Mickey, ???
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Mickey, who had gone ahead of Sora and the others, ran through the large castle with one mission in mind.
"He's gotta be here," he muttered under his breath. He destroyed Heartless and Dusks, searching for his goal. He spotted a group of Dusks hovering over an unconscious figure. Mickey destroyed the Dusks, their bodies fading away as the person they were attacking started to wake up. It was the computer madman, DiZ. Beside him, a large device lay on the floor.
DiZ stood up slowly, grunting at the minor cuts and bruises the Dusks gave him. After fully standing up, he pulled the cloth that covered his face. It fell to the ground, and revealed the face of the lost researcher, Ansem the Wise. Mickey's eyes widened in shock.
"It's been too long, my friend," Ansem the Wise lamented.
"Ansem..." Mickey gasped, a glare appeared on his mouse-like face. "Why didn't you come to me before things got so bad?"
"Xemnas, the Organization's Superior, is the Nobody of Xehanort, one of my former apprentices. The burden was mine to bear," Ansem explained.
"Is that all?"
Ansem looked out across the dark empty world. "I won't deny there was more," he admitted. "I was obsessed with thoughts of revenge. My apprentices stole everything precious to me. My research, my pride," he looked up at the castle, imagining the dark, corrupted beings inside, "and the young child I took in as my own."
"Lelie?" Mickey asked, his expression softening.
Ansem nodded, "She was so young, so free spirited. It was wrong for me to expect her to stay inside when she so clearly wanted to see the world. When she gained her Keyblade, I began to worry for safety. I thought if I kept her inside, she would be safe. But she found a way out..."
"And she found her way to me and the other Keyblade wielders, in the Keyblade Graveyard," Mickey remembered, the strange girl in the white armor appearing in his mind.
Ansem nodded. "When you told me that she was gone, her heart no longer inhabiting her body, it was hard for me to find a reason to continue working. But then, the young man appeared, in almost the same fashion as she did, from out of thin air."
"Xehanort," Mickey growled.
"Not knowing what else to do, I helped him. Took him in like I took her in. Now, I must pay the price for my mistakes. As will he, I'll make sure of it."
"Well, I can't help you with revenge," Mickey said.
"I know. Riku's told me a thousand times."
"Where is he?" Mickey asked.
"He must be with his friends by now," Ansem guessed, looking at the Organization's Castle, and imagining the battles raging inside. "He has been through much, and I can only hope he can find the answers he's been searching for."
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Sora, Donald, Goofy, Violet
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The group rushed through the castle, killing Heartless and Dusks left and right. There seemed to be an infinite number of the odd creatures. They eventually found themselves in a large room. There were several balconies leading to different floors above them. On one of them, Sora caught a glimpse of another group of people fighting.
"Rue?!" Violet shouted, looking up. Rue broke apart of the fighting and looked down at her sister.
"Violet! We found you!" Rue exclaimed, she yelped as a small group of Dusks pulled her away from the railing.
"RUE!" Violet shouted.
"What's going on?" Sora gasped.
"Owie!" Violet gasped, a strange, arrow-shaped bullet nicked her cheek and embedded itself in the wall behind her. The group looked up at the source. Hundreds of similar bullets suddenly fell from the sky, killing the Heartless surrounding the group.
"Have you been good, kiddos?" a voice asked.
"Show yourself!" Sora demanded. Xigbar appeared right above them, a smirk spread out across his face.
"Oh, it sounds like you haven't," Xigbar remarked. "Sora! Roxas!"
"Roxas?" Sora repeated, he looked at Donald. "Hey, did he just call me Roxas?" Donald and the others nodded.
"You've really put Organization XIII in a pickle," Xigbar told the group. "I guess that must be why the Keyblade chose you. But man, did it pick a dud this time. You don't look like half the heroes the others were."
Sora huffed, "Are you done rambling?"
Xigbar laughed. "Rambling? As if! All I'm trying to tell you, traitor, is you're time is up!" He summoned his two crossbow-guns. The group readied themselves.
"Here he comes," Goofy warned. Xigbar got ready to jump down to the lower level, when a white chakram rammed itself right into his back, piercing the place where his heart would've been. Dark red blood dripped onto the white floor.
"W-what?" Xigbar gasped, he looked up to the highest balcony, where his attacker lay. "But I t-thought...Sora would be...the one to...finish...us," Xigbar grunted before fading away.
"What the?!" Sora shouted, he looked up.
"You were taking too long. Hurry it up next time," the assassin called down to them before walking through a Dark Corridor.
"Was that...?" Donald started.
"Lelie," Violet finished.
"Well, at least Axel was right about something," Sora said. "Lelie doesn't care about the Organization one bit."
"What would she be after, then?" Goofy wondered aloud.
"I don't know," Violet said, walking up to Sora. "But for now, let's go see our friends."
Sora nodded, looking up onto the balcony above them, where the other group fought the Heartless and Dusks that were ever-plentiful in the castle of Organization XIII.
YOU ARE READING
Hurting Hope
Fanfiction(Sequel to Light From the Past) After Lelie was taken from her home and her memories wiped, she became a part of a much bigger picture than anything she imagined. Fresh from just losing her best friends, trusting others became a life-and-death str...
