Black Coats: Volume 1

Back at Lea's hideaway

As Tango walked away, his feet came to a full stop after Luther's question.
"The battle I came to finish has ended. I have no quarrel to pick with the likes of you two. And yet..." A fire glared into his eyes as he saw Luther's expression. His face quivering with excitement reminded him of his own lust for battle. "Something about that face has me intrigued. Do you wish for a challenge perhaps? I recall from earlier reports that you are the hombre with the illusionary prowess, yes?" He grinned as his keyblade ignited in fire. The powers of both of both flame and illusion would make for a truly inspiring combination of elements. Or perhaps wind and fire for a truly devastating collaboration?" He looked to Melus before quickly pointed his blade to the two of them. "Tell me... do you know of a challenge known as Final Fantasy?" He looked to either of them for a sign of response. "It is a challenge between one or more parties. A duel of sorts that wages your ability over an element. One party would initiate the challenge. To wager one element for another. The one being challenged is able to set the conditions. And the victor of both would obtain both elements as their prize... With the option of course to slaughter his enemy or grant mercy." He pointed his blade to Luther. "For example, if I were to challenge you to a final fantasy... what would you say?"

 

Having called out for help, Kiara took one last large breath before jumping into battle. She was worn out and bruised by this point, but Kiara was not going to stop yet. She had to deal with these things. Kiara didn't think her magic would do too well against these things so instead she decided to just use the whip blade that she wielded to flick at the robots and wrap it around it's neck. With one hard tug she managed to sever the head from the body. "Nequa bots. Psh. Someone seems a little full of themselves don't they?" Kiara scoffed as she readied her whip to keep going in battle. ​

 

With vim and vigor in his eyes, Tango pulled out two keyblade. "I accept your challenge hombre!"
A smile struck his face as he looked up with bright red eyes, two keyblades in his hands. He clashed the two of them together as he placed his blades to his sides. "You better not disappoint me Mr. Luther. You've gone and gotten me quite excited for what I hope is a thrilling battle." He breathed deeply. "Half the reason I joined the Red Society was to find worthy combatants to test my steel against." He dashed forward as he prepared to slash both blades in a cross like formation. "Let us see what you're made of!"

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Inside the laboratory, Yue looked around for any sign of Nequa or her cronies. She saw Rin on the table, her eyes widening before she rushed over to her. She felt her face to see if she was still breathing, but gasped in shock upon the sensation of her face. Rin was as cold as ice. "No..." Yue whispered, taking her sunglassses off. She picked up her limp body and held her closely.

"Relax, she's alive... but barely."
Yue spun around to find the voice belonging to Nequa. She was in her old purple armor but her face was covered. She could tell there was a new body under the armor because her height had changed. She was slightly taller and her voice was more soft spoken. "Frankly I would have liked the Mizu girl for her magical affinity, but I had to use the spare magic user instead. Overall, things could've been worse?"

Yue closed her eyes and looked to Rin, holding her cheek before slowly lowering her body back to the table.
"What? No angry threats? This is very out of character for you ms. Yue..."
"Of course I'm angry." She looked down and held her cold hand with hers. "But just seeing her alive at all... I can't help but be grateful." She brushed some excess hair away from her face as she tried to fight tears rolling down her face.

"And now you're crying?" Nequa mocked. "Seriously, what did you do with the chick with all the anger issues? I mean it's not like you guys were married or something."
Yue remained silent as she squeezed Rin's hand tighter.

"Oh my god.... you... you actually love her, don't you?" Nequa asked leaning back.
Yue now turned her eyes to Nequa, turning pink from her tears. She looked at her with more hatred.
"Well that is just precious!" she laughed, holding her sides. "I mean does she even know? Was it like a secret admirer type thing where you harbored your feelings. Wow. I mean just... wow. Think what you want of me, but irony is the real monster here... And now she's gonna die without knowing how you felt."
Yue looked down before feeling her hand being squeezed back. A tear streamed down Rin's face as she looked up at Yue. "Trust me... she knows." she weakly smiled. "And she feels the same."
Rin slowly got up with the help of Yue and held her hand tightly.

"Aww... if I had a heart it would be melting right now..." She held up her hand as a powerful dark aura surrounded it. "You two are about to have a nice little trip to the void. It's an interdimensional prison that is impossible to escape. Can't have you somehow surviving here as heartless after all. Your hearts are too strong." Her tone turned serious. "Any last words?"

Rin looked to Yue. "You can escape you know... All you have to do is phase-"
"I already lost you once," Yue interrupted. "I am NOT losing you again."
Rin weakly smiled. She looked to Nequa and softly replied, "We beat the reaper's game together... We'll beat the void too."
Yue wiped away any more tears and picked up Rin in her arms as she stood proudly, her eyes never leaving Nequa's helmet. "We'll be back for you."
"Doubt it," Nequa replied, crushing her hand to activate the void portal. A purple pentagram surround Yue and Rin. Rin closed her eyes in acceptance, with Yue shutting hers tightly. Rin ran her head along Yue's neck, feeling safe again as both of them vanished in a flash of purple smoke.

"Well, that almost made me want to gag..." She looked to Zulu who was silently watching.
"So... What are we to do now?"
"Take what you can and self destruct the lab... We've done all we needed here. Be ready in 5 minutes or I leave you behind.."
Zulu nodded before rushing to collect his research.
She looked back to the spot the two girls once stood. "To err is human I guess," she shrugged.

 

​

After having avoided a barrage of spells from the robots, more than a little annoyed that they had not faced the real Nequa, Arctus narrowed his eyes on the last two scrapheads standing. "Alright, I think I've seen enough of these robots for the day." Arctus tossed his sword up and caught it on weak of the blade right after the hilt. Using his magic to accelerate the sword he launched it like a javelin, impaling and bursting through one Nequabot's chest. Without losing any momentum the sword curved in the air changing its trajectory to pierce through the back of a second robot's head. As the Nequabot collapsed Arctus walked over and planted his shoe on its back and pried his weapon from its chassis. "That takes care of that." He kicked the wrecked Nequabot as he spoke. "I've got a feeling we're gonna be seeing more of these in the future."


0 Nequabots Remaining

 

The rest of the team jumped in making pretty short work of the remaining Nequabots, and Kiara took a step back as she placed her hands on her knees and took a moment to just breath. "Good work guys. Now we just need to get into that lab. There is a certain woman that I have a score to settle with." She was still tired from the energy that she had put into her limit, but there was no stopping now. She could only go forward and finish things off. Kiara forced a small grin to her lips and picked herself up, masking her exhaust with her over confident swagger that she tended to carry when she wanted to prove herself. In a few long strides Kiara approached the door, trying to open it, her whip in her free hand just in case something waited for them on the other side of the door. ​

 

A momentary sign of overconfidence and optimism caused Tango to make a fatal mistake. As he wished to brandish his swords in the heat of battle, he didn't account for Luther's natural speed and mischievous tactics, caught him off guard. Tango's eyes grew wide open as his last attack barely made a scratch and was simply parried away. As Tango's head turned, he found Luther had already circled behind him and made a quick strike, causing a loud negative sound to be echoed. The sound blared as if it was a sports event goal that was made against Tango.

His expression intensified as he threw his hands and blades to his side. "What was that?!" He asked angrily. "Where was the flare? The back and forth?! How are we to have a combat for the ages if you simply wish to be done and over with it?" Fire emblazened his keyblades as his raged increased. "If you want to be finished the battle so quickly, then so be it!" Several keyblades dispersed into the air as they formed a snake like pattern and began circling around Tango before bursting into flame. "Prepare yourself... For the Dragon's Fury!" He swirved his keyblades as if controlling the sentient ones and directed it towards Luther. The flaming keyblade's grew larger in fire until the flames made the shape of a giant burning dragon, with the keyblades acting as the bones.

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As Kiara approached the laboratory, a large explosion had blast from within the building. The explosion threw back any of the nearby oncoming people and even managed to destroy some Nequabot remains. Kiara received most of the blast being the closest, but seeing as it was a fire-styled bombardment, it thankfully wasn't too fatal. The explosion had a large enough range that it caused a massive pushback to many in the area. The range even managed to push over Mizu's pod, causing her to spill out from it and shock herself awake.

The blue haired girl coughed heavily as she slowly got up off the ground. Small smudges of black were seen on her face from the blast as she looked to the burning building in front of them. "What... what happened?" she asked in disorientation.

 

As she reached for the door a sudden large blast shook Kiara to the core. She barely registered the explosion or the fact she was flying back, all that she could see was a bright white light as her ears rang. While the fire itself seemed to be absorbed into her, the sheer force of the explosion and the bits of wood, metal and other scraps that went flying when she was damaged could do far more damage than she had healed from the fire. Landing on the ground, her whip was jarred from her hand and the idea of getting back up just seemed difficult as her vision was blurry but started to return from the white it had been when the blast had gone off. Through the ringing she could hear another voice, but someone else could deal with that, Kiara couldn't deal with anyone yet. ​

 

"I'm fine," she replied, slowly getting up. "Nequa's in there?" She looked at the building as it continued to burn, Mizu wiping the smudge from her face. "Good riddance," she scoffed, holding her bruised arm as she looked around the flaming piled of wreckage. She didn't recognize anyone here, but from what she last recalled, Nequa knocked her out with a powerful sleep spell. From their she was drawing a blank. From the back of her mind, she could only wonder just what everyone else in the order was doing. In the back of her mind, she just knew Yue would be scolding her right about now. But she was a member of the Order, and there were people in front of her that needed some medical attention.

"First lets take care of these flames." She summoned her keyblade in one hand and held it vertically in front of her face. With her other hand she held a fist in front of her heart and extended two fingers upward. She was slowly begining to eminate a blue aura around herself as she closed her eyes. Opening them quickly, she pointed her keyblade to the sky. "Dance water, Dance!" she said in a cute voice. As she said those words, more than a dozen water clones of herself were formed. "Put out the fires!" she commanded. Nodding at their orders, the Mizu water clones found large patches of fire and threw themselves into them. The clones were throwing their bodies onto the fire, both destroying themselves as well as extinguishing the flames.

Looking around, she saw the raven haired girl was badly injured. Rushing to her side, she examined her injuries. "Your badly hurt..." she pointed her keyblade over Kiara's head and cast a cure spell. "That should help." She looked around to everyone and prepared to make a statement. As a member of the order, she had to keep things professional. "Attention everyone! My name is Mizu! I work with a group of highly trained keyblade wielders. Can anyone tell me what happened here?"

As she looked around for answers, Finlay appeared out of nowhere, dragging what appeared to be a dead animal behind him by the ears. "Ahh good. Yer awake. Figure I should be the one tah tell ye what happened." He pointed to the smoldering building. "That there lab was where the witch was hidin'. We came here to get ridda her, but it looks like the dark haired lass did it for us."
"What dark haired girl?"
"Oh uhh, the bossy one with the scars on her face. Real scary lass."
Mizu's eyes widened. "Yue?! Was it Yue?!" Mizu now wished the building wasn't on fire.
"Couldn't tell yah girly. She went in and possibly sacrificed herself to save us." He put his hand to his chest to honor her. "A true vikin's funeral if I ever saw one."

She looked back and wanted to cry. As much as Yue babied her, she still loved her like a sister. She tried to fight back her tears as she clenched her fists.
"But not to worry, I found this here rabbit to feast on to help keep our energy up. Still have tah kill it first, but should be enough to feed the lot of us." He held up the rabbit he had been dragging by his ears and presented it to the group. The rabbit had a generally white face and black fur. He had blue shorts, and held his head in pain. "Ooooh, who hit my noggin?" he moaned.

"Talks for some reason, but I guess I should be expectin' more in the realm o' darkness. Don't worry I'll put the li'le fella outta his misery."
The rabbit's eyes widened as he was not comfortable with that idea. "WHAT?!" He jumped and summoned his keyblade as he slashed away Finlay's hand, causing him to drop. "Ain't no way your eating this bunny!" he claimed.

"A keyblade?... You have a keyblade?!" Mizu asked in shock.
"What's it to yah?" He looked around to make sure no one else was planning to turn him into rabbit soup. His eyes locked onto Karina. "Hey wait a second... I know you. You're the cranky loud mouth I met back in wasteland."
"Heh. Well the bunny ain't wrong."
"How did you get her Mr. bunny man?" Mizu asked in concern.
Oswald puffed out his chest in annoyance. "My name is Oswald! Not mr. bunny man! And you all have to come with me. There's a big brawl going down, and your friends are there! The kids with the different colored hair. All of 'em!" He looked around to see if there would be any reaction. As for how I got here.. that's a story for another time. All I can say is that when I fell in here, I saw a huge swarm of these bright eyed monsters that reminded me of the inklings in wasteland."
"Heartless!" Mizu cried out.
"Well whatever they are, there were thousands of them. The kids seem to be holding their own, but I thought I would try to get help anyways. Then the bearded fella over there went an konked me on the head!"
"I regret nuthin," Finlay proudly stated.
"Did you see anyone else with them?" Mizu asked hopefully. With any luck, maybe a member of the order was there.
"Well there was an old fella with a metal arm, he had scars all over his body."
"Uniform? That old grandpa's still kickin?!"
"Well, there was him and he was fighting a super strong loooking shirtless guy with brown hair and a very loud voice-"
"That's Shiro!" Mizu cried out. The shirtless physique and booming voice were a dead giveaway. She turned to the rest of the group. "That settles it, we're going to help them."
"Hey now girly... Great to see you up an' at em, but you aren't in charge." He pointed to Kiara. "She is."
"What?"
He turned to Kiara. "Lea told me that if anything took a turn during the mission, you would be the deciding factor. In his absense, he put you in charge of the black coats. The decision is yours lass."
Oswald looked back and forth in confusion.
Mizu looked at them. "Well I don't have time to wait for decisions, I lost one friend today, I'm not going to lose another!" she pouted and began storming off.
"Wrong way," Oswlad spoke, causing Mizu to make an immediate U-turn.

 

Kiara was barely getting back up from being healed when Finlay brought a very annoying bunny over claiming he wanted to eat it. She couldn't help but laugh a little at the idea of him trying, certainly that wouldn't work out well for him knowing the rabbit he was holding. And it seemed that Oswald remembered her as well. Picking herself up off the ground, Kiara stood in the background just watching the conversation unfold. Swarms of heartless. Kiara was sure that they could handle themselves, but last time they got swarmed... Beuce lost an arm to save her. There had been so many injuries by the time that they had gotten out of there that perhaps it wasn't the best idea just to leave them. Sure Kiara didn't always act the friendliest towards the group, but she still liked them enough to not want to leave them to their deaths. Looking down at her whip that lay on the ground though... she wondered what they could do without keyblades. Either way it wasn't her decision.

Or at least Kiara didn't think it was up to her until Finlay looked to her and told her it was. Why did Lea put so much faith in her, she wasn't cut out for being a leader. She wasn't cut out for anything. Either way it didn't look like she had much of a choice. "First off you don't know if you lost a friend yet, yes Yue ran in there, but Nequa and several of her lackeys were also in there. There had to be some sort of escape plan for them, so don't you dare think for a moment that Yue wasn't competent enough to figure out one for herself. I trusted her with my friends to run their Mark of Mastery Exams. If she wasn't competent enough to think of a way out, she surely wasn't competent enough to run an exam for making them into keyblade masters." Kiara paced the the girl and looked down at her. Highly trained keyblade master or not, she was not afraid of this girl. "Second is this, we know one of Nequa's lackeys are there, we know he can summon heartless. This could very likely be a trap that Nequa was setting up. It would be stupid to run in there." There was a pause for a moment, before Kiara cracked a smile. "And I am sure as hell not letting those cheery bastards have all the fun when the fool Nequa's plans and get out of the trap alive. I would never be able to live it down." Walking over Kiara picked up her whip and turned to everyone else. "Lets check on those who stayed behind, if there really are thousands of heartless we will need all the help we can get, then we set off and make sure that they knew they aren't allowed to forget about my strength even if they are masters now."​

 

The flames intensified around Tango so that he couldn't be touched by Luther with his quick strikes. The flames surrounding him were growing larger as he summoned his dragon once more, controlling it with the wave of his keyblade. "Yes Luther! We shall both create a battle of beauty!" He target his dragon at the illusions to make them disappear. "No more tricks! No more catching me off guard! This battle will end in a blaze of glory!" Rango was still surrounded by flames, making sure that Luther wouldn't get close enough to him without getting burned. His eyes burned in passion as he has the widest smile on his face. The battle with Luther was making him very happy as he had never been able to let loose on this kind of level. "This is the end for you senor! Ignicio De la Vega will triumph today as the champion of both fire and illusion!"