Kingdom Hearts: Kingdom Hearts: Light Chaser

At the arrival of the children Rourke could not help but laugh loudly and shake his head. "Really now, a bunch of children are going to be what you use to stand in my way? Come on Milo, why don't you be a good ol' chap and join the party. How do you think all those museums you're so fond of got their artifacts? They certainly weren't donated. They were taken! So get off your high horse, get with the program, and you can wash away whatever guilt you have by the end of this by buying yourself your own museum with your cut of the profit."

"Profit!? These people will die without their energy source! Atlantis will crumble! Rourke please!"

"So what? This place was lost long before we got here. No one will miss a few people they never even knew existed."

"You monster!"

Glyde summoned his keyblade. The soldiers surrounding Rourke aimed their guns at the group and the man narrowed his eyes on the group. "Don't play hero. It'll only get messy. For you." Though his soldiers seemed unwavering in their support of their leader, the civilians contracted for the expedition like Milo had been grew a look of concern on their face as their former friend now had a gun pointed at him. "Put that thing away, kid, and maybe you'll walk out of this without some new holes in your shirt." With Rourke's free hand he withdrew an old journal, one that had belonged to Milo and tossed it at him.

"You should keep a closer eye on your belongings. Now translate what that says about the location of Atlantis's energy source. The sooner you do that the sooner we'll be out of your hair." He pressed the barrel of his gun to the King's head. "Don't try anything stupid now."

 

It was disturbing how much this man new of her. She had said nothing about her mom and yet her knew that not only had she lost someone close to her, but she lost her mother at the hands of others. Tinarah didn't talk about that, not even with Choma. She kept that sort of things between her and her brother, there was no need for anyone else to know about it. It wasn't like she was very good at talking about it at all, especially without crying. The few times she spoke of it, she broke down even though years had passed. Tinarah shifted in her seat trying to figure out what to say to the Light Chaser. However suddenly a thought struck her. "I thought... I thought that both light and darkness live in everyone. If that is the case... Well wouldn't erasure of darkness mean hurting people? Even if they are innocent?" Tinarah pushed. She had thought the man started seeming nice, like maybe she had misjudged him, but now she was questioning it all again. Tinarah didn't know if she should trust the man beside her.

As Tinarah mulled over the thought trying to figure out what the man was going to do when she heard her name. Looking up she saw another student of Choma's coming her way. "Aria. I thought... I thought you were...." Tears came to Tinarah's eyes as she rose to greet Aria, hugging her tight. "I thought you were gone.... How are you..." She trailed off as she tried to remember how even she got there. It was mostly hazy and it could very well been the same for Aria. She was just happy to see a familiar face. Tinarah wouldn't have said she was close with Aria, but Aria had always been nice to her when she was under Choma's care.

Letting go of the other girl Tinarah took a step back and looked between The Light Chaser, and Aria before speaking. "Will you tell me now why we are both here?" She asked not knowing if these two were the people he wanted to wait for. Whether or not that was true, seeing Aria brought her back to the core of the issue, why she was here, as well as why Aria was there. Instead of taking her seat on the bench again, Tinarah decided to she would feel more comfortable beside Aria. At least she knew Aria. Without her violin she really had nothing to hold onto, mentally or physically for comfort. The closest she had was the only face she knew here, so that was why she stuck close, not even giving Aria much personal space, standing rather close to her. ​

 

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"What are you on about?" Dentro spoke sounding a little too innocent in his tone. He looked over at Chrono and shrugged in response. "I haven't done anything. And I don't plan on doing anything either. Yet."

Ignoring the arguments between the other outsiders and their insults towards Rourke, Milo desperately looked for some answers for the man's question before he harmed the king. It was the last thing he wanted to do but it was the only option he had. "Waitwaitwait just let me find something here!" He called out as he flipped through pages as quickly as he could.

Rourke's eyes were now set on Illiana. The girl's attitude annoyed him but as long as he held the upper hand he had no reason to have her put down. Besides, he liked it when the young ones showed some spunk. "At ease, girly. You're out manned and out gunned." Rourke sat down on the king's throne still aiming his gun at the elderly man. "I'm waiting, Mister Thatch. I'm going to give you until the count of ten." He pulled back he hammer of his pistol. "One...two...three..."

"The Heart of Atlantis lies in the heart of their king!" Milo blurted out immediately.

"You're going to have to do better than that." And for a moment, Rourke paused and stared at the stones arranged around the throne room. "Or...maybe not..." He recognized the pattern from the cover of Milo's journal. From where the king sat, the pattern was clear. "Clever little riddle." He rose from the throne and grabbed the king by his arm, forcefully yanking him to his feet as he dragged the king towards the center of the chamber and over towards a plan looking circular stone slab no different looking than any other in the area. Rourke tapped his boot against it and suddenly the room began to shake. The ground gave way and began to fall sink and form a spiral staircase that lead down deeper underground.

"Alright, you're coming with me as a little insurance policy to make sure no one gets in our way. Milo you and your little friends are coming along for a little trip. You in case we need any more of your translations and them in case there's any traps waiting for us. The girl," he motioned towards Kida, "can stay behind. Crowd's big enough as is."

"Wait! Take me instead!"

"Kida! No!" Her father shouted at her.

"My father is too weak. If you want a hostage just take me. I'll do whatever you want just leave him be!"

Rourke eyed Kida suspiciously but without a word he tossed her father aside and onto the ground and motioned for her to lead the way. "Go on, kiddies. Follow along." He ordered them, pointing towards the stone staircase that led towards the dark depths of the unknown. The soldiers still had their weapons raised at the group.

Dentro raised his eyebrows seemingly amused at the situation but said nothing as he followed down the staircase after Milo and Kida. "Come on. Do what the nice man says."

 

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The reunion between friends was rather heartwarming though the moment could not last forever and soon enough Aria pulled away to clear her head and question the circumstances of the meeting. "A student of mine found her unconscious on Atlantis. She was brought here to be healed and so that I could have a conversation with her. But now that you've returned from clearing this world of Heartless, now is a good time to tell you both more about what is going on."

"The darkness that I saved Miss Dorin and this world from is something that has been building for several years now." He pointed up towards the sky, several stars shone clearly even during the evening. "It wasn't until a decade ago I had found what was wrong with this realm. The darkness in the hearts of everyone had brought this plague of destruction. The solution is simple in principle. To save the worlds and restore those which had been lost, darkness must be eliminated. Naturally, simply getting rid of those with darkness in their hearts was not an option. Only the Seven born with pure hearts of light or those who have disciplined themselves such as I have are free of darkness. Subjecting everyone else to the training I put myself through would be impossible. Some merely do not have the natural talent or discipline to go through with it." The Light Chaser paused for a moment, allowing the girls to absorb the information. Such exposition was not common for him to give out as he reserved such things for his own students or Keyblade Masters he sought alliances with. Typically, such things never fell into place as the Masters were too stubborn to admit that their ways that they have practiced for so long were now obsolete.

"The only way to save the worlds was to remove the darkness from those who have it. A task more difficult than it would seem. It is not a process that would harm anyone but it is something that would take time to prepare."

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"I was sent here to investigate what was going on with this world. Not help you guys out. Not unless you guys are going to die without me or something but if that were the case I'm sure none of you would have made it this far." Dentro's tone was still light without any consideration for the situation they were in.

"Shut up and keep moving! We're done talking so don't go on about wasting my time with pointless deals." Rourke called out from behind them as he forced the keybladers to head down the staircase as the area began to grow darker and darker in the absence of light. A crystal on Kida's necklace lit up and she took the lead to light the way. Rourke kept his distance to ensure that no one would try tripping or attacking him and kept his gun aimed at their backs.

Eventually, after several minutes of descent they reached the bottom of what seemed to be a large cavern. They were at a dead end as the path ahead lead straight to a lake. Above it were several stone masks, larger than a person's body, floating around a bright blue light source. The Heart of Atlantis. The masks circled around it and there seemed no way to cross the lake nor reach up as they were hovering at least fifty feet in the air.

"Alright well there you go." Milo said with a smirk on his face. "Guess we'll have to turn around and leave unless you can figure out how to get to float across a lake and grab a floating energy source!"

"Don't underestimate me, boy!" Rourke only grew more agitated as he waved his gun at Milo. It was only now that wisps of black smoke could be seen flowing off of Rourke's body like steam. He stepped forward and stared up at the energy source his eyes set on retrieving it. It was then that the light became red casting the cavern in an aggressive light. The stairs behind them disappeared leaving them stranded as the cave began to shake violently. "What the-"

From the water a massive black mechanical creature arose, parts of it looking damaged as if it had been in a battle. "Is that...no way...the Leviathan? I thought it got destroyed on our way here! Why is it black now!?" The Leviathan made a mechanical shriek as it crawled its way out of the lake bringing large waves with it when it arrived to the shore. Rourke backed away in fear. The Leviathan was at least 40 feet long and stood around 10 feet high. Its armor appeared too thick to penetrate but there was no way out and it was not about to let the group leave in one piece. Dentro stepped back though he seemed more amused than anything else.

Rourke shouted at the group, "W-what are you doing just standing there? Kill it already!"

 

Tinarah was feeling quite a bit better with Aria there with a hand on her shoulder. She knew that she could trust her, and while she always stuck closer to Choma than either of the other students during their short time training, Tinarah knew that she could trust them, and would trust them, especially now that it was just her and Aria to protect each other. She didn't trust anyone else here, after all they were the ones that took them away from their other friends. And as Aria spoke, something struck Tinarah as strange. The older student had mentioned the fact that she was stuck there and Tinarah couldn't help but wonder what that meant. Why exactly was she stuck? What was preventing her from leaving asides from not knowing how to get away?

The theory about darkness, the nature of it, and how to prevent it, was certainly an interesting one. Part of Tinarah wondered what the process to train darkness out of ones self would be, but given the mans wording about it, and statement that it would be near impossible for anyone else to do, hit Tinarah like he was directing it right at her. She knew she was weak and fragile and her emotional state was not all together, but she liked to think of herself as a good person. Would it really be that hard to train whatever darkness lingered out of her, and others? Perhaps not men like those who had attacked her in the past, but what about other keyblade wielders, they all seemed nice enough, she couldn't see any of them as being that filled with darkness, even if she knew it lived in a balance in everyone's hearts, side by side with the light.

In the end however, the man really didn't answer anything, perhaps only causing more questions to arise. Tinarah huddled in closer with Aria as she eyed the man. "I don't get it. I don't understand how you plan to just remove darkness and what this has to do with me. I have done nothing wrong, neither has Aria. Why is she stuck here, why am I here and not with my other friends? You haven't answered any of that." Tinarah pointed out before thinking back to when they were talking to the king in Atlantas. "Besides I don't think that it is necessarily just people that bring this darkness on places. The last place we were at said there were outsiders there before the creatures came. It would seem someone was bring it with them then. I mean I don't know for sure, I haven't seen that much of the worlds yet and I am still pretty new to this keyblade thing, but wouldn't that make sense? I mean I am just trying to.... Never mind." Tinarah started to speak her mind but quickly remembered she was just a child while this man claimed to study such things. There was no way her theory would be more sound than his, why did she even try? A slight blush rose to her cheeks out of embarrassment as she looked up at Aria with an apologetic look for talking too much. At that point it was just nerves, her mind trying to process why she was here and what she should do, as well as who she should trust. ​

 

OOC: Post received by cstar.
Take listened to everyone and grit his teeth a bit about the scenario. He didn't like this guy, if anything he despised how Rourke was acting. But he knew with Dentro running off and Rourke's imaginatively ineffective tactics, he wasn't going to let Kida or Milo die as a result of it. He was reminded how his homeworld, the dragons swarming down. Remembering the people who he despised that he had to protect purely by proxy. If every soldier dropped their weapon to refuse helping those they dislike, Incandescent Peaks would have been long gone years before he was born. The boy felt his legs move first before his words slipped out, "Forget the coward." and he began walking faster and stopped closer to the Leviathan and said, "There are people here worth protecting." Takehiko punctuated this point by summoning out his keyblade and going into a stance, and he whispered under his breath, "I'm not losing anyone else today..."


Rourke took another step back and glared at the children. Seeing that they had not been helpful in stopping the beast he saw he had no choice but to order his soldiers into battle. "Men, bring that thing down!" His soldiers took position in front of the group and opened fire on the Leviathan only to have every bullet they fired ricochet harmlessly off of the metallic creature. In a single swipe of its huge claw it took down the entire squadron of soldiers that had attacked it. Though, rather than attack Rourke the second its glowing yellow eyes spotted Take's keyblade it let out a shriek. It ignored Rourke who continued to back away, still firing bullets from his pistol that would deal no damage, and smashed its claw downwards towards Take.

"Sigh..." Rolling his eyes Dentro turned around and smacked Illiana's umbrella to get it out of his way. "Alright, girl. You want me to fight well why don't you show me how it's done. Go on. You get first strike on the thing." His keyblade was called into his hand and he stared intently at her. "Ladies first." He spoke with the same tone of condescension in his voice that he had given Chrono.

The Leviathan, seeing another keyblade wielder in their midst only shrieked louder as it now turned to focus its attempt on making a kill on the group of keybladers.

A BOSS BATTLE COMMENCES

Dark Leviathan: 200/200 HP​

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"You are here to observe." The man spoke calmly in response towards Tinarah. "You both raise good questions." He folded his arms and leaned back against his seat on the bench causing it to creak. "I was taught the same thing as you. Balance is important to maintaining order. That is only partially correct. The only reason past attempts at eliminating darkness resulted in catastrophe were simply because they failed to do it all at once. By slowly gathering light, or lux as they called it in the days of the Keyblade War, the darkness rebounded and nearly consumed all the worlds. It didn't help that so many keyblade wielders already had been filled with so much darkness of their own. My plan for getting around the mistakes of the past is simple. Gather the Princesses of Heart, those naturally devoid of darkness, and summon Kingdom Hearts. With its power ridding people's hearts of darkness would be a trivial task." His voice was optimistic as he explained this.

"With no darkness in this realm, the worlds would be forced into a new state of stability." He looked over towards Aria. "And that's where you come in, Miss Dorin. You are a Princess of Heart. Don't worry. No strange or painful experiments will be done to you. Harming you would go against my very goals." His head turned back towards Tinarah. "And you won't be separated from your friends for much longer."

 

OOC: Post received by cstar.

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Take didn't exactly need to wait on anyone else at this point to get in gear, he decided to just go on and get an attack in. But Take was quickly noticing that he wasn't doing nearly as much damage as his peers and wondered if he was doing something fundamentally wrong. Although he had no ability to really call for it, he tried to provoke the Leviathan to at least have more focus on him to try and take some of the damage. He was more than willing to since he didn't seem to be cleaving off as much as he'd like.

HP: 30/30
AP: 9/10

 

It still didn't make sense. Tinarah still didn't really understand this talk about people with pure hearts, no darkness at all. Princesses of Hearts as he called them. He also claimed that Aria was one of these and what she could gather, he needed Aria there for whatever he was working on. Tinarah started to wonder if Aria was being kept there willingly or if she even knew what he had planned for her. Sure he might have saved her from the darkness, or something along those lines, but that didn't mean Aria would help him with his goal, would it? She didn't really know what this Kingdom Hearts, thing was but it didn't sound good to her, as he talked of it's power. This was all just starting to hurt her head, too much information, too fast. It was too confusing.

Tinarah took another step back from the man, for what she had started to trust him with and talking more freely, she wasn't feeling as confident with. It wasn't that he seemed to be lying, but he was talking about all this stuff that she didn't quite understand it was making her nervous. More than that she had caught what the man said, or more so how he had said it. He had specified that he wouldn't hurt Aria, but what about her? Did he not specify because he planned to return her to her friends soon enough anyways, or did he not say that to both of them because he had had something else planned for her?

Rubbing her eyes seeming a little tired but more confused than anything she looked up at the Light Chaser from under her eyelashes. Her head was still tilted down looking at her feet but she brought her eyes up a little so she could see him somewhat. "Are you going to take me back to my brother then?" She asked sounding rather hopeful. She knew he wouldn't let her take Aria with her, but if she could get back to Chrono, she could tell him all that happened and then they as a group could come and get Aria back. She hoped it wouldn't be too hard to do. She would get Aria back with them, but first she needed to make sure that she herself was going to be okay.

Instinctively she grabbed at her wrist at the scar that was usually there, but when she felt no pain from gripping at it Tinarah seemed confused for a moment before remembering how the man had healed it for her. The scars were never all that painful, but there was some damage to the tissue around it and it would often hurt like any bruise would when you pushed on it. To be without it, should have been a relief, but it felt weird. Almost like the fear she let it bring was a comfort of its own. If she was afraid she was more careful, so it was a reminder to be careful in a sense. It was a stupid sentiment she knew, barely even made sense, but still she found herself switching what hand was holding what wrist just to have that feeling again. And perhaps it not being there was pushing her to believe the man more when something deep down told her to doubt. He had healed her, so she should trust her, but he only healed her part way, so she tried to remind herself to trust him only part way. He wasn't like Chrono, he wasn't like Choma. He hadn't known him long enough to know what he was like but it was only his actions that gave her comfort, not his words, unlike Chrono or Choma. In the end the man just confused her until the point she gave up trying to question it. ​