allsoend | Black Gardens

Who: Anyone and everyone who wants to participate
What: Finding and destroying the pieces of heart that Xehanort has planted!
Where: Starting at Sora’s station, then going into the darkness
Warnings: Likely fighting, desperation and other forms of violence

Everyone arriving at Sora’s station of awakening would notice changes right away, even if they weren’t attuned to the darkness. The ever-present light shining from above had grown dim, barely lighting the glass below. The glass itself was still warped in its continual changes, but individual pieces of it were beginning to grow a bit darker.

Someone would have to stay behind to anchor all of the others, and to keep a watch on Sora’s heart from here. But beyond them, in the seemingly endless darkness, lay shards of heart deliberately planted and hidden. With each passing moment they were growing larger and digging roots deeper, threatening not just Sora, but every other heart inside him.

----------------------------------

Your characters can begin the hunt for the heart pieces that Xehanort has planted in the darkness of Sora’s heart! Unfortunately, finding and then eliminating them all is going to be no easy task. They’ve been hidden in the darkness very well, and even having an idea of what to look for, the fact that they’re planted in darkness at all makes them difficult to sniff out. What’s more, because they’ve been rooted in deep, it will take some effort to completely remove them...Keyblades and any other weapons available will likely be necessary.

To that end, this is how things will work: teams of 2-4 will go out into the darkness to search for the heart seeds. Characters should not travel alone, or else they’ll be lost. At least one character can be left behind at Sora’s station, both to serve as an anchor to call back anyone in the darkness, and to be able to tell easiest whether there are any remaining seeds left. But be warned: any anchor left behind will likely be involved in some combat, too!

For those in the darkness, those capable of looking can take one turn each to ‘scan’ the feelings of the surrounding darkness and see if they can pinpoint a heart seed. With each turn, they will have anywhere from a 1-in-3 to a 1-in-10 chance of finding one, depending on the seed. If they locate one, they can then begin the process of uprooting it and destroying it. If they find a particularly difficult one and are not well-equipped to handle it, they can use themselves as anchors to call over others to help. If no team can locate one during their turn, they can keep traversing the darkness and trying over and over until they locate one.

Time is working against them, though. The more turns it takes for them to locate a heart seed, the larger it will grow and the more difficult it will be to destroy it once it *is* found. Heart seeds left for too long may even fight back when attacked, or make themselves impossible to remove without also hurting Sora. If any one piece is left long enough to truly threaten Sora’s heart and identity, then Kingdom Hearts may step in to do something about it...and characters would *not* want that, as it would mean a terrible end for everyone. And Sora’s heart won’t be safe until every heart seed is found and eradicated!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kairi trusted Ienzo and Terra's 'noses' more than she did her own for this kind of mission...and at least in this case, it looked like it paid off. There was a moment of nothing but endless darkness, and then that glowing shard of heart embedded there before them. There was the source -or perhaps just a source- of Xehanort attacking Sora himself. Kairi grimaced. She wanted this awful thing gone, wanted Sora free of this man's influence once and for all!

"All right! Let's get rid of this thing."

With that, she pulled out her Keyblade, reared back and struck at it hard with a strong light-based swing. If this thing was nesting in darkness, then light should be effective at uprooting it.

Ienzo grimaced at the thing's appearance. Visually it wasn't terribly offensive - just somewhat wrong - but that was nothing in comparison to the waves of darkness roiling off of the thing. That much darkness should never exist in such concentration, and the fact that it was so familiar in its precise nature only made him want to back away more.

But he stood his ground, though unsure of what to do other than stay out of Kairi's way. If anyone could banish this kind of unnatural darkness, it would be a keybearer and princess of heart, wouldn't it?

Terra drew his own Keyblade, though someone paying close attention might have noticed a moment's hesitation. It had been fine before, but what if this time...But it was his Keyblade that settled into his grasp, as familiar as his own - well. Extremely familiar, anyway.

He followed up on Kairi, coming in perpendicularly to her so they were less likely to hit each other by accident. Terra's first attack was a powerful overhand smash, bringing the full weight of his body to bear. It was the only thing that felt anywhere close to enough.

The shard weakened under Kairi and Terra's combined attacks, and went a little darker in color. While it still tried to keep its hold on the darkness surrounding it, some more solid blows and strong attacks both physical and magical would likely fish it off.

"It's working!" Kairi cried, and struck at it again with a couple of quick strikes. Then, just for good measure (and once she was sure she wouldn't hit Terra or Ienzo in the process) she pulled back and unleashed a Faith spell on it, bombarding the seed with pillars of light.

Even as a heart, that spell took some effort, so she stopped for a breather and to allow Terra more time to get in his attacks...or Ienzo, if he wanted to throw in, too.

Though still uncertain of whether or not he could help, Ienzo felt more than a little wrong about just standing on the sidelines for something so important. Light wasn't an attribute of magic that he had much of any practice with, but the rest he could manage more than well enough. Raising his hands, he began to cast, surrounding the shard in tongues of flame and then encasing it in ice, alternating between the two. He wasn't sure of the physical properties of solidified darkness, but if it was crystalline in more than just appearance such drastic changes in temperature should make it more susceptible to shattering.

He could have tried magic, but it just felt so much better to hit things. Terra followed up Kairi's and Ienzo's spells with a string of blows this time, nothing fancy - one of the first combinations he'd ever learned, in fact. But this didn't have to be fancy; it wasn't like the seed was moving anywhere. If they'd weakened it, a strike to the right spot might crack the thing open.

The combination of magic and physical assaults from all three did their work, and the seed finally cracked and then shattered. The remaining pieces disintegrated into nothing, leaving behind little more than a scar on the darkness.

They were free to search for another, or to perhaps help some of the other groups searching.

Terra pulled back into a guard automatically as the seed cracked, worried about flying shrapnel, but it seemed the seed left nothing of itself behind to trouble them further. Seemed. He couldn't afford to be confident.

"We should probably check in," he said. "See if anyone else needs a hand."

Kairi breathed a heavy sigh of relief once the seed vanished. She worried a bit about that scar left behind, though...what sort of effect did that leave on Sora's heart? Was that just the price they had to pay to get rid of Xehanort for good? If it was, then that just meant they had to get to these things as quick as possible and minimize damage.

She nodded to Terra. "Right. I'll see if I can find anyone!"

With that, she closed her eyes and tried to focus out in the obscuring darkness, searching for the light of a fellow heart that she could hone in on.

Black Gardens

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(Move to Riku and KG's thread now?)