Video Game: Kingdom Hearts SOS: The Road To Light

Beuce accepted the ice cream and Kross only grinned in response, taking a seat beside him and leaning forward a bit. He had his eyes on Beuce and waved a hand at his apology."Don't worry about that. Happens to me a lot. Besides, I'm more concerned about my friends's wellbeing and..well...you're in that club whether you know it or not." He said, yes, it looked like Kross was right. Both personal and Karin were bothering Beuce and this made Kross even more concerned. He leaned up and put a hand on Beuce's shoulder."I'm sorry about Karina, I really am. You're not the first to try to get a cheer out of her and you won't be the last. She has a lot of personal issues and I would be lying if I said I don't feel for her. As I've told Ananta, you shouldn't let what she says bother you. She's just wallowing in self pity."He said, but he was sure Beuce knew that already.

Then came Beuce's life story. In all honesty, Kross didn't know that much about Beuce, they had never really taken the chance and really talked like this. It was nice to be able to listen to someone open up to him. it was better than being chewed out and shut out from trying to help someone, and Kross had encountered many of those. He'd keep helping others though, it was in his nature. The part about the war he participated in made Kross tense up. Pepper Island had never warred for as long as he remembered. The island was unified over 2000 years ago for pete's sake."I can't imagine what your life must have been like, I had never seen war, unlike you. I've lived in a millenia of peace. I guess that's why I'm so weak."He said, stroking his chin. Beuce's life was a long and combat-heavy one, it made Kross wonder if the guy longed for just a moment of peace, just a moment where he could rest and not have to fight. Kross longed for the same thing, he hated fighting. Even if he was trained to fight the unversed and the Heartless, his heart was never in it. He reached a put a hand to Beuce's upper back, looking at him."Do you ever regret it? I mean...coming with us? ...I know sometimes we can be a pain in the ass but..we mean well."He says, putting a finger up."Even Karina."He said before Beuce could even ask about her. He smiled at Beuce."You're a strange guy, you have wit, you have looks, and you're wicked strong. You're everything I'm not."He said and laughed, rubbing his forehead."Makes me jealous."

 

Munching on the sandwich, Ananta sat next to Kross. She was still waiting on him to reply to her cheering up attempts. She may not be good at it, but at least she tried, right? Enjoying the sandwich, she didn't notice Kross was gone just yet. Finishing the sandwich mere moments later, she opened her water bottle and began to gulp the refreshing liquid down. Turning her head to her right, she saw Kross was gone. She stopped mid-gulp and put the cap back on the bottle, swallowing hard on the water in her mouth. Looking down on the bench, she saw he hadn't even touched the sandwich she gave to him.

Frowning, Ananta looked down at the her own hands. She then curled up on the bench, pulling her knees to her chest. Had she done something wrong? Did Kross really not want to hang around? Were her words going in one ear and out the other, making him think they were insignificant? All these and more were running through Ananta's head as she sat there on the bench. Reaching into her pocket, she held the necklace in front of her and frowned at it. Thinking Kross was her friend was a stupid idea. Especially since he just up and left her behind, not even taking one bite of the food.

Looking around, she wondered if maybe somebody else was here that she could go to. Her eyes stopped on Kross and Beuce sitting together and talking to each other on a bench. "So that's where he went..." Ananta thought to herself, realizing that maybe Kross would rather talk to Beuce than her. Anybody is better to talk to than Ananta. Karina was even better. Speaking of Karina, Ananta realized that maybe what she said was right. Maybe Ananta was just too nosy or doting or motherly for people. Ananta felt her heart ache at realizing that it was probably all her fault that nobody wanted to talk with her.

Her mind was racing with thoughts and reasons as she kept staring at Kross and Beuce, not noticing she was still staring.

 

Kaida was still catching her breath when Pete and Max's moment occurred. When Pete dragged the guard off like that, she suppressed a laugh. Kaida accepted the items and thanked Max, then she summoned away her keyblade and looked over at Cailyn, "You did awesome back there." she turned more towards her and held her hand out, "My name's Kaida." she waited a moment for Cailyn's reply before she continued, "If you don't mind me asking, where did you get your keyblade?"

 

There was a moment of silence before Kross spoke up, asking Beuce if he regretted joining the group of keyblade wielders. "Nah. I mean, where would you guys be without me, right?" He said jokingly to Kross. Then he went on about how Beuce was witty, good looking, and strong. "Damn straight." He said with a chuckle. What came next almost surprised him. Kross said he was everything he wasn't. That he was jealous of Beuce. "There's not really much to be jealous of. I mean, I'm missing an arm for God's sake. Only reason that happened was because i was stupid, thought i could overpower the behemoth king, and wasn't strong enough to do it. Even in soldier and Mad World, i didn't have the strength to overcome him. Can't be too amazing if i let a stupid heartless get the best of me. You all were the ones to finish it off." He said, thinking back to the thousand heartless battle. "If i can't even take on a behemoth...I don't know what I'm going to do against the elemental guardians, or worse, Nequa. My plan is to use the guardians to overpower her in magic, beat her at her own game, but if i'm not strong enough to even get them in the first place, then that's down the crapper."

Standing up, Beuce stretched out his single arm and arched his back, before returning to normal posture. "Well, one problem at a time i guess. We should get searching for that mouse. I don't know where he'd be, but we may as well check around town for him. We've been lounging around enough. Shall we then?" He said, offering to search with Kross, then spotted Ananta. Waving his hand, he motioned for her to come along.

 

"Right" Kross deadpanned as his reply to Beuce's comment. Though he couldn't help but let a smile tug at the corners of his lips. The 1000 heartless battle that could only be compared to the Kingdom Hearts 2 version was something he didn't wish to be reminded of. Damn behemoths.. He mentioned the Elemental Guardians and..that apprentice from before, Nequa was her name. His lips thinned, the girl was great at magic, rivaling Eclipse's and definitely besting his. He still had a long path ahead but he wouldn't give up, he wouldn't give in. Quitting was for the past. He wasn't going to do it. He heard something interesting too, that Beuce was searching for the guardians to use their power."You know better than anyone here that I'm not going to let you do this alone."He said, a tiny grin was on his face."I'd never abandon a friend in need and i'm very sure others here feel the very same way."He said.

He stood with Beuce and watched him stretch. He was right, enough dallying around, heck, he felt like finding the mouse was top priority anyway. He was still reeling from the loss of his Master."For Master Yen Sid."He replied simply to Beuce's offer, nodding to him. He saw Beuce wave to somebody and he followed the wave, seeing Ananta across from them, staring at the--oh crap. His breath hitched as he hurried over, kneeling infront of Ananta and put a hand on her knee gently."Ananta, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to leave you so abruptly, it's..just that Beuce..he just looked like he needed someone to help cheer him up."

 

Not paying attention, Ananta jumped when Kross placed a hand on her knee. Her hands rose to defend herself, while she blinked and noticed it was just Kross. Shaking her head, she smiled. "No...no it's fine. Beuce has it worst off right now. He needs all the cheering up you can give him." she said, patting Kross' hand. "So what will you do now? Stay with him?" she asked, already knowing he'd most likely run off with Beuce anyway. That always happened when Ananta decided to spend time with somebody. It reminded her of a time when she was at a store with a classmate from her school. They were inside a store and had met up with another classmate by chance. Ananta was busy looking through the store and hadn't even noticed the two left the store. It wasn't until later when she called the girl that she learned she had forgotten Ananta was even there. They never spoke again after that.

"I mean, if you do go off, at least eat some of the food I got for you." Ananta asked, turning to the bag. As she turned, the necklace fell out of her pocket and landed on the ground. Rummaging through the bag, Ananta pulled out the two pieces of pie she had bought. Handing Kross his container, she gave him a little milk carton to go with it. "The general store owner said this pie is pretty famous around here, so she hoped we'd like it. She swore I was going on a date with you, when I told her I had a good friend to cheer up. It was weird..." she frowned. How can it be a date when they've got so much work to do? Sure, Kross and Ananta are pretty good friends already, but she barely knows anything about him other than what he's told her about his world and the basics about him, like his age. "At least eat the pie with me." she asked again.

 

At this point Kel was having little luck in finding any clue relating to Mickey while he looked around the town. While he did manage to find many other things or interest, he had to ignore them for the time being to remain focused on the objective at hand. That said, there was nothing against him getting some ice cream while he waled around. After all it was one something that he could afford to get. Now he was walking down the street, casually eating some ice cream while he made sure to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.

Not that the ice cream was suppose to help at all, but still nothing was found as he looked around. At this rate maybe he should just go ahead and head back to the house and wait for the others. He wasn't all that far away, but he wasn't exactly all that close either. Seeing as how it was probably going to take him some time to get back there, there was nothing saying that he couldn't take his time getting back there. Maybe he'd spot something that he'd missed this time around.

 

"Thanks! You're pretty awesome yourself!" She replied. "My name's Cailyn, nice to meet you Kaida." She took at look at her own Keyblade. "I'm actually not so sure haha. Where did you get yours." She asked, playing with her hair.

 

While everyone had gone off to explore the town, the young lad named D'daear had kept himself indoors for the time being. The concept of time traveling was still a bit confusing to him, to the point that he felt he needed time to dwell on the words spoken by both Hikaru and Merlin; despite having missed a few. With eyes averted to the floor in shallow contemplation, he began to pace about the house while the train that were his thoughts warmed its wheels on the tracks. "A Time traveling...Mickey." he began to murmur. "Yen Sid's tower...what point in time was that then? I mean, if Mickey had not been seen in a while in THIS town, then does that mean he was spending time with Yen Sid? OR are there TWO different Mickeys roaming about now? A Mickey from THIS town, and a Mickey who was with Yen Sid?" he questioned in succession. These were just but a few questions he had in regards to this conundrum. The way he saw it...A point in time where you were, obviously differs to the point in time you are in now. Meaning, if you time traveled to a point where you exist, that would make it possible to run into a past or future YOU. Eye lids squinted at these ideas. As if on autopilot his body; having been moving around, found a nice comfy chair within the living room. It was only a matter of time before someone had decided to sit on one of these Sofas. Still contemplating, rear end planted itself on the soft cushion chair near a coffee table while the rest of the body found itself lazing about. Arms folded into a cross like position while brows furrowed.

"Ok ok...if THIS town's Mickey is missing, and we just saw Mickey at Yen Sid's tower...then there's two Mickeys...in theory. So...technically, the Mickey WE saw COULD be hiding in this town. " he murmured to himself, just as Glen's voice had noted how exploring this town would be pointless. Head began to ache at this whole deduction in regards to time traveling. Steel soon spoke up to make a point to which D'daear had to agree to. Without looking to Glen or Steel, he went on to disagree with Glen, noting Steel.

"I think Steel is right. Just because no one in THIS town has seen Mickey, doesn't necessarily mean the Mickey we saw traveled here...I think..." he spoke up, still staring away into space with some doubt. In the back of his mind, he knew staring away into space helped his concentration. "So...it's not a waste of time to search here...if not for clues at least..."

Eyes caught the sight of a scrapbook laying about on the coffee table in front of him. A small sigh escaped a head throbbing D'daear. Perhaps keeping his mind off this subject for a little while would help ease this headache. Picking up the scrapbook with one hand, he went on to look at pictures. Just like the ones that decorated Mickey's bedroom, there were many photos of him alongside Minnie, and other denizens of this town. Free hand flipped a page. Head cocked to one side at the sight of Mickey with two other denizens. One of them looked like a tall anthropomorphic dog, and a Duck about Mickey's height. However, that wasn't what made his head skew. The photo, unlike most of the ones he had seen, were in black and white...or monochrome. A brow rose in question, while his hand turned to the next page. There it was again, another photo in monochrome. It was Mickey with a rather tall chubby looking fellow wearing overalls. The two were standing in front of a dock with what looked like some type of boat. It was spewing out steam. Turning the page once more, and he saw something that made his eyes widen in shock. Placed on a stocky ornate pedestal with fleur de lis designs, was a large crystal sphere that radiated bright. In front of it, was Mickey Mouse along with the the three other partners he had seen in the last two photos.

"What the- No way..." he uttered weakly under his breathe. Shock began to overtake him as eyes widened, irises fixated on the large glowing transparent ball depicted in the photo. "That's the cornerstone of light!" D'daear's faded in, voice growing louder with each syllable. He chuckled in excitement with a smile. Among the many stories he had been told by his Grandma, this was definitely one he remembered. In the stories, this was a sacred relic that kept the darkness away from the Aesop woods. He always enjoyed hearing about it because the woods were always lively. The intelligent furry critters of that forest would always be doing something that at the end of their adventures, would always have a morale to teach him.

D'daear placed a finger on the photo, realizing something as he tapped on it in disagreement. "...it's the cornerstone of light, but it looks a little different...Hmmm..." he contemplated out loud. Brows furrowed in disappointment, remembering how wrong his Grandmother had been about the outside worlds. After that experience, he wouldn't doubt that this would be the second of many times she would be wrong...perhaps about everything she told him. "Well...at any rate...I should probably take a photo just in case. It could prove useful when looking for Mickey..."

Pulling the photo out of the album, he tossed the book onto the coffee table with a thud. He rose to his feet, and placed the photo into pockets. "So when are we ready for departure?"

 

Kaida listened to Cailyn's reply and at least had an understanding of the situation. She'd heard other people at the academy who just suddenly received keyblades at some point in their lives. It was at that moment she realized it wasn't really any of her business to know how she got the keyblade, but she was curious how Cailyn ended up on the world, but she didn't want to talk about that in front of Max. She didn't seem to be from this world, at all, unless she was secretly an animal or something.

Kaida readjusted her glove and replied, "Um, I got it from someone else who wielded a keyblade. He trained me how to use it too, although I mostly learned stuff on my own." she took a moment to think before she looked over at Max and spoke, "Alright so I'm assuming we are close to your hideout, since Cailyn appears to be the friend you were talking about. You said it would be safer to talk there, did you have something you needed to say in safe company?"

 

Welp, Ananta seemed to be busy assuming Kross had abandoned her to go hang out with him and completely missed the fact Beuce had invited her to come with them. Alrighty then. "You two go ahead and eat your pie. I'm gonna run on ahead and search. I won't be far from here. Come and find me whenever you guys are ready." He knew he'd suggested using their visit here as a break, but he more meant a lack of constant combat to catch their breath, not a full on vacation. Walking away, he began searching for Mickey. From the pictures inside his house, he knew basically what the mouse looked like. Not to mention he was essentially a male version of Minnie. Well, that thought was odd considering the relationship between the two...

He continued through the town, asking around. Of course, no one had seen him. They all spoke highly of him though. Eventually, he found his way into an alley where he spied a couple figures. Now, these figures stood out for a couple reasons. First, Two of them were human. Like, full on human instead of some creepy anthropomorphic animal thing. Second, they were holding keyblades. lastly, they were female and kinda cute. That was reason enough to approach them. He made his way closer, and realized he recognized one of them. "Hey...You were in Central Haven! The one that apparently punched her boss, Hikaru's friend." He said, listing off what he knew about the blonde girl. The other one was completely unfamiliar to him. "You weren't with us for the thousand heartless, and the mirror broke right after we left, so how did you get out?" He asked, curious as to her means of escape. As he mentioned the thousand heartless battle, the events of it were brought back to mind. If he hadn't been a soldier most of his life, he probably would've begun having war flashbacks to it. Thinking about that lead into thinking about his missing arm. It still felt like it was there, although he knew full well it was missing. He hoped that the two wouldn't be creeped out by his missing limb. Honestly, he needed to get that fixed. It was severely messing with his chances of scoring with anyone. Although it did earn him some major points toward the Karina route...So, it wasn't all bad.

 

Her question had not been answered yet before she heard a voice behind her. Kaida had not yet reacted to the intrusion before she heard Central Haven. She turned to the man speaking way faster than she normally would have, almost as if it was instinctual. She was considering yelling at him for talking about off world affairs, but at this point hearing Hikaru's name threw her off from that schedule. Completely ignoring Cailyn and Max, Kaida ran up to Beuce and she went to place her hands on his shoulders to shake him, as this was a usual Kaida reaction motion, but she noticed something off about his shoulder. She looked down at his arm, or at least the empty space that an arm usually would have been at. Her facial expression didn't change but she did back off slightly because physical contact was not looking like a good idea at that moment. She placed her hand over her chest and breathed out a sigh of relief, "Oh thank goodness, I was worried nobody was going to make it out of there. I'm so sorry I got out ca- uh...."

She turned her head over to look at Cailyn and Max, and she decided not to verbally explain the time travel belt at this moment. She just pointed to her belt and then motioned behind her as if to say "back" and then she pointed to her watch to say "time". But then almost immediately after to cover up awkward silence she continued, "Uh... um... guy who was launched in the air by Glen? Airborne. Bourne. Okay Bourne." she crossed her arms and spoke, "Are all of you together, Bourne? Did you all split up or are you all here in Disney Town?"

 

Having pocketed the picture, he turned towards everyone that was presently in the room: Hikaru, Merlin, Glen, and Steel. "So are we ready for departure- Oh?" the question came out, surprised to hear someone from behind. "What's a cornerstone of light?" a voice asked, curious. "I've never heard of it." When D'daear turned to see who it was, Aden had been standing behind him. The purple haired boy took a step back, having been oblivious to Aden's presence until now. It was a jump scare for the young boy, although there should be no reason for it. Eyes widened briefly and muscles tensed for a split second in fright. "OH! Heeeeey- youuuuu... Didn't...see you there. Heh..." he reacted in the moment, feeling a tad weird about the abruptness of Aden's presence. It was almost like he had snuck up on him; although maybe D'daear was just too caught up in his own thing to have realized Aden entered the room. A small sigh escaped D'daear in the midst of averting eyes. He disliked being surprised. Placing one hand on hips, he began moving the other in gesture as he informed Aden on the subject he had given question too. "Well, the cornerstone of light...it's this ancient relic. It's supposed to be powerful enough to keep the darkness away from whatever area it's placed in...like in the stories." he explained, assuming Aden had heard of the small children's Fairy tales. D'daear leaned towards the coffee table where the scrapbook was, and picked it off, pivoting with his one foot as he regained balance to stand on both feet. "Nobody in town seems to have seen him for weeks, but everyone loves him." Aden noted. Handing over the scrapbook to Aden, D'daear admitted to not having found interest in the Mouse's belongings until recently. He responded to Aden's last bit of words with extreme curiosity. Brows furrowed as eyes looked into space in thought. "That's weird... you'd think they would be concerned for Mickey at this point..." D'daear added. Who knew, maybe the denizens ARE worried, and that bit of information was just left out.