The Prince Speaks: Hell and Back Part 2

Before I continue with the last part of this tale, I would like to extend my gratitude to everyone, as well as my condolences.

As such, thank you Kenya for sending me this shard the moment you received it. I'm sure she would greatly appreciate the gesture. I only wish it were safe enough for me to venture back to Babylon Palace...

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As I recall, I promised to reveal more of what happened that day. I watched as Kyxiel challenged the white knight to a fight, stopping him from going on any further. I did not hear what she had to say, but heard well enough about what Palpatine and Voldemort had to say on the matter. Let the little Nobody fight. Let her challenge thier champion. At that moment, the arena changed. It shook terribly and cracked until there were merely little islands floating on...

In the hush that came over the crowd, I distinctly heard Kyxiel swear to every single deity she knew in any language she possessed.

She was standing on a rock, keeping afloat on lava. This fight promised not to be a pleasant one with a good amount of infringement. Perhaps Palpatine wanted to shake up Lord Vader...maybe he wanted some real sport to witness. Either way, the fight began, with various close calls ranging from almost falling into the lava or getting a limb chopped off. Kyxiel and the Knight were evenly matched when it came to laser swordplay (the white knight pulled a blue lightsaber out to block Kyxiel's oncoming red lightsaber).

The field changed again.

Water began to flood in from the walls out of nowhere--the walls had been completely seamless--steam rising into the air and blocking our view momentarily. When the mist cleared I saw that there was ice everywhere--the ground had been frozen. What had been an unsteady playing field of hot, boiling lava, was now an uneven terrain of ice and snow where Kyxiel and the Knight continued with their fight. Getting bored a little, Voldemort ordered for another fighter to be added to the melee. A lot of protest from the crowd could be heard (not to mention a lot of colorful insults). Out of spite, he changed his mind and allowed a whole slew of them to arrive onto the slippery arena, converging on the two fighters from all sides.

Not to let a comrade fight alone, some from the crowd began heading down as fast as they could, others joining in soon after. Here, I would like to retain some form of vagueness, as I barely recalled the fight myself--perhaps I'd rather not remember at all. Here was where parent fought child, lover against lover, brothers and sisters, friends of old and new...all in the arena fighting ones whom they loved or knew...

I joined them down below, rushing my way to Kyxiel's side. Somehow, she and her opponent had a wide berth all to themselves as the chaos and violence around them escalated. I passed by a myriad of familiar faces and had to fight to keep looking ahead, lest something held me back. I shot spell after spell as I followed to keep up with Kyxiel and the Knight; they were in a fight far too fast and vicious for me to keep up with. I lost them for a while, bombarded with bodies as I was suddenly. I wanted to wretch at the horrible stench of some of the bodies, but continued to press on after shoving them off, getting back up to find Kyxiel.

I heard the whirring of lightsabers and thought that it could have been her, but saw Lord Vader cut someone down--I won't say who.

I finally caught sight of her chasing a mass of white armor down through one of the opened gates and followed suite, glad that these eyes of Voldemort's could adjust to the dark very quickly. As we were getting farther and farther away from the roar of the arena battle, I could hear with better clarity, the conversation being held by Kyxiel and the white knight. Or should I say...

"Dammit Keily! Snap out of it already!"

Kyxiel charged forward and knocked her opponent's helmet off showing that it indeed was Keily underneath the armor. Although I admit to expecting to see her as a shell of her former self...perhaps gaunt, withdrawn and possibly mad (look at some of Voldemort's returning followers and you'll understand what I mean). But she looked quite healthy, though somewhat thinner than the last time I saw her.

"There is nothing for me to snap out of, Nobody," Keily replied, arching an upward swing that would have left a very wide slash in Kyxiel's torso had she not backpedaled a few steps.

"Come on, can't you see he's using you? The way he's used everyone else?! Don't you understand that that bastard doesn't care? That once he's gotten everything he wants he'll just get rid of you when the next best thing comes walking along?!"

Keily did not hesitate, however, but I could understand why. This was merely a body with no soul or heart. Not dead, not exactly living. But how did that explain her mastery over something not even the main characters of Kingdom Hearts had ever seen? Perhaps, then...she still possessed one shard within her body. But what emotion would let her obey everything that Palpatine or Voldemort said?

I wasn't allowed further contemplation on the matter as the wall to my right broke in and a scream tore the air. A blonde woman with a pair of rather bizarre bangs had been driven through the stone wall. I recognized the Organization coat (I've met enough members to know their 'uniform') and deduced that this was the infamous only female of the group of Nobodies. Getting up, she snarled, lightning crackling around her arms as she charged back through the hole she had come from.

I turned my gaze back upon Kyxiel and Keily, but found that I had lost them again. Before I could even try to chase after them again, I was, inevitably, pulled into a fight of my own.

I never really had the displeasure of facing the Emperor head-on. I might have seen him from afar or on a television screen, but never on a combat level. But there I was, trying to keep well out of the way of four rather irate Nobodies (two of them I recall being Demyx and Axel, the other I learned to be Larxene and Xigbar) as they engaged Palpatine head-on, throwing hexes and protection spells left and right. I felt distinctly uncomfortable, somehow, fighting with this man. Although he had committed several atrocities in his entire life throughout the known Worlds, I felt that it wasn't my right to fight him. Maybe it's because it would seem that the 'honor' had fallen upon the shoulders of Kenya and Vader and mostly of anyone somehow related to the Skywalkers intimately...

Palpatine was a very powerful man. He could toss around the Nobodies like they were nothing (pun not intended for those who take offense at Nobody jokes). Xigbar used his powers to shift around the dimension of space itself to keep his comrades safe from being thrown too far or into some pit that would appear out of nowhere. Either the Palace was highly sentient, or the Palace wasn't exactly stable...neither were very good prospects for us as these unfortunate things kept happening to us and only us.

Lightning was shot everywhere thanks to Larxene and Palpatine; fire was flung, huge walls of water--it was a mad fight. I was a man who could duel, but an actual fight would often escape me. I am a Slytherin and as such, such physical things usually allude me (it did not help that the body I was currently residing in was not at its physical peak).

Our battle moved around. I saw snippets of other fights; bouts of shouting from who knew where and whom; limbs being torn and thrown--utter madness. The scene went from marble white, to darkness, to a bright arena with other fighters, and a labyrinth with shifting and sliding walls. One could only imagine what sort of result one could get when six people enter a tricky labyrinth.

First, we lost Larxene. Then Demyx. Xigbar went off on his own to seek out his fellows because he knew that taking down the Emperor was not something someone does alone. Axel was left with me and I lost him, too...onto to be found alone with Palpatine. Well, not quite...

He looked at me smugly as a figure in white stepped from around a corner and I felt my heart froze. Keily looked at me levelly, a deactivated lightsaber on hand. Another was clipped to her belt and I know whose it was. My heart wrenched. Had Kyxiel been defeated? I didn't know. What I did know was that I was outnumbered and outmatched. Even if Keily had not shown up I wouldn't have stood a chance against the Emperor.

"Well, well...this is certainly an interesting, twist of events...isn't it my dear daughter?" the man asked, looking to the young woman at his side. She nodded obediently and I grasped my wand, wondering if I could fight for my life and end hers.

If I damn well have to, the frightening thought came to mind. I would deal with the consequences, as damning as they were. I had been wanted for the murder of Albus...what would be one more loved one dying at my hands matter for me in the long wrong? She would be seen as a casualty in a war...

I didn't like the thought one bit.

"Tell me," Palpatine began, "what does it feel like...to be facing down one who once tried to rescue your life, Snape?"

I said nothing. He chuckled.

"Have I hit a nerve? I apologize." He wasn't at all sorry. And I certainly wouldn't be sorry if I found my hands around his neck. "You're dark, Snape...did you ever think you could just leave it all behind? Her saving grace could not help you...except bring you to an early grave." He turned to Keily then, looking at her in what I figured to be mock tenderness.

"Keily, my darling child...I need you to do something for me..." He looked in my direction. "This Dark Lord seeks to take all your loved ones away...it wouldn't do to let him live, would it?" She shook her head. He smiled. "Don't you think he deserves to be punished for his sins?"

Her answer came longer this time and Palpatine's confidence ebbed away slowly as Keily turned her head and gazed at him with more emotion than I had ever witnessed in her eyes.

"Quite," she whispered, before activating the blue lightsaber in her hand. She utterly surprised the man beside her as she sliced his right hand off (perhaps karmic justice finally coming to get the old man) and shoved him roughly to the floor. She pointed the tip of her blade to his throat and stepped on his chest to help keep him down as he held his stump of an arm. He tried throwing her off using the Force, but it didn't seem to work.

"H-how?" he demanded angrily, almost cutting his throat wide open on the lightsaber.

"I gave you life once again...I pulled you through the very doors of Kingdom Hearts...the abyss known as Oblivion...I manipulated your very being...don't think that now I am partially whole that I cannot do as I please with you," she replied, voice still low; soft.

I stared, unable to believe what I was seeing or hearing.

I did find my voice.

"Keily?"

She looked up at me, expression unreadable for some moments, then it broke into a sad, sad smile. "Severus," she whispered, in that slightly accented way of hers. It was music to my ears.

"How is this possible?"

"All in due time, Severus," she told me, before looking back down at Palpatine, her features now showing indecision and...worry? Hesitance? "Right now...I must deal with...him."

"If you strike me down...you will be no better than I," Palpatine said, smug. He was probably playing upon Keily's morals, which I'm sure must have returned along with her mind. I couldn't help, but still wonder where Kyxiel had gone, though, in my heart, I knew exactly what had happened to the foul mouthed, passionate Nobody I had been living with for the last several months. "You will turn to the dark side."

"True enough," she conceded, but not letting up on the pressure on his chest nor with the lightsaber held to his neck. "It isn't my place to judge you, for I am no better than you at this point in time." She paused, considering something, but her red-brown eyes not leaving his face as he looked up at her. "So, I shall let those who can judge you for myself."

I backed up a bit as a wind suddenly picked up around us, swirling up dust and whatever else into the air. The entire building shook tremendously from an incredible force of...magic? The Force? Gods only knew what as the shape of a very large door began to emerge from out of nowhere. Keily deactivated her lightsaber as the white door appeared behind her, glowing incandescently. The rumbling had ceased once the door was firmly set into existence. The door began to creak open and she took her foot away from him.

"Let those who you have wronged judge you," were her quiet words as she stepped aside. "All hearts return to darkness...especially one such as yours."

A shimmering light broke through from inbetween the crack, displaying colors of all types, shifting into all colors, then back into white, snaking tendrils heading straight towards Palpatine. The door opened wide and the light turned into shadows--dark hands grasping at the powerless man who screamed in terror as voices called out from beyond, familiar voices filled with anguish and need for vengeance. I turned away as I was sure a gruesome and slow death was occurring. If the telltales signs of flesh being ripped apart, sounds of a person choking and gurgling on their own blood were of any indication.

I turned back in time to see the shadows recede back into the door, leaving nothing of Palpatine behind. Not even a blood stains where he would have died. They took everything of him. The door shook and closed itself, disappearing in a twinkling light.

Rather than be stunned with what had just happened, I turned to look at Keily--wanted to ask her if she was alright, but she was already walking away. Without knowing what I was doing, I ran forward and wrapped her in my arms. She stood very still, tensed up. And she was shaking, ever so slightly as I held her for one impulsive moment.

She broke away from me. Keily smiled at me, however, raising a hand to my cheek.

"Severus...now isn't the time...I have a lot to do....now that I'm back..." I both understood and didn't understand at all what she had meant by all this and really, I should have been in some sort of shock, but I suppose that I've gotten used to such things. We may have been rid of one dark being, but there were dozens more within these walls. "This is all my fault...So I will make things right."

"What will you do?" I asked.

He hesitated a moment before explaining about the core of Babylon Palace. It is what keeps the place alive and floating. It is the energy source for the unrealistic building. It was also where all the enteched have been put. Keily said that she knew how she was going to free all those lost souls and knew exactly what would be waiting for her, if she did.

"Traps...curses...not to mention every person who was working with Voldemort and Palpatine once they find out what's happened...I don't think my little performance would have gone unnoticed for some..."

Before I could tell her that it was dangerous and something she couldn't do alone, she hushed me with her fingers. Silence would have been too harsh a word for her, the way she looked at me and had her fingers gently pressed to my lips...those that had kissed her Nobody's not so long ago.

"It's something I have to do...really!" She said, when I gave her a very incredulous look. "Look...I promise to come out alright...just trust me."

I looked at her.

"I do."

She smiled brightly at me and moved to hug me when I heard a small, telltale tinkle. I spotted the pendant Yuuko had given to me around her neck. I felt around my own neckline and realized then that Kyxiel had took it and that's why Keily was normal now. Was she whole again? Doubtful. Keily even admitted it herself to Palpatine.

So Kyxiel really was gone. I felt a pang.

"Well...looks like I've got my work cut out for me, but on't worry...Everything will turn out for the best..."

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After that, I do not recall. I know for a fact that Keily must have sent us out, just because that--save a few--every villain that had sided with the Emperor was trapped in Babylon Palace. Whether or not she has dealt with them or simply just imprisoned them there, I do not rightly know. All I know is that Keily has been up there either fighting or hiding or whatever and I don't know what's become of her or the beings still residing within it.

Sometimes, explosions can be heard and the whispers of screams can be carried on the wind.

Somehow, I don't want to know.

But I suspect that once our comrades who have been enteched have returned to us that Keily must had successfully reached the core...

All we can do is wait for now...