Sora and Alice were sat at a table inside the ship as Sora had just about finished explaining to her everything that had happened to him so far. "And that's when we ran into you." Sora finished.
Alice, who had been staring at him in shock through most of the story, sighed once Sora finished his story. "And I thought my situation was dire. I do hope you can find your friends eventually."
Sora nodded. "Yeah, I hope so too."
"Ahem."
Sora looked over to see an irritated Donald and a concerned Goofy looking at him from outside the room. "Uh, Sora? Could we talk for a moment?" Goofy asked.
Sora stood and went over to them, leaving Alice to stare out of the window at the space between worlds. As soon as Sora stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, Donald asked. "Well, now what?"
"We should try and take her back to her original world." Sora said.
"And how long will that take?" Donald asked.
"You know, I'm just not so sure it's safe for her to be coming with us." Goofy stated. "What if she ends up getting attacked by the heartless?"
Sora frowned. Admittedly, they did have a point. Who knows where Alice's world was. They couldn't just avoid every world until they found hers in case Kairi, Riku or the King were in one of them and they couldn't just have her accompany them into other worlds since it might put her in danger. He then had an idea. "Why don't we take her to Traverse Town? They'll give her a place to stay and we can just come back for her if we find her world."
Donald exhaled. "Fine."
...
Leon stared at both Sora and Alice in confusion. "And this is?"
Alice curtsied politely. "My name is Alice. A pleasure to meet you." She then took in Leon's appearance. "Goodness, that's certainty a lot of belts. Why ever are you wearing them on your arm?"
Leon gave Sora a questioning look, hoping for an explanation. "We found her in a world she didn't belong in so we brought her here to stay until we can find her home."
"Did she lose her world?" Leon asked.
"I don't believe so." Alice answered for Sora. "I followed a talking white rabbit into a rabbit hole. I'm not quite sure how but that rabbit hole somehow brought me to a most peculiar world that was not my own."
Leon glanced back and forth between Sora and Alice in bafflement before sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We'll...try and find her a place to stay."
...
With the assurance that Alice would be safe, Sora and the others continued on as they continued their journey, flying the gummi ship towards the next world. They eventually came across the next world which from the outside, looked like a large building on top of a floating pile of sand. Upon entering the world and exiting the gummi ship, the three found themselves outside of the gates to a coliseum. "Huh. This place kinda reminds me of a place out of Ancient Greece." Sora remarked after taking a look around.
"Uh, Ancient Greece?" Goofy asked curiously.
"Yeah, it's something we learned about back in my world." While he wasn't exactly an expert, Sora knew a bit of knowledge about Ancient Greece and Greek mythology.
Out of curiosity, the three entered the coliseum and into a lobby where they spotted what Sora recognised as a satyr who was doing something with a rules sign. A chubby, middle aged looking satyr. Before they could say anything, the satyr started talking. "Good timing. Give me a hand, will ya? Move that pedestal over there for me." He pointed towards a black block in the middle of the room. "I gotta spruce this place up for the games." Admittedly, the satyr didn't sound like how Sora imagined a satyr from ancient Greece would sound like as his accent sounded almost like one from North Jersey.
"Sorry, what?" Sora said.
The satyr paused at the sound of Sora's voice before turning around. "Oh. Wrong guy. What're you doing here?" The satyr then strutted forward towards Donald, who started to back off. "This here's the world-famous Coliseum; heroes only! And I got my hands full preparing for the games. So run along, pip-squeaks." Sora pouted at the satyr talking down to them. The satyr put his hands on his hips. "Look, it's like this. Heroes are coming from all over to fight ferocious monsters right here in the Coliseum."
Sora raised an eyebrow. "Monsters? You're keeping monsters in this coliseum?"
"Eh, something like that." The satyr waved off, making Sora wonder if he was telling the truth.
Donald folded his arms. "You got heroes standing right in front of you."
Goofy grabbed Sora's shoulders. "Yup. He's a real hero chosen by the keyblade."
"And we're heroes, too." Donald added.
"Hero?" The satyr exclaimed in disbelief before pointing at Sora. "That runt?" He then bursted out laughing.
"What's so funny?" Sora snapped. "I've fought a bunch of monsters!" Sora sighed. "Look, we're just trying to find our friends. Has anyone new showed up around here recently?"
The satyr calmed himself down before stroking his beard. "Eh, if they're dressed any way like you guys are then I doubt it. If someone like that showed up around Thebes then I'd hear about it. Wouldn't be the first time it happened."
Sora gave the satyr a surprised look. "Wait, people from other worlds have shown up here before?"
"Sora!" Donald exclaimed.
The satyr waved his hand dismissively. "Ah, relax, I know about the whole other worlds thing. Heck, I remember a few of them coming here a few years ago."
"A few years ago?" Sora repeated curiously. Did that mean that there were other people who went exploring worlds long before any of this heartless stuff came up?
"Yeah. Always wondered what happened to those guys." The satyr shrugged. "Well hey, if you're anything like those guys, let's see what you can do."
Seeing as this might be a good opportunity to test his skill, Sora nodded. "Ok, um..."
"The name's Philoctetes, but you can call me Phil."
"Ok Phil." Sora then frowned in thought. He remembered hearing about a Philoctetes in Greek mythology though he didn't remember anything about him being a satyr. He shrugged. Probably just a coincidence.
...
Sora entered the arena where Phil had set up a bunch of barrels. "The rules are simple: Bust all the barrels within the time limit." Phil instructed. "You got thirty seconds."
Sora gave Phil a confused look. "How does this prove that I'm a hero?"
"I'm testing to see what skills you got. You up for it or what?" Phil asked impatiently.
"Fine." Sora said before summoning his keyblade.
"Ready? Go!"
Once the timer started, Sora leapt forward and started attacking the barrels. After a few hits, each barrel fell apart. Sora had managed to save some time by attacking multiple barrels at once. After breaking the last one, Sora took a moment to catch his breath. "Not bad! For a beginner that is." Sora heard Phil comment.
"Is that it?" Sora asked.
"Eh, not quite yet."
...
After waiting in the lobby for a while, Sora reentered the arena to see even more boxes scattered about along with some platforms that a lot of the barrels were placed on. He wondered where they came from since he couldn't imagine Phil being able to move them in here and he didn't see anyone else working at this coliseum. "Same rules as before but this time you get a minute." Phil explained. "Ready? Go!"
And once again, Sora leapt forward and attacked the barrels, going for the ones on the ground first before moving onto the ones on the platforms. This challenge was much closer than the last one due to how much more spread out the barrels were this time. After barely finishing within the time limit, Sora heard Phil say. "Hey, you're better than I thought!"
...
"You know, you ain't bad, kid." Phil told Sora after everyone reentered the lobby.
Sora chuckled. "Looks like I'm headed for the games."
"Afraid not."
Sora's jaw dropped. "Why not?"
"Two words:" Phil said as he held up two fingers. "You guys ain't heroes."
"But then what was the point of that test then?"
"I told you, to see what you got. Now, correct me if I'm wrong but you didn't happen to acquire that keyblade thing recently, did ya?"
"Um..."
Phil chuckled. "Yeah, I thought so. Come back when you've got more experience under your belt." Sora huffed before storming out of the lobby as Donald and Goofy followed after him.
Upon exiting, the three then heard an unfamiliar voice from behind them. "Ahh, rather a stubborn old goat, wouldn't you say?"
Sora turned around before his eyes widened at the sight of a rather demonic looking figure in black robes with blue skin and blue fire on his head as if it was his hair. "Who are you?" Donald asked.
The man grinned. "Name's Hades. Lord of the dead. Hi, howya doing?" He stretched his hand out for Sora to shake.
Sora gave Hades a shocked look. "Wait, Hades? As in, 'God of the dead' Hades?"
"Uh, yep, that's what I just said."
Sora stared at Hades in awe. He never imagined that he would get to meet an actual Greek God. "Whoa..."
"Uh, Sora, do you know about this guy?" Goofy asked.
Sora turned to him, smiling. "I learned about him in Greek mythology. Hades is actually one of the nicer Gods."
Donald stared at Hades in shock. "He is?!"
Even Hades seemed surprised. "I am?" He then chuckled. "I-I mean of course I am. Hey, uh, just curious is all, what did you hear about Zeus?"
Sora frowned. "Zeus was...actually kind of awful."
Hades started cackling. "Oh, that is priceless!"
"What did he do?" Donald asked.
"He umm...uhh..." Sora didn't know how to put this. He knelt down and whispered something into Donald's ear.
As Sora kept whispering, a look of horror started to slowly grow on Donald's face as his pupil's shrank. "WAK!"
Hades grinned. It was rare for a mortal to ever show him any respect. Or anyone in general for that matter. "You know, I like you kid so I'll tell you what. You want to enter the games, right?" He put an arm around Sora. "Well, then, hey, get a load of this." He then conjured up a pass to enter the games.
"Whoa, really?" Sora asked as he took the pass.
"It's all yours. Good luck, kid. I'm pulling for you, little shorty." Hades said before walking away.
While Sora seemed happy, Donald and Goofy were somewhat wary of the God of death. "Are you sure we could trust him?" Donald asked.
"Why not?" Sora asked. "He seemed pretty nice to me." Sure he looked kinda demonic and sounded like a shady car salesman but Sora wasn't the type of person to judge people by their appearance.
...
"Hey, how'd you get this?" Phil asked as he held up the pass.
"Can we enter the games now?" Sora asked, ignoring Phil's question.
Phil looked somewhat worried. "Well... I guess so. But are you sure about this? The competition's gonna be pretty tough."
Sora frowned. "I can handle it." He stated a bit too confidently.
"Alright well we start with the preliminaries! Some real weirdos signed up for this tournament. Things are gonna heat up so you better be ready. The prelims start soon too. You absolutely sure you want to do this?"
"I told you, I'm ready." Sora stated.
Phil sighed. "Alright then. Your first opponents are the ehh..." Phil took a moment to think about it. "The shadow scouts. Remember. Rule 95: Concentrate."
...
"Gawrsh, Sora, you seem pretty determined to do this." Goofy remarked.
"Well, we're gonna be doing a lot of fighting, right? I just want to make sure we're prepared for anything. Especially after that last world." Sora shuddered.
And yet despite this, the three were still surprised by the sight of their opponents. Which happened to be some armoured heartless along with a couple small, blue, flying heartless. "What the-heartless?!" Sora exclaimed as he quickly summoned his keyblade and attacked along with Donald and Goofy.
Once they had slain all the heartless, Sora stomped over to Phil, who looked surprised. "Whoa, didn't expect you to take them out like that. That was actually kinda brutal."
"Why the heck are heartless competing in the games?!" Sora snapped.
Phil shrugged. "I mean, they had a pass to get in. Couldn't exactly tell them no."
Sora had a hard time imagining the heartless just casually strolling up to Phil to give him a pass. "You're kidding right? Those things are evil, intergalactic zombies!"
Phil raised a confused brow. "Inter-what now?"
Sora sighed in resignation. "Forget it." So much for being prepared for anything.
"I don't suppose this is a bad time to tell you that most of the teams are like those guys is it?"
Sora sighed again. Of course they were. The three then noticed a man with spiky, blonde hair and strange armour enter the arena as a match involving him was next. Sora and the man locked eyes as he passed the three of them. This guy was definitely not from this world. He looked like he had been in a lot of battles.
Phil folded his arms. "Something tells me he'll be a tough one to beat. Who knows, maybe you'll end up facing him."
Sora then gulped. Maybe trying to complete wasn't the best idea after all.
...
And so the three basically ended up fighting wave after wave of heartlesses. It was kind of strange to Sora how the arena was completely empty though he supposed that was for the best in case the heartless tried to attack any citizens. This did make Sora wonder if there were teams of heartless fighting other heartless. How did that work? Sora wouldn't know since he wasn't allowed to watch the other matches for some reason. After one match, the three were approached by Phil. "Say, you're better than I thought, kid! Wish he was here to see this."
"Who?" Sora asked.
"Hercules. He's a hero if there was one. Too bad he's off visiting his father."
Sora blinked in surprise. He couldn't mean...? "You mean Heracles, right?"
"Uh no, I mean Hercules. I'd know his name, I trained him myself."
Once again, Sora was caught off guard. "But...I thought Heracles was trained by a centaur named Chiron."
"Never heard of him. Sheesh, where're you getting all this false info from, kid?"
Sora frowned in confusion. Did this mean what he was taught was wrong? Or was this because this world was an alternate version of Ancient Greece? Considering there's apparently multiple versions of London, it wasn't out of the question.
...
"Oh boy." Sora said as he entered the arena to see his final opponent. The man from earlier, Cloud. He wasn't quite sure if seeing the giant sword he was holding, which was wrapped in bandages for some reason, was intimidating or just silly looking.
"HUH!"
"WHOA!" Sora didn't have time to think about it as Cloud thrusted his sword forward, barely giving Sora any time to dodge.
Donald and Goofy charged towards him, only to be knocked aside like nothing as Cloud jumped towards Sora. Sora tried to block the next attack which then sent him to the floor. Sora stared up fearfully at Cloud. What had he been thinking? Why did he think trying to compete in a tournament for warriors was a good idea? While he prepared for the finishing blow, he then noticed that Cloud looked hesitant. Was he not going to kill him? It seemed so as Cloud lowered his sword.
And then, just as Sora and his friends started to get back up, a giant paw then stomped on top of Cloud. Sora gasped and stared up in shock at what appeared to be a giant black dog with three heads. Before, the dog could attack, a buff, heroic looking man ran in between Sora and the dog, holding the dog back. "Herc!" Phil shouted.
"Phil, get them out of here!" The man shouted back.
Sora stared at the man for a moment before running back into the lobby with the others.
...
"Whew, that was close!" Phil remarked after everyone gathered their bearings. He was currently folding his arms, staring at the ground and tapping his foot out of worry. "That was Cerburus, the guardian of the Underworld. Herc should be able to handle him." He started to look more worried. "But then again, maybe not... This doesn't look good"
"Are you okay, Sora?" Goofy asked.
Sora sighed, feeling somewhat embarrassed. "I'm fine." All that talk and he ends up cowering at the first real sign of danger. How was he supposed to find Riku and Kairi when there were probably worse things out there in the universe?
Goofy then noticed Sora's dour state. "Aw, don't feel bad. We did our best."
"And we made it to the finals!" Donald added.
"Thanks guys..." Sora said, still sounding defeated. He then stared at the entrance to the arena. Sure, the idea of fighting the guardian dog of the underworld was pretty intimidating but how much worse could it be than fighting a giant armour monster made of darkness? Maybe he had a chance to redeem himself. He took a step towards the entrance to the arena.
"Kid, you're not entering the arena, are ya?" Phil asked. "This ain't just some match. This is for real! And Cerburus is way above your league."
Sora gave Phil a look of determination. "I'm not afraid. It doesn't matter if you think I'm a hero or not, I have to do this!" He turned to Donald and Goofy. "You guys'll help me, right?" Donald and Goody glanced at each other before giving Sora a determined nod.
Phil sighed. "Careful, kid."
...
The three entered the arena to see Hercules backing off from Cerberus with Cloud slung over his shoulder. It didn't seem long for Cerberus to notice they were there as his ears pricked up and he turned to face them. Sora wasn't quite sure but as he slowly approached them, it looked like he was limping slightly. Hercules took this opportunity to escape the arena with Cloud, passing Phil as he ran out. "Kid, I got two words of advice for you: Attack!" Phil shouted just as Cerberus started roaring. Sora gulped as he readied his keyblade, only to jump out of the way as Cerberus spat a fireball at them with Donald and Goofy jumping elsewhere.
What could he do here? If he tried to fight this thing head on, it would surely end badly. Then he had an idea. "Guys, keep it distracted, I've got an idea!" Sora shouted to Donald and Goofy.
The two nodded as Donald raised his wand. "Thunder!" He shouted, causing thunder to come crashing down on the demon dog, irritating him as he focused on the duck.
With Cerberus distracted, Sora took the opportunity to jump up onto his back, climbing on top of it. He then climbed over to Cerberus' middle head. He stood up and used his keyblade to slash at its eyes. Sora jumped back as the middle head thrashed in pain. The other two heads then turned around and lunged towards Sora, attempting to eat him. Sora managed to jump up at the last second as the two heads collided with each other. Just as he jumped, he used his keyblade to execute a spinning slash, slashing at both of their eyes too. As Sora landed on the ground, Cerberus thrashed around for a moment before eventually collapsing onto the ground, defeated.
...
Sora, Donald and Goofy stood before Hercules and Phil in the lobby as Phil read out a licence that he had awarded them. "Thus, I do hereby dub thee junior heroes, and confer upon thee full rights and privileges to participate in the games. Further-"
"Hey! What do you mean 'junior heroes'?" Donald interrupted.
"You rookies still don't understand what it takes to be a true hero." Phil stated. "What you did was pretty brave. But it was also pretty stupid!"
"So, uh, what does it take?" Goofy asked.
"Well, that's just something you'll have to find out for yourselves." Hercules explained. "Just the way that I did."
Sora had a thoughtful look on his face. "I guess that's fair." He said. Truthfully, he wasn't that interested in being a hero. He just wanted to prove to himself that he was strong enough to do this. To be able to save his friends. Though if Phil thought he was good enough to be a junior hero, at least that meant he was making some good progress. He waved to Hercules and Phil as he, Donald and Goofy made their way out. "See you later."
...
As the three made their way over to where the gummi ship was parked, a thought then occurred to Sora. "Wait a minute, Cerberus is meant to be the guardian of the underworld. Shouldn't he have been serving Hades?"
Donald scowled. "I knew we couldn't trust that guy!"
Sora frowned. "But why would he do that?"
Goofy thought for a moment. "Maybe he did it to get to Hercules."
Sora shook his head. "But why? I don't remember Hades or Hercules ever being enemies. But then again, for all we know, Cerberus might not even work for Hades in this world."
Donald shrugged. "Who knows. But we've got other things to worry about. Let's just move on."
"Yeah, you're right." Sora then noticed Cloud sat on some steps, looking kind of down. "Hey, are you alright?" Sora decided to ask.
Cloud raised his head. "Yeah."
"So, you're from another world too, right."
"Yep." Cloud replied.
"So, what're you doing here? Did you lose your world too?"
Cloud was silent for a moment before answering. "I'm looking for someone."
"Really? I'm searching too. Maybe we could help each other?"
Cloud shook his head as he stood up. "You do not want to meet the guy I'm looking for." He then began to walk before turning back to Sora. "Sorry. About what happened earlier."
Sora scratched the back of his head. "Uh, no problem. Hey, how about a rematch at some point?"
Cloud smirked. "Hm. Not interested."
As Cloud walked away, Sora, Donald and Goofy got into the gummi ship. As the ship took off, Sora suddenly realised that he had barely explored this world whatsoever.
