Chapter 10: Arrival in Radiant Gardens
Chip and Dale's new Gummi Ship design strikes them odd: a multicolored ship with one cabin at each four corners. The main body has two heads, the bottom seats three persons and the top is more like a crow's nest.
The Gummi Ship itself is 50 yards. Each part has a color theme: Matt calls for the yellow top cabin, Blue wants the blue upper port, Jade sneaks into the violet lower starboard, Nadine points at the green lower cabin, Sidney climbs to the red small crow's nest cabin, Dorian and Ashleigh take the stairs to jump into the main body.
They board and are ready to begin their voyage. Matt and Blue warm their engines, and so did Nadine. Lizzy waves tearfully at Beige and she does the to him. Her and the Disney Castle citizens wave farewell to the Elemental Force. From the radio tower, and then Goofy opens the gates. They were ready to fly out into space but there was a loud thud on the right starboard, and the Gummi Ship drags for a couple feet!
It turns out Jade doesn't know what switch or button to activate the engine on his side! He presses several buttons hoping to turn on the jets.
"Oh, for the Amazon's sake," Lizzy wakes from his nap agitated in Sidney's pocket. He hops out and walks to the intercom. "Jade?" he asks him. "You see that green rectangle in front of you? There're four switches on top of it. You only need to flip the first two. Did you even read the manual Chip and Dale provided us?"
"No. I didn't," Jade says. " But, I got this!"
Lizzy smacks his forehead with his palm. However, the ship's posture is corrected and they blast off into deep space to their first world, Radiant Garden.
Dorian peeks over at Ashleigh with her eyes half-open staring in the deep space. She blinks once and her eyes roll to toward him the next blink. "Yes?" she asks.
"Nah," Dorian says. "Nothing."
"You don't have to be shy," Ashleigh says as she stretches. She plays with her sepia brown hair: it touches her shoulders, its springy and very coil-y. She rolls her hair with her index finger and thumb.
Dorian bit his lip until Ashleigh breaks the ice by asking, "How'd even wind up with that Key?"
Dorian hums until his past flickered briefly: A masked figure wielding the same color Keyblade when he was around two. He snaps back and says, "I really don't know. All I remember is seeing this guy when I was younger. Then, the key just came to be in a dream."
"You think he might've given it to you?" Ashleigh asks.
"I don't know," Dorian says. "All I know is that–"
"Heartless ships headed our way!" Jade slams the intercom and yells at everyone else on the intercom!
"FINALLY!" Jade cheers.
"Anyone knows how to fire the cannons?" Ashleigh asks.
"Duh, shoot those suckers out of the area!" Jade says with vigor.
"We were asking how!" Dorian yells at him.
The Heartless ships zero in at the Elemental Force's vessel. They flew in faster until Matt found his cannons. "Taking aim," he locks his scope on a small fleet. "FIRE!"
Matt's corner of the Gummi Ship launches an array of missiles at the thorny Heartless ships and explode into tiny blocks!
"Stay sharp!" Matt alarms the crew. "There's more where that came from!"
The Heartless ships shoot lasers at the vessel. Nadine's cabin gets nicked before more attacks.
"Nice flying! Jerk," Matt says to Jade on the intercom.
"I didn't know what to do," Jade says.
"I'm fine! I'm fine," says Nadine. "But what happened to the main jets?"
"That… might've been me," Dorian says, "I tried to look for the boost, but I hit the slow switch. Did we go fast enough to miss it?"
"No significant damage," Nadine said, "It's just the paint job."
"Here comes another one!" Jade screams as he pushes the boost switch to his ship only, causing the fast paced torpedo to hit main body!
"Look what you did!" Dorian yells at Jade.
"I panicked!" Jade says.
"You'd better check the stats RIGHT NOW!" Dorian's temper rises. "LOOK HOW MUCH DAMAGE WE'VE TOOK!"
"Can we worry about that later?" Nadine asks when she directs their attention. There was their destination world a few minutes away. If they could figure out how to stop an engaging swarm of Heartless ships!
Blue and Jade simultaneously slam switches that cause their ship to thrust at full-speed, destroying every Heartless ship in sight!
"WE'RE GONNA CRASH!" Blue screams!
"What does the manual say about an Emergency break?" Dorian feels for a lever underneath the control panel. He grabs on and he pulls it back, causing the ship to slow down!
"Dorian!" Lizzy screams. "You need at least two more people to pull whatever you pulled to slow down the ship!"
"Call everybody to pull it!" Dorian screams back.
"Listen!" Lizzy directs. "There is a lever under your dashboard! Just pull it back towards you!"
Sidney, Ashleigh, Blue, Jade, Nadine, and Matt pull back the levels as far and hard as they could. This releases a repulsion jets in the front of the vessel. The grand Gummi Ship avoids creating chaos and draws near their first destination, Radiant Gardens. The Gummi lands safely, but the Elemental Force holds animosity against each other until they step out of their cabins of the Gummi Ship and into in a large lush garden!
"Look at all these fruits," Nadine points out. "And the all these flowers! This is beautiful!" Rows of cherry trees were parallel with pink asphodels and apple trees, strawberry bushes, red roses, tall rhubarb stalks, and slender cacti with dragon-fruit sprouting from its ends.
"Everything's red and pink," Matt remarks. He turned around to find a grandiose lavender shaded castle on a flat-headed violet mountain. His "WOW!" caught everyone's attention and to repeat after him.
"Now THAT is a castle," says Nadine.
"Wonderful, isn't it?" asks a voice from the castle's gate. The voice belongs to a rather tall, slender man clad in navy blue armor. Thorns protruded from his shoulder armor as well as his helmet. The only thing visible of his clean-shaven face, lips with a tinge of purple, and pale skin. He approached the group as if he was expecting them. His scowl turned to a smile. "It took us about a year to spruce the castle back up."
"What happened?" Dorian asks.
"Let's just say a witch took over and ruined everything for the king," the knight introduces himself. "I'm Cecil. I humbly welcome you to Radiant Garden. Well, a part of Radiant Garden. This is Gainsborough Square. I understand that you call yourselves the Elemental Force, right? Daisy contacted me not too long ago."
Everyone introduces themselves until Dorian comes up to Cecil to shake his hand as a sign of formal greeting. "I'm Dorian. My friends and I have lost our world. And we thought coming here would give us answers."
"Well," Cecil begins. "I may not be an expert on this subject. My teammate Leon talked about a young man who had a Keyblade and restored his own world."
"The Keyblade again?" Matt asks.
"You sound like you've heard of it," Cecil says.
"Actually," Dorian raises his right hand in the air and gathers light. He materializes his Keyblade. "What can this do?"
Cecil stood with mouth agape. "You have one? Perhaps Donald was sorely wrong."
"SO," Jade rudely interrupts. "Do you know anything?"
Even though Sidney couldn't see Cecil's eyes, she felt how Cecil was offended by Jade's impatience.
"Aw, I wouldn't worry about him," Matt pats Cecil's back. "We can talk about it."
"Yeah," Ashleigh slings onto him as well. "What else can you tell us about that castle?"
"Story Time!" Sidney and Blue chime in. Romeo runs to catch up with Sidney.
"Why decide to have a garden here?" Lizzy asks.
"It's so peaceful here," Nadine added.
"Well, I, uh," Cecil blushed by attention. "One thing at a time, please?"
Dorian and Jade are left behind. Dorian raises his brow as Jade was left to simmer in his own embarrassment.
"I wanted to know," Dorian whispers to himself.
"Are you kidding me?" Jade asks. "He was going to flap his purple lips all day!"
"AND he was going to tell us something we could use," Dorian predicts.
"That's not how you lead," Jade says.
"Excuse me?" Dorian asks. "Lead?
"You've showed us how powerful these jewels are," Jade says when pinching the jewel. "And you've got another thing that would make you twice as powerful!"
Dorian rolls his eyes, "Look, it's like I got both of them at the same time. You can't rush me to learn one thing and then another."
"In case you haven't noticed," Jade says. "We have a monster that may continue to wreck havoc in Charm City!"
"The activity says it stopped!" Dorian says. "We can still save it–"
"Until WHEN?" Jade shouts! "Our home turns to ashes?
"What's with the impatience all of the sudden?" Dorian asks. "Cecil might know something about the Keyblade's power."
Jade tremors his shoulders and then hisses, smacking Dorian across his cheek with his claws unsheated!
"You dick," Dorian immediately draws his Keyblade and tries to swipe at Jade. With the elemental power of darkness, Jade morphs with his shadow and zips away from Dorian.
"Jade!" Dorian futilely calls for him back. Dorian rubs his cheek and finds out Jade drew his blood. "Fucking drama queen," he says when he looks up to find another castle further ahead.
…
The Elemental Force continues to make merry accompaniment with Cecil, travelling across the ravine, deeper to the depths.
"This Sora guy," Nadine says. "Must be really skilled!"
"And he fought off all those Heartless?" Sidney asks
"All 1000 of them?" Lizzy asks.
"As witness and veteran of that battle," Cecil says truthfully. "But Sora, along with Donald, the King, Leon, Cloud and the others have fought against the Heartless side by side."
"And that was when you finished up rebuilding Radiant Garden?" Ashleigh asks.
"The project started after Sora sealed the heart of the world away two years ago," Cecil explains. "We worked on rebuilding this castle first for two years before we could move on. And now that's done, we can restore everything else around it."
"So, what do we do?" Matt asks.
"Maleficent had used a vale not far from here as her headquarters," Cecil says. "I caught Luso and Prishe slacking off, so I asked if Yuna could take the two there for a little exercise. She was too happy to oblige."
"Exercise?" Sidney asks. "What'd you mean?"
"There were some remaining Heartless around the vale," Cecil adds. "But I thought they were taking too long to take out the Heartless."
"Have you considered that they might be no match?" Nadine asks.
"I have faith in Luso and Prishe's training," Cecil says confidently. "And if things were to go from bad to worse, Yuna's one of the best summoners."
They continue to walk down the winding pathway, growing steeper with each passing yard. The slate walls in between the people were far wide. Their friendly banter ends when they heard young lady screaming.
"YUNA!" Cecil runs downhill with the Elemental Force behind him. He slides to a stop to find his friend surrounded by Heartless: Shadows, Soldiers, and giant bats with simple faces.
"Are those new?" Ashleigh asks as she swirls the air to form a ball of wind.
"I'll take care of the Mega Chirps," Lizzy says as he jumped.
But before he could, Sidney grabs his tail. "Really? You named them 'Mega Chirps?"
"They let out a chirping sound like a bat's," Lizzy explains his observation. Matt tries to swing at them with his fists but they strike back by screeching sound waves. Cecil swiftly slices the bat Heartless out of the air.
The Shadows turns their lowly heads to Sidney and Romeo. They crawl inches away from tearing her and the dog apart. "HOLY!" shouts a voice.
The Heartless were first stunned and then eaten away by the light from the spell. Yuna recovered quickly from her attack. She wears a flower-patterned dress with black boots and a black camisole under a white sash. Her brown hair reaches her shoulder and her eyes are completely different from one another: blue as the sky and green as jade. She feels faint. Cecil leaps gallantly to catch her.
"Are you alright?" Cecil asks.
"I'll be fine, Cecil," Yuna says. "I'm worried about Prishe and Luso, though."
"What happened?" he asks.
"I was watching Luso and Prishe fight the small Heartless," she explains. "Then Prishe dared him to go in the vale. I tried to go after him but I heard Prishe scream. I ran out to find a knight clutching Prishe's arms. His magic was a lot stronger than mine and he pushed me up here along with a bunch of Heartless."
"Knight?" Cecil questions. "With magic?"
"His armor looked a lot like yours," she adds. "And he's much taller."
Cecil clenches his teeth, as he helps Yuna to her feet. "What's wrong?" Yuna asks.
"Golbez!" Cecil runs ahead. "We have to hurry!"
"Who?" Sidney quipped. "Golbez?"
"I'll explain on the way," Yuna follows Cecil back to the Villain's Vale. Sidney caught up with her to ask again.
"Golbez is Cecil's long lost brother," Yuna answers. "They both fought each other years ago. Cecil knew something was off about him when they last met each other. But then, Cecil knew that Golbez wouldn't be capable of such evil."
"Sounds like more than a clean up job," Ashleigh catches up with Yuna and Sidney. Lizzy rides on Romeo with Nadine and Matt not too far behind. They reach the end of the trail to the vale to find Cecil stopped and staring at Golbez carrying a girl. But someone else was there. Cecil switches his sight to Jade, who was left behind minutes ago and now unknowingly found his way first to the vale's lower level.
"Jade!" Lizzy was shocked. "How'd he get here?"
"Put the garota down," Jade says as his claws draw out. This Knight is taller than Cecil and bears similar armor. However, the pauldrons were taller and he adorns a cape.
"Prishe," Cecil and Yuna yell. The girl has ears just like Evelyn's, but her skin tone is similar to Sidney's. She wears a camisole with flowery sleeves and jean shorts reaching her knees. When she awakes slowly, she jerked her head to see who was holding her. "GOLBEZ," she realizes her captor. "Just wait till you let me go, I'm gonna flatten you into a penny!"
"Your hubris is almost hilarious," Golbez speaks with a deep voice.
"What are you doing anyway?" Prishe asks. Then she looks over where Cecil, Yuna, and the Elemental Force were standing. "GUYS! What are you doing standing there? Help me out, already!"
Jade is almost too happy to help Prishe. He darts for Golbez, swipes at him and Prishe. She quickly raises her legs to avoid Jade's attack. Jade's claws are packed with reinforced reptilian keratin, but Golbez's armor did not scratch. "Your claws are useless against my armor!"
"You almost cut me, doofus," Prishe shouts at Jade. Frustrated, Jade tries many more times to try to damage Golbez. Prishe also avoid Jade's attacks. Everyone on the sidelines gasps every time Jade made a swipe at Golbez with Prishe as his hostage.
"JADE," Lizzy tries to remind his older brother. "This is a HOSTAGE SITUATION!"
"Blizzara!" Jade stops attacking and Golbez breezes a spell at Jade. Jade is pushed back by the spell and he looks at his right arm.
"Ice?" Jade panics. Three more Blizzard spells head his way all he did was protect his face. The icy mist lifts as Jade is encased in a block of ice, save his face. He shivers with his eyes half way shut.
"We have to get him out of there!" Lizzy panics. "Our physiology can't stand sub-zero temperatures! We have three minutes to un-freeze him!"
"I can defrost him," Sidney volunteers. Nadine and Lizzy accompany her and ran to a frozen Jade, but the Heartless line up in front of Jade to prevent the three from reaching to him on time.
"Golbez!" Cecil stood out. "I thought you would have renounced the evil that you've caused years ago!"
"And I thought that was a stupid idea," Golebz's voice pattern changed.
"What just happened?" Ashleigh asks.
"He sounded dignified at first," Matt comments. "Now he sounds like he came from the Five Boroughs."
"There's so much I can do with this power," Golbez starts a monologue. "I can travel to other worlds and conquer them in under a half an hour!"
Cecil grits his teeth. "My own brother, who fought to seek forgiveness now turns against his word? The darkness really has warped your mind!" Cecil draws closer and unsheathes his blade. "I'll warn you one last time," Cecil points his blade at Golbez. "Put down Prishe."
"Make me, pretty boy," Golbez taunts Cecil. But before Cecil could make a move, a blur fell from the far heights of the old, dilapidated vale. Something hit Golbez's head so hard, he drops Prishe and she made a run for the sideline. Golbez held his head and writhes in agony from the fallen object. But it was no object.
"All right! Now it's a party!" Matt says as Jade and Dorian made their appearances special.
"Dorian!" Cecil said with amazement. "How did?"
"Ey!" Dorian looks up and swings his Keyblade on his shoulder and carries a large book in his left arm. "You were in the middle of saying something, Cecil. Then Jade got impatient and then you guys clamored to him, and I was stuck with Jade. As soon as he ran away, I figured I would take the scenic route. And look what I found."
Dorian's lips upturn as he holds up the book he found inside the castle. "This thing is crazy huge! You think there's something about the Keyblade in here? What is in here? HEY, pictures!"
Everyone but Golbez looks at Dorian as he flips the pages in the big book. "We don't see him like everyday," Sidney comments.
"CAN WE FOCUS, PLEASE!" Lizzy shouts at everyone. "He's got another minute before his heart shuts down! HURRY UP!"
Nadine hears Lizzy's plight and dealt with the Heartless while Sidney uses her power to defrost Jade. Golbez got to his knees and then stands. He looks around to find who struck him. He turns to Dorian still turning pages in the big book. "Could that be the Grimoire of the Rift?" he asks in his normal tone.
"Not sure," Dorian turns to the front cover. "There's no title."
Golbez's head shook and then his strange accent returns. "You little Punk! You'll pay for what you did to me!" Golbez proceeds to punch Dorian but Dorian avoids the attack.
"Hey you," Dorian shouts at Prishe. "Take this!" He throws the book up in the air. There was a faint scream coming from the book. "What the hell?!"
"Dark Fire!" Golbez points and fired a fireball at the book. But the fireball was black and violet. Blue somehow activates his crystal and spits up a water ball at the book. The dark fireball contacts the book and explodes. The smoke clears and the book is protected by Blue's water shield. The book fell and lands in Prishe's arms.
"Where were we?" Dorian asks Golbez as he swings his Keyblade in Golbez's visor and brought him flat on his back.
"Aera!" Golbez raises his arm and blasts Dorian away from him.
"This isn't like Golbez," Cecil says. "He wouldn't toy around his opponents like that." Cecil decides to exit the fray and watch Dorian fight Golbez. "Dorian, be careful! His magic is formidable!"
"Dark Fire!" Golbez launches a basketball-sized fireball at Dorian. Dorian readies himself like a baseball batter. He swings his blade and he deflects it away. Golbez consecutively fires the spells and Dorian continues deflecting them! Golbez ceases his Dark Fire spell to let that one fireball fly at Dorian. Then Dorian deflects it back to Golbez, then Golbez punches it back, then Dorian swings the fireball back!
Golbez misses his timing and is burned for it! Golbez recovers and readies another spell. "Prepare yourself," he warns. "BIO!"
His spell looked like a green glob and splatters all over Dorian. "Was that supposed to hurt me?" Dorian asks.
"No," Golbez answers. "It's supposed to drain your strength." Dorian buckles and coughs.
"Normally, poison based magic won't hurt much. But I'm sure this will!" Golbez holds his hands out and prepares a spiraling red fire. "FIRA," Golbez shoots a larger, red version of his Dark Fire. Dorian did not move and the spell set him ablaze!
"Pretty thickheaded of you not to move anywhere," Golbez states. The Fira spell dies down and left Dorian singed. "You don't look so good," Golbez taunts Dorian. "How about another?"
Golbez held his hands out again to prepare another Fira. Dorian grins and steps forward to startle Golbez! But did not deter Golbez from finishing his Fira spell. "My Bio should have you sick!" Golbez shouts.
"Your fire melted that shit off of me," Dorian chuckles. "So I'm not so sick anymore!"
"Stay back!" Golbez shouts.
"Or what?" Dorian mocks. "You'll shoot?" Dorian runs closer to Golbez as he fires the Fira. Dorian is close enough to fire back the Fira in point blank range, thus sending Golbez a distance while on fire!
"Something's not right here," Cecil notes. "It's like Golbez is not even trying. If he was for real, the match would've been over and Dorian would have lost."
"Quit messing with me kid!" Golbez sounds uncharacteristic. "Do you know who you are dealing with?"
"Not the slightest," Dorian says.
"Suffer! Darkest Thunder!" Golbez sends lighting out from his palms at Dorian! Dorian tries to block the lightning with his Keyblade, but seeing the blade is made from some kind of metal the lightning stores in the blade.
"He's gonna get fried!" Prishe says. "What's keeping him from sizzling into a crisp?"
"Maybe the jewel he's wearing is giving him an edge?" Yuna points out.
"Earth nullifies lightning?" Matt asks. "But he can't channel the electricity through himself."
"Maybe he doesn't have to," Ashleigh says. "Look at his Key!"
Dorian's Keyblade is charged full of lightning! He grins as he ran toward Golbez. He swung at Golbez but he dodged every attack possible. Until the last strike, Golbez catches the Keyblade.
"You've become a pain in the ass, kid!" Golbez says.
"That wasn't really smart," Dorian smiles. The lightning trapped in his Keyblade unleashes the fury of ten lightning storms back at Golbez acting as the conduit! Golbez convulses and is frustrated with his efforts. He vanishes in front of Dorian and appears in front of Jade, probably to counter Sidney's fire ability.
"No you won't!" Dorian kicks his heels to activate the jets and flies to the right side of Golbez. They both crash right in the brittle castle. The shock set forth cracks in the wall of the castle!