Hope you post more up soon. I was wondering if Sora's father will play a part in this story at all. .
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Fanfiction ► KH: After Dawn
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Wow you need to post that story soon. I just found it on page three. That's pretty far back there
Just so everyone knows I hate double posting.
C'mon you really need to post another chapter. I'm dying not reading more.
C'mon you really need to post another chapter. I'm dying not reading more.
I have not had much time to work on the latest chapter but it will be up as soon as possible. I'm also having a bit of trouble with research.
And Sora's father will have a role to play coming up in the next few chapters!
And Sora's father will have a role to play coming up in the next few chapters!
If you want I could help you with whatever reasearch you're doing CS. I'd like to help if I can.
Thanks, but I've gotten back on track. The chapter is turning out longer than expected.
In other news:
KH:After Dawn has hit over a 1,000 views! Yay! But you shouldn't forget where it all started; in KH2.9! In celebration, I'm eager to announce a special director's (or is it writer's) cut of the book, with extended scenes, some art work, a complete song list, and author's notes!
Keep your eyes peeled!
In other news:
KH:After Dawn has hit over a 1,000 views! Yay! But you shouldn't forget where it all started; in KH2.9! In celebration, I'm eager to announce a special director's (or is it writer's) cut of the book, with extended scenes, some art work, a complete song list, and author's notes!
Keep your eyes peeled!
Can't wait!!! Not for the next chapter and not for the KH2.9 rewrite!!!
Sorry guys, but due to final examinations, I haven't had time to work on the next chapter. But I should have time to work on it this week! It shall go up! I promise!!!
Good news! Now that school is over, I can finally get some work done!!! I'm about 3/5 of the way through the next chapter. IT WILL GO UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes...it's here...we can finally start breathing again
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chapter Thirteen is here! After recieving an urgent message from Commander James in Radiant Gardens, Sora and the gang have gone off to find up what's going on. What mysteries still lie in Ansem's Study?
“What’s with you?” Grace asked Ling. Ling, a usually calm and quiet person, was twisting in her seat and couldn’t seem to sit still for more than a minute. She and Ling were back in the Gummi ship with Sora, Donald, and Goofy, along with Kairi, following closely behind the Strahl.
“It’s nothing,” she said, turning away, her face red.
“You’re not PMS-ing, are you?” Grace whispered in her ear, so that the boys wouldn’t hear.
“No! Of course not!” she said so loudly, it made Donald almost lose control of the Gummi ship.
“Ling, what’s wrong?” Grace asked firmly.
Ling could see through Grace’s piercing look there was no way she was getting out of this. She slowly took a deep breath and said, “You know that guy, with Commander James?”
“Uh…Sam, right?” said Grace.
“Yeah…him,” Ling said quietly.
“Wait…do you like Sam?” asked Grace.
Ling suddenly wanted to say something but then closed her mouth and looked away. “I…don’t know,” she said.
“What do you mean you don’t know?! Either you do or you don’t,” said Grace.
“I know but…I said something…offensive…to him,” said Ling.
Grace was stumped. “You…said something…offensive? Ling, you’re the least offensive person I know. So, what did you say to him?”
“I called him a weapon, a weapon that was programmed by the Commander as a tool of destruction,” explained Ling.
Grace and Sora stared at her. “That isn’t exactly offensive,” remarked Sora.
“As I said, you’re the least offensive person I know,” sighed Grace.
“It may not sound offensive to you but it was offensive to whom she said it to,” explained Kairi, “Sam may be a weapon, but he was once human too, like the rest of us.”
“I don’t get it. I thought Sam was a human. I mean he looks like one,” Sora said with a puzzled look on his face.
“He’s a cyborg. A human that has it limbs replaced with machinery to serve the functions of the missing or replaced limbs or organs,” explained Grace, “It usually done for medical purposes, but they can be used to enhanced human capabilities.”
“Sam a full body cyborg which means 75% or more of his body is machinery. In Juno City, full body cyborgs were used in the military and later as protection against the Heartless. However, they weren’t many cyborgs manufactured since the start of production, due to the fact of a high failure rate percentage, either caused by the body rejecting the machinery or death from the surgical procedures. The Class A17 was scraped because the prototype was insubordinate,” explained Ling.
“Insubordinate?” asked Sora.
“I think that means he didn’t listen,” Goofy replied.
“I could believe that,” remarked Grace, “Wait…he was the prototype? Does that mean he’s the only one they made?”
“I believe so,” said Ling, “But even if he didn’t listen to the Commander, the Commander still designed his specs. What if he’s carrying around some chip inside of him that will take over his body and makes him do whatever the Commander wants him to do? Besides, he made the choice to become a cyborg, a weapon.”
“No he didn’t,” Kairi said abruptly, “He didn’t have a choice. Sam, well Miki told us he was one of the ‘first’.”
“One of the ‘first’?” asked Grace.
“She means he was one of the first that lived in Juno City. He originally born on our mother planet, Earth,” explained Ling.
“But that would make him over sixty years old!” exclaimed Grace.
“Miki said that when Sam was born, he rare type of disease. I think she said it was Lukemia,” explained Kairi.
“Leukemia,” corrected Grace, “Cancer of the blood,” she added to Sora who once again had a confused look on his face.
“There was no cure for him at the time and when they evacuated him from Earth to Juno, his condition worsen. If they didn’t put him into a cryogenic sleep, he would’ve died,” explained Kairi.
“Whoa…I didn’t know they actually did cryogenic sleeping,” said Grace.
“In very rare cases, they do,” explained Ling, “I would guess they have perfected the procedure enough at the time Sam went to sleep that reviving a person was possible.”
“However,” Kairi continued, “He wasn’t revived until almost sixty years later. His family, his friends, they were all dead. And it was the Commander looking over him when he first woke up. It was simply an accident when the Commander stumbled upon Sam’s old medical files. He had been looking for subjects to test out his new cyborg model design, and turned to those frozen in a cryosleep. As it would turn out, Sam’s body was an ideal match. So the Commander gave him an ultimatum. As there still was no cure for Sam’s leukemia, if he chose not to become a cyborg, he would die soon. And even if there was a risk he would die still on the operating table, there was still a good chance he would make it. And Sam said yes. Miki doesn’t know why he said it; no one does. It could’ve been because he wasn’t entirely aware when he woke up, or he was just afraid of dying. Whatever the case he took the offer.
“Sam’s operation went well and almost right after he was given the go for his fully functioning new parts, he began to train. When the Commander was satisfied, he scheduled a demonstration for his new cyborg model. Commander James was invited to this demo. Some of them like the new model, but most of them including Commander James thought Sam was too young to fight. That’s when the demo went wrong. Miki, didn’t go into all the details, but Sam refused to do something,” explained Kairi.
“But you don’t say no to the Commander,” Grace said firmly, “The Commander’s word is law, and by breaking the law, comes with a heavy punishment. So how did he get out?”
“Commander James saved him during the Juno City Crisis,” explained Kairi, “He asked Sam to come with him, or he could do what he wanted. Sam made the better choice; that’s all that matters, I think.”
Ling was still unconvinced, or at least her face showed it. But as for her heart, she wasn’t so sure. “Choice…I wish my parents had a choice,” she muttered, then said, “The Commander still built him. So far, everything the Commander’s built has been either weapons or things that bring chaos.”
“That doesn’t mean Sam’s evil-” Sora started to say.
“Oh, that’s right! You know everything about evil!” Ling said sarcastically, “What do you know? I was learning ways to kill Heartless years before you even heard of the Keyblade! You actually think you understand what evil is? You don’t! You wouldn’t be able to comprehend it!”
“Ling! Stop it!” Grace grabbed Ling’s arm, but she broke free of her grip.
“No! You don’t understand! My family was killed in the Heartless Colony Massacre! But it wasn’t Heartless; it was the Commander. He quarantined off the colony my family was living in when the Heartless attacked us. Then ordered his soldiers to kill everyone inside the area out of fear of contamination! My mother, my father, my brothers, my sister, my grandmother; all of them were killed! My grandfather barely had enough time to grab me and flee. That’s why no matter what the Commander does, it nothing but hatred and sorrow. Sam may have his reasons, but I’ll never trust him! Never!” And with that Ling took off down the ladder and slam the hatch shut.
The cockpit room was quiet for a while. Then Grace, “I didn’t know that, nor did I know she had that sort of loathing for the Commander or anything he made.”
“What the Heartless Colony Massacre really bad?” asked Kairi.
“I remember the King talking about it once,” remarked Donald, “He said it was one of the worst disasters to befall the worlds.”
“Disaster would have been an understatement,” remarked Grace, “Back on Juno, the Heartless are real monsters. When they first arrived, no one knew what was about to hit them. They wiped out armies of soldiers before they could blink, destroying colony after colony. I remember everyone panicking when they got closer to the City; it was like the end of the world. If Joey’s grandfather hadn’t saved us, I might’ve not been here. However, I don’t doubt what Ling said. The Commander probably thought it was some sort of radical disease, instead of aliens born from the darkness in people’s hearts.”
“Poor Ling,” Sora said sadly.
One of the Gummi ship’s buzzers went off. They looked up and saw a world approaching in the distance. It gave off a warm pink and blue glow as they grew closer, then blossomed with spots of orange, red, purple, and green. They broke through the atmosphere and gently descended on the outskirts of a town. Sora and Grace were the first to reach the top of the town wall.
Grace found herself looking across a busy marketplace. It was filled with many vendors, both human and a strange mixture of species that seemed vaguely familiar but yet different from anything she could imagine. Across the market place was a towering castle in the middle of construction. To the north was a great valley and beyond that was something in the distance Grace couldn’t make out. To the northeast was a dense forest, shrouded in mist.
“Radiant Gardens: once one of the most popular trading posts in the universe and tourist attraction.” They turned around. The passengers of the Strahl had arrived. Balthier continued, “The world was once ruled by the great philosopher Ansem the Wise, your grandfather,” he added to Grace, “Unfortunately, his curiosity and easy ability to trust got the better of him. His apprentices would create the Heartless and they would become Nobodies. Their experiments would lead to near destruction of this world. I’m glad to see at least these people are starting to put this world back on track.”
“That’s because we put a stop to Maleficent and the Organization,” Sora said proudly.
Balthier couldn’t help but smile back, “That you did Keyblade Master; that you did.”
“Where do you thing the others are?” asked Margot.
“They’re probably with Leon and the gang,” suggested Sora, “They might be in the town.”
“We still have resupply. We might as well do that now since we’re in the market,” suggested Balthier, “But don’t go to far, especially you two,” he pointed to Sora and Grace.
Grace and Sora both frowned at him and took off in different directions. Unfortunately for Anemone, what she considered as resupplying was looking at jewelry. She went over to the vendor and looked though what they had to offer. “Is this all?” she asked, “Just a bunch of rings?”
“You should be satisfied with the necklace Pence gave you,” remarked Clarise.
“Oh I’m more than satisfied with that,” said Anemone, “But I can still look at accessories, can’t I?”
“You are so materialistic,” Clarise rolled her eyes.
Anemone stuck her tongue out at her but then stopped. That smell…it couldn’t be, she thought.
“What is it?” asked Clarise.
“It’s cologne,” said Anemone, “But…it smells like the kind Father wears.”
“You don’t think, he’s here?” asked Clarise.
Anemone shook her head.
“Do you think he would spot us?” asked Clarise.
“Of course he would!” said Anemone, “Have you not noticed our hair color all these years?! Anyway, we should stay with the others.”
As Anemone and Clarise tried to get back to Balthier and the others as quickly as they could, Tai stared curiously at a Moogle floating a few inches above him. “Gracey, is that a fairy?” he asked.
“That’s not a fairy, silly,” laughed Grace, “It’s a Moogle. They’re really smart and they make items. Am I right?”
“Righto, kupo!” said the Moogle, “So have any items to synthesize?”
“I got a couple,” Grace pulled out a few gems she collected.
“How’s this?” Tai pulled out a large bag of colorful gems.
“Whoa,” remarked Grace.
“Please enter your account number,” the Moogle handed over a touch pad.
“Account number? What are you? A bank?” asked Grace.
“You must have an account in order to synthesize items. It’s how we keep records of our customers, kupo. Just write your full name here, your initials here, date and sign at the bottom, kupo,” the Moogle gave her a separate touch pad.
Grace scanned the legal stuff, signed where she was suppose to, and handed the touch pad back to the Moogle. “Now choose your four-digit pass code. We encourage you not to use your birthday or especially the last four digits of your GIN or Galactic Identification Number, kupo.”
“I have not idea what that is, so let’s try this,” Grace punched in 1-7-9-3.
The Moogle then did a small dance in the air, played with its hands, and a slip of paper magically appeared in it’s fingers. “Here you go, Kupo! It’s your account number. What to try it out?”
Grace nodded and the Moogle handed her the first touch pad. She typed in the account number followed by her pass code. “As a first time user, you have nothing in your account, Kupo,” explained the Moogle, “Would you like to add your synthesis items now?” The Moogle pulled out an opened purple box.
Grace and Tai dumped their items inside the purple box. The Moogle then closed the box, shook it, and put it away. “You can’t make anything yet, kupo, but for opening an account and giving us at least one synthesis item, you receive this complementary Elixir! Thanks, kupo!” The Moogle gave Tai a small glowing orange orb about the size of a baseball.
Tai sniffed the orb. “It smells fruity,” he said. He then opened his mouth to taste it.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Balthier had come up behind them. “Elixirs are rare items to come by and for good reason. They have the power to fully restore an injured warrior in the heat of battle. I would hold on to it for the moment.”
Tai studied it some more, then handed it to Grace. “No, you hold on it,” she said, “I would probably use it up in no time.”
He tucked it away in his bag and they joined the others eating ice cream. Kairi handed Grace and Tai a light blue frozen Popsicle. When Grace tasted it, the sweet yet salty taste jumped out at her, as if she had something just like it before. Donald was trying to find out how much the price was all the ice cream from a duck about the same size as him with a fine gentleman’s hat. “Who’s that?” Grace asked Joey.
“Donald’s uncle, apparently,” said Joey as he nibbled at his ice cream.
“But Uncle Scrooge, can’t you give us a discount?” asked Donald.
“I’m sorry nephew but these prices are fixed. Have to keep up with the Galactic Federation’s tariffs; they’re getting more ridiculous each year,” remarked Uncle Scrooge, “Thankfully my sea-salt ice cream is a hot seller from here to Twilight Town.”
“Sea-salt ice cream? This is sea-salt ice cream?” asked Grace.
“Didn’t you know?” Sora raised an eyebrow.
“Donald’s uncle runs a transit system between the worlds,” said Goofy.
“A very complicated and expensive trade system, I might add,” remarked Uncle Scrooge, “Now, that will be 3200 Munny.”
“What to pay for some of that?” Donald shot a look at Balthier.
“Me?” Balthier looked at him confused, “I was under the impression you were paying for it.”
Donald grungy pulled out his wallet, when Grace said, “Wait!” She grabbed Sora and started going through his pockets.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Shut up!” she snapped at him and then said “Ah-ha!” pulling a slip of paper from his back pocket. “I believe this entitles us to free ice cream for a year.”
Uncle Scrooge took the paper and examined it. “Where did you get this?” he asked.
“We won it in a Struggle Tournament. Is that not your signature at the bottom then?” asked Grace.
“Yes, well…it is my signature, you’re right. Oh fine then! The ice cream is free of charge, but next time you’ll pay the tax,” huffed Uncle Scrooge.
“Thank you, Roxas,” Grace whispered handing the coupon back to Sora.
Tai was staring off into the distance, when someone’s face got into his view. A girl with a scarf and headband blinked at him but there was something odd about the face. It suddenly dawned on him: the girl was upside down. “Hi,” she smiled at him.
Tai jumped back with a scream.
Grace, Balthier, and Fran drew their weapons but then Sora said, “Oh hi Yuffie.”
“Yuffie? What’s a Yuffie?” asked Kairi.
“I’m Yuffie,” said the girl.
“Ew!” Anemone studied Yuffie’s clothes, “What are you suppose to be? A ninja?”
“Of course!” smiled Yuffie.
“Figures you would say that,” muttered Anemone.
“Hey!”
Sora and the others looked around and saw Hayner, Pence, and Olette running towards them. Hayner was out of his wheelchair and Olette’s smile was a little bit brighter. “Miss Anemone!” Pence cried with joy and went to his “Lady”.
“I see you’re kicking,” Grace said to Hayner.
“I’ve been kicking. And I wanna another shot at little miss vampire. Maybe if I squeeze her hard enough she’ll turn into a bat,” grinned Hayner.
“Hayner!” Olette shot him a look.
“So what is that you called us here for?” asked Balthier.
“As we said in the message, it’s super classified. No one else knows about it outside the Gardens,” Yuffie said in an undertone, “We’ll talk about it when we get to the borough.”
The girl then took off down the street, waving her hand for them to follow her. Tai took Grace’s hand and they walked behind Hayner and Olette following the others.
“Have the Heartless been causing any problems?” asked Sora.
“Not really. They haven’t been as active in the town since the last time you guys visited. They’re still roaming about on the outskirts and in the castle, and every so often we run into a Nobody, but it’s nothing we can’t handle,” said Yuffie.
“Man,” sighed Grace, “I was hoping for some action.”
“Me too. I haven’t done much since we got to Port Royal,” remarked Kairi. The two of them both sighed at the same time.
“Is it just me, or are Kairi and Grace very alike?” Donald asked Goofy.
“Hmmm…” Goofy studied the girls for a moment, “Well, they’re sorta the same height, and they got the same eyes. They both think alike too. Do ya think they’re related?”
“Of course not!” frowned Donald, “Where would you get an idea like that?”
Goofy shrugged but did not let the idea go out of his head.
The borough was a little suburb of brick houses with chimney’s rising out of the top of most of them. Most of the houses looked like they were still under some form of reconstruction while the streets looked newly repave. As Yuffie lead the group across the streets, they would see large metal balls about the size of a large fist scurry around on the ground.
“That must be the defense system,” awed Joey, pulling out a notepad, “I’ll say titanium shell, opening up to send out electric charges. Controlled by some sort of central system most likely.”
“You seem to know a lot,” remarked Yuffie.
“Nah, Joey’s just good at dreaming stuff like that up. Right, Joey?” grinned Hayner.
Joey folded his arms, but then Margot took his hand gently and said, “Don’t forget, big brother: you came up with the jamming system on Juno City and that’s way better than what anyone else has.”
This took Joey’s frown away just in time. Yuffie stopped at a large cottage in the center of the borough and was opening the door. “I’m home!” She called, “And lookie who I found!”
They entered a single room filled with a large computer in one corner and an odd assortment of books in another. There was a small kitchen on one side of the room and a staircase leading upstairs. Three people were inside: an older gruff man with blonde hair was at the computer; a young woman in her twenties with a long brown braid, pink dress, and pretty green eyes in the kitchen; and a man about the woman’s age with a scar across his nose leaning against the wall.
“Well if ain’t the great heroes themselves,” said the older man.
“We knew you would come back,” said the young woman walking away from her mixing bowl.
“Welcome back, Sora, Donald, Goofy,” said the other man. He then noticed Riku and Kairi. “I see you found your friends.”
Sora nodded. “I also made some new ones.”
“A lot of them by the look of it,” remarked the older man, “I’ll say this is the bunch from Juno City.”
“How could you tell?” asked Lucy.
“Those two stick out like a sore thumb,” the older man nodded to Clarise and Anemone, “The Commander just placed a search warrant out for them. Feds are trying to rule against it but he has every right to look for his daughters.”
“Did they consider the fact we don’t want to go back?” frowned Anemone, folding her arms.
“That’s what they’re arguing,” sighed the man, “These Juno City people have been causing quite a stir, but not as much as you, Grace Porter. Rumor has it as the Keyblade Master’s Apprentice you’re to be the next Aqua.”
“Whoa, whoa! Apprentice?” Sora stared at Grace, “Since when were you my apprentice?”
“Like I know,” said Grace, “I surely didn’t put that down on my ‘what I want to be when I grow up’ paper.”
“Well if you didn’t, who did?” asked Sora.
“The will of the Gods,” replied Balthier, “Grace is your second; she is next in line to take the Keyblade if you happen to die suddenly. If you want further proof, recall that when you fell unconscious during your first battle with Xine, Grace was able to wield your Keyblade.”
“So…who are you guys?” asked Grace.
“This is Leon, Aerith, and Cid,” Sora introduced the man, the young woman, and the older man respectfully, “They’re part of the Hallow Bastion Restoration Committee.”
“With one little change of course,” explained Leon, “We’re now the Radiant Gardens Restoration Committee.”
“So, did Cloud come back yet?” asked Sora.
Leon and Cid were silent, Yuffie hung her head, and Aerith looked out the window quietly.
“Who’s Cloud?” Lucy asked in a whisper.
“Dunno. Sounds like a pet name,” said Ling.
“What about Tifa?” asked Donald.
“She shows up every now and then, usually as clueless as ever…” remarked Cid.
“Is Merlin gone too?” asked Goofy.
“He left some time ago to the Flying City to speak with the Angelus King. He should be back soon,” explained Aerith.
“The Flying City?” asked Grace.
“The capital of the Angelus,” explained Fran, “Where the royal family resides.”
“And Commander James?” asked Balthier.
“He’s over at the restoration site at the castle with Jazz. Miki and Sam are here. We’ll discuss more over lunch, which reminds me…Aerith, are you suppose to be making lunch?” asked Leon.
“Oh my!” Aerith suddenly stood up and ran back to the kitchens, “I hope the meat didn’t burn!”
As she ran off to check on the meat, Yuffie called up the stairs. “Miki! Sam! Lunch is ready!”
“About time,” grumbled Sam as he walked down the stairs but stopped for a brief second when he saw Ling. Their eyes met for a small second in time but then Ling looked away.
“Are the others here yet?” asked Miki.
“Come see for yourself!” said Yuffie with a smile.
“Gracey!” Miki’s face lit up when she saw everyone, “Kairi! Lucy! Ling! Mitch!” She threw her arms around Grace tightly. “It’s been so long since we last saw each other!”
“It’s only been a few days, and you’re crushing me!” Grace gasped for breath.
“Sorry!” Miki let go of her and grabbed Kairi.
“Deep breaths, Gracey, deep breaths,” said Tai.
“Shut it!” she hissed.
“Can we eat?” Matti’s stomach growled.
“Yes, first we’ll eat,” agreed Leon.
Aerith outdone herself by serving them a full course meal of roasted chicken, fresh baked breath, sautéed potatoes, fresh greens, and a large pitcher of homemade lemonade. Only Leon stayed away from the lemonade.
“So what was it like on Port Royal?” asked Olette.
“Well there was pirates, ships, a big giant monster with lots of tentacles, and a chest with a beating fish guy’s heart in it,” said Lucy, “Did I miss anything?”
“Cannibals and the witch lady,” replied Margot.
“Oh yeah! And the cannibals and the creepy witch lady,” added Lucy.
“Did you run into her?” asked Hayner.
“She showed her face,” Grace said, knowing who the ‘her’ he was referring to was, “She got away but next time…she’s going down!” She stabbed her salad.
“Something isn’t right though,” remarked Margot.
“What isn’t right?” asked Clarise.
“That Xine is working for the Commander,” explained Margot, putting down her fork, “If you ask me, Xine is like Anemone.”
“She is not!” Anemone opened her mouth, her food dropping out of it, “How can you even compare me to her?!”
“I don’t know; I see plenty of a resemblance,” Sora said in an undertone. Donald and Goofy started to laugh until Anemone shot them the evil eye.
“What I mean is,” continued Margot, “Xine isn’t really someone to be controlled, like Anemone. She does what she wants; even her handler David has trouble controlling her. I don’t think Xine is voluntarily working for the Commander.”
“But if she isn’t ‘voluntarily’ working for the Commander, what did the Commander promise her then?” asked Matti.
“What Xemnas couldn’t give her or any other Nobody: their humanity,” explained Joey.
“Do you think the Commander has the power to do that?” asked Lucy.
“Not really, but if he’s experimenting, he might have found something,” remarked Joey.
“Do you think he can make Nobodies human?” asked Matti.
“It’s not entirely impossible, but the Commander right now, is more interested in the opposite,” explained Joey.
Balthier listened with interest, then turned to Leon, “So, what is it that you found?”
Leon lowered his fork, then said, “We found a hidden staircase in the Heartless factory. About three stories down, is where Xehanort conducted his experiments.”
Everyone at the table was silent. “What kind of experiments?” asked Grace.
“The worst kind,” remarked Cid, “Experiments on the heart.”
“The Ansem reports,” whispered Joey.
Leon nodded. “And that’s not else. We found another room, but we don’t know what to think of it. We thought you might be able to tell us something.”
“It might be A’lak de Magika,” added Aerith.
“A’lak de Magika,” breathed Fran, “Old magic.”
“Yeah, we found these ruins on the walls, and when you touch it, it glows a little,” remarked Sam.
“Can you translate it?” asked Balthier.
“No, it’s nothing my translators can even recognize,” replied Sam.
Balthier finished eating then said, “I would like to see this room as soon as possible, preferably now.”
Leon nodded and started to get up. Almost everyone was done, except for Joey who was more interested in thinking that eating. They put their plates in the sink and walked out of the house into the borough. Leon and Yuffie led them towards the end of the rows of houses and up a flight of stairs to a barracks overlooking a ridge valley. As Grace looked across the valley, she saw a group of stand alone towers a mile or so away. She only looked at them for a moment but could’ve sworn she saw the Heartless emblem on one of them.
They travel across the barracks and down the other side to a path leading towards a reconstructed castle. Grace stopped to look up and admire it. “So…she lived here,” she said.
“Who?”
Grace turned around and saw Kairi standing behind her.
“My mother,” explained Grace, “She was raised here. She said her father was the leader of this world. I guess that makes me Ansem’s granddaughter.”
“But…I’m suppose to be the princess. Or at least…that’s what people say,” Kairi looked from the castle to Grace, “But if your Ansem’s granddaughter and I’m the princess, what are you to me?”
“A cousin if anything,” smiled Grace.
“You’re not a princess?” asked Kairi.
“I don’t think so, only because I think my mother renounced her title. Remember? Terra, Sora’s uncle, renounced his title when he found he was to be a Chaser. I believe the same happened with her,” explained Grace.
“You don’t know for sure?” Kairi raised an eyebrow.
“I only knew her for an hour,” shrugged Grace. She looked back up at the castle. “It’s funny: Juno is so far away and yet I had ties here,” she looked over her left shoulder, “Was wondering when they would show up.”
A swarm of Heartless had appeared; a small army of Shadow and Soldier Heartless. “You ready for this?” asked Grace as she summoned her Keyblade.
“Been ready since Port Royal!” grinned Kairi, calling up her own Keyblade.
The Heartless were mere pushovers compared to the more intelligent fish pirates of Davy Jones. A few minutes later, Grace cut down the last Heartless and the two of them rejoined with the rest of the group at the base of the castle. A newly built pathway lead to a hole that marked the entrance to the basements of the castle.
“What took you guys so long?” asked Sora.
“Heartless. Don’t worry,” Kairi added when she saw the look on Sora’s face, “We took care of them.”
“But Kairi, it’s dangerous out there!”
“Sora, I can handle myself,” remarked Kairi.
“Really? How many times have you been kidnapped?”
As Sora and Kairi started to argue, Clarise looked around nervously, her hands shaking. Matti noticed her trembling. “What’s the matter, Clarise?” he asked.
“Nothing!” she lowered her hands, “I’m just cold.”
“Cold? At this temperature? Where are you from? The tropics?” asked Yuffie.
Clarise laughed weakly but still was unable to shake the feeling of unease. “Perhaps we should go inside,” she suggested.
“We would if those two would shut up,” Riku shook his head at Sora and Kairi.
Something vibrated in Joey’s pocket. “Hold this,” he shoved into Goofy’s hands his laptop and sketchpad, and started to go through his pockets. He pulled out several miniature robots, his wallet, graphing calculator, several microchips, before finally reaching in and taking hold of something that looked like a cellphone.
“What’s that?” asked Miki.
“One of my scanners. It detects high frequencies of EM waves, like Heartless portals, Nobodies crossing between realms-” He stopped and stared at his screen, “Whoa…”
“‘Whoa’ what?” asked Balthier.
“The signal’s huge. Whatever’s coming in is either very high or very powerful,” explained Joey, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“How powerful?” asked Leon.
“Astronomical! Scratch that…they are two separate signals; two transportals,” Joey corrected himself, “I recognize both of them, but one of them I haven’t seen since-”
“Destiny Islands,” Balthier finished for him mid-sentence.
“It’s him!” whispered Clarise.
“Daddy!” Anemone clenched her fist. Sora and Kairi stopped arguing when she said that.
Sam’s eyes then went wide. “Everyone get down!” he shouted just before pulling Ling and Miki down flat on the ground. A second later, an explosion went off. Balthier managed to pull Fran and Grace down when a bright blue wave shot across where they once stood.
“What the heck was that?” asked Grace.
“A Demajickfier Pulse. Similar to an EM-bomb but does a different kind of damage,” explained Sam, “It scatters the magical energy for a few moments so we can’t use magic right away. If you get hit with it, it knocks you unconscious. No magical energy means-”
“No Keyblades,” finished Sora.
“Yes, quite an unfortunate side effect I must say.”
They all looked up and saw the Commander standing on one of the many large pipes that lead up into the castle with Xine and David. “But quite a useful advantage,” continued the Commander as he smiled malevolently, “Let me see; quite a large group of people we have here. The Keyblade Master, the Sky Pirates, the Mouse, my daughters, Princess Kairi, Princess Lucy, the Chairman’s granddaughter, Carter’s grandchildren, the locals, the hacker Jazz’s daughter, Riku of the Dawn, and ah…if it isn’t my failed experiment, the A17 prototype.”
“My name is Sam and I am not a failure!” Sam clenched his fist. His eyes then started to glow. There was a clicking noise and his body started to transform. It wasn’t like he was changing shape, but rather changing into his cyborg armor. The joints in his elbows, hands, wrists, shoulders, knees, and ankles opened up, releasing his armor hidden within his body and aligned it in perfect order without ripping through his clothes, but simply covering up like the rest of his skin. His chest then opened up to release his torso armor and it unfolded upwards to create his helmet. The complicated assembly only took a matter of seconds. There was another clicking nose and Sam’s visor lifted so the Commander could see the fierce determination in his eyes.
“Whoa…” Grace breathed.
“Yes, a successful operation but yet a failure when it comes to listening,” smirked the Commander.
Sam wanted to attack but Miki held him back with much difficulty.
“Hmmm…it seems to me I don’t recognize these three,” the Commander nodded his head in Hayner, Pence, and Olette’s direction.
“I do,” said Xine, her hood still up, “They’re from Twilight Town, though what they’re doing so far away from there, I don’t know. It seems the boy I thought I killed is still alive. I’ll have to make sure I do the job right this time,” she flashed her needles.
“Oh no you won’t! Not this time!” Hayner raised a fist.
“How much time do we got before we can use the Keyblades?” Sora asked Sam.
“Another good minute,” he replied, “As long as the Commander keeps on talking.”
But the Commander stopped his chitchat. Instead, he snapped his fingers and swarm of Armored Knight, Bookmaster, Morning Star, Soldier, and Surveillance Robot Heartless. He then turned to Xine. “Remember; I want the Keyblade Master and the Mouse alive. My daughters are not to be harmed. Kill the others.”
“With pleasure,” smiled Xine and she jumped down into the battle.
“This isn’t good,” remarked Lucy as the Heartless gathered around them.
“Here!” Miki threw a few LASERlights into the air for the Keyblade User, “These should help!”
Grace shot down a few Heartless but she knew that unless that got back the use of their Keyblades the Heartless would overwhelm them. At least she thought, until Miki pulled out a large gun from her arsenal. “Shock, drop, and roll baby!” she grinned as the gun shot out bolts of lightning taking out a few of the Heartless.
“What was that?” asked Grace.
“This thing shocks ‘em, they drop, and they roll back to the darkness whence they came,” explained Miki as she took a few more Heartless out.
In the meanwhile, Xine had made her way towards Hayner and Olette. “Ready for another round?” she asked curling her lips.
“I’ve been ready!” Hayner took out his Struggle club.
“No! Hayner, don’t!” pleaded Olette, trying to get him out of it, but he shrugged her off.
“Stay out of this!” he said, tightening his grip on his club.
Xine was first to make her move. She disappeared, throwing Hayner off guard. As Hayner looked around to find her, Xine appeared behind him and knocked him off his feet onto the ground. “Hayner!” Olette rushed down next to him as Xine came in to give the finishing blow.
At that second, Pence jumped in front of her to protect them. Xine frowned and knocked him aside with one blow. She didn’t however, see Anemone coming in, slamming her right fist into Xine’s face. Xine stumbled for a second as Anemone glared at her. “Don’t you dare touch my boyfriend!” Anemone said angrily.
Xine wiped the blood off her lip and got back on her feet. “You’re father said not to kill you; that doesn’t mean I can’t teach you a lesson.”
“Bring it on, bitch!” Anemone stuck out her tongue.
As Xine and Anemone started to fight, Sora’s LASERlight was starting to jam. When it jammed up completely, he threw it aside and lifted his hand. “Come on! Come on! All most there!” He could feel the Keyblade’s power, so close in reach. “There!” he said, finally able to summon it once more. He slashed though a Heartless and noticed Lucy and Margot were in trouble, surrounding by two Morning Star Heartless.
Margot held on tight to Lucy as she fired round after round of bullets at Heartless, but she was running low on ammo. Finally her guns gave out. “Oh…crap…” she muttered.
The Heartless jumped and Lucy crouched over to protect Margot. But the Heartless never came. Lucy looked up and saw a wall of water above her head, blocking the Heartless. “D” she whispered.
“Guys! We got company!” shouted Joey as his scanner went off again.
Xine stopped her battle with Anemone and stood straight up. “I was wondering when you were going to show your face, traitor,” she looked over her shoulder at Demyx who had his Sitar pointed at her back, his hood up.
“Isn’t that the guy we beat earlier during the Heartless invasion?” Goofy asked Donald.
“Yeah, except I thought we got rid of him!” Donald waved his staff around.
“No way; how did he survive?” asked Sora.
“Traitor, am I?” Demyx still had his focus on Xine, “Then what does that make you?”
“I have my reasons,” she said with a frown and they started to battle.
The Commander then nodded to David, who then jumped down to finish what Xine had originally started, only this time he went after Grace. By now she had regained use of her Keyblade and was ready for him. She blocked his bio-arm saber and threw him off but he wasn’t done with her yet. David came at her again and she jumped out of the way just in time but his bio-arm saber struck the ground. As he was starting to pull his arm sword out of the ground, the floor started to crack. Apparently the reconstructed pathway wasn’t as complete as they had thought, that or the force of David’s attack had struck so much force the walkway couldn’t handle it.
Unfortunately, the one side was falling over the edge of the cliff, and Grace, Lucy, Ling, Tai, and Olette just happened to be on that side. The broken side of the platform jerked toward the ground below; it was starting to break off faster. Grace tried to grab hold of the edge that was still attached to the platform, Tai clinging on her, attempting to pull the two of them up, although she was more worried about Lucy, Ling, and Olette who were barely hanging on the other edge, the one where it was a good one hundred or so drop to the ground. Sora reached for her hand, trying to grab it, but just as Grace touched his fingers, the platform gave away, and broke off. The girls and Tai screamed.
Demyx stopped his battle with Xine just as the platform fall. He saw Lucy and cursed with “No!” and rushed forward off the cliff. Sam joined him in the dive down. Sora got up on his feet to jump off with them but Balthier held him back.
“You’ll be killed for sure if you do that!” Balthier said as Sora struggled.
“But what about them!” Sora argued.
Sam grabbed hold of Ling as she tumbled downward, unconscious. He watched as Demyx grabbed hold of Lucy and Olette, but he had no way of slowing down. “Come on! Come on!” muttered Demyx.
Sam stared as there was something trying to come out of Demyx’s back. There was a blinding white light and Sam saw wings, pure white angel wings from Demyx’s back. He watched in awe as Demyx turned himself up right and using his wings slowed down their falling speed. Sam thought it was a good idea to do the same thing.
He too turned himself upright and slowed his speed with his thrusters in his feet. Demyx managed to pull Olette and Lucy to a small over hang not far from the pathway. Sam then turned his attention back on Grace and Tai who were still falling.
Grace was unconscious but Tai was still awake. He pulled something from his pack; a small rubber pink ball. He shook it and threw it downward. It exploded but transformed into a giant pink balloon. He and Grace bounced when they hit the balloon but were able to stay on. The balloon gently floated downward toward the bottom.
When Sam was sure they were alright, he turned his attention to Ling and looked for a place to touchdown.
Lucy was finally able to focus. She looked up at the cliff edge above and shuttered at the thought of how many feet she had dropped, as well as how many more feet she could’ve feel if Demyx hadn’t save her and Olette.
“Are you alright?” she heard Demyx ask.
“Yeah, I’m fine-” she stopped when she noticed his wings, “What-? How-? Does it hurt?” she found herself asking.
“A little,” he winced rubbing his shoulder, “But only because it’s been a while since I last used them.”
“Do…all Nobodies like you have wings?” asked Lucy.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no! I’ve had this since I was human. I think I got it from-” He stopped. Olette was starting to stir. “Lettie,” Lucy heard him whisper.
Olette sat up and looked at Lucy, then at Demyx wide eyed. Demyx quickly threw his hood over his face and said to Lucy, “Sorry,” before disappearing.
“Who…was that?” asked Olette.
Lucy shrugged. “Never saw him.”
“Strange. I thought…” Olette shook her head.
“What?” asked Lucy, afraid she had heard them talking.
“He looked like my older brother,” she said.
“Your older brother?” Lucy asked her, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, but…he died in an accident years ago. Died at the scene. It’s impossible that it’s him but yet…strange,” she looked up the cliff. The others were climbing down now towards them.
“Yeah…strange,” remarked Lucy.
************************************************************************
Sam laid Ling down in the ruins of an old walkway leading up into the castle. He looked over, lifting his visor, and asked, “Hey, are you alright?”
The reply came as a punch to the face. “OWWW!” Sam rubbed his nose as Ling sat up.
“Sorry! I thought- oh, never mind. It’s you,” frowned Ling, “Wait…you saved me?”
“Would you have preferred failing to your death?” asked Sam.
“No, but why?” Ling asked.
“You fell. I couldn’t just sit back and let you just fall. Maybe it was instinct. I dunno,” Sam folded his arms.
“I think you wanted to look all macho. You’re still in your cyborg armor I see,” Ling pursed her lips.
“I haven’t had time to change out of it! Any way,” Sam calmed down, “I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“Fine; I’m listening. I don’t have anything better to do,” Ling said as she got up.
There was a clicking nose; Sam had opened up his chest armor, exposing his upper torso. “What are you doing?” Ling asked.
“Come here,” said Sam.
Ling continued to make a face but reluctantly walked to him. “Put your hand right here,” Sam instructed, pointing to his chest.
“What for?” asked Ling, with a puzzled look.
“You won’t understand as much if you don’t do it,” said Sam. Ling sighed and placed her hand on his chest. “Well?” asked Sam, “Do you feel anything?”
“What am I suppose to be feeling? All I can feel is your breathing and…” She wanted to put her hand down; this is stupid, she thought. But she saw Sam give an encouraging nod, as if to finish her sentence, “…and your heart.”
“It isn’t mine,” he said quietly.
“What?” Lucy took her hand off his chest and his armor recovered it.
“It’s not my heart. They had to get rid of my…old one. It was…inefficient they said. So they gave me a new one; one enhanced to keep up with my speed. It came from somebody else. Okay, not really, but it was made from stem cells, someone else’s stem cells, someone that just matched up to me. But that’s not all. Give me your dagger,” said Sam.
“What dagger?” asked Ling, trying to hide the surprise in her face.
“The dagger you think no one knows about you have hidden underneath your skirt,” explained Sam.
He had her there. With another frown she pulled out the dagger from the concealed buckle underneath her skirt and handed the dagger over. “How’d you know? X-ray vision, perv?” she asked.
“As if; electric current potential,” he explained, taking the dagger, “For detecting bomb shrapnel.” The armor from his left hand unfolded and he slashed the dagger across his hand, making a deep, long cut across his palm, not even flinching.
Ling gasped as the blood started to flow out.
“It’s alright,” he reassured her, “See: the nanomachines inside me are doing their work,” he pointed to the cut, which was quickly starting to close up, “But,” he rubbed his blood between his fingers, “This isn’t mine either; none of it. Out of all the structure of my human anatomy, my blood was the first thing I lost, when I was frozen. Do you know how they put you into a cryogenic sleep?” he asked her.
Ling shook her head.
“First they put you under, to get you calm and ready, I guess. Then they lower your body temperature, slowly, to slow the heart down. When the temperature gets low enough, the heart stops. Induced hypothermia they call it. Then they have to get rid of the blood; they clean it out with something like a kidney dialysis, only the blood comes out but doesn’t go back in. What does go in is CLHEMO,” explained Sam sitting down on an overturned pillar.
“CLHEMO?” asked Ling.
“Clear Hemoglobin. A substance that takes the place of hemoglobin and surrounds the cells so they don’t rupture when they’re frozen for the cryogenic sleep. Once the CLHEMO is in place, they pump a tinny amount of glucose through the veins, so that if anything does break off, it floats around safely. Then they drop the temperature to negative 30 degrees below Fahrenheit, wrap it up and seal it away. If you’re lucky, you’re not frozen long. But…sometimes…things happen. People forget…lose records…that kind of crap…” he broke off, not looking at her.
Although she knew the answer, Ling asked, “How long…for you?”
“Sixty years. At that time, my family was living out in the Colonies when the Heartless appeared. They were all wiped out. A few years later the Commander found me. When I woke up, after they put new blood in me, the Commander told me, that there was no cure for me, not a complete one at least. He offered me to be his…new cyborg prototype. I asked him what my family thought. He told me my family was dead, and I would be too, if I didn’t make a choice. If I turned down his offer, my blood would just become as bad as before and I would die. If I accepted, there was a risk I would die on the operating table, but I would have a change to live. I remember being afraid; afraid of dying…alone, with no one to comfort me. So I took his offer.
“First, they killed my immune system to keep the leukemia from requiring and injected me with nanomachines to fight off anything I would pick up. Then it was a bone marrow and heart transplant so I would have a better chance of surviving the ‘Big One’ as the Commander called it. The ‘Big One’ would last 48 hours, one of the longest operations ever. Depending on what they were working on, they would have to put me on bypass for my heart. They kept most of my internal organs; they said the nanomachines would still need some sort of nutritional supply as well as my heart and lungs to function so my blood that carried the nanomachines would be good. They chopped off my arms and legs to replace them with cybernetic limbs, encased my brain and spinal cord in a protective internal armor, as well as my internal organs; a second defense if anything ever pierced my armor. And, well, they didn’t have to, but they kept my, er, genitals, so as the Commander put it, if I was sent in to do espionage, I would blend in, with the boys…” Sam laughed weakly but stopped when Ling folded her arms.
“When I first woke up, I couldn’t move anything. I thought I was paralyzed, but they said that was normal, that it would take some time for everything to synchronize with my brain waves or something. Then came the pain; I was on morphine for weeks. Everything was so unbearable. Then, I had to go through physical therapy to learn how to use my new limbs. After a few months, I had become as close to being a normal person as I could get. I could actually eat what I want, not worry about my blood being cancerous, and I even had hair to fuss over about. But then, the Commander wanted me. I was still his prototype and he wanted me in basic training a month earlier.
“It wasn’t too bad at first; basic training was a lot of exercising and learning about different weapons. Then they started training me how to use my armor, which was a little complicated because it activated on my thoughts. Once I got using my armor down, I worked my way through simulations. And slowly but surely, the Commander was turning me into a soldier or as I look back on it now, a killing machine. Most of the simulations I went through were wiping out Heartless or Nobodies. But as I got better, the simulations became more like war zones. I would fight soldiers, destroy tanks, even crush missiles with my bare hands.
“Soon it was time for the military demonstration, where I would be shown off to all the military leaders of Juno City. The Commander was saying if I got good remarks, there would be no more training. If not, well, he said, I better not screw up. Surprisingly, not a lot of people were happy with the Commander for picking a ‘kid’ like me to use for his demo. At least that’s how Commander James put it. He was in a cryogenic sleep for about the same time I was,” explained Sam.
“He was frozen too?” asked Ling.
Sam nodded, “He fought in the last Great War; you know, the one legends say was the ‘war between the unspeakable darkness’. He was injured pretty badly when he was helping the last of the refugees escaped Earth. He was woken up a few days before the presentation. The Commander was trying to impress him with all the advances Juno made in warfare. By the look of it, Commander James wasn’t impressed so far.
“Anyway, they started the simulation. It was a war torn village and before I even moved, people were shooting at me. It wasn’t real people; just a computerize simulation. All I had to do was run, come up behind them, knock them out before they knew I was there, or possibly kill them if they resisted. Single handedly, I was taking out all the enemies. Then, things changed. There was a little girl, Asian looking, with flowers in her hair; probably only five or six years old. She was running towards me…with a bomb strapped to her chest. I was taught to kill suicide bombers by shooting at the head so the bomb would detonate further away from its target. But even as I raised my hand to kill her with an energy blast…I…I couldn’t do it. She reminded me…of my best friend Stacy, who in my old life visited me everyday at the hospital. She used to call me a fool for being obsessed with Transformers. She was…the first girl I ever loved,” he broke off, turning away from Ling, to wipe away a tear.
“What happened?” asked Ling after giving Sam a moment to recover.
“The computer did as it was programmed to do. Because I didn’t react, it did. The bomb detonated and threw me twenty feet. Although the simulation shock didn’t cause any damage, if it had been a real bomb, I would have cracked my armor, leaving me vulnerable. The simulation shut down and needless to say, the Commander was very displeased. Most of the military leaders were disappointed but no one was as mad as Commander James, but he wasn’t mad at me. He went and cussed the Commander out, telling him that he was a fool for even considering I was capable for being able to face the terrors of being a soldier and taking advantage of my well being. It was actually pretty funny looking back on it now. I was punished of course; whipped, beaten, shocked, but nothing was as torturing as think about what I could have done to save that little girl. Although I knew that it was just a simulation, I couldn’t get her out of my head.
“They threw me into isolation for a few days until they told me I had been deemed a failure for insubordination and their initial decision for my future was pending. A few days later was the Juno City Crisis. I remember Commander James opening my cell and asking me if I would like to come with him. I told him I didn’t have a choice. He then said, ‘We all have a choice. We have the choice to do what is good. We all have a choice to live. Shouldn’t you have a choice to start your new life?’ I thought about it and then asked him what he would have done to save that little girl’s life. He told me, that there wasn’t much I could’ve done. Even with all my speed, even if I could somehow get the bomb off of her, it would detonate as soon as I got it off, killing us both. Then he asked if I was coming. And I left with him. I’ve been with his group ever since,” Sam looked up at her.
Ling frowned again. “If you’re expecting me to feel sorry for you, then you are a fool.”
Sam managed a weak smile. “That’s right,” he said under his breath, “She would always say that, exactly like that.”
“What are you muttering?” asked Ling.
“Listen, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, just understand how I feel. I know you’re prejudice against the Commander and his weapons. I know that your family was killed-”
“They weren’t killed, they were murdered!” Ling’s lip trembled, “Murdered under orders by the Commander because he thought the Heartless were some sort of disease!”
“That’s not true,” Sam said quietly. Ling stared at him. “Killing all the people in the colony was part of it yes,” Sam continued, “But the Commander suspected your family for having some involvement with the Heartless. He knew your family were the descendents of the Keepers of Earth, chosen by the Chasers and the World Order to protect its secrets. He had your family murdered thinking they helped the Heartless into Mars. The only reason you and your grandfather survived because you were least likely to be involved and the Angelus would have the Commander brought to the Federation if he killed off the only remaining descendant-”
“That’s a lie!” shouted Ling, “You’re lying!”
“Are you so sure?” asked Sam calmly, “I read your files. They were been broadcast on all frequencies when your friend was arrested. It was all there.”
Ling glared at him, fuming, and turned away.
“Ling…” Sam got up and reached slowly to put his hands on her arms, “I know what it’s like-”
“Know what it’s like?” Ling turned around and pushed him away, “How can you ever know what it’s like? I’ve lost everything! My home! My mother! My father! Grandma! My five older brothers and my sister! Practically my life! How can you understand? What have you-” She stopped. Sam was looking at her sadly, like a boy that had lost his mother. It was then that she finally got it; she had finally understood. Here in front of her was a boy, a boy only a little older than she was, who had lost possibly more than her. Where she had lost most of her family, her grandfather was still alive, and she still had her friends. Sam on the other had, lost all of his family, his friends, and almost his humanity. She now knew what he was getting at about understanding. She had no right to complain; Sam should be the one complaining but to her knowledge he never did. Then she realized she was the fool all along, and that maybe, just maybe, she should have stopped and considered his feelings. It was in that moment she realized, that perhaps they were somewhat alike and perhaps…
“I’m sorry,” Ling sobbed.
“I told you not to feel sorry for me,” he said.
“That’s not what I meant. What I mean to say is…I’m sorry…for not understanding,” said Ling as she wiped away a tear.
Sam looked at her and smiled.
“Take off your helmet,” said Ling.
“Why?” asked Sam.
“I want to see something,” she said.
“Sure,” Sam said, a little confused. There was a clicking noise and the rest of his helmet folded back into his armor.
“When you feel things…is it really you feeling them?” asked Ling.
“What do you mean?” asked Sam, even more confused than before.
“Like if I were to do this,” she placed her hand on his check, “Are you feeling that?”
“Y-yeah. Those nerves aren’t as altered as the ones in my hands or feet. They’re not artificial; they’re natural,” explained Sam, “But I still feel everything as if it was natural.”
“So if I kissed you, you would feel it?” she asked almost in a whisper.
“Yeah…I would,” he said, just before kissing her on the lips.
When they broke apart, Ling got close to him again and eye to eye, she said firmly, “Keep this in mind, though. If you ever betray me, I will kill you. Got it?”
“G-got it,” he stammered, “Of course, I would rather be killed by you than Heartless or the Commander.” He then held out his hand, “C’mon. The others are probably worried.”
Ling took Sam’s hand and held on tightly as he lifted them both off the ground and back to the castle. “Sam…will you make a promise for me? If I’m ever in a bind, will you come for me?”
“I promise,” he said and they looked towards the castle, were everyone was waiting for them.
************************************************************************
The giant pink balloon bounced slightly as it touched the ground. Tai grabbed Grace and jumped off the balloon before it popped. “It’s a good thing I bought that trick set in Traverse Town,” he said before turning back to Grace.
“Gracey! Wake up! Please wake up!” Tai shook her, but she would not wake up. He remembered the last time something like this had happened. At least he was a little bit bigger now but what was he to do? He had no idea where they were. Then he remembered Balthier’s words. “That’s it!” he smiled and dived through his bag. He pulled out the Elixir from his bag and lifted Grace’s head. “Here Gracey. Try this,” he opened her mouth and scrapped a bit of the Elixir on her teeth. He then closed her mouth, forcing her to swallow. Her eyes opened almost immediately.
“Tai?” she asked groggily.
“Gracey!” Tai jumped on her, almost knocking her out again.
After they hugged, Grace looked up the side of the cliff. “Where are we?” she asked. They seemed to be in the lower end of the castle; there were still signs of the gigantic pipes running throughout the grounds.
“I don’t know. We fell all the way down,” said Tai.
“I guess we can follow the pipes back up, if anything,” said Grace and she took Tai’s hand, following the pipes to what seemed to be the base of the castle. The ground was covered in ice but a large portion of it seemed to be like liquid but they could still step on it as if it was solid. Towards one end of the castle wall were two floating orbs and on the other side was solid ice with a glowing crystal.
“What’s with the ice?” asked Tai.
“It must be magic,” replied Grace, “See; look how the Keyblade is pulsating.” She held out her Keyblade which was vibrating slightly.
“I don’t see a way up,” said Tai.
“There has to be. Maybe-” Grace took a step forward but as soon as she did a swarm of Darkball and Defender Heartless appeared. “Aww, crap,” Grace raised her Keyblade, ready to engaged in battle.
Suddenly there was a large explosion and something very big and heavy dropped before them, crushing the Heartless all at once. It was a red frog as big as a house, wearing a blue buttoned down shirt, and a man with long white hair was riding on top of it.
“There you are my no good apprentice! I’ve been looking all over for you!” shouted the man. He then got a closer look at Grace and Tai. “Wait…you’re not my apprentice! I knew I should have taken that left back there!”
“Dude…he’s riding a giant frog,” gaped Grace.
“It’s not a frog; it’s a toad,” corrected Tai.
“Still…he’s on a giant toad.”
“Hey! You with the Key!” called the man, grabbing Grace’s attention, “If you see some ungrateful hotheaded knucklehead brat running around, tell him Master Jiraiya is looking for him!”
“Sure thing, toad guy!” called Grace.
The man waved and there was another explosion. When the smoke cleared, the man and the giant red toad was gone. “We should’ve asked him to take him to the others,” remarked Tai.
“Eh…where’s the fun in that?” asked Grace, walking over to the crystal. She touched the sparking crystal with her Keyblade. There was a humming noise and a lift from above stopped in front of them. Grace stepped onto the lift, followed by Tai.
“Do you even know where this goes?” asked Tai.
“As I said, where’s the fun?” she grinned, as the lift took them up. The lift took them up the side of the cliff stopping a little ways from the castle gates.
“I think we went a little too far,” remarked Tai, “Wasn’t the lab in the basements or something?”
“I’m sure we’ll find a way down once we get inside,” said Grace as she got off the lift. As they proceeded to the castle gates, swarms of more Darkball and Defender Heartless appeared. They weren’t hard to defeat but they were starting to get on Grace’s nerves. When Grace finally took out the last of the Defender Heartless they were at the castle gates. Tai pushed one of the doors open and they walked into the entrance hall. There was a grand staircase leading up to the upper level of the room and a fountain beneath it but there was still no sign of a staircase going to the basements. “There has to be a way down here somewhere,” said Grace as she looked around. She then spotted a door on the right side of the balcony. She took a step towards the grand staircase.
Another wave of Heartless appeared; a group of Defender and Shadow Heartless accompanied by three Wizard Heartless. “Ugh! Can’t you guys ever go away?!” Grace said angrily as she took down a Shadow Heartless. Defenders and Shadows she could deal with, but the Wizards by far were most annoying. They liked to move around a lot, sometimes even teleporting away from her, and whenever they cast a lightning spell, she couldn’t hit them. At one point, a Wizard Heartless teleported in front of Tai, who reached in his bag and pull out a can of silly string and sprayed the Heartless in the eyes. When the last one was finished off, they ran to the door before any more could spawn.
They had entered a library filled with thousands of books; a myriad of shelves that seemed to create its own maze in the room. “Now what?” asked Tai.
“We just got here. Give me a few seconds…” Grace reassured him but she knew they were only getting more and more lost.
“Hello? Is someone there?” called a voice.
The two of them looked up to the upper level of the library and saw a young woman with long black hair looking over the rail at them. “Uh…sorry to bother you, but we’re just trying to find the lab,” Grace called up to her.
“Really?” asked the woman as she walked down the stairs, “I’m looking for something too, well, someone really.” Grace now had a better look at her. Her eyes were a deep reddish brown and her skin was very fair, but above everything else Grace thought she was very pretty.
“We might have seen this person,” said Tai, “What does he or she look like?”
“A guy with spiky hair,” the woman described.
Grace could think of a few people that fit that description. “How spiky and how tall?” she asked.
“Very spiky and a little bit taller than me. He carries a big sword too and it’s not a Keyblade,” the woman added.
“Sorry,” Grace shook her head, “Can’t think of anyone.”
The woman sighed, “It’s alright. I’ll just have to keep looking. But at least I can help you. I’m getting a little tired of looking in this library. My name’s Tifa and you?”
“I’m Grace and this is my younger brother Tai. We were with Sora and the others but…it’s a long story,” explained Grace.
“No problem; I’ll get to where you need to be,” smiled Tifa and they followed her up the stairs. She lead them through a door and they entered a lift station in the middle of the castle. Grace looked up and saw dozens of lifts and stops, and was glad they found someone who at least knew where they were going.
They stepped onto the nearest lift and a hologram screen appeared near the opening, displaying a list of destination. “I’m glad Cid fixed the lifts up,” remarked Tifa as she made her selection, “A few days ago, you would never know where you were going unless you had a very good map.”
The lift moved to the left slightly to the main path, then dropped down a few stories to a recently cleared entrance. This area of the castle still looked like it was still under construction; it seemed a little bit more modern then the rest of the castle they had seen. Tifa walked in the room first and when she did a group of Heartless appeared. “Still around are you?” asked Tifa. She suddenly roundhouse kicked one in the face, knocking it into another Heartless.
Grace and Tai watched in amazement as she single handily took out each of the Heartless with only her hands and feet as weapons. Tifa then brushed off her hands and turned back to Grace and Tai. “Are you coming?” she asked and walked down into the corridor.
“She’s my new idol,” whispered Grace, with a spark in her eyes. Tai stared at her.
They followed Tifa down the corridor into an abandoned study where Sora and the others were waiting. “There they are!” said Joey.
“Where were you?” asked Sora, “We were about to go out and find you.”
“Everywhere,” Tai said before Grace could open her mouth, “She got us lost.”
“I did not!” Grace shouted.
Tifa, in the meanwhile, had taken notice of Balthier, “Well if it isn’t Balthier the sky pirate? Still leaving a trail of destruction in your wake?” Tifa raised an eyebrow.
Balthier rolled his eyes, “I can’t believe you’re still mad at me for burning down for your bar. And I’ll ask again, how is that my fault?”
“Yep, he still feigns innocence,” sighed Tifa, “You keeping him in line, Fran?”
“Always,” replied Fran, “But he can be hard at times.”
“Whose side are you on?” Balthier asked Fran.
“Are we all here?” Commander James had entered the study.
“Present and accounted for, sir,” replied Leon, “Are we ready on your end?”
“Jazz and Tron are getting ready to launch the decryption program,” said Commander James.
“All right. Everyone follow me,” Leon called and he walked into a corridor behind the study desk.
Everything now looked state of the art and very modern as if they had walked into a laboratory of Juno City. At the end of the corridor was a large open room of machinery but they only glimpsed it briefly before entering the computer room. Jazz was already at the controls hard at work. “All right Tron; reroute everything to terminal three and block all traffic from the outside,” said Jazz before looking up, “Hey, bout time you got here.”
“We had issues,” remarked Leon, “Heartless and the Commander.”
“The Commander? The Commander was here? What the hell was that mutta-” Grace and Matti covered Tai and Margot’s ears as Jazz cursed, “-doing here?”
“We’re not sure. Possibly why we’re here,” said Commander James.
“Well we better get this show on the road. Sam, get over here. AND DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!” Jazz shouted at Joey who was resisting not to mess around with the computer, “Or do you want us all zapped into the computer?”
“It’s not that bad,” said Sora, “We’ve been in there three times.”
“You’ve been inside the computer? Actually inside of it?” asked Joey with awe.
“Yeah,” Sora nodded, “With Tron.”
“Tron? Who’s Tron?” asked Grace.
“I’m Tron,” said a voice over the computer speakers.
“It’s an AI program,” Joey whispered, “An actual highly advance AI program.”
“Joey…breath,” said Matti, “I’m not giving you CPR if you pass out.”
“You ready Sam?” asked Jazz.
“I’m ready,” he said with a few cables from his wrists plugged into the machine, “Okay Tron, you can upload the configuration now.”
“Uploading now,” replied Tron.
“Running decryption program,” said Sam.
“Why do you need to run a decryption program?” asked Riku, “Haven’t you opened the stairs to the room before?”
“The program that opens the door keeps on resetting itself. I guess it so no one could find it,” explained Miki.
“Xehanort was a genius,” remarked Jazz, “An evil genius, but a genius none the less.”
“What are you doing? An Barcilioi matrix decipher?” asked Ling looking over Sam’s shoulder.
“Something like that,” grinned Sam.
“Oh…she can go near the computer, but I can’t?” fumed Joey.
“Hey, when did Ling and Sam get friendly? I thought they hated each others guts,” whispered Lucy.
“No, Ling just hated Sam’s guts and sort of liked him; Sam is madly in love with her,” explained Mitch.
“She’s been very giddy ever since Sam brought her back,” remarked Olette.
“They were alone for quite awhile after the cliff broke off,” added Kairi, “I wonder what happened down there.”
“I bet anything he confessed,” groaned Miki, “It’s about time too.”
“How much did he confess?” asked Grace, “It takes a lot to move Ling. Believe me: we saw ‘Tears of Endearment’. While we were balling (even Mitch was balling), she did not cry once.”
“Should we have an intervention, as we planned?” asked Lucy.
“Soon, when there’s time,” replied Mitch.
“Hey, you guys didn’t have an intervention for Roxas,” said Grace.
“That’s because it’s hard to get him. Believe me, we’ve tried. We even cornered Sora the one time and tried to get him to transform. He said he didn’t know how it worked, so we had to let him go, but mark my words,” Mitch said firmly, “We will get him.”
“Got it,” said Sam and he unplugged his wires.
“All right everyone,” said Commander James, “Follow me.” He lead them out of the other side of the computer room and down a flight of stairs.
“What is all this?” asked Matti, pointing to the machinery.
“This is where Xehanort and Maleficent manufactured the Heartless. Don’t worry; everything’s been disabled since the last incident,” reassured Leon.
“Can’t you just destroy it?” asked Riku.
“We will once we isolate it completely,” explained Aerith, “If we do it now, we would have to shut our entire defense system down and that will simply put the town at more risk.”
“Here we are,” said Commander James pointing to a staircase leading a hundred or so feet below. Although lights had been set up along the stairwell, the passageway still seemed unnaturally dark.
“Matti, maybe I should stay up here. I don’t want to go down there,” shivered Margot, squeezing her brother’s hand.
“It’s all right; nothing’s going to hurt you,” reassured Matti.
Margot still wouldn’t move.
“Tell you what Margot,” said Balthier, “You can stay with Tifa up here. That is, if she doesn’t mind.”
“No I don’t. Come here Margot,” Tifa held out her hand and Margot took it.
“Well only be a few minutes Margot,” reassured Clarise.
Margot nodded but held tightly onto Tifa’s hand.
The journey down into the basements was a long one. Sora swore with every step that he took, the temperature would drop another five more degrees. At one point, Sam stepped on the back of Anemone’s heel, causing her to scream so loud, that everyone jumped. But their nerves were put to the final test when they reached the bottom and entered a long white corridor with several cells. Tai squeezed on Grace’s hand as if he expected something horrific to pop out at any moment. Finally they reached the room they had traveled so far to get too. Sam hacked the door within a few seconds and allowed them inside.
It was a white and gray room with only a single chair in the very center of the room. But what really stood out were the black markings of chains scattered throughout the room. Fran followed Sam to the walls of the room. “These are the markings you found?” she asked.
Sam nodded and Fran touched them, causing them to spark with an electric blue glow. “This is a language that has not been seen for thousands of years,” she remarked.
“Can you read it?” asked Balthier.
“No,” she shook her head, “But by the way the symbols are repeating, it’s a spell. Judging by the length a very complex one.”
“This place really gives me the creeps,” said Anemone rubbing her arms.
“You’re telling me,” said Joey, taking out one of his scanners, “Hey…that’s weird.”
“What is it this time?” asked Donald.
“There’s traces of a half-life isotope here,” he explained.
“Half-life?” asked Goofy.
“It’s the time required for half of the atoms of a radioactive substance to become disintegrated,” explained Miki.
“Radioactive or magical,” remarked Joey, “Something was here, something powerful. But that’s not the weird thing.”
“What is the weird thing?” asked Hayner.
“Whatever it was, it’s energy signature is an almost exact match to Sora and Grace’s Trans-Drive clothes,” explained Joey.
“Are you sure?” asked Balthier.
Joey nodded. Sora noticed the underlying sense of the two of them knowing what it was. Balthier turned to Leon, “We need to get to Scared Forest, as soon as possible. It has not been touched, has it?”
“No,” Leon shook his head, “And for it’s occupants, it is as if no time has passed. But the way is dangerous; you won’t make it to the Forest by nightfall on foot.”
“We’re not going by foot,” said Balthier and he nodded to Commander James, who exchanged the nod.
“We’re leaving,” called Fran and followed Balthier back up the stairs.
The kids, Donald, and Goofy, gathered around Joey however. “What is it?” asked Lucy.
“Think about it: what else was the material for the Trans-Drive clothes made for?” asked Joey.
“You don’t mean-?” Grace broke off.
Joey nodded grimly, “Yeah, the knights’ armor. The armor of the Chasers.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chapter Thirteen is here! After recieving an urgent message from Commander James in Radiant Gardens, Sora and the gang have gone off to find up what's going on. What mysteries still lie in Ansem's Study?CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
THE OTHER ROOM
EN ROUTE TO RADIANT GARDENS
THE OTHER ROOM
EN ROUTE TO RADIANT GARDENS
“What’s with you?” Grace asked Ling. Ling, a usually calm and quiet person, was twisting in her seat and couldn’t seem to sit still for more than a minute. She and Ling were back in the Gummi ship with Sora, Donald, and Goofy, along with Kairi, following closely behind the Strahl.
“It’s nothing,” she said, turning away, her face red.
“You’re not PMS-ing, are you?” Grace whispered in her ear, so that the boys wouldn’t hear.
“No! Of course not!” she said so loudly, it made Donald almost lose control of the Gummi ship.
“Ling, what’s wrong?” Grace asked firmly.
Ling could see through Grace’s piercing look there was no way she was getting out of this. She slowly took a deep breath and said, “You know that guy, with Commander James?”
“Uh…Sam, right?” said Grace.
“Yeah…him,” Ling said quietly.
“Wait…do you like Sam?” asked Grace.
Ling suddenly wanted to say something but then closed her mouth and looked away. “I…don’t know,” she said.
“What do you mean you don’t know?! Either you do or you don’t,” said Grace.
“I know but…I said something…offensive…to him,” said Ling.
Grace was stumped. “You…said something…offensive? Ling, you’re the least offensive person I know. So, what did you say to him?”
“I called him a weapon, a weapon that was programmed by the Commander as a tool of destruction,” explained Ling.
Grace and Sora stared at her. “That isn’t exactly offensive,” remarked Sora.
“As I said, you’re the least offensive person I know,” sighed Grace.
“It may not sound offensive to you but it was offensive to whom she said it to,” explained Kairi, “Sam may be a weapon, but he was once human too, like the rest of us.”
“I don’t get it. I thought Sam was a human. I mean he looks like one,” Sora said with a puzzled look on his face.
“He’s a cyborg. A human that has it limbs replaced with machinery to serve the functions of the missing or replaced limbs or organs,” explained Grace, “It usually done for medical purposes, but they can be used to enhanced human capabilities.”
“Sam a full body cyborg which means 75% or more of his body is machinery. In Juno City, full body cyborgs were used in the military and later as protection against the Heartless. However, they weren’t many cyborgs manufactured since the start of production, due to the fact of a high failure rate percentage, either caused by the body rejecting the machinery or death from the surgical procedures. The Class A17 was scraped because the prototype was insubordinate,” explained Ling.
“Insubordinate?” asked Sora.
“I think that means he didn’t listen,” Goofy replied.
“I could believe that,” remarked Grace, “Wait…he was the prototype? Does that mean he’s the only one they made?”
“I believe so,” said Ling, “But even if he didn’t listen to the Commander, the Commander still designed his specs. What if he’s carrying around some chip inside of him that will take over his body and makes him do whatever the Commander wants him to do? Besides, he made the choice to become a cyborg, a weapon.”
“No he didn’t,” Kairi said abruptly, “He didn’t have a choice. Sam, well Miki told us he was one of the ‘first’.”
“One of the ‘first’?” asked Grace.
“She means he was one of the first that lived in Juno City. He originally born on our mother planet, Earth,” explained Ling.
“But that would make him over sixty years old!” exclaimed Grace.
“Miki said that when Sam was born, he rare type of disease. I think she said it was Lukemia,” explained Kairi.
“Leukemia,” corrected Grace, “Cancer of the blood,” she added to Sora who once again had a confused look on his face.
“There was no cure for him at the time and when they evacuated him from Earth to Juno, his condition worsen. If they didn’t put him into a cryogenic sleep, he would’ve died,” explained Kairi.
“Whoa…I didn’t know they actually did cryogenic sleeping,” said Grace.
“In very rare cases, they do,” explained Ling, “I would guess they have perfected the procedure enough at the time Sam went to sleep that reviving a person was possible.”
“However,” Kairi continued, “He wasn’t revived until almost sixty years later. His family, his friends, they were all dead. And it was the Commander looking over him when he first woke up. It was simply an accident when the Commander stumbled upon Sam’s old medical files. He had been looking for subjects to test out his new cyborg model design, and turned to those frozen in a cryosleep. As it would turn out, Sam’s body was an ideal match. So the Commander gave him an ultimatum. As there still was no cure for Sam’s leukemia, if he chose not to become a cyborg, he would die soon. And even if there was a risk he would die still on the operating table, there was still a good chance he would make it. And Sam said yes. Miki doesn’t know why he said it; no one does. It could’ve been because he wasn’t entirely aware when he woke up, or he was just afraid of dying. Whatever the case he took the offer.
“Sam’s operation went well and almost right after he was given the go for his fully functioning new parts, he began to train. When the Commander was satisfied, he scheduled a demonstration for his new cyborg model. Commander James was invited to this demo. Some of them like the new model, but most of them including Commander James thought Sam was too young to fight. That’s when the demo went wrong. Miki, didn’t go into all the details, but Sam refused to do something,” explained Kairi.
“But you don’t say no to the Commander,” Grace said firmly, “The Commander’s word is law, and by breaking the law, comes with a heavy punishment. So how did he get out?”
“Commander James saved him during the Juno City Crisis,” explained Kairi, “He asked Sam to come with him, or he could do what he wanted. Sam made the better choice; that’s all that matters, I think.”
Ling was still unconvinced, or at least her face showed it. But as for her heart, she wasn’t so sure. “Choice…I wish my parents had a choice,” she muttered, then said, “The Commander still built him. So far, everything the Commander’s built has been either weapons or things that bring chaos.”
“That doesn’t mean Sam’s evil-” Sora started to say.
“Oh, that’s right! You know everything about evil!” Ling said sarcastically, “What do you know? I was learning ways to kill Heartless years before you even heard of the Keyblade! You actually think you understand what evil is? You don’t! You wouldn’t be able to comprehend it!”
“Ling! Stop it!” Grace grabbed Ling’s arm, but she broke free of her grip.
“No! You don’t understand! My family was killed in the Heartless Colony Massacre! But it wasn’t Heartless; it was the Commander. He quarantined off the colony my family was living in when the Heartless attacked us. Then ordered his soldiers to kill everyone inside the area out of fear of contamination! My mother, my father, my brothers, my sister, my grandmother; all of them were killed! My grandfather barely had enough time to grab me and flee. That’s why no matter what the Commander does, it nothing but hatred and sorrow. Sam may have his reasons, but I’ll never trust him! Never!” And with that Ling took off down the ladder and slam the hatch shut.
The cockpit room was quiet for a while. Then Grace, “I didn’t know that, nor did I know she had that sort of loathing for the Commander or anything he made.”
“What the Heartless Colony Massacre really bad?” asked Kairi.
“I remember the King talking about it once,” remarked Donald, “He said it was one of the worst disasters to befall the worlds.”
“Disaster would have been an understatement,” remarked Grace, “Back on Juno, the Heartless are real monsters. When they first arrived, no one knew what was about to hit them. They wiped out armies of soldiers before they could blink, destroying colony after colony. I remember everyone panicking when they got closer to the City; it was like the end of the world. If Joey’s grandfather hadn’t saved us, I might’ve not been here. However, I don’t doubt what Ling said. The Commander probably thought it was some sort of radical disease, instead of aliens born from the darkness in people’s hearts.”
“Poor Ling,” Sora said sadly.
One of the Gummi ship’s buzzers went off. They looked up and saw a world approaching in the distance. It gave off a warm pink and blue glow as they grew closer, then blossomed with spots of orange, red, purple, and green. They broke through the atmosphere and gently descended on the outskirts of a town. Sora and Grace were the first to reach the top of the town wall.
Grace found herself looking across a busy marketplace. It was filled with many vendors, both human and a strange mixture of species that seemed vaguely familiar but yet different from anything she could imagine. Across the market place was a towering castle in the middle of construction. To the north was a great valley and beyond that was something in the distance Grace couldn’t make out. To the northeast was a dense forest, shrouded in mist.
“Radiant Gardens: once one of the most popular trading posts in the universe and tourist attraction.” They turned around. The passengers of the Strahl had arrived. Balthier continued, “The world was once ruled by the great philosopher Ansem the Wise, your grandfather,” he added to Grace, “Unfortunately, his curiosity and easy ability to trust got the better of him. His apprentices would create the Heartless and they would become Nobodies. Their experiments would lead to near destruction of this world. I’m glad to see at least these people are starting to put this world back on track.”
“That’s because we put a stop to Maleficent and the Organization,” Sora said proudly.
Balthier couldn’t help but smile back, “That you did Keyblade Master; that you did.”
“Where do you thing the others are?” asked Margot.
“They’re probably with Leon and the gang,” suggested Sora, “They might be in the town.”
“We still have resupply. We might as well do that now since we’re in the market,” suggested Balthier, “But don’t go to far, especially you two,” he pointed to Sora and Grace.
Grace and Sora both frowned at him and took off in different directions. Unfortunately for Anemone, what she considered as resupplying was looking at jewelry. She went over to the vendor and looked though what they had to offer. “Is this all?” she asked, “Just a bunch of rings?”
“You should be satisfied with the necklace Pence gave you,” remarked Clarise.
“Oh I’m more than satisfied with that,” said Anemone, “But I can still look at accessories, can’t I?”
“You are so materialistic,” Clarise rolled her eyes.
Anemone stuck her tongue out at her but then stopped. That smell…it couldn’t be, she thought.
“What is it?” asked Clarise.
“It’s cologne,” said Anemone, “But…it smells like the kind Father wears.”
“You don’t think, he’s here?” asked Clarise.
Anemone shook her head.
“Do you think he would spot us?” asked Clarise.
“Of course he would!” said Anemone, “Have you not noticed our hair color all these years?! Anyway, we should stay with the others.”
As Anemone and Clarise tried to get back to Balthier and the others as quickly as they could, Tai stared curiously at a Moogle floating a few inches above him. “Gracey, is that a fairy?” he asked.
“That’s not a fairy, silly,” laughed Grace, “It’s a Moogle. They’re really smart and they make items. Am I right?”
“Righto, kupo!” said the Moogle, “So have any items to synthesize?”
“I got a couple,” Grace pulled out a few gems she collected.
“How’s this?” Tai pulled out a large bag of colorful gems.
“Whoa,” remarked Grace.
“Please enter your account number,” the Moogle handed over a touch pad.
“Account number? What are you? A bank?” asked Grace.
“You must have an account in order to synthesize items. It’s how we keep records of our customers, kupo. Just write your full name here, your initials here, date and sign at the bottom, kupo,” the Moogle gave her a separate touch pad.
Grace scanned the legal stuff, signed where she was suppose to, and handed the touch pad back to the Moogle. “Now choose your four-digit pass code. We encourage you not to use your birthday or especially the last four digits of your GIN or Galactic Identification Number, kupo.”
“I have not idea what that is, so let’s try this,” Grace punched in 1-7-9-3.
The Moogle then did a small dance in the air, played with its hands, and a slip of paper magically appeared in it’s fingers. “Here you go, Kupo! It’s your account number. What to try it out?”
Grace nodded and the Moogle handed her the first touch pad. She typed in the account number followed by her pass code. “As a first time user, you have nothing in your account, Kupo,” explained the Moogle, “Would you like to add your synthesis items now?” The Moogle pulled out an opened purple box.
Grace and Tai dumped their items inside the purple box. The Moogle then closed the box, shook it, and put it away. “You can’t make anything yet, kupo, but for opening an account and giving us at least one synthesis item, you receive this complementary Elixir! Thanks, kupo!” The Moogle gave Tai a small glowing orange orb about the size of a baseball.
Tai sniffed the orb. “It smells fruity,” he said. He then opened his mouth to taste it.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Balthier had come up behind them. “Elixirs are rare items to come by and for good reason. They have the power to fully restore an injured warrior in the heat of battle. I would hold on to it for the moment.”
Tai studied it some more, then handed it to Grace. “No, you hold on it,” she said, “I would probably use it up in no time.”
He tucked it away in his bag and they joined the others eating ice cream. Kairi handed Grace and Tai a light blue frozen Popsicle. When Grace tasted it, the sweet yet salty taste jumped out at her, as if she had something just like it before. Donald was trying to find out how much the price was all the ice cream from a duck about the same size as him with a fine gentleman’s hat. “Who’s that?” Grace asked Joey.
“Donald’s uncle, apparently,” said Joey as he nibbled at his ice cream.
“But Uncle Scrooge, can’t you give us a discount?” asked Donald.
“I’m sorry nephew but these prices are fixed. Have to keep up with the Galactic Federation’s tariffs; they’re getting more ridiculous each year,” remarked Uncle Scrooge, “Thankfully my sea-salt ice cream is a hot seller from here to Twilight Town.”
“Sea-salt ice cream? This is sea-salt ice cream?” asked Grace.
“Didn’t you know?” Sora raised an eyebrow.
“Donald’s uncle runs a transit system between the worlds,” said Goofy.
“A very complicated and expensive trade system, I might add,” remarked Uncle Scrooge, “Now, that will be 3200 Munny.”
“What to pay for some of that?” Donald shot a look at Balthier.
“Me?” Balthier looked at him confused, “I was under the impression you were paying for it.”
Donald grungy pulled out his wallet, when Grace said, “Wait!” She grabbed Sora and started going through his pockets.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Shut up!” she snapped at him and then said “Ah-ha!” pulling a slip of paper from his back pocket. “I believe this entitles us to free ice cream for a year.”
Uncle Scrooge took the paper and examined it. “Where did you get this?” he asked.
“We won it in a Struggle Tournament. Is that not your signature at the bottom then?” asked Grace.
“Yes, well…it is my signature, you’re right. Oh fine then! The ice cream is free of charge, but next time you’ll pay the tax,” huffed Uncle Scrooge.
“Thank you, Roxas,” Grace whispered handing the coupon back to Sora.
Tai was staring off into the distance, when someone’s face got into his view. A girl with a scarf and headband blinked at him but there was something odd about the face. It suddenly dawned on him: the girl was upside down. “Hi,” she smiled at him.
Tai jumped back with a scream.
Grace, Balthier, and Fran drew their weapons but then Sora said, “Oh hi Yuffie.”
“Yuffie? What’s a Yuffie?” asked Kairi.
“I’m Yuffie,” said the girl.
“Ew!” Anemone studied Yuffie’s clothes, “What are you suppose to be? A ninja?”
“Of course!” smiled Yuffie.
“Figures you would say that,” muttered Anemone.
“Hey!”
Sora and the others looked around and saw Hayner, Pence, and Olette running towards them. Hayner was out of his wheelchair and Olette’s smile was a little bit brighter. “Miss Anemone!” Pence cried with joy and went to his “Lady”.
“I see you’re kicking,” Grace said to Hayner.
“I’ve been kicking. And I wanna another shot at little miss vampire. Maybe if I squeeze her hard enough she’ll turn into a bat,” grinned Hayner.
“Hayner!” Olette shot him a look.
“So what is that you called us here for?” asked Balthier.
“As we said in the message, it’s super classified. No one else knows about it outside the Gardens,” Yuffie said in an undertone, “We’ll talk about it when we get to the borough.”
The girl then took off down the street, waving her hand for them to follow her. Tai took Grace’s hand and they walked behind Hayner and Olette following the others.
“Have the Heartless been causing any problems?” asked Sora.
“Not really. They haven’t been as active in the town since the last time you guys visited. They’re still roaming about on the outskirts and in the castle, and every so often we run into a Nobody, but it’s nothing we can’t handle,” said Yuffie.
“Man,” sighed Grace, “I was hoping for some action.”
“Me too. I haven’t done much since we got to Port Royal,” remarked Kairi. The two of them both sighed at the same time.
“Is it just me, or are Kairi and Grace very alike?” Donald asked Goofy.
“Hmmm…” Goofy studied the girls for a moment, “Well, they’re sorta the same height, and they got the same eyes. They both think alike too. Do ya think they’re related?”
“Of course not!” frowned Donald, “Where would you get an idea like that?”
Goofy shrugged but did not let the idea go out of his head.
The borough was a little suburb of brick houses with chimney’s rising out of the top of most of them. Most of the houses looked like they were still under some form of reconstruction while the streets looked newly repave. As Yuffie lead the group across the streets, they would see large metal balls about the size of a large fist scurry around on the ground.
“That must be the defense system,” awed Joey, pulling out a notepad, “I’ll say titanium shell, opening up to send out electric charges. Controlled by some sort of central system most likely.”
“You seem to know a lot,” remarked Yuffie.
“Nah, Joey’s just good at dreaming stuff like that up. Right, Joey?” grinned Hayner.
Joey folded his arms, but then Margot took his hand gently and said, “Don’t forget, big brother: you came up with the jamming system on Juno City and that’s way better than what anyone else has.”
This took Joey’s frown away just in time. Yuffie stopped at a large cottage in the center of the borough and was opening the door. “I’m home!” She called, “And lookie who I found!”
They entered a single room filled with a large computer in one corner and an odd assortment of books in another. There was a small kitchen on one side of the room and a staircase leading upstairs. Three people were inside: an older gruff man with blonde hair was at the computer; a young woman in her twenties with a long brown braid, pink dress, and pretty green eyes in the kitchen; and a man about the woman’s age with a scar across his nose leaning against the wall.
“Well if ain’t the great heroes themselves,” said the older man.
“We knew you would come back,” said the young woman walking away from her mixing bowl.
“Welcome back, Sora, Donald, Goofy,” said the other man. He then noticed Riku and Kairi. “I see you found your friends.”
Sora nodded. “I also made some new ones.”
“A lot of them by the look of it,” remarked the older man, “I’ll say this is the bunch from Juno City.”
“How could you tell?” asked Lucy.
“Those two stick out like a sore thumb,” the older man nodded to Clarise and Anemone, “The Commander just placed a search warrant out for them. Feds are trying to rule against it but he has every right to look for his daughters.”
“Did they consider the fact we don’t want to go back?” frowned Anemone, folding her arms.
“That’s what they’re arguing,” sighed the man, “These Juno City people have been causing quite a stir, but not as much as you, Grace Porter. Rumor has it as the Keyblade Master’s Apprentice you’re to be the next Aqua.”
“Whoa, whoa! Apprentice?” Sora stared at Grace, “Since when were you my apprentice?”
“Like I know,” said Grace, “I surely didn’t put that down on my ‘what I want to be when I grow up’ paper.”
“Well if you didn’t, who did?” asked Sora.
“The will of the Gods,” replied Balthier, “Grace is your second; she is next in line to take the Keyblade if you happen to die suddenly. If you want further proof, recall that when you fell unconscious during your first battle with Xine, Grace was able to wield your Keyblade.”
“So…who are you guys?” asked Grace.
“This is Leon, Aerith, and Cid,” Sora introduced the man, the young woman, and the older man respectfully, “They’re part of the Hallow Bastion Restoration Committee.”
“With one little change of course,” explained Leon, “We’re now the Radiant Gardens Restoration Committee.”
“So, did Cloud come back yet?” asked Sora.
Leon and Cid were silent, Yuffie hung her head, and Aerith looked out the window quietly.
“Who’s Cloud?” Lucy asked in a whisper.
“Dunno. Sounds like a pet name,” said Ling.
“What about Tifa?” asked Donald.
“She shows up every now and then, usually as clueless as ever…” remarked Cid.
“Is Merlin gone too?” asked Goofy.
“He left some time ago to the Flying City to speak with the Angelus King. He should be back soon,” explained Aerith.
“The Flying City?” asked Grace.
“The capital of the Angelus,” explained Fran, “Where the royal family resides.”
“And Commander James?” asked Balthier.
“He’s over at the restoration site at the castle with Jazz. Miki and Sam are here. We’ll discuss more over lunch, which reminds me…Aerith, are you suppose to be making lunch?” asked Leon.
“Oh my!” Aerith suddenly stood up and ran back to the kitchens, “I hope the meat didn’t burn!”
As she ran off to check on the meat, Yuffie called up the stairs. “Miki! Sam! Lunch is ready!”
“About time,” grumbled Sam as he walked down the stairs but stopped for a brief second when he saw Ling. Their eyes met for a small second in time but then Ling looked away.
“Are the others here yet?” asked Miki.
“Come see for yourself!” said Yuffie with a smile.
“Gracey!” Miki’s face lit up when she saw everyone, “Kairi! Lucy! Ling! Mitch!” She threw her arms around Grace tightly. “It’s been so long since we last saw each other!”
“It’s only been a few days, and you’re crushing me!” Grace gasped for breath.
“Sorry!” Miki let go of her and grabbed Kairi.
“Deep breaths, Gracey, deep breaths,” said Tai.
“Shut it!” she hissed.
“Can we eat?” Matti’s stomach growled.
“Yes, first we’ll eat,” agreed Leon.
Aerith outdone herself by serving them a full course meal of roasted chicken, fresh baked breath, sautéed potatoes, fresh greens, and a large pitcher of homemade lemonade. Only Leon stayed away from the lemonade.
“So what was it like on Port Royal?” asked Olette.
“Well there was pirates, ships, a big giant monster with lots of tentacles, and a chest with a beating fish guy’s heart in it,” said Lucy, “Did I miss anything?”
“Cannibals and the witch lady,” replied Margot.
“Oh yeah! And the cannibals and the creepy witch lady,” added Lucy.
“Did you run into her?” asked Hayner.
“She showed her face,” Grace said, knowing who the ‘her’ he was referring to was, “She got away but next time…she’s going down!” She stabbed her salad.
“Something isn’t right though,” remarked Margot.
“What isn’t right?” asked Clarise.
“That Xine is working for the Commander,” explained Margot, putting down her fork, “If you ask me, Xine is like Anemone.”
“She is not!” Anemone opened her mouth, her food dropping out of it, “How can you even compare me to her?!”
“I don’t know; I see plenty of a resemblance,” Sora said in an undertone. Donald and Goofy started to laugh until Anemone shot them the evil eye.
“What I mean is,” continued Margot, “Xine isn’t really someone to be controlled, like Anemone. She does what she wants; even her handler David has trouble controlling her. I don’t think Xine is voluntarily working for the Commander.”
“But if she isn’t ‘voluntarily’ working for the Commander, what did the Commander promise her then?” asked Matti.
“What Xemnas couldn’t give her or any other Nobody: their humanity,” explained Joey.
“Do you think the Commander has the power to do that?” asked Lucy.
“Not really, but if he’s experimenting, he might have found something,” remarked Joey.
“Do you think he can make Nobodies human?” asked Matti.
“It’s not entirely impossible, but the Commander right now, is more interested in the opposite,” explained Joey.
Balthier listened with interest, then turned to Leon, “So, what is it that you found?”
Leon lowered his fork, then said, “We found a hidden staircase in the Heartless factory. About three stories down, is where Xehanort conducted his experiments.”
Everyone at the table was silent. “What kind of experiments?” asked Grace.
“The worst kind,” remarked Cid, “Experiments on the heart.”
“The Ansem reports,” whispered Joey.
Leon nodded. “And that’s not else. We found another room, but we don’t know what to think of it. We thought you might be able to tell us something.”
“It might be A’lak de Magika,” added Aerith.
“A’lak de Magika,” breathed Fran, “Old magic.”
“Yeah, we found these ruins on the walls, and when you touch it, it glows a little,” remarked Sam.
“Can you translate it?” asked Balthier.
“No, it’s nothing my translators can even recognize,” replied Sam.
Balthier finished eating then said, “I would like to see this room as soon as possible, preferably now.”
Leon nodded and started to get up. Almost everyone was done, except for Joey who was more interested in thinking that eating. They put their plates in the sink and walked out of the house into the borough. Leon and Yuffie led them towards the end of the rows of houses and up a flight of stairs to a barracks overlooking a ridge valley. As Grace looked across the valley, she saw a group of stand alone towers a mile or so away. She only looked at them for a moment but could’ve sworn she saw the Heartless emblem on one of them.
They travel across the barracks and down the other side to a path leading towards a reconstructed castle. Grace stopped to look up and admire it. “So…she lived here,” she said.
“Who?”
Grace turned around and saw Kairi standing behind her.
“My mother,” explained Grace, “She was raised here. She said her father was the leader of this world. I guess that makes me Ansem’s granddaughter.”
“But…I’m suppose to be the princess. Or at least…that’s what people say,” Kairi looked from the castle to Grace, “But if your Ansem’s granddaughter and I’m the princess, what are you to me?”
“A cousin if anything,” smiled Grace.
“You’re not a princess?” asked Kairi.
“I don’t think so, only because I think my mother renounced her title. Remember? Terra, Sora’s uncle, renounced his title when he found he was to be a Chaser. I believe the same happened with her,” explained Grace.
“You don’t know for sure?” Kairi raised an eyebrow.
“I only knew her for an hour,” shrugged Grace. She looked back up at the castle. “It’s funny: Juno is so far away and yet I had ties here,” she looked over her left shoulder, “Was wondering when they would show up.”
A swarm of Heartless had appeared; a small army of Shadow and Soldier Heartless. “You ready for this?” asked Grace as she summoned her Keyblade.
“Been ready since Port Royal!” grinned Kairi, calling up her own Keyblade.
The Heartless were mere pushovers compared to the more intelligent fish pirates of Davy Jones. A few minutes later, Grace cut down the last Heartless and the two of them rejoined with the rest of the group at the base of the castle. A newly built pathway lead to a hole that marked the entrance to the basements of the castle.
“What took you guys so long?” asked Sora.
“Heartless. Don’t worry,” Kairi added when she saw the look on Sora’s face, “We took care of them.”
“But Kairi, it’s dangerous out there!”
“Sora, I can handle myself,” remarked Kairi.
“Really? How many times have you been kidnapped?”
As Sora and Kairi started to argue, Clarise looked around nervously, her hands shaking. Matti noticed her trembling. “What’s the matter, Clarise?” he asked.
“Nothing!” she lowered her hands, “I’m just cold.”
“Cold? At this temperature? Where are you from? The tropics?” asked Yuffie.
Clarise laughed weakly but still was unable to shake the feeling of unease. “Perhaps we should go inside,” she suggested.
“We would if those two would shut up,” Riku shook his head at Sora and Kairi.
Something vibrated in Joey’s pocket. “Hold this,” he shoved into Goofy’s hands his laptop and sketchpad, and started to go through his pockets. He pulled out several miniature robots, his wallet, graphing calculator, several microchips, before finally reaching in and taking hold of something that looked like a cellphone.
“What’s that?” asked Miki.
“One of my scanners. It detects high frequencies of EM waves, like Heartless portals, Nobodies crossing between realms-” He stopped and stared at his screen, “Whoa…”
“‘Whoa’ what?” asked Balthier.
“The signal’s huge. Whatever’s coming in is either very high or very powerful,” explained Joey, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“How powerful?” asked Leon.
“Astronomical! Scratch that…they are two separate signals; two transportals,” Joey corrected himself, “I recognize both of them, but one of them I haven’t seen since-”
“Destiny Islands,” Balthier finished for him mid-sentence.
“It’s him!” whispered Clarise.
“Daddy!” Anemone clenched her fist. Sora and Kairi stopped arguing when she said that.
Sam’s eyes then went wide. “Everyone get down!” he shouted just before pulling Ling and Miki down flat on the ground. A second later, an explosion went off. Balthier managed to pull Fran and Grace down when a bright blue wave shot across where they once stood.
“What the heck was that?” asked Grace.
“A Demajickfier Pulse. Similar to an EM-bomb but does a different kind of damage,” explained Sam, “It scatters the magical energy for a few moments so we can’t use magic right away. If you get hit with it, it knocks you unconscious. No magical energy means-”
“No Keyblades,” finished Sora.
“Yes, quite an unfortunate side effect I must say.”
They all looked up and saw the Commander standing on one of the many large pipes that lead up into the castle with Xine and David. “But quite a useful advantage,” continued the Commander as he smiled malevolently, “Let me see; quite a large group of people we have here. The Keyblade Master, the Sky Pirates, the Mouse, my daughters, Princess Kairi, Princess Lucy, the Chairman’s granddaughter, Carter’s grandchildren, the locals, the hacker Jazz’s daughter, Riku of the Dawn, and ah…if it isn’t my failed experiment, the A17 prototype.”
“My name is Sam and I am not a failure!” Sam clenched his fist. His eyes then started to glow. There was a clicking noise and his body started to transform. It wasn’t like he was changing shape, but rather changing into his cyborg armor. The joints in his elbows, hands, wrists, shoulders, knees, and ankles opened up, releasing his armor hidden within his body and aligned it in perfect order without ripping through his clothes, but simply covering up like the rest of his skin. His chest then opened up to release his torso armor and it unfolded upwards to create his helmet. The complicated assembly only took a matter of seconds. There was another clicking nose and Sam’s visor lifted so the Commander could see the fierce determination in his eyes.
“Whoa…” Grace breathed.
“Yes, a successful operation but yet a failure when it comes to listening,” smirked the Commander.
Sam wanted to attack but Miki held him back with much difficulty.
“Hmmm…it seems to me I don’t recognize these three,” the Commander nodded his head in Hayner, Pence, and Olette’s direction.
“I do,” said Xine, her hood still up, “They’re from Twilight Town, though what they’re doing so far away from there, I don’t know. It seems the boy I thought I killed is still alive. I’ll have to make sure I do the job right this time,” she flashed her needles.
“Oh no you won’t! Not this time!” Hayner raised a fist.
“How much time do we got before we can use the Keyblades?” Sora asked Sam.
“Another good minute,” he replied, “As long as the Commander keeps on talking.”
But the Commander stopped his chitchat. Instead, he snapped his fingers and swarm of Armored Knight, Bookmaster, Morning Star, Soldier, and Surveillance Robot Heartless. He then turned to Xine. “Remember; I want the Keyblade Master and the Mouse alive. My daughters are not to be harmed. Kill the others.”
“With pleasure,” smiled Xine and she jumped down into the battle.
“This isn’t good,” remarked Lucy as the Heartless gathered around them.
“Here!” Miki threw a few LASERlights into the air for the Keyblade User, “These should help!”
Grace shot down a few Heartless but she knew that unless that got back the use of their Keyblades the Heartless would overwhelm them. At least she thought, until Miki pulled out a large gun from her arsenal. “Shock, drop, and roll baby!” she grinned as the gun shot out bolts of lightning taking out a few of the Heartless.
“What was that?” asked Grace.
“This thing shocks ‘em, they drop, and they roll back to the darkness whence they came,” explained Miki as she took a few more Heartless out.
In the meanwhile, Xine had made her way towards Hayner and Olette. “Ready for another round?” she asked curling her lips.
“I’ve been ready!” Hayner took out his Struggle club.
“No! Hayner, don’t!” pleaded Olette, trying to get him out of it, but he shrugged her off.
“Stay out of this!” he said, tightening his grip on his club.
Xine was first to make her move. She disappeared, throwing Hayner off guard. As Hayner looked around to find her, Xine appeared behind him and knocked him off his feet onto the ground. “Hayner!” Olette rushed down next to him as Xine came in to give the finishing blow.
At that second, Pence jumped in front of her to protect them. Xine frowned and knocked him aside with one blow. She didn’t however, see Anemone coming in, slamming her right fist into Xine’s face. Xine stumbled for a second as Anemone glared at her. “Don’t you dare touch my boyfriend!” Anemone said angrily.
Xine wiped the blood off her lip and got back on her feet. “You’re father said not to kill you; that doesn’t mean I can’t teach you a lesson.”
“Bring it on, bitch!” Anemone stuck out her tongue.
As Xine and Anemone started to fight, Sora’s LASERlight was starting to jam. When it jammed up completely, he threw it aside and lifted his hand. “Come on! Come on! All most there!” He could feel the Keyblade’s power, so close in reach. “There!” he said, finally able to summon it once more. He slashed though a Heartless and noticed Lucy and Margot were in trouble, surrounding by two Morning Star Heartless.
Margot held on tight to Lucy as she fired round after round of bullets at Heartless, but she was running low on ammo. Finally her guns gave out. “Oh…crap…” she muttered.
The Heartless jumped and Lucy crouched over to protect Margot. But the Heartless never came. Lucy looked up and saw a wall of water above her head, blocking the Heartless. “D” she whispered.
“Guys! We got company!” shouted Joey as his scanner went off again.
Xine stopped her battle with Anemone and stood straight up. “I was wondering when you were going to show your face, traitor,” she looked over her shoulder at Demyx who had his Sitar pointed at her back, his hood up.
“Isn’t that the guy we beat earlier during the Heartless invasion?” Goofy asked Donald.
“Yeah, except I thought we got rid of him!” Donald waved his staff around.
“No way; how did he survive?” asked Sora.
“Traitor, am I?” Demyx still had his focus on Xine, “Then what does that make you?”
“I have my reasons,” she said with a frown and they started to battle.
The Commander then nodded to David, who then jumped down to finish what Xine had originally started, only this time he went after Grace. By now she had regained use of her Keyblade and was ready for him. She blocked his bio-arm saber and threw him off but he wasn’t done with her yet. David came at her again and she jumped out of the way just in time but his bio-arm saber struck the ground. As he was starting to pull his arm sword out of the ground, the floor started to crack. Apparently the reconstructed pathway wasn’t as complete as they had thought, that or the force of David’s attack had struck so much force the walkway couldn’t handle it.
Unfortunately, the one side was falling over the edge of the cliff, and Grace, Lucy, Ling, Tai, and Olette just happened to be on that side. The broken side of the platform jerked toward the ground below; it was starting to break off faster. Grace tried to grab hold of the edge that was still attached to the platform, Tai clinging on her, attempting to pull the two of them up, although she was more worried about Lucy, Ling, and Olette who were barely hanging on the other edge, the one where it was a good one hundred or so drop to the ground. Sora reached for her hand, trying to grab it, but just as Grace touched his fingers, the platform gave away, and broke off. The girls and Tai screamed.
Demyx stopped his battle with Xine just as the platform fall. He saw Lucy and cursed with “No!” and rushed forward off the cliff. Sam joined him in the dive down. Sora got up on his feet to jump off with them but Balthier held him back.
“You’ll be killed for sure if you do that!” Balthier said as Sora struggled.
“But what about them!” Sora argued.
Sam grabbed hold of Ling as she tumbled downward, unconscious. He watched as Demyx grabbed hold of Lucy and Olette, but he had no way of slowing down. “Come on! Come on!” muttered Demyx.
Sam stared as there was something trying to come out of Demyx’s back. There was a blinding white light and Sam saw wings, pure white angel wings from Demyx’s back. He watched in awe as Demyx turned himself up right and using his wings slowed down their falling speed. Sam thought it was a good idea to do the same thing.
He too turned himself upright and slowed his speed with his thrusters in his feet. Demyx managed to pull Olette and Lucy to a small over hang not far from the pathway. Sam then turned his attention back on Grace and Tai who were still falling.
Grace was unconscious but Tai was still awake. He pulled something from his pack; a small rubber pink ball. He shook it and threw it downward. It exploded but transformed into a giant pink balloon. He and Grace bounced when they hit the balloon but were able to stay on. The balloon gently floated downward toward the bottom.
When Sam was sure they were alright, he turned his attention to Ling and looked for a place to touchdown.
Lucy was finally able to focus. She looked up at the cliff edge above and shuttered at the thought of how many feet she had dropped, as well as how many more feet she could’ve feel if Demyx hadn’t save her and Olette.
“Are you alright?” she heard Demyx ask.
“Yeah, I’m fine-” she stopped when she noticed his wings, “What-? How-? Does it hurt?” she found herself asking.
“A little,” he winced rubbing his shoulder, “But only because it’s been a while since I last used them.”
“Do…all Nobodies like you have wings?” asked Lucy.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no! I’ve had this since I was human. I think I got it from-” He stopped. Olette was starting to stir. “Lettie,” Lucy heard him whisper.
Olette sat up and looked at Lucy, then at Demyx wide eyed. Demyx quickly threw his hood over his face and said to Lucy, “Sorry,” before disappearing.
“Who…was that?” asked Olette.
Lucy shrugged. “Never saw him.”
“Strange. I thought…” Olette shook her head.
“What?” asked Lucy, afraid she had heard them talking.
“He looked like my older brother,” she said.
“Your older brother?” Lucy asked her, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, but…he died in an accident years ago. Died at the scene. It’s impossible that it’s him but yet…strange,” she looked up the cliff. The others were climbing down now towards them.
“Yeah…strange,” remarked Lucy.
************************************************************************
Sam laid Ling down in the ruins of an old walkway leading up into the castle. He looked over, lifting his visor, and asked, “Hey, are you alright?”
The reply came as a punch to the face. “OWWW!” Sam rubbed his nose as Ling sat up.
“Sorry! I thought- oh, never mind. It’s you,” frowned Ling, “Wait…you saved me?”
“Would you have preferred failing to your death?” asked Sam.
“No, but why?” Ling asked.
“You fell. I couldn’t just sit back and let you just fall. Maybe it was instinct. I dunno,” Sam folded his arms.
“I think you wanted to look all macho. You’re still in your cyborg armor I see,” Ling pursed her lips.
“I haven’t had time to change out of it! Any way,” Sam calmed down, “I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“Fine; I’m listening. I don’t have anything better to do,” Ling said as she got up.
There was a clicking nose; Sam had opened up his chest armor, exposing his upper torso. “What are you doing?” Ling asked.
“Come here,” said Sam.
Ling continued to make a face but reluctantly walked to him. “Put your hand right here,” Sam instructed, pointing to his chest.
“What for?” asked Ling, with a puzzled look.
“You won’t understand as much if you don’t do it,” said Sam. Ling sighed and placed her hand on his chest. “Well?” asked Sam, “Do you feel anything?”
“What am I suppose to be feeling? All I can feel is your breathing and…” She wanted to put her hand down; this is stupid, she thought. But she saw Sam give an encouraging nod, as if to finish her sentence, “…and your heart.”
“It isn’t mine,” he said quietly.
“What?” Lucy took her hand off his chest and his armor recovered it.
“It’s not my heart. They had to get rid of my…old one. It was…inefficient they said. So they gave me a new one; one enhanced to keep up with my speed. It came from somebody else. Okay, not really, but it was made from stem cells, someone else’s stem cells, someone that just matched up to me. But that’s not all. Give me your dagger,” said Sam.
“What dagger?” asked Ling, trying to hide the surprise in her face.
“The dagger you think no one knows about you have hidden underneath your skirt,” explained Sam.
He had her there. With another frown she pulled out the dagger from the concealed buckle underneath her skirt and handed the dagger over. “How’d you know? X-ray vision, perv?” she asked.
“As if; electric current potential,” he explained, taking the dagger, “For detecting bomb shrapnel.” The armor from his left hand unfolded and he slashed the dagger across his hand, making a deep, long cut across his palm, not even flinching.
Ling gasped as the blood started to flow out.
“It’s alright,” he reassured her, “See: the nanomachines inside me are doing their work,” he pointed to the cut, which was quickly starting to close up, “But,” he rubbed his blood between his fingers, “This isn’t mine either; none of it. Out of all the structure of my human anatomy, my blood was the first thing I lost, when I was frozen. Do you know how they put you into a cryogenic sleep?” he asked her.
Ling shook her head.
“First they put you under, to get you calm and ready, I guess. Then they lower your body temperature, slowly, to slow the heart down. When the temperature gets low enough, the heart stops. Induced hypothermia they call it. Then they have to get rid of the blood; they clean it out with something like a kidney dialysis, only the blood comes out but doesn’t go back in. What does go in is CLHEMO,” explained Sam sitting down on an overturned pillar.
“CLHEMO?” asked Ling.
“Clear Hemoglobin. A substance that takes the place of hemoglobin and surrounds the cells so they don’t rupture when they’re frozen for the cryogenic sleep. Once the CLHEMO is in place, they pump a tinny amount of glucose through the veins, so that if anything does break off, it floats around safely. Then they drop the temperature to negative 30 degrees below Fahrenheit, wrap it up and seal it away. If you’re lucky, you’re not frozen long. But…sometimes…things happen. People forget…lose records…that kind of crap…” he broke off, not looking at her.
Although she knew the answer, Ling asked, “How long…for you?”
“Sixty years. At that time, my family was living out in the Colonies when the Heartless appeared. They were all wiped out. A few years later the Commander found me. When I woke up, after they put new blood in me, the Commander told me, that there was no cure for me, not a complete one at least. He offered me to be his…new cyborg prototype. I asked him what my family thought. He told me my family was dead, and I would be too, if I didn’t make a choice. If I turned down his offer, my blood would just become as bad as before and I would die. If I accepted, there was a risk I would die on the operating table, but I would have a change to live. I remember being afraid; afraid of dying…alone, with no one to comfort me. So I took his offer.
“First, they killed my immune system to keep the leukemia from requiring and injected me with nanomachines to fight off anything I would pick up. Then it was a bone marrow and heart transplant so I would have a better chance of surviving the ‘Big One’ as the Commander called it. The ‘Big One’ would last 48 hours, one of the longest operations ever. Depending on what they were working on, they would have to put me on bypass for my heart. They kept most of my internal organs; they said the nanomachines would still need some sort of nutritional supply as well as my heart and lungs to function so my blood that carried the nanomachines would be good. They chopped off my arms and legs to replace them with cybernetic limbs, encased my brain and spinal cord in a protective internal armor, as well as my internal organs; a second defense if anything ever pierced my armor. And, well, they didn’t have to, but they kept my, er, genitals, so as the Commander put it, if I was sent in to do espionage, I would blend in, with the boys…” Sam laughed weakly but stopped when Ling folded her arms.
“When I first woke up, I couldn’t move anything. I thought I was paralyzed, but they said that was normal, that it would take some time for everything to synchronize with my brain waves or something. Then came the pain; I was on morphine for weeks. Everything was so unbearable. Then, I had to go through physical therapy to learn how to use my new limbs. After a few months, I had become as close to being a normal person as I could get. I could actually eat what I want, not worry about my blood being cancerous, and I even had hair to fuss over about. But then, the Commander wanted me. I was still his prototype and he wanted me in basic training a month earlier.
“It wasn’t too bad at first; basic training was a lot of exercising and learning about different weapons. Then they started training me how to use my armor, which was a little complicated because it activated on my thoughts. Once I got using my armor down, I worked my way through simulations. And slowly but surely, the Commander was turning me into a soldier or as I look back on it now, a killing machine. Most of the simulations I went through were wiping out Heartless or Nobodies. But as I got better, the simulations became more like war zones. I would fight soldiers, destroy tanks, even crush missiles with my bare hands.
“Soon it was time for the military demonstration, where I would be shown off to all the military leaders of Juno City. The Commander was saying if I got good remarks, there would be no more training. If not, well, he said, I better not screw up. Surprisingly, not a lot of people were happy with the Commander for picking a ‘kid’ like me to use for his demo. At least that’s how Commander James put it. He was in a cryogenic sleep for about the same time I was,” explained Sam.
“He was frozen too?” asked Ling.
Sam nodded, “He fought in the last Great War; you know, the one legends say was the ‘war between the unspeakable darkness’. He was injured pretty badly when he was helping the last of the refugees escaped Earth. He was woken up a few days before the presentation. The Commander was trying to impress him with all the advances Juno made in warfare. By the look of it, Commander James wasn’t impressed so far.
“Anyway, they started the simulation. It was a war torn village and before I even moved, people were shooting at me. It wasn’t real people; just a computerize simulation. All I had to do was run, come up behind them, knock them out before they knew I was there, or possibly kill them if they resisted. Single handedly, I was taking out all the enemies. Then, things changed. There was a little girl, Asian looking, with flowers in her hair; probably only five or six years old. She was running towards me…with a bomb strapped to her chest. I was taught to kill suicide bombers by shooting at the head so the bomb would detonate further away from its target. But even as I raised my hand to kill her with an energy blast…I…I couldn’t do it. She reminded me…of my best friend Stacy, who in my old life visited me everyday at the hospital. She used to call me a fool for being obsessed with Transformers. She was…the first girl I ever loved,” he broke off, turning away from Ling, to wipe away a tear.
“What happened?” asked Ling after giving Sam a moment to recover.
“The computer did as it was programmed to do. Because I didn’t react, it did. The bomb detonated and threw me twenty feet. Although the simulation shock didn’t cause any damage, if it had been a real bomb, I would have cracked my armor, leaving me vulnerable. The simulation shut down and needless to say, the Commander was very displeased. Most of the military leaders were disappointed but no one was as mad as Commander James, but he wasn’t mad at me. He went and cussed the Commander out, telling him that he was a fool for even considering I was capable for being able to face the terrors of being a soldier and taking advantage of my well being. It was actually pretty funny looking back on it now. I was punished of course; whipped, beaten, shocked, but nothing was as torturing as think about what I could have done to save that little girl. Although I knew that it was just a simulation, I couldn’t get her out of my head.
“They threw me into isolation for a few days until they told me I had been deemed a failure for insubordination and their initial decision for my future was pending. A few days later was the Juno City Crisis. I remember Commander James opening my cell and asking me if I would like to come with him. I told him I didn’t have a choice. He then said, ‘We all have a choice. We have the choice to do what is good. We all have a choice to live. Shouldn’t you have a choice to start your new life?’ I thought about it and then asked him what he would have done to save that little girl’s life. He told me, that there wasn’t much I could’ve done. Even with all my speed, even if I could somehow get the bomb off of her, it would detonate as soon as I got it off, killing us both. Then he asked if I was coming. And I left with him. I’ve been with his group ever since,” Sam looked up at her.
Ling frowned again. “If you’re expecting me to feel sorry for you, then you are a fool.”
Sam managed a weak smile. “That’s right,” he said under his breath, “She would always say that, exactly like that.”
“What are you muttering?” asked Ling.
“Listen, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, just understand how I feel. I know you’re prejudice against the Commander and his weapons. I know that your family was killed-”
“They weren’t killed, they were murdered!” Ling’s lip trembled, “Murdered under orders by the Commander because he thought the Heartless were some sort of disease!”
“That’s not true,” Sam said quietly. Ling stared at him. “Killing all the people in the colony was part of it yes,” Sam continued, “But the Commander suspected your family for having some involvement with the Heartless. He knew your family were the descendents of the Keepers of Earth, chosen by the Chasers and the World Order to protect its secrets. He had your family murdered thinking they helped the Heartless into Mars. The only reason you and your grandfather survived because you were least likely to be involved and the Angelus would have the Commander brought to the Federation if he killed off the only remaining descendant-”
“That’s a lie!” shouted Ling, “You’re lying!”
“Are you so sure?” asked Sam calmly, “I read your files. They were been broadcast on all frequencies when your friend was arrested. It was all there.”
Ling glared at him, fuming, and turned away.
“Ling…” Sam got up and reached slowly to put his hands on her arms, “I know what it’s like-”
“Know what it’s like?” Ling turned around and pushed him away, “How can you ever know what it’s like? I’ve lost everything! My home! My mother! My father! Grandma! My five older brothers and my sister! Practically my life! How can you understand? What have you-” She stopped. Sam was looking at her sadly, like a boy that had lost his mother. It was then that she finally got it; she had finally understood. Here in front of her was a boy, a boy only a little older than she was, who had lost possibly more than her. Where she had lost most of her family, her grandfather was still alive, and she still had her friends. Sam on the other had, lost all of his family, his friends, and almost his humanity. She now knew what he was getting at about understanding. She had no right to complain; Sam should be the one complaining but to her knowledge he never did. Then she realized she was the fool all along, and that maybe, just maybe, she should have stopped and considered his feelings. It was in that moment she realized, that perhaps they were somewhat alike and perhaps…
“I’m sorry,” Ling sobbed.
“I told you not to feel sorry for me,” he said.
“That’s not what I meant. What I mean to say is…I’m sorry…for not understanding,” said Ling as she wiped away a tear.
Sam looked at her and smiled.
“Take off your helmet,” said Ling.
“Why?” asked Sam.
“I want to see something,” she said.
“Sure,” Sam said, a little confused. There was a clicking noise and the rest of his helmet folded back into his armor.
“When you feel things…is it really you feeling them?” asked Ling.
“What do you mean?” asked Sam, even more confused than before.
“Like if I were to do this,” she placed her hand on his check, “Are you feeling that?”
“Y-yeah. Those nerves aren’t as altered as the ones in my hands or feet. They’re not artificial; they’re natural,” explained Sam, “But I still feel everything as if it was natural.”
“So if I kissed you, you would feel it?” she asked almost in a whisper.
“Yeah…I would,” he said, just before kissing her on the lips.
When they broke apart, Ling got close to him again and eye to eye, she said firmly, “Keep this in mind, though. If you ever betray me, I will kill you. Got it?”
“G-got it,” he stammered, “Of course, I would rather be killed by you than Heartless or the Commander.” He then held out his hand, “C’mon. The others are probably worried.”
Ling took Sam’s hand and held on tightly as he lifted them both off the ground and back to the castle. “Sam…will you make a promise for me? If I’m ever in a bind, will you come for me?”
“I promise,” he said and they looked towards the castle, were everyone was waiting for them.
************************************************************************
The giant pink balloon bounced slightly as it touched the ground. Tai grabbed Grace and jumped off the balloon before it popped. “It’s a good thing I bought that trick set in Traverse Town,” he said before turning back to Grace.
“Gracey! Wake up! Please wake up!” Tai shook her, but she would not wake up. He remembered the last time something like this had happened. At least he was a little bit bigger now but what was he to do? He had no idea where they were. Then he remembered Balthier’s words. “That’s it!” he smiled and dived through his bag. He pulled out the Elixir from his bag and lifted Grace’s head. “Here Gracey. Try this,” he opened her mouth and scrapped a bit of the Elixir on her teeth. He then closed her mouth, forcing her to swallow. Her eyes opened almost immediately.
“Tai?” she asked groggily.
“Gracey!” Tai jumped on her, almost knocking her out again.
After they hugged, Grace looked up the side of the cliff. “Where are we?” she asked. They seemed to be in the lower end of the castle; there were still signs of the gigantic pipes running throughout the grounds.
“I don’t know. We fell all the way down,” said Tai.
“I guess we can follow the pipes back up, if anything,” said Grace and she took Tai’s hand, following the pipes to what seemed to be the base of the castle. The ground was covered in ice but a large portion of it seemed to be like liquid but they could still step on it as if it was solid. Towards one end of the castle wall were two floating orbs and on the other side was solid ice with a glowing crystal.
“What’s with the ice?” asked Tai.
“It must be magic,” replied Grace, “See; look how the Keyblade is pulsating.” She held out her Keyblade which was vibrating slightly.
“I don’t see a way up,” said Tai.
“There has to be. Maybe-” Grace took a step forward but as soon as she did a swarm of Darkball and Defender Heartless appeared. “Aww, crap,” Grace raised her Keyblade, ready to engaged in battle.
Suddenly there was a large explosion and something very big and heavy dropped before them, crushing the Heartless all at once. It was a red frog as big as a house, wearing a blue buttoned down shirt, and a man with long white hair was riding on top of it.
“There you are my no good apprentice! I’ve been looking all over for you!” shouted the man. He then got a closer look at Grace and Tai. “Wait…you’re not my apprentice! I knew I should have taken that left back there!”
“Dude…he’s riding a giant frog,” gaped Grace.
“It’s not a frog; it’s a toad,” corrected Tai.
“Still…he’s on a giant toad.”
“Hey! You with the Key!” called the man, grabbing Grace’s attention, “If you see some ungrateful hotheaded knucklehead brat running around, tell him Master Jiraiya is looking for him!”
“Sure thing, toad guy!” called Grace.
The man waved and there was another explosion. When the smoke cleared, the man and the giant red toad was gone. “We should’ve asked him to take him to the others,” remarked Tai.
“Eh…where’s the fun in that?” asked Grace, walking over to the crystal. She touched the sparking crystal with her Keyblade. There was a humming noise and a lift from above stopped in front of them. Grace stepped onto the lift, followed by Tai.
“Do you even know where this goes?” asked Tai.
“As I said, where’s the fun?” she grinned, as the lift took them up. The lift took them up the side of the cliff stopping a little ways from the castle gates.
“I think we went a little too far,” remarked Tai, “Wasn’t the lab in the basements or something?”
“I’m sure we’ll find a way down once we get inside,” said Grace as she got off the lift. As they proceeded to the castle gates, swarms of more Darkball and Defender Heartless appeared. They weren’t hard to defeat but they were starting to get on Grace’s nerves. When Grace finally took out the last of the Defender Heartless they were at the castle gates. Tai pushed one of the doors open and they walked into the entrance hall. There was a grand staircase leading up to the upper level of the room and a fountain beneath it but there was still no sign of a staircase going to the basements. “There has to be a way down here somewhere,” said Grace as she looked around. She then spotted a door on the right side of the balcony. She took a step towards the grand staircase.
Another wave of Heartless appeared; a group of Defender and Shadow Heartless accompanied by three Wizard Heartless. “Ugh! Can’t you guys ever go away?!” Grace said angrily as she took down a Shadow Heartless. Defenders and Shadows she could deal with, but the Wizards by far were most annoying. They liked to move around a lot, sometimes even teleporting away from her, and whenever they cast a lightning spell, she couldn’t hit them. At one point, a Wizard Heartless teleported in front of Tai, who reached in his bag and pull out a can of silly string and sprayed the Heartless in the eyes. When the last one was finished off, they ran to the door before any more could spawn.
They had entered a library filled with thousands of books; a myriad of shelves that seemed to create its own maze in the room. “Now what?” asked Tai.
“We just got here. Give me a few seconds…” Grace reassured him but she knew they were only getting more and more lost.
“Hello? Is someone there?” called a voice.
The two of them looked up to the upper level of the library and saw a young woman with long black hair looking over the rail at them. “Uh…sorry to bother you, but we’re just trying to find the lab,” Grace called up to her.
“Really?” asked the woman as she walked down the stairs, “I’m looking for something too, well, someone really.” Grace now had a better look at her. Her eyes were a deep reddish brown and her skin was very fair, but above everything else Grace thought she was very pretty.
“We might have seen this person,” said Tai, “What does he or she look like?”
“A guy with spiky hair,” the woman described.
Grace could think of a few people that fit that description. “How spiky and how tall?” she asked.
“Very spiky and a little bit taller than me. He carries a big sword too and it’s not a Keyblade,” the woman added.
“Sorry,” Grace shook her head, “Can’t think of anyone.”
The woman sighed, “It’s alright. I’ll just have to keep looking. But at least I can help you. I’m getting a little tired of looking in this library. My name’s Tifa and you?”
“I’m Grace and this is my younger brother Tai. We were with Sora and the others but…it’s a long story,” explained Grace.
“No problem; I’ll get to where you need to be,” smiled Tifa and they followed her up the stairs. She lead them through a door and they entered a lift station in the middle of the castle. Grace looked up and saw dozens of lifts and stops, and was glad they found someone who at least knew where they were going.
They stepped onto the nearest lift and a hologram screen appeared near the opening, displaying a list of destination. “I’m glad Cid fixed the lifts up,” remarked Tifa as she made her selection, “A few days ago, you would never know where you were going unless you had a very good map.”
The lift moved to the left slightly to the main path, then dropped down a few stories to a recently cleared entrance. This area of the castle still looked like it was still under construction; it seemed a little bit more modern then the rest of the castle they had seen. Tifa walked in the room first and when she did a group of Heartless appeared. “Still around are you?” asked Tifa. She suddenly roundhouse kicked one in the face, knocking it into another Heartless.
Grace and Tai watched in amazement as she single handily took out each of the Heartless with only her hands and feet as weapons. Tifa then brushed off her hands and turned back to Grace and Tai. “Are you coming?” she asked and walked down into the corridor.
“She’s my new idol,” whispered Grace, with a spark in her eyes. Tai stared at her.
They followed Tifa down the corridor into an abandoned study where Sora and the others were waiting. “There they are!” said Joey.
“Where were you?” asked Sora, “We were about to go out and find you.”
“Everywhere,” Tai said before Grace could open her mouth, “She got us lost.”
“I did not!” Grace shouted.
Tifa, in the meanwhile, had taken notice of Balthier, “Well if it isn’t Balthier the sky pirate? Still leaving a trail of destruction in your wake?” Tifa raised an eyebrow.
Balthier rolled his eyes, “I can’t believe you’re still mad at me for burning down for your bar. And I’ll ask again, how is that my fault?”
“Yep, he still feigns innocence,” sighed Tifa, “You keeping him in line, Fran?”
“Always,” replied Fran, “But he can be hard at times.”
“Whose side are you on?” Balthier asked Fran.
“Are we all here?” Commander James had entered the study.
“Present and accounted for, sir,” replied Leon, “Are we ready on your end?”
“Jazz and Tron are getting ready to launch the decryption program,” said Commander James.
“All right. Everyone follow me,” Leon called and he walked into a corridor behind the study desk.
Everything now looked state of the art and very modern as if they had walked into a laboratory of Juno City. At the end of the corridor was a large open room of machinery but they only glimpsed it briefly before entering the computer room. Jazz was already at the controls hard at work. “All right Tron; reroute everything to terminal three and block all traffic from the outside,” said Jazz before looking up, “Hey, bout time you got here.”
“We had issues,” remarked Leon, “Heartless and the Commander.”
“The Commander? The Commander was here? What the hell was that mutta-” Grace and Matti covered Tai and Margot’s ears as Jazz cursed, “-doing here?”
“We’re not sure. Possibly why we’re here,” said Commander James.
“Well we better get this show on the road. Sam, get over here. AND DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!” Jazz shouted at Joey who was resisting not to mess around with the computer, “Or do you want us all zapped into the computer?”
“It’s not that bad,” said Sora, “We’ve been in there three times.”
“You’ve been inside the computer? Actually inside of it?” asked Joey with awe.
“Yeah,” Sora nodded, “With Tron.”
“Tron? Who’s Tron?” asked Grace.
“I’m Tron,” said a voice over the computer speakers.
“It’s an AI program,” Joey whispered, “An actual highly advance AI program.”
“Joey…breath,” said Matti, “I’m not giving you CPR if you pass out.”
“You ready Sam?” asked Jazz.
“I’m ready,” he said with a few cables from his wrists plugged into the machine, “Okay Tron, you can upload the configuration now.”
“Uploading now,” replied Tron.
“Running decryption program,” said Sam.
“Why do you need to run a decryption program?” asked Riku, “Haven’t you opened the stairs to the room before?”
“The program that opens the door keeps on resetting itself. I guess it so no one could find it,” explained Miki.
“Xehanort was a genius,” remarked Jazz, “An evil genius, but a genius none the less.”
“What are you doing? An Barcilioi matrix decipher?” asked Ling looking over Sam’s shoulder.
“Something like that,” grinned Sam.
“Oh…she can go near the computer, but I can’t?” fumed Joey.
“Hey, when did Ling and Sam get friendly? I thought they hated each others guts,” whispered Lucy.
“No, Ling just hated Sam’s guts and sort of liked him; Sam is madly in love with her,” explained Mitch.
“She’s been very giddy ever since Sam brought her back,” remarked Olette.
“They were alone for quite awhile after the cliff broke off,” added Kairi, “I wonder what happened down there.”
“I bet anything he confessed,” groaned Miki, “It’s about time too.”
“How much did he confess?” asked Grace, “It takes a lot to move Ling. Believe me: we saw ‘Tears of Endearment’. While we were balling (even Mitch was balling), she did not cry once.”
“Should we have an intervention, as we planned?” asked Lucy.
“Soon, when there’s time,” replied Mitch.
“Hey, you guys didn’t have an intervention for Roxas,” said Grace.
“That’s because it’s hard to get him. Believe me, we’ve tried. We even cornered Sora the one time and tried to get him to transform. He said he didn’t know how it worked, so we had to let him go, but mark my words,” Mitch said firmly, “We will get him.”
“Got it,” said Sam and he unplugged his wires.
“All right everyone,” said Commander James, “Follow me.” He lead them out of the other side of the computer room and down a flight of stairs.
“What is all this?” asked Matti, pointing to the machinery.
“This is where Xehanort and Maleficent manufactured the Heartless. Don’t worry; everything’s been disabled since the last incident,” reassured Leon.
“Can’t you just destroy it?” asked Riku.
“We will once we isolate it completely,” explained Aerith, “If we do it now, we would have to shut our entire defense system down and that will simply put the town at more risk.”
“Here we are,” said Commander James pointing to a staircase leading a hundred or so feet below. Although lights had been set up along the stairwell, the passageway still seemed unnaturally dark.
“Matti, maybe I should stay up here. I don’t want to go down there,” shivered Margot, squeezing her brother’s hand.
“It’s all right; nothing’s going to hurt you,” reassured Matti.
Margot still wouldn’t move.
“Tell you what Margot,” said Balthier, “You can stay with Tifa up here. That is, if she doesn’t mind.”
“No I don’t. Come here Margot,” Tifa held out her hand and Margot took it.
“Well only be a few minutes Margot,” reassured Clarise.
Margot nodded but held tightly onto Tifa’s hand.
The journey down into the basements was a long one. Sora swore with every step that he took, the temperature would drop another five more degrees. At one point, Sam stepped on the back of Anemone’s heel, causing her to scream so loud, that everyone jumped. But their nerves were put to the final test when they reached the bottom and entered a long white corridor with several cells. Tai squeezed on Grace’s hand as if he expected something horrific to pop out at any moment. Finally they reached the room they had traveled so far to get too. Sam hacked the door within a few seconds and allowed them inside.
It was a white and gray room with only a single chair in the very center of the room. But what really stood out were the black markings of chains scattered throughout the room. Fran followed Sam to the walls of the room. “These are the markings you found?” she asked.
Sam nodded and Fran touched them, causing them to spark with an electric blue glow. “This is a language that has not been seen for thousands of years,” she remarked.
“Can you read it?” asked Balthier.
“No,” she shook her head, “But by the way the symbols are repeating, it’s a spell. Judging by the length a very complex one.”
“This place really gives me the creeps,” said Anemone rubbing her arms.
“You’re telling me,” said Joey, taking out one of his scanners, “Hey…that’s weird.”
“What is it this time?” asked Donald.
“There’s traces of a half-life isotope here,” he explained.
“Half-life?” asked Goofy.
“It’s the time required for half of the atoms of a radioactive substance to become disintegrated,” explained Miki.
“Radioactive or magical,” remarked Joey, “Something was here, something powerful. But that’s not the weird thing.”
“What is the weird thing?” asked Hayner.
“Whatever it was, it’s energy signature is an almost exact match to Sora and Grace’s Trans-Drive clothes,” explained Joey.
“Are you sure?” asked Balthier.
Joey nodded. Sora noticed the underlying sense of the two of them knowing what it was. Balthier turned to Leon, “We need to get to Scared Forest, as soon as possible. It has not been touched, has it?”
“No,” Leon shook his head, “And for it’s occupants, it is as if no time has passed. But the way is dangerous; you won’t make it to the Forest by nightfall on foot.”
“We’re not going by foot,” said Balthier and he nodded to Commander James, who exchanged the nod.
“We’re leaving,” called Fran and followed Balthier back up the stairs.
The kids, Donald, and Goofy, gathered around Joey however. “What is it?” asked Lucy.
“Think about it: what else was the material for the Trans-Drive clothes made for?” asked Joey.
“You don’t mean-?” Grace broke off.
Joey nodded grimly, “Yeah, the knights’ armor. The armor of the Chasers.”
Sorry, browser cut off so the story got double posted. Is there any way to delete these posts completely?
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So good! I loved the part with Ling and Sam!!!
Yeah, Fran and Balthier are a great couple...and we get to see more of their relationship in the next chapter! it'll be up either tonight or tomorrow! PROMISE!!!
After clashing with xine once more:angry:, Sam and Ling finally understanding each other:wub:, Grace and Tai getting lost, Balthier believes that maybe a Chaser's armor was once stored in a secret room underneath Ansem's study. The gang then takes off to the Scared Forest...
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
THE GRAVE OF A CHASER
RADIANT GARDENS
“We’re going to what?” Grace asked baffled.
“We need to get to the Sacred Forest quickly,” explained Balthier as he paid a merchant, “To save time, we’ll get there riding Chocobos.”
“We can’t just take the Strahl?” asked Sora.
“The locals aren’t too friendly with technology,” explained Balthier, picking out a few Chocobos from the herd, “Best to take a more natural course, so to speak.”
“There is another way to get to the Scared Forest,” said Miki, taking out a case from one of her many weapon bags, “I think you guys from Juno might recognize them.” She opened up her case and lifted up a pole.
Grace’s eyes widen at once. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.
“It should be what you think it is, considering it’s yours,” Miki handed her the pole.
“But the Commander confiscated it,” said Grace as she examined the pole.
“I don’t think he misses it,” shrugged Miki.
“What is it?” asked Sora.
Grace grinned at him, before pressing the small button on top of the pole and letting the Sky Diver unfold. “The only thing I miss from Juno; Sky Divers: hover boards that ride the planet’s magnetic current.”
“I think I’ll just fly,” said Sam. He then turned to Ling, “You want a ride?” he asked.
Ling nodded with a smile.
“Now?” Lucy asked Mitch and Grace.
“Now,” replied Mitch.
“Hold this,” Grace handed the Sky Diver over to Sora to look at.
“Sorry, but before you two wander off…” started Grace grabbing Sam’s arm.
“We need to talk,” finished Mitch taking Sam’s other arm and dragging him away from Ling.
“What are they doing?” asked Riku.
“It’s a girl thing. You wouldn’t understand,” replied Kairi, as she harnessed up her Chocobo.
“Listen you,” Grace shoved Sam against a wall, “If you make Ling cry-”
“-just a little tinny bit-” added Lucy.
“-we will kill you or kill what’s left of you if she kills you first,” finished Mitch.
“No, first we should rip off his armor so we can kill him,” said Lucy.
“Wow, I didn’t think of that. Nice job Luc,” Grace gave her a high five.
“Okay, I get it: you’ll kill me. I got the lecture from Ling,” Sam pushed his hands out so he had some breathing space.
“Good. Next question: how far have you taken it?” asked Mitch.
“What do you mean how far?” asked Sam.
“First base, second base, whatever you boys use to measure how much you think you own over a girl,” clarified Grace.
“First base. Believe me: I got morals,” said Sam.
“So do we,” said Mitch.
“Rule #6: we of the sisterhood have sworn to be Virgins until the age of 18,” recited Lucy.
“You guys have a sisterhood? Since when?” asked Sam.
“Since Grace read the ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’,” explained Mitch.
“Right…so am I free to go?” he asked. Grace and Mitch let him go and he rushed back to Ling.
“That was actually kind of fun,” grinned Lucy, “I hope we get to do it again.”
Grace stared at her. “Who are you and what have you done with Lucy?”
“You riding with me?” Kairi asked Sora as she got on her Chocobo, Coco.
“Sure, but only if he- OW!” Sora had reached up to touch the bird but the Chocobo bit his finger, “…lets me.”
“Sorry Sora,” said Kairi, “But I guess he’s a bit picky.”
“Come on lamebrain!” Grace called Sora over to her Sky Diver, “You probably better off with me.”
“Everyone ready?” asked Balthier, as he hopped on a Chocobo with Lucy. There were a few ‘yeses’ and grunts but everyone was ready to go. Most of the group was on Chocobos in pairs: Anemone and Pence, Riku and Mitch, Joey and Margot, and Fran and Kairi rode separate Chocobos. Those traveling by Sky Diver were also in pairs: Sora and Grace, Clarise and Matti, Miki and Tai, Hayner and Olette, and Donald and Goofy. Sam would carry Ling to the Sacred Forest.
“But Donald, I thought you knew how to fly?” asked Goofy.
“What do you know, you big baffoon?” Donald muttered angrily, trying to reach for the Sky Diver controls, but wasn’t high enough. Goofy then took the controls as Donald fumed.
“We’ll see you guys when you get back!” waved Yuffie.
“Take care!” called Leon.
“And be careful,” added Aerith.
“Let’s go!” shouted Grace. As the group of Chocobos took off, Grace turned to the group on Sky Divers, “Divers! Follow me!” and she dropped the Sky Diver over the edge of the cliff.
Grace kept her Diver parallel to the cliff wall, as Sora cried, “Gracey! How far are we going to drop?” She noticed he was holding onto her waist for dear life. She grinned back at him. She wasn’t the two-time champ for the Juno City Amateur Sky Diver Contest for nothing. When they were a few seconds away from crashing into the bottom of the chasm, Grace pulled up on the Sky Diver and she glided parallel to the ground.
“See, nothing to worry about,” Grace winked at Sora.
“She must be nuts!” declared Miki.
“No, she’s just my sister,” smiled Tai.
Hayner and Olette seemed to be having the time of their life. Hayner would give a cry of delight every time he spun the Sky Diver upside down and Olette would scream with him. “Hayner, watch your acceleration!” Grace called over to him, “You don’t always have to use the boosters! Just let the wind push the Diver!”
Grace then looked over to see how the others were doing. Matti had allowed Clarise to take control of their Diver, placing his hands over hers and teaching her how to use the wing. Miki flew her Diver like a pro, Tai holding onto her accessory belt for support. Goofy seemed to gotten use to flying the Diver, as Donald held on to Goofy’s vest for fear of the wind pushing him off the Diver. Grace pointed this out to Sora, who managed to laugh since getting on the Diver. There was a rushing sound behind them, and they turned to see that the Chocobo group was catching up with them.
“Come on, guys! We can’t let them beat us!” Grace shouted and she thrust the Diver forward.
The other edge of the chasm was coming up fast. “Okay Divers!” Grace shouted, “On my mark! Pull up and over! Ready?” She waited until they were only a few seconds away from the chasm wall to shout, “Pull up now!” She pulled up on the wing pole and went up the chasm wall. But even when everyone else had gone over the other side, she and Sora continued accelerating upward towards the sky.
“What are you doing?” asked Sora. Grace disengaged the wing for the moment and slowly stepped back to let Sora get in front.
“Your turn now!” she said over the roar of the wind, “I’m going to cut off the boosters and then we’re going to drop! It’s up to you to figure out when to reengage the wing and pull up so we don’t crash! Got it!”
Sora looked over the edge. They must have been hundreds of feet up by now and still climbing. He took a long and hard swallow. Oh well; nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“Ready?” Grace asked, putting her hands on his waist.
Sora nodded. He felt her foot move back to push the button that turned off the boosters. After a few seconds, the Diver started to slow down and once it reached the peak of maximum height, they started to drop. Their acceleration started to rapidly climb and even as the ground got closer and closer, Sora muttered under his breath, “Not yet…not yet…”
Now even Grace was getting nervous, but she knew Sora wouldn’t let her down. They were a mere seconds away from death when Sora shouted, “Now!” reengaging the wing and reaching back to start the boosters again. He pulled up just in time; they were so close, they were only inches above the ground.
“Not bad Keyblade Master!” said Grace with a smile.
“What do you mean ‘not bad’? That was awesome!” he grinned back at her, but yet once again, Grace could have sworn that grin belonged to someone else.
Their focus turned back at the forest quickly coming up in front of them and they slowed down to allow the others to catch up with them. When the rest of the Divers arrived at the edge of the forest, Hayner was the first to jump off and say to Sora, “Whoa, dude! That must have been half a mile!”
Sam and Ling were next to arrive, followed by those on Chocobo. “Hey Grace, was that you up there?” asked Joey.
“Nope, that was all Sora,” she remarked.
“Wow Sora, you might be able to take on the champ here,” grinned Matti.
“Champ?” Sora raised an eyebrow and looked back at Grace.
“Two-time winner,” Grace added.
“Only because a certain someone was prone to sneaking out of the city almost every other day,” frowned Anemone.
Grace was about to say something back when Balthier said, “We’re wasting time. I would like to be out of the Sacred Forest by nightfall.” He then gathered up the Chocobs to tie them up so they wouldn’t wander far.
Meanwhile, Donald and Goofy were reading a sign hanging crooked between two trees over the entrance of the forest. “Warning,” read Donald, “All trespassers will be…maimed…beaten…or killed.” He looked back at Goofy and they both started to shiver.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” reassured Balthier, “We have four Keyblade Users with us and a native.”
“A native?” asked Kairi and she then looked at Fran, catching her look of sadness.
“Stay close and don’t wander from the path,” said Balthier, the first to venture down the forest path.
As they started down the worn forest path, the trees around them became so dense, that several lampposts were set up to guide visitors down the path. But they weren’t lit by electricity; instead the light came from the glow of white orbs, condensed magic energy. The vegetation here was unlike anything anyone had seen before. It all seemed wild, mutated, and overgrown like stuff from the sci-fi books Grace had read. Some of the plants that looked harmless were quite the opposite; Fran had to drag Olette away from what she thought was a huge beautiful flower but rather a mammoth sized Venus fly trap plant. The entire place reminded Joey of a prehistoric forest and he was almost half expecting a T-Rex to suddenly walk by.
There was a rustling nose in the trees that made them all stop. Anemone dared to look up in the branches but when she did, she screamed. Something then dropped out of the branches: monkeys but rather, Heartless monkeys.
This sudden revelation threw Grace off for a few seconds but it was just enough for one of the Heartless to dive at her feet and knock her over. “Why you little-” Grace rubbed her head and chased after it.
There were a lot of Heartless Monkeys but they weren’t strong enough on their own to take the group head on, so they relied on their trickery and swiftness to get the better of the gang. This was very apparent when Tai came face to face with a female Heartless Monkey. The Heartless waved at him and scurried off a few yards away from him. He pulled out a Bubble Gum Bomb from his bag and ran to throw it at Heartless, but didn’t notice the banana peel waiting for him. He tripped on the peel, falling forward, the Bubble Gum Bomb exploding on his head. The Heartless pointed and laughed at him as he stumbled to get up out of the sticky gum.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!” Hayner jumped on top of the Heartless, taking it out with his Struggle Club.
Sam was about to active his armor to join in the fight, when Fran held him back. “I wouldn’t do that. You’ll offend the forest. It doesn’t like manmade technology,” she added to Miki who was about to load a LASERlight.
“So how are we suppose to fight?” asked Sam. He heard a slamming sound behind him. He turned around and saw Miki taking out a Heartless with her only her fists.
“They’re called your hands. Ever heard of them?” she asked.
Sam watched in amazement as she took out another one and proceeded to throw a right hook at a Heartless in front of him. It took him two or more hits but he took it out and found himself enjoying it.
When Donald finished off the rest with his Fire magic, Balthier turned to Fran. “You know where it is?” he asked.
She nodded and lead them down the path again, only stopping to take her time at places where the path would cross with another and make the choice for the right direction. “Hey Balthier,” Grace spoke up after they took a turn at a cross way, “What exactly are we looking for?”
Balthier and Fran stopped and looked back at her, as if trying to decide whether or not they should answer her.
“Yeah,” added Pence, “You just told us to come here without any particular reason.”
Balthier looked at Fran, encouraging her to say something. She took a deep breath then said, “This forest has been marked as a sanctuary by the Gods. Somewhere in this forest, hidden by mist, is the final resting place for the warriors chosen by the Gods.”
“Warriors chosen by the Gods?” repeated Goofy.
Fran nodded.
“So we came to find a grave,” said Hayner, “Whose grave?”
“One that few but yet so many of you know,” replied Fran cryptically.
“It’s Ven’s grave, isn’t it?” asked Grace, not looking at her, realizing now why Balthier and Fran were so reluctant to answer her.
Fran nodded again and what happened next was a ripple effect. Kairi gasped, Donald and Goofy both shuttered, Hayner, Pence, and Olette exchanged confused looks, and Sora gripped his Keyblade. Grace remained motionless, looking at the ground, wishing she never opened her mouth. She didn’t even move when the group started moving again and Sora had to walk back and give her an encouraging rub on the shoulder, so she would snap out of it. She gave him a reassuring nod back and walked behind him, but yet remained still lost in thoughts, that when he suddenly stopped, she almost ran into him.
Grace looked over his shoulder and saw something was blocking their path at the next crossroad. A large glyph floating in midair stopped them from going any further. As Fran tried to dispel it, Balthier asked her, “Is it them?”
She nodded then said, “They must knew we were coming. We are already surrounded by now.”
“By why?” asked Balthier.
“Perhaps they wish to speak with me or…” she glanced back at Sora, “They wish to speak with the Keyblade Master.” She then shook her head, “I can’t break this; we must go to them.” She turned her attention back to the group, “Show your weapons. Keep them high. If you are unarmed, raise your hands. No sudden movement or you will be shot at. Follow me and keep at my pace.”
“Who’s going to shoot at us?” questioned Sam as he raised his hands, “My sensors haven’t picked up anything.”
“And they probably won’t until it’s too late,” remarked Balthier raising his guns high and following Fran deeper into the forest. Instead of the trees getting denser, they broke apart, allowing to the sun to shine through the mist above. A few minutes later, they reached a wooden bridge leading away from the forest to a group of trees on a rock island in the middle of a deep chasm.
As they started to walk across the bridge, Grace risked a look over her shoulder. There were shadows moving in the trees, not Heartless nor Nobodies, but something else following them closely behind them. She looked forward; there were more shadows in the trees on the rock. Although she couldn’t see who or what they were, she could see the glint of arrows pointed at them, ready to fire if someone took one step out of line.
After walking slowly across the bridge, they crossed underneath a gate on the other side and entered a village. Though the mist was heavy here, they could see people emerging from huts, people with long pointed rabbit ears, pointed feet, and long silver hair: Vierra. The Vierra watched as the visitors wandered through the village following Fran silently, their stares enough to send chills down most of their spines.
“Gracey,” Tai whispered to her, “There’s no guys here.”
Grace looked around and saw he was right: there were no men present in the village, the Vierra were all females. “I guess we’re in some Amazonian village.”
“Amazonian?” asked Sora.
“According to Greek myth, the Amazons were a tribe of women who were said to be the strongest warriors ever known,” explained Clarise, “They supposedly could take out huge armies of men with only a few women.”
“I’ll believe it. These ladies look like they could take you out just by looking at you,” whispered Pence.
“Shh!” hissed Olette, “What if they hear you?”
“I ‘speck they already do,” whispered Goofy, “They gotta hear a lot with those ears.”
Finally, after traveling through most of the village, Fran stopped in front of a Vierra. This Vierra was a little bit taller than her but her hair wasn’t as long as Fran’s. A younger Vierra stood behind her who looked no older than Sora or Grace with even shorter hair cut like a bob. Fran placed her bow and arrow down in front of the older Vierra and bowed.
“Who is that?” Kairi whispered to Balthier.
“That’s Jote, priestess of the village,” he explained, “She is Fran’s older sister and behind her is Fran’s younger sister, Mjrn.”
Jote, the priestess, looked across the group, her eyes falling on the Keyblade Master, before saying, “Lower your weapons.” She then turned back to Fran, “It has been a long time, Fran.”
“It has, sister,” acknowledged Fran.
“And yet you came back. You know the rule: those who leave the Wood can never return,” said Jote, “But you have your reasons. The Wood has told me of what you seek.”
“Then you would allow us passage?” asked Fran.
“I’m sorry sister, but the Wood is very angry with you,” replied Jote.
“But sister-” Mjrn spoke up but Jote silenced her.
“Then you would defy the Gods by not allowing the Key Bearer to pass?” questioned Fran.
It was now Jote’s time to be silent. Her eyes found Sora again. “Key Bearer,” she held out her hand, “Come here.”
Sora cautiously picked up his Keyblade and worked his way through the crowd towards Jote and Fran. He gave a small bow to Jote. She gave him a brief smile and asked, “May I?”
Figuring she wanted to see the Keyblade, he handed it over to Jote. She held the Keyblade in both hands, admiring it from all sides. “A good weapon, one that…” she swung it to her right and the Keyblade disappeared in a flash of light, returning to Sora’s hand, “…rests in the hands of someone that is still so naïve, but yet one who bears the look of someone who has already lived this life before.” She placed her pointer finger on Sora’s forehead and gave it a little push. The push was like a ripple and for a second Sora changed to Roxas and then back to Sora again.
“I will uphold the will of the Gods,” she told the group, “You will be allowed passage into the Sacred Grounds. You may go.”
As Balthier started to turn the group around, Jote held Fran back. “The Wood misses you sister,” Jote told her.
Fran didn’t look back at her. “It probably misses me more than I miss it,” she remarked and left to follow Balthier and the others.
As they started back across the wooden bridge, Sora heard a voice calling him. “Key Bearer! Wait!”
He turned around and saw Mjrn, Fran’s younger sister, running up to him. “Here; take this,” she handed him a key chain, “May it help you on your journey. Don’t tell my sister, but…maybe someday I’ll fight along side you.”
“Thank you,” he said, tucking the Key Chain away, and running back towards the others.
Fran lead them back through the woods and back to the crossroad where the glyph was. True to Jote’s word, the glyph was gone and they were allowed to continue on the path. The trees became less dense again and finally the path broke off at a clearing. That was when Balthier stopped the party and made them all form a line. He first pulled Sora, Grace, Riku, and Kairi from the line, then Goofy and Donald. He then turned to who was left.
“No, no,” he said to Anemone and Clarise, “No, yes,” he then said to Matti and Margot, skipping over Joey. “No, no, no, no,” he said to Miki, Hayner, Pence, and Olette. He then stopped at Sam, trying to make a decision. “Want do you think Fran? I mean technically he is overage…”
Fran was quiet for a moment, then said, “I think he qualifies. Put your armor on,” she ordered.
“But you said not to put my armor on,” said Sam.
“You’re paying respect. Just keep your helmet off,” added Fran.
“Off, on, off,” moaned Sam, activating his armor, “Make up your mind.”
“Yes,” Balthier finished with Tai, “All right. Everyone I said ‘yes’ to, over there,” he pointed to where Sora, Grace, Kairi, Riku, Donald, and Goofy stood. “Everyone else, stay right here. You,” he pointed to Joey, “Stand here,” he then pointed to the very edge of the path before it broke off, “But don’t go any further.” He then turned back to Sora, Grace, Kairi, and Riku. “I need to teach you the Keyblade Blessing. It doesn’t need to be perfect but it needs to be decent. Watch,” He took out his sword and held it in both hands with the blade pointed to the ground. Then he spun it around in his right hand, grabbed it again with both hands, bringing the sword down vertical in front of him, with the blade now pointing to the ground, and a bow.
They mimicked him as best they could with their Keyblades and when they finished the blessing, Balthier gave a nod of approval. “Not bad, just watch the spins,” he remarked, “Now we go on.”
Balthier and Fran took them forward out of the forest, leaving Anemone, Clarise, Joey, Matti, Miki, Hayner, Pence, and Olette behind. “How come they get to go?” Hayner folded his arms.
“Probably because they know how do magic or something,” remarked Anemone.
“But Sam doesn’t know anything about magic,” said Miki.
“Come on guys. We’re all special in our own way,” said Olette, trying to sound positive, “Just because they get to go over doesn’t mean they get to do everything in life.”
“She’s right,” said Matti, “Besides, we got this.” He held up his video camera and got up to where Joey was standing, zooming in as far as he could as everyone gathered around him to watch.
“I wonder why Balthier told you to come up here,” Clarise said to Joey.
“I think…I know why,” he said, taking out his scanner.
As the other group proceeded beyond the path into the clearing, Riku asked, “Is there any particular reason why it’s just us going to this grave? I understand we can go because we have the Keyblades, but what about everyone else?”
“As I have said before, these are sacred ground,” replied Fran, “Only a few are designated to walk them. To walk on these grounds, you must be able to wield a Keyblade, be able to use magic or at least sense it, be of Angelus descent, be of royal blood, or over the age of sixty-five.”
“I guess that makes you very old, Sam,” smirked Ling.
“Yes, you look very young for your age,” Mitch nudge him.
“Watch it…” Sam clenched his fist.
“Quiet,” frowned Balthier, “You’re being disrespectful.”
They had reached a ruin of stone steps. As they started to climb, Sora started to get more and more uneasy, but he wasn’t the only one. Grace started to get pale, as if she dreaded what they would find at the top. Tai noticed her face and took her hand with Margot taking the other.
At the top was a marble slate, cut out in a rectangular shape. On top of the marble block was the engraving of a Keyblade. It was the sarcophagus. They were all silent, until Riku read the grave marker below the sarcophagus, “Here lies Lord Ventus, son of Lord Israel, Chaser of the Dawn. He was only fifteen…”
“Let’s do it,” Balthier said quietly, taking out his sword again. The Keyblade Users summoned their weapons and performed the Keyblade Blessing in unison with Balthier. There was a clanging noise; Grace had dropped her Keyblade and was walking towards the grave. She placed her hand on the sarcophagus and traced the engraving with her finger. Then without warning, she bursted into tears and her knees gave way, throwing her head and arms on top of the sarcophagus. Sora watched her cry sadly, as Kairi walked up next to her, kneeled down and wrapped her arm around Grace. Tai then walked up to Grace as well and wrapped his arms around her waist, the only thing he could think of doing.
Margot started to cry a little, and Fran bent down to comfort her. Even Ling started to snuffle and she turned to hug Sam, who saw it coming and was ready to embrace her. Then Tai suddenly said, “Gracey! Look!” He was pointing at the edge of the sarcophagus.
Grace wiped her tears away and squinted to see what he was looking at. At first, it didn’t look like anything, but she looked closer and saw a large but subtle crack against the sealing of the sarcophagus. “Someone’s been here,” she whispered.
“What?” asked Balthier.
“The sarcophagus was opened after it was sealed. Look,” Grace pointed to the crack.
Kairi stared at it. “Oh my gosh,” she breathed, as Balthier and Sam approached the grave to get a better look at the crack.
“She right,” said Sam, examining the crack, “It’s too straight to be erosion; even if it was, the marble wouldn’t erode that easily in such a short amount of time. It also looks like someone tried to cover it up.”
“Can you tell how recent the crack was made?” asked Balthier.
“Not really. Considering there are no other fractures, it was done very carefully,” said Sam, “Who ever it was, is very sneaky at covering his footprints.”
Balthier then stood up, the look in his eyes that told his worse fears may be realized. He took a deep breath, raised his sword, and started prying at where the crack was.
“What are you doing?!” Grace asked frantically, about to try and stop Balthier from opening the sarcophagus, but Fran held her back, although she herself was surprised by Balthier’s sudden behavior.
After awhile, Balthier had gotten the crack wide enough so that it ran across the entire length of the sarcophagus. “Help me Sam,” he said and he started to push the top of the sarcophagus off. Sam reluctantly started to help him and after several minutes of slowly pushing the top back, they were able to throw the top of the marble off and look inside.
Neither of them spoke until Sam said, “It’s empty.” At those words, everyone gathered around the sarcophagus to look inside. It was as Sam had said: the sarcophagus was empty. Lucy gasped and Grace went pale again.
“Are you sure someone was buried here?” asked Donald.
“I was here when they laid Ven to rest. I saw them putting his body in the casket. And now it’s gone! It’s gone!” Balthier roared, throwing his sword, and kicking it on the ground after it landed.
“It could’ve just…decayed. The body, I mean,” suggested Sam.
“It’s not the body I’m worried about!” thundered Balthier, “It’s the armor! Armor like that doesn’t simply vanish! It would take thousands of years for Chaser armor to even rust!”
“But who would want to steal armor? Isn’t the Chaser’s armor suppose to be only worn by who it was made for?” asked Goofy.
“One would think,” remarked Mitch, “But who would be crazy or even desperate enough to offend the Gods and spirits by disturbing the final resting place of a Chaser?”
“It’s not a question of who,” Fran said quietly, putting her hand on Balthier’s shoulder, who had been sitting on the steps, trying to calm down, “But rather, why?”
Matti lowered his camera when the others descended the stone steps. Those who had been watching on the video camera couldn’t hear what happened at the tomb, but from what they had seen something was very wrong. The expressions on everyone’s face when they returned showed that.
“Well?” Balthier asked Joey, “Was it a match?”
“Perfect,” Joey replied, not looking at him.
“So, it really was his armor that was there, in that room,” Grace whispered.
“This is out of league now,” Balthier hung his head, but then turned to Sora. He started to approach Sora, who slowly back away, but wasn’t quick enough to escape Balthier’s reach.
Balthier took the Keyblade and pointed it to the sky. He twisted it slightly and a beam of light shot from the Keyblade, rising into the heavens before dispersing into the sky.
“What was that?” asked Riku.
“I sent out a signal to the other Chasers,” Balthier handed the Keyblade back to Sora, “and Black Wings. They’ll have to take it from here. We need to return to town, as soon as possible.” He then started to cough, as if he was getting sick.
“What’s going on?” asked Pence.
“We really don’t know,” Ling replied honestly and they turned to follow Fran and Balthier back for the forest.
************************************************************************
The journey back through the forest was relatively quiet; no Heartless ambushed them and no one spoke a word. Even riding Sky Divers back across the chasm was far from exciting. Grace allowed Sora to fly the Diver on the way back, letting her think alone. As soon as they got back to the town, Grace took off on her own, but no one seemed to notice.
“Here. Would you mind picking these items up for me?” Fran handed Anemone a list of things to buy. She and most of the girls took off. Fran looked around the room. Tai and Margot were sitting on the couch discussing Margot’s drawings, Donald and Goofy were putting together a letter for Queen Minnie, Lucy had taken off to go check on the servants, but most of the boys moped around, unsure of what to do.
Aerith, sensing that Fran and Balthier wanted to be alone, said to Sora and the others, “Why don’t you check on Leon in the bailey? Yuffie, you could go with them too. I can finish up dinner.”
“Eh…I have nothing better to do,” she remarked and got up with the boys.
“All right! Night patrol!” grinned Matti, “You coming bro?” He asked Joey.
“Nah, I got work to do,” said Joey, getting out his laptop.
“You can use the bedroom upstairs,” Aerith said to Fran.
“Thank you,” bowed Fran, “It will be awhile until we’re done talking with Balthier’s blood friends,” she winked at Aerith, who seemed to get the message.
“Blood friends?” Joey raised an eyebrow and tried to focus back on his work.
Fran took Balthier’s arm and slowly lead him upstairs into the spare bedroom. She got Balthier to lay down on the one bed and opened up a medicine bag, pulling out a bag of blood, an IV needle and a can of freezing spray. She hung the blood bag from a hook on a shelf above the bed Balthier was sitting on. The blood bag was labeled “Kogenate 2”. She attached a clear plastic tube to the bag, allowing the blood to flow through the tube. She then hooked on the IV needle to the other side of the tube, and said to Balthier, who just rolled up his sleeve on his right arm, “Here comes the hard part.”
Fran sprayed a small section of Balthier’s arm, numbing the spot temporary and stuck the IV needle into the vein of his arm. He flinched slightly but recovered as the blood started to flow into his body. “You need to calm down. You shouldn’t be getting all fussy when it gets close to treatment time,” remarked Fran.
“I know,” Balthier replied. He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I should’ve died. Not Teresa. Not Ven.”
“They choose to do what they did,” said Fran, “Besides, you know I wouldn’t be here if it were not for you.”
“Would it?” Balthier questioned, “You have not aged once since I first met you. My life is but a year in your lifetime.”
Fran placed her hand on his check and he looked at her. “I have aged, on the inside. And you know if I could, I would give up my partial immortality to be a mortal human, just to be with you Balthier. That’s why I can’t let you die so soon. I need you. Grace needs you. Even Lucy needs you. You’re perhaps the closest one that she’ll ever have to a father. We can’t give up.”
Balthier took another deep breath, then said, “It seems, just as soon as we figure something out, the mystery deepens.”
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“Grace still hasn’t come back yet?” Lucy asked when she returned from the Strahl.
Ling and Mitch shook their heads. “It’s getting late. She shouldn’t be wandering around at night,” remarked Leon.
“Sora, you should go looking for Grace,” suggested Kairi.
“Me? What for?” asked Sora.
“You haven’t done anything lately. So get off your lazy butt and move!” Kairi pushed him out the door.
Sora frowned but none the less, walked around looking for Grace. He didn’t have to look far. She was out at the restoration site, looking across the chasm. “Hey,” Sora spoke up when he saw here. Grace looked at him but turned back to the chasm. Her cheeks looked wet. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Does it look like I’m okay?” she huffed, not looking at him.
“You freaking out?” Sora asked taking a few steps towards her. When she didn’t reply, he said, “I guess that makes the two of us.”
Grace heard the change in his voice and turned towards him, with a tear or two streaming down her face. Roxas reached out and took her hand, pulling her towards him. As he held her gently in his arms, he looked across the chasm, and Grace heard him whisper, “What the heck is going on?”
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Aqua and Terra stared down upon the opened tomb of the Chaser, when Alexander arrived. Aqua gave a small cry of joy when she saw Alexander, and they embraced. Terra looked away; Aqua and Alexander’s embrace was a bit too passionate for him. When they broke apart, Terra asked Alexander, “Is Michael coming?”
“He’s on his way,” replied Alexander. He then looked at the empty sarcophagus. “So, this is what they found.”
“But why? What would he want with Ven’s armor? He can’t use it! No one other than Ven could! Do you have any ideas Alex?” Aqua looked up at Alexander.
“I have theories but each one is more unlikely than the first,” Alex shook his head.
“Oh Israel! My dear Izzy, forgive me!” sobbed Aqua, “I’ve failed you again!”
Alex placed his hand on Aqua’s shoulder, trying to think of why the tomb was opened. His thoughts were broken by the howl of a wolf. “Perhaps Michael and Summoner Jane can give us a better idea of why this has happened,” remarked Terra as a brown haired wolf and a young girl in green robes with brilliant blue eyes and long white hair reached the top of the stone stairs.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
THE GRAVE OF A CHASER
RADIANT GARDENS
“We’re going to what?” Grace asked baffled.
“We need to get to the Sacred Forest quickly,” explained Balthier as he paid a merchant, “To save time, we’ll get there riding Chocobos.”
“We can’t just take the Strahl?” asked Sora.
“The locals aren’t too friendly with technology,” explained Balthier, picking out a few Chocobos from the herd, “Best to take a more natural course, so to speak.”
“There is another way to get to the Scared Forest,” said Miki, taking out a case from one of her many weapon bags, “I think you guys from Juno might recognize them.” She opened up her case and lifted up a pole.
Grace’s eyes widen at once. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.
“It should be what you think it is, considering it’s yours,” Miki handed her the pole.
“But the Commander confiscated it,” said Grace as she examined the pole.
“I don’t think he misses it,” shrugged Miki.
“What is it?” asked Sora.
Grace grinned at him, before pressing the small button on top of the pole and letting the Sky Diver unfold. “The only thing I miss from Juno; Sky Divers: hover boards that ride the planet’s magnetic current.”
“I think I’ll just fly,” said Sam. He then turned to Ling, “You want a ride?” he asked.
Ling nodded with a smile.
“Now?” Lucy asked Mitch and Grace.
“Now,” replied Mitch.
“Hold this,” Grace handed the Sky Diver over to Sora to look at.
“Sorry, but before you two wander off…” started Grace grabbing Sam’s arm.
“We need to talk,” finished Mitch taking Sam’s other arm and dragging him away from Ling.
“What are they doing?” asked Riku.
“It’s a girl thing. You wouldn’t understand,” replied Kairi, as she harnessed up her Chocobo.
“Listen you,” Grace shoved Sam against a wall, “If you make Ling cry-”
“-just a little tinny bit-” added Lucy.
“-we will kill you or kill what’s left of you if she kills you first,” finished Mitch.
“No, first we should rip off his armor so we can kill him,” said Lucy.
“Wow, I didn’t think of that. Nice job Luc,” Grace gave her a high five.
“Okay, I get it: you’ll kill me. I got the lecture from Ling,” Sam pushed his hands out so he had some breathing space.
“Good. Next question: how far have you taken it?” asked Mitch.
“What do you mean how far?” asked Sam.
“First base, second base, whatever you boys use to measure how much you think you own over a girl,” clarified Grace.
“First base. Believe me: I got morals,” said Sam.
“So do we,” said Mitch.
“Rule #6: we of the sisterhood have sworn to be Virgins until the age of 18,” recited Lucy.
“You guys have a sisterhood? Since when?” asked Sam.
“Since Grace read the ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’,” explained Mitch.
“Right…so am I free to go?” he asked. Grace and Mitch let him go and he rushed back to Ling.
“That was actually kind of fun,” grinned Lucy, “I hope we get to do it again.”
Grace stared at her. “Who are you and what have you done with Lucy?”
“You riding with me?” Kairi asked Sora as she got on her Chocobo, Coco.
“Sure, but only if he- OW!” Sora had reached up to touch the bird but the Chocobo bit his finger, “…lets me.”
“Sorry Sora,” said Kairi, “But I guess he’s a bit picky.”
“Come on lamebrain!” Grace called Sora over to her Sky Diver, “You probably better off with me.”
“Everyone ready?” asked Balthier, as he hopped on a Chocobo with Lucy. There were a few ‘yeses’ and grunts but everyone was ready to go. Most of the group was on Chocobos in pairs: Anemone and Pence, Riku and Mitch, Joey and Margot, and Fran and Kairi rode separate Chocobos. Those traveling by Sky Diver were also in pairs: Sora and Grace, Clarise and Matti, Miki and Tai, Hayner and Olette, and Donald and Goofy. Sam would carry Ling to the Sacred Forest.
“But Donald, I thought you knew how to fly?” asked Goofy.
“What do you know, you big baffoon?” Donald muttered angrily, trying to reach for the Sky Diver controls, but wasn’t high enough. Goofy then took the controls as Donald fumed.
“We’ll see you guys when you get back!” waved Yuffie.
“Take care!” called Leon.
“And be careful,” added Aerith.
“Let’s go!” shouted Grace. As the group of Chocobos took off, Grace turned to the group on Sky Divers, “Divers! Follow me!” and she dropped the Sky Diver over the edge of the cliff.
Grace kept her Diver parallel to the cliff wall, as Sora cried, “Gracey! How far are we going to drop?” She noticed he was holding onto her waist for dear life. She grinned back at him. She wasn’t the two-time champ for the Juno City Amateur Sky Diver Contest for nothing. When they were a few seconds away from crashing into the bottom of the chasm, Grace pulled up on the Sky Diver and she glided parallel to the ground.
“See, nothing to worry about,” Grace winked at Sora.
“She must be nuts!” declared Miki.
“No, she’s just my sister,” smiled Tai.
Hayner and Olette seemed to be having the time of their life. Hayner would give a cry of delight every time he spun the Sky Diver upside down and Olette would scream with him. “Hayner, watch your acceleration!” Grace called over to him, “You don’t always have to use the boosters! Just let the wind push the Diver!”
Grace then looked over to see how the others were doing. Matti had allowed Clarise to take control of their Diver, placing his hands over hers and teaching her how to use the wing. Miki flew her Diver like a pro, Tai holding onto her accessory belt for support. Goofy seemed to gotten use to flying the Diver, as Donald held on to Goofy’s vest for fear of the wind pushing him off the Diver. Grace pointed this out to Sora, who managed to laugh since getting on the Diver. There was a rushing sound behind them, and they turned to see that the Chocobo group was catching up with them.
“Come on, guys! We can’t let them beat us!” Grace shouted and she thrust the Diver forward.
The other edge of the chasm was coming up fast. “Okay Divers!” Grace shouted, “On my mark! Pull up and over! Ready?” She waited until they were only a few seconds away from the chasm wall to shout, “Pull up now!” She pulled up on the wing pole and went up the chasm wall. But even when everyone else had gone over the other side, she and Sora continued accelerating upward towards the sky.
“What are you doing?” asked Sora. Grace disengaged the wing for the moment and slowly stepped back to let Sora get in front.
“Your turn now!” she said over the roar of the wind, “I’m going to cut off the boosters and then we’re going to drop! It’s up to you to figure out when to reengage the wing and pull up so we don’t crash! Got it!”
Sora looked over the edge. They must have been hundreds of feet up by now and still climbing. He took a long and hard swallow. Oh well; nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“Ready?” Grace asked, putting her hands on his waist.
Sora nodded. He felt her foot move back to push the button that turned off the boosters. After a few seconds, the Diver started to slow down and once it reached the peak of maximum height, they started to drop. Their acceleration started to rapidly climb and even as the ground got closer and closer, Sora muttered under his breath, “Not yet…not yet…”
Now even Grace was getting nervous, but she knew Sora wouldn’t let her down. They were a mere seconds away from death when Sora shouted, “Now!” reengaging the wing and reaching back to start the boosters again. He pulled up just in time; they were so close, they were only inches above the ground.
“Not bad Keyblade Master!” said Grace with a smile.
“What do you mean ‘not bad’? That was awesome!” he grinned back at her, but yet once again, Grace could have sworn that grin belonged to someone else.
Their focus turned back at the forest quickly coming up in front of them and they slowed down to allow the others to catch up with them. When the rest of the Divers arrived at the edge of the forest, Hayner was the first to jump off and say to Sora, “Whoa, dude! That must have been half a mile!”
Sam and Ling were next to arrive, followed by those on Chocobo. “Hey Grace, was that you up there?” asked Joey.
“Nope, that was all Sora,” she remarked.
“Wow Sora, you might be able to take on the champ here,” grinned Matti.
“Champ?” Sora raised an eyebrow and looked back at Grace.
“Two-time winner,” Grace added.
“Only because a certain someone was prone to sneaking out of the city almost every other day,” frowned Anemone.
Grace was about to say something back when Balthier said, “We’re wasting time. I would like to be out of the Sacred Forest by nightfall.” He then gathered up the Chocobs to tie them up so they wouldn’t wander far.
Meanwhile, Donald and Goofy were reading a sign hanging crooked between two trees over the entrance of the forest. “Warning,” read Donald, “All trespassers will be…maimed…beaten…or killed.” He looked back at Goofy and they both started to shiver.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” reassured Balthier, “We have four Keyblade Users with us and a native.”
“A native?” asked Kairi and she then looked at Fran, catching her look of sadness.
“Stay close and don’t wander from the path,” said Balthier, the first to venture down the forest path.
As they started down the worn forest path, the trees around them became so dense, that several lampposts were set up to guide visitors down the path. But they weren’t lit by electricity; instead the light came from the glow of white orbs, condensed magic energy. The vegetation here was unlike anything anyone had seen before. It all seemed wild, mutated, and overgrown like stuff from the sci-fi books Grace had read. Some of the plants that looked harmless were quite the opposite; Fran had to drag Olette away from what she thought was a huge beautiful flower but rather a mammoth sized Venus fly trap plant. The entire place reminded Joey of a prehistoric forest and he was almost half expecting a T-Rex to suddenly walk by.
There was a rustling nose in the trees that made them all stop. Anemone dared to look up in the branches but when she did, she screamed. Something then dropped out of the branches: monkeys but rather, Heartless monkeys.
This sudden revelation threw Grace off for a few seconds but it was just enough for one of the Heartless to dive at her feet and knock her over. “Why you little-” Grace rubbed her head and chased after it.
There were a lot of Heartless Monkeys but they weren’t strong enough on their own to take the group head on, so they relied on their trickery and swiftness to get the better of the gang. This was very apparent when Tai came face to face with a female Heartless Monkey. The Heartless waved at him and scurried off a few yards away from him. He pulled out a Bubble Gum Bomb from his bag and ran to throw it at Heartless, but didn’t notice the banana peel waiting for him. He tripped on the peel, falling forward, the Bubble Gum Bomb exploding on his head. The Heartless pointed and laughed at him as he stumbled to get up out of the sticky gum.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!” Hayner jumped on top of the Heartless, taking it out with his Struggle Club.
Sam was about to active his armor to join in the fight, when Fran held him back. “I wouldn’t do that. You’ll offend the forest. It doesn’t like manmade technology,” she added to Miki who was about to load a LASERlight.
“So how are we suppose to fight?” asked Sam. He heard a slamming sound behind him. He turned around and saw Miki taking out a Heartless with her only her fists.
“They’re called your hands. Ever heard of them?” she asked.
Sam watched in amazement as she took out another one and proceeded to throw a right hook at a Heartless in front of him. It took him two or more hits but he took it out and found himself enjoying it.
When Donald finished off the rest with his Fire magic, Balthier turned to Fran. “You know where it is?” he asked.
She nodded and lead them down the path again, only stopping to take her time at places where the path would cross with another and make the choice for the right direction. “Hey Balthier,” Grace spoke up after they took a turn at a cross way, “What exactly are we looking for?”
Balthier and Fran stopped and looked back at her, as if trying to decide whether or not they should answer her.
“Yeah,” added Pence, “You just told us to come here without any particular reason.”
Balthier looked at Fran, encouraging her to say something. She took a deep breath then said, “This forest has been marked as a sanctuary by the Gods. Somewhere in this forest, hidden by mist, is the final resting place for the warriors chosen by the Gods.”
“Warriors chosen by the Gods?” repeated Goofy.
Fran nodded.
“So we came to find a grave,” said Hayner, “Whose grave?”
“One that few but yet so many of you know,” replied Fran cryptically.
“It’s Ven’s grave, isn’t it?” asked Grace, not looking at her, realizing now why Balthier and Fran were so reluctant to answer her.
Fran nodded again and what happened next was a ripple effect. Kairi gasped, Donald and Goofy both shuttered, Hayner, Pence, and Olette exchanged confused looks, and Sora gripped his Keyblade. Grace remained motionless, looking at the ground, wishing she never opened her mouth. She didn’t even move when the group started moving again and Sora had to walk back and give her an encouraging rub on the shoulder, so she would snap out of it. She gave him a reassuring nod back and walked behind him, but yet remained still lost in thoughts, that when he suddenly stopped, she almost ran into him.
Grace looked over his shoulder and saw something was blocking their path at the next crossroad. A large glyph floating in midair stopped them from going any further. As Fran tried to dispel it, Balthier asked her, “Is it them?”
She nodded then said, “They must knew we were coming. We are already surrounded by now.”
“By why?” asked Balthier.
“Perhaps they wish to speak with me or…” she glanced back at Sora, “They wish to speak with the Keyblade Master.” She then shook her head, “I can’t break this; we must go to them.” She turned her attention back to the group, “Show your weapons. Keep them high. If you are unarmed, raise your hands. No sudden movement or you will be shot at. Follow me and keep at my pace.”
“Who’s going to shoot at us?” questioned Sam as he raised his hands, “My sensors haven’t picked up anything.”
“And they probably won’t until it’s too late,” remarked Balthier raising his guns high and following Fran deeper into the forest. Instead of the trees getting denser, they broke apart, allowing to the sun to shine through the mist above. A few minutes later, they reached a wooden bridge leading away from the forest to a group of trees on a rock island in the middle of a deep chasm.
As they started to walk across the bridge, Grace risked a look over her shoulder. There were shadows moving in the trees, not Heartless nor Nobodies, but something else following them closely behind them. She looked forward; there were more shadows in the trees on the rock. Although she couldn’t see who or what they were, she could see the glint of arrows pointed at them, ready to fire if someone took one step out of line.
After walking slowly across the bridge, they crossed underneath a gate on the other side and entered a village. Though the mist was heavy here, they could see people emerging from huts, people with long pointed rabbit ears, pointed feet, and long silver hair: Vierra. The Vierra watched as the visitors wandered through the village following Fran silently, their stares enough to send chills down most of their spines.
“Gracey,” Tai whispered to her, “There’s no guys here.”
Grace looked around and saw he was right: there were no men present in the village, the Vierra were all females. “I guess we’re in some Amazonian village.”
“Amazonian?” asked Sora.
“According to Greek myth, the Amazons were a tribe of women who were said to be the strongest warriors ever known,” explained Clarise, “They supposedly could take out huge armies of men with only a few women.”
“I’ll believe it. These ladies look like they could take you out just by looking at you,” whispered Pence.
“Shh!” hissed Olette, “What if they hear you?”
“I ‘speck they already do,” whispered Goofy, “They gotta hear a lot with those ears.”
Finally, after traveling through most of the village, Fran stopped in front of a Vierra. This Vierra was a little bit taller than her but her hair wasn’t as long as Fran’s. A younger Vierra stood behind her who looked no older than Sora or Grace with even shorter hair cut like a bob. Fran placed her bow and arrow down in front of the older Vierra and bowed.
“Who is that?” Kairi whispered to Balthier.
“That’s Jote, priestess of the village,” he explained, “She is Fran’s older sister and behind her is Fran’s younger sister, Mjrn.”
Jote, the priestess, looked across the group, her eyes falling on the Keyblade Master, before saying, “Lower your weapons.” She then turned back to Fran, “It has been a long time, Fran.”
“It has, sister,” acknowledged Fran.
“And yet you came back. You know the rule: those who leave the Wood can never return,” said Jote, “But you have your reasons. The Wood has told me of what you seek.”
“Then you would allow us passage?” asked Fran.
“I’m sorry sister, but the Wood is very angry with you,” replied Jote.
“But sister-” Mjrn spoke up but Jote silenced her.
“Then you would defy the Gods by not allowing the Key Bearer to pass?” questioned Fran.
It was now Jote’s time to be silent. Her eyes found Sora again. “Key Bearer,” she held out her hand, “Come here.”
Sora cautiously picked up his Keyblade and worked his way through the crowd towards Jote and Fran. He gave a small bow to Jote. She gave him a brief smile and asked, “May I?”
Figuring she wanted to see the Keyblade, he handed it over to Jote. She held the Keyblade in both hands, admiring it from all sides. “A good weapon, one that…” she swung it to her right and the Keyblade disappeared in a flash of light, returning to Sora’s hand, “…rests in the hands of someone that is still so naïve, but yet one who bears the look of someone who has already lived this life before.” She placed her pointer finger on Sora’s forehead and gave it a little push. The push was like a ripple and for a second Sora changed to Roxas and then back to Sora again.
“I will uphold the will of the Gods,” she told the group, “You will be allowed passage into the Sacred Grounds. You may go.”
As Balthier started to turn the group around, Jote held Fran back. “The Wood misses you sister,” Jote told her.
Fran didn’t look back at her. “It probably misses me more than I miss it,” she remarked and left to follow Balthier and the others.
As they started back across the wooden bridge, Sora heard a voice calling him. “Key Bearer! Wait!”
He turned around and saw Mjrn, Fran’s younger sister, running up to him. “Here; take this,” she handed him a key chain, “May it help you on your journey. Don’t tell my sister, but…maybe someday I’ll fight along side you.”
“Thank you,” he said, tucking the Key Chain away, and running back towards the others.
Fran lead them back through the woods and back to the crossroad where the glyph was. True to Jote’s word, the glyph was gone and they were allowed to continue on the path. The trees became less dense again and finally the path broke off at a clearing. That was when Balthier stopped the party and made them all form a line. He first pulled Sora, Grace, Riku, and Kairi from the line, then Goofy and Donald. He then turned to who was left.
“No, no,” he said to Anemone and Clarise, “No, yes,” he then said to Matti and Margot, skipping over Joey. “No, no, no, no,” he said to Miki, Hayner, Pence, and Olette. He then stopped at Sam, trying to make a decision. “Want do you think Fran? I mean technically he is overage…”
Fran was quiet for a moment, then said, “I think he qualifies. Put your armor on,” she ordered.
“But you said not to put my armor on,” said Sam.
“You’re paying respect. Just keep your helmet off,” added Fran.
“Off, on, off,” moaned Sam, activating his armor, “Make up your mind.”
“Yes,” Balthier finished with Tai, “All right. Everyone I said ‘yes’ to, over there,” he pointed to where Sora, Grace, Kairi, Riku, Donald, and Goofy stood. “Everyone else, stay right here. You,” he pointed to Joey, “Stand here,” he then pointed to the very edge of the path before it broke off, “But don’t go any further.” He then turned back to Sora, Grace, Kairi, and Riku. “I need to teach you the Keyblade Blessing. It doesn’t need to be perfect but it needs to be decent. Watch,” He took out his sword and held it in both hands with the blade pointed to the ground. Then he spun it around in his right hand, grabbed it again with both hands, bringing the sword down vertical in front of him, with the blade now pointing to the ground, and a bow.
They mimicked him as best they could with their Keyblades and when they finished the blessing, Balthier gave a nod of approval. “Not bad, just watch the spins,” he remarked, “Now we go on.”
Balthier and Fran took them forward out of the forest, leaving Anemone, Clarise, Joey, Matti, Miki, Hayner, Pence, and Olette behind. “How come they get to go?” Hayner folded his arms.
“Probably because they know how do magic or something,” remarked Anemone.
“But Sam doesn’t know anything about magic,” said Miki.
“Come on guys. We’re all special in our own way,” said Olette, trying to sound positive, “Just because they get to go over doesn’t mean they get to do everything in life.”
“She’s right,” said Matti, “Besides, we got this.” He held up his video camera and got up to where Joey was standing, zooming in as far as he could as everyone gathered around him to watch.
“I wonder why Balthier told you to come up here,” Clarise said to Joey.
“I think…I know why,” he said, taking out his scanner.
As the other group proceeded beyond the path into the clearing, Riku asked, “Is there any particular reason why it’s just us going to this grave? I understand we can go because we have the Keyblades, but what about everyone else?”
“As I have said before, these are sacred ground,” replied Fran, “Only a few are designated to walk them. To walk on these grounds, you must be able to wield a Keyblade, be able to use magic or at least sense it, be of Angelus descent, be of royal blood, or over the age of sixty-five.”
“I guess that makes you very old, Sam,” smirked Ling.
“Yes, you look very young for your age,” Mitch nudge him.
“Watch it…” Sam clenched his fist.
“Quiet,” frowned Balthier, “You’re being disrespectful.”
They had reached a ruin of stone steps. As they started to climb, Sora started to get more and more uneasy, but he wasn’t the only one. Grace started to get pale, as if she dreaded what they would find at the top. Tai noticed her face and took her hand with Margot taking the other.
At the top was a marble slate, cut out in a rectangular shape. On top of the marble block was the engraving of a Keyblade. It was the sarcophagus. They were all silent, until Riku read the grave marker below the sarcophagus, “Here lies Lord Ventus, son of Lord Israel, Chaser of the Dawn. He was only fifteen…”
“Let’s do it,” Balthier said quietly, taking out his sword again. The Keyblade Users summoned their weapons and performed the Keyblade Blessing in unison with Balthier. There was a clanging noise; Grace had dropped her Keyblade and was walking towards the grave. She placed her hand on the sarcophagus and traced the engraving with her finger. Then without warning, she bursted into tears and her knees gave way, throwing her head and arms on top of the sarcophagus. Sora watched her cry sadly, as Kairi walked up next to her, kneeled down and wrapped her arm around Grace. Tai then walked up to Grace as well and wrapped his arms around her waist, the only thing he could think of doing.
Margot started to cry a little, and Fran bent down to comfort her. Even Ling started to snuffle and she turned to hug Sam, who saw it coming and was ready to embrace her. Then Tai suddenly said, “Gracey! Look!” He was pointing at the edge of the sarcophagus.
Grace wiped her tears away and squinted to see what he was looking at. At first, it didn’t look like anything, but she looked closer and saw a large but subtle crack against the sealing of the sarcophagus. “Someone’s been here,” she whispered.
“What?” asked Balthier.
“The sarcophagus was opened after it was sealed. Look,” Grace pointed to the crack.
Kairi stared at it. “Oh my gosh,” she breathed, as Balthier and Sam approached the grave to get a better look at the crack.
“She right,” said Sam, examining the crack, “It’s too straight to be erosion; even if it was, the marble wouldn’t erode that easily in such a short amount of time. It also looks like someone tried to cover it up.”
“Can you tell how recent the crack was made?” asked Balthier.
“Not really. Considering there are no other fractures, it was done very carefully,” said Sam, “Who ever it was, is very sneaky at covering his footprints.”
Balthier then stood up, the look in his eyes that told his worse fears may be realized. He took a deep breath, raised his sword, and started prying at where the crack was.
“What are you doing?!” Grace asked frantically, about to try and stop Balthier from opening the sarcophagus, but Fran held her back, although she herself was surprised by Balthier’s sudden behavior.
After awhile, Balthier had gotten the crack wide enough so that it ran across the entire length of the sarcophagus. “Help me Sam,” he said and he started to push the top of the sarcophagus off. Sam reluctantly started to help him and after several minutes of slowly pushing the top back, they were able to throw the top of the marble off and look inside.
Neither of them spoke until Sam said, “It’s empty.” At those words, everyone gathered around the sarcophagus to look inside. It was as Sam had said: the sarcophagus was empty. Lucy gasped and Grace went pale again.
“Are you sure someone was buried here?” asked Donald.
“I was here when they laid Ven to rest. I saw them putting his body in the casket. And now it’s gone! It’s gone!” Balthier roared, throwing his sword, and kicking it on the ground after it landed.
“It could’ve just…decayed. The body, I mean,” suggested Sam.
“It’s not the body I’m worried about!” thundered Balthier, “It’s the armor! Armor like that doesn’t simply vanish! It would take thousands of years for Chaser armor to even rust!”
“But who would want to steal armor? Isn’t the Chaser’s armor suppose to be only worn by who it was made for?” asked Goofy.
“One would think,” remarked Mitch, “But who would be crazy or even desperate enough to offend the Gods and spirits by disturbing the final resting place of a Chaser?”
“It’s not a question of who,” Fran said quietly, putting her hand on Balthier’s shoulder, who had been sitting on the steps, trying to calm down, “But rather, why?”
Matti lowered his camera when the others descended the stone steps. Those who had been watching on the video camera couldn’t hear what happened at the tomb, but from what they had seen something was very wrong. The expressions on everyone’s face when they returned showed that.
“Well?” Balthier asked Joey, “Was it a match?”
“Perfect,” Joey replied, not looking at him.
“So, it really was his armor that was there, in that room,” Grace whispered.
“This is out of league now,” Balthier hung his head, but then turned to Sora. He started to approach Sora, who slowly back away, but wasn’t quick enough to escape Balthier’s reach.
Balthier took the Keyblade and pointed it to the sky. He twisted it slightly and a beam of light shot from the Keyblade, rising into the heavens before dispersing into the sky.
“What was that?” asked Riku.
“I sent out a signal to the other Chasers,” Balthier handed the Keyblade back to Sora, “and Black Wings. They’ll have to take it from here. We need to return to town, as soon as possible.” He then started to cough, as if he was getting sick.
“What’s going on?” asked Pence.
“We really don’t know,” Ling replied honestly and they turned to follow Fran and Balthier back for the forest.
************************************************************************
The journey back through the forest was relatively quiet; no Heartless ambushed them and no one spoke a word. Even riding Sky Divers back across the chasm was far from exciting. Grace allowed Sora to fly the Diver on the way back, letting her think alone. As soon as they got back to the town, Grace took off on her own, but no one seemed to notice.
“Here. Would you mind picking these items up for me?” Fran handed Anemone a list of things to buy. She and most of the girls took off. Fran looked around the room. Tai and Margot were sitting on the couch discussing Margot’s drawings, Donald and Goofy were putting together a letter for Queen Minnie, Lucy had taken off to go check on the servants, but most of the boys moped around, unsure of what to do.
Aerith, sensing that Fran and Balthier wanted to be alone, said to Sora and the others, “Why don’t you check on Leon in the bailey? Yuffie, you could go with them too. I can finish up dinner.”
“Eh…I have nothing better to do,” she remarked and got up with the boys.
“All right! Night patrol!” grinned Matti, “You coming bro?” He asked Joey.
“Nah, I got work to do,” said Joey, getting out his laptop.
“You can use the bedroom upstairs,” Aerith said to Fran.
“Thank you,” bowed Fran, “It will be awhile until we’re done talking with Balthier’s blood friends,” she winked at Aerith, who seemed to get the message.
“Blood friends?” Joey raised an eyebrow and tried to focus back on his work.
Fran took Balthier’s arm and slowly lead him upstairs into the spare bedroom. She got Balthier to lay down on the one bed and opened up a medicine bag, pulling out a bag of blood, an IV needle and a can of freezing spray. She hung the blood bag from a hook on a shelf above the bed Balthier was sitting on. The blood bag was labeled “Kogenate 2”. She attached a clear plastic tube to the bag, allowing the blood to flow through the tube. She then hooked on the IV needle to the other side of the tube, and said to Balthier, who just rolled up his sleeve on his right arm, “Here comes the hard part.”
Fran sprayed a small section of Balthier’s arm, numbing the spot temporary and stuck the IV needle into the vein of his arm. He flinched slightly but recovered as the blood started to flow into his body. “You need to calm down. You shouldn’t be getting all fussy when it gets close to treatment time,” remarked Fran.
“I know,” Balthier replied. He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I should’ve died. Not Teresa. Not Ven.”
“They choose to do what they did,” said Fran, “Besides, you know I wouldn’t be here if it were not for you.”
“Would it?” Balthier questioned, “You have not aged once since I first met you. My life is but a year in your lifetime.”
Fran placed her hand on his check and he looked at her. “I have aged, on the inside. And you know if I could, I would give up my partial immortality to be a mortal human, just to be with you Balthier. That’s why I can’t let you die so soon. I need you. Grace needs you. Even Lucy needs you. You’re perhaps the closest one that she’ll ever have to a father. We can’t give up.”
Balthier took another deep breath, then said, “It seems, just as soon as we figure something out, the mystery deepens.”
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“Grace still hasn’t come back yet?” Lucy asked when she returned from the Strahl.
Ling and Mitch shook their heads. “It’s getting late. She shouldn’t be wandering around at night,” remarked Leon.
“Sora, you should go looking for Grace,” suggested Kairi.
“Me? What for?” asked Sora.
“You haven’t done anything lately. So get off your lazy butt and move!” Kairi pushed him out the door.
Sora frowned but none the less, walked around looking for Grace. He didn’t have to look far. She was out at the restoration site, looking across the chasm. “Hey,” Sora spoke up when he saw here. Grace looked at him but turned back to the chasm. Her cheeks looked wet. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Does it look like I’m okay?” she huffed, not looking at him.
“You freaking out?” Sora asked taking a few steps towards her. When she didn’t reply, he said, “I guess that makes the two of us.”
Grace heard the change in his voice and turned towards him, with a tear or two streaming down her face. Roxas reached out and took her hand, pulling her towards him. As he held her gently in his arms, he looked across the chasm, and Grace heard him whisper, “What the heck is going on?”
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VEN’S TOMB
THE SCARED FOREST
THE SCARED FOREST
Aqua and Terra stared down upon the opened tomb of the Chaser, when Alexander arrived. Aqua gave a small cry of joy when she saw Alexander, and they embraced. Terra looked away; Aqua and Alexander’s embrace was a bit too passionate for him. When they broke apart, Terra asked Alexander, “Is Michael coming?”
“He’s on his way,” replied Alexander. He then looked at the empty sarcophagus. “So, this is what they found.”
“But why? What would he want with Ven’s armor? He can’t use it! No one other than Ven could! Do you have any ideas Alex?” Aqua looked up at Alexander.
“I have theories but each one is more unlikely than the first,” Alex shook his head.
“Oh Israel! My dear Izzy, forgive me!” sobbed Aqua, “I’ve failed you again!”
Alex placed his hand on Aqua’s shoulder, trying to think of why the tomb was opened. His thoughts were broken by the howl of a wolf. “Perhaps Michael and Summoner Jane can give us a better idea of why this has happened,” remarked Terra as a brown haired wolf and a young girl in green robes with brilliant blue eyes and long white hair reached the top of the stone stairs.
Okay, so um...why isn't coming up as new post and why don't I have a post point? AND WHY DOES IT KEEP ON CRASHING EVERY OTHER PAGE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2007
- Messages
- 8,181
Oh the forums have been crashing quite often lately CS usually around the late hours and the early hours it seems, in which it often times causes users to double post accidentally and not get a post to show up in the new post category.
But great update though and I really liked the next preview into what the next chapter is going to be about, seems quite remarkable.
But great update though and I really liked the next preview into what the next chapter is going to be about, seems quite remarkable.
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