Sombra hated trains. Not in a way that he hate to ride along them or that they terrified him or anything like that. Sombra feared very few things. His hatred for trains popped up right around the time that he had met Xion and her experience with trains. For that was the first time he had run into Heartless. And Sombra was afraid of the Heartless. Yet there was Xion and Sombra, sitting on the cushions of another train, heading towards another destination that would probably have another fight waiting for them.
Getting Xion onto the train had been no trouble for Sombra. The moment that the conductor's eyes started to wide at the red eyes of Xion, Sombra had used his magic to control the pony's mind, making him a slave to Sombra's will. Sombra had wanted to make the conductor do some hilarious things, but a cold remark by Xion put an end to that. So Xion had boarded the train with no issues, but she still took up a car in the back just to avoid attracting attention to herself.
'And so here we are, sitting in another train and heading off to fight more Heartless,' Sombra thought to himself. Xion had been gracious enough to take Sombra out of her pocket and she had rested him on the cushions next to her seat. And then she clasped her hands together and stared at the floor for hours on end.
'None of my attempts to get through to her have been for nothing. Whatever is eating at her will take more than a few snide remarks to snap her out of,' Sombra thought to himself. He then watched as Xion pulled out her old Organization coat and reached inside of it, pulling out a small seashell from within its pockets. She placed the coat on the seat across from her before she began to move her fingers over the shell, her eyes a million miles away.
'She's thinking about the being in the cloak. Who she believes to be Roxas,' Sombra thought. He didn't have to ask Xion if his line of thinking was correct, he knew that it was. What he didn't know was why she was so dead set on the cloaked being's identity being Roxas. 'The Maestro is a being that travels realities. It could have been any keyblade wielder for all we know. Xion's just letting her past get to her again. Got to try and break her out of it.'
'That's a nice seashell you've got there,' Sombra pointed out, but Xion didn't respond. 'It's especially nice considering that you told me that you've never been to the beach before. Yet you've got a shell. What, did you buy it from some shell shop because you were too afraid to actually step foot on the beach?'
It took Xion a minute before she responded to Sombra's words. "I wasn't completely honest with you when we first met," Xion revealed to Sombra, who wasn't surprised in the least. "I have been to the beach before. Actually, I've been there a few times. But I never went there with Axel and Roxas. And we promised that we'd all go together. That's the promise that I'm trying to fulfill...and why I want to get there so badly."
'You think Roxas and Axel will be there,' Sombra said, not needing an answer to know that he was right. 'Xion, we are in an entirely different reality than the one that you've come from. There is very little chance that those two could make it to this reality, and even if they could, the Maestro would have most likely gotten to them.'
"I know that."
'But more importantly, you told me that, somehow, everyone in your world forgot all about you, forgot that you even existed,' Sombra continued on, not seeing Xion clench her fists around her seashell. 'So even if they managed to cross the reality barrier and even if they managed to avoid the wrath of the Maestro, how would they know to go to the beach? And how would they know to meet you there?'
"I KNOW!" Xion roared with fury, silencing Sombra instantly. For a few minutes Xion sat and seethed with rage, before she hung her head and placed it into her hands. "What do you want me to say, Sombra? That I have no real reason for pushing on? That I'm being used by a dark king to further his goals while I hold onto a small sliver of hope that my friends will be waiting for me?"
Sombra, for the first time in his life, didn't have a response.
"I know that it's foolish of me to think that they'll be there waiting for me. Hell, if things went according to Namine's plan Roxas will be apart of Sora again," Xion said, her words confusing Sombra but he stayed silent. "And Axel has most likely faded at this point. But I was torn from my peaceful resting place and forced to live again. And then I've been fighting against new and old foes alike in a world I know nothing of with beings I know nothing about. It has taken all I have and that last shred of hope to keep me from just giving in and letting the Heartless tear me apart. And now the Maestro is after me with far more vengeance."
"I'm tired Sombra. I'm so tired of being a pawn in somebody else's game," Xion revealed. She paused for a moment so that Sombra could make his witty comment, but when silenced reigned she continued on. "Ever action, every decision and ever road I've gone down has either been according to somebody else's plan or going against their plan. Nothing I have ever done has been...according to my plan. I just move along, hoping that today isn't the day that their plan comes true. And yet here I am, following your plan. I truly am a puppet, aren't I?"
Xion stayed silent for a long time after that, leaving Sombra to think hard about what he was going to say to her. Yet Sombra found that there was nothing he could say. He then cast a glance towards Xion's face, noticing that small cracks were starting to form along her face and neck.
'Her body won't hold up much longer,' Sombra noted and he would have frowned if he was able to. 'Her body should be lasting longer, but the constant battles and stress has torn down her body even faster. She's got maybe...a few more days at most. I've got to think of a way to fix. And I've also got to think of a way to take her minds off of these stressful thoughts. They aren't doing her any favors.'
'So, Namine. She was one of those reflections of yours in the mirrors, wasn't she?' Sombra asked point blank, getting Xion to snap out of her thoughts and she glanced down at Sombra. 'Ah, no need to answer now, your face tells me all I need to know. So who is this Namine and why does she have such power over you?'
"She doesn't really, but...you remember how I said when a person becomes a Heartless, if they have a strong enough will they leave behind a Nobody?" Xion asked.
'Yep. Why, does this get even more complicated?'
"Afraid so. See, Roxas is Sora's Nobody. But Namine is kinda Sora's Nobody as well. At least, that's how she put it when she told me her story," Xion stated, while Sombra was doing his best not to have his brain implode. "Sora had a girl named Kairi's heart inside of him when he became a Nobody, so when Sora lost his heart so kinda did Kairi, forming Namine. But then there was-"
'Kairi, the red headed girl?' Sombra cut her off, looking for any excuse to change the conversation away from confusing. 'Yeah, I saw her reflection in the mirrors as well. She Sora's special somebody?'
"Um, I think so? I don't know, the memories are all confusing. Whatever Maestro did to me has made it hard to recall memories that aren't mine," Xion replied. She closed her eyes and thought for a moment, only to shake her head as she opened her eyes. "Sorry, but Sora's memories just are just too confusing for me to decode. All I can understand is what I remember from my time in the Organization."
'Ugh, your story is so damn confusing,' Sombra said with a shake of his horn. The sound of a voice echoed throughout the train, telling all of the passengers that the train was coming to a halt. 'Wait a moment, that can't be right. We're still a good twenty minutes out from the city. Why in the infernal hell are we stopping here?'
Xion threw up the window and stuck her head through it, her eyes going wide when she saw the city in the distance. She brought her head back inside so that she snatch Sombra off of the seat, only to stick him through the window so that he could see the reason for the unexpected halt.
Off in the distance was Mareami, covered in a dome of darkness that was a sea of black against a beautiful blue sky. Even though they were miles from the city, Sombra and Xion could both see winged Heartless flying around on the outside of the dome. And off to the side of the domed city was a stretch of white sand that seemed to go on forever, catching Xion's eyes and making a thin smile crossing her face.
'I'm almost there. I'm almost to the beach,' she thought to herself before she brought her head back into the train, picking up her Organization cloak and stashing it in her inventory. She then raced down the train car and kicked the door off of the train open, before she leapt out and started to race towards the city in full sprint.
'Xion, what in the blazes are you doing? Slow down, we need to form a plan of attack before we just run in there!' Sombra roared at Xion, but the girl couldn't hear Sombra's voice anymore. 'Xion, will you listen to me? I can't feel Twilight's Rainbow Power, meaning if she is in there she won't be on our side! For the love of Faust, listen to me!'
'I'm almost there, Roxas. Axel. I've almost fulfilled our promise,' Xion thought to herself silently, the smile fading from her face as she ran. 'And I know that I'll see at least one of you there. I just wish that it would be as friends, not as enemies.'
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No. I
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The army of Heartless that swarmed on the outside of the dome looked far more dangerous up close than it had from the safety of the train that was a good ways away. Xion had taken shelter behind a boulder in hopes that she wouldn't be spotted right away, but she knew that it was only a matter of time until the Heartless sensed the presence of a keyblade wielder.
"Do you think that your dark magic can get us through that barrier?" Xion asked Sombra, who took a moment to think before he sighed.
'I should be able to, but the down side is that we'll have to be point blank in order for my magic to do anything to that amount of dark power,' Sombra stated. 'If you could open another corridor of darkness, we could skip past all of this and get into the city. But then you'd be in no shape for the fight that will come on the other side.'
"So you've also realized what awaits us on the other side of that dark dome," Xion muttered, a smirk crossing her face. "Well glad to see that both of us know better than to think that it would be easy. So all I have to do is get you to that dome, right?"
'Yeah, that's all you have to do. Simple, except for the army of Heartless that stand between us and that dome,' Sombra pointed out as he stared at the numerous Heartless, some of which were versions that he had never seen before. Numerous ones looked like wyverns, which patrolled the skies to keep out any airborne foes. Giant, armored ones with dog faces on their shields stood rooted in place like a defensive wall, while the small Soldiers patrolled the area around the dome.
"Look on the bright side. I've only got to get past them. I don't actually have to beat them all," Xion pointed out before she summoned her keyblade, glancing down at the rainbow thunderbolt that made up her blade. She took a moment to take in a few deep breaths, before she rose to her feet.
'Don't want to try out the new blade you got?'
"I don't know what that one can do and this is the strongest blade I currently have," Xion replied with a grimace. "And with my light and dark forms limited I'm going to need all the raw power I can get. Come on Sombra, let's do this."
Xion then leapt on top of the boulder and kicked off of it, launching herself into the air above the Heartless. The monsters of darkness had just enough time to look up at the being of darkness before bolts of lightning came crashing down upon them, blasting the Soldiers to darkness while the giant, armored Heartless tanked the blasts. The Defenders then pointed their shields at the girl, before firing blasts of fire from the mouths on the dog heads.
'Incoming!' Sombra roared as the fireballs came blazing towards them. Xion narrowed her eyes before she lashed out with the keyblade, swatting the blasts of fire out of the air. She landed with a roll so that she could be up on her feet a moment later, sprinting full speed towards the Defenders. 'Careful, those things look like they're hell to get through!'
"Noted," Xion replied as she reached the first Defender. The Heartless roared before it lashed out with its shield, driving the full shield towards the girl. She leapt into the air and kicked off the shield once it reached her legs, propelling herself over the head of the Heartless. She came crashing down with the keyblade aimed at the back of the Heartless's head, slashing through it and turning the creature to darkness a moment later.
'Behind you!'
Xion spun around just in time to take two clawed feet to the face, knocking her off of her feet and sending her crashing across the ground. Xion bit back a curse as she sat up in time to see her assailant sailing back into the sky, with three more Wyvern's heading in her direction.
'Those things are fast. Might want to catch them with some magic before they get too close,' Sombra advised Xion. Xion nodded before she thrust her keyblade into the sky, summoning bolts of lightning from the clouds above. Lightning came raining down from above with a murderous intent, striking all of the Wyvern out of the sky and bringing the Heartless tumbling into the dirt with Xion.
The Wyvern got back up a few moments later, but it was a moment too slow as Xion was already upon them. In a flash of rainbow lightning Xion cleaved through the three Wyverns, blasting them into darkness before she sprinted back in the direction of the Defenders.
The Defenders had seen what Xion could do and they had taken measures to make sure that she couldn't do it again. The Defenders linked up their shields together and began to fire a wave of fireballs towards the keyblade wielder. Xion swatted at every fireball that came her way, but as more and more fire came blazing towards her she had to stop her advance and cast a barrier around herself to get a reprieve from the onslaught of fire.
'Well they've pinned us down. Any ideas that can get us out of this one?' Sombra mocked Xion. The keyblade wielder narrowed her eyes in reply before she started to channel the dark power within her, changing her left arm to that of a demons arm with three clawed fingers at the end. She then shattered her barrier before she plunged into the ground, vanishing into the shadows and surging towards the Defenders.
The Heartless looked around for her for a moment, yet they never saw her emerge from the darkness behind them until it was already too late. Xion roared with rage as she slashed through the back of one of the Defenders, cleaving it clean in two. She was on the next couple in a heartbeat, roaring with fury as she plunged her darkness arm through the shield and then the chest of the Heartless. With another bellow she flung the Heartless into another Defender with such force that they both burst into darkness.
Xion then turned her gaze towards the final pair of Defenders, glaring at the pair of them from under he bangs. The pair of Defenders slammed their shields into the ground before they started to march towards the girl, hardly phased by the dark arm that was pulsing with darkness or the fact that she had just torn through over ten Heartless with ease.
'Finish them off and make it quick. You shouldn't spend much longer in that form,' Sombra advised Xion, who nodded in understanding before she plunged into the darkness at her feet once more. This time the Defenders knew what was coming and they placed their shields on the ground to try and stop her oncoming attack.
Yet her darkness was far too powerful for the Defenders to deal with, so when she burst from the darkness claw arm first the Defenders were hurled into the air. "You're done," Xion said before she thrust her clawed hand into the air after them, summoning an orb of darkness within the hand that ripped apart the two Defenders with ease. Xion then let out a bellow of fury as she roared at the sky, the darkness moving up her arm and starting to consume her neck.
'Xion, put a lid on it. We need to get to the dome before more Heartless show up,' Sombra advised Xion. Xion closed her eyes and let out a small sigh, chaining up her darkness once more and allowing her to think clearly once more. Once she was in control once again, Xion ran over towards the dome, doing her best to keep the pain that was burning in her body from showing on her face.
When she reached the barrier she pulled out Sombra's horn and pressed it against the dome. Sombra channeled his dark magic and sent a pulse of magic out through the barrier, causing a ripple to form across the darkness for a brief moment. Sombra roared as his magic began to tear away at the barrier, tearing open a small hole that was just large enough for Xion to enter.
'Alright, let's head on in and put a stop to this madness,' Sombra said to Xion, who nodded in reply. 'And be careful in here. Not only are there a ton of Heartless in here, but I have a feeling that something is wrong with princess Sparkle Butt.'
"Got it. Fight the Heartless, save the princess, try not to die. Sounds like every other day here."