Video Game: Kingdom Hearts SOS: The Road To Light

Kel's consciousness had faded once he was completely engulfed by the ink. When it returned, he found himself locked in a cage. Certainly not where he was expecting to end up to be honest. Kel took this chance to look around and see just exactly where he was. It was a lab of sorts. Being locked in a cage in a strange lab, not a good thing at all. Next thing that he noticed was the familiar faces that were in the cages. Ananta, Glen, Kaida, Karina, Kross, Luna. Speaking of Ananta, she had asked him a question. "I kinda let my guard down."

Next was addressing the doctor that had them all locked up here. "So why do you need hearts to become a toon in the first place?" No point in beating around the bush while they were stuck in these cages. Speaking of which, Kel had taken a second to make himself a bit more comfortable in the cage he was currently in. He may have been stuck in it, but he didn't have to be uncomfortable as well.

 

Beuce slowed down along with D'daear. Though he wasn't quick as exhausted from the sprint as his friend was, his breath was still a pant. If that happened to them, and Karina was captured, who knew how many others had been drawn into the ink? Stratos? Glen? Kel? Were he and D'daear the only ones left? No. He had more faith in his comrades than for them all to be captured. Still, without the ability to fight against them, it was likely more than just Karina. "We need to find a way to regroup with whoe-" He was interrupted by D'daear noting something a ways off. "Hm?"

Looking over, he saw exactly what the boy was talking about. Something that looked like a projector. That was strange, although he'd seen enough strange things to not be surprised by it. Damn brooms and that T-rex and the hippos that shot lasers that didn't do anything. God that world was trippy. Immediately D'daear began to climb into it. "Wait what are you doing?! That could be just as dangerous as the ink!" He cautioned. However, he seemed to recognize it, saying it was similar to the windows.

Though he didn't quite catch on to what exactly was happening, he had no better plan. His only real option was to trust D'daear. "Alright. If you say so." After watching the boy get absorbed into the projection, Beuce placed a hand on it himself and felt the tug, as though it were pulling him in. He hesitated for a moment, but decided to press forward into the projection.

 

Stratos was left a bit dumbfounded at the whole scenario. Knowing that it was impossible to fight these sort of inkblot creatures, Stratos had chosen the option of running away from them. However, he had only truly learned this by having actually tested out combat on them. Within that time frame, they had managed to close the distance between the group, which had caused them to be in quite the precarious position. Not really sure how to react to this turn of events, Stratos was content with continuing to run, even if ineffectual, only to see Luna stepping up and throwing herself to them. Catching the charm of hers while she set up a giant ice wall to impede the ink blots path, Stratos had just stared wide eyed at what had happened, not entirely sure what to do in response. He felt an urge to go back there and try to help her out of the ink monster mess, however, realizing the futlity of the idea almost instantly and being told by Gus to get going through the projector snapped him out of it. "Come on, we don't have time to lose anymore," he had said to his other keyblade wielding party member as he walked into the projector.

 

Kaida was leaning against the cage, grumpy about the fact she was stuck in this. If she had been able to jump just a little farther she might have made it out. But based on what she was seeing, at least Hikaru made it out alright. Glen didn't, but she imagined Glen didn't exactly fall into this trap either. Kaida listened to the conversations between them all and was becoming a little more annoyed as she tried to figure out a way out of them. Though as far as she was aware there wasn't a way out.

When Kel asked the question about needing hearts, Kaida blinked and asked, "Wait a minute Doctor Offpitch, how exactly would getting hearts turn you into a toon? Seems kind of counterproductive, I would think hearts would maybe stop you from being a toon or something. No seriously, this is interesting, I wanna see how this works if you wouldn't mind letting me out of this cage to see this apparent magic you are going to perform with hearts to make yourself a toon." she didn't think it would hurt to at least try to see if that would work, considering how long she herself worked with a scientist she wasn't sure how that was going to work out. But maybe if he was stupid enough to let her out she could try and let the others out.

She had a feeling he wasn't that dumb though.

 

~Tomorrow City~

Cailyn looked behind her as she saw Luna get captured and she saw the projection open. "Thank you Luna, your sacrifice will not be in vain!" Cailyn yelled to her. "We'll figure this out, you're going to be fine! We're going to come back for you!" She followed Stratos into the protector at Gus' command. She couldn't help but feel a drop in her chest as they left Luna. "I'm right behind you Stratos, don't worry." Cailyn nodded to him. They had been many, then turned to three, and now were down to two, just her and Stratos. She took a deep breath. She was glad she was with Gus too. She felt like she knew him better then Stratos, maybe he just had a friendlier face.

 

OSWALD'S HIDEAWAY

It was a strange ride through the portal as there was no control over ones body. The feeling was akin to going down a spiraling void, a trip as one would call it in today's modern society. When D'daear reached the other end of the portal, he was spat out like some foreign object that didn't belong in the mouth of the void. A nearby chair caught the young lad, thankfully it being cushiony enough for a soft landing. A little dazed, hands gripped at the chair as legs slowly took a hold of the floor.

"Uugh...where am I? Beuce? " he asked rhetorically, vision slowly coming to control.

Giving the space around him a quick glance, it was deduced that he was inside some room. Furthermore, no Beuce (Albeit he was probably lagging behind a bit in the portal), but black anthropomorphic critters stood before him; and one of them was none other than Oswald. With brightening eyes at the familiar face, the boy walked up to him speedily in glee.

"Oswald! You're alright!" he said, giving the cat a curious glance.

After having been separated briefly by those blot, the boy had feared for the worst. It was a good sight to see that the DUAL wielding Black Rabbit had made it out of the fray in one piece. Now the question was who was this other rabbit?

 

OSWALD'S HIDEAWAY

Raisor continued his fall through the strange portal he jumped into and eventually came out the other end. He didn't have full control of his body when he was going through the portal, so once he popped out the other side, he fell face first onto the floor. He wasn't really expecting that to happen, that's for sure.

"Oswald! You're alright!" He heard someone yelling and looked up to see what was going on.

There were two animals, a rabbit and a cat, in the room, which Raisor just noticed he was in, and not in the middle of nowhere, and a boy who was staring at one of the animals with a questioning face. Raisor recognized the boy from the merry little band of keybladers traveling around, but didn't really know him by name. Raisor had only been in a group with a few different people, and to be honest, even then he sometimes had to remember which ones they were.

He got up and dusted his pants off from what gathered on while he was running on that bridge. "So, anyone wanna tell me what's going on? Where am I? Who's the rabbits? And I guess this is a little bit having to do with the first, but how did a portal pop out of nowhere to get me here?"

 

As the whole journey through the portal had taken place, Stratos had an uncertain amount of time to think about things. What things? Well, everything really. He could really take an introspective look into himself, take a retrospective look at the entirety of his journey, maybe even go into some analysis of the bonds he had forged with people over the course of his life time. Yes, as he was spiraling through this void like hyper space, there were a good deal of things that he could indeed think about. While there was an infinite amount of possibilties as to what his thoughts could be on, there was only a finite amount of time in which he could be thinking about these things. And so among those infinite things he could choose from, the thought that crossed his mind was, "where am-" though sadly the finite amount of time given to him did not allow him to even finish such a thought before he was spit out of the infinitely expansive void that seemed to defy all logical explanation.

Being ejected from the portal, Startos ended up tumbling backward and landing with his back and legs pressed up against a nearby wall. "Ow," he let out a small expression of pain. Opening his eyes, Stratos noticed something curious about the room. It seemed to be well furnished enough, but the inhabitants of it were two rabbits and, more importantly, two familiar looking faces. It was also upside down. Trying to life his head up, Stratos realized that he was instead pressing it against the floor, and that the upside down aspect of it was no fault of the room. Sliding off the wall, he went to go roll onto his stomach instead of his back, and looked at the group giving a short wave. "Glad to see that me and her," noticing Cailyn wasn't here yet he appended it saying, "whenever she gets here, aren't the only keyblade wielders that are still in this wasteland."

 

While they could've done without the song, Kel had at least gotten an answer to his question. "You're trusting a bloat about something you don't know much about. Pretty sure this thing has a mind of its own sometimes." There was still plenty about the keyblade that he didn't understand, but there were things that he could infer.

Karina was doing one of the many things that she did well and continued to antagonize the scientist. Kel wasn't sure how good of an idea that was given the mechanical arms, but hey if she provoked him well enough into spilling answers then who was he to complain. "You said that you cut and scissor yourself, just what was the point of doing that. You might not be in this mess if you hadn't done that."

 

As he stumbled out of the portal, Steel loosened his grip on Base and Horace. He barely managed to catch himself from falling to the ground when the splitting pain in his head suddenly intensified. His clawed fingers took to messaging his forehead as he analyzed their new surroundings. It seemed that they had been transported to a rather cozy little hideout where they could regroup... along with the rest of the key wielding refugees.
"We just can't catch a break." He muttered under his breath.
In addition to his own group, the rooms' confines included (but were apparently not yet limited to) Stratos, Raisor, D'daear, a black rabbit, and a black and white cat. He presumed those last two were locals.
"Forgive us for our rather sudden intrusion." He apologized as he lowered his hand; ignoring the uncomfortable notion that his eye would be on display for all to scrutinize. While it was true that he hadn't even bothered to cover it back at the manor, it had hardly been out of place and he hadn't expected a change of scenery so soon. However, as long as torrents of rain and bolts of thunder failed to pour down from the heavens at the very lack of a concealment, he should probably just leave it as is. It was something he and everyone else would just have to get used to.

 

Kaida listened to this Mad Doctor sing and she never felt more annoyed. It didn't help that Karina immediately started yelling after. She became quickly under the assumption that Karina was trying to distract or stall him, but she wasn't sure how distracting Karina could be doing that. She quickly tried to decode his little riddle and looked at the board. So she figured out slowly what the four ways were.

So firsthand, to get out they could somehow gather enough hearts Mad Doctor style and leave. Or if they could get out of these cages, they all had the right of key, the keyblade she assumed. That meant if they could get out of the cages they could get out of the wasteland. Then there were a couple more options, to hope someone sends down a rope to help, or be recognized for good deeds. Did anyone do any good deeds here that could get them recognized enough? She hadn't a clue.

Kaida leaned into the bars and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to remember all those useless classes she took when she was younger and she opened her eyes and said in a speak-sing type rather than full blown singing.

"So let me get this straight, you looney sadist
Who's singing isn't exactly the greatest.
The only ways out of this greyish wasteland,
are ways that out of this cage would demand?
I'm sorry but none of us here are that willing,
to give your our hearts or to do your bidding...
So if you don't mind, you should just let us out.
Our hearts aren't pure, they're filled with confusion and doubt."

Kaida stepped back from the cage and said, "What is the point of this useless poetry? Does it fill you with happiness or some sort of glee?"

 

Beuce tumbled from the portal, landing in a kneeling position. He looked around to find not only D'daear, but Oswald and several other keyblade wielders who had evidently made their way here. Although, there seemed to only be about half of them there. "Well, that settles the regrouping thing. That's convenient." There were a few people he'd been hoping to see that were absent, such as Glen and Kel, although Stratos was there.

"So, I'm gonna go under the assumption that people who are missing from here got taken by the ink. Oswald, do you have any idea what happens to people who are taken? Where they go? If there's any way to rescue them? As long as it doesn't involve immortal, self-replicating brooms I think we should give it a shot."

 

OSWALD'S HIDEAWAY

Horace carried Base through the portal, and Base was none too happy to be on the other side. He finally freed himself from the horse's clutches and landed on the floor. Lying there, Base shook with the weight of what he'd just felt. Losing a teammate was traumatizing enough, but that darkness? He'd never get used to that feeling. Ever.

"You should have put me back in there. I almost had him."

Horace Horsecollar grimaced and was speechless.

"Where are we anyway?" Base dared not even look up from the floor. He couldn't move. His body was on a total lock-down. Had he looked up, he'd see the hideout of Oswald the Rabbit. For the moment, he was blind to his surroundings and frozen with fear; frozen, but trying with all his might to unthaw. 'What is it about Darkness that does this to me', he thought. "Is anyone else there? Horace? Did Steel get through too?"

So many questions, and each was asked through chattering teeth. Another thing itched at his mind still. Was that singing he'd heard through the darkness? Whoever was on the other side sang, and it upset Base deeply. Music was his motif. What if that was the thing that'd kidnapped Kel? The monster had taken too much.

 

OSWALD'S HIDEAWAY

Raisor listened as the Rabbit explained about being the one that opened the portal that Raisor went through and why. He wasn't sure that he fully understood the situation, but they at least had breathing time right now, so he could work his mind around it. Some more keybladers popped into the room and eventually Hikaru popped in with Mickey Mouse.

"Huh? Mickey?" Raisor was stunned for a second.

He knew that they were looking for Mickey Mouse, but didn't they just leave him, Donald, and Goofy with the Musketeers? Then again, Donald was with them before they all got sucked into this world, so maybe it's a different Mickey. Before saying his next words, he thought about how to word them so it didn't sound stranger....er, at least more strange that it would sound normally.

"Mickey, are you the same one we helped out in the Country of Musketeers and fought Pete with? Didn't you stay behind?" He asked the mouse, curious about what was going on now more than ever.

Hikaru tried to explain what was going on, but a horse - wait, where did the horse come from? Raisor needed to pay more attention, though a room full of animals in a world where ink blots were after them was starting to get to him. Anyways, the horse claimed they new what was going on, but Raisor didn't, that was for sure.

"Hey, sorry horse boy, but I do NOT know what's going on. Someone fill me in on what's going on? I was in a cage with Ananta, and a knocked out Adel as well, with some looney doctor talking about taking our hearts, and next thing I know I'm running from some kind of blots I couldn't damage and jumping through a portal here. Could someone please give me some kind of information to go off here?" Raisor's head was going for a spin, and it was starting to get on his nerves, not understanding anything.

As Raisor asked, Mickey asked the rabbit, "Oswald" seeming to be its name, if he knew him, and the rabbit seemed to lunge at Mickey out of nowhere. Raisor was not sure they had time for a tussle at this point in time, so he walked over to the two and grabbed the rabbit by its ears and pulled him away from Mickey. He didn't know much about Mickey, but he knew less of this rabbit, even if it helped Raisor escape from the castle.

"Hey, knock it off! You said we have an issue to worry about right!? Well right now is not the time to be fighting with each other! If you have some kind of beef with Mickey, take it up with him later, right now we need to worry about our friends who are stuck, and that weird doctor guy!" He waited for the rabbit to calm down, while the cat was yelling for him to stop.

 

"You're no man of science.."Kross said in a low voice and narrowed his eyes at the doctor. He was definitely not in the best of moods for this musical mayhem. They were strapped for time and he had a master to save, they needed to get out of here. He grit his teeth and held the bars tight in shaking hands, his glare dark and filled with fury. "We don't have time for this mad man..."He said in a low tone and glanced to Karina."Karina, please tell me you have something that can get us out of this...?" He asked. If anything, Karina was the best shot they got. If not, he had to come up with something...anything to give them a foothold and escape. If nothing else, there was always the keyblade that could unlock ANY kind of lock in existence. What the heck were they waiting for? He sharpened his eyes and stepped back, holding a hand out and closed his eyes tight, mentally calling out to his keyblade."Keyblade...give me wisdom.."He murmured, a sharp spear of light and out popped Star Seeker. He turned and then swung at the cage."Let's see your cage hold us in now!"

 

It was like the other side of a trash dispenser; or in this case a people dispenser. The portal continued just wouldn't stop spitting out people. D'daear watched motionless as one after the other they came, head bobbing back and forth between the arrivals. There was Beuce, Stratos, Raisor, Base, Steel.

This is definitely...not everyone...

Heart sank a bit at only seeing five keyblade wielders. When the portal would shot out two more, spirit was lifted only momentarily. It was Hikaru, Mickey, and Horace who had emerged. Perhaps the portal was going to give them more people? Explanation was had, to which D'daear merely kept quiet the entire time while others asked their questions. Eyes were constantly wandering to the portal, hoping more people would come through. While he waited, it was explained that more portals were scattered throughout the wasteland which explained how the other keyblade wielders were able to make it here....well most of them. It was pleasant news when Oswald revealed that the others were captured and NOT killed; which once again explained why they were lacking so many people from their large group.

Irises shifted away from the portal, now assuming that no one else would be coming through. Well, at least Mickey is alright... Would've made our search for him pointless...

"Mickey... Mouse..." Oswald interrupted, saying each syllable of his name with a burning hatred.

D'daear looked to Oswald, recognizing the tone in his voice. It was like anger that would seep into jaws and tense, forcing words to come off rather rigid. Eyes widening, D'daear took a hesitant step forward in the midst of Oswald's and Mickey's conversation. "Uuuh Oswa-" he tried to interject.

The Black rabbit lunged at the Mouse, tackling him to the floor in unknown anger. If it hadn't been for Raisor, their fight would've stirred dust and smoke. He saw as Raisor held the rabbit by both ears and laying down the law.