Housepets! X Kingdomhearts~ Hearts of The Selfless

[ChekeBello]

Don't you just hate it when you're all ready to write stuff or do something creative or productive you suddenly just get Writer's block out of nowhere. Anyway i survived it and in the process of trying to get over writer's block i drew these, the world logos for RWBY and Monster Hunter

I liked ur logos a lot, so figured I could give them a shot.

RWBY's one was simple, luckily I got everything I needed on its wikia

Remnant-logo.png (98.09 KiB) Viewed 18276 times

Monster Hunter's in the other hand... I believe that the icon u used is Glavenus's, sadly to say but couldn't find a sword that matched the design and art style, I ended with a big hole in the top right corner too and finally I have to chose some colors for it.
To solve all this I had to change the design quite a lot... Hope u don't mind P=

Monsters-Paradise-logo.png (217.76 KiB) Viewed 18276 times

Filled the hole with the icon of Nerscylla(the other monster the gang encounter). Since I worked with the monster's icons I used those colors schemes for the font and to replace the X made by the swords I used the MH Generations' logo.

Edit: Links for the imgs went down so I reuploaded them, also here is the third logo but I never really finished it

TLFBL_logo.png (248.92 KiB) Viewed 18276 times

[D-Rock]

I must say, those came out great!

[ChekeBello]

I must say, those came out great!

Thanks! They were a lot of fun to work in ^^

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Those logos look amazingly well done especially that 3d-ish effect on the monster hunter one's letters. Now that I've seen yours let me show you what i came up with.

improved the fire with the help of a friend, and added shading to Fen


Draft Version of Masquerade


Bonus Draft version of Masquerade with the HUD added in just for fun

[D-Rock]

Looking great!

Maybe I should finish the HUD sets.

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Well i finished this thing, still imagining the Zinogre battle theme playing when i pictured it in my head

[D-Rock]

Amazing work, man!

[ChekeBello]

Those logos look amazingly well done especially that 3d-ish effect on the monster hunter one's letters. Now that I've seen yours let me show you what i came up with.

Thanks and that just came up while I was toying with the text.

Warlock Fen really seems wonderful and menacing with the shading, plus u truly made the flame more fiery, nice job.

That battle hud is quite nice, I love how the information bar tell u as much as it really does in KH games XD

It looks like the battle with Masquerade Fen will be amazing(and the track just adds on it), can't wait we reach that point in the story

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Progress is a little slow on the current chapter since I'm trying to balance out the exposition with the action but in the mean time i decided to update the cover for this fanfic (Cue the Dearly Beloved Soundtrack)

[D-Rock]

Beautiful work there.

[ChekeBello]

Lovely menu screen, the heart looks cool too. (now with that image I can only read the X in the title as χ[chi])

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Beautiful work there.

Lovely menu screen, the heart looks cool too. (now with that image I can only read the X in the title as χ[chi])

Thanks, I have a bunch more i want to post but can't for spoiler reasons, but we'll get to them... eventually


Okay I'll be honest I've never dedicated an entire chapter to exposition before, So I'm a little new to this sort of thing. Earlier i said i was trying to add in a little action, but when i read through it as a whole it felt a little shoehorned in. So i moved the fighting bits to the next chapter where hopefully i can do a little better.

So tell me what you think, so i can improve on it more in the future

this chapter was inspired by the soundtrack Fable by Adrian Von Ziegler

Chapter 30
Aftermath

When I first opened my eyes today, I had to first question if what I was seeing was either the best dream I'd ever had or the world's cruelest prank. Since I got caught up in Weirdmageddon all of that world's colors were winded down in favor of the chaos of red and yellow. Then when we stumbled into this world I was a little down when I found it colored with nothing more than blacks and whites.

I never knew how much color added to a world when you had to take it in at a glance. It was a welcome sight to see anything outside of red, yellow or gray. The greens of the trees the blues and oranges of the rising morning sky. I didn't know I could miss color this much, I honestly have no idea how humans back then got by without this in their TVs.

A quick look through our campsite and I found Fox fast asleep with his back against a nearby tree, Spo was resting on his head, while Tarot had wrapped herself in a blanket and rested on the cliff wall. To my surprise instead of finding Fido where we left him the night before I found him sitting on a log while looking at the horizon to see the rising sun.

When Fido noticed I was nearby he gave me a warm smile “Surprised to see me up?”

“Not as surprised as I am to see you up and about.” I said returning the tone “how are you feeling?”

Fido pulled his arms back till they gave a satisfying pop “I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it really. I mean I can tell that those memories aren't mine but I can't help but still feel them. Its a little weird actually.”

“Whatever the case may be its good to see you up and about. Also please, never mention weird to me ever again.” I groaned at the mere mention of the word

After sharing a short laugh, I allowed myself to enjoy the moment. Ever since we started this journey I couldn't recall letting myself enjoy the tranquil moments we had on some worlds. I wasn't so sure what was different about this world but in its own eerie way, this world was tranquil. Nothing dared to move, nothing dared to make a single solitary sound, and for now I was just content with letting that tranquility soothe me a little.

As I continued to indulge myself in the silence of this world, I continued to think. Something just wasn't quite right about this world. When compared to others that we've visited on this journey this stood out the most because of some unknown reason. It wasn't just the silence alone, it was something in the air, something that even though the absence of life everywhere this world felt very much alive.

“No, please don't do this.” Fox's murmurs filled the air causing me and Fido to share a look of concern

When we came to check up on him he was struggling in his sleep, and breathing far more frequently “Fox, hey Fox. Wake up, its only a dream.” Fido tried shaking him slightly but that wasn't working

“Huh, where the fire, am I late for something?” Spo asked drowsily as Fox's tremors shook him from his sleep

Without warning, Fen's keyblade manifested itself on Fox's hand as his nightmares continued to worsen. His breath started to shake and his face contort with fear but he continued to beg and plead with someone to stop what they were doing. I wish I could say that this was the first time Fox acted like this but it really wasn't. On the day of the raid Fox was restless as he slept, but it was tamer back then and could be mistaken for a plain old nightmare. Now there was no doubt that these nightmares were more than he let on.

Without warning Fox shot up from his sleeping position screaming in pure terror. The sound was loud enough to startle Tarot awake, and join us in watching over Fox. We could do nothing but stare at him, completely lost on what to do to comfort him at the moment. However once he realized everything was as he left it last night except for the colors, he started to relax a little.

“A-Are you okay?” Fido asked after giving him a little space to breathe

Fox wiped his eyes with his forearm as his ears folded down to the back of his head “I'm fine, but Fido... its Fen.” Fox looked like he was about to tell us but instead he hesitated

“What about him Fox?” Tarot asked with concern

Silence returned to the campsite as Fox struggled with himself to decide whether or not to tell us what he saw. From how shaken Fox was, this was obviously something important, but I know what that face says. He wants to tell us, he really does, but for some reason he can't.

“Alright team, I'm back! Set your gears into~” Kitsune announced as he was sliding down the path but came to an abrupt halt when he noticed the look on all of our faces “Whoa, did I miss a funeral or something?”

We all returned our stares to Fox who looked like he was mulling things over “If I'm going to tell anyone about this it should be you.” Fox said walking over to Kitsune, but slowed his pace when he neared Fido “Sorry Fido, its a little personal.”

“Alright, here's what we're going to do. Fox and I will walk slightly ahead so that none of you will overhear us, while the rest of you follow close behind. If you're hungry, eat a sandwich or something. We've spent enough time here as it is and we need to keep moving.” Kitsune ushered Fox far enough so that we couldn't overhear their conversation

With a slight shrug we all did as we were told and lagged a little behind the two as they talked with one another. As we walked I did notice Fido acting a little down from what Fox had told him. Fox has only met Kitsune once, and he was willing to trust him over Fido with something that was bothering him. I guess it would be a little fair considering the secret Fido kept from Fox, but still, those two used to be so close.

I shook my head a little, I'd rather focus on the task at hand. From the looks of the path we're taking we appear to be headed towards a nearby mountain range, that looked to be at least half a day's journey at the pace we walked. As for the world itself, now that the color returned it looked like pretty much any other forest we've been in. The most notable difference however was how quiet it was, and now I knew the reason why.

Aside from the plants and trees surrounding us, we were the only living things for miles. There were no birds chirping, no woodland animals going about their day, it was nothing, absolutely nothing. Back when it was black and white it was at least a little expected that you don't see any animals, but now that color was put back into the world, it felt a little unnerving. Almost like someone was watching even though you could sense no one around at all.

Finally, I couldn't take all the speculation and decided that I should ask “Tarot, do you know what happened here? Something just doesn't feel right about this place.”

“I'm not entirely sure, Kitsune's been... distant about it, and every time I try to ask him he always dismisses it somehow.” Tarot continued to study the scenery as we moved along the path “Though I can tell you why this place doesn't feel right. Its the mana.”

“Mana?” Fido echoed in confusion

“Yes, I noticed it the moment we stepped through the door. The mana flow here is tremendous. I've never felt mana so pure and raw, its incredible.” She said in awe

I couldn't give it much thought as Fox and Kitsune came to stop ahead of us. When we finally caught up to them we saw what stopped them in their tracks. From axes to maces and staffs to magic tomes littered about, this place looked like the aftermath of a war. Yet I couldn't find a single body anywhere nearby. Seeing something like this only made me want to ask more about what happened here.

When I turned to face Kitsune he was kneeling down in front of a statue shaped in the form of an owl wielding a spear and shield while she overlooked the devastation. The details on the statue were arguably the best I'd ever seen. Her feathers looked like the carver took great care to carve them all one by one. In spite of the high quality one thing ruined all the hard work it took to get the statue to look like that. Where the owl's chest should've been was a large hole that had several cracks coming from it.

“Let's keep moving.” Kitsune said, his relaxed tone replaced with a more serious one

“Wait,” I said suddenly, causing him to stop in his tracks “Kitsune, I can't take this anymore. I need to know, what happened here, and what does all of this have to do with us? We've been in the dark and separated from everyone we know for three weeks, we at least deserve an explanation.”

Kitsune looked like he was mulling it over to himself, but still kept his back faced towards us. Just from his tone shift alone, I knew that something bad happened here but there was always this nagging feeling. All of this can't be just for no reason, there has to be one, I'm sure of it.

With a heavy sigh Kitsune gestured for us to follow him as he continued walking “Eons ago, this world was once beautiful, filled with life and overflowing with an abundance of mana, and Celestials loved this world for that very reason. See more mana leads to more spells, more spells leads to more options in battle, and more options in battle makes The Game more engaging and thrilling with the things you could do. There was also the nine different sub-dimensions closely interwoven with each other that allowed for a wide variation of choices for avatars, each with their own unique race abilities and perks.

Celesitals loved to use this world as a battle field so much, that there was always a dispute on who would ever take their turn next. So in order to make the wait shorter, an expansion was created with a brand new set of rules, as well as a entirely unique method of play for some celestials.

Long story short, once The Game reached its climax, an Avatar was pushed too far and his powers backfired causing him to steal a particular Celestial's power. The power overwhelmed him and caused him to go into an unstoppable rampage. What you see here is the aftermath of that battle. The situation got so out of control that four players of The Game sacrificed their memories to form a seal on this world's door. The only way to undo the seal is to get all of them back here or find someone else who fits their bill exactly. Which is why he went after your friends, with two of the original owners preoccupied right now, and the other two, just... gone. The only way he could open the door was to use your friends.”

Kitsune unhooked his sword from his belt and drew an infinity symbol in the air. Once it was completed he snapped his fingers and the symbol he drew divided itself into four symbols. One was a diamond with an x on it, one was three rounded triangles intersecting at the center, one was three pointed triangles intersecting at the center and one looked like the symbol drawn on his quiver.

“When you really get down to it, Celestials have four great abilities. Immortality, Mana manipulation, Reality manipulation, and the ability to awaken the strengths in others. These were the original powers before copies were given to other celestials. That's the only reason why our culprit would ever come here. He's after the power that drove that avatar insane.”

I could feel my fist slowly tighten with frustration. Our friends were nothing more than a means to an end for him. All for his selfish desire to gain power, for who knows what other reason. Just because this hooded figure was selfish, our friends had to disappear, lose essentially three weeks of their lives, and worry everyone else.

“Then that means we've got no time to lose!” Fox announced “He's occupied in that room, and left Fen all to himself. We need to destroy Fen's shadow so that we can bring them all home.”

Before any of us could ask how Fox knew any of that Kitsune spoke up “Fox, destroying Fen's shadow or even separating it could lead to catastrophic aftereffects. Its all about balance. What we need to do is correct that balance, by separating him from the corrupted hearts. From there we can only hope that Fen has the inner strength needed to pull out from something like this.”

With that being said, the remainder of the trek was spent in silence. Clouds were starting to gather in the sky above us and thunders sounded off one by one. As Kitsune continued to lead us while he explained the situation the weapons of the battle field began to dwindle away the more we walked. Soon we were faced with a gate that bore one of the symbols that Kitsune drew into the air earlier.

Our group continued on without a single word although it wasn't because we were intimidated by the situation rather because we were so close. There was nothing left to ask or say, we knew why we were here, we now know why they were taken from us. After three long weeks that felt like years, I was going to bring them home, bring Peanut home.

End of Chapter 30

Just for fun I'm going to try my hand at previews so here goes nothing

Next time on Hearts of the Selfless

"I stand guard as the master commands. Leave now or else...

"Fen, please don't do this. Come home with us."

"We didn't come all this way for nothing. One way or another you're coming home with us."

"This is bad, this is very, very bad!"

"WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE!? RUN!"


Long time no see, chief.

[D-Rock]

The final stretch, but I have a feeling that it won't be a short one.

[HellishK9]

It's not going to be easy, is it?

[ChekeBello]

Nothing bad in giving a chapter for exposition, in fact, I think it was a great idea; like the characters, I(and I suppose others) as reader had a bunch of questions and I liked this chapter very much, wouldn't mind read another like this one.

[Krytus The Dreamer]

The final stretch, but I have a feeling that it won't be a short one.

It's not going to be easy, is it?

'Fraid not most boss battles aren't known for being short or easy and this isn't going to be an exception

Nothing bad in giving a chapter for exposition, in fact, I think it was a great idea; like the characters, I(and I suppose others) as reader had a bunch of questions and I liked this chapter very much, wouldn't mind read another like this one.

Well i didn't say i hated doing it, what i meant was i was a little inexperienced in this type of chapter. I may get too long and winded in some parts while other parts might feel rushed. But thanks for the feedback

EDIT: Also forgot to mention that in a previous chapter i stated Fen didn't have his coat and collar on him. Well That isn't the case anymore. I thought i could go somewhere with it but i actually forgot what it was for, so... oops

Alright big boss battle time, and i hope i can write it well enough. This chapter was inspired by the various monster related songs in my library, which i just realized is pretty big... I'll try to ignore what that says about me, but anyway Specifically Lusus Naturae by Jeff Williams, Monster by Skillet Part of the pack, by Adrian Von Ziegler

Chapter 31
Lusus Naturae

For once on this journey, I felt myself wishing that we didn't have a clear cut path to the top of this mountain. My hands shook in their place as fear and doubt began to cloud my mind. I didn't feel like I was ready to fight Fen, whether he was possessed or not by his own shadow, he was still my friend. Fighting him was wrong, every part of my mind was telling me this was all a mistake. These were all lies.

I saw those visions first hand, Fen standing guard at the door, Fen looking hopeless by the hour. Thinking back on those visions helped calmed the lies in my head. I was ready, and this was for Fen's own good. He's just lost his way is all, and its our job as his friends to set him back on track. Thanks to my unintentional peek into his memories, I know we're all he has left.

If I looked around, I knew everyone shared the same sentiment as I did. It was all written on their faces. They were all equally determined to fight, and even though they never saw what I did, they were dealing with the reality that we had to face Fen in battle.

“Alright, gang,” Kitsune kept his voice low as he pointed to one last slope to climb “looks like the final boss is just up ahead. If you need time to prepare you should handle it right now. You've got five minutes for a last minute check.”

I didn't need one last check, I've checked my side pouch a dozen times, I knew where everything is, and I knew I was already running low on shuriken. Grape on the other hand took out a small whetstone and began sharpening her off handed sword while Fido took a moment to readjust the crystals on his shoulder belt. Instead of going over my gear for the Nth time I decided I needed to have one last word with Kitsune.

“So you're sure Fen can still be saved?” I asked as he helped Tarot with drawing a few circles into the ground with chalk

Kitsune put the box of chalk dust down and placed two hand firmly on my shoulders “Fox, I've already told you. Fen's not beyond saving, we still have time to act.” I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment, it wasn't like me to be this paranoid, but it makes sense considering Fen's life is on the line “Now I want you to promise me you won't let this cloud your judgment in battle. Take it from me, even a single millisecond of doubt could spell disaster if you aren't careful out there.”

“S-Sorry,” I gave myself a good shake “its just... all these visions are starting to get to me. That and all the stress of the upcoming battle is wearing down on my nerves. I don't care what precinct says, as soon as I get home, I'm taking a vacation.” I said just to give myself something to look forward to

“I'm sure I could pull a few strings for you and your friends. After all this, I'm sure you guys desperately need a break.” Kitsune laughed as I joined him a little

Once I let Kitsune and Tarot go about their work, as well as Fido and Grape go about their preparations I pulled myself to the side with Fen's keyblade summoned to my hand. Everyday the visions get worse and worse, I appear in Fen's room and he notices me every time. I try to reason with him, but Fen says fewer and fewer words to me, and always ends up attacking me. Eventually it started to feel like the real Fen was slipping away, giving in to his 'master's' whim. The grip I had on Fen's keyblade tightened. I wasn't going to let it come to that not while I still held onto Fen's keyblade as well as my own.

“Alright looks like the gang's all set.” Kitsune called everyone to huddle in closer “Fox tells me Fen's been concealing your friends' hearts along with his own, and he isn't going anywhere without a fight. So we'll need to take him down, but not out, before its too late. Now that Tarot's allowed me into your telepathic link, I can communicate with all of you and coordinate our attacks while I support from the rear. As Fido can attest to, I've had previous combat experience, so take it from me, I know best.”

With that short briefing over with Kitsune drew the bow on his back and readied an arrow. The rest of us followed his lead and had all our keyblades and weapons at the ready just in case Fen decided to attack us out of nowhere. After everyone gave a firm nod Fido led the way into the cave followed by me and Grape then by Kitsune. Since Tarot couldn't fight anymore she was told to wait by the circles she and Kitsune drew with the chalk. It was probably for the best, she would've gotten hurt if she joined us.

The moment I stepped into the cave with the rest of them I took note of all the gashes and indents in the walls. These weren't randomly placed by Fen, everyone one of these markings were made in the same spots I manifested in my dreams. Not that I didn't know it before but now I only had more proof that my visions were the real deal. This only meant that we were racing against the clock, and hopefully we could still beat it.

'I see him.' Kitsune pointed to a door that was kept in the light by a pair of torches and sure enough Fen still stood guard 'Be careful, he might attack at any moment, so keep your guards up.'

I strained my eyes to see him in the dark, and sure enough he was still adorned with the same crown and cape I saw in my visions. His eyes kept the same kind of dullness it had when I last saw them in person. It was almost chilling to see the complete change in demeanor, almost as if he's become a different dog altogether.

As we slowly inched closer Fen's ears flicked towards the sound of our footsteps, and before he could I attack I decided I should at least try reasoning with him “F-Fen? Is that you?”

“I stand guard, as the master commands. Leave now, or else.” He said coldly as he lowered his stance and his hand drifted towards his keyblade

“Fen, now's our chance,” I continued “he isn't here to stop you anymore, we can go home. You can see your mom again.”

Fen flinched at the mention of his mom but kept his calm and drew the blade from the ground “This is your final warning. Leave!”

“We didn't come all this way for nothing.” Fido said as he readied a few dust crystals in his hands “One way or another you're coming home with us.”

At this point trying to win Fen over with words was useless. He was firmly placed in the hooded figure's control and would not give an inch. That being said, we weren't going to give in either. Fido was right, we've gone through different worlds, experienced life and death situations, and we've come too far to come home empty handed.

Seeing that we weren't about to back down even the slightest Fen breathed a deep sigh before shifting his grip and his new keyblade. Instead of hanging onto the handle Fen rested both hands on his hand guards and with one heave split the keyblade into three pieces. The two sides of the blade were now separate from the center of the blade which Fen stuck to the ground like an antenna.

Fen's first move was quick, as he rushed for us directly. Right on cue Fido raised his hand and created a shield to intercept the attack, but I instantly felt that something was wrong. As Fen continued his charge, he threw his left blade backwards and hit the protruding blade to create an electrical pulse. Fido's shield, once hit with the pulse began to destabilize.

“OUT OF THE WAY!” I yelled as I tackled Fido to the side while Grape and Kitsune managed to sidestep the attack

With Fido disoriented and confused Fen rushed straight for him instead of picking up his other blade. Seeing this, I rushed to intercept him and readied multiple strikes to slash at him. Fen saw me coming and met me full on, with our any sign of remorse whatsoever.

The moment we were close enough I threw my blade, causing Fen to slide underneath it. I was expecting this and summoned Fen's original keyblade and swung downward to catch him off guard. However Fen was ready for it and caught it with his blade. After my blade rebounded off a cave wall and headed straight for Fen, he summoned the other half of his blade and swatted it away like it was nothing. This made no sense, my keyblade should've picked up an elemental charge like it normally did, but for some reason it failed to activate.

I didn't get much time to think about it, as Fen pulled back his left hand to deliver a fatal slash with his free blade. Coming to my rescue was Grape who kneed him on the side of his stomach, while Kitsune shot a few arrows to increase the distance between Fen and me.

“Heads up everyone, Fen just put up an anti-magic field!” Kitsune said aloud as he let loose a few arrows to keep Fen at a distance “By constantly releasing a steady flow of energy into the space around him Fen disrupts spells from forming properly. This means Fox's elemental attacks and Fido's shields are out of commission, but enchantments like Fido's aura and Grape's ability to make herself lighter aren't. Take out that antenna! Its the beacon projecting this field in the first place!”

Now that I had a target I took a few steps back and smashed Fen's original keyblade to pieces to summon my other two keyblades. With no time to spare I hurled all three of them before making a beeline towards Fen's darkened blade. My keyblades might not have the added bonus of elemental attacks right now but they make the field harder to traverse especially in a tight space like this.

Since I was already closing in on his keyblade, it made sense that Fen switched his target to me instantly. Kitsune tried to detour him with his arrows, but Fen managed to dodge them as well as Grape and Fido who tried to buy me a few more minutes. It was almost astounding to watch, on top of having to keep track of my three keyblades randomly bouncing around Fen had to contest with Fido and Grape as well as Kitsune unloading a bunch of arrows.

Despite all the obstacles put in his way Fen managed to make it to face me directly, albeit at the cost of running out of breath. Casting my will at one of my blades I called it to my hand and swung it at Fen once more. Like before Fen caught it with one of his blades, but I already knew what to expect and instantly followed through with a leg sweep, knocking him to the ground.

With Fen on the ground I tried to act fast and dislodge the keyblade from its place on the ground but it wouldn't budge. As I continued to struggle Grape came to my rescue and tapped the keyblade with her own, before Fido came in and tackled it out of place.

Now that the beacon was gone my keyblades started to gain their usual elemental charge. It then dawned on me, if it caused so much chaos and destruction when used in an open space, those keyblades inside of a tight space would be a hundred times worse.

“EVERYBODY OUT!” I yelled as the ensuing chaos started to pick up momentum

It didn't take long for everyone to file out of the cave, and for good measure I threw in the keyblade I had in my hand before I stood back to watch the show. That maelstrom was capable of taking out a wooden giant even without the use of a tight space. I was a little curious to see what would happen if it was used in there.

My answer came in the form of a large explosion of lightning, water and wind elemental energy that absolutely decimated anything that was inside the cave. For a while silence ruled the mountain once more, we dared not to move just in case Fen had anything else up his sleeve. However among the smoke that poured out of the cave a small silhouette was seen floating about. From the smoke that poured out of the cave a strange red orb wearing a crown and wielding a scythe emerged. Instinctively I felt myself reaching out for it.

'They're grieving.” my eyes widened in surprise, it was King's voice coming from the orb 'They're in pain. Please... Help them.'

I almost couldn't believe it, this was definitely King I had in my hands “GUYS! Its King!” I yelled, tearing up a little from hearing my best friend for the first time in weeks “He's here!”

Before any one could snap out of their disbelief Kitsune tossed me an arrow “Touch the orb with the spade of that arrow.” He instructed from a distance “I can't get too close, the memories we extracted from Fido are reacting. Once you're done give it to Tarot so she can exorcise the excess darkness.”

With a firm nod I did as I was told and tapped King's orb with the arrow. In less than a second the orb shrank down and was absorbed by the arrow, that now took on a red tint as well as started to bear King's chess piece tag on its shaft.

“I'll take it from here.” Tarot said as she approached me

Once I handed the arrow over to Tarot I heard a slight shift in the rocks. Pebbles were shifting away from the pile and smoke as coughing could be heard from inside the smoke. This only meant that Fen managed to survive the explosion without passing out, and that our fight was far from over.

“Look alive gang!” Kitsune said as he notched another arrow “Fen's not done with us yet.”

As if on cue Fen's inverse blade tore through the smoke only to be shot down by one of Kitsune's arrows. Right about now I could tell Fen didn't care if the inverse blade hit anything or not, he only wanted it to break one way or another, and Kitsune fell for it. Fen emerged from the smoke with a smirk as a second orb was floating in his hands. This one was blue and had a witch's hat and wand equipped onto it while Sabrina's ankh decorated the center. Darkness started to shell Fen and our window started to close.

“NOT THIS TIME YOU DON'T!” Kitsune yelled as he loosed another arrow

The arrow couldn't have cut it any closer as it sailed passed the shadows, absorbed Sabrina's orb and made it out in one piece. The cocoon completely formed and melted away, and this time Fen was wearing a vest that had long sleeves that fell all the way to Fen's wrists as a witch hat rested on his head but instead of a keyblade in his hands Fen was holding a wand and looking visibly confused. When he saw the arrow that absorbed Sabrina's orb he tried to make his way towards it but was intercepted by Fido.

With only a wand as his weapon Fen had no means of fighting at close range, and was forced away by Fido who continued to add on the pressure “TAROT! Get the arrow and run!” he said as he was able to move Fen to a safer distance

Since Fido was busy holding Fen back, I rushed over to Sabrina's arrow, and exactly like King's her voice sounded in my head 'They're grieving, they're in pain... Please Help them.'

Just to make sure that Fen had no leeway to slip past Fido Grape rushed over to provide more cover. I did the same after handing the arrow over to Tarot. However, now that there was three threats approaching him Fen slammed the crystal ball on his wand into the ground. In an instant Fen caused a geyser of fire to erupt from underneath him causing both Grape and I to halt our advances. Despite the fire coming from the ground, thanks to his aura, Fido was unharmed but pushed away.

Determined to keep us at the distance he pushed us to, Fen pointed his wand at us and released multiple bolts of fire that came simultaneously. Once again Fido came to our rescue and intercepted each bolt of fire with a shield that absorbed the energy and took on the appropriate shape.

Using his shields to their fullest Fido rushed over to each and every one of them and batted them towards Fen. Kitsune and I joined Fido in attacking from a distance and unleashed our own long ranged attacks. Soon Fen was swamped with exploding shields, arrows and rebounding keyblades. Somehow like before Fen was able to keep track of each projectile that was being used against him and counter with either a wall of fire or blast it away with his own bolts of fire. However Grape used the chaos of all of our attacks as cover and was able to sneak up behind Fen.

With a firm kick to Fen's face, Grape sent the poor dog flying into the air, and made him an easy target. With his final batch of shields Fido sent them all towards Fen resulting in a massive fiery explosion that sent Fen into a free fall off the nearby cliff.

“OH CARP!” Fido cursed as he rushed over to the cliff,

I would've joined him to look over the edge of the cliff for Fen, but suddenly all my strength left me. I looked to my two other keyblades as they faded into dust, I had already used up all of my energy, and was now useless in battle.

“Fox are you alright?” Kitsune lowered himself to a knee to check on me

My head continued to spin as my vision faded in and out “I'm good, just a little tired.” I lied, there was no way I could fight like this

Kitsune shot me a look that said he didn't believe me as he lowered me to a resting position. All it took for that look on his face to change was a low rumble of thunder in the distance. His ears shifted slightly to judge how far away the rattle was, while his eyes shut to help him concentrate.

Once he was done Kitsune picked up his bow and drew an arrow aimed towards my arm as it adopted a soft blue glow “Don't worry, this isn't going to hurt a bit.” I didn't get a chance to argue as Kitsune loosed the arrow

I could only brace myself for the enormous sting of the arrow that should've overwhelmed my senses. Yet no matter how long I waited the pain never came. Instead a wave of relief washed over me as the arrow turned into light and enveloped me. In an instant I felt all of the fatigue of using up my energy just wash away. It was almost as if I never went into battle in the first place.

“This bow belonged to the best support class user in the game.” Kitsune said almost with a hint of pride “Now on your feet, according to what you've told me, there's one more form we have to deal with.” he held out his free hand to help me stand

A few moments after I was given a breather thunder shook the skies, and judging from the sound, it was definitely close by. From the same ledge where he came from Fen shot skyward from the cliff with a new keyblade in hand as well as wings that sprouted from the vest he wore as a blindfold covered his eyes.

Some how even with the blind fold on Fen managed to tell where all of us were and raised his hand. On his command, streams of lightning shot downward from the sky, Fido's shields took the heat for all of us. However as the flash of lightning faded away Fen was nowhere in sight.

“FIDO LOOK OUT!” Grape yelled, but was too late

Fen took advantage of the lightning's flash and was able to flank Fido without his notice and latch on to him. With Fido trapped in Fen's hold all it took was a few flaps of his newly formed wings and the two were already high in the sky above us. Grape attempted to reach Fido, but was unable to reach their height and fell back down towards us. Kitsune tried to shoot Fen down, but at this distance, hitting Fido was a huge risk.

Once the two were high enough Fen threw him a bit skyward and unleashed a long stringed combo on Fido. At the range Fen was to him Fido had no room to summon shields and was forced to absorb the blunt of the attacks full force. Finishing the combo Fen kicked Fido downward towards us and fired down a combined bolt of of flames and lightning to accelerate Fido's fall.

The force of the attack was so great that when Fido crashed into the ground, a crater was left behind. As the dust cleared Fido was left unconscious as his aura had run its course and evaporated till he woke up again.

Keeping up his relentless barrage Fen continued to swoop down on any of us that remained, but was eventually kept at bay with Kitsune's arrows “FIDO'S DOWN! GRAPE TAKE HIM TO SAFETY, FOX HELP ME KEEP FEN DISTRACTED! WE NEED TO BUY GRAPE THE TIME SHE NEEDS!”

Rather than break Fen's keyblade a second time and effectively shorten my time on the battlefield I instead went for the shuriken and kunai in my pouch. Armed with my projectiles I joined Kitsune as we kept Fen from swooping down on Grape as she hauled Fido to safety. Since Fen was airborne he was incredibly hard to hit, even Kitsune was struggling with hitting a mark.

It eventually reached the point where Kitsune had run out of arrows. Now that his quiver was empty the bow in his hands was enveloped in a bright flash as it shrank back down to its great sword form. With a frustrated grunt Kitsune sheathed the great sword and pulled out his Katina.

Holding his katana firmly Kitsune closed his eyes and concentrated. A few moments passed before Kitsune drove the sword into the ground and a yin-yang symbol appeared on the floor as eight ethereal Kitsune clones materialized, one for each color of the spectrum. With his clones drawing the same katana they all charged towards Fen despite him still being high in the sky.

In order to combat Fen's advantage the Kitsune clones worked in perfect coordination with one another. When one jumped off the ground, a second one used him as a stepping stone to jump even higher, and the process repeated itself until the Kitsune clones were on the same height as Fen. Sadly as impressive as their coordination was Fen easily dodged the slash and was able to dispatch the one that attempted to hit him with one slash of his wing leaving its ethereal sword to fall to the ground.

“He's just too high!” The original Kitsune said as he landed back on the ground and picked up the fallen Kitsune's sword “Now that he knows what we're all capable of he's taking us out one by one while keeping his height advantage.”

“Then let's try it again. This time everyone pitches in.” Grape said as she rejoined the fray

Since there was no other choice left to us Kitsune nodded in affirmation “Fox, cover us. Keep him guessing and confused.”

“Gotcha, but I'm warning you. I don't have much of these left” I said as I pulled my last set of throwing stars

With our plan of attack decided Kitsune led the attack with his seven other clones in tow as well as Grape following not too far behind. As they readied themselves I got into position at the highest point I could reach before they were ready. Again one Kitsune jumped and acted as a stepping stone for the second and so on and so on.

The difference this time was I wasn't going to let Fen anticipate them coming. As accurate as I could I threw my stars at him to keep him strafing so that he could avoid them. Eventually Kitsune managed to get to Fen's height and the two clashed blades mid air. Grape took advantage of this and was able to jump up behind Fen and slash down on his wings while his blade was occupied. With his wings disintegrated away Fen was at the mercy of gravity and was left to plummet into the ground. Fen came in for a messy landing and skidded to a stop just a few inches away from the cliff.

When Grape and Kitsune came down for a landing, I joined them as we checked up on Fen as darkness cocooned him once more and melted to reveal Fen back in his regular coat with a yellow orb wearing a blindfold floating not too far from his head.

“It's over right?” I asked as Grape cradled the ball

“It... should be.” Kitsune said as he tried to catch his breath “We've done all we can to correct Fen's balance. Now its all up to him.”

“Peanut?” Grape stared at the floating orb in confusion “Is that you?”

“Its normal Grape, I heard King's voice too.” I said moving in a little closer to study Peanut's orb while Kitsune kept his distance

“Peanut,” she continued, ignoring me and my attempts to approach “you're all here. who's... they?”

Before we could question what she meant by that Fen pulled his head back and released a loud reverberating howl. We wouldn't have paid it much attention but much to our utter horror. Fen's howl was answered by another howl coming from the cave.

“This is bad, this is very, very bad.” Panic seemed to posses Kitsune as he started to move back

“What is that?” Grape asked as we followed Kitsune with Fen in tow “Kitsune, what's wrong.”

“There's no time to explain!” Kitsune said as his great sword shifted back into being a bow allowing him to draw it “Take an arrow, put Peanut's heart in it and go!” he tossed Grape an arrow and made his way towards Tarot and a passed out Fido

Before he could take another step a quick blur slammed into Kitsune's face, knocking him off his feet. When I traced the trajectory back to where the blur came from I saw the mysterious figure holding his hand up as a the blur was revealed to be a hammer.

“See what I've been telling you Fenrir.” he said in a scolding manner “You may be ferocious, but you are nothing compared to the original. Speaking of which... brother, please remove these from my hands. I've long since gotten tired of having them on. They were useful for only a brief moment, but ultimately a complete burden.”

From the cave a large silhouette moved forward. Once he stepped into the light the brother he was talking about was a large muscular wolf bound in broken chains. His presence just made all of my instincts scream at me to run in the other direction, even if all he really did was stand there. His fur was the messiest I've ever seen, it even covered his eyes, but I didn't need to see his eyes to see that his eyes were absolutely terrifying.

The large wolf did as he was told and held his hand over his brother's. A few seconds later and the red unraveled itself off of his hands and joined the broken chains on the large wolf's.

“Finally, I will never understand how you can deal with those accursed ribbons around your wrists.” he said rubbing his wrists “And isn't this a surprise... Brother fetch him for me.”

Instinctively Grape and I motioned to guard Kitsune as he recovered from the blow to the head “WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE!?” he said pushing us away “RUN!”

The large wolf was soon on top of us and pushed Grape and I away easily. We didn't even get a chance to do anything. The wolf was just too powerful and was easily able to choke Kitsune with just one hand as he brought him back to his brother.

“Long time no see, Chief.” The mysterious figure said completely amused

Kitsune struggled to say anything from being choked but managed to squeeze out one name “... Jormungand.”



End of Chapter 31

NEXT TIME ON HEARTS OF THE SELFLESS

"Kitsune, Chief, Its been quite some time. brings back the nostalgia doesn't it?"

"The feeling's not mutual."

"Fox, what do we do?"

"Take us to him, we know what to do."

"I say go for it."

"WAKE UP!"

(No image this time since i have no access to my scanner and didn't have the time to sketch something out. )

Sidenote: If this was an actualy kingdomhearts game When Kitsune says they have five minutes to prepare for the fight against Fen i would've actually went back a few worlds to grind until i had all the best spells and abilities.

[D-Rock]

King's keyblade can separate? Neat feature. So now it seems an old scar is opened again.

[HellishK9]

I always love a good ol' reunion (except when you try to kill eachother)

[Krytus The Dreamer]

I always love a good ol' reunion (except when you try to kill eachother)

King's keyblade can separate? Neat feature. So now it seems an old scar is opened again.

Oh you bet there's history between Kitsune and Jormungand though it isn't going to be explained here.

As for the reason why I'm a little delayed in this (at least i think i am) cause i just got my hands on some quaility coloring pencils and am improving my craft by starting to work with color. Now i know what Grape feels like, its weird but cool to see my drawings starting to have color.

Before we get into the chapter I'd like to show you this.

I actually got to commission someone on DA and i asked her to draw Masquerade Fen in his Feral(not sure if this is the proper term?) form. Anyway art was done by Grynda so go on check her out.

Chapter 32
The Turncoat

I couldn't stop myself from shaking, it was too much to take in all at once. Kitsune, who was probably the strongest among us here, was now at the complete mercy of Jormungand and his brother. The air around that newcomer was intense, with his kind of physique he was easily able to push Grape and I aside like we were nothing, further cementing his terrifying presence on the battle field.

Kitsune said that the hooded figure's name was Jormungand, and he called that wolf his brother. If I'm remembering my mythology right that could only mean that, the wolf holding Kitsune in a hold with only one of his hands was the original Fenrir. The one Fen was named after. He was responsible for causing Ragnarok, bringing down a plethora of Gods and Goddesses, being pretty much the herald of the end times, which I'm assuming all happened on this world.

That's why everything was broken when we came here. That's why the celestials had to form a seal around this world's door. The reason why there were no living creatures anywhere was because this was where Ragnarok happened and we were at the center of where it all began.

'Guys, leave!' Kitsune yelled over the telepathic link

Before we could respond Jormungand placed a hand over Kitsune's head and instantly the line was cut “Kitsune, Chief,” Jormungand sounded amused as he removed his hand “It's been some time. Brings back the nostalgia doesn't it?” he gave Kitsune's nose a quick tap before gesturing to his brother

the grip around Kitsune's neck loosened and he was allowed to talk “The feeling's not mutual.” His reply came in the form of a low growl

“You sound mad, why is that?” Jormungand came to a pace around Kitsune “We did win after all.”

“You call that a victory? It came with a severe price! This world came to end because the aftermath, Celestials were erased, millions if not trillions lost their home world! DO YOU EVEN REALIZE GA~” Kitsune spat as loud as he could before the grip on his throat returned

Seeing Kitsune choke and struggle against Fenrir's hold caused Jormungand to throw up his hands “You know he doesn't like to be called that anymore right, but that's beside the point. My brother knew full well what he was doing. Like me he wanted that wish so badly he was willing to do anything to win. I just so happen to benefit from it. ”

“You... are... the worst... kind... of... Traitor. No... Celestial... will... grant... you... that... service.” Kitsune choked out

“I WAS PROMISED MY KINGDOM!” he screamed; Kitsune obviously hit a nerve “I won the game and I will get what I deserve!” Jormungand took a moment to recompose himself

“I already have one piece,” he held up his right hand and the symbol of the three rounded triangles appeared on the back of his palm “my brother has the second, and from the looks of things you brought me the third piece.” Jormungand pointed to the bow Kitsune dropped next to us

Upon mention of the bow Kitsune's efforts to break the choke hold doubled and only loosened it for him to talk straight “DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH THAT! IF YOU LAY ONE FINGER ON THAT BOW I'M GOING TO~” Fenrir reestablished his grip

Hearing Jormungand's intention of coming to where we were was enough to snap me out of my daze. He or, much worse, his brother was going to come over here and get the bow. Fenrir was a wild card, aside from whatever his brother says, its hard to get a read on him. There's no telling how he'd react to us and I wasn't willing to find out.

As fast as I could I got up from where I was sitting and made my way towards the bow. Before I could even make it a few feet from the weapon Jormungand's hammer came in and broke through the ground in front of me. Surprised by the action I turned my heard towards the same path the hammer took.

“Do not interfere dog!” he yelled as the hammer returned to his hand “Brother retrieve the bow, I'll keep Kitsune detained.”

Jormungand lowered himself and touched the ground. On command a circle bearing his mark was drawn into the ground in an instant. With the symbol clearly established he raised his hammer and destroyed the ground beneath him. What was left was a giant stone serpent that ensnared Kitsune and free up Fenrir's hands. Now that his hands were free Fenrir could shift his attention towards us, which only made my skin crawl even though his eyes couldn't even be seen. Picking up my pace once again, I grabbed the bow and slung it around my back before moving on to help Fen

“Here, let me!” Grape pressed the guard of her keyblade against Fen shoulder so she could help him up “WHY IN THE ENTIRE MULTIVERSE DID YOU PICK UP THE BOW!?” she yelled as we ran towards Tarot

“From the way they're talking this thing sounds really important! Do you want this thing in the hands of a destroyer of worlds!? DO I HAVE TO REMIND YOU THAT WHATEVER”S WRONG WITH THIS WORLD WAS BECAUSE OF HIM!?” I argued back

she gave a frustrated sigh “You have a good point.”

However before we could reach Tarot Fenrir came down from his jump and intercepted us. There was no time to change course or even think about what else could be done. I gave Grape one stern look before relieving myself of Fen's weight and brandished my keyblade as I charged forward to keep our obstacle busy while Grape jumped overhead.

It took all I had to ignore my instincts to flee the scene, and even more to continue my string of attacks on Fenrir. Yet, despite all my efforts Fenrir evaded each and every one of my attacks like he saw them all coming. Everything I tried came a hair length close to hitting him, and ones that did hit were caught by the cuffs on his wrist and neck. It was almost as if he's spent years honing his instincts to dodge and block my attacks.

When I swung horizontally Fenrir jumped skyward to evade while I was completely blindsided and missed Grape's approach from behind. The result was the two of us colliding together while Fenrir landed a few feet away from us. While we struggled to recover from the mishap Fenrir plunged his fist into the ground. Seconds later Fenrir's fist reemerged from the ground bringing with it a large sword made from molten magma while leaving behind a small puddle of lava. As the sword remained in his hands lava began to snake its way up Fenrir's arm as if it was about to consume him.

Now that he was armed Fenrir had the sword at the ready position as he started to pick up speed. Thinking fast I got up from Grape and summoned my keyblade in its sapphire form before hurling it towards him. Mid-flight the keyblade began to veil itself in water the more it picked up speed. Once my keyblade and Fenrir's molten sword collided a large cloud of steam was produced as it began to cover the battlefield.

With our enemy capable of sprouting up just about anywhere, Grape and I instinctively had our backs against each other “The telepathic line's dead.” Grape kept her voice low but it was still filled with worry and fear “We might never have a good enough chance to leave like this.”

“Grape are you kidding me? What about Kitsune?” I replied in the same volume

“What about him?” by the sound of Grape's voice alone I knew she was completely serious “Fox, we barely even know him. This is his mess, you may not know it but its best to not but in to the celestial's business. We have Fen, we have their hearts, and if you really want we'll even take the bow, but we seriously need to leave now. This is way beyond our league.”

What Grape said shook me. Every word of it was true, we got what we came for, we had no other business being here and honestly we were no match for either of these two brothers. It almost felt like the only reason why he hasn't taken any of us out yet was because he didn't care enough.

Even if it was true though, it still wasn't right. Kitsune took time to help us out, he came to our rescue and he hasn't done anything that warrants being left in the clutches of those two. There had to be some way we could resolve this, something that was well within our reach.

“TAROT LOOK OUT!” Fido's voice echoed through the steam causing Grape and I to look at each other in confusion

The bow was still slung around my back and Fenrir was told to go after it. We thought Fenrir would blindly go after the bow no matter what. It never occurred to us that Fenrir could think for himself and plan out a strategy.

With both Fido, Tarot and Fen thrown into the line of danger, Grape and I wasted no time in following the voice trail to where they'd be hiding. The moment we emerged from the cloud we were greeted by the sight of Fido holding up Fenrir's molten sword with his bare hands. Fido's aura flickered and strained under the immense pressure it was going through as Fido barely had any energy to throw up a shield or counter attack.

Grape was the first one to act as she charged forward with me following not too far behind. Fenrir must've noticed us approaching because as we got closer, he slammed his foot into the ground causing it to crack and allowing a stream of magma to flow from underneath it. While made us take a detour we still had time to react, Grape jumped over the lava and latched onto Fenrir's back while I stayed back and pulled out my last three kunai.

Working as fast as I could I tied my last paper bombs to the handles and took aim. Grape's continued pestering from Fenrir's back gave Fido the distraction he needed to reach into his shoulder pouch and pull out a handful of light blue crystals. We shared a look and a quick nod as we threw our projectiles at the same time.

Fido's crystals rolled slightly but stopped underneath Fenrir's feet while my kunai pinned themselves just above the puddle of lava. Finally Fenrir had enough and let go of his sword to grab Grape, disarm her off handed sword and toss her towards Fido. The two collided and hit a nearby boulder but were relatively unharmed.

Since the paper bombs were so close to the lava it didn't take long for the heat to trigger the explosion. Due to being near the explosion the light blue crystals were also affected and released a cooling blast that mixed with the magma. Once the mix of steam and smoke cleared a new stone structure was formed. A layer of hardened magma formed over Fenrir, with only his hand bearing Grape's off handed sword sticking out.

“Fox, are you okay?” Fido's aura still flickered as he spoke, definitely a sign of his weariness

“I'm fine,” I approached the two of them, cautiously stepping over the now cooling lava pools and around the stone prison “How about you two, and where's Tarot?”

“Right here,” Tarot came out from behind the boulder looking as winded as we did even though she wasn't anywhere near the fight “I've done it. They've been purified.” She opened her palms to reveal the arrow heads that had contained everyone's hearts

Not two seconds later and Tarot toppled over, but was caught in Fido's arms “She's exhausted herself. She'll be fine after a good rest.” Fido reached over and took the spades from Tarot's hands

At this point my guard should've been lowered down for me to relax a little. However my instincts never wavered, and continued to remain on high alert even if I knew full well that the threat was neutralized. The sounds of cracking soon proved me wrong as our attention was called back to the stone formation that held the form of Fenrir.

From the free hand the symbol of three pointed intersecting triangles appeared. After it dissipated, the stone surrounding Fenrir as well as Grape's sword slowly began to look like they were made out of wood. Once everything was done morphing Fenrir crushed the sword in his grip like it was a twig, it even sounded like it was a twig. Only then did I realize that it didn't just look like it was wood, the stone was turned into wood. Not a few moments later and the stone surrounding Fenrir began to creak and groan before giving way to the wolf with no change to his facial expressions what so ever.

We weren't given a chance to prepare for a counter attack, since all Fenrir did was raise his hand and his chains responded accordingly. Before we even call our keyblades back chains were wrapped around our necks and wrists before transforming into cuffs. In an instant all of my strength left me and soon I felt my legs weaken and fail me, bringing me down to the ground. I wasn't the only one for it to happen to since Fido was the next one to go down followed by Grape. Now that we were defenseless Fenrir easily walked up to me and relieved me of the bow before tossing me back a few feet, and did the same to Grape and Fido who landed not too far from where I was.

“I will admit that they did put up more of a fight than I thought they would.” Jormungand approached Fenrir as his stone snake slithered not too far behind “Though that is to be expected of a team lead by a master strategist, the Great Kitsune.” Jormungand accepted the bow from Fenrir and held it right in front of Kitsune's face to mock him

Even though he was strangled by Jormungand's snake Kitsune still had the strength to speak “If you're telling me to join your side forget it. No amount of tail kissing is going to get me to join you. So take a hike.”

“Oh, Chief, I thought for sure that the wise and cunning Kitsune would've noticed my handiwork on the journey here.” Jormungand lowered his sleeve and allowed eleven differently colored orbs to float out causing Kitsune's eyes to widen “The keyblade was a useful tool in harvesting these. Since I'm not the master of the Gleipnir chain using it was such a chore and the was also the problem of it always limiting my mana usage. Now that my brother has returned he can do it with ease.”

Fenrir stepped forward and the chains on his shackles rose up as he seemed to gather concentration. Soon after the chains melted down into red ribbons as they slowly snaked their way to a struggling Kitsune. At that exact moment I felt a wave of deja vu hit me. It was exactly like this when I saw King get taken away, it was exactly like this when I saw Fen get possessed, and now for a third time I was seeing the same scene unfold before my eyes.

I tried to move my body, but the cuffs had taken too much energy away from me, it was even a struggle to move my arms almost as if I had a weight placed everywhere on my body. It then hit me, Fen's keyblade always gave me energy if I broke it now, I could regain the lost energy. Without any time left to waste I called out to Fen's keyblade and had it appear in my hand. Even if it was a struggle I raised the blade and brought it down. Due to my weakened state I only got the blade to crack, so I brought the blade up once more. After two more swings I finally got it to shatter and soon I was surrounded by the shards of Fen's keyblade. Unlike before only a few shard dissolved into light before passing through to me. The rest floated towards Fen slightly before falling down back to the ground.

I didn't know who I was kidding, I did receive some energy and the weight did seem to lessen enough for me to move like I was normal again, but what was the point. Even if I did receive all the energy what was I against those two. All three of us didn't even stand a chance against Fenrir alone, what more would it be against both of them at the same time.

“Fox,” Grape seemed to struggle saying my name “What do we do?”

“Me?” I replied in panic

Fido struggled to place a hand on my shoulder “As of right now, I'm pushed well beyond my limits, I can't properly protect her right now but you can.” Fido opened his palm to reveal the arrow spade that contained Sabrina's heart as well as King's and Peanut's “You're the one holding all of their hearts. You make the decision.” he gestured to the shattered remains of Fen's keyblade and the small collection of arrow spades

I was at a loss for words as I felt the weight of the decision press down on me. Yet I felt like I wasn't cut out to plan our next move. There was no way out of this, Kitsune was going to be harvested like those statues we saw on the way here, and Jormungand will be one step closer to achieving what he came here for. No matter what shred of detail I had in my head the most plausible move I could come up with there was honestly nothing I could do at this point.

I didn't have any more time to think, as Kitsune's screams began to fill the air. Again deja vu was hitting me at full force. If I looked close enough I saw Kitsune starting to turn into stone starting from his feet. The transformation was slow and sounded agonizing and it began to haunt me seeing as this was the third time I had to witness something like this.

“Fox,” Peanut's voice came into my head almost causing me a heart attack “Take us to Fen.”

“Please Fox, trust us.” Sabrina's voice came shortly after

Finally came King's voice “Take us to him, we know what to do.”

“I can hear them, Peanut, King, Sabrina, all of them.” I said to Fido and Grape “They're telling me to go to Fen.”

“I say go for it.” Fido said encouragingly

With not much options left open to me I gathered whatever strength I had left and picked myself up. As carefully and as stealthily as I could I made my way over to Fen's keyblade fragments and picked them up one by one. Once I gathered all of them I hobbled my way over to Fen who was still passed out behind the boulder where Tarot was hiding.

The moment I got close enough to Fen, his keyblade shards began to react and floated their way over to his right hand. Soon the darkened version of his keyblade appeared as the shards orbited it.

'Break it.' King instructed in my head

I hesitated at first. If breaking this keyblade brought a different form out from Fen, what was left for him to take on? He had no other heart to manipulate so what was the point? Seeing as I had no other option I decided to comply with King's instructions. Taking the blade from Fen's hand I raised it up and slammed it back down covering the blade in pieces. As I continued my attempts to break the keyblade I hoped with everything I had that this would work.

“Please Fen,” I said hoping he could hear me “WAKE UP!”

Now with the inverted keyblade in pieces as well, Fen's original keyblade pieces gathered together and formed a broken orb. Like the others I saw this one had Fen's fang sitting in the center but it didn't have anything else on except the giant chunk missing from the top right portion. The three arrow heads floated from my hand and circled around the new orb. Slowly the broken orb and the three arrow heads floated towards Fen only to be consumed by a cocoon of shadows like anytime Fen undergoes a transformation. Without any signs or warnings the cocoon grew and grew sending me back to where Fido and Grape were waiting.

“WHAT'S HAPPENING!?” Grape yelled as the cocoon continued to grow

“I DON'T KNOW!” I yelled back

The cocoon's sudden appearance caught both Jormungand and Fenrir completely off guard as it also sent them flying. Due to the cocoon's sudden growth Jormungand's serpent didn't stand a chance and was broken apart to free Kitsune while Fenrir was knocked off his feet and the bow was pulled in to the growing cocoon. Due to all the pain he's been put through Kitsune landed on the ground unconscious as the three shards they managed to extract from Fido were freed and flew into the cocoon along with the bow.

Once the shards and the bow joined with the cocoon it started to take on a blue coloration and shot up a beacon into the sky. Soon more blue shards, presumably coming from the door, came to join in adding in to the cocoon's coloration. The moment the cocoon completely turned blue the mark that had been on Kitsune's quiver surfaced on the cocoon's outer shell as it soon started beating.

END OF CHAPTER 32

[HellishK9]

Good chapter, Krytus.

I wonder why they wanted the cocoon so bad? What is its purpose? Why do I like how suspenseful this chapter is?

[ChekeBello]

I went out a few days and came to 2 chapters, nice!

Both were amazing, like HellishK9 I have a new bunch of questions now. (Too many to write them here xD)

I kinda expected our Mysterious Figure had some backstory with Fen; having it with Kitsune instead took me off guard. Now I have no clue where Fen's Books/Keyblade/Powers come from.

Also, something that Rock pointed a while back, they recovered their hearts already, will there be a quest for their bodies(Or Nobodies)? Once they get out of the current problems, ofc ^^U

Great writing once again Krytus!

[D-Rock]

First off, that commission came out nice. And yeah, I believe that "feral" would be the most appropriate term. She did a good job.

Secondly, we have an Eleventh Hour Superpower. Limit Form?

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Good chapter, Krytus.

I wonder why they wanted the cocoon so bad? What is its purpose? Why do I like how suspenseful this chapter is?

Thanks and the suspense is all part of the build up for the next couple of chapters

I went out a few days and came to 2 chapters, nice!

Both were amazing, like HellishK9 I have a new bunch of questions now. (Too many to write them here xD)

I kinda expected our Mysterious Figure had some backstory with Fen; having it with Kitsune instead took me off guard. Now I have no clue where Fen's Books/Keyblade/Powers come from.

Also, something that Rock pointed a while back, they recovered their hearts already, will there be a quest for their bodies(Or Nobodies)? Once they get out of the current problems, ofc ^^U

Great writing once again Krytus!

Oh believe me i have something planned for those nobodies. BWAHAHAHAhAHAHAHAHAHAH

First off, that commission came out nice. And yeah, I believe that "feral" would be the most appropriate term. She did a good job.

Secondly, we have an Eleventh Hour Superpower. Limit Form?

I guess you'll just have to wait and see


Okay now on to why i posted again so soon. There isn't a chapter already up I actually wanted just wanted to put this here but couldn't since the internet wasn't agreeing with me and wouldn't let me upload things.

With like maybe four or three chapters left in this story I'm posting this here as its own separate story (as in it has its own topic and everything.). I'll be writing for this while i develop what happens to Fen's story. Hope you enjoy this teaser image.

[D-Rock]

I'm guessing that this is similar to the events before the Keyblade Wars. Kinda sad, really. Is that Jormungand or Fenrir?

You've greatly improved, the scenery is gorgeous!

[ChekeBello]

Look pretty good but the sun in the water and sky is just wonderful.
And this is very KH-ish image, a group of friends watching on the distance...

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Lately its been a little hard to concentrate because its getting so hot around the place where i live, and the constant blackouts aren't helping either. but I finally got this finished. Hope you enjoy it, and THREE MORE CHAPTERS TO GO!! though I'm not sure if i can count the third one since its an epilogue

This chapter was inspired by the undertale neutral song - Unaligned by NWTB and for the ending bitAmhrán Na Farraige from the movie Song of the Sea

Chapter 33
The One Who Has Lost His Way

'Please Fen.... WAKE UP!'

My thoughts were all a slur making it almost impossible to concentrate at all. There were just too many voices both familiar and alien to me waging war over each other to be the loudest. I had long since given up on covering my ears since no matter what I could hear them, over and over again. I didn't know what to do, I just wanted the voices to stop and give me a single moment of silence. I struggled to move but the cuffs on my wrists weighed my hands down. No matter how hard I tried nothing would work.

'Fen, now's our chance, he isn't here to stop you anymore, we can go home. You can see your mom again.'

'Remember the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Travel southward towards warmer climate.'

'one way or another you're coming home with us.'

'Do not go anywhere near human civilization. The moment they see a feral its all over for you.'

'Look alive gang! Fen's not done with us yet.'

'I wish I could be there for you when it happens but I know what I need to do... I'll find you again I promise.'

'why are you still here!? Run!'

'I love you.'

'I love you too... now go.'

My vision was no good either. Everything I saw was murky, and clouded but from what I was able to tell, I was back in my old cage. From which shelter I didn't know, for what reason I was here I didn't care. I couldn't tell if there were other dogs, or what time it was. All I could do was try to protect myself from the voices and curl myself up into one of the cage's corners with my hands desperately trying to cover my ears.

It all felt like an elaborate nightmare, something I could only experience when I was sleeping. The monsters that were born in shadows, the amazing and terrible things I was capable of doing, the entire scope of it all just felt unreal to me. There was no possible way that all of this could be real. It was all just a nightmare for me to wake up from.

Yet no matter how many times I tried to tell myself it was all just a dream, I knew full well that this was reality. I left her behind, was dragged into some random person's plans and gone for who knows how long. Exactly how long have I been in here? Does she even remember who I am? Will she even take me back?

I wanted to wake up and see mom again. Greet the morning sun with a refreshing stretch and a satisfying yawn. Go downstairs and be welcomed by a stack of pancakes that had my name on them. Pick up a book or two to pass the time. Watch the door in eager anticipation of Mom's eventual return from her job. Have dinner together like we always did before settling in for bed, only to repeat the cycle day after day again and again.

“Fen? Is that really you?” once Peanut's voice filled the room all the other voices finally came to a halt and was instantly replaced by silence

I didn't dare try to greet him, I couldn't even bring myself to look at him. I wanted to leave his friends to themselves, I only cared about myself, and worst of all, I bit Fox in the leg. All my life people were afraid of me because of my fangs and now that I've finally used them against someone else I've only made those fears justified.

“C'mon Fen,” Peanut joke laughed, to try and lift my spirits but it didn't work “we gotta go. Lookie, I even have your metal bat thing, though now that I'm holding it and looking at it up close it looks more like a sword shaped like a key, weird huh?”

“Peanut, just leave me alone.” I said so that I could finally get some peace and quiet but Peanut didn't quite hear me so he just continued

“I mean look at the size of this thing.” He prattled on “I don't think there's a lock on our world that would fit this thing.”

“Peanut...” I tried a little bit louder, but Peanut still didn't hear me

“What would you even call this thing?” he laughed again to try and cheer me up

“PEANUT! LEAVE ME ALONE!” I yelled, finally snapping from all the noise

Peanut paused, and for a moment I could feel that I hurt his feelings “oh... okay. You must be tired then... I'll just leave this here for you if you ever change your mind.”

At first there was a short silence before I heard the sound of my keyblade being gently placed down. After that, I heard Peanut's footsteps slowly distance themselves from me before vanishing entirely. It didn't take long for the regret to set in. Peanut sounded genuinely hurt when I shouted, and all he really wanted to do was cheer me up.

“So, getting comfortable in your little cage?” Sabrina said coolly

“Shut up,” I responded without thinking “What do you know about me? What do any of you know?”

I heard her lean on the cage wires as she laughed “More than you think.”

“Oh yeah?” I finally had enough and met her face to face with my fangs bared plain for her to see only to be stopped by the wires of the cage “Tell me, does everyone look at you like some kind of freak? Even when you've done absolutely nothing to deserve that kind of treatment!?”

She looked at me pointblank without even flinching even in the slightest before giggling to herself “You said that to the first ever cat to fall in love with a dog and openly admit it. Even today there are some cats and dogs that don't agree with us or even give us weird stares and treat us like we're some kind of weirdos.” Sabrina lightly reached her fingers through the cage wires and lightly tapped my nose “I bet I can top yours, now let me ask you something wolfie. Ever since you've reached Babylon Gardens how often has anyone given you strange looks because of your little dentistry problem?”

I thought about it for a moment. Now that she mentioned it, absolutely no one has. Even all the humans I just met, Peanut's parents, and that motorcycle cop, none of them gave me strange looks just because I showed my teeth. I was even asleep for an entire day, they would've noticed my mouth open a little as I slept.

“Judging from that look I'd say no one, and you know why?” Her yellow eyes were full of compassion and patience even if I snapped at her “Because we literally have an entire pack of wolves living just around the corner. People around here have already gotten used to the feral look, so to everyone else you're just another face in the crowd. Meanwhile Fido and I seem to be the freaks of the week in our own town. Crazy isn't it?”

I tried to apologize to her for what I said but she cut my off by patting me on the head and scratching the back end of my ears “Cool it little wolfie. I know its been a tough life for you, but a lot of people care about you, at least more than you realize.” she stood back upright and walked away giving me a knowing wink

Once Sabrina was gone my eyes were left to wander the memory of my old shelter. Eventually it came on to my keyblade which was just within reach. Of course the thought of reaching out to it has crossed my mind but it was always followed by flashes of what I did to Fox and how I planned to leave my friends behind. I could still feel the lingering taste of copper in my mouth, and the very thought made me sick to my stomach.

“Wait you're serious?” King said snapping me out of my thoughts and startling me “That's what's holding you back? You have got to be kidding me.”

“King?” I responded after I caught me breath “Is that you?”

King rolled his eyes as he took sat down right in front of my keyblade “No I'm the ghost of Christmas Future, come to tell you about your sin's effect on others. Who do you think?” he threw up his arms in exaggeration

“Well I don't need you to tell me about what I've done.” I sighed as I sat down just as King did

“Look kid,” King rubbed his temples, “what's with the pity party? We all know you could've busted out of this place the moment Peanut set this... thing...” King gestured to the keyblade on the floor but avoided it like it had the plague “down on the floor. So why are you holding yourself back?”

It felt weird opening up to three simultaneous pets one after another but I just couldn't help myself “After what I did to Fox, I just don't know if I can face my mom again. I'm basically whatever everyone's been afraid of all along.”

After what I said King visibly flinched a little and paused “I know that dog more than Bino ever could or even hope to, and Fox isn't the type to hold grudges.” King rubbed the back of his neck a little “My a... I mean, your mom means so much to you so much that you're willing to throw away everything just for her. You can't let regret or shame keep you from doing what really matters. Cause if you do, it'll only pile up higher and higher, till eventually, you forget how to hope for a better future.”

I took a moment to let King's words sink in. There are a lot of things I regret doing since leaving mom, and I need to fix all of my mistakes. One thing's for sure I'm not going to be able to do anything if I just stay here.

With a new sense of determination in my heart I reached my hand over to my keyblade that sat in front of King. After a few seconds the blade burst into light and surprised King in the process. Another moment later the blade reappeared in my hands and this time King looked at me with a determined smile and a thumbs up.

“Go get 'em kid.” He said standing up

Tracing my cuff's links to the center of the room I held up my keyblade. After giving myself a moment to breathe in and breath out I jammed the keyblade downward to the center of the cuffs. Instead of setting myself free what I did instead was cause cracks to form and spread all over my old shelter. I tried to warn King to get out of here but when I looked he was nowhere in sight. Finally the memory gave way and opened up to a familiar void of memories floating about.

Since there were just too much possible memories I had to dig through I decided to follow the direction my cuffs were pointed to. My only problem was that I was suspended in mid air and had no means of pushing myself towards that direction. The only thing I could do was grab on to the chain links and pull myself towards its source. Eventually I'd reach something I could unlock with my keyblade.

As I pulled a few of the shards around me began to react and slowly came together underneath my feet. Soon I had a bridge made of blue shards that I couldn't make the memories out of. For now I pushed the thoughts out of my head, I needed to concentrate and prepare myself for anything I would find.

Eventually the cuffs lead me directly towards a memory I didn't recognize. The image that usually showed up front was too blurry to make out, and no sounds came from it. Summoning my keyblade and having it at the ready I cautiously entered the memory and immediately found myself floating towards the ground.

While I fell the cuffs on my wrists melted away into shadows and as soon as I landed my feet instantly felt the familiar texture of dried up leaves crumpling underneath my pads. The moon's crescent light filling the forest with only a few clouds to obscure its rays, all while a strange noise cycled on repeat. It sounded like water rising and as fast as it rose dropped back down. All my life I had never heard something like it, yet it was here in my memory, and I felt a little calmer just by hearing it.

Since a strange new memory was somehow in my mind I decided to follow my curiosity and look for the source of the sound. My cuffs were now gone and I had no other leads to follow, so this was better than just standing around aimlessly.

The more I continued to follow the sound the more I noticed that the trees continued to decrease, and the soil slowly gave way for more stone. This only made me more curious. I never remembered visiting a world that had this specific place, nor do I remember ever being here back in my own world. Despite all that I still felt like this was all familiar, something I had seen before and only now had time to make sense of it all.

After passing through the final set of trees I finally reached a cliff and found the source of that strange sound. Underneath the crescent moon was a large lake, farther than the eyes could ever see with water constantly rising and falling. It was then that I realized that I wasn't looking at a large lake, this was the ocean.

I wasn't given long to enjoy the view as my ears flicked towards a nearby cave carved into the cliff side where I could hear the faint sound of someone breathing heavily. Tugging more at my curiosity was the fact that, soon the someone inside the cave started singing. Her voice reverberated through the cave walls enhancing the mystery behind her as well as the gentle and soothing tones she let out. Soon I couldn't help myself as I found myself slowly making my way toward the cave.

The closer I got the more the sound continued to better in quality, which made me try to wrack my brain for answers once more. Why do I have this memory, why is this the memory where my cuffs lead me, and who was the owner of this voice?

Once I rounded the corner of the cave I finally found her. A female wolf curled up as far as she could go in one of the cave's crevices. Her fur looked to be originally pure white but was extremely dirtied and looked to be a full grown adult. She shook violently, but that didn't stop her from producing such a sweet melody that was amplified by the cave.

She ended her song as gracefully as she sung it, and soon pulled her face out from underneath her fur. Her eyes were sky blue and seemed to shine with deep seated sorrow as she rested her head on the cave wall. Her shaky breath intensified once more before stopping altogether.

It took a full two seconds before I realized what had happened. She was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. When I tried to reach out for her my hands just passed right through her which only made me feel all the more useless. I don't know why but the sight brought me down to my knees as a fresh batch of tears began to spill down from my eyes.

“Its sad to see what fate has done to you.” a raspy voice made me look towards the cave entrance

The owner of the raspy turned the corner I did and was revealed to be a dragon with dull and faded white scales. He towered over me by a humongous margin while a sword proportioned to his height was fastened to his belt. His crimson red eyes were weary and tired as if he was up the entire week. The armor that he wore was ancient and had various tear, dents, and holes all along its ridges while his scales were also treated the same way with some even missing to expose skin. Only upon closer inspection did I finally notice that this dragon was missing his right hand.

The dragon reached towards the wolf and gently turned her over to reveal that she held a bundle of cloth in her arms “Losing her, after already losing so much. Fate is cruel.” while he was a giant compared the bundle of cloth and lacked a second hand he still handled it with care and undid the flap to show a wolf pup fast asleep, almost looking as if he wasn't breathing at all

“To top it all off your condition hasn't changed in the slightest.” he started off but then devolved into a coughing fit, despite that he still cradled the pup carefully “I will admit I am no better off, my tail aches like nobody's business, my arm is giving me problems and I find myself increasingly sleepy by the day. It appears my wounds have finally caught up to me.”

As slowly and as gently as he could the giant dragon walked his way over to the cave entrance all while coughing “Child... I had a vision of your future, and all I saw was darkness. My powers are running thin and I cannot protect you anymore. I thought bringing you here might help you heal, but it appears I was wrong.”

The giant dragon brought the pup to the edge of the cliff and sat down “I am at my wits end, and I fear that I must send you out on your own. No matter the world, humans will fear what they do not understand. I can make it so that they do not find out what you are but due to my limited powers, they will instinctively know your other half.” he cradled the pup against his chest “I bestow upon you what little I have left, as well as this. I may come to regret this decision but now it is the only option I have left to help you, and I apologize in advance for the burden you must carry.”

The dragon closed his eyes and began to concentrate. A few seconds later the dragon adopted a faint glow that he concentrated into a ball the size of the pup's hand. Once that was done The dragon cradled the pup with his right forearm and pulled out a locket that had a cracked stone on it and held it out to the pup. Like the ball of light the locket crumpled into a ball of darkness before fusing together to meet with the pup. As soon as the two energies merged inside of the pup, cries began to fill the air as the child began to search for its mother.

The dragon took a deep breath as well as a moment to calm himself "In your hand, take the Key. So long as you have the makings, then through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be. And you will find me, friend, no ocean will contain you then. No more borders around, or below, or above, so long as you champion the ones you love."

I felt my own eyes widen as he spoke those words. These were, more or less, the same words I instinctively said aloud before we started our journey. There was no questioning it now, that pup is me. That's why I had that memory with me, and why I didn't remember it as clearly as I did until that moment.

A few moments after the dragon had spoken his words cracks started to appear in the dragon's body as if he was made out of glass. Once his entire body was filled with cracks the dragon shattered into far too many pieces to count. Instead of harming the past version of me the shards of that dragon carried the past version of me off before disappearing into the moonlight, and leaving me alone with my thoughts. I needed time to process what I had just witness, what it all meant.

I had so many questions to ask. Who was my birth mother? Are you my birth father? Who am I? Unfortunately I wasn't given the luxury of thinking it over as I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of weightlessness. Someone had tackled me from behind and the two of us were now plummeting into the ocean blow us. I didn't even get a mere second to think before my unknown attacker and I broke through the water's surface. Instead of going underwater we actually found ourselves back at that stain glass platform but instead for some reason it was it pieces left to drift about with my broken image still somewhat intact.

On initial impact I thought I would've, at the very least, broken a few bones but instead I survived and was able to use the momentum from our fall the separate myself from the attacker. The move backfired a little when I miscalculated and sent myself over the edge. Being forced to think quickly I grabbed the edge of the platform at the last second and was able to hang on tight.

After I was sure it was stable enough I pulled myself onto the platform only to be confronted with a blade pointed at my snout. Frozen with fear I didn't get a chance to look up but the blade my attacker was holding was familiar enough to recognize at a single glance. It was the inverted version of my own keyblade and the wielder was a mirrored version of me that didn't have a scar on his chest or a coat on only a red collar with the heartless insignia as the tag with the same soulless yellow eyes.

“TRAITOR!” he yelled as he pulled back the blade to strike down

End of Chapter 33

Also MOAR TEASER ART! The Invite pages 1 & 2 its a short comic and simple comic i decided to try out.

[D-Rock]

So Fen is a celestial. Wouldn't have guessed, really. What caught me was that King recognized who Fen's owner was. Nice little detail.

So now it's time for Fen to face his inner darkness.

How's this for that?

[ChekeBello]

A proper keyblade inheritance ceremony!
Well, that solves a question; rise a ton more xD

A second awaking battle, wonder how Fen will overcome Dark Fen, it surely will be awesome!

I thought I said it last time... but apparently didn't >_>

Oh believe me i have something planned for those nobodies. BWAHAHAHAhAHAHAHAHAHAH

That laugh give me so much hype for what is to come!

Also, is the comic about the game from long ago? or a teaser from something later?? >.>

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Okay so after this there's only a few more chapters left including the Epilogue till the end of this book and the announcement of my next project. I also have more teaser art for the occasion.



This chapter was inspired by Vector to the Heavens as suggested by D-Rock, The Other Promise (The world tour orchestral version) and finally His Theme from Undertale

Chapter 34
Voices Spoken in Unison

Time slowed down to a crawl and I only had just a fraction of a moment to react. My legs spurred to life and pushed down on the platform just in the nick of time to avoid the swing. Since I didn't have a lot of room to think, I messed up my landing and skidded to a halt just before the edge once more.

“YOU JUST HAD TO PLAY THE HERO!” he gave me no time to think, no time to even process what was happening and just kept attacking over and over again “YOU JUST COULDN'T LEAVE THINGS WELL ENOUGH ALONE!”

After he delivered his third horizontal swing I took a chance and delivered a kick to his stomach while jumping back to give myself a little more distance. As quick as I could I summoned my keyblade in my hand, but even then he was still on my tail and kept me on the edge. He swung his keyblade which I met with my own resulting in a powerful stalemate. Normally under this kind of impact I would've expected a crack to form along the blade but even under our continued tie my keyblade remained stable.

Taking advantage of me being distracted from that small detail, my copy shifted his weight to the right and allowed my blade to slide off of his. Now that he was far closer to me I didn't have room to dodge or the time to react and he was able to land a slash across my stomach followed by a punch to the face.

The impact of that punch was strong enough to send me flying over to the next shattered platform that was floating vertically. When I hit it instead of falling to my doom gravity somehow shifted so that I landed flat on my back while my doppelganger remained upright on his platform. I tried to stand but the blow to my face and the slash on my stomach radiated enough pain to keep me pinned.

“Hurts doesn't it?” he said coldly as he steadily breathed in and out from moving too fast in a short amount of time “Believe me that isn't nearly enough to pay back the pain you've caused me.”

“W-Who are you?” I kept my teeth grit as I shifted my weight to a kneeling position “Why do you look like me?”

“I didn't expect you to remember me.” he turned away from me and paced himself a few steps before facing back “You were far too single minded to think of anything else.” he held out his keyblade and dropped it “Traitor.” he said coldly before stomping on the inverted keyblade and rendering it into shards

In less than a moment shadows engulfed him entirely before unfurling like a pair of wings. My copy had taken on a smaller version of the form it used on that monster world, he was even on four legs as he stood while his eyes were covered by a blindfold. With one strong flap of his wings my copy had sent himself skyward and it didn't take me long to snap myself out of it and limp my way over to another edge of the platform.

However I didn't get far as my doppelganger swooped in and hurled a large ball of flames that exploded on impact. Luckily for me I was only hit by the shock wave and was sent flying to a second platform while the resulting smoke covered my escape. After being sent flying for the second time in a row my body was aching and all I could really do now was hide and try to recover my stamina.

“Trying to hide!? Its pointless!” he yelled out as he continued to circle the shattered pieces of the platform “There is no escaping from the pain you've caused!”

I kept my breath silent and allowed him to pass over my hiding spot before assessing the damage done to me. The blow to the face and repeated blows to my back were minor injuries compared to my stomach. My only hope was using a spell, but I can only used those when my keyblade shatters. That last impact should've rendered it nothing but shards but for some reason it survived.

I wracked my mind for an answer, there had to be something. His keyblade shattered so mine should be able to. However it only happened when he took a few steps away from me. Then it hit me, my clone took the time to distance himself from me before he threw his keyblade down. The two keyblades must be much sturdier when they're closer to each other.

Summoning my own keyblade back to my hand I weighed my options. On one hand if I broke it, the resulting sound would draw his attention to me. On the other if I tried to take him on with this kind of injury, it's almost a guaranteed loss on my case. I had no other choice but to go for broke.

With a heavy breath I raised the blade before slamming it down into the ground. To my relief the blade shattered under the pressure which allowed my three books to return to my side while the shards circled the white book. My first and most pressing concern was the injury so I reached my thoughts out to my book and pressed my hand on my stomach to cast Curaga. On my command I saw a green lotus blossom above my head before sprinkling its pollen down on my injury. A wave of relief washed over me as the soreness from my back and muzzle faded away as well.

“FOUND YOU!” he yelled before thunder roared and a bolt of lightning was headed my way

Instinctively I threw my hand up and cast my thoughts to a reflect spell to summon a wall of hexagons to shield me. Upon meeting with the bolt of lightning the shield held strong before flinging the attack back to its user. Since he was too close to me, my doppelganger didn't get enough time to react and was overwhelmed by his own attack and left dazed in mid air.

Taking advantage of his state I drew up two spells, zero gravity and haste and focused them on myself. With their combined effects I was able to leap from the platform and tackle my clone mid air. My clone was still disoriented from his own attack and I was able to take full advantage of it and used him to cushion my landing. The resulting crash forced him to revert back into his original form with me still pinning him down. To prevent him from moving I used the remaining portion of my energy and froze his hands and feet down with a blizzard spell.

“I'll ask again!” I snarled as I leaned in closer to him “WHO THE HOWL ARE YOU!?”

He returned my snarl with his own, making it almost sound like an echo “I'm YOU! Who do you think I am!?”

“If you are really me, then why? Why would you go after Peanut, King and Sabrina? Dog knows they didn't deserve any of this!”

“You think I had a choice!? YOU LOCKED ME OUT AND LEFT ME IN THE HANDS OF THAT MANIAC!”

Without warning my clone was able to break through the ice that was holding him down and headbutt me to free himself. Restarting his pattern of relentless attacks he brought out his reformed keyblade and swung wildly. In response to this I had my own keyblade out and blocked his blows one by one and waited for my chance to counter.

He held his keyblade on his right hand but as the battle continued he began to rely on his other limbs as well. Using his left hand to deliver a blow while I was distracted by his right, using his legs to add in more things to keep track of so that I'd slip up far earlier if I wasn't too careful. However using all those limbs in conjunction with each other was already taking its toll on him.

His attacks began to slow down and I began to see a pattern in his attacks with small signs he was unwillingly showing when he was about to attack. When he was about to perform an upward strike with his keyblade my clone would lower his center of gravity slightly, then after the upward strike he would use the momentum to swing his body around to deliver a kick. Even though we were the same person his fighting style was much more aggressive and much more polished than mine ever was.

It looked like the only reason why I wasn't dead where I stood was because my clone was letting his rage get the better of him. He was becoming tired, predictable, and that's where I would strike. I just needed to bide my time and keep us in close quartered combat so that his keyblade won't shatter and a new form won't face me.

When he gave one more horizontal strike I back stepped but instantly came to regret that decision the moment I saw myself go slightly beyond the boundary of the platform. On instinct I jabbed my keyblade into the platform shard and hung on tight. A quick look behind me and I saw that there were no other platforms in sight. If I fell here then it would spell my end.

“You think I didn't know what you were doing?” He asked as he loomed over me holding on for dear life “I am you idiot! I knew you were studying me, finding out all of my patterns, so I used that against you. You never think things all the way through and that's what's going to be the end of you.” My clone planted his foot on my keyblade and was ready to push me off

My mind ran a mile a minute thinking of ways to get out of my situation. Yet no matter how hard I tried there was only one thing I could think of.

Using my weight, I was able to swing myself to get enough momentum and throw myself back onto the platform. The major flaw in my plan was that I abandoned my keyblade at the drop off point. When I turned around to face my doppelganger he had already pulled the blade from its resting point and was holding on to it. It was a long shot but I reached out my hand and called to my keyblade, but it didn't budge an inch.

“See, another example.” My clone readied both blades and charged “If you had just accepted your fate then things might have been a little easier on you.”

Now that he had two keyblade, his fighting style could be used to its fullest potential. Strike after strike, his attacks were more relentless and ruthless than before. There was no room for error, and even the slightest one left scratches all over my body.

After a few more minutes I started to feel the combined effects of my injuries and weariness of fighting with him starting to stack too high on top of each other. My vision began to blur, my movements began to slow down resulting in more injuries. Eventually my clone took advantage of my state and knocked me down.

Before I could even struggle to lift myself both keyblades were focused around my neck like scissors “Finally,” he snarled “do you know how many years I've been waiting for this?”

“Years?” I repeated in dazed confusion

“YES, YEARS!” he yelled, the two keyblades moved slightly closer to my neck “I'VE BEEN SITTING HERE FOR LITERALLY YEARS ON END WAITING FOR THE DAY I MIGHT FACE YOU AGAIN!”

“H-how do you know?”

“I saw their memories, all of it, but what really gave it off was that corgi's. He knows who our mom is and there's been a five year gap between now and the last time he saw her. WE'VE LOST FIVE YEARS OF OUR LIVES AND YOU DESERVE TO PAY!”

Five years. I missed out on five years of my life just sleeping. There's no telling what could've happened to mom in that amount of time. There's no telling where she could be or if she even remembers me anymore. Is that all there is to the two of us now, just a forgotten memory?

I shook my head to rid myself of these thoughts. There had to be something around here that I could use, something that would at the very least give me a fighting chance. This wasn't the time to be losing hope there had to be something, anything.

Despite my blurred vision, out of the corner of my eye I spotted something pinned to a nearby platform. Like a light shinning in the darkness it was the only thing clearly visible in my line of sight and it looked to be a two handed great-sword with a strange spiral pattern decorating the guard. My clone didn't seem to notice my eyes locking onto it and I decided to take my chance.

Before he could finish me off, I summoned what little reserve of energy I had left and kicked him off when he least expected it. Ignoring the pain that resonated from my leg I stood up and paced myself over to the great-sword. Due to the injury dealt to my leg I was slower than normal and every step felt like an eternity, but I didn't give in and kept on going.

Finally when I rested both hands on the hilt of the blade I pulled the sword out with relative ease. As soon as the blade was out I felt a rush of energy flow in to me while the emblem on the guard started shining blue. By no means were my injuries healed, they were still there but I could finally see straight and think much more clearly. Even with all my injuries I held the sword at the ready as my clone rushed over to me to finish me off.

“YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY FROM ME THIS TIME!” he yelled as he closed the gap between us in very little time

As we clashed I began to notice something odd. There was something off about his attack patterns not that they were much slower far from it they were even slightly faster, but I knew where each blade was going to go and what to do ahead of time. It almost felt like I had done something like this a thousand times over, and then some. Even with my injury I knew what to do to compensate for the lowered mobility and how to use the large sword to fend off both blades.

My clone's attacks continued relentlessly and I noticed one more odd thing. The twin keyblades were finally starting to crack. Their added durability must be reaching their limits and I saw it as my only chance to counter attack. Taking into account the added energy to my body and the pressure it just went through I, had only one chance to counter attack and I had to make it count. Every time he mounts an attack on me my clone ends up reaching his limits once the encounter draws out long enough. The only thing I had to do was outlast his stamina and deliver the final blow as he recovers.

Finally, after repeated strikes my clone slowed down considerably and for the first time in our fight backed off to breathe a little. That's when I decided to make my move and chased after him with full force, completely ignoring the pain in my foot. This was all or nothing and I couldn't hold out one bit. Planting both my feet firmly onto the ground I raised the sword upward and delivered a downward strike.

My doppelganger intercepted with both keyblades raised high as the three swords met. The resulting metallic clang echoed eerily as both blades held up but with multiple cracks and shards already falling off. Using the last ounce of my strength I pushed the great-sword downward and forced my clone to abandon his twin keyblades and back step to avoid the blow that would've ended him.

Unfortunately he bailed out from the attack a little too late and landed on his back. Giving him no chance to recover I threw aside the great-sword and picked up both keyblades so that I could hold him at blade point.

I couldn't have gotten to this point any sooner. My arms wobbled as I held both keyblades and it was taking everything I had to not collapse on the spot. I should've ended it the moment I had him at the mercy of these blades but I just couldn't. Whether it was that I was too tired to do it or I couldn't bring myself to do it I just didn't know.

“GO ON! FINISH ME!” he yelled furiously despite the twin keyblades still being pointed at him “First the entire world rejects us for what we were, then I get rejected by you for what I am. I'm just a reject of a reject.” At this point he couldn't even look me directly in the eyes and just shut his own in frustration “I WAS NEVER MEANT TO EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE!”

“But before you finally bring me to an end, I still need to know why.” His voice was shaky and desperate as a fresh batch of tears fell from his eyes “We may be the same dog but no matter how hard I try I still can't understand why. Why did you leave her that night? She fed us, she gave us a roof over our heads, a home to return to, a family to call our own. How could you throw all of that away!? How could you break her heart like that!? You can't deny it, we devastated her.”

"If you really claim to be me, then you already know the answer." I responded wearily "I did what i had to, for mom's sake, because I love her, I thought you did too."

he clearly looked offended by what i said "I do! But there had to be a better way of helping her. Something that wouldn't break her heart."

A moment passed in order for me to take in what he just said. It made more sense now, the anger, the hatred, the regret. Back then I wasn't locking a monster out of my heart, I was locking a part of myself out. A side of myself that I ignored to do what was right. Just because I set my mind to running away didn't mean my heart wanted to go as well. He was the embodiment of the desire to stay with mom, and due to our separation he was able to grow into his own being.

My clone lay down flat on his back accepting the fate I was about to give him “All of this could've been avoided you know, if only I spoke a little louder, you might've heard me and I could've delayed you long enough to change your mind. So do what you have to do and end me.”

“I can't do it, I won't.” I pulled both blades back and looked at the barely stable inverted keyblade before throwing it to him.

My clone looked at his blade before looking at me “What do you mean?”

“You deserve to see her as much as I do.” I said finally falling on my own tail from the exhaustion “and we've been separated long enough for you to be your own self. I just couldn't take that away from you. Even if we may be two I want the two of us to see her again, together.” I gave him the best smile I could muster at the moment “Stand by my side and not in my shadow. We've got five years to catch up on after all. We should make it count.”

A short moment of silence passed before both of our keyblades finally couldn't keep it together and shattered at the same time. Instead of the shards going to their respective owners both shards flew towards that strange great-sword I tossed aside and orbited around it. With both light and dark shards orbiting around it the sword was lifted of the ground before a cocoon of light and shadows formed.

Once the cocoon peeled away from the great-sword what was left behind was a new keyblade that was far longer than my old one had had two handles while keeping a mirrored like appearance. The new keyblade levitated its way over to the two of us and invited us to grab it. I did so with my left hand while my clone did so with his right. Now with both our hands resting on the blade's hilt the keyblade split into two before the split keyblades fired off beams of light and darkness.

The platform beneath us shook violently and started to tilt over on its side allowing the two of us to slide off. My doppelganger managed to save himself by pinning his new blade into the side of the platform and hanging on but I was too weak to do the same and was about to slide off. Before I could though I felt my right hand caught by something and a quick look up showed me it was my clone who caught me.

“Hang on!” he yelled as a bright light started to fill the void

As soon as the bright light faded away I felt myself still holding on to my clone's hand but the two of us were being gently down over a brand new platform that was newly repaired. The only difference between this one and the old one was that instead of only me being depicted my clone was also there. The moment we touched down on the ground I felt my knees give in from the strain of having to stand up.

“I gotcha.” my clone caught my weight and gently set me down

I smiled at him warmly then looked to my keyblade that had just reverted to its old state “Here, take it.”

“Why are you giving this to me more importantly why are you being so nice to me? I tried to kill you.” he looked at the keyblade I offered questionably

“Everyone deserves a second chance and that includes you. As for why I'm giving you this, I'm not sure why, but I feel like something big is happening out there. You might not believe me but we have friends, actual friends who care about us and I think they need us. I'd go too but look at me, I'm a little tired right now.” I laughed but immediately stopped to clutch my ribs “I always did wanted a brother.”

He hesitantly took both keyblades but paused before he resolved himself and clashed them together. Since they were sturdier when they were closer together, he had to clash them together a few more times till they actually shattered. Once that was done, the dark shards remained stationary around my brother while the light shards went towards me to form an orb that had my tag on the front but was missing a chunk on the top right. Before I could grab it, the blue shards that formed a bridge for me a while back flew around it and began to spin along side the orb. After a few seconds of spinning the orb came to a halt this time bearing the spiral emblem I saw on that sword.

“Here you go, but hold on.” I handed the orb to my brother and unzipped my coat and handed it to him “I think you deserve this at the very least.” I smiled at him “Don't worry about me, if you ever need me, just call out. I'll be there.”

“I'll look forward to it.” for the first time since I've seen him, I saw him muster a smile as the yellow from his eyes faded back to their regular crimson

My brother was soon covered by a cocoon of shadows that formed around him. It was only for a brief moment and the shadows melted away leaving nothing behind. Now that I was all alone I lowered myself till I was lying flat on my back as the scene around me started fading to pure white. I finally had a moment of silence to myself and I intended to enjoy it. However as the scene continued its shift I noticed a silhouette making its way over to me.

There was no indication that he was hostile, in fact I felt a warm and welcoming presence radiating off of him. I couldn't explain how or why, but I trusted him. It felt like meeting an old friend of mine, someone I hadn't seen in a very long time. Something just felt right.

“Who are you?” I asked but my only response came in the form of a sincere smile

End of Chapter 34



Rendering done By D-rock. Still working on the combined version though

[HellishK9]

Awesome Chapter.
I always find it engrossing when one fights their inverted self since it's usually just an embodiment of their negitive emotions, but in the end they learn how to cope better with themselves. It's a pretty cool concept.

[D-Rock]

Light and Darkness have finally found balance. Took notes from the Roxas boss fight in KH 2, it seems.

[ChekeBello]

That was a very well written fight, it gave a lot of Persona-like vibes. Wondering why our new Fen keep the Heartless sigil though, he doesn't appear to be that heartlessly now.

Really wonder how this will play out later, and who is this mysterious old friend of Fen (betting for the Dragon we meet the previous chapter ).

Light and Darkness have finally found balance. Took notes from the Roxas boss fight in KH 2, it seems.

Definitively, but I feel some bits of Vanitas/Ven last fight too. Even the name of the Keyblade u get in that Roxas' fight feel almost proper to use here.

Krytus, can u give us more details about the last 2 orbs we have seen, plz? :3

Edit: Like the new keyblades designs a lot, btw.

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Awesome Chapter.
I always find it engrossing when one fights their inverted self since it's usually just an embodiment of their negitive emotions, but in the end they learn how to cope better with themselves. It's a pretty cool concept.

its also cool to see how they'd work off of each other when they aren't fighting each other

Light and Darkness have finally found balance. Took notes from the Roxas boss fight in KH 2, it seems.

Yeah to get a few ideas for this fight i did rewatch the Roxas Vs Sora as well as Vanitas and Ventus fight from BBS

That was a very well written fight, it gave a lot of Persona-like vibes. Wondering why our new Fen keep the Heartless sigil though, he doesn't appear to be that heartlessly now.

Really wonder how this will play out later, and who is this mysterious old friend of Fen (betting for the Dragon we meet the previous chapter ).

Light and Darkness have finally found balance. Took notes from the Roxas boss fight in KH 2, it seems.

Definitively, but I feel some bits of Vanitas/Ven last fight too. Even the name of the Keyblade u get in that Roxas' fight feel almost proper to use here.

Krytus, can u give us more details about the last 2 orbs we have seen, plz? :3

Edit: Like the new keyblades designs a lot, btw.

Thanks and the persona 4 game i played and anime i watched did play a small part in helping me decide how "Other" Fen would act. It was actually pretty easy to write since I've been planning this fight and encounter since chapter 8.

By last two i assume you mean Fen's Broken orb and the orb after it fused with the memory shards. When it was broken the top right from it's perspective (Our left) was broken off, not more than half but a large enough chunk to clearly notice this thing is broken you can also see Fen's tag still intact.

As for Fen's new orb (The one with the infused memories) its much simpler since its a whole orb now, but instead of Fen's usual Fang tag its the Triple Horn emblem (but for the purposes of this story its the Triple Fang)

Thanks the Voices Spoken in Unison Keyblade took inspiration from two main sources one was the keyblade that appears in 3D when you reality shift in the final world that summons a keyblade that both Riku and Sora wield together, and the second one is the combo of the Oathkeeper and Oblivion Keyblades.

[ChekeBello]

Thanks and the persona 4 game i played and anime i watched did play a small part in helping me decide how "Other" Fen would act. It was actually pretty easy to write since I've been planning this fight and encounter since chapter 8.

U really implemented Persona's concept of "Shadow Self" quite well; kinda made me wish for a Persona-Based World XD. So this fight was so long in the making, woah.

By last two i assume you mean Fen's Broken orb and the orb after it fused with the memory shards. When it was broken the top right from it's perspective (Our left) was broken off, not more than half but a large enough chunk to clearly notice this thing is broken you can also see Fen's tag still intact.

As for Fen's new orb (The one with the infused memories) its much simpler since its a whole orb now, but instead of Fen's usual Fang tag its the Triple Horn emblem (but for the purposes of this story its the Triple Fang)

Let me know if I got this right.
The Original Orb.

Original Fen's Orb.png (7.25 KiB) Viewed 28402 times

The Broken Orb. I cracked it all and give it a lighter tone cuz the flickering light on the cracks. And although u can still see Fen's tag it's bashing a little.

Cracked Fen's Orb.png (10.95 KiB) Viewed 28399 times

And finally the reformed Orb.

New Fen's Orb.png (8.55 KiB) Viewed 28402 times

How these doesn't have any kid of headwear they are were, as u said, a lot simpler; hope they still do the cut for u =)

Thanks the Voices Spoken in Unison Keyblade took inspiration from two main sources one was the keyblade that appears in 3D when you reality shift in the final world that summons a keyblade that both Riku and Sora wield together, and the second one is the combo of the Oathkeeper and Oblivion Keyblades.

Yeah I noticed the handle and thought of that DDD keyblade, will be waiting for the combined version!

Edit: Curios thing, working on the broken orb made me learn how to make them all look more crystal-like.

[Krytus The Dreamer]

Okay its been an uncomfortably long time since I've updated this thing so i might as well give you guys a heads up for those of you who follow this story.

So almost a month ago was my birthday and as a present my dad gave me a drawing tablet that allowed me to finally make all of my drawings digital and not be a jerk to trees. At first the lines that translated through the tablet were somewhat curvy and off putting so i didn't get into it yet. After devoting enough time to it however i finally got the hang of it.

Unfortunately while i was busy delving into the depths of how to use the tablet i accidentally forgot to keep up with the story. Don't worry its somewhat finished right now but still has a long way to go. So as a sort of celebration for this topic hitting past 10,000 views I'll just announce my "project" right here. You know the ones that had a bunch of teaser art in the last few bits of chapters. Here it is anyway.

The events depicted in this new project take place eons before events of Hearts of the Selfless. You do not need to finish this story in order to read it but there are going to be a few tidbits that appear in the new one.

This project is mostly inspired by Natewantstobattle's album Sandcastle Kingdoms but for the artworks specifically I'm about to show you Branded inspired the first three We are Ignited inspired the cover and Live Long Enough to Become the Hero is supposed to be the overall opening theme




I'm still Digitizing these with my new tablet so the traditionally drawn ones will have to do for now

[ChekeBello]

So I guess even though it happens in the same timeline this has nothing KH-related, right?
Still I'm curious on how that particular game was played, looks like an interesting history, I'll be following that one too =)

Happy b-day, and congrats on the tablet! Drawings looking amazing! Are the one and black guys in the last pic...? Y'now what, nevermind

[Krytus The Dreamer]

So I guess even though it happens in the same timeline this has nothing KH-related, right?
Still I'm curious on how that particular game was played, looks like an interesting history, I'll be following that one too =)

Happy b-day, and congrats on the tablet! Drawings looking amazing! Are the one and black guys in the last pic...? Y'now what, nevermind

No comment, also thanks


Okay I'm back and finally a new chapter to boot! It took my awhile but i finally have some mojo for writing back Plus the trial run of the art program i was using to draw with expired to I couldn't obsess about it anymore Anyway I guess i was wrong about my initial calculations a few chapters back, now I'm not so sure how many chapters are left but we're super close.

So down to business This chapter was inspired by Another side Battle remix, Organization XIII and Fate of The Unknown

Chapter 35
Pantheon of the Fallen

“NO!” Jormungand yelled furiously as his hammer continued to strike at the cocoon that had formed around Fen “NO, NO, NO, NO!”

The display of sheer, raw power was almost hypnotic to watch. Every time Jormungand struck the sphere the ground beneath us would shake and buckle under the strain. Despite all the pressure it was being put through though, Fen’s cocoon held strong. With each failure Jormungand got angrier and angrier only to feed into an infinite loop of him failing and getting angrier with each passing moment.

The display was so astonishing in fact that i almost didn’t notice when Fox grabbed my shoulder “Fido C’mon!” He yelled through the continuous shock waves of Jormungand’s siege “It isn’t safe here, we have to get to a safer spot.”

Without another word I grabbed Fox’s hand as he helped me towards a spot furthest away from the blast zone. Under normal circumstances walking away would be an easy task but i was far too weak to do it on my own. The cuffs Fenrir managed to snap on were still draining any strength i had left, really it was a wonder i could stand up at all. Fox managed to do well even with the cuffs on, though that’s probably the work of Fen’s keyblade.

After traversing the battle torn landscape Fox and me finally managed to make it to a crevice where Grape was keeping watch over a still unconscious Tarot and Kitsune. It’s been some time since Tarot passed out, the only good thing seemed to be that she made it out of the scuffle with nothing more than scratches and scuff marks. Kitsune on the other hand deserved more attention. I’ve only seen that Heart stealing process once and i didn’t need to experience it firsthand to know how painful it was.

“Guys,” Grape called once we were close enough “we’re sitting ducks out here! We’ve got to have a better plan than this!”

Fox set me down gently before his knees gave in, no doubt his energy already failed him “We... can’t,” he panted “not with these…. cuffs on. Besides... both Kitsune and Tarot... are out of commission. Our only hope right now is Fen.”

As the seconds turned into minutes i felt my hand clench tighter and tighter. There had to be something i could do. I gave my hand one more look and found a faint glow of green aura still wrapped around my body. That meant i still had a small portion of my energy left to spend. I had to make this work, I had to do something.

“Its out of your hands Fido.” Fox warned sternly “This isn’t like that time on remnant; now you really can’t do anything. So please, think of the bigger picture, survive.”

All my progress, all my powers, it can’t all be for nothing. We were so close too. When my hand touched that arrow shard i heard her voice, her sweet soothing angelic voice. It was almost as if i could touch her again and bring her home. Sadly that isn’t a reality yet, and i felt myself ache at how close i got to her.

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Jormungand’s screaming, not out of rage this time it sounded like he was in pain “YOUR POWER IS MINE TO COMMAND THUNDERER!” he yelled while clutching his right hand

Jormungand was on the ground with his arm spouting huge bursts of lightning randomly. The symbol that he brandished every time he was about to strike seemed to get brighter and brighter as Nearby rock formations were instantly obliterated. The only things left standing during Jormungand’s outburst was Fen’s cocoon and his own brother.

“Brother!” Jormungand yelled through his pain “Bind me once more, I cannot let this power escape my grasp!”

Fenrir nodded before holding out his right hand over his brothers. As Fenrir’s red glow began to outshine Jormungand’s, the right sleeve on his coat was torn off due to the intense and conflicting energies focused around that arm. Beneath the fabric was ruffled and messy brown fur to match his brother’s, but all of that was soon covered by a pattern of knots.

As soon as the knots around Jormungand’s arm were established the light that poured out of his arm died down to nothing. Jormungand panted frequently since the power had taken such a toll on his body, but Fenrir looked unfazed by expending almost, if not more energy than Jormungand did. In fact Fenrir stood tall and brandished his right arm to summon his own symbol.

“DON’T YOU FOOL!” Jormungand yelled as he halted his brother in his tracks “THIS WORLD ISN’T AS STURDY AS IT ONCE WAS! Reality altering on such a scale could bring this world to an end.”

he reached into his still intact sleeve and pulled out three orbs, one was a group of circles that looked like a flower, the second had a sun, and the third had an ankh design “I have a plan. That pup cannot stay in there forever., and when he comes out we will be ready. I hate to test this out here on the field, so soon but we must be ready to ambush him with everything we can use at the moment, there’s no telling what he’s capable of.”

“No,” Kitsune grunted from behind me “He can’t mean...” he tried to stand but was overcome with weakness and fell down to one knee

Before we could ask what Kitsune meant Jormungand threw the three orbs sky high and slammed an open palm into the ground beneath him. Once again his mark appeared on the ground, this time it was more controlled and definitely much weaker than the power he was outputting comparatively.

Kitsune had a wobbling hand rested on his katana as he struggled to stand “I have to stop him.”

“Kitsune,” I caught him before he fell down once more “what's happening?”

We didn't get an answer from kitsune, instead jormungand proceeded to summon a circle beneath each orb. He then began chanting a strange ancient sounding language which made the circles grow brighter with each spoken word. With a flick of his wrist the circles completely shrouded each of the orbs as darkness started to well up from their centers.

“Here me, oh spirits of the long forgotten!” He announced with both hands raised “Now is the time to reinstate your names on the thresholds of history! Inhabit the shells that I’ve prepared for your return! Arise once more and service my will! Izanagi, Apollo, Isis!” Jormungand then thrusted his good arm high

The shadows that first welled up from inside the orbs soon overpowered the light as the shape began to go into flux. It looked like a dark flame had been lit and was growing steadily stronger by the second. As time passed i noticed three silhouettes taking shape from inside the dark fire as if being formed from the flames. Eventually the dark fire began to lose fuel as it died down, leaving behind three new figures cloaked with the same type of coat Fen and Jormungand seemed to share. All three figures immediately fell down to one knee, bowing before Jormungand.

“I’m, too late. I couldn’t save them.” Kitsune said through grit teeth

The resolve and determination that Kitsune had melted away at the mere sight of Jormungand’s three new allies. It was so bad that the once tight grip loosened to the point of him dropping his sword. Normally it wouldn’t have been anything I would be concerned about, but the sound of the blade hitting the ground drew all of their attention straight at us.

“Well, well,” Jormungand laughed “in the midst of all my rage, i had all but forgotten about you Chief. I’ve changed my mind, I don’t need you as one of my ranks, you are far too much trouble than you’re worth.” Jormungand’s tone instantly shifted to sound as cold as ice “End them.”

At his command all three of his new allies made a beeline towards us, each brandishing their own distinct weapons. As expected Isis had three ankhs orbiting her, and already gathering power, Apollo had a multi-stringed bow drawn with an arrow drenched in black flames ready to be loosed, and the shortest one, which I’m assuming is Izanagi, held a spear almost three times his height in both hands.

Acting completely on instinct i channeled the last ounces of power i had left into one more burst of energy. Rather than channel all that power into one huge shield that would explode in one hit I created multiple smaller shields that created a wall between us and our three new opponents. Each shield flickered slightly but it was the best i could do on such short notice, it had to hold.

To my sheer horror Apollo’s one arrow, when loosed, pierced the multiple layers of shields i had already set up. Making matters infinitely worse was the dark fire that began to consume my shields little by little. Soon the time i thought i had bought us to wait out for Fen, was reduced to nothing. I tried to rebuild the shield wall, but i had nothing left, my aura was all used up. Before i knew it Izanagi was already on top of us with his spear raised high. The only thing i could do was shut my eyes and hope for a miracle.

The next thing i heard was the sound of steel meeting steel in a furious display of power. Slowly i opened my eyes and found six keyblades had stopped the spear blade from reaching us, three were made of light, and three were made of darkness. The thing that stood out the most about these keyblades weren’t that they had no wielder, but that they were Fen’s keyblades. The ones made of light were regularly colored while the ones made of darkness were inverted.

Before the stalemate could continue another second, all three of the inverted keyblades moved of their own accord and began to swing wildly at Izanagi causing him to back off in order to dodge properly. Coming in to support him from behind was Isis who commanded her ankhs to fire off three steady streams of elemental attacks, one was fire, one was water and one was wind. In response to this the light keyblades broke formation and fired off three beams of light that canceled out Isis’ elemental attacks. After the brief skirmish all six keyblades dissipated into nothing.

It surprised me on how fast that exchange was. The whole thing had to have taken at the most three seconds to execute, and in that short amount of time, Fen’s keyblades were able to both defend and attack at the same time.

“Impossible!” Jormungand yelled causing us to look in his direction “You were erased eons ago; HOW ARE YOU HERE!?”

It was a big relief to see Fen once more, but once again his appearance changed along with his powerset and a new set of keyblades to boot. Fen was once again wearing his coat, only this time the sleeves were torn off while a brown sash was fastened around his waist with his pants having the same tears near his feet. His collar, was split down the middle with the right side being red and the left side being blue while twin crescent moons, one white and one black, hung to replace his fang. His eyes followed the pattern of his collar but underneath his blue left eye was a strange mark that looked to have the shape of a single wing.

“WELL!? ANSWER ME!” Jormungand demanded while he brandished his hammer, only to flinch and fall down to his knee when another surge of lightning threatened to burst loose

Fen stood in front of his cocoon silent, but one look at his eyes and you could tell he was absolutely furious. Instead of giving an answer Fen cooly marched towards Jormungand signaling Izanagi, Apollo and Isis to come to their master’s aid. Rather than break his steady march, Fen joined his twin keyblades into one and caused six more keyblades to spawn. Once again the black ones went straight into close quarters combat while the white ones stayed close to counter Isis’ magical attacks or Apollo’s arrows. As soon as Fen got close enough to Jormungand, Fen’s namesake stood protectively over his brother. The two didn’t budge an inch, and each one looked as intimidating as the other, but almost as if they had an unspoken agreement, the two canines adopted fighting stances. Apollo, Izanagi and Isis looked like they were about to move in and join the fight, but one snarl from Fenrir was all it took for them to keep their distance.

In an instant both canines acted, Fen jumped back to separate his twin keyblades back into two and summon another set of six elemental keyblades while Fenrir on the other hand plunged his hand into the ground. As Fen charged his namesake with the six keyblades trailing behind him Fenrir pulled out his hand and brought with it a stone axe that he used to block Fen’s initial attack. Like with his magma form, the stones looked like they were consuming Fenrir as they peeled off the ground and began to stick to his body like armor.

Immediately after the first contact the white keyblades moved into position to fire off their beams of light. Fenrir took notice and slammed his foot into the ground to summon three stone pillars to intercept the attack. With his first attack a failure Fen shifted his stance and was able to slide under the axe while the three dark keyblades kept Fenrir’s attention. However Fenrir had anticipated the move and ignored the floating keyblades and focused solely on Fen. This caused Fen to back off once more. To Fenrir, Fen’s attacks were nothing, the combination of his stone armor and axe kept all of Fen’s attacks from reaching him.

Again, it surprised me by how brief Fen kept the exchanges. All of it was at least less than three seconds, and now i know why. The dark and light blades Fen summons only lasts for three seconds before they disappear, that meant Fen’s attacks had to be quick and precise. He could opt to string the attacks together, but it looked like Fen was being cautious about his namesake and would rather not take his chances.

Not wanting to give Fen the time he needed to plan and recover Fenrir approached a stone pillar and kicked it hard enough to send flying in Fen’s direction. Of course Fen was able to dodge the attack, the only problem was that he didn’t anticipate Fenrir being able to close the gap between them with that heavy a weapon combined with that heavy of an armor set.

The only thing Fen could do at the split moment was move his twin keyblades to intercept the attack. Sure enough when the attack connected Fen was sent flying and came skidding to a halt as Fenrir gave chase once more. This time Fen didn’t evade the attack, he combined the two keyblades into one before rushing him again. When the combined keyblade met with the stone axe Fen focused all six keyblades into one point and was able to shatter Fenrir’s axe. The resulting explosion forced the two canines apart, both sides seemingly equal.

It could’ve been because of how far i was from the fight, but i could’ve sworn i saw Fenrir grin, almost like he was enjoying the fight. My suspicions were only confirmed when he raised his hand high to summon his emblem and begin gathering energy. However the energy building up was cut short by Jormungand crying in pain once more.

The lightning that was escaping from his hand was immense, almost as if he was holding a maelstrom in his own hands. Seeing this, Fenrir immediately dropped the fight to rush over to his brother’s side. Fen tried to stop him by splitting the twin keyblades apart to send more phantasm keyblades to slow him down. Despite Fen’s six keyblades flying around Fenrir didn’t slow down and scooped up his brother in his arms, leading them to the collapsed cave that Fox managed to bring down.

Fen furiously gave chase and once he was close enough thrust his right keyblade forward. Even while he was struggling to control the power seeping from his arm Jormungand saw Fen coming and raised his hand. Unfortunately Fen’s keyblade was stopped just in time by an invisible forcefield that kept Jormungand and his allies safe except for the sudden gust of wind that came from the impact of Fen’s attack. The gust was strong enough to push off all of their hoods, to reveal the faces behind them once and for all. Behind Jormungand’s hood was the face of a brown lynx looking cat who’s face was horrible disfigured by a burn the went from one end of his face to the other end. That however wasn’t what stood out them most, it was the faces of Izanagi, Apollo and Isis.

What i was met with was an impossible sight, so much so that i had to check if i was dreaming. It was impossible but no matter how many times i blinked i still opened my eyes to the same sight over and over again. Peanut, Sabrina and King were standing on the opposite side of the invisible wall, and all three of them were glaring angrily at Fen. I saw Sabrina disappear before my own eyes, i saw her heart get taken away and is now with Fen. There was no way i could forget or make up any of it for any reason whatsoever. So why was i met with the sight of our friends on the wrong side of the wall?

Instead of worrying about it Fen raised his split keyblades high as both light and dark energies began to build up immensely. This time when Fen joined the twin keyblades twelve keyblades materialized, six of light and six of dark, and all of them channelled their attacks into one point in the wall. Even with thirteen keyblades all focused into one single point the wall held strong. It cracked every now and again but Fen still wasn’t able to pierce through.

“This isn’t over pup!” Jormungand announced as Fenrir raised right hand his hand to distort reality once more “We will meet again!”

Without warning the entire mountainside lit up in a brilliant explosion with Fen still in close proximity. Once the flash had faded away the cave that Fen once stood guard in was now completely gone with Fen nowhere in sight.

End of Chapter 35





Author's notes
I'm still coming up with the code name for this but the tentative name is Final Fen or Unified Fen. Also if you already haven't noticed "other" Fen's KH Battle mechanic is Drive Forms everything was planned for it to be that way even the taking away of a team member temporarily part.

Tyrant mirrors Valor form and has the ability to nullify long ranged magic attacks so that it forces opponents into close combat.
Warlock Mirrors Wisdom form only fiery (just cause there's a build called wisdom form fire just to take out Demyx cause he's that annoying)
Masquerade Mirrors Master Form by having a mix of Tyrant's and Warlock's abilities, and by that i mean since Tyrant can use lightning and warlock uses fire Masquerade uses both fire and lightning and can mix between close range and long range fighting styles
Final Fen's Mirrors Final form (No duh) attacks come from Sora and Riku's limit break Eternal Session (Specifically the segment titled XIII Blades) and DDD's reality shift

As for the Pantheon I couldn't be bothered to splice their names with the letter x till I found something cool. I just thought it'd be fitting if it was a collection of celestials who fell during the events of the game that was held there before.

[D-Rock]

This was definitely a lot to take it. Good visuals.

[ChekeBello]

Yeah, D-Rock is right! Feels like the end is not that close anymore, a lot could happen now. Also, was that really one of our Fen? That part about being "erased eons ago" make me doubtful o.o

[HellishK9]

That was a well written and informative chapter. I guess they can finally discuss what happened and their next move without any trouble.