Kingdom Hearts: Kingdom Hearts: Light Chaser

Boreas sat quietly for a few moments sipping his tea. His mother smiled. "So what is the Realm of Light like?" His mother asked him genuinely interested to hear what was all out there, sure she had heard of the other realm and knew it was out there but she had never gone there nor did she know anyone that had, according to the rebels it was a better place than this. "It's different... it's obviously different... it's brighter like daytime here is pretty much the Twilight hour in the worlds that I saw... there's hardly any heartless around well unless the world is falling but even then in general their numbers and strength pale in comparrison to what we get out here." Boreas explained, seeing those piercing red orbs in his minds eye, it wasn't necessary to explain that encounter. "The worlds I have seen out there are a bit varied, one wasn't too dissimilar to ours I didn't see too much of that world but when we arrived we were on a dirt road near a small farmhouse, we quickly mounted up and made way to this big castle where we fought it's lord, that was a tough fight... on the other hand I went to this world where I saw this great city with many buildings easily reaching the same height as the castle if not higher and there were these magic carts I guess that made quite a bit of noise but they moved without horses. It was a strange place, we saved that world from falling to Darkness. And the world I spent the most time at is the world of the Council of Lights, it's a rather pleasant place, I've only seen the Council's castle and the direct environment but it's nice enough there. Oh and get this... there are invisible fish there... not like ghost carp no entirely invisible... the Castle is built along cliffs that border the sea and faces the plains with wooded areas here and there. But as much as I enjoy it out there, this is home and I missed this place." Boreas really did, he'd stay home if he could but he promised Torrin he would fight alongside him.

"Those sound like lovely places, especially the world of the Council sounds absolutely beautiful. I wish I could see it for myself. The bright day, natural beauty of the place. How did you find out about those invisible fish though?" Eudora asked and Boreas scratched his chin before saying. "That's a rather funny story, we had just returned to the world and I had gone on a run to calm down, I stopped at this stream when one of the Masters warned me about them, I got slapped in the face by one not long after." Eudora chuckled at the fact her son had been slapped in the face by an invisible fish. "I guess that is one way to find out. What happened that you needed to calm down?" Boreas took a sip of his tea. "Well that's the not funny part we had just been blindsided by our enemy as I went for him he broke my blade with ease which angered me, we got to safety but I demanded to go back to fight him, I was furious. Torrin told me to go calm down. It wasn't my finest moment..." He admitted. "I apologised to him the next day." His mother took a sip of her own tea. "I understand Boreas, that blade means a lot to you, just like it did to your father and his father before him. And well you have every right to be angry with Torrin, how do you feel about him being back now?" Boreas hadn't really expected the question from his mother. "Well I'm glad that he is still alive and that he seems inclined to come back. I also feel a little saddened I guess I hoped it would go back to being like the old days but that's not possible, things are different now. I know I have all the right to be angry, but I can't bring myself to be angry with him about it, it's been too long and there already has been enough loss. I have to wait and see until all this is over and he comes back home, see what will happen then." His mother listened attentatively and nodded in understanding and poured the both of them some more tea.​

 

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"Hm...it's farther than I thought..." Quinna scratched her cheek as she led Aria forward. "So...how's the Realm of Light anyway?" She asked curiously as the two walked by bookshelf after bookshelf each one lined with hundreds upon hundreds of perfectly arranged books without a speck of dust in sight.

Aria followed close behind, amazed with how many books there could be. She remembered her days with her aunt how she would read books and stories for her homeschooling but those were very few. She never been to an actual library. Master Choma had a library, but it wasn't as big and impressive as this. "It's... brighter," Aria said with a slight shrug of her shoulder. "It can be peaceful and then not so peaceful sometimes."

"Brighter? That's a little on the nose. Though I guess I shouldn't be so surprised." Quinna spoke with a hint of disappointment in her voice. "I guess by now you've noticed that my family and Torrin don't exactly get along. I'm sure Nora did her best to drive that point home. It didn't always used to be like that though." She sighed and shook her head. "Actually you'd be surprised to know that–Oh! Here it is! Uh. Not what we're looking for exactly but the section." She motioned to the four rows of bookshelves to their right. "Every book we have about the Realm of Light. Something about your family should be here somewhere."

"Sorry, I'm not really good at explaining things," Aria said with a slight cringe. She listened to Quinna try to explain the family affairs, only to get distracted with their destination. Aria glanced ahead, seeing that they have arrived at the books. She started to walk around, letting her fingers run along the spines of the books absently. "I... wouldn't even know where to start looking," she said sheepishly. "I was seperated from my family at birth, and no one told me about my heritage before for some reason... All I know is the name Dorin."

"Well that's rough...but let's see if I can help you find out where you came from! Just check for your last name." She looked walked over down past two bookshelves and motioned by the one she was now standing by. "This should be your best bet at finding it. Family histories of note belong here. The kings have always kept an eye on those that could potentially turn into their enemies. Um...not that you would or anything since you seem to be okay being here but...uh...yeah..."

Aria giggled a bit. "I came here to be a support for Torrin. I didn't even know I was a legitimate princess until rececently. I dunno if my family could've been a threat... the kingdom fell to darkness, that's why I was taken away..." Aria looked to the shelves once more, staring at the many impressive titles there. There were kingdoms of many different names, and names that seem to have a weight to them. One title seem to stick out to Aria though, even though it didn't bare her name. "The Kingdom of Rain...?" Aria pulled the book out by the spine. It was an impressive book with gold cursive lettering, and on the front bore a rainbow opal stone in a shape of a raindrop. It reminded Aria of her ring she wore on her finger. Curious, she opened the book to the first pages and found herself reading aloud. "The Kingdom of Rain, currently ruled by his majesty... King Samuel Dorin and Queen Lydia Dorin..." She stopped and blinked, making sure she was reading it right and looked up at Quinna. "Did I just find it by accident?"

"For Torrin? I mean the family issues are one thing but I can't see why he'd need any...oh...oooooohhh." Quinna grinned. "That kind of support huh? Don't worry. My lips are sealed." She spoke with a smile. "Oh! So you found it huh? Mm..." She leaned in closer and took a look at the book in her hands. "Mm...yeah. That's the latest version of this. Must've been updated by my predecessor. I think there's an illustration here of one of the old kings and queens." Quinna reached forward and flipped forward a few pages and stopped upon reaching an illustration of Aria's ancestors. The man was wearing a polished armor adorned with jewels and his wife was wearing an exquisite robe that, even on the page, seemed to sparkle with starlight. The man had long flowing dark blue hair while the woman's hair was bright red. "King Arius and Queen Maya Dorin. They seem to be your..." She checked the footnotes. "Your great great great grandparents. Aw they looked happy. And boy..." Quinna took the book from Aria and held it up next to her. "I can see the resemblance. Same eye color as Arius it seems. Seems like your whole family has a thing for that bright hair too."

Aria gazed at the book in amazement. She wasn’t expecting to find so much detail of her family and here it was. She looked at her hair and looked at the illustrations in the pages. Now it made sense why her hair was the color it was. So many small details about herself was starting to make sense that Aria didn’t know needed to make sense at the time. “I wish I could meet them,” she heard herself say aloud.

"Well maybe you can. At least your parents anyway. I don't see any death dates on here so they're likely still alive. I mean the book is kind of dated and all but still." Quinna crossed her arms. "You can borrow that book if you want. We don't usually lend out books to people but since you're with Torrin I can make an exception."

“Really? Thank you!” Aria gave Quinna a hug seemingly out of no where and then realizing what she had done, she backed up and chuckled nervously. “I mean, thanks. It really means a lot to me.”

"Haha...thanks..." Quinna scratched the back of her head and smiled at Aria. "If you have any other questions about anything feel free to ask and if I don't have an answer I'm sure one exists in here somewhere."

“Thanks again,” Aria said, taking the book and placing it in her bag carefully. “I’ll be sure to take care of it and I’ll bring it back as soon as I’m done reading it.” With that, Aria was off from the library and on her way to find Torrin. With Maka getting permission from Arch, Aria contacted Torrin to know where he was at via communicator and after learning where he was at, started to make her way to the Sleeping Keys.

 

Illiana's hand had been swatted away as Ardyn knocked the keyblade out of her hands. She did her best to dodge her own fire spells. Ardyn was disappointed over her actions and in the next second, he vanished. "Where did he-?!" Illiana immediately looked around her until she heard a voice right behind her. "Keep your eye on the ball." Illiana's eyes widen and before she could turn around, she felt an intense pain in her back. She was sent flying right beside her brother. "If you were to stay still you might thank me for granting you a swift release of your life." Illiana slowly opened her eyes, looking at Ardyn with defiance in her eyes. "G-g-o.....s-screw yourself...." A smirk ran across her face as she uttered those words.

Koa had then recovered by that point and immediately made his move but missed Ardyn by a hair. Illiana looked up to see a hand reach out to her. "Come on. We can handle him." Illiana looked up and saw the hand belong to Koa. She smiled a bit before taking his hands. "Even after all this, you're stilling willing to work with me?" She chuckled a bit. "Some bothersome sister I must be......but a happy one." Illiana gripped his hand as she smiled. She looked forward before speaking again. "I hope you haven't forgotten our dear old mom's 'lessons'. She may have been from the circus but you gotta admit, they're pretty good." Illiana cracked her knuckles before summoning her keyblade, readying it for her next strike. "First strike is yours little bro."

 

After exploring the blacksmith area and being called to move on, Lumen stayed a bit quiet as he listened thoroughly when they arrived at the library but got a bit side tracked when he decided to look through some books. He was very intrigued by a lot of them and Kosmo flew around him to explore the area until returning to him. “You know, I wish my mother could see me now... Right Kosmo?” Saying to his scaled friend who gave a chirp and nod. Once done Lumen then headed back to the group to listen in on what was going on. Listening to the last bits of Torrin and Quinna’s conversation he noticed everyone going they’re separate ways and Qamar’s voice speaking out. “Gah!” He exclaimed when she pulled on his scarf and pulled him to their next location, Lumen kept his scarf over his coat for a few reasons but mainly because he had his communication device on it. “Didn’t have to pull on me, heh. You know this place is amazing. People don’t really understand what the Realm of Darkness is really like. This is proof that people thrive here! And it’s imperative that we stop the Light Chaser.” The boy said with enthusiasm as they walked while Kosmo flew right next to him and landed on his shoulder.​

 

Though Tinarah momentarily had trouble, she rather handily disabled the warmech, allowing Chrys to leap towards the target and pry open the cockpit. Though her offensive magic was virtually non-existent, the first tear blizzard spell that she knew was enough to allow her to frost over the pilots helmet. She punched through the weakened material before delivering a hook that knocked the driver out cold. From there it was a simple matter to toss them to the side and hop in to the formerly occupied magitek device. A quick scan of the controls allowed her to put together how to use some of the more basic features, and the armor was closed and started before too long. In all honesty, the controls were surprisingly simple, and she was able to put together a rough idea of how the weapons functioned as well.

"Let's go."

They had what they came for, so it was time to head to the rendezvous point. ​

 

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Take summoned out his keyblade at those words and moved himself a bit closer towards where the mech was approaching. He took a deep breath and placed two hands on the handle and held it forward and called out,"Aeroga!" as he did, the wind blasted forward quickly, pushing the boy back suddenly as he let out a yelp and flew to his back. The wind quickly gathered around the mech and began to spin kind of like a tornado was forming upwards until it began to go unsteady and tip over. But as soon as it was rushing to get up the boy cast graviga. Unfortunately, that spell didn't work as he intended and seemed to have no effect on the mech easily shifting to pick itself up while Take cast aeroga two more times. This time it looked like it had a lot more trouble getting back up and Take said, "Y-Yeah that was... that was totally first try."
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In seeing Take display his magic for the first time, Chrono was impressed by what he saw up until he saw the mech getting itself up after the first graviga spell. That had been when Chrono considered casting some magic of his own to assist him, but in that that Take had managed to get a hold of the situation with another aeroga spell, thus allowing him to drop down onto the struggling mech. Once he had his balance, he made his way over to where the hatch to the cockpit would be and opened it. As the bewildered pilot tried to make sense of what was going on, Chrono took advantage of his confusion and cast stopga on him. He hadn't completely figured out how long his stopga would work when casting on another person, but he had enough time to knock out the pilot and move them to someplace out of the way. At the very least he would be confused once he woke up and hopefully not realize that he had been jumped by some kids. "As far as everyone else will know it was your first try." Chrono said with a smile as he entered the cockpit of the mech. Alright Chrono, you can do this. It's like riding a bike. A very expensive, deadly and complicated bike. A deep breath later and he willed himself to take control of the mech and pilot it back to the rendezvous point.

 

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When Aria walked up to the cemetery, it wasn't what she was expecting at all. There were rows upon rows of stones, some with keyblades and some without. Some of them looked new while others looked dated and weathered. She slowed her steps in reverence for the sleeping, feeling as if now she was walking on hallowed ground.

Soon Torrin caught up with her and told her to look for a certain name and explained the title of the place. "You know, when you mentioned Sleeping Keys, I was thinking of an inn or a tavern of sorts. Not exactly... this..." Aria pushed her side ponytail back behind her ear, walking beside Torrin as she looked at each name on the gravestones. She tried to avoid to look at the ages, catching a glimpse of a child a few paces back. It brought her memories of a certain grave back home on Amerath.

Torrin asked her about her discoveries if any back at the library and Aria smiled a little. "We actually found a book," Aria said with a hint of excitement in her voice, but keeping it low in remembering where she was at. "My world, the one that was swallowed in darkness, at least that's probably the case of what happened, yeah, anyways, it was called the Kingdom of Rain. My parents were Queen Lydia and King Samuel.... And my great great great grandparents were King Arius and Queen Maya. And King Arius had blue hair while Queen Maya had this gorgeous red hair which is probably where I got this purple hair from. And apparently I have the same eye color as my grandpa too!"

Aria stopped when she realized she was talking a lot and getting a bit louder and Torrin probably wasn't catching the excitement as much as she was. She cleared her throat and patted her bag. "Quinna let me borrow the the book. So I got some reading to do on our down time." Aria breathed out happily and then went back looking at stones. "Okay, Ezekiel... Ezekiel, Ezekiel, Ezekiel...."

 

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"Backup?" Take suddenly held back the urge to explain how upset he was and crossed his arms, "I thought the mechs fit two people. What gives? I would think leaving us without a mech is just leaving us open for something potentially worse to happen." he would totally try to make this sound reasonable based on valid arguments as opposed to bringing up the fact he had really wanted to ride a mech too.
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Take really hadn't wanted to be the person to kick someone out of a mech over something pretty trivial. He just thought it was worth pointing out. He wasn't exactly sure how Tinarah and himself could help out if something went wrong with the mechs, but it wasn't like he'd be able to do much in direct combat if things got too close for comfort. Take let out a sigh before saying,"You can use it, I don't exactly know how to anyway and you seem to at least have a little familiarity." he wanted to ask what he meant for them to be backup but he didn't want them to think he needed to be babied over something like this.
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Aria's face fell when Torrin pointed out his mother's final resting place, or at least or memorial. Aria didn't know the full extent of what it would be like to be without a mother for her she had Aunt Anja to fill in that role. She could still see it affected Torrin greatly and her heart went out to him. She couldn't think of any words to say though and before she could reach out to him and pat him on the shoulder, he was already on the hunt for the name... They found him. The grave was in a sorry state, which made Aria feel kinda sad. She didn't know what kind of person he was whether he was good or bad. Nevertheless, she knelt down by the grave and began to pull the weeds out of the way so they weren't obscuring the name anymore.

 

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Take nodded at Tinarah when she mentioned them getting a head start and he simply gave a thumbs up towards the rest of them in good luck as well before following her. As he followed he suddenly remembered something and quickly made his way forward and said, "Right! I meant to give you something earlier but the morning was rough and this world has been rougher." Take reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a stone that had a carving trying to resemble a snowflake and was painted a light purple. He held it out to her and said, "I'm uh, not trying to make hundreds of these for everyone or anything. But... I wanted to make you one." he looked away a little embarrassed and said as firmly as he could, "I hope you like it."
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