Pebbles: Okay, I sincerely apologise for the situation I'm about to explain.
P L E A S E - R E A D - T H I S - N O T I C E ! ! !
As you may notice by the size of the scroller bar at the side of your screen, this is a very short chapter, especially when compared to my previous ones. This is because of a number of reasons:
1. My laptop charger died on Tuesday, and subsequently so did the laptop. I tried to keep it going for as long as possible, but it wasn't long enough, and I couldn't get a copy of the chapter (or my homework) off before it completely died. And when I say the CHARGER died, I mean it!
2. With the lack of a charger, I didn't want to stop writing, so I hand-wrote most of the chapter (which quite obviously took longer than typing).
3. When I finally got a charger that works (yesterday evening), I had lost the folder. Yes, that's right, I had misplaced my school (and fanfiction) folder. And seeing as it proudly displayed my name and nobody knows I write fanfiction, I was frantically searching for it. This was Thursday (yesterday). I was NOT happy.
4. I've been bogged down my art coursework and everything else for every subject, so although I planned to quickly write and post this on Friday, my weekend was hectic. I did not get this done and now, Monday, I'm coming back to it to give you a little something before I go away and leave you.
So this is not really a chapter-chapter, if you get me. But it is a little something I wanted to put into the last chapter, but didn't manage to squeeze in – it was long enough as it was! Think of it as chapter 3.5 =]
So here it is, Evil Interludes, and you can get a quick glimpse of what's going on elsewhere.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, any of the Disney characters, places or products, or any of the Digimon characters, places or products. However, I will claim to own the concept of this story.
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Evil Interludes
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Maleficent sat on her stone throne, face pensive. She was eagerly awaiting the return of the small army she sent to the new world – the Digital World – and, hopefully, the eighth princess.
How she could have overlooked her was a mystery. Looking back through the history books in what was left of the ruined library, she had come across many a mention of the mysterious wielder of light. Every appearance described her as loving, kind and – most importantly – extremely powerful. Her eyes narrowed as she recalculated just how powerful this young woman was going to be. She could imagine her newfound enemy being tall and imposing, yet at the same time, why should be any different to the other princesses of heart? She was most likely dainty and delicate, like Snow White or graceful and beautiful like Cinderella. But then again, there was the seventh princess – Kairi. She had been bold and confident, ready to fight at all costs to reclaim her freedom. It had taken a strong spell to keep Kairi asleep as Maleficent searched for her heart, and she had nearly broken it several times. Perhaps the eighth princess would have a stronger will that the seventh?
She heard an army of gentle padding rushing towards her from down the corridor. Smiling, she sat straighter, preparing herself to meet her newest guest. The door creaked open and Maleficent resisted the urge to stand – better for the girl to underestimate her and later be put in her place.
The heartless rushed in, yellow eyes downcast, and she instantly knew something was wrong. They crowded on the other side of the large stone table, and the door closed behind the final creeping heartless. Maleficent scanned them over, quickly taking in each and every detail of the returned group. Their numbers were lower without being too significant, but there was something more important missing.
The princess.
Standing slowly, she made her way towards the table and glared at each and everyone one of the heartless that cowered before her.
"Where is she?" she hissed. They shuffled backwards away from her here and she growled. "WHERE IS SHE?!" She felt her magic crackle around her and she enjoyed it for a moment too long before reigning in her powers and calming down. She cast her eyes over her dark minions once more.
"Where is the one she called Kurokiba?" Slowly the heartless parted until a single shadow stepped forwards. He was timid, and he kept his eyes down towards the ground. She would soon change that.
"Look at me," she ordered in a hiss. The heartless slowly looked into her eyes and she smirked; such a pitiful little creature.
Summoning her staff, which materialised in her hand from a cloud of swirling, black smoke, she slammed the base down on the ground and watched as a bolt of green lightning darted across the floor, attacking the heartless the princess had decided to name. Kurokiba – what a ridiculous name. Maybe this princess wasn't so strong after all, if she was going around naming heartless.
The heartless stared back at her with pity in it's yellow eyes, and she almost scoffed.
"Well you'd better have brought me something," she said, calmer now that she had used some of her rage. Turning her back on them, she returned to her throne, listening to the frantic patting of the heartless' large, black feet on the ground as they scurried around behind her. She turned and sat. The heartless had rearranged themselves and three were slowly moving towards her, carrying a strange looking satchel. It was mostly beige, with a small emblem on the bottom left corner of the fold over flap. She picked up their offering and noticed that it felt quite heavy. Surely a princess wouldn't be carrying all this weight by herself? Perhaps she had some sort of royal guard carrying it for her. Judging by their offering, perhaps the heartless hadn't been so useful after all. But still...
"Get out!" she ordered, thrusting a pointed finger towards the door. The heartless eagerly obeyed, scurrying out of the room and closing the large, ornate doors behind them. Maleficent looked the bag over once more before scoffing and tipping the contents onto the table. Perhaps she could find something that would give her an insight into the princesses life.
She was heartily disappointed. There were a number of books, a plastic pouch filled with pens and pencils, a strange, rectangular object with numbered buttons and a dimly glowing square and a pair of smart, black shoes. Whoever this princess was, she seemed to like barefoot.
Frowning, Maleficent took a step closer and started to look at the books. They might have something interesting. All of the books covered in a clear, shiny coating had strange words in large letters like "Calculus" and "Psychology" amongst other more familiar words like "History". Then there were a number of books that were smaller and not as shiny – these all bore the words "Yagami, Hikari" at the top. She stared at the repeating words, noting the delicate, cursive handwriting.
She heard movement behind her, and she didn't have to turn around to see who it was. The too-heavy, arrogant clacking of heels against the cold stone floor and the "swoosh" of the heavy black dress let her know exactly who was approaching.
"Ursula," she said quietly. She glanced up to see the sea with smiling at her. Ursula curtsied hideously. "I have a task for you. These items were taken from the princess – sort through them and see what you find. Anything of even the slightest relevance will do; you never know what secrets might be hidden in these texts."
"It would be my pleasure," Ursula crooned, and Maleficent did her best to not react to the hideousness of the overly-sweet voice issuing from the revolting, blue face. Ursula waddled forward and scooped the objects back into the bag. Maleficent turned away and left the room; she needed to peruse the castle and her thoughts for a while.
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Pebbles: Yes, I am well aware that this is a feeble attempt to shove something together, but I didn't want to leave you without anything as though I had forgotten/abandoned yet another story! Especially considering I WILL NOT BE UPDATING THIS COMING FRIDAY!!
In fact, a quick note about updates:
When I'm away on the Europe trip for school, we'll be doing a lot of travelling, meaning a lot of long, arduous coach rides, which means a lot of time for me to write fanfictions! Yay! The only down point to this is that I'm not taking my laptop with me, so I will be hand-writing the chapters. Not only will this take me slightly longer, but it will also mean that I will have to type everything up when I get back, too. So my sincerest apologies if I don't update the Friday after I get back – it's because I will be getting over Europe and typing everything up nice and neatly.
So that's it from me until I get back from my globe trotting adventure! I hope you enjoyed this (rather short, no-real-plot-significance(-yet), boneheaded-author's-way-of-trying-to-keep-people's-faith in her) chapter, and I'll see you in the real chapter 4!
REFERENCE POINTS:
None for this chapter!
REVIEW RESPONSES:
Dracula-key: thanks, and I'm glad you think so. Things should start becoming more adventurous in a couple of chapters, and I'm soon to be adding in the Digidestined and more from the Land That Never Was... =]
Thanks to thedigitalrailroadrunner for adding this story to their alert list!
Pebbles: And now a little note for those who skip the ANs:
Please make sure you've read the author's note in this chapter, they contain important information!
