Crowned Hearts Chapter Fourteen

By Blue Dragon

"Now, since this baby hasn't ever been to Gaia, we're going to have to fly there ourselves. That simple"

"What if we run into enemy ships!" Riku and Sora asked simultaneously.

Old man sat down in his seat in the back left of the cockpit.

"Well, there aren't any other ships within a million miles of here, and we're in a MIR class Gummis ship. Nothing can go wrong"

Riku and Sora relaxed, but Riku more as Sora was still expecting an explanation.

"Hey Riku?" he asked walking over to his friend at the wall.

"Yeah?" Riku asked turning away from the windows.

"How long will we be gone?"

"Maybe for a few days."

"WHAT!" Sora leapt a good five feet into the air.

"Relax man, only a few minutes will pass. Remember Chuckis' dog? After all that time we were gone he wasn't even hungry. Time compresses when you travel further away from a world.

"No it doesn't"

Riku cocked his head at him.

"Yes it does"

"No, you see we learned in science class. As you travel away from a planet, the rate at which it's spinning continuously gets faster and faster because you're distant. Therefore, if we were ten million miles away, then the time back home would go almost twice as fast compared to here!"

"You made that up"

"No! Remember Hades? And how he would rotate around and around with fire coming out of his hands? It seemed to be a lot slower when you were actually right next to him, but it went WAY faster when you were far away. The further away you are from something spinning, the faster it seems to go."

"Huh?"

"Think about me holding a rope, and you were right in front of me. Then if I started spinning, you could keep up easily. Then, if you were a mile away and you were holding a stick connected to me, you'd have a hard time. It would take me a few seconds to make a 360 degree turn, and the other end would have to go a few miles in just that time!"

"Oh.well you still forgot one thing?"

"What?" Sora asked with a skeptical look.

"Our home isn't a planet. It's a world. And worlds aren't usually round."

"Oh yeah.never mind then"

Riku slapped his head on his forehead, regretting his stupidity for having argued with Sora about something scientific for two minutes.

"Hey you two!"

Riku and Sora turned to Old man.

"There's a bandit closing at twelve!"

"What?" asked Sora, the second 'what' of a few minutes.

"A bandit is an enemy ship, twelve is right in front of us!"

Sure enough, filling the screen was a large fleet of Alexander modeled ships. And they looked just like heartless ships.

"You said there wouldn't be any more of them!" shouted Riku.

"I didn't count on it, honest! We'll just have to fly past 'em"

Riku immediately grabbed the controls before Sora could touch them. He jabbed some buttons and four rapid-fire Meteor-G's and two Ultima-G's began to blast away uncontrollably. As the blue and purple beams lanced across space, the Akujiki began to speed up at the same time the Alexander models began to slow in space, attempt to evade, and then fly towards the Akujiki leaving trails of fire in the blue space.

"Ahhhh!" Sora screamed.

"Ahhhh!" Riku agreed.

Just as the first seven converged on the temporarily defenseless ship, the two Ultima lasers circled back around and bounced wildly across the battlefield, decimating the mechs. The sixteen Meteor lasers that had then been fired slammed into ten more Alexanders, and finally the remaining two decided that they were smart enough to motor out of the battlefield.

Riku sat back in his chair and let out a wicked laugh.

"Lets see those Heartless mess with us!" he said.

"Nice goin' Riku" commented Sora. "Donald would have gone crazy if he had to fight all those."

"It was nothin'. This is a nice ship you got here, old man" Riku said looking at him.

"You think so? This is the first time I've seen her in action. Its not bad a 'tall"

"I have got to get one of these.are we there yet?" Sora looked at the large window.

"Well." Old man looked at some sort of computer screen and his eyes became bright.

"Gaia's just up ahead. That's where we'll find the first link to the world of spirits"

"The world of spirits?" Sora asked.

"You see, we have to find links to other worlds layer by layer. We go to Gaia, then another world, then through that another, then through that one more, and then through there we go to a world of spirits. We're sure to find Riku's lost friend"

Sora looked at Riku skeptically.

"What about this lost friend? I don't remember her at all. Are you sure she existed?"

"Yes! Yes okay?! Nothing could feel that real and be fake. She told me you wouldn't remember her at all, but you once knew her. Just a few days ago!"

"If you say so." It was obvious in his voice that Sora was still skeptical.

Soon, Gaia was visible in the midst of the blue. It started out small speck and didn't even look like a planet. After a while it got bigger. And bigger. And bigger still until Sora and Riku couldn't believe that an eighth of a planet could fill up the whole screen.

"That thing is huge!" yelled Riku.

"Pipe down. We're just in atmosphere right now. The Akujiki says that when we land we should be right over the spot where we have to be"

"Where will take the Akujiki?" Sora didn't remove his eyes from the screen.

"Well, we'll have to park him in a safe place."

"Him?" Sora gave Old man a skeptical look. "Shouldn't you say 'her'"

"That's for fools and rabbits. Any real man calls a ship a 'him'"

Sora took two good steps in the opposite direction.

In a few minutes the Akujiki settled on the top of a large stone structure.

"Perfect! I'll never find Lisa if we can't even get down to where we're supposed to! This big castle is in the way!"

"Pipe down! We'll just leave this baby on the top and keep going straight down. All we have to do is find stairs and."

Riku stepped out of the cockpit and held his keyblade high into the air. He jumped twenty feet into the air, did a double back flip, aimed his keyblade downwards, and yelled:

"Ultima!"

Black and purple lights momentarily replaced the sky and dark plumes of energy spewed out of the keyblade, converging on the stone top of the structure and crashing down through one.two.three.four.five.six.seven floors of marble, stone, granite, wood, sheetrock, steel, and some unsuspecting fool's cap. Riku landed at the bottom and tucked his keyblade back into the makeshift sheath on his waders. Sora and Old man were shaken by the blast, and struggled to keep their balance on the cracked stone. Before they had regained their balance, the stone gave out and they fell down, slammed their heads on the marble, were toppled when their legs hit the stone, smashed their ankles again on the granite, broke their heads right through the wood, were poked in the backside by some sheetrock, smashed their groins on the steel, and fell right through the spot where a man's cap once was. They landed in a bruised heap next to Riku.

"Riku!"

"Sonny Jim!"

They both yelled their personal ways to address the silver haired son-of-a- swordsman.

"You guys should have kept your balance. But I'm glad you're here now."

Old man stood up with pride.

".Sora. Now I can use your keyblade."

Sora gave Riku a dirty look and stood up, brushing off the dirt from his clothes and looking around. The place had large gray brick walls, no lighting, and a dirt ground. It must have been the dungeon of whatever place this was.

A black hole appeared in front of Riku.

"Awesome! Let's go to the next layer!"

"Uh, Riku?" Sora pointed to the hole.

Heartless of all kinds started spewing out.

"I think we have company"

Riku pulled out his keyblade slowly.

"Well noted"