Winds of Connection Chapter 3

It was difficult, figuring out what he should do from here. Ventus' plan so far had come down to chasing Terra, searching for him in the cluster of worlds that were in his general path from when the keyblade wielder lost him in the Lanes Between.

But... Aurora’s world was the last of that cluster. From there Terra could have gone any number of ways to any number of worlds. Ventus had officially lost the trail and at a moment when he couldn’t be more desperate to find his friend and demand an explanation. Both Terra and Aqua would eventually return home, he knew. But he couldn’t accept taking that path. It felt like it would be an admission that everything the masked figure said was true. That he was broken. That he was just Aqua’s pet. That neither Aqua or Terra cared about him beyond that.

As he happened to see another traveller of the Lanes pass him by, one in dark clothes and a mask, Ventus was reminded of a phrase Aqua used once. Speak of a devil and he shall appear. The masked man offered him a mocking, jaunty salute before speeding off. Ventus’ immediate reaction was to follow at speed. He couldn’t track Terra anymore but he knew he wanted to give that masked jerk a piece of his mind!

He found himself landing on a rocky bluff in a desolate wasteland. Nothing but stone, dust and...

And keyblades. Keyblades as far as the eye could see. Rows upon rows of them as though they were grave markers on this dead world. With such an ominous view, he couldn’t even focus on the reason he came here, instead staring at the grim sight with a discomforting familiarity. As though he had seen it many times before. “What is this place?”

“Heh. You don’t remember?” the masked figure scoffed, reminding Ventus of his presence. “Well of course you don’t. You’re broken after all. All those oh so important memories scattered like dust.” The dark figure’s foot swept across the rocks, kicking up a dust cloud. “Nothing about who you were, who you’re supposed to be. All you have is the time you spent as some girl’s pet and stress reliever.” He began laughing to himself. “Well not that I can blame you too much. I actually have a purpose of my own but if I got the chance I sure as hell would make that bitch scream–”

“Shut up!” Ventus barked, whirling around, his keyblade appearing in a flash, gripped at his side.

“Uh oh! Did I hit a nerve?” the masked man asked with humour. “Looks like the loyal dog can still bark when he wants to.” Another flash, another keyblade, this one dark in colour and shaped vaguely like a set of gears. “How’s his bite?” The taunt wasn’t as effective as he hoped, Ventus visibly hesitated to attack. “Come on, idiot. How about this, you fight me now and I don’t go give your lovely lady a good time.”

“You won’t touch her!” Ventus snapped.

“Then you’ll have to stop me, won’t you?”

Ventus continued to hesitate for only half a moment longer before charging forward with a yell. His keyblade swung at the masked man. It looked like a hit but he didn’t feel the impact. He stepped back, just barely in time to dodge a downward slash from far above. How–? He didn’t have time to even finish the question, rolling aside from a follow-up strike. The anger he used to pump himself up had faded enough to realise he went into this fight without a plan and knowing nothing about his enemy. With a clearer head he knew he needed room, he needed a moment to think! The masked figure wasn’t intent on giving him one so he would make one.

‘Mine Square!’ Ventus’ keyblade aimed straight up, glowing objects scattered about him. The masked figure had no time to change course or abort his attack. Ventus smirked at him as he leapt away again, letting his enemy trip and get blasted by one mine, then roll right into another one. He looked barely scuffed by it, but it gave Ventus the space he needed.

Like him, the creep was a fighter who focused on speed over pretty much everything else. So fast Ventus was sure he hit in that first strike even though he didn’t. But he could say for sure he didn’t see the guy go up. Could he teleport? Even if he couldn’t he was fast enough Ventus couldn’t tell the difference.

And as Ventus watched him, he saw the figure rise into the air without assistance. Ventus couldn’t even see any magic at work. So he could fly too. That was fair, he thought sarcastically.

“Okay! You wanna fly, then fly!” Ventus shouted, pointing his keyblade at the ground below the levitating enemy. “Aerora!” Storms of wind rose from where he pointed, dust and loose stones cast upwards, the rough winds denying the masked man the chance to come back down. And to add injury to injury, “Gravira!” Right on top of the enemy, holding him in place. He grunted in pain as he was forced to suffer the rampaging forces acting on him. There! There was no way the guy could get out of that! Ventus spun and launched his keyblade in the direction of his victim, taking the opportunity to do some real damage.

“Not a bad combination I guess.” The blond whirled around, seeing that featureless mask right behind him. The gear keyblade raised casually in his hand. “Hope it wasn’t the best you had though.”

Hastily, Ventus called his keyblade back into his hand. He struck. And struck. And struck and struck and struck over and over again in fierce leaping attacks, hammering away at the enemy’s guard, doing precisely nothing.

Most damningly, the man behind the mask sighed even as he evaded each attack. “Really?” he asked in a bored tone. “Alright, let me show you something.” He not only fended off the next in Ventus chain of attacks, he smashed it back, leaving Ventus wide open. With a spin he threw his own keyblade much like Ventus had, though the blond had no powers to avoid it as off balance as he was. “Wind Raid!” With one hand, the masked figure directed his keyblade like the conductor of an orchestra, striking over and over from every direction, unpredictable and devastating. Ventus was rocked backward by the first hit, his legs swept from under him by the second, then smashed over and over again so rapidly his body didn’t even have the chance to land.

With a casual flick of his hand and a beckoning motion, the masked man’s keyblade casually floated back to his hand.

Beaten and bruised, Ventus’ body shook as he tried to stand. His key raised once again, “Cur–GAH!” he cried, a black boot slamming down onto his wrist, his keyblade falling out of limp fingers.

“Ah ah ah! None of that. Accept defeat with dignity. This was inevitable,” the masked man mocked. “Even freed of your little cage you only managed to gather this amount of strength. Maybe you should just go home like a good little boy. Tell you what, you’re so pitiable I’ll even promise to leave your owner alone, how’s that sound?”

“Won’t let you... I won’t let you hurt her!” Ventus ground out through the pain, even as the heavy boot ground into his wrist.

The dark figure sighed again, squatting down as if to speak man to man with the keyblade wielder he just demolished. “Still an idiot. You just don’t get it, do you? She doesn’t care about you. She never did. You’re just her feel good exercise and her entertainment. Everybody needs a hobby, right? Do you really think a girl like that is worth this trouble? I mean you tell me, was I wrong the last time we had a heart to heart? Did either of them treat you like an equal? Like someone they respect?” He waited for an answer. None came. “Didn’t think so.”

“Doesn’t matter!” Ventus spoke through his immense pain, “Won’t let you–!”

“Oh come on!” the masked man complained in almost a shout as he rose back to his full height. “You can’t be serious! Even now?! You’ve seen what their true colours are and you still want to protect them?! Aside from being a gullible moron, look at yourself!” he snapped, pointing his keyblade at the fallen boy. “You were broken before but at least you could stand. Now you can’t even do that anymore! And you want to tell me you’ll stop me from doing whatever I please?! You’re weak, Ventus! You can’t stop me or protect anyone! Here,” he spoke menacingly, the tip of the pointed weapon glowing with the heat and light of a fire spell, “I’ll prove it!”

Ventus cringed away from the light, hating the feeling of helplessness, hating the knowledge that he can’t protect the people he cares about, but more than anything he hated the man standing over him who was so intent on making him suffer.

He heard the sound. Not of the spell. Nor the accompanying heat of it. He heard a clang, of metal on metal. Glancing up, he saw the masked man’s keyblade knocked upward by another, the burning spell fired off into the sky.

As the dark figure leapt back, Ventus was left to stare in bewilderment up at this new person, the rounded black ears, the snout of a mouse, the worried look in his eyes. “Cura!” the mouse spoke and Ventus felt the sudden relief of healing magic fill his body. “Hey there! My name’s Mickey! Looks like this guy was giving you some trouble!”

-(-)-

The entire escapade had been a mistake from start to finish. Chasing down the guy in the mask, falling for his trash talk. It was stupid. If it hadn’t been for Mickey coming in to save him at the last second he would have been a dead man.

These were Ventus’ thoughts as he wandered the streets of this new world of Radiant Garden. The first one on his journey for which he got a real name thanks to the locals.

After the masked man had run off Ventus and Mickey had gotten to talking about how lucky it was for Ventus that Mickey showed up. The keyblade-wielding mouse had shown him the reason. The Star Shard, some magic trinket he ‘borrowed’ from his master that supposedly would take him wherever he needed to go, but tended to do so without warning or giving a reason why. Much as it did for the two of them right in that very moment, whisking them away to this world.

As fate would have it, Mickey had landed first and gone off on his own to some fancy castle, the guards not letting Ventus follow him. An attack by the strange monsters drew Ventus away before he could try to press the issue.

So here he found himself, having wandered the streets battling the monsters, gotten stopped a couple of times first by a duck and then by a wizard. Finally climbed an aqueduct on the trail of the monster. Yet no matter how many of the smaller ones he slew as he went, it didn’t bring back his confidence in his abilities. He had grown so much over the course of his journey and yet the masked man destroyed him without effort. What if this monster would do the same?

Dropping down from the waterway he looked around at the large circular space surrounded by pipes and cables. If he were a giant monster that probably had trouble moving around in enclosed spaces, this was exactly the kind of place he’d look for to ambush a pursuer.

“Ven?”

“Ven!”

Ven brightened at the familiar voices. “Terra! Aqua!” he cheered as he saw them arrive at the same place chasing– “Uh oh.” Two of their own giant monsters.

“Ven! Do you have any idea the kind of trouble you’re in?!” Aqua demanded, her attention wholly stolen from the monster by the boy she had been chasing for so long.

“Aqua, that should wait,” Terra insisted as he looked up at the three monsters gathering overhead. “The unversed, they’re–!” Not only gathering, combining into one enormous creature. A great white armoured behemoth.

She followed his eyes, her mouth forming a line. “Okay. That thing first.”

“I’ll back you up!” Ventus offered.

“Ven, you’re not–!”

“No time!” Terra interrupted as he jumped to meet the heavy hammer blow of the unversed’s gauntlets. “Keep moving and don’t die, Ven!” Unable to give any more worthwhile advice, the bruiser of the three keyblade wielders worked to keep the giant armour’s attention, slamming himself into the thing over and over, fighting to keep the thing’s attention focused on him and dealing what damage he could.

“I’ll keep it distracted!” Ven promised his lover, “Just hit it hard!”

“We’re not done, Ven! You and I are gonna have a serious talk when this is over!” Aqua shouted to him, her keyblade dancing as she prepared some of her more intricate spellwork.

Ventus’ heart soared as the battle raged. Despite the time apart, despite the ways they had all grown separately since their departure, the three of them were still a team. They knew each other so well it was like their hearts beat to one rhythm. Terra forced the armour’s attention on him, striking blows that would be hazardous to ignore. Ventus put a trick he thought of while fighting the masked man to work, using wind magic to augment his speed. He zipped back and forth across the battlefield. His attacks didn’t do much damage but that wasn’t his role. He did enough to distract the thing from Terra every few moments, letting the harder hitting keyblade strike true even more often to carve dents and rents in the armour. All the while the both of them kept its attention away from the true threat.

“Crawling Fire,” Aqua whispered far above the others, letting her slow moving spell loose. Usually a waste against an enemy like this but so long as it was distracted... She didn’t waste time as she watched it slowly drift down to the amalgamated creature. “Magnega!” Her strongest magnet magic, the head and torso piece of the armour was ripped away from the rest, the lower parts able to resist the pull. As such it was only the head that got slowly immolated, unable to so much as move.

“Darn it, Blizzaga!” Chunks of ice rained down on the gauntlets and greaves that had opted to at least move out of the way of the dangerous spells above them. “Rrgh, fine! Just disappear already! Meteor Shower!” The point of her keyblade glowed a golden white as energy poured into it. Unlike many of her spells it did not burst free all at once, instead spitting dozens of small bolts of light that relentlessly sought out their target. It was not the end of it. With a yell drawn from deep within her, the keyblade master raised her blade high, more bolts spraying out of it to rain down on the enemy in a dazzling display of force and beauty both.

The armour, already battered and scorched from a vicious beating, tried in vain to avoid the rain of light. Its constituent parts were shredded one by one. First the heat-warped head section, then the gauntlets, then finally the legs, each shattering in turn. Their forms dissipated much like the other unversed did.

“Yeah!” Terra cheered as he raised a hand palm out.

“Haha!” Ventus laughed as he slapped the offered hand with his own. “That was awesome! Still a great team, right? And–” he turned, hoping to share the good vibes with the bluenette who carried the day. The empty expression on her face as she walked towards them stopped those hopes cold. “Aqua.” He looked down, ashamed. He realised why she was angry. “Look, I’m sorry about leaving you behind to face that witch. It was way out of line.”

“The witch...” Aqua echoed, confused but visibly angrier. “You think that’s why I’m mad at you? Ven, that woman was way beyond you! You were right to run away! I’d say that’s about the best thing you did from everything I saw!”

“You’re still calling me weak?” Ven demanded, “Even after this? After I fought side by side with you guys and did just fine! I’m not broken anymore so stop treating me like I’m ready to fall apart!”

“Wha–?!” the bluenette reeled back as if struck. “I never said you were broken, Ven!”

“You didn’t have to! That guy in the mask might be a jerk but it feels like everything he said is coming true!”

Terra suddenly snapped to attention. “Guy in the mask? Ven, did you talk to him?”

“Yeah, he was a jerk who wouldn’t stop saying horrible things about you guys.”

“Ven, that guy is really dangerous. His name’s Vanitas. You need to stay away from him from now on.”

Ventus scoffed. “You don’t need to tell me. The guy kicked my butt until another keyblade wielder named Mickey saved me.”

“Mickey?” Aqua questioned, remembering the mouse she had run into earlier that day. She shook her head. It wasn’t important right now. “Ven, that just proves my point! It’s dangerous out here! You need to go home where you’ll be safe!”

“There you go again, treating me like glass! When are you gonna realise I can make my own decisions without asking your permission?!”

“Don’t try to turn this around on me! You should be glad I’m even giving you the chance to go on your own after I saw what you did to those girls!” Her hand swept out to the side, “And don’t think I don’t see you trying to sneak away, Terra!”

The larger boy’s creeping footsteps ceased instantly as he offered a sheepish look. “This is just starting to seem like a private conversation so–”

“What did you do to Aurora’s heart?” Aqua demanded.

He looked away. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I saw her and then... I don’t know what happened,” Terra tried to explain, sounding frustrated, “The next thing I knew her heart had been removed and that witch was thanking me.”

Understandably, that answer only made Aqua more concerned. “Are you saying your darkness took control of you?”

“No!” Terra instantly denied. “The sorceress probably took control of me or something! I’m in complete control of myself!” His denial seemed to contradict itself but that didn’t seem to matter to him. Not nearly so much as, “Wait, are you spying on me? You came out here to watch me for Master Eraqus didn’t you?! See if I’d give in to the darkness!”

“No! I’m here to make sure Ven goes home! That’s it, I swear!” The answer regained her no friends. Not from Ventus who resented that answer, nor from Terra who didn’t believe it.

Terra turned away from both of them. “I see how it is. Well you can tell Master Eraqus that I’m done. I’ll find my own path from now on.”

“Terra–!”

“Don’t follow me.”

The two lovers watched their friend go. Disheartened but still determined, Aqua returned her attention to Ventus. “Ventus, you need to–”

“If you’re going to tell me to go home again,” he interrupted, “you can save it. It’s at least some comfort that you’re not doing this just for looking down on me. It’s also because you care about running errands for Master Eraqus more than you care about my feelings.”

“Ven, of course I care about your feelings!”

“Aqua, almost everything you’ve said to me since leaving home has been some way of telling me to go back. No discussion, no ifs, ands or buts. Just orders.” He shrugged, his disappointment in her leaving him feeling somewhat numb for the moment. “I’m gonna go talk to Terra before he leaves. You want me to go home, you do what you feel like you have to.”

Left behind in the scarred battlefield, Aqua tried to understand what just happened. “How did I end up the bad guy?”

-(-)-

As Ventus moved through the town he was glad to take out his frustrations on the unversed as he went. He was also glad to finally have a name for them, having just called them monsters all this time, but that was very much eclipsed by the satisfaction of smashing them to make himself feel better. Not that he knew enough to place the bitterness and sadness clouding his heart. Just that making monsters go splat helped ease it for a moment.

Terra.

He felt better about Terra. Aqua might have had doubts about Terra’s story when it came to Aurora’s heart but she was the one who assured Ventus that Terra couldn’t have done it. Having gotten Terra’s side, Ventus believed him. Trusted him. Whether it had been Terra’s darkness taking over or Maleficent controlling him, he didn’t do it of his own will. That was good enough for Ventus. Even if Terra was succumbing to his darkness like Aqua thought, Ventus knew they had to be there to bring him back from the brink. And Ventus swore to himself that he would be.

Aqua.

Aqua brought about a more difficult, more tangled set of emotions.

The mask guy. Vanitas, Terra called him. He was mostly full of it. That was good to know. But mostly didn’t mean completely. There was that insidious grain of truth to what Vanitas had said. Aqua did look down on him and... That hurt. There was no getting around that. Ventus thought Aqua was amazing. Strong, smart, beautiful, on some level he believed she was too good for a mosaic of a person such as him. And Vanitas scratched at those insecurities, turning them into raw wounds. Even knowing the masked man was deliberately using just the right words to tear away at Ventus’ relationships, that didn’t remove the grain of truth to them.

And that truth... Hurt.

He barely paid attention to his own actions as he saved some blue-haired mute kid on his way through town. Nor to the thanks from the creepy blond guy for it. He accepted the thanks and moved on, hoping to catch up to Terra before he left. His hopes were rewarded as he saw his friend once again right before he left.

It only occurred to him as they talked, awkwardly trying to navigate the outcome of the previous argument that Ventus realised he didn’t actually know what he wanted to say. That he believed Terra?

The bigger man thanked him for it, said he knew when he needed Ventus, he would be there. It was the first bit of affirmation Ventus had gotten from either of the people he cared about most since leaving home. Something he desperately needed.

But then... Terra was gone. Again. And this time Ventus didn’t intend to follow. Terra wanted to follow his own path. They would meet again, and when they did they would still be friends.

And so Ventus found himself without purpose, once again just wandering the town as he tried to decide on his own path. But it was on these wanderings that he saw a swirling darkness in the town square. The familiar masked figure, Vanitas. And, “Aqua!”, his lover brandishing her keyblade as she watched Vanitas leave through the portal. Argument or not, he didn’t hesitate to back her up this time. He rushed toward her, seeing at the last moment Vanitas tossed his head mockingly as he disappeared from view. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she spoke with narrowed eyes pointed at where the portal winked out of existence. “You were right, Ven. He is strong.”

“Did you beat him?”

She shook her head, twirling her keyblade before it vanished in a glitter of stars. “No. He said I’d be a good backup plan, whatever that means.”

“I guess that means whatever he wants from me is Plan A,” Ventus concluded.

“I guess so.” The keyblade master scanned the area, saw no sign of any kind of threat. Only then did she let herself relax and focus on the boy she cared so deeply for. “Ven, can we talk?” she asked. “I won’t tell you to do anything, just... Please?”

He bristled at first; frustration, confusion and defensiveness told him to decline. But he couldn’t say no to that pleading look. “Yeah, okay.”

Aqua perched herself on top of the edge of the planters that surrounded the central square, patting the spot next to her. Ventus in a move borne of petty independence, sat on the opposite side of where she indicated. Thankfully for him she found the move more amusing than anything. And an indication of how far he had come. She could still remember when he first showed up at the castle when he used to follow her around like a lost puppy. How things had changed.

“I’m sorry,” she decided was a good place to start. “I didn’t think, I didn’t realise how I was making you feel. I won’t pretend I never saw you as broken. I don’t know what other word I could use for how you were after what happened between you and Master Xehanort. But I haven’t thought of you that way in a long time. Definitely not since we started... being intimate.”

“Yeah,” Ventus nodded, “Thanks. I know now that was all that jerk messing with my head. But it still hurt to think you saw me as someone to boss around. Where did that come from, Aqua?”

“I guess... Master Eraqus told me to bring you home, and I guess I figured if I just told you to come home you’d do it.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “Maybe I did get used to you just doing everything I said. But you’re right. You’re not that person anymore. I’m really glad you can take charge and make decisions for yourself now, even if they’re not the ones I’d wish you’d make.” One hand moved to take his. She was happy that he let her, took it as a sign that they could, that they were moving past their issues. “But Ven, we need to talk about what you’ve been doing. What happened with those girls?”

“Girls?” he echoed, confused. “I mean, Aurora yeah, but what other girls?”

“Don’t just–!” Her voice had raised. By force of will she brought it back down. “Snow White. Those dwarves said you attacked her!”

“Ugh, yeah I’ll bet they did. No, I bet that jerk Grumpy did and the others just followed his lead,” Ventus pouted. “I didn’t attack her. I saved her. She was lost in the forest and got attacked by unversed. I brought her to their house for safety and helped her calm down.”

Aqua couldn’t help but sigh in relief. “So you didn’t have sex with her.”

“Well yeah, of course I did. I helped her calm down.”

The girl’s relieved smile froze. “You... You helped her calm down... By having sex with her.”

“Yeah! She really appreciated it, but then the dwarves came in and Grumpy chased me out of the house with a pickaxe.”

His girlfriend gaped at him as he spoke so unrepentantly about having sex with another girl. “And... Aurora?” she squeezed out through straining vocal cords.

“Yeah, she was weird. I figured that curse she was under could be broken by true love’s kiss. At least that’s what the fairies said. So I kissed her while thinking about you and it totally worked! But then she got confused I guess. Said she wanted to marry me and then, well she was pretty insistent we have sex so I thought why not?” He grimaced as he remembered the next part. “And then she passed out again right after. I remembered the whole thing with Snow White and Grumpy and figured you might react kind of the same way if you saw me with an unconscious girl. So I left.”

“... Ah...!” Aqua tried to say something, anything but there were simply no words.

“And with Cinderella–”

“Cinderella too?!” Oh. There were the words.

“Yeah. Well I mean we didn’t have sex but I made her cum a couple of times. I was the size of a mouse so I had to–”

“Okay stop. Stop stop stop. Stop,” she begged, doing her best to take steadying breaths. “Okay so, hoo...” she let out a puff of air, utterly unprepared for how this conversation turned. When she had seen Aurora with semen oozing from between her legs, when she talked to the dwarves, she had feared the worst. But in truth she never believed in her heart that Ventus would be that kind of guy to willingly hurt her. And she had been right. He hadn’t known doing things like that might hurt her. Even here he was perfectly happy to recount to her his escapades, thinking they were just fun stories. Just part of catching up. And what was she supposed to do? Tell him to stop? Because making demands of him had been going so very well for her so far.

“You know what? This can wait. More importantly, Ven,” she took his hand in both of hers, “I would like it if you went home.” She felt his arm tense, try to pull his hand away. “I’m not ordering you to. I’m asking you to. We know Vanitas is after you now. We don’t know why but I’d feel better knowing you were safe at home.”

Ventus frowned. He didn’t like that the conversation had come back to this, but at least they were discussing it this time. At least he could give his input. “Why would home be safe?”

“Well because it’s hidden and Master Eraqus is there. He can keep you safe.”

The blond gave her a strange look. “Aqua, Vanitas was there. He came in with Master Xehanort. Didn’t you see him?”

“With Master–” Aqua felt a chill as the pieces fit together. Xehanort had been missing since the unversed started to appear. If Xehanort and Vanitas were working together... “You’re right. It isn’t safe at home.”

“I am?” Ventus asked, not having the information she had.

She nodded. “I don’t know what’s happening but it’s best if you keep moving. If you’re in one place they’ll find you easily. Don’t let Vanitas or Master Xehanort catch you.”

“Master Xehanort? But–”

“Trust me, Ven.” She pulled him up with her by the hand before she pulled him into a kiss. Their other issues could wait. The important thing was staying safe for now. “I’m going to go back home to talk to Master Eraqus.” She hugged him tightly. “Please be safe.”

“I will.”

He watched her don her armour, watched her fly away into the unknown again. It had been a difficult day but he felt so much stronger for it. Confident in himself and in his relationships.

So his mission now was to keep moving. He could do that. Maybe do some good on the way.