DISCLAIMER (The extended version):
Mandala: *Ahem* Through out this fanfic there will be many characters and items that are in video games, I do not own any one of them, the only thing I can ever take credit for is my original characters and other ideas put into this fanfic.
Little angst demon: You must give us the precious!
Mandala: Uh....what?
Little angst demon: THE PRECIOUS! (whisper, whisper) The characters you dolt.
Mandala: Hey! That's not funny! (starts to pummel the little weirdo)
Little muse of Sappiness: (exasperated sigh) Well, since those two are so intent on beating the snot outta one another, I guess I'll have to finish... All characters from games mentioned in this fic are probably owned and licensed by Squaresoft or their own respective companies blah, blah and so on...
Little angst demon: The precious! (gets thrown into the muse o' sappiness) AHHHHHH!
Mandala: (swings a cracked wooden baseball bat around ) Argh! We're not finished you little...
(cough) Uh, anyways...
I do not get paid for the creation of this fanfic nor do I own them...Anyone want to give them to me???
But:
I write this fanfic to amuse readers.
I write this fanfic to show the world how bad my spelling is.
I write this fanfic because it was the only other thing to do at 11:30 at night.
I write this fanfic because I have no other way to express my gratitude to all of the writers/animators of great games and animes.
(Note: Because of the fact that italic writing won't show up on Fanficiton.net ((at least to my knowledge, which by the way, isn't alot)) I will be putting dreams and other special visions after this symbol *** )
Content Warning: (If any) In this 'fic there is mild use of foul language and some humor that would be considered inappropriate for younger children also, there might be so romance (still in progress with the details) but nothing is for certain...I am soooo evil.
~Have fun and don't sue!
Otherworld: The Beginning
Chapter 6
~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~
Lia washed and put away the dishes still wondering about Wonderland. The name stuck in her head, almost as if she heard it before, before... She was attacked. Alot of her life she could remember, like her full name, where she came from, movies, friends, songs and so on, but she every now and then she would draw a blank. She vaguely remembered playing video games like... and playing a game... Ugh! There it was again!
She shook off the depressing feeling and ran to her room to change out of her pajamas. Still the feeling remained; she couldn't wait to see Wonderland.
~*~
"There is no way you are going with us; it's too dangerous!" yelled Donald franticly, waving his arms around to emphasize his order. "No!No!No!NO!" he yelled again at the pleading girl. She had been begging him for the past hour as he was trying to get everything settled for the trip back to the disturbed world.
All the while, Goofy watched anxiously at the two giving slight chuckles ever so often at the scene. Lia was never one to beg, nor was Donald one to give in.
"FINE! I won't go then!" Lia huffed as she stomped away from the Gummi Garage. Donald shook his fuming head and snapped at Goofy to get back to work on the ship.
~*~
It had been a couple of weeks before Maleficent had let him out of that horrid castle of despair to wander about the worlds, disaster striking the lowly places he visited. Tasks, that was all Maleficent had given him since the first time he had seen the girl Lia, mostly his work involving finding out where she came from, a mystery to all but herself.
He huffed slightly, the matter of waking Kairi was still at hand though, and Maleficent was making no move to obtain the other Princesses of Heart. This above all annoyed him the most.
Riku traveled to Traverse Town and sat in his now frequently visited perch outside of Lia's window, just beyond the view of the widow itself. She had stomped in quite abruptly, she seemed deeply disturbed or pissed off at something. He hopped a little closer on the tile roof and strained to hear her voice, something he had become accustomed to in the last few days.
~*~
Lia folded her arms across her chest as she layed down upon her bed, fuming silently seemingly for hours. He had no respect what so ever; he was acting like such a, such a PARENT! Her cheeks turn a deep red as she thought, he had no right to *not* let her go in the first place!
Lia shot up from her bed, "Yeah! That's right! There's nothing that duck-billed howler can do from letting go to Wonderland!" She nodded once and grabbed her backpack.
~*~
'Wonderland? So that's where they're going.' Thought Riku slyly. He arched an eyebrow, why would they need to go back there? Riku took off into the air to tell Maleficent of his findings but stopped himself, why shouldn't he go to Wonderland to 'greet' them himself? Riku gave a dark chuckle and vanished into the night for Wonderland.
~*~
Lia grinned at her handiwork, her backpack was half full with things she would take. Lia clambered into her now messy closet; she pulled from the very back wall her sword, shield and wand as well as a couple of pouches of magical stuffs.
She gave a wide grin as she stole out of her room, slipping quietly past the rooms where her friends slept. Lia moved freely in the open air of the town, she took a quick look at her watch. ' Well, since it's only 9:47 I could at least wander around a bit.
As soon as she got out of the cramped hotel her mind wandered and she started to sing a bit of a song she heard on the radio once:
" Sometimes I get so weird I even freak myself out, I laugh myself to sleep it's my lullaby..."
She stopped for a moment, 'Uh, how did it go?' she searched for a moment in her cluttered mind. "Oh yeah!".
"Is it enough to love? Is it enough to breathe? Somebody rip my heart out leave me here to bleed..."
Lia laughed at her lapse of sanity and continued on through the maze of buildings. She walked down the stone roads of Traverse Town still humming the song. She passed familiar house, searching the rooftops expectantly. Suddenly a crack sounded in the heavens above, and light illuminated the town with the brilliance of the sun itself.
Lia stared disappointedly at the sky; "You could have waited at least another hour or so!"she yelled into the falling sky. She ran hurriedly to the safety of a striped overhead canopy that covered the front of a nameless shop. 'Geeze, I might as well go back.....NO! I won't give Donald the reward of seeing me fail!' she pumped a fist into the air and gave a huge smirk until, of course her stomach growled louder than the falling rain.
She grabbed her stomach tightly looking left to right to spot a diner. ' I need food....' she thought miserably. She walked clumsily down the street till she came onto Cid's humble abode. Lia pushed the door inward, and she saw Cid look up in question. "Food, must get fooood." she mumbled in-between stomps. Cid glared at her, "Oh boy, it's the walking dead." he growled in a sarcastic tone. Lia eyed him angrily and leaned heavily onto the polished brown counter top infront of him, crossing both arms infront of her to lay her head down.
Cid crossed his arms thoughtfully, "Wow, and I thought only Sora would bother asking *me* for food."
Lia stared up at him from underneath her drenched brown bangs and growled at him, "I don't need a lecture, I need food...". Cid sighed and swung the folding door that let him exit the back counter area and went through a door that Lia supposed went to the kitchen. "What do you want?" Cid yelled from the kitchen, Lia rolled her head left to right in her arms, " Beef and bell peppers!" (1).
~*~
Lia pushed her plate forward and tipped off the rest of her soda, "That was good...for an old man." she commented to the still eating Cid. Cid pushed his plate forward also and glared at Lia, "So what brings you here, other than food?" he asked with an annoyed tone. Lia leaned back farther in her chair and shifted her gaze around Cid's dining room/ kitchen area, "I want to go to Wonderland, but Donald won't let me." she stated bluntly. Cid's eyes widened by a fraction of an inch as he stared at Lia, "And he's got good reason too, you could get hurt."
'I know that.' thought Lia.
"I know that, but I still want to go." said Lia, her voice taking on a serious tone.
"You might get attacked by the Heartless, plus you have no way to get onto the Gummi Ship unless..." he trailed off for a moment, "Unless you sneak aboard." he paused again. He watched Lia push the remains of her meal into a very small pile with her fork, her face remained unreadable, "That's what you plan on doing, huh?". Lia looked up at Cid, "I want to go, and neither you nor Donald will keep me." she said fiercely.
"I'm not going to stop you, so you don't have to worry about that..." he trailed off again, "Do you need any supplies?".
Lia looked up from her plate and gave the older man a curious smile, "How could you help?" she asked suspiciously. Cid stuck up his nose and crossed his arms over his chest, "Well, if you don't need it..." he trailed off until Lia yelled 'yes' into his face. He continued "I could help you get some extra parts Sora sold to me to make you your own Gummi Ship.
Cid smiled inside as he watched Lia's face go from extremely pissed off to an ever increasing smile. "How long until it will be ready?" she asked worriedly. Cid smiled, "Well, it will take me about....oh, I'd say 2 and a half hours.", Lia smiled "Ok, I'll be back!" and ran off.
~*~
Lia gave off a smile of a spoiled child and stuffed her pack with the rest of the potions she had bought. Cid folded his arms over his chest and gave a lopsided smirk as he watched Lia pack, 'The kids got determination, I 'll give her that." . Lia put her fists on her hips as she finally managed to zip up her back, then turned to Cid and gave him and smile followed by a thumbs up.
"Now remember, once you get into the shop, you stay along the walls until you can get near it..." Cid started, the Lia cut him off "Yeah, yeah, then pop the doors and climb inside. You told me at least thirty times already." she smiled. Lia situated her belongings onto her back and went forward to the door with Cid following behind. Before she went out, she turned around and surprised Cid with a tight hug that acquainted him with the pointy end of her wand.
"Thanks you old goat... for everything." Lia said as she pulled herself off of Cid. He opened one of her small hands and dropped a key into her opened palm.
Cid smiled, " Don't you go and get yourself to beaten up by the flowers and come crying to me ya little munchkin." he said with a hint of sarcasm. "Always the pessimist aren't we?" laughed Lia as she opened the door into the town.
~*~
Maria ran her fingers through her hair, the strands falling back into place among the rest of her graying hair and closed her eyes as she rested against the door of Lia's room. It had been three weeks since Lia had left, and it wasn't getting any easier to deal with. When she had first come home that night three weeks ago and noticed Lia wasn't there she dismissed it as her going off to one of her friends houses without telling her again. But then it worried her when she didn't call or anything.
She stood by the phone all that night to wait out her confirmation call from Lia saying that she had 'just wanted some fresh air', but nothing came. The next morning she had called the police, alot of help that did though. They took a look around and asked for any reasons why she would have left and just said she might have ran off...but that couldn't be true.
Yes, it had been hard after her father left them alone when Lia was only three. And the many moves we made around the country, but she would have told her if anything was bothering her right?
Maria opened her blood shot blue eyes and sighed, maybe Lia did run away to leave her just as her father did. She lifted herself off of the door and took one look around her daughters room and went into her own room. She flopped down upon her bed and opened her nightstand to take out Lia's birth certificate, the whole thing worn with age and bent on the edges. Every night since her husband, Marcus left, she would take it out and look at it just so she wouldn't end up going crazy from the pain.
She read the faded black printed letters:
Name: Lilith Liana Valentine
Gender: Female
Date of Birth: September 10, 1989
Blood Type: O-
Weight at birth: 7 lbs. 6 oz.
Length at birth: 17 14/18 inches
Maria sighed and pushed the piece of paper back into the drawer and closed it. She turned her body and rested her head against a pillow and snuggled into it and sobbed softly.
"Maybe... she did run away."
~*~
Slowly a small figure made its way through the neon lit area that was the Third District, and into the double doors of the Gummi Garage. Lia smiled as she felt along the walls of the darkened walls, occasionally tripping and sliding. 'Geeze, why do those darned mogs turn off the lights when they leave?!', she felt along a little longer until she could see the faint outline of two Gummi ships. Lia's eyes widened, which one was which? She stared a little harder and walked up slowly to one, she peered into the glass cockpit and shook her head, 'Nope, three seats.'
Lia climbed into the small cockpit of her Gummi Ship and looked at amount of buttons and the range of sizes among them on the arm length panel. "Argh, I could have at least gotten a book of directions with this hunk-a-junk!" she grumbled, Lia flopped her weapons and her pack onto a seat behind the drivers and searched along the bottom side of the control panel for some kind of compartment. 'If cars have side compartments, then these things should have em' to!', Lia smacked the bottom of the panel and searched for a button in the dark.
She smiled evily as she found a button, assuming of course this was the button for the darn thing. She pressed the button, and was smacked in the back of the head by the falling drawer. Lia pulled herself from her increasingly uncomfortable position on the floor and picked up the upper part of her body up so it could rest on the seat while her legs flared up over the seat itself. She smiled slightly, at least Cid put a light in glove compartment. She lifted a small book out of the drawer and read the title, 'Gummi Ships for Idiots'.
'Ha ha , very funny. Ho ho, it is to laugh.' she thought with a angry sneer. Lia shifted herself until she sat upright in the drivers seat, she flipped through the pages of the book carefully until she stopped:
Chapter 7: How to use the Gummi Ship.
World Selection Screens: From this screen, you can select your world destination and access the Gummi Garage menu. Choose your destination with the directional buttons directed at the lower left hand side of the panel, then press the 'Enter' button that is located on the very right of the directional buttons, to depart. Press the 'View' button located in the very top of the directional buttons to view a selected world. Press the red 'Cancel' button located on the bottom most area near the directional buttons to cancel. Press the 'Garage' button on the very end of the panel on your right to access the Gummi Garage Menu.
While in Flight/Flight Screen: To move the Gummi Ship, move the steering controls to move the flight panels on the wings to the direction you want to go. While in flight you will encounter items, obstacles and enemies while flying. You can use equipped weapons by pressing the bright red circular buttons on top of the controls to shoot or deploy the weapons. When a Scan-Gummi is equipped onto the Gummi Ship, a radar will be displayed on the Flight Screen. The better the Scan-Gummi, the larger the area covered by the radar. At all times, a 'weapon sights' is displayed on screen. To lock onto an enemy, press down on the blue buttons on the steering controls. Also on screen is the Gummi ship' Gauges.
Gummi Ship's Gauges: Firing lasers, using a net, and so forth all consume power, which decreases the Gummi ship's power gauge (PWR). The armor gauge (ARM) decreases when the ship crashes into obstacles or enemy ships, or when it's hit by enemy fire. If the gauge reaches zero, the world selection screen appears. The charge gauge (CHG) appears when a Hatse- Gummi is equipped. It falls to zero when boosters are engaged, and then recharges over time. The shield gauge (SHD) appears when a Shield-Gummi is equipped. When the Sheild- Gummi deflects attacks, the shield gauge decreases instead of the armor gauge. However, the armor gauge decreases if a ship equipped with only a frontal shield takes damage form behind.
Lia stopped reading for a moment, 'Uh,right.' her gaze returned to the thick book. She finished not to soon after and glared at the control panel with renewed confidence. 'So, let's get this going...' she thought as she pressed the start up button. The panel came alive with color and noise and a holographic map appeared on the screen infront of her.
"Button, button. Who's got the button."
She moved her eyes from one end of the board to the other. She pressed the 'Up' directional button. "So... Where is Wonderland?" she spoke in an annoyed tone to the consol.
"It's here you moronic human." a mechanical voice chimed. Suddenly a tiny world appeared with a screen next to it naming locations that read 'Wonderland' as its title.
Lia jumped three feet off of her seat and flipped backwards over the chair and onto the floor, "What the hell was that!" she yelled franticly.
" 'That' would be model X-3982401 specialty Gummi Ship... Moron." bleeped the mechanical voice.
Lia eyed the control panel, "So I'm talking to the ship?".
"That's what I just said, or should I spell it out for you?", Lia rolled her eyes. Lia put her hand on her hips and glared angrily at the consol.
'Great, I should have known Cid would pull something like this...' , Lia cursed slightly and arranged herself back into her chair."Fine, so I thought I heard voices...again." she rolled her eyes.
"Alright, since we have confirmed your complete lack of intelligence..." Lia glared angrily at consol, "...we can continue." Lia was about to yell at the little- whatever, when a small arrow pointed upward to the locations, "Just incase you *hadn't* read the guide book and all twenty-seven of its chapters, you would know that this is the box of destinations already discovered or visited by Sora and his company. If you move you hand over to the little buttons that say 'Up' and 'Down' you can pick where you want to go."
Lia's eye twitched angrily as she tried her hardest to *not* bash the screen in. "Frankly, I think you should go to the first location on the list, just so you can get the full experience of getting yourself into trouble, not just jumping around." said the monotone voice.
"Smart ass."
The computerized voice bleep and responded: "Smart, the act of being of heightened intelligence; Ass, slang term for the human buttocks; donkey.", Lia rolled her eyes again and gave a huff of annoyance. "Geeze, I think I've met my match...Well then, we'll go to the first place on the list."
~*~
Lia landed head first into a crazed looking room. Clocks lined the wooden circular room, furniture ranging in designs lined the walls only... they weren't exactly three dimensional. The whole room looked like a painted on background giving Lia a claustrophobic feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Lia growled, that was the last time she was going to trust a bloody computer!
Her eyes shifted nervously over the room and she walked slowly down the long corridor. The hall ended abruptly and she stood in the middle of a small room. A twin sized bed stood alone in the corner as well as a chair and a few bookcases. What Lia assumed to be the focal point in the room was a small round wooden table in the center of the room. The curious looking vials stood proudly against the dark surface; their bright colors adding a light splash against the table.
Lia's shoes clunked against the tiled floor as she walked closer to the table. She extended a thin arm to the surface of the table and lazily ran her fingers across its polished surface. She trailed around it until her left foot hit the wall and it gave a loud yelp.
Okay...
Lia, startled by the new sound, tripped on one of the legs of the table and fell unceremoniously to the floor. She opened her eyes and rolled them about for a moment until her sight came to rest on the source of the scream. A small, no, a very small door stood out against the white wall scrunching its... doorknob...or nose and grunting.
"Ouch! Watch were you step you little..."
Lia gave a cry and rolled onto her back to get up to run but stopped when the door person spoke: "You could at least apologize for your behavior...miss." Lia's lips turned into an awkward smile and she laughed nervously, "Uh, yeah sure....sorry 'bout that uh?". The doorknob turned itself slightly to take a better look at the girl and it wrinkled its nose slightly in thought, "Better than most I suppose.". Lia glared angrily at the door and gritted her teeth, "What was that?!" she huffed.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing."
"Keep it that way."
Lia shifted in her upright position and pressed her face close to the door, "Are you the way out of this room?" she asked with a slight smile.
"Maybe."
"Are you."
"Maybe."
She huffed again and licked her lips when she realized she was thirsty. She stood up and looked around the room, where the heck is the sink? She spotted the two containers again and took a sip of one.
"WHOA!"
Either the room was getting a hell of a lot bigger or she was.....SHRINKING! The contents of the room grew humongous and Lia could only watch on.
~*~
Once the transformation was complete, Lia walked around the giant floor in awe of her surroundings. She ran over to the now normal sized door and put her hands to her hips, "So are you the way out?".
"Yes."
Lia pushed on the door and walked through to the world that lied beyond.
A/N: GOMEN! Sorry, sorry, sorry! I'm soooo sorry for posting so friggin' late. Please don't come after me with pitch forks, I might not survive to write the next chapter! (by the way, if my mom finds out I'm up *this* late she will come after me with a pitch fork ::cowers in the corner:: Yipe!:: )
Riku: You'll be lucky if I don't kill you....keeping me locked away with those morons in there! ::points to her head::
Uh, before Riku starts on his ranting I'll end this to save you the discomfort.
::Riku in the lead and millions of little shadow warriors following behind him brandishing pitchforks and torches:: ATTACK!!!
AHHHHHHHHH!! Reviews welcomed, feel free to flame; I'll be sure to use em' to light my fireplace.
(P.S.: Sorry for any and all typing errors and bad use of punctuation.)
~Mandala
TBC
Mandala: *Ahem* Through out this fanfic there will be many characters and items that are in video games, I do not own any one of them, the only thing I can ever take credit for is my original characters and other ideas put into this fanfic.
Little angst demon: You must give us the precious!
Mandala: Uh....what?
Little angst demon: THE PRECIOUS! (whisper, whisper) The characters you dolt.
Mandala: Hey! That's not funny! (starts to pummel the little weirdo)
Little muse of Sappiness: (exasperated sigh) Well, since those two are so intent on beating the snot outta one another, I guess I'll have to finish... All characters from games mentioned in this fic are probably owned and licensed by Squaresoft or their own respective companies blah, blah and so on...
Little angst demon: The precious! (gets thrown into the muse o' sappiness) AHHHHHH!
Mandala: (swings a cracked wooden baseball bat around ) Argh! We're not finished you little...
(cough) Uh, anyways...
I do not get paid for the creation of this fanfic nor do I own them...Anyone want to give them to me???
But:
I write this fanfic to amuse readers.
I write this fanfic to show the world how bad my spelling is.
I write this fanfic because it was the only other thing to do at 11:30 at night.
I write this fanfic because I have no other way to express my gratitude to all of the writers/animators of great games and animes.
(Note: Because of the fact that italic writing won't show up on Fanficiton.net ((at least to my knowledge, which by the way, isn't alot)) I will be putting dreams and other special visions after this symbol *** )
Content Warning: (If any) In this 'fic there is mild use of foul language and some humor that would be considered inappropriate for younger children also, there might be so romance (still in progress with the details) but nothing is for certain...I am soooo evil.
~Have fun and don't sue!
Otherworld: The Beginning
Chapter 6
~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~
Lia washed and put away the dishes still wondering about Wonderland. The name stuck in her head, almost as if she heard it before, before... She was attacked. Alot of her life she could remember, like her full name, where she came from, movies, friends, songs and so on, but she every now and then she would draw a blank. She vaguely remembered playing video games like... and playing a game... Ugh! There it was again!
She shook off the depressing feeling and ran to her room to change out of her pajamas. Still the feeling remained; she couldn't wait to see Wonderland.
~*~
"There is no way you are going with us; it's too dangerous!" yelled Donald franticly, waving his arms around to emphasize his order. "No!No!No!NO!" he yelled again at the pleading girl. She had been begging him for the past hour as he was trying to get everything settled for the trip back to the disturbed world.
All the while, Goofy watched anxiously at the two giving slight chuckles ever so often at the scene. Lia was never one to beg, nor was Donald one to give in.
"FINE! I won't go then!" Lia huffed as she stomped away from the Gummi Garage. Donald shook his fuming head and snapped at Goofy to get back to work on the ship.
~*~
It had been a couple of weeks before Maleficent had let him out of that horrid castle of despair to wander about the worlds, disaster striking the lowly places he visited. Tasks, that was all Maleficent had given him since the first time he had seen the girl Lia, mostly his work involving finding out where she came from, a mystery to all but herself.
He huffed slightly, the matter of waking Kairi was still at hand though, and Maleficent was making no move to obtain the other Princesses of Heart. This above all annoyed him the most.
Riku traveled to Traverse Town and sat in his now frequently visited perch outside of Lia's window, just beyond the view of the widow itself. She had stomped in quite abruptly, she seemed deeply disturbed or pissed off at something. He hopped a little closer on the tile roof and strained to hear her voice, something he had become accustomed to in the last few days.
~*~
Lia folded her arms across her chest as she layed down upon her bed, fuming silently seemingly for hours. He had no respect what so ever; he was acting like such a, such a PARENT! Her cheeks turn a deep red as she thought, he had no right to *not* let her go in the first place!
Lia shot up from her bed, "Yeah! That's right! There's nothing that duck-billed howler can do from letting go to Wonderland!" She nodded once and grabbed her backpack.
~*~
'Wonderland? So that's where they're going.' Thought Riku slyly. He arched an eyebrow, why would they need to go back there? Riku took off into the air to tell Maleficent of his findings but stopped himself, why shouldn't he go to Wonderland to 'greet' them himself? Riku gave a dark chuckle and vanished into the night for Wonderland.
~*~
Lia grinned at her handiwork, her backpack was half full with things she would take. Lia clambered into her now messy closet; she pulled from the very back wall her sword, shield and wand as well as a couple of pouches of magical stuffs.
She gave a wide grin as she stole out of her room, slipping quietly past the rooms where her friends slept. Lia moved freely in the open air of the town, she took a quick look at her watch. ' Well, since it's only 9:47 I could at least wander around a bit.
As soon as she got out of the cramped hotel her mind wandered and she started to sing a bit of a song she heard on the radio once:
" Sometimes I get so weird I even freak myself out, I laugh myself to sleep it's my lullaby..."
She stopped for a moment, 'Uh, how did it go?' she searched for a moment in her cluttered mind. "Oh yeah!".
"Is it enough to love? Is it enough to breathe? Somebody rip my heart out leave me here to bleed..."
Lia laughed at her lapse of sanity and continued on through the maze of buildings. She walked down the stone roads of Traverse Town still humming the song. She passed familiar house, searching the rooftops expectantly. Suddenly a crack sounded in the heavens above, and light illuminated the town with the brilliance of the sun itself.
Lia stared disappointedly at the sky; "You could have waited at least another hour or so!"she yelled into the falling sky. She ran hurriedly to the safety of a striped overhead canopy that covered the front of a nameless shop. 'Geeze, I might as well go back.....NO! I won't give Donald the reward of seeing me fail!' she pumped a fist into the air and gave a huge smirk until, of course her stomach growled louder than the falling rain.
She grabbed her stomach tightly looking left to right to spot a diner. ' I need food....' she thought miserably. She walked clumsily down the street till she came onto Cid's humble abode. Lia pushed the door inward, and she saw Cid look up in question. "Food, must get fooood." she mumbled in-between stomps. Cid glared at her, "Oh boy, it's the walking dead." he growled in a sarcastic tone. Lia eyed him angrily and leaned heavily onto the polished brown counter top infront of him, crossing both arms infront of her to lay her head down.
Cid crossed his arms thoughtfully, "Wow, and I thought only Sora would bother asking *me* for food."
Lia stared up at him from underneath her drenched brown bangs and growled at him, "I don't need a lecture, I need food...". Cid sighed and swung the folding door that let him exit the back counter area and went through a door that Lia supposed went to the kitchen. "What do you want?" Cid yelled from the kitchen, Lia rolled her head left to right in her arms, " Beef and bell peppers!" (1).
~*~
Lia pushed her plate forward and tipped off the rest of her soda, "That was good...for an old man." she commented to the still eating Cid. Cid pushed his plate forward also and glared at Lia, "So what brings you here, other than food?" he asked with an annoyed tone. Lia leaned back farther in her chair and shifted her gaze around Cid's dining room/ kitchen area, "I want to go to Wonderland, but Donald won't let me." she stated bluntly. Cid's eyes widened by a fraction of an inch as he stared at Lia, "And he's got good reason too, you could get hurt."
'I know that.' thought Lia.
"I know that, but I still want to go." said Lia, her voice taking on a serious tone.
"You might get attacked by the Heartless, plus you have no way to get onto the Gummi Ship unless..." he trailed off for a moment, "Unless you sneak aboard." he paused again. He watched Lia push the remains of her meal into a very small pile with her fork, her face remained unreadable, "That's what you plan on doing, huh?". Lia looked up at Cid, "I want to go, and neither you nor Donald will keep me." she said fiercely.
"I'm not going to stop you, so you don't have to worry about that..." he trailed off again, "Do you need any supplies?".
Lia looked up from her plate and gave the older man a curious smile, "How could you help?" she asked suspiciously. Cid stuck up his nose and crossed his arms over his chest, "Well, if you don't need it..." he trailed off until Lia yelled 'yes' into his face. He continued "I could help you get some extra parts Sora sold to me to make you your own Gummi Ship.
Cid smiled inside as he watched Lia's face go from extremely pissed off to an ever increasing smile. "How long until it will be ready?" she asked worriedly. Cid smiled, "Well, it will take me about....oh, I'd say 2 and a half hours.", Lia smiled "Ok, I'll be back!" and ran off.
~*~
Lia gave off a smile of a spoiled child and stuffed her pack with the rest of the potions she had bought. Cid folded his arms over his chest and gave a lopsided smirk as he watched Lia pack, 'The kids got determination, I 'll give her that." . Lia put her fists on her hips as she finally managed to zip up her back, then turned to Cid and gave him and smile followed by a thumbs up.
"Now remember, once you get into the shop, you stay along the walls until you can get near it..." Cid started, the Lia cut him off "Yeah, yeah, then pop the doors and climb inside. You told me at least thirty times already." she smiled. Lia situated her belongings onto her back and went forward to the door with Cid following behind. Before she went out, she turned around and surprised Cid with a tight hug that acquainted him with the pointy end of her wand.
"Thanks you old goat... for everything." Lia said as she pulled herself off of Cid. He opened one of her small hands and dropped a key into her opened palm.
Cid smiled, " Don't you go and get yourself to beaten up by the flowers and come crying to me ya little munchkin." he said with a hint of sarcasm. "Always the pessimist aren't we?" laughed Lia as she opened the door into the town.
~*~
Maria ran her fingers through her hair, the strands falling back into place among the rest of her graying hair and closed her eyes as she rested against the door of Lia's room. It had been three weeks since Lia had left, and it wasn't getting any easier to deal with. When she had first come home that night three weeks ago and noticed Lia wasn't there she dismissed it as her going off to one of her friends houses without telling her again. But then it worried her when she didn't call or anything.
She stood by the phone all that night to wait out her confirmation call from Lia saying that she had 'just wanted some fresh air', but nothing came. The next morning she had called the police, alot of help that did though. They took a look around and asked for any reasons why she would have left and just said she might have ran off...but that couldn't be true.
Yes, it had been hard after her father left them alone when Lia was only three. And the many moves we made around the country, but she would have told her if anything was bothering her right?
Maria opened her blood shot blue eyes and sighed, maybe Lia did run away to leave her just as her father did. She lifted herself off of the door and took one look around her daughters room and went into her own room. She flopped down upon her bed and opened her nightstand to take out Lia's birth certificate, the whole thing worn with age and bent on the edges. Every night since her husband, Marcus left, she would take it out and look at it just so she wouldn't end up going crazy from the pain.
She read the faded black printed letters:
Name: Lilith Liana Valentine
Gender: Female
Date of Birth: September 10, 1989
Blood Type: O-
Weight at birth: 7 lbs. 6 oz.
Length at birth: 17 14/18 inches
Maria sighed and pushed the piece of paper back into the drawer and closed it. She turned her body and rested her head against a pillow and snuggled into it and sobbed softly.
"Maybe... she did run away."
~*~
Slowly a small figure made its way through the neon lit area that was the Third District, and into the double doors of the Gummi Garage. Lia smiled as she felt along the walls of the darkened walls, occasionally tripping and sliding. 'Geeze, why do those darned mogs turn off the lights when they leave?!', she felt along a little longer until she could see the faint outline of two Gummi ships. Lia's eyes widened, which one was which? She stared a little harder and walked up slowly to one, she peered into the glass cockpit and shook her head, 'Nope, three seats.'
Lia climbed into the small cockpit of her Gummi Ship and looked at amount of buttons and the range of sizes among them on the arm length panel. "Argh, I could have at least gotten a book of directions with this hunk-a-junk!" she grumbled, Lia flopped her weapons and her pack onto a seat behind the drivers and searched along the bottom side of the control panel for some kind of compartment. 'If cars have side compartments, then these things should have em' to!', Lia smacked the bottom of the panel and searched for a button in the dark.
She smiled evily as she found a button, assuming of course this was the button for the darn thing. She pressed the button, and was smacked in the back of the head by the falling drawer. Lia pulled herself from her increasingly uncomfortable position on the floor and picked up the upper part of her body up so it could rest on the seat while her legs flared up over the seat itself. She smiled slightly, at least Cid put a light in glove compartment. She lifted a small book out of the drawer and read the title, 'Gummi Ships for Idiots'.
'Ha ha , very funny. Ho ho, it is to laugh.' she thought with a angry sneer. Lia shifted herself until she sat upright in the drivers seat, she flipped through the pages of the book carefully until she stopped:
Chapter 7: How to use the Gummi Ship.
World Selection Screens: From this screen, you can select your world destination and access the Gummi Garage menu. Choose your destination with the directional buttons directed at the lower left hand side of the panel, then press the 'Enter' button that is located on the very right of the directional buttons, to depart. Press the 'View' button located in the very top of the directional buttons to view a selected world. Press the red 'Cancel' button located on the bottom most area near the directional buttons to cancel. Press the 'Garage' button on the very end of the panel on your right to access the Gummi Garage Menu.
While in Flight/Flight Screen: To move the Gummi Ship, move the steering controls to move the flight panels on the wings to the direction you want to go. While in flight you will encounter items, obstacles and enemies while flying. You can use equipped weapons by pressing the bright red circular buttons on top of the controls to shoot or deploy the weapons. When a Scan-Gummi is equipped onto the Gummi Ship, a radar will be displayed on the Flight Screen. The better the Scan-Gummi, the larger the area covered by the radar. At all times, a 'weapon sights' is displayed on screen. To lock onto an enemy, press down on the blue buttons on the steering controls. Also on screen is the Gummi ship' Gauges.
Gummi Ship's Gauges: Firing lasers, using a net, and so forth all consume power, which decreases the Gummi ship's power gauge (PWR). The armor gauge (ARM) decreases when the ship crashes into obstacles or enemy ships, or when it's hit by enemy fire. If the gauge reaches zero, the world selection screen appears. The charge gauge (CHG) appears when a Hatse- Gummi is equipped. It falls to zero when boosters are engaged, and then recharges over time. The shield gauge (SHD) appears when a Shield-Gummi is equipped. When the Sheild- Gummi deflects attacks, the shield gauge decreases instead of the armor gauge. However, the armor gauge decreases if a ship equipped with only a frontal shield takes damage form behind.
Lia stopped reading for a moment, 'Uh,right.' her gaze returned to the thick book. She finished not to soon after and glared at the control panel with renewed confidence. 'So, let's get this going...' she thought as she pressed the start up button. The panel came alive with color and noise and a holographic map appeared on the screen infront of her.
"Button, button. Who's got the button."
She moved her eyes from one end of the board to the other. She pressed the 'Up' directional button. "So... Where is Wonderland?" she spoke in an annoyed tone to the consol.
"It's here you moronic human." a mechanical voice chimed. Suddenly a tiny world appeared with a screen next to it naming locations that read 'Wonderland' as its title.
Lia jumped three feet off of her seat and flipped backwards over the chair and onto the floor, "What the hell was that!" she yelled franticly.
" 'That' would be model X-3982401 specialty Gummi Ship... Moron." bleeped the mechanical voice.
Lia eyed the control panel, "So I'm talking to the ship?".
"That's what I just said, or should I spell it out for you?", Lia rolled her eyes. Lia put her hand on her hips and glared angrily at the consol.
'Great, I should have known Cid would pull something like this...' , Lia cursed slightly and arranged herself back into her chair."Fine, so I thought I heard voices...again." she rolled her eyes.
"Alright, since we have confirmed your complete lack of intelligence..." Lia glared angrily at consol, "...we can continue." Lia was about to yell at the little- whatever, when a small arrow pointed upward to the locations, "Just incase you *hadn't* read the guide book and all twenty-seven of its chapters, you would know that this is the box of destinations already discovered or visited by Sora and his company. If you move you hand over to the little buttons that say 'Up' and 'Down' you can pick where you want to go."
Lia's eye twitched angrily as she tried her hardest to *not* bash the screen in. "Frankly, I think you should go to the first location on the list, just so you can get the full experience of getting yourself into trouble, not just jumping around." said the monotone voice.
"Smart ass."
The computerized voice bleep and responded: "Smart, the act of being of heightened intelligence; Ass, slang term for the human buttocks; donkey.", Lia rolled her eyes again and gave a huff of annoyance. "Geeze, I think I've met my match...Well then, we'll go to the first place on the list."
~*~
Lia landed head first into a crazed looking room. Clocks lined the wooden circular room, furniture ranging in designs lined the walls only... they weren't exactly three dimensional. The whole room looked like a painted on background giving Lia a claustrophobic feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Lia growled, that was the last time she was going to trust a bloody computer!
Her eyes shifted nervously over the room and she walked slowly down the long corridor. The hall ended abruptly and she stood in the middle of a small room. A twin sized bed stood alone in the corner as well as a chair and a few bookcases. What Lia assumed to be the focal point in the room was a small round wooden table in the center of the room. The curious looking vials stood proudly against the dark surface; their bright colors adding a light splash against the table.
Lia's shoes clunked against the tiled floor as she walked closer to the table. She extended a thin arm to the surface of the table and lazily ran her fingers across its polished surface. She trailed around it until her left foot hit the wall and it gave a loud yelp.
Okay...
Lia, startled by the new sound, tripped on one of the legs of the table and fell unceremoniously to the floor. She opened her eyes and rolled them about for a moment until her sight came to rest on the source of the scream. A small, no, a very small door stood out against the white wall scrunching its... doorknob...or nose and grunting.
"Ouch! Watch were you step you little..."
Lia gave a cry and rolled onto her back to get up to run but stopped when the door person spoke: "You could at least apologize for your behavior...miss." Lia's lips turned into an awkward smile and she laughed nervously, "Uh, yeah sure....sorry 'bout that uh?". The doorknob turned itself slightly to take a better look at the girl and it wrinkled its nose slightly in thought, "Better than most I suppose.". Lia glared angrily at the door and gritted her teeth, "What was that?!" she huffed.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing."
"Keep it that way."
Lia shifted in her upright position and pressed her face close to the door, "Are you the way out of this room?" she asked with a slight smile.
"Maybe."
"Are you."
"Maybe."
She huffed again and licked her lips when she realized she was thirsty. She stood up and looked around the room, where the heck is the sink? She spotted the two containers again and took a sip of one.
"WHOA!"
Either the room was getting a hell of a lot bigger or she was.....SHRINKING! The contents of the room grew humongous and Lia could only watch on.
~*~
Once the transformation was complete, Lia walked around the giant floor in awe of her surroundings. She ran over to the now normal sized door and put her hands to her hips, "So are you the way out?".
"Yes."
Lia pushed on the door and walked through to the world that lied beyond.
A/N: GOMEN! Sorry, sorry, sorry! I'm soooo sorry for posting so friggin' late. Please don't come after me with pitch forks, I might not survive to write the next chapter! (by the way, if my mom finds out I'm up *this* late she will come after me with a pitch fork ::cowers in the corner:: Yipe!:: )
Riku: You'll be lucky if I don't kill you....keeping me locked away with those morons in there! ::points to her head::
Uh, before Riku starts on his ranting I'll end this to save you the discomfort.
::Riku in the lead and millions of little shadow warriors following behind him brandishing pitchforks and torches:: ATTACK!!!
AHHHHHHHHH!! Reviews welcomed, feel free to flame; I'll be sure to use em' to light my fireplace.
(P.S.: Sorry for any and all typing errors and bad use of punctuation.)
~Mandala
TBC
