Crowned Hearts Chapter
Fifteen
By
Blue Dragon
Heartless swarmed around and over every layer of
the dungeon.
"Will you be able to defend yourself Old
man?" Riku asked as he went back to back with Sora.
"That
won't be a problem" Old man said, pulling out a Kalashnikov
assault rifle.
"What the?" Sora asked.
"You
think I go defenseless?" Old man asked, blasting away at the
heartless. The charging shadows fell as bullets pierced into them and
Sora and Riku didn't even have to lift a finger.
"Heh.
Don't interfere with our progress!" He put the Kalashnikov back
in the hidden holster inside his overcoat behind him.
Slowly
at first, and then more rapidly, defender heartless appeared. They
held their shields high, the wolves on them growling and snarling,
preparing for fire and blizzard spells.
Old man gulped,
noticing that his bullets bounced right off the shields.
"Sora,
we might have a problem" Riku stated the obvious.
"Out
of my castle!" A figure in jeans and a vest jumped out of
nowhere, and started slashing away, his double blade piercing the
shields and turning the heartless into nothing but . . . munny. And
lots of it, too.
"We're friggin' rich!" yelled Riku,
dropping the keyblade and picking up all of the stray munny.
"Save
some for me!" yelled Old man.
"Wait for me!"
Sora ran over and started picking up the munny as well. The three
were so obsessed with picking up the cash, they didn't even notice
the sixteen-year old Terran standing there tapping his foot.
"Excuse
me?" he asked.
The three of them looked up.
"Yeah?"
Riku asked.
"Why did you make holes through every layer
of my castle!" he asked angrily pointing upwards.
"Uh,
why do you ask?" asked Riku.
"Lets see? I live here.
. . I rule here. . . and its extremely expensive to repair it. I
deserve an explanation."
"Just who are you?"
asked Sora.
"I'm Zidane! King of Alexandria!"
Riku
stood up and gave him a funny look.
"You don't really
look like a king"
"That's because I hate the
outfit"
"And you seem pretty young" Sora
added.
"Hey, I'm the second king of Alexandria in
history!"
Sora, Riku, and Old man looked at each other,
and then burst out laughing.
Zidane looked even
angrier.
"King? What was that sound?" a pawn
asked.
Sora, Riku, and Old man immediately stopped
laughing.
"Never mind. Leave me be for now"
"Yes
sire" the pawn said, bowing and exiting the room.
"As
I was saying" Zidane said, putting away his blade the Ultima
Weapon.
"Uh. . . sorry. We'll fix your castle as soon as
we get back" Riku said, heading for the hole in the
ground.
"Why not now?" Zidane asked, his mood
softening.
"Well, I have somewhere to be"
"Huh.
I'll just follow you and make sure you come back to pay for all of
this! Who are you, anyway?"
"Just call me Old
man"
"My name's Sora."
"And I'm
Riku. . . why do you have a tail?"
". . . I'm a
Terran, a geno- wait a minute, why am I telling you this? Get us
movin'"
"Just follow me"
Riku dove into
the hole into another layer to another world, Sora immediately after,
and then Old man.
"I know I'm not going to like this. . .
" Zidane said as he jumped in after them just as the hole
closed.
The four flew downwards in a mass of blue that looked
just like the borders between worlds that they had been traveling
through in gummi ships. The went down head first and their hair flew
back.
Riku looked next to him, where Zidane was, falling just
as fast.
"Shouldn't you be ruling a kingdom!" he
yelled.
"That's none of your concern!"
"You
like Shirley and Laverne!?" he yelled over the roaring
noise.
"I said none of your concern!"
"Make
a left turn!?"
"None of your CONCERN!"
"Your
mother was real stern!?"
"NONE OF YOUR
CONCERN!"
"When will you ever learn!?"
"None
of your mother-friggin business you hobo!"
Riku heard
that just fine.
The four plunged down further and faster until
no one could hear anything aside from the roaring noise. Finally the
four landed on their feet in a grove of endless wild white crystals
glowing and shining everywhere on various trees, plants, and just
lying around.
"Uh, where are we now?" Zidane and
Riku asked at the same time.
"I believe we've reached the
spirit world. Your girlfriend should be here, Riku"
Sora
expected him to say something like 'she's not my girlfriend!', but he
only beamed.
"Then I'm off!" Riku ran into the
distance, once again leaving the group alone.
Old man shook
his head.
"That boy. He didn't even wait for my
directions. Always running off and never waiting for us"
Zidane
looked at him.
"So what exactly are we here for?"
"This
boy's looking for his girlfriend, claims she disappeared. She should
be here."
"Disappeared? I don't get it."
Suddenly,
in a pool next to them, a boy with seventeen-year-old boy in
unsymmetrical clothing flipped up from the pool professionally, and
dove downwards.
"He looked a lot like a grown-up Tidus.
He seemed to be practicing that game that Wakka and Tidus said they'd
call blitzball" Sora explained.
"See! This is where
the spirits go when they disappear from sight and someone's heart.
The presence of another proves it." Old man said, pointing to
the distant fields and cliffs of white crystal.
"Huh"
Zidane said as more of a neutral and bored statement than a
question.
"When can we leave so you can pay for my
castle?"
"Later. We can't get out of this place
until Riku finds his love"
"What!" Sora and
Zidane yelled simultaneously before realizing there mistake.
Old
man tsked at them.
"You don't think that Riku's love
exists, do you? And you think we'll be here forever? Well, let me
tell you, we couldn't even be here unless there was someone that Riku
really loved. And that spirit is definitely here. So don't worry.
Besides, the time we spend here doesn't carry on the next
world"
"Worlds?" Zidane asked.
"For
get it monkey-boy. Just sit tight"
Zidane slammed his
hand on his forehead, hating the name that people always developed
for him.
Sora, Zidane, and Old man started trekking through
the crystals to where Riku had run off to, hoping that he hadn't
gotten too far.
Riku looked around and was surprised. In white
crystal pods were bodies. All kinds of bodies pretty much naked
except for the opaque crystal lining that covered them from the neck
and down.
He searched amidst the bodies lined neatly on the
blue wall. He thought they were probably the spirits of other
people.
"Where is she?" he asked to himself. He
looked around, seeing quite a few girls but not his beautiful
Lisa.
"She has to be somewhere . . . goodness . . . "
he couldn't seem to find Lisa anywhere.
He looked behind him
and saw Sora, Old man, and Zidane enter.
"Must be lookin'
for me. Anyway . . . " he ignored them and continued looking
around.
His eyes widened in happiness when he saw her,
beautiful as ever, wrapped up in crystal. Lisa was right before his
eyes. His eyes then widened, as he looked at her sleeping figure.
When he got close, she started breathing, and life seemed to come
into her.
"Woah"
He was just inches away from
seeing Lisa again.
