Kingdom Hearts: Recollect

Trying to remember his name would have to wait for there were more urgent matters to attend to. As in the cavern that they were currently in had started to shake around them. Now this really was bad time not to know whether or not he had a 'keyblade' like pretty bad. Thus he quickly made his way towards behind the others towards the exit. Seeing as how they did have 'keyblades' he'd least be relatively safe for the time being.

 

Just as they were about to leave, things took a turn for the worse. There was a great rumbling sound, causing Kara to jump slightly and look around quickly for the source of the noise. As her eyes darted along the walls of the cave, she took note of a small crack that had appeared in the ceiling. Things might not have gotten any worse than they were, but she wasn't about to take the chance. Turning, she began to make a move for the exit when she stopped dead in her tracks. Darkness, swirling violently around the room. This wasn't the first time Kara had seen a mass of darkness swirling, but she'd hoped her homeworld's incident would be the last. Apparently not. Who knew what this darkness was capable of? She didn't know much about the keyblade, she knew even less about the darkness, but she did know this: they had to get out, and they had to do it now.

Racing forward, the girl held her keyblade ready and did her best to keep pace with the others, even the guy who seemed more scared than the rest of them as he ran away, leaving the others behind. She wished she had the courage or the confidence to mention that to him later, if they made it out of there, but there would be far more important matters to discuss...like what the heck was even going on.​

 

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Daeni listened to Relli and nodded at the kid. "Nice to meetcha. But I bet it's not the first time..." she chuckled. When offered a hand, Daeni almost took it before she heard Cerdic start to make comments about a mirror. She really wanted to reply to him, but soon enough, Xen spoke up and seemed a bit more fun to talk to.

"Nice to meet you, too." she smiled. "At least you can see better now that I found your glasses." She nodded at him, making a motion at her own eyes in respect to Xen's glasses. "Even if the darkness wasn't a problem, you probably have the best sight of everyone."

Just as she finished saying that, the entire cave rumbled. It felt like something hit the ceiling of the cave or mountain or whatever they were in. It surprised Daeni and caused her to stumbled a bit into Relli. She gripped onto them for only a moment before she stared up at the darkness. The way it swirled and moved caused a great uneasiness in her. She felt like if she didn't leave now, the entire cave was going to fall on her and that was something she wasn't willing to experience.

Doing the first thing that came to her mind, Daeni grabbed Xen's hand and then Relli's. "Okaytimetogoguyscomeon." she said hurriedly as she followed the others that had already started to run forward.

 

A grim look came upon Chrys' face as the ceiling began to crack. He cursed himself silently: while he had considered that the cave might not be safe, he hadn't considered it collapsing on them. He joined with them in making a dash for the exit, scoffing as X ran past all of them in a cowardly manner. Did he think the dangers would be lesser out there? That loud bang that had sounded out before the ceiling cracked had to have been made by something. There was also the possibility that the cave opening was on the edge of a cliff. Was he so eager as to run right off?

Ignoring that for now, Chrys ran to IV's side, seeing as he was only one that didn't seem to have a keyblade. For all he knew, the other had simply not summoned his weapon yet, but he seemed to have been struggling to do so, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

"I trust it won't be too large of an issue to stick with you for the time being?" He addressed IV as they and the rest of the grouped surged forward towards whatever future awaited them all. Be it bright or dreary.

 

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After introducing themselves, Marley continued to hang back as the group continued to just chill around, getting slightly restless and wanting to just go already. Starting to tap their foot, the keyblade wielder looked to the man labeled "X" as he asked if anyone had a mirror on hand. Trying to think back, Marley couldn't understand why they might have a mirror on them at all, but they had an idea on what they might've been able to use in its stead. Looking to their keyblade, they tried to see if they could at all see their reflection through it, after all, blades tended to be metal and metal was reflective sometimes. However, not really being able to make much out of the blade, Marley's attention was soon grabbed by a sudden rustling from overhead. That was a bad sound, definitely one that indicated that they needed to be leaving here soon. And as everyone seemed to pick up on this cue, Marley's face lit up as they said, "allright, finally getting a move on." With keyblade in hand, they followed everyone out of the cave, leading to whatever was in store for them beyond here.

 

CUTSCENE START
3 days

As soon as the ten were out of the cave, the entranced caved in. There was no way they were going to be able to get back into that cave unless they did some rock removal to do so. But it didn't necessarily matter what they needed back there. As they seemed to have something else going on just in front of them. They were presented with large cliffs at what seemed to be a shoreline. The water below looked rough and unfriendly. And if they even managed to get close to the edge, they would see it was a long fall down. The fog was starting to settle in closer just along the horizon, and the darkness still swished through the air. At the edge of a cliff just outside the cave there was a gray cloaked individual who was looking out at the beyond, almost as if undisturbed by all the shouting and the caving in of the cliff that was there. The cloaked person turned their head in their direction, stopped and then sighed. They looked out towards the ocean line, and spoke in a voice that was as close to androgynous as one could probably get, "Well, I guess you guys weren't dead after all. Maybe I should have made that cave fall in on itself sooner... wasn't my brightest move to wait."

The cloaked person turned fully in their direction and said, "But I take it you at least finished up with that extractor, so I don't have too much to worry about." The cloaked person stood silent and looked at the group, "The... extractor? ...come on uh..." they looked among the group and pointed straight towards the one marked VII, "Alder, my man. You seem to be the best with this stuff, did you destroy it? You insisted on it after all, you gotta tell me you got something done."

 

While Kara was thankful they'd gotten out of the cave and nobody had gotten left behind, she by no means felt safe. The darkness still seemed to be around, and more importantly there was now a figure who seemed to know them giving mixed signals. He seemed to want them dead, and yet it sounded like they'd helped him regardless of that fact....had they done it unintentionally? No, apparently Alder had insisted on destroying the extractor....well, the guy could always be lying. If he wasn't though, had he manipulated them?

"Alder? Do you remember anything about that?" Kara prompted, but immediately regretted asking. They'd all had their memories wiped clean, or so it seemed, so the odds of him knowing that were slim. Maybe he and this guy were helping each other, but that wouldn't explain why Alder had his memories wiped too, unless he had only been pretending this whole time? No, it was too early to start assuming they had a traitor in their midst. Ugh, all of it made Kara's head hurt.

"W-who are you?" she called out to the man. She might not have known much about the situation, but maybe...just maybe the guy would give them information. He didn't sound very worried, after all.​

 

In what seemed like an instant, Xen went from inside the cave to outside it thanks to the, uh...let's call it "aggressive persuasion" from Daeni. While being pulled out wasn't how he thought he'd leave, Xen couldn't help be a little thankful. Not only because it meant he got out without having to rely on his eyes, but because he knew his habits and how he could have easily gotten lost in his thoughts and crushed back in the cave.

Unfortunately, it would seem that even more questions than answers would be created outside. There was now a robed figure speaking to the ten of them, mentioning something called an "extractor." "Extractor? Could it be that destroyed machine back in the cave?" Xen thought to himself before the robed unknown spoke to Alder, claiming that he insisted on destroying it. "Assuming they aren't lying...does this mean the machine was left in such a state on purpose?"

Xen had a strong urge to question both the robed figure and Alder on all of this, but hearing that Kara had already done so, he decided to stay quiet for now and listen.

 

The person seemed silent for a moment, thinking over their question for a moment before simply saying, "Ria... well... hm... I think. I'm not actually fully sure. I'm gonna say Ria for now since that feels right." Ria seemed to turn sharply towards the left and said directly to themselves in a COMPLETELY different voice, "I mean, or you could tell them the truth..." Ria shook their head and said, "I am pretty sure that is the truth."
"Liar."
"I'm not lying. It's Ria. Anyway, you distracted me. You guys. Extractor. Extracted? Exploded?"

 

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He didn't know why number II had chosen to run along him as they headed out of the cave, especially since he was lacking in the means of defense that the others seemingly had. "Uh sure, I suppose." He answered. Getting out of the cave, the first thing that caught his attention was the person in gray who started speaking to them. Nothing that they said made sense to him outside of them saying that their name was Ria.

At this point Chrono briefly tune out the conversation to focus more on his thought, which were both still trying to figure out his name as well as what this 'extractor' was. The only other thing inside of the cave other them themselves had been the broken machine. If that was the extractor then it certain was destroyed, but why and what was the purpose of it in the first place. Hopefully Chloe's question would answer the first one that he had thought of, though there was still something else for him to ask. "How do you know us?" The robed figured had outright called Alder by his name and there was some form familiarity towards them.

 

Ria was going to open their mouth to reply but it went in so many different directions and finally they just said, "Ah, shut it, Cerdic. It's not that I don't remember your name, it's just you aren't relevant to my point. Keep on making yourself the center of attention though, I'm sure that'd go fabulously. Also." The hooded figure walked a bit closer to the group and said, "It seems you all have forgotten huh? Everything that happened. That's wonderful! It makes things so much easier for me." They walked over and placed a hand on Chloe's shoulder and asked, "How does it feel, having hollow heads? Cause it sounds like a luxury to me." they walked away from Chloe and began walking closer towards the cave and said, "After all, when my task is complete, you can use it as an alibi as to why all of you failed."

They stopped and pointed to the ground and the darkness thickened as it circled around the group, "I don't want you guys running away from my little cage. But maybe I'll let some of you go if you do me a favor. Hey, your highness. Get your dog to talk. He knows something I need to know. What exactly does the extractor do?"

 

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All Chrono was an answer to his question. Just one simple answer would've sufficed. Ria clearly knew them so maybe they could help fill up the holes in his memory. But what did he get instead, trapped in a vortex of darkness that's what. From her accusations Alder knew what it was that the extractor did and there was a prince among them, a lot to take in all at once. The first thing that Chrono did was to turn towards the accused, by both Ria and Cerdic, Alder. "Do you actually know what the 'extractor' does?" A simple question and was devoid of all forms of suspicions, but filled with confusion. It wasn't like he fully trusted Alder, in fact he didn't fully trust any of them to be perfectly honest. Chrono was much more concerned with the holes in his memory to start jumping to conclusion. "If you do, just what else do you know?" Now that question was asked with some suspicion and accusations of his own.

 

It was all so much to happen in the space of five minutes. First the cave in, then a hooded figure on a cliff... It was more than Relli could process, with so many new faces and voices and information.

And the cloaked being. Did they know Alder? Did they know what was going on? Relli looked between Alder and Ria, confused. This person... they were trying to trick them all. It's true, they didn't know Alder as well as some, but he'd always been loyal, never wavering in his strength or honor. Relli found it hard to believe that Alder would be a traitor.

The darkness swirled around them, choking them, trapping them, and Relli found that they could do nothing more than stand frozen in place, frightened, but mostly in shock. How could all of this have happened? It was all a blur.

"Hey, your highness. Get your dog to talk. He knows something I need to know. What exactly does the extractor do?"

They could feel eyes on them. Some of them looked around for who the royal amongst their ranks could be, but it was obvious to others. There was only one person who knew Alder by name. And this person... this person, ordering them around, like they were just some puppet to control, like Alder was just some lackey instead of a person, like Relli was just some dumb kid. How dare they?!

"Get real! I'm not gonna sell Alder out, even if he does know something!" Relli blurted angrily, spell broken. "Let us go! Now!"