Chapter 9: The Net

"Saffron seems… vaguely nice…" Sora said, dealing out another hand of poker to Kairi, Kronk, and Riku.

"You kidding? She's hot!" Riku yelled.

"Ahem. Can we just get to our poker game?" Kairi said, discarding three cards.

"You know what's weird? The last time I had any involvement with a 52-card deck of playing cards was in Wonderland with the Queen of Hearts and her stupid guards." Sora said, smiling as he discarded two cards and dealt the five missing cards back into their owner's hands.

A few hands passed, and Riku progressively grew more tired. Finally he folded his last hand, "I'm turning in for the night." He said, yawning and walking to his room.

"G'night." Sora called after him. "Now that he's gone, let's up the risk here," Sora said, grinning. "Let's play strip poker."

"I'd be fine with that if it weren't for him." Kairi replied, pointing to Kronk, "He's never won a single and, and I think I might throw up if-"

"I get the picture, Kairi!" Sora yelled, shuddering slightly at the idea.

"Yeah, I'm really ugly when I'm naked. And I don't mean regular ugly, but bad ugly. You try living with this body for your entire-"

"KRONK!" Sora and Kairi yelled.

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Riku lowered himself into his room. He pulled out the portable sink, brushed his teeth and got his Mickey Mouse pajamas on, like any good boy. However, when he turned to his cot, Saffron was lying naked in it.

"Nice P.J.s." she said, smiling.

"What the heck are you doing in here?" Riku asked, glancing away.

"You're a big boy, and a big boy's got to learn a few things." She said, subtly batting her eyelashes.

"I think I'll just… sleep somewhere else. Go ahead and take my room if you want, I'll go to the cargo hold and, um… yeah." He replied, backing away.

"Don't bother, the door's locked." She said, smiling innocently. "We're all alone. Anything you want to do?" she said, getting out of the cot.

"God, stop! I'm gonna throw up." Riku yelled, clutching his stomach.

"Wow. An almost eighteen-year-old boy with hormones and you won't kiss me. Even married men are easier to crack. Ha." Saffron said, smiling even wider.

"What the-" Riku began, but was cut off by a swift kick to the head.

"Works every time." Saffron muttered, smirking as she got dressed again and headed for the cargo bay, dragging the unconscious Riku behind her.

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Elsewhere

"You sure we're going the right way?" the brown-haired pale youth asked his companion.

The pink cat nodded. This was definitely the right way. The only problem was, they had no idea where they were. Both were refugees from different worlds, and neither had any idea what world they'd landed in.

They were currently wandering through snowy wood somewhere. Suddenly the pink cat got excited and started jumping up and down, pointing at a building in the distance.

"A building! Great job! Let's go, pinkie!" the boy yelled, smiling. The cat tapped his foot impatiently on the ground. "Fine, 'The Pink Panther.' Can we just go?" he yelled. The cat just ran ahead of him, his long pink tail lashing back and forth. They were almost at the building, which they now saw was a tavern, when a black-hooded figure emerged from a dark portal at the side of the road and blocked the doors.

"Hey, watch it, mate!" the boy yelled.

"I'm so sorry. Who are you guys?" the cloaked figure asked, turning to them.

"Well, I'm Tobias, and this is the Pink Panther, and we're hopelessly lost. Could you possibly help us in any way possible?" Tobias said, cocking his head to one side.

"Didn't you parents ever tell you not to talk to strangers, kid?" the man asked, cocking his head to the other side.

"I've talked to people much stranger than you, make no mistake." Tobias said, summoning up his Razor's Edge keyblade.

"Hey, you've got a keyblade?" Ain't that cute!" The man yelled, then tilted his head back and laughed. "You know what a heartless is, kid?" he asked. Tobias nodded slowly, "Of course you do. But I do Heartless one better. He held out his hand and an assortment of Nobodies appeared. The standard Dusks and Creepers were there, along with silver-headbanded Rocker nobodies with huge bass guitars. The Pink Panther called up his three keyblades, Springing Panther, Bumbling Inspector, and Wild Chase. He held on in each of his hands and one in his tail. "Ta-ta!" the cloaked figure said, disappearing as quickly as he had come.

Tobias ran around quickly, slitting Nobody throats left and right, while the Pink Panther slipped into impossible spaces and leapt out, slamming nobodies left and right, and doing his comedy routines that had entertained so many people on his home world, trapping Dusks in posters and tearing them in half with his keyblades, slamming the background into Creepers, among other slapstick jokes.

After a while, the two collapsed from exhaustion. There were too many of them, and they just kept coming out of the ground. Suddenly a huge muscular blur burst out of the tavern, cutting down the Nobodies with knives that, if Tobias hadn't known better, grew out from between the man's fingers. The two just stared in wonder as the knives slipped back up the man's sleeve, or wherever they had come from and he turned to them.

"Though day, huh?" he said, lighting a cigar.

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"You guys, come here! Riku's hurt really badly!" Saffron moaned, almost grinning, but she didn't break character. She was going to get a lot of munny for this, and it would come to her soon. All she had to do was find out where the shuttle was, and then she was living the high life. In reality she'd probably squander it away gambling and such, but fantasy is generally more appealing then reality, as most know.

"What?" Sora yelled, running towards Saffron. As he turned around the corner towards her, she slammed her foot into his chest, then his head. Kairi didn't follow, so Saffron assumed that she was in her cot, and she didn't say anything. The new coordinates were in the shipboard computer, and the shuttle was ready for launch. Her work was done here.

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Kairi watched Saffron run to the shuttle, and launched it into empty space. Suddenly she saw the net, a blue speck in the distance. She ran to the bridge, which Saffron hadn't bothered locking, knowing that the three children would have no idea how to change it. Kairi didn't particularly know how to fix it, but she knew who could.

Flashback

Kaylee and Kairi were sitting on Kaylee's cot in Serenity, eating their protein-enriched goop and chatting, as girls tend to do, mechanical geniuses or not. Kaylee was talking about an incident years ago, when a female mercenary had boarded Serenity. "Her name was Saffron," Kaylee said, sucking down more liquid food, "She boarded us , years ago, pretending to be the capt'n's wife. We had gone to a ceremony the day before, a big huge party celebrating us, and she married him while he was drunk. She pretended to be real sweet, that is until she knocked out both Wash and the cap'n, and sent us towards a great big electric net that'd zap us if we got too close. We all got up to the bridge and saw this thing, blue electricity crackling between six rods. So Jayne took his biggest gun and blew away the rods."

"Wow." Kairi said, munching on a cracker.

"Sometime I'll tell you how Jayne's a folk hero on a moon." Kaylee said, grinning.

"No way!" Kairi yelled, dropping the cracker she was holding, "Are we thinking of the same Jayne, the big gunner guy?"

"Yep, that's him!"

End flashback

Serenity, this is Alpha 626, requesting immediate assistance!" she screamed into the microphone.

Wash's voice was full of static, but it was still there, "This is Serenity, who is this?" he asked.

"Wash, this is Kairi! Our controls are locked, Sora and Riku are unconscious, and were headed for a big blue net! We could really use help here!" she yelled back, staring at the ever-growing net.

"Keep your head, Kairi, we're coming! Hang in there!" Wash yelled, turning the communication off.

"Easier said than done." Kairi muttered, as the looming net grew closer and closer.