piece of jewelry, and other valuable trinkets.

The rosy eyed trio all blinked in confused unison. Someone had clearly been here recently. Nothing in the sack felt at home in this near ancient tomb of a playhouse. Who was it though? Was it really Red’s master?

“Hey! We found something!” Shiemi chirped.

She returned to the windowside and pushed the sack straight out. Cody, who was currently taking his turn climbing up the living ladder, was hit square on the head by the boulder-like bag and sent crashing right back down onto the ground.

Shiemi winced and squeaked out a shy “sorry” before nervously resuming her search. There was one other thing that caught her eye when she inspected the strange treasure bag.

Stamped on to the wall where the bag previously was was an indent. It was tiny enough that the average person would just easily brush it aside and pay it no mind. In fact, it was a miracle she could even spot it in this shadowy hideaway. But when she knelt down to pick at the sack, a warm almost alluring feeling kept nudging her to look upward. Red and Nee were completely oblivious to what she was trying to accomplish and poked and pulled her cheeks to prompt an explanation. She stayed silent however, keenly intent on figuring out the mystery behind this mark.

She gently glided the edge of her fingertips over the small keyhole shaped notch…

…And pulled herself away frightfully when the wall blemish responded with a soft flicker of light; igniting like a sparkler, and fading away just as soon as it appeared.

…She realized she made a grave mistake.

Shiemi, Red, and Nee froze at the first clatter. And the next, and the next, and the next. The once inconsequential gathering of ceramics jutted around like newly possessed poltergeist props. It was as if that spark of light had set off a powder keg. By the time the spider legs crackled out from under the dusty shades below, Shiemi had long gotten the hint and quickly made her way back out the window..

“Watch out!” She cried while she traced the shape of a mystical seal onto the dust covered ridges of the entrance railing. “Those Heartless things are here!”

It was a good thing she already had her familiar out and in the open. With the seal just barely shaped out in the messy building dirt, a magical glow resonated from it. Nee sprouted out a massive growth of bushes and vines right out the opening in response which ripped the ends of the brittle structure and tore out the entire wall.

Right as this was all going down, Cody was in the middle of round two of his attempted ladder climb. He was once again knocked off by the newly formed topiaries punching him dead in the face. Luckily, the semi-sentient leaves and branches had enough grace to catch him before he cracked his cracked back. He landed comfortably back down to the ground alongside Shiemi, Red, and Nee who had just successfully escaped.

The spontaneous greenhouse proved to be a decent shield against the Pot Spiders, but it wasn’t long before their brute force effort set them free. By the time the creepy crawlers tore through the thicket, they were no longer the arachnids they once were. Sprouting out of the shrubbery was a ghastly blue insect head with a gnashing jaw and mandible. The pots all trailed behind, completing the unit’s transformation into a Pot Centipede.

The transformation was unexpected, but nothing they couldn’t handle. Or at least that was their thought up until much smaller and punier Heartlesses started to creep out from under the lids like an infestation following along its matriarch. The group was forced to fend off the mob creatures that just kept pouring and pouring out. In their distracted state, they failed to realize the centipede was still on the prowl, and rather than making a massive offensive stance, it targeted one of them in particular.

Shiemi held her breath. She wasn’t a fighter like the others were, but she did her best to hold down her fort regardless. She focused her energy into operating Nee and forced more and more plants and shrubs to form around her. With the unrelenting volume of Heartless that came at her, the strength and concentration that allowed her to form the mini forest wall earlier just wasn’t there anymore, and her attacks were nothing more than thin thorns that slowly prickled through one-by-one. Red gripped on to her for his dear life, and she couldn’t even find it in herself to try to offer him comforting words with all the madness that was going on.

Rin was the first to realize Shiemi’s struggle. He wasn’t all charged up in his blue demonic get up like he was earlier—the secret Cody and the others had learned was likely beyond Shiemi’s knowledge—but he set up his priorities and made quick work of the enemies around him in an effort to reach her. What he didn’t notice however was the mob’s real intent.

The Pot Centipede slunk stealthily towards Shiemi. It hid itself within the Shadow fortress it’d unleashed, and nabbed her and her two tiny tots right into one of the pots themselves. The bug made a startling cry as it alerted its kin that the mission was done. The Shadow mass no longer acted as pesky distractions, but now as a floating torrent that allowed the centipede to be whisked away into the sky.

Rin was aghast. He was almost right next to her and they still managed to take her away. Cody was about to snap him out of his funk, but his quick fury got him out much faster. The five of them followed along like magnets. Loudred, Al, and Mokona occasionally shot out Pokemon attacks and magic blasts to try to knock a bit of the Heartless platform down, but they obviously needed a much bigger game plan than running and shooting to stop this thing without harming their friends.

They nearly arrived right at the park plaza when they began to hear gunshots. Looking on ahead, Yukio had apparently been freed from his desk duties and was quick on the draw with trying to take the Pot Centipede and its colony down. He probably didn't expect his brother and the others to be desperately shouting at him to stop. In this situation, there was a decent chance he’d be doing more harm than good.

“Stop shooting, idiot!” Rin snarled.

“Huh?” Yukio gaped.

“Like, anything but a gun!” Cody added.

“Yeah, use exorcist magic mumbo jumbo or something,” Loudred suggested.

“We’re all using magic and swords and stuff. Why do you just have a straight up gun?” Mokona, now’s not the time.

“Yuki!!”

Yukio craned his neck upwards and gasped at the sight of Shiemi struggling to sneak her head out of one of the pots.

“What in the world?”

“Shoot at it again.”

Huh?!

Everyone darted their eyes over at Alakazam. What was he thinking?!

“Avoid aiming at the pots of course,” he rolled his eyes in annoyance. “We just need a few shots. Just do it already!”

Yukio returned his eyes back at the floating centipede. It wasn’t obvious at first, but he understood what was going on. They were in a part of the park that was tightly knit with several premiere attractions, including a ferris wheel and roller coaster. The platform’s path faltered significantly in order to carefully navigate through all the annoying obstacles.

With bated breath and a focused aim, Yukio returned fire, just barely missing the front of the centipede’s head. Everyone thought Al had gone crazy with this plan, but something happened. The echo of each bullet set off a shuddering reaction that a simple energy blast just couldn’t do. The Heartless shook in place in fear. This was the opening they needed. Al shot off a string of Psybeams and quickly whittled down the darkened nimbus. The Pot Centipede lowered its altitude with each new death.

Now only a few feet above ground, Cody decided it was his turn to make a move. He flung his Keyblade behind his back, wound it up like a dodgeball, and swung it back into a spiral towards the insect head. Having been through a ton of stress dealing with the sound of flying bullets and left with literally nowhere to run, its head wound was as good as a finishing blow. The bug was completely conked out. Shiemi was able to produce a vine slide straight out of her potted cage and away to safety with no intervention. For as much trouble as the creature had given them, it met a pitiful end being beaten when it was already down for the count. Its essence evaporated into the sky, and the Potted Centipede and its hive were no more.

“Crap, Shiemi, are you okay?!” Rin ran over to her.

She nodded. Her and Red were still a bit shaky, but their smiles were genuine. “Thank you all so much.”

“Yo, all that plant stuff you were doing was so cool!” Cody cooed.

Shiemi’s face brightened significantly. “Really?”

“Heck yeah! The way you just burst out of the window like an action hero, that was so freaking badass!”

“Can you grow veggies?” Mokona pondered. “I’m hungry.”

“That’s enough.”

Ever a killjoy, Yukio halted any celebration to be had and sternly marched over. Cody had looked with simple curiosity, but fear crept into him with each step once he realized Yukio and his grimace were marching at him specifically.

“Alright,” he huffed with an accusatory tenor. “You can stop with the charade.”

“...W-what?” He could piss his pants right now.

“The paperwork I went back for was my backup request. It was rejected. You… none of you,” he menacingly pointed one-by-one at Al, Loudred, and Mokona. His ire was at all four of them now. “Not one of you is from the Vatican. Who the hell are you people?”

“W-what are you talking about?” Cody laughed hazily. “I…I love Jesus.”

“...Yeah, I…” His shoulders slumped and he looked down shamefully. “I space out during church. I’m sorry.”

Yukio’s mood seemed to have grown fouler. “You better have a good explanation as to what you’re doing here.”

“Hey, would you cool it?” Rin harshly grabbed his brother’s shoulder. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”

“We just had to rescue Moriyama and you say they’ve done nothing wrong? ” Yukio hissed. “Do you understand just how reckless this all was?”

“They’ve done way more to fight off against those Heartless things than literally anyone else has. I don’t wanna hear about your whole ‘by the books’ bullshit.”

“We don’t know who these people are or why they’re here! They could’ve been misleading us for all you know.”

“No, I can assure you they’ve been doing everything I’d hoped they would do.”

Everyone jumped before searching high and low for the source of a familiar voice. Mephisto sat laxly on an almost throne-like chair, floating just a couple of feet in the air behind them.

“This guy again?” Cody mouthed.

“Mr. Okumura,” he wagged his finger in a circular motion at Yukio. “If you must know, I was the one who rejected that request.”

“What,” he stammered. “Wh-why? You of all people should know we desperately need help.”

“You’re not going to like this response, but…” The man shrugged nonchalantly. “There is nothing even the highest ranking exorcist could do to fix this mess we’re in. I was honestly ready to pull off some more, ahem, drastic measures. But…”

Cody felt like he was being mentally targeted with that coy smile Mephisto tossed over at him. “Just my luck, the fabled Keybearer came to save the day right at the nick of time.”

“The Keybearer …?” Yukio’s thoughts were being pulled in all different directions. For as well learned as he was, he struggled to think of even a single instance he’d ever encountered that term.

“A wielder of the Keyblade of course,” Mephisto continued, acting like he was getting a high off of knowing he had more knowledge than anyone else there. “Traveler of worlds, savior of hearts, warrior of light…”

“So…” Yukio turned back towards Cody. His face was completely whitened compared to how burning it was earlier. “He’s really going to be fixing all this?”

“You’re finally understanding. Bravo!” He made a quick round of applause before shifting his expression into a darkened tone. “And once again, he couldn’t have gotten here at a better time.

“Would our uninvited guest care to show us some manners and properly introduce herself?”

!!

Someone else was here.

Just at the very corner of their eyes, a cloaked figure of black, purple, and jade levitated several feet behind Mephisto.

Cody wasn’t sure how to describe it, but the moment he saw her, something clicked in him. He wasn’t sure what and he wasn’t sure why, but whoever she was, she was connected to everything.

She was their enemy.

“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you all, but I don’t waste lies on common peons.

“If you must know, my name is Maleficent.”

Notes:

I'm not convinced anyone in the world of Blue Exorcist is an actual practicing Christian.

Fun Fact: Yukio Okumura is my discomfort character.

Chapter 20: True Cross Academy: Apprentice Witches

Chapter Text

Maleficent…

…Who is she?...

Maleficent and Mephisto, these two beings with power and prestige far vaster than life itself, were ensnared in a vicious staredown divorced from everything else around them. For the short amount of time Cody had been acquainted with the pompous man, he knew Mephisto for his eerie gazes that dared all who befell them to make a move worth mocking. These were not those gazes. Now was a look of visceral contempt. Pure hatred with every fiber of his being. Who was this woman that was able to elicit this response from him of all people?

Maleficent’s lips pursed into an icy leer. “It really was a shame that you chose not to join me.”

“Well, unfortunately, our goals didn’t quite line up,” Mephisto responded to her stone cold expression with a threatening grin of his own. “But I have to admit,” his voice grew gravely as his irritation increased. “When I turned down your offer, I was hoping you’d get the hint and scram.”

“That’s a rather naive assumption coming from you.”

“Perhaps,” he shrugged. Deep down, he knew she was right and nothing annoyed him more than knowing she bested him no matter how small the detail. “And I assume you’re here to stamp me out for good?”

“Please. Don’t give yourself too much credit,” the witch’s voice started to grow just as vexed as Mephisto’s was. “There’s so much about your world that matters more in the grand scheme of things compared to your tiny insignificant life.”

“Oho, feisty,” he hissed back.

“And it isn’t me who will be doing the deed. I was merely here to drop off my two wards.”

“What a coincidence,” Mephsito waved his hands to the gaggle of teens and creatures who gawked at the two from below. “I’ll be waging this fight in proxy as well.”

“Wait, wait, wait.”

“Hold on a second!”

Cody and Rin protested in a simultaneous garble. As was typical at this point, Mephisto popped out of sight before either of them could fully voice their complaints. Maleficent lowered her eyes and fully examined the Keybearer in all his glory for the very first time. Her poise remained as collected as ever, but with each flailing flap of the boy’s mouth, her grip grew ever so tightly around her magic staff.

This fool was the one who bested two of her accomplices?

What rubbish.

With nary a word, Maleficent left in a blaze a green and black flames. The fire fled just as soon as it grew, and she was gone.

And in her place was a shocking pair.

Heather and Ashley lounged around menacingly within the piped structure of the nearby roller coaster.

Now with her hair fully restored, Heather acted as if her victory was already guaranteed while she went and filed her nails. With one quick loom over her new audience, she flashed her best imitation of Maleficent’s hollow smiles.

“‘Sup, dweeb,” She greeted the one familiar face in the crowd.

Cody had a spit take so harsh, he almost choked.

Heather?!

Of all people, what was she doing here? And why was she with that woman?

And somehow, an even more shocking swerve came from the appearance of their other would-be opponent.

“Ashley??” Red heaved a tearful shout. “What are you doing up there?”

The other girl responded with a frustrated slouch. Contrasting with Heather who looked like a Broadway show definition of a femme fatale villain, Ashley had a much more homely form. Her hair was long and unkempt and her attire was simple yet striking with its devil red hue. If Heather was a deadly diva, Ashley was a classic witch.

Rin had a double take before looking over towards Red. “Wait, don’t tell me she’s your master.”

“Ashley, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Completely ignoring Rin’s words, Red slowly flapped his tiny bat wings towards her. “Where have you been? I’ve missed you so much!”

His excitement clouded with confusion and caution, his movements held an uncharacteristic quiver to them. Red kept looking at his beloved master and mentally begged her to show signs that she was still the master he knew. But with each slow flick of his wings, each look of uncertainty, Ashley couldn’t help but grate her teeth. She hated watching him waft around like he was stalling himself from advancing further. She hated how he kept blathering on and on trying to keep himself from confirming what everyone suspected the moment she answered to Maleficent’s beckoning.

Why won’t he just…

“You’re still you, aren’t you?”

SHUT UP!!

Ashley had always been a girl with a naturally sour demeanor. Red was used to her quiet outbursts and fits of angry pouts. What was happening here was neither of those. Her face fumed, and her hands shook ever so slightly like she was keeping herself from ripping her hair right out of her scalp. As she snatched her wand forward, Red got the hint and fled as quickly as he could. Whatever happened after they got separated, she was not the Ashley he knew.

“Everyone, watch out!!”

A flash of crimson erupted in the park grounds. Everyone tried to withstand the powerful blast, but her hand was so quick, it was impossible to slip away from a direct impact. When the shock wave settled and the skies returned to their normal blue, everyone was left to reel in the aftermath. Rin, Yukio, Al, and Loudred kept their ground, and Cody wallowed on the ground with a knocked down Mokona face planted on to him. Red was perhaps the luckiest of them all. With his close proximity, he should’ve been screwed no matter the attack’s intensity. But at the nick of time, Shiemi had helped form a hedged shield behind him, keeping him away from harm.

Shiemi collapsed to the floor. Her hands shook across her arms while tears rolled out. She was scared shitless. Anyone would’ve been. She may have been brave during that split second when it counted, but she was now officially at her limit. Both the shrubbed shield and Nee, her familiar who helped form it, withered away. She could no longer control her mind enough to keep either intact. And in her near inconsolable state, she was unable to sense the danger that was right behind her.

Ashley, now right beside the floral exorcist, nabbed her defenseless form and warped away without any resistance. Both the Okumura brothers witnessed the act far too late and were left in disbelief.

“Shiemi!” Rin cried out.

No matter how much he scanned around the park, there was no sign of her. It was just him and the others left aching and wide eyed over what they just experienced and witnessed.

His eyes perked over the whimper of a familiar young demon. Red was probably the most distressed of them all. He wasn’t just dealing with the shock and injury of that little magic bomb back there—in fact, he was probably the most well off thanks to Shiemi’s intervention—he was also left in despair as he tried to process the fact that someone he’d known his entire life had just very well tried to kill him.

If Ashley was heated over this whole ordeal, then Rin was boiling into a volcanic rage.

“What the HELL?!

Ashley reappeared atop the roof of a nearby arcade, still looking on with her contemptuous gaze and with no Shiemi in sight. She had arrived just in time to feel the full brunt of Rin Okumura’s wrath.

YOU,” he pointed furiously at her. “Your familiar’s been worried sick over your ass, and you just go and shoot some kind of laser bomb at him? What kind of sorry excuse for a ‘master’ are you?!”

She stood still. There was nothing she could respond with.

But that anger that burst out earlier built up once more.

“Rin,” Yukio grabbed onto his brother’s arm. “Calm down. You saw what she just did. If we provoke her again, we’ll—”

Rin was so absorbed in his rant, it never even registered to him that Yukio was attempting to intervene. It was like he and the red witch had declared their duel with violent glares alone. While Ashley revved up her wand for yet another attack, Rin ripped his katana straight out of his lacrosse bag and launched himself into the air and straight at the wicked witch herself. The simultaneous eruption of Rin’s blue flames and Ashley’s crimson incantations meshed into a brilliant violet swirl.

Rin’s blade was held up against the grit of her wand. There were two battles in this situation. One was the struggling forces between their weapons. The other was the might of their gazes, both monstrous for completely different reasons. Just like it did during the clash with Kurt Zisa, Rin’s face morphed into a feral demonic state. Yet it was Ashley who had the most chilling aura. Eyes dead cold, she was completely unreadable. Both to her opponent and to herself. She wasn’t sure how to express the mix of emotions she had right now. But one thing was for sure; she would not lose to him.

Ashley found it in herself to shoot off a tiny ball of fire and broke free from their struggle. She jumped back onto a newly summoned broom, sending her airbourne and away from Rin’s immediate retaliation. Not that he was going to let that stop him of course.

“Hey, get back here!!” Rin made another inhuman jump towards her. Their battle had only just begun.

Yukio was already at a point of exasperation. One of these days, he would probably have to tie his brother to a leash. He and the others attempted to follow after the new aerial skirmish, but a certain someone was there to make sure everyone else had their own fill in this fight.

In every shadowy corner of the park, mounds of Heartless took shape. If they thought the little parade much earlier was a daunting sight, then it was nothing compared to what they were witnessing. Shadows, Soldiers, Bandits, Large Bodies, and those tiny floating mages as far as the eye could see. It was like witnessing Mepphyland operating near full capacity, only now it was occupied by monsters determined to tear everything apart.

The Heartless crawled at them in waves and forced them all to be split apart. Cody frantically looked around, desperate to find a friend to partner up while he wound up stuck in a stiff pattern of key slashes. It was truly a sea of nightmares, thick with the bold stains of blackened muck. And in that near endless thicket was a girl he’d nearly forgotten about.

Heather strutted into the center of Cody’s fighting space. She pushed aside the Heartless like she simply made her way past a crowded high school hallway. Even in the midst of battle, she was the ultimate queen bee.

Cody shook his head and returned to his utter perplexity over her presence. “Literally what are you doing here?”

His question was met with a knee to his nuts.

Cody’s legs slid downward. He knew deep inside that if he fell for good, he’d practically be privy to a death by dark burial. So for now, he’d have to continue fighting while enduring the pain.

“What did  I ever even do to you?” He squeaked, tears nearly rolling down his eyes.

Another surprise came at him. Ashley wasn’t the only menacing magic user here. Heather’s hands glowed a soft pinkish hue as she kept piledriving Cody with throw after throw of her little magic energy balls. Cody skipped, jumped, and evaded each throw with impressive tenacity for someone still recovering from a serious injury. However, Heather wasn’t a slouch in the dodging department either. With each attempted whack of his blade, she twirled and spun with the graceful cadence of a ballet dancer. Cody actually couldn’t believe it. Somehow, Heather had become just as skilled a fighter as he was. But how? And when? And why?

“What gives?!” He asked in between swings. “You are a high school mean girl. Why are you going all supervillain now? You can’t seriously be stooping this low!”

“Can it,” she landed a shot right at his stomach. “Last time I checked, you’re just some nobody nerd who's used to getting dunked into toilet water. If some loser like you actually thinks he can pull off this whole hero crap, why shouldn’t I be a villain?”

“Is…” Cody heaved as he now started to take in the brunt of two injuries. “Is it because I didn’t save you back at Traverse Town? Look, I’m really sorry about tha—”

Just barely missed an uppercut to the head. Seriously, what was her deal?!

“You know,” Heather cracked her knuckles and straightened her shoulders; a practical move so unlike her deadly, dainty form. She did not come here to play. “I was really just following that old bag’s orders, but I’m not gonna lie. Seeing people like you crawling from out of the garbage heap and into the spotlight really pisses me off.”

Another kick to the nuts accompanied by a magically charged jab to his guts.

He winced. He tried to best the damage from earlier, but a second hit was just too much. Heather readied herself for another strike. How pathetic would he be if he went down because of this? Things couldn't end here. They just couldn't.

Just then, Alakazam came charging into their little battleground and pushed Heather aside by a slight Psybeam. He was about to instinctively check on his friend’s wellbeing, but stopped when he realized Cody’s hands were cupped over his nether regions. It wouldn’t be right or appropriate to call this pathetic, but…

“Oh, you little freak!!

With a quick swipe of her arm along her leg, Heather came right at the duo and sent them flying with the might of her superpowered kick. A flair of bright pink broke into a streak as they shot through the park grounds before crashing violently through the walls of a building.

The two, toppled over each other and groaning in pain, struggled to find the strength to even wriggle back into full consciousness. By the time they were able to lift their groggy eyes up, they were sent into further shock and confusion. Their eyes stared at their eyes and stared at their eyes and stared at their eyes. If they didn’t know any better, they would’ve assumed their minds were still all clogged from smashing through a bricked up wall like a cannonball.

Cody, the first to regain his strength and step up, groaned as he carefully placed his hand along the mirrors. He’d always hated carnival funhouses. Way too disorienting. “Okay, Al,” he began, his voice still cracked. “The trick is to keep your hand on the wall. We need to get out of here as soon as—”

Cody flung his hand off the mirror and found himself crashing right back down onto Al. And this time, it wasn’t from a nasty kick. Completely replacing the duo’s reflections, Heather walked into the view of every mirror in the room. The two darted their eyes vigorously, hoping to get a glimpse of the source herself. But with their minds still all fogged up, they might as well have been staring at an entire army of Heathers.

Without even a word or a gloating laugh, Heather reached her arm forward and formed an enormous ball of pink energy. In just one push, she’d be the one to take down the Keybearer for good.

So it was a real shame when her partner’s fight came crashing through the roof.

Rin dropped flat onto a pair of mirrors, forcing their entire row to go down with them. The air around them became encapsulated in glass, and it only strengthened as Ashley came down to meet him and continue their brawl. The room was a mess of flames, sorcery, and raining shards. Heather’s face whitened, and she just barely conjured up a small shield in time to keep herself away from a storm of scrapes and stabs.

“You stupid goth jailbait!” She screeched at her colleague who had much more pressing issues to tend to than to acknowledge her existence.

Rin quickly made a swift retreat and leapt off a wide distance once more. If Ashley was aware she’d accidentally invaded Heather’s turf, she showed no sign of it. The young witch summoned her broom once again in her pursuit against the half demon boy. The two left just as quickly as they came, and they managed to destroy an entire attraction in those few seconds.

Heather continued to seethe. She's dealt with that short little grump for weeks now, and she had more than enough time to conclude that once she was at the top of Maleficent’s circle, she would do everything she could to get rid of her.

In her simmering state, Heather was left completely wide open for another Psybeam blow. Al had managed to shield Cody and himself flawlessly during that artificial maelstrom, and now the two were back on their feet to fight once more. Heather could only give off a petite growl before the three of them returned to their scuffle and left the ruined mirror hall behind.

Meanwhile, Loudred was all alone, knocking away Heartless after Heartless as he formed his own tightly cramped path while trying to find any traces of his allies. With seemingly endless droves of those vile creatures covering nearly every inch of the vicinity, merely searching for them through sight was a useless endeavor. That’s why he was trying a completely different approach. With each punch and kick, he gave equal parts effort to focus his hearing on the area around him; completely ignoring the fissuring ambience to find any sound that stood out.

!

“...elp…s…

“Help us!!”

Nearby, the little ones of the group, Mokona and Red, had attempted to escape the crowd by hopping aboard the roof of a merry-go-round. With Red completely defenseless, Mokona was left in charge defending the duo. He shot off peters of magic blasts from his gemmed forehead each time another enemy dared to climb up. The poor thing was being run ragged, prancing around back and forth to cover the entire perimeter. They needed assistance, quick.

Loudred pounded through a walled mob and ran to his would-be triumphant rescue. He started to knock away some of the more persistent pests down at the lower level and made his way to a good climbing path. Unfortunately, things were about to get much more tumultuous.

Rin and Ashley’s fight managed to make its way just above. The witch had stuck to the skies, figuring the demon boy would lose steam from constantly jumping about from the ground. But not only had he parkoured effortlessly throughout much of the park, he now resorted to bouncing between decorative lamp posts like a game of hopscotch just to get a better aim at her. The battle put her on a fierce and pointed edge, and she even started to stand on her broom from the tips of her toes just to keep herself ready for any strike.

She gritted her teeth. Rin had gotten a number of hits on her at this point, and each one was just as unruly as the last. This boy’s very being carried physical strength she knew she could never hope to match. Her best bet would be to wear his stamina down as much as possible. But with him springing around like a raged monkey, she had doubts she could even manage that much.

She raised her staff. A small throng of static fizzled around its core before entire bolts came shooting out. The sky darkened just a little as if she’d conjured up a thunderstorm all on her own. With one final swing of her arm, the bolts emitted a deafening crack, sending them all spluttering throughout the park. Things were quiet at first as everyone tried to predict what horrors she’d just unleashed on them all. But the next moment, the park that had merely lent itself as a lifeless backdrop filled the air with clashing carnival tunes and the roars of carts and engines awakening from their slumber. Every obstacle anyone could’ve been met here was activated.

The trio that was left to fend themselves atop the carousel couldn’t have picked a worse spot to be trapped on. The attractions hadn't  just turned on; they were pushed to operate at their highest potential. So not only were they dealing with a dizzying spin, they were practically stationed on a lethal treadmill. Loudred slid around horse-to-horse trying to hold on for his dear life. Up above, Mokona was caught in an exhaustive jog knowing if he lost momentum for even a second, he and Red, who had resorted to flail around helplessly in the wind while grasping his rabbit friend’s ears, would be punted straight into the skies above before drowning in a harsh, shadowy pit.

Nearby, Yukio had been doing his best to avoid as much combat as possible. The extreme density of the Heartless crowd made his more long ranged moveset virtually useless. Sure, he could just shoot whatever was right in front of him, but with endless droves of Heartless eager and ready to replace his wouldbe targets the second they went down, something as small as a gun would get him absolutely nowhere compared to a sword swing or a magical conjuring.

Yukio was trying to catch up to Rin’s zig zagging brawl and was just about to pass by the carousel before he was smacked in the head by an incoming Shadow. The creature seemed dazed and fated for death. There wasn’t a fight to be had here. Confused, he looked over at the speeding death trap before him and saw his three allies in their state of distress. Some foolish Heartless here and there would attempt to hop on in an attempt to take aim at them, but would be immediately tossed away and sent hurtling towards their brethren where they’d both meet their painful ends. An idea sparked within him.

“Hey, you two!” He called out a number of times to make sure Loudred and Mokona could hear him over the tacky park fanfare. “Cody’s famil—er— associates .”

They both tried to respond with “what”s, but their voices came off as nondescript wails.

“You two might be able to take down most of the Heartless here. Keep attacking outside the ride while you circle around. I’ll try to stop this thing in the meantime.”

If they were going to be stuck on this hellhole for even a second longer, they might as well try.

With a massive breath, Loudred belched out an ear-splitting Howl that rivaled even the obnoxious theme park anthems that were put on full blast. The Heartless were sent into confused stutters, making them easy pickings for Mokona’s gemmed laser blasts. Normally, they would only register as a rough pinch, but the momentum built from the carousel’s never-ending rotations elevated them into a piercing cut. By the time Yukio finally located and destroyed the ride’s controls, the entire surrounding area was wiped out clean of those darkened pests.

The ride’s music pittered away into a distorted whimper and the galloping mares finally grounded into a halt. Loudred, Mokona, and Red slipped off wearily, too exhausted to bother properly thanking their savior.

“There’s no time for breaks,” Yukio continued stoutly. “We have to stop those two girls. I don’t know where the tall one is, but Rin should still be fighting the short one. We have to find them.”

“But,” Mokona hiccuped drunkenly. “They’re just over there, right?”

His ear pointed over at the park’s gargantuan ferris wheel that had just been lit ablaze with a crisp cyan inferno. There was no question as to what was going on. Even from a distance, they could see Rin and Ashley continue to duke it out as they jumped pod-to-pod.

“Alright, we’re headed to the ferris wheel then,” Yukio nodded.

“Can’t we…” Loudred panted. “Can’t we rest for even just a little bi—”

The poor guy was cut off by the sturdy slap of a burlap sack. Its carrier, the now freed Duncan, didn’t seem to care for apologies and just hurriedly shuffled over to the one human of the group.

“You. Four eyes,” he jabbed his finger harshly on Yukio's chest. “You’re some kind of supernatural cop or whatever, right?”

Yukio was at a loss for words. He and the others honestly forgot Duncan and the currently missing Courtney even existed. “No, I—”

“Who cares? It’s probably the same thing.” His tone sounded just as desperate as it was demanding. “Look, I don’t like dealing with people like you, but I wanna get out of here alive.”

“Duncan, you pig!! ” The other half of the duo, Courtney, stormed towards her boyfriend furiously. “How could you just leave me back there?!”

“Love you, babe, but you were literally ready to take the bag and leave me to die in the boat ride just a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, so it’s fine when you do it, but not me?”

As frustrating as adding this pair of baggage to their already dire situation was, having anyone perish in this Heartless heap was the last thing anyone wanted. With much effort, Yukio eventually managed to rally all five of his companions back into working order and towards their next destination.

All the way at the ferris wheel, things heated up. Just as the demon and witch continued their scuffle on the towering ride up above, Cody, Al, and Heather were still absorbed in their little match just below. They found themselves running around wildly throughout this encounter, and while the small red witch showed no sign of stopping in her efforts against Rin, the same couldn’t be said for Heather. While her attacks still packed a punch, her movement was a lot less exact and nimble as it was before. This was the point her lack of experience started to show.

Cody and Al were aware of how close in proximity they were to Rin’s battle. The flaming wheel before them couldn’t have been more obvious. Every now and then, they’d catch a glimpse to see how their friend was doing, and it seemed he was now in a bind. Literally. Ashley’s theme park energizer gambit seemed to have paid off, and he had lazed off enough in movement in time for her to wrap him up in a vine of scrap metal. He needed help. With Heather slowing down, this could be a good opportunity to jump in and assist. But how in the world would either of them get up there?

“I have an idea,” Al tapped on Cody's shoulder. “But it’ll involve you getting hurt a bit.”

“What? Then that’s an awful idea!”

“Just shut up and trust me.”

He ignored Cody’s protests and shoved the teen forward right as Heather was getting ready to shoot out another flare of pink witchcraft. The resulting strike blew him out into the air, giving just enough of a starting point for Alakazam to use his telekinesis to float Cody neatly on to the very pod that Rin was currently situated on.

Taken completely by surprise, Ashley switched over to a defensive position as Cody went in for a hit. She found the one moment she needed to put Rin in his place, but her chance was gone in an instant. Rin made quick work of her trap and tore through the metallic roll like it was nothing but flimsy fabric. Now faced with the might of not one, but two swordsmen, she was quickly backed towards the edge of the pod. She’d be lucky if she could even make another broom getaway with how fervent their swings were.

Now was the moment for her to take a huge risk. She closed her eyes shut and prayed that muscle instinct alone was enough to protect herself for this small moment. For her next trick, she’d have to gather all the concentration she possibly could to pull it off.

A faint gleam of light resonated from her staff’s crystal. Cody was the first to notice that something was brewing and tried to urge Rin to run. If only either of them had time to even think before the spell was cast. In the blink of an eye, the three of them disappeared in a blight of crimson matter…

…And reappeared above the tracks of Mepphyland’s premiere coaster.

Rin’s back practically cracked as he landed on the corners of a coaster car. The speeding inertia forced him into a tumbling ball, bouncing and spinning as his body kept slamming further and further towards the end of the runaway train. He’d made it to the very last car before he was able to sling his arm on to a handlebar and pull himself safely into the seats.

Cody was coincidentally situated right at his newfound safespot. Rin tried to urge him for a gameplan, but was taken aback at the smaller teen’s current position. While Rin gripped on in an audacious pose, one foot right on the edge of the car railing like he was prepared to pounce at a moment's notice, Cody was glued to the flooring, hunched over, and held on to the side of the vehicle like his life depended on it. His eyes bulged in terror and his face was flushed into a sickly shade.

“I….” He could barely manage to get a word out. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Seriously?!”

Well, there was no use counting on him at the moment. Rin looked ahead, and who else but the same damn witch just floating around menacingly at the center on the upcoming loop. Her contemptuous scowl returned to a more leveled state. She seemed certain that with this nigh unmaneuverable place as their new arena, her victory was all but claimed.

Rin started off with a beastly battlecry and sprinted towards her. His legs stretched car-to-car, faster than the running coaster itself. Bright blue streaks flayed behind him like lingering dust. Ashley couldn’t help but roll her eyes. No matter how much energy he expended, if she could knock him off his balance even a tiny bit, natural physics would handle the rest, and the battle would finally come to an end.

She held up her wand and readied herself for what she thought would be the finishing blow. He inched closer…closer…closer…

He jumped.

?!

One moment, they were practically face-to-face, the next, he’d leapt above and beyond her current elevation. She looked upwards, confused and wary.

Rin hung off of the handle bars from the front most car that had just reached the very peak of the coaster loop. With all the height he needed for a devastating blow, he boldly let his fingers slip off, and he slammed Ashley with the mighty force of his blade as he made his way down.

Just like Rin moments before, Ashley rolled down through the trail of cars. Deep panic started to set in. She closed her eyes and did all she could to empty her head of the incoming mortal dread. If she didn’t concentrate now, she really would be a goner. She’d just reached the very end of the train before she once again poofed away from the current combat site and into safety.

Things did not look good for the witches. It wasn’t quite as obvious to her opponents just yet, but Ashley was near her last ropes. And Heather wasn’t faring much better. With only Alakazam to handle now, her matchup should’ve been a cakewalk. But again, a first time fighter could only go on for so long before they began to stagger.

“Why won’t you just give up?” She sneered. It sounded more like a whine than an attempt at intimidation.

Her fight with the Pokemon had largely moved to following motions. They would both shoot attacks, dodge, and rinse and repeat. It truly became a battle of endurance.

“I didn’t go through all that stupid training just to lose,” she continued her rant. Al had no interest in quipping back, so she was really just venting to herself. “I am not going to lose to—”

Something zipped right in front of her face.

There was a loud noise just before.

Was that…?

Her eyes wide, Heather slowly cocked her head to the side and saw none other than Yukio; arms stretched out, and gun in place.

(He of course never had any intentions to actually hit her, but like she actually knew that.)

“Are you kidding me?” Her voice started off in a normal cadence before amplifying with outrage. “Were you seriously trying to shoot me? Are you freaking insane?!”

“What is she doing here?”

The rest of Yukio’s group arrived, and a familiar pair of ex-campers had just gotten themselves into a mind boggling reunion. Right in front of them, the girl who made living on Wawanakwa an absolute hell for everyone stood around with pink swaths of magical energy leaking from her hands and the look of a newly bred killer.

“Seriously?” Heather was just as shocked as they were. “Goody-two-shoes and the psycho freak?”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you right now,” Duncan huffed.

“You’re completely surrounded,” Yukio returned her focus to him. “I suggest you surrender no—”

Like a prisoner making her last ditch attempt at freedom before her incoming doom, Heather began one final full throttle assault at everyone. Pink zaps went flying in all directions as she aimed senselessly. With something as risky as a gun as his only means of offense, Yukio voluntarily ducked out from the deadly light show and snatched the just as hapless Red out to safety. Loudred, Al, and Mokona took turns trying to take her down, only to be met with the swift strike of her feet and knees in response. Surprisingly, it was Duncan and Courtney who managed to land a proper smack on her with the hefty knock of their loot sack. Enraged, Heather shut her eyes and made the same escape plan her partner had already pulled twice.

Heather reappeared near the front of the Mepphy Coaster. Large swaths of Heartless still encircled the grounds, but as long as none of them were dumb enough to lay a finger on her, she was in the clear.

CLUNK!!

Apparently, she was more in danger of falling sacks of food and junk than anything else.

In her efforts to make a clean getaway, Heather had accidentally brought Duncan and Courtney with her. While she crumpled to the ground, the unluckiest pair currently in True Cross were left screaming and dangling from the coaster beams above.

“This day couldn’t get any worse, could it?” Courtney cried out. “How could you just drop it?!”

“That’s what you’re worried about?!” Duncan couldn’t believe what he just heard. “Did you hit your head when the island was getting messed up? I knew you weren’t all ‘teacher’s pet’ deep down, but not like this.”

Any ounce of fear the couple once had was replaced with routine squabbling. All common sense and regards for safety were thrown out the window, and they could barely register the small crowd of Heartless that gathered below to enjoy the show.

Atop the coaster tracks, Rin was left running around the ride aimlessly. With his opponent out of sight, the best he could do for now was search and make sure she wasn’t hiding around planning out an elaborate sneak attack. By the time he neared Courtney and Duncan’s section of the structure, he started to feel light sways from the Heartless attempting to shake the two off. Of course, they were too wrapped up in their own little world to notice a thing. Rin could feel himself piling up with anxiety just looking at them.

He took one deep breath and climbed down. If anything was going to be saving those two from themselves, there was no one else but him to do the job.

“Hey, you two.“ His attempts were carelessly swatted away. Neither were willing to break from their tiff for even a second to give the poor dude the time of day.

Rin’s face melted into a look of exasperation. Despite spending who knows how long chasing around and fighting that spiteful witch, this was a much more irksome task.

“Listen, if you two don’t—”

A sudden slam forced Rin’s head to the metal bar in front of him. A hurdle of Large Bodies were throwing themselves on to the ride’s foundation. Rin could practically see Courtney and Duncan’s fingers begin to give in with each shake, but they still seemed too lost from the situation to notice. These two had to be joking.

“Hey!!”

Like he accidentally signaled a cue, a trio of Large Bodies made one finishing thrust into the coaster beams. Ironically, it wasn’t Courtney and Duncan who wound up losing their balance, but Rin himself. If he wanted to snap them back into reality, this wasn’t how he wanted it to happen. He toppled down on to the unsuspecting pair, and a trio of screams soon reverberated from the sky while the three awaited their death by crowd mauling.

The Heartless looked as if they were anticipating a feast. They raised their gross, grubby arms upwards, all ready for their meal. Instead, they were met with the snap of limbs and the crushing gnash of brittle fur. Rin’s own feline familiar, Kuro, had wandered into the park for some peace and quiet and wound up having to save a certain pair of buffoons once again. Enlarged and in the size of a baby kaiju like earlier, the three landed softly on to his soft ruffled back.

Courtney and Duncan’s first instincts were to complain and reflect on the almost anticlimactic turn of events, but Rin was up and at it again like his stroke of luck gave him a new spout of energy. “Okay, Kuro, there’s this small witch girl in red. Don’t know where she is, but I’ve got a bone to pick with her. Help me out here, alright?”

Rin grinned with the determination of someone ready for round two. But little did he know, his missing opponent was already nearing the end of her run.

Ashley zapped back into sight atop a cafe, far from her previous fighting ring of choice. This time, she wasn’t looking for a new spot to test out a field advantage. Now, she just wanted a moment to blow off some steam.

She faced down and belted out an ear piercing scream. She didn’t care who heard or who was alerted to her position. She’d held that in since the moment she was reunited with Red. No. Before that. Way, way, way before that.

This wasn’t how she wanted any of this to go.

Without even taking another breath, Ashley let out another loud gasp of frustration until her throat started to gag at the pressure and left her in a thick spray of coughs.

Calm down Ash, she thought in between croaks. You’re not off the hook with this mission yet.

She straightened her back and let in one deep taste of the air.

…What the heck was that awful smell?

Ashley looked down. How frustrated was she to miss this?

There was a fat blob of puke on her. Her bright red ensemble was now mixed in with mucus green and beige white gruel.

It wasn’t even her’s.

“Uh…sorry about that…”

Ashley tilted her head at Cody, the other occupant of the last coaster car who was unknowingly transported alongside herself. She moved the same way a horror movie doll would at the sight of its prey.

Perhaps she had enough fight and fury in her for one last thrashing.

Cody honestly couldn’t blame her for how hard she aimed at him. If a total stranger barfed on him, who’s to say he wouldn’t try to murder them on sight too?

Well, he wasn't a bloodthirsty witch working for a literal world destroyer, so he’d probably have a lot more grace in that situation at least.

“I’m sorry, I am so sorry!”

Cody ran helplessly across the roof, still too queasy from the unwanted roller coaster ride to move properly. His steps were drunken, and he narrowly missed stepping over himself at least a half dozen times now. To Ashley, this fool was easy pickings. How could she have gotten so distracted by that boarish half demon? He was the Keybearer; the real target. If she took him down, the mission would be over. Everything would be over. This entire mess she was in would be over.

The sickly hero attempted a few swings, all straight ahead and almost too comically easy to block and dodge. He still wasn’t in the right state of mind. The sight was pitiful.

Suddenly, a startling pop echoed out, and a disturbingly shrill gust of wind blew past Ashley’s cheek. That could only be one thing. She cautiously turned her head around.

As expected, Yukio was down below with his gun pointed right at her. She wasn’t particularly worried. He had the look of someone who merely threatened the fear of the violence. She knew that bullet was a farce and there was no reason to believe he’d try anything more. That wasn’t what got her.

Red was with him. Looking at her with the same eyes of fear and worry, he attentively pushed against the side of Yukio’s head to double check that he really wouldn’t go beyond his bluff.

Why did he have to be here?

She knew Yukio was the distraction, and the fact that it wasn’t even him that did the job frustrated her to no end. During her internal struggles, the other three members of Cody’s pack had joined them on the rooftop. She’d already struggled with 2v1. Four was putting her at her brink. Worse yet, being with his main crew almost acted as a charger for the newly energized Keybearer.

She gripped her wand and made one last ditch effort to save her ass with a windy blast that pushed the newcomers clean off the rooftop. Cody just barely escaped falling himself thanks to the scrape of his blade on the worn down tiles. She figured this would’ve been the move that returned things to her favor, but then that annoying wannabe exorcist, Rin, jumped in to ruin her once again.

It was a return to the hopeless ordeal above the ferris wheel. At this point, if she could land even a single hit on either of these guys, she’d be satisfied. The moment Cody carelessly brought out an opening, she jabbed the end of her wand into his guts like a kneeing stab and promptly kicked him in the back and off the roof.

She messed up.

It was like time stopped specifically to mock her. Cody was just up ahead, the tip of his toes at the very edge of the roof gutters as he was about to lose all of his footing. His arms were outstretched with Keyblade in hand, the result of an attempted attack that didn’t land. She could've easily lied to herself that that move of her’s was a success. But at the very corner of her eye, she saw him.

Mephisto lounged in the air, smiling. She lost.

A beam of light broke out from the tip of the Keyblade. A familiar mock shrine, newly renovated with a fresh growth of shrubs, was up ahead. The beam shot through the building’s opening and towards the peculiar keyhole shaped mark that’d been unknown to everyone but Red and Shiemi.

Suddenly, the Heartless ocean that populated the park grounds was no more. The deep black stains drained, slowly replaced by sprinkles of warm light like fireflies gathering for a coming summer night. The park attractions all grinded to a halt, and everything that was damaged during this whole ordeal—the coaster, the fun house, the carousel—all returned to their original states.

With the Keyblade’s job done, Cody finished his fall safely into the arms of his friends. The battle was a long and spanning one, but they won. The four began a loud boast of celebration, completely ignoring that Ashley was still there on the roof. It’s not like she had any fight left in her anyway. She was stubborn, but she knew when it was time to finally accept defeat.

Just let me leave already…

“Hey!” Rin barked.

Ashley, a look of dejection in her stance even with her stone cold face, waved her wand. She was about to make yet another getaway, but he wasn’t done with her yet.

“You better tell me where you took Shiemi or—”

Rin charged up to her, ready for a tackle, but he was too late. In an instant, Ashley was gone, taking Heather’s faraway unconscious body with her. Rin landed raggedly into the Keyblade Crew’s cheer circle and ended their toast as they all fumbled onto the pavement.

 

oOo

 

Night finally set in the grounds of True Cross Academy. After an eventful day of seemingly nonstop action, the group finally rested in an empty cafeteria. The Okumura brothers apparently dormed in the most lonesome corner of the campus, and consequently, the nearby abandoned facilities were all theirs for the taking. With no one to object, the cafeteria tables were filled with plates abound, both empty and full.

Courtney and Duncan were busy stuffing themselves silly. This was the first real meal either of them had seen in weeks, and it almost made all the countless near death experiences today worth it. All it took for their rotten attitudes to fade away was a half dozen platefuls of food. Now they were palling around with Kuro, the cat they’d angered multiple times, and comforting Red, the demon child they’d completely ignored in favor of their own needs earlier.

Their mood was joyous, but the same couldn’t be said for the other side of the room. There were no plates in front of Cody’s crew, Rin, Yukio, and Mephisto. Things were tense. Some more important things needed to be discussed, and for now, the face stuffing would wait.

“So,” Al eyed Mephisto suspiciously. “You’re telling me that Maleficent woman is trying to gather up all of the Seven Hearts? And she found a way to control the Heartless? And she invited you to help her?”

“Correct,” the man answered slyly. “And aren’t you glad I declined?”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this?” Yukio demanded while he still tried to keep a collected poise. “You put our entire world at risk.”

“I already told you,” Mephisto had mentally checked out from the discussion and had begun to reach out to a nearby table for a small plate of cake. “There’s nothing anyone in our world could’ve done. If anything, feeding you false hope would’ve made your deaths all the more tragic. You should be thanking me for saving you from that fate.”

Gee, thanks. No one said a word, but each scowl was more than enough to hear the group's collective sarcastic reply.

“Why didn’t you tell us about her? ” Rin asked in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. His eyes were at his lap this entire conversation, and by the scrunches of his face, he was probably the one holding back the most outrage of them all.

“Hm?”

“Why didn’t you tell us they were after Shiemi?!” He burst out.

Despite everything, Mephisto still could not bother to give him a sympathetic glance. To him, the moment they chased away his foes and sealed the world shut, his interest in the matter was gone. “Well, you wanted me to be honest, and here’s my answer.” He took a slight nibble of the cake before continuing. “I had absolutely no clue she was one of the seven.”

Rin shook his head. That was all he was most likely to get out of Mephisto for this matter. “For crying out loud…”

Rin shifted his gaze over to Cody. If Mephisto wasn’t going to give a damn, he was at least assured he would. “And you’re saying I can’t go along with you guys to find her?”

Cody cringed. It wasn’t the answer he wanted to give and it wasn’t the answer Rin wanted to hear. “I’m sorry… It just doesn’t work that way.”

“We’d love to take you along, kid,” Loudred elaborated. “But everyone has a world they need to be in, you know? Like those guys…” He gestured towards the other side of the room where Duncan, Courtney, and Red were sharing their umpteenth dinner plate amongst themselves. “There’s somewhere else they belong at too. We can’t just leave them here.”

“And we’re not going to leave Shiemi,” Cody nodded. “ This world is where she belongs. We’ll bring her back.”

Rin took another good look at Cody. When the two first met, he wasn’t exactly sure what to make of him. He was a bigshot without the drive or form to show for it. Even now, looking at him, he could see the slight shake of his arms, his forced face of might that probably nervously bit his tongue underneath, and the fear and uncertainty in his eyes. But in those eyes were also a flame that refused to back down. A flame that was determined to push forward despite not knowing if he could handle what was up ahead. A kindred flame.

Rin smiled and held out his hand. His elbow stayed planted on the table. It didn’t seem like he was looking for a handshake. Cody looked on in confusion, but was prompted to return the gesture by a quick nudge from Mokona. Smiling, Cody grabbed on, their hands now clasped together into a strong fist.

“Alright, I trust you,” Rin said. “Make sure she’s safe.”

“...Yeah.”

As their time at True Cross Academy came to a close, it was finally time to join in on the feast.

Chapter 21: The Null Void: Stranded in Dead Space

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

She was as still as a doll, her skin paler than it had ever been. And if it weren’t for the faint juts of movement from her still breathing chest, one would not be remiss for mistaking Gwen’s unconscious body for a fresh new corpse.

That was the assumption Trent made when he first saw her. The feelings he felt at that moment—feelings he was unaware he was capable of having—were indescribable. Even after Maleficent sat him down and slowly spelled out what her current ailment was, he struggled to even look at her without his stomach tangling up into a tightened wad.

“Okay,” he took a deep breath. “You can do this.”

With a quick look around, making sure no one else had entered the castle’s chamber, he gently knelt his arms below Gwen’s legs and shoulders. He made a quick pause and shifted his eyes around to doublecheck the area before slowly lifting her up.

“Pray tell, what are you up to right now?”

Trent laid her back down and turned towards Maleficent with a modest scowl. She easily blended in with the room’s shadows, and he cursed at himself for not being more thorough in his checks.

“I told you I was going to do things my way,” he mumbled.

“You realize when I loaned you that ship, I meant it as a symbolic contract for our allyship?” Maleficent eyed him with an almost pitying face. It was like she was talking down to a pet that couldn’t understand why he was better off with her than cold in the streets. “I didn’t expect you of all people to be foolish enough to venture off on your own.”

There it was again. The same sense of resigned scorn he held back in Traverse Town that their partnership was inevitable.

Trent looked away. “Why are you so obsessed with me?”

“You act like you’re special,” her stout chuckle emitted an unnerving glee. “Not everyone can handle the darkness. When I sense someone with potential, I simply open my hand to them. And if they have clear connections to everything, even better.

“Besides,” her falsely pleasant tone shifted to a more spiteful veneer. “It seems my other apprentices weren’t quite as promising as I once thought.”

He knew what she was talking about. Just yesterday, Heather and Ashley had returned from their excursion with a newly kidnapped princess at hand. The junior diva acted so high and mighty during her arrival, she was stuck in a state of shock for the rest of the evening after Maleficent chose to chide over her piss poor performance instead. And then there was Ashley, the golden standard of an evil lackey, who came back tattered, beaten, and reeking with the scent of vomit. Maleficent didn’t even have to dress her down. With just one small exchange of glances, everyone could tell she was slowly on her way out from her good graces. All because neither of them were able to take down that Keybearer.

That lousy, egotistical, undeserving, sorry excuse for a Keybearer.

“There it is again,” Maleficent spoke, snapping Trent out of his irritable thoughts.

“Huh?”

“You’d be amazed at just how much potential you possess.”

He’d heard enough.

Trent stormed out without another word. He knew that woman was seeing him off with yet another one of her empty smiles, and he wasn’t having it.

But in his head, he couldn’t help but wonder why it was that she vexed him so. Truth be told, it wasn’t because he was especially annoyed at her hollow nature. In fact, there was a part of him that was impressed she could present her deceitfulness so out and honest with no shame. There was a part of him that wished he could just let go and do the same.

That was probably why he was so troubled.

If he was just as empty as her…

…Why shouldn’t this be the place where he belonged?

 

oOo

 

Things hadn’t been quite this awkward in the Gummi Ship since Cody and Al were in their pissing contest phase. After leaving True Cross Academy, the group decided to turn back and drop their three new stragglers off at Traverse Town. Things were normal at first. Being the two tiny mascots of the bunch, Mokona and Red quickly took to running around like they were in a floating playground. Cody, Al, and Loudred conversed with one another as per usual. But things soon fizzled out because of those two.

They weren’t being disruptive per se. In fact, Courtney and Duncan weren’t saying much of anything really. But with their crossed arms, bitter slouches, and looks of utter resentment, just knowing they were back there making it painfully obvious that this was the last place they wanted to be was enough to have the mood come crashing down.

The two Pokemon had managed to nudge Cody over to try to lighten the pair up. An awful idea that was met with protest, of course. Cody sat alongside the two and attempted to launch a conversation every few minutes before shutting himself when he realized there was absolutely nothing to say. Truth be told, alongside some of the lower ranking bit characters from the show, he couldn’t think of anyone else from the island he’d spoken to less than these two.

“So, uh…” Attempt number six. And this time, it led to actual words. “You guys were stuck there a really long time, huh?”

“...”

“...”

Still nothing.

“You, uh…” If only he stopped trying, he could just leave. But after being ignored for so long, a part of him refused to give up without getting even a single word out of them. “You guys are acting…surprisingly really down about leaving that place. Y’know, you probably won’t have to steal food where we’re going. And you’ll have an actual place to stay. And, uh, I’m assuming you had a major language barrier issue going on until we got there?”

“Oh, please,” Courtney rolled her eyes. He wanted to count this as a victory, but being met with her disdain hardly felt rewarding. “It was just Japanese. I learned the basics of a bunch of languages when I was a CIT. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

As if Courtney breaking the silence was his cue to give in, Duncan spoke next. “I can’t freaking believe it.” He dug himself further into his chair and slung his arm over his eyes in frustration. “All that shit we stole over weeks just gone.”

“Well, maybe if someone’s hand didn’t slip, we’d still have everything here with us.”

Cody stared. He noticed it back at True Cross, but it really only just sunk in. How did the voice of reason of the two get so corrupted?

“I don’t want to hear it, Princess,” Duncan threw back.

The latest spat that Cody expected to bubble between the two didn’t happen. Instead, Courtney began to reach into her back pockets before pulling out an elaborate ruby red necklace. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve still got this.”

Duncan, who let his discouragement consume him moments before, slipped into a proud and loving grin. This was their own special way of flirting.

The two seemed to have completely forgotten Cody was there. His face reddened as he realized what kind of tonal shift just happened in front of him. He understood why they were so downcast now. They lived like vagrants the past few weeks, but as weird as it was, the freedom and togetherness made it worth it. He couldn’t tell if he was jealous, disgusted, disgruntled, amazed, or all four at once.

“Hey, Cody,” Loudred called from the pilot’s seat up front. “Could you come over here?”

Yes, please, thank you. He didn’t even hesitate. He got up and fled right as the two began to exchange what he could only assume were bedroom eyes.

“So,” he ducked towards the dashboard in between Al and Loudred. “What’s up?”

Loudred turned his head away. “Uhhh…” He did a decent job hiding the distress in his voice when he called Cody over, but now that the teen was right beside him, his pursed lips and sweat were in full display.

“We’re lost,” Al followed up bluntly.

Cody shook his head in disbelief. “W-we’re lost? What do you mean we’re lost?”

“It means: we’re lost.”

“How can we be lost?” Cody looked back to make sure none of the others overheard them. “We only went to one world. Weren’t we just going backwards to Traverse Town?”

“We were, and now we’re lost!”

Alakazam slammed his fist on to an open area of the dashboard, less frustrated at Cody’s response and more at his own acceptance of their plight.

And just after his small outburst, the ship started to shake.

Turbulence here and there was normal, but something wasn’t right. The sways escalateated an abnormal rate. Normally, they’d be alright standing until it passed, but now, they could barely even keep their ground holding onto the seats and dashboard. Al was almost ready to assume responsibility for this and apologize, but the tremors got so bad, he was left to cower on the ground.

Loudred tried to keep his grip around the wheel as tight as it could, but as the harsh winds of space continued to crash on to them, he was forced off the pilot’s seat and straight across the ship. With no one in control, all havoc broke loose. The ship twisted and turned in all different angles. Being able to duck and cower on the floor was now a luxury. No one could go a second without being slammed from one side of the ship to another.

It was already terrifying enough for Gummi Ship newbies, Duncan, Courtney, and Red, but to our heroes, this was their third time dealing with a mid-space mishap. And somehow, this was the worst one yet.

This one was going to kill them for sure!

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!!”

“I’m too young to die!!”

“Everyone, calm dow—ah, ahhhhhh!!”

“Oh, fuck this shit, I’m not going down like this!!”

“You idiots!! I could’ve piloted better than any of you!!”

“Whee~”

Cody screamed his lungs out when the bouncing ship had the grace to fling him past the front window, giving him a good view of what exactly was going on. An undiscerning eye would never be able to see it, but if one concentrated enough, or perhaps was panicked enough to enact hidden survival skills in this case, a bloody auburn speck could be seen ahead, growing steadily inch-by-inch.

They were being sucked in.

 

oOo

 

THE NULL VOID

 

oOo

 

“‘...You know, I don’t like to admit it to people, but I know how lame I am. I try not to be, I really do. I’m always trying to be the popular cool kid, but it’s obvious I was never meant to be one. Every time I say or do anything, I’m always trying to be someone I’m not.’”

…?

“‘I know that feeling. I guess without the whole ‘making everyone cringe at me’ part.’”

“‘What?’”

“‘The whole friendless background and faking everything stuff.’”

Oh yeah. That day on the island. After everything that’s happened so far, it felt almost forever ago.

“‘So, wait, like...do you not care about people?’”

“‘Don’t care about people. Don’t care about anything in life in general.’”

It’s strange. He remembered that stormy evening back then. His entire life was turned upside down in the blink of an eye. Yet somehow, this conversation felt like the real starting point for everything to come.

“‘I wonder if I’m just going back to the whole same-old same-old once school starts up again.’”

“‘So, is that your big end goal here? To get popular?’”

“‘Yeah. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s like a bad habit I can’t break out of at this point.’”

“‘You gotta snap out of it somehow.’”

That was the first time he ever really poured himself out on someone. Strange how it was all from a conversation with a guy he’d really only known for two months tops at that point in time. Even if it sounded a bit premature or sad, at that moment, he really did consider Trent his first real friend. The first real person who seemed to get him. It almost made him sad to know that said first friend wound up turning down his adventuring invitation. He wondered what Trent was up to right now.

“‘It’s just a hunch, but I’ve always felt traveling around might do me good. Seeing different sights, checking to see if new experiences trigger anything in me. I’ve never really felt like I belonged where I came from so...maybe I would somewhere else.’”

“‘And if that doesn’t work?’”

“‘Burn everything down I guess.’”

There was a new, disconnected voice.

...Why is this my first time hearing this?

?!

She was in his weird dreams too, huh? It figured.

Yeah, do you have a problem with that? ” The dream Gwen shot back accusingly.

Strange. This felt a lot more conversational. Not really lucid at all.

That’s because I’m trying to talk to you right now.

…Huh?

Do you get it now?

Could it be? That strange Phantom Gwen, the one who felt there but not at the same time. Was she here in his thoughts now too?

Of course I am, genius .” She was an unattached voice in a shrouded dream world, yet he could sense her eye roll all the same. “ Listen, I just want to talk right now. There’s so much I don’t get. Can you—

Suddenly, the dreamscape that started off as a foggy recollection of the beaches of Wawanakwa faded into a blinding white. A strange door came hurtling towards his field of vision from the distance. It wasn’t just any door.

It was that door.

Just right in front of his inner perception, it cracked right open, sheering out a blinding sunburst that brightened the already bright white plane…

“...Hey, Cooooooodyyyyyyyy.”

Aching and groggy, Cody wiped a fresh drip of drool off his mouth. A small puddle had apparently formed beneath his resting head on the dashboard. He felt a bit guilty dirtying Loudred’s station up, but he hoped that after whatever excursion they’d been dragged into now wrapped up, it’d be all dry and gone.

He rubbed his eyes and looked up at the ship’s front window, which was shockingly still intact without a crack to be seen. Mokona was right outside, bouncing on the hilt of the front engine, and pointing his ears to Cody's right; a signal to leave the deck and join up with the others.

“Where the heck are we?” He spoke silently to himself. Just from what he could see from out the window, the boundless edges of space were drowned with a deathly scarlet hue. There were no more stars or distant worlds to be seen; just the dying chunks of stray debris that slowly faded into ghostly white chalk.

Cody continued to examine the new world around them as he gradually crept outside. Their immediate landing spot did little to lift his unease. Among the hundreds of decaying rubble that floated about, they seemed to have safely landed on but one of them. Perhaps one of the largest ones out here. There was no immediate sign of life or civilization in this dull and rigid quarry. The only ounce of life, in a metaphorical sense, that he could parse were the strange purple goops of veiny grime that protruded from out of the hulking boulder they were on and its stalagmites. They shaped themselves into what seemed like demented imitations of trees.

Wherever they were, clearly there was no easy way out. Or else he knew for sure the others would’ve hightailed out of this freakish ghost galaxy the first moment they could.

“Hey,” he tapped on Loudred's shoulder. “What happened?”

The big oaf smiled; a strange expression given the current situation they were in. “Believe it or not, the shaking calmed down enough for me to get things back in order and land ourselves no problem. I think you already fainted at that point.” He chuckled heartily much to Cody’s displeasure.

“Hey, this isn’t funny,” Al pointed at him. “We need to figure out how to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Alright, everyone, gather around.” Courtney clapped her hands, alerting the others towards her near the center of the meteoric mound they stood on. “If we want to survive, we’ve gotta put together a proper gameplan.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Al butted in. “Since when were you in charge?” He could hear Duncan snort beside him like the guy knew that this was coming.

“Since a pack of buffoons got us stranded here in the first place.”

“She’s got a point,” Duncan shrugged, a snide smile on his face. “With how shitty you guys handled things, I can’t believe you weren’t dead before you found us.”

Cody, Loudred, and Mokona exchanged looks amongst one another. Alakazam was sparkling red, and they all knew what was going to happen next.

“I’d like to see you do better!”

“Oh, I will,” Courtney nodded matter-of-factly.

This only made him madder. “What makes you think you can just take over?!”

“Well, I was a CIT.”

“I don’t even know what that is!!”

“Neither do I, to be honest,” Cody said in the background.

Just as everyone anticipated, Al and Courtney launched themselves into a squabble fest; one that was perhaps infinitely more grating than a regular argument between either of them and anyone else. The others who saw this coming from a mile away stood idly by, having put their fear and uncertainty over their new location on a temporary pause. Al’s entourage meandered amongst themselves while Duncan looked like he was prepared to egg the two on to make the situation even worse.

Red, the one other outsider of this mismatched crew, continued to timidly survey the decrepit space rock they were on. There was, of course, nothing beyond the graying boulders and peculiar purple structures. Or at least at a glance.

He squinted his eyes at a strange dark slit hidden between the crevasses. One would easily assume it was nothing but an atypical shadow; a result of the bleak lighting in this strange place bereft of most normal light sources. But there was just something odd about it.

Like it was moving.

“Uh, guys…” Red quickly crawled away behind his companions, already prepared for the battle that was up ahead.

The start of the attack was abrupt. The moment the Heartless realized they’d been spotted, they swarmed in like a race at its starting point. With the bicker break they had given themselves, they were taken completely off guard. Their opening strikes were sloppy in nature as they scrambled to force themselves into a fighting mindset. Duncan and Courtney attempted to flee to safety in the Gummi Ship, but the absolute blockade of Heartless forced them to join Red in cowering behind the struggling fighters instead.

A stray crossbow arrow suddenly shot its way into the helmet of an unsuspecting Soldier, forcing out hurls of black soot like a blood spurt. Its allies stiffened in surprise, allowing them to be easy targets to not only an additional load of arrows, but an entire medley of projectiles as well.

Reinforcements had arrived. Cody couldn’t help but smile. It reminded him of the fateful encounter with Rin and the others back at True Cross. Because of that, after the Heartless faded off, he couldn’t help but excitedly run up to greet their saviors.

He wasn’t expecting one of them to knee him in the stomach.

“Hey, hey, what are you doing?!” Courtney was among the loudest of the bunch voicing her protest to being knocked down, tied, and lugged carelessly under the arms of the bandit-like group.

The ravagers refused to utter a single word as they carried the crew off to who-knows-where. The more they whined and complained, the more stone cold their faces shined. Al practically started to have an anxiety attack over the ordeal; something that Duncan couldn’t help but snicker over like this moment was long overdue payback for True Cross.

Their trek led them into what appeared to be an oversized encampment. Alien creatures of all shapes and sizes, draped in either battle ready gear or poorly stitched rags, looked over at the hostile spectacle with curiosity. Their hopeless yowling against their captors were replaced with desperate pleas towards anyone who would care to listen. Surely at least one person would care to set them free?

“Courtney?! Duncan?! Cody?!’

A familiar blonde surfer girl came running alongside the three teens, her face filled with just as much distress as theirs.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?!” Cody and Duncan repeated her simultaneously.

“Bridgette! Thank goodness!” Courtney was so frazzled, she couldn’t be bothered to feel any shock at her friend’s random appearance. “Tell these people to let go of us!”

“Hey, Bridgette, do you actually know these guys?” The bandit handling Courtney asked, causing the girl to switch to a small fit of confused outrage.

“What?!” Courtney cried. “Are you actually associated with these thugs?”

Bridgette completely ignored the other girl’s comments and hastily replied to the man. “Yeah, these three are from my world. What are you guys doing to them?”

“Hey, watch it, asshole!!”

Before the man could give Bridgette a proper response, Duncan began to violently twist around in reaction to his captor slinging him perhaps way too close to the ground. The bandit tried to calm him down, but each attempt only caused Duncan to be more fervent with kicks and nudges. Eventually, his outburst became rough enough that his feet shinned and gashed against Cody’s head behind him.

“Alright, what exactly is going on here?”

A new voice set foot into the scene; a young man clad in green and black with spikes protruding out of his face and arms. His dark mullet that was quickly becoming overcome with bright white streaks gave him an air of aged maturity, though in reality, he was not much older than the four campers themselves. Still, his command and authority definitely reflected that of a trusted elder than of a boy barely breaching adulthood. The commotion that had begun to brew quickly subsided, and the men who had manhandled the crew so recklessly were reduced to nervous stilts.

“I, uh, Pierce,” one of the men spoke up. “We saw them land a while ago, and—”

“Let me guess,” Pierce lightly tapped his hand on his forehead with a look of chagrin. “You captured them and brought them here so you could ravage their ship for parts without anyone trying to stop you.”

He was dead on. No one could say a word.

Pierce shook his head disapprovingly. “How many times do I have to say this? This isn’t how we do things here.”

“But,” one of them finally had the guts to gulp. “If their ship has parts we need, we can just add it to ours and everyone, including them, would be able to leave.”

“If they offered to give them up, that’s fine. But none of you have any right to just decide that they’re going to sacrifice their escape method.” He crossed his arms sternly. “You’re going to let them all go now. And if any one of you have already started messing around with their ship, you’re going to put everything back where they belong. Got it?”

“...Yes, sir.”

With the tone shifted, the men carefully untied their ropes, making sure even the tiniest scratch couldn’t get on them. Offering but a weak hearted apology, they then slunk away guiltily as they started their  trek back to replay the message over to their other colleagues.

The hostility subsided, but Duncan still wasn’t ready to let it go. The moment he was free, he practically started to pounce on Pierce, ready to lay him a new one for the actions of his associates. It was only Al and Loudred’s quick impulses that kept him from doing the deed. Instead, he now wriggled behind the two Pokemons’ arms, only marginally more dignified than his earlier stance.

“Now that that’s settled,” Courtney cleared his voice and turned her attention back to Bridgette. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“Well,” she bit her lip. “It’s hard to explain. After all of… that happened back on the island…” She looked away like Wawanakwa’s demise was a pained memory. “I just suddenly ended up here. I tried to see if anyone else from the island was here too, but it was just me. I couldn’t find you, or Duncan, or Gwen, or DJ, or Geoff…”

Bridgette’s voice trailed off. To Cody, Courtney, and Duncan, they could tell what was coming the moment his name left her mouth. But to Al, Loudred, Mokona, and Red, they were completely unprepared to witness the whiplash. One moment, Bridgette was cool and collected. The next, she was bawling like a child who’d gotten lost from their family.

Pierce let out a sympathetic sigh. Apparently, he was already used to this version of her. “Sorry. When she gets like this, she’s pretty much done for the rest of the day.”

He shook his head once more before returning to a more composed position. “If it's alright with me asking, how did you all end up here?”

“Well, uh,” Cody shuffled around in his words, unsure if he was about to reveal something embarrassing or not. “We kind of got lost while traveling around and we got…sucked into a black hole I guess?”

Pierce nodded. “Another wormhole. Sounds in line with what’s been going on here lately.”

“Can you tell us where exactly we are?” Cody nervously shifted his eyes around the settlement. The curious eyes of many of the motley aliens still lingered towards the group. “This…doesn’t seem like any normal world.”

“Right you are,” Pierce replied. “This place is called the Null Void. It’s a dimension where time stands still and everything that goes in, stays in. Used to be that this was a last resort prison for the worst criminals you could imagine. Nowadays, the residents are a mix of descendents of captives and people like you who accidentally stumble through.”

“Waiit, wait, wait, wait,” Al rapidly flailed his arms in alarm. “Go back a bit. ‘Everything that goes in, stays in ’??”

Like Al had just alerted a truck to come crashing into them, everyone dropped what they were doing to stare like deers in headlights.

Were they…stuck?

“This is our home now!!” Mokona broke the silence with his inappropriate cackles. For once though, it almost sounded like his outburst was out of genuine fear. The crackling of his laughter scratched deep into his throat like he was trying to joke his way into mental denial.

While everyone got ready to fall into a puddle of doom and gloom, Pierce remained calm with a slight smile; a smile that was neither one of knowing pity or one of naive determination.

He gently patted the top of Mokona’s head, calming the rabbit creature down. “Don’t worry. If it makes sense, you all came at the worst and best time.

“Things have gotten a little strange here recently. It’s not uncommon for newcomers to just randomly show up, but people, like your friend, Bridgette…”

Bridgette continued to bawl like no one’s business.

“...Have been popping up out of nowhere with all the same stories about those Heartless creatures. And better yet…”

A black dot opened up in the distance. If one squinted enough, they could make out the vague image of Heartless bodies popping out and falling weightlessly onto a far off chunk of rock.

“...Strange wormholes like that one keep popping up and bringing those nuisances with them.”

“How is any of that good though?” Cody scratched the back of his head. If anything, it was a sign that the Heartless had set their sights on tearing this place apart next.

“That’s the same kind of wormhole you all came in from, right?”

“Yeah…”

“That means we can use them to get out,” Pierce let out a small grin, but never let go of his no nonsense veneer. “We’ve been putting together a massive ship that can fit the whole camp here. It’s still a work in progress, and those knuckleheads earlier roughed you up because they wanted to see if your ship had anything we needed. But we’re nearing the finishing touches. It won’t be long until we’re all out of here.”

“So, wait,” Duncan lurched forward with cunning eyes. “That means we can just leave next time one of those things pop up, no problem?”

“Duncan,” Courtney gave him a disapproving nudge. “We can’t just leave everyone else here like that. That’s rude. Isn’t that right, Bridgette?”

Bridgette was still too busy sobbing to respond.

With nothing more for Pierce to share, all attention returned to the distraught surfer girl. Her overwhelming emotions continued to pour out with no end in sight, and each tear shed filled the others with uncomfortable unease.

“Hey, Pierce!” Someone shouted off from afar. “We could use some help over here.”

Cody could swear he saw Pierce mutter a “Thank God” under his breath.

“Bridgette,” he tapped her shoulder as he took his abrupt leave. “Take care of these guys for me, alright?”

Completely unlike the clear leaderlike speech he had before, his instructions to Bridgette trickled out like he didn't expect her to retain them at all. With Pierce long gone, the group was left with an ever increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere as they just stood around with their crying friend and without a steady head like Pierce around for reassurance.

“Is this what I was like back in True Cross?” Red cringed.

“No, you were definitely worse,” Al sighed. ”If she’s gonna be our guide here, can any of you think of a way to calm her down?”

Al could already see Loudred holding on to Mokona, ready to try the same technique that failed against both Red and Geoff. He gave the duo a disapproving glare before they could make things worse.

“I think we should slap her,” Red suggested, like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

“Of course we can’t do that,” Courtney responded. “Look, I was trained in dealing with situations like this. Just leave it to me.”

Courtney took a moment to breathe in and switched up her expression to that of a kind counselor. She gently placed her hands on Bridgette's shoulders as she hoped to bring her friend into a place of comfort.

“Hey, Bridgette, don’t cry. You were probably lonely, but things are going to be okay, alright?”

She still cried.

“If there’s anything you need, just tell me, okay? We’re in this together.”

The crying continued.

“You’re stronger than this. I know you are.”

The crying did not stop.

“Please calm down. You need to pull yourself together.”

No dice.

Courtney slapped her square across the face.

Despite having just been hit, Bridgette’s stream of tears never missed a beat. She perhaps had wallowed too far into her sorrow to realize what Courtney just did. The lack of feedback however did not stop the others from sharing their mixed reactions. Red and Duncan seemed the most amused at the action with one acting proud that his idea went through and the other entering a heave of laughter. Loudred and Mokona were astonished, almost impressed at Bridgette’s ability to retain her current state. Al just stood agape at what he’d just witnessed. And Cody was left shaking his head and facepalming to himself.

“Some great CIT skills you’ve got there,” he noted sarcastically.

“I’d like to see you do better,” Courtney harumphed in response.

“Do it again!” A trio of misplaced enthusiasm sounded from Red, Mokona, and Duncan, who was at the cusp of tears from all his laughter.

Perhaps it was completely based on personal instincts, or perhaps it was a delayed response to the slap, but suddenly, the still hysterical Bridgette made a mad dash away from the encampment. The others jumped in surprise at her sudden outburst, and by the time they were ready to catch up to her, she was already long gone and away into the distance.

“Oh, crap,” Cody groaned. “We can’t let her get caught by the Heartless while she’s like that.”

“Mokona, would you mind staying back here to keep an eye on the others while me, Cody, and Al go find her?” Loudred poked over to the little white blob.

“Aye aye!” He excitedly chirped.

“You’re leaving the tiny furball in charge?” Duncan hated normal authority figures, but somehow, having this creature placed above him felt even worse.

“Deal with it,” Al, having lost his patience with both of the group’s unwanted guests a long while ago, rolled his eyes before he and the others quickly made their exit.

Loudred keyed in on the faint noise of Bridgette’s woes and led them into a hidden path just outside the enclave. Shrouded within the branches of purple glop was an enormous metallic structure. There was no question what exactly this was supposed to be; it was the escape ship that Pierce boasted about. Despite resembling a hunk of patchwork with numerous clashing parts all cobbled together, it shined with a pristine gleam; a sign of the hope that those trapped in the void placed into the ship.

Right under the towering ship was the very scene Cody feared would occur. There was Bridgette, still bawling with her hands all wrapped up over her flaked eyes, surrounded by a circle of Heartless that slowly prowled towards her like they were inspecting their prey. In her condition, she couldn’t even be bothered to realize just how much danger she was in.

“Oh no,” Cody gasped.

He quickly summoned out his Keyblade and urged the other two to act fast. The Heartless showed mercy to her through their idle inspection, but the longer they waited, the more their hunger for her heart grew. They slowly crawled forward, ready to engulf her while they stuck to their sneaky and calculated manner. All except for one stray Shadow that leapt excitedly for the first bite in their meal.

“Watch out!!”

Bridgette looked up, her eyes still blurry from the rivers she poured out. She could make out vague blurs of black catapulting right towards her. This would’ve been her last moments if she hadn’t snapped out of it sooner.

Under the noise of panic from her peers in the background, Bridgette, not wasting even a second to freshen up her eyes, reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out a small stick. With a quick flick of her wrist, she spun it intricately around her fingers until it wound up like the propellers of a toy helicopter. The spool spun and spun while it grew in size with each revolution. Finally, she swung the death spiral right at the Heartless gone awol, killing it instantly.

With the death of one of their own, the sly Heartless shifted away from their calculated slink and into a collective charge. Bridgette sniffled and paused as she spent the next seconds assessing the situation. The moment a Heartless came inches away from her, she instantly launched herself into an all-out assault, twisting and twirling around her double-sided naginata as if she had wielded it her entire life. By the time the last Heartless met its end, not even an entire minute had passed since her tantrum. She stabbed one end of her bladed spear to rest on the ground and wiped away the last remnants of her crying fit as a personal reward for a battle well done.

The onlooking trio’s jaws were dropped. She wasn’t even in her best form, yet she handled that fight like it was nothing.

“Holy cow,” Cody gleefully applauded her. “That was amazing!”

“Thanks,” Bridgette dragged one last droplet away on the tip of her finger.

“You couldn’t have been out here longer than we’ve been at it,” Al began to eye her weapon curiously. “How much training have you done?”

“Has it not been that long?” She looked upwards while she thought it over. “Hard to keep track of anything in the Void.”

“I mean, time or not, I never took you for a fighter,” Cody added.

“Oh,” she shrugged. “I calm my nerves by moving around. Can’t exactly surf or skate here, and jogging’s out of the picture when even the main base isn’t all that safe. So, this was the next best thing.”

“I’ll say,” Loudred nodded. “You looked like you snapped out of it just like that.”

“I did, didn’t I? Almost completely forgot about…”

Bridgette was right about to muster out a light smile, but in just a split second, it already started to falter. Her breathing returned to its wild and stuttered state and her dried up eyes rapidly recovered. The trio panicked. She had just snapped out of it and she already started to fall back. The three flailed around and tried to find a quick distraction to turn things back before Cody finally went and pointed vigorously at the oversized ship they stood in front of.

“So, uuuhh, that’s the ship Pierce was talking about, right? Almost ready to go?”

Bridgette wiped off her face. “Yeah.” There was still a slight crackle in her voice, but the distraction seemed to have worked. “It’s actually pretty functional. But it’s huge and we’ve got a lot of people, so we’re still going to need some parts so it doesn’t cave in on itself while we’re on board.”

Bridgette’s eyes widened a bit, bright and confident with a new idea brewing. “Actually, you guys are going to stay here for a bit, right? Mind helping out? We’ve split off a bunch of the engines and stuff into separate hiding places so they don’t all go down at once if something bad happened like earlier. Might be a good time to go check them out and make sure there’s no Heartless crawling near them. And we can go scavenging for more parts while we’re at it.”

“No complaints here,” Cody replied.

“I’ll pass,” Al waved the offer off. “To be honest, I don’t like the idea of leaving Mokona alone for too long. I think I’ll head back and make sure he and the others aren’t getting into trouble.”

“That makes me the de facto chaperone then,” Loudred chortled as he gave Cody a light slap on the shoulder.

“Great,” Bridgette said, already trudging along. “Come on. I’ll show you guys all our hideaways and shortcuts.”

With Bridgette’s emotions finally leveled and their immediate goals sorted out, everyone made their way out of the secluded nook and scattered off. To Cody and friends, this entire world was an unexpected detour for them. Theoretically, they could go whenever they pleased, but leaving all these people behind to cower and fend for themselves was just not their style. For all they knew, they could be stuck here assisting them for a while. Despite that, they were determined to make sure not a single person was stuck stranded for even a second more.

A mysterious figure crept around and watched the group as they made their quick split. He had hid atop of and inspected the getaway ship long before they’d arrived. The moment he stepped in, the Heartless from earlier had followed along like annoying stray pups. In a way, Bridgette’s battle was nothing more than bad timing for both parties involved.

He paced back and forth around the ship’s surface while he mulled over what his next move would be. He was no different from anyone else who made their way into the Void: Stuck and stranded. But just like Cody, he could have easily left whenever he pleased.

Whether he planned to take that option or not was a question even he couldn’t answer.

Notes:

I get zero interactions on this fic, so I'm convinced I have a have a regular readership of three, lmao.

Chapter 22: The Null Void: An Unexpected Encounter

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Wait, wait, wait, so let me get this straight. You found Chris and Chef and they were scrubbing toilets?”

“Yeah. And getting bossed around by this annoying kid too. Pretty great, right?”

“Did you help them like Courtney and Duncan?”

“Nah.”

“Nice.”

Loudred raised his brow as he followed alongside the two teenagers. “Aren’t you two being a bit harsh?”

“No, dude, you don’t understand what those two put us through,” Cody continued. “Actual Hell on Earth.”

“Is it any worse than everything that’s happening now?”

Cody and Bridgette took a pause and glanced at each other, both taken aback by the suggestion.

“Was it?” She asked.

“Uh…” For all the crap that had happened on the island, at least they weren’t faced with regular threats of Heartless maulings. “It’s a pretty low bar, but…”

“Well, I don’t want to suddenly be feeling bad for them, so let’s just be mad at them for our standards of yesterday.”

“Oh, Bridgette, there’s another cave up ahead! Is the next one in there?”

“Close, but not quite. You see that tiny opening juuuuust over there? That’s where we’re headed.”

After having split off from Alakazam, the three had rolled into their tour around the Void, taking occasional pit stops to inspect the scattered ship parts whenever Bridgette dragged them off in a new direction. After trekking around for what had to have been over an hour at that point, Cody started to get a better feel of the landscape and a better understanding of the bleak situation the residents of this “world” were forced to endure. Beyond the encampment’s surrounding area were endless stretches of repeated rocks and roads. Each step was met with another trail of crackling glints of white, an ever present sign of the decaying stone they were stuck on. The purple veins were like putrid blemishes infecting a body that was near its end. Cody would think back to the many faces he saw at the camp. There were enough for the place to be considered an entire colony. To think that they all lived in what could only be described as a cluster of stardust corpses.

“Alright,” Bridgette nodded, her body crouched over as she looked over the carefully stowed machinery. Alongside, the small mountain of crusted off pebbles and slabs that veiled over it, a high tech, almost mystical force field was placed for an extra layer of protection. She fiddled around with her fingers as if typing away on a computer and sent the piece away into transparency.

“Got this one covered.” She stood back up and signaled the two dudes to follow her out of the cramped cavern. “No Heartless in sight. Come on. Now where did you leave off? At the end of True Cross, right?”

“That’s about it to be honest,” Cody responded as he ducked his way past the chiseled edges of the makeshift entranceway. “Next thing we knew, we were here.”

“Well, we almost died on our way here. That’s worth noting,” Loudred added.

“Yeah, but we almost died like three dozen times already. That’s not special.”

Bridgette laughed. She was fully absorbed into Cody’s stories of (attempted) might and (genuine) heroism. This was the most relaxed she’d felt since she’d landed herself into this floating wasteland. They may not have been close friends back on Wawanakwa, but it was still reassuring having a familiar face around.

“Man, that’s so wild.” She slung her naginata over her shoulders and wrapped her arms above it in a lax manner. “All of that happened and you’re like a video game hero now. Might be because my dumb luck landed me here, but I’m so jealous.”

“Yeah, it’s cool seeing the sights and all,” Cody wiped his finger over his lips, his boastful and cheeky side starting to sprout out again. “I wonder how Gwen’s gonna react when I go dump all this on her.”

“Oh. Gwen, huh?”

“Yup,” Cody snickered. “I’m like a video game hero, right? So that means this is kind of like a ‘rescue the princess’ kind of situation.”

“...Uh.”

Bridgette stopped in her tracks. She bit her mouth and took an awkward breath before turning back towards a confused Cody.

“You, uh…” Her eyes shifted away, almost like she was trying to hide a growing stinkeye. “You know she rejected you, right?”

Cody’s head jumped, caught off guard by the sudden retort. “Y-yeah, of course.” The glee and confidence in his voice grew hoarse. The conversation had taken an uncomfortable turn. “Sh-she’s missing, you know. I’m just trying to find her.”

“Okay,” Bridgette replied, some suspicion still lingering in her as she returned to her path. “Just checking.”

Cody gulped. He should’ve let it go. Why didn’t he? After all this time, he was ready to bury all of his past embarrassing antics behind him. But perhaps now that he started to bask in a life where he didn’t constantly feel like garbage, he grew all the more desperate to forget about his mistakes. Loudred could see just how panicked his friend had become, but Cody’s graceless desire to go beyond clearing his name was much too strong for him to stop. Before the wise Pokemon could get the chance to warn him off, he’d already chased after and spooked Bridgette up front.

“I-I’m not doing it because I’m trying to woo her or anything,” he immediately blurted out in desperation. “She really is missing! It’s the truth!”

“Whoah, hey,” she tried to swat him off. “Y’know, I’m not saying you’re wrong for trying to find her. You just acted really weird back on the island, so I wanted to make sure there weren’t any ulterior motives going on.”

“I-I swear,” Cody held on to his face in mental agony. In his heart, he knew continuing to pursue this was going to eat him up further, but the part of himself that still sighed at the sight of his own sorry existence wanted to drill all the awful truths into himself. “I really didn’t mean to do all of that. At least…I think I didn’t.”

“Look, Cody, it’s not that big of a deal. Let’s just drop it.”

“I was stupid, okay? I’m sorry!”

“What are you apologizing to me for?” Bridgette scoffed. She tried to keep a leveled and content demeanor, but Cody’s distressed pleas for self validation had started to get to her. “Apologize to Gwen. You were the one creeping on her.”

That word shot at him like a pistol to the head. “Was… I really that bad? Was I a creep? Is that what everyone thought of me?”

“Well,” Bridgette rolled her eyes. She would’ve been more than happy to keep this all to herself, but if he really really wanted to know, she’d lay it out for him. “Some people thought you were like an annoying kid brother.

“And I didn’t go that far, but some of the others would call you a stalker.”

There it was.

He’d dreaded it this entire time.

The gut feeling in his head of all of the times he went and made a fool of himself came back to roost. It took a while, but he finally heard from someone else’s mouth what he’d suspected and was afraid to come to terms with this entire time.

How was he supposed to feel about this revelation? Solace? Validation? Shock? Horror? Disappointment? Shame? In himself? In who he was? In who he might very well still be?

The chaos in his head was loud and apparent. Bridgette, who was on the edge of annoyance right before, shifted into a look of concern, now regretful of everything she just said. Loudred rushed over to try to snap some sense back into him, but nothing his two companions were saying entered his ears. He was stuck in a trembling state of dismay, the world around him swirling and silent despite the peace, and his body building up with nausea despite the lack of vomit or sickness within him. In the corner of his eye, he could see the Phantom Gwen, who’d been haunting him since his journey began, sitting cross-armed on a small pile of rubble with a guilty look aside.

He gulped, his throat straining itself from the dry air of space. Her appearance was oddly the one thing that was keeping him grounded. That Gwen seemed to have an ounce of sympathy towards him rather than pure disgust was the sad bit of pity he needed to not feel like the worst person currently breathing. Though he knew in his heart, the fact that he was seeking comfort from what he assumed was a hallucination was sad in itself.

“I need a bit of alone time,” he managed to mumble under his breath as he quickly dipped away from the others.

“Wait!” Bridgette chased after him. “You don't know where anything is here! Where are you going?”

In a reversal of Cody’s pesters against her the moment this awkward situation first began, Bridgette desperately ducked in and out of his vision as she tried to pull him back on track. So wrapped up in guilt, she was more focused on snaking around the sullen boy than on keeping track of their surroundings. Though perhaps it was a relief for the both of them when she finally wound up tripping on her feet, forcing Cody’s remorse attack to be interrupted while the two of them tumbled painfully atop of crumbling space rocks.

The duo groaned as they laid flat below a small cliff. For better or worse, that stumble was what Cody needed to snap back to normal. He lifted himself back up, grabbed his aching back, and continued to peer upwards towards the cliff that towered just a few feet above. Loudred ran over to check on their wellbeing. He was just about to call out to them, but a quick look forward forced both his words and face into a fearful halt.

“Wha–” For all intents and purposes, Cody spoke only to himself, yet even the hint of noise was enough for Bridgette to smack her hand over his mouth and flash out a quieting gesture.

He was too delirious to notice it at first, but the more seconds passed, the more the rough trudge of boots sounded off onto the cobbled ground. In the near distance, with only a thin thicket of purple trunks to block off the view, a bulky middle aged man looked around sneakily with the eyes of a hawk. With his graying mullet and draping pale cape, he would’ve looked ridiculous if his scarred and rugged body didn’t exude the aura of a rogue warrior.

All three, the one who hid above and the two down below, were wide eyed in fear. Bridgette especially. Her gritted teeth had the same level of exasperation as someone who just lost all their funds in a bad gambling round. She didn’t dare say a word, but if she could, she’d curse at the rotten luck they had running into him.

“I know it’s around here. Where is it?” The man groveled to himself with a deep tenor.

What is around here? The parts? The camp??

Bridgette looked back over to Cody and gently placed a finger over her lips to further emphasize the situation they were in. Carefully, she nabbed on to his arm and led the both of them into a tip toe march towards a shrouded rocky ramp; their one guaranteed exit in this unexpected trap.

Slowly…slowly…slowly…

…Just her luck.

Bridgette, who had still clung on to her naginata with her other hand, accidentally kicked on to the blade that dangled near the ground and dragged both her and Cody into another messy trip. Even worse, her balance fumbled further with each step and nudge. They soon began to bump into the wall and purple knots like a game of pinball. By the time the two of them finally settled into another fall on the ground, they were already well aware of how screwed they were.

The man craned his head in their direction. What started out as a grimace quickly grew into a snide smirk. That little screw up, just the proof of their presence, was all he needed to know.

He turned back, took a single step, and propelled himself into the air and off into the eternal night. A naive Cody would’ve assumed that they’d just narrowly escaped a confrontation, but Bridgette knew what was coming. His back turned away and his body slowly leaving their sight, the man threw a quick flick of his wrist and signaled his horrifying lackeys to do their worst.

At first, there was silence. Cody carefully wobbled off the ground, noting that his partner had already bounced into a battle ready position. But what were they up against?

His answer came at the terrifying screech of a malformed creature that clawed through their thin thicket shield like something out of a horror movie. With its gangly wings and mouth that encompassed its entire face, it resembled an angel who’d just escaped a life sentence to hell. It was more horrific looking than any Heartless could ever hope to be. And in a way, it was just as horrific that Bridgette was already slashing her way through the creature and its cohorts while the fated Keybearer was left to cower behind. It took him forever to get used to fighting the Heartless. How did she get used to looking at these abominations with fearless eyes?

Cody looked upward as a familiar voice cried out. Loudred, who had remained situated on the small cliff this entire time, was caught off guard and was now in the clutches of a pair of these winged monsters. The Pokemon started to spring out a raucous stream of Uproars. He’d hoped to startle the two enough to force himself free, but they remained unperturbed as they continued to carry him away. The concept of sound was beneath these deformed beings.

“Loudred, hold on!” Cody shouted.

He followed Bridgette out of their failed hiding spot and got ready to swing his blade like a boomerang to his friend’s captors. Unfortunately, just as soon as he ran out into the open, he was immediately greeted by the typical vault of Heartless. In the time these new creatures came for the kill, the familiar nuisances had seamlessly mixed in. It wasn’t that they’d taken advantage of the situation, but that they and the winged monsters had been on the same side this entire time. Now completely distracted by the double whammy of unholy monstrosities, he could only watch through the corner of his eye as his friend was very quickly being floated off into who knows where. The further he went along, the less of a chance he had to do anything.

He started to panic and increased the frequency of his Keyblade swings in a desperate attempt to clear off his slate to tend to his friend as soon as possible. He was no longer looking at the battle in front of him and only hoping that the increased attacks would be enough to strike them all down at random.

Loudred meanwhile continued to struggle fruitlessly. He could not get a proper read on these demonic angels. They carried on like vicious mutts that ignored all inconveniences to reach their goal. Their demeanors remained still no matter how much he contorted his body to hinder their path even just a little. No mere movement was going to get their attention.

But perhaps a stabbing thorn would.

The two creatures opened their mouths and howled in a chaotic and agonized duet that pained even the ears of the boisterous bard himself. They writhed around in the air as more spikes shot into them like bullets before they finally relented and dropped Loudred to the ground in exchange for an uncertain retreat.

Pierce ran over to the Pokemon. The spikes that plagued his skin weren’t just for show. The big oaf he’d just saved barely skipped a beat before running straight into the ongoing scramble. Pierce could only hear a brief and rushed “thanks” as a reward for his service. In a way, this made him more motivated. He’d led and protected such a large group for so long, the moments where he knew he wasn’t alone in a fight were all the more comforting. He smiled and ran alongside the purple bard to join the other two with wiping away the wrath of the Heartless and their unsightly associates.

Slowly but surely, peace was eventually restored in the secluded rock. It was time for the four to rest and regroup, but the feeling of unease did not leave as they all laid exasperated. The metaphorical dark cloud continued to seep into their minds, it was hardly fair to call this a rest at all. On one hand, Cody and Loudred coped over the nightmarish new foes they just barely survived against by the skin of their teeth. On the other hand, Pierce and Bridgette ruffled and tore into themselves over the implications this unfortunate encounter had brought.

“So, uh, thanks again for saving me back there,” Loudred spoke to Pierce as he attempted to alleviate even a tiny bit of the tense air around them. “With those two busy, I thought I was a goner for sure.”

“No problem,” Pierce grumbled. He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration while his head just barely paid attention to Loudred’s words. “I heard from that Alakazam guy you three were going patrolling and I thought it’d be safer for me to tag along.” He slumped over in frustration. “Didn’t expect that nutjob to show up.”

“What is he doing here?” Bridgette startled the others with her sudden shrill query. “I thought we shook him off our trail weeks ago!”

“Well, obviously that didn’t last,” Pierce murmured in annoyance.

“Who even was that guy?” Cody asked uneasily.

“D’Void,” the Void veterans responded at once with the tone of both frustration and distress.

“He’s a maniac who treats this place like his playpen,” Pierce elaborated, his hands balled up into fists. “Those things that attacked you earlier? Those are the Guardians. Creatures that were supposed to help keep peace around here that he went and tamed and turned into his own little bloodhounds.”

Cody and Loudred looked at each other. They both noticed the behavior of the Heartless in that scuffle; how they blended in with these so-called Guardians so seamlessly. With everything that Pierce and the others have had to deal with, they felt reluctant to suggest the situation might even be worse than expected. But luckily, they didn’t need to be the bearer of bad news. Pierce had already pieced it together himself.

“Of course he went and found a way to control the Heartless too,” he threw his hands into the air. This was the least composed any of them, even Bridgette, had witnessed him. “You know, that explains so freaking much, I almost gotta laugh.”

“What do we do?” Bridgette asked. “He was searching for something. I don’t know what, but it’s gotta be either the camp or the parts.”

“I’ll tell you what we’re doing,” Pierce answered. His voice struggled to return to its cooler nature. “We’re getting out of here. Now.

“Wait, but,” Cody’s mouth was agape. “You said the ship wasn’t finished yet. That there might be a weight issue with how many of you there are.”

“It’s flyable. That’s all that matters right now.” His voice still had the trailing lull of desperation. The Pierce they’d met earlier wouldn’t have dared to suggest such a careless risk, but D’Void and his newfound Heartless alliance was a big enough swerve to completely toss all order off the rock.

“You,” he pointed to Loudred. “You’re big. Help me gather all of the parts and bring them back to the ship. And you two,” he pointed to Cody and Bridgette. “There’s only one left up ahead. It’s the backup engine which might be life or death for us now. You two bring that back, and make sure D’Void doesn’t find you.”

Him…and Bridgette?

Cody looked over to the surfer girl only for her to turn away sheepishly. He almost forgot amidst the Guardian-Heartless panic, but their botched conversation from earlier quickly returned to him. Loudred could sense the white flags he mentally waved, but Pierce had already sped away at that point, too focused on saving the entire colony’s asses to hear a single complaint.

Loudred quietly nudged over to his buddy and whispered to his ear. “Hey, are you gonna be alright on your own with her?”

He appreciated the thought, but Cody could’ve done without Loudred’s worry. His definition of whispering translated to the volume of a normal speaking voice. Bridgette eyed the two with both curiosity and chagrin over their exchange. His face turning beet red, Cody replied with haphazard “I’m fine”s as he hurriedly shuffled Loudred off.

With half of the group gone, it was just the two of them left; still slightly tired and still awkward over baggage that Cody forgot to leave behind on the island. In contrast to earlier when they chatted up a storm, relieved at each other’s presence, not a single word left either of them as they continued off on their way.

 

oOo

 

It couldn’t have been any more than half an hour, but the trek felt like eons. Step by step, pebble to pebble, the duo made their silent march without once looking at each other. Bridgette remained steadfast up front while Cody only gleaned a quick look at her on the occasion he needed to make sure he was indeed following her and not accidentally stumbling off.

This is my fault , he stared at the ground. I should have just let it go.

Why was he like this? The writing was already on the wall. He talked to people on Wawanakwa, but he was never really part of a “group”. He could feel the eyerolls and snickers behind him every time he tried his hardest at being a badass, but he would try just as hard to pretend they weren’t there. He wasn’t anywhere in that hidden cave hangout, nor did anyone care to tell him about it the entire time they resided there. He should’ve expected they would disparage him negatively behind his back. Why did he have to press on when he knew what the answer was? What was the point of confirming it to himself if he knew it would just make everything worse?

He took another look at Bridgette. Did he freak her out earlier? He doubted it. But he’d acted annoying just like he usually would. The least he could do was apologize to her. Why was something so simple so difficult to force himself to do?

Another plume of anxiety built up within him. He stared blankly at the ground with shaking fists. This dragged on and on before he finally had the courage to breath in and fervently blurt out…

“I’m really sorry about ear—”

“Hey, sorry about what I said back there.”

The two blinked. Right on cue, Bridgette had turned around to offer her own condolences just as he was ready to exchange his.

“Why are you sorry?” Cody asked, genuinely confused.

“...Why wouldn’t I be?” Bridgette was even more confused. “You looked all pale after all that. Of course I’d be feeling guilty about it.”

“Yeah, but,” he scrunched back timidly. “I’m also apologizing for being weird back on the island, you know?”

“This again?” She would’ve chuckled playfully, but she knew she was probably walking on a thin line with his emotions. “Hey, dude, it’s cool. Everyone does dumb stuff every now and then.”

“No, but,” he slapped his face in exasperation. “I go and do it all the time, not just ‘every now and then’. You said it yourself. I was straight up a stalker.

“Didn’t say you were. I already told you; some people called you that, but I never did.

“And, well, if it makes you feel better, Gwen never did either.”

Cody gave off a wry smirk as he slumped his head and gaze to the side. “I’m sure what she thought of me wasn’t much better.”

“I mean, she was part of the ‘little brother’ crowd. And from what she told me, she and her brother get along great. That must mean something at least.”

“Uh huh,” he nodded skeptically.

For crying out loud, ” He heard her groan. “ You really need to learn when to take a victory every once in a while.

Cody paused before hoisting his head around in search of the Phantom Gwen’s return. He wasn’t sure why, but the more he “encountered” her, the more he grew desperate to reach out to her. Maybe part of it was just for the simple confirmation he wanted that she really existed, that his mind wasn’t playing cruel games with him. And maybe part of it was because, as sad as it seemed, he’d grown accustomed to her presence. If she was a hallucination, she wasn’t one born out of his childish infatuation of her. She was just as sarcastic as the real Gwen was. Just as unafraid to speak her mind. Unafraid to tell Cody how she really felt without sugar coating it.

Maybe he was projecting onto this delusion as a sign that she was still out there somewhere. That once he found her, she would be just as she always was and not that ghostly image he saw fade away with his own eyes.

“...What the?”

Cody was snapped right back into reality. While he was off in his own world doing some spirit hunting, Bridgette had skipped on far ahead at an upcoming open field of rockbeds. And even further up ahead of her was a sizable piece of tech, all boxed into a square and shielded with a pale translucent glow. He would’ve assumed Bridgette was glad to have quickly found their assigned part, but the closer he got to seeing her face, the more he realized she’d already prepared herself for trouble.

“This thing should’ve been in the cave all the way up there,” she pondered.

If that was the case, it didn’t take a genius to understand what was going on. “It’s gotta be a trap,” Cody suggested. “That D’Void guy; think he set it up?”

“I don’t know,” Bridgette gritted her teeth nervously. Just their luck. They’re running short on time and were already having a code red moment. They needed that part now and here they were being prompted into a possible stealth mission.

She continued to scrunch her face around at the situation as she stretched out the tip of her naginata over to the guarded engine. This wasn’t an ideal maneuver, but they’d already been rushing before they got here. With each minute stretch, she gently slid her grip back further towards the opposite end of the pole until her hands just barely touched the sharper ends of the lower blade. She nudged her feet ever so carefully towards the engine and continued to stretch her body beyond her normal reach. Sweat trickled down her brow as she concentrated with all her might, lest her clumsiness cause yet another calamity to unfold.

With the power of her strained concentration, Bridgette finally scratched the tip of her weapon onto the engine’s outer shield.

And it turned out, the incoming calamity unfolded regardless of her successful prowl.

Gashing thorns erupted from the grounds, surrounded the engine, and trapped the naginata between its slits. Both Cody and Bridgette jumped in shock. Bridgette immediately began to prod the pole around in a fruitless attempt to break her weapon free. Under her breath, she kept cursing at herself at how awful an idea this makeshift mission wound up being.

Suddenly, an enormous mound  and a pair of thick tendrils emerged from below while the further half of the thorns caved in and encased the engine into a makeshift cage. Bridgette’s naginata became further tangled in this mess, and as the creature below lifted itself out from the deeper depths, Bridgette too was dragged up into the air.

Cody frantically grabbed ahold of her waist and pulled her back with all his might. Her grip continued to shackle around wildly. She was scared shitless at exactly what this creature was capable of. Of course, the only things their efforts led them towards were pitiful stances in the face of their new foe.

The garish body of the Parasite Cage had now fully surfaced. With its mouth acting as the safehold, its roaring screams instead came from its flailing hands that held the same terrifying faces as the Guardians.

The duo wasn’t caught in the parasite’s actual cage, yet they still fell for its deadly trap. Cody’s measly upper body strength was quickly giving out, and he too was lifted alongside Bridgette. There was ample time for both of them to let go and save themselves, but that window had closed. For now, they were too paralyzed in fear to think rationally as they dangled around like skewered fish ready for their demise.

The Parasite Cage’s monstrous claws came lunging right at them, ready to chow down on their meal raw. The duo’s response was a chaotic combination of defensive apprehension and last ditch efforts to get themselves together. Bridgette returned to wriggling her hands in all directions like her life depended on it. Cody meanwhile summoned out his Keyblade, completely uncertain how exactly he planned to defend either of them in the uncomfortable position they were in. As the arms grew ever closer, he could only pray to himself that one messy swing would be enough to knock them out.

The hands grew more gruesome with each inch and their mouth splashed around gross droplets of saliva from all their feverish chomping. They were ready to savor every last bite of their prey, but a single interference forced their grizzly drivel to get slammed into a choke.

Cody and Bridgette made passing cries as they fell back to the ground, the naginata now fully free from the parasite’s bars. Up ahead, the creature was catching its breath as the mouth of its cage moved ever so slightly from an unexpected strike. Its attacker stood with an ivy dagger neatly on hand, ready for the Heartless’s next move.

“Trent?!” Cody and Bridgette both gawked.

Trent made a quick over the shoulder glance as makeshift acknowledgement before skipping away from a furious slap that was ready to pulverize him. He landed himself alongside his two fellow former campers who continued to stare at him like he was an unexpected guest star of a show from another genre.

“What are you doing here?!” The two continued to blurt together like mental lemmings.

“Now’s really not the time to talk,” he replied. The two were so in shock, they couldn’t sense his tone that had the cadence of an eye roll. “Bridgette, head straight for the mouth and keep knocking at the cage.”

She snapped out of her amazement with confusion. “Uh, what?”

“Cody and I will take down the arms to distract it.”

Without another word or even a fleeting chance to allow his allies to realize he’d just handed them a plan, Trent was already off, targeting the parasite’s right arm. He diligently whacked the limb around, not even caring to give the two any other cue or signal. Cody and Bridgette could only look at each other with slanted mouths in place of shrugs before charging towards their designated stations.

For as threatening as it seemed, the Parasite Cage was easily caught in its own pitfall with the clean coordination of the trio. Its body was practically an object itself, so its movement was limited, only allowing itself to spin around in place. As long as the three kept to their assignments and continued to knock it senseless, there was nothing more the creature could do to fend itself.

Bridgette stabbed her naginata continuously into the bars and slowly chiseled through its mouth. Cracks formed, and its hands that had previously screeched in ferocity now wailed in agony. Just another snap and…

Two of the monster’s prison bar teeth cleanly chipped off. Just like any living being would react to a sudden toothache, the roof of its mouth burst and stretched like rubber as it took in the full brunt of its collapse. It was like the Parasite Cage was resigned to its fate. There were no more retaliations from its arms, no more attempts to hide its treasure away. The trio continued to slash and prod along with no remorse until the Heartless finally gave in and faded away in a fatal retreat.

The Parasite Cage was no more. In its place was a lone backup engine, two teenagers who were quick to begin celebrating their win, and one who just stood there silently.

Notes:

I gave in and actually rewatched a Null Void episode to check for accuracy and realized I remembered less about Ben 10 than I thought I did, lmao.

Chapter 23: The Null Void: An Empty Bond

Notes:

Man, I should've split this chapter in two. Whoops.

Chapter Text

“Heck yeah!!”

What was once the site of a battlefield was now the site of a rowdy celebration between two teenagers. Cody and Bridgette hooted and hollered, fully assured all threats were gone, and they excitedly exchanged high fives and impromptu victory handshakes like this experience just forged themselves as true comrades in arms.

Contrasted to them, Trent stood idly to the side. He had one of his signature soft smiles, but the expression did not reach his face. While his peers jumped around like kids at a playground, he observed with a blank stare. Perhaps he was looking on in boredom. Or he was mindlessly following the motions. Or maybe he was even expertly shielding his disdain. But no matter what it was he felt, his two companions were none the wiser. His smile, perfectly crafted after years of practice, could fool anyone. Apparently, it could even fool the only guy who should have been privy to the knowledge of what lay underneath.

Cody attempted to coax Trent into a high five, but the taller boy easily dodged away. It seemed playful at a glance, but when he proceeded to silently march on over to the engine without even a word, that was their first glaring sign.

It was Trent though! He’s a cool dude. He was probably just checking it out. No need to worry.

But something was off. Away from their open gazes, Trent’s face relaxed into a stone cold look. He fiddled around with the engine’s protective shield until he finally unlocked the passcode prompt. This was the moment Bridgette finally realized something was amiss. Why and how did he know how to activate it so easily?

“What are you doing?” She asked wearily.

“Got stranded here, “ he replied. “My ship crashed and I need to fix it up.”

His tone was much more flat and monotone than Bridgette was used to out of him. Like he didn’t think either of them deserved the effort for something more cordial. She started to grow uneasy, but Cody, who, again, should’ve known better, casually brushed it all aside.

“If you were gonna travel around after all, you should’ve tagged along with us back at Traverse Town,” he said with a foolish grin. “Come on. You can just hitchhike with me and guys.”

He’d rather die.

Trent’s little hacking venture was going nowhere, and like heck he was just going to up and ask Bridgette for the code. He made a fatal slip up. He could sense she was on to him.

Finally giving in, Trent stabbed his dagger straight towards the engine as he attempted to break down the shield by force. It took a while, embarrassingly so in Cody’s case, but the alarms had set off.

“What are you doing?!” Bridgette called him out. The shield certainly wasn’t going to give in to a mere dagger, but the act itself had set her off into a fit of outrage.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Trent answered with a gruff grunt. He had abandoned all pretenses at cloaking himself. “I’m trying to break this thing open.”

“Um, uh, Bridgette can just give you the code, you know.” Cody was in a state of denial over what he was witnessing. Trent was still on their side. He had to be. It was Trent.

“Like hell she would.”

“Like hell I would!”

Trent rolled his eyes before lunging in for another jab. If only he’d gotten here before these two annoyances. He was sure he could’ve taken the Parasite Cage all on his own. He landed another blow on the shield, again, failing to make actual progress, but still unleashing a level of ferocity that fueled both of said annoyances’ weary and ire.

“Hey!” Cody cried out. “Quit messing around. An entire colony of people are relying on that thing to get out alive.”

“And?”

…Huh?

“What do you mean ‘and’??” He gaped.

“There’s countless worlds and God knows how many people out there. The moment I get off this rock, there’s no reason for me to ever think of anyone else that was here ever again. We’ll never cross paths, we’ll never breath the same air, we’ll never be anywhere remotely near each other. Why should I waste any effort on them?”

Bridgette was frozen in shock. What did she just hear? And why did it come from Trent of all people? Cool, kind, and down-to-Earth Trent?

“What are you… An entire colony of people, Trent!!

“I’m not repeating myself.” He raised his head as he replied, giving the girl an off handed glare. It was the kind of airless look someone would give to a dying man that they purposely left alone in the streets. He meant it. Every cold and careless statement; he totally meant it.

Are you insane?!

Bridgette leapt over to the engine and attempted to shove and pry Trent away from his target. The two swatted at each other like they were just seconds away from launching into a violent street brawl, and all Cody could do was watch.

His mind was in a scramble, one even worse than the self pity party he threw himself before. He remembered the talk he and Trent had back on Wawanakwa. In a way, he even cherished it. He knew Trent was a bit off deep down. But even still, he was confident that he was still a good guy despite all of that. He had to be. Was he in denial this entire time? Did he not fully grasp what he’d been told?

He thought back to what he remembered during that faithful storm. Trent had lounged on to the edge of the cliff, acting cryptic and mumbling about throwing everything behind. He was washed away by the Heartless, and unlike Cody, he didn’t escape that plight with a Keyblade in hand.

Yet he had still somehow survived without the guidance of light.

That was the real him.

“Will you lay off?!” Bridgette was at her wit’s end, and pulled out her naginata as a last resort. Even after everything she’d heard, she didn’t want to hurt him. But at this point, her only real choice was to whack some sense to him. If he had any left at all.

She slung the pole around and landed a small scrape right on his shoulder. Cody could be heard in the background flailing his arms around in a futile attempt to de-escalate. And for right reason. This impulsive swipe was what broke the camel’s back. Trent was quick to retaliate and roughly elbowed her in response. She was sent stumbling away from the engine with just enough distance for the two of them to ready themselves for an actual tussle. Bridgette wasn’t sure if she needlessly landed herself in yet another disaster, but it was too late to take things back now.

“I really don’t like the idea of hitting a girl, you know.” Despite his groans, Trent shifted his blade’s edge away from the engine and towards her.

“You sure don’t look like you mean it.”

“As if you didn’t just try to slash me."

“Guys, guys, guys, let’s stop for a sec and take things down a no—”

It was almost adorable how deadset the young Keyblade wielder was at stopping the inevitable. The two charged right at each other before he even had the chance to finish. Even as their battle raged, Cody tried to act the role of the Voice of Reason. It took one definitive swipe to finally force him to accept reality.

Fucking shut up.

Trent was tired of his naivety long before he’d set forth in this wasteland. If he had it his way, he’d prefer if they never had to cross paths again. The more Cody frothed on and on about “peace” and “getting along”, the more he wanted to puke. Cody was the kind of guy to listen attentively to something only to turn around and reveal he got the exact opposite meaning of the conversation. As it turned out, everything the little nerd admitted about himself back on Wawanakwa was dead on. This idiot had no clue how to read the room.

Cody’s eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets. He just narrowly jumped away from a gruesome attempted dagger slash across his chest. In his head, he was perhaps still in denial. Like this whole ordeal was just an obstacle, and if he and Bridgette beat him now, this would all be an embarrassing anecdote they’d share with one another in the future. With each passing second though, those rose tinted assumptions faded away. Trent wasn’t just beefing with Bridgette. In fact, if Cody didn’t know better, it seemed he was trying much harder at hurting him than her.

He finally joined in on the battle proper. He offered so much grace and good faith to his “friend”, but the longer this all dragged on, the more he grew frustrated that he’d put so much unfounded trust in him. He hammered it in his head over and over again. The guy attacking them right now wasn’t the Trent he knew.

But did he ever really know Trent to begin with?

Cody and Bridgette were just about to shield off another hit from him when Pierce, the king of close calls, swooped right in out of nowhere to grab the rabid teen by the shoulder and whack his head into a daze. Having apparently just finished his ship part run with Loudred, he’d run back over to see what was taking the two so long only to find this mess in action. All the bad luck and timing just would not let go that day.

“Pierce!” The two called out in surprise.

“I’m not even going to ask what’s going on here,” he grumbled, making an immediate beeline for the unattended engine. “Forget about him. Things are getting bad back at the camp. Just help me get this thing out of here and go.”

“What do you mean ‘things are getting bad?” Bridgette asked on her way over. “What’s going on?”

Cody was ready to join them as well, but he was soon planted face first on to the ground. Trent had regained his senses fast enough to trip him like the petty little brat he was. Whether the dude was more focused on stealing away the engine or beating him down for whatever freaking reason, Cody knew he wouldn't be able to help with the fetch quest.

He rolled over in time to deflect another incoming slash to his face. Trent continued to fight back, towering over the grounded geek, but each attempt was thwarted with either a simple turn or block from that pesky Keyblade. With how fervently Trent retaliated, most likely further enraged by Pierce’s surprise pummel, Cody could only give apologetic glances up at his two allies. They’d have to carry on their mission without him for now. Bridgette was reluctant to leave him behind, but Pierce was the only one who knew the true gravity of what was up ahead and pushed for her to accept his sacrifice. With the two gone, it was time for things to really get personal.

Cody bounced right back on to his feet. He thrusted his Keyblade forward and managed to squeeze a knick on Trent’s left shoulder. His emotions had gone from confused to pleading to downright furious, and now that it was just the two of them, he was more than willing to let out all the frustration that had bubbled within him in this short span of time.

“What. The. Heck?! ” He screamed out. He wouldn’t be shocked if Bridgette and Pierce were able to hear him despite how fast they booked it. “What is your problem?! What did I even do to you?”

Trent swooped his dagger over without a word. Cody ducked and continued his interrogation.

“Did you, like, try to find the ship after we already left and you’re pissed about using up your own space-gas money?”

Another swoop. Another duck.

“Did you land on a really crappy world? Are you just letting out steam?”

Swoop. Duck.

“Are you angry I’m looking for Gwen or something? Dude, I swear, I’m not trying to steal her from you!”

There couldn’t have been worse statements for him to toss around. Trent’s moves were getting predictable, but he quickly made up for it with sheer speed. With all of his ducking and dodging, Cody would’ve exerted less energy if he just simply attacked. But at the very least, this little fit was helping him clue in on what exactly was this jackass’s deal.

“Are you seriously mad because you think I’m trying to find your girlfriend?” He was in disbelief. He couldn’t have been this childish, could he?

“Will you shut up?” Trent landed a kick on Cody’s side, forcing the frailer fighter to stagger.

“What do you want from me? I’m just trying to understand you,” he heaved a pained response.

What a damn liar, Trent thought to himself.

Trent launched an all out assault, but each and every hit was shielded by simple wrist flicks of the Keyblade. Cody was left to back away in a defensive position, yet it became clear that enough nerves had been struck in his opponent that Trent was no longer attacking in a rational manner. It was like being on the unfortunate end of a child’s tantrum.

“I already told you,” Cody regained his voice enough to let out a fit of outrage. “You can just join us if you want to search for her! What, are you mad she’d have other people to thank? You want to be the big Knight-in-Shining-Armor? What would that even matter at a time like this?”

The other boy sneered in response. The moron still wasn’t getting it. “Why would you think I wanted to join a pack of randos for wacky hijinks? You’re accusing me of being a ‘Knight’ wannabe? You just went and found the first group of weirdos you could find and you were off on your merry way.” He’d gotten so invested in his own rant, the fight actually crawled into a standstill while all his energy shifted over to his antagonizing voice. “What did you say back on the island?” If he wasn’t so devoid of joy all the time, he would’ve let out a mocking laugh. “That you’re always trying to force yourself to be somebody you know you aren’t? Do you think this situation is any different?”

…Wait.

He finally got it.

…Wow.

Wow.

“You’re…you’re kidding me, right?” Cody held back shocked laughter. He thought he himself had taken an embarrassing amount of stock from that beachside chat, but this was on another level.

Was…was he mad that the Cody of now didn’t match the one he said he was???

“You…you didn’t join us on the ship because you hate other people… A-are you seriously mad because I actually made friends?”

“Yeah, I’m sure those are some great friends of yours,” Trent replied with a sarcastic slant. “Someone as desperate as you really would just jump on to the first set of tryhards he could find, huh?”

Oh, so we’re in the pissing contest portion of this fight now, huh?

“Oh, shut up! I don’t wanna hear this from you…you…you stinking edgelord !” Cody wasn’t sure if Trent hit a sore spot with his words or if he was just put on edge in general by this exhausting exchange. Either way, any respect he had towards him just flew out the window.

At this point, they almost forgot they were in a serious battle of blades to begin with. Their spat devolved into a crude bout of insult slinging bordering an all out slapping match. So absorbed by their debate, they were practically face-to-face, pointing and barking at each other while their weapons were kept lazily to the side.

“If you’re so hung up on that stupid conversation, you wanna know what I got out of it? Freaking school shooter vibes, you fricking psycho!!”

“Oh, and were you supposed to come out looking good from that? You’re a leech. A parasite. An overgrown tapeworm!!”

“Ha! What are you, five? Is that the best you’ve got? I’ve got 15 years worth of name calling behind me. You’re gonna have to do better than that to get under my skin.”

And he did indeed proceed to throw out a string of awful expletives to get under the self professed professional bullying victim’s skin.

“H-how could you say that? You…you…!!”

BOOOOM!!

The duo jumped. As crazy as it was, their “fight” had gone absolutely nowhere, and the distant hum of an explosion was perhaps the merciful end they needed. They looked around before finally finding a far off sizzle of smoke. This meant absolutely nothing to Trent, but to Cody, it was a harsh return to reality. Something just happened back at the camp, and he allowed himself to get distracted by this nonsense in the meantime.

Seeing his newly forged nemesis now glazed over at whatever tragedy was going on beyond them, it too sank into Trent just how much time he’d wasted yelling and prodding at this nerd. How could he let himself get so distracted? He thought it himself earlier.

He’d be happy if he never had to see Cody’s face again.

Trent took this as his cue to finally storm off. The disgruntled Keybearer tried to reach out for him, but his arm fell limp.

Why should he bother?

His time was better spent elsewhere.

Like he’d just spat out a sour after taste, Cody made one last vengeful glare before taking his leave. The two boys, once a pair of seeds in a newly sprouted friendship, walked off in opposite ends. The seeds were dug up, dropped unceremoniously to the side, and silence finally spread as the curtains fell on their impromptu match.

 

oOo

 

Pierce was not kidding when he said the situation had worsened. The moment Cody stepped back into the campgrounds, he was inundated with the image of a maelstrom comparable to the pits of Hell. Flames erupted, the aftermath of that thunderous explosion earlier, and those dreaded Guardians circled around the crackling embers while they let out their demonic squalls. They were already terrifying beasts before, but their gangly forms were now dark and blackened, their bodies completely commandeered by the Heartless they’d allied with. These newly formed flying reapers kept bleating downwards towards the panicked civilians as they scraped their claws and opened the seams of their fanged faces into states of insatiable hunger.

Pierce and Bridgette were off doing their thing, commanding a motley group, the very folks who threw Cody and his crew that awful welcoming party much much earlier, and shuffling others towards safety to the best of their abilities.

Perhaps he just hadn’t expected things to have gone to shit this badly, but he was utterly stunned at the sight. His eyes darted around while he fully took in the charred and ravished scenery. A simple but dire mistake. The entrance of the Keybearer was the blaring signal for the Guardians that the best meal they could ever have had just mixed into the fray. A hefty cluster flew downwards and startled the poor guy further by their chalkboard scratching noises. He readied himself, and he knew he probably had a decent chance all on his own. But even then, after everything that happened in this shockingly short amount of time, he was happy to finally have a pack of familiar and reassuring faces behind his back.

“Couldn’t have gotten here sooner, huh?” Alakazam started off with his classic negging while he shot out Psybeams to the so called Guardians.

“Hey, cut him some slack. Whatever happened back there must’ve been big,” Loudred added on happily before he too responded to the screeching monsters with his own share of Screeches.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you!” A stray Guardian had snuck behind Al and Loudred’s combined forces, but Mokona popped in just in time to shield Cody with a pale red forcefield that sprouted out of his head. The creature bounced back in a startled daze, giving time for Cody to slink off and take it down on his own. One by one, the rogue crew fell, and Cody decided it was as good a time as any to run off to the two in charge.

Pierce and Bridgette had just finished off their own enemy set when the latecomer dashed over to their side. The duo were shielding Courtney, Duncan, and Red who were paralyzed. The whole True Cross ordeal was still fresh in their mind. They could barely comprehend they were tossed into another one even more nightmarish.

“What’s going on?” Cody yelled to the two defenders over the scorching shrills of their surroundings.

“What do you think?” Pierce sternly gestured far across the tarnished fields where a familiar man floated around with a cruel and mocking gaze.

The one known as D’Void gleaned his sickenly yellowed eyes at the group, the forces who seemed to have taken down most of his minions. Despite their might, he seemed unfazed by their threat. For all they knew, he may have planned this assault for a while now and knew he had more than enough fuel to burn through. If they weren’t going to be taken down by the strength of the Guardian Heartless, they would by fatigue.

“Why are you all so desperate to leave?” He chuckled. From both the chaos and distance, it was almost impossible for the group to be able to make out the madman’s words. But it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he had no intention of letting anyone out of his realm of tyranny.

The mere sight of him blew a fuse through Pierce’s head. He let out a cry of disdain and darted in D’Void’s direction. The others jumped at his outburst. Cody, Bridgette, and Loudred noticed it earlier, but D’Void’s very existence seemed to be the sole key to unlock his brasher side. Normally, they would’ve trusted him to lead even an army, but there was no telling what he would do in this state. At the end of the day, he was still an irrational teenager.

Cody and Bridgette gave each other knowing looks before quickly joining Pierce up front. Al, Loudred, and Mokona meanwhile were pulled back by the stressed tears and hysterics from Red, Courtney, and Duncan. Almost all of Pierce’s helpers already left the area, and with zero guidance from anyone who knew the camp’s evacuation protocol, the three were at a complete loss of what to do with them.

“You three know there’s an entire ship you can hide in, right?”

“Are you suggesting we run off on our own past these monsters without any protection? What kind of plan is that?”

“I’m really sorry, but we’re needed here.”

“Oh screw off with that crap!! Fork over that weird fucking rabbit so we at least get a shield.”

“Hahahahaha, that tickles. I can bite off your arm, you know. <3”

“G-g-g-guys, watch out!”

Red swung his arms frantically among the arguing fray and pointed to the trio up ahead who were sent flying right back at them just as fast as they left. The reserve group backed off at the nick of time and allowed Pierce and Bridgette to land gracefully on their feet. And Cody to land flat on his ass.

Something was wrong. They were mere inches from striking at D’Void when a spontaneous gust of wind propelled them all the way back. No. That couldn’t have been wind. It was like a field of energy. An ethereal blast that released something far worse than they’d anticipated.

The man who once floated around with coy confidence now writhed in frustration over what almost felt like an agonizing itch. Seams of black spread throughout his body like a foreign substance had infected his veins. The further they spread, the more he lost control. He fell to the ground with a face that was both defiant and full of horror over what he assumed would be the last few seconds of his life.

He was no longer a super powered villain. D’Void may as well have been a freshly prepared platter for the Heartless and Guardians he’d trained so meticulously. The roots within his body began to emit blurs of black soot. His former tools practically salivated over the metaphysical odor his waning form let out. They swarmed to him, more than eager to finally enjoy the most bountiful feast they’d seen in who knows how long. The screams were deafening under the slobbers and gnashing teeth and slop. Bridgette and Pierce struggled to look away. This man had been their arch nemesis and he met an end neither of them would’ve wanted to inflict on him.

It’s…just like that time .

Cody flashed back to that terrifying attack on the hotel back in Traverse Town. He could still remember the poor bellboy and his fate. He could remember the screams of agony, the way he fought and exerted all of his remaining energy just for the chance to live even a few seconds more, the way he was consumed and gone just as soon as he was there. Those images were embedded in him. They were sure to haunt him for the rest of his days. And here he just witnessed it all again before his very eyes.

There was one more thing. The last step to the bellboy’s demise.

“Guys, brace yourselves.”

D’Void’s voice had long shriveled and faded off. The Heartless slowly snuck away, their eyes and mouths already spread off in search of their next victim. In their place was his corpse. Or at least what could’ve been considered his corpse. Completely mangled and repurposed, D’Void’s gray toned body had been hideously morphed into what almost appeared to be a glass jar. His rugged cape had shifted into the visage of crudely angelic wings, and the classic Heartless emblem shined sinisterly where his baleful face once was. This wasn’t truly D’Void’s corpse. It was his ghost, raring to continue to unleash the same fright and terror he’d wrought during his life. It was a new being altogether named Angel Star.

“What am I looking at?” Pierce breathed cautiously.

The angelic bottle floated around idly as it took in its surroundings and realized its newly completed self. Then, like it just recalled its last actions when it was the being known as D'Void, the Angel Star spun its way towards the group, swinging its wings like perilous knives. Bridgette ran up and punted the Angel off course, but her actions seemed to only fuel its momentum. While it kept trailing back again and again, each of the group’s fighters took turns against it, but none of them were able to truly do harm.

Pierce glanced over at the loads among them. Courtney and Red held on to each other for their dear lives and backed away each time the Angel Star returned. Duncan, meanwhile, stood about in a frail fighting stance; all for show with the inner knowledge that he sure as heck was not going to be able to do a thing to it if the ones with actual weapons and powers couldn’t. In fact, if any one of them were to have a serious chance of taking it down, he, his girlfriend, and their little demon friend—the distractions— would have to be far, far away.

Pierce looked around again. There had to be some sort of safety route. His men managed to take down much of the initial Heartless and Guardian assault, but even with their ringleader gone, more progressively came in to take their place. It’d be risky shuffling them off now, but it’d be even riskier later if they waited.

!!

There was something up in the sky. A tiny scarlet ringlet began to take form.

It was now or never.

“Bridgette,” he called on her. “Take those three to the ship and get it started now. ” He pointed urgently at the spot where the portal grew. “We’re getting out of here.”

“But,” she gulped. “The ship’s not finished yet. We’re not going to be able to take all these people. The engines can’t handle it.”

“Do you think we have a choice? Go, now!”

“Pierce, maybe we can—”

“Oh, for crying out loud!!”

Courtney leapt to her feet. Enough fear had built up in her that it all circled back to frustration. “If you’re not going, I am!

Without any real rhyme or reason, Courtney darted off in a random direction with Duncan following after her. Bridgette’s jaw dropped. What the heck were those two thinking?

“You-you’re not even going in the right way!”

Bridgette grabbed hold of a terrified Red, the only one of the three who had stayed behind, and attempted to follow the duo’s tracks.

“Hey, hold on!” Loudred went after her with Mokona bouncing along atop his head. “We’ll take Red back, you focus on those two!”

Pierce grit his teeth. Sure, they had all the space they needed now, but they were also down half of their team. Though perhaps what they had now was more than enough to finish the job.

Pierce was ready to throw out orders, but Cody already beat him to it. He charged right at the spinning Angel top and proceeded to copy its technique and circled around it himself. It was like the battle against Kurt Zisa back in True Cross. Those nasty wings were nothing more than cover for the creature’s wide open Achilles Heel. He slashed his Keyblade about and smashed them right at the thick feathers. If he just hit hard enough, he could break down its barrier.

The Angel Star saw right through this gambit. At just the right moment, it thrusted its body to the side, slamming Cody across the rocky terrain. Alakazam and Pierce already figured out what exactly their ally was doing, and it would only be a matter of time before the trio ganged up on it in a three way pile on. It was time to take away their chance altogether.

It lifted its wings, just barely dented from Cody’s assault, and flapped itself far above the rest. A faint gleam, neither bright nor dark, began to glow from within. And after a quick flick, it all came spewing out from the tip of its head like a sparkler of deadly miasma. The unknown substance tore into the boulders it rained upon, eating them away like acid. In the scene of flames and squawking hellspawns, it was the true angel of death bringing upon this dying rock’s end.

Pierce and Al, who were caught completely off guard, attempted to shield themselves from the color defying lava, but instead found themselves running like idiots as each of their potential hiding places melted away, one by one. A blot nearly beat down upon them, but was thwarted by a psychic force field that Al conjured up at the very last second. The poor Pokemon was practically ready to collapse on the spot over his pure relief that his shield was able to withstand whatever the heck this awful flying goop was. He knew if he lost a single ounce of focus, that’d be it for them.

But what about their third fighter? The Keybearer? He was still out in the open, completely vulnerable to the acidic storm. Al and Pierce desperately looked around, fully expecting to see Cody’s lacerated body being chiseled and consumed. Instead, they were shocked to see him perfectly fine and hopping around as he slowly maneuvered his way past the raindrops.

After much effort, he stumbled his way right below Angel Star. It was the sole dry spot not a single drip could reach. He took a deep breath, jumped, and tossed his keyblade upwards only for it to clunk back on to his head. The darn thing was just too high up.

“Hey,” Pierce nudged over to Al. “Let me out of here for a second.”

“What? Are you nuts?” Al had a double take.

Pierce pointed over at Cody who was still trying and failing to nail his weapon at the Heartless from below. “If we let him keep going, he’ll just pull a muscle. Come on. I’ve got a plan.”

“I don’t know…”

“Just let it down for a second. Literally just one.”

After a pause, Alakazam finally relented to Pierce’s request. Exactly to a tee. The barrier barely trickled out a defined opening before he zipped it right back up. Still, it was just enough time for him to enact his plan. Pierce snapped a spike from right off of his arm and tossed it with all his might towards the angel. With a single shot, the thorn cracked right into its glassy body, forcing it to doddle about as it tried to prevent the fractures from spreading.

It continued to spew out its poisonous concoction, but with its injury, it could only do so much. The Angel Star descended ever so slightly, completely unaware of the threat below it. Cody gave a firm smirk before he finally landed a solid uppercut to the jar’s base. Shards shattered through the air only to fade away into sparkling specks. Angel Star had fallen.

Al and Pierce ran over, relieved to see that the worst of their troubles were finally over. Despite that, very little actually changed. Their star was gone, but the Guardians and Heartless still fluttered about with no end in sight. The portal widened, but the ship was still grounded. Their enemies had more than enough time to figure out where the evacuees fled. Soon, they’d be taking down their one escape route, and then there’d be nothing left for them.

They decided to retreat for now. The best they could do would be to figure something out, anything to get that thing started.

“...Hey, don’t move too much. It might make it worse.”

A familiar trio was huddled under one of the few remaining cliff covers in the area. Bridgette appeared to be tending over Courtney’s wounds while Duncan stood on guard; once again shaking under his brave front with all the self awareness this was all just for show.

“Hey, Bridge.” Bridgette jolted as Cody carefully tapped her back. “What happened?”

“Loudred and Mokona took Red to the ship,” she sighed. “I ran literally everywhere looking for these two. That freaky acid storm happened and Courtney wound up tripping trying to escape.”

The girl bit her lip at the mention of her name with a look of guilt in her side glance. Though knowing her, they doubted she’d be willing to give a proper apology for the trouble.

There was a silent mutual agreement that they all needed to head to the ship. But there was also an obvious tint of dread. Hiding in that thing would only do so much. That portal wasn’t going to stay there forever. And if everyone was stuck in there, the colony would be easy pickings once the Guardians sniffed them all out.

If only the stupid engines could work.

…Cody saw something in the corner of his eye. While Duncan continued to futilely stand watch, he’d taken to swinging around a scarlet red pendant. The sheen of the gem drilled into him. He didn’t think twice about it before, but what was that thing? It wasn't a ruby. It didn’t exactly look like any regular old gem to be honest.

“Hey, Duncan,” Cody said, earning an uncharacteristic yelp from the quivering punk. “What do you have there?”

“What? Huh? Nothing. You wanna fight?” Duncan hurriedly snuck the necklace behind his back as he spouted out defensively.

“Duncan,” Courtney groaned. She was so tired, all of the shadiness she was ready to flaunt around was taken over by annoyed resignation. “Just hand it over…It’s the necklace we stole back in True Cross. You already saw it back on the ship.”

“What the heck?” Pierce gasped. He snatched the necklace away from Duncan in an instant. This wasn’t an ordinary gem. In fact, it wasn’t even a gem. “This…this is a Gummi Block.”

Like our ship? Cody thought in surprise. “Is that good?”

“Yes, this thing is meant for engine expansion. It’s exactly what we need!”

SCCCRRRRREEEEEEEEEE!!

The group bounced (or in Duncan’s case, fled deeper into the cliff crevasse to cower). The Guardian Heartless were ramping up. They were cutting it close, but now there was a chance.

“Alright,” Pierce straightened his back. After all the stress that happened today, he finally regained that steadfast demeanor of his. “All of you, scram. I’ll stay back and distract these things.”

With that, he tossed the necklace over to Bridgette before making his leave. Left baffled and concerned, she tried to call out to him. After everything that happened, she was certain this was the last time any one of them would see him. But he left so boldly, so sure of himself. In a way, there was no better way for them to finally make their goodbyes.

With the baton passed over to her, Bridgette diligently shuffled Courtney and Duncan over to the massive colony ship. And as for Cody and Al, their ride was here to pick them up. Loudred and Mokona waved to the two excitedly from within the newly arrived Gummi Ship. Both were understandably more than eager to get the heck out of here as soon as possible.

After the two hopped on, Cody immediately ran up to the dashboard and urged Loudred forward. “They need time to fix up their engine. We gotta clear the air for them.”

“Uhh, sure, but you think we can handle it, kid?”

Loudred motioned their eyes to the front window where, before their very eyes, they could see just how bad the skies had gotten. Swarms of Guardian Heartless with numbers comparable to the escaping colony itself invaded every inch of the eye, the ashes from the raging flames were unfurled into blinding chunks, and, worst of all, the portal was past its peak.

Their window was closing right before them.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Al interrupted their collective gawking to grab ahold of Mokona like he was fetching a misplaced tool. “Start it up already!”

“Roger that!”

They zoomed upwards towards the desolate starscape, and Al rushed on over to the ship’s door, ignoring all safety cautions to stick Mokona out and use him as a makeshift laser beam. They managed to regain a respectable amount of flight space by the time the colony craft finally made its way to the air. But the Guardians remained ruthless and the portal was shrinking by the second.

With Al and Mokona acting as offense and Loudred steering the way, Cody was left with nothing but private hyperventilation time. We’re not gonna make it , he kept thinking to himself. It’s gotten so small. We’re not gonna make it. We’re not gonna make it. We’re not…

…Huh?

It was a testament to his experience as a Keybearer that he was able to make it out. As the portal began to deplete into nothing but a mere pothole, he realized it was never a circlet to begin with.

It was the shape of a Keyhole.

He smiled wryly with his face full of sweat. They did it. They made it out.

He tilted his Keyblade to the front window and lined it up with the seal. A shroud of white burst right through and filled up the spectral wasteland with the most light that would ever set forth in it. Soon enough, there was no more Gummi Ship. No more colony, no more Heartless, Guardians, flames. Just the echoing quiet of the eternal Null Void.

… Pierce smiled as he gazed up where his friends and crew had finally broken free. After everything they’d all been through, his efforts finally paid off.

And for now, there was just one last strand to address.

“You can come out now.”

Trent stubbornly drudged away from the nearby rock pile he’d hid behind.

“So,” Pierce turned over to him with a stern face of sincerity. “You need to fix your ship too, right?

“Well, we might be stuck here for a bit, so I might as well help.”

Trent did not respond.

A spiral of dark energy appeared before the sullen teen. It was the very thing he tried his best to avoid, but he now welcomed it with open arms. Never once acknowledging Pierce’s words, Trent silently set foot into the peculiar gateway and disappeared out of sight.

Pierce was truly on his own now, but he wasn’t particularly shocked or disappointed. All he could do was shrug and continue on forward. There was no use dwelling over it.

Trent had made his choice.

Chapter 24: Traverse Town: Rest and Deprecation

Notes:

Fun Fact: 95% of this fic is written in a sleep deprived stream of concious between 2:30 and 5:30 in the morning. Sometimes it's written between 6 and 7:30 in the morning.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

If only they took blackmail pictures of the Traverse Town folks’ faces.

When Cody and his friends slammed open the doors to Cid’s shop, the town’s defenders had expected to hear about another horror story of the gang's near death space transit adventures. Instead, they had a group of guys sheepishly asking around for the largest possible landing space in the city. Everyone was perplexed. And even when they marched outside to witness the gargantuan ship hovering idly above the town square, they still had mountains of questions that needed to be answered.

There was no way that thing could even remotely fit in town, and they had to painstakingly clear out an open field in what little outskirts there were in the world. It took what seemed like the entire day for them to finally give Bridgette the Go to land. If something like this ever came by again, they certainly wouldn’t be able to have the space for it.

Now, the square bustled with newcomers at every corner. Nearby businesses had to let swaths of refugees come in and loiter just so there wouldn’t be a risk of overcrowding. The poor welcoming committee, Tidus and the newly inducted Katie and Sadie, were tossed left and right as they scrambled to get everyone’s names and info prepped for lodging. During the moments Tidus had time to report back to Leon and the others, he gave them carefully worded hints that he didn't appreciate the lack of assistance. But with how they just stood there, stunned and wide eyed, he doubted they were able to pick any of it up.

“Bridge!”

“Geoff!”

The party boy and the surfer girl ran up to each other tearfully. They embraced right at the center of the square; an almost picturesque and romantic scene that was spoiled by how intensely determined they were to make up for lost makeout session time. Even with the crowding issues, it seemed everyone was able to take the hint and make sure the reunited couple had enough space to themselves. None of it was out of respect.

“This…is a lot of people,” Aerith noted in flat staggerment. Similar comments were tossed around between her, Yuffie, and Leon throughout this ordeal, but their astonishment prevented any of those statements from evolving further.

“And it’s all thanks to us!!” The familiar high pitched squeal of a certain rabbit thing pierced through the air.

The three finally snapped out of their dazed funk. The dudes of the hour approached them, each with faces of glee. Their smiles were crooked, stances were overconfident, and their overall energy practically begged for recognition of their unexpected accomplishment. Even Alakazam, who they assumed would’ve tried to keep a more coolheaded air, shyly tilted his head to the side with his eyes lined up in the space between the three and nowhere so he'd be ready to pounce at the off chance of any compliments coming his way.

“What did you guys do?” Leon could tell what their game was, but there was still no denying whatever happened must’ve been big.

“Oh, we landed in this weird world that was imploding on itself,” Loudred laughed in response. He reached behind him to give himself a good pat on the back. The self gratitude was completely uncharacteristic of him. The high of the whole affair must’ve swept his senses away. “They needed a new place to stay, so we thought, ‘What better place than Traverse Town?’”

“We saved everyone! Everyone!!” Mokona began to perform an excited tap dance.

“Uh…guys, it wasn’t everyone.”

That was the end of their gloatfest. The moment Cody awkwardly butted in with his correction, silence fell.

“We…missed a person. Remember?”

Technically, we missed two…

Yuffie ruffled her brows. It wasn’t apparent at first, but Cody seemed a little off since the moment they arrived. They were used to him being unbearingly cocky, so they were none the wiser when they saw him carry himself like he always did. But now that things had ground to a halt, she now saw just how exhausted he looked compared to the others. His smile hung on only by a thread. Creases had formed all around his cheeks and forehead. Dark circles tainted the slits of his eyes. However long it took for them to get here, he obviously spent none of it resting.

“Hey, um,” Al quietly interrupted. “If it’s alright, could you tell Tidus to leave a hotel room empty for us? I think it might be a good idea for us to rest for a bit.”

Leon opened his mouth but failed to let anything out. Normally, he’d chide the four and tell them to get their butts back out there as soon as possible, but even he could tell the mood had shifted dramatically. He was at a complete loss of words and could only rely on a gentle push on the shoulder from Aerith to reign himself back.

“Uh, yeah. Sure. We’ll do that.”

With nothing but wordless nods, the four quietly broke off, signaling the start of their own personal mini vacations. Mokona hopped right into Aerith’s arms as he fully expected her to escort him to his precious master, Yuuko. Al and Loudred wandered off towards the shopping district and bickered amongst themselves as per usual. And Cody was left to walk around idly on his own. He entertained the idea of finding some of the other ex-campers to fool around with, but it just didn’t feel right. In the end, none of them really knew him. And he didn’t really know any of them. Any hang out that could be had would just result in him fading into the background.

With that in mind, Cody continued to walk off towards nowhere in particular. Just him and his thoughts. His horrid, wretched thoughts. Just like that time in the woods.

Just like that time in that cave.

 

oOo

 

Part of him hoped he’d bump into one of the Traverse Town citizens. Maybe he would’ve seen Leon swinging around his Gunblade or Aerith off delivering Mokona to the close but far shop of wishes. But part of him has also hoped he’d be lucky enough to be there at just the right time when everything was dead silent except for the trickles of the flowing stream.

And, well, he was.

Cody had arrived at the hidden waterway. He took a seat on the hard ground of rocks and concrete, and mindlessly flung pebbles into the makeshift river. The goal was to make them skip—that really cool thing people like to do when they’re feeling broody—but each attempt was met with a dull plop and sink.

It was funny. He hated being alone. It always served as a reminder of how sad of a life he lived. But now, he couldn’t really bear to face anyone else. No one really wanted him around. Or if they gave him a chance, he’d just find some godawful way to mess it all up. Just like how he messed it up with Bridgette back at the Null Void. Or with Gwen back on the island. Or with Trent.

A stalker. That’s what they thought of him.

An annoying tag-along.

A naive kid, so desperate for attention, he’d jump at the first person who’d give him the time of day.

Some weirdo out to steal another dude’s girlfriend.

The whole emo-gloomy schtick so does not suit you.

He didn’t even need to turn his head over to know what was happening. The delusion was back. Behind her sarcasm, he could feel she was trying her best to lift up his spirits in her own little way. Would the actual Gwen even do that? He doubted it.

You’re doing that again. For crying out loud, learn to give yourself some kind of credit.”

Now that was wishful thinking.

He tossed in yet another pebble and got the same result. A slow sink to the bottom.

“You can’t just use any other rock. You need to find the flat ones.”

Cody jumped. A ninja had zoomed right in from under his nose. He should’ve expected someone to walk in here eventually, but the break from his brainworms was just so abrupt.

“I have been using the flat ones though,” Cody replied.

“No, I mean, like, really flat,” Yuffie emphasized. She picked up her own stone and effortlessly sent it off skipping cleanly across the bend and all the way to the pavements on the opposite end.

Cody dug into a nearby bed of rocks, hoping to seek out the smoothest stone he could find. Every throw of his produced the same results, and it took until what felt like over three dozen attempts before he finally managed to match Yuffie’s length. He rewarded himself with a small fist pump. A win was a win after all.

Yuffie bent over to meet Cody’s eyes. “Well, look at Mr. Mopey here, finally smiling for realsies.”

Embarrassed at just how outward his sad fit was, Cody tried to brush her aside. “What do you want, Yuffie?”

“Gonna be frank. I’m hungry, and you look like garbage.” She grasped his hand. “So I’m taking you somewhere nice.”

She ignored all his protests and dragged him along halfway through the city into a district neither he nor his groupies had ever ventured in. The buildings were plastered with almost as much graffiti as there were in the hideout. It didn’t exactly look like a seedy side of town, but it did have a peculiar air around it. Cody’s demands to know where they were headed were tossed just as easily as were his objections to follow. He’d no choice but to remain quiet as she led them down a flight of stairs situated below a gaudy bright sign they ran past too quickly for him to make out.

He was wary at first, but as they made it past the final step, his eyes trailed off like he was a kid in a candy store. What was hidden down below was some sort of restaurant-theme park hybrid that was reflective of the noisy sign they ran under earlier. Patrons happily lapped up the most mouthwatering junk food he’d ever seen while they hooted and hollered along to the talent show presented at the center stage. Surrounding everything else, colorful arcade cabinets—an impressive chronicle of game development from countless galaxies—were lined up in seemingly endless rows, and the cheers from passengers of various miniature thrill rides echoed about. He was still mesmerized as Yuffie forced him to their seats. She sent the feline waiter off with a vague order of “the usual”, and grinned expectantly at the awestruck lad.

“Pretty cool, huh? We’re in the entertainment district if you couldn’t tell. All the artists in the worlds all gathered in one place and made the coolest hangout ever. You haven’t had real fun until you’re spent a day at The Golden Saucer.” She stretched her arms out excitedly. “We all come here to relax every now and then. Well, except Leon. He hates this place.”

Cody choked out a small chuckle. “So this place is okay enough for Cid and Gema, but not Leon?”

“Right? What a loser.”

The two shared another round of laughter before stern silence soon fell upon them. Yuffie brought him here for a reason. It was time to shift gears.

“Alright, I won’t beat around the bush.” She rested her elbows on the table and sat her head atop her hands. “What’s got you down?”

Cody blinked. “What? N-nothing. Nothing’s got me down. I’m fine.”

“Doesn’t sound like it. Or look like it. Seriously, dude. You look awful.”

“I mean it. Everything’s okay.”

“Something happened in another world. What’s up?”

Cody relented. She wasn’t going to stop pushing this anytime soon. “Yeah.” He slumped against the seat, his back skidding down ever so slightly. “Found two friends from my world. Well, an acquaintance and…” What the hell even was his and Trent’s relationship now?

“Bad meeting then? Anything you want to talk about?”

“...Hey.” He stared up at the ceiling. “I want you to be honest with me. What was your first impression of me?”

She bit her lip. “Wellllll…”

“A dweeb, right?” He looked over at her guilty face. “Your words exactly.”

“Well, you got me,” she shrugged.

“I just…” Cody slunk himself further. "I know it probably doesn’t matter almost a whole month in, but this was a mistake. Why did the Keyblade choose me?”

“Well you’re right that we’re way too far in for you to be worrying about this now,” she sighed. “It chose you because it saw something in you.”

“But what?!” He straightened himself back into a normal sitting position and smacked his palms on to the table. “Look,” he moved one palm over his eyes. “I gotta come clean here.

“One of those friends I’m looking for? Her name's Gwen. I had a massive crush on her. Made a fool of myself and tried to hook up with her, annoyed the heck out of her, said and did some things I really shouldn’t have. Got the hint way too late.

“Like, yeah, I helped her and her boyfriend hook up…” He momentarily thought about bringing up how big of a red flag said boyfriend wound up being, but that wasn’t important right now. “But she wasn’t my friend. She’d probably kick me in the nuts if she knew I called her my friend.

“And look at me now. I’m just flying across the galaxy trying to save someone who’ll probably scowl at me when I see her again. I don’t even think this is stalking? What is this even? I’m just playing hero here, right?

“It’s like, my whole life, I was looking for this chance to make a name for myself. I don’t actually care about saving anything. I just want all the perks of it. This thing is supposed to pick people ‘pure of heart’ or whatever, right? Then why did it pick someone like me?”

The waiter returned with a monstrously massive bucket of fries. He placed it down on the center of the table and drizzled a plethora of condiments over everything before slipping off. The still beating heat mixed with the aroma of the freshly cut spices and the medley of juices and grease into a hypnotizing aroma. This thing was an artery clog waiting to happen, but damn if it wouldn’t be the most satisfying health hazard one could suffer through.

Yuffie let out a loud “Finally!” and threw her hands barbarically into the bucket. The intense heat didn’t seem to faze her at all as she stuffed her cheeks silly with entire fistfuls of fries. One could scarcely believe that someone as petite as her was even capable of consuming even a fraction of this “meal”, yet this wouldn’t even be her first time.

Cody sat there stunned and stone faced. He wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or relieved that this bucket of fat halted this entire conversation. Either way, his stomach begged and pleaded the moment he laid eyes on it. He’d barely eaten since he left the Void, and seeing Yuffie the way she was now, he was confident he’d turn into a similar feral state in seconds. He carefully reached into the bucket for a clump only to have the entire thing rudely pulled away from under his nose.

“Nuh uh,” Yuffie wagged her finger disapprovingly. “None for you yet.”

“Yuffie, come on. I’m starving.”

“Not until you say you’re the Keybearer.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’m the Keybearer.”

“That's the best you’ve got? Do it again.”

“I’m the Keybearer.”

“Louder.”

“I’m the Keybearer!”

“Louder!”

“I’m the Keybearer!!”

Louder like you mean it!!

“For crying out loud, I’M THE FREAKING KEYBEARER!!

“Now that’s more like it!”

She slapped the bucket far across the table where it landed neatly onto Cody’s lap. He yelped. The heat was still too much. He violently slammed the near burning container back onto the tabletop, but his hands still fell victim to the seething metal surface. It didn’t matter though. Not while his stomach was still busy trying to break free. With his tarnished hands, he scooped up whole balls of fries in quick succession and chomped them down like an assembly line.

“...You know,” Yuffie started. “After you guys left that first time around, Leon, Aeri, and I had a bit of a gameplan meeting. It kind of turned into a Cody dunkfest though.” She giggled. “But during all that, Aerith said some things. And I’m starting to agree.

“I don’t think the Keyblade goes and looks at things all black and white. Good people can do bad things and bad people can do good. If it went looking for absolutes, suddenly, we’d end up with no Keybearer at all.”

“Yeah, but in that case, everyone might as well get one, right?” He rolled his eyes. “What’s the point then? An even scale just means I’m a nobody.”

He started to reach for another fry, but was swatted off by Yuffie’s outstretched hand. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Gonna hammer it in you until you get it,” she huffed. “Everyone makes mistakes. Some small, some big. What matters is how you carry on afterwards. That’s what it saw in you. Look past your dumb horny teenager crap and…well...” She grinned encouragingly. “There’s a whole ship of refugees here because of you. I think that speaks for itself.”

“I guess…” He resumed his chair sink, still not quite convinced.

“You were the one who forced us to save Pichu, weren’t you?”

Cody jumped straight back up in his seat. His three companions, Al, Loudred, and Mokona, had strolled over to the table seemingly out of nowhere.

“We had an entire yelling match back at the guild place over it, remember?” Al said gruffly. “I wouldn’t say you managed to convince me back then, but…it was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Mokona yipped cheerily. “And remember when we all kicked that flying lizard thing’s butt after that meanie, Seth, kicked us out at Smash Stadium?”

True, he thought to himself. He even remembered saving Cloud’s life at the skin of his teeth.

“And even Rin and Sonic thought you were pretty convincing with how they trusted you to save Shiemi and Amy,” Loudred added.

Cody stared at his lap. His friends were trying their best—and doing quite well to be fair—to hype up his list of heroics. But there was still something in him that kept pushing him down. Something that was convincing him that no matter how much good he did, he didn’t deserve any of the praise simply because it was him who did it.

“What are you three doing here?” He asked.

“Sorry,” Yuffie shrugged. “You looked down in the dumps, so I planted them here. At this point, they definitely know you better than I do after all.”

“We waited here for over an hour,” Al sighed in exasperation.

“Well, at least the kid had fun in the meantime,” Loudred responded positively while Mokona raved about all the arcade tickets he’d racked up in the background.

Even with how depressed he was, Cody couldn’t help but smile. Yuffie made the right call. After everything the four had been through, he’d grown accustomed to their antics. Calmed by it even. In his head, he still thought of himself as an outsider who belonged nowhere, but…

When he was with these guys, he felt a soft lingering in his heart that felt at home. Like maybe there really was a place for him out there.

“Hey,” Yuffie directed his attention back at her. “If that Gwen girl really hates you like you think she does, rescue her first and let her punch you in the gut. Part ways and never speak to her ever again if you have to. But…” She smiled warmly with the same sense of friendliness and camaraderie that Cody got from his crew. “...Just focus on saving her. Because you’re the Keybearer. And even if you weren’t, you’d probably try to save her anyway.”

…It was true.

In the end, he really was the Keybearer.

“You hear that? Now’s not the time for you to act all gloomy,” Loudred heartily trapped Cody into a headlock, and proceeded to playfully ruffle his hair. “Look at where we’re at! Hurry up and stuff yourself silly so we can force Al to go on a coaster.”

“No, no, NO, we are not doing that!!”

The two Pokemon launched into their typical back-and-forth bickering, freeing Cody from Loudred’s arms. Al mouthed off as he usually did; a trait of his that once felt so antagonizing, but now seemed almost affectionate. Loudred was his usual cheerful and good natured self despite the ribbing. It was something about him that Cody appreciated. He was like a constant he could always rely on even when things went wrong. And there was Mokona who loudly boasted about his arcade ventures as he urged the two to accompany him to the prize corner. Cody wasn’t sure what to make of the creature at first, but now he had the same attachment to him as one would to a baby brother. And then there was Yuffie. And Aerith and Cid, Dejiko, Puchiko, and Gema. All the new people he’d met and befriended in all these different worlds. Heck, even Leon. To think barely even a month ago, all he had was himself. Maybe the tiny shred of doubt within him that insisted he didn’t deserve any of this would never truly go away, but he had them all here with him now, and he couldn’t be more grateful.

The rest of the night, and the day afterwards in fact, were some of the rowdiest moments he’d had in recent memory. The four and Yuffie, and even Aerith during the second day, explored every inch of the Golden Saucer. They rode every ride twice, stuffed themselves with unfathomable ounces of greasy heart attack fuel, and sampled as many arcade screens as they could before their eyes started to grow numb. They clapped and laughed along to each act that took on the park’s stage. Cody even had the pleasure of witnessing his friends’ gawking faces when Harold and Leshawna made surprise appearances as a beatboxing duo. All the pent up anxieties that had built inside him ages before he made his first steps in this journey slowly washed away. And in the corner of his mind he could sense that faint ghost of a voice— her voice—cheering him on.

 

oOo

 

After two whole painstaking days, the situation at Traverse Town’s town square had finally settled. Every new resident was given proper living quarters. Most found themselves new houses and flats. Some took permanent residence in hotel rooms. Some chose to stay in the ship to help refurbish it into yet another apartment complex. Whatever path they wound up in, the absolute headache involved in registering each and every one of them was over.

Tidus sat collapsed on a bench, legs spread, and arms sprawled lazily behind. He was so out of it, he could barely bring himself to nudge off the equally sleep deprived Katie and Sadie who’d decided to treat his legs as headrests. He groggily aimed his eyes across the square where Leon looked over three of the new residents. This entire ordeal, that douche did the absolute bare minimum to assist, and Tidus couldn’t help but hope his vengeful glare could land a punch on him all on its own. Then again, Leon at least had to have enough sense to bring in three new helpers into the Welcoming Committee. He could only hope that those three new recruits would help bring the load off of him, especially with how much more crowded the town grew day after day.

Unknown to Tidus, Leon was in his own separate state of ire. He was warned in advance about two of the new residents and the poor behavior they displayed in the initial world they landed on. Rather than simply plopping them straight into probation, he figured their presence would be better spent doing community service. But as he stared at Duncan and Courtney, both seated angrily in front of him with eyes of defiance, he realized that was better said than done. He knew both their types too well. Duncan was the kind of teenage boy who would do the exact opposite of what anyone at least five years older than him suggested just because he could. And Courtney was the kind of girl who would find even the tiniest flaw within every order just so she could slowly usurp her way to the top by showing how much smarter she was.

It was like staring at a pair of mirrors, and he hated just how much Aerith and Cid made fun of him about it yesterday.

“Well, I’m glad it was useful at least,” Courtney mumbled begrudgingly while she played around with the remains of her Gummi necklace, all charred up after its role as an engine kickstarter.

“I can just get you a new one, babe,” Duncan replied, earning himself yet another disapproving look from Leon. He knew exactly what Duncan meant by that.

“I’ll say it to you again. You two are going to behave yourselves.”

“Alright, we get it already,” Duncan rolled his eyes. “Christ, who snitched on us?”

Red, the tiny demon who sat timidly at the center of the cafe table between the two teens, sweated profusely.

“I mean it,” Leon grumbled. “Look, you’re lucky we don’t exactly have things like cops or jails around. Just work with me here.”

“So you’re telling me this place is Anarchy Town and everyone’s just going around acting like a bunch of scrubs?”

“Yes, Duncan,” Courtney sighed. “That’s what normal, civilized people do.”

“After all these weeks, you’re really expecting me to take that seriously coming out of your mouth?” Duncan seemed especially unimpressed.

Shut up already. Leon looked like he was just seconds away from storming off and leaving. “You two are going to help out around town, and that’s the end of it.”

“Yeah! You can start by taking care of Red while we’re away.”

The typical group of four trotted leisurely into the scene. For once, Leon was relieved to have them interrupting his work. Red meanwhile balked over Cody’s statement.

“Wh-what do you mean? I need to find my master, stat!”

“Look, kid,” Loudred knelt over to him with a soft (for his volume standards) voice. “You saw how dangerous things are out there. We need you to stay put here.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, bud. You can’t just volunteer us for this,” Duncan interrupted.

“Why not?” Al shrugged. “It’s what you guys were basically doing back in the Void.”

While the others began their game of persuasion and dissuasion, Leon silently signaled Cody away from the party of headaches. With everything that’d gone down during Cody’s little vacation, this was the first real time he had to talk to Leon face-to-face. He’d mostly relied on message relays until now, and to be honest, that’s what he preferred. Facing Leon alone still gave him the same levels of anxiety that fighting against an enormous boss-type Heartless would.

“So you guys found another one of the Seven Hearts?” The man asked.

Cody winced in advance. “Uh…yeah. We couldn’t rescue her in time though."

Leon made a disgruntled click of his tongue. So used to his put downs, Cody expected another dose of disparaging comments and was braced for the worst. But in the end, all that happened was a quick subject change.

“Not much luck on our end either,” he sighed. “Cid and I have fixed up at least a quarter of that journal already, but all we can make out of it are a bunch of cryptic numbers and symbols we know nothing about.”

Some silence fizzled in between the two. It was expected things wouldn’t go their way immediately, but the lack of solid progress has really started to weigh down on them. Even so, there was one new piece to the mystery that Cody was able to bring.

“In the world where Shiemi got kidnapped,” he started. “This woman appeared. I think her name was Maleficent?”

Leon nodded. “So you’re saying that’s who we’re facing here?”

“Looks like it. I can’t figure out exactly what she’s trying to do, but it sounds like she has an entire team of people helping her out. There were two girls fighting us when we met her, and she tried to convince someone from True Cross Academy to join her. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if that Eggman guy back at Green Hill Zone was with her too.”

“So this is a large multiworld operation then,” Leon grinded his teeth. “Can’t say I didn’t expect this, but hearing it now’s really putting things into perspective.”

“Maybe it’s not large large,” Cody responded with reluctant hope. “Maybe it’s just a small circle?”

“Even so, this just means they’ve got enough hands to do a lot of damage at once. Don’t let your guard down, alright?”

Cody nodded. “Yeah.”

It was just like the last time the two spoke. A general exchange of information and then a suffocating quiet break. Every time he was around Leon, it was like being tied up in all directions making sure he was secure and tightened enough to not mess up and make a complete fool of himself. Leon had already seen him at his worst, and unlike his friends, he wasn’t the kind of guy to let that sort of sight go. In fact, it was a wonder if he’d let it go in the event Cody did in fact save the day. But at that moment…

“Keep your chin up.” The phrase was so surprising coming out of him, Cody was convinced he imagined it. “Don’t let the little things get you down. You and your team are doing a good job.”

Cody’s mouth nearly broke with how far it stretched. Did he just hear all that? Out of Leon?!

All he could do in response was stammer in shock as his mind flew in all directions trying to figure out a proper response. In a way, it was worse than the awkward silences they were used to. Leon almost regretted being nice for once with how big of a deal the boy was making out of this. By the time he heard the familiar trickles of “nyos”, “nyus”, and ”gemas” singing off from nearby, he practically called to them to hurry themselves over and snap Cody back to normal.

“Yo, nyo,” Dejiko waved laxly.

“Are you three done yet?” There was a vague tinge of desperation in Leon’s voice.

“Well, duh, nyo!”

“Uh,” Cody gleaned nervously. “With what?”

“Ship,nyu,” Puchiko replied in her typical deadpan manner.

With their ship? Oh no.

“It’s fine,” Leon brushed off the boy’s panic. “Cid’s been teaching them well.”

“Yup, gema!” Gema happily bobbed around in the air. “We just did basic maintenance and upgraded some stuff. You guys should be able to fly farther with less fuel, and avoid getting sucked into another ‘void’ thingy, gema!”

“And you can thank moi, nyo,” Dejiko stood boastfully. “Is there anything a princess can’t do, nyo?”

“You nearly blew up their thrusters (gema) (nyu),” her guardian and sister grumbled.

“Who asked you, nyo?!”

“Thanks, you three,” Cody smiled sincerely.

He turned his head back to the cafe exterior where his friends were. It seemed Duncan and Courtney finally gave in to their request. Despite their obvious looks of annoyance, Duncan was already casually mouthing his grievances to Red while Courtney carefully patted the little fella’s head. Even if they claimed they weren’t willing, they’d probably fall naturally into their role in no time. With that, the team’s to-do list was all checked off, and it was safe to say their mini vacation had come to a close.

Cody quickly mouthed good-byes to Leon and the others. However, as he began to part, he remembered something Yuffie told him last night. She was more than eager to list out all the shit flinging Leon had done towards Cody behind his back, and she cheekily offered to give him some fresh ammo for defense. In the end, things seemingly smoothed out between him and Leon. There was no need to aim his shot at this point.

But what a waste it would be if he didn’t!

“One more thing!” Cody shouted back towards Leon who already started to make his way out of the square himself. “You better quit talking smack about me behind my back, Squall.

Leon tripped over his own feet.

 

oOo

 

Far off in another world where waterfalls draped in empty echoes and an ominous castle towered over nothing, Trent lounged around the darkened halls with a face of contempt. He was so determined to never return, yet not only was he back, it was all out of his accord.

That vexing witch, Maleficent, had spent an exhausting amount of time doing what she did best; drawl on and on about darkness and potential and other nonsense. He didn’t want to admit it, but he’d almost grown accustomed to it. It was like the ongoing efforts of a persistent saleswoman slowly creeping into him.

“So what did that little stunt of yours prove?” She seemed almost delighted at how much his act had blown up on itself.

After watching her pace back and forth with that sickening glee of hers time and time again, he could barely stomach the fact that he’d gotten so used to it. She was no longer a source of anger but a plain ticking clock; something that was monotonous as it was inevitable.

“You wish to bring her back to her senses, do you not? Look where normal means got you. I think it’s quite obvious where your best option lies.

“Now…”

She held out her hand.

“You came back for a reason, yes?”

He knew it then and he knew it now. This aggravating woman knew he would join her from the start. He argued against it, ran away, and made every excuse possible to deny it. But now, he almost wondered why he didn’t give in much earlier.

He reached out to her palm. Was there reluctance? Was there resignation? Was this a revelation? Was this really what he thought was best?

As if he knew.

…Far off from the confines of the castle, the rushing streams of uncertain origin continued to pour into the endless pond.

A new figure entered the world. He timidly tiptoed around the perimeter and double checked and then triple checked to make sure that those creatures who had attacked him and kidnapped his friend were nowhere to be found. The fur of his long floppy ears and tail furrowed around with each step.

He took a deep breath. The coast was clear. With his glove tightened around the rims of the large ringlet he held and his eyes burning with determination, the black and white cabbit clad in blue rushed on forward towards the strange castle.

Notes:

Fun Fact: There's exactly 5 fanfics listed under Di Gi Charat on Ao3. One of them is a link to an AMV and one of them is this. I'm sorry Di Gi Charat fans.

Chapter 25: Death City, USA: Literally at Death's Door

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“What are you doing, you pipsqueak? Swing me already!"

“I, uhh…ah, ahh, AAAAAHHHHHH!!”

“Stop screaming and toss me at her!”

“I, I, I—”

“You’re dead meat, you hear me?! Why don’t you come a little closer so I can bash your head—”

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

SWISH!

CLANG!

WHOOSH!

BAM!

THUD!

“Yeeeaah, that’s more like it!”

“I..I..what do I do?”

Within one of the many desolate alleyways of Death City, a young teen was left a complete quivering mess. Their pitch black outfit draped into the scenery, leaving a frazzled flair of whitish-pink hair shaking around in the dark like the remnants of a ghostly apparition. Their lowered voice spouted an intense string of distraught queries while their eyes trembled wildly. The shallow glint of their sword was lost in the dark as its wielder struggled to keep a firm grip. All the while, a muscular girl laid limp on the ground right in front them, having just been beaten up to a pulp.

It was a close fight. If it was anyone else, Eva could’ve gotten out of this altercation free of injury like she normally would. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an ordinary person she had dealt with.

“What am I gonna do?” Crona pulled the ends of their hair in panic. “Mother said to lay low. This isn’t laying low at all! How am I supposed to deal with this?!”

“Haha, why’re you acting like the world’s ending?”

Suddenly, a strange, almost humanoid blot of black spewed from the sword’s blade and began to roughly play around with Crona’s face. The cackling laughter of the being known as Ragnarok had the same intensity of a circus clown’s whip.

“We took her down like it was nothing. Come on, we haven’t even diced her up yet! Smile you dumb nerd, smile !!”

“Nnnnngh, stop pulling on my cheek!”

“Well aren’t we being irritatingly noisy here.”

The cold voice of a cruel serpent slithered its way into the alley. Crona elicited a tiny squeak and frantically shoved Ragnarok, both the sword and the being attached to it, back into their frail body. The two disappeared into the seams of their robe as if Crona themself was a living black hole.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Crona quickly blurted out. “I bumped into her and she was really scary and she chased me down here and she kept hitting me and I was so scared and I didn’t know what to do!”

“Quiet,” the hooded woman named Medusa sternly ordered, shutting up Crona’s blabbering mouth in an instant. She sauntered over to Eva’s unmoving form and crouched down with a face of disgust. “I saw it all. To think something I created was useless enough to get attacked by some random little girl.”

Crona gulped. “I’m sorry, mother.”

Their apology completely evaded Medusa who had decided to shift her attention to examining the body of their accidental victim. She was a witch after all, and she wasn’t just going to leave free bounty behind. She gently lifted up Eva’s left arm and squinted her already narrowed eyes. A faint but noticeable cut blemished the musclehead’s shoulder. Tiny shrouds of black fissures floated around its opening.

Medusa’s mouth twisted into a V-shaped grin. “I see you managed to land a scratch on her. I guess you’re not as useless as you look.”

Like she was above even chuckling, her grin distorted further. “We’re expecting some guests soon. This could help liven things up.”

 

oOo

 

DEATH CITY, USA

 

oOo

 

There was a bit of a pattern going on whenever they arrived in a new world. They’d stroll around aimlessly, run into a random Heartless attack, and then end up discovering their new temporary allies through their assistance. Indeed, it looked like the same thing was happening when a pair of boys jumped in during their latest enemy encounter. However, they weren’t expecting the meeting to end up so…one sided.

Once the main attraction to the Heartless plunderings, the Keybearer and his crew were left sidelined and away from the action. Their bodies stood still and stiff and they looked on with confusion. Before they even knew it, two boys, one with wild pale blue hair styled to the shape of a ragged star, and one with a prim and proper form that clashed against his half skunked hair, took total control of the fight and completely cast them aside. It was a wonder if they were even aware the four were there with how intensely the two argued with each other alongside their kicks and swings.

“Hey, find your own Lesshearts!” The wild looking boy screeched while he swung around his chained kusarigama.

“We got here exactly 3.33 seconds ahead of you,” the gothic prep responded in between blows from his twin pistols. “How about you be the one to go?”

With most of the Heartless wiped clean, the duo soon began to fight over the sorry scraps who were left defenseless from their concentrated might. Finally, with one single Shadow left, they rushed forward with a simultaneous hit. As their weapons landed and the monster met its end, the boys came crashing right into each other. They writhed on to the ground and dropped their weapons to make way for their pained faces.

“What’s the big idea?!” The toned star kid shouted. His voice was almost more booming than Loudred’s. “We got here first!”

“Did you even hear me?” The other one sneered. “3.33 seconds. 3.33 seconds.

Their animosity fueled their recovery. The two boys got up and marched towards one another face-to-face. The duo poked and prodded one another in a fight of dominance alongside their shouting match. And if these two weren’t enough, they apparently weren’t even alone. Their weapons that were left abandoned on the ground suddenly glowed and morphed. The kusarigama soon became a tall and meek teenage girl in ninja-like garb, and the pistols followed as a pair of blond fraternal twins, one tall and one short, donning cowgirl hats.

“Black Star,” the ninja girl worriedly rushed to her partner’s side. “Please, stop. We can work this out.”

“Kid,” the taller of the twins grumbled as she tried to drag her own teammate away from the insult-off. “Will you just let it go? Come on! Patty, help me out here!”

“Oooh, what’s that?”

After spending the battle looking on in silence, Cody, Al, and Loudred jumped at the sudden sight of the shorter twin who excitedly snatched Mokona into her arms.

“Da’aw, this thing’s adorable,” she chirped giddily while she squished the rabbit around like a stuffed animal.

“Heeheehee, that tickles. I don’t consent to this,” Mokona stated sweetly.

The commotion continued to reign on with the amount of yells and inappropriately timed giggles increasing by the second. Cody and the Pokemon could only look at one another, unsure if any one of them should step in. Or at the very least, get this strange girl to let go of their friend. The scene had grown so chaotic, no one was alert enough to catch the one Heartless, a jittery mummy called a Wight Night, getting ready to make a sneak attack. One final pair came in to knock it down while everyone was distracted.

With its claws just inches away from a strike, a girl with blond pigtails and a swooping longcoat landed her foot smack on to its head. She jumped off and allowed it to stumble drunkenly before finishing it off with a swing of her enormous scythe.

“That was close,” the girl nodded to herself. Or rather to her partner who, like the girls earlier, morphed out of his scythe form and into the body of an albino punk.

The punk quickly turned his attention to the remains of the Heartless he’d just slain; the black specks of soot that formed a vague shape of a heart. He opened his mouth wide and chomped down on his game only for the dying essense to phase out of him and into the sky. He clicked his tongue, both in frustration and contemplation. “Well, they’re definitely not souls. The heck are these things?”

“Hey!!” The rowdy boy pulled the newcomer into the argument against his will. “We got here first!”

“Two’s already a crowd,” the calmer of the two boys narrowed his eyes.

The punkish boy blinked. “What? That thing would’ve sliced you guys up if we hadn’t taken it down.”

Whether he wanted to or not, the scythe kid now joined the fray in their deafening shout match. The three boys continued to make accusatory comments to one another, the two girls continued to fruitlessly break things up, the one girl continued to threaten to tear Mokona apart through her unwanted hugs, and the rest of our heroes continued to remain quiet and perplexed over the situation.

Do we…? Cody kept thinking to himself. Do we stop them?

His eyes kept mulling over the irksome scene until they finally hit the one other silent standby. The pigtailed girl had locked her eyes on Cody, having noticed him and his friends much sooner than most of her other peers. She exchanged a wry smile and made an apologetic half-bow. Seeing as how she was the only one of sound mind enough to bring the peace back, the girl took in a deep breath, stepped up to the crowd, and with her right arm stretched up in the air…

“Maka…Chop!”

…She made a clean vertical cut atop her partner’s head using the side of her hand and knocked him down to the dirt of the ground. The message was clear to everyone. It was time to shut the heck up.

“If you two paid attention for once,” she scolded the last two boys standing. She had both the voice of a leader and of someone who had to deal with enough crap on the regular. “You’d know neither of you got here first.” She gestured over to Cody and company who still stood, stunned. “Start apologizing.”

The two boys, and the girls who’d attempted to stop them, looked over to the gang, and their faces whitened in embarrassment. They were so caught up in their own problems, this was the first time any one of them laid eyes on the four.

The preppy looking boy coughed, spewing out both spit and sweat. “Our apologies. We got distracted. Uh…”

“Cody,” he responded, still weary and uncertain about the eccentric group. “And they’re Loudred and Alakazam…” The two made slow and awkward waves. “And, uh, your friend over there is smothering Mokona to death.”

“Hahahahahaha, I can see the light!” The girl’s squeezing and cooing had escalated to the point that the poor creature began to stretch outwardly within her embrace.

“So so so so CUTE!!” The blond menace squealed. “I could just cuddle you all da—” Her twin sister angrily pulled her away, and Mokona flopped mercifully to the ground like a deflated balloon.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” the pigtailed girl said with a strained smile, very certain they were already off to an awful start. “I’m Maka. The twins are Liz and Patty…”

“‘Sup.”

“Hey-ho!”

“...She’s Tsubaki...”

“Sorry about the commotion.”

“...And these three bozos…”

Maka glared back over to the trio who’d found their new distraction through the punk boy’s agonizing attempts to get back on his feet. The wild looking one kept shouting motivational quotes like an overbearing coach while the prep bent down curiously to get a better look at his friend’s struggle. Neither actually helped him.

“...Are Soul, Black Star, and Kid.”

“Did you really have to hit that hard?” Soul grunted angrily, having finally lifted himself back up. “Like hell I was as bad as them.”

“Yeah, you were!” Black Star pointed accusingly. “You stole my kill!”

“We settled it already. We stole all of their kills,” Kid responded flatly.

“They get a little carried away sometimes,” Tsubaki spoke with a kind voice, but still had the look of someone begging for forgiveness. “Please don’t hold it against them.”

“If you don’t, I will,” Liz butted in, having already lost her patience with the three over the matter.

“Now, now,” Maka calmed the taller girl down. “It’s over and done with. I think it might be a good time for us to take a break and report in.” She turned back to Cody and company. “You coming?”

Huh? His already frozen body stiffened further. Cody’s eyes slowly drifted towards his friends, hoping they’d have a better assessment of the situation than he did. Unfortunately, it seemed the two Pokemon had the exact same plan, having shifted their gazes towards him within the same rhythm. Without moving another muscle, their stone cold stares gave off a collective shrug. As rowdy as they were, they seemed like perfectly fine folks. If anything, their overeagerness to fight Heartless could make their job a lot easier.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Cody finally gave in.

“Alright,” Maka turned back again to inspect the area. She peered around, driving the Keyblade Gang’s confusion and curiosity further. Finally, her eyes locked on to a lone storefront across the road. She skipped over to the woefully neglected window display, laid a finger on the filthy glass, and recited, “42-42-564 Whenever you want to knock on Death’s door.”

Cody bated his breath in anticipation. The glass pane vibrated like a pool of waves. Something was about to come.

“...Hellooo? Who might this be?”

A voice? A rather sing-songy one too. Even sage-like.

“Sir, this is Maka Albarn,” she responded promptly. “Soul and I and a couple of other students wanted to report in with updated Heartless counts.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” the voice said in high spirits. “Well if it’s a whole group with you, why not make that report in person?”

Suddenly, a puff of smoke erupted from next to the window pane. What was once a simple shop entrance now transformed into a more intricate and flamboyant design. The new door boasted architecture that was much too bold and cartoonish for its gothic origins. To place a cherry on top, a crude stylized skull endorned the header, making the entire thing feel like the entrance to a cheesy carnival attraction. When the door clicked open on its own, it revealed an empty void just beyond alongside a strange air of uncertainty. Cody couldn’t place his finger on it, but something about the other side felt off. Bizarre, foreboding, and even a tad bit sinister.

Maka and the others casually walked right in without a second thought. Meanwhile, Cody, Loudred, Al, and Mokona all gave each other another round of reluctant glances. It wasn’t just Cody. All of them felt weird warning signs when the door creaked open. Did they make a mistake when they agreed to follow? What exactly was beyond there?

“I bet if we walk in, we’ll come out dead,” Mokona hacked out light coughs in between his dreadfully gleeful response. His voice still felt the effects of Patty’s soul crushing might.

“D-don’t joke about that,” Al scolded him.

Loudred turned to Cody. “Should we?”

Do we have a choice?

Well, they did. They could just leave, but that’d be rude.

The four made their way in and braced themselves for the worst. With every step they took, that feeling of dread and discomfort just kept creeping in. They held their breaths and prepared themselves for whatever damnation was up ahead. What was so ominous that they could feel its daunting essence even before the door?

A single lurch past the door frame brought them into a strange new place. Crosses covered the endless desert grounds and the bright blue sky above them was imbued with the strange clashing of windows that connected to nothing. And all the while, that anxious feeling the four had did not relent. In fact, they now had the sense that they’d reached the nest of something grim and beyond comprehension.

“My, my, this is quite a crowd,” the sing-songy voice from earlier said.

“Lord Death!” A few of the Death City kids greeted him back.

…Wait.

That sing-songy voice came from…

…From the hulking figure that rivaled a skyscraper…

…Draped in black with a massive skull mask that shielded its face…

…"Lord Death".

They were in the face of death itself.

Cody and the others could feel all color drain from their faces. This was a mistake. This was a huge mistake.

“You’re all here to report on your updated patrol numbers, yes? How about we start with you two?” He pointed his comically blocky hand down to Maka and Soul.

Against her own sense of promptness, Maka’s head slumped to the side with her eyes lowered to the floor. “Well…”

“Yeah, uh,” Soul scratched the back of his head. “Sorry. We got, like, 20.”

“Ha!!” Black Star’s voice rang high and mighty across the floor. Tsubaki wearily tried to shush him up but to no avail. “I could’ve taken out that much in my sleep.”

“Yeah, well, who asked you?!” Soul shouted back. “These things are weird. Can’t swallow ‘em up or anything. We just need some more time to figure them out, that’s all.” He looked away bitterly from the rest.

“I’m sorry,” Maka sighed as she took an apologetic bow. “This is my fault. We’ll catch up.”

“There’s no need to fret,” Lord Death responded kindly. “This assignment is a group effort. Taking down any at all is a great help.” He looked towards the others. “Anyone else?”

“A perfectly symmetrical 88,” Death the Kid went next, nodding with a slight self satisfactory grin.

Both Maka and Soul reacted to the number in shock; Maka with a defeated gag and Soul with a crackling cough.

“That’s what happens when we’re two-in-one,” Patty hummed boastfully. Her sister, Liz, didn’t even bother hiding the cockiness of their accomplishment.

“Oh yeah?!” Black Star rudely stomped his way into the trio’s face as he looked to personally clash against his friends’ triumph. “Well, we got over 200!!”

“Black Star,” Tsubaki sighed. “Half of those were another student’s escaped science project, not Heartless.”

“100 then! Got that goal post, hook, line, and sinker!” The booming youth threw his arms around in celebration.

“Actually, you need to take down 500 for the credit to count.”

“Wh-since when?! It was 100 just yesterday!”

“There are a lot more Heartless in town than I originally anticipated, so I thought it was necessary to rescale.”

While the actual manifestation of death continued to chat casually with the other world residents, Cody, eyes still wide open in fright, quietly leaned towards his companions and whispered, “We gotta get out of here.”

The other three rigorously nodded their heads in agreement. They looked just as scared stiff as their pal was.

“There’s a lot of them here,” Al pointed out. “Think we can sneak out?”

“That door we walked through is still here,” Loudred said as he tried his damndest to keep his volume in check for once.

“Tip toe, tip toe,” Mokona sang softly, already way ahead of the other three and starting on his way out.

Bracing himself with one bottomless breath, Cody carefully turned around to leave, and…

“And what about you four?”

Huh?!

He should’ve just ran and fled, but his faulty instincts forced him to turn back. The moment he did, he was sure that was it for him. The lord of death was right in front of him, his gargantuan form bent over to show off his massive skull in Cody’s immediate direction. The cartoonish features had warped into an eerie and judgemental scowl.

He could practically feel his heart leap out of him. Alongside a blood curdling scream, Cody summoned out his Keyblade. The way he shook and fidgeted, it was all for show. If the massive shinigami planned to actually reap him, he wouldn’t have had a chance against it. It almost made the retaliating stances Maka and the others jumped into look silly. Soul, Tsubaki, and the twins shifted into their weapon forms at lightning speed while their wielders were roaring and ready to pounce at Cody in a moment’s notice. Cody’s own teammates were barely even prepared for a throwdown as they were left weighing their choices between helping out their friend or possibly meeting their ends right then and there. Had an actual fight broke out, it probably wouldn’t have ended well for our heroes. Luckily, that wasn’t Lord Death’s goal at all.

“There now, simmer down everyone.” The skull mask’s features softened back to its original innocuous state as Lord Death straightened back up. He continued to observe the frightened boy down below, but his goofy voice gave off a much more lax attitude in spite of the foreboding atmosphere that naturally exuded out of him. “Just as I expected. The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you had to be a Keybearer.”

!!

Cody lowered the key and his attention now turned towards his friends as they all collectively tried to gauge this new twist. This wasn’t the first time they’d met a world denizen who was already in the know—this “honor” went to that annoying Mephisto fellow—but this was the literal god of death. There was a good chance he knew more than even they did.

“A Keybearer ?” Maka scrunched her face. She carefully lifted Soul up ever so slightly on the off chance that things would sour.

“Ah, yes,” Death clapped his foam board hands excitedly. “They’ve been so inactive, we haven’t covered them in our curriculum in ages.”

The next thing anyone knew, the motley crew of teens and creatures were tossed into the air, yelping in fright. They plopped down onto desk chairs that seemingly manifested out of nowhere, and the students who took the forms of weapons were forced back into their human states upon impact. Lord Death, meanwhile, had pulled down a theater sized projection screen from lord knows where, and whipped out a handy pointer like the good school principal he was.

“Ahem,” he cleared his throat. “Where shall we begin?” He waved the pointer around in a flashy manner before tapping it sharp onto the screen. Intricately crafted diagrams of the Keyblade itself were prompted on. “The Keyblade is…”

If you asked Cody what exactly Death covered in this impromptu lesson, he probably couldn’t tell you. After having been lectured time and time again by Leon and, well, wielding it, he wasn’t here to have information he already knew regurgitated right back at him. There was something nipping at him though. As Death continued to switch slide-to-slide, he couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was this power that was gifted to him. All these hyper detailed illustrations and documents flashed by right in front of him. Where did they come from? If someone as ubiquitous as Death had all this knowledge on the ready, there’d have to be more than what he already knew.

“And here are the Keybearers…”

His eyes widened. The presentation flashed over to an illustration of not one but an entire group of Keyblade wielders.

Who??

“Their duties are to keep peace and normalcy between each world. They make sure that everything is where it should be. You can consider them ‘zone cops’ if you will.”

The projector clicked off.

“Did you all take notes? This is a special lecture, so none of this will appear on a quiz. I hope you were all able to learn something new today. Now then…

“...To the Keybearer and associates, please take your leave. Now.”

Cody blinked and shook his head at the sudden shift. “Wait, what?”

The desk seats he and his friends had been situated on were poofed straight out of existence, and the four were forced to land flat on their asses.

“Hey, what was that for?” Al remarked angrily.

“Yeah, if you know all that, then you have to know we’ve got a good reason for being here,” Loudred added.

“While that is true, that doesn’t mean your services are wanted.” Lord Death continued to speak with a polite and dignified tone, but it was clear he wanted to shuffle them off as quickly as possible. “Keybearers protect peace in theory, but I’ve seen enough of their antics to know they only bring misfortune. We appreciate your offer, but you won’t be needed here.”

Won’t be needed ?” Cody was flabbergasted. “Your town’s overrun by Heartless, right? More than you predicted? I can take them out for you.”

“Hearts are similar to souls, no? My students should suffice in that case.”

They were seriously taking his job?!

Lord Death politely gestured nudges towards the exit. Left aghast and a bit offended, the Keyblade Crew could only look amongst one another in shock. At this point, what was there for them to even do? The embodiment of death just shooed them out. They weren’t going to just not leave. They trudged out of the realm in a silent single file without a clue of how to move on from this.

With the four newcomers vacated, the DWMA students were left to mull over their sudden class session. “Are you sure that was the right decision, sir?” Maka carefully craned her head upward. She and the others had the same sentiment. “They didn’t seem like bad people.”

“Oh, I’m sure they weren’t. The nature of the Keyblade means they couldn’t have been by nature. But, you know.” The god raised his hands in a shrug. “Better safe than sorry.”

“That’s a lame excuse,” Soul muttered.

He and Maka looked at one another with knowing looks. When the Heartless suddenly arrived one day, the school tried its best to play it off as normal. They had lesson plans forcefully crammed into the syllabus, and when the call came, the staff practically begged the student body to assist in exterminating them. There was something much larger at play here, and they were going to need this so-called Keybearer to help.

“Well,” Maka turned back to face Death and offered a polite bow with the others following suit. “We’re going to head back out now.”

“Yeah, those No-Heart things aren’t gonna kill themselves,” Black Star belted out excitedly.

“Very well,” their headmaster replied. “Do report back whenever you have the time. And be sure to stay safe.”

The living weapons and their meisters exited in quick succession, and soon, Lord Death was left with no one else but his own thoughts. He wasn’t stupid. He saw the look on Maka and Soul’s faces. They were surely rendezvousing with those outsiders right this second. But still, he knew there was nothing that could sway them.

The Keybearers were the chosen warriors of light, yet suddenly, one day, they seemingly died off from their own undoing. So obsessed with the light that darkness came through. He knew these tales all too well. Personally, he always felt they were an arrogant bunch. Who’s to say one was a stronger arbiter of light than anyone else? Forget light; they were chosen warriors of self righteousness. He remembered their fall from grace and the calamity that came with it. When he met the new generations that sprouted after, he could only look at them in pity. Bound by their titles, they were living tyke bombs, ready to contradict their own ideals for the sake of “light”.

Cody was the first Keybearer he’d seen in almost an entire human lifetime. He may have seemed harmless at a glance, but who knew what kind of worthless “hero” laid underneath. This is why his academy existed. His world didn’t need any outsiders for protection. All the countless pupils his institution trained would do the deed just fine. They could fix this all in no time, and the lad would be passed off to wherever like he was never here at all.

After all, the Keyblade invited nothing but trouble. He could only hope his students would figure it out sooner than later.

 

oOo

 

“So, uh,” Loudred was the first to break the silence after the four wordlessly exited Death’s domain. “Do we just leave?”

“Of course not,” Al and Cody responded in sync.

“We’ve still gotta look for signs of the King.”

“And I’m not just gonna let…freaking Death stop me in my tracks.” He tried to sound proud and commanding, but everyone could feel his shivers at the very thought of it all.

“If he finds out we’re still here, do you think he’ll throw us in hell?” Mokona sounded way too proud of himself over that observation.

“Damn, you really aren’t from around here.”

“I don’t blame you for thinking that way, but he’s not a bad guy.”

The four looked over in surprise. Despite positioning themselves almost as Death’s lapdogs back there, Maka, Soul, and the rest followed them with no ill will intact.

“I’ve gotta apologize for how my father treated you back there,” Death the Kid said, coughing and eyes looking to the side like he was embarrassed at his dad’s behavior. “He can be old fashioned sometimes. Albeit, that was a lot harsher than he normally is.”

“Awww,” Patty suddenly jumped beside the group. Cody reflexively slung out his Keyblade, and Mokona, still traumatized by the girl’s lethal hugs, was sent into a panic. “You look too derpy to be bad people.” She crouched down and poked the Keyblade without a care in the world. Mokona, meanwhile, sent silent prayers for her to stay away from him. “So this is the key thingy, huh?”

“Hey, hey,” Cody quickly pulled it away before she could accidentally hurt herself. “Don’t just go touching it like that.”

“So,” Liz took a cue from her sister and walked over to eye the thing. “This is like a ‘weapon-weapon’, right? Not like us?”

“Thankfully, no,” Al replied. “Already got too many loudmouths in this group. Don’t need another.”

“Uh huh…”

Liz stepped away and continued to glean over it in curiosity. And the others in her group did as well. None of them had ever heard of this thing before, and suddenly they were plopped down with the knowledge that this thing was some kind of ultimate world saving weapon. No one could blame them all for looking at it with cautious awe.

“Uuuuurrrrghh, what’s with all this standing around?!” Black Star erupted and flailed his arms around. “We've got Heartlessers to take down! Let’s go!!”

Finishing off his exclamation with the tenacity of a siren, the rowdy boy leaped hurdles towards the distance, leaving everyone else to gag from the dust clouds he left behind.

“B-black Star, wait up!” Tsubaki was the first to run after him, followed by Death the Kid, who made antagonizing remarks claiming he’d be the one to take the rest of the Heartless down, and lastly by the twins, who really had no choice but to tag along. In the end, the Keyblade crew was left taken aback yet again by their energy, and Soul and Maka were the only ones left to keep them company.

“They, uh, sure are into this,” Cody blinked.

“They’ve got no choice,” Soul let out a gruff snicker.

“The school’s been offering extra credit to students who help with clearing out the Heartless,” Maka explained. “And, well, save for Tsubaki, they're all borderline flunking.”

“Uh huh.”

“And what about you two?” Loudred was eager to strike up a friendly conversation.

“Soul’s grades could be better, but we’re good,” Maka giggled, earning an annoyed grunt from her partner.

“She and I were both wondering about those things.” Soul and Maka switched over to serious expressions. “They say they’re basically the same as souls, but they clearly aren’t. They just all popped up one day, and there’s something fishy about it.”

“The faculty’s been really snippy about telling anyone what or why these things are here,” Maka added. “That little lecture back there was the first useful bit of info we’ve heard.”

“So unlike your friends, you two are actually serious about getting rid of them all,” Al concluded.

The two nodded with determined eyes. “You guys seem like our only real key to figuring things out,” said Soul.

After being told off by Death himself, the faith the two of them had was a welcome change. Maka and Soul were welcomed into the team without any hesitation. With both parties still uncertain of what lay ahead in this world, they continued to trek through the spiraling streets of Death City without any clue of the impending doom that a certain witch had already begun to set in motion right under their eyes.

Notes:

I didn't bother rereading or rewatching a single bit of Soul Eater, and it probably shows.

Chapter 26: Death City, USA: The Witch's Puppet

Notes:

I haven't touched anything Soul Eater since high school. I don't remember how any of these characters are supposed to talk.

Chapter Text

Witches weren’t all that complicated where Ashley came from. They were exactly the kind you would think of when recalling Dollar store Halloween decorations; nasty, unkempt, foul tempered, and prone to punishing others at even a moment’s notice. Sure, there were ones who claimed to be “kind” and “good”, but those were the weak ones who were better off not having been born a witch to begin with. A true witch embraced misery. They wouldn’t hesitate to ruin everyone’s day at a moment’s notice. Misfortune was their life’s purpose. If you didn’t act your worst, were you really a witch?

At least that’s what she was raised to think.

Even as a young child, she wreaked havoc. She never got close to any other kid her age, and if they tried to approach her, they’d fall victim to her hexes and pranks. They called her a playground bully, and that only pushed her to go beyond. Because witches were worse than bullies of course. She couldn’t settle for anything less.

At least that’s what she was convinced to do.

So it only made sense for her to end up where she was now. When she first laid eyes on Maleficent through fateful flames, she saw the image of a witch in its purest form; mighty and powerful and unafraid of the consequences ahead. She decided right then and there that following this woman would be the road to her becoming the witch of all witches. This was her destiny.

At least that’s what she told herself.

Then why after all this…why was she thinking back to True Cross Academy? Back to her familiar’s face? He was her sworn companion; something every witch was supposed to have. Why did he look so shocked? This is what she was supposed to be. Why was she so bothered by his tears? This was how she was supposed to act. Why?

Why?

Why?

WHY?!

“Uhm…M-miss?”

Ashley snapped back to reality. She’d spent her down time at Death City loitering around the darkest alley she could find, left only with her own bitter thoughts. If Crona hadn’t come along to check on her, she probably would’ve drowned in her own indulgences without a soul to pull her out.

“Wh-what?” She stammered while her cheeks flashed red.

“Are you okay?” Crona responded nervously.

“I’m fine.”

“Suuuuuuure you are.” Much to the displeasure of both teens, Ragnarok had decided it was time to pop out of Crona’s back completely unannounced. Crona yelped at the sight of their own permanent companion. “Your hands were shaking like mad. Thought you were going crazy for sure. This chickenshit right here couldn’t decide if you were gonna eat them alive or not. Wahaha!”

“R-ragnarok,” Crona frothed. “You can’t just say that! She’s gonna hate me now. We’re supposed to be working together. What am I gonna do if she doesn’t like me? How am I supposed to do my job? And mother will get so mad. What am I supposed to do if she gets mad at me again?”

“Oh, can it!” Ragnarok had forced Crona into a chokehold and noogied the crap out of them while they fruitlessly tossed their arms around to escape.

Ashley sighed. These two were exhausting… But in a strange way, she appreciated them being there. “No, you’re good,” she responded awkwardly, hoping to dispel Ragnarok’s game of torture. “Really, it’s fine. I don’t hate you.”

“Oh, is the apprentice witch going soft now?”

Ragnarok’s antics moved on to mushes around Crona’s mouth, but their screaming reaction to her was enough to finally chase him off and back in.

Ashley’s eyes shifted into a glare. Medusa had slunk into the meeting. She wasn’t sure why she felt this around her. This viper was just as much of an ideal witch as Maleficent was, but she felt nothing but contempt towards her. Not like Maleficent whose very presence only could freeze her on the spot.

“Well?” The woman cocked her head condescendingly. “Are the preparations for our plus one done?”

“More or less.” Ashley’s response was rigid. For as annoyed as she was around Medusa, it was all the more reason for her to guard herself more carefully around her. “If I’m going to be honest, what you were asking me to do was more drastic than I had time for, so I made do with a temporary enhancement hex.”

Medusa would normally scowl at news like this, but her grin only widened. There was just something so satisfying about watching the girl fall under expectations. “That’s all one of Maleficent’s hand picked apprentices could do? Pathetic.”

“...”

“Didn’t your little ploy at the Mystery Dungeon fall short too? And your humiliating display at True Cross as well? I remember you coming back all covered in vomit.”

Shut up.

“At least the doctor and Tabuu had the decency to leave after their screw ups. Why in the worlds does she bother keeping you around?”

Shut up.

“She must find you so amusing. Perhaps you’re our court jester? Hm?”

Shut up.

“Or maybe she thinks it's just as hilarious as I do watching a young witch squirm and grovel around before power she knows she’ll never achieve.”

Shu —”

Ashley held her breath. Letting it out would only give her what she wanted. That’s the last thing she wanted to do. With the way Medusa continued to look at her though, she didn’t want to admit it, but she already lost.

“Ah, uh, um, ah, m, m, mo—”

“What?” Medusa groaned. Her entertainment met an abrupt end, and she turned to Crona angrily.

“I-is this really going to work? I don’t know if it will. What if it doesn’t work? What if this is a waste of time? What if it was better if we didn’t show up? What if we just stayed home? I wanna go home.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Ragnarok slipped out again to trap Crona in another headlock. “I didn’t get to have my fill of fun. Quit your whining and let’s go!”

More by force and not of their own free will, Crona walked off and away until their stressed whimpers were nothing more than faded ambience in the distance.

“Hm,” Medusa smirked. “If anything, it’s amusing watching that thing writhe around like a dying worm.” Her pupils slid ever so slightly back to Ashley before rolling away, irritated that she was actually still there. “Go on,” she waved her off flippantly. “I’m done working with you. Go shoot your magic at a stray cat or something.”

Gladly, Ashley thought to herself as she silently strutted off on her own. Medusa was someone she’d never get along with.

Left to her own devices, it was time for her to get serious. She was sent out here to begin with because both Maleficent and Medusa had sensed the Keybearer’s presence in the area. He had to be here somewhere, and if she found him, it would be her day. She hated to admit it, but that wicked viper was right about the humiliation that halfwit had wrung on to her. She was once on her way to becoming Maleficent’s own right hand woman, but with two major defeats to her name, she’d been reduced to a lowly errand girl. Everything was falling apart, and it was all his fault. She would hunt him down and bring back his mangled carcass to her boss’s lair if it was the last thing she’d do.

Ashley’s ears perked. A small group of teens were having a rousing bout of quips nearby. No doubt it was one of the many DWMA students who’d decided to participate in the school’s hopeless efforts to exterminate the Heartless on their own. She hid within yet another alley, and held her breath.

“Why do you always gotta come crashing into my turf?!” Black Star yelled at his supposed friend. “I found these Harklies first. Get your own!”

“At least get their name right,” Death the Kid slapped his head in annoyance. “It’s Heartless. How many times do you need it drilled into your unsymmetrically lopsided brain? No wonder your grades are abysmal.”

“Look who’s talking! At least I’m not failing because I can’t write my own name without freaking out about how uneven the paper is!”

“Are we really doing this again?” Liz groaned. The boys had just finished off the last of the small cluster, and the girls had morphed back into their human forms in the meantime. “Look, all of us are screwed if we don’t do this stupid extra credit. So just zip it and let’s move on already.”

“Yeah, Black Star,” Tsubaki added meekly. “Lord Death said there’s a lot of them scattered around the city. There’s more than enough for us to share.”

“Share, shmare,” Black Star huffed. “He raised the number to 500! 500! If I see a Harpness, it’s mine!”

“I will admit, the sheer number of these things is starting to make me worry,” Kid grumbled suspiciously.

“Maaaaaan,” Patty whined in a rhythmic fashion. “If only we had Cody’s key thing, we could SCHWING, SHWOOOP, WHOOP-POW these little guys and be done with it.”

Ashley’s eyes widened. She held out on the possibility of getting intel from these nuisances, but to hear that boy’s name spoken loud and clear? Whoever these students were, they were acquainted. While the DWMA crew continued their lively discussion along their trek to their next fight, the red witch continued to stealthily tail behind. With any luck, these nimrods would lead her right to him, and she could finally enact her revenge.

 

oOo

 

“We’re not prepared,” Crona gulped. “We’re not prepared at all. I don’t know what to do. What are we supposed to do? What did Mother mean by a key? Did she mean a key-key? A key card? A key item? What if I find a key and it’s the wrong key? What do I do then?”

“Then you just shred it up and move on,” Ragnarok yammered back. “ Yeeeeeesh , you worry about the dumbest crap.”

It wasn’t like Crona’s worries were unfounded. Their lovely mother seemingly shuffled them off for the sake of it with only a vague hint of the task at hand. She had a larger plan ready, but like heck she’d bother sharing it with them. And now here they were lulling around in the streets with nothing to do but squirm around at the hands of their own weapon.The cycle continued with Crona’s mumbles and Ragnarok’s cackles, until suddenly, a figure flashed by in the corner of their eyes.

Crona stiffened. Their body shook almost involuntarily. Even Ragnarok shushed up, disturbed by whatever just passed by. It couldn’t have been a Heartless. They were ensured that due to their circumstances, those creatures would pay them no mind. What could that have been then?

Against their own common sense, Crona turned their head behind them while their teeth clattered along like windchimes in a storm. Their eyes slowly and slovenly teetered inch by inch. They couldn’t help but try to shift their focus to the side, up above, or really, just anywhere but what was actually there. They played a desperate game of denial, but they could only delay the inevitable for so long. Crona had no choice but to accept that…

…She was there.

Eva stood menacingly. Her eyes glowed red and wisps of black soot spewed out of her body every which way. The veins of her fists pulsated with each breath she took. Her face more closely resembled a frenzied bear woken up early from hibernation than that of a teenage girl.

Oh.

So this was Mother’s plan.

Naturally, Crona screamed like a banshee.

They swung Ragnarok around without any clear aim. The poor sword, still confused at what was going on, was left in an uncharacteristic state of panic over his wielder’s outburst. Ashley had perhaps done too good of a job at hexing the musclehead up as she bounced and sprinted about in a superhuman speed avoiding the blade. Her uncanny movements only forced Crona to act even more rash like they were a child tasked with crushing an agile spider with a newspaper roll.

“Hey, do you hear that?”

Crona could hear a girl’s voice close by alongside a group of at least five other individuals. Dear old Mother’s plan was going great, much to her own child’s misfortune. The Keybearer’s group arrived to Crona’s assistance, and right on cue, Eva stormed off into the distance. Crona’s mind was at the brink, and they only got all the more jittery as they rushed to shove Ragnarok back within their depths before the hapless newcomers could see.

“Are you okay?” Crona flinched away at Maka’s soft touch to their shoulder.

Cody was the first to survey the area. He’d traveled around enough by now to be able to sense when the Heartless came by an area. Remnants of black specks fluttered in the air, having been scattered around from the earlier riffraff. There was no question to him that something just went down.

“Easy there,” Maka continued to console the legitimately shaken Crona. “It’s alright. Whatever attacked you is gone.”

What was supposed to be a soothing moment only crumpled Crona’s head up further. She was being genuinely nice to them, but that’s what Mother wanted. Mother wanted them to fake it all. But they truly did appreciate how kindly she spoke to them after having gone through that. But Mother wanted them to act through it all. But, but, but, but, but, but…

“Hey,” Soul knelt down and to Crona’s level. The poor unwilling minion had dropped into a fetal position. “If you can, could you tell us your name?” Soul wasn’t used to talking all soft, but the intent alone was still reassuring.

“C-c-crona.”

Shoot, wait. They weren’t supposed to do that, were they? But he asked nicely. It should be fine, right? They’re supposed to be pretending right now. Playing along should be fine, right? But surely this was too far. But what were they supposed to do? But, but, but, but, but, but, but…

“Okay. Crona. Could you make out what the thing that attacked you looked like?”

But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but—  

“Where did it go?” Cody suddenly butted in.

Gottem.

Crona continued to grit their teeth in a frozen grimace and pointed frigidly forward. Despite being in the know of what was actually going on, there was a reluctance in their movement. There was no reason for the others to doubt their info, and they were more than aware of that. The group unquestionably moved forward in a sprint. Crona attempted to slip off, but Maka had instinctively grabbed onto their arm and forced them into the fray. The sweat that secreted from their furrowed face flailed further by the second. Following them meant seeing Eva again, and that was the exact opposite of what they wanted.

And perhaps it was the exact opposite of what Cody wanted as well.

“Wh-what the heck?” He stared across the square where the still feral Eva, stained in an ominous black and gray, had formed indents into the city’s infrastructure from random fits of violence. He could practically piss his pants right now. Back on the island, he made it priority number one to never so much as step foot into the same room as her, and now there she was resembling a bloodthirsty demon.

A bloodthirsty demon that stared right at him.

Just like Crona before him, he screamed.

Eva charged right at them and emanated a trail of noxious black dust behind her. The group pranced off, scattered, and just barely missed the stamp of her fists. But of course, one miss did not deter her in the least. She pinballed around the pavements of the tight streets and zig zagged past her opponents who, at the moment, only had the mental capacity to duck to the ground and dodge. It reminded Cody and his core crew of their time with Sonic back in Green Hill Zone, only now, they were in the point of view of the robots their friend regularly pulverized.

“WHY IS SHE HERE?!” Cody belted out.

“Is she your friend?!” Al gasped out in outrage.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!!” Tears welled up in Cody’s eyes from the stressful reunion he never wanted.

It was like that last shout was a signal for her, because Eva suddenly screeched to a halt and launched herself like a cannonball in Cody’s direction. With his vision partially impaired from the stings of his distressed weeps, he found it in himself to finally summon out his Keyblade to block her off. Right on impact, Eva tumbled back. The soles of her sneakers burned against the asphalt as she skidded to a halt. Vague clumps of her black aura fizzled off when they hit the blade. He’d guessed it, but now he was certain. She didn’t seem like a full on Heartless, but her body was still corrupted by their energy somehow.

“Okay, you probably can’t believe it now,” Cody shouted off to the others in between blocks and dodges. “But she’s just a regular human being. Hit her, but don’t kill her, okay?”

“Easy for you to say!” Al, Loudred, and Mokona had crumpled off into their own little corner and shifted into defensive positions. The psychic Pokemon had his arms up, keeping a force field in front of the three, while his two companions took turns popping in and out of the shield to send Supersonic waves and magic blasts in Eva’s direction. Unfortunately, with her sheer speed, the moment either one of their attacks came close to hitting her, she’d already be bouncing off to the complete opposite side of the field in response.

Maka and Soul were the only ones daring enough to try to chase her around the field rather than stick to the sidelines. The honor student effortlessly dodged around each of Eva’s charges, maneuvering Soul, in his scythe form, into graceful swirls. Each time she missed them prompted an opening for Soul to scratch right into her. He successfully nicked a cut into her arm, but rather than the spurt of blood, even more black specks spewed out and mixed in with the storm that already brewed naturally around her.

“You’re sure she’s still human?” Soul gagged at the sight. “What the hell is this?”

The one outsider of the group gulped. They were the only one who truly knew what was wrong with her. Throughout the commotion, Crona became a piece of the backdrop. They stood with shaking legs, unsure whether to be impressed with the group’s power or worried that they might actually pull out of this unscathed.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Ragnarok sneakily slipped his form out of Crona’s back and barked hushed yells into his wielder’s ear. “I’m getting booooored. Lemme at her again. Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“B-b-b-b-but,” Crona’s mouth had not stopped quivering once throughout this whole ordeal. “Th-that would go against Mother.”

“And? Aren’t you ‘sposed to be joining that crazy bitch out there? If you ain’t fighting that key kid, what the heck are you even doing here?”

…He had a point. What were they doing here?

They were here because this was all Mother’s plan. But truth be told…

…They just wanted to leave.

Screw fighting with or against them. This was Crona’s chance.

After squeezing Ragnarok back into them in spite of his protests, Crona began to tiptoe away…

…And was met with Eva’s gashing growls coming at them. Apparently, there was still a part of her that remembered their ill fated meeting before her corruption, and Crona might as well have been on the same level as the rest on her hit list.

Crona screamed once more.

Despite having just rudely forced Ragnarok back into them, Crona scrambled to snatch him back out and pried all over their body for a sword hilt. But for as bloodthirsty as Ragnarok was, there was also a petty side to him. After having just been denied some action, he repeatedly shifted himself in the complete opposite direction of his wielder’s hand like a childish game of whack-a-mole. The more Ragnarok made these immature delays, the closer Crona came to Eva’s pummeling.

This isn’t a joke! I don’t want to die!! Crona wanted to desperately cry out to their stubborn sword, but the clattering of their teeth made it impossible for anything more than wavering squawks to come out.

At last, with barely a breath away from her smackdown, Ragnarok decided it was time to call it quits and laid himself still. But by the time Crona finally reached for the blade, Maka had already swooped in to shield them away from Eva’s wrath. She spun Soul like a pinwheel and blocked Eva’s arms away, and all the while, Crona was back to shoving Ragnarok back within. They could already feel their partner mentally scream, “What gives?!” at them.

Maka carefully tilted her head back in Crona’s direction and gave a confident wink. “Don’t worry. We’ve got you.”

Crona was left wordless, only managing to utter the faintest semblance of a nod. The others all diligently fended for themselves. There was no reason for her to come running to their rescue, but there she was.

“Maka!” Soul called out, interrupting Crona’s thoughts.

Eva’s efforts faltered, and that was his signal for them to push her back. Maka mouthed a quick “Right” in response before jabbing the edge of Soul’s hilt to her stomach, pushing the battle away from Crona once more. They continued to watch the situation unfold in frozen awe. The enhancement hex Ashley cast on Eva slowly waned, and the noxious dust clouds that followed her faded along with them. Of course, she was still beyond her normal capabilities because of that, but it was becoming clear that that wasn’t enough for her to come up on top. The Keybearer’s cohorts had left their coward corner to directly confront her head on, and Cody himself fully switched to the offensive. But among them, Maka and Soul were probably her most formidable foes. The only ones to hit when things were less stacked in their favor, they hadn’t missed a beat even as the battle continued to drag along. It was the kind of tactile might that made it hard for Crona not to watch in bated breath for their victory.

They just straight up forgot that Eva’s loss was a bad thing!

Dazed and exhausted with the last of her magical boost sapped, Eva’s head wavered in a crippled circle before toppling to the pavements. Carefully with their weapons and arms still on the ready, Cody and company crept to her body and eyed for even the slightest sign of a feint. Lucky for them, the sudden snort of a gravely snore eased their worries, and they were free to slump over from that arduous fight.

They were careful not to put serious harm on her just as Cody asked, however, the very nature of Soul’s form meant cuts were inevitable. Maka’s precision had helped reduce the damage to the faintest of scars, just enough for them to observe whatever the heck was going on with her inner mechanisms. Stuck in the inbetween of open wounds and sealed flesh, the same black soot that Cody had noticed from her one clean cut from earlier seeped around the scars as they attempted to break out of their cells. Eva may have returned to a more human-like state, but the darkness stuck within her still stained her skin in sickly gray patches.

Mokona, with barely a care in the world, hopped beside her and carelessly poked one of the closed openings on her left arm. He was met in kind by the sudden spring of Eva’s head, awake and demonic looking like she was ready to eat him whole in retaliation. Before the other’s could spring into action though, her spontaneous reaction fell flat, and her head swung back into its unconscious state. The very arm wound Mokona had bothered split open during the commotion and forced Mokona into a fit of coughs as the black dust spurt into his face like a broken faucet.

“That’s the same kind of stuff Heartless dissolve into,” Cody declared and faced his two Pokemon companions for confirmation. “After we take them out, they fizzle out into this stuff. I’m not crazy, right?”

“She’s not a Heartless though, right?” Al asked in disbelief.

“Wouldn’t she have turned into something weird like that D’Void guy?” Loudred thought.

“Hold on,” Maka warily held her hand out in confusion. “I’m not sure I’m following. Normal people can turn into Heartless?”

“Yeah, but she’s not a Heartless. That’s why it’s weird!” Cody flailed his arms around while he gestured to Eva's body, illustrating just how equally confused he was.

Soul shifted back to his human form and crouched down to further observe this apparent anomaly they were all looking at. “Okay, I don’t know enough Heartless and all that crap to get it, but that entire battle felt…off.”

“How so?” Maka pondered.

“All the black shit that followed her around and left, her just getting way weaker for no reason, I don’t know. Kinda feels like she had some kind of spell cast on her or something. On top of this I mean.”

“You think she had a run-in with a witch?” Maka cupped her chin in her hand. She’d be lying if she understood the situation more than anyone else here did, but it was definitely a possibility worth looking into. “Hey, Crona,” she turned around to their tagalong. “This might be a stretch, but before you ran into her, did you happen to…”

She’d caught Crona in the middle of sneaking away. The poor teen froze mid step and returned to forming their perspiration pool.

“Uh, did you happen to see anyone else that was with her? Maybe a witch?”

Well they sure did. Just earlier that day, they were able to bear witness to Ashley enchanting Eva’s bloodstream with their very eyes. But obviously, they wouldn' tell her that.

They wouldn’t, right?

What would they tell her then?

They could tell her anything, couldn’t they?

But they’d been quiet. Too quiet.

Oh no. She was getting suspicious. Nothing came out of their mouth.

Why was this so hard? One lie. Just one lie, that’s all they needed.

But something like this would need an elaborate lie to work, right? They couldn’t possibly come up with a good lie in such short notice.

The clock keeps ticking! They were all staring now! Think, Crona, think!

No, nothing was coming out! This was bad. How were they supposed to deal with this? Could they deal with this? They couldn’t deal with this, they just couldn’t!

“aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!” Crona grabbed their head in an agonized cry, startling all witnesses. “What do you want me to say?! How am I supposed to lie about this?! Mother didn’t tell me what to say!! Stop staring at me!! What am I supposed to do?!”

Ah.

After having just expended the last ounce of their frazzled energy into that declaration, Crona shifted back to an idle position to gaze at their peers. Predictably, they all looked at them like they just spoiled the solution to a puzzle. One that they themself was a part of creating.

…Oh no.

“Ahahahahaha, wow, you idiot!” Ragnarok burst out of Crona’s seams and proceeded to embarrass, and further shock, them in front of everyone else with his aggressive face pulls. “So this is how we’re going down, huh? I didn’t even get to have real fun. Nice job, kiddo!”

They could die right now.

“H-hold on,” Cody quivered his hand. “Were…you in on this?” He’d normally be getting ready to pound on another enemy, but the surreal nature of this reveal just left him still with more questions than anything else.

“Did you say ‘Mother’?” Maka asked with an equally perplexed expression. She seemed to be the only one attempting to piece this bit together.

And as if on cue, Mother herself arrived.

“What a disaster.”

The group jumped at the newcomer who had lingered behind them while they were distracted by Crona’s blunder. A lanky hooded woman was slouched atop her broom that floated just around the height of the nearby rooftops. A hand was placed firmly over her head and covered up both a crooked cringe and twitching eyebrows. It was easy to assume this was a reaction to a plan gone awry, yet the smooth and oily slick of her voice gave little indication that it caused her any major inconvenience.

“Wh-who are you?!” Soul was the first to blurt out.

“A witchy witch. A witchy witch!” Mokona flopped around vigorously over his observation.

“Well isn’t that a genius guess?” She grumbled sarcastically under her breath. With one rough wipe of her arm across her wry face, the gang below finally got a good look at her venomous glare. “I really am working with a bunch of worthless children, aren’t I? That hex was the best that amateur could do, and this worthless doll over here watched that entire time without swinging at you even once.”

Crona shook at the mere hint of their failure. Even Ragnarok, who had gleefully toyed with them this entire time, had enough sense to quietly make his retreat back into his vessel’s body. The rest, of course, shifted back and forth between the mother and child while they took in the utter confusion that they had unwittingly fallen into the enemy’s trap turned blunder.

“You were going to attack us?” Cody asked a trembling Crona, his voice still filled with more confusion than outrage.

“That thing was supposed to, but I guess it’s only good for blubbering around like a blind insect.”

…That thing?!

What the group witnessed next was almost too painful to witness. If Medusa was there to do some damage control and wreak more havoc, she’d clearly gotten distracted and started to expend her energy elsewhere. For minutes upon minutes that felt stretched beyond, they stood as Medusa expelled an entire novel’s worth of damnations onto her child. Any opportunity she found to remind them about their sorry existence, she made sure it was stabbed right into their chest. And all the while, she never once spoke of Crona as a person. It was only ever “puppet,” “doll,” “tool,” “ thing. ” Crona’s body continued to tremble and tremble with each word until they shook around like a bulging bubble waiting to burst.

The confusion followed by the awkward terror of witnessing a family turmoil unfold before their very eyes left the others reluctant to even twitch. But for Soul, just standing around helplessly made his teeth grind deeper by the second. Like hell he was going to let that vile woman continue on like this. He had enough.

Oh, shut up!! ” His outburst was loud enough for her awfulness to acknowledge it with a raise of the eyebrow.

“You expect us to just stand here and listen to you spit out garbage and not take you down?!”

“Yeah!” Maka joined in. “What kind of mother talks about her kid like that?!”

Medusa let out a satisfied sigh. Once again, they unwittingly fell right into her hands. “I think you have more important things to worry about than defending that thing.”

The duo scowled in response. “What are you talking abou—”

It happened so fast. They were so preoccupied with chiding against Mother-of-the-Year, they failed to account for the fact that her victim was still also her ally. Loudred was the first to pick up the faint shing of an unsheathed blade. He called out to Maka, who was the closest in proximity to Crona, but with how fast they suddenly sprinted, even a split second wouldn’t have saved her. That left her only chance of escape up to her trusted partner.

Spurts of blood gushed out as Ragnarok made a solid slash across Soul’s chest. It was hard to believe it wasn’t even a fatal wound. From where Maka stood, shielded from behind, it looked almost like she just witnessed his end. Clouds of black and gray soot spewed out of Ragnarok’s edge, wrapped around the boy’s blood, and whipped it all back into his body. The dreaded essence acted like a nice visitor and made sure to leave the seams of the cut light. But the reality was still that Soul now had a large open wound on him, and poor Maka was left with nothing to do but cry out for help.

Having been left stood in confusion for a while now, that moment was the wake up call Cody and the rest needed to finally make a conclusion. This dopey Crona kid who was fidgeting and swinging their sword around like a mad ragdoll was their enemy. They jumped back into battle ready positions, with Mokona fleeing to the sidelines to assist with Soul’s recovery. Unfortunately, if they thought their previous opponent was hard to land a hit on, she had nothing over Crona. There was no rhyme or reason behind their erratic movements. They moved and flung their limbs around with the same speed and irregularity as a video game glitch. Eva had been subdued, but if what they pieced together was correct, her heightened abilities were the result of a spell. Crona though? This was the real deal, and who knew if they would to let out just like she had.

Crona came out of nowhere and swung their sword, looking to split Cody’s hair off, and the Key boy was only able to make it out alive by backing off in a failed Matrix style. The tip of his toes fumbled over the weight, and he found himself dizzily circling about before tripping right above, of all things, Eva’s body. An angry grunt came out of her, and he nearly had a heart attack over the thought of dealing with a Crona-Eva tag team. Now stuck with the task of carefully maneuvering himself off of the daunting girl without spelling the end for himself, the Keybearer was now officially out of commission. With their main physical powerhouse gone, the remaining Pokemon pair were left to more or less jump around fruitlessly knowing none of their attacks would land.

Medusa could barely contain her leveled amusement as she sneered at the flock of frantic teens and creatures down below. Things might have had a rocky start, but it finally started to get interesting. She shifted around on her broom, hoping to get into a more comfortable gloating position, but her moment of comfort was interrupted by a slight twitch of the ear. It was enough to sour her mood once more. That Ashley brat had sent out an SOS signal right when she got in the groove.

“Sorry excuse for a witch,” she muttered under her breath. No matter. She had a lot less idle time than she would have wanted, but preparations were more or less complete. With a light but firm tap on the broom’s edge, she flew her way out of the square and closer towards the coveted DWMA building.

“H-Hey!” Away from the deadly distraction, Cody was the only one to pick up on the witch’s exit. He readied his arm to toss his Keyblade in her direction, but was stopped by his one fatal mistake: He wasn’t careful enough to keep Eva at bay.

It was like facing a bull with red cloth. Eva was up on her feet in an instant and inhaled deep chunks of the air while she looked ready to pounce.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!!” Cody barfed out in what felt like the beginnings of a sob. He wasn't sure whether to use his Keyblade as a shield or to hide it away to avoid hints of aggression. “You were going crazy. We wouldn’t have attacked you like that without reason.” He really started to sob now. “Don’t kill me. I’ll do anything you want!!”

YOU!!

“I SAID I’M SORRY!!”

Eva zoomed right past him without a second thought.

It was like hitting a switch. The moment Eva entered the battlefield, everything seized. Crona was no longer the uncanny berserker that flashed past everyone’s vision. They were now a terrified kid staring into the eye of the bully they accidentally bumped into that morning. And the closer she came, the more that chaotic force slipped into memory.

“Slice her, stab her, do it!” Ragnarok loudly goaded his wielder.

“N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-no! I c-c-c-c-an’t!”

“Then what are you doing just standing around, idiot?!”

They found an opening and immediately booked it, right towards the same pathway their dear mother escaped through. Even as both they and Eva fled, Crona’s distinct whiny shriek and Eva’s vile threats sounded off like emergency alarms to the townsfolk that a storm was headed their way.

The others of course quickly trailed behind. After all, it wasn’t just those two who had fled. That ghastly witch made her way there as well, and whatever reason she had to do so, it couldn’t have been good. The two Pokemon led the pack, followed by Cody, Mokona, who had just been relieved of his healing duties, and lastly was a sluggish Soul.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Maka tried to pull his arm. “You just got hurt.”

“Yeah, and some serious shit is gonna go on if we don’t go after them.”

He harshly tossed her off and continued onward. Maka was left despondent. He was hurt because of her, and he would surely get more hurt if they pushed forward. Maybe they were in over their heads jumping into the deeper depths of the Heartless situation that Lord Death oh so graciously tried to shield his students away from. Maybe this was that key kid’s problem and not theirs.

But despite that, she thought of everything that just occurred. She thought of Crona. They tricked them. They fell for their wounded gazelle gambit and paid dearly for it. But they looked like they were suffering. They looked like they’d been suffering for a very long time.

Even if this wasn’t her fight, she wanted to help them over everything else.

Maka followed as well.

Chapter 27: Death City, USA: Nightfall

Notes:

This chapter was originally meant to be part of the previous one, but I underestimated just how long the actual text would be. I swear, this entire chapter was only like two paragraphs in my outline notes. I wanna try to see if I can rush the last Death City chapter out by the end of the month because, honestly, I have been so out of Soul Eater for so long, it is a struggle getting through this section. I just keep second guessing myself over how innacurate everything is. I usually try to save the final world chapter for the big boss, but we're heading into two fights now thanks to this rearrangement. Who knows how long the last part will be.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It had been one mishap after another since they’d entered this world. It started with the typical Heartless mob, then it followed into a rude order to leave, then Eva of all people popped up with the ability to kill them all with her own hands, and to put a cherry on top, that Crona kid not only made them meet their match, but now they were off chasing them down in a Crona-Eva double whammy. It was a cliche statement, claiming things were going from bad to worse, but there wasn’t a better way to describe the downward spiral this whole adventure had been so far. It was as if the town itself caught up on it as well. The bright and colorful streets grew all the more glum and sinister by the setting nightfall, and the encroaching Heartless that spawned aplenty with each step towards the academy ensured to make the mood the worst it could possibly be. By the time the group finally made it to the academy’s quad, their mouths were left agape at the dreadful sight ahead.

There were more Heartless abound than there would’ve been students on a more bustling day at school. It was like staring at a pool that was being prepped for use and infected with disgustingly large vats of ink. Maka and Soul had suspected that Lord Death and the faculty were downplaying the threat that had entered their world, and this sight was the horrid confirmation.

There was no use chasing after Eva and Crona at this point. For whatever reason, those two were let through the crowd like VIP guests, just zipping right into the school building while the surrounding Heartless carefully laid out a path for the pair. The moment Cody or the others tried to push through, those damn monsters clamped right back up and blocked them off in a harsh thicket. All they could do now was assess the situation and do their best not to get dragged down by this new conundrum they unwittingly fell into. In the far distance, they could hear the vague movements of academy students trying their best to fend the crowd away from the rest of the town. And in the near distance, right here in the square, they could hear Kid diligently shooting the Thompson sisters in every direction and Black Star swinging Tsubaki wildly. Boy, could they hear Black Star.

“AaaaawwwwWWWWWW YEAH!!” The boisterous ninja boy bellowed. “This is more than enough! The great Black Star is gonna wipe these things all out, and you’ll all be thanking me as the guy who took down all the Heatness!”

“This isn’t the time, Black Star!” Tsubaki’s shrill cry reverberated in the wind as her partner continued to fling her around in her kusarigama form.

“What happened?!” Cody and the rest  shouted at the others for answers, but Loudred’s booming voice was the only one anyone could pick up in this uproar. Kid had to scoot himself towards the six himself just to be able to give his reply.

“We caught an eavesdropping witch, and she sent all these things out here like a tyke bomb.”

A witch? They all collectively thought. Of course, they assumed that must’ve meant Medusa, but she was nowhere in sight. In fact, there was only one other person there who could’ve been this so-called witch, and she most certainly wasn’t Medusa. She was the short girl in red who stood in the center of the field, completely unperturbed by the chaos around her. Her massive twintails blended seamlessly with the blackened Heartless walls. Indeed, this wasn’t Medusa. This was that girl. The one who had caused them trouble back at True Cross Academy. It was Red’s master, Ashley. The witch.

Her again? Cody bit his lip. His last memory of Ashley was her fury from having just been vomited on. By him. Hopefully she forgot about that. Yes, maybe, please?

Who was he kidding? No one would forget something like that. She was there for his head.

Right on cue, her eyes locked on to him with glistening flames of vengeance. Her stare was an attack itself. He could feel his heart jump in fear as his breath halted and a single scorching cold sweatdrop dripped onto his brow. That was her first move. And her second? A smile. The most dastardly of smiles. A crooked Cheshire grin with the energy of a killer out for blood. Her third move was the quick flick of her wand. A bursting blast of magical energy shot right at Cody who was left paralyzed from her previous attacks. The poor nerd was knocked straight down.

“Hey, easy there!” Loudred caught him just before he hit the ground, but he was unable to shield his friend from the second blast. Or the third. Both were targeted specifically at him. By the fourth blast, her sixth attack, he alone had been propelled away from the group and into a more secluded part of the area. Ashley lightly tapped her Mary Janes to the ground and slowly made her way towards him in a dead silent strut. In any other situation, these were the mere steps of a tired schoolgirl. Right now however? This wavering and almost ominous walk was her seventh attack.

The next details were a bit blurry. He could’ve sworn he tried to apologize for the vomit incident again, but he wasn’t sure. Because the next thing he knew, he was back on his feet and running. Her anger was overwhelming. It would’ve been foolish to stay put. The Heartless density be damned, he slashed and pushed his way through entire troves of those things just to get away. He could make out vague details of the scene from the corner of his eyes. The others followed his example, just continuing to plow vigorously into the seemingly never ending crowd. Loudred roared and ravaged on, Al tossed them around with his mind, the DWMA students continued their raucous game of body count, and even Maka and Soul carried on despite Soul’s obvious fatigue from his still fresh injury. If they kept this up, they might be able to clear it all out. But there had to be a source, and it had to be the witch. And he was too scared to even face that witch head on.

“Hey, look, maybe we can talk this out,” he called out behind him in between leaps. It was a gut instinct comment. He knew he really shouldn’t negotiate with one of that Maleficent woman’s lackeys, but at that moment, the scorn of a teenage girl was somehow more terrifying than the threat of the Heartless themselves. “That was an accident! A really, really unlucky accident. I, I can replace your dress if you want. Just please stop. It’s really hard to run through all this, you knoOOOOHHH!!”

Cody came rolling like a soccer ball into an open clearing after accidentally tripping over Mokona. The rabbit creature’s typical misplaced laughter swirled around, and all he could think about was how he was going to have to toughen up and finally face this terrifying girl face-to-face. If not for his own sake, for the sake of a certain friend.

Despite her petite frame, he could still feel the tremors of her feet nearing inch by inch. With a heavy heart and heavy breath, he bravely took his stand. “Back at True Cross,” he started. Her face remained the same stone cold glare. She probably assumed he was attempting to apologize for the puke again. “What was that? With Red.”

She stopped dead in her tracks.

“He kept talking about how great you were the whole time. The little guy’s heartbroken right now. I know you’re on the villain side or whatever, but maybe if you can just give something to reassure him—”

Her steps came back as she charged up to him with the intent to kill. She snapped her wand out, and with a quick flick, a red celestial beam burst from the gem’s tip, morphing the stick’s form into a mighty sword. When she flung the blade at his face, he was saved by a mere reflex jump. He could physically see strands of his bangs flutter away from the cut that could’ve taken his eyes along with them. She was angrier than when she was just throwing her tantrum over the vomit and accompanying humiliation. The two launched themselves into a clanging sword fight, and each swing of hers was matched with some of the most intense ferocity he’d seen. Yet somehow, he didn’t feel the same sense of fear he did being chased down by her earlier. Her movement had reached its peak terror, but there was something else about them. They felt frustrated. Desperate.

Perhaps even a cry for help.

As the duel dragged on, Ashley’s grip and movements turned all the more feral. She wanted this all to end as soon as possible, even if it meant decapitating her opponent in the process. No, that’s pretty much what she wanted from the start. Her strikes became more targeted. She didn’t just aim for him; she aimed for his neck, his face, his scalp. Cody’s panic  started to set back in. He could only maneuver around her in close range for so long. She wasn’t the only one who wanted this encounter to close.

The young witch swung once more, and in response, he twirled to the back and dropped to his knees. If Ashley were thinking more rationally, she would’ve noticed just how strange an action this was, but her current state prompted her to keep moving like a cog. So when Cody turned right back with Mokona in his hands, the rabbit’s head gem fizzing and glowing at a dangerous capacity, she couldn’t bring herself to even conjure up a small shield. Crimson puff boomed out of Mokona’s head and sent her flying into the air and, quite literally, out of this world. Yet another humiliating defeat, but…

…At least it was over.

Finally with time to breath, Cody assessed the area. She was the reason all these Heartless had clustered beyond their typical capacity. So now that she was gone, why were they all still there? His sizable crew still continued to fight them off with all their might, but the crowd didn’t disperse at the very least. What was going on?

…!

That other witch. Where was she?

“I came here for backup and she still couldn’t get herself together. Why do we even bother with that girl?”

Medusa was back, taunting them with that venomous smirk of hers from above. Of course she’d be the one to pick up the reins. Cody did the only thing he could at the moment; he fruitlessly tossed his Keyblade in her direction only for it to sail through the air and stab a hapless Wight Knight instead. He cringed. He could feel that wretched woman get off on his screwup just on instinct, and he couldn’t even bring himself to shift his unease into anger.

“Would you like another go?” She teased him with a sultry voice as she flew herself closer to the school’s entrance.

It was such obvious bait, but he was too caught up in a flustered stammer to look away. He resummoned his Keyblade and watched it once again miss its mark miserably. That sick grin of hers only grew wider and wider. He almost found himself gearing up for another humiliating round, and by the time he finally regained his composure, it was already too late. He gripped onto Mokona’s body and begged his little friend for another long ranged attack, but any chance for the two to properly coordinate was interrupted by the bump and trip of nearby Heartless. It was now almost impossible to move around the area freely. The duo had to redirect their attention to this hapless mob just so they wouldn’t die a useless death from trampling or drowning.

“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” They could barely hear her over the Heartless chatter. “The immense chaos in full display.”

Even overwhelming would be an understatement. Night was upon them, and the flood of Heartless blended into an indecipherable blur. It became almost impossible to keep the flood from spreading. They could fight all they wanted, but they wouldn’t be able to catch all the fumes that would leak out, nor would they be able to slip off and stamp out the leakages that began to form throughout the city. Medusa could barely contain her glee. These were the fruits of her labor. For months, she snuck around from right under the academy’s nose and planted the seeds to this fateful day. By the time that idiotic reaper noticed something was amiss, it was already too late. Seeing him and his school’s staff scramble around and pretend everything was fine and manageable was like watching a comedy act catered specifically to her. Only the finest entertainment worthy of a true witch.

“And we just need one more to join in,” she lulled melodically to herself.

She snapped her finger.

It was hard to describe what happened next. The town was already eclipsed in the moonlit sky, yet that flick of her fingers brought upon a sudden sensation that they were encased in something even darker than night itself. Everyone in the vicinity froze. The Heartless grew restless. Whatever she did, she had triggered something in them.

The sky morphed into a sickly gray hue, and in the distance, screams sounded off into a demented chorus. The Heartless had successfully infiltrated themselves into every corner of Death City, and the hapless residents’ last line of defense, the DWMA students and staff, were already running on fumes. Cody could feel every inch of his body freeze to ice. It was at this very moment it dawned on him that he might have just failed. This was it. This was the end. He was the Keybearer who was supposed to save all the worlds, and he screwed up. All of Yuffie’s pep talk was for naught. Maybe things would’ve turned out differently if someone else was the Keybearer. Or maybe it would’ve all been the same. After all, apparently Keybearers were the keys to destruction themselves. That’s what freaking Death said to his face. Perhaps it was his own strange way of coping, but his mind blocked out the noise in favor of going a mile a minute mulling over how his worst fears had been confirmed. The deafening doom grew by the second, but despite all that, there was still an inkling inside that begged for him to get ahold of himself. A voice that gripped onto his shoulders and wrung him frantically like a sauntering doll.

"What are you doing?!" He could feel that voice say. "It’s not over! That bitch hasn’t won shit!" He could feel her voice say.

Perhaps it was the sheer might of the voice’s emotions itself that summoned the crackling bolt that split the air. Perhaps this voice’s power was so immense, she had the strength to drag Death himself out to heed her bidding. No matter the reason though, the voice was right. Things were far from over.

Lord Death, the hulking phantom that neither resembled a living being nor skeleton, loomed over the town with a monstrously large scythe in hand and zipped towards the school, his own turf. That mascot-like skull mask he wore creased into vicious wrinkles, and his sing-song voice was almost unrecognizable in his gruff mumblings, no doubt relaying orders to his weapon partner. Finally, with Medusa in sight, he readied himself for what he thought would be the finishing blow that would put an end to this nonsense. He was Death after all. All this Heartless tripe was no match for him.

Medusa, the sadist that she was, clasped her hands joyfully as the scythe made its botched impact. The blade screeched against an invisible plane. The man who acted as the scythe could be heard gritting his teeth in pain while Death’s face, normally completely unreadable from behind his mask, had faltered into mortified shock. Getting to see this right in front of her with her very own eyes was the real prize in this calculated calamity. A god of humanity’s one absolute looked at her with defeat.

“My, I’d like to see Maleficent pull off a feat like this,” she giggled softly to herself.

“What are you after?” He asked her. It was more of an instinctive gut reaction than an actual question.

“Oh, you know full well what it is,” she glared. “Isn’t that sad? You had months to prepare for this, and look where you are now. Just ordering people around as if you knew what you were doing, and the moment the key boy showed up, you shooed him off. Though with how pathetically he performed against Crona of all things, maybe he was all talk and no bite after all. Why, I might’ve even had a chance without that green hag’s help. Maybe I should be the one calling the shots, hm?” She chuckled again. “That’ll be the next goal I suppose. I’ll wrap this all up first.”

Medusa’s spiel had done enough to anger Lord Death’s scythe that he demanded the shinigami to try striking at her again. It seemed pointless with that force field in place, but there wasn’t anything else they could do. He swung his scythe once more with enough force to smash down a wall, and this time, the blade flew through effortlessly. A violent shing sounded off in the decaying darkness, yet there was no reaping to be seen. The attack went through this time for a reason. Medusa was already long gone.

“Sir!!”

The death god snapped back into reality through the calls of his students who had gathered at the school steps down below. He thought about their current situation. He thought about how he more or less strung all these poor kids along in a hapless endeavor. He thought to himself, it was time to come clean.

“Beneath the depths of the school,” he began. “Is where Asura lies.”

Confused murmurs erupted from Death’s audience. Even his own scythe reacted in surprise.

“He’s a being of madness that I trapped beneath the school a long, long time ago. He very nearly destroyed the entire world with his own hands. There was only one place I could think of that I thought would be enough to seal him off for good.”

Having been shooed off once before by Death, Cody and friends timidly stood off to the side. But the way the shinigami spoke his last lines was like he had beckoned to them specifically. He knew they’d be the only ones to truly understand. And he was right. Their eyes all widened as they quickly put two and two together.

“You sealed him with the Keyhole?!” Cody shouted in disbelief, startling the students who were busy failing to piece everything together.

“Are you insane?!” Al gawked.

“Maybe so.” They expected some kind of justification or anything, but the god instead admitted defeat in a solemn tone. He turned away from the students and looked down upon the outsiders. Beyond his mask, he held a humble and apologetic air. It was a complete one-eighty from his earlier attitude. “I suspect that’s who she was after this entire time. I don’t know how she was able to gain control over the Heartless, but it made her plan all the more easier. Who knows what will happen if Asura is unleashed. Who knows if Asura will stop at just our world.”

Cody gulped. No orders were needed, and no hard feelings were left. They all knew what needed to be done and who needed to do it. The boy simply nodded with a determined and cocky grin and said, “We’ll stop her. Don’t you worry.”

“Right,” Death the Kid nodded in response. “And we’ll stay behind and help level things out here.”

“Aw, hell yeah,” Black Star punched his fists together with a haughty cadence. “We’ll take down five times the quota easily.”

The liveliness Cody grew to expect from this crowd had regained its roots. Patty joined in on Black Star’s enthusiasm while Liz and Tsubaki attempted to chide him for his skewed priorities. They expected Kid to agree with them only to hear him blabbering about the exact number of Heartless he’d need to take down to fulfill his hypereven needs. They were an odd and wild bunch, but Cody and friends knew that with them here, even a darkened night as deep as this one could come to an end.

The group of four started off towards the school’s entrance. Knowing first hand exactly what lay ahead for them, they were maybe a bit more cautious in their steps than usual. But despite it all, they knew this was something they had to do. It was something only they could do.

“Walk even slower, why dontcha?” The four jumped in surprise over the gruff remark from Soul who had already power walked past them alongside Maka.

“You two?” Al asked quizzically.

“Yeah, us. So what?”

“Shouldn’t you two stay back?” Cody asked uneasily.

“Yeah,” Loudred continued. “Crona cut you up pretty bad back there.”

“Well that’s exactly why we’re coming with you,” Maka chirped in response.

There was no need to elaborate more. Those two were in the same boat as them. Up ahead was something only they could accomplish. The only question now was how any one of them planned to fulfill their goals.

With that, they took their first steps into the school.

Notes:

Me: Hey, the Death City world story is a reinterpretation of an actual Soul Eater story arc. Maybe I should actually try to reread or rewatch the series just to make sure I'm getting the details right?

Me: Nah.

Chapter 28: Death City, USA: Cutting Strings

Notes:

Damn, these Soul Eater chapters really did a number on me, lmao. Yes, I'm back. Took forever to get this chapter done. Probably doesn't help that this really should've been two separate chapters. I'm dumb and stubborn though, that's the recurring thing.

Also, I did actually go back and reread the earlier chapters and, goddamn, you can tell I've been improving because there are so many grammar issues. I guess that was the point of turning this into my new hobby though. I'll probably go back and update them at some point with fixed grammar.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Are you two really alright?”

Maka hid her squirm from Alakazam’s inquiry. The Keybearer’s crew had welcomed them into their mission, but the more Soul’s labored pants dragged, the more they turned around to look over the duo in concern. Soul, who had at one point been near the front of the pack, now sunk several steps behind the rest. Maka continued a false assured march, just barely hiding away the look of guilt in her eyes as if she blamed her partner’s condition all on herself.

“No, really, we’re fine,” she replied reluctantly.

“It’s not too late to turn back and—”

Cody lightly jabbed Al’s shoulder disapprovingly. While he too was worried about the state of their two companions, he knew that the duo’s spirits would be worse off if they were absent. There was a reason they were there. And as if on cue, signs of that reason screeched and echoed around throughout the enormous academy building’s walls. Feet skids flayed around in violent vibrations, and Crona’s distinct cries of distress bounced around with each sign of movement.

The more they hunted down the battle’s source, the more boisterous the noises became. Eva’s gravely verbal thrashes mixed in with Crona’s wails into a demented duet. A blade could be heard constantly gleaning against rubble, and the floor shook with each sign of physical impact. They probably should have expected something like this with how much trouble the two had given them, but the closer they got, the more it sank in that this coming fight might be worse than anticipated. Would they have to have to deal with both at once?

Eva had seemingly reverted to the bizarre state she was in much earlier. Her skin was covered in stale patches of gray, and the tips of her arms and legs were painted in the deepest of black. She kicked and pounded into the stony pillars and collapsed them into a ruinous image. Crona, as frightened as they were, attempted to sneak swings in at every opening they could find, but the growing pigsty of a battlefield forced them to prioritize a defensive state. As people who had relentlessly fended themselves against both of these fierce brawlers, the onlookers gaped in awe. They came here ready to go against Crona, yet here they were watching the opposing junior bodybuilder at the cusp of victory.

Eva made another garbled snarl. As she clenched her fists, the blackened stretches of her arms seeped further through her veins. Her eyes glowed a sickly gold. She was ready to enter the final phase of this fight in her fullest form.

Or at least she would have if a certain rabbit fiend didn’t knock her out of her concentration.

Mokona excitedly chanted praises towards the “Scary Lady”, a gesture that was quickly clamped down by Cody and Al’s hands. If only they’d shut him up earlier. Said “Scary Lady” had already turned her head in confusion to where the audience stood, and in that split second…

…Crona punted Ragnarok’s hilt square across her jaw and shot her like a torpedo into one of the last standing pillars in the area. Her body cracked into the thick concrete structure, just barely forcing it down with her. With one final look of pure contempt glaring towards both her opponent and the nitwits who caused her to forfeit the fight, she slumped back into a cloudy daze.

It took everything in the witnesses to not punt Mokona off in frustration.

Crona slowly approached them all. Expecting round two to begin, they promptly jumped into battle stances…only to be greeted by Crona’s pitiful shaking face. They had the same energy of an unstable pup who’d been chased around relentlessly by its irresponsible owners. After having dealt with what was obviously a difficult fight against Eva, it was no wonder they needed a break. The only question now though was whether or not it was a good idea to let their guards down around this frail chihuahua.

“I..I, I, I.” They were tongue tied just one letter in. “I can’t take this anymore. I just want to go home.”

A loud voice barked out of the sword Crona gripped onto sloppily. “Oh no you don’t! If you don’t fight them, we are toast! Doomed! Diced! Dead as a dead raccoon!”

“Why does Mother always make me do stuff like this?!” They scratched the sides of their head in despair. “What am I supposed to do? What does she expect me to do? Why isn’t anything ever good enough for her? Why can’t this be over? Why, why, why…”

Crona spewed out crazed grievances a mile a minute. Their would-be opponents were unsure of what to make of this sight. The group remembered when they first ran into the kid. They had all heard a genuine scream of terror and rushed to them with the sole goal of helping someone in need. Crona almost seemed like a scared child back then. Even more so when Medusa showed up to terrorize them. Even if that witch did it solely to unlock whatever feral essence was hidden underneath all that anxiety, she tortured them all the same. This wasn’t a run of the mill bad guy they were dealing with. And Maka had already come to that conclusion. It was the reason why she was here.

“You don’t have to listen to her,” she spoke boldly.

Crona blinked, slivers of tears having already begun to sting in their eyes. “Eh?”

“You don’t have to let her keep treating you like that,” Soul added matter of factly.

Crona’s frown creased. They were almost confused at the suggestion. “Wh-what?”

Cody looked on. There was something about this situation that felt familiar to him. He too lived a life where he got relentlessly stepped on. In the past, he followed along to so many dumb requests all for the sake of fitting in and surviving. He found himself in humiliating situation after humiliating situation, but still kept going like a blind mule because he kept foolishly chasing after that ideal life he wanted. Obviously, none of this probably compared to whatever Crona must’ve been through, but maybe, just maybe, this tiny connection would be enough to change the tide.

“Hey.”

Everyone, Crona included, jumped at the sight. Cody was not usually a proactive person when it came to sappier subjects like this, but here he happily extended a hand to his reluctant foe.

“You can join us.”

“Hu…huh??”

“We don’t have to fight,” he elaborated. “Listening to your mom isn’t getting you anywhere, yeah? Why not switch sides?”

“Kid,” Ragnarok replied amidst Crona’s continued confusion. “Trust me, you can talk as much sense as you want, you ain’t getting shit through this dummy’s head.”

“Wh-wh-wh-wh,” Crona continued stuttering. “What would I even do?” Like many of Crona’s other outbursts, that wasn’t really a question meant to be answered.

Of course, Cody’s dumb mouth went and answered it anyway.

“Take down your mom, of course!”

The others chucked their jaws open. This was Mokona levels of tact. What the hell was he thinking?

He wasn’t really. And they were about to pay the price.

Crona’s pupils swiveled into an intense lock. Take down Mother? What in the world was he talking about? They can’t just do that. That would mean going against her! They’re supposed to obey her. Why did they obey her? Because they had to. Why do they have to? Because they had to. Did they want to? Of course not. Wait, did they? They didn’t, right? But they must. But why? Why would they not? But why not? What was this? This wasn’t right. Take them down. That was right, that was it, take them down! Take them down, take them down, take them down, take them down…

After going through all the minute signs of an internal freakout in the matter of seconds, Crona slumped over like possessed twig and prompted a yelp from the Keybearer who was still waiting for a grab of the hand. Cody snatched his arm back and nervously positioned his fingers into his usual wielding position. This was the only real moment he had to reflect on how badly he botched that up. The next thing he knew, Crona stared him down with a crazed face that froze between a cry for help and a cry of sadistic laughter. It was the return of the chaotic sword slinger they fought back in the city streets. With a quick clash between the Keyblade and Ragnarok, everyone scattered about and readied themselves for their redo against the one-person army.

The warm up fight with Eva earlier had left the field a sorry catastrophe. With cratered pillars caved into the floor tiles, everyone bounced about as they tried to maneuver their way into a good spot for a sneak attack. But Ragnarok’s might plowed right through each and every time. Gluts of concrete and gravel spewed out throughout the air while the pillars continued to be split and divided into even more scattered slices.

Cody settled on making a repeat of his Smash Stadium strategy. He carefully timed each rubble dodge between each swing and dashed away right as the blade would’ve split him in half. In no time, he was once again right up against Crona face-to-face; something that was a better idea in his head than in actual practice. With Crona’s frenetic ferocity, a one v one was the worst possible position to be in. He could barely keep up blocking each constant parade of attacks. With each clash, he took another step back. And another. And another. And—

“Wh-whaa!!”

He took one misstep on to a stray pile of pebbles and came tumbling down like he just slipped on a sea of marbles. If it weren’t for his slipup acting as a good distraction for Al, Loudred, and Mokona to start fending Crona off, he could’ve very well have been a goner. Still, at that brief moment, that tiny sliver of time between his fall and his sore back, he couldn’t help but notice something strange. Something not unlike what he felt fighting against Eva earlier.

Cody wasn’t the only one who sensed that “something”. Sneakily surveying the fight from afar the core Keyblade Crew’s scuffle, Maka, with a scythed up Soul in hand, carefully observed Crona from atop one of the collapsed pillar pieces. Now that she was in a position to examine the swordfighter’s prowess without the immediate threat of death, she could see the strange shadowy mists that sprung around during each charging attack.

“Do you see that, Soul?” She murmured.

“Yeah,” her partner responded.

“It’s like what was going on with that girl earlier. Cody said it was like she was a Heartless, but she wasn’t one at the same time.”

Soul peered further in. Loudred, Al, and Mokona started to get worn down, and Crona’s slashes were grew in numbers. Each new slash meant more of those strange black wisps. It was at that moment that Soul realized what exactly they were. After all, he saw them getting crudely sucked right into him not long ago.

“It’s their blood!” He blurted out. “They’ve got Heartless crap infused in their blood!”

“You’re kidding,” Maka blinked.

“You know what this means, right?”

She could practically feel the excited grin Soul would’ve flashed if he was in his human form. It would’ve been the kind of grin one would have if they knew their victory was assured. The way things were now, the fight was in a total stand still. Eva was the only one who could make a decent dent on them, and now he knew why and why they were going to be the ones to end this.

“Are you sure about this?” Maka frowned in uncertainty. “You’re still hurt. We’re moving a lot slower than we normally would.”

“I’m only as good as the meister using me,” he replied. “Trust me. I’ve got a plan.”

She could feel him grin again.

“Remember, we’re connected.”

She could figure it out with just that.

Back up ahead where the action was, things did not get any better for our heroes. Cody reentered the arena praying that four against one would’ve evened the odds just a little. But if it didn’t do anything during their previous match, it most certainly wouldn’t do anything now. He was sent back flying against one of the many stray pillars, nearly knocking all the light out of him with his second major back injury within minutes. And to add insult to injury, a certain ball of white fur was hauled right into his guts like a well aimed bullet. At this point, he was lucky he hadn’t been torn in half for real.

“Hey, Al,” he winced angrily right before flopping back to the floor. “Can’t you use your mind to freeze them or something?”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?!” Al wheezed aghast. “They’re too dang fast!” Shortly after, he too fell victim to massive pillar induced back pain and a face plant to the floor.

With three out of the four down for the count, the only thing Loudred could do now was give out a paralyzing Howl. The plan was for him to nab his buddies to safety and get the heck out of there while their opponent was still stunned. But that small safety window was enough for a spark. He had unknowingly signaled out a war horn. In those few seconds where Crona stumbled, Maka sprinted across the pillar top and leapt into an aerial strike. She very nearly landed a clean gash into Crona’s arm, and Soul’s blade was just barely shielded away by Ragnarok’s tip.

Maka confidently landed back on her feet. Normally, this would’ve launched off into another round of close combat, but something strange was in the air. Everyone could feel it. Even Crona could feel it. Their body stayed in place as they anticipated Maka and Soul’s next move.

Like a crude imitation of Crona’s entrance into battle, Maka slumped over in an uncanny gesture. Then, it happened. Soul’s blade lost its typical sheen and blotted out into a flat murky hue. While his form continued to change, the shadowy essence slowly crawled its way into the clashing image of Maka’s pure white gloves. They seeped further throughout her body and stopped just before covering her face itself.

She slung her body back upright with a slanted taunting smirk. The way the black veins weaved themselves around her head, it was as if she’d slipped on a hideous mask. The typically calm and collected honor student giggled like a mad woman. And in the transformation’s final touches, her emerald green eyes morphed into bright sickly lime.

“...heeeeheheheheheheheeeheehee…”

The four onlookers gawked in bated silence. Neither of the two berserkers made a move. Crona was reassessing the entire situation even in their feral state. Eva was a formidable foe who was defeated out of dumb luck. Would they be able to carry that luck over to these two?

While Crona was technically the first to make a move, even a small flinch was quickly matched with a bullet-like dash. Maka sprung herself towards them with such veracity, it had to be karma taking its first toll. Ragnarok just barely blocked Soul’s blade, and he fended off each successive strike at the very skin of his teeth. The meister-weapon duo was finally trapped in the same suffocating cycle they had incited on to all of their past opponents. They carefully shifted their pacing to evenly match against Maka and Soul’s rhythm only for the occasional interference of the Keyblade Crew to throw them off each and every time. All the while, Maka’s crazed giggles continued to find ways to sliver into Crona’s increasingly tense head.

The battle continued to escalate with the pair of duos bouncing off and decimating the surrounding fallen pillars into tattered stones barely resembling fixtures. The Keyblade Crew fell back as bystanders, deciding there was no real guarantee they could protect themselves from friendly fire at this rate. Watching the four duke it out was like witnessing spinning razor tops mash into each other with murderous force.

They weren’t sure if it was fear or fatigue, but bit by bit, Crona could find their non-crazed personality slip back into place. And with it, came increasingly fumbled steps. They could sense Ragnarok’s growing desperation at the futility of their blocks. While Crona’s inner madness was fading, Maka’s was still ripe and bare. Just seeing her ghastly giggling face between the intervals of the clashing blades was enough to put the poor kid into a shaking posture. By the time Ragnarok was unceremoniously flung off their fingertips and out of bounds, they already faltered into a pathetic squirm, covering their face in preparation for whatever awful fate lay ahead.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” they stuttered out over and over again. In the back of their head, they knew this was coming. Blindly following their mother was destined to lead them to this unfortunate path, but they continued on trudging through that path regardless. This was the end, their sorry, sorry end…

…They could feel themselves in a tight hug.

Ever so slightly, Crona lifted their weary eyes off their palms and saw that their foe did not resort to hacking them to bits. She held them, repeated comforting words of “it’s okay” over and over again, and her Heartless corrupted skin now back to its original hue while Soul reverted into his human form, watching on timidly to the side.

Ragnarok could be heard nearby awkwardly shouting for his master to retrieve him. Cody was ultimately the one to grab ahold of the sword and hand him back. Just moments before, this would’ve been an unthinkable act, but the outcome was clear as day. Crona was no longer an enemy.

All that could be heard in those halls were pure sobs of relief.

 

oOo

 

“Are you sure you want to come with us?” Maka cocked her head. “You can stay behind, you know.”

“No, it’s okay,” Crona answered quietly. “This is partially my fault, I guess…”

Cody responded with a whistle of approval. “Taking on your mom right away. Pretty gutsy, dude.”

Al and Soul elbowed him on both sides of his spleen.

“Ow! Hey, what gives?! Trying to hurt me right before the next big battle?”

“If you don’t zip it, you’re getting a bigger handicap,” Maka glared. Cody could feel shivers run down his spine.

After gaining a new ally through Crona, the gang had started to trudge on through a seemingly endless staircase to what they believed led to the very depths of the school itself. Still worn and banged up, Crona had exploded into feverish bouts of apologies. None of the others were having it. It took Ragnarok’s clammy hands to finally calm them down. The group had all put on brave faces to brush it off, even making fun smalltalk as they continued to descend. But it was all a weak veil over the knowing certainty that they were headed into whatever was up ahead with a huge disadvantage.

“How deep does this school go?” Loudred yawned incredulously from exhaustion. Mokona had long perched atop his head for a blackout nap.

“Beats me,” Soul grumbled. It was almost amazing how much he, Maka, and all their classmates were kept out of the loop. “At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a whole ass dungeon down there.”

“You’re not too far off from the truth.”

The eight of them all jolted like they were woken up from a wavering slumber. Her voice echoed through their ears. That could only meet one thing: this fight none of them were in the best shape to partake in was just up ahead. They rushed down the steps, more as a means to peel off a bandage than anything else, and heaved to a halt the moment they reached the bottom.

The bottommost floor did indeed have an eerie vibe behind it, more closely resembling a torture chamber than anything remotely related to a school building. Walls of intricate cage contraptions lined the faded walls and an ominous gate stood menacingly at the furthest end. And then there was Medusa who blended disturbingly well into her backdrop. It was like walking back home late and being greeted by a mother who waited specifically to unleash a spirit crushing lecture destined to become a core memory.

“Well, well, well,” she spoke softly within the clicks of her tongue. “This is how you decide to treat your dear old mother. Nothing but a worthless doll after all.”

Crona didn’t even have to understand the string of words she had flung at them. Just hearing the sound of her voice was enough to trap them in a shaking fit. Every fiber of their being was telling them to do something. Quite literally, Ragnarok spat that very order right at them. But the more she threw her verbal abuses, the more they felt petrified. She was trying to take control of them again, trying to send them back into that crazed form. Maybe they seemed sad and pitiful just standing there like this, but in a way, this very lack of action was their own personal protest against her.

And she hated it.

Soul quickly snapped back into his scythe form and into Maka’s hand. They were already geared up to make their move with how pissed they were being forced to hear Mother-of-the-Year doing her thing again, but the moment she so much as flinched, they knew the time to idle around was over. An almost fabric-like ribbon of darkness unraveled from her back and swung towards the duo. After the two quickly blocked it out, an entire collection of similar ribbons sprung out from under her skin. Medusa was surrounded, both by her own little ribbon army and by the rest of the gang who acted quick in fending themselves off from those piercing snakes.

In the middle of a counterattack, Cody’s eyes nudged toward the far end of the room where that gated shrine lay. It was distant enough that the details easily became an indecipherable blur, but even still, there was no mistaking what that it represented. Within the ominous structure, chains upon chains draped across the beams and entranceway with locks dotted abound like beads. No doubt one of them had to be…

That’s it! He thought to himself.

There was no reason to pay any mind to this witch’s distractions. Just one wave of his key and they could all be done with this. All he had to do was speed on over to the other side and seal it all on his own. But of course, it was a plan all too plain and simple to let slip. Thinking Medusa was distracted enough from fending herself off from the others, Cody was nearly halfway through the hall before he was blocked off by the sudden shift of cages. A mass barrier formed right before him, and the bars that sat idly to the side slid over like they had minds of their own. Cody grappled on to one of the newly positioned cells in frustration…and just from that, his eyes widened in confusion. Something was off. The bars bobbed around ever so slightly like they were slowly sifting themselves from below.

He made a high pitched yelp before leaping away. The cage violently shook itself into the air while a haunting moan quaked from above. The cell was whisked off by a spirit, and it wasn’t just any old ghost. Fissures sparked in the sky before revealing the oafish face and mangy claws of the massive Prison Keeper Heartless.

His first instinct was to strike first. But strike at what? The body was over a dozen feet above, and all he could hit was this detached cage. That’s what his head tried to warn him, but his hands obviously weren’t going to listen. One clean hit sent the cage’s door wide open. One of the dumbest moves he’d made yet to be quite honest. Like an emaciated beast that awaited its feast, Prison Keeper swung its nest over, ready to clamp down the Keybearer as its prize.

Cody bit his lip. He’d really done it now. He hurriedly held the key up front as a shield, the only real way he’d be fending this thing off now at this rate. But right as Cody was about to be crowned prisoner, a certain someone cloaked in a pitch black hue ran to block it off. Crona smacked Ragnarok on to the bars with all their might, swaying the cell away…and back like a pendulum where it took Crona as Cody’s replacement. The already rowdy scene erupted into further chaos, both sides unsure of where to focus their attention. Crona’s peers eyed each other pointedly in an attempt to distribute their battle-or-rescue duties silently amongst one another while Medusa’s irritated curses against her own child were garbled under their screams.

Just from reading the situation alone, they could all agree on two things: Cody was the closest to the cage, and Mokona made the perfect projectile weapon. In those haphazard seconds of panic after their friend’s imprisonment, both the Keyblade and Mokona were launched at the bars and unceremoniously swatted off by the Prison Keeper’s flailing hands. The more it continued to wave its windsock limbs, the more it revealed its true form; a deadly spinning top.

The Keyblade Crew knew what to do. The nuisance cage with its clawed arm shield wasn’t too unlike Kurt Zisa back at True Cross. All they had to do was work together to avoid its hits and take it down from its core. A task unfortunately easier said than done. Amidst their cage confrontation, Medusa was far from willing to let herself fall into the sidelines. The combined swatting of Prison Keeper’s massive limbs and Medusa’s massive flurry of ribbons left the group trapped in a bind.

The short ranged fighters, Cody and the Soul-Maka duo, were left fending off against Medusa. Between the thrawl of deadly streamers, she slithered her lanky form away from each swing that made her way like the slick serpentine witch that she was. Our heroes could only grow all the more frustrated at the vertigo from the dizzying tangle her movements made.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Cody griped, just barely dodging a shadow stab by his cheek. “Can’t you two do that crazy Heartlessy thing you were doing earlier?”

“Are you crazy?!” Soul shouted back.

“That form was really hard to control,” Maka tried to elaborate between huffs and heaves. “This fight is a mess right now. If we go and use that form carelessly, we’re not going to be able to tell the difference between you and her.”

“I’m in the way then?” Cody concluded. His eyes carefully shifted over to where the rest of the gang fruitlessly attempted to save Crona. “Then it wouldn’t be a problem if I weren’t here?”

“No, it’s not that sim—”

He didn’t even let her finish before he made his retreat.

“For crying out loud!” The two screamed out at once. With one less fighter, the struggle against Medusa intensified. For as much as Cody wanted the two to resort to their unstable trump card, their minds were too trapped in focus to give in.

“...Hey, did you see that?” While backflipping over Medusa, for a split second, Maka caught sight of a faint, thin glimmer alongside the ribbons and knots; a tiny disjointed seam split off from her threads. And after careful examination, the lone seam trailed straight to the tip of the Prison Keeper.

Just as soon as the duo uncovered her scheme, she too realized what they’d just saw. If she was even a tad bit bothered, she certainly didn’t show it. “Go on,” she clicked her tongue. “What are you waiting for?”

It almost felt like she was baiting them. Like she was hoping they’d launch themselves into that other form of theirs and cause the unpredictable ruckus they were afraid of. Cody was counting on it, Medusa was counting on it; this was a gamble for both sides. The two already figured out the weak point. It was just a matter of whether or not they’d be able to slip past Medusa’s sprawling fortress of threads or get themselves further trapped within it. With looks of uncertainty, the darkness spread throughout bodies and Medusa continued to look on with a goading grin.

While the three bounced wall to wall with ribbons shooting all over the place, Cody and the others surrounded the Prison Keeper. Their combined attacks created a temporary halt in its movements and left the floating fortress wide open. Alakazam used his telekinesis to safely launch Cody and Loudred to the roof of the cage. While Loudred exchanged quick words of assurance to Crona, who was whacking Ragnarok desperately on to the bars, Cody very carefully tiptoed closer to the brim of the cage; just enough to lift down his Keyblade and hopefully unlock it himself.

The two below had been keeping careful watch and suddenly started to scream their lungs out to their friends above. The Prison Keeper started to regain itself, and by the time the three above took notice, it sprung forcefully into another spinning fit. Loudred quickly gripped his right hand to the upper bars and his other to Cody’s arm, just barely saving him from slipping off. Though one had to question if he would've been better off taking the fall or not. There was nothing but screaming going on as the cage just spun and spun. Cody’s easily nauseated body fought for its life, Loudred struggled to reason with himself whether this was better or worse than the True Cross carousel incident, and Crona, practically numb to the spinning at this point, crashed around despondently. All the while, Al and Mokona tried to warn Maka and Soul about the impending monster-go-round, but a combination of the meister-weapon duo’s concentration being trapped in their half-Heartless form and the two would-be messengers getting swatted by the Keeper’s palms straight across the room into a brick wall forced the message to land on deaf ears.

Medusa hid a fit of giggles beneath her calm veneer. Even while occupied with her own little tussle, she kept tabs on the rest of the battlefield and had more than enough confidence to begin gloating about her impending victory. Even Maka and Soul had started to wear down. Maybe the pressure had gotten to them or maybe they had expended too much energy back during their fight against Crona, but no matter how hard they tried to cut down her string, she would maneuver herself just enough to throw them off. This form of theirs was supposed to be unpredictable, yet there she was always a step or two ahead.

“You really thought you had something here, didn’t you?” She sneered. Of course they couldn’t outwit her with this gambit. She was Crona’s mother. She probably helped perfect this form herself. Why did they take this gamble? What were they thinking?

Medusa was about ready to get serious. It was fun humoring these two, but she couldn’t keep flicking around a bunch of brats forever. While Maka landed back on her feet after another leap, Medusa took that one split second of reprieve to gather all the ribbons together. Maka began to charge towards her. They had thought the ribbon tangle had them at a disadvantage, but with them all neatly together, all it would take was one concentrated and unavoidable stab to take her down. It was in that split second that Maka got ready to swing at her again. And it was in that split second that those ribbons flew towards her like a poison tipped arrow.

And it was in that split second that Medusa felt her body crash and slide several feet across the floor as Eva ruined everything for her.

The ribbons jutted to a halt. The witch’s mind was now occupied trying to drag this mangy teenager off her. Eva’s memories were still laser focused on the bastards who dragged her into this mess earlier today, and guess what? Medusa was mental bounty number two.

With Eva charged up in her own half-Heartless form, Medusa struggled to drag her off. Sure, she could handle Crona and those two perfectly fine, but this girl had the build of a young barbarian. By the time she finally broke free, she was thrusted back into another fight with Maka and Soul with little to no warning. The one-two(-three) punch of half-Heartless teenagers was beyond her original foresight. She figured Eva would’ve rotted off in a ditch after she had her fun with her. Just one tiny deviation to her plan was ruining everything. As if she were rubbing it in, Eva sent her flying with an uppercut to the jaw. Maka leapt into the air and jabbed the edge of Soul’s hilt right into her stomach. As she slammed painfully onto the floor, forming a crevasse in the shape of her body, her mind forced out a panicked crack of her shadowy threads; a last ditch effort to salvage this ordeal. Or, unbeknownst to her, the trigger for her undoing.

With Medusa’s clutch, across the room, the already disorienting Prison Keeper thrill ride turned into an even speedier barf hazard. Cody and Loudred never once stopped screaming throughout their ordeal. Crona was lucky they could even pick up their calls from within the cage.

“I,” Crona choked in between squeamish wobbles. “I think the, the bars… a-a-are aaaaalmoooooost b-b-b-b-brok-k-k-k-k-ken.”

“Wh-wh-wh-wh-whaaaaaaat?!"

“I, I said…I, I, I…” Even with enough strength to keep whacking Ragnarok to the weakening metal, actually talking was impossible.

Despite not understanding a single thing they sputtered out, Loudred carefully knelt his arm downward, just enough for Cody to grab hold of the bars near the cage’s entrance. With the constant rattles and sways, it was a fight in and of itself to try to stay within the cage’s grasp. Very carefully, Cody once again reached his Keyblade towards the keyhole. Carefully… carefully… ever so slightly…

His efforts were all for naught because with one last strike, the cage’s foundations snapped and finally came undone. The force of the bars smacked right into Cody’s scrawny body and sent him soaring across the air. And not too far behind him was the even scrawnier Crona who became the poor victim of extreme inertia. Together, with their blades flailing from their shaky hands, they zoomed right past Medusa’s forest of threads and slashed through every last one of them, including Prison Keeper’s personal seam. Just as the duo landed screeching on to the floor, their Heartless foe toppled helplessly to the ground.

There were three screams: One was from Medusa who struggled to vent out the mountain full of frustrations that formed within her all at once. Another was from Crona who, after snapping out of their dizzy fit, realized their good buddy Eva had followed them down here. And the last, more a snarl than a scream, was from Eva who let out a series of expletives as she stomped towards her original target, nearly trampling over a barfing Cody along the way.

Medusa’s hands wriggled in anger. Her shadow seams already began to regenerate, but a single moment of pause was more than enough to have her undone. Maka and Soul, still in their feral forms, continued to strike at her without pause. And now she also had to deal with Eva and her own child whose separate scuffle collided effortlessly into her own. In the distance, the two Pokemon and Mokona were finishing off the Prison Keeper, now collapsed to the floor and resorting to slapping its arms around like a beached seal. It was utterly infuriating how quickly things had turned against her.

She knew if she faltered even once, these would be her final moments. With her seams still in a ragged shape, their healing having been halted in her final burst, she throttled them around like a fistful of daggers. Throughout the battle, she acted coy and playful, even treating her movements like a dance. Now, there was nothing but ferocity. If she could take down just one of these damn brats, even that would be enough to satiate her. It now came to a final face-down between her and Maka. The tattered shadows shredded right through the corners of the young meister’s longcoat. With enough force, Medusa could even make a dent into Soul’s blade if she wanted to. Yes, this would be her victory. Just this, just give her this. Just one stab through the girl’s chest…

In her delusions, she never saw it coming. Crona had sensed their friends’ predicament and, with all their might, shinged the blunt end of Ragnarok right into Eva’s ribs, forcing her straight towards Medusa’s direction. How could she fall victim to the same trick twice? The witch’s shellshocked body rolled and tumbled roughly against the cold tiled floor. After traveling nearly halfway across the spacious room, she finally laid still and limp like a fresh corpse ready to be battered by vicious predators. Perhaps she was finally knocked out. Or perhaps she finally discarded her dignity and embraced her defeat. Either way, no one would ever know what her final thoughts were.

SLAM!!

Al, Loudred, and Mokona had sharply wounded the Prison Keeper’s arms, and the loose limbs flopped pathetically to the ground, right where the witch’s body lay. The silence was deafening. There was no way she could have survived that. She was gone.

The Prison Keeper lay dazed and dormant, utterly helpless without its master. Despite its sorry state, it continued to drone out garbled moans as it imagined a scenario where it was still in control of the long lost fight. Cody approached it with a slight look of pity. It was like putting down a diseased dog. With just a quick swish of the Keyblade, the Prison Keeper’s face was slashed and diced. It exploded into a flurry of dark smoke and soot. Everyone collapsed to the ground in exhaustion and gazed at the fading smog, treating it like victory confetti.

Silence simmered on and on long after it faded. There was nothing left. No Prison Keeper, and no Medusa.

 

oOo

 

The trek to the rear end of the room was almost a whole fight in itself. Everyone would’ve preferred to doze off into a well earned rest, but they had allies waiting patiently outside, and they still had one more task at hand. No one spoke a word as they all slowly made their way, each of their steps moving mere inches in between. There was a momentary struggle deciding what to do with Eva, who was woefully knocked unconscious once more. No doubt the moment she woke up, they’d all be tossed again in some deep shit, but perhaps that was best left to their thoughts in the future. There was no use worrying about her now. Not when the Keyhole was up ahead.

The group stopped in front of the gargantuan gate, tied up in knots upon knots of sturdy chains. Wherever the Keyhole was, it was hidden within the several failsafe locks that trailed across the corners of the entranceway. Cody very quietly went through each and every one before they were finally left with one last lock.

“So this is it,” he said in empty awe.

“Yeah,” Maka nodded as she hid her overwhelmed feelings behind a stern stare.

“Madness incarnate is in there,” Al contemplated. “That’s what Death said, yeah? And it almost went loose.”

“This on top of the Heartless,” Loudred whistled solemnly. “Now that would’ve been a problem.”

“Don’t even make me think about it,” Soul groaned.

Cody gave a quick glance back at the others. For some reason, there was something more daunting about sealing this Keyhole off than all the ones that came before. Crona answered his stare with a solemn nod of approval. It was a strange gesture. Crona’s mother had caused this mess all for that one lock, and like hell they should have any say as to whether to seal it shut or not. But in a way, it was like a signal to put everything that had transpired behind them. To move on and move forward.

With a careful twist of his key, the room was engulfed in bright light…

 

oOo

 

AAAAAAALLLLLRIGHT!! ” Black Star bellowed out an ear ringing shout to the sky, all clear from the unnatural darkness that engulfed it before. “Hit that quota like it was nothing! Those Hearties never had a chance.”

“But did you keep track of how many you were defeating?” Death the Kid butted in.

No he did not. “Who asked you?!”

“We saved the city though,” Tsubaki added sweetly. “That’s what matters, right?”

“Who cares about that?” Liz responded, all her level-headed pretenses tossed away and her sister, Patty cheering obnoxiously to the side. “Extra credit, babyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

With peace now restored, everyone, both Cody’s group who had ventured inside and the students who held the fort behind, gathered at the school gates. Somehow, the five students tasked to decimate an entire city’s worth of Heartless were still fired up compared to the frontliners who struggled to keep themselves from dozing off on the steps. Lord Death had just granted the promised extra credits regardless of quota count, and the celebratory cheers from the underachievers rang numbly in the others’ ears.

“Shut up…” Soul moaned as some drool seeped off the corner of his mouth. Maka would’ve told him to let them have their fun, but her groggy droll was interrupted by an even mouthier voice.

“WILL YOU IDIOTS CAN IT?!” Ragnarok burst out from Crona’s back, surprising even them. “Some of us are trying to sleep here! I don’t care if we’re on your side now, I will slice all of you—” Crona desperately crammed the loud weapon man back into them, prompting a small fit of laughter from the others despite his threats.

It was a sight to behold. With his eyes just barely keeping on, Cody looked over the scene once more and saw Crona, once their enemy, intermingling amongst the DWMA students like they‘d always been one of them. Seeing their meek smile gave him a sense of hope. That even those shrouded in darkness could have some light in them. That those people deserved to be heard and understood.

It reminded him of a certain asshat “friend” of his.

A second chance, huh?

“My, do you four seem to be settling in nicely down there.”

Cody, Al, Loudred, and Mokona, still too tired to even jump in surprise, dragged their eyes ever so slightly to see Death’s bulking white mask perched above them. Crona, Maka, and Soul had long left to mingle with their peers, leaving the worldly outsiders alone with the being who had demanded their leave not too long before.

“Uh, y-yeah,” Cody mustered the paltry strength left in him to suck in a dry gulp. He doubted he’d ever get used to talking to the shinigami.

“Do you, uh,” Loudred shifted his eyes uneasily. “Want us to leave?”

“Well, you four are on a journey, yes? Obviously you should leave eventually. But we’re far from speaking to one another on unfriendly terms, aren’t we?” He lifted his hand above them. “You have my apologies and thanks, and if you need to stay and rest, you may do so for as long as you please.”

The four looked at one another. The shinigami’s absolute wall of a hand was just high enough to squash them dead if he wanted to, yet this higher being just politely asked for a handshake. A lot of strange things had happened since their adventure began, but nothing would top befriending the actual god of death anytime soon. Fully sinking into the levity, the four grasped on to the corners of the hand with wide and worn smiles…

…And they proceeded to collapse on the steps out cold, finally giving in to their fatigue. There were many more worlds out there that needed them, but for now, they would rest.

 

oOo

 

The cabbit had long lost track of the hours and even the days. Not a single moon nor star ever glistened beyond the castle windows that showcased an eternally clouded sky. Not a single step of his led him any further through the hulking castle. It was like being trapped in a closed labyrinth, constantly reentering the same few rooms over and over again. Each new hallway he thought he’d crossed, each new breakthrough he thought he’d made all led him in the end to the same room; a library filled with bright and vibrant plants that spilled out from the small greenhouse that laid in the center.

The cabbit carefully plucked out a carrot from the soil and gently nibbled its tip as he looked around the premises. How strange that this castle was able to house this tiny atrium. Not once had he ever seen anything beyond the thick clouds in the sky, yet these plants were all able to thrive. A heavenly light shined through the glass, yet he had no way to tell where this miraculous light source came from. It had to be artificial. But still…

He plucked out four tomatoes for the road and made his way back into the library and out  into the hallways to resume his neverending trek. He wasn’t looking forward to possibly walking in a circle once more, but if anything, he was glad this room of all rooms was his constant starting point. With how much time has passed (?), he wouldn’t know what he would’ve done without food. And no matter how much he picked out of the garden, newer and fresher fruits and veggies would grow back in their place.

The cabbit’s long and drooped ears twitched. Someone was nearby. Probably some of those shady folks who’d kidnapped his friend. He was the kind of guy who’d jump right into battle without hesitation, but the disorienting nature of this castle forced him to hide in caution each time he happened to run into one of the castle’s inhabitants. Laying low and listening in was his only hope to figuring out how to get anywhere in this madhouse.

He hugged his back to the wall and ever so slightly inched his head to the corner. Before he could even make out who he was dealing with here, a sudden smash echoed throughout the hollowed hall. He had to slap his hand right over his mouth just to keep himself from yelping in fright. That devilish looking woman, Maleficent, had purposely knocked over a vase while her diminutive apprentice, Ashley, stared guiltily to the floor.

No words were spoken and not a single soul moved an inch. In this castle where time seemed to never move, this moment might as well have lasted a century. When Maleficent finally made her leave, the oppressive air she wrung left nothing but fear in its path. Ashley continued to stare down to the floor, completely despondent.

He was the kind of guy who would walk up to someone who was distraught and try to comfort them. Of course doing so with the supposed enemy would be a foolish move, but here at this moment, he couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was going through the girl’s mind. How did she feel about this situation? How deep into this plot was she? How did she feel about being here?

Did she want to be here?

Why didn’t she?

Notes:

According to my fic outline, this marks the halfway point of the story. To be perfectly honest, I was expecting to have this done all in one year when I started. Boy did I miss that mark. I've said it before, but I intend on going on for a long a I can, so let's see how far we can go by the end of the year!

Also, as a warning, the next world is going to be....another really weird one. Brace yourselves!

Chapter 29: MidiCity: There's Music in the Air

Notes:

Okay, I can explain myself.

Remember when I wrote in my Chapter 1 AN that I just kept expanding on this fic when I got way too old for it cuz I was on my "lmao, this ain't ever leaving my head again" shit? Well, the Show By Rock anime came out when I was in college and it was then that I decided I was going to replace my original Atlantica stand-in with it.

None of that sounded good. I'm sorry.

Also, so like, being able to incorporate music was a personal requirement for Atlantica stand-ins so there, uh, might be some minor musical elements mixed in. Again, I really didn't think I'd ever let this leave my head again and I had actually started imagining everything as a visual medium at that point and didn't really think how weird this would be in written form. Don't worry. It won't be a lot. This chapter in particular has the latter half of the anime's first season TV size opening, "Seishun wa Non-Stop". I was originally going to straight up have the entire opening in there but decided that was overkill. Reading the lyrics isn't necessary so you can just like...skip them when you see them.

Chapter Text

A strum of a guitar, a beat of the drum, a hum of a star-to-be; these were the common sounds and sights in the bustling MidiCity. A mecca of the world’s pride and culture all in one place, there was never a dull moment in this neon lit capital. The bright lights beamed all throughout the night sky, and the city’s centerpoint, the aptly named Center Tower, glistened with the sheen of the large crystal-like chunk that laid neatly on top. This was the kind of place one would lose themselves in. The kind of place that one would spend hours upon hours venturing through just taking in all the life that sang through the streets. The kind of place that a certain magical girl in red would find herself pondering upon for months on end.

Ashley sat quietly off in the city outskirts and gazed at the mesmerizing glow of color from atop a rocky cliff. She often found herself sitting in this very spot, just observing this strange world from afar. They had discovered MidiCity not too long after she joined Maleficent’s ranks. It was in the middle of the green witch’s spree of destruction when she let the Heartless loose to wreak havoc indiscriminately. It’d be a terror in itself just to list how many worlds were lost in that period, yet somehow, there was something about this world that piqued her interest enough to let it slide.

Most worlds were dictated by the power of light and darkness through abstract means. There was no real way to quantify or personify either concept outside the otherworldly invasion of Heartless. But when they discovered MidiCity, they found that light was its main energy source. And in fact, it wasn’t even known as light at all. It was the power of music, harnessed into the same kind of essence and energy that was ideal to defeating the Heartless. As one of her first tasks in this villainous guild, Ashley was assigned this world as her own personal turf. Whenever she had the time for it, she would figure out the inner workings of the place, find out how everything operated, and find out how they would be able to take down a world that was ready made to fight against them.

As the months passed, she whittled the world’s defenses slowly but surely. While it still stood proud despite her best efforts, it was not what it once was. The lively music that whirred on through the air would’ve been a bountiful symphony in the past. It was stuck in an awkward state; a world that was a formidable fortress, but also one that was dying a slow and painfully dragged out death. Because of that, Maleficent had grown bored of it a long time ago. She had allowed Ashley to continue doing her thing, but after a string of frustrating defeats, it was now time to pull the plug on the whole project entirely. They had more important things to worry about than keeping this stubborn old world around.

This is my chance , she thought nervously to herself. She knew the ins and outs of this world better than anyone else. After all her humiliation, this would be the moment she would fall in Maleficent’s favor once more.

“Are you done moping around or what?”

Ashley shot a glare behind her. Two of Maleficent’s other apprentices, Heather and Trent, were assigned alongside her in this decimation effort. Heather was doing what she normally did; taking every opportunity possible to belittle her and drive her nerves up the wall. Ashley could not think of a single moment in time when she was ever glad to be in the same general distance as the textbook high school mean girl. And then there was Trent who was a whole other class of frustration. He slouched on to a nearby rock and looked away with a face of annoyance. He looked like he knew all of this was beneath him. Like he knew she was beneath him. She could not get a proper read on the guy, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out he enjoyed the company of his allies as much as a speck of fire enjoyed being lit on ice.

“Don’t just look at me like that,” Heather spat at her silence. “How long do you expect us to just sit around and watch you emo it up?”

“We can’t just jump into things carelessly,” Ashley grumbled back in annoyance. Truthfully, she very much was stalling, but as if she was going to let Heather have an up on her.

“Oh, sure, I get it.” She narrowed her eyes and let out a sarcastic laugh. “Can’t slip up in front of the boss. Don’t want to be puked on again, right?”

What the heck is her problem?

Trent could only roll his eyes at the verbal catfight that was unfolding in front of him. Sure, he’d rather wrap this up quickly too, but not if he had to listen to this insipid banter. He already had enough of Heather making enemies with a goth girl back on the island. Of all the things he was being forced to tolerate through this partnership, her juvenile pettiness was one that really drove up his patience.

“Still acting like a dumb kid after all this?” He rolled his eyes before making his exit.

“Excuse me?” Heather replied in shock. “What did you call me?” She chased after him.

Finally. The little red witch was all alone again. Just herself and the city. Just how she liked it.

“...



...And we’ll make the most of our time living with the love we’re giving

We’ll party on non-stop!

And we’ll live our lives just like a movie, so we can dance groovy

To that happy ending bop!”

Off in the distance, she heard the faint notes of a guitar. A taped performance was probably playing on a projector somewhere. It was fairly common for songs from various bands to blast out during random times in the day, and she sometimes found comfort wondering what new tunes she’d hear each visit. As time dragged on however, more songs came in repeated rotation, and she began to hear the same tired artists again and again.

“...And we’ll shed the gloom that comes out breaking, smiles that start shaking,

We’ll face tomorrow on!

Dreams that won’t stop, even at the final beat drop,

We’ll soar and we’ll fly and sing our forever song!”

Even so, she couldn’t help humming along in bliss.

“That’s our future ode!

C’mon, ready?

Let’s go!”

 

oOo

 

MIDICITY

 

oOo

 

Alakazam, Loudred, and Mokona all gazed up at the towering landscapes in awe. This wasn't the first time they’d landed themselves in a city of course, but this one left all those typical brick walls and musty streets in the dust. Neon lights lined the metallic structures, and every color of the rainbow beamed down at them in the shape of lively and adorable signs and symbols. Those other worlds may as well have looked ancient compared to this one.

“Cities in our world used to look like this too, right?” Al gaped as he timidly scanned the various shopfronts.

“You’d probably know better than me,” Loudred laughed in amazement.

“Cody, Cody, Cody,” Mokona jumped up and down like a hyperactive child. “Look at that! Look at this! Look at there!”

“Hold on,” Cody sighed absentmindedly. He’d been too busy looking incredulously at his new monkey tail to match the others’ enthusiasm. Frankly, with Mokona’s disguise function having been dormant since the Mystery Dungeons, he was caught completely off guard with this minor physical change and was almost resentful he seemed to be the only one in the group who apparently needed cloaking.

“I wanna go there, I wanna go there!” It was like they were Mokona’s guardians accompanying him at a theme park.

“Yeah, yeah, calm down a sec,” Cody laughed lightly. While the others continued to marvel at the sights, the young teen admittedly wasn’t as transfixed. He used to visit Toronto quite frequently back in his world, and aside from a more gaudy palette, it didn’t seem all that different.

Kinda reminds you of home, yeah? ” He could feel a girl’s voice ask him.

A little, he responded in his head. It might’ve been a testament to how much this bizarre occurrence broke him down, but the strange Phantom Gwen that had tailed him this entire time became so well acquainted that he now often found himself actively conversing with her whenever he heard her voice chime in.

Were you a city guy?

Mm, I wouldn’t say so. They’re fun to visit though. You?

Love them .” It was silly to think that this hallucination seemed to have opened up to him, but her response was a level of enthusiasm he’d never quite seen from the real Gwen. “ Just crowds of people from all different walks of life, gathered in one place. You get lost in them, and you’re both alone and not. ” Her voice suddenly soothed into slight melancholy. “ Trent lives in Toronto, you know. I was hoping to visit him and just wander around the place after we got back. But you know, I kind of wonder if he actually hates places like this.

Maybe. In his head, he thought for sure that he did. But in truth, who really knew what that guy thought?

“Look, look, look, LOOK!”

Cody’s inner conversation was interrupted by Mokona’s shrill cries of excitement. He’d already pranced around like he was on a sugar high, but now he could barely contain his excitement.

“That looks cool!” He hopped and jumped as he pointed to a far off dome, what was most likely a concert hall. Music notes had physically manifested around it and fluttered about, imitating the motions of scrolling sheet music. “I wanna go, I wanna go!”

Mokona already zipped off before the others even had a moment to respond.

“Hey!” Al shouted off angrily. “We’re still trying to find the King. Have you forgotten about that? We can’t just be running around like tourists!”

“Al,” Loudred rested his hand sternly on his friend’s shoulder. “Let him do whatever he wants.”

“Wh-seriously?”

“Yes,” Cody nodded, almost despondently. “You remember, right?”

…Oh, yeah.

After everything had wrapped up back in Death City, they were left with the troubling predicament of what exactly to do with Eva. She was still knocked out cold and they were certain the next time she was up, she’d be on the same wavelength as a boss-level Heartless out for their heads..

So naturally, they sucked her up into Mokona’s little hammer space forehead gem and left her be.

Mokona was probably too full of childish glee to realize it, but he may as well have been a walking tyke bomb at that very moment.

The others shuddered at the very possibility of what would happen if she got unleashed once more and wordlessly chased after their tiny companion without further complaint.

Meanwhile, as the group made their exit, someone else eyed the very same dome they were headed towards. A meek young girl clad in a frilly gothic dress clutched her delicate hands tightly onto a pink, heart shaped guitar. Her black cat ears made soft and frightened twitches and her matching tail wavered behind in uncertain motions. Her large, emerald eyes glimmered with quivering unease. She was the kind of person who would hide at a single sign of danger, but there was something she had to do, and she knew in her heart there was no way for her to get out of it. With a false air of resolve, she made her way to the dome, the fragile clicks of her Mary Janes petering off into the distance.

 

oOo

 

“Oh, did we miss it?” Just as they reached the building entrance, the ethereal musical notes that trailed around in the sky had all but faded. Cody groaned in disappointment. Even though it was the group mascot who dragged them here, a part of him had genuinely looked forward to kicking back for a bit.

“Aaaaaaaw,” Mokona drooped his body down like squished gum.

“Well, we can still check the place out while we’re here I guess,” Al awkwardly patted the little furball’s head, clearly not used to being in a comforting role.

“Yeah,” Loudred added. “We can pick up a souvenir or…” His words trailed off alongside his usual jovial smile. Unbeknownst to the others, his hypersensitive stereo ears drummed off in an uneven lull. The vibrations were off. Panicked even. He hoped it was just continued excitement from the concert venue, but he was preparing for the worst.

The others quickly noticed his out of character silence and promptly ran inside. With how obvious the rumbles grew, something was definitely amiss; yet, the lobby was clear and clean without a single soul in sight. Cody carefully summoned his Keyblade and gripped it closely to his chest. He darted his eyes around with the same anxiety one would have traversing around in a horror game.

Slowly but surely, they inched their way towards what sounded to be the source of their fears; the main concert hall of course. What havoc was occurring inside fought in a numbing grind against the building’s soundproof walls. They were so close, yet still they couldn’t confirm their fears. They latched on to the handles and pulled and prodded with all their might to no avail. It was almost frustrating how much was getting in their way from confirming the inevitable.

There was one last card up their sleeve. His arms up and steady and his eyes narrowed into a silent glare, Al emitted a soft glow to the handles, hoping to rip them open with his telekinesis. With each passing second, his face contorted into an increasingly agonized expression, and the glow grew and grew until it encompassed almost the entire entryway itself. If he would just keep concentrating. Steady…steady…

The doors finally flew open and the Large Body that had blocked it off with its grip bashed right into Alakazam like a magnet. And if that wasn’t enough, the concert goers who were helplessly trapped inside ran out screaming in a continuous stream. The small, mascot-like anthropomorphic creatures barely even reached past Cody’s knees in height, yet the spewing crowd was enough to feel like one was caught in a post-storm mudslide. All the while, Al kept whimpering pathetically below a struggling Large Body. His voice peaked each time one of the panicked animal creatures thoughtlessly bumped and pushed him to the side. Loudred had to startle them further with the light shake of an Uproar just to clear enough of a path to help his friend up.

With the Large Body defeated and Al set free, the group charged straight into the main concert hall where the Heartless storm had set and simmered. The typical Shadows, Soldiers, and Large Bodies hobbled around the walls and floor while a colorful flurry of the small doll-like variants swirled around in the sky like petals in the wind. The Blue Rhapsodys, the Red Nocturnes, Yellow Operas, and Green Requiems spat out every conceivable form of magic and transformed the room into a bizarre elemental snowglobe. Cody could only take a few steps before slipping on a random ice patch and crashing straight on to the floor. Meanwhile, Al was subject to random bouts of burning, Mokona to a mini tornado, and Loudred to crackling thunder bolts. It was a mess navigating through the room let alone fighting in there.

Cody’s face had just met another harsh fall to the floor when he suddenly heard a familiar voice. A young male teen, seemingly just in front of him shouted off his name in confusion and shock. His head pounding in pain and his eyes scuffed from all the dirt, dust, and disgust they’d collected from the floor, he drearily peered upwards…

…And saw Tyler cowering behind a large speaker right on the corner of the stage. What’s more, Justin hid right beside him, both dressed in bright and gaudy pop star costumes.

“Tyler?! Justin?!” Cody managed to cough out in between the floor germs that had infected his mouth.

“What are you doing here?!” The jock yelled back as he carefully ducked his head from an incoming fireball.

“What am I doing here? What are you two doing on stage?!”

“Oh, funny story,” Tyler laughed nervously with Justin nodding along. “So the two of us woke up in the middle of an intersection and—”

“You two,” a new voice cut in, one that almost seemed princely in nature. “Start playing, now!”

So absorbed by their seemingly random reunion, the three nearly choked at the sudden realization that someone else was there. Or in Tyler and Justi’s case, the sudden reminder. They turned their eyes to the center of the stage where a guitar clad young man calmly adjusted the microphone as if the real concert was still alive and well. Fitting with his princely voice, he had striking blonde hair and an elaborate bright blue idol uniform, one even gaudier than the pale green ones Tyler and Justin were in. His face was calm amongst the chaos and his eyes were narrowed in a keen and daring shape like a cunning fox. A fitting look alongside his brown fox-like ears and tail.

“What?!” Tyler shouted back, alongside Justin who cringed and flailed his arms in a disapproving gesture.

“Those four need our help. We can’t just stand here.”

“B-b-but we’ve never been this close to those things before,” Tyler replied, alongside a rigorously nodding Justin.

“I’m sorry,” the young man said while he strummed a quick test chord. “Might I remind you that your contracts both state that staying in this band means you’re to help protect this town without any hesitation?” He faced the two, his eyes closed in a blissful tone and his smile wide and bright. “You wouldn’t dream of breaking contract, would you?

“You don’t wanna get fired and left back in the streets again, right?”

If looks could kill, the two would’ve been shot dead on the spot.

Tyler and Justin zoomed right back towards the center stage and scrambled for the two instruments that were left idle during all the commotion. Tyler nearly tripped and stumbled trying to situate himself behind a drum set, and Justin haphazardly tuned a cello in record speed. Then there was Cody who gaped at the scene, completely dumbfounded that those three were seriously about to resume the concert in the middle of all this.

“What in the world are you—”

With just a few strums, the stage was already set. Those strange ephemeral musical notes once again manifested themselves in the air. An uninformed eye would groan over the annoying clutter that had developed alongside the magical hodgepodge that already populated the space, but any MidiCity resident knew what would happen next. Drawn in like the three had just sprayed the room with catnip, the flying mages foolishly crowded around the notes and were met with instant doom. The faint sparks of lightning, fire, ice, and what not sprinkled around in their place until there was nothing left.

“What?” Cody mumbled to himself in confusion. He only grew more confused when he looked back at the three perpetrators on stage, now transformed into a chibi fox-donkey-peacock trio, much like the small anthropomorphic concert goers who fled the room earlier. And he grew even more confused when he realized the three were singing and playing along to an energetic boy band song amidst all this. And he grew even more confused when he looked at his hand and suddenly realized his entire body had started to glow with tiny visions of the musical notes slowly gathered around him. He wasn’t the only one. His three companions were encased in a faint glow too. And on top of that, their bodies suddenly felt much lighter, like they could individually take down the rest of the Heartless on their own if they wanted to. Needless to say, the remaining ground based Heartless were as good as gone.

It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. The Heartless that had absolutely mobbed the concert hall were no more, wiped thoroughly without a trace. With their song now over, the strange pop band reverted back into their more human-like forms, and the music notes once again drifted off into nothing.

“That was amazing,” Al said breathlessly as he examined his hands with awestruck eyes, hoping that even a small glimmer of the miracle glow was left.

“It was like my body was moving on its own,” Loudred said, just as amazed.

“Do it again, do it again,” Mokona bounced excitedly. “Encore, encore, encore!”

“No can do, little guy,” the blonde guitarist laughed as he bent down to get a better look at his tiny new fan. “We’ve gotta clean this place up now.”

“Pretty awesome, huh?” Tyler eyed over to Cody with a cocky stride.

“Yeah, but,” the boy blinked. “What did you guys do?”

Justin joined in with a boastful cello chord in response.

“I mean, I get that you guys played music, but what the heck happened?”

“Well, you see…” Tyler was more than happy to explain how he and Justin somehow became newfound heroes. In fact, he was ready to start the entire story all over again from the intersection incident. But right at that moment, at the very corner of his eye, he saw a faint shade of black. A lone Shadow had crept away hidden in the walls and somehow survived that entire massacre. It reformed itself right behind the Keybearer, ready to make a surprise slash across his back, and all Tyler could do was watch. “Look out!!”

!!

BAM!

The sneaky little Shadow was gone, crumpled away and fading off on the ground with the dent of a heart shaped guitar on its head. Cody turned around, expecting to get slashed silly by a stray ant. Instead he was greeted by the reddened face of a young catgirl. Her arms were outreached, clenching onto her guitar handle like her life depended on it. Her eyes were shut and her face looked to be on the verge of tears. She looked to be around Cody’s age, but her frail and shaky demeanor could’ve convinced anyone to think she was much younger than she actually was.

Silence passed, holding itself just like the young girl was with her own shaky breath. Finally, the timid last minute hero opened her enormous gem-like eyes and let out what little was left of her air into a series of hiccuping gasps. She just saved Cody’s back, but she certainly didn’t look like she thought she’d succeed.

The awkward geek wasn’t sure what to say. The poor thing looked like she could break down at any minute if he wasn't careful enough. It took insistent nudges from his two Pokemon pals to finally reach his hand out to her. “Hey, are you alr—”

THANKS FOR SAVING ME!!” She practically exploded in his face.

“...Uh,” Cody blinked. “I mean no problem, but shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

It was her turn to blink in astonishment. “Um, uh…” Her face flushed into a hue as pink as her guitar as she tried to stammer herself into saving the bumbling exchange.

“Cyan,” the blonde man called out to her from the stage. Her ears perked up instantly, seemingly relieved to be released from that fumbled conversation. “Are you alright? What are you doing here?”

“S-syuzo,” he squeaked back. There was another round of stammers, her words too unsteady to properly voice them out. She then shook her head around and finally took in the full scope of the aftermath. The concert hall was an absolute wreck, and there were four strangers who seemed just as eager to look for answers as she was. With a rough gulp, she turned back to Syuzo and finally finished in a nervous half whisper. “Could we talk backstage for a sec?...”

 

oOo

 

With peace restored to the building, Syuzo welcomed everyone to an elaborate feast in his waiting room. All the craft services that had gone abandoned during the confusion were now theirs for the taking. Everything from sandwiches to cookies to chips to the Tails patented language candies the Keyblade Crew graciously donated were passed around sloppily across the room where the rowdy bunch ate themselves silly. Cody was more than eager to play catch up with two fellow ex-campers, and Tyler and Justin quickly took a shine to his current companions. It was like a warriors’ battle; full of boastful joy and merriment without a care in the world.

Which was why Syuzo sat there with the fakest of smiles as the sole party attendee who remembered poor Cyan was sitting there like a flaking furball.

“Man, so what is with this weird monkey tail?” Tyler spoke in between munches.

“I told you,” Cody responded, quickly pulling his temporary tail away from Tyler’s grabby hands. “It’s like a cloaking thing to fit in the world. Mokona made it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you want one?” Mokona hopped around eagerly.

Justin gave a frantic disgusted headshake in response.

“Why not?” Loudred chuckled. “You were a peacock back there, right? Wouldn’t it be cool to run around with peacock feathers?”

Justin’s headshakes intensified.

“I mean, I turn into a donkey when that happens,” Tyler snorted. “That would suck. Who wants to be stuck walking around with donkey ears?”

“Dude, how’d you get stuck with a donkey?” Cody asked.

“Bro, I wish I knew. Like, did they beam a personality quiz into our brains before we landed here? I am totally not a donkey. There’s gotta be a better animal for me, right? Something that’s cooler. Nicer looking. Smarter. More gentlemanly.”

“Would the cool, smart, pretty boy gentleman donkey care to read the room?”

Tyler and Justin, who were basked in a party mood, froze like deer in headlights. Syuzo had that smile again. The one that looked soft and kind, but was actually a perfect simulation to being stabbed by a demon in hell. The duo promptly dropped their food and straightened themselves until their backs started to bend over backwards.

“So,” Syuzo looked over to the guys with his hands folded politely below his head. “You four are here about the Heartless, right?”

The gang looked at one another. Normally, they would’ve started internally panicking and making asses of themselves trying to explain all this “other worlds” business away, but with Tyler and Justin there, it was clear the guy already knew something was up.

“We’ve been dealing with those things for months now,” he responded like he could tell the four wanted to know how and why he knew. “With them hanging around for so long, you just learn to piece things together eventually.”

“Months?!” Cody exclaimed with widened eyes. From his experience, those creatures’ sudden appearance usually meant a world was on its last legs.

“How are you guys able to just go and have a concert with all this going on?” Al asked, eyebrows raised.

“Well, those concerts are why we’re still here,” Syuzo gave a knowing wink. “Did you see that big tower in the center of town? Well, that thing helps convert happiness into energy, and here, the best way to harness happiness is through music. All the stages in town are specially built to help generate that energy. That’s what you saw back there with all the music notes.”

“So, you’re saying music is basically the same as light here?” Al nodded while he pieced everything together.

“Bingo!” Syuzo snapped his finger. “And since MidiCity’s the music capital of the world, there’s more than enough bands and artists to help with the cause. We were putting up a good fight for a while. But…” His smile shifted into a slight frown. “I guess those Heartless and the witch in charge of them caught on and they’ve been picking off bands one by one. Even my old bandmates…”

Tyler and Justin stiffened in fright. Syuzo looked at them with what seemed like a sad frown, but to those who knew better, it was an open sign of contempt at the below average replacements he was stuck with.

“A witch, huh?” Cody couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Of course, this was that Maleficent woman’s work. Who else would it be?

“There’s not too many of us left, unfortunately. After a bunch of them started getting lost in the darkness, groups have been going on hiatus left and right. Can’t say I blame them.”

“You’ve been handling it really well.” Cyan finally took a break from looking down nervously at her knees to give her senior a well earned compliment. “You’ve been doubling the number of concerts you do, and you went and recruited new members after the others were…”

Her voice trailed off and she returned to planting her quivering eyes below her. She knew it was time for her to explain herself, but it was like a part of her was trying to shut her brain off from all the guilt that had built up.

“Th-the truth is,” she mumbled. “I was getting really scared and I wanted Plasmagica to go on hiatus too. But when I tried to tell the others…” The small glints of waterworks started to return. “Chuchu got mad and ran off. Moa, Retoree, and I split up to try to look for her, and I haven’t seen or heard from any of them since.” She keeled over until she was practically a ball on the chair. “Something bad happened. I just know it.”

The others were taken aback. It wasn’t hard to figure out what fate may have fallen on her friends. They eyed each other with guilt ridden faces. With how loud and merry they were earlier in spite of Cyan’s sorrows, they felt like the scum of the earth.

“This is all my fault,” Cyan sniffled as she looked over to Syuzo with a pleading face. “What should I do?”

The young man bit his lip. He was the kind of guy who was always on top of everything, but even he wasn’t sure if there was a right answer to this predicament. After all, he was in the same situation not too long ago and look how that turned out. Despite his typical demeanor, to say even he got out of that, or rather was still going through it, mentally unscathed would be a lie. “Well…”

“We’ll help look for them.”

Cyan, Syuzo, and those two guys looked on expectantly at Cody and his group. So distraught by Cyan’s tears, they didn’t even hesitate to spring right into this impromptu search and rescue. Cyan’s eyes, still wet from her small sobbing drips, glistened in awe. Syuzo, meanwhile, reacted with hesitancy.

“I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news here, but it might be too—”

“Not too late!” Mokona interrupted hastily.

“Yeah, you can’t give up without trying,” Loudred declared as he beat his fist to his chest.

“Trust us,” Cody clicked his tongue with the confidence of a cheesy Saturday morning hero. Al couldn’t help but silently roll his eyes behind him in response. “We’re Heartless experts. If anyone’s gonna be finding and saving your friends, it’ll be us.”

“Well,” Syuzo mulled it over. “I guess if you put it that wa—”

Cyan violently slammed her palms to the table. “Let me come with you!!”

“Uh,” Cody shifted his eyes around the room and attempted to assess the situation. Everyone was just as surprised as he was. “Excuse me?”

“It’s my fault, so I’ll help.”

“Hey, listen,” Al scratched the back of his head. “It’s probably going to be really dangerous. I don’t know if—”

In no time flat, Cyan was on her tippy toes right up in Al’s face. “I’m going!!” Her cheeks puffed up in a childlike attempt to seem threatening.

The boys weren’t sure what to do. The girl was on the verge of a breakdown not too long ago. And earlier, it was apparent it took everything in her just to knock that one single Shadow down. Everyone they’d ventured with thus far were able to hold their own. Escorting a civilian was a whole other ball park.

Cody’s eyes continued to ping pong around, desperate to see if anyone else could make the final decision. It was clear however that everyone was at a loss for words. Calling her inexperienced would've been an understatement. But look at her. How could anyone just say no to someone who had such fire in their eyes? In a way, it almost reminded him of…

“Sure, I don’t see why not.”

It was Cody’s turn to be the object of everyone’s quaking stares. Was he nuts??

“Oh, thank you!” Her mouth pursed into a catlike squeal. “I promise, I won’t get in the way.”

He could feel it. Everyone was thinking the same thing: Are you insane? It’ll be your fault if anything happens to her. But hey, people probably thought the same about him in the past and look where he was now.

Syuzo sighed and attempted to recompose himself with a collected smile. It came out as twitches instead. “Remember, those things are serious trouble. Don’t go falling into danger now.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t!” Cyan shouted off happily before quickly skipping out of the room.

A mix of worried expressions and daggers shot at Cody who could do nothing but shrug sheepishly in return. What’s done is done he supposed. With continued eyes of reluctance, the boys made their way out of the room. Their goals were set: Find Cyan’s missing friends and hope to dear God they don’t accidentally get her killed.

“Oh! Almost forgot!”

Mokona quickly slipped back and performed a drive-by magic zap at Tyler and Justin before making his final exit. Even beyond the walls of the building, one could hear hysterical cries about donkey ears and peacock feathers. And within the walls, Syuzo would be stuck listening to these buffoons for the foreseeable future.

Chapter 30: MidiCity: Mezzo Might

Chapter Text

In the past, there was never a waking moment when the streets of MidiCity were silent. In the past, a friendly face would’ve been there to greet you at every corner even deep in the A.M. hours. But as time went on, as the Heartless continued their slow, dragged out hunt, the crowds  dwindled little by little until it turned into the heavy and haunting state it was tonight where there was nothing else but the slow clicking of three pairs of feet.

Chuchu shifted her eyes between the two girls in front of her. The silence was killing her. The gothic rabbit-eared girl pursed her lips and twirled around the loose strands of her long, bubbly, purple hair in anticipation. She heightened the clicks of her stiletto heels in an attempt to vent off her frustration. Soon, her patience was gone. She opened her mouth and—

“Are we seriously not there yet?” Heather suddenly mouthed off to Ashley. The two girls were in outfits much different than what they usually wore. They looked more cordial, more business-like. Scammers in disguise.

“No, we aren’t,” the shorter girl grinded her teeth in annoyance. What was Heather thinking?

“Er, is everything alright?” Chuchu’s adamance simmered off into an awkward droll.

“Oh no, everything’s fine,” Ashley turned back to her with a crooked smile, a poor attempt at feigning a friendly attitude from someone whose default look was that of a cursed doll. “Don’t you worry your head. We’ll get you all set up on stage in no time and your performance alone will get rid of all these Heartless for good.”

Heather held her breath. She might as well have been watching a robot fail the Turing Test. That Chuchu girl would have to have the dumbest brain this world had to offer if she was seriously falling for this. She wanted to tear Ashley a new one right then and there, but this stupid mission she was stuck on forced her to play along.

“Right.” That was all Chuchu could say. Just like Heather thought, she knew she’d gotten conned. But what exactly were these two strange girls doing? Something had to be amiss. And even if it was a stupid move, maybe she’d find something out if she just shut up and followed. With her eyes held forward, the three girls continued to walk.

 

oOo

 

“Al, right behind you!”

“What?”

“I said, right behind you!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it!”

“BAM! POW! WHOOSH!!”

With a single Pound, Loudred wiped off the last remaining Heartless in the colorful yet empty streets, and Mokona began to trounce around excitedly like a cheerleader. Alongside Cody and Al, the four talked amongst themselves; another nice break from a quick job well done.

“Uh, um…” The mood died down as the four were reminded once more that they weren’t the only ones here. Cyan tiptoed nervously to the group with her eyes struggling off to the side, too embarrassed from her lack of action to look them in the eyes. “Sorry I’m not really helping much.”

The four awkwardly exchanged side glances with one another. It was true. Each time they ran into another Heartless encounter, the meek catgirl would immediately default herself behind a nearby building. Not once did she ever pop out mid battle. It was a wonder why she was even there.

Oh, yeah. It was Cody’s fault. That’s why she was there.

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it,” she bent over in a groan. “I’m useless, I know.”

“N-n-no, you’re not!” Cody flew his hand around and attempted to ward off all the negativity that floated around. “R-right?”

He eyed Al and Loudred who could only give him judgemental looks in return. Your idea, dude.

“You could, uh,” Cody clicked his tongue and tapped his foot. It seemed he was more desperate to save his ass and justify his own decision than sincerely find a role for her. “Your guitar!” He snapped his finger in a high pitched shout. “What Syuzo and those two did back at the concert hall, you can help buff us up!”

“Yeah!” Loudred added on enthusiastically. “I can emit noises from my ears, so we could probably amplify you too.”

“Uh, um,” Cyan’s cat ears flopped down. “I need to be on a stage to do that. I can’t just do it on the go. That’s not how it works.”

“...Oh…” Cody was deflated once more.

With no one left to willingly chip in, it was Mokona’s turn to throw suggestions. “Why don’t you fight?”

Cyan blinked. “Huh?”

“Yeah!” He hopped around while pantomiming attack moves. “WHOOSH! POW! BAM! Beating things up is tons of fun!”

“Alright,” Al groaned as he patted the top of Mokona’s head to a halting stance. “That’s enough out of you.”

It was certainly an idea alright, but one that was on the top of their list of no-gos for this little mission. They continued to toss around half hearted suggestions, and each attempt only rotted the mood further. At some point, Cyan wisely chose to wander off while the four continued on with their doomed little planning session. It wasn't that they didn’t want Cyan to help. In fact, they would've felt awful if she didn’t. She was brave enough to butt her head into this after all.

“I mean,” Cody scratched his chin. “She did take down that one Heartless back at the venue.”

“One,” Al mumbled. “A single one.”

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Loudred scolded his friend. “It’s still something.”

“I mean, let’s face it,” Cody nodded. “We let Mokona here fight. Might as well give her a chance.”

“Yeah!” Mokona perked up at the sound of his name. “We let Cody fight. Might as well give her a chance.”

“The heck is that supposed to mean?”

“He’s got a point,” Loudred laughed in response. “You’re more of a dodger than a fighter.”

“What?!” Cody’s outrage broke out into defensive squeaks. “Hey, I take down most of the big guys.”

“I mean,” Al sighed. “If you’re mostly just handling the finishing blow, does it really count?”

“Er, um,” Cyan tiptoed back into the scene, unsure if what she’d interrupted was a fight or friendly banter. She would’ve looked like a confused young child if it weren’t for the small actual child who quivered beside her. “Sorry to interrupt, but I found this little boy and…” She knelt down to help wipe off the kid’s tears. “He said something stole his toy.”

“I…I,” the kid blurted out in between sobs. “I ran away from one of those monsters, and I tripped and dropped it, and, and…” He pointed his shaky hands into one of the many twisting street paths. That was the most they’d probably be able to get out of him.

“I know it’s got nothing to do with what we’re doing right now,” Cyan bowed apologetically. “But I’d feel terrible if I just left him like this.”

“Hey, no problem,” Al waved her worries off. “Don’t even know where to start with a city this big. If we help him out, we could probably cover more ground.”

“Really?” Cyan’s eyes sparkled enthusiastically. She had a real knack for reassuring people they’d made the right choice for a split second. It was everything another split second and beyond that was on the questionable side. With a quick reassurance to the child, and a quick warning to run off to safety, Cyan dashed off past the others without a moment of hesitation. The four scrambled to catch up, lest they’d fail to save her butt in the event of another random Heartless encounter.

Looking past every nook and cranny of the street, not a single enemy could be seen. They wondered if the creature the boy saw was already long gone, off to the complete opposite side of MidiCity if they were unlucky enough. Still, there was something off. Loudred could pick up the faint petering of an unknown figure nearby, but he couldn’t quite make out what or where.

“I think it’s north of here?” He scratched his head.

“Stealthy one, huh?” Al mumbled in annoyance.

“Hey, Mokona,” Cody poked their smallest companion. “You’re kinda rabbit-ish right? Those ears of yours picking up any—”

THERE, THERE, THERE!!

It was like waking up to an ill timed alarm clock. The small friend bounced and zoomed through the street faster than anyone could think. Of course all anyone could do in this situation was run after him before he was gone for good. Or at least that’s what our usual group did. Cyan, on the other hand, stood off to the side and stared curiously into a lone alleyway. Her cat ears perked in confusion. She had picked something up, and whatever it was, it wasn’t what Mokona found.

It was a good thing Cody was the typical straggler of the group because everyone was already long gone by the time Cyan decided to wordlessly venture off on her own. Just as there was no stopping Mokona from running off, there was also nothing he could say to get her back on track. He spun his head in both directions, unsure of where his attention was most needed. His trusted companion’s hunch, or hers? In all honesty, he almost cursed himself for being the reason she was there causing a double dose of side tracking to begin with (or triple dose if her request itself were to be counted). But what kind of attitude was that?

“Cyan, wait up!” He entered the alleyway which proved to be an obstacle in itself. Heaps of trash and empty boxes piled up at every step. The energy he would’ve had to run was nearly spent by the time he finally made his way to the ominous back alley. And by the time he did, she’d already found it.

Cyan’s scream mixed with the piercing screech of the large creature before her. Her crouched and cowering form was like an ant flopping about in its last moments on the grimy chameleon’s dinner plate. Black streaks cracked into its scales and turned what would’ve looked like a simple oversized reptile into an uncanny beast. No doubt, Stealth Sneak was the target they were after.

A quick throw of the key to the head was enough to knock it off for even just a slight moment. Cody ran right over and shooed Cyan off to hide among the trash bags. That left just him against the creature, one-on-one. If only even one of the other three had been just as slow as he was earlier, this would’ve been a cakewalk. But there was no use bemoaning the situation now.

The reptile slung out its disgusting rope of tongue, tainted with disturbing veins of black just like the rest of its body, and lunged it out like a crackling whip. It hit right at the precipice of the back alley entrance and the cluttered pathway. Cody was forced to the ground amidst a small pile-on of cardboard boxes and assorted junk, and he just narrowly rolled away right as the tongue slammed down to the pavement once more.

Back on his feet, the spry geek was ready to strike back…only to realize the Stealth Sneak was nowhere in sight. Did it run away? No, of course not. The moment he even considered retreating, he could feel the side of the tongue crash right into his back. He wearily looked around. No Stealth Sneak in sight. He could feel the slobbering whip suckerpunch him right in his left cheek. And once more, there was nothing.

It’s a chameleon, you idiot, he internally berated himself. Why didn’t I see this coming?

I don’t know. Why didn’t you? She replied back.

Hey, now’s not the time. I’m getting pummeled here!

Well, what are you doing? Track it down!

In his sprint, he was almost about to cry out a desperate “But how?!” right out loud, but was halted as he circled back to the entranceway. The mess of fallen garbage was still spread out on the floor and the last thing he needed was getting thrown off by something as innocuous as a banana peel.

He haphazardly scooped up a crushed soda can, the first piece of junk he could grab ahold of, and tossed it into the air where it unceremoniously clanked back down to the ground. He repeated again and again and again until, out of sheer dumb luck, an old shampoo bottle bounced off an unknown object in the corner of the square. In his head, he might’ve let out a confident “Bingo,” but the moment he made it over there for a strike, Stealth Sneak had already slithered away, out of sight, and knocked him out with a lash.

Cyan desperately pulled down her ears as she crouched behind a dumpster. Even without looking, she could tell things were not going well. And with looking, it was maybe even worse than she expected. She took a quick glance at Cody who was stuck hopelessly flinging garbage around left and right, rarely ever connecting to the target creature. Occasionally, he’d make it to its spot in time to graze a bit of its back, but the speed of the reptile’s disappearing act was much too quick to beat.

Cyan’s cat ears twitched ever so slightly. Maybe his hearing wasn’t as good, but she at least could make out the monster’s movements crystal clear. If only she could tell him. Her mouth froze at the very thought of it, letting out a tilted exhaust of wasted air instead. Would he be doing better if she wasn’t there? But she wasn’t doing anything, it wouldn’t have made a difference. But he’s in this situation in the first place because of her. This whole city-wide expedition had been done for her sake. The least she could do was help when he needed it.

Why was it so hard? She was in a band, wasn’t she? Why could she play and sing in front of hundreds of thousands of strangers, but not manage to fight a single Heartless? Heck, she couldn’t even bear to stand up against them with her music. She tried to run, and look at where that decision brought her. That was what she was born to do, wasn’t it? To play her guitar and save people with music?

…She had to do it.

She narrowed her eyes and puffed out her cheeks; her own way of looking threatening. Whether it worked or not, she had no clue. But she knew her plan was set. She clutched onto the bridge of her guitar and raised her hand high to the heavens…

And she flung it down to a chord.

It might as well have been one of the loudest things Cody had ever heard at that moment. Amidst the closed off arena, the thick melodies of Cyan’s electric guitar bounced and reverberated between the walls. The enemy chameleon wailed in shock and shifted back into its vulnerable visible form.

“NOW!!” Cyan cried out with all her might.

Thanks to its confusion, Cody was able to knock it right off the wall it clung on to and laid it flat to the ground. He continued to scratch and graze its form up as it lay in a daze until it gathered enough strength to form a mock sword fight with its tongue. The twists and turns of the tongue threw Cody into dizzying steps as he carefully maneuvered past them. Just one clumsy turn and he was down to the ground and Stealth Sneak back into its camouflage.

“It’s over to your right!” Cyan called out, keeping track of the faint sound of webbed footsteps. “He’s heading towards the wall. Get him before he climbs on!”

He followed her instructions diligently and successfully landed another hit. From there, the creature’s almost one-sided fight against Cody turned into a surprise one-sided tag team battle. Every time Stealth Sneak tried to slip under the Keybearer’s nose, Cyan would carefully track it down and send him on over. By the time they’d gone through maybe half a dozen cycles, the monster’s desperation had finally kicked in. There was no use in sneaking off anymore. Now was the time for survival. It quickened its movements and initiated what was likely its final onslaught; flinging its tongue around wildly like a serial killer with a knife.

On his lonesome, Cody was slowly getting overwhelmed both by the tongue’s spiraling movements and its sheer intensity. Cyan attempted to stun it once more with another sharp guitar chord, but the creature had long since tossed aside such basic senses like sound. She was almost at a loss. They were so close. What else could she do?

Earlier in the fight, Cody noticed that the tongue would strategically fly over the chameleon’s head every time the Keyblade came close to its face. No doubt that’s where its weakness was. No doubt it was the massive horn that grew off the bridge of its nose. Both him and the monster were stuck in a bizarre standstill with Cody’s feet going back and forth alongside the creature’s tongue as he tried to edge out even the faintest line of an opening. It was a staredown that felt like it could go on forever, but suddenly, right as Stealth Sneak was ready to launch another all out assault, its eyes dilated. It roared a pained shriek and keeled downwards, practically presenting the horn directly to its opponent itself.

Cody looked curiously to the side. Against all nerves, Cyan had rushed right into the battlefield where she proceeded to beat the lizard’s unguarded back silly over and over again with the base of her guitar. She was like a lumberjack confidently smacking around an axe. The ultimate sneak attack from the least likely combatant. The monster was stuck wailing between them in a back-to-back bash fest. When it looked to be on its final legs, Cody enthusiastically called out to Cyan. The girl who, not too long ago, hid at even a single hint of danger jumped on to the lizard’s back and triumphantly sped up to the head. The duo banded together for one last strike; a quick swing of a key and guitar to the fragile horn. Soon enough, Stealth Sneak’s entire being was lost to the wind with nothing but a small toy car left behind from where it once stood.

 

oOo

 

The first thing the duo did was rush straight back where they came from to make their small delivery. The young boy’s eyes shined like stars. The liquid from all his tears had turned them into an almost glistening glow. It was a heartwarming sight being able to see their efforts come to fruit like this. He quickly left for home under the orders of an adamant Cyan, but not before loudly proclaiming her as a “hero”; a word that echoed densely in the cold and empty streets.

Cyan collapsed into a crouch, her face beet red and her hands over her ears. “H-h-hero?”

“Yeah, of course!” Cody responded enthusiastically. “Dude, you seriously saved my butt back there.”

“I,” she nervously rose back up. “I did?”

“Pretty much turned the tables.” He held out his palm. “Come on. High five!”

She stared blankly as if she had no clue what the gesture even represented. Or more honestly, no clue why the gesture was directed at her. But the more she stared, the more it really sank in her. She took the initiative to launch this search party in the first place, took the initiative to help that boy, and took the initiative to take on that Heartless with her own hands. For as cowardly as she, and everyone else, thought she was, she was more willing to face things head on than not. Perhaps pressure pushed her this far. Or maybe, better yet, she was always like this and just never believed it.

Cyan excitedly slapped his hand and let out a series of celebratory squeals, the ones she bottled in after the battle and now bursted through the seams. Her joy was infectious, and Cody couldn’t help but pile on more praise her way. Things were uncertain at first, but at that moment, it felt like they could do anything.

“Alright,” Cody clasped his hands together with fire in his eyes. “Now we just gotta find the others and—”

Right on cue, Mokona torpedoed through, seemingly out of nowhere and right at Cody’s face. The strike had enough strength to send him slamming right to the hard asphalt. Cyan’s joyful celebration was replaced with shocked fear for a cracked skull.

“We found someone, we found someone, we found someone!!” Mokona slapped his buddy’s head over and over again, seemingly just for the sake of comically injuring him further.

“Found who?” Cyan graciously lifted the little guy off of the poor suffering teenager. “Wait,” she gasped in realization. “Did you find them?

“I dunno. Maybe.”

Cyan sprinted off without a second thought, not even caring that the one who knew their upcoming destination was being left in the dust. She wasn’t going to run or hide away. If she could help take down Stealth Sneak, she was going to fix this mess of hers if it was the last thing she’d do. The catgirl led the charge while the rabbit mascot fluttered behind her in awe, and the Keybearer stumbled around in vertigo in the far far back.

Chapter 31: MidiCity: Fight of Fortes

Notes:

Finally back! Took a bit of a break cuz I was feeling a bit burnt out, but I'm all fired up now!

I've slowly been combing through all the previous chapters for minor revisions. Mostly grammar issues, typos, and most importantly, the spacing (shut up, I actually know how to use this website now). I want to throw them out as one big drop, so expect that update to happen alongside the next chapter.

Chapter Text

“Center Tower, huh?”

Chuchu, Ashley, and Heather’s trek finally led them to their destination. It was a building akin to a treasured mecca itself in this world. Day in and day out, the residents would feed their hopes, joys, and laughter to this skyscraper, and it in turn rewarded them with power and safety. In the past, the sheen of the crystal above would’ve brightened the sky like a looming lighthouse, but as months of darkness took its toll, it dimmed to a lone glistening star. Even now, the world still fought valiantly.

Chuchu bit her lips as she gazed up at the landmark. She expected this. Those two suspicious “producers” she followed had promised her a stage that would be able to carry her voice throughout MidiCity. Of course it was their main energy source itself. Whatever these two were up to, she’d have to play along just a little longer.

“I need to check to see if preparations are complete,” Ashley clenched her teeth in a woefully fake smile. “Wait down here with Heather until I’m back, alright?”

“Okay,” Chuchu replied as she wearily side eyed the third girl. While Ashley had tried way too hard to build Chuchu’s trust, Heather didn’t even bother. Her arms were crossed and she tilted both her head and eyes in what looked like the frozen image of an eye roll. Her pout was just seconds away from deforming into a straight up scowl; a side effect of enduring this dumb plan for as long as she had.

Chuchu wrinkled her nose. For as uncomfortable as the walk over was, even that wasn’t as bad as being stuck alone with the conwoman who didn’t even try. She supposed the least she could do in this situation was to try to squeeze any passive info out of her.

“So, I was wondering—”

Heather cut her off with a fuming groan, one that had likely been built up for a while and wasn’t even in response to Chuchu’s attempt at banter. The prissy teen would rather blow this whole charade off altogether than have to continue playing along to Ashley’s joke of a plan. It was like she never registered Chuchu’s presence in the first place. She stamped her feet into a grumpy march towards the building and left the rabbit girl cold and confused.

“Well that was rude,” Chuchu huffed. In a way, this strange turn of events was a blessing. Rather than awkwardly sleuth between fragments of a conversation, she could just sneak behind her would-be watchdog instead. Lord knew Heather would even be alert enough to notice someone trail behind her with how disinterested she was in this whole endeavor. With nothing else to lose, she quietly followed Heather in.

Things were already amiss the moment she took just one step into the building. Despite having entered literally immediately after Heather had, the tall drama queen was nowhere to be seen. And while one would’ve assumed a still and creepy horror movie-esque scenario in a situation like this, the atmosphere was tainted by the faint hints of yells several floors up. The building was quiet and hallowed out enough that one could hear even a pin drop from a few floors away if they concentrated enough. Chuchu scrunched her face as she tried to focus her rabbit ears on the noise. It was still too far away to make anything out, but maybe if she got closer? She crept to the elevator and carefully made her ascent.

Meanwhile, on one of the topmost floors of the tower, an infuriated Ashley shook her fists in anger over the absolute pigsty the room became in her absence. Furniture had been carelessly tossed around and stray junk and paper were scattered nonsensically across the floor like someone just had the worst streak of trash can basketball in their life.

“Trent!” She boomed. Her newest coworker had kept himself busy rummaging through everything he could get his hands on. “What is this?!”

“We need access to the roof, right?” He groaned in response, annoyed that the shorty dared to question his antics. “All the security bumps in the building were annoying, so I’m getting rid of all of them? Got a problem with that?”

Uh, yes, I do actually, Ashley could feel herself fume. “I specifically said to keep everything as is to avoid looking suspicious. Heather and I have magic. Who cares about security bumps?”

“‘Who cares about security bumps?’” Trent repeated her words in irritation. “Who cares about this dumb plan?”

“Shut up!” The girl normally held her tongue in favor of silent judgements, but the stress that had built up in her the past few weeks spewed out of her like a kettle. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to take over this tower just for all this? And you’re just going to go off script? Why are you even trying to get to the crystal now? That is way further down the line.”

“Uggggh!” Heather’s agitation sounded off alongside the poof of her teleportation spell. “Literally, what’s stopping us from just heading up there now and destroying the dang crystal while no one else is here, huh? Just do it already so we can get this stupid mission over with!”

“It’s not that simple!” Ashley flung back. “I told you, I had this plan—”

“Yeah, and your plan is overcomplicated garbage!” Heather refused to hear her witch partner out. “‘Amplify someone’s music so hard that the crystal overloads and blows up’?” She recited in mockery. “Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! You’re just trying to get a free concert out of this. That’s the whole reason you’re always moping around in this world.”

Ashley was flustered and taken aback. “I… You! That’s not true!”

“Oh yeah? And tell me how it isn’t. You go and get puke all over you and come marching right to this place to go head bopping to some bubblegum trash meant for four-year-olds like a baby who needs a lullaby to stop whining.”

Ashley was taken aback at the accusation. Her mouth was open, but only half formed noises came out. She pointed at Trent who had tuned out of the argument to continue junking the place up. “Would you stop?”

“Why should I?”

“Yeah, why should you?” Heather nodded in defiance. “Just keep going.”

“I’m not taking orders from you either.”

“What?!” In the speed of a flick, Heather flipped her hair into the air as she turned around over Trent’s audacious response. “What is your deal?! We’re on the same side here.”

“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!” Ashley escalated into a full on tantrum. “I’ve been an apprentice way longer than you have. You are going to shut up and listen to me.”

“Or else, what?” Heather dared her to get worse. “You’re gonna hit me with a pissy little fireball?”

“Shut up! Maybe I’ll do just that.”

“Then do it!"

“Shut up!”

“Do it, bitch!”

Like the sudden snap of a twig, Ashley shifted out of her thinly veiled producer disguise and back into her normal witch’s dress alongside the deft flick of her wand. A fireball sprouted out of the tip and singed the spot just above Heather’s shoulders. The knife-like speed of the fire cleanly chopped Heather’s long locks into a messy bob. Even though she was the one who egged this on, her eyes bulged out in shock. She wasn’t going to go through this dumb hair thing again. With all her fury concentrated into her fist, a ferociously large clump of magical force gathered together into a ball that she too turned into a projectile.

DING!

Chuchu couldn’t have come at a worse possible time. She had meant to stop at a floor or two below, just close enough to be able to make everything out clearly, but her instincts proved to be too correct and her game of guessing led her right to the exact floor. Ashley’s body came flying right at her, and the force of the two colliding girls caused them both to crash right through the glass and out into the air. With how far up they were, instant death was imminent. As Chuchu screamed and screamed, Ashley fought back against the wind with all her might. Just inches separating them from the ground, she waved her wand in the nick of time with a levitation spell that forced them into a jutting halt. All sense of inertia now gone, she waved it off once more, and the two plopped down safely onto the streets.

“Y-you!” Chuchu yelled off accusingly, her voice stilted as she tried to recover her senses. “I knew there was something up with you two!”

Ashley cursed in her head. She had no time for this. Especially not with the sudden rain of asphalts that followed them. She wasn’t sure if Heather’s attack was just that powerful or if she had shot another one out for good measure, but bits of the upper building started to crumble off.

“Yeah, I tricked you. Boo hoo. Just run!”

The two sped off, just barely missing one particularly large chunk of metal, until they were gone and out of sight.

Back up above, Heather screeched and screamed as she gripped so tightly to the edges of her new haircut, one could even assume she wanted to tear it up even more. “I haven’t even learned how to make it grow back yet!”

“Coulda killed her with that fall, you know,” Trent whistled as he continued his work. His tone sounded like he had merely feigned interest.

“Like you care.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

There was no further comment. Trent refused to pay Heather further mind. While Heather was far from an Ashley fan, this new side of Trent gave her the creeps, and she could only scowl in disgust at his nonchalance. At the very least, things were quiet now. She silently slumped on to a chair and got started on a manicure.

 

oOo

 

They ran and they ran and they ran. The twists and turns of MidiCity’s streets made navigation a hectic chore. But Cyan knew her friends were out there. No matter how far they were, no matter how much Heartless got in their way, she would save them. Each step fueled her blaring determination. But when she, Cody, and Mokona finally skidded to a halt at their destination, even she fought with all her might to keep from letting her crestfallen gaze from taking over.

Alakazam and Loudred were busy pounding on to a Heartless horde that had clumped into the area. The duo was nearly indecipherable from the mob that had gathered. And right at the center of the mob, where a cryptic tune peered out, were two teenage girls who were left dazed in zombie-like states. One of them, a tan girl with long, blonde twintails like the ears of a dog, flapped her hand all over a bass like a robot going through the motions. The other, a girl decked out in all pink with fluffy cotton candy-like sheep hair, clanged onto her drum set with the might of a wartime drummer boy but with the face of a fading soul.

“Retoree! Moa!” Cyan cried out with tears in her eyes.

“It doesn’t look like they’ve gone full Heartless,” Cody said. Their looks were muted, but they seemed even less in tune with the darkness than Eva and Crona were back at Death City. “That’s good.”

“What do you mean that’s good?!” Cyan asked in distress. “How do we get them back to normal?”

“Smack, ‘em. Duh!” Mokona answered triumphantly.

“I can’t do that to my friends!”

“Well, you gotta do something,” Loudred’s cries could be heard above the dirge. “We’re getting wrecked out here!”

Indeed, the Heartless seemed rowdier than normal. Black fumes seeped from out of the two girls’ instruments, and despite not performing on one of the town’s specially made stages, they were powering the monsters up. It was clear what was going on. They’d have to force the two away from those instruments. But how? Cyan continued to fruitlessly call out to the duo, shielding away any attempts from the others to hit them head on. It wasn’t like they wanted to, but what else were they supposed to do?

On the opposite end of the chaos, Ashley and Chuchu entered the scene. The young witch just wanted some peace and quiet to collect her thoughts, but the moment Chuchu realized what was unfolding beyond her with her three friends at bay, she knew that wasn’t happening.

“We have to stop them! Do something!” Chuchu blared into her unwilling companion’s ears.

“Just the worst…” Ashley let out a muffled groan. None of this had gone as planned. In fact, when was the last time anything had gone as planned?

The rabbit girl gasped. Right before her eyes, a wave of those doll-like Heartless was about ready to strike Cyan from behind. She had no fighting abilities and she was much too far away. She might as well have been seated at her friend’s funeral with how useless and helpless she felt in this scenario. With nothing but desperate pleas in hand, she clawed on to her rabbit ears in a teary panic and let out a scene piercing shriek.

CYYYYYAAAAAANNNNNN!!

!!

Cyan’s head flipped in all directions before she caught the string of floating mages headed her way. The Cyan of yesterday would’ve stood still in fear and would’ve surely made her end. But she was the Cyan of today. With her cheeks puffed, she deftly gripped her guitar and strummed out a loud, echoing chord. The Heartless that threatened to devour her wavered around in dizzied circles. And even more, the clash of notes spewed and split into the fumes of the corrupted instruments, weakening their effects.

“That’s it!” Cody exclaimed excitedly. “Keep rocking out, Cyan!”

“You got it!” She nodded confidently. Her quick act of self defense morphed into an all out jam session. With each pluck and strum, the surrounding Heartless stumbled over from her vibrato and made themselves easy pickings for the boys. The Heartless infested square soon began to clear. Even if their faces couldn’t say it, the corrupted Retoree and Moa grew frustrated with each second. They attempted to increase the intensity of their mad music, but the duo just couldn’t quash out their old bandmate’s might.

“Oh, wow,” Chuchu looked on in awe. She’d, of course, seen her friend perform before, but not like this. It wasn’t too long ago that Cyan had asked to put the band’s activities on hold out of fear. Where did all this spunk come from?

Ashley examined the battle once more. It was clear who the victors would be at this rate, but that didn’t necessarily mean it would end promptly. If those two continued to even play a note, Heartless would keep coming, and it was obvious no one in the Keybearer’s group had any desire to actually harm them. With a sigh, she carefully aimed her wand and cast her spell. A petite pair of flames propped out and shot at the instruments like bullets. The move was enough to throw their wielders off from shock. The two collapsed to the ground, free from the cursed drum and bass that had faded off. Life returned to their eyes.

The last of the Heartless were defeated, and the pair of girls regained full consciousness. “Retoree! Moa!” Cyan joyfully ran up to the two. “Chuchu!” And of course, she couldn’t forget the friend who helped her out in battle with her voice. The four girls all squealed in heartened glee over their reunion as they huddled into a hug circle.

“We were so worried, pyuru,” Moa cooed.

“W-we thought we lost you guys for good,” Retoree meekly let out a comforted sigh.

“Lost us ?” Chuchu laughed. “I could say the same for you two.”

“What is she doing here?!”

Their reunion came to a halt. The boys noticed someone else was there. Alakazam pointed to her with fury in his eyes.

“I’d like to know that too,” Ashley muttered under her breath, just softly enough that she doubted anyone could hear.

“You here for round two?” Mokona egged her on while he pantomimed boxing moves.

“God, no.” If anything, she’d like to leave. Now.

“Cody will barf on you again,” Loudred propped up the Keybearer who looked away from embarrassment in response.

“...”

Now.

“I doubt you’d believe me, but I’m not the worst of your worries right now,” she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, right,” Al continued with his outrage. “You’re probably the reason behind everything.”

Honestly, she couldn’t exactly refute that.

Ashley opened her mouth once more, but before she had the chance to say anything, something happened. Like the flip of a switch, the city was dimmed into darkness as every single light source fizzled out. There was a brief moment of silence as everyone stood still with bated breath. But seconds later, entire swaths of screams could be heard from every building, every corner of the city. It could’ve been out of sheer fear of the dark or fear of the Heartless that now crawled around with easeful abandon. Either way, the world just entered its final stage.

A dim glow flickered before a bright gleam shone itself in the midst of the power outage. Up in the sky, at the very center of town, the crystal of Center Tower still held its ground.

“What did you do?!” The four boys clamored at the witch for answers.

I didn’t do anything,” she barked back, with, to their surprise, just as much anger towards the situation as they had. “Those two ingrates took over the entire mission, and they’re up in the tower wrecking the place. Blew off the plan, and they’re gonna break that thing and end the whole world at this rate.”

“Who???”

“Heather and Trent. Duh!”

Cody paused.

Trent?

He wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t actually stoop this…

Oh my God.

What are you waiting for?! ” A girl cried out. “Go! Now!”

Without a word, he followed along the trail of the crystal out of the square and towards the tower. His three companions trailed along with little protest.

“...aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!

Ashley threw her arms into the air as she vented and circled the square over and over again in uproarious frustration. This was a trainwreck. She was supposed to be Maleficent’s right hand. How did this all happen? Why did it happen? Those two were going to destroy the crystal and ruin everything.

But…that was the point, wasn’t it?

Did it matter that they followed a different path to get there?

Because she wanted to destroy the crystal too, didn’t she?

Right?

Right?

It happened so quickly. One moment, Ashley was entranced in her own little house of rage. The next, she was face planted to the floor and tied tightly in ribbons, having carelessly tripped over Retoree’s tail.

She completely forgot that the Plasmagica girls were even there.

“Let go of me!”

“Nuh uh,” Moa teasingly wagged her finger as she and the other three lifted her up over their shoulders. “You started this mess, pyuru. You’re gonna help us get out of it.”

“We can’t just sit back,” Cyan squeaked with vigor. “We’re gonna help out Cody as much as we can.”

“Y-yeah, just,” Retoree heaved over the weight. “You’re a witch, right? Just lend us your magic for a bit.”

“And why do you think I’d do that?” Ashley’s eyes creased.

“Because,” Chuchu smiled mischievously as she casually waved around the wand the witch had dropped in her fall. “You’re not getting this back until you do.”

Ashley slumped in their arms. For crying out loud…

As if they were crafty children getting away with an afterschool heist, the four girls giggled along with Ashley moping around in their arms as they too made their way to Center Tower.

Chapter 32: MidiCity: Ryuusei Dreamline

Notes:

Updated the fic like I said I would! Nothing huge. Mostly just fixes with grammar, typos, and awkward wording. You won't suddenly be learning any new details by going back, so don't worry about needing to reread anything.

Notable Changes:
- The grammar fixing mostly had to do with shifting everything to a more consistent past tense. Or maybe I made it worse. Who knows? I went to school for art, not English.
- Toned it down on the cursing. Didn't realize how bad it was in earlier chapters.
- Changing everything to double spacing rather than triple for paragraphs. I finally know how this site works.
- Chapter divides now represented as "oOo" rather than "---" just cuz it looks nicer.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

By the time the four arrived at Center Tower, a massive crowd was already gathered up front. With the rest of the city off the grid, they thought this would be their closest thing to a safe haven. None of them would’ve expected it to be a trap in disguise. With no other light present, Heartless nimbly crawled into the fray, overjoyed at the ease of search for their prey.

“Oh, crap,” Cody spoke in frightened awe at the sight. With how dark and desolate the city had become, it looked like the world might finally cave in.

“Yo, Cody!” A familiar voice called him out. “Over here!”

Amidst the chaos, a familiar trio acted as leaders of the masses. Tyler, Justin, and Syuzo diligently directed the MidiCity residents to safer areas while also fighting alongside the few battle ready residents against the infectious swarm.

“Tyler,” Cody and the others ran on over. “Uh…” He was about to ask for a brief status report, but just a small look around was more than enough to fill in for that.

“You got here just in time,” Syuzo said. He still somehow managed to retain his top idol cadence despite everything going on. “We came here hoping to use the stage up there, but it looks like the elevators are the only thing in there right now with power. We were at a bit of a loss for a sec.”

“Don’t worry!” Loudred exclaimed with vigor. “We’ll get to the bottom of this right this in—”

Justin interrupted the rendezvous with his wildly waving arms. Building debris had started to rain down from above. He pushed Syuzo and Tyler aside from a piece of rubble that made their way to them, and Al and Mokona used their telekinesis and magical gem shields to fend off the rest.

Cody took another nervous look around. The Heartless would not let up, and the building had started to decay at the worst possible time. The people of MidiCity did not have the manpower to take this all alone.

“Hey,” he spoke to Loudred, Al, and Mokona. “You guys stay behind and help protect everyone.”

“Are you sure?” Al cocked his brow.

“Yeah. These guys need it more than me. And…” He’d already started to run along to the entrance.

I gotta give that guy a piece of my mind, one-on-one.

As he entered the building, his stomach tied into knots over the scene. Even though he was only a few footsteps away from the door and a hair’s short of the loud ruckus outside, he could already feel the unease of the near pitch black lobby. Everything laid still and silent. There was nothing but shadows to greet him. And it would only get worse the further he ventured.

He gulped and slowly continued his timid strut to the elevator. He could feel his teeth clatter as he slowly panned his vision across the area out of sheer paranoia, like one of these stray shadows would suddenly come to life as a night terror.

…!!

His heart thumped out. Out the corner of his eye, he saw something move. Right by the reception desk.

What did he act all scared for? He was the Keybearer for Pete’s sake! He fought ferocious monsters on the daily! He could handle whatever was there easily.

…It was nothing but stray sheets of paper that had flown off naturally from the sloppy pile they were laid atop. It was absolutely nothing. How could he be this silly?

…!!

There was something else.

His head flipped behind. It wasn’t a stray shadow but a stray Shadow. Or rather dozens of them. In the dark, the only way he could tell they were even there was through the eerie glow of their moonlit eyes. It was like an entire stream of detached faces just stared at him with doll-like eyes. These things were mooks. They were the lowest form of Heartless he and his friends had encountered thus far, and right at that moment, they were the most terrifying things he’d ever seen.

He raced over to the elevator as he cursed his decision to even take a detour in the first place. The moment it opened, he hopped right in and slammed his fists on to the keypad. The doors squeaked to a close, just slow enough that the Heartless had time to squeeze their limbs through the tight space. Cody screamed bloody murder as he swung his Keyblade to the front like a scythe to chop off their arms. And he screamed even louder as he felt the monsters pound on to the sides. And he screamed and screamed until everything stopped and all was silent once more.

DING!

That was the noise that would’ve been made had the elevator worked in full power. Instead, the shaft came to a jutting halt, and the boy, who had already been in a standing fetal position from the constant wall smashes, spun and twisted around from the violent jolts before slamming right onto the steel floor. He lifted himself up with bated breath and prayed that his head smash wouldn’t be the last straw for the throttled shaft to disconnect and fall.

With all his might, he forced the doors open, and a loud creak echoed throughout the empty floors. As he took a look around the floor he found himself in, the topmost floor, he shuddered at just how close it was to what he expected. Now far and away from all the ruckus outside, it was like he’d entered a box separate from the rest of the world. Furniture was carelessly tossed all over the place, somehow making the area feel more like a haunted house than the “ghost” infested first floor. The closer proximity to the crystal above meant that the nearby windows offered much more light than before, but it somehow added to the eerie nature; like he was trapped and that was a searchlight just barely out of reach.

His eyes continued to trail along in both fear and curiosity until they finally traced over the one glimmer of hope in this entire tower. Right across from him stood a stage surrounded by cameras and computers; one of those specialty stages Syuzo had mentioned no doubt. And right above the stage on what appeared to be an elaborate backdrop decoration hung a massive bow with a fanciful keyhole right in the center. He couldn’t believe his luck. He didn’t need anything else to confirm what it was.

With an excited fist pump and a hushed “Yes!!”, he reached out for his Keyblade…

…And was hit by the sudden force of a ball of pink magical energy. His body was sent flying toward the wall and right out one of the windows. All the while, he could hear Heather’s haughty taunts gloat over her successful sneak attack.

The very tips of his fingers held on for their dear lives as he was left to dangle helplessly atop this massive tower. If he made even one wrong move, that would be it. He could practically feel his body fight the urge to freeze and shut down right there from all the paralyzing terror. In his head, he wondered if Lord Death would cut him slack and look the other way if he was unlucky enough to screw up.

“Did you think it’d be that easy?” Heather climbed out the window to greet him at the ledge.

He was far too terrified to quip back. His brain was a tumbling mush and it took far longer than it should’ve to realize why she had followed him out. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” As he felt and witnessed her stamp on his fingers with her heels, he belched out possibly the loudest string of words that had ever come out of him.

“No hard feelings,” she shrugged. “The big witch with a ‘B’ doesn’t want you breathing.”

“You’re straight up going to kill me now?! You can’t seriously be going this far!”

“Oh, honey,” she sighed condescendingly. “This isn’t our world anymore. You’ve gotta readjust your moral standards if you wanna make it.”

“THIS IS BAD IN EVERY WORLD!!”

“So what?” The lull of her words were mixed with the thinnest of poison, and it was like her transition to a full blown supervillain was already set. Cody could feel his strength whittle away with each scrape of her shoes. There was nothing he could do but watch.

“Oh, quit looking at me like that,” she rolled her eyes. “If you were in my shoes, you’d do this to—”

One of the stage appliances smacked right across her cheek, forcing her to lose balance. There was barely even enough room to make another step let alone regain her footing. With barely even a struggle, Heather’s screams flowed up into the air as she fell and fell and fell. The only indication that she didn’t go splat on the concrete at all was the abrupt cut-off, a sign that she had teleported away in the nick of time.

What the? He muttered to himself in his head. Suddenly, a bright, blinding shine flashed on by. He could feel himself almost lose himself from the distracting blare alone.

“Yo,” Trent ducked his head out the window.

Wh…

“Need some help?” He didn’t look particularly pleased to see Cody, but it seemed there was a part of him that felt he had to help the guy out of obligation. He began to climb out with one arm reached out as he readied himself to lift Cody back up. But on his other arm…

While Cody was near frozen and distracted by Heather, Trent had made his way to the rooftop and grabbed ahold of the crystal all by himself.

Cody was so shocked and appalled, he spontaneously regained all the strength he needed to pull himself back up and back through the window on his own. As if he would let this nutjob save him.

“Alright,” he started in leveled fury. “I don’t know if any convincing is gonna work on you, but you’re going to put that thing right back where it came from. Okay?

“Yeah, no,” Trent replied as he shifted his gaze over to the gem with disinterest in his eyes.

“That’s this world’s energy source, Trent. The entire world’s energy source.

“Oh, dang. It’s starting to crack a bit.”

“WHAT?!”

After careful inspection, small cracks were indeed riddled through the rock’s surface. He should’ve realized it sooner. No doubt this was the reason why the light was dim enough that he didn’t lose his eyesight just being near it.

“What did you do ?!”

“Look, man, I just tore through a bunch of the circuit breakers connected to it. I didn’t think it’d actually damage it.”

“You freaking did that on purpose!!”

“No, I literally just said I didn’t,” Trent answered back with his voice raised.

“Oh, yeah, and I should believe you?” Cody threw up his arms. “After what happened back at the Void?”

“I needed to leave. What was I supposed to do?”

“Not that!”

“You think I’m doing all this because I want to?”

“Yeah,” Cody scoffed sarcastically. “I bet whatever reason you’ve got will suddenly give you a green flag to go on.”

“I’m doing this for Gwen, okay?!”

“What?”

“What?!”

Before he could say anything more in response, the Phantom Gwen had already run ahead to face Trent head on with both shock and outrage.

“What do you mean, ‘for me’? You think I’d appreciate seeing you screw all these people over?”

Maybe it was because he was so used to her “being there” that, against all common sense, his concerns had shifted to keeping her safe and away from her boyfriend who was growing increasingly unstable by the second. He fought with himself over whether or not to shout out at her right then and there, and in his internal freakout, Trent finally let out his rage in full blast. With a punch to the air, a streak of green sped right through Gwen’s nonexistent body and hit Cody right in the gut. His body flew straight out of the window and just flew and flew and flew until he finally made a painful tumble atop a neighboring rooftop.

There was a split second for Cody to catch his breath before he witnessed Trent reappear into the scene with the quick burst of black fissures. He didn’t want to believe it back when Ashley ratted her teammates out, but those bits of magic just proved it. He really did sell himself out to Maleficent. The sheer rage from their last encounter back at the Null Void came back with each step they took towards one another. With their minds now set, they ran with their weapons on hand.

 

oOo

 

“What the?” Tyler nudged Justin’s shoulder as he pointed up towards the surrounding buildings. A small portion of the city’s lights flickered back on; a result of Trent’s anger distracting him just enough to drop the crystal cold turkey before he teleported away. The Heartless were still restless, but the crowds grew all the more resilient with this new development. That wasn’t what the two were marveling at however. “Dude, isn’t that Trent?”

Cody and Trent’s fight quickly turned into a game of parkour. The two zipped and zoomed through the sky as each of their attacks held the might of propelling blows. Justin could only nod in disbelief in response. Their conversation attracted the attention of Cody’s three teammates who looked on with looks of unease.

“Isn’t that his friend?” Loudred was the first to point out. “The one back from Traverse Town?”

“Why are they fighting?” Mokona had the tone of a child who just walked in on their parents in a heated argument.

“Should we really have left him off on his own?” Al asked wearily. “Shouldn’t we…?”

Loudred surveyed the area. “I mean, we can’t just leave. It’s still pretty bad her—”

“‘Scuse me, sorry, coming through!” Chuchu blurted out as she made a beeline towards Center Tower’s entrance, beating Heartless with a certain witch’s wand as if it were a mallet along the way.

“At least try to do magic!” Ashley looked on at the act in dismay. “Give that back if you’re going to be treating it like a hammer.”

“You’re so silly, pyuru,” Moa mused with mocking glee.

“Are you really in the position for requests?” Retoree replied snidely.

Indeed, while Chuchu led the troupe up front, the rest of the Plasmagica girls, Cyan, Moa, and Retoree, paraded the witch’s tied up body above their heads like a funeral casket from behind. Ashley struggled to decide if this was less or more humiliating than the vomit incident.

“It’s not like I know any spells,” Chuchu replied. “What do you want me to do? Guess? Firrrr…ra…ga?”

Suddenly, an absolute flurry of fireballs burst out of the staff’s tip. The Heartless surrounding the girls were incinerated on sight. All five of them reacted as if they’d just discovered fire itself. If it were Ashley herself wielding it, the damage would’ve been even worse, but this beginner level spout was more than enough for them to drive forward a path.

“Alright, sorry, move it, excuse me, insane firecracker here!” The rabbit girl resumed her push through. They made it effortlessly into the building, earning incredulous looks from Syuzo and all the other citizens who were gathered up front. In no time flat, they were past both the outer and inner Heartless nests and into the elevator.

Awkward silence loomed between the five in the cramped and dimly lit space. From the vague glimpses outside, they could see the full scope of the infestation that surrounded them as well as the ruthless fight above the ground between Cody and Trent. They slammed right into the tower with full confidence, but it was hard not to clam up knowing the real scale of things.

“D-do you really think we’ll be able to stop this?” Retoree stuttered.

“Yeah, pryuru,” Moa tapped the tips of her fingers on to her lips in deep contemplation. “This is a lot messier than I thought it’d be.”

“Hey,” Chuchu shook her head. “We can’t just start doubting ourselves when we’re this clo—”

“I’m so sorry.”

Cyan had interrupted their moment of uncertainty. She had hid at the very back of the pack, and her bandmates all turned over to her with curious faces.

“For what?” Moa tilted her head.

“For earlier,” Cyan sighed. She reverted to her more downtrodden behavior from before her little adventure began. “I know you guys wanted the band to keep going, but I got scared and tried to force us all into a hiatus without anyone’s input.”

“It’s okay,” Retoree gave her a warm smile. “Y-you were just trying to keep us all safe.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No, she’s right.” Cyan blinked in surprise at Chuchu’s interjection. She had butted heads with Cyan the most over the decision. “I’m sorry that I didn’t take your feelings seriously. I was so bent on saving the city that I didn’t even think about how scary a situation this must’ve all been for everyone.” She smiled. “No matter who was right or wrong, what matters now is that we’re all together, safe and sound.”

Cyan’s eyes glistened at her friend’s words. “Chuchu…”

“Uuuggghh,” Ashley groaned as she waved her legs around, limply. “Enough with this sappy fluff. Are you trying to make me puke glitter here?”

The Plasmagica girls could only giggle playfully at Ashley’s misery as the elevator made its full ascent to the topmost floor. By the time the door creaked open, a near blinding light was the first thing to greet them. The crystal was laid carelessly on the floor, long abandoned by its captor who decided he had more important things to attend to. The small cracks Trent discovered had quickly spread throughout the surface, and while the light was immense just based on close proximity, the constant flickers painted a much more dire picture.

“Isn’t that…?” Cyan gasped.

“For the love of…” Ashley rolled her eyes. While she was technically opposed to Trent at the moment, she still couldn’t help but feel annoyed at the absolute flippancy he’d exhibited towards this mission. That he was audacious enough to just leave the key item unguarded like this was simply unbelievable. “I guess this makes things easier then…”

The witch shifted over to her wand that was still trapped under Chuchu’s grip. “Do you mind?” She asked in a monotone beat.

“You’re not going to pull anything funny, right?”

“Promise.”

With four prompt nods, the girls finally went and untied their little hostage. From then on, the five quickly plowed through their preparations. The Plasmagica quartet meticulously tuned their guitars and bass and carefully readied a drum set on to the musty stage. Meanwhile, Ashley had whisked the crystal back to the top of the tower and rewired everything so that what paltry energy still present in the building would direct over to the various cameras, computers, and other broadcasting functions that filled the messy room. She’d mostly did her part silently and robotically away from the others when she was suddenly startled by a tap on the shoulder from Chuchu.

“What?” she hissed.

“Jeez, sorry,” the bunny girl pulled back in response. “I just had a question since we’re almost ready to go live.” She took her time to scan the room and marvel at the sheer amount of equipment that was accumulated into the small space. “Were you really just trying to broadcast me singing? Nothing…weird?”

Ashley sighed. “Yeah.” She could feel her face begin to burn in red. “I was going to reroute pretty much all the energy in town here so when you sang and started harvesting everyone’s musical energy, the crystal would overheat itself with how much it was absorbing all at once.”

“Isn’t that a bit…?” Moa overheard with eyebrows raised in confusion.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ashley shook her head to herself. “‘Overcomplicated garbage’. I know. I get it already.” In fact, repeating it to four of her would-be victims made her feel all the more embarrassed that she was so deadset on it to begin with. There was very little proof that any of that would’ve worked out the way she claimed it would’ve. In all likelihood, the city would’ve been tainted with a loud unprompted performance and nothing else.

As Ashley began to mull back into her self pity, a faint giggle came chimed from the stage. The witch arched her brow and saw Cyan having her own little fit. How rude. It occurred to her now that her plan was most likely a bust from the start, but she didn’t have to rub it in.

“I’m sorry,” Cyan wiped a small tear as she settled down. “It’s just…I kinda get the feeling you didn’t actually want to take down MidiCity to begin with.

“I think you just wanted to listen to music.”

Her mouth was open, but nothing came out. The four band members noticed Cody and Trent zipping away outside again and took it as their cue to reign everything in and get ready to play. As Ashley turned away and moved her attention back to the equipment, she kept replaying Cyan’s words to herself. She kept thinking about all the frustrations she constantly had to hold back at Maleficent’s base, of everything she had to hold within herself so she could continue posing as the perfect right hand. She kept thinking about the fear she tried so, so hard to convince herself was all in her head. The fear of fighting for survival. The fear of knowing that any wrong move could be her last. The fear that Maleficent had all the power in the worlds to just kill her where she stood. She thought about the times she spent just lazing around in MidiCity, how relieving it was to just be free in what was essentially her own musical playground.

With a quick incantation, flick of her wand, and a look of silence, all the room’s equipment started to glow…

 

oOo

 

No noise was exchanged between the two boys but the uneven rhythms of exhausted pants as Cody and Trent stared each other down. Their fight had led them from Center Tower all the way to the top of the very concert stadium Cody had encountered when he first arrived in this world. Just like it had back in the Null Void, their fight escalated to a pair of feverish tantrums, and they had expended much of their energy already from their rigid needs to let out steam. By the time they made it to their current destination, they’d reached a silent agreement to catch their breaths, and everything shifted to a tense staredown.

It felt like ages passed on that very stadium rooftop through the density of their mutual silence. Between his labored breaths, Cody gulped. He chased Trent up that tower for a reason, and if they were just going to end up fighting again, this rare moment of “peace” was his one chance to speak.

“Look,” he yelled off with a hoarse crackle in his throat. “I am honest to God trying to understand you.”

“Yeah,” Trent coughed. “Sure you are.”

“Why do you keep doing that?” He just didn’t understand. “I’m asking, so help me out here. You just dumped it all on me back on the island. Why is it a problem now?”

“I already told you back at the Void,” he responded with heightened irritance.

“No, you didn’t,” Cody let out an aggravated sigh. “I’m sorry I suck at reading the room, but I had to piece everything together, and then you just blew up in my face ‘cause I guess I didn’t get it right away.” Cody let out an audible sigh and slid his hand over his brows. “Look, I really don’t want to fight you, and I don’t think you want to either. So can we just sit down and talk this out?”

“If you really didn’t want to fight, you would’ve just left me alone already.”

“Well, I would’ve,” Cody groaned as he grew just as increasingly irritated as his foe was. “If it weren’t for the fact that I caught you with a witch pact of all things. Are you out of your mind?”

“Really?” Trent shook his head in annoyance.

“Like, you expect me to just leave a friend alone knowing they’re getting involved in something shady?”

He could almost laugh.

Really? After all this time?

“A friend , huh?”

“Yeah,” Cody blinked. “Do you prefer ‘ex-friend’ or something?”

He was seriously on the cusp of hysterics right now. If Cody was any closer to him on the roof at the moment, the guy would probably be able to hear his thinly veiled attempts to hide his chuckles. Cody really was something else. He wasn’t even sure if his amusement was from the usual maddened disbelief or not.

“Trust me, there are way better ways to save Gwen than teaming up with Maleficent.”

“No, there aren’t.”

“Of course there are. You don’t have to follow me and my ‘group of weirdos’, but you can go form your own and go from there.”

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

“You’re doing that again,” Cody threw his arms up in the air. “Don’t get mad and start insulting me. Just tell me what’s your beef, man.”

“Oh, yeah?” Trent cocked his head with a smile. One of those cool and confident looking smiles of his that he became known for back on the island. One of those fake smiles. “If you’re so curious, what do you think is going on?”

“You really want me to say it?”

“Yeah.” He gestured out his arm flippantly. “Be my guest.”

“...

“I think you’re jealous.”

Trent nodded. “Oh, yeah?”

“You thought you found someone to wallow in the same pity party as you, and you’re mad that I changed while you’re sulking around because you can’t imagine a world where you aren’t jerking off to how miserable you are.”

“And that’s your answer?”

Cody nodded matter of factly. “Uh huh.”

That struck a nerve.

One moment, Trent stood around in a calm silent fury, the next, his dagger was barely an inch away from gashing across Cody’s face. The Keybearer stumbled backwards and glared up at Trent who almost seemed energized from his outrage. If he’d kept his mouth shut, perhaps he could’ve avoided this second round, but there was a part of him deep down that knew that was exactly what Trent needed to hear.

He lifted his Keyblade and shielded himself off from yet another incoming dagger jab. As the two boys pushed and pushed, trying with all their might to win the battle of dominance in this stalemate, he finally got a good look at his friend’s face. Eerily calm and despondent, this was the angriest he’d ever seen him.

It was honestly kind of sad.

-bzzzt-

?

With neither moving an inch, the duo carefully nudged beside them to where the stadium’s massive outer projector towered. Once blank and depowered from the blackout earlier, the screen burst to life with somewhat familiar faces. Cyan and the other girls from Plasmagica adorned the stage, but they now resembled deformed mascot caricatures of a cat, rabbit, dog, and sheep; exactly how Syuzo and the other two were like during their show much earlier.

“Uhm…” Cyan coughed nervously. The quivers in her voice reverberated in the city skies from the sheer size of her platform. “I know everyone is scared, and we’ve all been for a while, but…

“...Things will be okay.

“A lot has happened the past few months in MidiCity. Sometimes too much. Sometimes we all just wanted to hide until everything went away. But…there’s a lot of people fighting to protect us. And even if we’re scared, the least we can do is show our support.” She gasped for air like she had let everything within her out in that one monologue, and finished it off with a solemn look. “Plasmagica won’t run away, and neither should anyone else. Because MidiCity is our home. So whether you’re out here fighting or staying safe at home, please enjoy our newest song, ‘Ryuusei Dreamline’.”

And all through the night, I still hope, I still wish on shooting stars,

And in their fading light, I still sing the song of our hearts.

Trent stood there absolutely dumbfounded. He was aware of the strange power music possessed in this world, but he hadn’t exactly paid enough attention to the mission briefing to figure out why that was the case. Cody however looked around him in anticipation. With each escalating note, crystalline diamonds twinkled between the skyscrapers. The city lights were still weak and dim from the earlier chaos, and for a brief moment, right before everything burst into life, it was like gazing out into a twilight sea.

“When I’m hurt down deep inside, it’s a thing I try to hide,

That I still look up and pray to the sky.”

The sky was littered in a brilliant sea of floating music notes that all glistened like airbourne crystals. In their shimmering stasis, beams shot down into the streets and decimated the Heartless in their pure warmth. Trent clicked his tongue. He finally understood what was going on. Team Maleficent had more or less lost. But who cared about that? Certainly not him.

“And yet you still wonder why, every time I think of you and I,

I bottle in a weak cry.”

Trent lunged his dagger forward and his opponent yelped in response. Cody was distracted from admiring Plasmagica’s work and nearly forgot what kind of situation he was in.

“Dude!” He waved his hand in outrage. “Hurting me isn’t going to make a difference now.”

But the point of it was just to hurt him. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Awestruck and breathless, so now I’m restless,

I move out with a mist,

And in my tears I make my wish!”

The music far drowned out the clangs of their clashing steel. In Plasmagica’s calming storm, they were but a blot in the backdrop. Nothing else mattered in that moment. Not Maleficent’s influence, not the dying Heartless, not the music, nothing. Just a solid fight between two friends.

“And all through the night, I still hope, I still sing to shooting stars,

And in their blooming light, I never want for us to part,

And all through the days, I still pray, I still reach into your arms,

So when you’re gone, we will never be too far.”

Where does he get this energy? Cody thought to himself. He could feel the beads of sweat bounce off his skin as he constantly pulled away from Trent’s blade at the skin of his teeth. A faint glow circled around both him and the Keyblade, a sign that the song resonated power into him. Despite that, he was at the very cusp of being overpowered by Trent who stood immune from the musical effects.

“As the days go passing by, with my heart now strung and dry,

All the memories flash by in my mind.”

“Hey, Cody!”

At the first moment of a safe opening, Cody swept his head behind him to see Loudred, with Mokona nestled atop his head, floating closeby to the roof. Off in the distance, Alakazam put all the strength he had in him to lift the two up telekinetically. Cody didn’t even need to ask why they were there. Already glowing from the music residue itself, Loudred’s stereo-esque antennae horns blasted out like limelights. Cody could feel the faint tingling within him increase into a hum. His friends were redirecting as much extra energy as they could right into him.

“And yet I still wonder why, are you not out with your smiles so wide,

Even brighter than the sunrise.”

There wasn’t time to even mouth a “thank you”. Trent just continued going in for the kill. Things once again began to even up, and as the might of Cody’s strikes built up with each consecutive hit, Trent could only groan in frustration.

“Warm with amazement, I still embrace it,

So while tonight is lit, can I just ask for one more wish?”

Mokona giggled with glee at each bit of magic he sniped to the scene. He carefully aimed at Trent’s footwork, just enough to possibly trip him over. Trent, of course, was not having it. This was supposed to be a fight between just him and Cody, and those three whatevers had no business being there. After nearly stumbling over one particularly well aimed shot, he decided he’d finally had enough and flicked a beam of magic right back. Mokona was cleanly knocked off and was saved only by Al’s careful telekinetic waves.

“To be by your side.”

“Hey!” Cody exclaimed. “Eyes over here, asshole.” Trent was finally on the receiving end of the duel’s anger. Swipe after swipe, hit after hit, Cody just kept coming at him until, finally, Trent’s ivy dagger flung straight into the air and became lost into the city streets.

“And all through the night, I still sing as I weave this tattered hope,

And all through the sky, I still leave a star piece before you go,

And all through my eyes, I still pry as I see where time will flow,

So in this shining light, you will hear our song and you will know.”

Despite it all, being weaponless still did not stop him. Trent switched over to throwing out magical blasts, the same kind that Heather seemed to have gained after she aligned with the green witch. Their force was even stronger than what Cody had witnessed between Heather and Ashley combined. The situation with Mokona had caused Al and Lourdred’s concentration to slip, and Cody was down to the ground with his light ever so slightly dimmed. He couldn’t believe it, but Trent’s sheer emotions bested him despite all his advantages. He braced himself. Trent headed towards him with menacing steps, his green glowing hand raised.

“And all through the night, I still hope, I still dream of shooting stars,

And in their blazing light, you’ll know that we are not that far,

And all through the days, you’ll still say, we were here right from the start,

Dazed in a gaze, we will never be apart.”

Trent stopped in his tracks. He just realized what he’d just done. All that magic had just come out of him. All of her magic had just come out of him.

He couldn’t stoop that low.

In Cody’s eyes, Trent might’ve won, but…

…The fact that he resorted to her without even a second thought…

“Still dreaming that, our song will be one heart.”

The song was over. The fight was over. The Heartless were all gone.

Meanwhile, back at Center Tower, the four Plasmagica girls huddled all together in a post mini-concert celebration. It was the most joy anyone in this world had had in months. Ashley stood silently in the corner, taking in the sight, and taking in all the uncertain feelings that she finally acknowledged within herself.

Both her and Trent teleported away without a word. Darkness finally left MidiCity.

 

oOo

 

The MidiCity of before finally returned. With all the Heartless gone, the streets were filled, newly rejuvenated with life. After being stuck for months on end carefully monitoring their surroundings even for something as measly as a grocery run, the residents let loose with their new found freedom. The neon signs blared bright abound, a near indecipherable medley of tunes seamed into the ambience, and, despite its fragile scars, the crystal of Center Tower was back proudly looking over everything from above.

Following the tower incident, Syuzo, Tyler, and Justin were put in charge of helping residents recover from the immediate aftermath. At first, Cody and friends had jumped in eagerly to help, but a teasing headshake from Syuzo and a simple point up to the tower’s tip was enough to alert them that their job wasn’t quite done. Indeed, Cody had been so emotionally worn down from the previous fight, he’d nearly forgotten about the Keyhole, and he could only scratch the back of his head in embarrassment when the four walked in and were all greeted by the real heroes of the hour.

“Boo!!” The girls all jumped out enthusiastically from behind Moa’s drum set.

“Can I have your autographs?” Mokona cried out in response, earning charmed giggles from the girls.

“Thank you so much for protecting the town,” Chuchu marched up to the four with a gracious bow.

“Why are you thanking us?” Al laughed softly.

“Yeah,” Loudred added with a wide smile. “It’s you guys who did the heavy lifting.”

“Well,” Cyan stepped up with a meek smile. “You all saved us. We wouldn’t have been able to pull ourselves together like that, so…” She joined Chuchu’s bow followed by Moa and Retoree further back. “Thank you!”

Cody looked at the scene with a fond face. There was a part of him that started to look at their entire MidiCity adventure as a failure after that confrontation against Trent. But seeing the four now, it didn’t matter what happened or what he tried or failed to say or do. These girls were changed for the better.

He held up the Keyblade to the stage’s decorative piece. The room was engulfed in pure light, and, right outside, the cracks on the crystal were no more.

 

oOo

 

“ARE YOU INSANE?! YOU ACTUALLY TRIED TO KILL ME!”

“It’s not like you actually died.”

“Did you hit your head on your way out of the island? What is this?!”

The mood was absolutely rancid back at the castle. After the three apprentices were all teleported back, Heather didn’t hesitate to rip Trent a new one over his apparent murder attempt. And rather than chastise him over it, Maleficent turned a blind eye—she was quite amused by his nonchalance over the situation—in favor of her increasingly routine rounds against Heather and Ashley instead.

“You pull a stunt like that again, I am aiming for your head.”

“Go ahead.”

“I mean it!”

“I’m sure.”

No doubt Heather wouldn’t be letting up for the rest of the day. Maybe not even the rest of the week. But even then, with all her shrill screams and yells, the world was silent for the third apprentice witch. Ashley sat off away in the corner and looked out through the window into the ongoing dawn of this little deserted waterfall kingdom.

She refused to pay her spiraling thoughts any heed.

Notes:

Can you believe in the time I started writing this fic, cringe culture died and then ressurected itself. Damn. u_u

Chapter 33: Traverse Town: Six 0'clock

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

He could remember those old dreams of his like they were yesterday. Those hopeless chases, that vengeful giant, the suffocating ends. It’d been well around a month since everything started and he said goodbye to that airless realm for good. These days however, his dreams have become strange. Weirdly lifelike like the ones that came before, but calm and quiet, even eerie. And sometimes, she’d be there to accompany him.

“I guess this beats the platforms,” Cody scanned the spacious castle halls nervously like something would attack him at any second.

“From your old dreams, right?” The girl who walked beside him said. “Shouldn’t that mean this castle is related to something then?”

First, she was an occasional delusion, now, she was a denizen of his own dreamland. He probably should’ve been shocked at how real it felt, how she talked like a normal breathing person, but he’d long accepted this sentient hallucination. Where did she come from? Why was she here? It didn’t matter. If anything, he was just glad had someone else beside him this time.

“Well,” Cody cocked his head in thought. “I’ve never been here before, so this isn’t a flashback.”

“Flash forward then?”

“Do dreams work like that?”

“Your old dreams literally worked like that, dumbass. You told me they did.”

The past few nights, they’d walk these halls, both knowing their way and not. It felt both alien and familiar at the same time. And despite having no memory of the place, neither of them ever seemed worried about getting lost.

!!

“Hey,” Cody pointed forward. “Up ahead!”

An enormous doorway entrance opened itself to its two guests. Beyond the frame, they could see piles upon piles of books intermingled with the lively harmony of flowers and leaves. What was beyond, they wouldn’t know. At least for tonight. They were engulfed in the room’s gleaming light, and…

“...telling you, we were a big deal!”

Cody wiped the crust off his face. He was in that mood again after the group’s MidiCity venture, and the others were kind enough to let him rest in the ship in peace. He peered his groggy eyes that still quaked in their lids up to the front of the ship where everyone was gathered around the dashboard. Tyler and Justin had joined the usual crew and loudly boasted around with candor, one with his words and the other with flashy poses.

“Uh huh,” Al nodded with a flat tone. “But you guys didn’t sing?”

“Oh, we tried for the first couple of shows, but…” Tyler glanced over to his partner in crime. “Turns out I wasn’t really built for that, and Justin…” He waved his arm around. “Well, it’s not like he can’t speak or sing. He just chooses not to.”

Justin flashed cheeky finger guns in response.

“Wouldn’t that just make you two the backup band then?” Al responded, his tone even flatter.

“Nah, man, we were definitely more than—”

“Cody, Cody, Cody!”

Mokona was the first to notice him awake and happily bounced over to the back and into his lap in response.

“Yoooooo, Cody, my man!” Tyler sounded off excitedly. “About time you woke up. I’ll start from the beginning for you, all the way back at the intersection.”

“Great,” Al said, somehow even more flat than before.

Cody walked on over and placed Mokona neatly aside. While Tyler went on and on about his and Justin’s short lived pop idol careers, he felt his mind float elsewhere. Not that he didn’t want to hear what the two had to say, but his second meeting with Trent had left him just as drained as did the last. He wanted to talk to him, maybe have an understanding, but it turned into that again. He did talk to him, but not the way he wanted to. Maybe it was his own fault.

He felt the hard edge of pebbles nudge into him. Loudred had tapped on to his shoulder with his Everstone laden hand. The big guy naturally had trouble controlling the intensity of his voice and likely didn’t want to interrupt their guests’ storytime, but his worried face spoke loud and clear: 

Are you okay?

Cody bit into the walls of his mouth and looked the other way. He bottled it last time and never really admitted what exactly had happened back at the Null Void, but this time, his friends were actually there to witness it. “I’m fine,” he whispered back. “Thanks.”

“And, bro, our first autograph session.”

Justin nodded proudly with hands on his hips.

It looked like those two were still going.

His mind was refocused, but Cody still had some difficulty paying attention. Because he couldn’t help but think about the circumstances for the two’s current accompaniment. The gang had planned to bring them back with them to Traverse Town, of course, but the duo had actually adamantly defended the idea of just letting them be back at MidiCity.

“We can’t just leave the town like this, you know.” Tyler had said just before they left. “The place is still wrecked. Justin and I should stick around and help. Wouldn’t be right if we didn’t”

Justin had nodded solemnly back then.

Then suddenly, Syuzo had appeared to squash it all.

“No, that’s alright. You two are from a different world, and it wouldn’t be right to keep you tied up in the city’s drama.”

“But our contract says—”

“Contract’s terminated.”

“Huh?”

“You.”

Cody could remember how the pop prince pointed to him. How those blissfully shining eyes bleated at him with a glimmering smile.

Syuzo looked absolutely terrifying.

“Take these two with you.”

“Uhh—”

“Do it.”

Just thinking back on it sent shivers down his spine. “Syuzo did not like them, huh?” Cody said to himself, accidentally letting his thoughts run loose.

“Pssh, what?” Tyler laughed it off. “Nah, he loved us!”

Justin elbowed him with a disapproving look and shook his head.

“Yeah…he…” Tyler’s confident grin wavered as he started to stare off into the distance with a deflated frown. “Man, he really hated us.”

“What did you guys do?” Cody asked.

“I bet they destroyed the stage,” Mokona replied in glee.

“Nuh uh! We didn’t—”

Justin elbowed him yet again.

“Okay, okay, I might’ve tripped over wires and stuff once—”

Another elbow.

“A few times!”

A side eye.

“Every other concert!” Tyler threw his arms up in the air in frustration before pointing back at his former bandmate. “Don’t go putting all the blame on me! You tried to upstage him like it was a sport.”

The two launched into a short bout of bickering, but quickly tired themselves out. “Oh well, past’s in the past,” Tyler sighed. “Buuuut…” He and Justin exchanged smiles. “You said the others are chilling in the world we’re headed to, right? That means Lindsay and I’ll have our big heartfelt reunion.”

The few times Cody passed her by in Traverse Town, it looked like she might as well have been dating Beth with how much fun the two seemed to have goofing around the place. Not once had he ever heard her drop Tyler’s name.

“And Justin here’ll be back to having a real fan club.”

Cody knew for a fact that Katie and Sadie were preoccupied.

He didn’t have the heart to tell either of them.

“What’s with the silence? Dude, we’re gonna have so much to tell the others. This little story session? Dress rehearsal for when we go spreading our exploits around. We’re restarting the band, just me and him. We’re gonna be so big, they’ll hear about us all the way in MidiCity, and Syuzo will be begging us to come back. We just need a name. I’m thinking, ‘The Drama Brothers’. What do you think? Yo, man, what if you joined u—”

“Uh, guys?” Loudred had continued to pilot on in the background. He had remained shockingly silent throughout “The Drama Brothers”’s storytime, seemingly not wanting to ruin their fun, but now something wasn’t right.

“Oh no,” Alakazam let out a fearful groan. “Don’t tell me we’re lost again.”

“No. We’re actually almost there. But…”

Justin was the first to look down out the window in curiosity and immediately pounded on the glass in response, urging the others to take a look for themselves. Indeed, they were right in the skies of Traverse Town, but mixed in with the eternal night sky were the fluttering charcoals of loose flames. A small portion of the buildings in town had been set ablaze while others were tattered or just barely holding on. They could even see the enormous refugee ship in the outskirts of town riddled with obvious dents.

It took quite a while before they were able to properly land. With how big of a mess the town currently was, most of the normal parking spaces were either gone or occupied. It took until their ship was close enough to be flagged out by Cid, Dejiko, Puchiko, and Gema for them to finally find a cramped space just barely within walking distance of the town square. As they carefully crept through the streets, as if they were afraid something even as small as footsteps would make things worse, they realized just how much more dire things were at a ground level. Citizens shuffled around in hushed tones and much of the buildings that towered over looked like they were just one more hit away from turning into ruins.

“Couldn’t have come at a better time,” Cid and the smaller trio ran up to them. So focused and shell shocked at the state of Traverse Town, they all jumped in response.

“What happened?” Loudred gaped.

Cid shook his head. His teeth grinded so hard into the toothpick in his mouth, it could snap. “Heartless.”

“All this?!” Cody gestured to the setting in dismay.

“Those dang things came in droves.”

“B-b-but,” Mokona blubbered uncharacteristically. “My master’s magic should’ve helped shield everything.”

“Your master’s magic has its limits.”

“It was terrible, nyo,” Dejiko pulled the rim of her cat cap downwards to her stressed face. “They were everywhere. I thought I was a goner, nyo.”

“They surrounded her, nyu,” Puchiko explained in sympathy despite her typical deadpan.

“There there,” Gema patted her head. “It’s all over now, gema.”

“This is exactly how our old world went down, nyo,” she began to flail her arms. “I’m a princess! I shouldn’t have to deal with this twice, nyo!”

Cody gulped as he once again looked over everything. This was a lot to take in. He saw the Heartless attempt their world ending infestations across numerous worlds. They even succeeded in his own. But this was Traverse Town. This place was supposed to be a safe haven. A place for others who already lost everything. How could this be happening here of all places.

“Guys, guys, guys!”

A certain ninja girl sped into the scene, nearly tripping over herself along the way with how fast she went.

“Y-Yuffie?!” She instantly grabbed hold of Cody’s hand and began to drag him away.

“We’re having a meeting right now. Since you’re here, you guys need to be there.”

“But what about those two?” Loudred pointed awkwardly to Tyler and Justin who were left to quietly process the horrific luck they must’ve had to drop into this mess.

“Cid and the kids’ll show them around,” Yuffie rolled her eyes in response like she couldn’t believe they had any other priorities. “Come on. Hurry!”

She tightened her grip and pulled Cody through like an assembly line. Through their hasty tour around the town, they could tell things weren’t any better beyond the square. Even in areas that avoided the bulk of the damage, there was a cloud of doom and uncertainty in place of ransacked buildings. The residents of Traverse Town were used to living in a constant cycle of peace and terror, but it seemed even they were all close to reaching their breaking points. And amidst it all, the town’s lone clock tower continued to loom over everything in its frozen gaze. Both reflective of the town’s decay with its dinged up brick linings and mocking of their sorrows with its oppressive sight, it stood tall and quiet in its unchanging veneer. It was the complete opposite of MidiCity’s Tower which represented the town’s pride and resilience. This tower was that of resignation, of people forced to move on knowing they were stuck in place.

And it was six o’clock, just as always.

“Hey, I’m back! Open up!” Having arrived at the waterway, now fully boarded up as a sloppy means for added safety, Yuffie wasted no time to bang loudly on to the newly erected door.

Rather than letting them in, a narrow opening slid open, and a pair of suspicious eyes poked out. “Password?”

“Courtney, it’s me.”

A second pair of eyes, ones more mocking and mischievous in nature, pushed the first to the side. No doubt, this was Duncan. “Nope. No can do. Rules are rules. Password?”

“Oh, for the love of…” Yuffie threw her arms up and violently pried the door open by force. Cody and the others could practically hear the stomp of her soles as she forcibly led them all in.

“Hey!” Courtney gawked. “You can’t just break it like that. We need to keep this place safe.”

“Tell your boyfriend to start taking this seriously first!” Yuffie yelled back.

The boys all looked at one another, taken aback. The last time they’d spoken to Yuffie, she’d hosted a two-day theme park party for the crew. But now, the cheerful ninja was uncharacteristically antsy and full of agitation.

With one more harsh tug on Cody’s arms, they finally arrived at their destination. In one of the more spacious parts of the waterway, the rotunda that Leon had used as a makeshift training ground the first time they were there, the walls echoed with bouncing chatter. The area was filled to capacity with various folks, all assumedly part of the resistance crew their friends had created. There were many familiar faces in the crowd, from the various alien refugees of The Null Void, to Bridgette and Geoff, still finding time to cuddle in the back, to the tiny demon, Red, dawdling nervously on the floor, to Izzy and Owen loudly billowing about, to Tidus sitting with Katie and Sadie who clung to him with uncertain faces. And in the center of it all were Aerith and Leon.

“Alright,” Aerith cleared her throat. “Listen up.”

In no time flat, the scene that bustled like a small school cafeteria fell into a silent buzz.

“As we all know, the Heartless raids have grown steadily in intensity the past several months. At first, everything seemed manageable, but it’s all ramped up out of nowhere now. I know things are bad right now, but like it or not, Traverse Town is our home away from home, and we need to do everything we can to protect it.” She gave a brief pause to look over the audience with the face of a leader. “It used to be just Leon, Yuffie, a few others, and I protecting everyone, but look at how much we’ve grown in such a short time! We can’t start doubting ourselves now. There’s way too many of us to be doing that. What we need to do now is start our plan of attack.

“A few of you probably know this already, but in every world, there’s something called the ‘Keyhole’. It’s like a seal that can keep us safe from the Heartless for good. Leon, the others, and I have been trying to find it for who knows how long, but we’ve never had any luck. But with our numbers, we just might be able to do it this time. We can’t afford not to. So if any one of you runs into a lock that feels even a little bit different than a normal one, our Keybearer here…”

Aerith gestured over to Cody, and the curious looks of the entire audience followed suit. He could only wave awkwardly as sweat suddenly began to pour down his brow.

“...You can go to him and he’ll seal it up!”

“That’s it? We’re playing I Spy with this scrawny kid now?” One of the many resistant members loudly scoffed. “My family and I came to this world for safety. You expect me to waste my time looking for a vague concept of a thing when we should be preparing for the next outbreak?”

“Hey,” another one piped up. “I don’t know your story, but that ‘scrawny kid’ saved our entire colony. If he can help us, then we should help him.”

“Look, bud, if you enjoy playing around when those Heartless freaks can kill us all at any second, be my guest.”

“G-guys,” Aerith bit her lips. She completely lost them.

The room had returned to the clanging chatters from earlier, only now, they were rotten with anger and in-fighting. No amount of yelling on Aerith’s part would do anything. Yuffie started to fume and was ready to march to the center to verbally attack everyone right then and there. But before she could even take a step forward, a puff of flames shot right past the crowd and into the opposite wall. The rocks chiseled into a pure black hue, and everyone was stunned into silence. Back at the center where Aerith had been woefully ignored, Leon stood boldly with his gunblade outstretched and unsheathed. The moments of silence drew on and on, and after making sure they had regained their full attention, he stepped back once more and signaled Aerith back in.

“Anyways,” she cleared her throat. “As I said earlier, we’ve lived in this world far longer than any one of you here. We’ve fought and we’ve prepared, and I’m here to say…” Her face grew stern. “With all my years of experience, that just isn’t enough. We know exactly what we have to do. You can fight as many Heartless as you want, but they will keep coming. So, please, let’s all swallow up our pride here and search for that Keyhole. Alright?”

No response.

“Alright then,” she nodded. “Meeting adjourned. Let’s get searching.”

Murmurs flowed back into the dispersing crowd, spreading gossip about this strange young hero they were expected to answer to. Cody could only continue to slink down in embarrassment, much to the amusement of his teammates who still remembered a period of time when he would’ve ate this attention up. By the time the crowd grew thin, Cody still felt the need to stealthily duck amongst the remaining few as he made his way to Leon and Aerith.

“Welcome back,” Aeritth smiled. In a huge contrast from Yuffie’s aggravated state, Aerith still somehow carried an optimistic spunk despite everything. “If your timing was any better, you would’ve gotten here during the last big fight,” she laughed.

“Er, right,” Cody glanced behind him as he overheard one straggler express his doubts with the situation. “Things are, uh, pretty tense right now, huh?”

“You two handled that outburst back there really well,” Lourdred said happily in admiration.

“Yeah,” Al nodded. “Great quick thinking there, Leon.”

Leon barely mouthed a “Thanks” before he shoved the four aside and trudged on out. It wasn’t the typical brand of rudeness that they were used to from him.

“Don’t worry about him,” Aerith’s tone lowered despite her still bright face. “He’s just exhausted. Poor guy’s barely gotten any sleep lately.”

“I don’t blame him,” Cody mumbled in sympathy.

“Anyway,” Aerith clapped her hands. “You guys heard me back there. Things are bad, so we need to get serious about the Keyhole. Now.” She bent down closer to Cody’s height and scrunched her brow, unsure if she was pushing boundaries with the sudden request. “I know you guys are busy searching for the King and princesses, but if it’s alright, we’d like you to stay here and help if possible.”

“Don’t worry,” Cody responded with a mix of comfort and weary. All his usual eager vibrato was gone after everything they’d all seen. “We’re more than happy to help.”

“Great,” Aerith clapped again. “Okay, so I guess I can help point out specific points of in—”

“Aaaaaaaaaay, Cody Kadoatie!” Right out of nowhere, Izzy sweeped right between the Keybearer and Aerith, forcing everyone to yelp in fright. Not giving them even a single chance to recover, she quickly latched on to the boy’s shoulders. “Hey, Airfare, mind if I steal him away for a bit? Got some magic-y business that needs to be done.”

“Uuuuuh,” Cody slowly edged his eyes back over to Aerith, hoping to be saved from the mage-in-training’s grasp.

“Well,” Aerith giggled, still a bit taken aback. “I don’t see why not. We mostly just need him for the last bits of the plan, so I’ll just go grab you two if anything comes up.”

That wasn’t the response he wanted to hear.

“Cool, cool, cool, cool.” Izzy lifted one hand off him to shoot off a barrage of finger guns. “Also…” She sneakily nabbed Mokona’s ears like a ripe radish. “I’m gonna need Bunny Baby here too.”

“I’m not Bunny Baby. I’m Mokona!”

She zoomed out of there with the two still in her hands before anyone had the chance to ask questions. Despite all the loud protests along the way, the trio arrived in the confines of Yuuko’s shop in record speed.

“Hey, Izzy, could you at least—waaaah!!” Only a few steps into the door, Izzy unceremoniously dropped both her kidnapees to the floor while she hurried on further to the back. Cody was left to cough and kneel his way back up while Mokona’s misplaced laughter droned beside him. “You could’ve told us what you needed first, y’know.”

Right on cue, she sped back over and shoved a book up his face. Not just any book. It was the very sketchbook he’d delivered to Yuuko in what seemed like forever ago at that point.

“Isn’t this…?”

“Yeah, so,” Izzy forced the book fully into his hands. “I miiiiiight’ve pushed one button too many on my master. So she gave book scrubbing duty to me with this one.”

“You dragged us over here to do your homework for you?”

“Aw, come on,” she winked and cheekily nudged her elbow to his side in response. “I bet you’re used to that.”

“I wanna see! I wanna see!” Mokona hopped excitedly at the sight of the sketchbook. Cody promptly flipped it open like he was ready to start sharing a picture book to a toddler, but his face drooped in horror the moment he processed the contents. The pages were just as blotched in suspicious black ink as the last time he’d laid eyes on it, if not even more so.

“Nothing I do works!” Izzy threw her arms in the air in distress. “If it were black mold, yeah, I could burn that off, but this is, like, blacker than black mold!”

“And you think we can fix it?” Cody raised an eyebrow.

“Well, duh! This is Heartless mold right?”

“Do you want me to bash the Keyblade on it?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Mokona egged him on. “Tear it to shreds!”

“Of course not, ya dum-dum,” Izzy rolled her eyes like he’d just given her the dumbest response possible. “I need you to do…this!!”

It was hard to understand just what exactly the strange girl was trying to pull. One moment, she tackled both of the boys back on to the ground. The next, she shoved their cheeks into the worn pages like she intended to strangulate them. In fact, in their confusion, there was a moment Cody assumed just that. All he could do in this position was flail around and leak out garbled words of protest until…

…They fell in.

Notes:

Gonna attempt to wrap up the Traverse Town arc by the end of the year, soooooooo let's see if I've got it in me to do four chapters in two months.

Chapter 34: The Book of Rapo: You Start With a Sketch

Notes:

Holy cow, there's actually an actively updated Drawn to Life section on this site? Lmfao, I am so so sorry for invading your page, guys.

Chapter Text

It was all so sudden. There was a flash of red, and then there was white. There was the sheer pressure of having his head mushed on to a book page, and then there was nothing. It was a familiar feeling, like that of a dream.

No, it was a dream.

Because as he floated by in this blinding void, he could make out the traces of the same castle halls he and “Gwen” had grown familiar with. He could see the vague figment of a certain pair of doors lead his consciousness into the mysterious library. But of course, just as he could feel himself pass through, the sound of white engulfed it all.

 

oOo

 

THE BOOK OF RAPO

 

oOo

 

“...aaaaa…

“...aaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!”

SLAM!!

It was a miracle he was still alive with how far down he fell. And it was even more of a miracle he didn’t get a concussion with how hard Mokona landed on his face right after. For a moment, he thought that was exactly what happened when he heard a detached laughter boom from the skies. Piecing things together however, that thundering was just Izzy.

“Good job, Bunny Baby, good job!” He could hear her clap expectantly from nowhere at all.

“Huh? What?” Cody sat straight up in a dazed snap and tossed Mokona to the grass in response. He twisted and turned in confusion as he tried to figure out just where Izzy was, but in this gray and clouded farming town he had apparently landed in, there was no one else around. It wasn’t until she started to laugh once more that he had the sense to crane his neck upwards and figure out where she was, or rather, where she wasn’t.

“Welcome to the Raposa village!” Izzy boomed throughout the sky.

With one mystery gone, now came another. Cody waved his arms around in a panic. Why were he and Mokona suddenly in another world? “Izzy, what did you do?!”

“Oh, I didn’t do much,” he could imagine herself twirling her hair in a false sense of humbleness. “It was all Mokemon.”

“It’s Mokona, not Mokemon!”

“I needed a way to shove you in here, so I grabbed him over to use as a catalyst.”

“I did a good job, didn’t I?” Mokona chuckled along in a bragging pose.

Cody wasn’t having it. “Shoved us where?

“The sketchbook, duh!”

HUH?!

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t you remember? I caved your head into the pages and everything.”

“You’re joking, right?” Cody’s eyes blinked rapidly in disbelief. “This…this is a whole new world, isn’t it?”

“It is!” Mokona answered, startling his companion with his overjoyed pipe. “Books are like glimpses into other worlds, right? Some books are special enough that they actually are! Like this one.”

Cody sighed. “This…is a lot to take in.”

“This is, what, your tenth world now?” Izzy mused. “What’s so weird about one being in a book?”

“Well…” Cody slowly eyed the scenery around once more. Even more than before, he took note of the dour and dreary atmosphere. The land before him was almost devoid of all color. The ground was practically graying with its lack of life, and despite being surrounded by tilled soil, they were barren and blank. Izzy and Mokona both claimed this was a world, but it looked more like a half formed imitation of one.

“...Oh. Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, OH, OH, OH, OH!!” Cody could practically feel the vibrations of Izzy’s fists slamming onto a table. “Where are my manners? I didn’t even tell you why you’re here.” She held out a long pause—back at Yuuko’s place, she was probably sucking in the air like a vacuum—until finally, she belted it all out into a deafening call like the words of a god.

MARI, JOWEE, COME ON OUT!!

“...Um…”

Cody and Mokona’s ears perked. Just a couple of feet away, a pair of creatures, one girl and one boy, hid timidly behind the corner of a building. No doubt, the two had probably been there for quite some time. They were probably beckoned by Izzy’s omniscient voice the moment Cody had arrived and only chose to pop up now that the voice deemed it was safe for them to do so. They peered further. The two looked no larger than Mokona. And with their plush-like form and ears like wings, they could’ve very well assumed they were the same species if it weren’t for their more anthromorphic proportions. The girl, the taller of the two, boasted a brunette bob and dollike yellow dress. She had a kind face, but looked guarded in caution. The boy meanwhile, clad in an adventurous look of scarf and goggles, cooed with intense curiosity.

Cody and Mokona looked to one another as if they were trying to gauge a go ahead to proceed to these two unknown creatures. Without a proper response however, Mokona enthusiastically split off into an excited sprint towards the other duo. The poor things looked ready to hide once more from the shock of his overeagerness.

“Hiya!” Cody was able to catch up in time for his friend’s loud and proud greeting. “My name’s Mokona. Not Bunny Baby or Mokemon. Mokona!”

“Uh,” the Keybearer scratched the back of his head. “I’m Cody. And you two must be…”

He’d prompted to give them their proper introductions themselves, but the two continued to stare quietly with uncertainty. The girl was ultimately the first to speak, but not to them. She looked up to the sky with furrowed eyes. “Creator, is he the hero you promised?”

“Oh, nope, nope, nope,” Izzy responded. “I already told you. He’s the creator. I’m just E-scope!”

“Creator?” Cody mumbled tepidly.

It was just a small smidge of hesitation, but it was just enough for the girl to continue looking at him with doubt. “Are you really, really sure he’s the o—”

“Hi there, Cody and Mokona!” The boy could no longer hold in excitement and pounced at the chance to shake the opposite duo’s hands. “I’m Jowee, and that’s Mari! We’re so glad you two came. I didn't know how we were going to keep holding up.”

“Yah, yah, yah,” Izzy bellowed on. “Managed to snuff out these two when I tried cleaning the book myself. When it got messed up, their whole town went with it.”

“Yeah,” Jowee added. “There was a huge flood one day. It was terrible!”

“Most of the townsfolk got lost in all the chaos,” Mari looked down glumly. “It destroyed everything. Our crops, some of the infrastructure, even the sun! Everyone who was left had no choice but to move out.”

“Yeah, these two were all on their lonesome,” Izzy finished. “Nothing I did was working, so I told them I’d get them someone who could.”

Cody turned his head back at the gloomy scenery. Surrounding the decrepit rural town was what seemed like an endless sea of black goop and mud. It stretched out beyond the eye, fading into the mist of the pages at the very edge of sight. Yuuko had mentioned that the book was tainted by the same darkness that made the Heartless. He supposed he really was the right person for the job.

“Well,” he shrugged before summoning out his Keyblade in a show offy twirl. “Just point me to where the Heartless are and I’ll take them down for you.”

“Nope, nope.” Cody could imagine her crossing her arms. “This is a PVP free zone.”

“What am I supposed to do then?”

Right on cue, Mokona began to violently heave and gag. At the very peak of his suffocation, a fancy drawing pen lobbed out of his throat and clunked to the ground, wetting the dry grass with his slobber.

“You’re gonna draw!”

“...What?”

“If we want everyone to come back, we’re going to have to make the town functional again,” Mari nodded. “So you’ll have to redraw everything we lost.”

“Whoa there,” Cody waved the explanation of. “Sorry, but I’m not an artist.”

“You don’t have to be,” Jowee stated reassuringly. “You just have to be a creator! You’ve created something before, right?”

Cody scratched his chin in thought “Well…” Off the top of his head, the closest he could think of was his very brief stint as a wannabe Youtube star. He had uploaded a messy hodgepodge of juvenile stunts, backfired pranks, and tone deaf electric keyboard covers for all of two months before finally pulling the plug after calculating his viewer metrics. Before he got the news about his acceptance into Total Drama, he’d already started to prep up his summer job hunting by claiming content creation on his resume. If he claimed it back then, might as well live up to the name now.

“So,” he carefully picked up the pen with squeamish eyes over the dripping saliva. “All I gotta do is draw something, right?”

“Right,” the two Rapo residents nodded in unison.

“Let’s start with the banya then,” Mari suggested eagerly. “If we can get the farmland back up and running again, that’ll definitely get the others to come back for sure.”

“Got it,” Cody nodded. “So, what does this ‘banya’ plant look like then?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Huh?” Cody’s head drooped to the side. A look of fear began to creep in as he quickly started to realize things were a lot more complicated than he assumed.

“You’re the creator now!” Jowee happily piped in. “Draw what you think banya looks like.”

The three tiny creatures in the vicinity stared at him with hopeful faces while his forehead began to moisten into a pool. It’s not like he had much of a creative bone in him to begin with, but with zero guidance, he was left to mull around like a fool. His eyes darted back and forth, hoping for some inkling of a hint. And as the seconds blew into a minute, young Mari grew all the more impatient at his wishy-washy act.

“You can draw anything, you know,” Mari reminded him with a tinge of annoyance.

“Y-yeah, I get that,” Cody choked. “But, like…you know.”

“‘You know’ what?” Jowee tilted his head.

“I can’t just draw ‘anything’ anything.”

“That’s what we literally told you to do,” Mari said with even less patience.

“Can I at least get a hint on what banya used to look like?”

“I told you already. That’s up to you.”

“B-but, it existed already, right? I just want some kind of jump off—”

“JUST DRAW ALREADY!!”

The double punch of Mokona’s shrill shout to his ear and Izzy’s booming echo from above threw him into a panic. With a wail, he frantically scribbled out the first gut reaction his arms could fling out, and predictably, it came out as nothing more than indecipherable chicken scratch. The lines wobbled in place, trying to form into the thing called “banya” with all its might, but the doomed doodle was much too weak to hold. Like watching an animal try desperately to continue on its daily routine while at Death’s Door, the strange ball of mass collapsed pitifully into the ether, having barely even lasted a few seconds in life.

Everyone stood silent and awkwardly. The excitement of revitalizing the town was no longer there; only a lingering sense of concern.

“Well,” Jowee tried to bounce back with a half formed smile. “Maybe that was a little too hard a task to jump straight into. We could start with the sun instead! That should be easy, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Cody nodded. “It’s…just a circle after all.”

His hands still shaking nervously, he picked up the pen once more to draw out one giant sphere…

…Circles were a lot harder to draw than one would think, huh?

None of his loops came out right. They were lopsided, they were uneven, they failed to connect properly in the gap. It was an ongoing cycle of malformed sketches plopping apart unceremoniously. With each uncertain turn of the wrist, his eyes would slide ever so slightly to the side where he could see the others grow less impressed by the second. The more he looked, the worst his shapes formed, and the worst they would wriggle around like worms in salt. It was obvious. This was not his calling. What was Izzy thinking dragging him there? Screw this.

“This is stupid.” Cody finally threw the pen down in frustration, and the three little ones were left aghast.

“Stupid?” Mari’s jaw was dropped. “We are trying to save our town. You think this is stupid?!”

Cody’s hand creased over his brows. “Look, I’m sorry, but this isn’t my skill set. Someone else should be saving your town, not me.”

“You’re a creator though,” Jowee frowned.

“No, I’m not,” Cody groaned back before pointing up at the sky in annoyance. “Izzy’s just saying whatever she wants. She can just grab someone else instead.”

“Nope,” Izzy’s voice responded promptly. “It’s gotta be you, bud.”

“But why?”

“Because.”

“Why?”

“Because!”

Why??

“Because times infinity, my guy!”

“Oh, for the love of!”

He had truly hit his limit. Cody threw his arms into the air and stormed off without a second thought. And like a trigger, Mari left in the opposite direction, spewing off about a useless creator all the way through. That left Jowee and Mokona, cold and confused, without a clue on what to do next. The two stared at the magical pen that laid limp like a cursed object on the decaying stale grass. At first, they looked at one another blankly as if trying to will the other to pick it up and do something themselves. When it became obvious neither were going to budge however, they had no choice but to do the next best thing: Look up at the sky and will Izzy to do something instead.

“Okay, fine! I’ll go get him.”

Chapter 35: The Book of Rapo: You Finish With Color

Notes:

A new chapter before the end of the year? It's a Christmas miracle.

Chapter Text

Every inch of the dour Raposa village was all the same. The clouded skies stretched into an endless faded void, and the wooden fencing ran in a crooked line alongside the black swampy goop that surrounded the town beyond. Cody leaned towards the edge, tapping alongside the rotting wood as he trudged through the chalky grass with no aim in mind. He needed to clear his head. And, well, just like he was glad she was there with him at the castle, he was glad she was with him now.

You really could’ve handled that a lot better, ” Gwen stated bluntly.

“Yeah, I…” Cody bent over with weary eyes as he sighed. “I really should have.”

You don’t have to get so down, ” she shrugged. “ Pressure was getting to you. Happens to everyone.

“But how many times have I done the whole self doubt thing at this point?” His back arched further down. “I feel like I just keep going back to square one.”

If you’re trying to change, falling back a bit is normal. ” He could make out a faint hint of a smile on her face. “ You just gotta keep getting back up until you can’t fall down anymore.

Cody smirked. “Yeah, you’re definitely not real. The real Gwen would not be that optimistic.”

Shut up. ” Her shy smile broke into a full on grin as she tried her best to stifle back a laugh. It was such an unusual and infectious sight coming from her, he couldn’t help but toss away his gloom and join her. For a moment, it was just the two of them, alone in the lonely ghost town, like they were the only souls around.

“Hey,” he wiped the last tear of a laughing fit away. “You’re an artist, aren’t you? If only you were the one who got dragged here.”

Well, you’re the one here. You can do the drawing yourself.

“Ptht, no I can’t.”

Weren’t you just complaining about your self doubt just a second ago? ” She rolled her eyes. “ Look, no one starts out as a good artist. When you draw, you need to want to draw. Even if it comes out crappy, you gotta own it.

“You want me to own all that? ” He arched his brow with thoughts of those garbled excuses for doodles in his mind.

“If you can’t accept the fact that you’re not gonna be making masterpieces right away, then just quit while you’re ahead… Uh ,” she quickly stammered, realizing what she just said. “ But don’t actually quit. Not right now at least.

“Easier said than done,” he sighed. “Tell me something nice about those scribbles and I’ll think about it.”

You weren’t drawing from the heart, so there’s nothing nice to be said.

“Wow, harsh,” he let out a resigned smile. “Off topic, but you’re surprisingly really easy to talk to.”

No, I’m not.

“You are though!” He beamed in response, the conversation having brought his spirits back up. “It’s almost like you’re actually here!”

It was like he had just activated something. Like he had just said something forbidden.

“... Are you actually here?”

YO, CODY, WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?!

Just barely stifling back a scream, Cody jumped over Izzy’s sudden blast and frantically searched around for the source despite knowing full well about her current omniscient status. “W-were you here this whole time?”

“Darn straight I was!” He could imagine her nodding sternly. “Are you still dealing with that ghost problem? Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve sprayed you with garlic powder already.”

“N-no, no, that’s totally fine,” he flapped his arms like a shield. “More importantly though, I feel like I owe you an apology for blowing up back there. Well, Mari and Jowee too.”

“What? Naaaah, that’s fine. You should say sorry for refusing my ghostbusting services back on the island though.”

He nervously scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, I’ve been kind of dick to you, huh?” He sighed. “I kept thinking about how annoying you were as if I had any room to talk. You’re just trying to help, right? Sorry about that.”

“Who cares?!” She shouted back like she had just thrown her arms in the air. “You’re haunted, aren’t you? Just tell me the name of the demon you made a pact with and I can beat them up already!”

“No, Izzy, I already told you, I don’t need help with—”

“SHHHH!!” Her attempts to silence him ironically reverberated throughout the scene. Cody had to hold on to his ears a bit just to refocus them after the fissures of her voice drowned away. But when he finally was able to absorb the general ambience again, he could hear it clear as day. Off in the distance was a shrill sound. Not just a sound, but a voice. A crying voice?

“Is that a kid?” Cody asked in concern.

“Quick, quick! She’s over there!”

“Izzy, you’ve gotta be more specific. I straight up can’t see where you’re pointing.”

“I said, she’s over there!”

He couldn’t even begin to describe what Izzy did next. Right before his eyes, he could see the grounds before him lift and cascade into the air. The crinkled up excuse for grass meshed into a curve, and the sky shoved itself impossibly towards his face. He yelped in fear and shielded himself despite the futility. Everything came crashing down, but there was nothing to prove it all happened. No feeling, no sound. When he finally let his arms down, the scenery was all the same as before, but different. As if the world had been turned over to a new page.

The child’s cry was now completely audible and near. And not only that, Mari’s comforting voice was alongside it all. Cody quietly walked towards the faded rows of buildings where the crying just grew louder and louder until, behind the darkest corner of the residential area, he finally found Mari crouched down alongside a young pigtailed girl.

“Um,” Cody awkwardly glanced around as if he were crossing a street as he timidly entered the scene. “Is everything alright?”

Mari looked away from the child to gaze up at Cody. He could tell she was still frustrated from his earlier fit, but was trying her best to brush it aside. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Yeah,” he bit the side of his mouth. “I’m sorry about earlier…”

“That’s alright,” she turned away in a way that made Cody unsure if he was truly off the hook or not. “This little girl is Cindi,” she continued on as she patted the child’s back. Her wails had evolved into a fit of hiccups. “She used to live here until her parents decided to leave after the flood. She accidentally left behind her doll and came back to look for her.”

“Any luck?”

“Well…” Mari edged her eyes wearily across the residential area. While the inky goop mostly acted as an isolating sea, small splatters of it had also found its way into the town proper a while back, and much of the buildings before them were tainted. “I’ve got a feeling it might be gone for good.”

Cindi tried to say something in response, but all that came out of her frail mouth were stunted squeaks and hums. Mari could do nothing but continue patting the child’s back, repeating “It’s okay” over and over again like a lullaby. The mood dampened the already awful atmosphere of the town. And Cody just stood there numbly, biting his lips. He was frustrated. There were no Heartless to be found in this world, so there was nothing he could do to help. He tried earlier with that awkward drawing session, but that obviously went nowhere.

…That was all he could do, wasn’t it?

Better suck it up and actually try this time, ” he heard her say.

“Hey,” he nudged the two Raposa. “I think I know I know what to do.”

“What do you mean?” Mari tilted her head.

Ignoring her confusion, Cody looked up to the sky and bellowed to the world’s temporary goddess. “Hey, Izzy!”

“Okay!” Her enthusiasm was so immense, he could’ve sworn he heard a desk slam. “So this is what you gotta do to properly prepare demon meat. You—”

“No, no, no,” he waved his arms around. “I need you to do what you did earlier.”

“Did what?”

“That thing where the ground just slammed into me or whatever.”

“Oh, you mean this?”

It was happening again, only this time, like the flick of a wrist. She didn’t turn just one page, but what felt like the entire volume. Just entire planes crashing into his vision over and over again. He hadn’t felt a sensation quite like this since his stroll down memory lane when he nearly died from fighting Cloud back at Smash Stadium. His mind equally perplexed and in awe at the sight, he frantically searched for Mari and Cindi. Whatever this sensation was, it seemed it only affected him as an outsider because the two were nowhere to be seen. It was just him, exploring the world in this inexplicable view. He would catch glimpses of the book’s contents, and much of it was all the same. The same dying sky, the same stretches of gray plains, the same constant stains of black. But occasionally, he would catch glimpses of what used to be. He would find the abandoned houses, faint in color, but still painting a nice picture of the past. He would see the trees that still stayed firm and strong and think of the resilience of those who were left. He would see the occasional open patches hidden in the sea of ink, the glimpses of hope that remained despite everything. It almost made him feel guilty that he was so quick to give up, so quick to say there was no way he could save this seemingly doomed world. All because he was too embarrassed to draw of all things.

The page turns slowed, and soon, his vision was repositioned to the familiar plain he had fallen upon earlier. Mari and Cindi were, of course, there, having just finished their own shortcut-less stroll. And right by a crooked tree were Mokona and Jowee, who had apparently decided to fight off their boredom by playing a version of poker that substituted cards with scratched dirt patches.

“I can see your cards right there, you know!” Jowee cried out. The game had gotten heated at that very moment. “You lost!”

“Nuh uh! Go fish, go fish!”

“I see you two are having fun,” Mari let out a faint snort at the sight.

The two jumped and scrambled to stamp out evidence of their lazing.

“M-mari, you’re…” Jowee’s eyes shifted over to the one newcomer. It was someone he hadn’t seen in a long time. “Cindi?! What are you doing here?”

The young child was about to answer, but her tears still had her choked up, and all that came out were hoarse coughs.

“She lost her doll and came back to find it,” Mari replied in her stead.

“Uh,” Jowee frowned. “You sure it’s still here? We’ve already searched around a bunch of times for supplies and I’ve never seen anything that even looked like a doll.”

“Well,” Mari nudged over to her much taller companion. “Cody here has a plan I think.”

“Uh, yeah,” he added nervously. “Mokona, do you know where the pen is?”

Just like before, Mokona launched himself into violent fits of gags and wheezes before he finally hacked out the drawing pen like a cat hurling out a furball. Cody wasn’t sure what to be more disgusted by; the slobbering state of the pen or the fact that Mokona had thought it was appropriate to stuff the thing right back inside him after he stormed off earlier. Either way, there was something else inside him that continued to eclipse his feelings of repulse. As he picked up the pen, he still had that sense of inferiority as the others just stared at him. He knew everything he’d make would look awful, but there wasn’t anything else he could do. Carefully, he moved his hand and held his breath in anticipation…

…and out came a crooked stick figure.

Oh, God, that’s awful, he thought to himself right as the doodle faded off like all the others before. A kid wouldn’t like this. They…

…wouldn’t like any of these, would they?

It came back. That self defeating pressure came back. This was simply impossible. Attempt after attempt spelled out the same result; an ugly excuse for a sketch that piddled away before they even had a chance to breathe. He didn’t get it. He bested the odds and learned how to fight despite everything that went against him. Why was something as inconsequential as drawing spiking up his anxiety?

I can’t freaking do this.

Yes, you can.

Easy for you to say.

You want to help that girl over there, right? Forget about whether or not you think it looks good, and draw for her.

Cody grit his teeth with unease and took a break to scan the faces surrounding him. It was the same as before. Everyone gathered around had watched with anticipation, but clearly grew restless the more he dawdled around. But then he caught Cindi’s eyes. She wasn’t looking at him at all. Her eyes were drooped to the floor and trying their best to hold it together. Just seeing her like that pained him.

Remember, ” “Gwen” continued on with her pep talk. “ You gotta own it. Draw because you want to.

Of course he wanted to draw…because he wanted to help a sad young child.

He took a deep breath. This next one for sure. No more worrying about how nice it looked. He would give it his all and make that doll for real.

The two older Raposa and Mokona watched in awe. Something had fired up in Cody. His sloppy strokes were all the same, but there was a sense of looseness in them, like Cody had finally let his mind free. His concentration had shifted away from meeting anyone’s expectations and towards making what he wanted. For that short moment, he finally understood why Gwen had always hidden away to sketch in the shadows all on her own on the island. He felt relaxed like a weight was just lifted. And finally, the fruits of his efforts…

…Was another misshapen stick figure.

But unlike all the others…it took form.

“Ah!” Cindi jolted out of her slump like a switch had just been flipped. She ran up to Cody like her life depended on it and excitedly held up her arms with stars in her eyes. “Doll! Dolly!”

The sight left him with a warm smile. “Is this what your old doll looked like?” He gently held up the toy.

Cindi looked like a bobblehead with how quickly she nodded. With a proud laugh, Cody happily handed the doll over, and Cindi immediately bounced for joy the moment it landed in her arms.

“Amazing!” Jowee cooed with matching enthusiasm to the scene. “You really are a creator!”

“You’re a god now!” Mokona clapped in celebration.

“See, what’d I tell ya?” Izzy beckoned from above. There was a self congratulatory tone in her voice that Cody couldn’t help but be amused by. “Got the right person for the job.”

“He actually did it,” Mari found herself mouthing out in wonder. When her eyes finally met once more with Cody’s, her face flushed and she timidly marched up to him with an apologetic bow. “I’m really sorry for how I acted earlier.”

“Don’t sweat it,” he grinned in response as he began to twirl the pen around triumphantly. “You’ve got a town that needs reviving, right? Let’s get started already.”

“...” Mari smiled. “Yeah.”

 

oOo

 

The next few hours blew by like a nice spring breeze. Cody went to town sketching and filling the pages with everything that was once lost. His banya crops were squiggly, his houses were simple squares and triangles, his streetlamps were practically lollipops. It was all so infantile, but it was exactly what they needed. Mari and Jowee were right. The moment life came back to the town, all the former residents came piling in. What was once an eerie ghost town was now filled with cheer and delight with everyone clamoring around Cody’s child-like creations. With everything back in operation, there was one last thing to address.

Cody, Mokona, Mari, and Jowee, away from the newly formed joyous crowds, stood at the edge of town. They stared down the endless black ocean as if they were sizing it up for a final duel. Its very existence threatened to destroy everything that was restored. And with the sudden gurgles that had begun to sound off, it was apparent the stain was getting ready to fight back.

“It’s getting louder, isn’t it?” Jowee observed with furrowed brows.

“Maybe it’s ready to flood out again,” Mokona tilted his head in thought.

“Boy, I hope not…Uh…?” Jowee’s eyes widened. The gurgling heightened into a seething pit of bubbles. He wanted nothing more but for Mokona’s hunch to be nothing but, but they might as well have been on the edge of death right there.

“Cody,” Mari looked over to the human boy, her steadfast demeanor easily clouding any fear in her face. “You know what to do, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” he nodded, pen already in his grip.

The task was simple, but with the more the bubbling grew to a loud brew, the more he could feel his fingers tremble once more. The confident strokes he honed fell back to their uneven jitters, and he could feel what was supposed to be his final creation begin to shake and break before his eyes. The tides rose, ready to crash down at any second. Mokona and Jowee’s hysterical noises lulled in the background as he struggled to regain his composure.

Come on! ” He heard “Gwen” say. “ Just one last push.

I believe in you.

Did she really? Like, would that be something the actual Gwen would remotely say?

Yeah, she was so fake.

Mari must’ve looked at him like he was crazy. He snorted into hysterics over the very thought of Gwen actually cheering him on in earnest, and he snorted even more when he started to hear the fake Gwen yell at him over his snorting. It was the exact levity he needed. Right as the ink went up, ready to crash down like a tsunami, as the others cowered in fear amidst his uncharacteristically misplaced laughter, he completed his drawing.

A bright glowing sun with a distinct shape of a keyhole at the center.

With a quick switch from pen to blade, Cody sent the book into a blinding light. In the blink of an eye, the ocean of ink was no more, now replaced with a beautiful mix of trees and meadows and the remaining lost residents who looked around in awe at the shower of sparkles they returned to. And up in the air was the book’s brand new sun, an asymmetrical, lopsided, imperfect mess of a sun created by the Keybearer himself.

And it was its imperfections that made it so beautiful.

By the time Cody felt him and Mokona being vacuumed out of the book via his rabbit partner and Izzy’s combined efforts, he was fully rejuvenated. All the uneasiness he felt returning to Traverse Town was all but gone. He thought to himself, this would be the last time he let his self doubt eat him up. Whatever comes up ahead, he’ll keep going forward and face it all head on.

Because if the Gwen in his head thinks he can…

…Then maybe, just maybe, deep down inside him, he really did believe in himself.

Mari, Jowee, and the rest of the village were left with the magical drawing pen itself as a parting gift. If Cody could be a creator, any one of them could be too. And he couldn’t wait to see what they’d make. With that, the pages of the Book of Rapo shut to a close.

It was just like how he had entered. In between the realms of reality and fiction were the halls of his dreams. He once again felt himself float through the castle walls with ease, touring it all for what practically felt like the hundredth time.

I wonder, ” the fake Gwen murmured to herself. “ How come we’re not physically walking through it anymore?

What do you mean?

Are you dumb? ” She groaned. Now that sounded more like the real Gwen. “ Obviously it has to mean something .”

Nah, you’re overthinking it.

And you’re underthinking it.

Dreams are weird. It’s probably just a part of Izzy’s shenani…

…Something was wrong.

Someone else was there.

Someone was laughing. A little girl was laughing in the distance.

Her voice got closer, and closer.

Neither Cody nor the fake Gwen could see each other, but at that moment, they could tell they both had the same drained expressions, the same eyes of confusion and horror. It was like an intruder had invaded a sacred space. A little girl with hair as blonde as the shimmering sky and a green sweater twice her size dashed excitedly across the hallway. Her arms flapped up in the air, and she giggled and laughed with such joy and comfort, it was like this was her world; like it was Cody and Gwen who were the intruders and not her.

…Who is that?

This is your dream, isn’t it? Why are you asking me?

I’ve literally never seen anyone like her in my entire life.

Should we…talk to her?

We’re not even corporeal right now. How can we?

Am I speaking rocket science right now? You just talk to her, ” Gwen responded with an irritated groan. “ Hey, you!

The little girl stopped in her tracks. She looked up at the ceiling, her lake blue eyes wide, as she searched around for the ghost who just beckoned to her. But before Gwen could say anything else, another shocking thing occurred. There was another voice, this time one of an elderly woman. As the library door opened up, the girl tossed her curiosity aside and ran straight into the garden-like room where the old woman herself greeted her with open arms.

“Once upon a time,” the woman began. “ There existed but one world…”

Chapter 36: Traverse Town: Seconds Before...

Chapter Text

A red flash engulfed the room and then quickly faded off as Cody could feel the bristling texture of the wishmaking shop’s tatami mats scratch onto his face. He slammed head first to the floor and made a painful skid before finally resting in place. And not long after, he could feel the pressure of what felt like a throttling dodgeball fling onto his poor back as Mokona made his own landing. The white furball cheered in amusement at his thrill ride while his friend painfully moaned beneath him.

“Izzy,” he wheezed. “Couldn’t you have had pillows out or…” His palms on the floor, Cody very carefully lifted his head up to voice his ails to the other teen, only to notice that she was nowhere to be seen. In fact, rather than the maniacal redhead he expected, his eyes met those of a tall kimono clad woman towering before him.

“My apologies,” Yuuko smirked. “It’s been a long time since I’ve transported someone between fact and fiction, so some of the smaller details might have escaped me.”

“Master!!” Mokona bopped Cody’s head and propelled himself into his beloved master’s arms.

Cody was left in a stammering state as he quickly got on his feet and attempted to regain what dignity he still had. “M-miss Yuuko,” he stuttered. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were here. I, uh, was wondering where…?” He craned his head in all directions and searched for Izzy to no avail.

“Isadora stepped out not too long ago,” Yuuko said while she ruffled through Mokona’s fur.

“Oh,” Cody froze into a more relaxed state in response. “I guess that explains why she went all silent towards the end, huh?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Mokona, who had lulled around in peaceful bliss, perked up in confusion as he was handed back over to Cody. Yuuko walked to the desk that the sketchbook had been placed upon with a tired droll that was unlike her usual larger than life demeanor.

“You did a great job fixing this up by the way,” she flipped through the book’s contents. “Completely spotless. I was starting to wonder if this thing would ever get cleaned up.”

Cody shared a look of worry with Mokona before continuing on. “Are you alright?”

“I’ll manage,” she waved off his concern. “Hopefully.”

“Hopefully?”

“It’ll all depend on how well Leon and the others can ward things off this time.”

“‘Ward things off’?” Cody gulped. “Wait, don’t tell me the Heartless came back while we were away.”

“That would be quite the understatement,” she said with hints of weakness in her usual sly smile. “You were lucky enough to miss all the previous attacks, but unlucky enough to make it to this one.” Her head tilted to the side, and she continued to look at him with an ominous gaze. “Or perhaps you were lucky enough to be able to save your energy for the moment where it really counted.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“Use your head,” she sighed playfully before switching to an urging glare. “I would suggest you join the others out there immediately. If things get any worse than they already are, I can’t even begin to describe what the consequences will be.”

Cody and Mokona glanced at each other once more with fearful faces. “We’ll do what we can,” the boy responded as the two nodded their heads in an almost desperate manner.

“Good. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Yuuko trudged off once more to lounge on her signature chaise. She pulled out her pipe with one hand and carefully rested her forehead on the other. “I must concentrate.”

When she first introduced herself to him a long while ago, Yuuko had explained that her magic was responsible for whittling down Heartless activity to more manageable levels. It was no wonder she was in such an exhausted state. If things were as bad as she claimed, she must’ve been near her limit. Cody and Mokona looked at each for a third and final time. Odds were, they would not be prepared for what would greet them out there, but if Yuuko was pushing herself this far to protect the town, they had to as well. They gave firm nods to each other, and another to Yuuko herself, before wordlessly storming out the door and waterway and into the heat of battle.

 

oOo

 

They were not prepared for this. Boy, were they not prepared for this.

They fought through the chaos of Trickmaster’s rain of infernos. They fought through the chaos of a giant lizard monster tearing through a populated stadium. They fought through the chaos of a Heartless infused mech’s close ranged missile circus. They fought through the chaos of a sensory overloaded Heartless theme park. They fought through the chaos of bloodcurdling angels infesting the edge of space. They fought through the chaos of entire throngs of Heartless filling up squares and alleyways upon nightfall. They fought through the chaos of Heartless roaming freely in a defenseless city with no light. And somehow, this was worse than everything that came before.

His mouth hung and agape, Cody looked as if he had just walked into a burning building. Even Mokona, who would usually make out of pocket comments in a misguided attempt at levity, was still and silent. The Heartless swarmed like gnats and ants and devoured the buildings that had already struggled to stay intact. The grounds below were only just barely easier to parse through than that of other near world ending infestations solely because of all the infrastructure they took care to chew down. A mix of shouts, screams, blasts, and swings of weaponry crumpled into an indecipherable mess of sounds as citizens scrambled to fight off and flee from the monsters who occupied every corner of town. The two newcomers could only give each other horrified faces as they struggled to fathom that this was indeed Traverse Town that they had walked back into.

“Don’t just stand there!” The duo snapped back in place after hearing a familiar yell. The shrill and heated voice was accompanied by the loud blasts of an Uproar that cleared off the path between them and the rest of their crew.

“Lottie! Ally!” Mokona bounced to the two Pokemon and right atop Loudred’s shoulder like a child running to his parents after waking up from a bad dream.

“You two alright?” Loudred asked, patting the white rabbit’s head. It usually took little effort to hear him over a crowd, but with everything that was going on, even he had to raise his voice.

“Yeah, I guess,” Cody continued to twirl his vision around over the sea of insanity.

“Couldn’t have gotten here sooner.” Alakazam tried to fall into his classic chides, but it was hard to ignore the high pitched shaking that mixed in with his words. It was loud and clear. Despite everything they’d been through so far, this was all too much.

With the tension already high, the four collectively jumped at the sight of two figures who almost seemed to appear spontaneously in front of them. Having long lost her ability to teleport, Izzy instead opted to increase her physical speed, and an obnoxious puff of green magic dust mixed into a pukish hue alongside the black Heartless residue of her road victims from along the way. Not too far from her, Leon followed, having been pulled along into her acceleration spell. A similar trail of fading dead Heartless ash also came with him, but this time, from the distinct source of his Gunblade.

“I-Izzy?” Cody gasped.

Izzy responded in kind by slapping his cheeks over and over again like a ragdoll. “This is bad, this is bad, this is bad!!” Even she was starting to break down. “We gotta get out, get out, get out!!”

“We gotta get these things away from the hideout, that’s what we need to do,” Leon sternly pointed to the waterway. Indeed, numerous Heartless had started to inch towards the entrance. Not just the typical Shadows and Soldiers, but a series of merfolk and jellyfish like enemies, Screwdivers and Sea Neons, made their way through the stream. Sure, it was all boarded up, but what good would a bunch of wooden planks do if a whole army rammed into them?

“Yeah, yeah!!” Izzy added to Leon’s order. The man had already begun to snipe out flames, and she quickly joined him by taking finger guns to a whole new level through the sharp bits of lasers that seeped from her fingertips. “Master goes down, we all go down!”

“Oh, shit, that’s right,” Cody slapped his head. “Um, uh…”

His next move was stupid, but, dangit, if they weren’t desperate.

He summoned out his Keyblade and waved it high in the air like a flag. “Hey, Heartless! You see this?”

His three companions all looked like they were about to topple over in response. Suddenly, nearly every creature in the perimeter had their eyes on that darn key. The trio didn’t even have time to call him an idiot. In fact, they should’ve booked it the moment he opened his mouth. Running from them all was like being at the very cusp of a stampede. One slip, and they were finished.

“…Ha…ha…” Cody wondered if he’d lost his goddamn mind. Mere inches away from doom, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “This is…just like…my first time in town…” He turned around, ready to ease his buddies into his insane conversation. “Oh, yeah…you guys…weren’t there when that happened…So, let me tell you—-“

The three simultaneously shouted some variation of “JUST SHUT UP AND RUN!!” The nerve of the token melee guy to do nothing but banter while they all busted their asses trying to fend things off in the back. This was a situation where just a single trip could end it all, and the fact that they had to constantly face backwards to aim did not help their odds of survival.

“Up ahead!” Loudred hollered out.

Mokona perked up in relief. “Aeri! Yuyu!”

The girls had been handling their own little cluster when the guys tumbled on in to ruin all their progress. Any sense of annoyance was replaced by fear and terror the moment the two laid eyes on what their friends had brought with them.

Yuffie balked at the sight. “Oh, for crying out loud!!”

“No time for complaints,” Aerith slapped the younger girl’s back forwards. “These things aren’t going to take themselves out.”

Armed with ninja gear and a staff, Yuffie and Aerith charged forward and mixed their stars and enchantments along the cramped mesh of magic and Pokemon moves that already bounced around. With them up front, the hurdling Heartless army had finally been contained into a stationary mass. This meant Cody was free to actually join in the fray. He had just sliced up a bumbling Large Body when his rhythm was interrupted by the sting of a Psybeam that just barely burned the edge of his soles.

“Watch  it!”

“I’m trying!” Al angrily yelled back, a slight scratch in his throat from all the stress. “I’m not exactly in a good spot to aim, y’know.”

He was right. The sea of black was so dense, one could easily find themselves facing off a dozen Heartless at once the very moment they were done with half of that. There was no sense to plot careful tactics or precision with a mob like this. The most sensible technique would be to just keep aiming wildly in all directions in hopes that any incoming enemy would drop dead before they could even touch them. And that’s exactly what all of the long range fighters did. At that point, Cody wasn’t just slinking around the swipe of Heartless claws. He was ducking and leaping away from his own allies’ friendly fire.

“We,” Cody managed to huff out after rolling away from the combined efforts of a Yellow Opera’s streaks of lightning, Mokona’s thin red laser line, and an entire trail of kunai knives. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

“That’s wishful thinking, kid,” he could hear Loudred laugh nervously nearby, his voice being the most barely audible one out of any of theirs at that point.

“Cid’s shop is nearby,” Aerith heaved, right as she managed to swing two particularly grabby bugs off her staff. “If we can make a small dent on these guys, we might be able to slip out.”

“Really?” Cody gulped and tumbled away to the ground from the miniature storm the mage and a stray Blue Rhapsody had just conjured up. “These things just keep coming and coming. How’re we going to find an opening in this?

“You can start by putting that damn key away.”

Cody swung his leg upward and squeaked in fright. As he laid on the ground, a half circle of fireballs flung onto the Heartless that had begun to approach his body. It was like a sauna down there with the circlet burning to a crisp before him. He sprung back to his feet to see Leon’s face just inches away from his, having shown up to assist after getting the waterway under control.

“First thing I taught you and you’ve already forgotten.”

“I mean, I’m not gonna be unarmed in the middle of all this. Are you nuts?” Cody frantically swung his arm around to emphasize just how big of a death wish that suggestion was. Leon clicked his tongue in response before doing the unthinkable. He handed his Gunblade to Cody. “I, wh, what?” The small teen blubbered out in confusion as his arms lowered from the sword’s weight.

“You’re armed now, so put that thing away already,” Leon made one last order before squeezing his way to Yuffie to stock up on knives in his sword-gun’s stead.

He was so floored over the fact that Leon of all people had entrusted him with his signature weapon, he could barely focus on fending the fiends off himself. The Gunblade wasn’t particularly heavy, but it was certainly a huge step up from the more toy-like Keyblade he was used to. He attempted to find the proper balance and swung the sword around drunkenly. With how tightly packed the battlefield was, even a sloppy slash easily landed a hit. At some point, he’d accidentally set off whatever mechanism it was that shot out the flame projectiles, and an entire pack of Heartless were incinerated on the spot. He couldn’t turn around to see, but he just knew Leon was facepalming in response. He was lucky he didn’t accidentally hit one of his allies, but it got the job done. As frustrating as it was, getting the Keyblade out of the equation was exactly what they needed. With that catnip out of sight, the enemy assembly line slowed down just enough for them to make out small seams of openings. It was practically a miracle itself that they finally made their escape.

“OWEN, I’M COMING, BABBBYYYYY!!”

Izzy crashed right through with her hedgehog-like speed spell, and just like before, entire dust clouds of green and black sprinkled all throughout the sky. She was headed for the same exact spot as they were, and they took advantage of the confusion her road rage caused to flee alongside her.

By the time they made it to Cid’s place, he was already out, waving around a spear against any Heartless who came near, tensely urging everyone in the vicinity to hurry up and get the hell into his shop. They were the last to pass on in, and the very second they and Cid all stepped on to the floorboards, Dejiko, Puchiko, and Gema rushed over, furniture abound, to barricade the door from the ground up.

Cody collapsed to the creaky wooden floor, his arms and legs all flailed out, and his lungs pumping off to the point of hyperventilation. He finally had some semblance of a break. “H-here,” his voice cracked. He numbly dragged the Gunblade upwards in a weak attempt to lift it over to Leon’s grasp.

Compared to him, Leon barely looked fazed, only small drips of sweat on him next to Cody who was more or less drenched. The guy was clearly sleep deprived and exhausted, yet he still looked ready to jump back in at a moment’s notice. It probably spoke more about the years of experience the man had dealing with these kinds of nightmares than anything else. “Thanks,” he mumbled, the Gunblade back in his hand. “You did good out there.”

Cody’s trembling palm turned into a crooked thumbs up.

“Here, kid.” Cid placed a bottle of water right next to head. “Don’t worry,” he let out a soft chuckle. “Won’t make you fall asleep this time.”

Despite how exhausted he was, Cody laughed heartily in response. He carefully lifted himself up just enough so he could prop on to the wall. The current situation was awful, but there was still a nostalgic feeling to it that reminded him of the very beginning of his journey. He couldn’t help but smile just thinking about it. With his heart warm and worn, he slowly brought the tip of the bottle to his lips…

…And immediately choked as soon as the shakes and vibrations hit.

The Heartless they had assumed they escaped from banged and prodded on to the door and walls. Dejiko, Puchiko, and Gema started to panic and threw whatever scrap of crap they could find in a desperate attempt to further strengthen the shield.

“I swear,” Cody looked up to Leon with frightened eyes. “I don’t have it out!”

Leon grit his teeth in frustration as he assessed the situation. “Great. Just great.”

With each passing second, the slam, thumps, and quivers grew more violent in their persistence. The crowd gathered within started to shriek and stammer, and it was only then that Cody realized just how packed tight the shop was. There were familiar faces in there and then some. It was like being trapped in a toybox. It was easy to see what would happen next. Murmurs turned into screams, and peace turned into madness.

“Take us back!” He overheard Tyler tearfully shout as the jock started to shake Alakazam’s shoulders. “Take us back to MidiCity right the freak now!” Justin had to pry the teen off of the guy himself, and at that point, Tyler was in enough hysterics that he started to claw back at his supposed buddy instead. Izzy was about to take her turn to break things up, but knowing there was a high probability she would make things worse, Owen lifted the two boys off the ground in her place.

“Heeeeeey there,” he squinted and gave off a faux smile. “Let’s just calm down. Everything’s gonna be alright. We’re…we’re not gonna just die here.” The last thing Cody wanted to happen happened. Owen spotted him on the ground and looked over to him with pleading eyes of earnest. “We’re not gonna die, right?

“Right?”

Don’t…don’t ask me that, holy shit.

Of course we’re not gonna…

We’re doomed.

Oh my God, we’re doomed.

We’re gonna die. We’re gonna freaking die. We’re gonna—

“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE, NYO!!” Dejiko had finally given up on her barricade duty and started to burst out into tears. Her shrill cry was enough to pierce through all the panic that had filled the room. “Why is this happening, nyo? I, I…” She kicked the floor. “I can’t die before I even come close to being a star, nyo! This shouldn’t be happening to me.

“I’m a princess, dangit, nyo!!”

…Wait.

…Oh.

…Oh!

…Oh no .

It seemed Cody and Leon had landed on the same conclusion at the same exact moment in time because the two of them both looked at each other like deer in headlights.

Cid had said the Heartless attacks started to get worse shortly after Dejiko and the other two made it to town, but…that was just a joke. Wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it??

Leon said it himself. Every world had one.

And what if one of them managed to survive her world’s destruction and landed herself elsewhere?

Everything happened all at once. Cody and Leon both smacked themselves in the forehead and filled the room with expletives, junk and splinters flew everywhere as the door and barricade were broken through, and Dejiko’s screams echoed in the air as she was dragged off and away to who knows where. As engulfing and suffocating as the hordes of surrounding Heartless were, it was near silent as soon as both they and she were gone with nothing but the ambience of far off destruction in the background in their stead.

Gema and Puchiko looked at one another with haunted eyes. Gema, her supposed guardian, looked like he was ready to throw up from distress. Puchiko, meanwhile, looked to be the closest she’d ever been to breaking her stoic state and shedding tears. Cid had become the three’s designated caretaker, and seeing them like that boiled him with rage. With the doorway now wide open,he was the first to storm outside to figure out just what had transpired. And he was the first to see who was to blame for the young girl’s kidnapping. “There’s something there by the clock tower.”

Cody and his usual crew peeked out behind him, and up in the distant sky, the slim dragon-like entrails of the Heartless clot that dragged Dejiko’s distinct lime green head off and away had spiraled around in front of the tower. And right beside it all, a tiny red blot oversaw everything like a bloodied star. The four frowned in response. Even from just as a single far off dot, they could make out that pesky red witch anywhere.

“Again?” Al whispered to himself in frustration.

Loudred blinked in sudden realization. “Is Dejiko one of the Seven Lights?”

“Is she?” Cody held his forehead in disbelief. It had already been an awful feeling losing Amy and Shiemi from under their thumb. They couldn’t lose her too.

“What are you talking about?” Leon marched over urgently.

“Witchy witch,” Mokona pointed to the floating red dot. “She’s bad news.”

“One of that Maleficent woman’s lackeys?” Leon frowned.

“What?!”

Aerith and Yuffie, who already had their hands full trying to comfort Gema and Puchiko, flung themselves past the boys and right out the doorway to see for themselves.

“This is just…” Yuffie struggled to find words. All she could do was pull her hair like she was trying to tear it out and let out a snarling scream. “RRRAAAAAGGGHHHH!!”

Aerith turned back towards the others and waved them over with a serious face. She looked like she was using everything within her to stave off her anger. “Come on,” she continued to gesture them over. “We gotta go rescue her.” She pointed to the green mage in training who had started to join the others up front out of curiosity. “Izzy! You stay behind and protect the shop.”

“No way, nuh uh,” she shook her head with her hands on her hips. “I’m not missing out on the fun.”

“Oh, oh, oh, I can keep watch,” Owen piped up from behind. “Izzy’s been passing down some of her magic lessons to me in her spare time.”

Aerith’s mouth was hung open with a skeptical look on her face. She was about to voice her objection, but was stopped by the disgruntled muttering of Cid who reassured he’d have everything under control. They both wanted to help the team’s bratty little surrogate sister as soon as possible, and neither wanted to argue this further. With that, Aerith and Yuffie took off with Izzy, Leon, Al, Loudred, Mokona, and Cody trailing behind in one long chain.

“Hey, Cody.” Right as he was making his way out of there, he was startled by the sudden nab of his arm from Tyler of all people. “Sorry about that freak out earlier, brah.”

“Uh, no, that’s alright,” he sideyed to the others who quickly headed out of sight.

“We’ll make it up to you,” Tyler continued with bright candor. “We’ll help out too.”

Justin joined his side and nodded with an overconfident grin.

Cody had been distracted by his own attempt to keep track of the group, but the sheer audacity of the offer caused him to bounce into a pause. “I, wh-what?”

“We’ve defeated tons of Heartless,” Tyler let out a cocky laugh. “We’re experts, just like you guys.”

Justin flexed his muscles.

They couldn’t be serious. “You were just playing instruments though! That’s not gonna work here.”

“Pshaw,” Tyler waved it off. “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

If only he had the time to argue. He could barely make out the others at all now, and he just plain sped off and away before he could lose them entirely. As much as he would’ve loved for those two to take a hint, they had taken his silence for wordless approval and followed his lead. Making it back into the deep thicket of the town’s Heartless invasion, he was right to have been skeptical of Tyler and Justin’s intrusion because the two ran off screaming the moment the crowds grew just a single level above average.

“Wait! Come back!” He felt like he was ready to have a panic attack. He twisted and turned, and struggled to decide whether to parse for his allies in the loud sea, or for the two bozos who ran off. It was like going back in time to the days of getting separated from his parents at the mall, only now, the civilians were replaced with heart thirsty monsters out for his head. As his vision spiraled around and around, he could feel himself slowly getting surrounded, but his mind was too scrambled to retaliate.

He could hear something swing off right next to him. His brain screamed at him that he was about to get mauled by a Neo Shadow, but as he saw all the Heartless around him fall one-by-one, he wasn’t so sure. His breathing leveled off, and he finally returned to his senses when he saw the blade of a naginata rest on the ground.

“Oh, man,” Bridgette blurted out. “Almost lost you there for a second. You alright?”

“Bridgette! Thank goodness,” he breathed. “I just… Watch out!”

Just like she had saved his butt, Cody summoned out his Keyblade and slashed out a lingering Soldier that had snuck up on her from behind.

“Geez,” she gasped. “Thanks a… To your right!”

Perhaps it was because of the Keyblade’s entrance, but the duo became unexpectedly locked into a closed off flurry of incoming Heartless creatures. With barely even a free moment to think, the two stood by each other, back-to-back, and fended it all off with complete silence and cadence. The two were almost hypnotically in sync like a single unit, and they constantly moved, spun, and twirled their respective weapons around like a pair of walking forcefields. The two managed to clear the cluster off, but the damage was done. As he sent the Keyblade away once more, he was back to the state of a frazzled lost child. He’d lost the others completely.

“They were all headed for the clock tower, right?” Bridgette said after she noticed his fidgeting stance. “If you just keep going, you’ll run into them in no time.”

“Yeah, but what about—-“

“Tyler and Justin?” She had already started to head off in their direction before even finishing off her thoughts. “I’ll go get them. You focus on the clock tower and go.” With a quick wave to the sky, she was off and gone. Cody had no one else but the air around him to shout out his thanks. He’d have to do it properly much later.

Now back on his feet, he sped and leapt all throughout the infested streets like he were running through an obstacle course. His eyes were glued to the tower like it was a personal compass. Off in the distance, streaks of red shot out wildly from the tip of the Heartless’ Demon Tower clot. Dejiko was trying with all her might to break free. He could make out dozens of Shadows topple off the tower pathetically from the effects of her eye beams. She could’ve very well escaped on her own if it weren’t for the red witch’s constant replenishments. His eyes narrowed at the sight. Things had gone on far enough with that girl. Her pent up rage and hostility all those times before had built up to this moment, and like hell he would let her continue.

A sudden spray of green specs clouded past his vision. As the green gusts intensified, he breathed out a huge sigh of relief. “Izzy!” He called out in between pants, finally stumbling to a stop. “Thank…goodness you’re…”

“What the hecking heck are you doing back here?” She said to a halt with green powdery residue of her magic still lingering around them. “Everyone was freaking out like…” She grabbed her cheeks and shifted to a theatrically high pitched tone. “‘‘Oh no! Where’s Cody?’”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he moved his eyes around, noticing the Heartless that slowly started to creep over to them. “Can we hurry up here?”

“At your service, little lady!” She forcefully clasped her hand to his wrist like half of a handcuff and instantly zoomed away. His entire vision had morphed into a green glow with the occasional streams of black every time she presumably ran over Heartless mounds. He hadn’t felt a sensation quite like this since Green Hill Zone, and he wanted to say his stomach had come prepared this time, but that didn’t seem to be the case as their speedrun came crashing to a halt.

He wished he’d kept his eyes shut as soon as he opened them. It wasn’t just the nausea convincing himself the world was spinning. He could feel the very ground below him shift in place. No doubt, this was what caused Izzy to lose her balance. He frantically searched around for some semblance of an explanation, and it didn't take long to find it.

The clock tower…

…It was no longer six o’clock.

The hands…were turning.

And, boy, did they not stop turning.

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!”

He was brought back to reality upon hearing Izzy’s disgruntled moans. She had landed herself just a little up ahead after the tumble, on the ground and hands on her knee. She was much too distracted to notice the small circle of Shadows that began to form around, and Cody had to immediately send out his Keyblade to jump to her rescue.

Everything was off. The cobbled grounds just would not stop moving, and even dashing up a few feet over proved to be a struggle. He just kept sliding over to the left, to the right, he nearly fell over Izzy herself. And don’t get him started on how much worse his stomach was feeling. A battle that should’ve taken him seconds dragged out longer than it should have. By the time it was over, he was already a panting mess as he reached down to help Izzy back up. “Are you okay?” He groaned.

“As good as can be,” she gave a wide, fake grin as she winced on her way back up. “Don’t think I should run for a while though…But enough about me!”

Without even a hint of a warning, against her own injury, Izzy grabbed ahold of the smaller boy’s body and raised him up like a trophy.

“Hey, hey, HEY, HEY!!” Cody flailed around in terror. “Put me down!”

“No can do, bucko.” Her face switched to a mischievous gleam. Right across from them, an open alleyway slowly shrunk and cascaded into itself as the ground below the two buildings shifted inwardly. She squinted like she was looking through a pair of binoculars, and very carefully and forcefully, with all her might despite her still sore leg, javelin tossed Cody right through the opening. He could hear her crazed laughter over his own screams, and he continued to hear her all the up to the buildings’ collision. As they finally slammed shut, he heard her yelp and yell and throw out a beam of magic until her voice had faded out as she ventured off to her own separate fight.

It was obvious why Izzy had done what she did. She had successfully landed him right back into the group, and, unfortunately, right back into the madness. He let out a nasty hiccup as Loudred quickly ran up to flip him off the ground, over the shoulder, and back on his feet, lest the surrounding Heartless that crowded about got to him. The warping world had evolved in a way that their particular section of town had turned into something of a closed off cage with buildings circling and turning around them like a barrier.

“He’s back!!” He heard Mokona shriek as he flew smack into his face. He held on to his cheeks to avoid the possibility of his head snapping off before letting his little friend land gently into them. “Keyblade! Keyblade!”

“Huh?” He blinked. A combination of stress, moving tectonics, the throw, the smack, and, boy, the STRESS , had left him struggling to follow what was happening.

“Take it out!” Yuffie ran up to him, tears threatening to leak from her eyes as she yanked a mangy Shadow from its attempts to rip off her hair.

“Absolutely not,” He overheard Leon in the near distance, likely way too preoccupied to come over on his own. “Do you want even more Heartless to find us?”

“What do you expect us to do then?!” It was now Yuffie herself who was in the process of tearing apart her hair.

“Leon, I really think we might be in trouble,” Aerith, who had been fighting alongside him, could no longer keep her mind collected. Rather than any kind of response or order, Leon remained silent, his face scowling and his hands practically glued to the Gunblade’s hilt.

It all hit back at Cody once more. The sheer size and scope of it all, the vertigo of how much had escalated, the pressure and confusion of what he was or wasn’t supposed to do, the constant high pitched begs from Mokona who just wouldn’t stop hopping on his palms, his own freaking stomach . Cody found himself once again struggling to breath while his heart pulsated back and forth. There was no time for anyone to even notice how frozen in place he was with his mouth agape and eyes bulging. He felt utterly helpless in this scene of assured demise. And it all came crashing down on him when his two large Pokemon buddies came toppling over him after getting thrashed around. He agonized at the very bottom, wondering if getting crushed to death down there would be a much more merciful end than what was promised above. Mokona had plopped off his hands as a result of his fall. The roundish creature bounced like a ball across the street in this unfortunate domino effect until he finally ran smack into a building, face first. He sighed in squeamish defeat before falling back down on his back.

And then there was a glow.

His forehead gem glistened like a newly unearthed ruby. A bizarre light show floated about and formed a thick mass of red energy in a near indecipherable shape. Everyone was too busy with their own battles and failings to notice just what had begun to transpire, but the moment the glow disappeared, everyone knew.

Eva’s screeches could probably be heard all throughout the city. Her voice was so mangled from the incalculable fury she had built up, her words seemed more animalistic than human. Everyone stopped in their tracks with whitened faces. Cody and his crew had decided to hide her away in Mokona’s inner hammer space after she’d been knocked out back at Death City. They had promised themselves they would figure out what exactly they’d say to her once she was finally released, but the reluctance to even entertain the thought of meeting her face-to-face again kept delaying it until they had purposely shoved her memory in the corner of their minds, praying that they would forget. Now, she was back, she was there, and she was angry.

It wasn’t just the Keyblade and Traverse Town teams who her appearance tranced. The Heartless themselves were utterly disturbed at her being. She felt like one of them, but there was a specific sense of hostility none of them should’ve had. Their confusion carried all the way to their demise. Eva thrashed and zipped around the closed off square in her partial Heartless form. The pitiful bugs failed to fully see her as another opponent, and they became sitting ducks to her temper tantrum.

“Holy…” Cody breathed in fear and awe. The slaughter was equal parts terrifying and hypnotizing.

“Come on,” Aerith pulled his shoulder. She pointed up ahead where two buildings had begun to separate. An exit was opening up, but who knew how long it would last. Even then, as she pulled the young teen boy out with her, she couldn’t help but keep the one woman army at the corner of her eye.

“Wow,” Aerith mouthed. The two had left alongside the others right as the opening closed off once more. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a friend as strong as that?”

“Friend?!” Cody choked out. “No, no, no, you’ve got the wrong idea. She is most definitely not—”

“Yo,” Yuffie forcefully swatted him ahead towards the direction she was pointing towards. “Your friends up there are gonna get themselves killed.”

They were at the very cusp of an epic battle, and right at the entryway between the rows of buildings and the square, Courtney and Duncan were squabbling ahead with Leon and the rest of the guys. No doubt, the four of them were trying their best to get the two out of harm’s way. But what exactly was their issue? Someone like Courntey would’ve been more than happy to follow orders and drag Duncan with her.

“What’s going on?” He gasped out between huffs as he, Yuffie, and Aerith all met the rest over.

“That stupid demon baby,” Duncan grumbled and smacked his head. “He flew off on his own.”

Cody blinked wildly. While the punk teen was talking, he had tried his best not to linger over towards the clock tower battlefield right in front of them, but it wasn’t hard to guess what was going on with Red involved. “Oh crap.”

“Let’s, uh,” Loudred shifted his eyes nervously as beads of sweat began to fall through. His wide smile stiffened into a false curve. It seemed like all three of Cody’s normal party members got the hint immediately. “Let’s get you two out of here first, alright?”

“Oh no, you don’t!” Courtney shoved him off, adamant to enter the upcoming arena herself. “You put us in charge of him. This is our job.”

“Do you see what’s up ahead?” Al barked back. “You’re gonna get killed!”

“No we won’t. We’ve lasted this long—”

One of Dejiko’s laser eye beams ran straight across the two buildings between them. Courtney’s stride and confidence fell just like that, and Leon fervently pulled her back. The stage had been set. The commotion alerted both the Heartless and Ashley to their presence, and even without even a single movement, they all knew things would be going down.

“Ashley!!” A small cry of a demon flew by. “I’ve found you!!”

Having hidden within the buildings in the surrounding area, Red zipped right under their noses and right into the square. Duncan and Courtney responded in utter horror. Despite the looming threats beyond they had just been front row witnesses to, the duo tried to escape the gang’s clutches in an attempt to reach their impish companion. Aerith and Yuffie held them back with Cody and the three creatures pushing up front, yet they still persisted. Leon’s quick wits meant he was the sole demon catcher on board. He ran right into the square before Red had a chance to get himself into dangerous heights. The moment he snatched him out of the sky like a fly though, something started to happen.

A ring.

A loud ring, thicker than the darkness of the night sky.

A bold and brash ring that echoed throughout the world, as if every inch of chaos took pause specifically to hear its song.

And it rang and rang.

The ground shook even harder than it ever did before like it was making one final reach to the goal before the end. The two buildings that stood as entrance markers to the battlefield beyond began to shake and slide into one another, and all the folks caught in between frantically scattered about to avoid getting crushed in between. Aerith and Yuffie finally succeeded in dragging Duncan and Courtney off while Cody, Al, Loudred, Mokona, Leon, and Red were stuck within.

The ringing stopped, and so did the world itself. There were no more shaking grounds or shifting buildings. Everything was quiet and still.

The hands on the clock tower teetered to a halt.

It was just seconds before midnight.