Another Happy Landing

The Jolly Roger main deck was getting hotter by the second as they started heading towards the world atmosphere. One more hit by a meteor or worse an encounter with a few wild Heartless traversing the space around them and Sora, Donald and Goofy would be done for. But that didn't stop them from trying to get the ship back down into Traverse Town, even though it was going to be a rough landing.

Well-more like a massive impact, in fact it would be a pretty big impact if they didn't get this ship under control and soon.

"Hold on fella's."Goofy shouted, "We're making waves"

"I don't see any waves" Donald shouted.

"It's a figure of speech!"

Sora and Goofy held the captain wheel as tight as they could. It had been a ruff journey, flying a pirate ship wasn't as easy as they had thought. And traversing through the Wild vacuum of gummi space without the nav controls and other technological comforts that they had grown far to used too was a challenge as well. In fact a lot of it was a challenge-and one that they had almost lost complete control over since the ride.

It had been like this since the return back from Neverland. Sora had never piloted a pirate ship before. Donald and Goofy having problems because it wasn't the Gummi Ship. Asteroids and other large items kept hitting them, and Heartless ships kept zooming buy, avoiding them, perhaps thinking Captain Hook was still in command.

Sora though was just having the time of his life, despite the trials. He was actually piloting a real Pirate Ship. A life long dream finally being realized. If he couldn't be a knight, then a pirate would be just as well.

"Yar har, hang in there matties," Sora said doing an extremely dramatic pirate accent, " ! Man the life decks! We be making land ho very soon!"

"Sora? What are you doing?" Goofy asked.

Sora smirked, "I'm being a pirate, we are on a pirate ship! It's always been my dream to be a sailor on the high seas just like dad!"

"We have bigger things to do than playing pretend!" Donald yelled.

"Come on Donald, lighten up!" Sora said hanging onto the mass, "How many times can you say you actually driven a pirate ship"

"Do you drive ships?" Goofy asked.

Sora shrugged, "I don't know, but who cares, this is actual pirate ship! We're actual pirates, sailing the seven gummi seas, helping those against the scourge of the Heartless! Ar har"

"You're really getting into the swing of this" Goofy remarked.

Sora smiled nodding, "Yeah, yeah I am ...For once, I feel like I'm actually achieving something, I know Kairi is okay...Sure she doesn't have her heart, and Riku is getting more and more dark by the second….." He paused frowning, before quickly perking up again, "...but you know what Goofy, we've helped people, we've sealed Keyholes! We have to be making a difference...For the first time, I feel like we're actually living up to our potential, being heroes"

"Junior hero's Donald corrected.

"Still we're heros' Sora pointed out, "Far as I'm concerned, we've saved people, defeated evil, we're heros"

"Yeah...We sure are"

Goofy shook his head, "We haven't defeated the evil yet Sora, still have a lot more work to do, best not to get a swell head"

"I know, I know, but still, can you believe how far we've come. How many battles we fought, how many villains we took on. It just- it just kinda amazes me. All my life I wanted to help people, be something more, and now well ...here I am. It hasn't been easy sure but, but I couldn't ask for a better crew"

"Ah, Sora" Donald smiled.

Goofy nodded as well.

Sora face was sweating bullets as his arms strained to keep hold of the steering wheel as it spun wildly without any supervision. Goofy own strength wasn't enough to keep it steady but the two together were having better luck than Donald was keeping the mast straight.

It wasn't the easiest journey.

After traversing the great open stars, a few crashes and almost dying a few times they had finally made it back to Traverse Town. Sora's instincts though sadly didn't pay off like he had hoped. They hit a few rocks, had to to tie the mass, and steering was a nightmare compared to the modern day Gummi Ship. No protection shielding and guns meant that the rocks could hit the hull easier and they could get hit by asteroids themselves. However it was the thrill of it all that kept them going. Sora in particular hadn't felt this much of a rush in ages and he was certainly not going to let the dangers stop him.

No this time anyway.

"See I knew this star would be the right one." Sora snickered as he looked down at the world below.

"Yeah after the tenth try." Donald muttered

"Ninety try, that last one didn't count, I said left not west." Sora grumbled, "Seriosuly I was being pretty clear on that"

Donald rolled his eyes, "Well it's hard to hear through the wind"

"It's hard to hear you period!"

"Come on fellas we are almost there, just gotta hold on just a bit more." Goofy shouted as he straightened the mass. "I hope we don't have to rough of a landing."

"We just need to get to land as far from the town as possible." Donald began to calculate in his mind.

Sora grimace. "I don't know how we are going to do that."

Donald rolled his eyes as he used his magic to keep the ship together. The ride had been turbulent and they had to keep the wood from peeling off or worse burning all together. Magic thankfully was able to put out the fires quickly an Grava kept the planks steady for the time being.

But now the hard part, landing.

Sora and Goofy held onto the wheel tight, they could see the town getting close and closer. The world starting to close in on them as they began to start burning rubber.

"Hold on guys!" Sora shouted as he held the wheel as tight as he could. "This is gonna be a ruff landing."

Clenching his fist Sora held on to the wheel for dear life as it came into the atmosphere, fire and heat surrounding it. Donald used his magic to shield them from the impact, but it wasn't going to be enough to keep the ship from damaging. Everyone on board closed their eyes, it was truly going to be a bumpy landing indeed.

"Hold on fella's." Jiminy shouted as he held onto his top hat for dear life. "Land ho!"

The ship began to make impact landing just a few feet outside the main gates, yet it still had great impact that the ground shook as it started to land. Sora and the others were thrown forward and then back and finally all around.

"Did we make it?" Sora said once he finally stopped being tugged around, his eyes rolling in his sockets.

From the distance he could see Leon, Aeirth and Yuffie run out of the gates to look at what had happened.

"Sora!" Leon said, as he waved towards them.

"Hey guys" Sora said, his words slurring a bit as he tried to regain his footing, "Look at us, we're real pirates"

Those were the last thing he remembered saying before blacked out.

-000-

Sora slowly began to open his eyes as he looked up at the ceiling, once he fully woke up he groaned, "Not again ...I thought I was done getting hit in the head and blacking out. This can't be good for me right?"

He got up to find himself at Leon's base, the other Resistance members walking along minding their own business. Phineas and Ferb were working on some various adventures with Doofenshmirtz and Isabella while Cid was on the computer monitoring the situation. Leon and Aerith were in the corner talking about something while Donald and Goofy were talking to Scrooge, Beakley and Launchback.

The place still had it messy demeanor though it was nice to be around people who cared about him again. He wondered just how much he missed since he was gone from Traverse Town. There was so much he wanted to tell them, so much he had learned yet also so little progress he had made. The moment he thought about that Sora started to wonder if he was failing them. Perhaps he wasn't the hero they had all hoped he would be.

"Sora!" He blinked to see two familiar faces running towards him and smiled.

"Star! Marco!" He beamed.

The two rushed to his bedside hugging him tightly. Sora felt his heart soar just seeing his former friends again fearing the worst ever since he arrived at Neverland.

"What are we chuck liver" Donald muttered.

Goofy shushed him, "Now, now, he knew we were okay, didn't know about Star and Marco after Atlantica".

"You made it out okay!" Star beaned looking relieved, taking a step back to allow Sora to breath "After Atlantica we thought you were a goner"

"These two got to us rather quickly" Leon replied, "When Chip and Dale came back with the Gummi Ship, we started to fear the worst.''

"I thought I was too" Sora said getting up, he felt bruised but nothing to bad.

"How's it going kid"

Sora turned to his side to see not only Merlin standing in the corner but also Phil, both of them seemed to be together.

"Phil?"

Merlin nodded, "I decided to bring him onboard might be useful, after all the two of us have been training you"

"Yeah, how are my junior hero's doing"

Sora beamed, he was about to speak but was quickly interrupted by something in the distance.

"Hey get back here!"

Yuffie voice echoed in the cave as to everyone including Sora's shock, Dipper and Mabel came running in, Huey Duey and Louie following right behind them. In fact the triplets were chasing them. Tackling them once they were cornered. She hoisted up both of them as they struggled in her hands.

"Hey, get off" Dipper said squinting and kicking.

"You trapped us in a closet, how can we not get off!" Duey yelled, daning in Yuffies hand, "Seriosuly you are a sociopath!

"Boys!" Donald intervened separating them, Yuffie catching Dipper and holding him up as he struggled, "What's the big idea"

"Yeah," Yuffie added.

Dipper struggled for a moment before sighed, "We just wanted to know where you lair was"

"So we locked these three in a closet until they told us," Mabel said with pride, "Grunkle Stan taught us that little trick. Works like a charm.

Sora grimaced.

"Sora!" Mabel beamed walking up towards him, "You're back again? Did you save the universe yet"

"Eh...No" Sora said, sighing, "But I did find Riku again"

Everyone went silent at the moment.

"And?" Dipper said looking nervous, "What happened"

Sora frowned and sighed, "He's becoming more lost to darkness then ever, Maleficent pretty much has all the Princesses now"

A moment of silence, everyone has a look of horror or concern on there face.

"See!"Dipper shouted breaking the silence, "I was right, things are getting worse, and if we don't take action and stop relying on one person we might be able to fix it"

Sora frowned, feeling like a failure again.

"Dipper" Mable hit his ribcage, "Not now"

"Oh come on, he'll find out sooner or later"

"FInd out what?" Sora asked looking at Leon.

Leon hesitated for a second but sighed, "Since Star and Marco have joined us we've had better luck at finding out more about what's been going on out there?"

"And?"

"And…" Leon paused.

Aerith interjected, "And, it seems more worlds are falling the Heartless ...Daily".

"Daily!" Sora's eyes widened, "H-How?"

Aeirth shrugged, "We've been getting reports of bigger and stronger Heartless then before, a lot more monstrous, and a lot more dangerous, all spawning from one place, but we don't know were"

"Our guess it's Maleficents' hideout" Cid replied, "She's been the cause of most of this, so she's probably sending them out getting ready for whatever her big plan for global domination is"

"We've been getting more and more people coming to this place," Aerith replied, "Thankfully Star and Marco's dimension scissors have let us expand our network of informants but sadly we've gotten nothing about Maleficent and her Heartless, she's hid her tracks well".

"It's okay," Sora said standing up and sighing, "I get it, he's right, I haven't been able to solve your problem. Maleficent is close to winning and we aren't even close to finding the king let alone finding even her own hideout"

"If you knew were she was maybe we could stop her" Yuffie declared.

"One problem we don't know where it was" Leon muttered.

Dipper sighed, "So we're doomed. Great, just great, I always wanted to witness the apocalypse".

"Ah, don't give up bro-bro" Mabel declared, "Can't give up now"

"Yeah," Goofy declared, "We'll just keep searching"

"Were has that gotten us" Sora barked getting annoyed, "Riku is long gone, Kairi is at least okay, but apart from that guys, we aren't even close...I-I need some air".

Taking a deep breath Sora started to head out, needing some time to think. Even without looking he knew people were giving him sad looks. He hated feeling there sympathy and tired of it. For once he just wanted things to go his way and last for longer than a few seconds. Whenever he felt that he was making a bit of progress, when his confidence was coming back to him, it all kept crumbling down.

This entire adventure had been nothing but an emotional rolewind. As it went on longer Sora felt that he was being tested. So far it seemed he was passing, though he hadn't gotten anything done. How he wanted to just fall and crack, give up. Whatever kept him going, he didn't even know himself sometimes.

"One step forward two steps back"

"That's the spirit" Mabel beamed.

Dipper sighed, "I don't think that's a good thing"

Sora chuckled, enjoying the twins enthusiasm for a moment. Then a thought occurred, something from earlier that he had in the back of his mind for a while, but now bubbled to the surface in the calm and peace.

"Hey Master Melin, perhaps you could answer me something" Sora said looking at the elderly wizard, "Back in Atlantica, Triton mention someone another Keyblade Master from the past"

Merlin face became uneasy, "Oh really my boy? Who?"

"Do you know...Who Xehanort is"