On Today's Episode: The trinity returns to Traverse Town to help Jimmy battle another member of the Freaky Monkey Five and unlock another summon stone. Meanwhile, Ellen wonders about the strange flashes of memory she gets when she studies her keyblade. Who are these people, and why does she remember them despite not actually knowing them?
Episode 13: Connections
"We'll hold down the fort for ya, fearless leader," Maylin quipped once the trinity had returned to Traverse Town for their typical resupply run. "Just give mister monkey boy what for!"
"That's pretty much what I do every time, right?" Nick chuckled as he made his way towards the Third District.
While Nick did that, Maylin and Haruka moved towards the Accessory Shop to see if there was anything new they could buy.
"You know, I've been wondering," Maylin stated.
"About what?" Haruka asked.
"Where the hell is Emperor Clow?" Maylin proclaimed. "We haven't seen hide nor hair of him on any of the worlds we've been to so far!"
"Yeah, considering the whole reason we're even on this quest, really, is to find out where the heck he is," Haruka quipped.
"I hope Nick doesn't feel bad about that," Maylin sighed. "I mean, we basically dragged him into our own shenanigans..."
"Hey, we can look for both Emperor Clow and Nick's sister at the same time," Haruka chuckled. "No one said we couldn't do both."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Maylin giggled as she and Haruka left the Accessory Shop with their purchases (a Titan Chain for Haruka and an Element Bangle for Maylin).
Once they were back outside, though, Maylin was suddenly tackled to the ground by an excited Prushka.
"You came back!" Prushka laughed.
"Well, of course we did," Haruka replied. "We usually always come back to Traverse Town after we're done exploring a world, usually to re-stock our supplies for the next world."
"Nick's not with you?" Prushka wondered.
"He's taking care of something at the moment," Maylin replied. "What, do you have a crush on him or something?"
Prushka's sputtering at Maylin's teasing seemed to imply so, but Maylin and Haruka decided to keep that to themselves, knowing Nick already had a girlfriend.
"Okay, silly, we're just teasing you," Maylin laughed.
"Hey, do you two wanna play hide and seek with me again while we wait for Nick?" Prushka asked.
"Hey, why not?" Haruka replied. "We've certainly got time to spare."
"Awesome! You two know the rules, so start counting!" Prushka giggled, heading off to hide while Maylin and Haruka began their countdown.
When Nick and Jimmy exited the warp tunnel, they found themselves inside of a sci-fi-esque arena with multiple viewscreens around it. At the other end, an elderly-looking monkey in a lab coat and large goggles was standing on a floating platform, right next to a very large robotic version of Jimmy.
"Well, you finally made it," White Monkey proclaimed. "I am the Freaky Monkey Five's incredibly talented inventor, White Monkey, and before I take my revenge..."
White Monkey stared towards Pipotchi, who was sitting on Jimmy's shoulder. "...I'm going to have to borrow that little baby monkey, so hand him over to me right now."
"Oh, so you're one of those nutballs, aren't you?" Nick taunted, summoning Reverberating Abyss to his hand. "Didn't you know it's rude to take what's not yours?"
"You insolent little... then I guess I have no choice," White Monkey stated. "Red Monkey!"
A red-ish blur shot by Nick and Jimmy, and when they looked around, Pipotchi wasn't there, now in the clutches of a buff monkey wearing a very gaudy superhero costume.
"This little guy is very friendly with you, ya?" White Monkey laughed. "He'll give us very valuable data on humans. So say goodbye to him!"
Before either Nick or Jimmy could move to attack, Red Monkey flew away from the battlefield.
"Why, you... give Pipotchi back right now!" Jimmy shouted.
"I don't think so," White Monkey cackled. "If you want him back so bad, you'll have to beat me first. But I don't see that happening, thanks to my new Robo-Jimmy that we created based on your data."
Robo-Jimmy sprung to life and started marching forward, Nick noticing that it seemed to be mimicking White Monkey's movements.
The Robo-Jimmy bent back before sneezing out a blue ball of energy that struck the ground and caused a shockwave. As they dodged it, Nick saw a large green button on Robo-Jimmy's back.
I believe we have found the weak point, Nick thought.
Robo-Jimmy continued to sneeze out energy blasts, but Nick noticed that after every few blasts, Robo-Jimmy would stop to readjust itself.
Sensing his opportunity, Nick ran to behind Robo-Jimmy, jumped towards the button, and started landing a few clean hits on it. After hitting the button with a Hurricane Period, this seemed to disable the barrier around White Monkey's floating platform.
Knowing he was vulnerable, White Monkey started flying away, but Jimmy chased after him with the Super Hoop and collided with the platform, rattling White Monkey.
Nick and Jimmy continued this pattern, Nick drawing Robo-Jimmy's attention and Jimmy attacking White Monkey when he could, until the light on White Monkey's helmet changed from blue to yellow.
"Ack, you little brats!" White Monkey exclaimed as Robo-Jimmy brought out a Sky Flyer and used it to fly into the air, eventually coming down in the center of the arena with a butt stomp that created an arena-wide shockwave. Jimmy had to use his own Sky Flyer to avoid the shockwave, while Nick simply jumped over it.
Naturally, Robo-Jimmy needed to recharge, so Nick went around and whacked the button a few times so Jimmy could chase after White Monkey and attack him, eventually changing his helmet light from yellow to red.
Robo-Jimmy brought out its own Stun Club and started smacking the ground with it, as if daring Jimmy to get any closer. Nick decided to wait until it stopped swinging to move towards the button, but then, Robo-Jimmy did a spin attack that actually sent Nick tumbling backwards.
"Sneaky little bot," Nick quipped as Robo-Jimmy tried an aerial dive again, jumping over the shockwave to hit the button a few times. This allowed Jimmy to strike at White Monkey's platform one last time, and this seemed to sever the link between him and Robo-Jimmy, the robotic duplicate collapsing to its knees and exploding into a cascade of robot parts.
"You fools," White Monkey taunted. "This victory means nothing. Nothing, I tell you! All we need to do... is transfer that baby monkey's data into the Lethargy Laser, and then you'll be..."
Nick simply charged forward, sick of the taunting, and destroyed White Monkey's platform with a Zantetsuken. This sent White Monkey flying through the air before he fell back down, letting Jimmy swing his Monkey Net to capture White Monkey at last.
"Always with the taunting," Nick sighed.
"What's a 'Lethargy Laser', though?" Jimmy wondered.
"Probably has something to do with whatever Specter's planning," Nick responded. "How about you get back to the Travel Station, Jimmy? You need to look for your little buddy, after all."
Jimmy nodded and used his wrist device to warp back to the Travel Station, while Nick raised his keyblade to head back to Traverse Town.
Naturally, Dorothy was right beside him when Nick returned from the Pipo Storybook, having sensed another summon gem in his possession.
"Right on time as always, eh, Dorothy?" Nick chuckled as he handed the summon gem off to Dorothy.
Dorothy brought out her grimoire and opened it, flipping its pages to the spell she wanted.
"Dream Magic: Spirit Reconfiguration!" Dorothy proclaimed, the pages of her grimoire glowing and surrounding the summon gem with a cloud of multi-colored magic. After a couple seconds, the cloud vanished, and the summon gem had transformed into a pink crystal shaped like a flower with a stem sprouting out of the top, with swirls that went in a curly S-pattern on the petals.
"Ooh, this one looks like a real crackerjack of a fighter," Dorothy giggled as she handed the Waterflower back to Nick.
"I'm sure we'll find out soon enough," Nick replied as he left the Mystic House to return to Traverse Town's Third District, where Maylin and Haruka were predictably waiting for him, though this time, Prushka was with them.
"Aww, you missed a really good hide and seek game!" Prushka giggled.
"Yeah, she's finding some pretty devious hiding spots," Maylin answered. "But we barely managed to pull through."
"She actually gave us what looks like a really rare synthesis material," Haruka stated, holding up the Orichalcum that Prushka had given them for winning the hide and seek.
"You wouldn't believe what I tend to find in some of my hiding spaces," Prushka replied.
Suddenly, a large group of Heartless spawned around them, mostly consisting of Large Bodies, Fat Bandits, and some Search Ghosts.
Nick simply brought out the Waterflower, and both Maylin and Haruka grinned, knowing that it was time.
Prushka ran to hide behind the statue of the three goddesses so she wouldn't be in Nick's way.
Nick raised the Waterflower before clutching it close to his heart. "Give me strength!" Nick proclaimed.
("Kokoro no Chizu" by BOYSTYLE plays)
The Waterflower began to glow brightly as Nick raised his keyblade to the sky to fire a blast of pink light into the air. That light came raining back down around him, and long, stretchy arms emerged from the points of light on the ground. Those arms eventually clenched together, forming a cocoon that shined with a bright pink light before retreating to reveal Nick's newest ally.
She was a tall, slender young woman with long black hair and blue eyes, wearing a long salmon sarong skirt that had a design of a green seaweed with red and yellow flowers on the side with ruffles that bared her hips with a partially-zipped short-sleeved navy blue leather vest with a V-neck line, dark pink high heeled pumps, and a lavender pink backpack, topped off with white sunglasses with orange lenses.
Nico Robin floated down on Cien Fleur: Wing, before landing in front of Nick, smiling cheekily and using extra arms sprouted from his own shoulders to high-five him before standing beside him as the Heartless all approached them.
One Large Body attempted to do a belly lunge, only to find itself stopped in place, thanks to an arm Robin had sprouted from the ground underneath it restraining it. This allowed Nick to get behind the Large Body and take it down with a few swift hits from Reverberating Abyss.
A nearby Fat Bandit launched a fireball from its mouth towards Nick, but Robin used Cien Fleur: Defense to surround Nick with a net-like sphere of arms that blocked the fireball.
Nick continued this relay for a bit, with Robin restraining a Heartless so Nick could attack it, until the remaining Large Bodies and Fat Bandits surrounded them.
Nick and Robin nodded to each other, and Nick raised his keyblade to the sky as Robin crossed her arms in front of her body.
"Treinta Fleur: Strangle!" Robin shouted, causing arms to sprout underneath all of the nearby Heartless before winding around their chests (as many of them didn't have a visible neck to choke), dragging them to the ground, and eventually finishing them all of by simultaneously strangling them to death.
Once all of the Heartless were vanquished, Robin turned back to Nick and raised her hand. Nick responded in kind by giving Robin a high-five before she vanished, dispersing into a shower of flower petals that reformed into the Waterflower in Nick's free hand.
"That was... certainly an excessive way to finish them off," Haruka chuckled.
"I think she just wanted to strangle them, but most of 'em didn't have a neck to strangle," Maylin giggled.
As Prushka emerged from behind the goddess statue to excitedly chatter about how awesome Nick's ability to summon friends from other worlds was, they had no idea that they were being watched from a far-off world.
Ellen watched the scene through the reflection in the icy throne that belonged to Queen Beryl, watching as Maylin said something funny and Prushka jumped to hug Nick out of excitement and Nick patted her on the head.
Ellen couldn't help but sigh in frustration. Ichinose was right after all.
Nick had so many new friends.
What did he need her for?
As she walked away from the throne, waving the scene away and making it disappear, Ellen summoned Starlight to her hands and glanced at it again.
Every time she took a good look at her reflection in Starlight's gleaming blade, she always saw a flash of memory.
A memory of herself, leading a bunch of other people through a lively city.
There was one major problem with this, however. She didn't believe she knew who any of those people were.
So why, then, did they feel so familiar to her?
To add another mystery to the growing pile, these memories had only started coming to her after Ellen had received her keyblade.
There was something that Ichinose wasn't telling her, Ellen was damn sure of that.
But what, though? What was Ichinose trying so hard to keep secret?
To be continued...
New summon acquired!
Nico Robin, "Demon Child" of Ohara
MP Required: 4
Anime of Origin: One Piece (1999-present)
Theme Song: "Kokoro no Chizu" by BOYSTYLE
Action: Target an enemy with R1 and press /\ to have Robin sprout an arm underneath the enemy and restrain them.
Press [] to have Robin defend Nick against attacks from all angles with Cien Fleur: Defense.
Every Heartless killed while Robin is active fills the Charge Gauge by 1/6.
When Robin's Charge Gauge is full, press /\ to unleash Treinta Fleur: Strangle, to ensnare all enemies nearby before finishing them off in rather... painful fashion. OUCH.
On the next episode...
Nick: This looks like a nice place.
Maylin: Yeah, but what's with all of these ancient ruins?
Haruka: And what the heck was that huge wind that just blew right past us?
Maylin: ...I don't think that was the wind. Whoever that was can really run!
Nick: ...oh, there's no freakin' way.
Maylin: It happens, Nick. Believe me, it happens.
Nick: Well, I guess we'll have to see for ourselves next time on Kingdom Hearts: Key to Her Heart re:Verse, "All Across These New Frontiers"!
Nick, Maylin and Haruka: May your hearts be your guiding key!
