Streets to the Summer
Track 04: "Hard Day's Night"
Wakka was talking to Sora, Kairi, and Riku when Tidus pulled his rowboat to shore. The four of them watched as their friend tiredly pulled out his sword and its canvas carry-sling, and hefted it on his back before walking over to them.
"What's the matter with you?" Wakka asked.
"One of Mrs. Hasagawa's cats got in my window last night," he answered. The teacher was his next-door neighbor, and her funny little "kitties" had the habit of keeping him up at all hours of the night.
"You have a two-story house," Riku said somewhat skeptically. "How did that happen?"
"I don't know, and I don't want to know," Tidus replied, yawning. "It kept me up most of the night. Then when I woke up this morning, my whole room was covered in toilet paper. I don't want to know how that happened either."
"You still have a little in your hair," Kairi pointed out, as Tidus collapsed into a heap in the sand.
"Just bury me right here," he muttered. "I'll be safe from any crazy cats." Then, realizing they were only a quintet, he asked, "Where's Selphie?"
"I called her," Kairi answered. "She's on a date today."
Tidus looked surprised. "Wow. She's over Hayner already? That's a record." Kairi playfully kicked him.
"You're just as bad with girls," she commented.
"Anyway, so why did you call us?" he yawned.
Sora grinned. "Pence gave me an idea when we were coming back from Radiant Garden. He said that if Gummi blocks could make ships so easily, they should be able to make smaller aircrafts too."
Tidus sat up, his interest piqued. "Aircraft? We're making an airship?"
"We don't have enough Gummi blocks for a big one, but we can probably put together a small one that should hold some of us," Riku explained. He pulled several books out of his backpack. "I went to the library earlier and found these. They've got diagrams of different kinds of small aircrafts." He pointed out one particular diagram. "We'd just need an engine and some propellers for this one, but it would probably work. This one is probably best…" He trailed off at the sound of barking.
"Nobody had a dog follow them, right?" Wakka asked as a golden dog came over. Kairi grinned.
"It's Pluto!" she recognized, and King Mickey's loyal dog came right over to her, wagging his tail excitedly.
Riku shook his head in amusement. "One of these days, I'm going to figure out just how he gets around like this."
"What's that you've got, boy?" Sora asked, rubbing Pluto's head. Kairi managed to pull an envelope out of Pluto's mouth.
"It's got the King's seal," she noticed, opening the letter.
"Does Mickey need us for something?" Riku questioned, worry apparent in his voice.
Kairi shook her head, a smile on her face. "Nope. Sora, you'd better read this." She handed the letter to her boyfriend. He looked completely surprised at the message.
"What's it say?" Tidus asked.
"They want to give me a medal," he said, still trying to get over the shock. "For everything I've done to save the worlds. And Riku's also going to get something, for bravery in facing down the deepest darkness." Riku looked just as surprised as he took the letter from Sora. "I was just doing what had to be done…"
"Hey, you deserve it," Wakka pointed out. "You coulda quit at any time. And you're still fighting when you don't really have to."
"But I…" Sora protested.
"The ceremony's tonight," Riku read. "And knowing Mickey, he won't take no for an answer. Face it, Sora—we're both stuck with awards."
Kairi gave him an evil grin. "That's the price of being heroes."
"Did you notice that it says you're supposed to come too?" Riku asked, pointing out a passage in the letter. "Since you're a Princess of Heart and all."
"We'll still have time to start building the airship, right?" Tidus questioned. "If the ceremony is tonight…"
"We can probably get started," Sora guessed. "But we're not going to get too far."
"Yeah," Kairi agreed. "We're going to need to find something to wear. We can't show up dressed in our everyday clothes."
"You know Mickey isn't big on fancy dress," Riku pointed out.
"But still," Kairi argued. "This is a special occasion. Sora can probably get away with wearing his drive clothes, since they're practically military dress. But you and I need something."
"Kairi, you don't have to worry," he replied. "I have some nice outfits, even if I don't wear them often. And I can loan Sora something if you think he needs it. Plus you're the mayor's granddaughter; you've got some good dresses you can wear. Don't panic."
"Yeah," Sora agreed, glad that the calmer Riku handled the most of it. "We'll be fine, trust me."
She sighed, "All right," and finally relented on the issue.
"Okay, then let's start on that airship," Sora decided.
The four of them worked for the next two hours, until Tidus finally collapsed and fell asleep in the sand, and Wakka and Riku got in an argument about the mechanics. Wakka, who wasn't very good with machines, incorrectly installed the few engine parts they did have, and Riku lost his patience when he tried to start them and they nearly blew up. Sora tried to break up the fight and nearly had to call on his Keyblade when he was pushed out of the way and almost fell on Tidus. When Riku and Wakka showed no signs of stopping their argument, he and Kairi did call on their Keyblades—Sora with the Kingdom Key in front of Riku, and Kairi with Sanctuary in front of Wakka.
"I can't believe I've got to break this up," he said. "Look, this airship turned out to be a lot harder than we thought. Let's just give up for now and try again later."
"By then, we'll probably be able to get engine parts and help," Kairi added. "We can ask someone who knows more about Gummi Ships and how to put one together, rather than trying to guess by book diagrams."
"Cid would help," Sora reminded them. "Or Chip and Dale—we're going to Disney Castle later, so we'll have the chance to ask them for pointers."
Riku's shoulders sagged a bit as he said, "I'm sorry, Wakka. I didn't mean to blow up at you like that. I just haven't been sleeping well lately, and I guess I took it out on you."
"Nightmares again?" Wakka guessed. Hesitantly, Riku nodded. It used to be Kairi who had to deal with them the most; Riku only had them sporadically. But now they were coming more and more frequently. "I understand. Just warn us next time before you start picking fights, ya?"
"Yeah," he promised. "I'm working on it. It's just hard to deal with sometimes—things I have to do on my own." He said this while looking at Sora, who was constantly trying to help him with problems he didn't understand.
"Let's just wake up Tidus and go home, then," Kairi decided, letting Sanctuary vanish. "We'll put the airship away for now and work on it another time."
They pushed what they had built under the treehouse and covered it with a tarp, and Riku and Sora put the remaining parts in a cave for safe keeping. Once they were done with that, they woke up Tidus and half-hauled him into Wakka's boat, since no one wanted to risk letting him row in such exhaustion. His own boat was tied to the back of Wakka's.
"I'm just gonna sleep for the next three hours," he mumbled. Then, remembering something, he sat up, nearly overturning the boat. "Hey, Sora!"
"What?" he called back.
"Can I borrow your gloves? I want to practice with my sword later, but I keep getting blood blisters."
"Sure," Sora agreed.
"Thanks," Tidus replied. "I need to get some when I have the money. I don't know how Auron managed to use that sword when he was alive—my hands are all bloodied up from holding it."
"I guess you just grow into it," Sora suggested. "Even with those gloves, I got blisters on my fingers from the Keyblade."
"The untold story of heroes," Riku sarcastically added.
"I'm sure you got blisters all over your hands from Soul Eater," Sora argued.
"Why do you think they're all callused now?" he replied. "I didn't have any fancy gloves to protect my hands." Sora made a face. Pulling onto shore, Riku continued, "Anyway, Sora and I better get ready for Kairi's inspection. It'll probably take until the time we actually go before she approves of what we're wearing."
"Funny," Kairi muttered, and from that comment, everyone could tell how nervous she was. Pluto seemed to sense it too because he jumped out of her boat and swam to shore, making her laugh. When she pulled her boat in, she turned to Wakka and asked, "Are you two going to be okay?"
"Sure," he said. "We'll find a way to entertain ourselves once Tidus wakes up."
"No cats," Tidus mumbled.
Sora pulled out his drive clothes and started looking for a decent pair of shoes to wear with them. Somehow, he didn't think Kairi would let him get away with wearing sneakers.
Riku probably has something I can borrow, he thought, heading next door. He was surprised when Riku opened the door—the older boy was dressed in a loose black hooded shirt over a silver long-sleeved shirt and loose black slacks.
"When did you get those?" Sora asked. He'd never seen his friend dressed in that before.
"The mother of a friend I made this week—during my random travels," he explained. "Remember how I told you that I tried to stop a robbery?" Sora nodded; Riku had tried to stop a phantom thief who was supposed to steal a painting. It turned out that the thief was trying to steal it for a good reason—the painting had a great deal of magic that needed to be sealed, and its power attacked them badly. The rest of the details were sketchy, but Riku wound up learning those sealing techniques from a family of dark magic specialists. "Mrs. Niwa made this in case I ever needed it," Riku continued.
"That was nice of her," Sora commented.
"Yeah," Riku agreed. "I told Kairi I had something to wear. So what do you need?"
Sora laughed sheepishly. "I need to borrow some boots or something. All I really have are sneakers."
"I've got a pair you can have," Riku offered. "They're too small for me now. They'll probably be big on you, though."
"I'll grow into them," Sora assured. "Thanks."
An hour later, they met up at the Gummi Ship. Pluto bounded into the ship while Kairi, dressed in her best red dress, gave them a quick look-over before sighing in satisfaction.
"Will this do, Princess?" Riku joked, pushing his bangs out of his eyes while Sora made some comment about how he needed to cut his hair.
She smirked. "Yes, it will. Your Highness approves."
"Sora's wearing something other than sneakers—I think it's the end of the world," Tidus cracked, walking up behind them. Wakka was right next to him, snickering.
Sora shook his head at the jab at his shoes. "Came to see us off?"
"Yeah, and trying to get a little practice in," Wakka added. "A little blitzball, a little training—you know the drill. And now that Tidus is finally awake, we got the chance."
"All right," Sora replied, letting Kairi and Riku get into the ship before he did. "See ya!"
As the ship took off, Tidus and Wakka looked at the sky. The sun was starting to creep toward the horizon, and while it wasn't twilight yet, the afternoon was just about over. Wakka looked to Tidus and asked, "So what do we do?"
"I don't know."
"Why didn't you get it serviced before now?" yelled a very irate Chip.
The yelling brought Donald and Goofy to the Gummi Ship bay, where they saw Kairi and Riku standing next to a very apologetic-looking Sora, whom Chip was yelling at.
"We never really got the chance," Sora explained. "With school and everything, there wasn't time to get over here to get it inspected, and now we've just been a little busy."
Chip groaned and hit his forehead. "How many times have you flown around in this?"
Sora looked to Riku for help before saying, "A couple of times. We went to Twilight Town and Radiant Garden a few times, and Tidus and I went to the Olympus Coliseum. And Riku's been going back and forth between Destiny Islands and…"
"Azumano," Riku provided. "The ship handled itself fine, so we didn't want to trouble you if there was the possibility that nothing was wrong." Sora shot him a thankful glance.
Chip sighed, "All right. We'll fix it up and customize it for you since you're going to have a lot of people sometimes. Just try and get it to us for regular tune-ups, okay?"
"We promise," Sora affirmed before waving to Donald and Goofy. "Hey, guys!"
Donald huffed. "You're late!"
"Sorry, that was my fault," Kairi apologized. "I was having trouble finding something to wear."
"It's okay, Kairi," Goofy assured. "The King had to take care of something in Cape Suzette anyway."
"Where's Cape Suzette?" Sora asked.
"It's the southernmost part of the kingdom," Queen Minnie answered, walking into the room. "Welcome. The King should be back shortly."
"Thank you for inviting us, Your Majesty," Sora said.
"It's our pleasure," Minnie replied. "Please follow me."
They walked out into the garden, and Kairi looked around at the plant sculptures in amazement. Her grandmother was fond of gardening, but her hibiscuses paled in comparison to these masterpieces of leaf and blossom. Daisy was sitting at a small table with a little duckling girl, playing tea party with her. Seeing that the gowns they wore were of a similar design to Minnie's, Kairi began to feel severely underdressed.
"Uncle Donald!" the duckling cried happily. "Aunt Daisy's been playing tea party with me. When are you going to marry her?" The others laughed as Donald started to look uncomfortable.
"Webby, meet Sora, Riku, and Kairi," he said, desperate to change the subject.
"It's nice to meet you," Kairi commented, but Webby stared at her in surprise. "What's wrong?"
"Those boys aren't mean to you?" she asked.
"Of course not," Kairi answered. "Sora and Riku are my friends."
"They don't stop you from playing with you?"
"Of course not."
Webby pouted. "You're lucky. My brothers are always going to different worlds and leaving me behind." From the description, Sora realized that her brothers had to be Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
"Well, sometimes they do the same to me," Kairi admitted, and Sora tried to look innocent while Riku smirked. "But it's because they have something to do that only they can do—just like the King when he has to leave Queen Minnie behind. Maybe it's the same for your brothers."
"I guess," Webby murmured.
"Thank you, Kairi," Daisy whispered, walking up to her. "I've been having a hard time helping her realize that. It's hard on her being the only girl her age around. Most of the other children around are boys."
"Dad! Dad!"
"Captain Goofy!"
Two pages from the guard ran over excitedly, while Daisy smiled and added, "See what I mean?" as Kairi stifled a giggle. Seeing the Queen and her guests, the two pages stopped in their tracks and sprang to an awkward salute.
"Sora, I want you to meet my boy, Max," Goofy introduced proudly.
"Nice to meet you," Sora said with a grin, shaking Max's hand. "These are my friends, Kairi and Riku."
"You're the one who was adventuring with my dad?" Max asked.
"Yep."
"That's so cool!"
Riku looked at Max's friend for a minute and leaned over to Goofy. "Max's friend—he looks familiar somehow…"
"That's because he's Pete's son," Goofy whispered. "Pete Junior, or P.J. He's been having a hard time since Pete was banished." Riku nodded, being sure to keep his expression completely neutral. He wasn't going to tell Sora about this little revelation. Sora wasn't someone who would judge a person based on his father's sins, but Pete had cast a shadow in Sora's memories—however small. P.J. probably had to deal with it enough. Riku wasn't going to add to it; he knew exactly what it was like to live with shadows.
Seeing that Sora was still chatting with Max and Webby was trying to get Kairi to play with her, Riku went up to P.J. and said, "That's an interesting shield. Can I see it?"
Surprised, P.J. answered, "Sure."
Riku lifted the golden shield and examined it. "Light for throwing, but strong enough to take a massive beating—orichalcum, right?"
"Yeah," P.J. replied. Then, awkwardly, he added, "My dad gave it to me before he…left."
"Was this when you were accepted as a page?" Riku asked lightly, returning the shield.
"Yeah, it was a gift."
"He must have been very proud of you, then. Most of the knights' shields are made of some kind of mythril mix, like Goofy and Max have. But a shield made almost entirely out of orichalcum—that's a sign of true pride." P.J. flushed, and Goofy looked at Riku with gratitude.
"Thanks, Riku," he said. "Maxie and I try and help him as much as we can…"
"But he's still isolated," Riku finished. "Darkness leaves many scars—most of which we can't see."
Goofy nodded in agreement. "Max is his best friend, but he's still really shy."
"I don't think that should be too much of a problem," Riku predicted. "As long as he has one close friend willing to do anything for him, I think he'll be fine."
"Sorry I'm late!" announced King Mickey as he came running to his guests. "Those air pirates were tougher than I expected, but I think Baloo should be able to take care of the rest. Welcome!"
Max and P.J. sprang to another awkward salute while Daisy and Webby curtsied—although Webby's was a bit clumsy. The others were a lot more relaxed; Mickey had told Riku (Kairi too during their time waiting on the Destiny Islands for Sora and Riku to return) not to bother with any formalities, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy had become close enough friends that they could ease out of their usual formality.
"We're glad to be here, Your Majesty," Kairi replied.
"Aw, you know you don't have to call me that," Mickey answered. "You guys are like family."
"Old habits die hard," Riku answered for his friends. "Are those pirates the same ones you mentioned the last time I visited?"
"Yeah," Mickey said. "They've been trying to cut off our supply route, and they're doing a good job of it too."
"Is there anything we can do to help?" Sora asked.
"I've got it under control right now, but I might take you up on that offer," Mickey confessed. "They're just taking advantage of the kingdom since I was away." Then, in his typical manner, he shrugged away the stress and said, "Oh well. Let's forget this serious stuff—we're supposed to be celebrating!"
Kairi giggled and said, "That's right. I guess we should get to that celebration, then."
"Good thinking!" Mickey exclaimed. "Come on! We've got some heroes to award!"
Tidus shook the water out of his hair, resulting in it looking as spiky as Sora's. Turning to a grinning Wakka, he said, "Okay, I admit it—you win this one. But when I have a decent night's sleep, that'll change."
"You napped for three hours," Wakka replied. "No matter how rested you are, you're still not going to beat…me…" He trailed off as three small women flew out of the general area of the Secret Place. "Uh, Tidus, do you see three fairies, or did I just have too much sun today?"
"I think I might have had too much sun too," Tidus agreed.
Seeing them, the lead fairy flew over to them. "Hi. I'm Yuna, and this is Rikku and Paine."
"Uh, hi," Tidus replied. "I'm Tidus, and he's Wakka."
"Wait a second," Wakka said, "I remember you from Sora's stories—you're those treasure-hunters, aren't you?"
"Yep!" Rikku declared. "That's us—the Gullwings!"
The more reserved Paine flew up and said, "We thought we got a lead on some treasure here, but so far, we haven't found it."
"We heard this was Sora's homeworld, so we were hoping we could get him to help," Yuna added.
"We could help," Tidus volunteered quickly, earning a raised eyebrow from Wakka. "I mean, you need someone to show you around the islands, and since Sora's gone right now, we're really the only ones available, right, Wakka?"
"Yeah, but we don't have any way of getting around the islands," Wakka reminded him. "All we have are our canoes and a half-started airship."
"An airship?" Rikku asked excitedly. "Where?"
"Over there," Wakka answered, pointing in the direction of the treehouse. Rikku headed over right away. "But it's nowhere near finished."
"Yeah, we started it this morning, but we couldn't finish…" Tidus protested.
"Don't worry," Yuna assured. "Rikku has a knack for mechanics. She can get that thing running in no time."
The boys dumbly watched as the fairy almost completely disassembled the airship and rebuilt it completely, disappearing and reappearing with engine components she must have managed to get offworld. In roughly twenty minutes, Rikku had assembled a small craft when Tidus, Wakka, Sora, Riku, and Kairi could barely get a frame built in two hours.
"All done!" she declared. "Granted, it's a bit small and it'll only hover on the water, but it's good enough to get us around these islands!"
"That's amazing," Tidus said.
"Let's get aboard!" Yuna decided.
Wakka took the controls, with Rikku showing him how to operate the hovercraft. Tidus stood on the front left "wing" of the craft, meticulously keeping his balance as he kept a lookout for islands to search. His sword lay at his feet, and Yuna flew over to inspect it.
"This is a nice sword," she commented.
"Yeah," he answered, smiling. "I got it from one of Sora's friends. It was a gift so I could write my own destiny."
"What's that island?" Paine asked, flying up.
Tidus blanched. "Trust me, you do not want to go there."
"What is it?" Yuna questioned.
"It's kind of a wildlife preserve," Wakka replied. "No one lives there, and there are a lot of pretty dangerous animals around."
"Sounds like the perfect place to hide treasure!" Rikku realized.
Tidus looked up at Wakka, and both boys had very worried looks on their faces. Suddenly, neither of them thought these fairies were quite in their right minds.
Even so, they disembarked and started walking around the island. Tidus kept shifting the weight of his sword on his back while Wakka kept his blitzball under one arm. If they were attacked, they wouldn't be able to hurt any animals, but they were fully prepared to defend themselves as much as they could with the least amount of pain for their opponents. It was just like the way they used to play-fight on the island, except it would be to save their lives.
The Gullwings spread out all over the small island, searching for any trace of treasure while their escorts kept nervously looking around, expecting something to leap out of the foliage at any minute. After a while, Yuna and Rikku returned and shook their heads. Suddenly, they heard something rustling in the leaves. Wakka threw his blitzball at whatever it was, intending to scare it off, but instead, a rather annoyed Paine caught it as she emerged from the bushes.
"You two find anything?" she asked, throwing the ball back at Wakka.
Rikku shook her head as Yuna answered, "Nothing. But there's a sandbar just across from here. We can get there easily."
Wakka and Tidus looked at each other and shrugged. A sandbar sounded pretty safe to them.
No less than five minutes later, they were running for their lives back to the known-to-be-dangerous island while a masse of enraged chocobos stampeded after them. Giant insects burst out of the trees as they pushed their way through the foliage, but they were lucky enough to avoid getting attacked. The cuts and bruises from the chocobo stampede was enough. The boys would have collapsed on the hovercraft if Wakka wasn't intent on piloting the thing away from the island. Then Tidus collapsed.
"Well, that didn't go as planned," Paine pointed out. The Gullwings, who had been far behind the boys in their run, flew onto the ship while carrying several bags of treasure.
"At least we managed to get some treasure out of it!" Rikku declared, displaying a ruby bracelet.
"Here's your share," Yuna said, handing each boy a bag with some small gems.
"That's it?" Wakka asked. "We nearly get killed, and this is all we get?"
"There's bound to be more somewhere nearby," Rikku decided. "That sandbar was the perfect place to guard those pieces." She pointed out another island. "Stop there! I think that's where there'll be more!"
"I'm starting to think this treasure hunt isn't all it's cracked up to be," Tidus commented as they walked deeper into the tropical forest.
"Now you realize it?" Wakka questioned.
"Don't worry," Yuna affirmed. "Nothing can go wrong here!"
"Aww, how cute!" Rikku cried, flying over to a small cub. "Look, Yuna! Isn't he adorable?"
"Wait," Tidus said, feeling his stomach drop. "That's a sabertooth mooselion cub."
"A sabertooth what?" Rikku asked, momentarily stopping in playing with the cub. The next thing they knew, the ugliest creature they had ever seen was bearing down on them for messing with her baby. It was another mad scramble back to the hovercraft for the boys as the Gullwings mysteriously vanished again. As they fell, ignored their injuries, and kept on running, they started to get the feeling that they were being used as bait.
"This is crazy," Tidus commented, clutching a broken wrist.
"The next time you sign up for anything just because some pretty fairy asks you to, leave me out of it!" Wakka complained.
The Gullwings flew onto the craft, once again toting bags of treasure. Yuna saw Tidus wincing and clutching his arm and said, "Let me see that." He reluctantly offered his arm to her. She placed her hands on his arm, and green energy flowed out into him. The pain slowly lessened as the bones knitted themselves back together. "There! That should be all better."
"A Cure spell?" Tidus guessed.
"Yep!" Rikku said. "Yuna's good with magic."
Wakka twitched. "Think on the next island, you can help us out in battle?"
"Fine," Paine agreed. "But we get a bigger share of the findings."
Wakka and Tidus looked at the little they had earned from their hard work and sighed. The sacrifices they were making for this treasure hunt were insane.
The Gummi Ship landed in its hiding place about an hour past midnight. Tired and grinning, the trio of heroes walked off to the other end of the island. Sora and Riku wore silver medals around their necks while Kairi—wearing a gold circlet around her head—fiddled with a set of communication devices.
"It was nice of Mickey to make these communicators—one for each of us," she commented.
"Yeah," Sora agreed. "I'll head to Twilight Town tomorrow to drop off some for Hayner, Olette, and Pence."
Riku stopped suddenly at the sight of two half-conscious figures slumped in the sand. "Tidus? Wakka?" They just managed the strength to look over at him. "What happened?"
"Treasure hunt," Wakka answered. "With three of Sora's crazy friends."
"What crazy friends?" Sora asked.
"Gullwings," Tidus replied. "They helped us build the hovercraft."
"Well, did you find anything?" Kairi questioned.
Tidus winced. "A lot of pain."
"A whole lot of pain," Wakka added. "And sabertooth mooselions and chocobos and giant bugs and…"
"And we got some treasure," Tidus threw in, cutting Wakka off.
"How much?" Sora asked.
"Some jewels, and enough munny for me to buy my own pair of gloves," Tidus replied.
Deciding not to ask anything more, Sora, Riku, and Kairi half-carried half-dragged Tidus and Wakka to their boats and headed home after a long night.
The title is from a Beatles song by the same name. Sabertooth mooselions are borrowed from Avatar: The Last Airbender, owned by Nickelodeon. P.J. and Max are from Goof Troop and its sequels, and Webby is from Duck Tales. I have taken liberties with their characters to fit them into the Kingdom Hearts universe, and because I haven't seen either of these shows in many, many years. In addition, Cape Suzette and Baloo are from Tale Spin, and Mrs. Hasagawa and her "kitties" are from Lilo and Stitch: The Series. I may or may not have a story explaining her presence in the Destiny Islands.
This chapter is longer than the others because it is essentially two in one. Most of the chapters in "Streets" will not be so.
