The Hollow Heart

The Root Darkside roared, a sound like a forest snapping in a hurricane. It raised a massive, timber-woven fist and brought it down. "Move!" I shouted. I didn't need to tell Tinkerbell twice. She was already a streak of gold, banking hard to the left as the fist slammed into the earth, sending a shockwave of mud and splintered wood rippling outward.

I jumped over the shockwave, landing on the creature's arm as it tried to retract. "Tink! The eyes!"

Cling-ting! "Eat dust, ugly!"

She dove. She didn't just fly; she accelerated, spiraling right in front of the creature's glowing yellow eyes. She released a burst of concentrated pixie dust, not the flying kind, but a blinding, stinging irritant. The monster recoiled, thrashing its head, swatting at the tiny fly buzzing around its face.

It was the opening I needed. I sprinted up the wooden arm, my boots finding traction on the rotted bark. The creature was massive, a living siege tower of darkness. I reached the shoulder. The heart-shaped cavity in its chest, the signature of a Darkside, was pulsing with purple miasma.

"Fire!" I yelled, channeling heat through The Solar Zenith. Tink heard the command. She zipped down, hovering right over the chest cavity. She sprinkled a heavy coat of dust into the darkness. "Ignition!" she chimed.

I cast Firaga. The fireball hit the dust-laden air. BOOM.

The reaction was explosive. Pixie dust was highly flammable, and combined with my magic, it created a thermobaric blast. The chest cavity erupted in golden flame. The Root Darkside shrieked. Its wooden ribs cracked. The darkness binding it together incinerated.

I backflipped off the crumbling shoulder, landing in the mud below. The giant swayed, burning from the inside out, and collapsed backward. It dissolved into a cloud of black smoke and drifting embers.

I stood up, brushing ash from my coat. Tink fluttered down, landing on the crossguard of my Keyblade. She was panting, her light pulsing rapidly. "Did you see that?!" she chimed, punching the air with a tiny fist. "We blew him up! That was awesome!"

"Good shooting, partner," I said, tapping her gently with my finger.

But the victory was short-lived. The guardian was gone, but the Hangman's Tree itself was still sick. The massive trunk loomed over us, the secret entrance torn open like a wound.

"We have to go inside," I said. "The source is deeper."

Tink’s excitement faded. She looked at the dark opening. "That's... that's the slide," she murmured, her bells soft and sad. "We used to race down it. Now it just looks like a throat."

"Stay close."

We entered. We didn't slide; the wood was too warped and jagged. We climbed down the hollow interior, descending into the belly of the hideout. The air grew cold and stagnant. It smelled of mildew and old fur.

We dropped into the main chamber, the Lost Boys' Hideout. It was a ruin. The hammocks were shredded, hanging like cobwebs. The crude wooden table was smashed. Toys, wooden swords, slingshots, teddy bears, were scattered across the floor, covered in a layer of black grime.

Tink flew off my Keyblade. She hovered over a broken teddy bear. She touched it, and her light dimmed. "They left everything," she whispered, the bells chiming a mournful tune. "They just ran. They didn't even take their Bears."

She looked around the empty, silent room that used to be filled with laughter and crowing. "It's so quiet. I hate the quiet."

"We're going to fix it," I promised, stepping over the debris. "But first, we have to find where the darkness is coming from."

I scanned the room. The Heartless Shadows scuttled in the corners, fleeing from my light, but they weren't attacking. They were guarding something. They were clustering around the heavy wooden chair at the head of the table. Peter Pan’s Chair.

I walked toward it. The floorboards creaked. Under the chair, the floor had been smashed open. A hole, jagged and unnatural, led down into the root system of the island. A thick, pulsating vein of darkness rose from the hole, wrapping around Peter’s chair like a parasite strangling a throne.

"The roots," Tink realized, flying over the hole. "They're tapping into the Ley Lines. The magic of the island... the thing that stops time... the Heartless are drinking it."

I looked down the hole. It was pitch black, a vertical tunnel into the abyss. "That's why the island is rotting," I said grimly. "They're sucking the youth out of it. If they drain the core, Neverland dies. It becomes just another dead rock."

Tink looked at me. She was scared, the hole was terrifying, but she gripped her needle-sword tight. "Then we go down," she chimed, her bells sharp with resolve. "Nobody kills my island. Not while I'm breathing."

"Attagirl."

I cast Aero around us, creating a wind barrier. "This is going to be a rough drop."

I jumped into the hole. We plummeted past the hideout, past the soil, deep into the crust of the world. The walls of the tunnel were alive, lined with twitching black roots and glowing red eyes. We slashed our way down, a falling comet of light and gold, cutting through the blockage, descending toward the very heart of the world.

The air grew hot. The smell of rot was replaced by the smell of ozone and raw, unstable magic. We hit the bottom with a heavy thud.

We were in a cavern. But it wasn't made of rock. The walls were made of crystallized time, giant, glowing gears and clock faces embedded in the earth, stopped and rusted. And in the center of the room stood the source.

It wasn't a Heartless. Not exactly. It was a Shadow. A human-shaped silhouette, standing perfectly still in the center of the gears. It wore a hat with a feather. It held a jagged dagger. It was Peter Pan’s Shadow. But without Peter to cast it, the Shadow had gone feral. It had grown. It was feeding on the gears, turning the golden magic of time into black sludge.

Tink gasped, her light turning pale. "Peter's Shadow... it didn't leave with him?"

"No," I said, summoning my Keyblade. "He ran away so fast he left his darkness behind. And now... we have to clean up his mess."

The Shadow turned its head. It didn't have a face, just a blank, black void. It raised its dagger. The final battle for the soul of Neverland had begun.