Disclaimer: I do not own Disney or Warner bros. or the scene it games.

Chapter 2: Ready or not

"AAAAAAGH!" The five of us screamed bloody murder as we felt ourselves spinning out of control, being teleported to who-knows-where! Our surroundings were pitch black, yet strangley it was possible to see the forms of my friends falling through space. Well, falling isn't exaclty the right adjective. It was like falling and not falling at the same time. The wind stilled roared around us, but there was nothing solid holding us up.

"Where are we going?" shouted Anya, to no one in particular.

"If we knew," said Cameryn "we wouldn't be screaming our throats raw in a state of utter confusion and fear now, would we?"

"WOOOOHOOO!" Marley's voice echoed through the void, "THIS IS FREAKIN' AWESOME!"

"How can you be enjoying yourself right now?" cried Anya "I can't wait for this...whatever this is... to stop!"

As if triggered by Anya's sudden outburst our spinning slowed and finally stoped. We felt a solid floor materialize under us and simultaneously plopped on the floor, exhausted, panting, and out of breath. For what seemed like an eternity we all lay motionless. We'd landed in a plain white room with no doors or windows and blinding florescent lights. Suddenly the room went dark, and green, gridded lasers scanned us all from head to toe.

"Analyzing players." Said a robotic voice coming from nowhere, making us jump to attention.

"Kori?" whispered Marley.

"Yeah?" I answered equally as fearful.

"I think your game is defective."

As suddenly as the lights came on they disappeared and the fluorescents flicked back on, blinding us, and sending us on a blinking spasm.

"Player identification confirmed. Cameryn Fisher , Anya Byrne, Rikki Martelli, Marley Johnson , Kori Rivera have arrived." said the voice, to our amazement.

"Thank you, I'll take it from here." Answered another, this one more familiar and coming from directly behind us.

We all turned to face our, ahem, 'host'. There standing no higher than three feet tall was a black, animated creature. He wore yellow shoes and bright red shorts with two small white buttons on each side. His skinny, whip-like tail curved behind him and two giant ears sat on top of his head. You guessed it, it was none other than Mickey Mouse.

"No way," said Anya, her voice distant," Mickey Mouse."

"Sure!" Marley muttered in reply, "Why not? We just flew through hell and wound up in a completely unfamiliar place to be scanned by a rediculously acurate computer system, all in the course of," she checked her watch," six minutes! So Mickey Mouse shows up! what the heck, let's roll with it."

"There's no way this is real," I said, "We must be hallucinating or something."

"Yeah, and we all happen to be seeing the same hallucination," quipped Cameryn.

"It could happen! Mass hallucination's been reported. And besides, how else can you explain this?" I was being defensive and I knew it. But there was no way I could come to terms with what just happened without going insane.

"Hello, everybody! You already know my name let's see if I can guess yours." Piped Mickey in the middle of our discussion, "Hmm… let's see, you're Anya" he said pointing right at her "you're Kori" again he was right "Rikki" right "Marley" correcto-mundo! "And you must be Cameryn."

"That's just creepy," said Marley.

"Uh, Mickey," I said, feeling like an idiot for addressing a cartoon character. My voice got tighter the more I talked "Where are we exactly? How did we get here? Wh-where's my room?"

"We're in your game; where else did you think we would be?" answered Mickey, "I'd explain how I got ya in here but golly! That would take up too much time!"

"Why?" asked Anya

"To play the game of course! Gosh you kids sure ask a lot of questions." He laughed in reply. I, however did not find this the least bit amusing. And, apparently, neither did Cameryn.

"You pulled us in here all for a stupid game?" yelled Cameryn, enraged.

Mickey smiled up at us then, slowly, it faded away. The look on his face was one of pure sadness. Had Cameryn upset him? I didn't know he could be so sensitive, especially with Donald as a friend.

"Cameryn! Why'd you have to go and do that? You got him all depressed" Marley said.

"No it wasn't her fault," said Mickey, "Look, fellas, the real reason I brought ya all here is because we need a protector."

"A...protector?" I asked doubtfully; I started to consider that, maybe, I wasn't dreaming.

"Yep."

"From what, exactly?"

"I'm afraid that's a little bit tricky, you see, (aw, how do I explain this?) there's...something that's attacking our world. Kind of like a computer virus. That's all I can tell ya for now, sorry fellas." Mickey was hiding something, but at the moment, asking for more detail was an idea that had put itself out of reach of my common sense.

The mouse continued to talk, "The five of you seem best suited for the job. But we couldn't agree on who would get the job, uh, 'we' being Donald, Goofy and the gang, so we figured that the best way to judge is to make a game. Like a friendly competition. You'll all enter into different stories and in each one there is one object you have to bring back with you. Whoever brings back the most is the winner and will be the protector."

"Hold up! Who said we'd agree?" seethed Rikki, who had found her voice at last, "We didn't volunteer for this and you can't make us do something we don't want to do. This could be considered kidnapping!"

Mickey rubbed the back of his neck, taking the word "crestfallen" to a whole new level. "Well, gee, I-I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd feel this way."

At seeing the little mouse look so devastated, Rikki's demeanor softened, "Hey, look, I'm sorry about your situation, but we want to go home. Like, now."

"Well, then, the only way to do that is to win the game. Sorry," he said, "I would send ya home if I could, though."

I sighed. This was just peachy. "Well, there's no reason to obsess over something that can't happen. If we want to get out of here, looks like we're gonna have to play. How do we find these 'objects' anyways?"

Mickey's expression lightened a little, "So, you'll do it?"

"I-" I looked at my friend's faces. Cameryn, still fuming, Marley, looking as if nothing unusual had just happened, Anya, bewildered, and Rikki, firm and focused. They were all looking at me for an answer, "I can't promise anything, but if it's what it takes to get home...you have your players."

Mickey nodded and went right on explaining. He really was a sweet mouse, if somewhat a bad judge. "You'll find the objects with these."

Suddenly a hole opened up in the space between Mickey and us. A table slowly lifted out with five P.D.A like objects on it.

"These gadgets are called Magical Item Location Devices, or M.I.L.D. When you enter a world the devices will give you all a riddle. The answer to each riddle is an object in each of the stories. Your job is to both solve the riddle and find the object." lectured Mickey

We each took a M.I.L.D and figured out how to turn it on.

"Not only do those gadgets give you the clues and riddles but they can also be used for communication. Now are you all ready to start?" He asked

We all stared at each other again. None of us could believe what had just happened. So, naturally, we were all more than a little nervous. To add to that we weren't too sure about this whole competition. I mean we've played against each other before but a game like this? I took a deep breath and looked straight at Mickey.

"We're ready." I told him with more confidence than I felt.

"Well then," he said, pulling a remote control out of nowhere, "Let the games begin."

And with that he presses the select button and we disappeared from the White room.