Re: Kingdom Hearts: Hearts in Unison (Chapter 23 posted)
Ah, thank you Seph! <3
This was quite nice of you to inform us readers that quite don't know about Beatrix to get the premise of her character. Going the extra mile, I quite enjoy it.
I hope you do this other times just in case we don't know. Time permit of course. Now I await with this new found knowledge I didn't know before. Should make things easier to understand!~
No issue, as the chapter took a bit longer this time around and I had some time, I thought it'll be a nice option to bridge over the wait.
Glad it came over useful, if time permits it I'll surely give something similar if the need arises.
Now, let's get on with the next chapter and see Beatrix in action against some nasty Heartless (those who played Re: Coded may recognize them, lol).
Not to mention that two more FF characters join the fray!
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XXIII. The ensuing battle
A Sergeant-Heartless tried in the meantime to break through Merlin's protect-dome, scratching away at it with its claws to reach the children. Merlin swung his wand with astounding speed, hitting the Sergeant with a round of gold sparkles which froze the dark being solid.
"Monster-popsicles...again you're very much creative, Merlin!" A new voice interjected with an amused tone.
"Well, how about sending the trash back into the litter bin?" A second, female voice added.
A buzzing sound was heard as an arrow glowing with red energy flew at the frozen Sergeant, obliterating it.
"Excellent shot Fran, let's see if there are any monsters good enough to be felled by the leading man." The first voice said calmly as a man in elegant clothes came into view from a side street, brandishing a gun.
Another Surveillance Robot and two Red Nocturnes turned at the newcomer, shooting lasers and some fireballs.
"Now now, that's quite a rough welcome." The man smirked while dodging aside, shooting one of the Red Nocturnes with two energy blasts of his weapon in the process.
Tifa, Aerith and Merlin looked on with a mix of excitement and wonder.
"Balthier! So you made it back here as well!" Aerith said with a small giggle.
"Took us long enough, but we and our bunch of evacuees only recently heard that this world is getting rebuilt." Fran answered, standing on the top roof of a building, her shining silver Sagittarius-bow resting in her hand.
"Good enough to see you both survived the fall of the world 11 years ago." Tifa added, jumping over a third Armored Knight kicking it in the back.
Fran only gave a satisfied nod to this, her rabbit ears twitching a bit.
"The leading man won't die..." Balthier exclaimed in a somewhat dry tone, blasting the Surveillance Robot and the second Red Nocturne before kicking aside a hopping Crescendo.
"Watch out! That type of Heartless can call reinforcements!" Tifa yelled as she recognized the Crescendo.
"What? This little...? Balthier turned to see the Crescendo getting up, hopping around again and starting to make honking noises with its horn-like mouth.
As Balthier aimed to shoot the thing he got tackled by a flying Heartless swooping in.
"Dammit..."
"It's a Windstorm..." Aerith shot an Aero-spell at it, but it easily dodged midflight.
Fran loaded another red glowing energy arrow in her bow, but her shot also missed.
Four Soldiers charged, two of which got blocked and kicked back by Tifa while the other two got frozen by Merlin.
The honking Crescendo had by now opened a dark portal with its noises.
"Looks like here comes trouble." Balthier said with a wry expression.
With a mighty roar a Behemoth stepped out of the portal, surprising the gathered Radiant Garden defenders.
"Take the kids away from here, Merlin!" Aerith yelled, blocking the first energyball shot from between the Behemoth's outer horns with a Reflect spell.
Nodding, Merlin teleported himself and the kids away from the town square.
"You pesky honking nuisance." Balthier snarled, shooting the Crescendo with three well-aimed shots before dodging another attack of the Windstorm.
"You want some too?" He fired three more shots at the Windstorm, the flying Heartless dodging all three of them as the Behemoth executed a stomping attack, causing an earthquake.
Some rockspikes shot out from the ground and the shaking let Tifa, Aerith and Balthier first tumble and then fall to the ground.
Fran managed to hold on to a chimney on the roof as the Behemoth roared again, forming another energyball between his outer horns, his central horn steadily adding more power to it.
The Windstorm saw its chance and dived at Balthier, who rolled out of the way before taking aim shortly blasting a shot right through the draconian Heartless's right wing.
Crippled, the beast thudded on the ground as Aerith regained a good standing position, blasting the Heartless with a mighty Thundaga spell.
"That sphere gathers more and more energy!" Tifa warned alarmed, cloaking her right leg in magical water-energy kicking away another Sergeant-Heartless.
"Not good..." Aerith swirled around, whacking the heavily damaged Windstorm with her staff in the process.
Balthier also got up again now, hitting a small switch on his gun.
"First things first..." Instead of repeated energy shots the gun now fired a steady beam of electrical energy, finally eliminating the Windstorm.
Dusting his clothes with his free hand a bit Balthier turned then to Aerith. "Now, how do we get rid of this big baby here without too much collateral damage to the town?"
Aerith gave him a worried glance. "First we need to disrupt it charging that energysphere; the more energy it gets the less probable it can be blocked."
"Agreed, but how to do...direct shots at it don't seem to work...sorry..." Interupting himself Balthier took a side step to dodge the tackle of a Hammer Frame, frying it with the electro-beam from his gun before continuing. "...and neither does most elemental magic."
"Its most important part is apparently the central horn on the forehead." Fran's voice cut in from the roof.
"Great observation, can you hit it from above there?" Balthier shot back, grinning.
Fran smirked and instead of an answer, a new red colored energy arrow formed in her hand. "I'll try something bigger this time! Stay away from the monster!" She ordered with a sturdy calmness.
"Got it, Tifa! Aerith! Take a safe distance!" Balthier yelled, switching back to repeated gunfire and blasted two Armored Knights out of the way. The Behemoth in the meantime continued to charge its energyball attack as Fran poured more power into the formed energy arrow, white lightning bolts emanating from it.
Taking aim at the Behemoth's central horn, Fran raised her bow, the arrow now nearly overflowing with energy.
"This shall disrupt your charge: Manablast!"
The charged energy arrow flew directly into the Behemoth's horn, causing a red-white energyfield to explode, effectively absorbing the energy from the charged sphere and stunning the beast with a kinetic backlash.
"Splendid work. Now you three concentrate on eliminating the big guy. I take on the rest of the smaller critters." Tifa exclaimed, running over to a group of Soldiers starting to smash them with her martial arts skills.
As Tifa engaged the remaining smaller adversaries, Aerith and Balthier took battle stances before the stunned Behemoth, Fran remaining on the roof to provide long range support.
"Alright, let's send that thing back to the abyss it came from." Balthier stated calmly.
Aerith nodded, loading her staff up with magical energy.
Yes, we need to end this...more small packs of Heartless and also lower Nobodies have appeared in different parts of the town.
Further up, at the postern of the castle, Beatrix stormed out from the corridors, slashing Heartless apart with cold efficiency, Cid, Leon and Yuffie now right behind her.
The last Large Body charged at them, got stunned by Beatrix performing her "Thunderslash"-technique and then torn to shreds by a short combo attack of Leon's Gunblade.
"That should take care of those in the basement area...but Aerith and Tifa are alone in the town, and I bet in the upper layers of the castle there also appeared Heartless!" Cid shouted.
"Probably. Let's split up and search for more fiends. Yuffie and I go up into the castle while Beatrix and you go help Tifa and Aerith." Leon answered.
"Before that we have still a problem here..." Beatrix interrupted as three bigger Heartless popped up at the platform leading to the postern.
"Defenders...? No..." Cid wondered.
They looked like Defenders, but where red and black colored instead of the usual purple.
"I take care of them. Cid, you go to the town already and you other two in the castle. I don't want the people of Radiant Garden to suffer even more casualties after all those years." Beatrix raised Save the Queen, going into a battle stance.
"Be careful Beatrix, those Heartless are Eliminators, a stronger variant!" Yuffie warned.
"Thanks, but don't worry, I can handle them!" The Paladin retorted, signalling them with a head movement to hurry up to help the others.
One of the Eliminators immediately swung its shield at her, which Beatrix dodged elegantly with a small side step, slamming Save the Queen into the monster's side.
Unimpressed, the Heartless swung its shield back around, forcing the female Paladin to dash backwards.
The other two Eliminators now fired three energy orbs at her from the face of their shields.
Dodging the first three shots with an elegant side dash Beatrix blocked two of the second barrage, swatting the last orb back to the first Eliminator with her sword.
The Heartless also blocked it with its shield, then started a third shield swing while the other two now teleported right beside her, surprising her with a double charge attack that sent her flying.
"Gnn...pesky idiots." After using aerial recovery Beatrix conjured up a Cura-spell before landing on the ground again. Two of the Heartless charged right again while the third fired another three energy orbs.
Pointing her sword at the charging enemies her hair started to flutter a bit as she charged up another spell.
"Sanctus!"
An enourmous sphere of blue-white light energy materialized between the two charging Heartless, exploding into multiple shockwaves of light energy in several directions as Beatrix used an advanced form of the Holy-spell, blasting both Eliminators seemingly apart.
Sidestepping again to avoid the energy blasts of the third enemy she noticed, as the blinding light of Sanctus finally faded, that both of the other two were heavily damaged but still not defeated.
Tough nuts, aren't we?
Charging forward, Beatrix let her blade swirl around once before setting it up in a diagonal upwards angle.
The third Eliminator teleported again, but this time she was prepared, performing a somersault over its charge attack.
Ignoring the third one the Paladin brought her sword down in a diagonal arc, unleashing 'Climhazzard', a red-orange energyblast that radiated outwards in several circle-like bursts.
"Finally, two down, one remaining." Beatrix exclaimed, turning around to face the last Eliminator.
As it attempted another shield swing Beatrix met it head on with her sword, causing them both to stagger.
Recovering, the Heartless started another charge, which she countered with another "Shock"-attack, blasting the shield to pieces.
"And now DIE you horrid monster!"
Slashing it first across the chest, she swirled the blade of Save the Queen around again ending with a powerful lunge stabbing right through the Heartless, eliminating it.
"So much for these critters, now it's time to move into the town." Quaffing an Ether to load up enough energy for repeated use of her Seiken-techniques again, Beatrix started to charge through the restoration site, offing more smaller Heartless on the way.
I will not let this world suffer a tragedy yet again...never. I didn't wander through the darkness for several years and then countless other worlds before coming back seeing it crumble right before my eyes a second time!
Increasing her pace, Beatrix did not stop even for a small group of lower Nobodies, who seemed not overly interested in attacking her, but rather a group of other emblem Heartless.
She was befuddled a bit by this behaviour, but paid it no more attention as she didn't even fully knew what these white creatures are, it counted now to rid the town of known enemies, the Heartless, first.
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The battle for Radiant Garden is on now, yet next time, we will take a look at our main crew arriving at Disney Castle.
Spoiler
