Chapter 4: The Unexpected Friends
Riku leaped at the Black Mass and smacked it in the head with his Keyblade and, just before blasting it with Dark Firaga, yelled,".!!!" Everything else went out of focus, all he remembered was the pain in his chest and the incomparable cold that quickly followed.
"Wow, Riku, how'd you get out of that!?" Sora exclaimed, sitting next to his best friend while Kairi toasted marshmallows.
"Heh, I don't remember... all I do remember is all the excitement and... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!" Riku cried out in pain as two Keyblades shoved into his body, coughing blood as he moved his head to his friends."Guys, why did you..." He thought he would see the faces of his friends, but instead he saw two Necromorphs raise their spikes to take off his head...
Riku gasped as he awoke with a horrified start, panting as he searched himself and then his surroundings. He was in a small room with an open window that displayed a clear blue sky. Attached to his bedpost was a balloon with childish marker art of him with a thermometer in his mouth and an ice bag on his head. After some effort, he managed to make out the message, "Get Well Sewn, Mr. Spaceman!" Riku had to laugh, the messenger had misspelled "soon," everything else was kind of... cute, as Kairi or Selphie would say? He shrugged and attempted to get on his feet. Much to his surprise, he did it with out staggering in any manner whatsoever, so he thought he could test himself out in the only he knew how; by stepping out the door and walking... in sweatpants... no shirt... and barefooted... right... Riku mentally kicked himself; he doesnt have his clothes! He checked the drawers in his room until he finally found all of his stuff: his zip-up sleevless shirt, white and yellow vest, jeans, socks, shoes, black gloves, the Kinesis and Stasis units, and his RIG. After he donned everything, he stuck his head out to see if there was anyone around.
Good, I'm outta here...
As Riku began to sprint through of the house, he heard footsteps coming around the corner; he didn't know whether or not they were friends, foes, or more N'morphs, so he was going to take his chances with N'morphs. He used a technique he had practiced on the islands he liked to call Dark Phase; this allowed him to merely ghost right through walls. He sunk right into a slightly larger room with several bookshelves, a couch, one or two windows that failed to light up much of the shady room, and a sword hanging over a mantle. Riku inspected the sword and was amazed by the glow its dark grey blade seemed to radiate. It had a gold hilt with an ivory colored grip, the blade itself was curved and had a place where a network of gold connected to make a net-like pattern that decorated the back of the blade's broadsides. The craftmanship and care it must've took to make the sword alone enticed him to test it's weight...
"Don't touch that." A voice commanded as Riku spun on his heel to see a black hedgehog step forward. "I see that you have an eye for a fine blade, but I think that you should keep your distance. Arondight doesn't take kindly to strangers..." He leaped away from a slash by Riku, Way to the Dawn clenched tightly in his hand. The hedgehog smirked, "Looks like you have an edge of your own. Rouge asked me to see how you were feeling, I only hoped that it would be as good as this." Then he took out Arondight and held the blade upside down, "Don't disappoint me..."
"If you were one of them, then you're the most intelligent I've met so far." Riku scoffed as he prepared his stance.
"Them?" The hedgehog shook the question off and leaped forward for a vertical spin slash, which was blocked and parried by Riku and followed up by a kick that sent the hedgehog flying a ways backward. "So, you fight like that, huh? Now, I'm interested!" He lunged forward and Riku leaped over the blow and aimed for his blindspot, only for it to be blocked by a large metallic arm. The arm, as Riku slowly saw as he looked along the dense limb, was attached to a very large robot who apparently was going to let him get away with attacking its friend.
"SHADOW, WE HAVE JUST RECIEVED A MESSAGE FROM TAILS: WE ARE TO RENDEVOUS AT HIS WORKSHOP IN EIGHTY-FIVE MINUTES." Shadow, the black hedgehog, made small red rip in the air, pushed Arondight into it, and then made it disappear.
"Are we supposed to bring our guest along?" Shadow gestured toward Riku, recieving a nod from the large robot.
"AFFIRMATIVE, HE SEEMS MORE THAN CAPABLE OF WALKING ON HIS OWN. DOES THIS FLAMMABLE LIFE-FORM HAVE A NAME?"
"My name is Riku, and what are you supposed to be?"
"I AM E-123, OMEGA. THAT IS SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG, ALSO KNOWN AS THE ULTIMATE LIFE-FORM AND THE BLACK BLUR, GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?"
Riku was about to say something when he was interrupted by a child's voice, "Is feeling any better?" which made him turn around to see a little rabbit in a red dress and a small little blue creature with a red bow tie. Riku immediately remembered that handle from the balloon in his room, he smirked at the little one.
"Yes, he's feeling much better, thanks for the balloon."
The rabbit bowed with a smile, "Thank you, my name is Cream and this is Cheese." She gestured to the blue creature that piped a little "chaoo." Riku bowed back slightly and replied "Hello to you, too. You can call me -..." Riku was interrupted by another voice, this time more adult and feminine than Cream. "We're all going to be late by the time you're finished." A female bat said as she stood in the doorway." I think it's time to move on, Cream, your mom's waiting for you outside."
Cream smiled and replied," Okay,Rouge, thank you for letting me stay with to help with... um..." Awkwardly, she paused, she never caught Mr. Spaceman's name. Then she heard him say his name.
"Riku."
She smiled brightly and bowed once again, "Thank you, I hope to see you again, Mr. Riku." With that, she skipped away from sight. Rouge laughed, "She's such a sweetheart, she never gave up on trying to make you feel better. She would've stayed up all night if I hadn't convinced her otherwise." They discussed how they found Riku in space as they left for Tails' workshop; they saw the Ishimura explode while they were looking for powerful items called Chaos Emeralds. They saw the Black Mass competely disintergrate as Shadow brought him aboard the Cyclone, Tails' spaceship. By the time she had finished her story, Omega was tapping loudly on Tails' door, which had luckily been answered before there was a dent in the metal.
"Thanks for coming on such short notice, everyone, and sorry if I had interrupted anything..." The two-tailed fox said as he tinkered with a small machine. That was when a blue hedgehog interjected with his own comment.
"You shouldn't apologize, Tails. If they were doing anything, then they wouldn't have come here." He smirked as he scratched his ear, earning an unsure grimace from Tails. "Yeah, but..." Then he noticed Riku standing in the doorway. "Hey, you've gotten better! That's a relief; after the first week, we thought you weren't ever going to wake up. I'm still curious about how that nasty wound managed to heal so quickly..."
That's when a rabbit, much older than Cream, knelt down next to the little rabbit," Maybe because my little Cream had done such a good job." and made her daughter laugh. Then a different voice broke up the fuzzy moment with, "Cute as this all is, we need to focus on the matter at hand: Finding the Chaos Emeralds." The voice came from a black and gold armored robot that was much shorter than Omega's towering height. "You may be right, Gemerl, but I don't want to drag our guest into something he doesn't want to do. It's your choice, sir, if you don't wanna, then that's ok. We've done this before, so you don't have to worry."
Riku lolled this over for a moment; he wasn't if he had much time left, espicially with the fact that he had been unconcious for a whole week now, nor was he very clear on if there was any time limit whatsoever. What also bothered him was the Dark Stranger, the man who almost got him killed aboard the Ishimura. If, or more than likely since, he is still alive, he might very well try to attack Riku again. This chilled Riku to the bone if he had ended up getting Cream and her friends caught in the crossfire because of that. That's when he heard Shadow say, "If you think that whatever brought that thing on you in space has a chance against us, then you'd better flip that idea over fast. We've dealt with tough enemies before, so don't ditch us for our own safety."
This snapped Riku out of his train of thought and had him ready with a response for his unexpected friends.
"Just call me Riku and you'ce got a deal."