Super Otaku Brawl - Round One: Traverse Town

None of the occupants of the hotel had ever really questioned why there were so many boxes in the back alley or what, exactly, was inside them. The trade economy of Traverse Town -- itself little more than a refugee station for those displaced by the Heartless incursion -- was a subtle thing. The Moogle guilds had always been cordial to these three, in any case; this was reason one why they were loath to touch the strange block currently occupying the alley.

"It doesn't look like a Heartless," offered Yuffie.

"What Heartless do, nowadays?" asked Leon. "There are new breeds showing up all the time. If it is a Heartless it could have abilities we haven't even thought of."

"Aww, we can take 'im." Yuffie hopped up on top of the amber-colored block and gave it a lick. "It doesn't taste like Gummi," she offered. "Makes my tongue kind of numb."

Leon sighed and reminded himself, as always, to be patient with the sixteen-year-old "great ninja." Everybody had different ways of dealing with the destruction of their assorted homeworlds. Leon's veneer of grim, vengeful determination was more convenient than Yuffie's... antsiness... but no more valid. "We'll call in Merlin. If he is a Heartless Merlin can--"

"We don't need to call Merlin." Leon stepped aside as Aerith approached. The young woman with the pink dresses provoked much more complicated feelings in him than the affectionate annoyance with which he wrote off Yuffie, and was more of a puzzle. What was her coping mechanism for losing her world? Was it her air of vaguely-sensual mystique, or had she always been like that?

Aerith approached the block and gave its occupant a quick look-over, hands clasped behind her back. "He's not a Heartless," she said. "Look in his eyes. He's sad. Heartless are never sad."

She raised a hand and made a series of dainty gestures. There was a pink light and a smell of flowers. Leon grabbed her shoulder. "Aerith, wai--"

But she had already said the magic word, singsong under her breath: esuna

As the block disappeared Yuffie did a neat handspring off of the occupant's shoulder as Thanos, the Mad Titan, returned to life. Powerful and unholy energies crackled around him. He shouted a word: "THANE!"

Leon put himself between Aerith and the hulking purple man, and his Gunblade between himself and the hulking purple man for good measure. "Calm down," he commanded. "We're not here to fight."

So Thanos punched him.

The Gunblade took the brunt of the impact, but what an impact. Leon came to five seconds later, halfway across the alley, his weapon lodged in a wall. His ears were ringing but he could very clearly see that Aerith was touching the thing. Leon was Upset.

"It's okay," Aerith said as Leon reapproached. "He's just lost, like us. His name is Thanos."

The fire, the madness, seemed to have gone out of Thanos' eyes, but his sheer size still marked him as a threat. "What a world," said Thanos with a voice like two skulls kissing, "That has never heard the name Thanos. I don't like it."

"Yeah, well, it's home now, buddy," growled Leon, continually trying (and somehow failing) to interpose himself between Thanos and Aerith. "Wherever you came from is gone. Eaten."

"Earth lost?" asked Thanos. "Hmm. And not by my antimatter bo--" He took a sidelong glance at Yuffie, playing card tricks with shuriken. "...What did this?" he asked.

Aerith touched the Thanos again, on his upper arm. "They're called the Heartless," she began. "Let's get you upstairs and we'll catch you up."