Fate Gone Awry

"Yes, indeed I have. He helped me with getting into KH." Thananx replied to Adachi.

Dispatch looked over at Adachi. "The best actual idea I heard from you was to run away. That's not an option."

"I think we should just go with the upper castle rescue idea, we've been wasting too much time here butting heads over what to do," Thananx said to Dispatch and Adachi

"There's something I can agree with. Let's just stop wasting time and go. And hope like hell that we don't run into anyone who can potentially be a pain...namely Xemnas."

"I don't think Xemnas himself would come after us. He probably wants to take all his sweet time in Kingdom Hearts. Anyways, I'm ready to go when you, Adachi, and Kyouko are."

Dispatch nodded. "Born ready."

"Ok. Now we need only to wait for Adachi and Kyouko to ready up"

"No problem." Adachi said, looking at Kyouko. "Are you ready?"

"I don't know where they are," Larxene spat, "Why the hell do you think I'm down here?!"

"Then what about your friends?" asked Susan, placing a sai dangerously close to Larxene's nose.

"Why would I tell you that?" she asked, before being pressed closer to Siks' sword.

"You haven't got a lot of options, quite frankly," he stated bluntly.

"Well, there's always this one," she replied, smirking as she sent a jolt of electricity through her body.

Siks immediately let go in recoil, then noticed his mistake.

Larxene jumped up, the others running back to gain some distance. However, that proved unnecessary as Larxene immediately DC'd away, giving a small wave and a "Buh-bye."

The three of them relaxed.

"Well, she didn't seem to be in a good mood," Susan quipped, sheathing her sais.

"Probably lost a target down here," Siks said, dismissing his swords.

Kotank gave a small howl.

"I'm sure Adachi's fine," Siks reassured, "Who knows, maybe he found someone. Anyway, that's more than I can say for us. We're not gonna find anyone down here, whoever Larxene was chasing is probably long gone by now. Let's head back up."

The others nodded, finding the elevator fairly quick after getting through the basement's labyrinthian halls and went back up.

<Feel free to assume they made it up fine.>

Dispatch noticed the three of them coming up from the same place as Adachi and Thananx had. "Huh. Doesn't look like we'll need to," he said, pointing at them.

"Well, that's convenient. Now to see if I'm right..." Thananx said, than looked towards the trio. "Did you guys happen to run into a blonde, woman organization member who used electricity?"

"Yeah, we had her pinned down, too," Siks relied, he and his friends stepping off the elevator, "That is, until she zapped my hand and took off, probably knew she couldn't take us on."

Kotank gave an inquisitive howl, gesturing towards Thananx.

"New guy."

Kotank lightly roared again, as if to say "oh".

"Wait..." Adachi froze. "...She escaped? That means that she could be telling the rest of them our location as we speak, or-" He found himself unable to speak as a chill ran down his spine, terror binding his tongue. After a few seconds, he managed to weakly mutter something.

"It's him..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0TxLAbBH8

He was trembling, his pupils shrinking, paralyzed by the aura of menace now spilling out of the upper area. He forced himself to shake it off and recover, but was still visibly disturbed. "...We have to run. Now!"

The blue-haired young man immediately grabbed Kyouko's hand and took off in the direction of Rising Falls. "What are you waiting for!? Run for it, if you want to live!"

Indeed, the noise from the irrigation pipes and the hum of machines had died down a little, and everything looked slightly... gray. One's sense of reality began to diminish as their senses weakened, replacing the eerie atmosphere of Hollow Bastion with a void that sucked away at one's will.

Xemnas was out for blood.

"Aww, damn," said Dispatch. Every fiber of his being told him to rush at Xemnas and tear out his windpipe, but he knew that if he did that, he'd be the one to die. He turned and ran, using every bit of his willpower to avoid charging at Xemnas.

"Let's go," Siks told his friends, and they took off towards the others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyLoifSkIVA

Rexial was sitting on the roof of Disney Castle, watching the sun set in the distance. "I dunno if they'll ever find me here... but how can I escape? Even if I knew where to find a ship, I'd be terrible at piloting it, and... I dunno." He sighed. "Somehow, I don't want to betray King Mickey's trust. If I don't take action, I'll probably be stuck here for a long time, though."

He leaned back, still trying to think. If he could get a message to somebody, anybody in Organization XIV, then Xeromus would no doubt arrange a way out, whether it was a rescue, or just confirming with the King that Rexial was trustworthy enough to let go of.

The boy sat back up again, not really able to relax as the paradox continued to tumble around in his head. He hadn't seen any computers, and it wasn't like he could use fireworks to signal them from off-world. He continued to fidget, unable to think of a solution. "I'm not getting out of here for a long time, am I...? Well, it's not the worst place to be trapped."

Rexial smiled at the reddening sky. "At least I'm not locked up in the dungeon."

"Well, gosh, you're not THAT mad about being stuck here, are ya?"

The boy turned his head at the sound of the King's voice. "What are you doing up here, your Majesty?"

"What are YOU doing up here?" The mouse sat next to Rexial. "It looks like you're watching the sun set, to me."

"Yeah... Yeah, I am. Not much to do here, to be honest. I can't leave the castle, and I don't think I'll be able to for some time."

King Mickey's expression sagged apologetically. "Uh... gosh, I'm real sorry 'bout that. I'd let ya go see the town, but you're just too suspicious, wearin' the coat of the Organization and all."

"Aheh, you're right. ...Actually, I guess I could train. My friends'll need my help when they finally come to pick me up, so I should make sure I'm at the top of my game!" Rexial stood up. "It'll be a bit tricky without a sparring partner, but I can manage."

The King's grin returned. "Ya need somebody to train with?"

The boys eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You know somebody?"

The mouse held out a hand, and in a flash of light, a keyblade appeared. "Haha!"

"A... A keyblade wielder!?" Rexial exclaimed. "No way! Well, it definitely makes for a worthy challenge..." He sat back down. "...But y'know, I think it's a bit late for that. Let's have a spar tomorrow, okay? If you're free, of course."

"I can always make time for a friend."

"We're... friends?" The boy scratched the back of his head. "That easily? ...You're so strange."

King Mickey laughed at that. "Maybe you're the one who's strange. Why doesn't everybody try to make friends as much?"

"I guess people are just scared of each other." Rexial shook his head. "...Well, you should probably go back to your work. Don't worry about me, I should be fine on my own."

"Alright, then, Rex! See ya tommorrow!" The King said enthusiastically as he turned to leave. The short king paused for a second to look at the setting sun again before jumping into an open window.

...

"Maybe I'm scared, too...?" Rexial laid back, forgetting his escape plans for now, his mind clear enough for him to rest. "...Then I'll just have to crush that fear, show it who's boss."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0TxLAbBH8

"Run! Run! Run!" Adachi yelled, panicking as he continued his mad dash. "I'm pretty sure he has ranged attacks, so I think we're all screwed! But that's okay, let's just run for our godforsaken lives! Ha-hahahaaa!" He appeared to have snapped slightly from either the fact that Xemnas was likely to kill all of them now, or just the sudden creeping loss of sensation. It certainly felt like he was going insane, even if he knew it was really just the crushing presence of an ungodly-powerful Nobody whose element was NOTHINGNESS.

"Hey! Guy! With the shades!" He pointed at Siks, who was rather clearly not wearing any kind of glasses, darkened or not. "You got a ship, right? Fly us outta here!" Adachi broke down cackling, as the entire group had reached the end of Rising Falls, and were standing within a circle of light. He was too busy staring at Xemnas's distant figure approaching to stop yelling nonsense and remember what the hell he was supposed to do to get everybody off of Hollow Bastion.

Hopefully, Kyouko would know, or maybe Siks had parked his ship here, or they could just call it from wherever it was. Because he was completely out of it. Some rescuer.

"Working on it!" Siks shouted back, "We're going to have to beam up, and it'll be difficult to do that while we're moving!"

"R-right, stop moving. Got it." Adachi calmed down a little, able to stop his frantic, insane babbling. "...I'm having trouble feeling my toes. And it's spreading to my feet, and other extremities."

<For the record, they're at the save point now.>

Dispatch sighed at the savior-turned-mental patient. "Calm your ass down! Freaking out will NOT help!"

"Don't worry," Siks reassured, Kotank nodding as he finished tapping buttons on a fob-like device. "We're out of here."

Each of them were hit by a light-green beam from above, and they instantly found themselves in the cockpit of Kotank's ship.

"Right, right, sorry." Adachi mumbled. "I got a little crazy back there. They call you Dispatch, right? I think we'll be fine. It's not like their leader can-"

A red streak shot past the window.

"...Oh, um, right, I forgot how he leveled a castle on another world from down there. My bad." He had gotten much better, now that he was out of the influenced area. The boy's composure was still shattered, but at least he wasn't spewing nonsense anymore.

Tendrils of nothingness reached out, trying to catch and drag the ship back to earth as countless red shots sprayed across the sky. Xemnas' rage was so great that he really was going all-out to ground and murder them all.

"O-KAY, time to run!" exclaimed Dispatch, noting how strange it sounded for him to be suggesting running, but the only other option was death, so there wasn't any difficulty choosing. He dashed for the controls and sent the ship into full-throttle away from Xemnas.

Kotank promptly pulled Dispatch from the chair and sat in it himself, proceeding to do the same thing Dispatch had been doing.

Siks and Susan each took hold of the gun controls, firing at the tendrils with the rear guns.

Adachi scanned the area around the ship carefully with his eyes, searching...

"There! An opening!"

He ran forwards and pointed to a gap in the tangle of attacks an tendrils.

Meanwhile, red lights began to appear around the ship, stationary, poised to all strike at once and cripple the Golden Hawk.