"Hey. Isn't this the room with the doorknob?" Ruby inquired as they found themselves in a familiar room of mismatched décor when they reached the end of the leafy tunnel. It did look like it but there was one problem. They were on one of the walls of the room but gravity was the same from their angle since it felt like they were walking on ground as per normal. The floor was one of the walls and now one of the walls they were currently on was the floor. "What the heck even this?" Sora said, trying to figure out the logic of how this was possible but held his head and groaned another rising headache.
Donald and Goofy found themselves getting wobbly from a mild case of vertigo. Not only was this place strange, but it was downright nonsensical. How could anyone find their way around here properly, let alone without stumbling into some bizarre room or another. Then again, such seemed par for the course with this world.
"Hey, I think I see something over there." Ruby said, seemingly not affected in the way her comrades were. Of course, in her line of work, she'd been forced to run up buildings and cliffs and even sail through the air at rapid speeds and turning sharp, sudden corners in the blink of an eye, so a little sudden shift wasn't going to topple her...Not to say it didn't confuse her, but that was another story.
Goofy's mind was thankfully taken off the vertigo when he sniffed the air. "Hm? Hey, do you fellas smell somethin'?" he asked, taking another whiff of the air. Donald paused, giving a sniff, only to say. "I don't smell anything." Ruby and Sora however sniffed the air and winced at the sudden stink that assailed them. It smelled like burned...something. They weren't sure what, but its assault on their poor noses was NOT welcome. "Ugh. What reeks?" Sora asked, waving to banish the smell.
"I uhh...think it's coming from that fireplace." Ruby said pointing to the stone chimney joined object in question. What could be making a smell like that?
They approached the base of the chimney with covered noses and gagged expressions. The terrible scent became stronger as they did. In the middle of the fireplace was something looking brittle and black as night. Before they could get a closer look though, Heartless emerged from tiny holes of darkness.
These were different ones than before. They were smaller than even Donald and floating around as if by their will alone because they had no wings or anything that would give them the ability to fly. Their red bodies were bell shaped and had the Emblem of a black heart crossed over by red markings like the Soldier type Heartless. Their faces looked a little like the shadows with yellow menacing eyes just like them except most of their face was concealed in tan pointed hats.
"Heartless!" Goofy exclaimed as he raised his shield and peeked over it. Sora drew his Keyblade as Ruby readied her scythe. After adjusting his hat, Donald readied his staff and bravely said, "There's four of them and four of us. We can take them!"
The new enemies lined up, hovering above their head levels. The tips of their headwear started glowing red. Sora, Donald and Goofy looked confused and at first Ruby did too until having a feeling what it meant. "Move!"
No sooner had she warned her comrades did the spheres of energy from the Heartless shoot out. Everyone barely dodged the attacks, feeling an intense heat pass them. Though the Heartless' attack missed, their ammunition left burn marks on whatever ground they came into contact with. "Wak! These Heartless can use magic!?" Donald exclaimed, recognizing and narrowly jumping out of the way of the fiery spheres.
Goofy let out a yell of shock as his left foot nearly got incinerated by one of the projectiles. Thinking quickly as another one flew in his direction, he went to dash forward, only to flop forward in a wobbly roll that amazingly managed to have him land on his feet.
In the midst of his own attempts to avoid the fire, Sora noticed the display. It was certainly impressive to say the least that Goofy managed to come out of that unharmed. "Sora, watch out!" Goofy called out. Sora turned toward one of the floating Heartless, just in time to see it unleashing a fireball right in his direction. The Keyblade wielding boy barely had time to react as the orb of flames zoom in his direction. In a split second reaction, Sora lunged forward, free hand forward, and used it to shift his weight around as he came back up. The fire zoomed right through the tiny gap along his torso and hips as he rolled. The realization of how he managed to dodge it amazed Sora, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. So he used this advantage to charge forward and slay the Heartless that nearly fried him.
Ruby meanwhile expertly jumped away from the projectiles, reading their paths as she dashed toward the first of the Heartless and cleaved it in two. Realizing what they were dealing with, Donald decided to fight fire, "Blizzard!" with ice. The moment he yelled out his spell, he unleashed a sheet of frigid, icy crystals that impacted with the red floating Heartless. Sure enough, the instant it hit, the Heartless shivered and shuddered before bursting.
Goofy's Heartless flew higher up, seemingly out of reach of his shield. But in a burst of surprise, the canine captain reeled his shield-arm back and dashed forward, only to jump upwards and strike the final Heartless from below, destroying it.
Ruby evaded some of the shots fired at her. Once the opportunity arrived, she leaped up with her scythe reeled back and zipped in a downward diagonal rush while cleaving the Heartless through. It vanished into the air as the others breathed a sigh of relief. "Nice goin', Ruby. Where'd ya learn how to fight so well?" Goofy asked her curiously.
Turning back to face her friends, Ruby just realized she hadn't shared that much about herself with them. Something she felt now was a time to rectify, if only for a little while since they were on a bit of a time crunch. "Well, I used to go to hunters school and learned a thing or two about creatures that might do more than just fight with their fists or claws." Ruby answered a little sheepishly. "A school for hunting?" Sora asked. This was the first time he'd heard about Ruby's world, and he was already quite curious about it from this school for hunters. Ruby paused a moment, trying to think of how to describe her world to her new friends. Something she'd never had to do herself before "Well...we're called huntsmen and huntresses. What that means is we slay monsters and protect those who can't protect themselves. We're kind of... defenders of mankind, if...that makes sense." she explained awkwardly.
"So you're kinda like knights, like me." Goofy said in delight as he tried making a proud pose. An attempt which ended ended in him accidentally bonking himself in the head with his shield. Everyone else laughed except for Donald who rolled his eyes and walked back to the fireplace. "Come on. We still need that evidence." he reminded the group as the laughing died down.
With Donald's grumpy little reminder, the group hopped down along the fireplace and, sure enough, there was the source of that smell. A piece of charcoal with streams of darkness billowing off it like smoke. Holding his nose, Goofy picked it up and added it to their collection of evidence.
"Guys, look! Up there!" Ruby called out, pointing up to a high wall mounted cabinet next to...a faucet?
But that unusual detail aside, Sora, Donald, and Goofy followed her pointing and saw what looked like a batch of claw marks etched into the cabinet's wood. "Hey, do you think the Heartless may have done that too?" Goofy asked, tapping his chin.
"How are we gonna get up there?" Sora wondered. It'd be quite a headache to go back into the forest, as it was the only place that he could think of to reach up there. And if the Queen of Hearts saw them return, she might stop them from getting this, thinking they were stalling. They needed to get every shred of evidence they could in order to prove Alice's innocence. "Donald, do you have any magic that can make us fly?"
The question made Donald frown at Sora. "Don't be ridiculous! Just because I have magic doesn't mean I can just make us fly like that." Donald lectured, his derisive tone drawing a frown to Sora's face.
"Hey, it was just a question!" Sora countered, not appreciating the tone that Donald was taking with him. It wasn't like he knew much about magic apart from that one spell Donald taught him.
"Well it was a st-"
"Guys! Guys! Calm down." Ruby interjected, her inner leader coming out as she tried to placate Sora and Donald. This wasn't the time to be fighting when there were lives at stake. More than Alice's if that necklace they found with the antennae was any indication. Something Goofy agreed with. "She's right. Like ya said, Donald. We gotta help Alice. Right, Sora?" he said, pointing up to their next piece of evidence.
With a sigh, both Sora and Donald gave a unanimous, "Okay..." but were certainly still annoyed with each other.
Ruby was glad nothing escalated among the group. She knew from personal experience that if there was friction between teammates, it could detrimentally affect all of them. At least Goofy seemed reasonable and tried keeping them together, like her. The captain in question hummed as he looked intently the faucet. "I wonder how we get up there, though?"
"We'd probably need to find some other way around." Donald said with a sigh of annoyance. "You mean back to that flower forest?" Sora said, not looking forward to potentially backtracking. Especially after all they did just to get here.
Ruby looked from them to the faucet and thought. The others were still talking among themselves, not noticing their female companion take a running stance. Only after she zipped away and left a trail of rose petals behind her did they jump and see the red blur move up the wall and land on top. "Guys! I made it!" Ruby's loud voice said quietly from the distance.
All three of her new friends looked in awe. "Whoa! How did she do that?!" Sora exclaimed in excitement.
"See anything?" Goofy hollered up at her. Ruby inspected the faucet carefully, feeling around it. There was a feeling of tightness when she tried turning it one way and nodded. It was so big and heavy though, she couldn't turn something this size. Something clicked in her mind though as she drew Crescent Rose in scythe form and used the backside of the sickle to make it turn. As water spilled from the faucet, a vase suddenly emerged from the ground (wall) and filled with the water, which eventually stopped. Ruby watched but noticed the vase wasn't filling up. It's as if the water was vanishing. "You guys! That vase goes somewhere!" she shouted before looking back and noticing something unusual on the wood carvings of the wall behind her.
"What the..." Upon closer inspection, it wasn't so much of a wood carving as it was a damage. Monstrous claw marks were etched into the wall. Given her experience so far, Ruby figured that they must have been made by Heartless. How they did so, she had no idea. But one thing was clear. "I think I found another piece of evidence, guys!" she called down to the others.
"Really!? Hurry up and bring it down here!" Donald ushered eagerly.
"Give me a second!" Ruby called back, readying crescent rose with a sigh. She wasn't much of a fan for vandalism, but if she could wreck the window of a dust shop trying to stop a big-time criminal, then she'd survive slicing a bit of a wall. And with a precise bit of cutting, she sliced off the part of the wall marred by the claw marks, and grabbed it as it fell loose. "Got it!" she called down to the others, jumping down to join them.
"Awesome! Way to go Ruby!" Sora cheered, making the red and black clad huntress rub the back of her neck with a giggle and a blush. "That's a pretty fancy bit of speed ya got there, Ruby. How did ya do that anyway?" Goofy asked, bringing her attention back to Sora's previous inquiry.
"Oh, that's my Semblance." she said, realizing that there was quite a bit about herself that she hadn't shared with them. "It's uh...well, how do I put it?" She'd never really had to explain the concept of things like Semblance and Aura to anyone before, so she was a bit at a loss for what to start with.
"Ah, you can tell us later. For now, let's go save Alice before..." Donald said with a wave of his hand in front of his neck. The Queen likely wasn't going to wait much longer. If they didn't get back soon, five heads might be rolling.
Ruby added the recent piece of evidence to the box. The moment it closed, somebody familiar said, "Well, look what you've found. Nice going." It was the Cheshire Cat, materializing near them and making that constant, impossibly big, mildly unsettling grin. Sora, though slightly weirded out by his sudden appearance, nodded and replied in confidence, "Now we can save Alice."
The Cheshire Cat giggled between his teeth. "Don't be so sure. She may be innocent but what about you?"
Ruby frowned in worry at the possible implication of his words. Goofy cocked his head in confusion and Donald raised an eyebrow skeptically while Sora asked, "What do you mean?" With a finger to his lips, the Cheshire Cat merely said, "I won't tell." then vanished like a mirage once more.
Deciding not to question him or his words, the group silently agreed to hurry back to the courtroom before the Queen of Hearts got impatient and decided to execute Alice and all of them simply because she could.