Kingdom Hearts: Lights In Darkness

Chapter 9: Duckburg (part 1)

This city was different from Danville. Rather than being a big city with a river, this was a big city by the sea. Also, all of the residents were birds or dogs. As the five wielders walked down the boulevard, two of them were in confusion as to whether they fit in here.

"Don't we stand out here," Ezra asked, "since we aren't birds?"

He turned around and saw a duck, a dog, and a goose following them.

"No," the goose said, with the voice of Hera, "to protect the world order, our appearance changes to where we look like one of them."

Ezra looked at his reflection in a window and saw that he looked like a duck.

"What?" He asked himself.

He quickly gathered that Kanan was the other duck, and Zeb was the dog. Sabine also looked like a duck.

"This is weird," Ezra said, "have you guys had to deal with this stuff a lot?"

"Several times," Zeb said.

They heard Heartless materializing around them. It was a group of shadows, but they were still Heartless. And they retained their appearance. As they began fighting them, Ezra called out to Kanan.

"So," he started, "how come the Heartless don't change their appearance?"

"They don't abide by the order of the worlds," Kanan said, slashing a Heartless, "sometimes there are world specific Heartless, but often the shadows and other lower level Heartless keep their forms."

They finished the Heartless off and dematerialized their weapons. They returned to the sidewalk and began strategizing when more Heartless materialized on the street. Before they could react a car rounded the corner and slammed into the Heartless, disintegrating them. The car stopped. The driver's window was open.

"Uh oh," the occupant said, "I hope I have insurance."

"Don't worry about what you just hit," Kanan said, "those were just the Heartless."

"Which one? All of Mr. McDuck's enemies are heartless, but which one did I accidently hit? One of the Beagle Boys? Glomgold? Mark Beaks?"

"Wait," Zeb said, "Mister McDuck? Scrooge McDuck?"

"Oh, yeah. He goes traveling a lot. He's back now, but he's hanging out with his nephews and Webby."

"Could you take us to him?" Hera asked.

"Sure, but I need to--" he noticed there was no one in the road, "huh. I guess whoever I hit was okay."

The five got into the car and it rocketed forward. Only a minute later and they were in front of a gate.

"Yes?" A female voice with a British accent asked.

"Miss Beakley," the driver responded, "it's Launchpad."

The gate opened and Launchpad drove in. He stopped in front of the front door. They all got out and the five wielders were awestruck. When they entered they were in even more awe.

"Listen," they heard a Scottish accent from one of the hallways near the stairs, "I don't care how many times Glomgold tries to steal me customers. His quality is worse than mine. With my products, you have the promise of Scrooge McDuck that it will last. Glomgold has no such promise. Now good day!"

"Scrooge?" Hera asked.

Scrooge looked at the group that Launchpad had brought in.

"Aye," he said, "and ye are..."

"It's Hera," she introduced herself.

"Kanan," he stated.

"Zeb," he said.

"Ezra," he said in slight confusion.

"Sabine..." she said in somewhat similar confusion.

"Really?" Scrooge asked, "King Mickey had said that you three had gotten yourselves two new keyblade wielders, but I would have thought you'd look like yourselves."

"Well, that's the magic for you." Hera said.

"Do you own a bistro in Twilight Town?" Ezra asked.

"Why, yes. Why do you ask?"

"I'm actually from there. I'd been meaning to try some of the food, but I never got around to it."

"Oh! 'Tis a shame. Little Chef is an amazing cook. But, why keep ye longer than ye need to be kept. Why're ye here?"

"You know," Kanan said, "hunting Heartless, sealing keyholes, the usual business."

"If I recall correctly, the King sealed this world's keyhole around the time he went searching for a way into the Realm of Darkness. There shouldn't be any Heartless here."

As if on cue, Heartless began appearing between him and his guests. The wielders summoned their weapons and Scrooge held his cane like a sword. Launchpad backed out of the foyer. The six destroyed the Heartless easily.

"If the keyhole is already locked," Ezra asked, "How do you explain the Heartless."

"They can still exist in a world even if a keyhole is locked," Scrooge replied, "I've heard from my nephew that even though Olympus was locked they still have squabbles with Heartless now and then."

"How does that make sense?"

"If a place has any form of Darkness, Heartless are sure to follow. After all, Heartless are Darkness given form."

"Do you have any idea as to who could be responsible?" Kanan asked.

"Ack. I have many enemies here. But the only one who could possibly summon them is Magica. Magica DeSpell."

Jeez, I should have gotten this out earlier. BTW, this is based on the 2017 iteration of Ducktales.

Next part coming soon.