A/N: Hello everyone, Tempura here with yet another chapter of Re-sketch! Today we'll be arriving at our next world, but before that, I have a little notice about the previous chapter. The previous chapter was edited on August 29, 2016, so it's a bit longer than the previous version. Check it out if you haven't already!
Quick thank you to thepenishellamightier257, readingchameleon, and Sky65. Treasure Planet would make such a fun addition to the series. We can only hope for KH3! (And I'm happy to hear I'm doing a decent job at keeping a KH-esque tone, haha!) And also another thank you to Barrel Maker for all of the critique over the story so far.
Anyway, let's begin. Enjoy.
There was something breathtaking about the wide open sky. When the sea was still and the clouds were gone, those sparkling lights seemed to shimmer both in the night air and across the surface of the water. Those lights… They were called stars, weren't they?
Floating among the mirrored sea of stars, the red-haired girl watched the glimmering and the flickering, the occasional streaks that shot across the deep blues and vivid pinks. The air was chilly, prickling at her skin in a way that the water around her never did. It was an enjoyable feeling—almost as nice as the warmth of the sun.
But one bright light caught her attention. She frowned, squinting a little as one white speck grew larger and larger in the sky. A moment later, she gasped.
The beam of light rained down to the horizon, sending up an intense glow that momentarily blotted out the stars, illuminating even as far as the distant craggy island that rose above the waves.
Ariel watched as the light faded. The gentle sky colors that swirled above her head came back into view, though now her attention was focused elsewhere. Somewhere closer. Somewhere she could reach.
That wasn't too far from home.
With an eager smile on her face, Ariel dove back into the sea, her tail breaking the surface before disappearing under the water.
Re-sketch
Chapter 26: Under the Sea
There was a single moment of weightlessness before Sora crashed through the wall of icy liquid. He gasped on reflex, nearly choking as salt water rushed into his mouth. He clamped a hand over his mouth and nose, his eyes and throat burning, his lungs constricting. He tried to paddle through the water, struggling to right himself, to orient himself in the push and pull of the currents all around him.
Then he realized something wasn't quite right. He looked at his bare hands, visible in the luminescent blue-green glow that filled the water around him. He patted down his front, surprised to find his chest bare, and that at his waist was…
Against every instinct that screamed at him in his head to hold his breath, he gasped. "What the…?" A tail? He twisted around, trying to get a glimpse of the sleek, slate-gray tail that extended from his waist in place of his legs. The muscles in the lower half of his body felt strange, a tingling that spread throughout his nerves as he moved. A fan-shaped tail fin… And as he craned his neck, he saw a dorsal fin protruding right below the curve of his lower back.
A dolphin?
"W-what happened?" Hikaru's shaky voice came.
Sora looked up, seeing the others suspended in the water around him. But they looked different too.
Hikaru was tugging at the whiskers that protruded from her cheeks. Brown and white dappled markings decorated the skin around her nose and collar bone and down her back, transitioning to a sleek fur of the same color and pattern. Her lower half had been replaced by a thick body of the same sort of fur that ended in a pair of seal fins. "How… How are we breathing?" she asked.
"Did you do this, Donald?" Goofy asked. Sora had to do a double-take—though Goofy's face remained the same, his whole body had been changed. He looked like a turtle, with dark flippers in place of arms and legs, and a compact body protected by a hard green shell. He seemed to have a hard time keeping his balance, struggling to keep himself upright as he clumsily paddled all four of his flippers.
"It wasn't me," Donald said. He had lost his shirt and hat somewhere between the gummi ship and the water. Though his upper body remained covered in white feathers that were pressed down flat and water-tight, below his waist was a different story. Six blue tentacles replaced his legs and tail, the undersides a yellow color and coated with suction cups.
"What are we doing in the water?" Sora asked. "I thought we were supposed to land on that island."
"Guess we missed," Goofy said, rolling around and looking at his back as he summoned his shield. Rather than attached to his flippers, the weapon appeared on the back of his shell.
"It must be the world that did it," Donald said, crossing his wings. "To keep us from drowning, and to keep the world order."
"World order?" Hikaru repeated as she rubbed at the webbing between her fingers. "This is hardly incognito."
"Well, we're lucky it happened," Sora said. Maybe it even had something to do with the Keyblade. It was kind of cool, anyway. Actually being able to breathe underwater? He wished he'd had that ability back at Destiny Islands. Kairi and Riku would've loved it. "So, where do we start?" he asked. After nearly three days on the Highwind, a dip into the water was a welcomed change, but it was a little disorienting.
"We could try headin' over to that island," Goofy said.
"Wonder if the people there would be weirded out by half-fish hybrids," Hikaru remarked.
"Technically, we're not half-fish," Sora said with a grin, his arms crossed behind his head.
"Oh, you get the point." Hikaru waved a hand at him, churning the fluorescents.
"What is all this stuff anyway?" Donald squinted, trying to catch a few of the blue-green specks between his feathers. "Why's it glowing?"
"Plankton," Sora said simply. He was no stranger to this sort of stuff back home. "Must be an algae bloom."
"Yuck!" Donald tried to brush the glowing specks away, to no avail. The glowing particles were everywhere. "Let's just get outta here. The sooner we're out of water, the better."
"Wait," Hikaru said. She paused a moment before turning around, her brows furrowed. "Do you hear something?"
"Like what?" Sora asked, though that was all he said. He strained his ears, listening to the ocean flow, the distant ambience that started to make him feel a little uneasy as he stared at the darkness beyond the algae bloom. He'd never been out this deep during night. But it wasn't all darkness, he soon realized. There were lights not too far off, illuminating hazy shapes along the ocean floor—lights he would never have expected to see so far below the surface at night. At first he thought it was more algae, but something about it seemed too organized.
"Oh, I think I hear it," Goofy said. "Sounds like music."
"Music underwater?" Donald asked.
"Maybe we should check this out," Hikaru said.
Sora nodded. Might as well. He propelled himself forward, making strokes with his arms as he tried to dive down. But as he kicked with his tail, he found that following the music might end up being a little harder than he had expected.
"Ouch!" he said, rubbing the cramp out of his tail. Right, only one limb. Trying to kick out as if he had two legs wasn't a pleasant experience. And to think, he was almost in his element here. Well, at least he wasn't the only one having problems.
Goofy already looked tired as he slowly paddled through the water. Donald grumbled under his breath as he sunk upside down, his tentacle limbs twitching sporadically. Hikaru, meanwhile, just tumbled around as she tried to coordinate her flippers. The minutes passed by, and it seemed like the little floating bits of plankton were making more progress than they were.
"This… isn't going to work," Hikaru said.
Sora sighed. At this rate, they were going to be stuck there forever…
It was a sudden chiming laugh that made them all look up. "Having some trouble?"
Sora turned towards the unfamiliar voice. He caught a figure swimming in their direction through the glowing algae cloud; a girl, he thought at first—one with flowing red hair even redder than Hikaru's, and wide blue eyes. But as she neared them, he realized that she wasn't just a girl.
A mermaid? Suddenly, their weird forms were making a lot more sense.
Hikaru was too busy gawking to say anything, and Donald was having a fight with his uncooperative tentacles. Only Goofy managed to speak up. "Good evenin'," he said with an amicable wave of a flipper.
The red-haired girl giggled. "Hello. Out for an evening swim?" She circled around them, her movements elegant and graceful down to the fin of the green fish tail that made up the lower half of her body. "Or, did you come to investigate that light too?"
"Light?" Sora asked.
"I think she means the gummi ship teleporter," Goofy whispered.
"Shh!" Donald lifted a feather to his bill.
"I'm not sure what it was," the mermaid said, looking up towards the surface. "It fell from the sky. Do you think it might've been a star?"
"Er, maybe," Sora said. "We didn't see anything though. Right, guys?"
Hikaru nodded slowly, still staring at the mermaid. "Must've been further off…"
"Oh… Oh, well." The mermaid looked a little disappointed, but she shook it off and turned her attention back to Sora and the others. "It looks like you could use a little help," she said. "Is this your first time in a bloom?"
"Um… yeah," Sora said. Yeah, that was totally the reason.
"It's a little confusing, isn't it?" The mermaid smiled. "Don't worry—there's a trick to getting through. Just follow me."
Easier said than done when they were still getting used to these new limbs. The mermaid moved slowly, glancing over her shoulder every so often to give them advice on their direction and form and waiting for them to catch up with her until they managed to navigate out into the freedom of the clear, open water. By then, Sora's tail was already starting to hurt, but he just rubbed his back and gritted his teeth through the ache.
"Thanks for helping us get out of there," he said.
"It was nothing," she replied. "My name's Ariel."
"Nice to meet you, Ariel!" Goofy said, flipping upside down. "I'm Goofy. And this is Sora, Donald, and Hikaru."
Ariel nodded. "It's nice to meet you too," she said. "You're not from around here, are you? I've never seen you before."
Sora hesitated, exchanging looks with Hikaru, Donald, and Goofy. "Oh, er, we're… from kind of far away," he said. "And we're not really used to these waters… Eheheh…" Did that really sound as dumb as he thought it did? Donald's face-palm was enough of an answer to that.
But Ariel seemed to buy it. "Really?" she asked, a certain eagerness flashing in her eyes. "You're travelers? Wow, that's incredible! You must go on a lot of adventures. Where are you going now?"
"Um…"
"Nowhere in particular," Donald said when Sora couldn't think up a good answer.
"We thought we heard music, though," Hikaru piped up. "We were going to see where it was coming from."
"That's probably from the city," Ariel said. "There was a performance going on earlier. I can show you the way."
"If it's no trouble," Goofy said. "We don't want to keep you."
"Oh, no trouble at all," Ariel said. "We hardly ever get visitors. Plus, I should be getting back anyway… Daddy's probably wondering where I went. Come on, it's not too far from here."
Two golden orbs gleamed out of the darkness of the kelp forest along the ocean floor. Two long, writhing shapes slithered out from the seagrass, watching with mismatched eyes as the mermaid and her new companions swam towards the glittering lights of Atlantica.
"Strangers in the city?" the first moray eel hissed, a vague curiosity cutting through the sneer on his face.
"Strangers who came from the sky," the second eel added.
They started forward, twisting around each other as they crept through the forest, following their oblivious targets.
"Ursula will want to know…"
"… about our uninvited guests."
The open ocean wasn't as empty as it seemed. The uneven ground, the undersea mountains and craggy cliffs, the towering kelp forests that harbored sleeping marine life, and the colorful coral reefs that had a glow of their own—they all gave the ocean a bit of life that Hikaru wouldn't have expected at this depth and in this darkness. It reminded her of a fairytale, of one of the stories her mother used to tell her when she was just a child.
Donald conjured an orb of light with his staff, letting it follow them and cast its shine across the sea floor. Fish darted back and forth between the coral and the kelp while dozing seahorses clung to the leaves, and Hikaru watched as a pod of dolphins swam overhead, shadowy shapes that seemed almost ghostly in the night.
The water here was so clear, so pristine, so impossibly unreal, and to be able to swim through it all without a worry about drowning… Hikaru laughed as one of the dolphins swung by to swim with them. The dolphin clicked and chirped before it moved to examine Sora a little more closely.
"Eheheh…" Sora scratched the back of his head, looking a bit uneasy under the scrutiny.
"So, where are you from, exactly?" Ariel asked as they made their way through a wide canyon, heading towards the glow beyond the ridge that seemed to grow brighter with every passing second. "And what are you doing here?"
"Well…" Sora hesitated.
"We're from… an island," Hikaru said haltingly. "Destiny Islands. We're just traveling around the world… Seeing new sights, looking for some people…"
"Destiny Islands?" Ariel repeated. "I've never heard of that place before."
"It's far away," Donald said. "Really far."
"You have to tell me all about it, then," Ariel said, doing a little corkscrew spin as she swam. "Oh, I wish I could travel, but Daddy says it isn't safe… Anyway, since you're here, let me be the first to welcome you to Atlantica."
"It's a pretty neat place," Sora said, waving goodbye to the dolphin as it went to rejoin its pod.
As they swam forward, something in the distance began to rise into view over the edge of the canyon—something white-gold that seemed to sparkle even from far away. "We're almost there," Ariel had said. At the end of the canyon, beyond the forests and reefs, the entire shape of the massive structure came into view.
"Wow," Donald breathed as they stopped to look at the palace in all of its glory. Something about its design, the fluidness in the bends and curves, made it appealing to the eyes and rather striking. The color and glow stood out among the dark stone that made up the pillars leading to the palace. Stretching out below them between the canyon walls and the palace seemed to be a whole underwater city.
"Well, would'ja look at that," Goofy said, peering down at the streets—if they could even be called that—below, where a crowd was gathered to watch a wide array of sea creatures and merpeople play music on odd instruments made from clam shells and sea urchins. A few young mermaids were playing a game not too far away with scallops and kelp; when they looked up and spotted Ariel, they gasped and waved.
"Is there a party going on?" Hikaru asked. Maybe this was normal for merfolk, but it seemed very festive, with the glowing jellyfish acting like strings of lights between the buildings, and the number of merpeople moving through the streets.
"Sort of," Ariel said, looking back to them. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Hikaru swore that for just a second, Ariel's expression changed. "It's my mother's birthday."
"Oh, well, happy birthday to her!" Goofy said.
Ariel smiled. "Thank you," she said. "Do you want to come to the palace? I'm sure you must be hungry after traveling for so long, and dinner should be starting soon."
"The palace? Are we allowed there?" Sora asked.
"Of course!" Ariel said. "Everyone's welcome today." She dived down towards the entrance of the palace, and Hikaru hesitated for just a moment, frowning as she watched her retreating tail fin. Then she and the others followed suit.
"I wonder what kind of food they have here," Donald said, rubbing his stomach.
"I'm putting my munny on seafood." Sora grinned.
"Haha, very funny."
As they neared the palace, the music from the city faded away, only to be replaced by the muffled sounds of an orchestra somewhere inside of the palace. A pair of mermen floated at the entrance gates, wearing armor made of coral and turtle shells and fish scale mail, keeping watch as various fish and sea creatures and merfolk swam in and out of the palace. They said nothing as Ariel swam on by, and they hardly gave Hikaru and the others a second glance.
"Do you think the King might be here?" Goofy whispered, speaking behind his flipper.
"Who knows," Donald said, doing breast strokes as he propelled himself forward. "I wonder what he'd look like, though."
They followed the trickle of guests towards the swelling music and the rumble of voices and clattering of utensils. Rounding the corner of the long hallway and peering past the blue stone pillars, a bright, sparkling glow reached their eyes. A formation of coral and crystals hung from the ceiling of the grand hall like a brilliant chandelier, while kelp and sea flora decorated the pillars. Below it mingled the numerous merfolk and sea creatures, floating at all levels of the water, some of them dancing as an orchestra played in the pit at the far side of the room. Along the floor, a series of long tables were laid out with a massive spread of food.
"Gee, this is some party," Goofy remarked.
"A lot of people here," Hikaru said, eyes flickering between the faces in the crowd.
Sora nodded. "Maybe we can do some recon."
"Ariel, Ariel!"
A voice over the murmur of the crowd made them pause. Something small and yellow darted towards them, coming to a stop in front of Ariel and panting.
"Sorry I'm late, Flounder," Ariel said. "I didn't mean to be gone for so long. What happened?"
The little yellow and blue fish swiped a fin across his face. "Your dad was looking for you, asking where you were. He's getting steamed."
"Oh, no…" Ariel made a face. "Sorry," she said, sending an apologetic look back to Hikaru and the others. "I'll be right back. Flounder can show you around in the meantime—right, Flounder?"
"Huh? Oh, I… um, I guess." The little fish seemed quite uncertain as Ariel swam off into the crowd. He seemed to shrink down on himself as he turned to look at them. "Um… Hello."
Hikaru's brows creased as she looked at the tiny fish. She crouched over, resting her hands on her knees—or rather, the part of the tail where her knees should have been. "Hello," she said. "My name's Hikaru. Flounder's your name, right?"
"Uh-huh." Flounder gave a hesitant nod.
Goofy paddled over to him with a cheerful smile on his face. "Nice to meet you, Flounder. You're a friend of Ariel's?"
"We hang out all the time." Though it was a hard to tell with a fish, he gave off the feeling of a little kid with his high, nasally voice and chubby cheeks. Compared to Goofy, he seemed especially small. He looked to them with big eyes, the nervous shyness slowly fading away into something akin to curiosity. "You guys look kind of funny," he said, making them all falter and glance down at their marine appendages. Hikaru tugged at the loose seal skin at her waist. "How do you know Ariel?" Flounder asked.
"Er, well…" Sora scratched his head. "We don't really know her. We sort of just… swam into each other."
"We were having some problems out there, and she helped us out," Goofy said. "And then she brought us here to see the party. That sure was nice of her."
"Oh, yeah." Flounder nodded a little more vigorously this time. "She's super nice. If she brought you here, you must be nice too. Come on! I'll show you around. What do you want to see first?"
"How about that food?" Donald said, rubbing his wings together and eyeing the banquet tables where a few mermaids were already picking at the appetizers.
"So, is there anything you can do?"
Those were the words that Ursula loved to hear. She watched the scrawny merman wring out his hands, an uncomfortable little gesture that made her smile widen. "Oh, you poor thing," she said, pushing off of her clam shell seat, her tentacles dragging across the floor as she swooped down over to the cauldron in the middle of the room. "Yes, I can see your concern. And you're not wrong. I'm afraid that, as you are now, there's no chance that she'll give you even a second glance."
The boy's shoulders drooped, his face falling.
"But," Ursula said, and she saw the boy's face light up with a tentative hope. "You've come to the right place. Dear Ursula can help you with all your heart's desires." She swiped a vial from her shelf of potion ingredients, giving it a little shake before tossing the whole flask into the bubbling pot. Immediately, the dense brine turned a deep red, wafting upwards in the current of the room until a picture formed. "Handsome. Charming. Muscles to die for," Ursula said, stroking a finger along that smoldering image of the broad-shouldered merman with a body to rival the gods.
The boy moved a little closer, staring at the ghostly image with such a look of hope. Of envy. "Yeah… Yeah! Something like that!"
Ursula swiped her hand through the image, dispelling it in dark plumes that dissolved into the water. The boy's excitement faded. "Then let's talk about a price," Ursula said.
"Anything," he said. "I'll pay anything."
"Anything?" Ursula repeated. "Then how about…" She flicked her wrist, conjuring a scroll of tattered parchment, words drawn in ink that bled into the paper. "Your heart?"
Bum. Bum. Bum.
"Miss Ursula, are you still in there?"
The sound of tapping against the coral door made the boy jolt and Ursula scowl. She tucked away the contract. "Just one moment, dear child," she said sweetly, only allowing her irritation to grace her face once she'd turned away to open the door. "Can't you see that I'm meeting with a client?"
On the other side of the threshold floated a hesitant-looking sea turtle fiddling with the kelp tie around his neck. "K-King Triton wants everyone to come to the great hall," he said, shrinking under her gaze. "T-the dinner is about to start."
Ursula stifled a loud sigh and a scowl. Of course it would be Triton to interrupt. Well, then, she shouldn't leave their mighty king waiting. "I'll be right there," she said, dismissing the turtle with a wave of her hand. He darted off faster than a mackerel being chased by a shark. Once he was gone, she turned back to the young merman, her hand still resting against the door. "I'm afraid we'll have to discuss payment later. Best not to let the party wonder where you've wandered off to, hm?"
The boy seemed reluctant, but he nodded his head and swam out of the room. Ursula closed the door behind him. "Interruptions, one after another," she grumbled, gesturing in the water. "Can't anyone get their work done in peace around here? And all for a party. Well, not that I'm complaining about a spread like the cooks have whipped up, but having to listen to another musical written by that crab cake is enough to make me lose my appetite… I hope you dears are bringing better news?" She glanced over her shoulder to the open window where a pair of dark shapes slithered into the room.
"There are strangers in the castle," Flotsam hissed, swimming around the cauldron to Ursula's side. "Strangers from the sky."
"They appeared in a flash of light," Jetsam added from Ursula's other side. "They are not of this ocean."
"Strangers, are they?" Ursula rubbed her chin thoughtfully. No… It couldn't be… Already? So soon?
"Triton's young one is with them," Flotsam said. "Ariel is with them."
Ariel? Ursula released a dark chuckle, stroking her little darlings along their spines. "Then this makes my job all the more interesting…"
The tables set along the floor were covered in an assortment of dishes that, from a distance, looked colorful and mouth-wateringly delicious. Up close, however, it appeared that things were a little more… unorthodox.
Goofy, Sora, and Hikaru had gone off into the crowd with their usual wide-eyed inquisitiveness. Flounder was with them too, and Donald could see them floating not too far away near the musicians. But Donald himself was busy examining one of the many plates of appetizers laid out before him, squinting as he gave the strange grape-like orb a squeeze between his feathers. A moment later, he popped it into his mouth.
"Yeck!" Talk about salty! He made a face and continued down the table, nudging past the merfolk and sea creatures that were milling around, letting his hungry gaze sweep over the food. Then a glint entered his eyes.
"Caviar!" Now, that was what he was talking about! Never mind the fact that these half-fish people seemed to have no problem having fish eggs for dinner—it was time to dig in!
He was just taking a bite out of some scallops and seaweed salad when movement at the back hallway caught his eye. The crowd seemed to part as the half-octopus woman came swimming into the main hall. She moved with a striking confidence as she settled down at a long table where several people and creatures were already sitting, from a wizened old sea otter to a tiny red crab. The woman must have noticed Donald staring—she gave a smirk and swept her hand through her hair with a gratuitous shake of her hips. Donald stifled a shudder and cursed whatever higher power decided to transform him into an octopus of all things.
"How's the food, Donald?"
"I lost my appetite," he grumbled, setting his food back on his seashell plate and turning to look at Hikaru. Goofy was behind her, but it seemed like Sora and Flounder were still roaming the hall. "Did you guys find anything?"
"Not too much," Hikaru said, helping herself to some of that seaweed salad. "Everyone's excited for the dinner. Seems like a yearly thing. Nothing about the Keyhole though."
"At least there aren't any Heartless around," Goofy said. "That makes our job a lot easier, huh, fellas?"
"Don't go jinxing it!" Donald said, jabbing Goofy in the chest. It was less effective when Goofy's entire body was being housed in a shell. Donald cringed and shook out his sore feathers.
"D'ya think the King might be here?" Goofy said. "It is a royal palace, after all."
"Probably as much chance as him being at the Sultan's palace in Agrabah," Hikaru said through a mouthful of salad. She swallowed, smacking her lips and giving a faint frown. "Everything tastes kind of funny in the water… Well, never mind. I doubt anyone is here, but we can do more snooping."
"Even if no one is here, we still got a job to do," Donald said. "We came here for a reason. The world and the Keyblade led us to this place. We must be close…"
He trailed off as the music faded away. The whole hall began to quiet, the patrons of the party falling silent, their attention turning towards a little seahorse that was rising up in front of the orchestra.
"Ahem." Despite his size, the seahorse spoke with a very clear voice. "Thank you all coming here this evening in celebration of the birthday of the late Queen Athena. We will beginning the main event shortly."
Donald blinked. "Wait…"
"Garwsh," Goofy said, holding his flippers over his mouth. "You don't mean…?"
"… Ah," Hikaru said, lowering her plate, her face scrunching up into an expression that looked almost pained.
Donald looked to his friends, then glanced over his shoulder as discreetly as possible to where Sora and Flounder were floating. Flounder looked as somber as the rest of the crowd, but Sora looked as astonished as Donald and the others.
So… It was that sort of party.
The seahorse remained quiet for a few seconds, letting the hall settle down. Some of the merfolk took seats, while others remained floating. Many of the seats at the long grand table were occupied, though it was the largest and most elaborate clam shell throne and the surrounding smaller seats that remained vacant. Sora and Flounder quickly made their way back over to Donald at the food table, and they lingered there in a sort of awkward silence, hardly looking at the people around them.
Then, once the pause was over, the seahorse spoke. "Now presenting His Royal Highness King Triton and the princesses of the seven seas: his daughters Attina, Alana, Adella, Aquata, Arista, Adrina, and Ariel!"
The musicians in the pit picked up their instruments in a triumphant flourish of trumpets and conch shell horns. Movement from above made everyone lift their heads, and suddenly the crowd erupted into uproarious applause. A huge shell chariot came rushing into the room past the pillars, pulled by a pod of dolphins. At the reins was a man with solid muscles and a big white beard. He wore a crown of gold and held a shining trident that seemed to hum with immense energy, even from a distance. In the back of the chariot rode seven mermaids, each with hair that ranged from black to brown to blonde and tails that seemed to span the color spectrum. They were all primped up with decorative coral crowns or blooming sea flowers, though there was something muted about the way they sat. Ariel was among them, looking a little inquisitive about the whole ordeal; when she spotted Donald and the others, she broke into a smile and waved.
"So that's the king, huh?" Sora said as he and Flounder waved back, though one of Ariel's sisters nudged her in the side and directed her attention forward.
"Yup," Flounder said. "He's a little scary, but he's Ariel's dad. They fight sometimes, but they care about each other a whole bunch."
"He sure looks strong," Goofy remarked. "D'ya think he might know something about the Keyhole?"
They didn't have much time to ponder that thought before King Triton and his daughters took their seats at the long table. The little red crab whispered something to the King. Then seahorse cleared his throat once again and began to speak.
Blah, blah, blah. That little seahorse sure liked to hear himself talk. And Triton and his daughters just kept their solemn faces as the court speaker harped on and on about Athena. Even Ursula could admit that it was a tragic accident, what had happened to their dear Queen, but it had been more than ten years already. Enough with the bells and whistles. Weren't there more important things to focus on?
She rested her head against her hand, leaning her elbow atop the table. With her other hand, she lifted one of the shrimps on her plate to her mouth and took a bite. A party on its own, she wouldn't mind too much, but she had so much to do, so many people to see…
Speaking of people to see…
A light nudge came at her tentacles, and she glanced down to see Jetsam slinking out from under the table and toward the darkened hallway off to the side. Ursula watched him go with interest; then her eyes landed on their mystery guest lurking in the shadows.
Aha… Now, that was fast.
The pipsqueak seahorse droned on and on, until finally the speech came to an end. Triton rose from his seat, thanked everyone for attending the party, talked about how Athena would have appreciated their thoughtfulness… Once that was over, the music started up again, and the servers from the kitchen emerged into the grand hall with the main course. That was the cue for the activities around the room to resume, and no one noticed Ursula pushing away from the table and slinking into the corridor where the fairy witch was waiting.
"Isn't this a charming party?" Maleficent remarked, a small smirk gracing her lips as she watched the merfolk and sea creatures milling around the tables. "You have my thanks for the invitation."
"I've heard of how you get when you're skipped over for a party," Ursula said. "And I have to say, that form suits you."
"Hmp. Only the best for a royal gathering," Maleficent replied, casting a glance down at her body. She looked much the same as the last time Ursula had seen her, when their little gathering of the downtrodden had assembled in the dark room of that far-off castle, though the cloak that wrapped around her body now took on the appearance of ray wings. "Now, what business did you want to discuss so urgently?"
"The Keyblade brat and his friends are here," Ursula said. "Looking for the Keyhole, I'm sure."
"And have you found it yet?" Maleficent quirked a slender eyebrow.
Ursula bit back a grimace. "No, not yet. It's better hidden than I thought. My little darlings haven't been able to find any leads. Triton is as tight-lipped as usual. It's so difficult to get a word out of him—the man is so paranoid."
"With good reason," Maleficent said. "I'm sure he wouldn't take kindly to even your shadowy business."
"I give people what they want," Ursula said with a wave of her hand. "Their hearts' deepest desires… It's not my fault if they don't read the fine print. But that's not important. You're still looking for the last Princess of Heart, right? What about her?"
"Hm?" Maleficent followed Ursula's gaze back towards the party where the royal princesses were gathered at the long table.
"They're all princesses—prim and proper, for the most part. Well-cultivated light. And the daughters of the king of the sea," Ursula said. She looked to all of the daughters, though her eyes caught on one in particular. "Ariel especially. That one has a certain spark…"
"No," Maleficent said before Ursula could even get into the meat of her idea. "None of them are the final Princess. Need I remind you that it's not blood that deems their status, but their heart?"
"Hmp…" Ursula grimaced and crossed her arms. "Drat… Well, it was just a thought. Regardless, there's still the Keyblade boy to deal with."
"I wouldn't concern myself with him too much," Maleficent said. "What happens to him matters little at the moment—whether he lives or falls. We still have quite some time."
"Let's not take too much time," Ursula said. "Don't forget that he wields a Keyblade. It's because of him that Jafar was defeated."
"Jafar's recklessness is the reason for his defeat," Maleficent replied, her voice light and airy. "Do not give the boy too much credit when it is the Keyblade that has brought them their victories."
Ursula watched as Maleficent turned and started back down the hallway, and she couldn't help the low chuckle rising up in her chest. "Maleficent, you know a lot about the Keyblade. But I'm sure there are some stories that even you've never heard…"
Maleficent turned back to look at her, a sudden sharpness overtaking her expression. "If you're so concerned about the boy, why not take care of him yourself? A sea witch of your aptitude should have little to worry about."
"And get my own hands dirty?" Ursula laughed. "I'm not a fool like Jafar. I have a plan. It just needs a little dark push…"
"Very well," Maleficent said, waving a hand, letting the water swirl around her fingertips. The dark portals bubbled to life around them, and a moment later, Ursula saw those gleaming yellow eyes. "They're yours."
"Ariel!"
"Oh, Flounder!"
The little yellow fish darted over the moment Ariel removed herself from the table. The people in the crowd were kind and courteous, smiling and giving their greetings as Ariel made her way forward. Flounder looked a little claustrophobic among all the bodies, and he immediately darted into her hair for shelter.
"You looked great," Flounder said. "That was some entrance."
"Aw, thank you, Flounder." It wasn't as flashy as the entrances Daddy usually made, and Attina had given her a light scolding about breaking composure, but she still appreciated the compliment. Ariel patted her friend on the head before turning towards her new acquaintances who were watching them just a little whiles away. "Hi! Sorry I had to swim off."
"It's okay," Sora said, scratching his head. "You had stuff to do—no big deal."
Ariel smiled. "So, how are you enjoying the party so far?"
"It's nice," Hikaru said. Then there was a pause, and the four of them glanced towards each other. "Um…"
"About earlier…" Goofy started. "Sorry, Ariel. We didn't know that your mom…"
"Oh, don't worry about that," Ariel said quickly, shaking her head. "It's fine. It was a long time ago—no need to get down…" Easier said than done, but Ariel managed to keep her smile. "You still have to tell me about your journey. You said something about looking for people, didn't you?"
"Well…"
A scream echoed through the water, and the musicians in the pit stopped mid-note. Sebastian, floating in front of the orchestra, dropped his baton. The crowd fell silent, turning to face the direction of the scream.
"MONSTERS!" someone shouted, and the hall erupted into chaos as a dozen yellow-eyed creatures came spilling out of the darkened corridors.
They looked almost like mermen, but their bottoms were legs, like humans, even if their feet were wide like fins. Their heads were long, and in their hands they clutched pronged silver tridents. At first it was a dozen, then two dozen, then three. Ariel watched them, frozen with shock as the sea people around her began to flee in all directions.
What were those creatures? Where had they come from? What were they doing in the palace?
One voice boomed over the chaos of the crowd, snapping Ariel back to the danger in front of her. "Evacuate the palace!" Daddy roared, rising from his seat and raising his trident as Attina and the others fled for safety.
"Ariel!" Flounder squeaked in her ear, tugging at her hair. "Hurry, s-swim away! They're coming!"
"R-right!" Ariel turned around. She knew a place where they could hide—somewhere safe and out of the way. But just as she opened her mouth to speak, to let the others know of her plan, she was stunned into silence once again by Sora and the others charging towards the monsters with a rousing battle cry.
"Ariel, get back!" Donald ordered, swinging his staff forward and letting loose a blast of blue energy that collided with the green creatures and exploded into chunks of ice. Hikaru and Goofy fell back, positioning themselves in front of Ariel as more of those creatures darted forward. Goofy spun around, blocking the high-speed tackle with a shield that appeared on his shell in a flash of light. Hikaru smacked away another creature with her long staff before throwing forward a ball of something red and flickering and warm—
Fire?
"You know, I'm not sure how this works," Hikaru said after a moment, looking down at her hand and the flames crackling at her fingertips.
"At this point, I'm not even asking questions anymore!" Sora shouted back. He dove through the water, dodging a jab from one of the creatures before holding his hand out. There was a blinding flash of light, a rush of energy rippling through the water. Ariel blinked, and the next thing she knew, Sora was holding a strange weapon that looked… like those objects she'd found at the bottom of the ocean, those shiny, forgotten things from the surface above.
A key?
"Ariel, come on!" Flounder cried. But Ariel didn't move. She only watched with wide eyes as these strange people battle these strange creatures. Weapons clashing, magic rushing through the water. It was like watching Daddy…
And right on cue, she saw the blast of golden energy collide with the creatures and reduce the entire swarm to nothing back inky blackness.
Sora and the others blinked at the fading remains of the Heartless before they turned around and lowered their weapons. Ariel and Flounder were still floating behind them, looking a little frightened but thankfully unharmed. Sora's attention, however, was immediately drawn to the source of that blast. The Keyblade vanished from his hands, and he couldn't help stiffening a little as he watched the king of Atlantica approach.
It wasn't just him—a small red crab and a large octopus woman were right behind him, the crab looking a little frantic while the octopus woman only looked at Sora and the others with a vague sort of interest. Ariel seemed halfway to smiling, but that look faded away when she saw the sea king's expression.
"Ariel, are you hurt?" he asked.
"I'm fine," Ariel said with a nod, crossing her hands behind her back.
The sea king lowered his trident, breathing out a sigh. "I'm glad you're safe," he said as the crab paddled over to Ariel's shoulder.
"Dat was reckless, Ariel," he said, gesturing out with his pincers. "What were you doing, just stickin' around here? You and Flounder could've gotten hurt—or worse!"
"Oh, go easy on her," the octopus woman said. "She's fine. Don't listen to him, sweetheart—it looks like your friends did a good job protecting you."
At that, the king and the crab turned towards Sora and the others. Sora felt his shoulders tense up under the king's stern stare, made especially intimidating by the great white beard that obscured most of the his face.
"I don't think I've ever seen you before," the king said.
"Uh… Hi," Sora said, giving a nervous smile. "I'm Sora. These are my friends, Donald and Goofy and Hikaru. We're, uh, just visiting."
"I invited them," Ariel explained. "I swam into them outside of the city. They were a little lost."
"Outside the city?" the king repeated, his eyes narrowing as his voice rose. "Ariel, you know better than to go wandering off on your own and speaking with strange seafolk!"
"It's not like they're dangerous," Ariel said with a huff and a frown. "They helped to fight off those monsters."
"That is true," the octopus woman said, glancing over to the king. "I don't think pointing fingers will get us anywhere, Your Majesty."
"We don't mean any trouble," Goofy said. "Just passin' through."
"Hm…" The king stared at them, brows furrowed slightly, his frown mostly hidden by his beard.
The crab looked back and forth between them all and coughed into his pincer. "Well… If dis is your first time here, den let me introduce you… You swim before the ruler of the seas: His Majesty, King Triton!"
"Nice to meet you, Your Majesty," Goofy said, and he and Donald gave polite bows that Hikaru quickly mimicked. Sora on the other hand remained a little confused until Donald gave him a light smack up the back of the head and pulled him down for a bow as well.
"Yes, a pleasure," King Triton said, still watching them that narrowed expression. "Where was it that you were from?"
"We're… from an ocean," Sora said slowly, rising up from his bow. "Really far away."
"Yup," Goofy said, nodding his head. "We came to find the Keyhole."
"The what?" King Triton asked, eyes widening.
"Goofy!" Donald hissed. Sora could tell that he was beginning to get exasperated by all this meddling they'd been doing recently—talking about Heartless and mentioning other worlds, and now talk of the Keyholes? Well, at least it was to the point…
"Keyhole? What's that?" Ariel asked. Before Goofy could open his mouth to reply, however, King Triton interrupted.
"There's no such thing," King Triton said, glowering down at them. "Certainly not here."
"But, Daddy," Ariel started.
"Ariel, not another word!" King Triton said. "You are not to leave this palace. Is that clear?"
Ariel pursed her lips, returning the angry glare before she turned and swam away down the hall at high speed with Flounder at her tail.
"Ariel! Ariel!" King Triton shouted after her. But she didn't turn back.
The pause that followed was… a little awkward.
"Oh, come now, Your Majesty," the octopus woman said. "She's a young woman, and you know best of all that she's inherited your hard-headedness. You can't keep her inside the palace forever. Why, when I was her age…"
"How long ago was dat?" the crab muttered under his breath, and the octopus woman shot him a sharp glare.
Seconds passed before the anger on King Triton's face faded away. "Perhaps I'm being too strict," he said, heaving a sigh. "I'm just concerned for her safety. Sooner or later she'll get into trouble and I won't be there to help her. And now that those monsters have appeared…"
"We'll go after her, then," Sora piped up, feeling a little braver now. "We'll make sure she's safe. Right, guys?"
Hikaru, Donald, and Goofy all nodded in agreement, straightening up their backs. "Ariel helped us out," Goofy said. "Least we could do is make sure she's safe."
King Triton cast them a wary glance, though he didn't seem quite as apprehensive of them as he had before. "Very well. Perhaps she'll listen to you," he said. "Sebastian, show them the way. She's probably gone to her grotto again."
"What? Me?" the little crab blinked. "Oh, alright. Come on, it's dis way." He started forward, paddling through the water with swift strokes of his claws. Sora watched him go for a few moments before following after with the others, only once looking back to the king and the octopus woman before rounding the corner and swimming out of sight.
A/N: So we've arrived in Atlantica and things are, obviously... a little different. Originally, the script was closer to the game's storyline by a mile, but after trying to plot out later portions of the storyline, some things required a bit of a change. (Particularly, the story and accompanying plotholes of KH2's world visit. Oi.) Similar later storyline issues also led me to change the reason for the gang's transformation, rather than Donald consciously using magic, and it sort of fits with the whole world order thing. (I mean, they did transform into animals in Pride Lands... And Ven did turn tiny in the Castle of Dreams.)
Luckily, I think the changes gives a nice opportunity for mixing things up a bit. Think of this as sort of a prequel to the film, before Ursula was banished from the kingdom. Sort of just rolling with it for now, but hopefully the next chapters will come out good. What did you think of this chapter so far?
On another note, Maleficent's Atlantica design. I definitely took inspiration from a bit of art I saw online when looking for ideas for Hikaru's previous design. Originally, Hikaru was going to be the ray-mermaid, however that changed quite recently into a seal. I think the seal actually matches Hikaru much more, so I'm happy with that change.
Next chapter we'll be continuing our adventure in Atlantica. Perhaps we'll learn some interesting things...
Thanks for reading!