A/N: Hi everyone! Welcome back to Re: Kingdom Hearts!
Penelope is actually getting attention…well…you'll see.
But first, let's reply to some reviews. I apologize for the previous chapter's responses being lengthy.
Silent Searcher: Monstro is also one of my favorite levels. It's easy to get lost because of the scenery and multiple paths, but with getting lost, Neverland was a problem for me. Also…not only Penelope is going to see Riku. In fact, the others are too.
Gry18: I haven't read it, but I'll consider it. And actually…there are four people who don't ignore Penelope. There's Riku, Drake, the Ball of Light and surprisingly, Kairi. Everyone else has been ignoring Penelope, but it really depends on the situation.
Auraheart: …Oh my fish…I never thought of it like that! Maybe that's why Penelope and Xion will get along so well in…OOPS. Near-spoilers.
Clara the Clear: Thank you. Don't worry. I don't intend on stopping until I complete the last chapter, but there'll be more.
Okay, I own nothing but Penelope… (And the Ball of Light, but they don't count as a character yet.)
Here's chapter 12!
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Chapter 12: Where is logic?
Penelope was shaking at the entrance of Monstro's…throat…or something.
In fact, WHAT WAS IT? WHERE WERE THEY ENTERING? She knew that Sora knew that she was afraid of being swallowed…unless he forgot, and technically, this wasn't being swallowed, but it was still weird.
"S-Sora, D-Donald, G-Goofy…are you coming? I really don't want to be suddenly kidnapped because that might be what happened to Pinocchio."
As Sora, Donald and Goofy walked over, Sora stared at her. "What?" He asked.
"Look, someone might've puppet-napped Pinocchio. It's a hunch I have." She explained.
"But why would you be afraid of being kidnapped?" Goofy asked. Penelope began shaking to death.
"I-I'm r-really worried a monster would kidnap me and then e-eat me…" Penelope explained.
As Sora, Donald and Goofy were getting to the entrance there, Sora told Penelope, "I don't think a monster would eat you Penelope."
"Really, Sora?" Penelope asked, her fear partially going away.
"Yeah. You'd probably taste awful with your negativity." Sora replied. Penelope grew dark for that comment.
"Oh really, Sora?" Penelope asked in a deeper tone. Sora froze up, as well as Donald and Goofy upon seeing her.
"I WAS KIDDING! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!" Sora pleaded. Penelope calmed down before giggling and saying, "I was just kidding Sora! C'mon, let's go."
Penelope followed Sora, Donald and Goofy in, thought she was still scared.
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(Monstro- Chamber 1)
When they walked into the squishy, wet chamber, that was really illogical to have for the insides of a whale, they saw Pinocchio hiding.
"What are you doing? Come on, let's go back." Sora told Pinocchio.
"Yes. We are in a huge whale. The insides of whales are dangerous…and Monstro's insides look really weird. We should go so we really don't get swallowed and die." Penelope suggested.
Pinocchio stared at Penelope in confusion, but then focused on Goofy, who now spoke.
"You know, Geppetto is awfully worried about you."
He still stood there. Not coming with them, causing Sora to tell him, "Pinocchio, stop fooling around! This is no time for games!"
When they turned around, and began to walk away, they heard Riku's voice, "But Sora, I thought you liked games." Sora turned around and Penelope looked too, before feeling lots of guilt again. (Yes, she still hasn't gotten over being unable to protect Jasmine.)
"Or are you too cool to play them now that you have the Keyblade?"
Riku was now standing over by Pinocchio. "Riku! W-What are you doing here?"
"Just playing with Pinocchio. Oh, and nice to see you again, Penelope."
Penelope didn't reply. "You know what I mean! What about Kairi? Did you find her?" Sora asked.
Guilt was replaced with anger. "Maybe. Catch us and maybe I'll tell you what I know."
"Come on!" Sora yelled, moving his hand to the side.
Just as Riku was about to take Pinocchio and go off, Penelope yelled, "OH NO YOU DON'T."
He stopped. "Penelope? Why are you so upset?" He asked.
"Why am I so upset? WHY AM I SO UPSET? Look, I was trying to not have another outburst, but I am not just going to let the name Kairi be spoken and you know something about it and then run off. Why is this whole quest centered on finding Kairi? What would happen if I were the one who needed saved instead of her?"
"Well, Kairi vanished and you didn't." Riku replied.
Penelope was irritated and confused. "Why…? How can I be more like her…? Like… Kairi."
Sora and Riku stared at Penelope. "Penelope, you can only be you. Why do you want to be like Kairi?" Penelope didn't reply, as she stared down at the ground.
"Penelope, really. Why would you want to be like Kairi?" Riku asked her.
Penelope didn't reply. She repeated her question. "What would happen if I were the one who needed saved instead of her, or if both of us were gone?"
"Why do you keep asking that, question, Penelope?" Sora asked.
Penelope only continued to ask questions, not answer, which began to get annoying.
"Why? What would happen if both of us were not there and needed to be saved? Tell me, Riku. What makes Kairi so much more important?"
"Well, if you needed saved too, you probably wouldn't end up being saved, as we'd save Kairi first."
Penelope still stared at the ground. "Why?"
"Well, it's because Kairi is probably worth more saving than you!" Riku shouted at her before realizing what he just said.
Penelope was silent. "Penelope…are you okay?" Sora asked.
"I can't believe I just said that." Riku mumbled to himself. "Penelope, I didn't mean to say that, I…"
"You…you're right." Sora and Riku were taken aback while Donald and Goofy just stared at Penelope like she was insane.
"Now…if you excuse me, I'm going to leave you guys alone. Permanently. Why do I even exist anyway if I have no point?" She asked before turning around and was about to run off until Sora stopped her.
"Penelope, please. I'm sure Riku didn't mean it. We need to save Pinocchio…"
"Let go of me Sora." Penelope ordered.
"But Penelope…" Sora began until she turned to him, revealing her face with her eyes full of tears.
"Sora, I told you to let go!" She yelled at him, trying to keep back from crying. Sora just let go of Penelope, who turned her back to them and left.
"Penelope! Wait!" Sora called after her. She didn't reply as she ran off.
Sora stared at Riku. "You just made her…" He began.
Riku didn't reply. Turning away, he ran off. "Riku!" Sora yelled after him.
"Sora, we need to get Pinocchio." Goofy told him.
"But what about Penelope?" He asked.
"I think she needs some alone time. That incident really upset her." Goofy explained.
Sora felt bad about leaving Penelope behind, but right now, it was necessary. They began fighting Heartless before going into the next area.
And at this point, they were starting to get lost. They kept going in circles and couldn't seem to find Riku anywhere.
They'd find heartless and defeat them, and then kept going, and they were getting more lost. Sora knew his way around at this point, but he still felt bad about leaving his friend alone and that kept causing them to go in circles.
Eventually fed up with it, they decided to go back where they started at Chamber 1 to exit into Monstro's mouth and get Penelope.
So, they back tracked there and saw her sitting down on the pinkish red surface, by the water. And she was sniffling.
"I've never seen Penelope cry before." Sora told Donald and Goofy quietly.
"You haven't?" Donald asked.
"Yeah. I mean, normally, since we tend to unintentionally ignore her, we probably don't see her emotions, but she never cries in front of anyone." Sora explained.
"How do you know if you've never seen her cry though?" Goofy asked.
"Because she probably holds her tears in before she's alone to let them out."
Penelope looked at them. "Sora. I know you guys are back there. I hear you." She said rather loudly.
"Sorry! Do you feel better?" Penelope didn't reply to him, but only sniffled.
Sora walked over to Penelope and he looked at her.
She appeared to have cried a lot. "Penelope, I'm sorry I didn't come back for you…"
"It's fine. I've calmed down."
"I know you were crying because of what Riku said, but…" Penelope interrupted Sora.
"I stopped crying about that a while ago. Then I began crying because logic is gone."
Sora stared at her and then Donald yelled, "YOU WERE CRYING OVER THAT?"
"It's not my fault, Donald. Don't get all feather-butthurt again. Besides, I've gotten too much attention from you guys lately."
"Penelope, we just started paying attention to you a while ago." Sora indicated.
"I know that. You don't need to." Penelope indicated. "Besides, you're going to just stop paying attention to me after we're done with this world."
Sora, Donald and Goofy went silent as Penelope began to get up. "Anyway, let's go save Pinocchio. Or go catch up to Riku so I can smack him twice."
"I get you want to slap him, but why twice?" Sora asked.
Penelope stared at him. "For saying Kairi was more worth saving than me, because she isn't and I'm equally important, and then for Jasmine."
"You still haven't gotten over that?!" Donald yelled at him.
"And why do you want to smack Riku over that?"
"It's classified." Penelope answered before heading to the entrance of the first chamber. Sora, Donald and Goofy just stood there.
"Sora, are you setting everyone's inventories for battle up or are you stalling? If you're stalling, quit it. We need to get going."
"Right, right." They followed Penelope into the first chamber.
After wandering around once again, knowing where they were going this time, they got to Chamber 3 again except they were on the upper level.
Going through there and into more areas, they eventually got back to Chamber 1 and were able to enter Chamber 2, where they fell in.
However, they had to go through Chamber 3 multiple times when they fell down, making Penelope shout at them, but they managed to get to Chamber 5.
After what seemed to be two whole hours, after going through Chamber 6, at some point they got back to Chamber 5.
"MY GOSH…I'm so tired…" Penelope groaned.
"Come on. We've walked more in other areas, Penelope." Sora indicated. Penelope sighed.
"Well, we've been wandering for hours. At this point, I think its going to come to the third hour of wandering soon." Penelope complained. The other three groaned, as she had been complaining a lot.
At some point, via Chamber 5, they were able to get to Chamber 4.
XxXxX
(With Riku)
In another area of Monstro, Riku was walking, with Maleficent speaking behind him. "Why do you still care about that boy? And that insolent girl too?"
Riku stopped to turn to her, showing that Maleficent had been walking at a slower pace behind him, still speaking. "He has all but deserted you for the Keyblade and his new companions after all. And that girl simply just tags along."
"I don't care about him." Riku told Maleficent. "I was just messing with him a little."
"Oh, really. Of course you were." It was hard to tell if Maleficent was being sarcastic or not, but there was a chance she was.
The evil fairy then got closer to Riku and also passed by him, warning him, "Beware the darkness in your heart. The Heartless prey upon it."
As she opened up a portal, Riku yelled after her, "Mind your own business."
Then Riku was silent.
With Sora, Donald, Goofy and Penelope, it appeared they finally found Pinocchio! And they were chasing after him. Well, Sora, Donald and Goofy were. Penelope was too "tired" to follow them.
And they then stopped when they saw Riku and Pinocchio went into another entrance of the many confusing chambers of Monstro.
"Riku!" Sora yelled at him. Riku turned to look at them.
"What's the matter with you? What are you thinking…?"
"WAIT SORA. Remember what I said earlier?" Penelope asked.
"About what?" Sora asked. She frowned at him.
"I'll let you talk, but then I'll do what I needed to." Penelope replied to him and waited for her cue.
"Where was I at? Oh…oh yeah! Don't you realize what you're doing?" Sora asked Riku.
"I was about to ask you the same thing, Sora." Riku told Sora, putting a hand on his hip. "You only seem interested in running around and showing off that Keyblade these days. Do you even want to save Kai…?"
"THERE'S MY CUE!" Penelope yelled, interrupting Riku.
Riku stared at Penelope in annoyance, trying to keep himself from saying another thing he'd regret as he figured he made her cry earlier.
Penelope managed to get up next to him. "Could you stand still and shut up for a second?" She asked in an oddly sweet tone.
"Why? And why are you acting so weird?" Riku asked.
"JUST DO IT." Penelope snapped at him. Riku stood still and Penelope came up to him before smacking him really hard. "THAT is for saying Kairi's better than Me." said Penelope, explaining her reasoning.
Riku raised an eyebrow. "I didn't say Kairi was…" Penelope smacked him again and Riku cringed a bit.
"THAT is for something I've been grieving over." Penelope said, explaining her reasoning once again.
And she smacked him much harder for a third time and Riku swore that if she smacked him one more time, he'd take no hesitance to whack her. "And THAT is for mentioning on saving Her Highness."
"Are you going to smack me again? You just hit me on the same cheek three times." Riku indicated.
"Nope. I'm done here. Wow, smacking someone is good stress relief…for me that is. I'm not trying to seem sadistic I swear." Penelope jumped down and walked back to her initial spot.
Riku was rubbing his check as he asked Sora, uninterrupted this time, "What was I saying…hmm…oh, right. Do you really want to save Kairi?"
"I do." Sora answered. And then they heard Pinocchio scream.
Before going to investigate, Penelope saved their game and they went up to the platform where Riku stood into the uh…Bowels of Monstro.
And what they saw? This huge freaking Heartless had Pinocchio trapped inside it. And just as they were about to get into their battle stances, Penelope screamed really loudly, startling Sora, Riku, Donald, Goofy, Pinocchio and even the Heartless.
"Penelope, what's wrong…"
"MONSTERS DO EAT CHILDREN! ESPECIALLY HEARTLESS!" She screamed.
Riku stared at Sora. "Why is she freaking out?" He asked, as he never heard Penelope scream this loud.
"I just found out she's scared of being eaten by monsters." Riku face palmed at this.
"That's so…You know what. Penelope, calm down. The Heartless isn't going to…"
They saw that Penelope was edging back towards the entrance.
"I'm so sorry to leave you at this time, but…I THINK ITS GOING TO EAT ME. GOTTA GO. BYE!"
Penelope ran out of the area, with Donald saying, "You have to be kidding me."
"You up for this?" Riku asked, turning to Sora.
Sora got into his battle stance. "No problem. Let's do it!"
And then, they prepared for the first battle with this huge Heartless, the Parasite Cage.
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A/N: I know I shouldn't be worrying about this, and I shouldn't be apologizing, but sorry for updating so late. Distractions happened. And then, I think I might've gave Penelope too much spotlight in this chapter, but then again, in the previous chapters, she's kind of been ignored so much that she kind of needs the spotlight a little.
And about her smacking Riku…before I get flamed for her smacking him and Riku doing nothing, I'll explain it like this. Riku wasn't expecting Penelope to smack him three times. He expected her to yell at him as she tends to yell. A lot.
Also, that one line there…if you've read Kingdom Hearts: Destiny Shine High, you might've seen it.
In fact, that line has been planned way before I wrote this chapter. It started with a comic and it was first seen in Destiny Shine High and now it's in its rightful place- here.
I also didn't initially plan for Penelope to be afraid of being eaten by something larger than her, but I decided, why not? She has to be afraid of well…something.
So, that's why she ran off at the end and why she screamed.
There's enough explanation there.
Like usual, review if you'd like, and instead of flaming, please just tell me how I can improve with my writing to make it better. I'm completely open to constructive criticism.
And with that said and done, I will see you all in the next chapter!
Ciao!
