CHAPTER XLV
YOU DID WHAT?
"Where's Flik?" Atta said immediately, looking back up through the hole to the sky. "You forgot him!"
Sora cringed. "He's been kidnapped, Princess…but we can get him back!" he lied, hoping to spare her the details of what Pete was planning to do to Flik.
"Kidnapped? Oh…oh no…" she began to panic.
"It's not a problem, honestly – the guy who took him is a bonehead. We'll have him back before you know it."
She took a deep breath and looked into Sora's big, bug eyes. "Okay…but I'm trusting you guys…just law low here for a while so the grasshoppers can eat and then leave."
Donald poked Goofy with his staff and gave him a worried look.
"Um…your majesty…what are those grasshoppers intendin' ta eat up there?" Goofy said nervously.
Atta paused and stared at the new bugs. "What did you do!" she yelled, as she heard angry voices from above ground.
"HEY! Where's the food?"
"Is this some kind of joke…!"
"Where is it!"
Suddenly, the ground above the chamber cracked open and revealed a hole. In the room next to Atta's chamber, hundreds of ants began to scream in terror as large, ugly grasshoppers started to fly downward into the anthill.
Five of the grasshoppers landed together, huddled around a taller one in the center. They had disgusting brown shells that were light in some spots around the stomach, but sickly dark near the wings and legs. They had four arms each, and two powerful looking legs with jagged edges like knives. Their heads were big, containing massive mouths with rows of sharp teeth and bulbous eyes.
The biggest one stepped forward from the circle, as the remaining four backed him up.
Princess Atta stepped up to meet the tallest grasshopper.
"Hopper," she said, but he silenced her.
"I am not here to talk, especially to you. Where's the offering?" he snapped angrily. His left eye was normal, but his right eye was covered in a dark brown film that made him look even more intimidating than the rest.
"Isn't…isn't it up there? We worked for months on collecting that food…" she turned and faced Goofy, putting two and two together.
"If it was up there, I wouldn't be down here, talking to you. If this is some kind of joke, then I'm not amused. The order of life is this: ants harvest the food for the grasshoppers, the grasshoppers eat the food, the grasshoppers leave, allowing the ants to continue living. You don't want that delicate balance to be thrown off…do you, Atta?"
"Hey! These ants don't have to serve you! Why don't you pick your own food?" Sora yelled, forgetting for a moment that Hopper was much bigger than him. Hopper slowly walked over towards Sora and began to poke him in the face with his antennae.
"Who are you, runt? Who are you, to speak up to me? Do you want to be squished?"
"Yeah! Do you wanna get squished? Oh, man…Hopper, you tell him! You make him pay for his-" but the voice was cut short, as Hopper grabbed the source with his two extra arms and choked him. The fat little grasshopper was lifted from the ground by Hopper's powerful arms.
"If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you, Molt…if I hadn't sworn to mother that I wouldn't kill you…well…I'd kill you!"
"And believe me, Hopper, I'm very grateful…" said Molt, as Hopper tossed him toward the ground, turning back toward Atta and Sora.
"Now…we'll be back when the last leaf falls. There had better be an offering double the usual…or else," he said, beginning to buzz his wings. The other grasshoppers followed suit, as they vanished up through the holes in the anthill and disappeared into the sky.
The princess looked at Sora and his friends with tears in her eyes. "You guys have no idea what you've done…it'll take months to get that kind of food, and the island is nearly empty, now that its almost the rainy season…"
Sora, Kairi, Riku, Donald and Goofy looked at each other sadly. They formed a huddle and turned away from Atta.
"Guys…those grasshoppers were big…I don't think all five of us could take them alone…" Riku said realistically.
"What? Is Riku going soft?" Sora teased. "We can take 'em…"
"Believe me…I'm not going soft…I'm just being level headed, something you know nothing about…" he shot back.
"Well…we could offer to go get help…like an army!" Kairi suggested.
"Yeah! Dat's a good idea!" Donald affirmed.
The circle broke apart and they turned back to Atta.
"Princess Atta…we're going to go get help for your colony. There's no reason you should have to slave for those grasshoppers…and we're going to find some bugs to help us fight them!" Sora said, expecting cheers and applause to ring through the anthill.
Atta looked at them as if they were crazy. "Two things wrong with that idea. One, you'll never make it off Ant Island. It's suicide! You're just a couple of bugs…if you don't get squished, you'll be fried by the sun. And two…nobody will help us. We're just a bunch of ants."
"Well…we'll help you. And that's a start…right?" Kairi said, as she began to fly up the spiral dirt staircase out of the anthill.
"Don't worry – we'll be back with some warrior bugs before you know it!" Riku said, following her.
"Sorry about the food…" Goofy said, following Donald out of the hill.
Sora stopped at the top of the stairs and looked down at Atta. "I know you barely know us…but we'll help you…you can count on that." He left immediately after that, as Atta turned back to the hundreds of ants in the anthill. One spindly, old looking ant came ambling up to her.
"What do you think, Princess?" he croaked.
She thought for a minute.
"They'll never come back. Start collecting more food for the offering…it's the only thing we can do…"
