***********Well hello all you wonderful people! I'm back with a new chapter…obviously. In this chapter we'll get to see what's happening with out dear Sora and Erin, and we shall also see if Riku and Bella-Donna will be found by that maleficent…uh, Maleficent. So exciting! Right…anyway, here ya go.
Chapter Seven
"Sit down! Your drivin' us all crazy!" yelled the duck wizard from behind the still hyped up girl.
"I can't help it! I'm on a Gummi Ship! A real live Gummi Ship! Its too much to stand!" Erin squealed and bounced up and down, her wide eyes still exploring over every nook and cranny in the cockpit.
"Sora! You brought her, you calm her down!" Donald demanded pointing to the spiky haired youth before turning his attention back to the open space in front of them. Running both hands down his face, said boy walked over to the enthusiastic girl an tapped her on the shoulder.
"Uh, Erin. Hi, Erin?" he said in a loud voice in an attempt to gain the girls attention. "Erin!" he finally yelled grabbing the female by the shoulders when her jumping wouldn't cease.
"Yeah?" Erin's voice suddenly formed into a calm, innocent tone and she tilted her head at Sora's desperate face. Shaking his head, the Key bearer pushed his companion into one of the seats and looked her square in the eye.
"Erin, I need you to sit and be calm. Alright?" he finished with a smile and sat down in the seat next to her, a content sigh escaping his lips. Sora was all for fun and mischief, but this girl never stopped!
All were showing signs of being exhausted by the time the girl finally nodded off. Sora wasn't quite sure what to make of this being the Key master thing. He knew he had to find Riku, Kairi, and Bella-Donna, but now he found out he had to save all the worlds. According to Leon, Yuffie, and Arieth in Traverse Town, he was everyone's only hope to restore order. Between loosing his island and friends, winding up in another world, and finding out he's the Keyblade master, Sora was pretty beat. After all, he was only fourteen years old.
"Gwarsh, what's that down there?" Goofy suddenly exclaimed from the seat in front of Sora.
"What? Where?" the chestnut haired boy said sitting up and gazed out the window. There, like a pink blotch in the middle of ink, a strange world came into view.
"Ah! Its Wonderland, Sora! Its really Wonderland!" the cheerful, and clearly awake, voice of Erin piped in. The brown haired girl climbed up closer to the window and gazed out in amazement.
"Wait. Wait a second. How do you know what that is?" Sora asked scratching the back of his head. Before they had been forced to leave their peaceful island, Riku had told Sora of his suspicious surrounding the two girls. 'They know to much', he had said. 'They're not telling us something' was another. Now Sora wasn't as quick to pick up on all of this as Riku, the naturally suspicious one was, but with every hour that passed he began to take in what his best friend had said.
In Traverse Town, Erin acted as if she had been there before and had encounter all that came up on them. Sora swore he even heard her let out a girlish giggle when Leon appeared on the scene. But when asked, he only got a wide eyed look and a clamped down mouth. Another odd incident was when that thing, that Heartless, attacked them in the Third District. The petite girl stayed safely, or as safe as she could get in that situation, on the sidelines and called out to Sora when to run and when to attack. Donald and Goofy seemed to ignore her advice, but in the end it brought Sora to win the battle.
Shaking his head and sighing in thought, the boy decided to sit back and watch for anymore occurrences that would lead him to believe she was 'hiding' something. The new world grew larger and larger as they approached, the odd shaped bushes and the heart like décor coming in more clearly. Resting his head on the wall of the cockpit, Sora couldn't help but think what happened to Bella-Donna and his best friends. Were they alive? Were they in another world? Did they have Kairi with them? Turning his blue gaze back to the girl he noticed that she didn't seem to worried about their friends. Yet another piece in the mystery of the two girls.
"We're landing, we're landing, we're…" Erin went on then faded off as the ship started tumbling around. Clenching her jaw, she grabbed onto Sora and Goofy's arms in a death grip as the Gummi Ship skidded to a halt causing the door to fling open and pour them out in a mess of arms and legs.
Down, down, down the four fell, meeting the hard pink floor with a crunch. Donald ended up on the bottom, unfortunate for him, topped by Sora and Erin. A few seconds later, Goofy fell in front of them with a loud thud.
"What a ride!" the girl called out excitedly pulling herself from the pile with a child like grin on her face. "Ya wanna go again?" she asked Sora, who in turn snorted ad laughed in amusement. Confusing she may be, but entertaining nonetheless.
"Where are we?" Donald interrupted the moment of fun. At this question, all heads turned toward Erin in an expecting manner. From her sprawled out spot on the floor, she just looked at them all with wide innocent eyes that a puppy would give after tearing up a paycheck. Opening her mouth to answer, she quickly closed it and blinked in relief as a panicky rabbit stumbled through.
"Oh, my fur and whiskers! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear! I'm here, I should be there. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! The queen, she'll have my head for sure!" he rambled on a disappeared around the corner of the hallway leaving the four on the floor staring with strange expressions. All standing, they followed on down the hall after the white rabbit. They hadn't made it five steps when Erin once again called out in her excited voice.
"My shoe! Where's my shoe?" Everyone looked back and then down at her bare foot then back over to her other which was still housed in the flip-flop. Sora shrugged, Donald rolled his eyes and tapped his foot, and Goofy put a hand over his eyes in a searching way and bent down looking over the floor.
"Forget about the shoe! We gotta find King Mickey!" the duck yelled and turned back to the door the rabbit when through.
"We'll find it later. Come on." Sora agreed and walked through the door, gesturing back to Erin with a grin. When he disappeared into the next room, Erin rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders. This was all bad and wrong. They were all starting to just count on her knowing everything. Well, she did know everything about the game and where they were, but they weren't suppose to know that! Running her hands through her hair fiercely, she looked up at the ceiling of the hallway.
"Cleo's gonna kill me."
****************
A cold wind whipped across the two teens faces and lashed their hair every which way. The boy rested his elbow on one of the many pipes that wound through the castle that gave them this temporary hiding place near a doorway to the lift shop on a high balcony. Beside him sat a girl who was constantly trying to keep her hair from getting in her mouth while she breathed shallowly. She had barely spoken a word since they snuck out of the odd room full of even more odd people. When he questioned her well being, she just gave him one of those reassuring smiles she seemed to be giving a lot lately and said she was fine, just a little spooked. Her face may have looked sincere, but those pale blue eyes told otherwise.
Bella-Donna wasn't just spooked, she was paranoid. At every corner they came to on the escape she went first, even when he tried to be a 'manly man' and take lead. She was hiding something…again. Either that or she was trying to keep him from something or another. He just couldn't tell with her anymore. On top of all that, he knew that something else was plaguing her mind. But once again, she only said not to worry.
"Bella?" Riku asked quietly turning his aqua gaze toward her.
"Hm?"
"Are you…uh…" he paused. He didn't want to sound like a broken record. She had made it clear that she wasn't going to tell him anything until she was good and ready. But he had gotten her attention, so he had to asked something. "Uh…do you have anything to eat?"
"Yeah, here." she answered with humor in her voice. Tossing him an apple, she leaned back against the cold stone wall of Hollow Bastion. With her skull against the wall, she could feel the vibrations of the electric lift shop inside. Woven into those sounds was another, more scraping like sound. Quirking a brow she raises her head and turned it to press her ear against the castle.
"What is it?" Riku asked with a mouth full of apple. B.D. put a finger up to silence him and closed her eyes in concentration. Scrambling, clawing, and dragging sounds echoed through the wall and into her ear. Pulling her ear away, she looks around with a bit of desperation in her eyes. Both boy and girls attention was brought toward the direction of the doorway when the sounds that Bella had previously heard rang out loud and clear. Something, or even worse, a lot of something's were coming.
"Get on the lift!" Bella-Donna whisper screamed at Riku and grabbed her bag. Creeping around the corner, she pushed Riku back behind her ignoring the glare he was giving. Peeking cautiously around the corner, she grabbed onto his wrist and pulled him toward the single carrier on the other side of the door. Touching the nifty gizmo that transported them onto the clattering machinery, her eyes shot back quickly as a surge of Heartless poured from the Lift Shop.
"Damn!" she heard the boy exclaim and turned back toward him to find a Shadow tearing its way up his leg. Riku pulled at it with both hands, but the nasty little thing held on tight as the lift moved them around the castle. It only took B.D. a few seconds to respond, but in those few seconds, paragraphs ran through her mind.
'Maleficent doesn't know about him yet. The Heartless could take his heart.' Thoughts like these brought her to realize that even though she was trying to protect him from the evil that dwelled in the building, she was also risking his life even more. Without Maleficents protection, he was fair game for the darkness. There wasn't time for that now though, right now she had to consider her 'immortality'.
Dropping down to her knees she grabbed onto the Shadow and yanked away his sharp claws from Riku's leg. Yellow eyes turned on her before the creature lunged and dug its hand into the girls chest, a small circle of red magic surrounding his buried claw.
Riku froze in his place on the floor of the lift, staring at the scene before him with wide eyes. Bella-Donnas eyes gapped open and her throat tightened as the little claw shifted in her chest. In the back of her mind she praying to every holy being she knew that Auntie Albie was right about her immortality in the game. She wasn't ready to die yet…especially like this. Behind the Shadow, B.D. could see her companion pulling desperately at the jerky creature, but it wouldn't budge. Tilting her head down, she meet the beady little yellow orbs as it stared up at her. While playing the game, she could never read the Shadows expressions…mainly because they didn't have any. But now as she looked down on it, she could see confusion.
The thing was confused as to why it couldn't take her heart. It stared up at her for probably two whole minutes as if searching for something that it could not find. The whole time Riku had been struggling to free her of the Shadow. If B.D. hadn't been preoccupied with the claw in her chest, she would have smiled at the nice gesture.
"Bella-Donna!" the silver haired yelled before the creature ripped its claw from her chest sending her forward onto the cool steel floor. Looking up with dazed eyes, she saw it dive over the railing of the lift then felt herself being turned over then being pushed up. Her vision swirled and the soothing voice of Riku was hardly noticeable over the loud buzzing in her head.
"Bella, Bella! Come on, can you hear me?" he said while holding her up with one hand on her back while lightly slapping her on the cheek with the other. Tilting her head up he shook her chin and looked down on her with an uncharacteristic look in his eyes. Even in her dazed state of mind B.D. could almost make out a spark of…worry?
"Yeah…I can…hear you." her mouth moved slower then she thought it would and she closed her eyes in a heavy blink trying to coordinate herself. In an attempt to chase the dancing colors away, she shook her head and raised a hand to her chest. A strange unnatural tingle remained where the claw had penetrated, but no difference was noticeable. Her shirt was still intact and no blood was seeping from any wound whatsoever.
"What the hell Bella-Donna…" she heard Riku whisper from behind her. Pushing away from him she crawled over to her bag and slung it over her shoulder as the lift came to a rattling halt. The same sensation that she felt while going back and forth between her world and this one came over her as they were both brought of the machine and onto one of the many platforms that surrounded Hollow Bastion. The boy was left sitting on the ground and B.D. just looked down at him. His face told her immediately that he needed answers, no he wanted them, and he wanted them NOW.
"We should keep on goin' Riku. They're pretty relentless little buggers." she smiled trying to lighten the mood with no avail. Letting her smile fade she tapped her arms on her sides and slowly turns and starts walking toward yet another lift.
"Bella-Donna." the boys voice of concern had molded into a stern demanding one that caused said girl to stop in her tracks. She heard the scuffling of shoe and clothing as he stood to full height and walked up behind her. Wringing her hands in front of herself she then turned and almost winced at the seriousness of his expression. It reminded her much of the time when she told him of the fastest way to go during Sora and his race on Destiny Islands and he confronted her afterwards.
"I know that you think whatever your hiding from me should be kept hidden, but you have to keep me out of complete darkness. You gotta tell me what happened there." he said and gestured toward the lift. B.D. bit her lip when he said the 'keep me out of complete darkness' comment. Oh, if only he knew.
"I saw that, that, THINGS sharp little hand go right into you Bella! I saw your face, it was like you were stabbed, but…" he lightly pushed on her chest where the wound should have been located. "but there's nothing. No blood, no hole, not even a scratch. But it was right here Bella! It was right at your heart; you should be dead. You had me thinkin' I was gonna have ta go back telling Erin and your aunt that I got you killed…"
"Riku you didn't…" she finally spoke after moments of silence. Here in front of her she had the boy that she thought was the tough guy. The guy who just shrugs it off and goes on with the day. Here that guy was blaming himself for something that wasn't even close to being his fault.
"No…just listen okay?" he rubbed his hand over his face then through his hair before looking back at her with almost pleading eyes. What the… "Bella, I have no idea where I am. I don't know what those things are, I don't know what your keeping me from or what your keeping from me, I don't know what happened to my island or my friends…I'm tired, I'm lost, and still a little on the edge from your near death experience back there. Which by the way, your acting just fine about!" he raised his voice during the last words and turned from B.D. who still had an expression as blank as a clean sheet of paper. Rolling his shoulders seemingly trying to calm himself down, he stomped back in front of her and firmly grabbed her shoulders from the second time since she'd known him. This time, however, was different then the last time he demanded something of her.
"Which means, Bella-Donna, that you can't go around doing that anymore. You CANNOT strand me here. Alright?" looking her square in the eyes with his partly narrowed oceanic orbs. Those lovely eyes were concentrated like he was trying to get something across and hoping she'd catch it…cause if she didn't, hell, he'd never say it out loud. In the back of her mind she was hoping that he meant 'don't die on me, I need you', other then 'I need you here to avert their attention'. Judging by the island boys attitude, she would never know unless he went through one of those 'get in touch with your emotions' type scenario.
"I won't strand you here Riku." she agreed softly and nodded her head, assuring him. 'How did he ever make it on his own during the game?' she couldn't help asking herself. Giving him a small smile she took in the scene. Alone on a balcony under a slightly dimming sky…Riku holding her by the shoulders and looking her in the eyes. She'd read the fan fictions…she knew what would usually come next. However, this was no fan fiction as Riku proved and dropped his hands back to his sides. Returning her nod, he walked passed her and toward the lift she had her eye on.
Shaking off the fantasy of the fiction she halfway turned to follow him before she was stopped by another, more terrifying sound then the noises the scurrying Heartless provided.
"Well…what do we have here?"
Maleficent.
***********Hehe, sorry about the hit at some other fan fictions…couldn't help myself. Well, there's the chapter as promised. Not to exciting, not to boring, just right…like cream soda. Or whatever…REVIEW!!!!
Chapter Seven
"Sit down! Your drivin' us all crazy!" yelled the duck wizard from behind the still hyped up girl.
"I can't help it! I'm on a Gummi Ship! A real live Gummi Ship! Its too much to stand!" Erin squealed and bounced up and down, her wide eyes still exploring over every nook and cranny in the cockpit.
"Sora! You brought her, you calm her down!" Donald demanded pointing to the spiky haired youth before turning his attention back to the open space in front of them. Running both hands down his face, said boy walked over to the enthusiastic girl an tapped her on the shoulder.
"Uh, Erin. Hi, Erin?" he said in a loud voice in an attempt to gain the girls attention. "Erin!" he finally yelled grabbing the female by the shoulders when her jumping wouldn't cease.
"Yeah?" Erin's voice suddenly formed into a calm, innocent tone and she tilted her head at Sora's desperate face. Shaking his head, the Key bearer pushed his companion into one of the seats and looked her square in the eye.
"Erin, I need you to sit and be calm. Alright?" he finished with a smile and sat down in the seat next to her, a content sigh escaping his lips. Sora was all for fun and mischief, but this girl never stopped!
All were showing signs of being exhausted by the time the girl finally nodded off. Sora wasn't quite sure what to make of this being the Key master thing. He knew he had to find Riku, Kairi, and Bella-Donna, but now he found out he had to save all the worlds. According to Leon, Yuffie, and Arieth in Traverse Town, he was everyone's only hope to restore order. Between loosing his island and friends, winding up in another world, and finding out he's the Keyblade master, Sora was pretty beat. After all, he was only fourteen years old.
"Gwarsh, what's that down there?" Goofy suddenly exclaimed from the seat in front of Sora.
"What? Where?" the chestnut haired boy said sitting up and gazed out the window. There, like a pink blotch in the middle of ink, a strange world came into view.
"Ah! Its Wonderland, Sora! Its really Wonderland!" the cheerful, and clearly awake, voice of Erin piped in. The brown haired girl climbed up closer to the window and gazed out in amazement.
"Wait. Wait a second. How do you know what that is?" Sora asked scratching the back of his head. Before they had been forced to leave their peaceful island, Riku had told Sora of his suspicious surrounding the two girls. 'They know to much', he had said. 'They're not telling us something' was another. Now Sora wasn't as quick to pick up on all of this as Riku, the naturally suspicious one was, but with every hour that passed he began to take in what his best friend had said.
In Traverse Town, Erin acted as if she had been there before and had encounter all that came up on them. Sora swore he even heard her let out a girlish giggle when Leon appeared on the scene. But when asked, he only got a wide eyed look and a clamped down mouth. Another odd incident was when that thing, that Heartless, attacked them in the Third District. The petite girl stayed safely, or as safe as she could get in that situation, on the sidelines and called out to Sora when to run and when to attack. Donald and Goofy seemed to ignore her advice, but in the end it brought Sora to win the battle.
Shaking his head and sighing in thought, the boy decided to sit back and watch for anymore occurrences that would lead him to believe she was 'hiding' something. The new world grew larger and larger as they approached, the odd shaped bushes and the heart like décor coming in more clearly. Resting his head on the wall of the cockpit, Sora couldn't help but think what happened to Bella-Donna and his best friends. Were they alive? Were they in another world? Did they have Kairi with them? Turning his blue gaze back to the girl he noticed that she didn't seem to worried about their friends. Yet another piece in the mystery of the two girls.
"We're landing, we're landing, we're…" Erin went on then faded off as the ship started tumbling around. Clenching her jaw, she grabbed onto Sora and Goofy's arms in a death grip as the Gummi Ship skidded to a halt causing the door to fling open and pour them out in a mess of arms and legs.
Down, down, down the four fell, meeting the hard pink floor with a crunch. Donald ended up on the bottom, unfortunate for him, topped by Sora and Erin. A few seconds later, Goofy fell in front of them with a loud thud.
"What a ride!" the girl called out excitedly pulling herself from the pile with a child like grin on her face. "Ya wanna go again?" she asked Sora, who in turn snorted ad laughed in amusement. Confusing she may be, but entertaining nonetheless.
"Where are we?" Donald interrupted the moment of fun. At this question, all heads turned toward Erin in an expecting manner. From her sprawled out spot on the floor, she just looked at them all with wide innocent eyes that a puppy would give after tearing up a paycheck. Opening her mouth to answer, she quickly closed it and blinked in relief as a panicky rabbit stumbled through.
"Oh, my fur and whiskers! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear! I'm here, I should be there. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! The queen, she'll have my head for sure!" he rambled on a disappeared around the corner of the hallway leaving the four on the floor staring with strange expressions. All standing, they followed on down the hall after the white rabbit. They hadn't made it five steps when Erin once again called out in her excited voice.
"My shoe! Where's my shoe?" Everyone looked back and then down at her bare foot then back over to her other which was still housed in the flip-flop. Sora shrugged, Donald rolled his eyes and tapped his foot, and Goofy put a hand over his eyes in a searching way and bent down looking over the floor.
"Forget about the shoe! We gotta find King Mickey!" the duck yelled and turned back to the door the rabbit when through.
"We'll find it later. Come on." Sora agreed and walked through the door, gesturing back to Erin with a grin. When he disappeared into the next room, Erin rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders. This was all bad and wrong. They were all starting to just count on her knowing everything. Well, she did know everything about the game and where they were, but they weren't suppose to know that! Running her hands through her hair fiercely, she looked up at the ceiling of the hallway.
"Cleo's gonna kill me."
****************
A cold wind whipped across the two teens faces and lashed their hair every which way. The boy rested his elbow on one of the many pipes that wound through the castle that gave them this temporary hiding place near a doorway to the lift shop on a high balcony. Beside him sat a girl who was constantly trying to keep her hair from getting in her mouth while she breathed shallowly. She had barely spoken a word since they snuck out of the odd room full of even more odd people. When he questioned her well being, she just gave him one of those reassuring smiles she seemed to be giving a lot lately and said she was fine, just a little spooked. Her face may have looked sincere, but those pale blue eyes told otherwise.
Bella-Donna wasn't just spooked, she was paranoid. At every corner they came to on the escape she went first, even when he tried to be a 'manly man' and take lead. She was hiding something…again. Either that or she was trying to keep him from something or another. He just couldn't tell with her anymore. On top of all that, he knew that something else was plaguing her mind. But once again, she only said not to worry.
"Bella?" Riku asked quietly turning his aqua gaze toward her.
"Hm?"
"Are you…uh…" he paused. He didn't want to sound like a broken record. She had made it clear that she wasn't going to tell him anything until she was good and ready. But he had gotten her attention, so he had to asked something. "Uh…do you have anything to eat?"
"Yeah, here." she answered with humor in her voice. Tossing him an apple, she leaned back against the cold stone wall of Hollow Bastion. With her skull against the wall, she could feel the vibrations of the electric lift shop inside. Woven into those sounds was another, more scraping like sound. Quirking a brow she raises her head and turned it to press her ear against the castle.
"What is it?" Riku asked with a mouth full of apple. B.D. put a finger up to silence him and closed her eyes in concentration. Scrambling, clawing, and dragging sounds echoed through the wall and into her ear. Pulling her ear away, she looks around with a bit of desperation in her eyes. Both boy and girls attention was brought toward the direction of the doorway when the sounds that Bella had previously heard rang out loud and clear. Something, or even worse, a lot of something's were coming.
"Get on the lift!" Bella-Donna whisper screamed at Riku and grabbed her bag. Creeping around the corner, she pushed Riku back behind her ignoring the glare he was giving. Peeking cautiously around the corner, she grabbed onto his wrist and pulled him toward the single carrier on the other side of the door. Touching the nifty gizmo that transported them onto the clattering machinery, her eyes shot back quickly as a surge of Heartless poured from the Lift Shop.
"Damn!" she heard the boy exclaim and turned back toward him to find a Shadow tearing its way up his leg. Riku pulled at it with both hands, but the nasty little thing held on tight as the lift moved them around the castle. It only took B.D. a few seconds to respond, but in those few seconds, paragraphs ran through her mind.
'Maleficent doesn't know about him yet. The Heartless could take his heart.' Thoughts like these brought her to realize that even though she was trying to protect him from the evil that dwelled in the building, she was also risking his life even more. Without Maleficents protection, he was fair game for the darkness. There wasn't time for that now though, right now she had to consider her 'immortality'.
Dropping down to her knees she grabbed onto the Shadow and yanked away his sharp claws from Riku's leg. Yellow eyes turned on her before the creature lunged and dug its hand into the girls chest, a small circle of red magic surrounding his buried claw.
Riku froze in his place on the floor of the lift, staring at the scene before him with wide eyes. Bella-Donnas eyes gapped open and her throat tightened as the little claw shifted in her chest. In the back of her mind she praying to every holy being she knew that Auntie Albie was right about her immortality in the game. She wasn't ready to die yet…especially like this. Behind the Shadow, B.D. could see her companion pulling desperately at the jerky creature, but it wouldn't budge. Tilting her head down, she meet the beady little yellow orbs as it stared up at her. While playing the game, she could never read the Shadows expressions…mainly because they didn't have any. But now as she looked down on it, she could see confusion.
The thing was confused as to why it couldn't take her heart. It stared up at her for probably two whole minutes as if searching for something that it could not find. The whole time Riku had been struggling to free her of the Shadow. If B.D. hadn't been preoccupied with the claw in her chest, she would have smiled at the nice gesture.
"Bella-Donna!" the silver haired yelled before the creature ripped its claw from her chest sending her forward onto the cool steel floor. Looking up with dazed eyes, she saw it dive over the railing of the lift then felt herself being turned over then being pushed up. Her vision swirled and the soothing voice of Riku was hardly noticeable over the loud buzzing in her head.
"Bella, Bella! Come on, can you hear me?" he said while holding her up with one hand on her back while lightly slapping her on the cheek with the other. Tilting her head up he shook her chin and looked down on her with an uncharacteristic look in his eyes. Even in her dazed state of mind B.D. could almost make out a spark of…worry?
"Yeah…I can…hear you." her mouth moved slower then she thought it would and she closed her eyes in a heavy blink trying to coordinate herself. In an attempt to chase the dancing colors away, she shook her head and raised a hand to her chest. A strange unnatural tingle remained where the claw had penetrated, but no difference was noticeable. Her shirt was still intact and no blood was seeping from any wound whatsoever.
"What the hell Bella-Donna…" she heard Riku whisper from behind her. Pushing away from him she crawled over to her bag and slung it over her shoulder as the lift came to a rattling halt. The same sensation that she felt while going back and forth between her world and this one came over her as they were both brought of the machine and onto one of the many platforms that surrounded Hollow Bastion. The boy was left sitting on the ground and B.D. just looked down at him. His face told her immediately that he needed answers, no he wanted them, and he wanted them NOW.
"We should keep on goin' Riku. They're pretty relentless little buggers." she smiled trying to lighten the mood with no avail. Letting her smile fade she tapped her arms on her sides and slowly turns and starts walking toward yet another lift.
"Bella-Donna." the boys voice of concern had molded into a stern demanding one that caused said girl to stop in her tracks. She heard the scuffling of shoe and clothing as he stood to full height and walked up behind her. Wringing her hands in front of herself she then turned and almost winced at the seriousness of his expression. It reminded her much of the time when she told him of the fastest way to go during Sora and his race on Destiny Islands and he confronted her afterwards.
"I know that you think whatever your hiding from me should be kept hidden, but you have to keep me out of complete darkness. You gotta tell me what happened there." he said and gestured toward the lift. B.D. bit her lip when he said the 'keep me out of complete darkness' comment. Oh, if only he knew.
"I saw that, that, THINGS sharp little hand go right into you Bella! I saw your face, it was like you were stabbed, but…" he lightly pushed on her chest where the wound should have been located. "but there's nothing. No blood, no hole, not even a scratch. But it was right here Bella! It was right at your heart; you should be dead. You had me thinkin' I was gonna have ta go back telling Erin and your aunt that I got you killed…"
"Riku you didn't…" she finally spoke after moments of silence. Here in front of her she had the boy that she thought was the tough guy. The guy who just shrugs it off and goes on with the day. Here that guy was blaming himself for something that wasn't even close to being his fault.
"No…just listen okay?" he rubbed his hand over his face then through his hair before looking back at her with almost pleading eyes. What the… "Bella, I have no idea where I am. I don't know what those things are, I don't know what your keeping me from or what your keeping from me, I don't know what happened to my island or my friends…I'm tired, I'm lost, and still a little on the edge from your near death experience back there. Which by the way, your acting just fine about!" he raised his voice during the last words and turned from B.D. who still had an expression as blank as a clean sheet of paper. Rolling his shoulders seemingly trying to calm himself down, he stomped back in front of her and firmly grabbed her shoulders from the second time since she'd known him. This time, however, was different then the last time he demanded something of her.
"Which means, Bella-Donna, that you can't go around doing that anymore. You CANNOT strand me here. Alright?" looking her square in the eyes with his partly narrowed oceanic orbs. Those lovely eyes were concentrated like he was trying to get something across and hoping she'd catch it…cause if she didn't, hell, he'd never say it out loud. In the back of her mind she was hoping that he meant 'don't die on me, I need you', other then 'I need you here to avert their attention'. Judging by the island boys attitude, she would never know unless he went through one of those 'get in touch with your emotions' type scenario.
"I won't strand you here Riku." she agreed softly and nodded her head, assuring him. 'How did he ever make it on his own during the game?' she couldn't help asking herself. Giving him a small smile she took in the scene. Alone on a balcony under a slightly dimming sky…Riku holding her by the shoulders and looking her in the eyes. She'd read the fan fictions…she knew what would usually come next. However, this was no fan fiction as Riku proved and dropped his hands back to his sides. Returning her nod, he walked passed her and toward the lift she had her eye on.
Shaking off the fantasy of the fiction she halfway turned to follow him before she was stopped by another, more terrifying sound then the noises the scurrying Heartless provided.
"Well…what do we have here?"
Maleficent.
***********Hehe, sorry about the hit at some other fan fictions…couldn't help myself. Well, there's the chapter as promised. Not to exciting, not to boring, just right…like cream soda. Or whatever…REVIEW!!!!