Video Game: Kingdom Hearts SOS: The Road To Light

Cat leaned back over as Beuce said that he apparently found the riddle for the light guardian. She listened as he read it out and came up with some theories. As Beuce moved off to ask Seiza about it, she stared at the book. Vanitas had disappeared through some kind of portal of darkness. Maybe that was the way to get to this guardian? Sages of time reminded her of members of this order, talking about time travel and world timelines, but the "made older" but was what ruined that theory. And she wondered about who "these three" could be. Whatever it really meant, she had to find out. This was her only shot. She tried piecing everything together, but she couldn't help feeling like she didn't have all the information. She looked to Kel. "You have any ideas on this one? I've got some theories, but... I dunno, I feel like there's something missing."

 

Seiza heard Beuce speak to him and smiled, "There is no holo-almanac in here, but there is one in the main hall if you would like to go and use that." he still heard Beuce's other question and smile, "Ah, Elemental Guardians... tricky things. They only show themselves to those with knowledge of basic magic as well as mastery of their weapon... I am assuming you are a keyblade wielder, did you pass the Mark of Mastery?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard someone enter the library, they seemed to be sneaking around with a moogle and it peaked his curiosity before he realized who it was, "Hello there Kaida, how did the mission go?"

Kaida heard him speak and she quickly looked up and shook her head, "It..."
"I see... what did you mess up this time?"
"Hey! It wasn't jus-"
"Shh you don't need to shout it's-"
"A library, I get that. But..." she looked over and saw Cat out of the corner of her eye and she crossed her arms, "I made some poor decisions."
"It wouldn't be the first time."

Kaida's face filled with irritation as she turned to him, "Who's side are you on?"
"Side? I'm not picking a side. You've been like this since you were a little lemon drop." he spoke as he rubbed her head, "Which reminds me, I finally got the official coordinates of our world."
"R-really?"
"Yup... it seems to be as peaceful as ever."

Kaida ran over to the book of coordinates and searched for it before Seiza spoke, "It's already set to the world."
She looked over into the telescope and smiled, "Well how about that..."

"Do you still need me, Kupo?"

Kaida quickly looked over at the moogle and shrugged, "If you still want to stick around you can." Kaida looked over at Seiza and spoke, "I-I have a question."
"What is it?"

Kaida looked away and spoke, "Do you um... have that book... Aux was looking at before he..?"
Seiza quickly jumped in, "I have a feeling you aren't talking about the world one... why would you want to re-"
"H-his mindset seemed to change while he was reading it and well... I want to know what was."
"I'm not allowed to loan it out."

Kaida glared at him, "To me, or everyone?"
"Kaida if it was just banned to you, I would give it to you anyway. It's not to be read by anyone except if Krowley allows it."
Kaida let out a sigh and spoke, "Look, I'm not up to any harm. And Aux and I are very different when it comes to going about things... but... Hikaru couldn't get Aux back. I want to try this time."
Seiza looked at her with full seriousness, "You aren't abandoning the order are-"
"No I'm not! It's just... independent research."

Kaida looked at him as if pleading, "Please."
Seiza shook his head and looked at his watch with the heart rate, "Kaida you're stressing me out right now."
Kaida looked guilty and backed off, "Alright alright... I'm sorry..." she walked away from Seiza with the moogle following behind her. She walked over to the shelf and pulled out a book and walked over to a chair and started reading it alone.

 

"Hmm, I can, but I don't know how helpful he would be in this case." Not doubting Mushu's abilities, but if he was going to know about another dragon, it seemed more likely that it would be one in his own world. Not a guardian of fire. Hearing Beuce go over the riddle for the light guardian next brought about even more interest. In fact, he'd never been this interested in magic before.

Guarded by sages of time. That one line in particular stuck out him. Generally when one thinks of a sage you think skilled wizard, so a sage of time must be... a master of time. Coming here was a good idea. Hearing Cat's question, he took himself out of his thoughts to answer. "Well for the location I think it might be someplace with an abundance of darkness. As for the guardian all I can think of is a sage of sorts."

Then he heard what Saiza had mentioned to Beuce about a Mark of Mastery. "Is this Mark of Mastery one of the requirements needed to face the Elemental Guardians?" Kel asked. He may no know exactly what the Mark of Mastery was, but considering how it was used and the name, one could assume that it was a test of sorts.

 

Steel turned his attention from D'daear to address Aden. "Indeed. Vanished without a trace it would seem. The Order suspects someone with a time belt used it to move it's internal clock forward or backward to a time when we can't reach it." He paused to put a hand to his chin. "It's not an unlikely theory, but I have some other ideas. After all, if you have the knowledge to do such a thing, you would also likely have the knowledge to either cloak or outright destroy the world as well." He shook his head. "But of course this is all speculation; I can't be certain of anything just yet." Steel seemed to be deep in thought when he suddenly shot curious glances at Anora, Aden, and Raisor.

"What about you three?" He asked. "I suppose you've been training all this time, but how did you all wind up here?"

 

Kross was at a loss for words, literally, he had no idea what these people were talking about, even the aloof Steel had joined in on making fun of Kross. His cheeks reddened along with Anora, sure, he had a crush on Anora but it was just that, a crush and nothing more. he looked and caught her apologetic look before quickly looking down, when Ananta spoke, his expression faded to a blank expression. Spell? What spell? Foreign?" But...."He trailed off."But..I didn't cast any spell on you.."He said, not knowing what she meant. He looked at Anora and even Aden for back up but they were talking."Urk.."He grunted, being pulled into the group hug. His navy hair shifted until his honey brown eyes were up, widened and focused on Ananta."You really want to be on my team?"He asked her, not knowing quite what to think, to be flattered or creeped out. This Ananta was a friendly person, albeit a little tomboyish. He slowly slid out of the hug and patted down his ruffled hair. He then turned his head and looked at Anora."I'm wondering the same thing, what is this place, and how did we get here? What happened to the Land of Departure?"

 

"Eh, we each got here after losing our way in different worlds." Raisor replied to Steel's question.

He had been listening to Aden and Steel's conversation, though he was falling asleep through some of it. He really couldn't follow along with any of the technical stuff, or even informative stuff sometimes. This was one of those times. Then again, he had been training for a while, so maybe he was just getting a little worn out.

"I was helping out in the Land of Dragons but ended up falling behind due to carelessness, and was picked up by Lea. He brought me here and I just ended up training with these guys. Nothing really too big."

 

"Kross I was speaking figuratively...I didn't really mean to imply that you had cast a spell...." she said, rubbing her arm. "I'm sorry." she said, smiling and holding a hand up in a sort of karate chop way. Except, she didn't hit anybody, she just of bowed her head at Kross. Listening to everyone talk, Ananta crossed her arms and closed her eyes. At this point, she had heard what happened to the Land of Departure, but she hadn't really heard about anything else. She opened her eyes again at Aden trying to figure out how everyone got to this world in the first place. "Well, it's pretty advanced stuff. If you can't even pronounce computer correctly, obviously your world didn't have such technology." Ananta said, looking at Aden. "First off, show of hands for people who even KNOW what computers are." she asked, raising her hand and looking at anybody that did raise their hands. Sighing, she scratched her head. "I won't explain what a computer is, but I can tell you that you guys were all teleported here by either magic or some device they have up at the top of the elevator. I wanted to ask this DJ about it, but he was more worried about getting us out of there than saying anything." she remembered Karina smashing the computers in a blind fit of rage. "A party member of ours...sort of...slapped around the computers, so I guess that contributed to us being sent away as fast as possible. Anyway! My group that came from Camelot had Merlin magic us away to here. No clue about the others." Ananta finished, placing her arms on her hips. "That's neither here nor there, all we can do is decide what we can do now! And I think we should all talk and get to know each other." Ananta smiled. "Now! My name is Ananta!" she pointed at herself. "That's Kross, right?" she pointed at Kross. "This here is Steel!" she pointed to Steel. "This sweetie gal is Anora!" Ananta smiled at Anora. "But who are you guys?" she asked, pointing at Aden and Raisor.

 

Steel raised his hand at Ananta's question, though he seemed more interested on the claws of his glove. He thought about how Raisor and Aden had gotten here. Apparently it had been thanks to the rather uneventful discoveries of Lea. However, if Anora too was brought by Lea, that would mean the man had been hanging around the group for much longer than he had let on.

Her mentions of Karina made him wonder about just what the others were doing just now; He pitied whoever Karina was thrashing now. Sighing, Steel couldn't help but wonder why she thought she wasn't strong enough when half of the group was afraid of her. In a way, she was just being greedy. Steel shook his head; he'd deal with the individual problems of the group later. For now, he would focus on this... whatever it was he and the other six wielders were doing.

 

Cat listened to Kel's analysis, which was no better than hers, and sighed. Still, Seiza had begun answering Beuce's questions and all seemed well... until he mentioned some 'Mark of Mastery.' And before she even had time to sulk about that, things got worse. Kaida had stepped into the room, along with the cutest little... thing. She didn't even know what to call it. She'd never seen anything like it before. He had the cutest little pom-pom that bounced as he flew around. Still, before she could focus on the cutie, she wanted to hear what Kaida was up to. She and Seiza knew each other, so maybe she'd get some truth from listening to their conversation. She looked straight at her, and admitted that she'd made some "poor decisions." It was surprising to hear her admit it, and as much as Cat wanted to stay mad, her tone was full of regret. She seemed genuinely sorry for what had happened. And honestly, they were both justified in their actions, whether it be secrecy or openness. She heard that they were from the same world, and she smiled at Kaida's reaction to the news that it was fine.

The rest of their conversation went over her head. Something about an 'Aux' and a forbidden book. Eventually though, Kaida sat down and read a book of her own. She seemed down, despite the news about her world, and Cat sighed, deciding that this needed to end now. She walked over to Kaida and sat down beside her. "Hey." It was hard for her to find the right words. "I... I'm sorry. I overreacted in Corona." She was bad at apologies. Always had been. "I don't... I don't blame you for what you did." She put her hand out to shake, mostly because she didn't know what else to do. There wasn't much else to be said, and she didn't want to come out like a blabbering idiot -- honestly, she already felt like one.

 

"Lea found me as well, but on a different set of circumstances than Aden and Raisor." She avoided eye contact with the others, mindlessly placing a hand over her heart on . She didn't want to tell anyone just yet, of course Aden and Raisor knew something about her situation but only that she got "sick". She didn't want anyone to think that she was weak and couldn't keep up and be a burden. Yes it would be harder but she would never be the weak link. At least she will try.

Her eyebrows knotted forward at the mention of the missing princesses and the disappearance of Land of Departure. Her eyes came up to look at the three. "If they have that sort of power what do they need the princesses for?" It was a question more to herself that she asked. She frowned realizing that the group of three didn't even know why they were here, let alone what was going on. She looked to her hand that had fell from her chest. Thin, long fingers balled up into a fist before her hands fell beside her. "We can solve this. We all have each other and we can all bring something to this situation that will end woth light overcoming darkness." She said, her lips curled into a small grin.

When Ananta started talking about computers Anora figured that she had a lot of information on them. "Did your world have a lot of computers like Central Heaven. Computers are interesting. In Vamacara everything is controlled with magic, since mostly everyone is a mystic, or by our gods. But these computers are very useful from what I've seen." She nodded and than looked up the stairs than back to the other two who she had never met until this moment. "What paths did you both choose?"

 

"Yeah no, I wanted to fight Kuma, not yo-" Glen started to say, before he was rudely and brutally assaulted. He avoided the attacks fairly easily for the most part, but the last one was difficult. As Karina used each of her gravities, Glen cast it in return so he was placed on the ground, and as she launched each of her attacks he nimbly dodged them. At least, he did until poison edge. Not prepared for the technique itself, he took the hit straight in the stomach and got hit backwards by the impressive amount of strength behind the attack. Thankfully, he wasn't poisoned, but her using that technique had told Glen one thing: this wasn't just a friendly spar, this was all-out war.

"Oh you're going to regret that" he said simply. Holding up his keyblade he created a glowing light that turned into thick, black smoke. Glen began coughing slightly due to the smoke, but it vanished as quickly as it had come, with a small dragon emerging from it. His summon successful, Glen pointed his keyblade at Karina and cried out "Kill her, Mushu!". The response was one that he hadn't expected. Mushu pointed at Karina and faced Glen with a very annoyed expression on his face. "Man there ain't no way i'm messin' with her. I like her way more than I like you. She may have hit me away like some used up firework, but you" he said, starting to pace before turning around and pointing at Glen, "you called me a lizard!" he accused. To this, Glen immediately de-summoned Mushu, sending him back to where he had come from despite all his ranting.

"Well, if Mushu's not going to help, then I guess I'm going to have to go with the next best thing" he said simply yet quietly to himself. Holding up his keyblade once more, a bright light appeared and a shadow could be seen of a fearsome beast, a magnificent horse rearing up, before it came down and Maximus stepped out of the light with Pascal on top of him. Glen leaped up and onto Maximus' back. "Now I know we had our differences, but if you help me out here I'll give you an apple, okay?" he offered. Maximus was far too proud to be bribed by simply one apple, so his response was a shake of the head. "Fine fine, two apples then" was the response from Glen. That was what Maximus wanted to hear, making a great whinnying sound and now rushing towards Karina.

This wasn't the end of Glen's attack. As he rode he picked up Pascal with one hand while he held onto Maximus. "Next time you think about sticking your tongue in my ear, remember the time you learned how to fly" he said simply, hurling Pascal at Karina. He then performed a third summon, breaking the rules because he had munny, and in a holy light and a choir of angels singing the three caballeros came out, now playing their mexican tunes and making Glen's physical attacks OP. He charged faster and faster until suddenly he crashed into a physical barrier, falling off Maximus, his summons vanishing all except for the three caballeros, and landing flat on his butt right in front of everyone. He had fallen victim to a skill that barely anybody used. "SINCE WHEN DO YOU USE DEFENCE?" he questioned, raising his voice slightly as panic set in.

 

Eon gripped his fist after doing the push ups required. A duel was next? Fighting one on one gave great experience, however more can be taught by going all out against all the odds. A battle royal would be perfect to test his limits. He breathed in and held it in for a few seconds before giving a quick release, his keyblade summoning at the same time.

"I'm not holding back!" Eon charged over at both Karina and Glen, expecting to take them by surprise and boost his way into this challenge. His first swing was headed toward's Glen who be completely unbalanced with all the summons he called out. Him being on the ground made him the easiest target. Once that swing took place, he changed targets, aiming for Karina, his keyblade striking at a swift speed. "Meet challenger number 3."

 

Kaida had heard Cat approach her and say hey, so in response Kaida didn't look up immediately from the book and replied, "Hey." She heard Cat start... apologizing. She was definitely not expecting that, and she listened to her finish her comments before Kaida looked up from the book and shrugged, "You didn't overreact... I'm pretty sure that if I had just trusted you guys and let you know... things could have been different...but thank you... and I'm sorry."

Kaida was quiet for a bit before she closed up the book and stood up, "I'd love to talk a little more... but I am a little bored... I'm heading to the lower district for a while." She looked at the moogle and spoke, "You wanna come with me?"

"Um... sur- Kupo!"

Kaida grabbed the moogle and turned around and waved at her, "I'll see you later, Cat." and she smiled and ran off out of the library.

-----------------------

Meanwhile Seiza, who was in the same room anyway, replied with a smile, "I take if you not familiar with it then?" he walked over and grabbed a book that explained the Mark of Mastery and brought it over to where they were, "The Mark of Mastery exam is a test that determines whether or not a keyblade wielder is fit enough to be a master."

Seiza opened up the book and quickly scanned through it and opened up a page that explained the basics and spoke, "Generally, Mark of Mastery exams can vary depending on the current situations. Really in the end, the more disorder there is in all the worlds, the more difficult the exams tend to be... but that depends on who hosts the exam." He paced away in thought for a moment and spoke, "However, yes, if you are a keyblade wielder, one of the requirements for seeing the elemental guardians, is to master your weapon by becoming a keyblade master. Which means some form of a mark of mastery."

 

Beuce was a bit disappointed to learn that there were requirements to face the guardians. Then again it wasn't all that surprising. He'd only heard bits and pieces of information regarding their existence in his studies. Yes, Beuce had studies. I know, i know, shocker. Yeah but he'd never heard of the mark of mastery. Although, he did wonder what determined the difference between just a regular old keyblade wielder and a master. "So, how do we take it? If we just need a master to give it to us, can't someone in the order do it? Because if that's all it takes, i'm ready now!" Beuce said with confidence. He talked like even should they give him the test, as long as it was multiple choice he had a pretty good shot at passing. Then, those guardians were all his. Little did he know it wasn't going to be that easy.