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Chapter Three
Sora
At this point and time Radiant Garden was looking very well. The various shops and houses didn’t have patchwork roves anymore, the people milling around looked happier than before and less poor and downtrodden, and the castle off in the distance had finally been restored to its old glory. Leon and the others had worked overtime to get their home back to what it once was before the heartless invasion and it was always nice to see that their efforts hadn’t been in vain. I grimaced, bad memories surfacing as I remembered the second time heartless had invaded.
“Is this…Hollow Bastion?” Donald sounded confused as he and Goofy looked around, taking in everything. It certainly wasn’t the Hollow Bastion that they remembered, the broken down old castle with its traps and contraptions as Goofy called them. By all rights this was a brand new world to them and that wasn’t the memo that we’d received from Marluxia. This world was actually the first one to be erased last time around when Namine had gotten to work on my memories. Out of the three of us, only Goofy had managed to retain enough of his memory to know that the important events there had taken place in a castle. By the third floor even that had gone poof. I wondered how long it would take to lose the memories this time. In fact I wondered what memories I’d be losing now because Namine sure had a lot more to choose from.
“It..looks like it.” I put some confusion in my voice as we moved instinctively closer to one another, ready and waiting for anything to pop out. Donald and Goofy were keeping an eye out for heartless that I knew wouldn’t show up for a bit. I was keeping an eye out for angry organization members. They watched every move we made and this most certainly wasn’t part of the script.
“Let’s look around a bit!” I suggested, wanting to get this show on the road. I planned to herd us off to Merlin’s house, that way he could teach us some magic and I could get to work on learning the things I’d need to scale the castle, save Namine and meet up with Riku, who was currently stressing and fighting his own personal demons. This time I planned to make the experience a lot easier for him so he didn’t spend a year and a half brooding and worrying that he could never go home ever again. We walked through the streets, Donald and Goofy craning their necks and wondering just what in the world was going on while I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of both trouble, and the event marker we needed to stumble into. That’s how this was going to work after all, we’d go to a world, relive the key events of my visit to said world, and then boogie on to the next floor after beating some sort of powerful enemy. When we’d done this previously no one had recognized us when we went from floor to floor and I had at the time not really cared enough to theorize why that was. Later on I’d guess that since we were reliving my first visit to most of those worlds, then that meant we were reliving my first meetings with friends on those worlds, which would explain why they had no idea who I was. If I tried hard enough I could get them to remember my name and that they were supposed to know me, like in Traverse Town, but I didn’t because the moment I stepped into the new world room my memories of that world went poof. As I thought about that I did a quick rundown of the main points of what went down when Donald, Goofy and I had visited Radiant Garden after my second failed attempt at a Mark of Mastery, a failure that would kickstart a new journey for us and Xehanort’s inevitable victory when the lights clashed with the darknesses. It was good to know that I still knew what was about to happen, all I had to do was roll with the punches and not get too choked up when I saw..
“Sora!”
…her again.
Before I knew what was happening I found myself tackle hugged to the ground. Donald and Goofy jumped, startled, and I spluttered while my attacker giggled. I would know that giggle anywhere.
“Hi!” Selphie said, cheerful as she always was. It was obvious that she was the event marker I’d been looking for because meeting her was the first thing that happened to me when we arrived the first time around. This time though I was a bit chocked up because naturally she had died in the last timeline. However the difference was that time was explicitly
my fault and so seeing her like that, giggling and fine and not dead was enough to force me to close my eyes and take a breath so I didn’t start blubbering right there. I had to remind myself that Selphie was on the islands and that this was an
illusion.
“Selphie!” I said the second I trusted myself to speak “Let me up!”
Selphie smiled wide and moved off of me, and I got up, glaring at Donald and Goofy as they smirked at me. Oh I was gonna hear about this. Those two loved picking on me about girls..
“What are you doing here?” I asked my childhood friend. She was dressed in a sensible yellow short sleeved top and black pants. Typically she wore a yellow dress that her mom hand made for her but that wasn’t exactly suitable for what she planned to do here.
“Training!” she said brightly, looking over at Donald and Goofy “You must be Donald and Goofy! Sora’s told me all about you two! My name is Selphie.”
When Riku and I returned to the islands it was about two months or so before Mickey sent us the bottle that would lead us to take our Mark of Mastery exam. During those two months we had to adjust to regular island living again. During that time I found out that Selphie had spent lots of time with my mom while I was gone, something that didn’t stop just because I was home now and having a hard time adjusting back to my old life. Selphie and I had gotten pretty close and I had told her all about my previous adventures after she poked and prodded and begged me to.
“It’s nice to meet ya Selphie!” Goofy said good naturedly “You’re one of Sora’s friends from the islands right?”
“I am!” the brown haired girl nodded.
“What’s this about training?” Donald asked curiously.
“See, about that..” Selphie’s smile turned mischievous and she held out her hand. There was a flash of light and a keyblade formed. A silver one with a blue guard and star shaped blade on a spike at the end. Starlight. Donald and Goofy’s jaws dropped and I had to chuckled at the looks on their faces. They had done the same thing last time and I had right along with them. Selphie suddenly having a keyblade was quite a shock at the time.
Selphie. Dead. Gutted.
My good humor left just as quickly as it came and my insides twisted. If it wasn’t for that keyblade Selphie wouldn’t have been in a position for me to get her killed..
“Sora?” Selphie dismissed her weapon and poked me. I jumped and she grinned and kept doing it while I tried to bat her away because damn it that
tickled!
“You’re supposed to say oh wow Selphie that’s amazing! I didn’t know you were so skilled, talented and wonderful enough to be chosen by a weapon as fabulous as the keyblade. You shouldn’t look sick sir. Try again.” She lectured me.
I narrowed my eyes and wiggled out of the way of another poke “Oh wow Selphie that’s amazing. I didn’t know you were so skilled, talented and wonderful enough to be chosen by a weapon as fabulous as the keyblade.” I deadpanned. Selphie rolled her eyes.
“No sarcasm! That’s Riku’s thing!”
“He rubbed off on me.” I shrugged.
“You have a KEYBLADE?!” Donald quacked and pointed at her with a shaking feathered finger.
“See that. That is what you were supposed to do.” Selphie pouted at me. I smiled and didn’t reply.
“She has a keyblade.” Another voice spoke up and we all looked around as Leon came onto the scene, looking annoyed “She also ran off without permission when she saw you three arrive.”
Selphie didn’t look in the least bit apologetic so I apologized for her. Leon waved it off, shaking his head in exasperation.
“So you’re training her Leon?” Goofy asked. Leon nodded.
“Not just her. Heartless have started showing up in large numbers and we need all hands on deck to fight them back. Selphie and her showed up a few days ago to help.” He explained.
The second heartless invasion. A threat that Radiant Garden just barely managed to survive. Xehanort’s way of showing off how much power he had and what he could do at a moment’s notice. That’s what he said at least. In reality it was a test to make sure the seven lights were up to snuff to face off against his thirteen darknessses. It was something he did frequently before that fated showdown, cause big time trouble and leave it to us to clean it up. His ‘tests’ resulted in plenty of death and destruction and the seven lights that eventually faced him and his ilk were a lot different than they had been when it all started.
“Tidus and Wakka are here too!” Selphie added.
Which could be blamed on Xemnas, who arrived at Destiny Islands with a bunch of nobodies to mock Kairi. Only to find out she wasn’t even on the islands. So he attacked everyone who actually was there in order to suss out where Kairi actually was. It was the reason Selphie had a keyblade and the reason why Tidus, Wakka and Selphie had decided to get involved with fighting back the darkness. The King showed up, too late as always to do any real work, and took them to Radiant Garden for Leon to look after. Selphie should have gone to Yen Sid but she had refused and The King had caved.
“Sounds like you could use our help.” I said to Leon with a confident smirk. It’s what I said last time after all.
“It would be appreciated, yes. Let’s go meet up with the others. They’re in the castle right now.” Leon said. We nodded and he lead the way to the castle that was off in the distance.
Goofy followed with Selphie, talking about this and that while Donald watched everything with a thoughtful frown on his face.
“I don’t understand. None of this happened before.” He explained when he noticed me staring “We’re supposed to be seeing our memories aren’t we?”
“That hooded guy said we’d meet people that we knew in the past.” I evaded “I guess this is what he meant.”
Donald looked uncertain as we followed behind the group. I shoved my hands in my pockets and felt something plastic. I pulled three cards out of my pocket and stared at them for a moment before returning them back where I found them. Key of Beginnings, Key of Guidance and Key to Truth. These three cards would appear at the start of each floor and I’d need them to progress through the world I was in. Truth tended to be some sort of climatic battle that was fought during the world so of course I’d need to be prepared before using it. The invasion wouldn’t happen until Donald, Goofy and I’s second visit to the world so I kinda wondered what I’d be facing. I’m sure the castle would cook something up.
Something hit me then, a cold slimy feeling of dread. I paused and looked up at the sky, shivering.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
NG+
Riku
My blood was pumping and my body was singing as I let out a loud battle cry, stabbing my keyblade deep inside of the black dragon that I’d been facing off against for the last ten minutes. Maleficent’s dragon form was just as annoying to fight against as I remembered it being. Between her long reach, her black magic making rocks shoot up from the ground and slam into me in awkward places, and of course the green fire that was
everywhere it had taken me a lot longer than it really should have to land this final, fatal blow. My fifteen year old body’s limitations didn’t help matters. Neither did Nevaeh whispering things into my ear.
“If you would just let me help you then you’d have killed this illusion a lot faster.” She sounded annoyed at me and I have to admit that filled me with some satisfaction. I didn’t reply as I watched Maleficent morph back to her regular form and then vanish into the darkness, spouting all of the usual threats that my busy schedule didn’t have time for. I was on floor two of thirteen and once I finally made it up to the entrance of the castle I’d have to climb even more floors to get to where Sora was. That meant I needed to move as quickly as I could. I took a breath, muttering a cure spell to deal with all of the annoying burns and scratches that covered my body as I allowed myself to fall into a sitting position on the floor of Maleficent’s haunt in Enchanted Domain. Okay so maybe a quick rest wouldn’t hurt. I’d freaking kill for some potions and ethers right about now but of course this castle was quite lacking in either of those things.
“Bravo Riku! You are very skilled to have made it so far in such a short time. Sora is still wandering around on the first floor, chatting it up with his memories.” A new voice interrupted my wonderful resting time and I cursed, standing up again and quickly calling my keyblade to deal with whatever this new threat was that had managed to sneak up on me while my attention was elsewhere. Sloppy. Very sloppy.
The figure in question was wearing a black coat and had long ash blonde hair and cold green eyes. Those eyes were calculating as they looked me up and down and I suppressed a groan. Vexen.
“You even found yourself a keyblade! Excellent. Oh so excellent. Watching you fight through your own memories has given me some very valuable data.” Vexen rambled, as excited as a nobody could appear. I narrowed my eyes, I knew what he was going to do with that data and I certainly didn’t need a replica Riku slowing me down like it did last time. It also almost killed Sora a few times and that wasn’t something I wanted my best friend to have to deal with. That meant I had no choice but to kill Vexen right now.
Instead of answering him I moved, closing the distance between us with a burst of speed as I brought my key down on him, going straight for a vital spot. Vexen wasn’t a slouch though and in a burst of cold and ice his shield materialized and stopped my attack. I pounded at it but Vexen didn’t budge, just laughed maniacally and pushed me back. I stopped my backslide and rushed him again, throwing a ball of darkness fueled fire magic at him. He moved out of the way easily, knowing just as well as I did what fire magic would do to him. I smirked and clenched my fist, causing the fireball to expand and explode into a bunch of smaller fireballs which changed their direction and homed in on him. He raised his shield to block the onslaught and this time I could tell it took some real effort for him. Elemental rock, paper, scissors at its finest. I jumped high, angling myself so that I could get in a good stab around his shield, which would hopefully kill him. Nobodies were durable but they sure as hell couldn’t deal with being stabbed through the eye. Vexen retreated into a dark corridor and I missed, my keyblade embedding itself into the ground instead. He popped out a little ways behind me and I waved my free hand at him, causing several bolts of lightning to fall from the sky and damage him. While he was distracted I pulled my key out of the ground and focused my magic into it, adding power to the weapon. Vexen looked at me in amusement and the look made me a lot angrier than it should have. I charged again, repeating what started the battle. He blocked my attacks and I once again pounded on his shield. This time however I started leaving cracks and his amused look quickly morphed into one of horror. I smiled viciously and raised my blade high, cloaking it in black fire. I laughed as I brought my weapon down and broke through that damnable shield of his, feeling it as my weapon dug itself deep into his torso and the flames burned the nobody from the inside out. Vexen slumped, dropping what was left of his shield as he wilted and sank into the darkness. I stared at the place where he vanished, a grin still splitting my face as I relished the kill.
Wait. Why was I relishing the kill? I didn’t hate Vexen that much and I didn’t even enjoy fighting that much. But here I was, damn near high off of slicing Vexen the way I…oh that
bitch!
“Nevaeh stop it!” I growled out. She was influencing me! I didn’t want her help, didn’t want her power, didn’t want anything to do with her now that she’d brought me to the past. The high faded away and I gasped as I suddenly felt almost faint.
“Just trying to assist you Riku.” The demon sounded almost apologetic. I growled.
“Keep your magic to your own self!” I snarled. I was strong enough on my own.
“Well. Wasn’t that educational.”
Vexen’s voice sounded smug, oh so smug, and I glared at him hard as he stepped out of the shadows, looking none worse for wear despite the fact that I just burned him from the inside out.
“What you just fought Riku was a replica.” Vexen casually explained “A rather weak one too. Your spirited battle provided me exactly what I needed to finish up my experiment.”
The Riku replica. Once again I fell right into his trap. Damn it all.
“Whatever it is you need that data for, I’m going to tear it down.” I promised him. He was going to send that replica at me for a test run and I’d have the perfect chance to destroy it right then and there.
“It will be very interesting to see you try,” Vexen replied “Until we meet again Keyblade wielder.”
He laughed and vanished into the darkness. I berated myself for my stupidity. That was uncalled for. A dumb move that could ruin everything. What if the replica was stronger now? What if it succeeded in killing Sora? It’d be all my fault because I didn’t think things through. Of course he didn’t put up the fight he should have, of course he was just trying to provoke me. It’s exactly what happened last time. It didn’t help that I had a demon in my body trying to mess things up for this timeline even more.
“If we work together Riku then this quest of yours will go a lot smoother for you.” Nevaeh said.
I shook my head and started to walk. I had to get to the next floor. I’d wasted enough time on this one already and I still had a lot of ground to cover.
Nevaeh radiated disappointment.
NG+
Axel
It was odd, seeing this place again after so long.
Axel watched the keyblade master walk with his companions, standing in the shadows of a nearby rooftop with his hood up. The moment he saw Radiant Garden, formed to its past glory, something told him he needed to come see the place for himself. Marluxia and Larxene were dealing with Namine, whom they blamed for this mix up, but Axel figured that scoping out the situation was more important. How could Sora create this place with a card? The only memories he should have of this place are of a rundown castle where he became a heartless for his friend’s sake. This world hadn’t been like this for at least nine years or so. So why? Axel didn’t understand and he didn’t like all of the old memories that were surfacing. Memories of a simpler time when the only really important thing to him was sneaking a peek at what was inside of the big castle that only a select few were allowed in.
Considering what he and Isa had found when they finally snuck past the guards, Axel wished they’d never gone in at all.
“What’s going on Sora?” he wondered aloud “What’s happening with your heart?”
Sora knew the reason why this world was made. Axel would bet his non-existent life on it. The dog and duck look baffled and had kept that look for as long as they’d been in the room, obviously not understanding anything that was going on around them, as it should be. Sora on the other hand looked unruffled , the surprise on his face and most of his other reactions faked to near perfection. But the keyword was near and Axel could tell they were forced. Being a nobody for as long as he had Axel knew a thing or twelve about faking emotions and so far, the only truly real thing that had gotten under Sora’s skin was when that girl in yellow hugged him. Something about her forced him to lower his guard, a guard that shouldn’t even be there at all if the data Vexen had provided them was correct. Axel made a mental note to talk to the scientist about it later when he got back from gathering data on Castle Oblivion’s other guest, Riku. Shockingly enough he had somehow snagged himself a keyblade of his own. Which meant that along with the yellow girl that made three keys in this castle. Two keys that shouldn’t even exist at all. A entire world that shouldn’t exist at all.
The red haired man narrowed his eyes as he watched the boy. If he couldn’t figure out an appropriate answer himself then the only thing left to do was force it out of Sora. Sure it wasn’t going according to Marluxia’s plan, but it was looking like the flower power’s plan was going to need a few adjustments anyways. Whatever happened Axel needed to put on a good show so that he could get into the other nobody’s good books which would mean he could be let in on the plan to overthrow Xemnas. All that was left to do after that was kill Marluxia and Larxene when the opportunity presented itself and take Sora back to Xemnas for study and experimentation. It wouldn’t be the easiest mission Axel had ever gone on, but he had no doubts that he’d be able to handle it. Maybe if he brought Riku back too he could get himself a few days off as a reward for a job well done. Considering all of the fighting that Axel was no doubt going to have to do he thought he deserved something special for his services. Especially considering that Axel was going to have to return to this white bore of a castle anyway to search for the chamber of whatever that Xemnas wanted to find so badly. A room that frustratingly enough wouldn’t appear no matter how much Axel explored on his off time..
Unless..
Axel blinked, a slow smile making its way onto his face as the pieces started falling into place. Sora and Riku were literally the keys he needed. If he was going to track down Xemnas’s chamber then he had no choice but to use the two teen’s and their keys to do it. If he successfully found the room, brought back Sora
and Riku all on top of weeding out the traitors then his vacation time was all but assured. Maybe he could even bring Roxas along when he searched out the perfect spot to do nothing.
Axel moved, his focus on the keyblade master tightening. Yes, this would work out very nicely as long as he played his cards right. A vacation, Saix getting off his ass and four keyblades under Organization control.
Things were looking up and it was time to figure out just how he was going to confront Sora. He’d need to be quick about it too.
Being back in this place made his skin crawl.