Kingdom Hearts fic: Potentials - Chapter 14

[mistressofmuses]

In chapter 14: A rescue mission takes form.

This chapter includes a wonderful art piece by Besin, who was my artist for the KH Rogue Nebula event!

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A local news article.

Public Support for Recall of Mayor Uchida Grows

Persistent rumors continue to threaten Mayor Uchida’s office. While nothing has been confirmed officially, due to legal protections for superhumans’ civilian identities, several sources have spoken off the record connecting the mayor to the supervillain Radiance. Once the purview of supermarket tabloids, the theory that Radiance is actually Kairi Uchida, the mayor’s adopted daughter, has been gaining traction, along with support for a recall vote in light of the scandal.

The mayor has so far refused to comment, asking that the privacy of his family be respected, and for people to consider his record as a public official rather than rumors about his family’s private life.

The supervillain Radiance was once a hero in our city, until she was tempted down whatever dark path The Defenders of the Light followed. Much like the original team to bear that name, she and the other once-heroes seem to have been corrupted, eventually turning into little more than vigilantes, pursuing their own sense of justice by any means available.

Tragically, this eventually led to the murder of two Organization members. While they afterwards claimed self-defense, video shows it was a clear act of aggression on the parts of Keyblade and Corridor. While Radiance herself was not involved in the fatal blows, her mere presence and failure to intervene suggests she may have been complicit.

Corridor has since been welcomed into the Organization, a move that many hailed as one of the most altruistic motions any prominent Hero group has ever made.

Radiance is now wanted in connection to the deaths of Vexen and Zexion. She is the last member of the Defenders of the Light to be uncaptured by the Organization. All others have been taken into custody. Radiance was last seen a few days ago when she made contact with police, though she was not detained at the time. Kairi Uchida is also reportedly missing, and is wanted for questioning.

If either of them are sighted, you are encouraged to report them to the local authorities. Tips can also be made anonymously.

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They finalized their plans from a dingy motel suite. It was closer to the city than the vigilantes’ house, but still far enough away that the memory manipulation didn’t seem to have completely taken hold.

The usual blogs and discussion boards dedicated to the Defenders of the Light were still gone, mostly spitting back 404 errors and unregistered domains, with occasional notices of copyright takedowns. Memory manipulation couldn’t have been responsible for that, but they wouldn’t have needed any kind of supernatural intervention to accomplish it. Cid had shown her a list of hosting services that the Defenders of the Light as a corporation, and Xehanort as an individual, owned shares in or had “agreements” with. It had been the work of years of subtle behind-the-scenes maneuvering, to gain control over so much.

It made Radiance’s skin crawl, as she thought of all the time they’d spent scouring blogs and forums, trying to find information and opinion more honest or unfiltered than the “official” record the Defenders of the Light put out. And all along, most of those sources had belonged in some way to Xehanort, whether the individuals using those platforms knew it or not.

They combed through the media that was still reporting, but couldn’t glean much. There were plenty of glowing pieces about how wonderful the Organization was, and their acts of heroism keeping the city a safer place. Stopping muggers, thwarting burglaries… even the PR-staples of rescuing cats from trees and helping old ladies across the street. It was all so obviously scripted Radiance couldn’t understand how anyone took it seriously.

By contrast, the Defenders of the Light were barely mentioned at all, and she wondered if they were being pushed out of sight, out of mind. Would it be easier to ultimately make the city’s population forget about them, instead of remembering them as something they hadn’t been?

There’d been one new relevant article, and it was mostly about her. She, both as Radiance and Kairi Uchida, was wanted by the police, with directions to contact authorities on sight. There were demands her adoptive father be recalled as mayor. She knew she couldn’t even try to reach out to them, but her heart ached, wondering what her family thought of her.

The article also mentioned that the rest of the Defenders of the Light Heroes had been “taken into custody.” Nothing said where, but she knew the mundane police weren’t equipped to handle superhumans. And she’d already visited the abandoned Headquarters building, so she knew they weren’t there.

Then they found out about the Castle. An enormous, floating castle, surrounded by perpetual night, just to the north of the city. The stronghold for the Organization. Somehow the appearance of the castle had garnered no fanfare, and Radiance assumed that could be chalked up to whatever was affecting the city’s collective memory.

There was no way to know what the castle’s existence meant, but she doubted it was anything good. It seemed likely it was a mark of whatever alternate dimension the Organization had come from growing stronger, gaining a more tangible presence in this dimension.

The vigilantes had done some minor reconnaissance into the city, charting a pathway to the castle, trying to discover any additional information that could help them. Radiance wished she had been able to go with them, but she was probably the most wanted “criminal” in the city, and couldn’t risk it. Tifa and Aerith had revisited her apartment, in case there was anything useful there. It was her official drop location for the Defenders of the Light if they made some attempt to contact her.

According to them, it had been completely roped off by police tape, and Radiance knew it wasn’t because they were taking the break-in seriously. But the women had found something new, something Radiance wouldn’t have missed, however brief her investigation had been.

A series of pages torn out of a sketchbook.

The drawings were stylized and bright, drawn in sketchy colored pencil, but it was easy to tell what they depicted.

The first showed Corridor, Radiance, and Keyblade, all in costume, holding hands. The reverse of that page showed Sora, no longer in costume, Naminé, and Corridor in his Organization coat, all three holding hands. The images on each side of the page lined up almost perfectly, deliberate reverse-versions of each other.

The second page showed Sora behind bars, like he was in a cage. Naminé sat in front of the cage, crying, holding a sketchbook.

The third showed Naminé and Corridor, again holding hands, but Naminé once again crying.

The final page had no drawing, just words. In large, rough text in the middle of the page, ‘I’m Sorry.’ And at the very bottom, in the same handwriting, but much smaller, ‘We want to exist.’

Radiance had spent what felt like hours staring at the images. The fact Naminé was holding the sketchbook in one image made it seem like she must have been the artist. The first page reminded Radiance of the time Sora “misspoke” and started talking about Naminé traveling with him and Riku. Had that been the start of the memory manipulation? Was the other woman trying to replace her? But then why would she be crying? And why the apology?

Questions she couldn’t answer, and she couldn’t spend any longer focusing on right now.

When Kairi had gone to the vigilantes—the term had always been intended as a pejorative, but she discovered they’d adopted it as a strange badge of honor—she’d only been looking for help with the locked files. She’d barely thought beyond that, hoping only that it could give her a direction. Whatever other nebulous plans she may have considered, all had her going up against the Organization alone. Instead, the vigilantes had stuck with her.

Cid had stayed behind in the shared house, “In case it all goes to shit,” as he put it. He had the files, and would do everything he could to make sure their contents were spread far and wide if it came to that.

Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith had headed back into the city, to points they’d decided on during their initial recon. They’d protect civilians and do their best to keep any of the Organization members or Dusks from fleeing. It wasn’t much protection against the dark pathways the Organization could open, but they didn’t want casualties they could prevent.

Leon and Yuffie were coming with Radiance. They’d skirt the majority of the city, trying to minimize chances they’d be spotted, and approach this new stronghold.

“Are you ready?” Leon asked. The question was a little gruff, but also sincere: Radiance had no doubt that if she said no, he’d call this off, let them take more time to prepare.

But she couldn’t delay. The castle was definitely where Riku was, and the best guess she had for Sora. She was going to rescue them. And the rest of the Heroes. “I have to be ready.”

“Then let’s go!” Yuffie clapped her on the shoulder.

She touched her mask, making sure it was secure. Maybe she understood why the others had embraced the “vigilante” label after all. She’d chosen to come here in the persona the Defenders of the Light helped to create, and it felt like a statement. If they wanted her to be a supervillain, then she was going to be one.

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Art by Besin. Definitely worth checking out in full size!

Toward the north end of the city, it began to change. This had once been the area where the city proper became a warehouse district that rapidly thinned out, until disused lots outnumbered buildings, and it faded into empty fields providing a buffer between the city and the wilder hills beyond. Now everything from the warehouses north had been replaced by a new city, one unlike the rest.

The castle was surrounded by continual night, and so was this. Between one step and the next along the main road, it went from bright midday sun to black night sky overhead, without even visible stars. The only light came from flickering neon lights edging seemingly-abandoned buildings. The castle itself loomed large, jarringly white against the darkness.

Radiance braced herself when she took that step into the dark, ready for the lurch of moving between dimensions, but it didn’t come. She couldn’t even guess whether that was good or bad. The air was cooler on the other side, but other than that there was nothing to indicate that anything had changed. It was even more disconcerting to look over her shoulder and see the bright daylight, but to have none of the light actually reaching them. There wasn’t even a thin band of twilight to smooth out the transition.

The streets themselves were deserted. Radiance wondered what happened to anyone who’d been on the normal—or at least ‘from her dimension’—streets when the castle and surrounding city blocks appeared. Maybe it was better not to know that answer.

Radiance adjusted her grip on the short knife Yuffie had given her. She’d spent so long wishing she’d be given a knife; now she had one and it felt unnatural in her hand.

She’d been expecting an immediate ambush that hadn’t come. There was still plenty of opportunity before they reached their destination, and all three of them clung to the shadows. It was dark enough that wasn’t a challenge in and of itself, though Radiance had to focus hard to dim the flickers from her skin. She hoped the sparks that got away from her blended in with the neon lights reflecting off the wet road. No surprise that Yuffie was the best at remaining completely unseen; she lived up to her once-codename of “Ninja.”

The sneaking and the vigilance, ready for the Organization to spring out of a portal in an alleyway or appear on a rooftop, made the low burbling noise of Heartless feel anticlimactic. They weren’t unexpected, because of course they would thrive in this all-consuming night. Not that Radiance was complaining as she channeled her nervous energy into a blade of light at her fingertips and sliced easily through the first Shadow to lunge at them.

As that one dissolved, two more fell back into nothingness with well-placed knives from Yuffie. Another whirl of light wiped out a new cluster of them, and Leon used his trademark gunblade to take out the remaining few. The feeling of working closely and well with a pair of other heroes still stung; that feeling of teamwork so familiar, but the specifics so different from what she was used to, and so desperately missed.

The castle was a beacon overhead, its strange white light brighter than the neon glow of the city buildings, yet not enough to dispel the shadows. Still, it certainly provided an inescapable target to aim for.

At the end of the road was a free-standing doorway, made of the same shining white as the castle, framing a span of black nothingness. It wasn’t hidden, glowing brighter than anything around it, but it was guarded by a pair of Dusks, drifting one way and stalking back the other in front of the portal.

Radiance tightened the grip on her knife and made eye contact with Leon, hidden in the shadows across the narrow street. He reached behind him, gripping the hilt of his gunblade.

Radiance held up three fingers on the hand not holding the knife, then two, then one.

Leon drew the gunblade, lunging toward one of the Dusks. Radiance aimed for the other, ducking down to minimize her profile and get in close. One of Yuffie’s knives landed in the Dusk’s shoulder, as Radiance slashed with her own, cutting a long stretch in the creature’s front.

Darkness spread from the wounds, and the Dusks faded to nothing.

Radiance faced the portal, squaring her shoulders and trying to push the fear down. What if Corridor and Keyblade—Riku and Sora—weren’t waiting on the other side? What if this wasn’t something she was strong enough to do? What if she couldn’t save the other Heroes? She couldn’t let those things matter, because she had to try.

“Not heavily guarded,” Leon commented.

Radiance nodded. It could be a trap. Another what if. Or maybe they didn’t anticipate the last remaining Defender of the Light would even get this far.

This portal was more like the ones she was used to. It looked pure black, but in the depths she could catch occasional flickers of dark purple. Contained in the doorframe, she didn’t know if it was the same as the ragged tears the Organization members opened, or if it was more like one of Corridor’s. With one more deep breath, she stepped through.

Unlike the boundary between the ordinary city and the dark neon-lit one, this time she felt the expected vertigo. It was enough to make her stumble a half-step out into the white of the castle.

Leon and Yuffie actually looked worse coming through; Yuffie leaned forward onto her knees for a second, breathing deep and slow, and Leon looked just a bit queasy. Something to be said for familiarity with corridors.

And the room they’d wound up in was familiar too, though Radiance knew she likely hadn’t been here specifically. But the stark white of the walls, floor, arched ceiling, the architectural embellishments that somehow made the lack of color even more striking… all of that was familiar from the time she’d been pulled here before.

“Where do we go now?” Leon asked, seeming to recover from the portal-induced nausea.

Radiance worried at her lower lip. “I don’t know. We need to find wherever they’re holding the Heroes they’ve taken prisoner.”

“Well, we are in a castle…” Yuffie’s voice trailed off. “Don’t castles usually have dungeons?”

That was as good a suggestion as any, and they looked for anything that would take them downwards.

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They found a set of stairs, along with more Dusks. Radiance hoped that was a good sign; why have creature-guards if they weren’t guarding something? The three of them took care of the Dusks easily: Leon’s gunblade was extremely effective, and even the short knife Radiance now had did more against the creatures than all of the light flashes she could summon up.

The stairs themselves stretched for an uncomfortably long distance, playing badly with the apparent physics of the building as well as their perception of space. Radiance remembered that from the other time she’d been here, how halls and rooms seemed to loop back into each other in impossible ways.

But there was a bottom to the stairs, and in the same pure white as everything else, cells. And the Heroes were inside them.

There were more Dusks, waiting in a group between the stairway and the rows of cells. Radiance thought briefly that it must be nice for the Organization to have guards that couldn’t be intimidated, or bribed, or grow bored with their assignments. After that, she couldn’t spare attention for anything other than the fight.

Fighting the Dusks in this environment, where everything was equally colorless, provided a new challenge, making it hard to focus on the individual creatures and their motions.

Leon took most of them on, rushing in to the thickest grouping, swinging the gunblade like a broadsword to take out several in a single go.

Radiance targeted specific Dusks, rolling and dodging to get close, and taking them out with her short knife. It was a relief to have an effective weapon, but she was still grateful she wasn’t doing this alone.

Yuffie stayed on the stairs, taking careful aim at Nobodies that skirted the sides of the room and approached the stairs, drifting toward the exit. Perhaps the creatures were just trying to escape, but the risk that they could alert the rest of the Organization was too high to take.

It was likely that their presence was already known—there could have been dozens of unseen alarms when they crossed into the city or through the castle’s portal—but they didn’t need to make sure of it.

As soon as the Dusks were taken care of, Radiance rushed down the rows of cells, for the moment ignoring all of the Heroes talking to her, calling out. She was looking for one person… but Keyblade wasn’t there.

She forced another shudder of her heart to subside, and turned back to the Heroes that were there. All were still in costume, though looking a bit worse for the wear.

“Hi!” She smiled brightly. “How about a prison break?”

A few weak laughs, probably more from exhaustion and stress than any real humor.

“Apparently we are the villains of the piece, now,” said Lunar Phase, voice dry. “So that might be fitting.”

And then everyone was talking at once.

She went to Fire Dancer’s cell first, kneeling to examine the locking mechanism. It didn’t look like it could be brute-forced.

“I take it no one’s powers do anything to the locks?”

He shook his head. “We’ve all tried. Nothing works.”

“Are there keys?”

“Probably. But usually they just use the portals to drop things in. Food. People.”

“I’m sure I can pick them,” Yuffie said, kneeling to examine the lock closest to her. “But it’ll take a while.”

Radiance nodded and stood back up. She put her hand flat on the cell door, made of some kind of invisible but very solid barrier between traditional-looking bars. Fire Dancer put his hand up on the other side and gave her a lopsided smile.

“I’m glad you remember me,” she said. “And not as a supervillain.”

“Apparently, our brains aren’t worth the effort to keep fiddling with.” Fire Dancer looked toward Lunar Phase as he said it, and she remembered how easily he’d brushed it off when the Heroes had first started to vanish.

“I’m glad you’re all alive,” she added.

“Of course we are. They need some way to make new copies,” Grimoire said from the cell behind her.

Radiance swallowed hard. “Copies? They can make more?” She turned to face Grimoire.

He leaned forward against his own cell door and nodded. “There’s a machine. We… built a machine.”

“As part of the Potentials Project?”

The Scientist interrupted, “So you did find my computer?”

She nodded. “I did. At the old Headquarters building.”

He smirked, and that expression on his angular face reminded Radiance why she’d always found him creepy. But his notes were the only reason she’d figured it all out.

“Did you hear that, Gambler?” The Scientist called.

Gambler knocked on his cell door and smiled. “5.4 percent. A gamble that paid off.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I saw a slim possibility that you would evade capture, go to the Headquarters building, find the laptop, and get to the files it contained. There was only a 5.4 percent chance of you getting this far. Less that you’d have backup like this,” he eyed the two retired heroes. “But it was better than nothing. But really, having Ninja and Lionheart with you… less than 1.8 percent...”

“A good thing you were able to convince me to leave my notes there before they took me,” The Scientist drawled.

“That had a 72.3 percent chance of success,” Gambler snapped.

“I did think it was a hell of a coincidence,” she admitted. “For the one computer I could find to have just the data I needed.”

“But you did find it,” The Scientist said. “And figured out how to get into the files. It had to seem like it could be coincidental, or it grew more likely someone else would find it first and destroy it.”

Grimoire cleared his throat. “Please discuss your brilliant planning later, because we aren’t safe yet.”

As soon as Radiance looked back at him, he continued. “The Scientist and I made the machine with instruction from Xehanort. We ran it the night of the press event, but didn’t know this was what it was supposed to do. He told us it was just going to open the door to this alternate dimension, not… populate it with copies. It needs to be destroyed, or he’ll just be able to keep making new versions of Heroes. He’s probably already working on new copies of The Scientist and of me, since you got rid of his first ones.”

She swallowed. The fact they could just be replaced didn’t make her feel better. “I’ll try to destroy it. Where is it?”

“With Xehanort, in the upper floors. But be careful; destroying it might destroy the dimension itself, pulling the castle and everything else in on itself.”

She nodded, and then cleared her throat. “I have to ask, has anyone seen Keyblade? He was taken, and I thought he’d be here.”

Nymph was the first to answer. “Haven’t seen the kid. Xehanort might have him. If you were the last one out there, it makes sense he’d want something to try and make you cooperate.”

Nymph’s eyes flicked toward Thorn and some of the other Heroes. Radiance wondered if any of them had been used to capture each other.

“Go get him,” Nymph added. “And Corridor.”

Radiance nodded. “The upper floors.”

“I’ll stay and try to get these locks open,” Yuffie said, already fiddling with what looked like a lockpick set and one of the cell doors. “You two go.”

Leon turned with Kairi to go back up the stairs, but they only made it a few steps before two of the Organization members headed them off. Lexaeus and Demyx.

Radiance flung out a sharp arc of light, temporarily blinding them.

“Keep going,” Leon said. “I’ll take care of them, and follow as soon as I can.”

Radiance nodded, edging around the pair of Organization members while they were still blinded, and kept running. She knew Leon could take care of the Organization members. But she also knew it was unlikely he’d be following her. Xehanort obviously knew they were here now, and he’d send more Organization members, or more Dusks, to ensure his prisoners stayed captive. And Leon would have to stay so that Yuffie could keep working. She knew Leon would come to the same conclusion.

Radiance made it back to the first floor they’d come in on, and only a few rooms away found the stairs that led up. She started to climb.

The unending white was almost making her nauseous. It reminded her of being on the very edge of fainting, where everything goes white around the edges. It was an uncomfortable realization that it reminded her of the Defenders of the Light Headquarters building, which had been less extreme, but always featured white surfaces, for a “modern” look.

The staircase curved around a corner, and there was a Dusk waiting for her. She readied her knife, but the Dusk vanished, leaving behind an envelope.

Cautiously, Radiance picked it up and opened it. She recognized the paper and the style. It was the same as the invitations to the press event had been. Thick, soft paper that probably cost more than it had any right to.

Radiance -

Your tenacity, allowing you to arrive here, is extraordinarily impressive. It’s regrettable that we didn’t recognize your potential sooner, a clear failure on my part.
Your friend Sora, or “Keyblade”, is here with me. I’ll open a portal for you. Come here, and neither of you will be harmed while we negotiate the best course of action.

- X

And true to the letter’s promise, a portal opened ahead of her.

It was horribly likely to be a trap. But it was also a direction. Something more specific than “up.”

Radiance stepped through.

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