CHAPTER XIII

ALMOST TO THE DOOR

The friends were glad to see that Mr. Waternoose had left the chamber alone, so they used the free moment to catch their breath.

"I…I don't get it! I don't know where the power came from to start up the door! It doesn't make sense…" Mike said, as he smacked himself in the head over and over. Boo laughed really hard this time, as they heard a shattering sound in the hallway. Riku peeked through the door, and sure enough, all the lights in the hallway had overloaded and burst.

"Laughter! It's Boo's laughter that's doing it! It's really powerful, too! Way more powerful than screams! I can tell!" Mike was terribly excited. "Wait'll I tell Sully!" He started to frown. Boo looked at him and it was clear she now understood that 'Sully' meant 'Kitty'.

"We've gotta get her home safe, Mike. Then we can find Sully. I promise," Sora said.

"Then we gotta get to the factory floor and find her door. We're right around the corner. Follow me," Mike insisted. He walked with Boo's hand in his up front, Riku, Donald, Goofy and Sora behind. They exited into the now dark hallway and only had to walk a few paces until Mike pushed open a huge set of double doors. This was the room they had first entered through the door to Timeless River – the scoreboard, the doorways, the odd map…

At the end of the huge work floor there was a door already docked in the electronic station – a white door with purple flowers on it – Boo's door.

"That's it! There it is!" Mike yelled, almost tugging Boo's arm out of its socket. But the joy didn't have long to set in, as the map and the scoreboard went to static and were replaced by a far less attractive image – Randall Boggs smiled on the giant screen as his voice filled the room through the speaker system.

"Oh, you! You always come and visit me at work. You know I can get in trouble for that, don't you?" he smiled.

"Quit playing around, Randall…" Mike looked up at the screen, clenching his fist.

"Jafar wanted me to thank you for him. If it wasn't for you, Sully wouldn't be in the state he's in."

"Where is he?" Sora demanded.

"Cool your jets, human. You wanna see him? You got it."

The screen went to static as the extra fluorescent lights turned on in the room, illuminating rows of doors on either side of the heroes. All the lights began to glow red – the lights over black doors, white doors, blue doors…

Then, in the far end of the room, in front of Boo's door, a giant pool of black sludge formed. From it began to rise a beast of mammoth proportions. It could have touched the roof of the building by standing on a phonebook. The giant heartless was vaguely familiar to the friends, though it was nothing they had ever seen before. The beast had two giant, curling yellow horns, as big as boats. The fur was a light blue with black and red spots…very fuzzy and shaggy. The build of the creature was like a giant football player – big from the waist down, even bigger from the waist up. The mouth of the beast was a snarl of jagged teeth, and a long, slithering black tongue darted in-between his lips. A black nose and two cold, dark, slotted eyes stared down at the friends. In the center of his fuzzy chest was a yellow heart with jagged lines running through it – a symbol that the friends had seen on countless heartless in the past.

"S…Sully?" Mike stammered.

Boo's jaw dropped, as did everyone else's.

"That's Sully?" Sora asked. He looked at the Heart Harvester that Cid gave him in Radiant Garden and knew what had to happen.

"Look, Mike, I know this is going to sound crazy, but you have to trust me – we need to defeat Sully's Heartless," Sora said somberly. "It's not really him."

Mike just nodded and pulled out his nunchakus. Riku and Sora summoned their keyblades as Goofy readied his shield and Donald held up his staff. Sully's Heartless started to walk toward the heroes, as Randall literally dropped in from a rafter above.

The room glowed deep purple as the doors on the left and right of the heroes changed colors – Randall jumped into one door and came out in a completely different one across the room, spitting a powerful acid goo of some sort at the heroes. It missed, but Randall just ducked back into that door and popped out the one he came from. He zipped between Sully's legs and into the green door, popping out of the pink door seconds later. This time, the acid goo hit Mike and caused him to fall over in pain. Sully's Heartless was in the center of the room now, conjuring giant dark spikes and raining them over Goofy and Sora. Goofy held his shield over Boo, but got slashed with a spike himself, causing him to yowl.

Sora looked around the room as Riku did a spinning leap toward Sully's Heartless, slashing away at his left horn. Soon, the horn was nothing but a stump, throbbing on top of his undersized head.

Sora's brain finally clicked into overdrive as he had an idea. "Donald, Mike, take Boo into the corner and get her to laugh!" he yelled. Mike grabbed Boo and was followed by Donald. He yelled over his shoulder toward Sora

"Yeah, got a giant monster in the room and you want me to get a little kid to laugh? I don't think Bobo the Clown ever had to work this hard…" he mumbled, as Donald and Mike got to work.

Meanwhile, Goofy was trying to keep track of Randall as he went from door to door, managing to block his acid attack with his shield. "Green goes to pink…blue goes to red…white goes to orange…" he figured out where most of the doors went to…but every time he did, Randall tried to randomize them again by stomping on a button on the left most wall. Sora cast a really strong graviga attack on Sully's Heartless' right horn, dragging his body down to the ground of the floor. He hopped on the heartless' back and did some serious damage to the horn, though not completely crippling it like Riku did.

"C'mon kid…you were laughin' like crazy back when we were riding those rhino things…" Mike begged.

Boo just stared at him and Donald, not smiling, not sad.

Donald's eyes lit up. "Hey Boo, what's a ducks favorite snack food?"

"Oh jeez…don't say it," Mike said.

"Cheese and quackers!" Donald started laughing at his own terrible joke.

"Terrible! Jeez, I've got fresher jokes in tupperware!" Mike said.

Sully's Heartless ripped the purple door off its hinges and thrust his arm through it.

"Where's the purple door go, Goofy?" Sora yelled.

But it was too late, as Goofy started to say 'black', the black door flew off its hinges and almost sliced through Sora and smashed into pieces on the opposite wall. Sully's arm slashed at Sora and Riku, who were trying to keep their balance on his back. Soon, the gravity spell would wear off and he would be able to get up again. Nobody wanted that.

Randall bounded through the green door again…but this time, Goofy was waiting for him at the pink door with a spinning attack that grabbed Randall in a vortex. Goofy continued to spin until he had enough inertia and let go of Randall, sending him flying into the scoreboard. As he hit it, a shower of sparks filled the room and Randall fell to the ground, a dark shade of black smoke rising from his entire body.

Riku started to slash at Sully's Heartless' arm that was coming through the doorway. He just wanted to keep it from going back through…

But the other arm just ripped the orange door off the hinges and popped out of the white door, knocking Goofy across the room. Sora and Riku kept slashing at the arms coming through the doorways, intent on keeping them there.

"Mike, you have to get Boo to laugh!" Sora demanded, as Sully's Heartless started to shudder…the spell was wearing off.

Mike sighed and grabbed Donald's staff and started to whack himself in the head with it. Boo giggled.

"Louder!" Sora said.

Donald took his staff back and zapped Mike with thunder.

Boo laughed even harder.

"Just a little bit more!"

Goofy got up and started bouncing Mike off his bounce shield, as Donald poked him in the eye with his staff.

"Hey, whaddya doin' poking me in the eye! C'mon, I only got one! It's not like I can wear an eye-patch, that's just a blindfold!" He slapped Donald, making the three of them look incredibly like the three stooges.

This time Boo laughed very heartily. The lights in the factory surged and dimmed, over and over until Mike did his final number:

"You like slapstick? Well, here…you…go!" he groaned, bending over and sending a fart wave across the room. Boo stared at him with a shocked look on her face, tears in her eyes…

…and began to scream with laughter! The lights grew so bright they started to burst. The red bulbs on the doorways became shining beacons as they popped, one by one down the line. When the doorways holding Sully's Heartless' arms became deactivated, Riku and Sora jumped off the heartless' back and watched as it attempted to free itself from its self-created prison. It was no use – without power to the doors, the arms couldn't enter – or exit – them at all. Sully's Heartless was at the mercy of Riku and Sora.

The two boys clinked their keyblades together as they jumped in the air, nearly hovering above the heartless on the ground. They nodded at each other and unleashed a limit attack. Yelling "PUNISHING BLOW", they threw their keyblades down at Sully's Heartless and repeatedly punched the air, releasing wave after wave of dark and light energy, driving the keyblades faster and faster until they pierced through Sully's Heartless' back and into the factory floor. The beast melted into a puddle of black sludge as Sora and Riku landed, reclaiming their keyblades.

From the sludge, a bright light started to shine. A single beam broke free and a giant, shimmering silver heart rose up. Sora pointed his keyblade at it, and in a flourish, it was safely tucked away in the Heart Harvester.

Donald, Goofy, Mike and Boo met Riku and Sora in the center of the room. The damage was incredible – the screens were completely smashed, several of the doors were ripped clean off the hinges and Randall's acidy spit was burning several holes in the ground.

The double doors to the factory floor burst open to reveal Mr. Waternoose, looking quite angry. He was flanked by the de-con crew in their yellow suits.

"Get me the girl!" he screamed at them, sending the yellow suited men into a frenzy as they charged at Sora and company.

Mike picked up Boo and ran like a football player heading for a touchdown; Goofy and Donald knocked back as many of the de-con crew as they could, but they were swarming in like bugs. Sora was the first one to make it to the door - he put his hand on the handle as Mike skidded to a stop with Boo right in front of it.

"One more trick…" Mike said, as he indicated to Sora to stomp on his foot. "Yow!" Mike yelled, making Boo giggle just enough to power the door. Ten feet away, Riku's reflega shield was growing weak; but it gave them just enough time to open the door and put Boo back in her room.

As the door closed, Boo looked terribly sad. Mike smiled and said, "don't worry, Boo. You'll see me again." The door closed and Sora smashed the handle from the door with his keyblade. Boo was finally safe. The de-con crew stopped in their tracks.

"2319 secure! Repeat, 2319 secure!" the leader of the de-con crew ordered. They shot their rope guns through the glass in the ceiling and were out of sight, zipping up them faster than they came.

"NO!" cursed Waternoose. "No…you meddlesome fools…you'll pay for this. It's my job to power this city…and I'll do it by any means necessary." He slammed the door behind him as he left the friends in the factory.

Mike walked over to one of the working terminals and plugged it in. He slid a key card through the panel next to it, and punched in a few numbers.

"Mike? What are you…" but Sora stopped talking when, from a hole in the wall across the room, there came a giant door that looked exactly like the door between Disney Castle and Timeless River. As it was placed into the electronic component on the floor by a giant arm, Mike grabbed the handle and pulled it open. They could clearly see the Cornerstone of Light through the door.

"Guys…you guys are the best. I just wish…Sully could have met you…" Mike's eye welled up with a massive tear.

"Mike, trust us when we say you'll see Sully again. That monster was only half of him – half that I have safely stored here." He pointed at the Heart Harvester. "The other half is somewhere out there," he pointed through the door. "And we'll find him, reunite him with his heart and bring him back. We promise."

Mike smiled weakly. "Thanks, guys." And with that, Sora, Donald, Goofy and Riku passed through the door and back into Disney Castle, leaving Monstropolis behind…for now.