Kingdom Hearts: New Key

KEY Formation

I peer at Master Tobleman through my bifocals. He looks as serious as Batman does when he looks at criminals.

"Excuse me, what?" I say, bewildered.

"You heard me. All of you, come at me. Now." Master Tobleman replies.

"Well this shouldn't be hard at all. I've got a bunch of frustration and confusion that needs to be let out ASAP!  Here I come, Tobleman!" Ean shouts, fire flaring up and engulfing his body.

Ean rushes up to our Master. He swipes down and to the right. Master dodges to the left and then he jumps over Ean's second strike. Master lands, seemingly without effort. Ean let's out a roar and rushes at him again. He makes an X combo and then finishes off with a downward swipe. Ean's movement is blinding to the naked eye. His fire is bright, reminiscent of the sun. Master doesn't seem at all affected. He simply backs up and clashes his keyblade upwards against Ean's. They hold their stance there and Master sends Ean flying with a rocky wall.

"Any other takers?" Master says, letting off the trademark Tobleman beaming smile.

"Don't you think you might have hurt Ean?" Yukia says, worried about Ean's impact with the cave wall and Master's rock wall.

"He'll be fine. Now you two are next. Come on, make your moves." He summons his keyblade away, clearly not taking us as a threat.

"You could at least pretend like we stand a chance. You said it yourself that we're impressive." I comment, voicing my observation.

"Impressive yes. Strong.... Maybe not yet." Master says casually.

"Well I'll show you strong!" Yukia blurts out, thrusting her keyblade into the ground and bringing a wall up under Master's feet.

He goes flying into the air and seems to be caught off guard. He aims his hand towards Yukia's ice and rocky rain erupts from his palm. Stones the size of tennis balls collide into the frozen barricade and beats it down to flakes.

He then stops about 3 ft in the air, looking down upon us with his eyes at Yukia, arms across his chest.

"That was adorable. Maybe put a little pep in your technique." he notes for her.

"How about this then?!" Yukia thrusts her keyblade into the ground and another ice wall appears in front of him. "I'm not finished with you yet!" she yells, turning her keyblade to the side in the ground. Another wall appears parallel to the first one, positioned so he's in the middle of the two walls. They each stand about 4 ft high. Yukia draws a horizontal line through the ground with her blade. Frost emits from her engraving. The walls come smashing into each other. The impact sends shards of ice flying everywhere and leaves the ground shaking.

"Don't ever call me weak again!" Yukia says, a satisfied grin on her face.

"So you don't want me saying things like 'Nice try, but not good enough' or anything?" Master says, seamlessly rising above the area of destruction.

"Did you just move out of the way?" Yukia asks, clear disappointment in her eyes.

"More so just destroyed everything before it reached me. But they both amount to the same outcome.... Me, unharmed." Master says. He then raises his arm up in the direction of Yukia and the ground shakes. Yukia looks down in a panic and tries to step through the quaking to safety. A rocky box, shaped like a cage erupts from the ground and traps her mid-step. "Now it's just you Kaze!" Master yells out to me.

I peer around, looking to see if I really am the only one standing. Ean is still trapped under debris from the earlier collision. Yukia's trying to cut the rock, high pitched screeching, like nails on a chalkboard, piercing the air. Master stays floating, waiting for me to attack. Taking note of my odds, I decide to try something that wouldn't seem too bad. I raise my keyblade, point it at Tobleman and shoot a tornado-like wave up at him. He sees it coming and floats down, out of the way. Just as expected.

As he descends, I shoot another tornado blast his way, this one coming from under him. He stops under the first blast, above the second. I run forward, slicing my keyblade side to side, creating lines of wind and sending them in the middle of the chaos. Having nowhere to go, he blocks my attack with his keyblade and I circle behind him and leap into the air. I use the wind to help give me an extra push into the air. As I reach Tobleman, I strike at him. He let's out a gasp, surprised I got to him. I celebrate internally, feeling accomplished and useful.

However, the moment's short-lived. My keyblade feels like it's ripping through him easily. I feel little to no resistance and I go through him into my own volley of wind. As I feel the wind sending me flying everywhere, I feel cuts randomly appearing around my body. They feel familiar, something from school. I squint my eyes to make out little white slivers being blown everywhere in the ensuing wind chaos. I realize that they're pieces of paper and then the disappointment comes crashing in. Master created a doppelganger of paper and it countered me with paper cuts. He used my element against me. The wind dies down and I fall towards the ground. I end up hitting the ground with less force than imagined and the ground doesn't feel like ground. It feels like two hands and arms. It sinks in that Master Tobleman caught me and is walking me back by Yukia. He whispers something sounding like 'curaga' and I feel my cuts go away. I sit up, exhausted again and turn to see him walking over to get Ean. He teleports to him, gathers him up, and teleports back. He sits Ean down, whispers that 'curaga' word again and stands in front of the three of us.

"You three need to learn teamwork. You can't all fight on your own, at least not always," he says to us, raising his hand to Yukia and taking away his prison. "I figured this though. Next time, I'll have to show you the KEY formation. But I think it's enough training for today. We should get some rest and time to process all this. I'll excuse you guys for the day."

Tobleman creates a keyhole in the air with his blade and sticks his blade into it, reminiscent of an actual key and lock. He turns his key and the lock grows into a doorway of light.

"Alright, through this door and we'll be back inside my office. From there, I'll show you three to the house I've created for you guys to stay in. You can rest there and get to know each other further." And we all rise up and step through the door.