Kingdom Hearts: The World's Reluctant Heroes

Once the fragment of Vanitas was gone, and the group was sure that the Laugh Floor was clear of Unversed, Mike quickly revealed how they were going to get Boo back home, they were going to call in some doors and ride them into the Door Vault, which was the easiest thing to do. Sombra asked why he wasn't just calling in Boo's closest door and Mike told them that the keycard for her door wasn't at the desk that they had placed her folder on when they brought her in for a visit earlier, meaning someone had her keycard and he was willing to bet it was one of the Unversed. Since they had no idea which foe had the item in question Mike just assumed it would be easier for them to head into the Door Vault, find the door, and then activate it with Boo's laughter so they could send her home, since laughter was ten times as strong as scream. With that in mind Sombra didn't have anything to critique, to which she and the others watched as the doors were lowered into the devices that held them, though since there were only three doors Sombra and the Equestrians used their magic to fly through the air.

As such they moved into the massive backroom that was the Door Vault, where there were lines upon lines of rails that the doors were moved along, devices to sort out which ones were needed and which ones needed to remain in the 'vault' area, and, as the group expected, some enemies in the form of Nocturnes attacked them, though they wiped them out as their hearts were collected by Sombra.

What they discovered was that there were platforms for them, and the workers of this place, to stop at and work from, an area Mike told them they had to stop at since there was a door there that should be connected to another part of the facility, though since it was offline Sully had to entertain Boo. Such a thing meant he would get her laughing, but to make sure she was safe the rest of the group had to deal with the Heartless that were coming at them, which involved Soldiers, Nocturnes, and a few Large Bodies, which was odd to see both the Unversed and the Heartless in the same world. Sombra guessed that this was partly due to Tenebris' tampering with the timelines, allowing multiple things to happen to the various worlds, while at the same time his allies were doing things that allowed more foes to invade the worlds, hence what they were seeing at the moment. Such a thing caused her to sigh as they crushed their enemies and Boo laughed at whatever Sully was doing, a fact that was followed by the door powering up and Mike opened it to reveal another portion of the facility, where the group quickly moved through it.

It brought them to another portion of the Door Vault and they jumped on a new rail without delay, Sora's group remaining on the rails while Sombra's flew around them with magic and Sully's trio remained on the door they had grabbed onto, as the pair knew to let them deal with the enemies that were in their way. Sora thought he could throw himself across the gap between their rail and the next one, which was where Boo's door was located, and when he missed Sombra grabbed him with her magic and put him on another rail, allowing them to move over to another platform to engage some Heartless. By that point Sombra could see that Boo's door was a lost cause, it was part of the massive wall of doors and tracking it down was going to be a nightmare, especially since her keycard was missing, which had to be in the hands of the main villain that happened to be lurking in the darkness. Once those enemies were taken care of they found another door that brought them to the bottom of the door wall, where they just so happened to find a door that looked a lot like Boo's, laying against a wall like nothing was wrong, even though something was clearly wrong with this picture.

Sure enough Sombra grabbed the figure that was hiding on the door, a purple chameleon creature that was definitely one of the monsters of this world, and since the door behind him was powered she threw him through the opening, allowing them to enter another portion of the facility, but she was victorious as she picked up the keycard he dropped.

"What the... Randall? How'd you get back here?" Sully asked, because this wasn't something they were expecting to see, as he and Mike had assumed that the chameleon would have remained banished for the rest of his life, and yet here he was, being a thorn in their sides once more, "He was a bully and a creep that was Boo's scarer once upon a time... we banished you for trying to collect screams by force, by planning to kidnap children and forcefully extract the screams from them. The door we sent him through was turned to sawdust, to make sure he couldn't come back."

"Yeah, but a real nice guy in a dark coat opened the way back for me... and now I'm taking over the company, to restore it to it's former glory!" the purple monster, Randall, stated, though before he could do anything Fluttershy grabbed his neck and headbutted him, which was both a surprise and not a surprise to the group, as she was the kindest of them all, yet when she found someone that annoyed her she usually reacted like this.

"You know, Fluttershy's usually a kind person... but when you do something like this prepare for her to beat you down in no time." Seras remarked, though at the same time Sombra wrapped her magic around the monster and trapped him in a dark ball, almost a marble really, which she pocketed for the time being as she turned to everyone else, "And then you have the likes of Sombra, sometimes stopping stupid villains in their tracks... oh well, this let's us focus on our true foe."

Sully and Mike didn't know what to make of the situation that was in front of them, but decided not to ask questions, since they were on their side, which was why they headed deeper into the portion of the facility that they were in, which appeared to be an area for making door frames and other items for their work. Sure enough there were more of the Flutterwings and the turret Heartless for them to wipe out, but the main worry about the area in front of them happened to be a number of lasers, where Sombra could see someone at the controls, a dark coated figure. When she and her friends got close the figure wandered off, though she could feel what was going on with just a quick glance, the fragments of Vanitas' heart were lost, as if his darker side never had a chance to properly reform. Her thoughts went back to the one they had seen on the floor that all of the workers of the main work force happened to work on, the scarers turned jesters and comedians, and that told her everything she needed to know, to which she pulled back and silently weaved her power throughout the world, while also connecting the power to the light portion of Vanitas' heart.

Her plan was simple, she was going to use the restored light half of Vanitas' being as a beacon of sorts and draw in the bits of Vanitas' heart, because if she could get all of them together in one place she was sure that she could restore him to who he could have been, had Xehanort not robbed him of his potential and his potential future.

Following the first chamber they found more Unversed, who wanted them all dead, but even with Sombra holding back to let everyone else fight she knew that it hardly mattered, as Radiant, Fluttershy, and Seras were more than enough, and when she added in Sora's group their enemies didn't stand much of a chance at all. Eventually they reached an elevator that had no power, so the best thing to do in Mike's eye was for him and Sully to enter a painting station for a few seconds, where the pair emerged with a new paint job that caused Boo to laugh, powering the machinery for them to use it. With that done all of them climbed onto the lift and used it to access another floor, though when they did so the group walked out into an area where a pipe broke a little, dousing Boo's monster guardians with water and got rid of their purple and blue paint. A couple of Water Cores came out to attack the group as well, though Sully and Mike continued to see that they didn't need help, to which Sombra told them that they were more like exterminators, taking care of these beings and cleaning up the area, as she could see that the pair were curious about their professions.

It was the simplest answer that could be given without disrupting the natural order more than the Heartless and Unversed were doing, and the pair accepted it without delay, though she told Sully and Mike that they'd help deal with Randall once they got to a machine that would allow them to use Boo's keycard.

Along the way the group discovered another malfunctioning machine that Sora's group disabled, so the trio they were in the middle of escorting could follow after them, since they trusted them to lead them to safety, only to stop by an area where a combined force of Heartless and Unversed were waiting for them. As they did that Sombra noticed that a number of figures in dark coats were watching them from afar, though while everyone else might be worried about this turn of events she was calm and collected, as each one held a portion of Vanitas' heart, she could feel the pull of their emotions. Each one held one piece of his darker emotions, his rage, anger, hatred, envy, pride, and everything else that Xehanort had forced him to live with over the years, she could practically feel his darkness trying to reform itself, yet something was holding it back. In that moment Sombra understood what was going on, there was another piece of the dark being missing, not a fragment of light since she had all of those, but it was part of his darkness, and without that part he couldn't reform as a full person.

After wiping out the remainder of their enemies they reached the central control point, a terminal that was also broken, and to overload it they had to make Boo laugh once more, though Mike failed with his tennis joke, using his eye like a ball that was being hit back and forth between two players. The key to making her laugh came from them making funny faces, which was actually Sora's idea, and her laughter definitely overloaded the system, causing the door to open so they could head out into the Power Plant, as there was another route to the Door Vault they could use. When they got outside the group found that a number of larger Spiked Turtletoads just wrecking stuff, setting fire to the outer portion of the facility in the process, a side effect it looked like, and there were a few helicopters moving around, dropping yellow suited monsters who were trying to fight the flames and the Unversed. With that discovery in mind the group went to work once more, some of them fighting the Unversed while a few of the others used their magic to put out all of the flames, earning the thanks of the yellow suited monsters before they rushed off to save another portion of the facility.

From there it was a matter of repeating the same thing, taking out the Unversed and putting out the fires, as the outside part was just the same thing on repeat, even part of the area exploding really didn't stop them all that much, and they only came to a stop when they spotted what appeared to be a massive glob of dark emotional energy with machine parts.

"And there it is, the last piece of Vanitas' fragmented and shattered heart: fear." Sombra remarked, where she held a hand out for a few seconds and let her power rush over the Unversed's form, like lines appearing on a cracked surface, and sure enough the monster shattered into goo fragments, which wrapped around each other before turning into a small glass-like shard that was filled with the dark emotion.

Following that they discovered a door that lead them to one that Sully and Mike recognized, the one they used to banish Randall, so Sombra released the figure and Seras just tossed him through the door, where they heard the humans on the other side talking about hurting him. To be sure he was forever sealed off Sora also used his Keyblade to lock it, causing the door to disappear in a burst of light, though he was sure that it would prevent Randall from using the other closet doors in the world, effectively locking him in exile. Once that was done they tracked down the door wall and climbed up to, though as soon as they reached Boo's door something interesting happened, her door and several others moved towards the Laugh Floor like someone wanted to use them, causing them to ride the doors for a time. When they reached their destination the group could see what was going on almost immediately, there were a number of black coats, each the same height while moving in different ways, and yet when Sombra entered the area all of them stopped, watching her like she was the one that would fix them.

As she landed, however, Sombra held out the dark shard she had recovered and everyone watched as the crowd of figures turned into a mass of darkness that swirled around the item, and when everything was said and done only a single person stood in front of them.

"Everything... is quiet. I am myself once more." the figure said, where he pulled back his hood and revealed the dark mask that Vanitas was associated with, while at the same time Sora noted that the figure's voice was oddly like his own, only a tad bit darker, before glancing at himself for a moment as he verified that his dark heart was complete, "However, I am still far from whole... brother, I need the part of me that you hold."

"No, you don't... what you are feeling is the echo of Ventus' heart, which was sleeping inside Sora." Sombra replied, though at the same time she held her hand out and the glowing light half of Vanitas' heart appeared above her hand, something that caused the figure to take a step back for a moment, while everyone else stared at her as they waited to see what she was going to do next, "What you are looking for is this: the light half of your heart. I now return it to you."

As the missing portion of Vanitas' heart was returned to him several things happened, the first being that the Darkness that Vanitas truly was, as Prexus told Sombra all about the prison and everything, was restored to it's full power, but Sombra just silently drew it out of the figure without harming Vanitas, as he was his own person and the last Darkness was sealed away in no time. The next was that part of the mask cracked, revealing one of Vanitas' yellow eyes, the sign of a user of darkness in the World, but at the same time Sombra noticed that a light blue ring appeared around his eye, like the light was settling into place and he was finally returning to who he used to be before Xehanort shattered his heart. After that both she and Sora saw the confusion in Vanitas' eye as the mask cracked and revealed that he looked like a copy of Sora, save for his dark hair, and yet that was when Sora made a move that Sombra had been silently hoping he'd make, he embraced the figure that was lost and confused. Ventus had told all of them the tale multiple times, mostly to get the facts straight, about how Vanitas saw him as a brother, especially since he was torn out of Ventus' body, and how they guessed that Sora saving Ventus' heart could have an effect on Vanitas... and here Sora was, accepting Vanitas, giving him someone to embrace, a hero comforting a lost kid or a crying sibling.

It had the effect that Sora wanted, Vanitas, despite himself, returned the gesture, though it also caused some magic to wash over him, changing his form into a slightly darker version of Sora's world form, only Sombra was sure he was more feline than canine, while his attire turned into a dark gray version of Sora's... it was like what Fluttershy and Seras had experienced, twins with slight changes to tell them apart.

"Ah, how the mighty have fallen." a new voice said, where Sombra found that Young Xehanort was standing nearby, like he had watched the union of Vanitas' heart fragments and still understood nothing, which made her wonder what it would take to convince him that he was the one in the wrong, "Oh well, we still have the version of him from a darker timeline... this one is worthless to our cause."

Sombra said nothing to the figure as Sully attacked from behind, the sudden scare surprising Young Xehanort, though she did bind him with golden chains while the larger monster picked him up, which was when Mike used four keycards to bring in four more doors, ones that didn't get used frequently. In the following moment Sombra put a bit of a curse on the dark figure, cutting off his power to use the Dark Corridors for a time, which was when Sully sent him flying through the first door, pulled that one out of it's metal frame, and then hurled that door through the second. He then repeated that with the third and fourth doors, sending the one before it through the next in line, and once the fourth door was closed the two monsters used a 'door shredder' to cut up the last door, effectively locking Young Xehanort out of the world. Once they were sure he was gone Sully and Mike made sure to escort Boo through her door, though not before Sora's group gave her a couple of silly faces, causing her to laugh as she headed back to her bedroom in the human world.

Of course Vanitas was confused on what to do, he had all of his heart back, his future was in his hands at long last, and yet he seemed conflicted on what to do, something that caused Sora to take his hand with a smile, all while the rest of the group smiled as well... and yet he offered them a light friendly one as well, to which Sombra knew they would be helping him crawl out of his shell, all while curious as to what the future held for them now.