Disclaimer: Look, we all know what the deal with
Kingdom Hearts is. It's a joint Squaresoft/Disney
venture, and one company or the other owns rights in
some fashion to every character in this story. 

Continuity: This takes place before Neverland and
after Atlantica. Yeah, I know, what a huge window,
right? :-p



KINGDOM HEARTS EXTRA-

The Hall of Lost Heroes 
Part 2

by Aaron Bergman.



"We gotta find Sora, Donald."

Donald nodded solemnly. "I know, Ghoofy, I know."

A frown creased my face, exposing my teeth, as a
sudden thought occurred to me. How were these people
able to exist independently of some controlling force?
As far as my experiences with Sora's small collection
of the Summon Gems extended, it was impossible for
them to be walking about all by themselves. 

Of course, I would be the first to admit my ignorance
of many things (well, perhaps the second; my dear
friend Donald does so enjoy reminding me frequently
that I knew very little about the way the worlds
worked), so I filed away this thought carefully. It
does not do to collate all the data prematurely! Such
an act often leads to defective conclusions.

"Awwwh, I just wish we had some clue, Donald." I
kicked at the sand, disgruntled, as my mind went from
one inconclusive mystery to the next. "If only we had
some way of findin' Sora, or even knowin' he was
here!"

Without a word, Donald held up one of Sora's
collection of keychains. For a moment, I couldn't
identify it, then I remembered that it was the one
that Sora had recieved from the hands of that fulsome
young mermaid, Ariel. Donald directed a glance at the
threesome still chatting with each other at the cove's
edge. "Until I sawh this, Ghoofy, I whas afwaid that
maybe WHE where Summon Ghems too!"

That... was a thought that had honestly not occurred
to me. "Garsh, Donald, I shore don't FEEL like a
gem..." I pinched myself, just to be certain there was
nothing crystalline about me at all.

Donald sputtered for a moment, apparently angry for
some unfathomable reason at my innocent comment, then
he waved the hand holding Sora's keychain. "Come on,
whe'd better ghet back bhefore those people come up
here."

His words made sense, and I showed that by giving him
a smile and striding towards Rydia once more. She
seemed deep in discussion with Donald's two friends,
and I was hesitant to disturb her, but she spotted me
and waved me closer.

The young man named Bart was saying, "Maybe we
deserved this, and maybe we didn't. I refuse to
believe that we're being punished!" His voice was taut
with anger, and he rubbed his temple as if he had a
headache.

I stumbled a bit as I recalled Rydia's earlier words.
_Or perhaps it's Purgatory, eternity's holding pen for
all of us trapped here..._

I suddenly didn't believe the word Purgatory was
strong enough for this place. To have strength of self
so pure that not even the Heartless could touch it was
a laudible thing, something that had always made me
want to know the few Summon Gems Sora possessed as
_people_. 

But this place made that into a punishment, a torture
worse than any I'd ever heard of; and someone or
some_thing_ had coldly chosen to Summon these people,
then had the power to keep them here. Someone or
something that must derive a sadistic pleasure from
watching these souls torment themselves.

"Golly!" I said, the word heartfelt if not exactly
eloquent. All four people there looked at me
strangely, and in an effort to cheer myself and
everyone around I hastened to add, "Well, it ain't as
if we got nothin' here. This place is beautiful, y'all
seem like nice folks, and at least we got our health!"

The other duck (Darkwing, that was his name), who had
been quiet up until now, spoke. "Ah, and what were you
in your own world? All of us were heroes-" hesitantly,
he added, "-of sorts, and, well, it just grates on me,
living here, knowing that I died, wondering if
they're..." Darkwing suddenly stopped, turned, and
walked away without another word.

Rydia's eyes followed him sympathetically and said
quietly, almost to herself, "Mr. Darkwing was one of
the first here. Maybe the first. Oh, it was bad enough
to wake here, even with the others helping, but to
have woken up here _alone_..."

Bart shuddered, and I felt the urge to do the same as
my imagination summoned up the merest spectre of what
that would have been like. Donald spoke up, providing
a dearly welcome interruption. "Whe where heroes too,
fighting the Heartless." His voice turned grim. "Whe
haven't lhost yet!"

Rydia looked askance at Donald, and even Bart seemed a
bit questioning. The young man fiddled with his
eyepatch a bit as he asked, "What do you mean,
Donald?"

Donald leaned in close. "Whe came here with another
person, a person who can fight the Heartless! Whe've
already beaten them on sevhen whorlds, and whe'll beat
them on more!" 

As he continued on, spilling out the words of our tale
up to this point, my eyes opened wide. Did he truly
mean to tell them everything? Then, my eyes narrowed,
and I almost wanted to smack myself. _Donald_ was the
paranoid one, not I! But... if _he_ hadn't managed to
figure out that there was someone or something out
there who had all of these people's Gems and might be
looking through their eyes at us right now, then we
were sunk. 

But... but... looking at these two, I couldn't make
myself believe that telling them had been a bad thing.
Their eyes were alight with hope at hearing our tale,
and for the first time I saw why the Heartless could
not touch them. 

Truly, they were heroes.

If somewhat trusting, to just believe our words with
nothing to back them up... but then again, I've always
preferred to trust someone until they do something
that disproves that trust.

Bart was the first to speak. "What needs to be done,
to find this Sora?"

****

Sora wandered through the dimly lit tunnels where his
benefactor made her home, his mind blank and the world
around him seeming to be in a fog. 

After that initial jolt of being told that the only
two friends he had left in the world were dead, the
numbness had gripped him. In a distant way, he thought
that it was a good thing, a welcome thing. Without
that, Sora... Sora wasn't sure what he'd do. 

Quietly, he asked the cavern wall, "What did I do to
deserve this? Will all my friends leave me, vanish,
disappear?" With a thought, he conjured the Keyblade
to his hands and held it up. Even through the
numbness, even though he felt so dried up and wrung
out by tears that he thought not a drop was left in
him, his throat was choked as he asked the last
question, 

"In the end, will this be the only thing I have left?"


Sora banished the Keyblade with another thought and
slumped against the wall. His eyes slipped closed and-

****

Sora sprinted to where Kairi was kneeling in the sand
with Selphie, both of them with sticks in their hands.
They'd drawn strange, whirling designs, and were
giggling like loons as he skidded to a halt. The
moment they noticed him, they tried to swallow the
giggles, which only made Sora grin in amusement
himself because now the two girls looked like blowfish
with their huge cheeks and weird expressions. 

But enough of laughter, it was time for business. Sora
went to one knee in front of Kairi and formally held
the hilt of his sword towards her. "Let me be the
first to offer my undying pledge to protect you, my
Lady." 

Kairi looked at him, an incredulous expression on her
face. "What?"

"I'm the knight who's gonna rescue you!"

The girl held up one finger and pointed it at Sora.
"Look, Sora, I can rescue MYSELF. I don't need you!"

Rikku dashed up too, out of breath. The first sentence
out of his mouth was a growled, "You cheater, Sora!"

Sora lifted his head to grin cockily at Rikku.
"Nuh-UHHH! Tidus was the one that gave the count. Just
'cause you're out of shape-"

If he'd looked mad before, then now he looked furious.
"Out of- OUT OF SHAPE?!?!"

Kairi stood up and placed her hands on her hips in a
perfect indignant impersonation of her mother. "What
ARE you two doing?"

Ignoring her, Rikku's face swiftly changed from angry
to amused. "Well, if I can't be the good knight who
saves her, I'm going to be the... EVIL KNIGHT THAT
TAKES HER! NYAH HAH HAH!!!" With a ridiculously funny
evil laugh, he scooped Kairi up over one shoulder and
started running for the cave. Sora, caught totally
off-guard, could only stare after them for a moment.

"Hey, no fair! You cheater!" he called out after them
as he started running. 

Despite the burden of Kairi, Rikku still got to the
cavern first. Sora had to admit to himself that even
if Rikku was a slowpoke, he WAS pretty strong.

Dashing into the cavern mouth, he followed its twists
and turns up to the old cave, burst out onto the sandy
floor, and-

Saw Kairi standing over Rikku's body, his own wooden
blade in her hands. She looked at him and said cooly,
one eyebrow arched at a challenging angle,

****

"I can... rescue myself?"

Sora nearly jumped to his feet as Kairi's voice faded
from his ears, replaced by the lady's who had rescued
him, whose tunnels he'd wandered in for hours. "What?"
he asked stupidly. 

"You were-" she hesitated a moment, her song sliding
upward into a questioning note. "Talking in your
sleep. To someone named Kary?"

The numbness was still there, thankfully, despite his
brief dream, and Sora embraced it willingly. Sora
looked up at the lady and said dully, "Her name is
Kairi, and I was- I AM looking for her."

The lady nodded slightly, her delicate mouth turning
up at the corners in a smile. Her song this time was
reminiscent, as though recalling something dear to her
heart. "She sounds a very strong young woman, to be
saying such things as that. I was strong... once." 

With that, she turned away from him, the song sliding
downward into an earnest warning. "Be careful where
you wander in this place, young Master Sora. It could
be dangerous if you were to try and open any locked
doors you may find."

****

It was a strange scene, once we returned to the small
hut that Rydia shared with several other women. I
couldn't tell my new companions of my suspicion that
someone might be watching us (such a comment might
have led to revelations about Summon Gems), but it
wasn't necessary to do so. 

They both seperately came to the conclusion that
SOMEONE must have seized Sora and our ship, after
Donald and I finished describing them. Of course, they
saw that whoever did that could mean no good in doing
so... and they both immediately assumed that the
person who did it could be _anyone_ from their little
village. 

Hence, Rydia had politely asked the other women to
leave, and waited for them to do so before we got to
any planning. 

The only problem was that we didn't know what to plan
for!

Donald had been out to this Welcoming Green where we'd
been found and had seen no tracks, no trails
whatsoever, that might have indicated the gummi ship
being dragged away. It had been there, for certain;
he'd found the small crater where it had crashed, and
glass from where I'd rather abruptly exited through
the windscreen, but... no ship. 

"Someone musta picked it up and carried it away," Bart
said, disgruntlement showing in his tone and his face.
"The only question is, was it done with magic or with
muscle?"

"There are far more questions than that." Rydia
frowned as she continued. "If someone took it, and
took this Mr. Sora, why didn't they take you?"

I shrugged and contributed my notion. "Garsh, maybe
this person just picked up the ship, and just didn't
notice that poor li'l Sora was in there! The only
reason we didn't get taken too is 'cause me an' Donald
weren't in there, ya think?"

With a nod, Rydia said, "That does make some sense,
but..." she seemed reluctant to speak, but carried on.
"Would they have any reason to keep... your friend
alive?"

Donald's eyes opened wide and he spluttered
incoherently for a moment. Slamming his wand into the
roughly made table's surface, he nearly shouted,
"Whe'veh gotta DHO zomeking!"

"Ah, pardonnemoiz..." 

All of us turned to the doorway, and it was a
statement of how tense we were that the slender woman
standing in the doorway blinked and smiled slightly as
we readied weapons. "Ah, I can zee that you are, how
you say, deep in discussion, no?"

I took a moment to study this newcomer closely as I
lowered my shield. She was short and slight, her body
clothed in a garish, tight outfit that seemed a blend
of harem dancer and King's harlequin. The image she
presented was highlighted with the stark white
facepaint that covered her features, her enormous eyes
outlined in black and blue tears that sparkled in the
afternoon sunlight were painted as though sliding down
both her cheeks. However, her lips were painted a dark
red and were curved up in a smile that seemed to defy
her tears, to defy the tears of everyone here. 

She bowed to us and said, "I did not mean to overhear,
but it seemz you need ze services of a trackair, and I
may be able to, ah, provide her?" 

Rydia said softly, "Harle..."

The newcomer - Harle, that was her name - shook her
head decisively. "Non, non, non! I will NOT hear any
wordz of not 'elping you."

"Can we trust her?" Bart asked, looking at Rydia. She
gasped in shock at his bluntness, but Harle nodded,
appreciating his honesty. 

The green-tressed woman twirled a strand around her
finger as she considered Bart's question. With some
confidence, she said simply, "Yes, we can." 

After a moment of waiting for her to elaborate, Donald
shrugged and said, "Awh whell. Mohre hands make lhess
work."

Harle clapped once, a broad smile across her face.
"Ah, but it was not ze handz I am going to bring to
zis dance, it is a _nose_." She laid one finger
alongside her own delicate nose, her smile, if
anything, growing wider.

-END Part 2

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