Hiya! How ya'll doin'? Sorry I'm late, I'm a Senior, ya'll know how it
'tis. Hey, guess what? YESTERDAY WAS MY BIRTHDAY! I AM 18! I'm an adult.
shoots a furtive glance round Riiiiiiiight.
I need reviews! I'm bleeding from lack of love!
Please?
Oh, well, here's Chappie 8.
Chapter 8: Where Oh Where?
The little bell on the Pizza Hut door jangled once again. Sora had barely glanced up when he was knocked clean out of his chair and pulled into one of the worst versions of a hug he'd ever come across. He later found out that it was properly termed as a "glomp," something he would be on the receiving end of for quite some time.
"Sorasorasorasora! AIiiiiiiIIEEE! I missed you SSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much, Sora!"
"Renee, get off her before you kill her," Blank smirked in an unmasked effort not to laugh. "Oh, pizza's here, look, 'Nee."
Sora stood, dumbfounded, as the monstrously hyper girl swung back around to attack the pizza, only to discover that there wasn't one. Al had the decency to hide his smile as he slid in next to Kyle.
"Hey, squirt, you grew!" Kyle chuckled. Al grinned.
"Sora, sit down!" Renee shouted, patting the seat beside her. Gulping in his mind alone, he slid in beside her. "So, have you beat Kingdom Hearts yet? We all know you like Riku! There's no point denying it!"
She shot furtive grins all around the table.
Sora, however, was grimacing in disgust. Him and Riku?! Who had ever thought of that? Then again, here he was, in a woman's body, feeling little back-flips every time Kyle moved. What was going on? Maybe something had gone wrong and the dimensions were trying to mold back together again.
"Pizza!" Renee shouted shrilly. Indeed, the pies had arrived.
Everyone dug in, and for a while no one spoke. A few minutes into the meal, Kyle suddenly sat up and looked at his surroundings again. Blank glanced at him and nodded to his plate. He nodded slowly and resumed eating. Renee watched the entire exchange with a gleam in her eyes unlike any Sora had ever seen.
Kyle, who had been so loud and rambunctious prior to this, remained quiet throughout the rest of the meal. Despite everything that had happened, Sora did not find this too unusual, and so continued eating without qualms. Blank seemed uneasy, but she was good with it. Sora assumed she was just worried about the room.
Blank and Kyle went back to the Jem household, Freda and Terra to the Maps. With Kyle's strange behavior still on the brain, he settled down to sleep. His brain was still swarming with bits of information, still on that strange song he'd heard in the car, still musing over a thousand different worries. He finally fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes again, he was standing on a strange island. Rain was falling all around, wind whipping the trees from their roots, and yet he was still warm and dry. He looked down and gasped aloud. The sound was snatched away in the wind, though he felt it not.
Sora was back in his own body.
"H-Hello?" he whispered hoarsely. His voice! "It's back! I'm back! But...where am I?"
"Ri-Riku! I don't know what to do! How do I fight—"
"You'll learn later."
"Riku!" Sora shouted to him. It was Riku! And that...that's Terra. The real Terra? "I'm not going anywhere. I don't care about the stupid story anymore. This isn't Kingdom Hearts anymore. This is our story, and we'll tell it like we want to tell it." He grinned at her.
"You mean it?" Terra looked at him hopefully. Yeah, that was definitely the real Terra. Her smile turned to a grimace. A black creature had suddenly struck her in the arm. Blood streamed down her arm as she struck her own stance. It wasn't a very good one, either.
"You're too open," Riku said. "Put your foot closer in, bend your knees."
"Like this?"
"Yeah. Now, hit it!"
She swung down with what looked like all of her strength. Despite the unorthodox way she dealt the blow, the creature blew apart, sending green orbs in every direction. She scooped one up and it dissolved right into her flesh. In a quick flash of bluish light, her previous scratch was all but gone. She stood there dumbly for a moment.
"Terra, your right!"
She swiped the ground to her right. The creature littered more green orbs. Terra scooped another couple in her hands, then turned back to Riku.
"Do we just wait for Darkside or what?"
"We wait for her. Until then, we fight."
LIGHTBLADE...LIGHTBLADE...
"What? Lady, wha'chu talkin'?" Terra shouted to nothing.
Instead of answering, the light dumped a very simple white katana, complete with a pommel with a little key chain, into Riku's shocked arms. Terra blinked. Sora blinked. Riku renewed his grip on his new weapon.
Sora watched them strike the creatures again and again. It wasn't hard for them to kill the things, but the sheer numbers of them made Sora cringe.
"I wonder—why—that voice—wanted Sora—and Al—to see what—is going on—here," Terra said, swiping more and more of the black creatures from existence.
"I don't—know—best not—to think—about it—right now."
"That must be why Kingdom Hearts restored itself to the other world!" Sora whispered to himself.
"I'm glad—that Kairi—is safe."
"Yeah."
"I wonder where—she's keeping—her?"
"No idea—"
"SORA! Wake up! Day two!"
Sora's eyes flew open. He was once again in Terra's body. Freda hauled her to his feet and walked off to get dressed herself.
***
Terra hacked and hacked and hacked at the Heartless. Her arms were growing more tired with every swing. Riku thrust and parried as well as any fencer Terra'd ever seen. Better even than Kyle had been when she was younger. Even with his skill, however, he was growing tired, too.
Just as quickly as they'd appeared, the Heartless vanished into the sand. Riku dropped to his knees, resting his Lightblade on the sand. Terra followed his example, panting against the chrome of the blade itself.
"Steel yourself," he said. "Darkside is coming."
"How?" Terra sucked in a ragged breath. "I mean, isn't it really weak for his size?"
"No. Terra, don't fool yourself, this isn't the game, this isn't a game," Riku stared into her blue eyes carefully. "Darkside is the dark side of you. It's how dark your heart is."
She blinked and swore under her breath. "Then steel yourself. This isn't going to be pretty."
"Exactly."
That's when it appeared.
Darkside looked similar to its game counterpart. Terra readied the Keyblade and as soon as the enormous hand descended, she attacked. A fervor quite unknown to her had blossomed in her heart. This wasn't Riku or Blank or the game's influence. She felt like this was her turn to show the world that she wasn't a goth as she'd shown herself to be.
That she was an individual, the one who didn't like Trading Spaces, who didn't want to do what her mother wanted every second out of the day, that she wasn't crazy, that she was only hiding in her randomness, that she didn't not like...that she didn't like...
Okay, maybe she did like Riku better than Sora, now that she'd met him.
"This is for every time I've ever sat down to watch that stupid show!" she bashed Darkside and felt a surge of power unlike anything she'd ever experienced.
The ground rumbled beneath her.
Darkside flew into the dark orb above them.
Riku ran toward her, reaching out for her hand.
She grabbed for him.
He took her hand, hugged her close.
"I'm not going to lose you," he whispered. "Not now. Not right now."
Everything went dark.
"I'm glad we found you first. Where did you get that?"
"I don't know. The voice that took the Seventh and gave Terra the Keyblade gave it to me."
"That's odd. Why would it do that?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know a lot, for being the one who started this whole mess."
Terra moaned. Wave after wave of pain struck her. It didn't stay in one place for very long, but traveled all along her spine, into her head and limbs and torso. The voices in the room stopped making sense, stopped being relevant. Blurs swam across her vision. A silver, a yellow, and so much red. A brown, a glint of gold, and black—black! A Heartless!
"Heartless," she murmured. "Lemme 'lone, you 'bom'nations." She swatted at the black blur.
"Hey!"
"Terra, stop! Wake up!"
"Huh? Riku, that you?"
"Yes. Can't you see?"
"Nah, ever'thin's all blurry an' all an'—"
"Don't you remember anything? The island? Darkside? That dog?"
"Don' 'member no dog..."
"I think you overdid it, Leon," said one of the new voices. Terra still couldn't see anything clearly.
"Give her a Potion. She'll be fine, for now."
A hot liquid splashed down Terra's throat, healing cuts and bruises along the way. The pains disappeared and her vision at last returned. The instant healing power of the Potion was a new effect to her, so she was still slightly wobbly.
"You okay, kid?" A scantily-clad woman bent over her, smiling gently. "Leon hit you pretty hard. He thought you were a Heartless, too!"
Terra laughed. "Who'd I hit?"
"Him," laughed the woman. "I'm Yuffie, by the way."
"I know," Terra sat up in the bed. "What happened?"
"Starting where?" Riku lay down behind her.
"After Darkside."
"You blacked out. When we arrived in Traverse Town—which in itself is beyond me—I woke up to find you gone. Apparently, you were sleepwalking."
"Leon was out walking," Yuffie said, picking up where he left off. "And someone came up from behind him and WHAMO! Down you went. Had we been able to see the screen, I'd say your health bar would be all but gone."
"And I came to the hotel, knowing that's where they'd go if they found you," Riku shrugged. "Simple as that." He stared at the ceiling, propped up on his arms.
"Any idea why that voice wanted Sora and Al to see everything?" Terra stood. "I mean, I understand Sora: it's obvious he'd want to know what the heck was going down here. But my brother? Why Al?"
"We don't know any more than you do. But we do know that they're showing more than just Sora and Al. Anyone in your room can see it. Blank, Renee, your mom, Kyle—"
"Kyle can see me?" Terra's stomach gave a sickening lurch. "Kyle? When did he come back?"
"A couple of days ago," Yuffie answered, grinning. "They're doing a...now what was that thing called? A...TB snow?"
"You mean a TV show? Sora's on TV. Wow," Terra shook her head, bemused. "Now. That's interesting. What show?"
"Trading Spaces."
"Shock 101, are you serious?!" Terra whirled to face Yuffie with a furtive laugh crossing her cheeks. "Sora is on Trading Spaces? With my mother? Who're the designers?"
"We...er...don't really know that..."
"Frank and Doug," Leon pushed off the wall. "It doesn't matter, not right now."
"Of course it matters, she's my mother!" Terra shouted, suddenly angry. "I'm going back, you hear me? I'm going back as soon as this thing is done. And I'll be with my friends again, and I'll get to see Kyle again, and...I...I don't know."
Terra collapsed against the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest. "I don't know..."
"Terra?"
"Leon, look!"
"Terra, this isn't the time!" Leon tugged her to her feet, shoving the Keyblade into her hands. "Let's go, you two!"
***
Hmm. Strange, ay? No Donald and Goofy. WHERE ARE THEY? I don't know. Haven't decided yet. Actually, yes I have, I'm just not tellin'. *Raspberry* See ya'll soon!
Could ya'll stop my bleedin' heart and review a little?
I need reviews! I'm bleeding from lack of love!
Please?
Oh, well, here's Chappie 8.
Chapter 8: Where Oh Where?
The little bell on the Pizza Hut door jangled once again. Sora had barely glanced up when he was knocked clean out of his chair and pulled into one of the worst versions of a hug he'd ever come across. He later found out that it was properly termed as a "glomp," something he would be on the receiving end of for quite some time.
"Sorasorasorasora! AIiiiiiiIIEEE! I missed you SSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much, Sora!"
"Renee, get off her before you kill her," Blank smirked in an unmasked effort not to laugh. "Oh, pizza's here, look, 'Nee."
Sora stood, dumbfounded, as the monstrously hyper girl swung back around to attack the pizza, only to discover that there wasn't one. Al had the decency to hide his smile as he slid in next to Kyle.
"Hey, squirt, you grew!" Kyle chuckled. Al grinned.
"Sora, sit down!" Renee shouted, patting the seat beside her. Gulping in his mind alone, he slid in beside her. "So, have you beat Kingdom Hearts yet? We all know you like Riku! There's no point denying it!"
She shot furtive grins all around the table.
Sora, however, was grimacing in disgust. Him and Riku?! Who had ever thought of that? Then again, here he was, in a woman's body, feeling little back-flips every time Kyle moved. What was going on? Maybe something had gone wrong and the dimensions were trying to mold back together again.
"Pizza!" Renee shouted shrilly. Indeed, the pies had arrived.
Everyone dug in, and for a while no one spoke. A few minutes into the meal, Kyle suddenly sat up and looked at his surroundings again. Blank glanced at him and nodded to his plate. He nodded slowly and resumed eating. Renee watched the entire exchange with a gleam in her eyes unlike any Sora had ever seen.
Kyle, who had been so loud and rambunctious prior to this, remained quiet throughout the rest of the meal. Despite everything that had happened, Sora did not find this too unusual, and so continued eating without qualms. Blank seemed uneasy, but she was good with it. Sora assumed she was just worried about the room.
Blank and Kyle went back to the Jem household, Freda and Terra to the Maps. With Kyle's strange behavior still on the brain, he settled down to sleep. His brain was still swarming with bits of information, still on that strange song he'd heard in the car, still musing over a thousand different worries. He finally fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes again, he was standing on a strange island. Rain was falling all around, wind whipping the trees from their roots, and yet he was still warm and dry. He looked down and gasped aloud. The sound was snatched away in the wind, though he felt it not.
Sora was back in his own body.
"H-Hello?" he whispered hoarsely. His voice! "It's back! I'm back! But...where am I?"
"Ri-Riku! I don't know what to do! How do I fight—"
"You'll learn later."
"Riku!" Sora shouted to him. It was Riku! And that...that's Terra. The real Terra? "I'm not going anywhere. I don't care about the stupid story anymore. This isn't Kingdom Hearts anymore. This is our story, and we'll tell it like we want to tell it." He grinned at her.
"You mean it?" Terra looked at him hopefully. Yeah, that was definitely the real Terra. Her smile turned to a grimace. A black creature had suddenly struck her in the arm. Blood streamed down her arm as she struck her own stance. It wasn't a very good one, either.
"You're too open," Riku said. "Put your foot closer in, bend your knees."
"Like this?"
"Yeah. Now, hit it!"
She swung down with what looked like all of her strength. Despite the unorthodox way she dealt the blow, the creature blew apart, sending green orbs in every direction. She scooped one up and it dissolved right into her flesh. In a quick flash of bluish light, her previous scratch was all but gone. She stood there dumbly for a moment.
"Terra, your right!"
She swiped the ground to her right. The creature littered more green orbs. Terra scooped another couple in her hands, then turned back to Riku.
"Do we just wait for Darkside or what?"
"We wait for her. Until then, we fight."
LIGHTBLADE...LIGHTBLADE...
"What? Lady, wha'chu talkin'?" Terra shouted to nothing.
Instead of answering, the light dumped a very simple white katana, complete with a pommel with a little key chain, into Riku's shocked arms. Terra blinked. Sora blinked. Riku renewed his grip on his new weapon.
Sora watched them strike the creatures again and again. It wasn't hard for them to kill the things, but the sheer numbers of them made Sora cringe.
"I wonder—why—that voice—wanted Sora—and Al—to see what—is going on—here," Terra said, swiping more and more of the black creatures from existence.
"I don't—know—best not—to think—about it—right now."
"That must be why Kingdom Hearts restored itself to the other world!" Sora whispered to himself.
"I'm glad—that Kairi—is safe."
"Yeah."
"I wonder where—she's keeping—her?"
"No idea—"
"SORA! Wake up! Day two!"
Sora's eyes flew open. He was once again in Terra's body. Freda hauled her to his feet and walked off to get dressed herself.
***
Terra hacked and hacked and hacked at the Heartless. Her arms were growing more tired with every swing. Riku thrust and parried as well as any fencer Terra'd ever seen. Better even than Kyle had been when she was younger. Even with his skill, however, he was growing tired, too.
Just as quickly as they'd appeared, the Heartless vanished into the sand. Riku dropped to his knees, resting his Lightblade on the sand. Terra followed his example, panting against the chrome of the blade itself.
"Steel yourself," he said. "Darkside is coming."
"How?" Terra sucked in a ragged breath. "I mean, isn't it really weak for his size?"
"No. Terra, don't fool yourself, this isn't the game, this isn't a game," Riku stared into her blue eyes carefully. "Darkside is the dark side of you. It's how dark your heart is."
She blinked and swore under her breath. "Then steel yourself. This isn't going to be pretty."
"Exactly."
That's when it appeared.
Darkside looked similar to its game counterpart. Terra readied the Keyblade and as soon as the enormous hand descended, she attacked. A fervor quite unknown to her had blossomed in her heart. This wasn't Riku or Blank or the game's influence. She felt like this was her turn to show the world that she wasn't a goth as she'd shown herself to be.
That she was an individual, the one who didn't like Trading Spaces, who didn't want to do what her mother wanted every second out of the day, that she wasn't crazy, that she was only hiding in her randomness, that she didn't not like...that she didn't like...
Okay, maybe she did like Riku better than Sora, now that she'd met him.
"This is for every time I've ever sat down to watch that stupid show!" she bashed Darkside and felt a surge of power unlike anything she'd ever experienced.
The ground rumbled beneath her.
Darkside flew into the dark orb above them.
Riku ran toward her, reaching out for her hand.
She grabbed for him.
He took her hand, hugged her close.
"I'm not going to lose you," he whispered. "Not now. Not right now."
Everything went dark.
"I'm glad we found you first. Where did you get that?"
"I don't know. The voice that took the Seventh and gave Terra the Keyblade gave it to me."
"That's odd. Why would it do that?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know a lot, for being the one who started this whole mess."
Terra moaned. Wave after wave of pain struck her. It didn't stay in one place for very long, but traveled all along her spine, into her head and limbs and torso. The voices in the room stopped making sense, stopped being relevant. Blurs swam across her vision. A silver, a yellow, and so much red. A brown, a glint of gold, and black—black! A Heartless!
"Heartless," she murmured. "Lemme 'lone, you 'bom'nations." She swatted at the black blur.
"Hey!"
"Terra, stop! Wake up!"
"Huh? Riku, that you?"
"Yes. Can't you see?"
"Nah, ever'thin's all blurry an' all an'—"
"Don't you remember anything? The island? Darkside? That dog?"
"Don' 'member no dog..."
"I think you overdid it, Leon," said one of the new voices. Terra still couldn't see anything clearly.
"Give her a Potion. She'll be fine, for now."
A hot liquid splashed down Terra's throat, healing cuts and bruises along the way. The pains disappeared and her vision at last returned. The instant healing power of the Potion was a new effect to her, so she was still slightly wobbly.
"You okay, kid?" A scantily-clad woman bent over her, smiling gently. "Leon hit you pretty hard. He thought you were a Heartless, too!"
Terra laughed. "Who'd I hit?"
"Him," laughed the woman. "I'm Yuffie, by the way."
"I know," Terra sat up in the bed. "What happened?"
"Starting where?" Riku lay down behind her.
"After Darkside."
"You blacked out. When we arrived in Traverse Town—which in itself is beyond me—I woke up to find you gone. Apparently, you were sleepwalking."
"Leon was out walking," Yuffie said, picking up where he left off. "And someone came up from behind him and WHAMO! Down you went. Had we been able to see the screen, I'd say your health bar would be all but gone."
"And I came to the hotel, knowing that's where they'd go if they found you," Riku shrugged. "Simple as that." He stared at the ceiling, propped up on his arms.
"Any idea why that voice wanted Sora and Al to see everything?" Terra stood. "I mean, I understand Sora: it's obvious he'd want to know what the heck was going down here. But my brother? Why Al?"
"We don't know any more than you do. But we do know that they're showing more than just Sora and Al. Anyone in your room can see it. Blank, Renee, your mom, Kyle—"
"Kyle can see me?" Terra's stomach gave a sickening lurch. "Kyle? When did he come back?"
"A couple of days ago," Yuffie answered, grinning. "They're doing a...now what was that thing called? A...TB snow?"
"You mean a TV show? Sora's on TV. Wow," Terra shook her head, bemused. "Now. That's interesting. What show?"
"Trading Spaces."
"Shock 101, are you serious?!" Terra whirled to face Yuffie with a furtive laugh crossing her cheeks. "Sora is on Trading Spaces? With my mother? Who're the designers?"
"We...er...don't really know that..."
"Frank and Doug," Leon pushed off the wall. "It doesn't matter, not right now."
"Of course it matters, she's my mother!" Terra shouted, suddenly angry. "I'm going back, you hear me? I'm going back as soon as this thing is done. And I'll be with my friends again, and I'll get to see Kyle again, and...I...I don't know."
Terra collapsed against the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest. "I don't know..."
"Terra?"
"Leon, look!"
"Terra, this isn't the time!" Leon tugged her to her feet, shoving the Keyblade into her hands. "Let's go, you two!"
***
Hmm. Strange, ay? No Donald and Goofy. WHERE ARE THEY? I don't know. Haven't decided yet. Actually, yes I have, I'm just not tellin'. *Raspberry* See ya'll soon!
Could ya'll stop my bleedin' heart and review a little?