A Daemon's Second Chance (Tales of Berseria x Kingdom Hearts)

Chapter 9: Beast's Castle

It took them several hours for the Gummi ship to arrive to their next destination, during of which they had to endure another special gates with hundreds of Heartless. They made it out of there intact, well their ship intact anyways, and were now nearing the atmosphere of another world. They all saw through the monitor what it looks like.

"I can definitely see a castle." Velvet pointed out. "Seem's like that's the focal point we must go to."

"I've read a little bit about that place." Laphicet told them. "Apparently, a prince once was there, but now he and his servants are all cursed, transformed into weird things."

"Hmm, sounds like we should be cautious." Sora stated, walking the group to the transporter.

"Cautious about what? The Heartless, the Nobodies, or the curse?" Laphicet asked.

"All of them." Donald answered as he was the last to get on. Laphicet set up the teleportation device and hurried over to them just as the machine lit up, sending them down to the surface.

When they appeared, they found themselves at the large front door into the castle. From the outside, it was dark and eerie, as if it was abandoned a long time ago. Donald and Goofy opened the door and headed in without even knocking. Sora, Velvet and Laphicet followed shortly behind. When they entered, they found themselves in a large entrance hall. It too looked abandoned, and was dark and eerie. At the end, there were flights of stairs that led to another set of double doors, and side stairs on either side that curved up to the second floor.

Sora closed the door behind him as Velvet and Laphicet joined Donald and Goofy. The gang looked around at the place, interested and nervous.

"Hey, what is this place?" Sora asked, walking towards them.

"It's huge!" Donald gasped.

"Yeah, huge and dark." Laphicet added.

"And sorta gloomy, don't ya think?" Goofy asked.

"I wonder who would live in a place like this?" Velvet asked sarcastic as she had lived in a deep dark cell for three years. She got her answer quite quickly after she asked.

Suddenly, a loud, beastly roar came out of nowhere, filling the room and scaring the quintet.

"What was that?!" Laphicet asked nervously.

"A Heartless?" Velvet suggested, pulling out her blade out and looked around.

"Hey, does anybody else recognize that?" Goofy asked Sora and Donald. The two stopped looking around and heard the roar again. Finally, Sora remembered.

"Hey! That's the Beast!" he realized.

"Yeah!" Donald agreed.

"The Beast?" Velvet and Laphicet asked.

"Yep, the Beast helped up back when we fought the Heartless before." Goofy explained.

"Seriously?" Laphicet asked.

"What kind of guy is he?" Velvet asked.

"Maybe we should check up on him and introduce you to him." Goofy suggested.

They all were about to do so when Sora noticed a shadow cross the floor. A Heartless Shadow.

"Look!" he shouted, pointing at it as it crawled away into a nearby room.

"C'mon!" Donald cried, and the gang took off after the Heartless. As soon as they got to the room, Donald popped his head in and looked around.

"Where did it go?" he asked. Then the rest of the gang entered the room. It was a parlor of some sorts, with a nice fireplace that was still burning. Someone was here recently. On one table, there was a plate with a glass cover, and in it stood, or rather floated, a beautiful, glowing red rose.