In a deep, very thick part of the jungle, Doc was utterfly flabbergasted while Grif was kneeling down looking at the gun-shaped device Donut had given them.
"THAT WAS MENTAL! TOTALLY MENTAL! WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?! Grif, say something!"
"Can you please just give it a rest?" Grif asked annoyed at the medic's shouting.
"But Grif, what do you think it all means?"
"I'm not thinking about it at all!"
"So you're just going to ignore what happened with that storm and Donut's pink force field thing and this gun that suddenly landed us in the middle of some kind of jungle."
"All I know is that if I don't figure out how this stupid machine works, we're gonna die out here. I just want to use this to go back home."
"But didn't Donut say that home was gone? Consumed by some kind of dark force?"
"Bull! I'm not letting some spooky smoke keep me from a delicious dish of pizza!"
Doc could have brought reasoning into it, but he knew better than anyone that Grif wasn't the reasonable type. So all he could do was help out. "Let me take a look. I'm pretty great with technology. Better than I am with anatomy. Hehe."
"Back off!" Grif shouted.
Doc took a pause to take a few steps back "…I'm detecting some hostility from you. Are you mad? At me?"
"I'm mad at everything!" Grif ranted. "The world! The universe! I'm mad that we got roped into some new crazy adventure! And yeah, I'm mad that I got stranded in the middle of the jungle with a purple Brutus, the least useful teammate ever, or should I say former teammate since you cozied up to our enemies."
That was Doc's trigger for sadness. "Yeah, it's okay you hate me. If I'm being transparent, I kinda hate me too."
"Oh, goodness, Doc. Please spare me." Grif knelt back down to the machine ignoring Doc.
"Yeah. I should have figured out the Blues and Reds were bad guys sooner. Because I didn't I'm responsible for all the violence and the heartbreak and the death. Wash being hurt. Or Loco. I let down my friends at all sides. And I'm torn to bits about it."
Grif was obviously ignoring Doc, so all he could do was watch the screen on the gun give him a digital message, which made him angry. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN HOME CAN'T BE FOUND?! YOU STUPID PIECE OF JUNK! I OUGHTA USE YOU AS A DI…"
"Watch your language, Simmons." Sarge commanded. Simmons was doing the same thing Grif was doing with similar results, but instead, he was doing it in the middle of a Greek city.
"Sorry, sir." Simmons apologized. "I just can't figure this thing out. There's no identifiable technology in this device. There's no power source, no control board, no anything. It's basically like magic."
"Red team's got a magic gun! HORRAH!" Sarge bellowed.
"Sarge, I don't know what just happened with Donut, but this can't possibly be magic." Simmons denied. "Not to mention, we still don't know what exactly happened back home. Doesn't this scare you?"
"Scare, schmare!" Sarge brushed off. "We've finally got a real enemy now."
"What do you mean?"
"The Heartless. Donut said there's a commanding force behind them. So we must use these magic guns to find them and put lead in their head."
"But how can we know what other worlds there are? We don't even know where we are now. Based on the architecture, I think it's some kind of Greek landscape, but it all looks brand new. I think this is a world where ancient Greece was still current Greece."
"Perfect! If this is ancient Greece, then the greatest heroes in history must still be alive here. Perseus! Jason! Hercules!"
"Sarge, those are all made-up. The ancient Greeks just fabricated those legends to make sense of storms and sunsets before science was a thing. There's no Perseus, no Jason, and definitely no Hercules."
"Oh, Hercules is real all right." A stranger said revealing to have listened in on the last bit. "He's at the Collisseum training for the games." He continued his walk and when he was out of sight, Simmons dropped his jaw, even though no one can see it.
"Uh… what?"
"Perfect!" Sarge called out running off to the Collisseum with Simmons behind him. "Hercules, here we come!"
When Lopez regained his green sight, his mechanical visor faceplate exposed Caboose right to his face.
"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up, Lopez! Can you hear me? Blink twice if you can hear me."
"I don't have eyelids, Caboose." Lopez said in Spanish. (Note that I can't type all Spanish, so I can only use Lopez' words in English, but he speaks them as Spanish)
"That's right. You fell, Lopez." Caboose explained. "You fell, and your head fell off, and I put it back on your neck with tape and spit and glue and gum to make you feel better."
"I don't feel any better." Lopez said.
"That's good! You feel all better! I need your help, Lopez. We need to work together to figure out Donut's riddle. I only remember pieces."
"'Kill all the Heartless we see and find the Keyblade to seal the keyholes'." Lopez recalled
"No, I think it was something about hearts…" Caboose said trying to remember really hard. "Being heartful… and find something made with… bows. THAT'S IT! It's someone's birthday and we need to find a present with a nice bow tied to it!"
"It doesn't matter what I say." Lopez said. "You're just going to keep going."
"But if that's true, then we don't know what to do." Caboose said in worry. "We don't know who's birthday it is, so we can't surprise them with a gift."
Suddenly, a humming sound drew their attention on a branch above them. At first, it was just a pair of eyes with a cartoony grin. Then, a body formed out of nowhere. It was a pink, smiling cat with purple stripes. He chuckled at the sight of Caboose and Lopez before speaking up.
"A gift, you say."
"Is that a talking, smiling cat?" Lopez questioned, but Caboose wasn't as confused.
"My friend's right, Mr. Cat. We need to find a present! Preferably one tied in a neat bow."
The cat chuckled again. "Well, luckily for you, I know where you can find a present."
"And it'll surprise them?" Caboose asked
"I guarantee it." The cat chuckled again. "Just follow me."
"My goodness, this is going to backfire." Lopez groaned.
"Oh, it won't backfire, Lopez. Let's go!" Caboose said before leaving.
It was then that Lopez realized that Caboose actually understood him that time. "Wait, what?"
In the middle of a brick town, Tucker and Sister were both examining the gun they had.
"Seriously?" Tucker asked. "Are you sure?"
"I know that symbol." Sister said. "That's the shuffle button."
"Who the heck builds a world-traveling gizmo with a shuffle button?" Tucker asked.
"Apparently, this Benefactor guy. Who is he anyway? All Donut told us about him was that he was very smart."
"If he's so smart, why doesn't he stop the Heartless himself? Why does he need us?"
"Why are you asking me? I don't even know where we are."
"They'll come at you out of nowhere." An unfamiliar voice called out.
Tucker and Sister turned around and looked outside of the alleyway they were standing in. They caught sight of a man in a black jacket meeting up with a boy with spikey hair, a white shirt, and red pants carrying a key-shaped sword. The man in the black jacket continued talking to the boy.
"And they'll keep on coming at you as long as you continue to wield the Keyblade. But why would it choose a kid like you?"
"Hey." The boy replied. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Never mind." The man said approaching the boy. "Now, let's see that Keyblade."
"What?" the boy asked readying a battle stance. "There's no way you're getting this!"
"All right." The man said as he pulled out a sword that looks like it merged with a pistol. "Have it your way."
Tucker and Sister were stunned when they saw the man and the boy fight clashing sword to sword. It was a short fight and the man won easily. At the end of it, the boy fell unconscious and tell backwards. At that point, Tucker decided to intervene while Sister followed.
"Hey, Schwartzenegger!" Tucker shouted. "Am I going to have to report you for child abuse?"
"Yeah." Sister agreed. "I'm into weird stuff, but even I have standards."
The man turned to the two simulation soldiers. "This has nothing to do with you."
"Oh, you think you're so cool just because of your fancy gun-sword?" Tucker asked mockingly. "Well, I got a sword that's way better. Oh, and this too." Tucker whipped out his alien energy sword. "Bow chicka bow wow!"
"Hold on, everyone." A new voice called out. Everyone turned and saw a young girl with short hair, a small outfit, a yellow scarf, and a ninja headband. "We might want to hold off. What did you learn, Leon?"
The man in the jacket looked at Sora with concern filling his eyes. "Well, Yuffie, it looks like things are worse than we thought. A lot worse."
"Back the truck up." Tucker said. "What the heck does that mean? Who the heck are you? And what the heck is going on?"
The man named Leon looked back at Tucker and Sister and saw the guns they carried. "Those guns. I've never seen anything like them before. Where did you get those?"
"Our friend gave them to us." Sister said. "Said we're going to need them in the 'battle against the Heartless'. Know anything about that?"
Leon and the girl called Yuffie looked at each other in shock before turning back at them.
"I think we might want to compare notes." Yuffie said.
Author's Note: Today, Kingdom Hearts 3 was released in my area. My brother pre-ordered it in Delux and is really excited about it. So to commemorate, I upload this chapter today. I was going to use the whole Traverse Town chapter, but I didn't have any time. So I'm going to split it into two parts. I'll upload the next half sometime in the future.