Sclartaran Productions Presents
A Talanane Creation
Kingdom Hearts Trinity Sight
Episode VI: Sky Submarine.
Standard Disclaimer
The following is a work of fan-fiction. This means it contains characters, locations and other things drawn from various sources such as books, movies, television shows, anime and video games, none of which I own the rights to. In this episode they are Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts, Chain of Memories, by Square-Enix Inc, and Skies of Arcadia Legends, by SEGA.
After resting a while, Riku and Mickey had recovered much of their strength and were now ready to move on. Even the pain of Mickey's injury had greatly subsided, leaving only a dull ache. The Mouse King had even fallen asleep, making it necessary for Riku to wake him up.
"Wake up Mickey!" Riku said, shaking him.
"Huh, what is it?" the Mouse mumbled.
"It's time to go." Riku told him, indicating a direction.
"Oh I'm so sorry about that." Mickey apologized, rising onto his feet. "It's just."
Riku interrupted him saying "You were hurt and needed the rest."
"It's better now, thanks." Mickey stated. Moving in the direction Riku had pointed out, the Mouse called after him, saying "Well, come on!"
Riku shrugged and followed Mickey out into a new series of corridors, which at one time had formed a series of concentric circles connected to each other by a number of passages arranged like spokes cutting through them. Now however, Riku and Mickey had to pick their way through them, as if through a maze, since over the years parts of the floor had fallen away leaving large gaps. Fortunately no new sections fell out when they walked over them, and when they encountered creatures, they were either already dead or were at least those types they had encountered before and now knew how to deal with, although they were still quite tough to dispose of. They stopped two more times to rest after battle, but eventually they reached the outer ring on the opposite side of the series of passages.
Suddenly, they were looking out into inky darkness where the hallway suddenly ended in jagged broken spikes, like a great chunk of the city had been scooped out and lifted away. The space was not completely empty, since the two companions could hear a low thrumming sound off in the distance. At first neither of them could pinpoint where it came from or what it was. Soon however the source of the sound came closer and they could see a beam of light moving back, being swept over whatever lay below.
"I wonder if it's searching for something?" the Mouse King asked.
"Looks like it." Riku answered. "If whatever's making that noise is like those machine creatures we killed, that could be US!" As he said this he motioned for Mickey to move out of the creature or machine's line of sight.
In a few minutes the searcher came closer and now the noise it generated could clearly be made out as that of some kind of aircraft propeller. Mickey, moving his head around to take a look could now dimly make out the shape of the craft that propeller was attached to. It was an elongated oval, with a cylinder attached lengthwise to the aft end, and another flattened cylinder attached near the forward end, pointing up. The light they had spotted before was coming from some source located in the rounded nose of the vehicle. There were a few other lights on the craft, mostly red and blue running lights, but there were a couple of others, one on the conning tower, and another above the searchlight in the bow that illuminated a number of markings on the ship's hull.
Most of these markings made no sense to the companions, being a seemingly random arrangement of letters and numbers. The largest two symbols, set apart from the others and seemingly painted on hastily over something else, were unmistakable to either of them, for the first was the white skull-and-crossbones on black symbolizing pirates, and the second was the black edged with red quartered heart of the Heartless.
"I had so hoped they hadn't started reappearing yet." Riku sighed.
"I had too." Mickey concurred. "Guess that was just wishful thinking."
"And with Sora not here, it's up to us to do something about it." Riku stated, again motioning for Mickey to get out of the flying sub's line of sight. A little late, for at that moment the searchlight beam swept over the jagged ruin outside, a part of the beam shining into the tunnel end, illuminating the Mouse.
Riku reached up and forcibly grabbed his companion, dragging him back into the passage. "Ouch!" the Mouse said at the pressure on his ear. "What did you have to do that for?"
"What if they saw us?" the young man told him. "Then a lot of Heartless and maybe Pirates would be after us, whether they were looking for us before or not!"
"Sorry!" Mickey replied. "But you did say we would have to deal with them when the time came."
"Yeah, but on our terms!" the silver haired boy shot back. "Now we just have to get ready for what they throw at us!"
"Like I said, I'm sorry!" Mickey reiterated. "I just wanted to know what it was."
"Yeah sure you did." Riku said sarcastically. "Now let's just go, all right?"
With that the companions stopped speaking and retreated back into the circular passageways where they stood some chance of fighting off any Heartless that appeared. Strangely however, none did. Instead the companions could hear a sound in the distance as of metal clanking on stone. They waited, the tension putting Riku nearly on edge. Finally, there were other sounds, distorted by the curve of the passageways and the presence of the debris in the hallway, but still identifiable as the sound of metallic footsteps on the stone floor.
The beings that emerged appeared to be similar to the machines that attacked Riku and Mickey earlier. However as the two companions got a look at them it became clear that these were different, having a humanoid configuration, their 'bodies' made up of segmented rings of a much darker metal than the others. Furthermore their limbs did not float in midair but were attached to their bodies at enlarged shoulder and pelvic regions so that their torsos looked like large dumbbells. The elbow and knee joints were enlarged spheres, and the hands were simple claws attached at similar spherical wrist joints.
The dead giveaway that the approaching figures were not what they seemed though was the heads. They were spheres like the joints, but much larger, and featured what appeared to be a large glass 'eye', surrounded by a ring of metal studded with rivets, with similar metal rings where the 'ears' would be. Then as one of the creatures rounded the corner, it spotted the two companions and shouted out in a clearly human, if slightly metallic voice."
"First Officer, Sir!"
Another voice answered from around the bend "Yes, What, did you find it?"
Riku and Mickey took up defensive stances.
"No Sir!" the figure near them replied. "Just some kid and I don't know what. Looks kind of like a mouse!"
"Well get them!" the other voice said. "They may know where IT is!"
With those words the armored figures moved to attack, wielding their hand claws as weapons. Riku and Mickey summoned their weapons. Three of the attacking figures moved into a formation intended to catch the two in a pincer attack, two in front and to the sides, and the third a little ways back in the center position.
They were slow and a little clumsy however, as if they were not quite used to their own bodies, or perhaps as Riku had begun to suspect, they were actually pirates wearing armor they were not quite used to. If so, he could take them.
Thus Riku and Mickey easily avoided the first attack, the two pirates forming the pincers actually colliding with each other, their armor clanging with the impact. Riku focused his efforts on the figure to the rear, charging up to him and circling to the left side, trying to slip the Soul Eater's blade into one of the joints in his armor. However, the weapon just glanced off one of the spherical housings, allowing the pirate time to react, which he did, knocking Riku back behind him.
The boy staggered but did not go down, recovering his balance just in time to see the pirate turn around and face him. Meanwhile the other two pirates who had collided making their first rush also recovered, getting back on their feet with the whir of powered servomotors. They again started moving forward, toward Mickey who was between them and the third pirate. The Mouse did not see them, since he was concentrating on the action between Riku and the other pirate.
"Riku!" he shouted "I'm coming pal!" and rushed toward the third pirate just in time to avoid the two that were closing on him. Desperate to help his friend and having seen that his attack didn't work, Mickey instead jumped up, attempting to knock the pirate off balance. However the Mouse did not have either the mass or the momentum to stagger the armored man. He fell right onto his back, aggravating his shoulder injury in the process.
"Ouch!" Mickey said as he impacted, just before the pincers of one of the two pirates who were after him grabbed hold. "Hey, hey, let go you!" he said struggling.
Riku heard the shout, but was too busy himself to help, as the pirate in front of him was again closing for an attack. His right claw reached out to grab the young man, but all he got was the blade of the Soul Eater as Riku parried. However, instead of letting go and trying again, the raider began pulling on the boy's weapon, trying to disarm him.
"Sir, I got him!" a voice rang out as one of the others reported his success in capturing Mickey.
"No!" Riku shouted as he heard the report. With a flash of anger he attempted to activate his Dark Mode. However just at that moment something unexpected happened. Riku began to feel dizzy and lethargic as the world began to shimmer and distort around him. Losing strength he fell to the floor, losing his grip on his weapon, which was now held by the pirate.
The raider grabbed hold of the young man and pulled him up. "Well now, I guess you're just a kid after all." he said.
The pirate turned Riku around, painfully pinning his arms behind his back just as another armored figure, somewhat shorter than the others appeared from the passageway.
"Well, I see you got." the short armored figure began to say then stopped.
"YOU!" he said.
"You know him?" the pirate holding Riku said.
"Uh, well, yes." the short pirate said with a touch of bewilderment. "He used to work with us."
"Oh?" the other pirate replied as the other two behind him shifted from foot to foot, one of them holding a still struggling Mickey.
"Let us go, let us go you creeps!" the Mouse King demanded.
"Well what is this, a mouse?" the short armored figure asked.
"Yes Sir, First Officer! It seems to be!" the pirate holding Mickey confirmed.
"Let us go you pirates!" Mickey again demanded.
"You will be quiet!" the pirate holding Mickey shouted.
"Feisty isn't he?" the pirate First Officer said. "Well anyway the Captain will want to have a word with them. Take them away!"
Next time on Kingdom Hearts Trinity Sight: Road to Munchkin City.
Author's Note: Yeah I know, it seems like a lame plot device to have Riku suddenly overcome by weakness like that, but there is a good reason for it. (Those of you who are divers or know anything about diving would understand it.)
Cordially Yours: Talanane.