Twilight Town pt2
Twilight Town pt2
“Sora!”
Just as Riku had suspected– had feared, more like– it was Sora in the coat. But, when he got a better look of the younger teens face, he felt his heart jump up into his throat. Not only did his skin look paler than normal with bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in days, a few strands of his chocolate brown hair had turned a silver white and there were flecks of amber gold in his right eye.
“What happened to you, Sora?” Riku asked his friend as his heart filled with dread. Sora tried to pull away and pull up his hood, but Riku refused to let go of his arms, holding on tight enough that he couldn’t get away but not tight enough to hurt him.
“Why didn’t you stay away?” Sora asked him in a sad rough voice, like he hadn’t spoken in days. His eyes began to waver slightly and grow misty with unshed tears.
“There’s no way I would leave you alone!” Riku exclaimed as he tried to pull Sora into a hug, but stopped when the brunette flinched, his hesitation just enough for him to pull away. He took a few steps back from the keyblade wielder, but didn’t bother to pull up his hood as he glared at him. “Sora, just come with me. I’ll take you back to Master Yen Sid. I’m sure he can fix this.”
“There’s nothing he can do,” Sora said in a defeated voice as he looked away from his friend. “Besides, I don’t want to hurt you. Or Kairi or Axel. Donald, Goofy, the king…” Sora then gripped his head tightly as he moaned in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Riku asked him worriedly, taking a few steps towards him.
“Hisvoice,” Sora gasped as he pulled at his hair, shaking his head roughly. “I hear it every day, ever since I woke up, I hear him calling for me… But I won’t! I won’t let him control me!” By his tone of voice, Riku could tell who Sora was referring to.
“Then, let me take you someplace safe, where he can’t reach you!” Riku said as he reached out to Sora to take his hand.
“I said stay BACK!” Sora shouted as he swiped at the outstretched hand, his own encased in Dark Fire. Riku pulled back his hand in shock and pain, feeling the burn of the flames on his hand. He examined the injury and determined that it was minor, nothing a simple Potion couldn’t fix later. When he heard a gasp, he looked up and felt his heart nearly drop to his stomach when he saw his friend. Sora had his mouth covered in shock, hands shaking and eyes full of tears. “I-I told you to stay away!” he gasped, choking on his words as he held back his tears. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
“Riku?”
Both Riku and Sora looked to the door when they heard Lea’s voice in the hallway, followed by multiple footsteps. Riku quickly turned his gaze to Sora, just in time to see him pull his hood up and make a run for a dark corridor that had manifested.
“Sora!” Riku shouted, reaching out to his friend as he disappeared, the door opening just as the portal disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.
“What happened?” Lea asked Riku as he and the others entered the room. “Was Sora here?”
Riku couldn’t say anything, his hand still outstretched to a dark corridor long gone. After a moment he punched the wall in anger.
“Damnit!” the silver haired teen shouted, his voice full of anger and despair, his hit strong enough to knock a few of Naminé’s old drawings off the wall and leave a crack in the plaster.
“I… think she’s alright?” Pence said as he pointed at the unconscious woman, Olette kneeling down next to her to check her for injuries.
“Yeah, I think she’s just asleep,” the brunette girl said, letting out a sigh of relief. At the mention of the woman, Riku turned to look at her, finally getting a good look. She was tall and thin with short blue hair, a dark blue leather bodice, black shorts with a ruffled half skirt, and gray bell sleeves. She also had two pink belts crossing on her chest with a metal emblem holding them together. Something about her seemed familiar, not that he’d seen her before but had her described to him.
“Wait…” Lea mumbled as he kneeled down next to her, examining her. His eyes were mostly drawn to the emblem on her chest before they grew with shock. “I recognize that emblem!” he exclaimed, gaining Riku’s attention. “Ventus had one just like it!”
“One of the missing wielders?” Riku said more as a statement as he knelt down next to the woman, who seemed to be waking up due to all the noise. Pretty soon her eyes slowly opened, revealing a pair of sparkling ocean blue eyes.
“Aqua?”
===
When Riku realized that the woman was Aqua, the missing keyblade master he and Mickey had been searching for, the teenager immediately contacted the king to tell him about the news. While he was on the phone, Lea helped support Aqua as they left for the gummiship to take her to Master Yen Sid’s tower, as she was still physically weak from whatever had happened to her. Hayner, Pence, and Olette all offered to help them by keeping an eye out at the mansion, in case they found any information on Sora, Roxas, or anything else, then bid the three keyblade wielders goodbye as they left the world.
Aqua seemed to be in shock as Riku did his best to explain to her what had been going on, how she wasn’t in the realm of darkness, how he and Mickey had been looking for her, and so on. But, the onslaught of information seemed to give her a headache, so he let her rest while he drove the ship to the Mysterious Tower.
When they landed, everyone was there outside the tower to welcome her back, even Yen Sid and Kairi, who had been given a break from training for the day after Riku called her and told her what happened. Once everyone was inside the tower, standing before Yen Sid at his desk, the information finally began to sink in for Aqua.
“So, I really am back,” she said in disbelief, her eyes still red from the tears she had been shedding when Mickey and the others had pulled her into a big group hug. She couldn’t help but continue to smile even though her cheeks hurt so much already. “What happened was real…”
“But how did you manage to make it back?” Riku asked her curiously. “Mickey and I had been searching the Realm of Darkness for days, and while we could sense your presence, you were nowhere in sight.”
“From what I can gather, time and even reality seem to bend in mysterious ways in the Realm of Darkness,” Aqua contemplated as she crossed her arms in thought, brows knitted together. “That would explain why I physically stayed the same age even though 10 years had passed in the Realm of Light. It could have been possible that the three of us all stood together in the same place at separate times, but we could still feel our residual energies.”
“So, how did you manage to escape?” Kairi asked the woman with a tilt of her head, making the blue haired woman smile. It still warmed her heart to know that the girl she saved 10 years ago from the Unversed in Radiant Garden was standing before her as a strong young woman, and a keyblade wielder, to boot.
“That is the mysterious part,” she said as she looked over the whole group, waiting for her story. “I don’t remember everything that had happened, but from what I do remember…”
***
Aqua stood between Ansem the Wise and the Xehanort clone that stole her friend’s face. She was not going to let him hurt anyone anymore.
“A lost master,” Xehanort remarked with a smirk as he examined Aqua. “Where is your keyblade?”
“I don’t need it to beat you!” Aqua shouted as she charged at him. She jumped into the air and was ready to hit him with a flying kick when something grabbed her. The young woman shouted in pain when Xehanort’s guardian appeared and had a tight grip on her leg, holding her high in the air upside down.
“Let her go!” Ansem the Wise shouted, his eyes full of worry. “I’ll go with you. Just don’t—”
Just then, a spinning blade engulfed in light came right for the guardian, causing it to drop Aqua to dodge the attack, allowing her to get a safe distance away. Aqua watched in shock as the light flew through the air and returned to the hands of a fourth person she never noticed before, turning into a keyblade with a gold hilt and silver blade similar to Mickey’s keyblade. Whoever they were, they also wore a black coat with their hood up to conceal their face, the coat so long that it seemed to drag on the ground as they approached the group, leaving a trail in the black sand in their wake. Xehanort seemed confused until his confusion turned into a glare.
“You!” he growled as dark fire danced on his fingertips, his guardian hovering behind him. The new person stopped not too far away, crouching down into a fighting position as they gripped their keyblade tightly.
“If you are going to fight someone, make it me,” they declared to him in a rough voice. Aqua could tell from the voice that they were male and on the younger side, maybe the same age as Ven. Xehanort seemed to contemplate taking on the newcomer until his glare turned into a smirk.
“I could do so,” he stated as he turned to look to Ansem the Wise, then to Aqua. “But there is much that must be done before the final battle. So why don’t I keep you busy until you decide to return to us.” Then, before anyone had time to acknowledge what was going on, the guardian flew through the air and attacked Aqua head on with an intense blast, causing her to cry out in pain as she was sent sailing through the air, landing in the waters of the Dark Margin.
“AQUA!” a voice called out to her as she began to sink into the dark waters. For just a split second, she thought she heard Ven’s voice.
As she was sinking down, the wound on her chest began to emit a dark energy that slowly consumed her. She then felt a warm hand grab her own just as she lost consciousness.
***
“Then, after that, I woke up in that white room, with you boys there,” Aqua said, finishing her story as she looked to Riku and Lea, letting the story sink in as the room went quiet.
“Gwarsh, that must have been Sora,” Goofy said with a smile, trying hard to mask his worry and see this in a brighter light. “He’s the only one able to use that keyblade, and he would do anything to help a friend.”
“But what about your injury?” Mickey asked her curiously. “When Xehanort’s guardian attacked you, it hit you with an attack imbued with the power of darkness, corrupting you.”
“I don’t know,” Aqua admitted as she looked over herself. “I don’t feel in pain anywhere, and I don’t sense any darkness.”
“That was probably Sora as well,” Riku said, gaining everyone’s attention. “When he was spotted in Twilight Town with you, I was told that you looked injured, but when I found you at the mansion you appeared fine. Sora, on the other hand, wasn’t. He kept saying he could hear Xehanort’s voice, calling to him, ever since he woke up. It could be possible, but Sora might have absorbed your darkness to save you.”
“So, then he was…” Kairi started, but couldn’t bring herself to finish. The realization set in quickly as everyone went quiet, the air filling with tense dread.
“It’s my fault,” Lea said in frustration as his hands clenched tightly, turning the skin white. “I couldn’t reach him fast enough. Because I was too damned slow, Sora and Roxas are…”
“Not all hope is lost,” Yen Sid said, everyone turning to him as the master spoke. “Based on what Riku said and Aqua’s story, Sora may have a piece of Master Xehanort’s heart inside him, but he has retained enough of himself to not fully fall to darkness.” Yen Sid turned his gaze to Riku, who stood at attention. “It seems your original plan to follow your heart to find Sora has done more for our investigation than before. Continue on your original path and find him.”
“Yes, Master,” Riku said with a nod. He then sensed two other people approaching the desk.
“Let me come with you,” Lea said, surprising Riku and Kairi as they both looked up to the redhead. “It’s my fault Sora’s in this situation. And, technically, my heart led me to Twilight Town, and if I hadn't been there our newest master here would have been toast.” Lea only smirked when Riku glared at him, but the silver haired teen didn’t say anything, as it was technically true.
“I, too, wish to come on your journey,” Aqua said with her hand on her heart, causing everyone to look at her. “Sora saved me in the Realm of Darkness and pulled me back here. I need to repay him for saving me by saving him. Also, I need to search for my friend Terra. If Sora now has some connection to Xehanort, then maybe by looking for him I may also find Terra.” She then turned to look at Riku and Lea with an almost shy smile. “Unless, you think it’s best if I…”
“I would be honored if you came with us,” Riku said with a smile, the woman visibly relaxing at his words. Yen Sid nodded as a small smile appeared on his face.
“It seems you will not be going on this journey alone, Master Riku,” the old master said, the three new companions now standing at attention. “I give you three my blessing. Now, go, and may your hearts be your guiding key.”
===
“Aw, how come Lea can go along but I can’t?” Kairi complained as she followed Riku to the gummiship. Aqua and Lea were busy packing their things into the ship while Mickey helped Donald and Goofy get the ship ready with some upgrades.
“Because you still need to finish your training,” Riku said with a sigh and a smile as he turned to his friend.
“But he’s not done with his training either!”
“But he has more experience dealing with the Heartless and Nobodies than you do,” Riku added, making Kairi pout. That was very much true, even though she has fought a few enemies before. “I promise I’ll keep you up-to-date on anything we learn. Just… believe in Sora. Everything always turns out good in the end when you do that.” Kairi’s gaze softened slightly at those words before she gave him a smile.
“I’ll put my faith into all of you,” she declared as she hugged Riku tightly, the older teen wrapping his arms around her. “Please… save Sora.”
“I will.”
===
“So, where do we go now, Master Riku?” Lea asked in a mocking tone, but the silver haired teen knew he didn’t intend it a negative way.
“Hmmm…” Riku thought long and hard, tapping a finger on the controls of the gummiship. Aqua was busy looking around the inside of the ship and out the windows at the surrounding space as they floated in the lane between in awe. She had told them before that when she traveled to different worlds, she would summon special armor and her keyblade would turn into a glider, allowing her to fly to the different worlds. But, you would always be at risk of being attacked by enemies with minimal coverage that way, so while using the gummiship was slower, at least it was safer, with just as amazing of a view.
“Just do it the same way you did before, when you went to Twilight Town,” Lea added, hands clasped together on the back of his head, drawing Aqua’s attention away from the ship and to the two boys.
“All I did was follow my heart,” Riku stated as he continued to think. “But right now, it feels like my heart is pulling in different directions.” He looked back at the two of them with a frown. “Sorry, I guess I’m just still in shock.” Lea’s smirk turned into a frown as he leaned forward.
“Nah, it’s okay,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I think we are all still in shock, one way or another.”
“I have a suggestion,” Aqua said as she raised her hand sheepishly, drawing their attention to her. It was obvious that she was more used to taking charge, but knew she had to let Riku lead them due to his strong connection to Sora. “Before we left the tower, Mickey told me about how Donald and Goofy had been going to previous worlds Sora had been to, to see if he had returned to any of them. He told me they had been to every world aside from Twilight Town and one other world. Maybe you can start there?”
“It’s something at least,” Riku said with a half-smile. “What world was that?”
“Olympus Coliseum.”