CHAPTER XXXV
EMPTINESS CROSSING
Sora slowly landed the Barret down in the World That Never Was, as Kairi stood next to him, shivering. The last time they had been here, they remembered, was when they went toe to toe with the Organization and Xemnas. Even though they knew very well that Xemnas and his followers were long gone, they still let their minds drift into various 'what-if' scenarios…
Sora shook his head as he stiffened his brow. No, he told himself. Don't even give it another thought.
They disembarked in a familiar section of land – there were small platforms made of silver metal with grates all over them. To the right of them, Sora recognized the alley where the portal he found in Twilight Town led them into. On the left, he remembered Memory's Skyscraper. He walked up front, next to Donald, as Goofy and Kairi tailed close behind.
As Sora rounded the corner into a small district near the skyscraper, he thought of someone he hadn't thought of for almost a year…Roxas. The thought of Roxas brought on thoughts of everyone else…Namine…Axel…whatever happened to the Nobodies that were killed, he wondered? Suppose their heartless still existed…and they became a chaser…would they be doomed to search the universe for a nobody that didn't exist any longer? Or would they somehow know?
Sora's mind racing, Kairi put her hand on his shoulder, stopping the flow of ideas immediately. Sora stopped in his tracks as he looked up at the base of the skyscraper…he remembered dashing up it and battling Xemnas…
To the right of the skyscraper, there was an alley that led into the shadows. He didn't recognize it…it hadn't been there when he was in this world a year ago…
"Isn't dat where da crashed truck was, Sowwa?" Donald spat.
He instantly remembered. Of course! The truck was blocking their path…so this alley existed the whole time…he immediately gravitated toward it as the friends followed.
The alley was long and winding, but it never forked – it constantly led them through the tall buildings like a maze with a predestined finish. Kairi wouldn't put her keyblade away, though Sora had done it almost ten minutes ago.
"Sora…do you know where you're going?" Kairi asked.
"Well…we've never been down this way before. The only other way I know around here would lead us into the castle…so, unless you're dying to see Maleficent again…" Sora retorted.
"Yeah, I guess you're right…" she mumbled. Her feet were getting tired with all this walking. They had walked at least two miles by this point, and they were incredibly unnerved when two shadows poked out from a dumpster.
"Halt! Who goes there!" said one of the men. He was short, squat, and wore a strange outfit – a brownish vest, white shirt with stains all over it, and tattered jeans. He wore at least two rings on each finger, and on his head was a hat that seemed too small for his head. Every time he opened his wide mouth to speak, the hat slid further back on his head, until it looked as if it was hanging on by a hair. His eyes were large ovals, with blue pupils. He didn't have an ugly face…just slightly comical. He looked almost as if someone had shoved a toad into the same outfit…
"Yeah…there goes WHO?" the other one mimicked. He was almost two full feet taller than the toad-like man beside him. He had a long, crooked nose and two beady little eyes behind a set of strange, thick spectacles. His outfit was a little sharper than his counterpart's, but it was still far from appealing. His dark purple pants were too short, showing off his knobby knees.
Sora immediately took a battle stance with his keyblade out in front of him. King Mickey hadn't mentioned anything about these guys, and he had no idea who they were working with…
"I asked you a question!" the fat one said.
"A question is what he asked! C'mon!" the skinny one copied.
"It's Sora, Kairi, Donald and Goofy," he said, cautious. Perhaps, he realized, he was intruding on their home…were there people who called the World That Never Was home? "Are…you guys Nobodies?"
The squat one's eyes bulged out of his head with offense.
"We ain't nobodies, kid!" he shouted.
"Yeah, nobodies, we ain't!"
"Haven't you ever heard of Biggs and Wedge, famous pickpockets of Emptiness Crossing?"
"Mmhmm!" said the tall one, taking a break from the copycat routine.
Sora looked at Kairi who had a stunned look on her face…were these guys for real?
"Um…not exactly…" Sora began to say, starting to feel bad for the thieves. "But wouldn't being a pickpocket and being famous kind of…contradict itself?"
Biggs looked up at Wedge, and his nose crinkled up so that it looked almost like a snout. "Well…now that you mention it, we have been having a little trouble duping anyone without them recognizing us…"
Wedge nodded silently, scratching his head.
"That ain't here nor there, kids. What are you doin' out here?" he demanded.
"Yeah, doin' what?" Wedge echoed.
"Well…actually, we were just looking for some old friends of ours…see, they got turned into heartless, and we thought maybe their nobodies would end up here…"
When Sora actually said the plan out loud, it sounded even stupider than in his head. Why would they find the nobodies here? They nobodies were only brought here by the Organization…luckily, Kairi chimed in and saved him from sounding foolish.
"We came here almost a year ago, and the nobodies that called themselves Organization XIII were running the place…it was swarming with heartless and nobodies…" she said.
Biggs and Wedge exchanged worried looks. "Kiddies, you better come to our hut and have something ta drink," Biggs said with a forced smile.
Wedge looked at him, and then at Sora. "Yeah…drink somethin' at our hut…ya better, kiddies!"
They turned and started walking further into the alley, as Sora shrugged, following them like a puppy.
Donald was the only one who didn't like the idea, as he mumbled words that sounded like 'twap' and 'dubble cwoss', following the key like he told Mickey so long ago that he would.
