Hey! Here is chapter number 25! I haven't thanked my readers and reviewers in a while so I'm doing it now. It all means a lot to me so thank you very much! ^-^
Disclaimer stands.
Enjoy!
Chapter 25: Olympus Coliseum
Some time ago back on the islands Riku decided to one day ask Sora about Donald and Goofy, which he then replied to by answering that they are two of the most best friends any one could ever have. Sora then went into this whole story about all the great times they had journeying through the worlds to find him and Kairi, and how Goofy gives the best advise ever, though sometimes a bit clumsy, and how Donald can have quite a temper but underneath all those ruffled feathers was a heart of gold.
At this moment Riku made mental note that he would one day meet these two and make amends for all the trouble and torment he put them through the past couple of years. But right now, sitting in the exact situation he was, Riku wished he was anywhere but alone in the creepy dead woods with the oversized dog and duck.
"...We are going this way!..."
"...No, we are going this way..."
"...I don't like that world..."
"...I wanna see..."
Riku sat cross-legged on the teal but slightly grey grass picking mindlessly at the little blades with his head on his fist, watching the two adults bicker. Here was the situation: Goofy and Donald were standing at a fork in the road, both of which will lead to two completely different worlds, and were arguing over which to visit first – which has been going on for nearly half an hour now, by Riku's count.
Goofy was positioned on the path which lead to the east, whilst Donald kept his ground on the path leading to the west. On Goofy's side was Wonderland, the world full of tea cups and mad hatters, whilst on Donald's side was the great Olympus Coliseum, where heroes were so heroic their image was projected in the stars.
The boy with the silver hair, who wasn't quite able to handle much more of this, tossed the blades of grass he had collected to the side in a frustrating burst, growling "Ugh, would you just decide already!"
Donald and Goofy, a tad taken aback by the startling outburst, stopped their bickering immediately and turned toward Riku with a jump. "One or the other, it's not that hard," Riku continued. "Flip a coin or something, rock-paper-scissors, eeny, meeny, miny, moe – I don't care. Just pick!"
The knight and court mage, not even stopping to think to ask the teenager which world he would prefer going to first, both turned around and began chanting in unison, "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a cricket by the toe..."
Riku rolled his cyan eyes at the two's sheer childishness and couldn't help thinking "Of course Sora would instantly click with these two... This next who-knows-how-long is going to be interesting."
Riku was brought out of his thoughts on the account of, "...eeny, meeny, miny, moe! Ha! I win!" a throaty voice chanted in victory and Riku looked up just in time to see Donald jumping in the air triumphantly and Goofy's chest fallen expression.
"Great!" Riku cried jumping up off the ground in forced enthusiasm and walking over to the two. "Can we go now?"
"Sure," Goofy replied, "Anything to get out of this creepy forest." but Riku had already walked out of hearing range. The first thing Riku was greeted by was two signs. The first directed him, Donald and Goofy where to continue on walking, but the second forced them to make a sharp turn to the right. The last thing was a great big golden pallet door with an image of what Donald and Goofy recognised as Olympus Coliseum along with other ancient Greek designs rimming the border.
Riku stared at the strange door with great interest. "Huh. This is new." He walked right up to it a brushed his finger over the drawings and foreign lettering inscribed in the gold, noting that despite looks the metal was not exactly freezing cold. Above the door was yet again another arrow on a post high above their heads, pointing to the door announcing ' Olympus Coliseum' along with more cryptic lettering.
"What'da ya think is behind there, Ah-yuk?" Goofy asked in his usual slang. By this time Riku and Donald had walked around to the back to check out whatever was behind.
Riku shrugged, "I was going to guess now much, but then again I have seen weirder and more magical doors."
"I say we open this baby up!" Donald offered, eyes gleaming. "Maybe there's treasure behind!"
Riku lifted his chin, "Yeah, Sora warned me about that too."
"About what?"
"Nothing – are we going in or not?" Riku moved back over to the front to stand beside Goofy an placed his hand on the handle. He waited for the other two's nods before pulling on the handles and sliding the French doors open with ease. The next thing the three knew they were being assaulted by a warm, beautiful golden light.
Donald and Goofy stared at the light, mesmerised by its luminance and warmth, watching how it made the tiny unnoticeable speaks of dust in the air sparkle. Riku, on the other hand, felt a completely different sensation. As soon as the light made contact with his skin Riku felt as if he was hit by a tone of bricks and staggered back, gasping. The other two were too mesmerised by the light to even notice the boy, but Riku was not mesmerised one bit – if anything, in pain – but there was something keeping him where he was, not letting him turn away and almost pulling him closer.
With dreamy smiles Donald and Goofy began walking closer to the portal and Riku was shocked to find his legs moving without his approval. He went to cry out, to tell them to turn around and not move any closer, but could not find his voice. Soon one thing let to another and the trio were completely submerged in the light and disappeared to the other end. Behind them the doors closed on Broken Kingdom once again.
An eruption of silver and blue sparks assaulted a lush green forest full of heavily leaved trees moments before a swirling vortex like article appeared and transformed into a large golden door. Said door opened wide introducing a bright light even more golden then the door before three figures emerged and stepped through. The door vanished just as quickly as it came, and just as it left the three groaned in pain and clutched their craniums, whining.
Once the nausea and the complaints about the nausea diminished Donald, Goofy and Riku only had so much time to recover before the were being surrounded by an army of at least a dozen Heartless. All immediately drew their weapons and snapped into battle mode, either charging at the Heartless or waiting for them to approach.
Goofy madly charged at a group with his shield, slamming right into them before they saw what was coming. Their hearts floated into the sky seconds later. Riku tried not to get too distracted by the canines' indifferent battle strategy as he fought to beat his own set of little black critters. At the corner of his eye Riku caught a glimpse of Donald crazily firing bucket loads of magic at little shadows as he slashed his Keyblade through one.
Riku suddenly remembered something else Sora told him about Donald; that he tends to get caught up in the moment and use up all the big spells before any of the big Heartless get a chance to find them, and also that he can be very stubborn and if you don't listen to him bad things may happen. Riku sighed as he plunged his blade into another, hoping that he would stop soon. After a few more moments of Donald sending a wave of magic on the littler Heartless and Goofy throwing his shield around like a Frisbee (almost slicing Riku's head off in the process) the trio finally ran out of Heartless.
"Well how's that for a welcoming committee," Riku said as he deposited his purple-black weapon and flicked his bangs out of his eyes, seriously regretting not ever cutting his hair while back home on the islands.
Soon Donald and Goofy joined him and the three began walking down the path of trees. Although they didn't get very far before a female scream erupted through the forest causing them to stop in their tracks. After a quick glance they were off through the trees to where the scream sounded like it came from. As they came closer they could pick up a faint shouting before bursting through some bushes into a clearing.
There was a large oasis with a tall waterfall taking up most of the cliff side on the far end, with many trees and willows falling over the water, wild flowers on bushes in bloom. The scene would have been beautiful if it wasn't for the twenty foot tall centaur chasing a girl who was frantically trying to escape in the shallow water. The girl ran away as fast as the water would let her, finding out too late that it wasn't fast enough when the centaur grabbed her around the waist in one large fist and lifting her eye level with him, laughing when the girl cried out.
The three ducked behind a nearby bush as Donald began to asses the situation. "Ok, world guardian. We've been through this before. We need to approach this very carefully."
Donald stopped when the centaur waved the girl in their direction. What surprised them all was that the girl growled in anger and yelled, "Listen, bub, if you don't put me down I'll –" Instead of finishing her sentence the girl swung her leg as high and with as mush force as she could at the creature, actually almost landing a blow to his face. The centaur jerked out of the way, startled, but just laughed in the end.
"Ooh, I like 'em fiery!" He spoke in a raspy voice, grinning disgustingly at her as she cringed away.
Riku narrowed his eyes at the big brute, barely listening to Donald when he continued. "Ok, we need a plan. We can't just barrel in there without thinking. Now, Riku, Youuuuu..." Donald dragged when he turned to see Riku gone from where he stood beside him, and cried out when he saw the teenager marching up to the two in the oasis.
Donald fumed and tightly crossed his feathery arms over his chest, grumbling to Goofy, "Just like Sora!"
"Come 'ere, sweetheart," The River Guardian laughed evilly as the girl squirmed in his fist, struggling to free herself. The centaur brought his face up close to hers, who in turn ringed away and cried again, pushing on his face to keep him away.
When Riku had reached them he straight away called his Keyblade and struck to cliff face behind, causing some rocks and pebbles to land on the centaurs head. Riku whistled, "Hey, Four-legs! Over here!"
Both froze in their positions and slowly turned their heads to Riku, who noticed how the girls eyes widened when she saw the weapon in the teenagers hand. The first thing Riku noticed when he saw her was clear lavender eyes on a porcelain heart shaped face, with a frame of long, elegant jet black hair with slight waves.
The River Guardian growled from being interrupted and marched up to Riku, who kept his ground and was not intimidated one bit. "Step aside, two-legs."
Riku let his eyes flicker to the struggling girl trying to free herself for only a moment before moving them back. "Listen you...um..." Riku struggled before simply settling with, "guy," the centaur made a sound and looked very insulted that Riku had to think about what his gender would be, "but if you don't let her go I'll – "
"Keep it moving, junior." The girl cut him off with a harsh yet musical voice.
Riku stared at her with a puzzled expression, trying not to look at the stupid brute's smug face. "Huh?" Was all he came up with.
The girl rolled her purplish-pink eyes to the sky, "Bye-bye, adios, your services are not needed here, Hun."
The puzzled expression did not lighten. "But, isn't...he trying to kill you?"
She shrugged, "Possibly. It's something new every day. Listen, I know I'm not exactly the defenceless damsel in distress you were expecting but I can handle myself. Have a nice day," She smiled "sweetly" and batted her eyelashes at him, giving a small wave. Riku was slightly taken aback by her easy nature and wasn't exactly expecting the River Guardian to swat him like a fly half way across the river. Back in the bushes Donald and Goofy winced when Riku slammed into the cave wall and fell back down in the water, causing a large splash.
When Riku lifted his head out of the water he clutched his head in dizziness, seeing little dancing stars in his vision. It took him a while to realise that he had dropped his Keyblade and was about to go searching for it when he realised that he could just call it back.
Donald and Goofy were just as shocked as he was. Goofy put a hand on Donald's shoulder, "Uh, I think we should help him,"
Donald shook Goofy's hand off, "Nah, he's got it all under control. Yaow! That's gonna hurt tomorrow." Donald winced. Goofy opened his mouth to speak but the duck cut him off, "This is what he gets for not listening to me."
Riku fired a beam of dark flame at the centaur, who instantly jumped out of the way to try and dodge the attack. This worked for the centaur but consequently there was nothing to stop the set course of the flame, which missed the girl but mere inches, managing to burn her jacket a tiny bit. The girl shirked and immediately patted at her hip to put the small flame out.
"Hey, watch it!" She yelled.
"Sorry!" The centaur took this minor distraction to hit Riku in the stomach again, punching him into yet another piece of stone. A searing pain pulsed through the teenagers entire body until a warm green light engulfed him and he was finally able to stand, though still a bit weak. Riku turned his head toward Donald who had just sent a healing spell at him, and was now jumping up and down, bellowing something that to Riku sounded like, "Come on, kid! Loose your head!".
"Loose my head? ...Oh! Use my head," Riku turned to take another look at the River Guardian before lifting his keyblade above his head and casting some sort of Reflect spell on himself. Kicking his feet off the ground Riku charged at the brute full speed, slamming into him head on and sending the centaur flying to the other side of the river, screaming as he flew.
Riku grinned as the spell wore off, watching the slight vapour trail of the centaur's flight path. "All that and without a keyblade. New record."
Back in the bushes Donald and Goofy were cheering and whistling.
"Yeah!" Donald quacked. "That was great! Not exactly what I meant but still,"
Riku turned away from them at the sound of a small cough and "ow". In the centaur's departure he had actually let go of the girl, who was now sitting in the water a meter away from Riku, her hair covering her entire face. Riku offered her a hand, but when she only fell back into the water he simply reached down and took her in his arms to carry her over to dry land.
"Sorry about that, are you ok?" Riku asked, trying for a soft tone.
The girl lifted her hands over to where her face should have been and parted her curtain of hair just enough for him to see half of her face. "Yeah." Just then Donald and Goofy had joined Riku and the newcomer, only to be greeted by Riku's less then happy glare. Donald smiled innocently, "What?"
Riku shook his head and got back to the girl, who had gotten up and began walking over to the water again. Not taking his eyes off her Riku scolded, "You two could have helped."
Goofy shifted his weight, feeling bad. "Well gee, I tried to but Donald said – "
The wizard cut him off, "What were you thinking? Just charging in there and not stopping to think up a plan!" He fumed.
Riku scoffed, "At least I beat him, didn't I?"
Donald paused, one feathery finger in the air with a caught comeback on his bill. "You got lucky." He settled with. "But next time don't let your guard down because of a pair of big goo goo eyes!"
Riku was no longer listening to a word Donald said, which infuriated the duck even more, and was now walking over the the girl kneeling by the creek. "Donald's got a point here, Riku. It's tricky in here, you never know what you might..." Goofy trailed off when Riku walked right past them, not even stopping to contemplate what eh was saying. Both animals crossed their arms tightly across their chests, angry that he wasn't listening to either of them.
"Can I ask what you were doing this far into the forest?" Riku asked when he approached her.
She didn't turn around. "Looking for something."
"Really?" He asked, curious as to what there was to find out here. "Like what?"
The girl chuckled, a bell-like musical tone, actually turning around while still crouched on the ground to peek up at him. "Step back, Mister Nosey."
Riku shifted his weight, "Right, sorry. But can I at least ask your name?" The next thing Riku knew he was being whipped in the face by dripping wet black hair. The girl had obviously flicked her hair in his face as she got up from the ground, clutching some sort of black cloth.
"Amalia. Friends call me Mali – well, at least they would if I had any." She said in a drier tone, twirling the cloth around to release some of the dampness. Riku had just managed to wipe the water off his face before she slapped the cloth onto his stomach, forcing him to take it as she bent down to fix her shoe. Riku had just realised that the black cloth was in fact a jacket.
"And your name, Silver?" She asked when she got back up. Riku felt like an idiot for not answering right away, but the way the Sun illuminated her face and the way her eyes shone when she smiled at him made it really hard for Riku to think.
He began to babble, something he never did. "Right. I'm, uh...um...er..." And he has forgotten his name. Behind Riku Donald and Goofy were staring at the boy as if he has gone mad, before Donald snapped from annoyance and quacked, "Riku." arms outstretched.
Riku blinked out of his trance and regained his composure, "Riku, yes."
Amalia chuckled again, taking off her shoe and pouring out half the river. "Riku, huh? I think I prefer Silver." She put her shoe and jacket back on and Riku took this time to analyse her. She had this zip up jacket/dress thing that hung down to her upper thighs and long sleeves that she pushed up to her elbows. Underneath she had, he noticed when she removed her jacket, a dark purple halter top and Jean short shorts, with long boots which were crumpled a bit at the top. To top it all off she had one singular fingerless glove on her right hand, laced with a sort of floral pattern on the back of her hand.
Donald frowned at the siverette. This was exactly what he was talking about! Donald reached into his pocket and pulled out his staff, with a simple Earth spell the tree right beside Riku shifted, moving one of its heavily leaf infested branches in front of his view. Riku flinched back when one of the sharp branches scratched him just under the eye and whacked the branch out of the way, causing the spell to ware off and go flying back to Donald.
"So," He continued. "How did you get mixed up with the..." he waved a hand.
"The centaur?" She replied, "Well you know how all men are; they think no means yes and "touch me again I'll slice off a vital organ" means "Take me, I'm yours!"." In emphasis she cupped her hands together and leaned into Riku, batting her eyelashes. After a few moments of awkward silence Amalia dropped the smile and moved back. "Never mind. I'm sure..." She looked at Donald and Goofy, "Shorty and Lassie over there can explain it to you." She patted Riku's chest.
"SHORTY?" Donald exploded, followed by Goofy, "LASSIE?"
Amalia simply ignored them. "Well," She clapped her hands once. "That's all for me. That's for the help, Silver, but I better get going. I'm needed back in town," She jabbed a thumb behind her.
"Hey!" Riku called out as she began to retreat. Amalia tuned back around. "We can escort you back into...town, if you want. You know, just in case any more four-legged jerks come along?"
Donald and Goofy's mouths fell open, and Riku wasn't really sure which one, but one of them hissed, "You don't even know where we are in this current place!"
Amalia smiled that bright smile of hers, "That's very kind of you but I can take care of myself. And besides," She stole a glance at the hard expressions of the two animals, "I don't really think your amigos like me very much."
"Donald and Goofy?" Riku laughed once. "No, no. Don't worry about them. Ow!" Riku winced, clutching his head and staring at the ground where a little pebble lay that "mysteriously" fell from the sky.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. And I really wouldn't want to slow you three down." Before Riku could utter another word she had half disappeared into the trees. "It's was nice meeting you!"
Riku opened his mouth to respond but Amalia was already gone. Some moments later Goofy strolled up to Riku and snapped his fingers in front of his view, snapping the teen out of his trance. "Huh?" Riku turned to a grinning Goofy and flushed, but Donald on the other hand, was anything but grinning.
Donald turned to imitate Riku's previous stance, over exaggerating it by a long run. Riku glared at the duck when he saw that he was insulting him. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" He screamed at lungs capacity. "WE HAVE A JOB TO DO! Or have you forgotten?"
At that sentence Goofy's eyes widened and something snapped inside of him. "JOB!"
Donald turned to his companion, startled by the outburst. "What?"
Goofy's one and only response was to grab Donald around the wrist and drag him off to where he thought was out of hearing distance. "Gawrsh, Donald, I think we just forgot our job."
Riku frowned, wondering what Goofy could be talking about. Obviously Donald felt the same way, "What are you blabbering about, Goofy?"
The knight sighed, "You see? Remember that assignment the King gave us just before we left Disney Castle?"
"Assignment?" Riku murmured.
Donald continued to stare blankly at his friend before the realisation finally set in, and his eyes widened until they looked about to fall out of his skull. Donald fought off the reflex of jumping high in the air ans sprawling, "WHAAK!"
Instead, he simply hissed in a panicked tone, "The last thing King Mickey told us before we left was not to forget our job! Oh, this is bad. This is really, really, really, really bad!" By the end of his sentence Donald's words were so close together that all Goofy – and Riku – was able to get out of it was a stream of incoherent quacks.
By this Riku had had just about enough and spoke out, "You guys realise I can hear every single word you're saying, right?"
Donald and Goofy froze in their stances and slowly turned their bodies toward Riku, embarrassment flashing brightly on their faces as they chuckled nervously. "You want to tell me what's going on?"
The two numbly walked back over to Riku. "Just before we left Disney Castle," Goofy began, "the King gave us instructions to find someone who was vital to our mission. He gave us a picture of her and everything, to make sure that we didn't forget."
Riku nodded and asked, "Can I see it." He had a strange feeling where this was leading. Donald reached into his pocket and pulled out a small rectangular photograph and handed it to Riku, who once received it, stared at the picture unbelievably before turning it to Donald and Goofy. "I'm guessing Mickey didn't give you a name."
"Oh no, no, "Donald replied. "He did. Something along the lines of...Emily, I think."
"No," Goofy interjected. "I don't think that's right. Something like Betty or Bianca...or Amy."
The wizard snapped his fingers. "Yeah! Close but not Amy – still something beginning with an 'A', I'm sure."
"Not Amy... Annie? Angelica? Anna-belle? No, those don't sound right either..."
Riku sighed at the two's unbelievable stupidity. Closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, Riku said, "Amalia?"
Donald and Goofy's faces brightened. "YEAH! ...Oh." They realised, once they saw the look present on Riku's face. The teenager pointed to the spot in the trees where Amalia disappeared.
"You didn't notice?" He asked and took another look at the photograph. She looked at least two years younger at the most, and besides that shorter and straight hair everything was the same. The dog and the duck cast their eyes to the forest floor, embarrassed by their own obliviousness. Riku sighed with a groan, "Now what? We can't just stand here like idiots. If Amalia is apparently "important to our mission" then we obviously need to find her – and fast."
A thought reached Donald, "The closest city from here is Thebes. We can try there first."
"Great, but I don't know to way." Riku admitted.
Donald pushed out his chest proudly and ruffled his feathers, "Well lucky for you two I've been through this world more times then I can count!"
"Really?" Riku asked surprised.
"Really?" Goofy mimicked.
Donald frowned. "Yes. But before we get going I just remembered our other job. We are in a forest so why don't we see if we can find it?"
Riku nodded, it all coming back to him. "Yeah, that's right. The Menka flowers." Riku reached into his pocket to retrieve the small ruby device that will locate the flowers, only to find nothing but cotton.
The two frowned, confused as to what was taking so long. "Um, Riku?" Goofy began. "We need the tracking device to find the flowers."
"We may need it but it's not in here."
Donald popped. Again. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT IN THERE?"
"I DON"T KNOW!" Riku yelled back. "Maybe it fell out during the crash or something. Or something..." Riku's eyes trailed over to the far side of the forest, realisation like a slap in the face. "Oh you have got to be kidding me."
Obviously Donald and Goofy caught up pretty fast this time because the same expression crossed both of their faces.
"She stole it?" Goofy gasped, Donald glancing at him as if to say "No duh".
"You sure she doesn't have a twin?" Riku asked hopefully. The shook their heads. "Thought not. Great, so the one person "vital to our mission" happens to be a con artist and a pick-pocket."
Goofy sighed, just knowing that this was going to be a bumpy ride. "Which way to Thebes?"
Donald pointed in the trees. "Follow me." The court wizard began walking, Goofy and Riku following after him.
"She better be damn important." Riku groaned.
Please Review.
0000
0 0
0