Episode 2: Reawakening
"Dude, are you all right?" Rob heard a voice as he came to. Struggling to get awake, yet having a desire to sleep, Rob just mumbled. "Chill out, you're okay."
Rob finally sat up. He adjusted his groggy eyes to see a cobalt hedgehog staring at him. "Ken? ...No, you're not Ken. You-you're..." Rob began in wide-eyed shock as he recognized the figure.
"Name's Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog! I found you guys emerging from some large-assed pool of darkness, unconscious."
"I've seen you! You saved the world twice, haven't you?"
"I guess my reputation precedes me, huh? Thank goodness you're not evil..."
"How can YOU tell?"
"I have a way of knowing," Sonic grinned and tapped his noggin. "So, what's your name?"
"Name's Rob." He shook hands with Sonic.
"Tell me, who's Ken?" Sonic asked.
"Ken Mira... one of my friends... my older brother, I should say. He disappeared, along with three other of my buddies. Only my sister and I made it out alive, as far as I know..." He sighed sadly, then turned and noted his sister was now snoring. "Has my sister awakened at all?"
Sonic's face changed to a grimace. "The girl woke up, took one look at me and said, 'Sonic the Hedgehog? I must be dreaming,' and went right back to sleep. Fat lot of appreciation I get. So what brings you here?"
"What else! The Heartless jacked my hometown of Chicago!" Rob responded, throwing up his arms. He then picked up his Keyblade and showed it to Sonic. "Apparently I've inherited this to help me beat the crap out of the Heartless menace, but... I've no idea where to begin. Where ARE we anyway?"
"This is Twilight Town, an in-between world of sorts," Sonic opened up a curtain, and the setting sun peeked from behind the buildings. "Sun never sets, never rises... Felt weird when I first got here."
"How DID you get here?" Rob asked, but knowing the obvious, he tried to restate the question. "Wait, what I meant was what did the Heartless do to Station Square?"
"Knew you'd ask," Sonic gave a weak smile. "If you paid attention to the news, Station Square wasn't the first to fall. When reports of a section in Great Britain near the Johto area were said to have 'blown up,' I suspected Eggman and rushed over to see what was going on. There was practically nothing left, except for some notes of someone's diary telling of 'the evil creatures in black'. Said they were called Heartless.
"I had no clue what a 'Heartless' was or what it looked like, so I headed back to Station Square... only to find it under attack. I then saw my first Heartless..." Sonic trailed off. The mere thought was painful. The shrieks of horror, the black wave of Heartless descending on Knuckles... "Those... those damn things were everywhere. Everyone disappeared. Only Tails and I survived." Sonic looked at Rob, and the latter slightly flinched at the look of pain from Sonic's eyes. Sonic however, shook it off and resumed his carefree attitude. "But I'm not gonna give up. I'll find a way to end all this!" Rob hung his head.
"I think I might know the feeling... like I just suffered the worst hangover. I lose my friends, I get in a fight with my dad, who's this big Heartless freak, and now I've got no idea who's right or wrong. WHAT IS MY DESTINY ANYWAY?"
Maya woke up with a start. "Huh what where! Oh, still same place. Rob, are we dreaming?"
Rob smacked her with his Keyblade. "That help?"
"OWWWWWWWW!" Maya whined, and smacked Rob in revenge. "So I guess I'm not dreaming. Maybe I'm going insane. Do you see a blue Hedgehog?"
"No, you're not insane. That's Sonic. Be nice." Rob said.
"I'm sorry. From where I grew up, I never expected to encounter Sonic the Hedgehog..." Maya shook hands with Sonic. ("MY, aren't we humble," Rob remarked.) Just then, a two-tailed fox burst in, holding some bags. Maya took one look at the new creature and said, "HE'S SO CUTE!"
"Sonic! I'm back! Hey, GRAAAK!" Maya wasted no time in squishing the two-tailed fox in a bear hug.
"MAYA!" Rob shouted. "Have some manners!
"I'm sorry, but I'd never thought I'd see Miles 'Tails' Prowler in person!" Maya gushed. Rob took to smacking his head on a nearby wall in frustration and embarrassment.
"That's okay, I get that all the time," Tails said pleasantly. "So I guess you two were from the Crying Citadel, I unfortunately heard it was destroyed some hours ago..."
"Yes... My dad trashed the place..."
"WHAT?.!" Sonic and Tails gasped.
"That huge thing is Darkside... my... father..."
"I still can't believe it IS our... father..." Maya sadly added.
"Personally, I'm going to kick his ass when I get back to Earth..." Sonic hissed. "No offense, Rob, but your... father is evil! He's worse than Egghead!"
"None taken, Sonic, I want to kick his ass too." Rob said. "But we can't just go back to earth... we have no means of getting there."
"I suppose we can devise a spacecraft," Tails said. "I can get the necessary tools, but it could be a while..." He pulled out a large toolbox, and then looked at the twins. "I suggest you guys take a look around Twilight Town. It might help, and there might be a way back to Earth that we don't know about yet!"
Maya agreed, nodding her head. "It'll be cool!"
"I need to head out and take care of some personal business, but I'll catch up to you guys later!" Sonic dashed off and ran into the city.
"Right... let's go!" The twins left the hotel ready to set in for adventure...
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"I suppose this is gonna take a while..." The mysterious Lord of the Dead eyed the large form hovering before him. "Let me get this straight. YOU, the great, original, and strongest Darkside, despite your success on the destruction of the Crying Citadel, could not get your son to the Darkness?"
(That's just it... he IS Darkness... but he has a heart-and too strong of one,) answered Darkside.
"Uh-huh, I get it, but you still have time. Come with me, I want you to meet some friends of mine..." Hades' hair flared, and he glided back into his main foyer. Darkside followed, gliding like Hades.
Inside his skull room, several rough types were gathered around a crystal orb, monitoring Rob's actions. One, a huge purple Dragon, flew over to Hades and Darkside. "Yo Hades, what's happening! Gio got this to work!"
"Nice, Ridley, nice." Hades responded.
"I don't like this," Hissed Sirius, a renegade robot decked in white. "I mean, what if the Heartless suck us of our rational thought? Then we'll be easily beaten by those brats."
"Don't worry," Giovanni, stroking an Umbreon (to show his new affiliation with the Darkness), rather than a Persian, answered. "If anything, the Heartless will try to keep our rational thought. With concise war like this, the Heartless are gonna need our help."
"Do I get to eat roast plumber?" Bowser, a large turtle-like dragon, asked.
"Patience, my dim but powerful friend," A very tall man adorned in black answered him. This man wore a large black cape, a helmet/mask with a ghoul-like face, as well as contrasting white gloves and boots. "You will get your chance."
"I suppose at last Peter Pan won't beat me so easily!" Captain Hook pulled out his new sword, adorned with Heartless symbols.
"May I HAVE your attention!" Hades raised his hands, and everyone looked at him.
Hades walked to the center of the circle and began to speak. "Okay, so we have another Keyblade moron on our hands. It's even possible he might try and strip us of Heartless control. Our best bet is to keep the clowns apart so they don't team up and otherwise screw us up. Rob can be easily kept at bay with pops," Hades pointed to Darkside, who just nodded. "And Sora?"
"That spiky-haired moron won't know what hit 'im!" Bowser roared. "I'll see to it personally!"
There were general voices of agreement.
“Allllllllrighty then! Let’s get this party started,” Hades stretched his hands before using his flames to set the cauldron to life.
------
"Wow, this place is HUGE!" Maya noted.
"Yeah," Rob said. They had been everywhere. The orange sky had lit the way for our heroes to look through every nook and cranny, every store and every bridge. Twilight Town felt very akin to an industrial suburb, but the chimneys were small and the smokestacks even smaller. Rob saw a bank and a grocery store that sold the strangest items ("What are ethers?" He had asked.) Maya saw a strange place called a synthesis shop, ran by a strange white creature with a red ball dangling over its head.
Maya looked to the sky. "It's nice here. I think I like it a little more than Earth, but at the same time, things won't ever be normal again, will they?"
"I suppose so." Rob said. "Then again, things were NEVER normal..."
"OOOO! ICE CREAM!" Maya jacked Rob for about five munny (yes, they use that currency on Earth now) and ran in the Ice Cream Parlor. Rob just blinked and sauntered off further, figuring at his slow pace his sister could easily catch up.
Rob pulled out and looked at his Keyblade. The navy blue/black Keyblade seemed to glow slightly, as if detecting an important presence. Rob stared at it, wondering just what it unlocked. However, he twitched as a familiar shadow began to rise from the ground-several in fact.
The Shadow Heartless were back.
Rob cursed and tensed. This wasn't looking good. "I summoned those freaking Heartless!" He growled his realization. One Shadow lunged at him. Feeling more confident with his feelings, Rob jumped forward and smashed into it with a four-hit combo, killing it. He jumped back, avoiding the smashing blows of two more Shadows. A third had melted back into the ground and circled right behind him, rising up to deliver a surprise attack.
It didn't even get the chance.
"THUNDER!" A stray lightning bolt zapped the Shadow and fried it into oblivion. Rob looked around in confusion... he sure didn't use that Thunder! He then saw Maya, calmly licking vanilla ice cream while she stared down the Heartless. "Hi Rob! Thought you could use some help. We gotta clean this mess before the townspeople notice."
Rob just groaned. "When'd you learn that trick?" He backed up close to her sister.
"You don't remember I also Dived Into the Heart? I inherited magic!" She continued licking her ice cream. She snatched Rob's Keyblade. "I can even use this," She took a running start and swung it around into a Shadow, knocking it back into a wall. She then calmly stabbed it to finish it off.
"Nice to know, but WE STILL HAVE A FRIGGIN HEARTLESS PROBLEM!" Rob snatched the blade back and pointed nervously at an advancing group of Shadows. Maya just kept licking her ice cream. Rob lunged at a Shadow, but it surprisingly moved out of the way, allowing one of its brethren to be destroyed instead. Rob realized his mistake as the Shadow tried to leap on him and sink him into darkness. Swinging his Keyblade madly, he desperately scrambled to move out the way of the growing crowd of Shadows swarming around him.
The twins backed away from the large crowd of Heartless, unsure of their next move.
Enter the dramatic hero attack.
A flying form smashed into the group of Shadows. Rob saw a girl... no, a woman land. Her black shirt and skirt matched her hair. As the Shadows began to grow bold again, they leapt to attack, only to meet her rapid kicks. Her boots only accented the swift and powerful blows she dealt to the Heartless.
"I'm just in time!" They heard Sonic, who screamed into battle using his trademark Sonic Spin to slice the Heartless into nothing. He then turned to Rob with a smirk. "Hey, don't just stand there! Kick some ass! You HAVE a Keyblade..."
"Wh-what?" Rob blinked, flummoxed, but shook it off. "FINE!" He twirled the Keyblade and began to slice and dice like mad, more confident now that he had more help. Maya, not seeing much use for her magic, just sat back and greedily finished her ice cream.
When all was said and done, the Heartless were completely gone. Rob quickly made his Keyblade disappear to avoid any more showing up. He turned to Sonic. "Thanks, Sonic. But who's this with you?"
Sonic jerked his thumb towards the new girl, who was stretching herself. "This is my friend Tifa. Tifa, this is Rob and Maya. Don't be put off by the dark-looking Keyblade; they're not evil." Tifa took notice of Rob and shook hands.
"Uhh... Hi Miss Tifa," Rob blinked, staring at Tifa's supermodel form.
"Hey Rob... Don't stare at those," Tifa glared at the boy before she softened into a grin.
"Hiya!" Maya waved from further back. The four of them began to walk further down to hill to the southern section of Twilight Town.
"Where do you come from?" Rob asked once they had been moving for a while.
"I hail from Hollow Bastion..." Tifa began. "But I've lived here for a while now. Many of my friends come from there. A long time ago, when I was just a kid, Ansem had royally messed things up with his Heartless experiments. I managed to come here by sheer luck... My friend Barret practically raised me. He decided to set up his weapon shop here, and he and I make a living helping out heroes against the Heartless."
"Yeah, our life was cool and un-normal until some clown summoned the evil Heartless on us!" Maya added. "Now were here!"
"I just got back from there," Sonic explained. "I had him synth up my shoes to be more effective! Hey, Barret just might help you out!" They came to a stop. Right now they stood in front of a large clock tower, its tan walls painted orange by the permanent sunset. They stood on the pavilion right in front of it, its large expanse extending to the calm docks and the sea.
"Why not go there?" Rob asked. "If Barret can help me out, I'll take it! I'll need all the help I can get."
"Not a bad idea, but... we're nowhere close. Gotta walk all the way back to where we came." Sonic noted.
The other three groaned.
"Oy," Rob hung his head in defeat. "I guess it's gonna get boring until we get to Barret's place?"
A metallic clang answered him.
"Or NOT..." Sonic hopped up and his spikes tensed. Standing in front of them stood Sonic's great adversary, Dr. Robotnik, a.k.a "Eggman."
"Oh HELLO, Sonic," Dr. Eggman greeted our heroes with a malicious grin. "I knew you would've survived that Heartless attack on Station Square! Now that I've seen NUMEROUS worlds out there, I can easily overpower them with technology and take over the worlds! And with the Heartless, it'll be a cinch! It's PURE GENIUS, I tell you!"
"So you're Eggman?" Tifa asked, cracking her knuckles.
"Don't even THINK IT, Eggface!" Sonic shouted pointing a finger at him. "You won't survive for ten seconds!"
"Oh yeah?" Dr. Eggman hopped on his mech and powered it up. "You won't survive this. You don't have a chance!"
Sonic leapt up and used a homing attack on Eggman, making the machine flinch. Rob wasted no time in conjuring his Keyblade and bringing it to Eggman's machine in the form of a three-hit combo. "Arrgghh! You'll pay!" he launched several small homing missiles, hitting all four of them.
"Ungah!" Rob screeched in pain, as he was knocked back, but he quickly recovered.
"Ouch!" Maya whined. Unsheathing twin daggers, she growled, "It's time to play!" She dashed by his rocket fire and sliced the machine. With an added touch, she shouted, "THUNDER!" And a thunderbolt struck Eggman's machine.
"OWWW!" Eggman howled. "You little...!"
"Toasty!" Maya crowed.
"Taste this!" Tifa launched a combo of punches, with a final hit smacking Eggman in the face. In a furious rage, Eggman countered by grabbing Tifa and throwing her off to the side. Eggman marched and shot more rockets at Sonic and Rob, who both back-flipped away from the blasts. Rob roared and lunged for an attack, but only succeeded in poking Eggman in the stomach with his Keyblade, having no effect.
"Since you want to party, let's have a fiesta! Olé!" Dr. Eggman cheered as he smashed into Sonic with his boxing arm. The charging Tifa also met the boxing arm and had to take the resulting force with her all the way back about 20 feet and to the floor.
Rob jumped up and used another Keyblade combo on Eggman, knocking him back. Sonic recovered and used another homing attack. "Too bad, Egghead, we could've been friends!" Sonic joked as he dodged the resulting blasts of mini-rockets. Maya used a new Fire spell ("ROAST BACON!") to negate the charging rockets. Rob cleverly flipped Tifa over a wave of rockets and ducked to avoid getting hit himself. Tifa stomped on Eggman after landing on his mech. Tifa made a face and spanked her rear after avoiding Robotnik's attempt to grab her again.
"You brats won't defeat ME. Final Beam!" Dr. Eggman began to slowly power the HUGE cannon to fire it at our heroes. Surely, it would have annihilated them all, but Sonic bravely hopped in and smashed the cannon before it could fully fire.
"No! I've... failed," Dr. Robotnik cried as the mech short-circuited and blew up in his face. "You're going to pay for this, Sonic... I call upon the POWER of the Heartless! Finish... them..." Dr. Eggman fell unconscious.
For a few brief moments, our heroes stood in silence, considering celebration, but at this, they noticed a black mist sinking from Dr. Eggman. It fell to the floor, and swooped backwards into a statue of a giant knight with an axe. Without warning, the axe rose up and slammed about two centimeters from where Rob stood, and a huge, muscle-bound creature emerged from the very thin knight statue. Rob twitched in fear as the huge creature came to form. It had a rather small head resembling a metal chimney, bulbous yellow eyes poking from its dark face. Its large, blue body resembled that of a muscle-bound troll's.
"What the-What... are you?" Rob stared at it.
(So I am born... I am... Curmudgeon,) It rose to its full height-around twice the size of that of Eggman' s mech. It poised to fight.
Rob leaped and began to strike.
Curmudgeon took one mighty swing at Rob, who dodged by mere inches. Sonic hopped on its right arm and ran up the creature, landing a homing attack on its head. Annoyed by this, Curmudgeon turned around and attempted to render Sonic road kill, slamming the giant axe into the ground and causing the earth to shake.
Tifa used the force to project herself up and right into the face of the creature, where she used a triple kick. The doubly annoyed Curmudgeon flicked Tifa away with its large hands almost comically, a vein appearing to have popped on its head. The knocked-out Tifa crashed into the ground, and the hulking creature turned around to finish her off. Just as he was about to render her Kibbles and Bits, Sonic dashed and picked her up, narrowly dodging the falling axe. Maya used the force this time and leapt on the creature. "Rob!" She called. "Keyblade! Just let go!"
"What!" Rob exclaimed as he let go of the Keyblade while dodging the axe again. The Keyblade disappeared with a poof and reappeared in Maya's hands, where she proceeded to stab Curmudgeon in the face with it. Curmudgeon roared and tried to flick Maya off, but it only succeeded in damaging its own small head. Maya held on to his head as it went crazy.
"HELP!" She cried.
"We could sure use that!" Sonic mused as he dodged the mad axe.
Rob panted. This sucked. And he hadn't even begun.
Just as he tried to think of a way to save Maya, a marvelous, yet strange thing happened, although some people would call it a plot device.
A suit of bluish-white armor crashed in front of them in six pieces. The armor rattled, and then formed what looked like a Heartless knight.
The new creature leered at Curmudgeon through its metal helmet. (You chose the wrong Keyblade master to mess with. Rob, I'm about to launch you into it. Get your Keyblade back!)
"Maya! Drop the Keyblade!" Rob shouted.
"I... CAN'T!" She squealed. However, she managed to do so anyway, squealing some more in the process.
It appeared in Rob's hands again.
(Prepare for high speeds,) the armor "Heartless" said as it picked up Rob with its floating hands. They rocketed towards Curmudgeon's head, and with a wide sweep, Rob sliced the monster's head in two, although it didn't fall apart.
Curmudgeon stopped flailing. Rob picked up Maya just as it was about to fall. The monster toppled and crashed into the ground, and disappeared in a flash of darkness.
It was all over.
Tifa and Sonic came back, and the hands dropped Maya and Rob. However, it was the strange Heartless that first spoke. (Are you all right?)
"Aren't you a... Heartless?" Rob asked.
(I am and yet... I have conscious thought,) It answered. (You mean you don't notice my new crest and my sexy new armor? I'm known as Guard Armor. I used to lead attacks Traverse Town until I was defeated. Thanks to your own mother, though, I'm making my own decisions.)
"My mother's more influential than I thought," Rob nodded. "Thanks."
"Ugh..." Sonic noticed Eggman started to recover.
"Eggman!" Sonic dashed to him.
"What... was that?" Dr. Eggman asked. "Sonic... I can't believe I'm asking this... but did I hurt you?"
"Eh, not much," Sonic shrugged.
"That's IT!" He bellowed. "From now on, there will be NO evil forces I will manipulate for world domination except for my own robots! And until this Heartless menace is over, I'm joining sides with YOU!" He pointed a quivering finger at Sonic for dramatic emphasis.
"Glad to see that you can think," Sonic grinned. "That's a relief. Could you possibly help out Tails? He's trying to build a space craft to get back home."
"FINE. But first, what's that thing!" Dr. Eggman asked, pointing to Guard Armor.
"He is Guard Armor." Rob answered, and he explained about his mother and Guard Armor's past.
"Okay, so where's fox boy?"
"In the tool shed further up town. You won't miss it," Sonic answered.
"Very well. Our trip will be ready in a matter of 2 days or less." Dr. Robotnik hopped on his mech, doing quick repairs, and marched away to the tool shed.
"Wow. What a change of events," Rob noted.
"Yeah," Maya added. "What brought YOU down here?" she asked Guard Armor.
(As I said, your mother has some strong influences. But I've got this crest of the Soulless because that's what happens when a Heartless can think for its own: it takes the crest of its rival. Same goes for the Soulless critters themselves.)
"Waitwaitwait... what's a Soulless?" Rob asked.
(Ah, good question. Soulless are our opposites. They are born from souls and are made of light. Only what I know so far. But I've got other places to be. Remember, you're the one whose gotta put the races under control, along with Sora... Farewell...) It started to shake, then disappeared into thin air.
"So I've got a lot to learn, I guess. I suppose the trip's gonna be long. If what Guard Armor said is true, I'm going to be fighting all over the place." Rob turned to Sonic, Tifa, and Maya. " But most of all, I want to find my friends, my family. I'm only asking this once. I won't bother you if you decline, but I ask of you... will you help me?"
"YEAH!" Maya and Tifa cheered.
"HELL YES, I AM!" Sonic added. "We're guys and girls who love adventure and I'm sure not quittin' now!"
"All right then. How about we go fid Barret and see where we can train?" Rob offered.
"Yeah. Let's GO!"
As everyone dashed off back into town (read: Sonic leaving the girls in the dust), Rob calmly regarded the sunset. This was only a beginning. A VERY beginning. Before he made a futile attempt to catch up to Sonic, he whispered a little promise to the sky. "My friends... I won't give up. I WILL FIND YOU..." He shook his fist and sprinted away.
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(You KNOW Sonic, and Tifa hails from FF7 (Yes, she’s wearing her Advent Children outfit). And if you haven’t figured it out, the scary villains with the ghost/skull mask is none other than Black Ghost, who hails from Cyborg 009. Ridley is from the Metroid series, Bowser is from Mario, Giovanni is from Pokémon, and Not my creations. BUT my original characters are:
Rob (Cygnus)
Maya
Ken Mira
Charlotte
Clara
Charles "Taz"
Reverend Mira
That's it, folks, stay tuned for Sora's entry into this madness!)