Kingdom Hearts: Recollect

Daeni continued to watch Mora closely, raising an eyebrow when the girl started to lug a larger rock out of the way. Her eyes widened when she saw Mora just simply go flying off the edge. She turned away when she heard a loud thud. Hearing Mora's voice once more caused Daeni to turn her head quickly to see the girl barely able to hang on.

Of course Cerdic rushed over. Daeni decided maybe she ought to help, so she walked over quickly, but she didn't run. Leaning down, Daeni peered over the edge to see exactly how far down this chasm was. "I hope...that was the rock I heard...." she said. She leaned back and gripped at Cerdic's leg to keep him from even thinking of falling down. "No, I won't let you go. I'm...strong enough I think...." she said. ​

 

​

Mora accepted the help and shifted over onto the cliff and took a deep breath, getting up slowly and saying, "C-can we make sure that doesn't happen again? What even happened?" she held her side and moved closer towards the cave. She tried picking up a rock but immediately stopped to hug her side as she looked around. Shadow heartless began to appear and she quickly shifted behind Alder and Chrono, "Well, I guess there's that..."


Tunnel Clearing Percentage: 40%

 

Yet again her hair was ruffled and yet again Daeni puffed her cheeks in response. "Okay okay, enough with the hair thing..." she mumbled, following after Cerdic. She listened to Cerdic and nodded in agreement. Except that last part about strong men. She punched Cerdic in the arm and grumbled. "Don't even start." she retorted, looking at Mora hold her side in pain.

"Hey, wait a second, come here. Show me." she demanded, grabbing Mora's arm. Suddenly, more shadow heartless appeared and Daeni knew she had to protect Mora for the time being. "Let me see your injury. Now." she continued urging Mora. "I have to see how bad it is so I can try to help. Cerdic!" Daeni called, looking over. "You do your best or I'll kick you!"​

 

​

Despite being suddenly blasted back, Moira had avoided falling down the cliff. With another batch of heartless showing up, Chrono worked to move as many rocks out of the way as he physically could while Cerdic and Daenit bought them time by fending off the heartless.

 

​

Mora raised up her arm when asked to show the injury and the spot seemed to just have darkness linger in the spot painfully (think like, Braig's face in BBS if you're having trouble imagining what I described). She took in a sharp breath and said, "Maybe focus more on the heartless?"

The heartless seemed to double in number at that statement and a couple of them began running straight towards Cerdic and Chrono. The one's fighting with Cerdic seemed to go down fairly easily, as if they were weaker despite there being more in number. Mora covered up her injury again and hid behind Daeni when one of the heartless lunged her way. Two others ran towards her from behind but Mora looked at them and her eyes briefly flashed gold and the two seemed to awkwardly redirect themselves to Alder.

Tunnel Completion: 50%​

 

"No, I don't think I sh-" Daeni started before she looked behind her and watched the heartless. They seemed to be rather...odd. She turned back to Mora and stared at the girl, thinking about what to do next. Out of the corner of her eye, Daeni saw heartless and was prepared to swat them away. The heartless backed away sheepishly, causing Daeni to become confused.

Shrugging, she looked back to Mora and stared hard at the girl. "So Mora, is there something...I dunno....more...we need to know?" she asked, keyblade in hand. "I mean, why would....we need to come...back here?" she asked, confused on a few things. "There's nothing here....right?? The cave in....destroyed it all."​

 

Daeni's questions hadn't seemed like something odd to answer, but before she could speak, she felt eyes on her and looked over in the direction as Alder had called out a warning to Daeni and ran straight at her. Mora looked scared for a moment before a sudden smirk appeared on their face and they quickly summoned out a keyblade to block it. But the keyblade itself was Xen's keyblade. A sigh was heard as the darkness seemed to leach off of them a bit and their skin and hair began to change, "I was hoping maybe your rush to get in there and Cerdic and Daeni's continued stupidity might have given me a little longer. But, I guess I was wrong."

The darkness stayed but the form changed into the usual one to expect from them at this point.​

​

"That would have been really unfortunate if it turned out I was Mora and decided to make you suspicious but oh well. The fun of pretending to be Mora is over. It's a shame she died for a one minute act." Ria quickly attempted a kick at the stomach to push Alder back but instead got a keyblade to the leg. With a growl Ria ducked down and just grabbed a hold of Alder's leg. A quick shot of pain should have met Alder, and he should definitely have not been able to move and Ria sighed, "I thought we already had a lesson in close combat with me, but it'd be more fun to kill you first."

 

Daeni heard Alder and jumped back. Alder's keyblade came down on "Mora" and stabbed "her" leg as it changed back into Ria. "You...it's you..." she said, seething. All that happened started to come back and she felt nothing but anger. Anger coursed through her as she looked over at Cerdic and Chrono. "Guys!" she called hoping they would look over.

She turned back to see Ria grab Alder's leg. She watched Alder and could tell he was in pain by the way his eyes strained. Thinking to herself, she started to wonder what she should do. She could attack Ria now and try to save Alder, but she also had to consider something else. There were countless heartless around them. That meant if she attacked Ria, there was a chance that the heartless presence would increase and that'd cause even more problems.

Biting her lip, Daeni ran foward. "I am NOT stupid." she muttered, slashing her keyblade at Ria's arm on Alder's leg. "Die."​

 

Even if Alder hadn't said anything Chrono had no intentions on stopping. With that being the case though, the commotion behind him, namely Daeni's shout, changed his attention to what was going on. To be honest the sight Ria made him sick. He didn't doubt what Chrys had told them about Ria looking like himself, but to actually see it in person was different. Chrono didn't bother summoning his keyblade as there was a perfectly good rock still in his hands. A rock that was very soon chucked in Ria's direction. "Heads up!"

 

Ria wasn't stupid enough to keep his hands on Alder while Daeni went for the slash. Ria quickly pulled away only for Cerdic to come in between him and he let out a sort of a growl. Ria reacted on out towards, almost expecting him to attack next and tried to paralyze him instead, but ended up getting thunder for his trouble from Alder instead.

His leg was distorting into whispers of darkness as the creature backed away. He couldn't react fast enough to avoid the rock, but managed to block it hitting his head by blocking his face instead with his hand. As his leg distorted, darkness from the heartless slowly began to feed darkness into his leg, and Ria's leg slowly began repairing itself.

He smirked, almost feeling like he had the upper hand here as he spoke, walking so he was facing all of them with his back towards the cliff's edge, "You can keep on trying to break me, kids, heck you can even try to kill me, but you're living in an unfortunate reality where I can repair myself. Just takes a bit of time, but not too much. So what are you gonna do?"

Ria raised his arms outward, almost challenging them to come and try to hit him as he said, "How will you try to break me toda-"

Suddenly, a loud blast could be heard and suddenly Ria was struck in the back by what looked like a blast of... darkness. Either way, it tore straight through Ria's back and through his chest and he began to clutch it, letting out an inhuman scream. At the same time, Chrono should have felt the same pain as well, immensely and in the same exact spot. Everyone else could also feel this pain, but it wasn't nearly as intense. But only Ria gained a physical wound.

Ria distorted into a blackened shape, with parts that still remained looking like Aevum, but it mostly looked like a heartless, a shape-shifting heartless type. As the screamed ended he yelled in a distorted voice, "i'LL MakE YOu ALl SuFFER SlOWER anD MORE PAinful DEaTHs For thIS. JusT WatCH. I'LL SuCK OuT wHAt'S LeFT oF yOUR LIghT beFORE I forCE ALL Of thE AiR AnD ENERgy OUt oF YOUr bODIES UNtIL YOu're BEGging ME To KILl you."

Ria's wound repaired, and the creature seemed to slowly grow larger and more distorted as a result. But for this moment it's first instinct was to flee, and the creature reluctantly disappeared into the shadows.

As Ria disappeared, the spot behind him had Mora standing there. Her head was bleeding as were her hands, and her side seemed to have the same lingering darkness on a spot on her side that Ria had pretended was there. In her hand though, pointed in the direction where Ria was, was a keyblade.

Mora lowered the keyblade and looked at the others and tried to walk forward saying, "Everyone dig... I'll... I'll keep watch." she didn't look in the state to watch anyone, but she insisted.​

 

Daeni just barely missed Ria, causing her to tsk in response. She looked to her left to see Alder jump away. To her right, she saw Cerdic get on the defensive. She nodded to herself and quickly moved beside Cerdic, holding her keyblade with both hands. She was ready to launch forward when she saw the sky crack down a bolt of Thunder.

Ria seemed to be slightly annoyed, but of course he was able to absorb darkness from the heartless and recover. "So it looks like..." she was about to say before Ria opened his stupid mouth.

Watching him raise his arms caused Daeni to roll her eyes. Did he really think they'd seriously rush towards him at this time? That'd be pretty stupid, to say the least. She stood her ground and watched Ria, hoping to find an opening.

This was cut short by an inhuman scream and a blast of darkness shooting out of Ria. Daeni felt the same pain, but she didn't scream out. She clutched her chest and gasped for air, eyes wide and unblinking. Gasping, she looked to her comrades one by one and finally stopped on Cerdic. "Y...You....o....o....kay...?" she asked through labored breaths.

She took a sharp breath in and moved to Cerid, holding onto him for support. Not only for her, but to also support him should he need it. Daeni turned her head back towards Ria to see it looked nearly nothing like Ria. Parts were still the same, but more and more of it's core was starting to show.

Finally, they were able to see Ria for what he truly was. "Of...course it had to be....a heartless...." she grumbled. While the pain she felt reminded her of an earlier memory, it paled in comparison. Unfortunately, the creature disappeared and Daeni could do nothing but look on at the figure behind where he once was.

"Mora!" she called out, her eyes wide. Daeni gripped onto Cerdic a moment longer and started to wander towards Mora. She stared at the keyblade in Mora's hand and a smile spread across her face.

Alder was the first to get to Mora. Daeni watched him cast a Cure spell on the girl and give her words of encouragement. She then eyed the girls keyblade. And suddenly, she realized Mora had used Darkness just then to damage Ria. How that worked, Daeni was unsure of.

"How...?" she asked, watching Mora. Mora interrupted her and was instructing them to dig. Daeni shook her head and pulled the girl into a hug. "At least let me hug you...and...Cure...you.." she said, the spell casting onto the girl. Whether it helped or not was unknown to Daeni. What she did know was that there was someone else that needed to be protected. "But I'll keep watch with you. You're obviously hurt. We....we'll manage...I think." she nodded. "Just...just come with me towards Chrono...towards Aevum." Daeni looked towards the person in question, hoping they were still alive.​

 

​

While the rock didn't hit Ria's face like Chrono had intended, it still landed a hit with his target. The latter wasn't even phased by any of their attacks, going as far as to taunt them for about one. When the blast of darkness had struck Ria an immense pain ran though his own chest and while he didn't scream, his face was wrought pain as he clutched his chest tightly. Fortunately this pain didn't last long compared to the last time and once it was finally gone, Chrono just stood there taking in deep breaths as Mora claimed she would keep watch. "Sure....alright." Chrono said in between breaths, making his way back towards the cave to start digging.