The World Of Destiny Island
A/N: Kingdom Hearts is the property of Square-Enix blah, blah blah...
You Can Call Me Al is by and copyright Paul Simon, from the Graceland album.
You Can Call Me Al
"Wake up!" Frega nudged her in the side with his foot. She lifted her head and glared at him. "It's time for you to perform your duty," he ignored her look and handed her a pocketknife. "Use this to jimmy the lock. I'll expect you back in an hour, if you're late I'll be forced to come and get you.
"You don't want that," he warned.
She scrambled to her feet and made her way through the forest, which was ten times scarier in the dark now that she was alone, but at least she wasn't having as much trouble seeing her way.
Isn't this a little thrilling, she thought sarcastically, I'm running off to commit my first crime.
She tripped over a root and made a terrific racket as she fell to the ground.
This is not who I am! What am I doing?
Maybe I could run away, she thought. But she remembered his warning.
No matter what he makes me do, I'll stay pure in my heart!
She solemnly swore to the sky, even if she didn't really believe in spirits. It helped her a little, and she felt free to continue on her way.
The town silently slumbered. Kairi didn't even see a night watchman. She stood still for a couple of minutes and heard nothing more than a couple of dogs in the distance.
Honestly. These people were begging to be burgled, but she was sorry to be the one to do so.
The museum had just one lock, and that wasn't even a dead bolt. Good.
She took out the knife and looked at it in by the waxing crescent moon's light.
"Swiss Army Knife. Yes!" She'd always wanted one of these useful things, but she never had the money to get one herself and her parents would never allow it (Mom thought they were silly, and Dad didn't think it appropriate for his daughter, whom he was determined would be a lady, to carry knives.)
The flimsy lock gave her no problem at all. She left the door hanging open and went inside the dark building.
Even with the door open the light was too poor to see by, but she didn't dare turn on the lights. And the fact that there was a thousand-year-old dead guy sitting in there somewhere did nothing for her nerves.
Kairi shut her eyes tightly and tried to remember the layout of the building. The door to the hallway should stand about five steps ahead– no, seven.
"Ow! Shhh…" she nearly swore when she stubbed her toe on the open hallway door between step four and five. She followed the wall with her hand and walked into the hallway.
Creak!
"Shhh!" she shushed the creaky floorboard out of habit. This had to be the worst burgling attempt in the history of the world. In hindsight, she should've spent more time with Chappu.
The room with the rock was at the end of the hallway. She walked face-first into the closed and locked door.
In with the good air, she took a deep breath and let it out. There may not be that much time left. The lock gave as easily as the front door's, and the sweet smell of aging wood and paper wafted out of the room as the door swung open.
She held her hands out at shoulder height; that way if she did run in to the dead guy she wouldn't accidentally touch him. Brrr!
The drawers were easy to find, but she realized that she didn't remember which drawer she needed to look in. The only way to find the stone was to stick her hands into drawers containing who-knows-what.
Luckily the only thing she found in the first drawer was more sculptures, and in the second drawer she hit pay dirt.
"Easy," she sighed. The rosetta stone was the size of a dinner platter and heavy. She cinched her belt tight and unbuttoned the jacket down to the belt. With a grunt she lifted the stone and put it into her jacket and then buttoned it up. "Nice and safe," she said. "And I hope I don't start talking to myself on a regular basis, hehe."
She shut the museum door behind her and leaned against it for a second. A sound from the shadows made her freeze.
Nothing happened for a second, and then a small white duck waddled into the moonlight and inquisitively tilted its head.
Kairi wiped the sweat from her forehead and laughed quietly.
Another duck, this one a little larger, waddled out to join its compatriot. It too tilted its head and stared at her. They looked cute like that, so Kairi leaned over and pet the little one. It didn't shy away.
"Wak!" it said. She looked around to see if anyone in the quiet town was alarmed by the noise. But it was just a little duck quacking, what's alarming about that?
Another pair of ducks waddled out of the dark and looked at her.
Then another set of four ducks…
Then eight ducks…
And then sixteen…
The number of ducks doubled every couple of seconds.
"This is weird," Kairi said, her eyes darting to the flock of ducks silently waddling around her. She took a tentative step back towards the forest, but found her way barred by a small crowd of hissing ducks.
"I can't stay guys," she said and she tried to step over them. One of the little bastards proceeded to bite her! Okay, it didn't hurt, she wore too much clothing for that, but it was the principle of the matter. In the meantime the street was filling up with ducks. She hopped over the ducks and quickly walked away. A glance over her shoulder let her know that the ducks were following her.
She walked faster and then gave up and flat out ran.
The ducks took flight and attacked.
She ran screaming out of town and through the forest. Every time she tripped the little monsters would land on her and peck. Many of them managed to get at her neck and face and even her fingers. How she managed not to break the rosetta stone in all the confusion she didn't know.
"Help me!" she wailed to her boss as soon as she got close enough to the old ruins to see their campfire. The elf didn't disappoint. He nimbly leapt to her defense, swung his staff around his head and knocked several of the ducks out of the air.
"Waaak!" the wounded ducks cried. They floated out of the air and burst when they hit the ground, leaving only a clump of white feathers. Kairi picked up a handy tree branch and got in on the action.
The air was filled with feathers and pitiful death cries. Hundreds and hundreds of ducks swarmed around them regardless. Frega shouted something, and immediately most of the flock fell out of the air and thudded to the ground completely frozen through.
The remainder of the attack force burst into little balls of flame that extinguished like colorful fireworks, the cinders fell harmlessly to the ground.
"What… what… what…" Kairi said nervously as she spun around looking for more attackers. Feathers and ash drifted down around them. A fluffy feather landed on Frega's hair and disintegrated in a tiny puff of dust.
"That's got to be the oldest damn summoning spell I've ever seen," Frega said. He appeared nonplussed as always and casually brushed the dust from his shoulders.
"Okay, Fester. You want to live? You'll have to jump!" Baralai threw open the door. The smell of the rainforest and the roar of the wind filled the car.
"But that'll leave me in the middle of Sherwood Forest!" Fester whined. "There's monsters out there!"
"It's your only chance," Baralai said. Well, he had to admit (at least to himself) that Fester could ingratiate himself on the Mayor, and beg forgiveness. But Baralai wasn't feeling particularly kind today. "You don't want Shadow to come back and slice you in half, do you?" he asked calmly.
"No! I want to live!" Fester hugged his bag to his chest.
"Good. The bottle. Please?" Baralai held out his hand. Fester glanced at the rushing track. With a shaky hand he reached into his bag and handed Baralai the love potion. "Good," Baralai pocketed the bottle. "Now your best bet is to roll when you land."
"I can't do this!" Fester said. Baralai pushed him towards the door.
"Here, I'll help you," Baralai said. "Get ready to jump when I tell you. Okay. One… Two…" and he planted his hand on the man's back and shoved him on "two." Fester wailed, fell head over heels and bounced along the ground. Baralai lost sight of him almost immediately, but surely the man survived– he was bleeding and screaming.
There, I saved an undeserving man's life. That should make up for Garm's murder, he thought.
Everyone on the train turned up to eat the free sandwich, including the hobo who'd been hiding in the baggage car. This made it easy to track down the onboard physician and give him the bottle of love potion.
"Well?"
"If this list is accurate," the physician tapped the bottle and looked up in the air. "And I'm pretty sure it is, this company is highly reputable. If the list is accurate, this is mostly a mixture of sugar water; a quote-unquote aphrodisiac; and the mood-elevating narcotic, methamphetamine; plus one percent of one percent of mist.
"Your friend doesn't have a heart condition, does she?"
"No. I don't think so."
"Alright then. She should crash in a few hours, expect her to be tired and a little depressed. Try to get her to sleep; watch her, people on amphetamines may engage in risky behaviors, and come and see me if she loses consciousness or stops breathing. She'll probably be fine, though. Just don't let her use any more of this garbage. Throw it out!"
"Thank you, doctor."
Myrna was the center of attention, and chatting up everyone and glowing under the compliments thrown to her. She looked so damned happy. Baralai was tempted to try the stuff himself.
I really should check up on Shadow, he thought as he headed for the engine.
The ninja was sitting comfortably in the car where they last met, wiping his swords and checking his equipment.
"You're too late," Shadow said.
"That's fine," he answered stiffly. "Was it much of a problem?" Shadow said nothing. "The Mayor is going to be fine."
"Good. And the salesman?"
"Gone."
"Good. For him."
"I want to know what the exact terms of the agreement between you and Mayor are."
Shadow sheathed his swords and left without a word.
"You haven't had some of my sandwich," Myrna shoved a large section of her masterpiece into his hands. "Are you alright?"
"Yes. Are you?" he asked.
"Never better." She leaned in and said softly: "I wish Zeph were here, though. Isn't that strange? I feel so ecstatic and I can't stop thinking about my man at the same time. Grrrr. When I get my hands on him!" She shook her fist and then burst into peals of hysteric laughter. "I'm gonna break his legs and make sure he never leaves me again," she laughed.
This personal stuff made Baralai slightly uncomfortable, but he did like the idea of Nerd-boy having his legs broken.
"Oh! I met someone!"
"What?" he stopped smiling.
"Someone for you. She's perfect." She dragged him into the small knot of passengers.
"No. Please no– hello," she brought him to a woman in her thirties who wore too little, but definitely had a lot to flaunt.
"This is Ruby, she's a dancer," Myrna said. Ruby looked him over and smiled politely.
"Hello."
"Well, I've gotta go. Bye!" and she flounced, flounced away.
He and Ruby regarded each other nervously.
"So, you're a friend of Mrs. Unne," Ruby said and waited for him to pick up the conversation.
"Oh, uh, yeah. For years and years…" he said stupidly and struggled mightily to keep his eyes up.
"She's so… interesting," Ruby said.
I can't believe I got her phone number! Baralai kept repeating this to himself. Flirting with women sure was nice.
After cooking up every existing ingredient in the kitchen, packing away a huge quantity of leftovers, and shaking the hand of every passenger, the Mayor finally crashed. He lost track of her soon after she introduced him to Ruby.
He walked in the compartment. She had changed into her lighter summer dress– a fiery red color, an attention-getter. He wondered why she didn't change into it before she threw her impromptu party. He looked away when he realized she wasn't entirely dressed.
"Are you hot?" she asked him, a bit embarrassed to be caught standing there holding her shirt open to catch the breeze from the window. "Sorry about this," she shut her shirt.
"I'm alright," he said.
"It just got really hot in here a few minutes ago. I'm exhausted," she said.
"You should be."
She turned the thermostat as far down as it could go. Interceptor and Goliath huddled in the corner, shivering.
"Are you alright?" she asked him. "You were upset about something earlier."
"We have to talk," he said. "Shadow said–"
"Next stop: Mysidia," she interrupted him. "We'll get a couple of hours to wander around! Oh! We should visit some of your friends, I'd love to meet them."
"Yeah, fine, but we have to talk about Shadow."
"So tired," she yawned. "Mind if I take the bench?"
He sighed. Well, the doctor said she'd be tired and to try to get her to sleep. There'd be time to get rid of Shadow later. She stretched out on the bench and faced the wall. Goliath squeaked and crawled up to join her.
The dog looked at him and wagged his tail halfheartedly. Baralai scratched him behind the ears and sat down. He looked around the compartment and wondered what he would do with himself for the next few hours, and then it occurred to him that something in the room was different.
Attention to detail is a very important characteristic for members of the Antiquities Class to have. It's vitally important to catalogue every bit of metal in a horde, missing just one coin can be devastating to the poor soul who gets it by mistake. He must've been tired too, or he'd have noticed the book on the table immediately.
The book had a tattered red cover, the material so thin that the cardboard beneath showed through and frayed at the corners. The edges of the pages were once gilded, but now were a sickly yellow.
"You weren't here when we first got here, were you?" he mumbled to himself. Any one of the passengers could've left it in the compartment by mistake, he reasoned.
He got chills when he picked up the book, and flipped open the cover. On the first page he saw the worn bookplate with a child's scribbled stick figure on it.
"From the Library of Riku, hands off! This means you!"
He couldn't stop himself from jumping out of his seat and walking briskly down the entire train again. Nothing leaped out at him as out of place or suspicious. The passengers were settling in for the night, and he saw no one new.
They'd been in his house, whoever they were, and they wanted him to know it. And they'd used one of his son's books to let him know. Why?
He stopped to calm himself at the last car with the book in hand. A little corner of folded paper stuck out of the pages, the spine crackled when he opened it to the page marked by a fastidiously folded origami star. The illustrations on the pages were those quaint watercolor jobs where all the people were drawn to look like kids with really big heads.
"King Baron Orders the Raid on Mysidia" was the title of the first illustration. Across from the painting of the ancient airships lifting off was "King Baron Orders Cecil and Kain to Take a Mysterious Package to Mist." A couple of pages had been torn out between the two illustrations, but they hadn't been used to make the star, the paper stock was all wrong.
The compartment door beside him slid open.
"Oh! Good evening," the doctor gazed out over his reading glasses. "I thought I heard something. Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Baralai?"
"No, doctor, I'm sorry I bothered you. I was looking for someone."
"Just a moment," the doctor stopped him from leaving. "There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about. Would you please join me for a bit of tea?"
"I'm not thirsty, but thank you," Baralai had enough of tea. He stepped into the compartment warily. The doctor had the contents of his luggage all over the place, including his own lamps, which lent an atmosphere of warm bachelor comfort to the place. A tea service sat on the table in the center of the warm lights with a tray of cookies.
"You're a dragoon, aren't you?" the doctor sat himself in the overstuffed chair. "A librarian class or something like that?"
"Antiquarian, actually." It surprised him how close the doctor guessed. Few people knew the distinctions.
"My daughter's a novice in the Order," he said. "Passed the rites two years ago, she's a Lancer."
"Congratulations."
"I never agreed with her choice. And what's going on in Mysidia right now is a good reason why. You haven't heard?"
"I've been dealing with a family emergency of my own," Baralai said.
"Children?"
"Pardon?"
"Do you have any children, sir?" the doctor asked. "Are you sure you don't want any tea?"
"I'm fine, thanks."
"You looked a little lost out there," the doctor said. "I said to myself 'that man's a father, or he just had the scare of his life.' You know you have a little furrow between your eyebrows? If you're particularly vain, I know a surgeon who can fix that."
"Thanks," Baralai said, "but I think I'll just try not to frown so much." The doctor chuckled quietly.
"So Mysidia… Why don't you know what's going on in Mysidia?"
"I don't live there," Baralai said. "I rarely get a chance to check in with the Temple." The doctor sipped his tea.
"But you know about the governor, right?"
"Governor…" he wracked his brain. His grasp of secular politics suffered since he moved away. "Pallazo?"
"Yes. Fellow closed the borders about a month ago."
"Why?"
"No one knows the real reason, but he said it was to keep out the bad element, the people from the forest, whatever that means. Oh, they'll let people in through the official ways, the railroads and the highway, otherwise the Mysidians would starve!
"But you should know that last Friday he had all the dragoons thrown into prison."
"WhatAre you sure?"
"There's a large reward for information leading to the capture of any members they haven't gotten already. I'm heading there to see what I can do to get my daughter out." The doctor handed him a memo from the Portico City Watch, an acknowledgment that the Watch would do everything in its power to help the governor of Mysidia in his search for the fugitive members of the Order.
"This is crazy," Baralai whispered. "Why?"
"I don't know," the doctor took the memo back. "But I suggest that if you have any plain clothes that you change into them before we reach Mysidia."
Personally, Wakka couldn't say that he'd wondered what it felt like to be thrown into a dryer. Or a blender. Or a tornado. Or any other device that spun things around for the purpose of destroying them. But to anyone who wondered he had this to say:
You hit your head. A lot! And you get scraped up by whatever else is in there with you– rocks, sticks, glass, Stitch... It's not a tolerable experience to say nothing of the noise.
Thankfully this situation didn't go on too long. Once they reached the underground prison the spinning abruptly stopped, and before he had a chance to regain his equilibrium a couple of armed guards picked him up and yelled at him. He didn't understand the language, but they didn't seem to require an answer. They herded him through a badly lit corridor and shoved him into a jail. Lilo and Stitch followed, and soon after he saw Zidane, and Chappu being forced into a nearby cell.
Where was Mog?
All were silent for some time after the guards left, being too dazed to do much other than look around at their drab surroundings.
Concrete walls, concrete floors, and of course, prison bars. Someone believed that this wasn't depressing enough, and had painted all of this over with a coat of gray paint. The whole area was lit by three overhead fluorescent lights, one of which flickered.
In a cell across from the crew a young man around Wakka's age sat with his back to the wall and his hands propped on his knees. He should've had a cigarette to complete the look. He was the picture of cool carelessness.
"Hi there," the boy in the denim outfit with the bandana around his head greeted them. "You're the leader?" he asked Wakka.
"Who wants to know?" Chappu answered. The boy shook his head, the rings in his ears glinted in the dim light.
"The name's Locke Cole. I was sent to help you."
"You help us?" Zidane said and shook the sand from his hair. "No offense, but it looks like you could use some help yourself."
"Where are we?" Lilo asked.
"And who sent you?" Chappu asked.
"Who is that?" Wakka's voice was faint with awe. Two cells over a gorgeous blonde lay asleep. Her hair was pulled back into two enormous pigtails that sort of fluffed out at the ends. She was dressed provocatively, and expensively.
"It's okay," Locke got up slowly. "You're the kids who stole the ship from the Luna?"
"Maybe," Chappu said.
"Stole is a pretty strong word for what we…" Wakka trailed off and gave up. He pointed at Chappu. "It was all his idea!"
"You've got a lot of guts kid," Locke said to Chappu, who tried not to look at all affected by the compliment. "You should see the amount of attention the Luna have given you on their networks. Bounty hunters and everything!"
"Bounty hunters!" Zidane said.
"There's a big reward!" Locke added.
"How much are we talking about?" Chappu asked.
"Oh-ho! And I'm sure you'd just be happy to "help" us get back to them and collect this reward for yourself!" Zidane accused him.
"Me? Never! I'm with…" and he paused dramatically, "The Returners."
"Dum dum dummm!" Stitch said. Everyone looked down at him.
"Never heard of 'em," Wakka said.
"I have," Zidane said. "The executives used to complain about them from time to time. They're corporate spies."
"Wrong. A better description would be "Anti-Lunarian Revolutionaries."" Locke grinned.
There was a long silence.
"Oh great," Wakka said sarcastically, "That makes me feel so much better."
"And I'll bet you let yourself get planted in this prison," Chappu said with a knowing wink, "just to gain our trust! And you already have an escape arranged for us."
"I don't think we should go anywhere with this guy," Wakka said to Chappu.
"Wait a minute," Locke held up his hands, looked away, and sighed. "This is a little embarrassing…"
"He's in here 'cause of me."
The boys all turned to the girlish voice. The blonde sat up gracefully, fluffed her hair and pouted her lips prettily. One could feel the intelligence of the males in the room being siphoned away.
"You be quiet, Sus," Locke snapped.
"I'm s-sorry, Locke!" Tears formed in her beautiful brown eyes.
"I said leave me alone!"
"But, Locke!"
"Hey, stop that," Zidane said.
"Yeah, give her a break," Wakka added.
"I tried to stop him!" Sus sobbed into her hands. "I tried to stop him from coming on this dangerous mission and he got caught 'cause of me-e-e! Uwaaaah!" The wailing went on for a few minutes.
"Stitch!" Lilo hissed. The little creature flattened himself out and crept beneath the sections of bars between each cell until he got to Sus's delicate little feet. Stitch climbed up onto the bench beside Sus and patted her back.
"It's okay," he said. She quickly grabbed and hugged him while she continued to sob into his fur. "There there," he said stroking her hair.
"I j-just care about him s-so much!" she wailed.
"Yeah. Well you can stop caring about me because we're through!" Locke said.
"Um, this isn't any of our business," Wakka said, "but is it really necessary to yell like that?"
"Look at her, she's a mess," Chappu said in an uncharacteristic show of pity.
"There lies trouble, gentlemen," Locke said quietly. "Don't let her fool you– she's a succubus!" He sounded more than a little crazy on that point.
"What's a succubus?" Lilo asked.
"I'll tell ya later," Chappu said.
"No, you won't," Wakka ordered. "And there's no call for name-calling, so can we move on? Why are you here, really?"
"We were aware that you were in trouble with the Luna," Locke looked relieved to drop the subject of the weepy Sus. "And since we are a dedicated bunch of militants; down with the Luna, and all that; we thought we'd help you."
"Just like that?" Chappu crossed his arms and regarded the boy skeptically. "Out of the kindness of your hearts?"
"Out of the hatred of our hearts. Anything to inconvenience the accursed Luna!"
"You're a thief, aren't you?" Zidane said suddenly. Locke choked and Wakka could swear he heard Sus giggle, but when he turned to look she still had her face buried in Stitch's fur.
"I'm a professional treasure hunter," he corrected.
"Thief," Chappu and Zidane agreed.
"Do you want out of here or not?" Locke asked impatiently. "Every second you stay here gives your pursuers that much more time to find you."
"We won't leave without Mog," Zidane said.
"I didn't intend to," Locke growled. He pulled a lock pick from his headband and reached through the bars. With careful precision he inserted the pick into the keyhole.
To Be Continued