Soul Chronicles: Blackened Hearts

This is this second book in the sequel to my Warrior's Soul books. I however do not own Bolt or any of its characters, Disney does!

Narration:

Have you ever been stuck between a rock and a hard spot? Had to make a choice between two evils? It's a difficult thing to do, and no matter how strong you are it almost always seems to be impossible. I never really understood what it meant until now. My husband possessed by his own darkness, wielding a power that even he couldn't fully control. So far I have two choices; just keep running from him and hope he gets tired, or turn around and face him in a fight that I'm almost certain to lose. I can't turn to anyone now except my friends, Rhino the hamster and his ex-girlfriend Angelira the currently shrunken Neutrosian. Dark Bolt now hunts for us, and all I can do is cry as I curl up into a tight ball on my old ripped bed. I'm a magical tuxedo cat named…

Chapter 1 – Magical

"Mittens!" Rhino the super genius hamster called out as he rolled his ball through the nearly collapsed hallway. He was happy that he had been able to get the ceiling to stay up with some remaining supports he found around the outside of their old destroyed home. Angelira walked behind him, still in her miniature state. Her golden hair tied back by a piece of thread she had found and hanging over her left shoulder. She gripped her right arm as she followed behind him, her catlike eyes turned to the floor in sadness. "Come on!" Rhino said to the weeping cat as he neared her. The old bed she had dug up was once hers and Bolt's. Rhino took a small moment to remember the day Penny had brought it home.

He had been out shopping with Penny and Mittens after the three of them had fended off the Neutrosian invasion, and Mittens had turned her head to see the fluffy bed just sitting there. Her eyes had opened wide at the sight of it, the overly large black and white bed was cushioned just right when she walked into it, and without her claws, pushed on the sides. They lifted up from the actual bed, kind of like a railing, but still cushioned just the same. "It's perfect!" she had said, causing Penny to turn to her. Rhino hadn't really understood then what was so special about a bed, but as he now watched her cry in it, he knew, it was the memories that came with it.

"We…" he tried to say, and swallowed a lump in his throat, trying to stay the strong one, "we need to get him back!" he choked out. Mittens just seemed to curl up tighter. "Mittens?" she heard Angelira ask. The Neutrosian flapped her wings, lifting into the air to softly land on the ripped surface of the bed in front of Mittens. The tears she saw from the cat kept on coming, "We'll get him back!" she said, and patted her friend on the head. "I don't know." Mittens finally said, "I just don't see a way to stop him!" Rhino huffed, and then lifted his hand to say something, but found nothing to say. In all his wisdom, even he couldn't think of how to stop his best friend Bolt. Rhino let not only his finger fall, but also his confidence. "There has to be a way Mittens!" Angelira said, "We just need to keep looking!"

"Earth has no magic books, Angelira, and the O-TIP in the basement has been destroyed." Mittens responded. Rhino clenched his paws into a fist, "Oooh that…Nightmare!" he nearly growled, "How dare he destroy that machine, I worked really hard on it!" Angelira turned her head to the hamster, and scowled, "You're not helping!" she hissed. "Sorry!" Rhino said as he was snapped out of his angry revere. "Just leave me alone right now!" Mittens said sadly. Rhino let his jaw drop slightly, before he closed it sadly and turned around, "Ok," he said, "But you know where to find us if you change your mind." Angelira flapped her wings, lifting herself over the cat and landed behind Rhino's ball, walking away as well. Mittens kept on sniffing in her sorrows, 'I know I need to try, but I don't know where to start!' she told herself, and cried some more. Eventually, she cried herself to sleep.

Deep inside her mind, she had a dream; it showed her getting pummeled by her own husband, and the creature Nightmare. Eventually the two turned on each other with her still alive, each wanting to claim her as their own prey. Dark Bolt easily won against the creature, but as Dark Bolt searched his kill for any signs of life, the mask jumped off and latched itself to him. It seemed as if the two of them merged together and became one, ruling the world in both destruction and greed.

Mittens actually jumped up, leaping from the ground almost a foot from the fear she felt. She breathed in deep, calming her nerves as she panted, and finally noticed the ground. Instead of her torn up bed, she found the space she was in filled with nothing, and yet everything at once. Flashes of the world she lived in faded in and out, each one a different area, from forests to deserts and snow covered mountains. Parts of the area around her flashed differently, each one changing from nothing to a faded image of the land she knew. "Where am I?" she asked herself. She knew she wasn't awake, yet she didn't fell asleep either. She lifted a paw as the image of a rock floated under her, and she turned to follow it. Looking up, she found a group of animals and two human, huddled together in the distance. "Um…Hello?" Mittens called out, and began to walk towards them. "I think I'm lost!" she said as she got closer, catching the younger human's attention, "If you could just tell me where…" she was about to say, and quickly recognized the girl, "PENNY!?" she called out. "MITTENS!" Penny called back and ran from the group towards her. Mittens picked up her pace happily, and jumped into Penny's arms as they met in the middle. "Oh I missed you!" Mittens and Penny said at the same time, as they embraced each other. Penny's mother lifted her eyes, spying the happy pair as they kept a hold of each other. "Where's Bolt?" Penny suddenly asked, "Did he survive the attack from Nightmare? What happened to you three? You didn't appear here like we did?"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down Penny!" Mittens interrupted, "One at a time!"

"Sorry!" Penny said. "Bolt's fine, the three of us were sent into space somehow and got our real powers back!" Mittens explained. "Your powers, but how?" Penny asked, "They were given to you by the Warrior's Soul."

"The Warrior's Soul is back!" Mittens said, "Except now it belongs to us, it is our souls, I think!"

"How is that possible?" Penny asked. "I don't know!" Mittens said in response, "But Bolt…he isn't himself!"

"Why?" Penny asked, "What happened?"

"Dad's been overtaken by darkness, hasn't he?" they heard. Penny and Mittens turned their eyes to the ground next to them. There stood Mittens' son, Mike. The puppy with cat ears and chipmunk stripes sat there, looking at her, a kind of knowing in his eyes. Mittens lowered her ears to her head, "Yes Mike, he did." she said, knowing full well that lying to him would do no good, he could just listen to the truth inside her head. "I knew it. I could feel it." he responded. "But what kind of darkness?" Anna, a perfect white cat, asked as she walked up next to him. "His own." Mittens responded solemnly. Mike let his jaw drop to the ground, "His…own?" Penny asked as she set Mittens down on the ground. "Yes, and all I did was run." she responded. Mittens watched as her friends lowered their heads in a kind of shame, and she placed her face on the ground. "What else could you have done?" she heard Anna's mother ask from her place with the rest of the group. Mittens lifted only her eyes to look at the back of her clone's head, the inverted color pattern on the cat's fur was easily recognizable, "Nothing, that's right!" Sassy said, "Bolt is stronger than you and faster than you."

"He's completely heartless now. His darkness actually takes pleasure in killing others." Mittens said. Sassy turned her attention to a very large black cat next to her, "So, he's the complete opposite of Bolt then." Shadows said, his eyes never moving from the spot on the ground. "What are you guys looking at?" Mittens finally asked in curiosity, and lifted herself to go find out. She was only able to take a few steps when Shadows stood up, and moved to the other side of his wife, Sassy. Mittens could finally see Kevin, the shy grey cat, lying on the ground, unmoving except for his chest. His lungs expanded and shrank with air as he breathed in his sleep. "Is he…?" Mittens tried to ask, and was stopped by Penny. "He's alright." the human said, "He's just asleep. Exhausted from bringing us here!"

"And where is here?" Mittens asked as she looked around. "The Astral Plane!" Mike responded, "A world between here and there, a place of Limbo, neither dead nor living." Mittens glanced around, the places still changing, some familiar and some not. "How did I get here?" she asked. "I brought you here in your dream." Mike explained, "I wanted you to know that we were alright." Mittens shook her head, "I need your help!" she said, finally turning back to the Kits, "Your father needs to be stopped, changed back to his old self. I can't do it alone! Just wake Kevin up and get him to do it again!"

"We can't." she heard her son, Wolf the grey and white puppy with the face of a cat, say from the group. He kept his eyes down to Kevin, almost waiting for him to wake up.

"I'm sorry mother," Mike said as he looked down to the floor, "but we'll be stuck in this astral world until Kevin can wake up, and judging by how much of his power was used to get here, that might be a while." Mittens turned her pointed ears down and looked to her paws, "So I'm all that's left to stop him." she whispered. Wolf looked up, seeing his mother so disappointed nearly broke his heart, so he lifted himself up, "Listen mother, you can't give up on dad, he needs you more than ever now." he said. "Skylar has lots of books from Neutros, many containing new spells and magic. Maybe you can learn a few from them." Penny suggested. Mittens looked up, hope filling her eyes, "It's the best shot I have!" she said, "Thank you all." and with a flash of light, she woke up, the ruins of her old house surrounding her once again, "Don't worry Bolt, I'm coming!" and without announcing where she was going, took off out the window using her wind claws.

End of Chapter 1