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Chapter 1: Daybreak Town of Beginnings1,623 words
Chapter 2: The Wretched Witch2,577 words

Chapter 2: The Wretched Witch

Over a month has passed since this game of death began, and Devin and his party were still going strong. Truthfully, it was sheer luck that they survived this long, especially with the death count of over 2,000 players, including the admins. Ever since they were struck down, they died in the real world, because the Union Masters pretty much hacked the game so they could kill anyone in one fell swoop, fortunately, that was a one time thing, so they can't strike down any other players so easily.

The current quest everyone was at now is 296, from what the Harmonic party could recall, they were 4 quests away from reaching the first Story Boss of the game; The Queen's conjured Heartless, the Wretched Witch. Devin and the other members of Harmonic were on their way to a meeting to discuss how they were going to take it on and pool their information together with the other players at the meeting. After arriving at the Fountain Square, where the meeting was taking place, they all stood in the center of the crowd, awaiting the person who called the meeting.

Very soon, the guy leading the meeting appeared; he was wearing a KH 3D Sora outfit, had a Neku Sakuraba hairstyle, but without the headphones, and he was carrying the third tier Olympia Keyblade. He stood at attention and clapped his hands, earning everyone's attention.

"Hello, everybody," he said, "thank you all for coming. My name is Arcadia and I've brought you all together as the most capable players to clear the game..." everyone remained silent, prompting him to continue, "...Now, you may not know about this, but the first Story Boss is 4 quests away from now." They all started mumbling to each other in surprise, "It may seem impossible at this point, but I know we can beat this game!" Everyone was quiet, then they all started clapping, especially the Harmonic party, "Settle down, settle down," they all did just that, "now then, if any of you have any information on the boss, anything at all, let us all know right now."

The crowd began looking at each other, wondering who could possibly know what the boss is or what it's capable of. Just then, Devin raised his hand.

"Yes, you, umm..."

"Devin."

"Devin, is there something you want to share with us?"

"Yes." Devin stepped out of the crowd and on the edge of the fountain, "I have a bit of information on the boss." Gasps rung out among the crowd, Devin recognized some of them from Canterlot High; Micro Chips, Sandalwood, Flash Sentry, and Blueberry Cake. Nonetheless, he continued, "It's a Heartless created by the evil queen from the Dwarf Woodlands, Wretched Witch. It throws exploding apples that occasionally gives you the status ailment, 'Poison', and can heal itself as well. It has three health bars, that's all I know."

Everyone was quiet when Devin stepped down and returned to his party, Arcadia took back control of the meeting and spoke, "Well, there you have it, that's pretty much what the boss is. Tell me, Devin, how did you know this?"

"...Because I played this game in the iOS version. Me and my party made it to Quest 450 before we converted to the VRH version."

The crowd might as well be in an uproar with how loud they all were, but Arcadia managed to calm them down.

"If that's true, then you could be quite the asset to us." Arcadia said.

"Not just me. Where my party goes, I go. I'm just the strategist, Roland's the leader."

"Either way, you and your party will be of great help if you've made it that far."

He nods and he and his party continue to listen to Arcadia.

"Now, on to the plan; since this will be a tough boss, we'll need all of our strongest players in the front lines, anyone who is below Lv. 100 should clear the remaining quests to reach the Wretched Witch. Sorry to anybody who wanted to participate in the boss battle, but we need all the manpower we can get and our Special Gauges kept at their maximum. Now for the distribution of loot; after the boss is defeated, Munny will be divided evenly between the players, whichever party defeats the boss gets the Lux, and whoever collects an item gets to keep it, lastly, everyone knows you can collect Munny, Lux, HP orbs, and Special orbs from hitting an enemy, if you do that, then they're yours to keep. Any questions?"

No one spoke.

"Good! We leave at noon tomorrow! Meeting adjourned!"

The crowd dispersed and Devin and his party left for their homes to rest for the upcoming battle.

Sleep didn't come easy for Devin, he stayed up until 1:00 AM, that's when he decided he needed to go for a walk to clear his mind. With that, he hops out of bed and waltzes out the door, taking in the nighttime air. After five minutes of walking, he felt a presence behind him and whipped out his Starlight Keyblade.

"Who's there?!"

Out of the shadows stepped Roland, hands up and open, no Keyblade to be seen, "I come in peace."

Surprised, Devin dismissed his Keyblade and looked at him a tired expression, "Couldn't sleep either?"

Roland shook his head, "No...tomorrow's gonna be hell in a handbasket."

"No joke."

The two walked together until they reached Fountain Square and sat on the edge of the fountain, the two friends quiet as the night.

Roland decided to break the silence, "Do you remember the day we met?"

Devin chuckled, "How could I forget? It was the day I made a great friend. We were writing fanfiction and we really liked what each other wrote, so we messaged from time to time, proofread some of each other's stories, added our input, and soon we became best friends." He sighed, "Those were the days. You know, before we got trapped inside a video game that kills you if your avatar's destroyed."

"Yeah..." Roland sighed, "I still can't believe the Union Masters did this."

"Me neither. Sorry I raised my Keyblade against you."

"It's fine, completely understandable, more so since there have been reports of player killings."

It's true, ever since the Union Masters took over the game, people have been killing off other wielders for various reasons; from stealing their Lux and items, all the way down to sick pleasure and amusement. Internally, Devin had been wondering if the programmers that were mentioned from the long deceased admins are even trying to get them out or if the Union Masters threatened them to stop or they'd kill every player in the game, honestly, he could not say. All everyone knows is that they've been trapped for far too long, any hope of anyone helping from the outside had vanished in a short amount of time.

"Devin? You okay?"

Roland snapped him out of his thoughts as Devin shook his head, "I'm fine, just thinking."

The two lapsed into silence again until Roland stood up and stretched, "Well, I better get back to bed, be safe."

"You too."

Roland left Devin at the Square as he continued to ponder for most of the night. Once it reached 3:00 AM, Devin chose to head home and get some rest, but sleep was still long coming...

It was 10 in the morning when Devin finally got out of bed, ate breakfast, and headed out to do some shopping before the battle; he had gotten a 5 star Xemnas medal, a 4 star KH II Sora Ver. B medal, and a 5 star Ice Titan medal. Before he could rendezvous at the Fountain Square, he had gotten a Raid Boss request at the last second. Without hesitation, he clicked it and ended up at the Square with several players against a Lv. 5 Behemoth. Devin immediately finds Roland and the rest of his party trying to fend off the Heartless and rushes to them.

"How many casualties?" He asked Roland.

"Two players, below Lv. 100, all 2 star medals." Roland responded.

"Damn! Should've known this would happen!"

Devin launched himself into the air and struck the horn with his Blazing Sword ability from his 6 star KH II King Mickey medal, causing over 10,000 points of damage to its HP and stunning it for one turn.

"Go, go, go!"

All the players attacked at once and destroyed the Behemoth, leaving behind a screen in its place.

Congratulations!
You defeated the Raid Boss!

Everybody got their share of Lux, and Roland was the MVP of the Raid Boss battle. They all took a moment of silence to honor their comrades who perished to help them get this far before pushing forward to Quest 300, except Devin.

Roland noticed this walked up to him, "You okay?"

"Barely." Devin responded, "Two more people are gone because of this...we need to finish this."

Roland nodded, "Yeah...let's go."

The two accessed their Quest menu, selected Story Quests, and clicked Quest 300, where the rest of the raid group was waiting for them.

Knowing that the Wretched Witch was a Magic type Heartless, Devin switched to the Lady Luck Keyblade, the medals attached are 5 star Marluxia B, 5 star Marluxia A, 5 star King Louie, 6 star KH II Yuffie, and 5 star Xigbar. As they all neared the boss, some had expressions of fear, anxiety, and determination, but none said a word the moment they arrived at the area where the Wretched Witch and The Queen waited for everyone.

"Commence...attack!!" Arcadia declared as the players charged forward.

It was all of the players' turns first, so they had a pretty good shot at taking the Heartless down; everyone, especially Devin, gave it their all, luckily Devin equipped his King Louie medal with Attack Boost II since it didn't do much damage before and couldn't find a way to evolve it any further. But even so, it wasn't enough as the Wretched Witch held on to a small fraction of its last HP bar and prepared to take its turn now.

"Dammit!" Devin cursed.

The Heartless struck everyone with a poison apple bomb attack, which gave half the group the Poison status ailment and depleted a good chunk of their HP, effectively killing off a quarter of everyone who was poisoned, not to mention the Wretched Witch regained an HP bar from its recovery ability.

"No! Those were our best wielders!" Arcadia cried, then kneeled as Poison took its toll on him.

"Arcadia!" Devin shouted as he used his first two medals on the Heartless and rushed to his side to use his King Louie medal to cast Esuna, "It's gonna be okay."

He readied his medal, but Arcadia stopped him, confusing Devin, "...You know...you went to CHS too...didn't you?"

Devin gasped in shock, "...Who...?"

Arcadia smiled, "...Thunderbass."

Devin's eyes widened, "The bass guitarist in Flash's band?"

He nodded and looked serious, "Please...I don't know much about you...but please...defeat the boss...not just for everyone...but for the world."

And as soon as he finished speaking, he glowed brilliantly and disappeared and particles of light, as per usual when someone from the Kingdom Hearts series dies.

When this game of death started, Devin began to recall in his head, all I thought about was how me and my party were going to survive, nothing else mattered. But you weren't like that, were you, Thunderbass? You brought everyone together, you used your leadership to have everyone fight to the best of their ability...you tried to accomplish something that I thought I never could. I never thought of myself as a leader, not once...but I wasn't no follower neither. I played by my own rules.

Devin gripped his Keyblade tightly as his party came up to him, "We're coming too." Roland said.

Devin nodded and charged with the Harmonic party trailing behind him, "Let's throw everything we got at it and then some!"

"You got it, pal!"

With that, everyone in the Harmonic party used up whatever their Special Gauges had left to destroy the Heartless, but it was its turn again and tried to bomb the party, fortunately, somebody else took the hit and by sheer luck didn't get poisoned, it was at that point that the raid group figured it was anyone's battle now charged toward the Wretched Witch.

One of the raid members stopped to speak to Devin, it was Flash Sentry, "We'll cover you guys till your HP is back up!"

Devin nodded in agreement as the others in his party began to heal him and themselves. The raid group was relentless in their assault, but it was time to finish this.

Devin got up and got ready to attack, "Guys! Help me out here! One last attack!"

"Right!" the Harmonic party agreed and joined you.

Devin charged up the Xigbar medal's Special Attack, Ragnarok, as the rest of the party gave it everything they've got. Just then, Devin released his attack, which dealt two attacks over 2,000 damage with no attribute bonus, effectively destroying the Heartless and causing The Queen to flee and try to crush the party with a boulder. But no one was scared, they all knew the outcome of this story; a lightning bolt struck the ground where The Queen stood and made her fall with the boulder following her descent and killing her off-screen as the storm raged on. Everyone was silent for a time, until they realized what happened, and cheered into the heavens as a screen appeared and announced their victory.

Congratulations!
Item(s) Obtained:
6 star Moogle medal

Devin breathed a sigh of relief, he was glad that he and his friends could live to see another day, but he was filled with grief as they had just lost many players today with little effort. But he wasn't going to dwell on it, if he lived in the past, he wouldn't be able to push forward to the future. Regardless, everyone began to leave the Dwarf Woodlands, except for the Harmonic party, who were worried about Devin.

"You okay there?" Jimmy asked.

"...Yeah, I'm fine." Devin answered.

"Then let's get going, everybody's gonna announce our victory and probably going to celebrate." Roland said.

"Okay." Devin agreed.

Soon, they all headed back to Daybreak Town with the death count fresh in Devin's mind. He knew that this was only the beginning of everyone's worries.

Author's Note:

Traits

Charisma: 1/100
Heart: 5/100
Expression: 3/100
Friendliness: 2/100
Optimism: 2/100
Trust: 4/100

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