Cannot believe more people aren't talking about Chadley and MAI. Local robot has spent his entire life shackled to the whims of a truly despicable man and finally breaks free and creates his own freewill and you know the first thing he does? Make another person. And she's bright and she's full of curiosity and she loves the world and she critically. Critically. Does things because she wants to. Chadley is the seventh iteration and the only one who got out. His creator can put him in pain at any time by torturing one of his precursors. He is not free. But the first thing he did upon leaving home was bring to life someone who was.
Verse: Single Mum Cloud AU (SephCloud have a huge amount of children)
This has been sitting in the back of my head stewing ever since the ask of how all the Sefikura kids would fit into Kingdom Heart’s universe and I decided they would probably all be side-quest givers. Finally got around to writing it.
These are each the scenes of them giving out the first of what would become their associated side-quests/mini-game series. Hopefully you can tell which kind of standard video-game side-quest/mini-game they each are.
Made Sora one of the kids because he is the main character of Kingdom Hearts so it felt easiest to just use him. And very much tried to make them all fit how Kingdom Hearts works and treats the Final Fantasy cameo characters so they might be a little OOC but in the way Kingdom Hearts would do it.
The writing is also a little bit stilted and blunt but again going for the vibe of side-quests/mini-games in a videogame which has that slightly stilted to-the-point writing and movements to it.
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The hulking frame of the creature creaks as it curves over before vanishing into smoke before Sora.
It didn’t look like any heartless he’s seen before but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. He couldn’t even count the number of times he’s been surprised on his journey.
Whatever it was it was going to attack the people travelling along the road so needed to be dealt with.
“Sora!”
Sora turns at the sound of his voice.
“Prompto!” He yells back as his eldest sibling comes running over. “What are you doing here?”
With Prompto being best friends with a prince he tended to stay on Eos as part of the Kingsguard. Not travelling between worlds.
“Trying to find a daemon that found its way here,” Prompto says with a slump. “We heard reports of a monster attacking the travellers and thought it might be it. Have you seen anything like that?”
“Actually, I have. And it’s already taken care of!”
“What!?” Prompto exclaims. “You beat me to it!?”
“Yep!” Sora beams up at his brother who groans.
“Travelled all this way and my little brother got it before I did!” Prompto’s tone is more joking than offended and he ruffles Sora’s hair with it. “Well at least it’s taken care of I guess. Onto the next one.”
“There’s more?”
“Huh? Oh yeah,” Prompto says. “Someone opened a rift between our world and the others. We managed to fend off anything coming in, but some of our monsters got out. Now I’m stuck having to go find them all before they cause too many problems.”
“Can I help?” Sora’s already travelling between the worlds hunting down heartless, some daemons as well isn’t that much more effort. Even if this one gave him a bigger fight than the average heartless.
“Sure,” Prompto says with a grin. “If you happen to see anymore of those nastys feel free to take them down. Just text me about it so I don’t waste my time looking around a place trying to find something that’s already been defeated.”
“On it,” Sora says with a nod.
“Thanks bro,” Prompto says before his phone goes off. He looks down at it and groans. “Sorry, I got to go. Make sure to text me if you managed to defeat any more of them though!”
Sora waves his brother off before continuing down to the road.
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“What are you three doing here?” Sora asks the triplets, who stand gathered around their bikes at the edge of the town.
Causing trouble, no doubt.
“Racing,” Yazoo answers, leaning over his handlebars to stare Sora down. Something that had been far more effective when Sora was 5. “We heard there’s an old track that goes through the desert and wanted to try it. See who can get the best time.”
“Right.” that did make sense for the three of them as well.
“Do you want to join us?” Kadaj asks, circling around Sora. “There’s a bike shop over there you can borrow from. Mother did teach you how to ride correct?”
“Yes, he did!” Sora can’t help but bristle at it. The triplets were always the meanest of his siblings.
“Are you sure baby brother? They say there’s monsters on this route,” Yazoo says.
“We wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” Loz adds on.
“I can take care of myself!” Sora has been travelling between the worlds fighting off heartless for years now. He’s sure he can handle whatever ‘monsters’ are along the route.
“Well hurry up then. We won’t wait all day,” Kadaj says, sliding his helmet on his head and mounting his bike.
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“Come on, how are you meant to protect yourselves if you can’t even complete these drills!”
Sora walks into the small military encampment to see Sice and Seven standing over a group of cadets. Their arms crossed.
“But it’s so hard big sis!” one of the cadets complain, looking up at Seven for mercy.
Seven shakes her head at it.
“This isn’t hard!” Sice says. “My baby brothers could do this when they were 10.”
“What could I do?” Sora asks, running over to close the distance and stand next to the cowering cadets.
“These drills,” Seven says, gesturing at the equipment beside them.
“Oh yeah, I remember them.” Sora also remembers hating them every time dad dragged them out of bed made them all do them every morning when he was home.
“If you’re going to sound that reluctant about them I think it’s time for a refresher!” Sice says. “And you can show these cadets that what they’re whining about is nothing really.”
“Only if you want to Sora,” Seven adds. “We’re not your commanders.”
“No, it’ll be fun. See how much I’ve grown since I last did them.” And it might help inspire the cadets.
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“Ven!” Sora says, running along the sand to get to his brothers side.
“Oh Sora!” Ven says, startling from where he was staring out to the water. “How is your journey going?”
“Good,” Sora says and Ven gives a nod at it.
“And are you keeping up with your keyblade skills?” Ven asks and Sora groans.
“What are you my teacher?”
“Well I am your senior,” Ven says, resting his hand on the back of his head. “I’m trying to be a good mentor. But you’re right it feels weird. I’m sure you’re doing well.”
Sora gives a nod at it.
“Although,” Ven says. “I think I still know where Yensid left some of his old training modules for us across the different worlds. I could get Aqua to turn them back on if you want.”
“Really?” Sora never received any real formal instruction on how to use his keyblade unlike his brother. He figured most of it out by himself as he travelled but it would be good to receive some training from one of the old masters, even if just in the form of a recording.
“Yeah, sure. Although some of them are pretty advanced I warn you,” Ven says shaking his head. “Yensid definitively would put us through our paces. You’ll learn a lot from them. If I remember correctly the first one is in that cave over there. I should be able to activate it if you meet me there.”
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“What are you doing Vanitas?” Sora demands as his brother stands back and watches as his unversed work at destroying the flower display set up as part of the cross-world competition.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Vanitas asks, glancing at Sora over his shoulder before turning his attention back to his unversed destruction. “I’m removing these eye-sores before anyone else has to suffer them.”
“Someone worked hard on those!” Sora protests, summoning his keyblade to hand. “I’m not going to let you destroy them for your own entertainment.”
“Seriously little brother you think you can stop me?” Vanitas asks, turning around to face Sora, letting the darkness he controls surround him. Some of the unversed turn around to face Sora while others continue with their destruction. “But I suppose that could make it a bit more fun. If you can defeat my unversed before they destroy this ugly thing than I’ll leave this one alone. Deal?”
“Deal.” Sora is sure he can defeat a handful of his brothers unversed easily enough. Hopefully before they do to much destruction.
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“Sora?” The lump Sora fell on after falling through the trapdoor asks.
“Vaan?” Sora asks peering in the dim light at his older brother.
“Are you okay?” Vaan asks as the two of them get themselves standing.
“Yeah. What about you? And what are you doing here?” Sora asks dusting himself off.
“I’m fine considering my little brother just fell on me. And I’m trying to find the Dalmascan diamond that was supposed to be here only to end up in this stupid dungeon!” Vaan says, gesturing around.
“I thought you had stopped stealing!” Sure Sora’s brother hadn’t given up on his dream to become a pirate one day but he had promised to stop stealing things when their parents found out about his habit.
“I have! And I’m not stealing!” Vaan protests. “Okay, maybe I am. But I’m stealing something back. Ashe told me how all the jewels from her family’s crown were taken and scattered after they were invaded. I just thought if I could find them all for her I could give her something of her home back.”
“Oh.” In that instance Sora found it hard to fault his brother. “Well in that case…”
“Can you help me out of here?” Vaan asks with a nod to the door.
“Huh? Oh right, yeah, just stand back.”
The keyblade unlocks the door easily and the two move through the dungeon fighting off the monsters in their way until they come to a statue that has a stunning diamond held in it’s hands.
“I bet you that’s it!” Vaan says, racing over to grab it. He turns around to show Sora it. “Thanks for your help Sora! I’m sure this will make Ashe’s day!”
“Happy to help!” The darkness had stolen so much from so many. It is nice to be able to get something back.
“Oh, and, hey, if you happen to find any more across your travels can you pick them up for me?” Vaan asks. “Ashe said that there was 12 in the original crown so that’s how many we’re looking for.”
“Of course,” Sora says with a nod.
“Thanks bro, you’re the best. I can’t wait to show Ashe once we have them all.”
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“Oh, hey Sora!” Roxas says as Sora approaches in in the Usual Spot in Twilight Town. “What brings you to this world?”
“Just passing through,” Sora says. “What about you? Anything interesting happening?”
“Actually now you mention it, there’s a big Struggle competition that’s coming up,” Roxas says guesting to a poster on the wall. “The whole gang’s planning on entering.”
“I can probably hang around cheer you on from the sidelines.” The darkness seems to be at bay for the moment meaning Sora isn’t in any rush to get to the next world. Some downtime would probably do him some good. And he likes to support his twin brother whenever he can.
“The sidelines!?” Roxas asks. “No you should enter as well. No offence to the others but I would like some real competition in the game. And I can only imagine Seifer’s face if he didn’t even make it to the finals.”
“Are you sure?” Sora knows as the younger twin Roxas sometimes feels like he’s standing in his shadow. He wouldn’t want to accidentally make it worse. Even if he doesn’t think Roxas would end up like Vanitas has.
“Of course I am! I look forward to standing against you in a match!” Roxas says, swinging an arm forward in excitement. “Don’t go easy on me either just because you’re the older twin. I won’t be going easy on you!”
“Wouldn’t dare!” Sora says grinning back at his brother. Some friendly competition would be nice for a change.
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“Before you leave Sora can I ask you a favour?” Hope asks after Sora helped clear the heartless infestation from the research dig that Hope turned out to be working on.
“Of course!” Sora’s always happy to help out his siblings however he can.
“Wonderful. As you know I’m trying to learn more about the history of the various worlds to figure out how they were connected in the past so to hopefully find if there’s anything in there that might help us to understand why the darkness is targeting the worlds it is and maybe be able to determine where it will go next so we can get ahead of it. Or better yet, find out how it’s travelling between them and cut it off from getting any further.”
“Uh- sure.” Sora understood most of what Hope was saying but his younger brother was one of the smarter ones of the family and Sora often found himself left behind in conversations with him.
“Well I’ve found some stone tablets that might have the answers I’m looking for. If only I could figure out how to translate them,” Hope says, deflating slightly. “If I get enough samples of the language they’re written in I might be able to decipher it. And from there we will be able to translate anything else written in the text.”
“And what do you need me to do?” Sora is bad enough translating current languages. He wouldn’t stand a hope with ancient ones.
“Take this,” Hope says, shoving a tablet-sized device in Sora’s hands. “You know the big stone with the symbols on at the centre of this dig? If you happen to find any others you need to scan it with this device – it will capture all the symbols on it as well as what it’s made out of and some other environmental factors. We never know what might be the key to cracking this code.”
“Got it,” Sora says, pocketing the device.
“Thanks Sora. If I can figure this out it will make your job easier as well.”
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Sora’s phone buzzes just as he steps out into the open field. He picks it up to a video call of Chadley and Mai.
“Sora!” They both call, shoving their faces into the camera.
“Hey guys, what’s happening back home?” he asks. Surely if it was anything too big one of the adults would deal with it. And the twins definitively don’t seem scared.
“Not much,” Chadley says. “It’s pretty boring.”
“Mum’s gone off on a delivery,” Mai adds, and Chadley shoves at her to try and get more centre in the frame.
“That’s not what we’re calling you about though,” Chadley says.
“What are you calling about then?” Sora asks.
“We need you to do something for us,” Chadley says.
“Please Sora,” Mai begs, pushing Chadley out of the way to show her hands pressed together and pouting face.
“What do you need?”
“We would like you to collect some data for us,” Chadley says, pushing Mai back to the side so he can get into the frame again. “As we’re too young to leave the house unsupervised and you are currently travelling the most we figured you would be the most qualified to do this for us.”
“And Vanitas said no!” Mai adds in the background. “The big meanie.”
“Uh- yes. And we determined you would be the one most willing to help us with this through process of elimination,” Chadley adds on.
“What data do you need me to collect?” Sora hopes it isn’t anything too hard because he wouldn’t want to accidentally mess it up for them.
“Nothing that will be too difficult for you. We are just hoping to gather more information on the environments of the worlds. What natural resources they have and how they are adapting as the darkness spreads.”
“And also what monsters are appearing in them!” Mai adds in. “Plus any weaknesses and resistances they have.”
“That too,” Chadley says with a nod to his twin sister.
“Sure! I can do that!” Sora already was starting to keep track of some of that in order to know how to dispatch them easier next time.
“Thanks Sora!” Mai says.
“We look forward to hearing from you,” Chadley adds before hanging up.
I’m unsure if this counts as spoilers, but here is the concept art for Chadley and MAI from to Deluxe Edition Artbook:
Their designs are so cute, and I love how MAI has some Deepground chic to her look. It’s so funny to imagine Chadley seeing Weiss and Nero and thinking, “Wow, these uniform designs are incredible! I MUST incorporate elements of it into the designs of my original character!”
