Mad at Mouse Part 6

As soon as Mickey left the protected areas he started encountering more heartless.

As usual they were drawn out by his presence. They were weak and barely delayed him. Weaker than usual, which was almost cause to wonder, but he quickly discarded the thought, the strength of the Heartless varied World to World and he had never pin pointed why.

It was true in part that the manufactured Heartless tended to fall into line with the native Heartless. The native Heartless were stronger, faster, more dangerous.

Mickey kept an eye out for those, but figured they would be at the centre of the disturbance.

He was right.

As the swarms of shadows got thicker, he started to notice some slid away, looking for more interesting prey? Called by their brethren? Or more likely, someone was in charge of the local Heartless and was summoning them.

He took note of the direction they were heading, and made sure to follow.

He stopped outside an old Church.

“We are pilgrims on a journey,” Came from inside the Church, someone was singing.

“And companions on the road,” He tried the main doors, but they were locked. Taking a step back he considered the door, and his Keyblade.

“We are here to help each other,” Someone was inside, and he had seen a Heartless puddle below the door and into the building. He had to follow that Heartless.

“Walk the mile and bear the load,” Tapping the lock with his Keyblade, he heard it click open, and he pushed his way inside. The Heartless swaying to her song.

The singer stopped and looked at him.

She was pale, an albino, except for her eyes. They were black.

She hissed. “Mouse” and dozens of Heartless turned their attention to him.

Uh oh.

Mad at Mouse Part 5

Ranting at a mirror isn’t going to save me, or my world.

But I looked like an albino. Seriously, pink eyes, wispy pale white hair, translucent skin, silvery web like lines patterning that same colourless skin. I was pretty certain if you held me up to the sun at that point the light would have shone through me.

Getting hold of a decent sword proved… difficult. I finally gave in on that point and armed myself with a fire axe.

Ok, I know a fire axe isn’t exactly anyone’s weapon of choice, but then again I didn’t exactly have a choice. I suppose I could have acquired a crossbow, but I didn’t think I would have the time to reload.

It was rather strange to be wondering about how hard I would be to kill. I haven’t had to wonder about that since last time I took mortal form.

If anyone asks about that incident I think I’ll throw them out into storm of chaos energy and see how they like it.

And apart from my plans to dress down the mouse, embarrass the mouse, rant at the mouse, tear the mouse to pieces and other forms of torture… I really had no idea what I was about to do.

Human. Mortal. Human. Mortal.

If I survive… which I might not, I’m going to have to seriously consider what to do with these Keybladers that are running around. At that point I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure how many Keybladers were active.

If I don’t survive then I’m afraid the universe is about to get a lesson in exactly how unfair things are. If any part of me is around to watch, I might even enjoy it.

But I really don’t want to start another War of Balance. The last one was bad enough. The way things are going there might be another War even if I don’t die.

I suppose sorting out these Keybladers should be my next job.

If I live.

Survive first.

I am sorry, but as soon as I can get off planet I’m going to hightail it out of here. I’ve been trapped here for more than long enough, I know how important this place is, but seriously?

One World vs. One Universe. If I have to pick which I’m going to work on saving...

The Universe is in more immediate danger. If anyone asks, I’ll be saving my World by saving the Universe. That sounds about right.

Not that I will be saving anything if I die here.

I don’t want to kill. I don’t want to fight. I know there’s another way of managing the heartless, but I can’t. The elemental hearts are beyond my reach, so there’s nothing else I can do. Not now.

And that was the mouse’s fault.

And now I’m human.

And it’s that mouse’s fault.

And I’m stuck here powerless.

And it’s that mouse’s fault.

And the heartless are coming.

I have to fight.

And… well that might not be the mouse’s fault but I bet I can think up some way to blame him. 

Mad at Mouse Part 4

For all that the area was flooded in Heartless, it wasn’t all that hard to clear a pathway.

For a people who had little to no experience with Heartless, it was surprising how well they held up.

He was rather glad that they had remained friendly but distant on his last visit to this world, he didn’t want to know what would have happened if they had decided to take offense to his questions.

He almost felt a little sorry for the shadow they dosed in cooking oil and set alight. He certainly felt disturbed.

Most of the city was clear, he could see a few people (guards?) standing by and watching. Always watching.

Everyone watched him. Conversations would fall silent at his approach. People would turn and watch him until he left their line of sight.

It was... unsettling.

On most worlds he could find some helpful soul, somewhere. Usually people went out of their way to offer information, if not outright help.

Not here.

He didn’t exactly need help, it was easy enough to follow the build up of energy on the edge of his senses. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but there was something happening to the west and all he had to do was follow the slight tug on his magic.

Still.

He didn’t run, because running towards battle meant you had less energy to put forth in battle, but he did make haste.

The Heartless were gathering.

The Dark Keyblader was hunting.

Mad at Mouse Part 3

Usually I wouldn’t have cared about a quartet of Keybladers taking on their Elemental hearts. It happens occasionally, but when it does the Keyblader in question doesn’t usually survive long afterwards.

They burn out, a mortal just isn’t equipped to deal with that amount of power.

But things have been going from bad to worse for a while now, and as much as I know some of my colleagues would love to start over with a clean slate, I know what is required to first get to that clean slate.

I lived through the War. Grew up in the midst of it. The Universe burned down around us.

The others were older, they watched but did not understand.

Just as I watched for decades and did not see the approaching darkness.

I protected my world, and I hoped that my barrier to the Darkness protected my people.

It was part of the deal I made. Years and years again I sacrifice myself to become the Guardian of the little guardians. I’m not sure what I was, but I kept out outside interference and lived off the energy of the hearts.

Then slowly the hearts started to disappear. Gone. I couldn’t reach them anymore. The barrier weakened. The mouse found my world.

I tried to stop him leaving. I remember that much. He was overflowing with the energy of the dark heart and I was draining off a bit of it to maintain the barrier. (Or maybe a lot of it, I’m not too sure at this point.)

Anyway. He left. The barrier was failing. I couldn’t protect my world fully anymore and he had taken away one of my guardians.

I wonder if he knew what he had taken with him?

I was very put out by the heartless. Their negative energy further impacted on the barrier. It was a nuisance.

Normally I would have been able to do something to neutralise the heartless. I mean that in the nicest possible way. How did you think my world has remained free of heartless for so many centuries? Luck? No.

Me.

But now I had less than half my previous power to draw on. There are dozens of Elemental Hearts, and slowly, year after year, decade after decade, the Hearts had begun to lose power, to close themselves away.

It’s to be expected whenever a new Keyblader is chosen; they rely upon the power of their heart too much, because they don’t have the skill or experience to fight alone.

There are benefits… but few until the Keyblader is trained.

Anyway… I’m annoyed with the mouse. It’s his fault.

Then it gets even worse.

Well first it gets a little better, but then it gets worse.

Another Keyblader came to my world. A Shadow. Something strange and new and wrong.

I admit I started to drain them, but only a little. At that point I was little more than a bunch of instincts, it was to be expected.

Then they tried something. Lots of energy. They were trying to lock something, or unlock something… Who can tell with Keybladers? They always seem to be locking or unlocking things.

I over rode what they were doing. I bet that was a shock to the system.

But what else was I suppose to do? They were interfering with the elements that protected my world so well.

Anyway... I guided my little planet into a pocket dimension.

I was rather pleased with myself truth be told, it’s not everyone who could say they teleported an entire planet to another dimension. I even used the elastic band theory.

Then I waited.

And it got worse.

My power was fading. I had only hoarded so much, so as my strength was fading I sent my world back into the universe.

Then I did the best I could to protect my world, keeping it well hidden.

I tried taking energy from other things.

Hopeless.

I wasn’t designed to steal energy, only gather that which was freely emitted. I’ll admit when there’s a Keyblader on the scene it’s different, but everything is different when there’s a Keyblader involved.

They destroyed the last Universe. This Universe remembers.

Mad at Mouse Part 2

The mouse in question was currently watching the planet with a touch of worry. Until today it had been one of the few worlds he hadn’t worried about.

It had been one of the mysteries, while everywhere else might be inundated with heartless, this world continued to be pretty much free of them.

He had once assumed there was a Keyblader protecting the planet, but his explorations had revealed no one. The natives were friendly but stand-offish. Unwilling to answer questions.

Then there was the feeling of being watched, constantly watched.

All in all, this world distressed him out, but he could never work out why, and since it appeared to be off the hit list of his many enemies, he let it lie.

He had been most surprised when his sensors had alerted him to a large increase in Heartless in this sector.

Not just redressing the balance, but flooding in. He couldn’t see rhyme nor reason to it, the Heartless had shown no interest in the planet in the past, but now his sensors, and his senses were telling him that the world below him would soon be drowning in Heartless.

He couldn’t let them win.

He couldn’t ignore that there was something going on below.

He couldn’t allow them to consume yet another planet, even this planet.

He had to stop them.

King Mickey of Disney, the Dark Keyblader, descended.