A/N: You people aren't reviewing enough… well, except for Angewomon2000. This chapter's for you!
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Kingdom Hearts or Dark Cloud 2. Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square and Disney and Dark Cloud 2 is owned by Level 5. If, by request, Square or Level 5 does not want this on the Internet, I will remove all traces of it.
"Speech" "Thought" –Emphasis-
Dark Hearts
PT 2 – Wonders of the Forest
"So, what weapons do you two use?" Sora asked, striking conversation.
"I prefer a wrench or hammer and a gun," Max answered. "The wrench or hammer may not look good, but it's pretty damn useful."
"Swords and magic armlets are the way to go for me," replied Monica. "So what weapons do you use?"
"I use a staff or rod for magic," Donald responded.
"I use a shield to knock 'em down," was Goofy's answer.
"And I use a Keyblade," was Sora's proud answer.
"Yeah, I noticed you using a large key, is that it?" Max questioned.
"But you don't have any weapons on you," Monica observed.
"Oh, don't I?" Was Sora's mysterious answer.
Sora raised his right arm and materialized the Oblivion Keyblade. He still had not synthesized enough to get the Ultima Keychain, so he settled for the Oblivion, although settled may be too harsh of a word.
"I also use it to seal worlds."
"Seal worlds?" Max asked. "Why would you want to do that?"
"To prevent the Heartless from attacking," Sora answered.
"The Heartless?" Max asked. "You mean those dark creatures?"
"Yes," Donald answered.
"If you're not to careful, they may steal your hearts," warned Goofy.
"And that's why I have to seal the worlds. Sealing the worlds prevents the Heartless from taking the hearts of the innocent," Sora finished.
"Wow," Monica said, amazed.
"Well, we're here at the turning point," Max said while pointing at the tree that divided the "floors" of the forest. "Who's got the Fairy Saw?"
"I got it," said Monica while brandishing it.
She brought the sharp blade down on the tree, slicing it clean in half. As soon as the Fairy Saw did its job, it disappeared. Suddenly, the large tree collapsed across the river, giving them access.
~*~
After walking through the lush forest, killing monsters and Heartless alike, cutting down trees with Fairy Saws, they arrived at a pond. Surprisingly, the 4 missing Firbit's were found at the site, but they seemed… strange.
"Hey you!" Sora tried to get their attention, but to no avail.
"They don't even react from physical touch, either," Max noted while lightly hitting one in the head.
The Firbit's seemed entranced, moving only ever so slightly, but there was one that was not entirely affected. The male Firbit was perched on a sturdy log, fishing rod in hand. The long fish cord was extended into the little pond in front of him. It would seem obvious to anyone that he was fishing. And this is no exception.
Goofy cautiously walked up to him. "Excuse me, bu-."
"What do ya have there?" The Firbit sniffed the air. "Smells like wine."
"Oh, that's right!" Max exclaimed while fumbling around his bag.
He eventually brought out a bottle of fine grape wine. The ones Firbit's like best.
"Here you go."
The Firbit eagerly took it and drank it all in one big gulp. After lingering on the taste, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Thank you." The Firbit said. "Here, take some bait and my fishing rod. Ain't doing me no good."
Sora walked up to the Firbit and took it from him.
"That didn't get us any closer from bringing the Firbit's back. They won't even budge!" Monica complained.
"Maybe there's a cure somewhere deeper in this dungeon. Let's go take a look." Donald suggested.
Sora led the way through shrouds of bushes and trees. Max often fell into a puddle of water due to his clumsiness. It was strange that there were no monsters or Heartless in this area, but who's complaining? They stopped near a big pond to take a breather and eat some food.
Sora materialized his Keyblade and began doing his normal practice routines. He began by taking long breaths, and slow swings of the Keyblade. He imaged it as apart of his arm to create unity. His attacks began to increase in pace, and soon he was doing twirls and jumps.
Donald and Goofy, on the other hand, weren't doing anything that extreme. Donald sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed in meditation. He always said that meditation increases mental stability, increasing effects in magical abilities. While those two were off practicing, Goofy just fine-tuned his shield, Save The King.
On the other side of the pond sat Max and Monica who were sharing their lunches. Max brought a good ol' home made hamburger, while Monica had a salad and some fruits. Max was eating kind of sloppy, and there were many dirty paper towels lying. Max took one final bite of his burger and wiped off his face, but missed the spot underneath his nose.
Monica had to suppress a giggle.
"What's wrong?" Max asked his giggling friend.
"Y-you have something on your nose!"
"I do? Where?" Max tried in vain to wipe it off with his paper towel.
"No, not there. Let me do it for you." Monica took the paper towel from Max's hand and began to wipe it clean.
Monica was supporting her weight with one hand while wiping Max's face with the other. Monica leaned in a bit more to wipe the sauce off of Max's cheek, She leaned in a bit too much and her hand slipped. She fell forward and pushed Max on his back, her falling on top of him, her face only mere inches from his.
Monica felt the blush appearing on her cheeks, so she immediately tried to get off. She put her hands on the floor and pushed herself up, but was surprised by the fact that Max's arms were around her waist!
"Wait," he protested. "Can we stay like this for a bit longer?"
Monica's blush reddened as she nodded in approval. She leaned her on his shoulder, taking in his scent. "Oh my god, what is he doing!? He's –actually- hugging me! This is like a dream come true!"
Max tightened his grip around her waist. "Doesn't this seem right to you?" He gentle stroked her long red hair.
Monica quickly looked up and saw his smiling face. "W-what?"
"Doesn't this seem right? Don't you like this feeling of us being close together, or us hugging each other?"
"Y-yeah."
He smirked. "Then I'm sure you'll like this as well." Max slowly leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.
"OH! MY! GOD! He's –kissing- me! This feels so good!"
All their problems in the world, every single insecurity, everything else in the world seemed to disappear in Moinica's mind. All she could see was herself and Max, embracing and kissing each other.
The site caused Sora to stop sparring with an imaginary person. A tear slowly trickled down his eye as he thought about Kairi. How he wished that it was he and Kairi in their positions. He angrily wiped away the tears and began to spar again, practicing his moves with more ferocity.
Max slowly ended the kiss and looked into her deep ruby eyes.
"What was that for?" Monica asked, flustered.
"That was just a way of showing that I love you." Max leaned down and kissed her again.
This time, Monica eagerly returned the kiss.
~*~
"Master Utan, are you alright?" Monica asked, worried.
"Ughhh… aghhh," the giant ape moaned.
"What happened, are you sick?" Sora questioned.
"Ate… apples… must… have… been… poisoned," Utan responded.
They group looked down and saw a couple of eaten apples and 4 fresh ones.
"Don't worry, Utan, you'll be fine in a few hours." Monica explained. "Do you know what happened to the Firbit's?
"It was probably… King Mardan," Utan said. "He's in the pond over there. He likes apples, so take these ones."
Max walked over to the four poison apples and placed them in his bag along with the fishing rod. The group walked back to the pond, and Max and Monica blushed a bit. This was the place they had first kissed, and it was not even an hour ago!
"Well, I guess we should start," Sora suggested.
Max prepared the fishing rod by hooking the poison apple at the end. He gripped the handle of the fishing rod, lifted it above his head, and strongly threw the apple in. It bobbed on the water as tiny fish began to nibble at it. One bite from the apple and all the fish scurried away. Things began to get boring after waiting for ten minutes, and everyone was just lying around. The sudden jerking of the apple, and the vibration of the fishing rod caused everyone to jump.
Max was pulled forward a bit, but stood his ground. "I got it!"
He was slowly being pulled into the water, and to prevent that from happening, everyone went to help. They all grunted in unison as they all pulled their hardest, bringing up the famous King Mardan.
"Ohh, who are you?" King Mardan winked as he said this.
"Uh, he he, we need you to help cure the Firbit's," Max said nervously.
"Ohh!" Mardan squealed. "I'll help you, but I'm so dirty!" She demonstrated by twirling her body.
Everyone sweat-dropped.
"Oohohoho, I need you to catch me a Priscleen fish to clean my body," Mardan requested. "It's not in this pond, otherwise I'd get it myself."
"We'll do our best," Monica said.
~*~
"Priscleen fish, eh?" The Firbit asked while rubbing his chin. "Might find one here, but I hear they only like Mimi's. Well, here ya go!"
Pond after pond, they fished for… minutes! They checked every pond but one, and that was their last hope. Max walked over to the edge of the pond, fishing rod ready, and tossed in the bait. Seconds later, there was a small tug on the wire, so Max quickly pulled it out. He held the fish by the hook, which was firmly placed in its mouth.
"Is this a Priscleen?" Goofy asked.
"Looks like you got yerselfs a Priscleen," the Firbit answered.
~*~
"Ohh, I feel so clean now!" Mardan rejoiced.
"We've held up our part, now you do yours," Sora demanded.
"Right right," Mardan said. The fish puckered his lips and a bright light erupted out of nowhere. "There, they're back to normal!"
The group ran backwards and saw that all the Firbit's were "waking up." Max and Monica smiled.
~*~
"Oh thank you so much for reuniting us with our friends, but I'm afraid we have to ask one more thing of you," the lead Firbit said.
"What is it," Monica asked sweetly.
"Oy… it's a long story."
The Firbit's began to tell them of their story, the story concerning a girl named Holly. They said that the girl, Holly, wandered into their home. In trade for staying at their house, she would do housework, you know, clean the house, cook the meals, everything to that sort. One day, she wandered into the forest for some berries, but she never came back.
"That's so sad," Monica wept a bit, but was comforted by Max's arms around her shoulders.
"We want you to go and find Holly, but for what you've done for us so far, we'll let you use Carpenterion!"
"Carpenterion?" The heroes asked in wonder.
"Carpenterion is the tool we use to restore origin points! It can create buildings, fences, gates, and even natural stuff like trees and rivers! All you have to do is collect the right materials and wham-o, Carpenterion will place whatever you've built. The problem is that it requires Geostones to work. Geostones is basically the schematics for the stuff it's building."
"So we use this to build houses and stuff to restore the origin points?" Max asked.
"You got it!" The Firbit, Conda, smiled.
Our heroes boarding the mighty Carpenterion and familiarized themselves with its controls. At the bridge, there were two joysticks for movement. One for direction, and one for up and down. Then there were many other joysticks that controlled the movement of the arms. There were many different view screens to show the different angles. Many buttons were strewn across the control panel, each with its own unique purpose.
They decided to go out and discover more of the forest. Sora, Donald, and Goofy decided to try and collect some basic materials, such as wood and stone. Max and Monica, while travelling through the very small village, a red portal was visible in the horizon. They quickly ran up to it and Monica instantly recognized it.
"I knew I forgot something!" Monica exclaimed.
"And that would be…" Max asked.
"This is a time gate. It enables us to go forward or backwards through time, 100 years! Your red Atlamillia allows you to travel forwards, while my blue Atlamillia allows me to travel backwards! This is how we make sure we restored the origin points. You see, what we do here will affect the future. Let's say we build a pond. Most likely, that pond will be here in the future!" Monica took a breather. "We have to keep building stuff until we fully restore Jurak, and we can find out by going to the future."
"I see…" Max said, trying to understand this new information.
"We got some materials, but not enough. I think we need to search for Geostones as well," Sora intervened.
"What were you two discussing?" Goofy asked.
Max told Sora and the gang all about what he had just been told, trying to simplify it because he hardly understood it as well.
"Well if you're going to restore this "origin point," why don't you two return to Palm Brinks to get people while us here get the Geostones?" Sora suggested.
"That's a great idea!" Monica said.
~*~
So while Max and Monica were back at Palm Brinks, here was Sora, Goofy, and Donald fighting off another Moler.
"Gawrsh, these things are tough!" Goofy commented while dodging another jump attack.
"Not without magic," Donald said while zapping it with Thunder. A weak monster should be killed with a weak attack.
The trio walked through the maze of the forest, stopping here and there to kill off the odd monster. They came upon a small floating piece of rock. Sora reached out his hand and examined. The feel of it instantly reminded himself of the Geostone that Conda showed him. Donald took it and placed it in his bag.
Heartless began to appear around them. Some appeared from the ground, and some came out with a POP noise. They began to fill up the entire corridor they were in.
"I figured they'd sent a lot more," Sora said cockily.
"They just never learn."
Sora leapt forward and performed a Sonic Blade. Sora appeared to be a greenish reddish blur for a few seconds as he passed through a number of Heartless. Goofy followed suit and rushed a Heartless into another. Donald targeted a large group of Heartless and performed Firaga. Sora exited out of this Sonic Blade and quickly used Arcs Arcanum on a group of Heartless. His quick movements were too quick for those unlucky Heartless to catch, and they were quickly sliced up. Donald casted numerous spells while Goofy ran into many Heartless.
"So that's all of 'em?" Sora asked while looking around.
"Guess so," Goofy answered.
"Let's get going."
~*~
When Sora, Goofy, and Donald got back to Sindain, they were surprised to find many houses, populated with many people. The trio went to the middle of the village and found Max and Monica, holding hands and quite flustered. Max's hat was off and his head was messed up.
"What happened between you two?" Sora asked.
"Nothing!" Max and Monica said in unison, both blushing deeply (A/N: I'll leave it up to you to decide what they did ¬_¬)
"So, anyway, what do you have to report?" Max asked.
"We got to the area Conda said the Rainbow Butterfly would be at, but it's not there." Sora reported.
"Hmm… maybe we should ask Jurak, he might know!" Monica suggested.
"Gawrsh, you two should go, I'm awfully tired for the day," Goofy yawned.
Donald did likewise. "We're done for the day."
~*~
The morning sun poked through the lush trees and shined inside the small one-story house. Sora, Goofy, and Donald all slept in separate beds, but Max and Monica slept in one bed. During yesterday's adventure, Max and Monica talked to Jurak, after they restored him of course, and he said that the needed two things: the Lafrescia Seed and the Sun Dew. Jurak had given them the Lafrescia Seed, but said that he didn't have any Sun Dews. He also said that the monsters Himarra have some, but they needed the Himarra badge.
Monica had explained to Max that she could transform into a monster, as long as she had the badge. They searched around Future Sindain and found a good magic shop. The Himarra badge cost a whopping 500 Gilda.
As soon as the two of them got back, they went searching through the forest and found a Himarra. Max kept his distance while Monica transformed. At one moment, she became entirely naked, and Max forcibly looked in another direction. When she got the Sun Dew, she threw her arms around Max and hugged him deeply.
Sora was the first to wake up, and he changed into his normal clothes. He walked outside and willed his Keyblade to come, and began his normal practice routine. It was a good hour later when everyone woke up.
Sora led the way through the forest, and went to the spring that he found. Max threw in the Lafrescia Seed while Monica sprayed the Sun Dew all over it. Instantly, it grew into a huuuge plant. There was no way to get up.
"Now what?" Sora asked, frustrated.
As if answering Sora, a large vine appeared before them. Max got the idea and began to climb up, Monica following suit. Goofy reached for the vine, but it shot up and avoided their grasps. It flung Max and Monica to the top of the flower, and they landed with a thud. Max was the first to his feet, and he helped Monica up.
A loud screech alerted them of the Rainbow Butterfly. It flew towards them, but then suddenly stopped in the middle of the flower. The tendrils of the flowers went rigid and began to shoot pollen at the Rainbow Butterfly. It separated into seven separate butterflies and landed on a petal. Max and Monica chased after one of them, but it flew up and shot a blast of energy at them.
Max held Monica in his arms as she fell back. "This isn't working!"
Max took aim at one of the butterflies, the green one, and let the bullet fly. The bullet hit home and the butterfly scrambled above the flower. It called out its brothers and sisters and they merged to form one again. It began to shoot energy blasts at them two.
Monica took note of the tendrils giving off the pollen, and began to strike it with her sword. The tendrils dropped back down and the Rainbow Butterfly separated again. Monica took aim with her wrist band, and was about to fire but was stopped by Max.
"Notice their colour patterns?" Max asked while looking at them.
"Yeah?" Monica answered. She took a good look at each of their colours. "They're the colours of a rainbow!"
"You're right. I think that we have to shoot all the butterflies in order of the rainbow to kill this monster."
Max took his gun, and remembering school for the order of the rainbow, ROYGIBIV, shot them in order. They screamed out in agony as they joined together. A bright light flashed from it, and it took the form of a girl.
"Who are you?" Max asked, pointing his gun at her.
"Hello, my name is Holly."
~*~
"And that's it," Monica explained to the Firbit's.
"She also told us to give this to you," Max held in his hand a note.
"Thank you for all you've done. Could you please excuse us? We'd like to read this note in private," Conda said.
The group exited their house, and walked back to the train.
"Hey! We finished moving the blocks!" Borneo waved to the group, Eric following behind.
"Hey, good timing too! We're done here, so let's get on our way!" Max shouted back.
They all boarded the train and went to take a seat, Monica resting her head on Max's shoulder. The whole group went through a couple of hectic days.
Cedric started the train's engine up and it started with a bang. It zoomed from its stationary position and headed to its next destination, Balance Valley.
A/N: Sorry if I got any names or events wrong. I haven't played DC 2 or KH in awhile. Hopefully, I'll get more reviews.
