Cast: (glaring)
Me: Welcome back readers!
Riku: Tell them.
Me: No.
Sora: Tell them!
Me: NO!
All: (glare)
Me: (stare glare)
All:...(twiddle Barney videos threateningly)
Me: (gulps) I'll tell them at the end of this chapter! But a notice for all those people bribing, threatening, and commanding me to stop writing One Piece... (sniffs) I'm so touched you care.
Cast: (grins)
Me: NOW READ!
Disney Castle
King Mickey marched through the vast halls of Disney Castle, which had been newly renovated. A deep red carpet replaced the bright red one, and ran across the middle of the hall with black tassels instead of gold. The banners with the mouse insignia were replaced by navy blues ones, hanging limply from the poles with an elegant air to them.
The bright marble floor remained untarnished and untouched. but it had been buffed up from the decades of age and now shown as if newly placed. The towering windows now had a stained glass border, sun light flowing through and sending multi-colored streams of light dancing through the air and making beautiful patterns stretch endlessly across the floor.
But the beautiful surroundings, for once, did not catch King Mickey's eye. He was too worried, too busy, to thing of anything but the job at hand now.
He had gotten off the phone with Sora over an hour ago and still no word from Hubert or the others of his safe return. King Mickey was vexed at what caught the brunette's attention and he was determined to find out what. Before it was too late.
"You know what this means, don't you?"
King Mickey sighed. This man always seemed to find him at the worst possible times with the worst possible news. "Yes, Oram, I know very well what it could mean."
"What it could mean?" the man repeated. He pushed off of the wall he had been leaning on and walked over to the King, staring down at him. "You mean what it does mean, right?"
"There's no evidence," King Mickey said defensively, staring up at one of his most trusted spies. The man wore a long black cloak with a silver badge over his heart. The hood was off showing a man with dark brown hair spiked up in little tuffs. He had light brown eyes that, when out in the sun, almost seemed red or orange due to the refraction of light that bounced off his eyes. He was fairly tan, yet not as tan as Sora. He stood at six feet exactly; years of the service he had to this place gave him a muscular build that you would never guess he had due to the fact he was a s thin as a tooth pick. That just goes to show you can't judge a person by their looks.
The man named Oram smirked, crossing his arms over his chest. "You really are blind, aren't you?" he asked. "Everything points to where Sora is going and you won't even acknowledge it."
His ears tilting back slightly in anger, King Mickey hissed, "Maybe you should acknowledge your place around here."
Oram raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. The sun light flowed through the window, casting a blood red shadow over the tall man. His brown eyes glinted, looking almost orange.
King Mickey waited for some sort of response, but his wait was in vain. Snorting slightly, he turned, tail shipping behind him as he stalked out of the room.
He walked in silence for several long moments before he could no longer shake off the feeling he was being followed.
Coming to an abrupt halt, he spun around and took a few hasty steps backward in shock. Oram was not one foot away from him.
"What now?" Mickey grumbles, annoyed. No wonder he was Mickey's top spy. The guy could pop up out of nowhere without making a sound.
"I'm here to watch this whole thing blow up in your face," he said calmly.
The mouse king narrowed his eyes in a threatening way, but this did not seem to deter Oram in the slightest. In fact, it made him seem a bit smug.
"I take it you're heading for the Astronomy Room?" he asked politly, tilting his head to the side in mock curiosity.
Mickey ignored him. Instead, he kept up his brisk pace. There was no reason for Oram to muffle his footsteps anymore, but there was still no sound from him. It was so quiet King Mickey looked behind him several times to check and make sure Oram was still there.
This strange man had been in service for around fifteen years and he was the best of the best. If he wanted to be invisible, he would disappear. If he wanted something done, he wanted it to have been done five minutes before and it was finished in the blink of an eye.
Oram didn't particularly go out of his way to make it like this,. It was just his job and he was good at it. The badge on his chest proved it. The silver had a mouse insignia imbedded on it, like all the other spies. But he was one of the elite. The cross that ran inside of the mouse insignia showed it to all who dared get close enough.
The two finally made it to their destination without speaking a word to each other. King Mickey pushed open a large, thick wooden door. Unlike the rest of the palace, it was not decorated. Steel bolts lined the edges and ran through the middle. There was no paint, no ceramic. Just a plain old door, for once. The only thing that associated it with the rest of the Castle was that it was huge. Which was pretty ironic, considering their king was so small.
Nevertheless, the door swung open with ease in it's hinges, only the tiniest of squeaks audible. The inside of the room was plain, as well. Well, as plain as a technical room could be.
When you thought of Astronomy, you would think of star gazing. Perhaps a large tower to look out of with a telescope. But not this one. It was wired to the base of it's stone floors with Computer and the highest ranking technology they could get their hands on. The Astronomy Tower was used for surveying the rest of the universe, yes, but not with a telescope. They kept an eye on the worlds, this way, and any unauthorized black holes.
The purpose of a black hole was originally created by a King a very long time ago. In order to rid space of its excess waste, these monstrous portals were created to suck it all up, like an overlarge vacuum cleaner. They created them by disturbing the waves int he barriers, thus ripping open a patch of space that would suck it all in. Theory was that they could reset the waves in the barriers and make the ole disappear just as easily.
But the plan had back fired. Once they got up a few black holes over the years, they began to permanently disrupt the barrier. It became harder and harder to close them. Unauthorized portals opened up everywhere, sometimes sucking in as much as a whole planet.
So because of this, a ship had to literally go out there and destroy it with a bomb. Not just a regular bomb. This one contained enough electricity that when exploded inside the black hole, it would jump start the waves that caused the black hole with so much energy that it shut down. The bombs were later made so that they could travel through barriers, thus traveling to ones far away from Disney Castle.
It was the same technology that was used to make the Spectra Ship, which was exactly was they were here.
The Astronomy Room was mainly to monitor the black holes. And this was where the bombs were set off and tracked. Since the Spectra Ship was made with the same technology, they could use this room to track down Sora, as well.
Oram looked around with a flicker of curiosity on his facial features. He had never been in this place before and found it mildly interesting. Who knew Mouse Man spent time putting computers in this place instead of fancy, useless decorations like he was dressing it as a doll house?
"Have you found it yet?" King Mickey asked, standing beside a slightly fat dog with a bushy gray mustache and a droopy face.
"No, your majesty," he said in a gruff voice. "We're running a last scan on the actual material the ship is made of."
"Why can't you just use radar?" King Mickey asked. "Or contact him. I know we can."
"We've lost transmissions a while ago," he said. "No contact at all. Systems in that ship were either turned off or severely damaged."
King Mickey winced. Sora would never turn them off and the other option wasn't any better. Maybe Sora just hit the button with an elbow or something? Yeah, that's it. He hit it with his elbow.
As you can see, Mickey's getting desperate.
Not waiting for an answer, the dog said, "The ship's made of exactly what the bombs are. If we find any traces of it that isn't small enough to be one of those, then we've found Sora."
"Is this really that important?" Oram muttered.
King Mickey looked up, raising an eyebrow. Oram rarely voiced up an opinion like this. "What d'ya mean?'
"I mean I'm sure the kid knows what he's doing. From what I hear he's got quite a head on his shoulders."
"We're checking," King Mickey began, turning his back to the spy once more, "just to make sure he's all right. When communications are out, it sorta gives us a reason to double-check."
He heard a soft snort behind him, but Mickey ignored it. He got along well enough with Oram but sometimes the guy just got on his nerves.
"Done," the dog at the computer said. And sure enough, a blue metallic box flickered onto the screen. King Mickey studied it, but could make no sense of it. Just a bunch of numbers down in lists, none of them seeming to be over the number twenty.
But they obviously seemed to be making sense to the other. His blood shot, droopy eyes were widening as they skimmed down the short row of numbers, frantically searching for something. His face got longer and longer, his eyes wider by the second.
King Mickey waited patiently. He could tell the guy was double checking, maybe even triple checking, but what was taking so long?
Kign Mickey cleared his throat and the other jumped as if he'd forgotten the mouse was in the room. But he was there and starting to look annoyed.
"Well?" he asked, tapping his foot on the ground. "What do ya got for me?"
The dog gulped, and he looked like he'd rather swallow glass and wash it down with acid rather then tell his king this.
"W-well, sire," he stuttered, pointing at the screen. "The Spectra's atomic number in fifty-seven. And as you can see," he slid his finger down the ten numbers, "these are all no where near that. These are all bombs."
And sure enough, one number disappeared, meaning it had reach it's desired location and exploded.
Mickey raised an eyebrow, s till not grasping the concept. "So?" he asked. "Maybe he's on another world."
But hte dog shook his head. "No, this thing tracks i t everywhere. It expands as far as the bombs and Spectra travel. There are only two options as to what happened."
"And what are they?" Mickey asked, impatient.
"One is the Ship got blown into such tiny bits it can't be traced anymore."
KIng Mickey gulped. He didn't like that one. "What's the other?"
The dog had started wringing his hands now, shaking a bit. Well, sire, our systems are never wrong," he said. "It can pick up everything. But sire... there's only one place it can't track that Ship."
"And where is that?" Mickey asked, fear starting to spread across his face.
"Well, sire, the only place it can't be traced... the only other place the Spectra Ship can be is... is in a black hole."
Done
All: TELL THEM!
Me: (hiss) I love that cliffhanger, don't you guys?
Riku: And it will be there for a very long time.
Me: (looks nervous)
Readers:...
Me:...(sighs) Alright, alright. I'm sorry, people, but I'm putting this story on haitus after this chapter.
Readers: o.o (choke)
Me: I've run dry of ideas. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but my writing has been strained. I've stretched scenes so far I'm afraid they might snap. So... until inspiration strikes me... there won't be another FL update. Might last a week. Might last three months. I don't know. But if you want that update, you can either IM or e-mail me at with some ideas. Or if you want me to tell you when there will be an update. I'm every sorry, I just can't go on forcing everything. No ideas are here. There's no Sora in this chapter cause I can't figure out what to do with him even thought I have my plot. So... yeah, until inspiration, bye-bye.
Cast: (cries)