The Heartless were falling faster than Henry had expected, another soldier exploding as he brought Atom around into its head. The wastelander let out a whoop of triumph as he blasted one of the last few around him with a burst of the magic radiation. It looked like the othe others were doing just as well, kicking ass all around him, and the Princess seemed to be safe for now.

"Hell yeah! Score 1 for the good guys!" He gave another shout of triumph as he sent an Irration shot at the closed ofnthe flying Heartless around Ninty. "C'mon, ugly! Get yourself a taste'a me! I got a nice, big heart for ya!"

The Heartless infestation was fading, all except for a few stragglers that were soon finished off by a tired Ninty and a less exhausted Henry. They all looked around at the wreckage of the plantation; the slavers were dead, the slaves were dead, and the Princess of Heart was safe; traumatized, but safe. However, Mach would find eyes trained on him from that same Princess, who was now latching on to her rescuer, at least metahphorically, asking:

"[Southern Accent: Thank you, thank you! You guys saved me!]" she would then look around, though, and cry. "[Southern Accent: But my family...they're gone; not forever, but they're gone.]" Apparently, the Princess of Heart innately knew the fates of those consumed by the Heartless. She would then look at Mach, infatuation in her eyes, and should he take off the mask, she would kiss him. If he didn't, well, she'd do it anyway, but this time more unhygenically as the mask had acquired a film of dust in the fighting.

Suddenly, a message would come from the Gummi Cruiser:

"A small battalion is coming from Richmond - 50 men on horseback, backed by a Tank sent by the White Alliance!" apparently, the dimension-hopping Nazis from other worlds were trying to show the Confederates how strong they were, and presumably, why they deserve a high place in their ad-hoc coalition.

Now, the group had several choices; one, stand and fight - there was no real reason to do this except rage against those people - retreat to the Gummi Cruiser, retreat to the Gummi Cruiser, then use its weapons to obliterate the armed formation, or just land the invisible Gummi Cruiser on the battalion, crushing them with its huge bulk. That last choice saved energy, by the way.

After that, would be another set of choices: go towards Richmond and destroy the White Alliance to forestall any thoughts by White Supremacists as to the effectiveness of gathering with bigots from other universes, leave Richmond alone and go rest for a while, or rest for a while, interact with each other...and then come back to that accursed city tomorrow and destroy Jefferson Davis' regime.

Mach did indeed remove his helmet. It got dusty in the fight and he needed to wipe the visor so he wouldn't be blinded. And then the Princess of Heart blindsided him with a kiss. Whether she was going for the lips or not, Mach moved his face and got pecked on the cheek instead, "Whoa, hey..." he said, taking an awkward, "...I don't kiss on the first date, lady." didn't stop his face from turning beet red. Thankfully, he just happened to possess a helmet that would hide that fact. Or it would, if he were actually wearing the thing at the moment, which he wasn't. Realizing this fact, Mach hastily put it back on.

"Yeah, so, um..." thankfully, he received an emergency message from the ship. Whew, talk about being saved by the bell, or in this case, the communication beep, "...oh would you look at that! A message from the ship interrupting us, oh darn." inside he was sighing with relief. He didn't know what the message was about, didn't care. He was just thankful it saved him from an awkward interaction.

Forces from Richmond. 50 Cavalry, backed by a tank, "Confederate forces out of Richmond, huh? Oh no! 50 horsemen and a single tank? What ever will we do?" his tone was flat and very obviously deadpan, "Oh yeah, this." as he said that, his hands were fiddling with a holographic screen that just appeared in front of him. He was sending a response to the gummi ship, telling it to ready its weapons, lock on to the enemy force - which, let's be honest here, were a basically a bunch of piss-ants by comparison - and await further command, "Aaaaaaaand our ship is now ready to blow them to hell. Come on, forces of evil, at least make it somewhat of a challenge for me."

As the Gummi Ship's weapons blew the Confederates and their ally to smithereens, Mach would find out that he tempted fate, as two Corridors of Darkness, like the one Tocsax had used a couple of times, opened, and two people in similar robes walked through. However, their walk was cold, purposeful, and antagonistic, and unlike the group's Nobody friend, the two were clad in face-concealing hoods that made them look more sinister. Then, the two took out Keyblades of their own, and let down the aforementioned hoods, before one of them, a redheaded, golden-eyed man with a mustache and beard and pale skin, said, in a gruff tone that had a notable Scottish accent:

"I am Angus La Mere, formerly of the Knights Templar," he then shed his black robe, revealing a white surcoat with a red cross, underneath which was a coat of chainmail, "one of the Thirteen Seekers of Darkness who want to end the Tyranny of Light. I am authorized by Master Leo the Second Mathemathician to 'delete' anyone who stands in their way...starting with her." He then pointed towards Jupiter, before the tip of his Keyblade, which was literally a Red Key, shot out, connected to the rest of the weapon by a long chain. Its target was Jupiter Lark, who was impaled through the small-h heart, and then dragged to Angus' position, where her body began to emit an aura of Darkness.

Then, it just burst, and a giant Darkside exploded from the ruins of Jupiter's form, looming over the group. Then the second hooded figure cast aside his own robe, revealing himself to be an ebon-black person with a close-cropped, military cut, with the same golden eyes as Angus. This man would then introduce himself:

"And I am Msizi Mpilo, Helper of Life in my tounge, but now a destroyer, for what is destruction without space to clear more life?" He then gestured towards the Darkside. "And I give you all one last chance - leave the service of the Tyranny of Light, or end up like your friend here." Msizi was intimdating, like the sterotypes said, and he had an air of meneace, just like Angus.

"Get out of here!" a voice shouted; it was Tocsax, who had come out of his own Corridor, and was now gazing at Angus with hate, and Msizi with...outrage, outrage that was not directed at the man himself. "No...Msizi; Leo didn't - he did this to you, didn't he?! Argh!"

He would have charged, but he saw Ninty lying down, tired out. He summoned two Moogles from another Corridor of Darkness, saying:

"Take Ninty back to the ship; I, Mach, and Henry will tackle the Darkside and these two meatheads." And with that, Tocsax, not giving Angus and Msizi any time to say anything, charged at the two Seekers of Darkness, before vanishing, and then suddenly reappearing in several bursts all around the two enemies, bringing his blade down on them at the central moment of each burst - Dark Splicer.

The Darkside, meanwhile, would move to punch Mach first; whether the attack was blocked, avoided, or most unlikely, just taken by the power-armored boy, the Heartless' next move would be to punch the ground, creating a pool of dark from where Shadows would hop out and go after Henry, attacking in swarms. It would then try and smash the other two with its fists, using its superior size, strength, and bulk to sustain several seconds of attempted heavy pummeling, before releasing a shot of dark energy from its chest.

"[Southern Accent: I can turn her back!]" the Princess of Heart was now shouting, "[Let me touch her, and I can change her back!]" To all ears, it would sound like nonsense; it was the two fighter's choice whether to listen to her.

Before the fight could get seriously underway, a Corridor or Darkness opened up. Good news: It was nearby. Bad news: It opened up near Henry, Mach, and Tocsax. The people who came out though, didn't come walking out. Instead they came tumbling out and rolled along the ground for a few feet before coming to a stop. One of the people was a boy wearing mostly black and the second was a girl wearing white and pale blue. After a few seconds the boy managed to sit up and gently set the girl to the side.
"[Princess Amaya, are you okay?]" he asked in a foreign language (Japanese, obviously) before getting up and looking around. He immediately got to his feet and got on guard. They definitely were not in Japan anymore and to top it all off, they got involved in a fight. With a giant heartless."[Great, as if this couldn't get any worse. Amaya, stick close to me. Best we feel out this situation. But be prepared to defend yourself.]"

He glanced over at the giant heartless and saw that it was ignoring two people standing nearby while several others seemed to be engaging it in battle. He wasn't sure if this was some messed up training here or if there were two opposing forces. Best to see how things played out he guessed.

This is not how I wanted my day to go... thought a white haired girl clinging to the black haired boy before the hard ground meet them causing them to tumble over themselves. "[My head hurts so much..]" she replied in her native Japanese tounge as she put her hands on her head trying to recollect her thoughts and past events of the day.

She heard Joshua stand up as she got up after him clinging to the back of his jacket "[uh Joshua...I don't think we are anywhere in my father's kingdom]" she said to him as her grip tightened on his jacket as she looked around worried before looking at the giant heartless and the other people around. Her blue eyes took in the environment and the situation as the only conclusion she could make was that they were not in Japan and these other people didn't belong here like she and Joshua was. She pushed some hair out of her eyes as she kept close like Joshua instructed, not really knowing what to say to make this situation better cause for all she knew that no one could understand her beside Joshua.

No sooner had his request been fulfilled that two cloaked villains entered the scene through what looked like an identical portal to the one Tocsax liked using. He could tell they were villains because... well they were about as subtle as an anvil being dropped. Pitch black cloaks, hoods that hid their faces in shadow. The guys may as well have been wearing neon signs that read, 'We're the bad guys, come beat us up'. And the armored genius would have done just that, except the Scottish one (who, just to be as stereotypical as possible, was named Angus) lunged at Jupiter, running her through with his... wait was that a Keyblade? This guy, who was seriously like something out of a cheesy, Saturday-morning Cartoon, was a wielder of the freaking Keyblade, but the more-or-less heroic Mach didn't get to be one? Talk about unfair!

Unfortunately, his immediate thoughts distracted him enough that it was too late by the time he noticed that the lumbering Heartless they summoned was going after him first, "Oh sh-" he put up an energy shield as quick as he could, and while it prevented the impact from doing any serious damage to his suit, it didn't stop the actual force of the impact from knocking him flat on his ass, only after flying through the air a few feet. Unharmed, thanks entirely to his armor and energy shield, Mach staggered to his feet, surprised and partially winded, "Okay... next time... I'm wishing for a million dollars." he said, the irony of his tempting fate not lost on him.

He heard the Princess, who still hadn't told any of them her name, mention something about being able to fix Jupiter if she could touch the lumbering Heartless she was transformed into. Well, that was nice and all, but the problem was going to be the actual act of getting the Princess in contact with the thing without getting killed in the process. Another fact that wasn't lost on him was that the big heartless could very well have been functioning like an over-sized puppet the two cloaked jerks were controlling, so one had to wonder if the smarter strategy wasn't simply to 'cut the puppet's strings' as it were. Mach might have acted on this, but then yet another portal randomly opened up, and two more strangers came literally tumbling through it.

"And now apparently this is happening..." he quipped to himself, then noticed the two, one a boy and the other a girl, conversing in what definitely sounded like Japanese. Thankfully, Japanese had become just as predominant of a language as English where he came from, so Mach actually did understand them for the most part. So he tried saying something to them in Japanese, "Don't suppose I could trouble you for some help here? I... may have... jinxed this on us and I'll feel pretty guilty if this goes South 'cause of me." he sure hoped his Japanese didn't sound too rusty.

And that explained fuck all. Joshua thought to himself. At least one of these strangers spoke Japanese. Would make life a bit easier for the next few minutes. Based off what he got though, it seemed to be a confrontation of enemy forces they had just stumbled into. However, he knew one thing: one side was using a Heartless somehow, and any side that used a Heartless was no ally of his.
"[Stay here princess]." He said, getting to his feet"[Either that or get close to that kid. I'll handle these three.]"

With that, he got to his feet and began walking towards the Darkside and the two people behind it, his expression hard to read but bordering on anger.

"Well, this is a surprise," Angus quipped. "It seems that Rani has failed in her task, again." Joshua would remember the Seeker of Darkness who had tried to take Amaya; a woman in a black cloak and hood, who held a Keyblade like his', only said Keyblade, in addition to being a key, had sitar strings attached to the shaft - sitar strings that were used to summon clones made up of water.

More confirmation that this was the enemy, then.

However, affirming that he was an enemy wasn't just Angus acting evil for little reason; that was for other occasions. Rather, Angus was trying to draw attention to himself, before Msizi, using his own black-and-purple Keyblade, sent out a wave of poisonous gas at the young man, before turning his attention back to Tocsax.

Tocsax, in question, had taken in Joshua and Amaya's entrance, seeing in it opportunity, and danger. He too, took advantage of the Zulu's momentary focus on Joshua, getting several hits into the older man's flak jacket and military wear. Msizi took the hits with a look resembling...pride? before finally parrying Tocsax's blow, and then breathing poison onto the young boy, who reached out with his left hand and ignited said poison with a Dark Fire, causing an explosion that threw them both back, although it seemed that both were undamaged...much.

Angus, meanwhile, took advantage of Msizi's attack on Joshua to launch four chains from his hand in conjunction with the wave of poisonous gas; said chains glowed with Thunder, Sleep, Dispel, and Light.

The Dispel Chain would destroy magical barriers like Shell and Protect, assuming that it struck. The Light Chain would blow through non-magical protection; Angus didn't know Joshua had Dark Barrier, but he assumed that the Light Chain would blow through an ordinary block, even if it was with a Keyblade. The Thunder Chain would stun, while the Sleep Chain would tranquilize; it was twice as strong as the Thunder Chain.

Of course, Joshua can simply avoid them, but the chains would still follow the 21-year old. One chain, however, one without enchantments, would slowly crawl towards Amaya...she can notice it, and take countermeasures, or not notice it, and get taken hostage. Alternatively, Mach or Henry can see the chain while fighting the Darkside, and warn her.

Speaking of Mach, Henry, and the Jupiter Darkside, those three would still be in melee, as the Darkside would resume trying to pummel them both, now accompanied by Shadows. Mach would feel a burning, but comfortable heat into his Heart for a moment, before hearing a voice saying:

No, not time yet. It didn't take a genius like him to infer that the voice was referring to his' getting a Keyblade. He also had a choice; either one, go along with it, or two, demand that the voice give him a Keyblade, now!

Amaya listened before nodding in understanding as she watched his body language and crinched, God help whoever he is going to kill. She turned when she heard Japanese as she was full of delight that someone could speak her language.

She wasted no time moving over to mach as a slight sound caught her ears she turned quickly lifting her hand as the chain moved to her "Barrier!" She shouted as a barrier of light hit the chain back before she dropped the spell to cast another "blizzarga!"she said firing her blizzard spell freezing the chain before she picked up a rock tossing it on the chain shattering it. "Thank you joshua's training"she said to herself. She turned to herself before she turned to mach before speaking "I am happy someone understands us, what can I do to help you all out? Joshua has this covered with the two figures."she commented before looking towards the jupiter darkside. She took a few seconds before she lifted her hand forward " blizzarga" she whispered just wanting to temporarily stop the dark side "Joshua don't attack the darkside..." she yelled to her guard.

Joshua didn't hear Amaya, as he was busy with other thing.

Just as the poison gas was about to him, he vanished and appeared behind Argus, graabing het man's head and slamming him into the ground.
"You speak English. Good, that'll make this a bit more fun to say." He said as blue flames gathered between his hand and Argus' head."Burn in hell."

The resulting explosion from the Dark Firaga spell was bound to hurt. As the smoke cleared, Joshua barely had the time to dodge the four chains coming at him. Keeping an eye on them, he saw them turn to come at him again.
"Oh, you have got to be..." He managed to say before whipping out his side arm, a modified Desert Eagle pistol, and fired a bullet at the chains. The weapons was a higher caliber then most other Desert Eagles and would easily deflect or flat out destroy the chains. in the case of the former, he would retreat to assess the situation.

Henry was a little tired of weirdness today, his shoulders slumping and a heavy sigh escapig his cracked lips as he drew the sawed-off shotgun at his hip.

"Yeah, yeah, evil fuckin' speech about how we're the bad guys and you're righteous an' all that. Heard it before." He said, managing to get off one shot of buckshot at Msizi before the guy managed to call soon his own magic. Henry swore as he beheld the mighty beast before him, looming over him like a Deathclaw. Shadows were coming too, and Henry struck quickly at two of them before he set loose a bolt of Irradiate at Darkside. He didn't pay attention to anything else, barely even noticing the arrival of two newcomers.

"C'mon you ugly son'bitch! Fight sum'n closer to your size!" He barked at Darkside, barreling toward the monster with his blade at the ready, slashing out at its legs as he roared his defiance. Mach seemed to be doing okay, too.

"Mach, get this one's head! I'll keep him wanting' a piece'a me!"

Get its... head? But that was still Jupiter somewhere in there, right? If he didn't do something, they were all gonna end up dead. All the while, he was using his prosthesis to stomp out Shadows that came close to him and the newcomer who stuck by him. She was flinging spells left and right, one of which was a Barrier of some sort. Maybe they could use that? The Princess of Heart still needed guarding, especially if she was gonna purify that Darkside. Maybe this new girl could help with that? Fortunately, she had just asked what she could do to help, so Mach was all too ready to make a suggestion.

"See that girl over there?" he quickly gestured at the Princess of Heart, "She can turn that big Heartless back into our friend, but only if she can touch it. Can you get closer to her and use your Barriers to help guard her?" he asked, then knelt to the ground, beginning to fiddle with the settings in his legs, "I'm gonna stun that Heartless, when I do, that'll be her opening to fix things, got it?" he was now focusing on amping up the settings to his enhancers. He did intend to stress test the suit at some point, but he never thought he'd have to do it in live combat. Still, if this worked, it would give them just the opening they needed.

This is it, Mach. No chickening out now. He thought to himself. He started feeling... warm all of a sudden. Despite the immensely stupid and risky stunt he was preparing to pull, he was feeling comforted by something. Then... a voice? No, he shook his head, convinced it was his imagination. During this, his whole suit looked like it was starting to glow under the armored bits, especially his legs. This was a sign that it was heating up, a by-product of overclocking the enhancements, which was what he had done while knelt down. Hopefully, the suit could give him enough raw strength to knock that Darkside flat on its ass long enough for the Princess of Heart to do her thing.

Then, like a human rocket, he took off. He was sprinting forward faster than any person could possibly move on their own. He even appeared to leave a blurry trail behind him. Then, he launched himself in a leap that really sent him skyward. Again, he was moving with such speed, and now jumping with such strength that he even left a small crater where he jumped from. In the air, he somersaulted as he started a downward arc, positioning himself into a kick. As he did so, he started looking like a meteor entering the atmosphere, as his armored suit became so heated that it was leaving a hot trail in its wake as his feet made impact. If the kick connected, Mach then used his current strength to push himself back off from the Darkside's form, even flipping backwards before landing back on the ground with a crashing thud, again a small crater formed where he landed, and small cloud of dust got kicked up around him.

He was silent, honestly stunned that his crazy stunt actually seemed to work. He wasn't sure if the suit could handle those levels of stress, but it seemed to hold out okay. At least until right at that moment. Suddenly warnings began blaring up in Mach's HUD. His suit was, to put it simply, overheated, especially around the legs. As a result, it locked up so that it take a moment to cool down. Probably not the best position to be in when the fight was technically still going, "Uh oh. Not good!" he said, trying everything he could to speed up the cool down, but unfortunately there wasn't much he could do, since all power in his systems were already being automatically diverted to the cooling units. Unless his miracle kick had ended the fight, he'd be a sitting duck for a few moments that would no doubt feel like an eternity in the heat of combat.

Amaya's Blizzaga, Henry's Irradiate, and above all, Mach's super-kick managed to immobilize and weaken the Darkside, prompting the Princess of Heart - technically, Amaya shared the same title - to move forward, running fast before anyone can stop her, and embracing the Heartless, her hands coming into contact with its black form.

For a moment, nothing happened, then the Jupiter Darkside was surrounded by a swirl of lights, shrinking, reverting, slowly transforming back into Jupiter Lark, unconcious. And that was the end of that part of the battle.

"Amazing..." Angus found the time to remark, as he pulled back his damaged Dispel and Sleep Chains. He would then shoot the top half of his Keyblade again, but, this time, it was towards the sky, where it would open up a rift in space, then vanish.

Only for a second later, for the heavens to rain down smaller, mundane chains with no spells attached to them, but came in great number, all racing towards every member of the group, including where Tocsax and Msizi were fighting.

Tocsax, ever the pragmatist, just opened up a Corridor of Darkness and disappeared inside. However, this was not the end of his involvement in the battle, because as soon as he disappeared, a shot of pure energy hit Msizi; Ultima Cannon - the Ultimate Shotlock. Shrugging off the blast, the Zulu in South African Military Gear focused on Joshua, shooting a stream of poisonous sludge at him. Should Henry shoot at the guy with his shotgun, there would be a few wounds and flecks of blood, but the Zulu would keep focusing on the Dark Warrior, instinctively seeing in him the second strongest threat - the first, in raw power but not fighting skill, was Tocsax, who was now using Lightbloom* on the Zulu and Angus.

It was clear that in one or two rounds, the fight will have to end soon...

*khwiki.com/Lightbloom

I don't know how much more magic energy I have left... thought amaya to herself seeing the chains retract before the sky began to release chains from God knows where as she casted barrier over herself and whoever she could get it to reach to help some

Joshua watched the Templar (the designs made it obvious) as he shot his chain into the air only to cause a rain of bladed chains to fall on everyone from Izanagi knows where. He saw Amaya summon up a barrier in time to block them but now he was pissed. He used Dark Barrier to block his chains before pointing to the Templar.
"You wear the uniform of a Holy Knight, yet you disgrace them at every turn. You attack the defenseless, manipulate your enemies, and use black magics to your advantage." He said, speaking in fluent, perfect English, his tone heated. When the poison came at him, he barely acknowledged it and simply blocked it with another Dark Barrier."Tell me Knight Templar, have you abandoned your order and your God? Have you forsaken everything you believe in?"

Henry showed no hesitation as soon as Jupiter returned to her normal self. Letting Atom disappear in a puff of sickly green smoke, he lifted the girl up in a fireman's carry, starting off toward the nearest spot of cover he could find. Even if most of fighting was over, he'd rather not have the kid be hurt any more than she already was bt a stray blast of magic or whatever was flying around here.

"Y'know, after this, I think I'mma head down to Richmond and put one in Davis. Sounds like fair payment for Jupiter here." He grumbled to nobody in particular, setting the girl down when he was sure they were in a safe spot.

As Amaya successfully blocked the chains, Angus' golden eyes glowed, and the Knight Templar began laughing, his accent changing mid-laugh from Scottish, to Greek. He then spoke:

"You are well-learned for a sellsword, sellsword. Yes, Angus has lost faith in his order and his God; who wouldn't when they saw the leader of the order being burnt at the stake on false charges, all to satisfy the caprice of earthly rulers? Not that he's even the 'real' Angus, but we'll deal with the complicated metaphysics of that later," he then winced as he was hit by more bolts of Tocsax's Lightbloom, causing the younger Nobody to say, in a tone of loathing:

"Leo..." for yes, this was Leo the Second Mathematician, the villain behind the whole piece. Apparently, he was possessing both Angus and Msizi.

"You've shown yourself to be consistently powerful, boy," continued 'Angus', whose voice now sounded like an old man's. "You would have made a great vessel, but alas, you are lost to me."

"Leo," said Tocsax, "you will pay! You will pay for what you've done!"

"The wheels are already set, little Tocsax. Not even you and your friends can stop the inevitable."

Henry, meanwhile, would successfully take Jupiter to behind a slave hut, where a Moogle would take her back to the ship; it would seem, however, that she would be in a coma for a long time.

He would then return to where the rest of the group, and Tocsax, were.

"So..." said Tocsax in question, looking at Joshua, Amaya, and the others; "you have questions?"

Amaya let her barrier down once the chains stopped. She listened to the cloak covered figures speak with the group as she understood most English thanks to her studies and Joshua's.she made sure there wasn't anymore possible attacks before she moved over to joshua's side" are you alright Joshua? "She asked before she looked at Tosca "yes, I have a question...what is going on? Why are we here? Who were those people that attacked?" She asked in Japanese as she wanted answers but she stopped herself as only one completely understood her and the other one somewhat understood her as she looked at Joshua to translate as she still had trouble talking English.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm more worried about you, but you seem to be holding up well." Joshua said, glancing over Amaya to see if she had any visable wounds. Luckily she didn't or there would be hell to pay. Glancing over at the other people in the area, he listened to Amaya ask her question, though in Japanese. So he translated, though with some additives.
"Okay she asked the following, and I'm adding a few things. Who are you? Who the fuck were those? Where the fuck are we? And most importantly WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON AROUND HERE AND WHY THE FUCK ARE WE HERE?!" Joshua said, calmly at first but shouting by the end, as really, being this confused pissed him off greatly. Add the fact that Amaya was here, and likely in great danger as well, and he was not going to be in a good mood until he got some answers.