Author's Note: I'm being super ambitious lately with this story, I don't know what's come over me, but I hope you enjoy this chapter. I wasn't really a fan of Atlantica, but I do love Ariel's character so I made this part pretty long.
"Eh?" My face pressed to one of the glass windows of the Gummi ship as we dove into the ocean of the world we just arrived at.
Fish big and small in all varieties of colors swam frantically away from the ship to avoid being crushed.
"Fish!" Goofy pointed as one by one the fish gathered around the ship which had stilled and was no longer a danger to them.
"Alright!" Donald said, unbuckling his seatbelt, waddling over to the hatch at the back of the ship, "Let's go outside!"
"Ahyuck! We might find a keyhole in this world too!" Goofy followed after Donald's example.
Sora and I looked at each other with wide-eyes realizing we are obviously the only sane ones on the ship.
"Huh? Wait a second!"
"How exactly are we supposed to go outside?" I asked, "We'll drown." And to make matters worse I can't exactly swim.
Donald merely scoffed indicating he had not forgotten about that important fact, "Not with my magic, we won't." He grinned in a way only a talking duck could before winking, "Leave it to me!"
"Whoa!" Sora exclaimed while gazing at the tiny orange fish that swam by, tickling his nose with their tails. Realization hit him surprisingly quick as his face lit up, "No way! I can breathe underwater!" His dolphin tail swished back and forth in delight upon this discovery.
Donald looked rather smug as he floated upside down, his legs now replaced with octopus tentacles, "Of course, I turned us into fish!"
"Wow!" Sora stared down at his new tail in wonder before turning to examine us.
Goofy's whole body excluding his head now took the form of a green turtle with a yellow under belly.
I turned my eyes to my own floating form. My legs had turned into a long snake-like tail that was twice the length of my normal non-fish body; rings of black, dark red and white colored the tail. Scales covered my chest, leaving me shirtless but not exposed and small patches down my stomach around my bellybutton to my tail. My orange teardrop necklace floated around my neck.
"Wow Jaci! You look cool!" Sora grinned as he examined my tail which I had wrapped around him, "It's so… scaly." He commented while stroking it.
I shivered from the contact, batting his hand away.
Our conversation was cut short as deeper into the ocean a feminine voice rang out, "Come on Sebastian! They're right on our tail!"
My hand made its way to my bat satchel which was no longer at my hip but strapped around my shoulder.
A voice that sounded younger called after the other, referring to the owner of the feminine voice as 'Ariel', "Don't leave me behind!"
With my bat in hand I stared at the direction where the voices were coming from with Sora at my side his Keyblade at the ready. Donald and Goofy were behind us, also prepared for a fight.
"Ariel! There's someone ahead! Stop!" A deep bass voice shouted as a young woman with long red hair stopped in front of us nearly crashing into us.
By the looks of her green fish tail she was a mermaid and her two companions were a yellow fish with blue strips and a small red crab.
"Hello!" The girl greeted a large smile appearing on her face, "Are you new around here?"
The crab immediately began to scold her, telling her of the danger of talking to strangers while we remained a bit baffled by the entire exchange.
"Relax Sebastian. They don't look like them." Who's them? "Right Flounder?"
The pudgy yellow fish, who mind you looked about ready to swim for his life away from us, nodded robotically, "Uh-huh."
Ariel brought a hand up to her face, cupping her chin in a thoughtful manner, "Though they don't look like very good swimmers."
I looked at our group. Goofy was flopping all over the place, Donald was having trouble staying up right, Sora was a bit off balance and I didn't know how to swim with two legs, let alone a long snake tail.
Donald quickly tried to come up with an excuse, but I beat him to it, "We've been swimming for miles and miles!"
Fortunately, before they could question us any more, Sebastian, the talking red crab caught sight of whatever it was they were initially fleeing from, "Here they come!"
A swarm of jelly-fish like creatures with the Heartless insignia floating in side of them surrounded us, "It's Heartless!" Sora yelled, his Keyblade at the ready.
Donald, Goofy and I followed his lead, ready to battle.
And so began our misadventures in Atlantica.
After we saved Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian, they brought us back to a rather magnificent structure resembling a castle that seemed to be made out of the most vibrant shades of coral.
Unfortunately, our initial meeting with Ariel's father, King Triton, could have gone a lot better, but whatever, he should've been groveling at our feet for saving his precious daughter as well as his crabby assistant.
Ha.
Crabby.
Get it?
'Cause Sebastian's a crab and he's cranky, so crabby…
…
Oh forget it.
Last time I try to make a joke.
Anyway, despite the King forbidding us from searching for the world's keyhole we did so anyway, which brings us to now.
Ariel, who had decided to tag along, wanted to go to her secret hideout or something, and we, being the amazing and chivalrous heroes that we are, were escorting her there.
But, I'm not a guy, so I'm not sure if that's an act of chivalry on my part.
"So where is this secret hideout anyway?" I asked Ariel as I swam along side of her and Flounder with Donald, Goofy and Sora trailing behind.
She giggled, "It's not a secret hideout, it's where I keep all of my treasures. Like my dinglehopper!"
I quirked an eyebrow at the unusual name, "Dinglehopper… interesting…"
She nodded furiously, a wide grin on her face as she began her long rant about all of the 'treasures' she has found from shipwrecks.
As she was gushing about her collection I couldn't help but feel she was a bit of a fanatic, but who am I to judge, at least she has a hobby.
Behind us, Sora, Donald and Goofy were busy chatting amongst each other, eyes glancing towards Ariel and me every so often until I finally had enough of their stares and whispers.
Interrupting Ariel midsentence I turned towards them, eyes narrowed, "What the hell are you three whispering about?"
Flounder, who had been swimming next to me, jerked in surprise at the tone of my voice, rushing behind Ariel who looked at the boys with a questioning gaze.
They began stammering but Sora was the first to get out a coherent sentence, "I-it's just that we've never really seen you interact with any other girl besides Yuffie and Aerith and I dunno…"
"Ahyuck, what Sora's tryin' ta say is you sorta act…" He trailed off, trying to find the right word.
"Manly." Donald finished for Goofy and both Goofy and Sora sent the half duck half squid a shocked look at his word of choice.
I stared at them blankly, "I act… manly?"
They looked at me wearily, as if I was going to rip their heads off, before nodding with much hesitation.
There was a moment of silence before my face contorted with anger, "Screw you guys!"
"Aw Jaci don't be like that!" Sora told me as I punched him in the arm.
"Shut up dillhole! You're just mad 'cause I have more balls than you!"
His mouth hung open, "W-what? You do not!"
"Ahyuck, what's a dillhole?" Goofy asked Donald who merely shrugged, not having a clue.
"Yeah I do! You're such a girl!"
"No I'm not!" Sora said and as he raised his voice it broke just slightly.
I crossed my arms, eyes narrowed with condescendence in my eyes, "No balls."
"That's not fair!" He whined, arms flailing up and down.
I scoffed while Ariel giggled at his actions, "We should hurry before it gets dark." She said, effectively stopping our argument.
It didn't take very long to get to Ariel's secret hideout which was actually an alcove.
My eyes widened as we all filed inside of the large space, taking in what I saw.
Hundreds of treasures were shattered beyond repair, strewn all over the place and in the middle of the entire mess was King Triton.
Needless to say, that didn't exactly go over well with Ariel who swam off with tears in her eyes while she choked back a sob.
Donald glared at King Triton, "Father or not, that wasn't very nice." Oh Donald, you have such a broad repertoire of words.
"It wasn't me." Triton confessed, his face hard and cold, but it wasn't the face of a liar, "Those dark creatures were in this room." There was a moment of silence before he posed a question for us, "You all are from another world, aren't you?" Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Sora who held his Keyblade tightly in his hand, "You must be the Key Bearer." His eyes turned toward me, "And you… as the Door you ought to know that one mustn't meddle in the affairs of other world!"
'The Door?' My eyebrow quirked at the two words, 'Didn't that crazy cat say something about that?'I thought, my mind wandering back to our time in Wonderland where the Cheshire Cat had told me I was "The Door".
"But-" Sora went to interject but was shot down.
"You have violated this principle. The Key Bearer shatters peace and brings ruin." Triton said ignoring Sora's face of disbelief, "As long as you're here you'll do nothing but cause harm."
"You're wrong!" Donald told him but Triton dismissed him.
"Thank you for saving my daughter."
Now he thanks us.
"But please stay out of our world."
"King Triton is just concerned." Flounder stated as he swam next to me, "He doesn't mean anything by it."
"We know." I told the pudgy fish, patting him on the head as he looked down dejectedly.
"I know how King Triton must be feeling, but we have to do what we have to do." Sora confirmed, eyes blazing with determination.
Donald's own eyes seem to light up and Goofy took notice of it, "What's wrong Donald?" He asked.
"Sora realizes what he has to do… never thought I'd see the day."
Goofy let out a sound of agreement and I simply grinned at Sora's deadpanned expression; clearly he was not as amused as I was.
"Hmm?" Donald peered over his shoulder as something caught his attention.
A woman- correction, a very large woman torpedoed past us.
The wind was knocked out of me as she sent us flying with the sheer force of how fast she was swimming, "Outta my way!" She shouted.
I groaned, holding my head with was spinning, "Who was that hag?"
"I have no idea." Sora said groggily.
I saw a flash of red and green as we were forced back once again. Turning my head I saw it was Ariel and she was chasing after the woman with a resolute look on her face.
There was a silence as all of us stared at the red-head disappearing from sight, "Um, we should follow after her, shouldn't we?" I asked.
"Oh… yeah!"
"Jeez, I'm beat." I moaned, flopping into an empty seat on the Gummi ship, "My fingers are pruned." I stated, taking notice of my fingers that now resembled raisins.
Donald was drying the paper we had found just before we left Atlantica; it was part of Ansem's Journal and we were hoping to transmit it to Cid.
From what I could make out from the report which was slightly smudged, most of the Heartless that we've encountered up until this point were artificial. Ansem himself had synthesized them and to differentiate them from the natural Heartless he put the Heartless insignia on them.
When Donald sent the document to Cid he confirmed what I made out from the report once he analyzed it, further explaining to us what was on the paper.
"So that's how Maleficent did it."
"She created Heartless after Heartless with the machine." Donald said, adding onto my statement, just about to take a seat until the ship lurched suddenly to the side, sending all four of us to the ground.
"What's wrong?" Cid asked.
"We stopped…"
"What the hell was that?" I asked, rubbing the side of my head which hit the wall when I slid across the floor.
"I think we ran into something, ahyuck… something big."
I staggered to my feet to look out the window, Sora at my side and we came face to face with a rather large ship, "What the hell…" I breathed out, "Is that a pirate ship?"
