Heart of an Alchemist
(A/N)
Disclaimer: I own nothing Waaa!
I am SOOOO sorry about the long wait! School started up again and all that, but that's no excuse! I'm getting back into my writing mojo and will be updating as frequntly as I can now! And if you have any questions or anything you'll have to Email me thanks to the new rule "no answering reviews and such" something like they don't want me to communicate with you! (stupid!)And there's like this one thing I've been meaning to explain but can't now, so sorry, it'll remain unknown.
Ooh, Corpse Bride in theaters everywhere Sep. 23rd, for those who loved Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Chistmas!
Chapter Eight
"Wow! That was so cool!" Sora exclaimed as he jumped into the Gummi Ship, followed by Donald and Goofy. "I can't believe it, I did magic!"
Donald sat down in his chair and started fiddling with the switches. "Yeah, yeah, calm down," he said grumpily. The last 86 or so failed attempts at finding a way out of that rabbit hole took quite some time and lowered Donald's spirits. "Can you shut up, I'm trying to concentrate." Donald pushed a button and the Gummi Ship started to float above the ground.
"Don't be such a party pooper, Donald. I mean, magic! Can you believe-"
"SHUT UP!" Donald shouted as he plunged a lever forward and they shot towards the blue sky, which soon darkened, turning into the dark starry space.
"So," Sora began, "What new world are we going to next?" he asked, his excitement growing and growing, feeling as if he were about to burst.
"Nowhere, we're going back to Traverse Town."
"What?"
"We need to ask Cid about that strange Gummi block, and see if Leon knows anything about that thing where the Keyblade glowed."
"Ahyuk, and what about that Edward fella' that does that 'olchemy' stuff," Goofy asked. Ignoring Goofy's mispronunciation of 'alchemy', the excitement inside Sora suddenly vanished. Donald and Goofy were right. They needed to know about the two strange events, and he had already promised Ed that they would travel together back on Destiny Islands. Still his eagerness to see another new world, maybe learn a new magic spell, covered those thoughts.
"Oh, please Donald! Please! Just one other world, nowhere else, that's it."
"No," he said bluntly. Sora plopped on the ground and clutched at Donald's webbed feet.
"Please, please, please, please, please!" Donald looked down at Sora and saw him giving a puppy-eyed look. "I'll do anything you want! Please!" Sora begged gripping Donald's leg tighter.
Donald cursed under his breath. "Fine. Just stop making that stupid face!"
"Yay!" Sora pranced around the Gummi Ship and finally sat down when Donald barked saying he couldn't focus.
The ride was actually shorter than the first. It took only about 10 to 15 minutes this time. Soon enough they came across a world that was green pretty much all around, covered in trees. "All right, maybe Kairi or Riku will be there," Sora said hopefully
"Or maybe the King," added Goofy.
"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Donald. "The King would never be in a dump like this, Goofy."
"Oh, well I just thought-"
"What do you know? We're going back to Traverse Town now." Donald began to turn the Gummi Ship around when Sora gripped Donald's feathery hands to stop him. "What?"
"We can't skip this world. Riku or Kairi might be down there."
"I don't care. All I know is that the King would not be in a place like this. We're leaving." He pushed the steering wheel to turn again, but this time Sora pushed him out of the chair. He grabbed the wheel and pushed a lever that Donald had pushed earlier to speed up. "No!" Donald yelled. But it was too late. Sora had already pushed the lever to maximum power and they sped off, plunging towards the green world.
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"AHH!" Sora yelled falling. He was going down, headfirst. He closed his eyes, ready for impact any second, when BAM! Sora found himself on his backside, grunting in pain. He opened his eyes to find that he was on the top of some wooden platform. He moved a leg to get up when he felt the wood under his bottom creak loudly, and a piece by his elbow broke off and fell. He heard the wood clang a bit and heard somewhat of a hissing sound below him.
"HELP!" someone yelled. This startled Sora and he jumped up off his rear, and onto his feet. Right when his shoes hit the wood, it creaked and he fell through.
He landed on all fours – scraping his knee – and looked up to see the person who screamed. It was a girl, whose leg had fallen through the wood beneath her feet and was stuck.
Sora ran up to her. "Hold on, I'll get you out." He was about to grab her when she snapped.
"You idiot!" she said aggressively in a whisper, causing Sora to jump, "Look behind you!" Sora turned around and saw only a bunch of old blankets, dressers and a bit more old broken and dusty items. "Behind and up!" she snapped again, still in a whisper. Sora turned around and looked up in the rafters to see a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring at him. Sora stood still as the eyes gleamed at him. He stretched out his fingers slowly, ready to grab the Keyblade. He looked in the corner of his eye to see the girl shifting slowly, trying to relieve her leg from the hole. She tugged a little harder on her leg, but it was no use. She gripped one of the wood pieces around her leg and tried to break it off, without making too much noise.
Sora redirected his attention to the creature in the rafters. It was up in the shadows, but he could see it breathing slowly and a set of claws were on the bottom of the rafter. Sora took a step back – slowly – not taking any notice to the fact that his heel was right next to the girl's fingers. She was pulling hard on the wood and it made small cracking sounds as it was almost broken completely off. Sora pressed his heel down hard, getting ready to pounce up at the creature, when the girl made one swift tug on the wood. It broke off instantly, but she had pulled so hard that her hands – with the wood – flew up. The woods sharp end scratched Sora's ankle, and he couldn't hold in a fairly loud, "Ow!"
The second the word escaped his mouth, the creature leapt from the rafters. A golden, spotted leopard sprang at Sora, knocking him to the ground. Sora immediately gripped the Keyblade and hit the feline in the head. It rolled over and jumped up, pouncing at Sora faster than he could turn his head. He raised the Keyblade up to his face, ready for impact at any second.
BAM!
A loud blast came from his left side. He looked over and saw the girl with a pair of gun that looked like long sticks with handles. The leopard was standing still, hissing at her from a corner. Pointing her gun at it again, she put her thumb up to the side of the handle and pressed a button, that Sora guessed was the trigger.
Nothing happened.
The girl stood with her weapon still pointed and a fierce look on her face. She pushed the button again, but still nothing happened, and Sora could see a sort of flustered appearance creep onto her face. The leopard growled hungrily and bared its fangs, taking a few steps toward her. Sora jumped up – questioning himself on why it had taken him so long – and swung the Keyblade at the leopard. The leopard was fast but not fast enough. It jumped roughly to the side, but still had a deep graze across its left leg, where blood began to dribble down. The leopard took no notice to the cut and sprung quickly for Sora with its sharp claws.
"AAAAHHH!" someone yelled. A strange man, with a bloodstained spear in his hand, had knocked the leopard across the room. Sora looked to the bloody spear then to the leopard, which now had a large cut across its chest. The leopard backed away then ran towards one of the windows, breaking the smudged glass to pieces. Sora stared after it with his heart racing fast.
"Tarzan!" Whirling around, Sora saw the girl run up to the man.
She has long light blonde hair that reached down to her hips. She was fairly tall and her eyes were light blue. Tied on top of her head was a bandana that was a faint red color. She had two silver studs in her left ear and had brown sandals and gloves. She wore a jumpsuit that was a very light purple. The top part of the jumpsuit was unzipped and the arms tied around her waist like a jacket might be, revealing a black tube top. A khaki colored strap was tied around each of her thighs.
She slid her guns into both of the khaki holding straps. The guns were like two long red bars, with a black handle on them. They reminded Sora of the old wooden Tonfa weapons that a martial arts person would use as a guard.
The man had a much stranger look to him. He was crouched over like a caveman might have been, but he wasn't a hunchback. His arms hung down by his side and his fingers curled a strange way. He had messy brown hair and blue eyes. The strangest thing about him was that he wasn't wearing any clothes except for brown loincloth that was wrapped around his waist.
"Winry… hurt?" he asked with a couple of grunts.
Shaking her head she replied, "No I'm fine, thanks."
"Wait a second," Sora said suddenly remembering that Ed had told him one of his friends was named Winry. "Your name's Winry?"
"Uh yeah," she answered somewhat confounded, "Winry Rockbell. Why?"
"It's just that…" he began, thinking back on the night Ed and he were talking.
"Well, there's one girl named Winry, kind of sensitive. Now, she's a real machine freak! She loves technology. When we were little Al and I would always hang out with her."
'Oh, I don't want to get her all worried about Ed. He said she was sensitive, so she might freak out on me,' Sora thought. "It's just that I thought you were someone else, uh, your names are really similar is all." He scratched the back of his head and gave a little giggle, trying to make it sound like an honest mistake.
"Right," she said sarcastically. "Well, uh who are you?"
"I'm Sora." He walked up to her and they shook hands. "Who's that guy?" he asked gesturing to the shirtless man.
"Oh, this is Tarzan."
"What's with the, uh, pants?" he asked searching for a word that he wouldn't think would be offending.
Winry gave a giggle, "Don't worry, I'll explain that on the way to camp."
"Camp?"
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"Erg, DAMN IT ALL!" Donald yelled at the top of his lungs.
"Gawrsh you don't have to get so mad, Donald. Er, where's Sora?" Goofy said looking around. They were in some kind of jungle right next to a lake that had strange trees growing alongside it and large hippos bobbing up and down in the water.
"Ah, who needs the little brat? I say if he's gone, good riddance! He was only slowing us down from finding the King."
"But Donald, the King said we need the Key-"
"Shut up!"
Goofy looked at the ground in disappointment, then his mood suddenly got better. "Hey Donald,"
"I told you to shut up!"
"But Donald, look at this." Goofy held out his hand for Donald to see.
"What's that, Goofy?"
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"He was raised by monkeys?" Sora asked astounded as Winry finished talking about why Tarzan had such a strange appearance.
"Hehe, not monkeys, gorillas," Winry repeated.
"Wow," Sora said, looking down at ape-man who was walking with his knuckles on the ground. In his world he never really heard of anything like that, except for maybe in one of those kid books that he never read anymore where the person acted like a total goof.
"Anyway, you don't exactly look like you're from around here. Just arrive?" she asked. Sora stared at her. He wasn't sure of what to tell her. Goofy had said something about some non-interference law during one of their trips on the Gummi ship. He wasn't supposed to tell anyone about other worlds and such.
Sora tried thinking of something fast that might trick her. "Well, I'm… uh…"
"Are you from… like another planet?" she asked. Sora stared at her in disbelief. There was nothing about him that looked too other-worldly. OK, so it kind of did but that isn't something you ask someone right off the bat. Then he remembered that she and Edward were from the same world, but of course he had no idea if she was the Winry he had mentioned.
"Why would you ask that?" Sora tried to give a short laugh to sound like it was a silly question.
Winry suddenly began to look a little nervous as she started. "It's… it's just that… I'm not really from… what I mean is, I think I'm not even from this planet!"
"How did you get here?" Sora suddenly knew that she must be from another world.
Winry looked somewhat confused by his reaction, but told him anyway. "Well, I was visiting my friends Ed and Al because Edward's Automail had broken," she started, as Sora thought back to the night in Traverse Town when he told Sora about how he had lost his real arm and leg in some kind of accident. "They had to go do something that they wouldn't tell me anything about. So, I was in my room and decided to go look for them, I didn't find them anywhere in the building and went outside. Then I could have sworn I heard them screaming about something in the old warehouse nearby. But, when I opened the door…" she trailed off, trying to remember the night. "I don't know. It's like I was there one second and the next, I was lying on the ground in this jungle."
Sora looked at her, recognizing the feeling of being tossed out of your home and finding yourself in unfamiliar territory. "Well, looks like we have something in common."
Winry stared at him. "You mean you're from a different planet too!"
"Actually, you don't really call them planets, it's more well known as worlds, and yeah, I am." She stared at him in disbelief.
"Oh my gosh, did you just get here? I mean you haven't been wandering around all by yourself have you? It's been pretty dangerous around here lately and-"
"Hey, hey, calm down," he said. 'Now I know what Ed meant when he said she was a bit sensitive. Or at least a bit over reactive,' he thought. "I'm actually just visiting this world." She stared at him, confused at his words, but he just laughed.
He looked at her again and saw someone behind her. It was Kairi! Sora stood frozen, staring at her. She looked at him, gave a smile, and then walked behind a tree where Sora could no longer see her.Winry looked at the spot where Sora was staring at, and saw nothing.
"Are you OK, Sora?" she asked waving a hand in front of his face. He saw the hand waving quickly, breaking his eye contact with the tree.
"Huh? Oh, I, uh, just wanted to ask you something. Have you seen a couple of people around here named Riku and Kairi? You see they're my friends and-"
"E-oo-ooh-ooh-hah," Tarzan grunted.
"Huh?"
"E-oo-ooh-ooh-hah," he repeated.
"Uh, I don't know what that means. See, me no understando," Sora said making a bunch of "no" signs.
"Don't pay too much attention to that. He said the same thing to me when I asked Jane and Clayton about my friends. They didn't know anything about it either."
"So you're looking for your two friends, Ed and Al?" Winry nodded.
"And you're looking for Riku and Kairi, I think." Sora nodded.
"Right so if we ever bump into one of the other's friend, we'll be sure to tell them."
"Right," Winry replied, sticking out her pinky. Sora wrapped his pinky around Winry's and they made a little shake.
"By the way, who are Clayton and Jane," Sora asked.
"Oh, those are the people I'm staying with at the camp. I'll introduce you, it's right up here," she said pointing to an opening between the trees. The path led to an open area that had tents and lots of luggage sitting around. "In here," she gestured to one of the larger tents. She pushed the flap away and Sora walked in after her.
There was a woman examining an old slide show projector in the tent, and she turned around when she heard them enter. She had long brown hair that reached the middle of her back, and blue-green eyes. She had light skin and she was fairly tall. She was wearing a white tank top and mahogany skirt, and was walking barefoot.
"Jane this is Sora, Sora this is Jane. She's the one I've been staying with." Winry said. Sora gave a grin and a wave.
"Hello," he said
"Hello," Jane replied. She had a British accent. "Are you here to study the gorillas?"
Sora opened his mouth to reply when someone interrupted. "Highly doubtful." Sora turned around to see a large man with brown – and somewhat gray – hair, with a little mustache, dressed in a yellow poacher's uniform and a rifle in his hand.
Two others walked in after him. Donald and Goofy. Sora, Donald and Goofy's faces all lit up.
"Sora!" Goofy exclaimed.
"Donald! Goofy!" Sora yelled.
"Sora!" Donald exclaimed. Donald and Sora ran up to each other and grabbed hands, stared at each other, and remembered their earlier fight. They released each other's hands and turned back to back, folding their arms across their chests.
"A circus full of clowns," the man said, "Not much use for hunting gorillas."
"Mr. Clayton, were studying them not hunting them. This is research," Jane said. Clayton seemed not to notice her comment and left the tent. Jane sighed. "Well, the more the merrier. What are your names?"
"I'm Goofy and that's Donald."
"I'm Jane, this is Tarzan, and the one who just left is Clayton. Don't mind him too much. Oh, and you two don't know Winry over there." Winry gave a wave and Goofy waved back. "Well, what brings you three here? Are you together?"
"No," said Sora
"But," Donald added.
"I'm staying!" they said together. They gave each other a somewhat surprised look. Sora had wanted to keep going to other worlds and find his friends as soon as possible, and Donald said the King would have never been in a place like this.
"Ahyuk, look what we found, Sora." Goofy held out his hand. In the middle of his palm was a small colorful chunk that looked like the item they found in the last world they visited. "It's a Gummi block, and it's different from the ones on our ship. Just like the last one we found."
"Oh, so that means,"
"The King might be here," Donald interrupted. "So that means we'll have to stick together… for now," he added.
"Right, I'll let you tag along. For now," Sora replied. The two stood back to back in silence.
"Oh, Winry could you help find those slides I asked about earlier?" Jane asked.
"Sure. Hey Sora, you want to help?"
"Find slides?"
"Yes you see we are having a bit of trouble communicating with Tarzan," Jane explained, "So we were going to show him some slides on our projector, but I'm afraid they've gotten scattered around when we were setting up camp. I asked Winry if she could help find them while I fix the projector up a bit."
"Oh, OK, I'll help."
"Us too," said Goofy. "Come on Donald!" Donald waddled out of the tent after them still crossing his arms.
They all walked outside and picked a place in all the luggage and began looking. Sora and Winry were close by when Sora noticed something.
"Winry, that leopard thing didn't hurt you earlier, did it?" he asked pointing to two scars along her arm and shoulder that he hadn't seen earlier. She looked to where he was pointing and sighed.
"No, I got those the day I came here."
"What, you mean when you came to this world?" Sora asked grabbing Goofy and Donald's attention.
"Sora!" Donald and Goofy ran up to him.
"It's OK," he whispered, "She knows Ed."
"What did you say?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing. So did that leopard get you or what?" he asked looking to change the subject.
"No, it wasn't any animal that I've ever seen. It was some weird black thing. It looked like a big bug with yellow eyeballs."
This caught the threes attention right away.
It had to be a Heartless!
(A/N)
Sorry it was so short (short for me anyway), but I guess that one was just to say I'm back!
Review, or I'll tell Edward that you called him the "s" word!