1- Back into Action
Warning! This is AU but still in the same Kingdom Hearts verse as the games! It's only AU because of concepts Nakira and I added for this.
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Sora sighed as he lounged on the beach. It had been a whole month since he and Riku had gotten back from their final battle against Xemnas and he was completely bored. Destiny Islands just seemed even more boring since he knew what else was out there. He heard Kairi's soft footfalls on the sand and heard the chain jingling around her wrist where she kept the keychain sealing away her weapon. Here she came to mess with him about being lazy. Just like she did before.
"What are you doing, Lazybones?" She asked lightly, bending over him with her hands on her hips the way she always used to. He sighed.
"Watching the water…" He glanced over, hearing Riku walking heavily on the sand.
"Are you two at it again?" He laughed, holding a log over his shoulder. "Be glad we haven't heard anything from the King in the past month since he and the others went back to the Castle." Sora lifted an eyebrow.
"What are you doing with that log?"
"Fixing the bridge in the Cove. There's nothing better to do so I figured why not." He said with a grin. Kairi nodded approvingly.
"Wow…at least Riku does something when he's bored!" Sora scoffed and pointed at the water.
"Hey! I am doing something! You never know what could wash up from the ocean!" He shouted in his defense. He looked out at the ocean as he pointed. A girl washed onto the beach as soon as he looked. She seemed unconscious, long brown hair matted around her body to the point it was hard to tell whether or not she was clothed. Riku dropped his log and ran to pull the girl away from the water.
"Come help!" Sora stood and ran to help him. They dragged her onto the sand and Kairi walked over to join them.
"We should get her out of the sand, not knowing if she's injured or not." Sora nodded once.
"The only places without sand besides…who's taking her on a boat?"
"I will." Riku said, picking her up. Sora frowned a little, seeing that she was barely breathing and Riku didn't even seem to have made an effort to pick her up. She was about the same size as Sora, so he figured Riku would at least have had to made a bit of an effort. They headed for the boats and Sora noticed that there was blood where the girl had been on the sand.
"Oh my…" Kairi gasped, seeing the blood on Riku's arms when he got the girl in his boat. "Let's go, Sora." She hurried to get in her boat and Sora followed suit.
"Okay, I'm coming!" He untied his boat from the wharf. "We should take her to the hospital."
"I don't think that's a good idea…" Riku said quietly. There was something strange in his expression. "We'll just go to my place."
XX
Riku rowed quickly to the main island and docked quickly. He lifted the girl out of the boat and ran as fast as he could to his house, not even bothering to readjust her when he got there and opting to open the door with magic. He ran up to his room and lay her on her stomach on the bed. He moved her hair from her back as he used magic to get his first aid stuff into the room.
It was pretty obvious that she was naked and the horrible cuts covering her back along with the sand and blood on her skin had him getting ready to use magic to get water and rags. He heard the door open and sensed Sora and Kairi hurrying into the house. He opted to get the rags and water physically and ran out of the room, brushing past Kairi as she ran up the stairs.
He got a bowl of water and hurried back to his room. Sora and Kairi were both blocking his path.
"Dang…" Sora gasped seeing the girl's wounds. Riku pushed between them and started treating her wounds, cleaning them gently. She stirred, crying out in pain as he touched the wounds and the sand from the beach grated along the open cuts.
"Calm down, I'm sorry if I hurt you." He said calmly, rinsing out his rag and starting again. She tried to lift herself up. "Don't do that. Your wounds aren't healed yet." Her arms wobbled and she collapsed back onto the bed, gasping in pain. "Just calm down." He sighed, covering her wounds with gauze. "Will you two leave the room?" He glanced over his shoulder at Kairi and Sora.
"Riku, let me finish fixing her up. I don't think it'll help her state of mind to have a guy…" Sora left without a word while Kairi protested. The girl turned to look at Kairi and blinked. Her almost radioactive blue eyes suddenly glared daggers at the red-haired girl. "On second thought…I'll wait downstairs…" Kairi fled the room.
"Kairi's a nice girl; you didn't need to do that." He sighed and the girl blinked at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came from her mouth. "Just stay still until I get your wounds covered." He said soothingly, still laying gauze gently over her wounds. She finally calmed down, but cried out quietly every time he accidentally touched an actual cut. He finished and helped her roll over so he could inspect her front for injuries.
She gasped in pain as she put her weight on her back and started whimpering quietly. He grimaced at the long, filthy cut marring her stomach. It was starting to scab over and he got the feeling that once he finished cleaning it, it wouldn't be but a few minutes before she'd be fully healed. So he carefully cleaned it and put a bandage over it. "All set…"
She tried to sit up, but shouted in pain. "Wait a second. You need to take it easy until your wounds heal."
"I-I can't…! M-My sister…" She gasped in pain and fell back onto her back, screaming as she slammed against her wounds. It didn't help that he preferred a harder mattress.
"Calm down…please…you'll only hurt yourself." He sighed, touching her shoulder lightly.
"B-But…"
"Just calm down. I can tell you're a fairy, and since I can't use healing magic, you'll have to wait a while before your magic heals your wounds." She blinked in surprise and nodded.
XX
Sora waited anxiously with Kairi for Riku to come down, grimacing every time the girl's pained cries made it to their ears. It was a couple of hours before Riku finally came downstairs and joined them in the living room.
"She's asleep now…"
"Did she say anything?" Sora asked, hoping that she'd managed speech between gasping and screaming in pain.
"Not really…" Riku sighed, sitting down heavily on his couch.
"How bad was she wounded?" Kairi asked, worried. Heck, Sora was worried too. The girl had just washed up onto the beach covered in blood.
"We could hear her all the way down here…"
"Just the cuts on her back and a gash on her stomach…"
"That's still pretty bad…" Sora grimaced, thinking of how much pain she must be in.
"We need to find out who she is and where she came from." Kairi changed the subject.
"That'll have to wait until she wakes up. And until her wounds are healed." Sora nodded in agreement.
"He's right. If she panics or anything, she could open her wounds up again."
"Sora! What if something happened on her home world that could be a massive problem that needs to be solved before she's healed? We have to look at the possibilities here." Kairi argued.
"You all aren't arguing about me, I hope." The girl stepped off the stairs, wearing a short white gown.
"Unfortunately, we were." Riku sighed, leaning back on the couch. "Are you sure you're okay to be up and around? Have your wounds already healed?"
"Yes, thank you." She smiled slightly. "I didn't catch your names." Okay…was there something that happened between Riku and that girl upstairs…?
"I'm Sora." He said, hoping that Riku would actually enlighten them for once.
"Kairi."
"Riku…if you're healed then…" He started and she sat down in a chair.
"You want to know who I am and where I'm from. My name is Eli. I'm from…Pixie Hollow." She sighed. "I really shouldn't tell you about this. But I'm a fairy that protects various worlds. My twin sister and I were most recently taking care of the Deep Jungle."
"Strange…" Riku muttered.
"How is that strange?" Kairi asked, confused. Heck, Sora was confused too. The only fairy he knew was Tinker Bell, and he knew that Peter Pan was the only person who could understand a word the fairy said.
"Do you know how fairies are born?"
"No…" Eli sighed tiredly.
"When a baby laughs for the first time, that laugh turns into a fairy that arrives in Pixie Hollow. Once in a hundred years or so, a laugh will turn into two fairies." She paused. "My sister Keri and I are Guardian Talents. We went to guard the forest in the Deep Jungle when—" She cut herself off and Sora felt his eyes go wide. He stood.
"Did something happen to Tarzan and the others?" He stood, ready to find some way off the islands to help them.
"Calm down, Sora." Riku sighed.
"Not that I'm aware of…my sister and I went to Radiant Garden when she…fairies don't get sick. She was extremely ill." Eli said, looking extremely worried.
"How did you get those wounds?" Kairi asked.
"We went to Merlin. The burrow exploded…"
"Oh…my…" Sora was officially starting to panic.
"Sora, calm down." Both Kairi and Riku said tiredly.
"I'm sorry…I don't know if anyone else was hurt. But I have to get back there. Keri could be seriously hurt or worse! I have to…"
"Calm down, Eli." Riku sighed. "Your wounds…"
"Are already healed." She sighed. "I'm serious about leaving to go back to Radiant Garden though. I need to find out if everyone's okay."
"Well, we don't have a ship or anything to get there." Kairi said quietly.
"What about King Mickey? You guys know him, right? Do you have a way to contact him?" Eli tried.
"Nope." Kairi answered immediately.
"Message in a bottle, but that could take forever to get to him." Sora shrugged.
"Gah! Humans are so useless!" She shouted in frustration. "Is this world totally cut off or something!"
"Yes." They all answered.
"Hopeless!" She headed for the door. "Fine. I'll use my own method to find a way there." She slammed out of the house.
"We should help her. Something serious could have happened at Radiant Garden…" Riku sighed, starting after her.
"Right." Sora agreed.
"I'm going with you guys." Kairi said lightly.
"Kai…" She scowled.
"Don't! I can defend myself. And it's better than just sitting here worrying about you and Riku."
"Kairi's right, you know. I'll be right back." Riku went upstairs.
"Okay then…" Sora frowned. Kairi frowned as well.
"You think he might have some way of getting off the islands?"
"How could he…?" He watched the stairs for Riku to come back.
XX
Riku went to his room and dug through his drawers, searching for something. He really hated having to keep some secrets from them, but there were just some rules he couldn't break.
"Are you keeping secrets from your friends?" Eli asked lightly, appearing in the doorway. She must have reentered the house when he went upstairs.
"Some things I have to keep from them."
"Like?" She looked him over. "You're not originally from this world, are you?"
"Neither is Kairi. She just doesn't remember her home world." He pulled a small sphere from a drawer and grabbed his potion bag out of the same drawer. "Found it."
"What is it?"
"A gift from…an old friend of mine. I ran into her before we came back to this world. It's better than using a portal of darkness to get to Disney Castle to get a ship." He tied the potion bag to his belt and grabbed a second bag from the top of the unit—it had the keychains for his weapon inside. "Unless your method was simpler than just using a Gummi Ship?" She shrugged.
"Not really." She paused. "Portal of darkness? Are you a Black Mage…?" He nodded once and started to leave the room.
"A High Mage, actually." He headed back downstairs.
"What's up?" Sora asked the moment he got down there. He pulled the sphere out of his pocket and tossed it into the air.
"You guys go get ready to head out and meet me and Eli at the docks in an hour."
"Uh…how are we leaving?" Sora asked stupidly. The look on his face made Riku smirk.
"You'll see."
"You can't just leave us in the dark, Riku!" Sora shouted, standing up. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he pocketed the sphere again.
"You'll find out at the docks. It's going to take the whole trip to Radiant Garden to explain it anyways." Kairi stood and grabbed Sora's arm.
"Let's go. We'll see you in an hour, Riku." She dragged the keybearer out of the house and Riku leaned against the wall. He'd told them an hour because that's how long it would take him to make sure the ship was actually working properly. He hadn't used it even once since Ash gave it to him.
"Well, may as well get going." He sighed and left the house, heading for the docks.
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So that's it for now…! Because this story was written—like Perfect Shift—in role play format, I'm having to do some major editing and such on this so updates may be a bit slow in coming…particularly when I catch up with how far we've written already.