Kingdom Hearts X(cross): Cadunt ad Caelum

It's kind of a long shot. You're not sure how much further you have to the farm, nor how safe a haven it will be. nor the full extent of the Huntsmen's abilities when the powers of darkness are such a wildcard, but you can do it. You know you can. You have to. Because it's your mission to get this pig to safety, and it came to you because it had nowhere else to turn. And, you realise as your hand unconsciously curls into a clenched fist, that you were snuck up on so easily stings. You don't want to be in this forest a second longer than you have to be.

"Run," you hiss. "Run for the farm, I'll be right behind you. I'll protect you, I promise. You understand?"

The pig nods with an anxious oink.

"Do you trust me?" you add.

The pig thinks about it only a fraction of a second more. It nods with a slightly hopeful oink. You give it a gentle pat on the head - you don't know if that's demeaning when the animal's smart enough to see the future, but you can't think of much else. The pig doesn't seem to mind. You leave your hand there for a heartbeat, two, three, feeling the forest turn still and silent all around you as if holding its breath. Nervous energy grips your body, racing through your veins like lightning.

"Go."

The pig takes off at a dead run, and you rise to follow. The silence is shattered, the arrythmic trot of the pig's feet scrambling to chew up the distance and your own pounding feet almost drowning out the incessant beat of your heart. You go diving through the unfamiliar woods with reckless abandon, following the ghostly pale-pink blotch of colour that is the pig, arms pumping and tense, ready to spring into action. At first the woods are quiet. At first you almost wonder if maybe you overestimated the danger. At first you almost think you have enough of a head start the Huntsmen have no chance of catching up before the two of you can reach the river. But the birdsong you took for granted, that you assumed to be normal for this world, has completely fallen silent. And the rustling of leaves and snap of twigs you took for animals is too quick, too loud, too close. Drawing close like shark-fins in the water, all around you, echoing in your ears as you turn your head back and forth, back and forth, straining for the first sign of-

You hear it close, too close. Leaves rustling and sweeping across wolfskin, parting and coming together once more like water. The dull thump of a heavy footfall against a tree root. You whirl towards the sound, Starlight flashing into your hand, and you take the descending blow from the Huntsman. It skates down the full length of the Keyblade with a terrible keening, trailing white sparks as tainted iron grinds against silver, only to stop dead against the corner where blade meets handguard with a ringing clang. The impact shoots up your arm in an aching shockwave, worse than the first blow you took, but you endure it. You turn with the man's momentum, pivot on your heel, disengage sharply and let the rest of his own strength just carry him uselessly off to the side.

The man does stumble. The man does drop behind as he staggers, heels grinding into the grass, and rights himself. He doesn't let it stop him. He supports himself against a tree trunk and hurls himself onward with a snarl of anger, eyes like lambent yellow lanterns burning beneath his wolfskin hood as he charges after you. There's something inhuman about his gait, something pitiless and tireless and feral. You're no slouch but at best, at best, he can still keep pace with you. And every slip-up will bring him one step closer.

You force yourself to face front, to focus on following the pig. Hopping tree roots, skipping from hillock to hillock, skidding down inclines, and all the while you watch. You keep your eye out, you keep your ear out, struggling all the while to tune out the harsh in-out rasp of air in your lungs and thumpthumpthumpthumpthump of your heart. You see them then, at least two others, as no more than half-glimpsed shapes flitting between the trees sure but you know it's them. One either side of you and maybe one more still unaccounted for. How far to-? No, no time to focus on that now, focus on the hear-and-now. You keep your head down and run, Starlight still in hand, anticipating the next assault.

It's much easier to see coming. It's no help. Something flickers in the shade to your left, something swirls and burns while giving off no light at all. This Huntsman clutches an orb of sickly violet-black energy in his fist, tongues of darkness licking and lapping at his fingers like smoke or flame. Even in shadow you sense a dark aura around him, a thin border of black like heat radiating from sickened skin. He hurls it forth, and the world itself seems to reject the tainted spell. A burning, acrid stench assaults your senses, nausea coiling in your stomach, and the air roils around the mockery of a fireball. You give a moment's thought to dodging, but you see the orb adjust midflight, minutely perhaps but you see it. A moment later and you're moving, more instinct than logical last resort, and raise your Keyblade to block it.

You might as well have tried to 'block' a boulder falling on you. There's a weight behind it you can't fathom, that takes you off-guard and threatens to rip Starlight from your grasp. Your arms ache, the breath's half knocked out of you. The fireball detonates with a resounding boom and a puff of cloying black smoke, that noxious scent assaulting you like a further blow to the face, and you'd say you stumble but that would imply you weren't airborne. Your vision clears, too late to stop yourself hitting a tree shoulder-first and bouncing off with a gasp of pain. You stumble, stagger, collapse and throw out your hand to steady yourself. The one that threw the fireball simply runs on, as if forgetting you even existed.

The first Huntsman is practically on top of you, knife raised.

You fling your Keyblade up with a defiant shout. The Huntsman halts for a fraction of a second, girding himself for a swing that doesn't come. Wood cracks and pops, bark peels away in strips, as the magical thread you cast to the tree branch behind your head yanks it free of the trunk and whips it forward. He ducks, the missile whistling overhead as it skims his hood. He slowly rises again, and his knife rises with him.

You draw it back with a sharp flick if your wrist, and the branch shatters against the back of his head with an almighty crracckkkk! His eyes go wide. He lets out a single, low, protracted grunt of pain as he slowly sinks to one knee, his free hand ponderously rising to cradle his head. You leave it there. You don't have time to do anything else. You just flip over and scramble onward, clawing your way up from almost a sitting position. Back on your feet and running, chasing the flashes of pink and distant squeals ahead.

The one that fireballed you is up ahead. He must have trusted his companion to deal with you, didn't bother to find concealment again. Good. You pour on the speed, gaining on him ever so fractionally even as your legs seem to grow numb beneath you and your muscles start to burn. Starlight unspools in your hand, link upon link of glittering silver chain trailing behind you like a ribbon, as you swirl it around at your side and cast it forth. The chain coils around his ankle like a snake, and you allow yourself a vindictive smirk as you yank it out from under him just as his stride carries it forward to take his weight. You hear a sharp, shocked "Hrn-!?" from the man just before he pitches forward and slams into the ground, spreadeagled.

No time to congratulate yourself, no time to stop and make sure he can't keep following. More of them further ahead and the pig to protect. You take no chances and fling out the chain once more, coiling it around a strong branch high above and swinging straight over the fallen man. He recovers quickly, too quickly, but though he flails at you with his knife in anger you coil your legs and remain out of his reach. The chain rattles, silver links singing against each other, as it all winds back up and fuses together into a solid blade once more. Your breath's starting to hurt, aching in your lungs as if the air were too hot or too cold. You force the feeling down and press on, taking the minute of flat-out sprinting to 'rest' such as it were. Ever-wary as you slowly, steadily, gain ground on the fleeing pig in the distance.

A gully looms ahead, a fallen tree trunk lodged in either side to act as a makeshift bridge, the grass worn down to dirt in short trails either side by use. The water-carved channel stretches out either side, far enough for crossing the trunk to be the obvious way forward. But the pig does no such thing. In fact it skids to make sure it stops short of it, trotters skidding and slipping in the dirt as it takes a hard perpendicular turn. You don't have to be a genius to figure out why.

The Huntsman assumes his comrades must have delayed you enough. He assumes he's safe. When he leaps from his hiding place in the gully to pursue, he has eyes only for the pig they came for. He only spies you out of the corner of his eye, turning as you descend upon him and shout to force the air through your lungs. He doesn't even try going for his knife. Your Keyblade descends, slicing through the air itself, and he flings himself back as far as he's able. Your blow cuts uselessly into the earth instead with a dull thunk, but as you tear your weapon free and whirl to face him you notice he makes no attempt to retaliate. He simply stays crouched, knife raised. Watching. Waiting.

You don't need to hear it this time. You don't even need to see it. You grit your teeth in frustration, clutching Starlight tighter in your hands. The first two Huntsmen have caught up, seemingly none the worse for wear now they've had a few moments to recover, and it seems they're plenty frustrated themselves. They've stopped short, beyond whip-range or charging distance, and called upon the darkness once again. One fireball broke your guard so easily and now you watch them conjure two simultaneously, already drawing back their arms to hurl the roiling orbs of toxic power as one. You mind wheels, spins, races and comes to a dead stop at only one response.

You force your own power to flow. Even as the spell steals strength from your muscles it cools you, as if the water you conjure is flowing down your arms and along your spine in a refreshing stream. You pour yourself into it, more and more, a greater manifestation than ever you managed before in training, and you spin. You spin to the left, exposed back shielded by swirling water, glistening crystal-clear streams joining and combining like raindrops sliding down glass, forming into a swirling orb of gleaming water at Starlight's tip. It crashes into the third Huntsman's side like a hammer in its own right, scooping up the surprised scout like a great hand and flinging him back down the path.

Straight into his companions' line of fire.

The forest rumbles, loose leaves falling as a tremor runs through the earth and the soles of your feet. A flash of shadow and flame briefly blots out the sunlight streaming through the canopy. The Huntsman you struck only had time for half a roar of anger and frustration before it was cut off, drowned out by the sucking boom of the spells colliding around his hapless form. A thick, impenetrable wall of smoke rises, blinding all onlookers, but you don't take the opportunity to run. You're one part too exhausted and one part desperate to know if that finally gave them some pause. Dreading the possibility that, somehow, the smoke would clear and reveal the Huntsman to be unharmed. Your breath's catching now, rattling in your throat. A vein pulses in your temple. You pry one shaking hand from Starlight's hilt and raise your wrist, calling on the Power Bangle.

Gleaming Lux crystals leap from the clearing smoke, diving into the gold band's jewel as if grateful for the chance to take shelter with you. Not a trace of the third man remains. You see only a dripping orb of oily darkness, just like when you defeated the other one, that slowly reshapes into a heart.

The heart shatters into countless shards, and two of them rocket straight into the men standing opposite you. Burrowing deep into their chests and vanishing beneath their jackets. Deep, guttural growls rise from their throats as they hunch over, twitching, jittering, muscles bulging beneath the skin and veins swelling besides. The dark auras return, stronger now, thicker now. It burns off their bodies like steam in cold air as they spread their arms wide and gaze at the sky, exulting in the power, as if thanking whatever dark being granted it. The toxic yellow in their eyes gleams brighter.

And you finally realise that one of the shards shot past you, towards the river.

"No!"

You turn and run. You've gained ground but not much. You've hindered the Huntsmen but not by much - and made them stronger in the process. It doesn't take you long to finally break free of the woods and into the open air, sprinting down the grassy hill towards the water as fast as your legs will carry you, chasing the source of the pig's terrified squeals as they echo up to you. Just as you feared. The Huntsmen sent half their number ahead - one to waylay the pig at the gully, and one more to cut it off at the river. The struggling swine has already been hoisted up over the man's shoulder like a sack of flour by the time you reach them, its wriggling and squirming and struggling all to no avail. You don't have long. A moment, maybe two. After that he'll turn and he'll run. He'll outpace you, even burdened by a pig. Your strength will give out and he'll get away. You'll fail your first mission.

Starlight's whip-form gleams brighter in the unmuted light. It stretches out long, as long as it will reach, as you skid down the hill and into range. The star-shaped tip just barely brushes the unsuspecting man's chest, distracting him from his moment of triumph.

Glistening, sinuous tendrils of water flow down the chain, twisting and braiding, joining and dividing, rushing down the entire length like a colony of glassy eels and erupting from the tip in one short, sharp burst. It flings the Huntsman backwards, sends him flying into the shallows, and the pig flies up with a terrified squeal. You yank the whip and change Starlight back, thrusting it forward again just as quickly. Out flies a crystal of ice, soaring down the riverbank and into the shallow, colliding with the Huntsman as he rises from the fast-flowing waters and detonating in a snowflake-shaped burst of ice, sticking him down. You coil your legs like springs and leap as high as you can, snatching the pig out of the air and sailing over the shallows.

"Oink!?" says the pig, all of this far too much to take in at once even for an oracle.

You twist your wrist and swing the Keyblade, commanding the water to rise up and meet you. Down again, a thrust forward, hastily freezing the dripping ramp into a rail and alighting. The ice shatters at your heels and falls to rejoin the river but you make it, you grind down level with the water and all the way across to the far riverbank.

Okay admittedly 'make it' is a little generous, your quivering knees and the ice-rail both collapse and send you spilling down into the shallows. You drop the pig but it bounces in the soft mud, seemingly none the worse for wear. If anything the cold water lapping at your calves is a blessing, a blissful relief. At long last you let your Keyblade vanish, focusing instead on remembering how to breathe and clawing your way up to dry land. Your breath is almost deafening in your ears, your heart still racing a mile a minute, but you're alive. You made it. And so did the pig!

"Y'alright?" you pant.

"squeeeeee..." the pig groans.

"Yeah. Same."

You force yourself to sit up with a groan, drawing your knees up and letting your aching arms rest across them. You watch as the Huntsman you froze in the shallows dislodges himself, chunks of ice falling from his body as he strides to dry land. The two you left behind have caught up now. All three of them stand in a perfect line, glaring at you across the water, seemingly not even winded. Clearly they possess abilities far beyond what you were prepared to deal with, maybe what anyone back at the Citadel expected to encounter in another world, but they have to give up now. The river is wide and deep, flowing fast enough to bowl over the unwary for the crime of a single misplaced step. They'd have to go up or downstream, searching for a better fording spot, and even then they must know they'd be giving you ample time to catch your breath and reach the safety of the farm right? It's still not in sight yet but it mustn't be far now, maybe far enough to run even on these aching legs. You've done it. You're sure you have.

The Huntsmen dive into the water and start swimming against the current, straight for you.

"(I don't know what I expected,)" you pant. You summon your Keyblade and plant it in the dirt, leaning on it for support as you force yourself to rise. You're tired but you're not done, and you will not be done until this is over.

[ ] Keep running. Get you and the pig moving, over the hill and across the field and however much longer until you finally reach this mythical farm. You've gained ground. You can make it. Probably.
[ ] Stand and fight. Send the pig on ahead to the farm and tell it to send help back if it can. You may be drained but the odds are in your favour now - they'll be vulnerable while they swim across, they've got no concealment to flank you and take you by surprise, and there's only three of them left.