Chapter 11: Skeletons, Puns and Puzzles!

Upon exiting the Ruins, Rebecca, Roxas, Xion and Sora found themselves in the middle of a forest with a path leading straight onwards. However, a flash caught Rebecca's eye, she looked to the left and saw, hidden in the bushes, a camera.

Rebecca waved to the person on the other end, who, unknown to her, waved back.

The four friends walked along the spooky road, highly afraid of what could lay ahead, they walked over a strong looking branch that shattered a few steps ahead, causing them to start running right to a bridge with a gate halfway across.

Behind them, a deep, serious voice said. "Humans, don't you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around and shake my hand.

At the words, Rebecca slowly turned around to see a figure with their head bowed, she extended her hand and the figure took it… a flatulent sound ripping when their hands met.

The figure looked up to reveal a skeleton with a wide grin and a blue hoodie. "Hehehe. The old whoopee cushion in the hand trick, it's ALWAYS funny." The four laughed nervously.

"Anyway, I'm Sans, Sans the skeleton, you're humans right? That's hilarious. I should be on the lookout for humans right now but, I don't really care about catching anyone. Now, my brother, Papyrus, he's a human hunting FANATIC. Speaking of which, here he comes! Go through this gate thingy yeah, go right through, my bro made the bars too wide to stop anyone.

They all walked across the bridge into an enclosed clearing with a sentry station and a lamp.

"Quick, behind my Sentry Station." Sans said, still grinning widely, causing everyone to rush to behind the Sentry Station as running was heard not far away.

Before long a tall, thin skeleton wearing a scarf, white metal body armour and red boots came running into the clearing.

"Sup bro?" Sans asked, grinning at his brother.

"YOU KNOW WHAT "SUP," BROTHER!" Papyrus replied. "IT'S BEEN EIGHT DAYS AND YOU STILL HAVEN'T RECALIBRATED YOUR PUZZLES! YOU JUST HANG AROUND OUTSIDE YOUR STATION! WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?"

"Staring at this lamp, isn't it cool? Do you wanna look?" Sans replied, glancing at the four knowingly.

"NO, I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT!" Papyrus replied. "WHAT IF A HUMAN COMES THROUGH HERE?! I WANT TO BE READY! I WILL BE THE ONE! I MUST BE THE ONE! I WILL CAPTURE A HUMAN!"

At this point, Papyrus put himself into a heroic popose. "THEN I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL GET ALL THE THINGS I UTTERLY DESERVE! RESPECT! RECOGNITION! I WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD! PEOPLE WILL ASK… TO BE MY… FRIEND? I WILL BATHE IN A SHOWER OF KISSES EVERY MORNING!"

"Well, maybe this lamp will help… shed some light on the subject" Sans replied, winking at his brother.

"SANS! YOU ARE NOT HELPING! YOU LAZYBONES! ALL YOU DO IS SIT AND BOONDOGGLE! YOU GET LAZIER AND LAZIER EVERY DAY!" Papyrus shouted, stamping his foot petulently. "Hey, take it easy, I got a ton of work done today… a Skele-ton." Sans turned and winked at the non-existent audience.

"SANS!"/p

"Come on. You're smiling." Sans replied, smirking.

"I AM AND I HATE IT! WHY DOES SOMEONE AS GREAT AS ME HAVE TO DO SO MUCH JUSR TO GET SOME RECOGNITION?! " Papyrus complained.

"Wow, sounds like you're really working yourself… down to the bone." Sans turned and shrugged at the non-existent audience with a grin.

"UGH… I WILL ATTEND TO MY PUZZLES. AS FOR YOUR WORK, PUT A LITTLE MORE" BACKBONE" INTO IT! NYEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!" Papyrus yelled, leaving the clearing before popping his head back in with a final. "HEH?" Before leaving again.

"Ok, you can come out now." Sans said, allowing everyone to come out. Everyone went up to Sans to thank him, but he interrupted. "You may wanna get a move on, he may come back, and if he does, you'll have to suffer through more of my HILARIOUS jokes."

The four left the clearing silently into a more open area where they could breathe.

"That was… something." Rebecca stated, opening a box on the other side of the clearing and finding four pairs of gloves which she immediately put on before handing the rest to Sora, Roxas and Xion. It was freezing! Not even winter at Hogwarts was this cold! She also found an empty jar which had held some sort of red liquid… it smelt a little like a Potion.

The others gratefully put their gloves on, sighing when they felt the cold stop biting their frozen hands.

"Thanks." Xion said, pulling her jacket around tighter.

Thinking quickly, Rebecca summoned her wand, pointed it into the jar and incanted. "Lacarnum Inflamarae."

Inside, blue, flickering flames appeared. "The Bluebell Flame spell." Rebecca told the others. "They should warm you up before long." Once again, she pointed her wand at the jar and said, with a swish and a flick. "Wingardium Leviosa." Which caused the jar to start floating in front of them and started to warm them nicely.

Seeing Rebecca doing such basic spells really made Sora wonder why such a basic thing such as summoning was taught in 4th year when levitating and conjuring FIRE was taught much earlier.

As the four went to move into the next room, they felt their SOULs being tugged out of their body and found themselves facing… a white dog in armour.

'Lesser Dog approaches.' They read in the bullet box.

Almost immediately, Xion jumped onto act and selected one of five 'Pets'. At once, the Lesser Dog reached out its head to accept the petting.

The four maneuvered their SOULs over a little, jumping dog inside the Bullet Box. After dodging the attack, they all went to pet Lesser Dog when a Soldier heartless appeared and swiped at him. Filled with a deep sense of Integrity, Rebecca swung her Keyblade at the Soldier and barely managed to stop it from attacking the Lesser Dog. Sora, Roxas and Xion immediately followed up with an attack of their own, killing the Soldier.

Lesser Dog approached Xion and rubbed her hand in thanks before sparing the four, ending the fight.

""Damn." Roxas said. "The Heartless are here already. I seriously hope the Barrier and this worlds' Keyhole are linked."/

"Definitely." Rebecca agreed. "I like the people here, even if they like to draw you into fights...

Sora nodded silently in agreement.

Now out of the fight, the party headed onwards towards an open clearing with the Skeleton brothers standing on the other end. Papyrus was talking so loudly, the party could hear them from where they were.

It was at this point, Rebecca knew that they were going to be hearing these guys a lot in the near future.

End Chapter.

Word count: 1,044

Current party: Sora, Rebecca, Roxas and Xion.

I'm really sorry about the long wait. I had sworn to myself that I would upload these chapters more often after the last chapter and then life decided to slap me in the face. I've been spending the last few months' job hunting and its left me with no time to write which lead to this chapter being much shorter then I had originally planned.

21/9/17 update! Thank you everybody for letting me know this chapter didn't get uploaded correctly, I hope what I've done fixed the problems and I'll see you another time!