Solace of Nirvana

Kavi's emergency launch into the portal, he assumed, must have sent him off-course from the others. There was no other possibility, given that he was alone in this brightly colored and-

The former Atlantican hopped on the ground a few times, testing the elasticity of the place.

-bouncy place. What he did not know, however, was that this was the former Gummi Ship workshop (Former because a much nicer one was made on the other side of that world). And so he ascended the stairs, only to find his companions facing a group of warriors, maybe the Knights, maybe something else. Either way, it was time to make himself scarce. And he did just that, minimizing sound by walking on the tips of his toes while moving through the shadows of the well-tended hedges there. He found himself back in his usual mindset. Survival of himself above all else.


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"Hello? Is this thing on? Damn communications officers. . ." Vincent's voice growled over the comms devices. "Zack, I take it that it was a miserable failure even with our troops and your keyblades? Let's just leave the assaulting to them and get back to work on the Project. Everybody knows that a good defense is the best offense, anyways."


And far away, the mage-blader hung up the phone, his recent injuries finally tended to. He was on a balcony, overlooking a massive hangar, which contained a nearly-as-massive ship. A grin creased the young man's lips as he uttered, "The Ark Behemoth. . . Ghira, you have outdone yourself with those designs."

 

Gerik's hand twitched towards his new hammer. "Damn I wanna lie so badly to her question. But Emma here using the absolute worst attempt at a cover story doesn't help much. And then this woman isn't giving many signals to work with. She knows Raven, but she didn't say her name like a friend. Or like an enemy. And, come to think about it, where did that water guy go? I know I tossed him into the portal with everybody else. I'm gonna have to go round him up at some point." Gerik faked a smile at the woman in front of him. "Your question isn't very specific. I know a few Ravens. When you ask us something like that, I don't know which Raven you would be talking about."

-----

"We should change that." Voltair spoke to Raven. "Although I don't quite remember you being the type of person to get so emotional near me. Not that I mind or anything. After all, there isn't much better than you being my first bit of physical contact in hundreds of years."

-----

"One squadron will go and search for the darks." Zack ordered. "Another squadron will stay here and clean up whatever mess occurred here. The sooner the better. The wounded shall return to base and get patched up before we move out again." As Zack spoke, his gummi ship landed nearby. "That is all." He entered the gummi ship and set the coordinates for headquarters.

 

"Let's see." Gerik spoke. He turned around to count the group. "One, two, three... Son of a bitch." He muttered under his breath. "We're short one. He's not very trusting of people either, so finding him might be a little difficult." Gerik sighed heavily. "I'll go look for him." He wandered away from everybody, searching for Kavi.

-----

"I'd rather we not waste our time together with you attempting the impossible." Voltair smiled. "Besides, we're in a little predicament here. You need to get back to those kids as soon a possible, and I want you to stay here for as long as possible. Kinda like being stuck between a rock and a hard place."

 

Kavi's wanderings in the shadows of the halls brought him to a library, small in size but extremely tall in stature. He was finally used to his new human appendages, though he hadn't quite mastered them yet. After all, moving from tailfins to feet-soles is a difficult transition, much more than the reverse. But that is beside the point. Nobody appeared to be in this room, and for this he thanked the gods of his luck. The ex-Atlantican's only minor regret was that he left the others back in that courtyard. They might have made good allies at some point, but it was probably for the best. Survival above all else.

But then something caught his eye. A scythe, bearing white wood with a black blade, rested in a set of brackets above the grand fireplace of the room. The weapon held some. . . strange qualities about which left Kavi wondering just what it was. But when he approached it, the scythe shook violently, nearly dismounting it from its resting place, then shot a powerful gale out at the young man, blasting him backwards and through the double doors. His journey didn't stop there, and he flew over the stone railing and into the grounds of the courtyard, landing in one of the ornamental shrubs safely.

 

"I think Angel's right, besides whats the worst that can happen. She ordered the guards down who could probably kill us. Plus she seemed to have even recognized us. I'd think it be safe to say, we're alright and can trust her." Emma whispered to Hope and Angel before catching up to Star. She looked up at the woman, Emma could even sense a feeling of trust towards the woman.

"So where exactly are we?" Emma asked Star as they were being led to the castle throne room. "And how do you know Raven?" Emma started to ask doing one thing she did best, ask questions.

 

"Wow I never truly realized how many people are running from the dark knights." Emma spoke amazed. She took note of what Star said about Raven.

'So she really does care about us...' Emma thought to herself before smiling. She turned and looked at Star, she nodded her head.

"Though I can't necessarily speak for the others, but I'd think they'd all agree, whatever we can, we'll do it. It may be something little like delivering news or life threatening, I'll do it. You can add your name to your resistance and it's about time the Light Knights learn what they do will not stand." Emma confidently promised. She looked down at her hand where the staff she got at Destiny Islands resided in her hand. She may not know all of it's power, it's secrets, or it's role, but she knew one thing, it was a staff designed for one of the four Earth elementals, fire.

"Star, we're... Ok fighters, but I must admit though, we're not exactly warriors like we're supposed to be..." Emma admired glancing down again at the staff.

 

"Cool eyes." Gerik spoke to Meg as they walked around the castle, looking for Kavi. They didn't head in the direction of the throne room. Instead they went a different way. But they were still in the courtyard when Kavi was blasted out of the library. Gerik turned when he heard some bushes shake from Kavi landing in them. "Did you hear anything?" He asked Meg.

-----

"Well, considering that you're injured, the first part of the plan is having you stay around long enough to be less injured." Voltair answered her. "Luckily for us, we're both here. Which means that I'm not restricted to just using darkness at the moment." Voltair gently touched one of the wounds on Raven's shoulder. He felt a little bit of the warm blood before the wound began to close. "It would sound pretty cheesy if I told you I did that through the power of love, wouldn't it?" He smiled. "So instead of using that as the explanation, I'm just gonna go with light and darkness being together like this forms miracles."

 

It took him a few minutes, but Kavi finally managed to wriggle his way out of the trumpet-shaped shrub and back onto the ground. Right in plain view of Gerik and Meg. At first, his mind didn't register the lack of any sort of restraints on the Earth elemental, so he began to bolt. Mid-step he realized his folly in judgement and stopped where he was, keeping a tight grip on his chakrams while he approached the others carefully.

"You. . . are not in danger?" He asked, squeezing the handles of his weapon.

 

"Dirt boy?" Gerik asked Meg before Kavi appeared. "Now that just hurts. Here I am, a sensitive guy, looking for somebody, and you just go and throw an insult at me like that. I think I might wanna go cry. I mean sure, having this weapon gives me some kind of power of earth and dirt and stuff, and I know everything I'm able to do with this weapon. But unfortunately I am unable to do everything I am able to do. And right now that means I can't sense any movement with the ground. So dirt boy really doesn't fit me right now."

Gerik turned when Kavi approached him and Meg. "Unless you consider insults as a form of danger, then no. I am not in any danger. In fact, we were just looking for you. Turns out the people here are also against the Light Knights, like us. So it would be good for us to hear what they have to say." He turned back to Meg. "By the way, I have no idea where they all went. So lead the way... Again."

-----

"Well now, it'll take a while for your wounds to heal as they are right now. So if you want we could sit and talk until you're healed. After all, we need to catch up on the hundreds of years since we were last in a situation like this." Voltair spoke. "But if you don't want to do that, you could always rest in my arms as we silently stare into the darkness; kinda like how the hero protects the damsel in his arms. Even though there's nothing really here to protect you from."

 

"Kavi," The wary young man introduced himself, eying the girl. His attention was soon taken in by the lush and bright surroundings around them, and soon enough he had forgotten to be on his guard. Not like it mattered in this particular place. Turning to Meg, he asked, "Where exactly am I? This place has the grandeur of Neptune's palace, although the plant life is a bit more. . . groomed here."

 

"Strong, noble, and brave? Unfortunately you may have your characteristics mixed up. I'm none of those things. On my own, I don't have that much strength. I can't be noble since I lie too much, although I feel as though I haven't lied much lately and am now feeling withdrawal symptoms. And I definitely can't be brave since unfortunately my mind still drifts to the thoughts of running away from all of this." Gerik thought to himself as they headed towards the throne room. "My name is Gerik. Although... If you really want you can call me dirt boy. It doesn't bother me that much."

-----

"Okay then, both it is." Voltair answered. The ground around them, which really couldn't qualify for actually being there, shifted around as Voltair thought of a different shape. Even though it couldn't be seen, he and Raven were now on a hillside. Voltair sat on the ground and gently pulled Raven down to him. He put his arms around her waist as her back leaned against his chest. "Believe it or not, I've found other activities aside from spying on the realm of light. Every now and then I'll pull some fragments of darkness together and reform some random nobody that faded away to darkness. Only lesser nobodies. Haven't really bothered bringing back a powerful one. Anyways, I reform their bodies and play chess against them."

 

"Safe place? Is there such a thing in the universe?" Kavi wondered aloud as they entered the magnificent, if a little over-the-top, throne room. Kavi's jaw dropped when he saw the enormous chamber, simply stunned at the simple fact that land dwellers, with their inability to float everywhere like the merfolk, still managed to make a room standing this tall. "Impossible. . ." He mumbled, nearly tripping over his own feet while observing the architecture.

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MEANWHILE
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"-And the progress on the Ark Behemoth has accelerated since you granted me the extra complement of workers." Ghira's voice echoed over the comms to the Keyblader's conference room. Vincent sat there, fully repaired from the use of several potions, and laced his fingers together into a contemplative stance in his seat.

"Good, good. . . We don't need to worry about the dark refugees at this rate, considering that the Ark will soon be finished," He told his fellow remaining keybladers, seeing as half of them were in the healing wards at the moment.