Video Game: Kingdom Hearts SOS: The Road To Light

Stratos hadn't seen Karina fight for quite some time, and so he had forgotten just how much of a juggernaut she was. Momentarily surprised by her running through the thunder bell, he was slow to react in putting up his guard against her next attack. Barely able to block the first attack, the boy was then pressured to guard against the next three slashes feeling the weight of each of her attacks in each hit even through his guard. As she landed next to him, he couldn't bring his blade to guard in time and simply hit in the side by the remainder of her splatter combo, skidding across the ground. Gritting his teeth, Stratos said, "man, it never amazes me how strong you are. But, if that's what you're going to fight with," the boy's aura then shifted from its usual fuschia color to instead of one of darkness, "I'm going to have to really be on my guard here."

Looking ready to back away, the boy started to take a few steps backward before instead shifting himself forward, creating a globe of light around him as he pushed forward straight at her. Once the barrier was gone, the boy looked poised to slash, but instead feinted with his blade and went in for a round house kick towards her side, the kick coated in magical water.

 

​

As he looked up at the sky he somehow felt cheated or something. He knew that he still had something to do. He was laying on his back looking up at the sky as the smoke came out and he found himself looking up at the titled ceiling of the waiting room overseeing the arena. He was able to move his keyblade slightly and cast curga on himself. He stood up and looked around the room and noticed Faust, Kel, and Beuce. Faust seamed to have been knocked unconscious. While he was not faring much better he still wanted to find out what Hades was up to. He pointed his keyblade at Faust and used a healing spell on him. The other two seemed to be in better shape them Faust and him. Now all he had to do was figure out what to do next as he looked around the room for an exit.

 

Stratos grinned as Karina made her comment. Of course he knew her better than that. There was hardly a person he knew more about their fighting then her. And so her strength, her recovery speed and determination to win here were something to incite awe for sure. But they weren’t surprising. Even as she had backed away and faded into darkness this wasn’t something surprising to him. He knew she wanted to end this quickly. He knew exactly what power the job she was using had behind it. And so, he has planned exactly for this moment.

As the first blur of darkness zipped at him, the brought up his keyblade to guard against it. Pushed back by the strength of the attack, he didn’t have much time to right himself to get in position to guard the next one. Sure he had know exactly what the attack was, but using it and having it used on you was two completely different sensations. All the same, as the girl continued to strike at him, each hit didn’t seem to carry the kind of impact she’d expect. It wasn’t as though she were any weaker in her strikes, but more Stratos seemed far more durable than she would likely remember. But beyond that, his shift in aura had seemed to be putting up resistance against her attack too, the dark aura absorbing a great deal of the force from the dark attack. As she appeared behind him, the boy who had simply been getting beaten aside by the attacks suddenly vanished as the dark column made its way towards him.

Using the power of hyper jump to teleport away, Karina would simply here an, “ex” coming from behind her. Were she to turn and look, she’d see Stratos charging us his own attack, a golden sword overlaying his keyblade as he did so. Taking a single step forward the sword erupted in light, “calibur!” Growing exponentially bigger as he swung it at his opponent.

 

Steel continued to stagger through the streets, his condition worsening quite suddenly. He was barely managing to weave through the crowd. He desperately began searching for an out of the way spot, but that was complicated by his blurred vision. It was strange how suddenly all these symptoms had set on, but it was hardly as if it hadn't been coming. Ever since Zootopia when that penguin shot him with that formula. The chemicals had mixed with his own unstable genetics in ways that were even more volatile than he had initially thought. At the rate things were going...

"I'm dying."

Even just putting the thought into proper words made him feel as if had been cursed with a heavy burden: A horrible feeling for someone who was already distressingly ill. He stumbled to the ground, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable in a city whose residents were likely far from benign. He hurried to his feet, trying to get out of the street, only to bump into a blur of red and yellow.

"Hey! Watch where you're- Oh man, are you alright kid?" Steel wiped sweat from his brow as he tried to answer the concerned voice, but he could only gasp as he found himself incredibly short of breath. "Hold on, don't move: I'll go get a healer." He shook his head, grabbing their wrist as they turned to leave. "No... no healer... it... it won't... help..." With a sharp pain in his stomach and a brief coughing spell, Steel fell back to the ground. He heard the faint sound of the voice telling him to stay with them as the world around him faded to black.

Spoiler: Conqueror's Respite (Cont.)

“Aura is gone too.”

Steel’s entire body went still, his blood ran cold.

“What?”

“She left not long after you did… Just up and vanished the same way. I couldn’t tell you why."

The silence returned with a vengeance. There was too much to process for Steel to respond properly. He found himself staring at the island in the distance, getting more and more drenched as he stood idly in the pouring rain.

"Sors?" Gale's voice sounded from behind him, and Steel found himself turning his head ever so slightly in acknowledgement. However, both of them remained silent for awhile longer. Eventually Steel let out an exasperated, or perhaps stressed, sort of sigh. He turned back to his siblings, looking at him concerned from their spot on the beach.

"Winter, Gale... I want you to head home." Both of them made noises of distress, clearly intending to argue. He headed that off quickly enough though. "If this illusion mirrors the state of things back home, than Griffon needs your help. Heck, maybe they need help more now than they ever have before...given for admittedly loose definitions of 'before.'"

"So what are you going to do?" Winter's no nonsense tone was matched by a scolding glare. He shrugged in return.

"Where else?" He turned back to look at the Edge. "Someone has to look for Aura." He asserted. "...And it's not really like we're safe if all this goes sour either. Might as well stay to help."

"So we're just supposed to leave you alone?" Steel couldn't help but let out a quiet sort of laugh.

"What makes you think I'll be alone? Or did you simply not notice our traveling companions this whole time?" Steel found himself oddly comforted by the glare that his sister sent him. It was just so... well... 'normal' was the only term he could think to describe it. Now that he thinks on it, it's been awhile since he was around people he was really comfortable with... even if they had actually been with him the whole time. The Artisian couldn't help but smile. Gale, for his part, looked more concerned than either his brother or sister at the moment.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" There was a brief silence as the eldest stared at his singularity of a younger brother with an uneasy gaze to meet Steel's own pensive one.

"I'll be fine." Steel eventually responded, reassuring them with a smile.

Spoiler: INFORMATION

STEEL HAS LEFT THE PARTY.

 

Stratos couldn't help but smile as he saw Karina take the Excalibur and still end up standing on her two feet. She truly was a monster of a girl when it came to fighting, and while Stratos had fought foes stronger than himself many times before they had always been some kind of life or death fight that he had to win no matter what. He honestly didn't know what he was doing in this tournament. He didn't really care about the prize nor was there anything he for sure had to stop here yet. But still, fighting a fellow keyblade wielder like this was a first for him. Fighting someone he had admired as a fighter was something he had never thought to do before. And going toe to toe with them and seeing their power on full display, seeing that they were still every bit as amazing as he thought they were. He couldn't help but be thrilled by it all. As such, for the first time against one of his teammates he couldn't help but feel like he wasn't just competing with them. He felt like he wanted to win. And so, even if she were hurt, even if she had come at him with the strongest moves she could and even if he had retaliated just as strongly, Stratos wasn't about to drop his guard against Karina.

As she was far away from him, Stratos knew that her options were limited as he currently held all of the cards in the long range game. And if she were looking to end this in one strike, there were hardly any that she could use in this situation. As the familiar cherry blossoms began to dance around, he knew exactly what kind of attack was coming - a technique he had used so many times before. And so, he knew just how unstoppable of an attack it was. He knew that taking it full on wasn't an option, but he knew that there was barely any time to react to the attack at all. He knew that if he were even a half second off tempo he would be struck by the attack in full. And so, he needed more time.

As Karina completed her attack, she would notice that there was a second set of cherry blossoms blowing in the opposite direction of hers. Stratos, however, had seemed to stay in place despite this. As the cut from Karina's Zantetsuken formed, there seemed to be one going perpendicular to it right on top of it. Though the cross slash seemed to take some of the force of the hit, Stratos was still entirely overwhelmed by the stronger girl's attack and was sent hurtling backward from the attack. Launching backward, the boy bounced off the ground, skidding across as his feat landed back. Planting them both into the ground, the boy turned around, flaring his aura from darkness to the second stage of Sound. Turning to face the girl, still ready to keep fighting he looked to her and paused.

As it looked like she had no more energy to fight, the boy was still wary. He had thought it entirely possible for her to stand up and keep barreling towards him like a juggernaut even if she seemed defeated, but after a few moments had passed the boy let out a sigh of relief. Looking at the girl with a smile he said, "you know, for someone who looked like they were running on fumes getting in here, you put up a hell of a fight Karina." Giving her a thumbs up he said, "good fight."

 

​

The moment Kel had gotten warped back to the waiting area, his legs had turned to jelly and he immediately collapsed onto his rear. He knew that his arms were in immense pain from all of Karina's attacks, but it had only just hit him how worn out his body was from that fight. He had just enough energy to look around and see who else was here too. AJ and Beuce were here, as was that guy he'd meant while in Monstro. Faust? Sounds about right. That meant that Karina and Stratos were the only ones left in the tournament in their group. Well, that was until Karina had ended up warped in here too, immediately blaming him for her loss. Which while fair, he looked up to her and said, "If it makes you feel any better, I probably wouldn't have done any better given the shape you left me in." By this point, his arms were still bruised as they just sat in his lap.

 

Meanwhile, in the first arena, Jecht cracked his kneck has his next opponent showed up. The crowd seemed to be really amped up for this, as the two had basically trounced any competition thus far. Jecht heaved his massive sword off of the ground and glared at Luther. "I've already located my target, so I suppose I probably shouldn't dilly dally too much longer...I should wrap this up." Luther muttered to himself.

"Hey, if you think you're gonna have the chance to take this lightly, you got another thing coming," Jecht yelled, charging forward. It seemed with every step he took, the cheers of the audience got louder. Their excitement for the bloodshed rising at it got closer. Time seemed to move in slow motion. Jecht finally reached the fencer and raised his sword to bring down a mighty blow. Just before the blade made contact, Luther raised his right hand. "I forfeit."

And with that, he vanished in a puff of black smoke, leaving the sword to clangor against the ground. For a brief moment, there was silence. Finally, it was broken by one man in the standing yelling a single word of profanity. ​

 

​

As he was looking for a door to get out of the room Karina showed up. It seemed like Kel and Karina were hurt. He pointed his keyblade into the sky and cast a healing spell on Kel, Karina, and Beuce. He still was not in the best of shape but he wanted to do something siting here was not going to do much. The other had to fight each other. Then a thought came to his mind that was what Hades wanted or it was a peace of the bigger picture. Hades probably wanted them to fight each other so that they weakened each other. The question was why. So he knew that some of the other SOS members went to the underworld and some were in town and the rest ended up here. So they had split up and not at full strength. So maybe Hades planed on attacking them when they were down. The only problem with this said pain was that it seemed to have happened before and it did not make much sense for Hades to try something another hellfire member had tired before. It did not work before and why it would work now was beyond him. That said it was the only thing he could come up with for the time being. He was looking around the room as he thought about this and he still wanted to find out what Hades was up to for sure as his thought was only a guess.

 

​

As Faust came to in a new space that he found himself the first thing that he saw was the foreign ceiling. Lightly wiping his face with his right hand coming away blacken with soot giving a light sigh as he rolled his shoulders as he sat up on the bench that he had found himself lying on, his thoughts turned to how he ended up outside of the arena. "man talk about rolling snake eyes" Faust muttered to himself before giving a quick glance around the room that he found himself in. quite a few of the other people in the room looked familiar as the other members of the SOS group that he found himself in, the first one that stood out was that PJ kid that he had found himself with in a few of the worlds he had visited recently. then other he couldn't put a name to but the loud darkness coated girl form the fight inside the belly of the beast was holding another of the rooms occupants at keypoint. scooting over to one side of bench he was sitting on leaning over towards the blue haired kid to his right inquiring in a stage whisper "Hey kid, I'm Faust by thye way, what going on? i kinda just woke up she seems pretty mad, i know even i was chomping at the bit for that card but drawing a blade on someone for losing seems like quite the pointed thing to do." Faust joked slightly as to try and break the tension in the room as it was starting to feel stifling.

 

Ananta put her hands together and gave Marx a small prayer and mouth 'Sorry' to him before they headed into the next room. Once inside, Ananta walked forward and put her hands on her hips. Before long, she had tried to walk back, but that proved wrong seeing as she....couldn't quite see where to actually go. "Aux?" she called, reaching around. "Where are you, redhead?" she tried to call. The sound of clapping came and she summoned her keyblades, holding them defensively. She looked up and saw a familiar face.

"Rourke." she spoke, sighing. "On that scale, I would say a 1 since I don't feel I'm too much at a disadvantage."

"Typical prey," A smooth, graveled voice spoke. "Always think they have the advantage, until they're backed into a corner." A lion appeared from out of the darkness, moving one paw in front of the other, moving silently as he spoke to her. It was Scar, from the Pridelands.

"Well that's the problem with your generation dear... Too much confidence without anything to back it up. I had a batallion of disciplined men to back me up." Rourke replied, twirling his knife around before gripping it tightly.
"And I, had a legion of hyenas to enforce my rule.... Where's your pack? your pride? Your strength?" Scar growled.
Rourke grinned as he rubbed his thumb along the knife. "Last I saw, they high ran off and left you alone... again. You really got to learn to take a hint sweetheart. You need this group more than they need you.
"Survival of the fittest after all," Scar added. "And the weakest of the pride is often outcast. Or eaten..."

Scar and Rourke cornered her back into the wall more and more.

Ananta listened to the two of them. She listened and thought back to the many times where she was just there and not really interacting with any of the group. Of the times she was basically just a body that could be used. Then she remembered how she told everyone that they should give up on Karina. Ananta shook her head, lowering her keyblades a second before straightening back up and feeling the stone wall behind her. "I may not be the strongest, but I know how to stay alive." Ananta gripped the keyblades again, but noticed something. She looked down and saw she had nothing in her hands. Looking confused, she glared at Rourke. "Weird..." she mumbled.

"That's the thing about the hall of the dead sweetheart... you're on our turf now." Rourke replied.
"And now you will join us..." Scar added. "Any final words?"

Gripping at the walls, Ananta was trying to find something she could use to defend herself. Anything would do, a rock, a stick or a stick with a rock. Either way, she wanted to protect herself somehow. Her eyes locked with Rourke as he swung at her. Ananta ducked as fast as she could and she felt the wall crumbled behind her and bits of rock fall on her. She looked up at Rourke and looked quite confused. He wasn't this strong when she battled him, so how was he so powerful now? She scrambled back to her feet and held her fists up. She tried to block his blows as best as she could, using what little training she had in this sense as she could. Stumbling back, she wiped the blood from her lip after getting one more sucker punch. Reeling back, she focused on fire spell into her hand as she shot forward to punch Rourke hard in the face. He ignited instantly and stepped back, trying to put himself out.

Scar lunged at her and Ananta fell down with him, trying to cover herself as best as she could. She could feel his claws in her hips and his maw was latched around her arm and Ananta was trying to focus enough to hit him with another spell. Before she could, Scar was zapped with a powerful Thundaza and he launched off her into the wall and a powerful cure spell washed over Ananta. Her eyes moved over to the source of the spell and she could barely see. "W...Who...?" she whispered.

"You boys are playing unfair. Two to one surely is not a fair fighting chance. Why not make it even, hm?" an older woman's voice called out. Rourke had walked over to Scar and sighed to himself. "Sorry lady, but you already fried my comrade. So now it really isn't fair." he commented, disappearing into the smoke. The older woman walked to Ananta and knelt down to her, putting the palm of her hand on the girl's forehead. "Goodness, he surely took a lot out of you." the woman said to Ananta.

Ananta blinked a few times and stared at the woman. The woman was old, possibly in her late 80s and she had eyes that shone like sapphires and dark green hair that looked like a lush forest. It was her grandmother. Tears came to Ananta's eyes and she sobbed, grabbing her grandmother's sleeve. "I'm sorry I wasn't ready. I couldn't save you, I'm sorry grandma." she said, her voice cracking. Ananta tried to sit up, but her grandmother stopped her. Grandma then shook her head. "Do not move. You will feel better if you just sit and wait for awhile. I cannot stay forever, but I will be sure to stay as long as I can. Besides...I forgive you, child. There was not much you could have done at your power back then. You did not fail us. So be strong, dear.." she smiled and sighed. "He will find you before long."

"He who?" Ananta blinked, unsure of what she meant. "You don't mean..." she gasped, covering her mouth and laying back. This confirmed it. He had died. She didn't like him all much, but to know hear had died was far too much to bear.​

 

​

Kel had definitely started feeling better after AJ's healing, more notably in his arms as they became much easier to move around. The healing had allowed him to relax his body so that despite him still sitting, he wouldn't experience any pain just by moving slightly. Karina's sudden hostility was odd as Kel had no idea who this guy was. He could guess based on her question about Lea that he was one of the ones she'd met while she was off on her own, but beyond that nothing. Faust, who properly introduced himself thus confirming that Kel had the right name in mind, approached him soon after. "I'm Kel and I actually don't know. I guess he did something to some of her other friends." He only knew of them and vaguely saw some of them during the last heartless horde they had to fight.

 

​

Karina gave a nod of thanks to him for his healing. She seemed like someone with few words unless she was angry. She then proceeded to threaten Luther and felt like this was getting out of hand rather quickly. Faust had woken up during this time but he did not say anything other then to start to talk to Kel. He was not going to get in Karina's way as he knew better then that. Kel said, 'I guess he did something to some of her other friends.' He turned to kel and said, "He is part of the Red society. He showed up with someone named Alex. They were talking before the tournament saying they were with the Red society. They also said something about working with Nequa." He did not know if now was the best time to leave now to try and find Hades.

 

Luther had been prepared to simply take a seat and watch the rest of the tournament when Karina approached him and began to threaten him. He sighed. "We need to do this? Well, alright then. Lea is currently in the void, you know along with most of the order. Yue, Mizu, DJ, Lea. All of them have been voided. Shiro was supposed to be as well, but that didn't quite work out. And before you accuse me of coming here to finish the job, that's not it. Good guess though. As for a reason not to kill me..." He paused, as though thinking about something. "For starters, you can't is a pretty good one. I may not be prepared to take on Nequa yet, but you can ask your boyfriend over there if I can deal with you lot."

Beuce glared at him clench his fist. He knew he was right. They didn't have it in them to beat him at the moment. If they'd all been in peak condition, maybe. But they were all injured and exhausted from the tournament, while he barely had a scratch on him. "Karina, as much as I hate to admit it, we're maybe not in the best condition to go up against him at the moment. We need to regroup with the others, find Shiro, and then we can deal with him."

"Oh, and while I'm at it, you may not have quite as much of a numbers advantage as you think. You already know about the Mole, don't you? Well, what's to say they aren't in this very room?" He walked over to AJ. "Maybe it's you. You're comparatively a newcomer to them, aren't you? What reason do they have to trust you?" Next, he turned to the blue haired veteran. "Or maybe it's you? If so, may I just say bravo on hiding it this long." Luther shrugged. "Who knows. It could even be the kid still upstairs. Have you ever really thought about it? He has a lot of signs pointing to him." ​