BLP 26
"Not another underwater world," Nami moaned as the Going Merry neared the planet below. She turned and glared at a duck in a blue hat who was mischievously scheming not far from her. "If you turn me into a fish again," she began, her fists curling and her eyes getting red.
Donald got a bead of sweat on his face and he shook his head fast. "No ma'am! I have a better idea," Donald said and he smirked again.
Chopper hesitated back at the rudder and he called up, "What do we do?"
"Go straight ahead!" Luffy called back.
"What?!" Chopper shouted. "But we're Devil Fruit eaters! We'll drown!" Smoker and Robin looked in agreement with that shout and they looked around hesitantly.
"It's fine," Sora said, not turning as he stared out at the wet planet in front of them. "Donald will use his magic and it will be fine. Just go forward," he finished. Sora did not want to turn around, and he could feel the sets of eyes focused on him at the moment.
Luffy was not far behind Sora, and he frowned that the spiky haired kid was avoiding even looking at him now. He took a step towards Sora, but at that moment Chopper decided to listen to them and he pushed the rudder forward, plunging the Going Merry into the side of the world in front of them. Water rushed over the sides of the ship and bubbles filled up their visions while they held their mouths shut.
They closed their mouths to keep out the water as long as they could, until they could not hold their breaths any longer and released their air. When they took deep breaths in though, they found that they breathed in water here as easily as they breathed air anywhere else.
Smoker, Chopper, and Robin looked down and around in amazement as they had never been under the ocean like this before. Usopp and Nami remembered Bikini Bottom well though, and they looked down at their bodies to see what Donald turned them into this time. When Nami gazed down however, her fears vanished and she spun to Donald excitedly. "Thank you thank you thank-" she stopped short and her cheeks puffed out.
Donald crossed his arms in annoyance and his white-feathered face turned pink in embarrassment. While all the humans on the ship turned into mermen and mermaids, Donald turned into an octopus. Goofy also transformed, only into a turtle just like a certain reindeer who rushed out of the cabin in panic as he found himself stuck in a shell.
Chopper was bumping into walls and the floor and he yelled, "How do I turtle?" The question sounded stupid, but the rest of the pirates and their friends quickly discovered that swimming was a lot harder than it looked.
"Whoa, whoa!" Usopp had to grab onto the railing to keep from floating off the ship. "I think I liked Bikini Bottom better. At least there we could walk."
"No way," Nami countered and crossed her arms to make an 'X' in front of her. "Look at me! Mermaid-Nami is a hundred percent better than Fish-Nami, don't you agree?"
Usopp looked at the mermaid with short orange hair that curled at the bottom right near her shoulder blades. He looked at her bikini made of pink sea shells, just like how Robin had shells that were a dark blue covering her breasts. He followed her exposed stomach down to her long light blue tail and he dumbly nodded his head. "Yeah, I agree," he said.
Nami smirked and she did a spin, which turned out to be harder than she thought it would be and she wound up doing a backflip instead. Luffy started laughing and he pointed a finger, "What are you doing Nami?"
She turned to yell at him, but something swam past her first. The Going Merry came to a rest near the top of the sea, even if it was underwater, and the form that swam off dove down farther into the ocean. "Let's go," Sora called out without looking back over his shoulder.
Donald swam up to the front of the ship and looked back, shouting, "Come on Goofy! After him!"
"Right behind you Sora!" Goofy called out. The turtle-dog swam behind the octopus-duck down into the depths of the ocean.
The pirates looked around at each other. Luffy lost the smile he had from watching Nami do a flip on accident, and Nami herself looked upset and frowned as she swam towards the ledge of the bow. A man swam up next to her and over the side without waiting. Captain Smoker headed after the boy with the Keyblade who was more dedicated than ever to saving the worlds, something he could completely get behind, unlike his recent activities on the Merry. Smoker swam down and thought, Though Sora is not the only one with renewed determination. For Usopp to have begged... things really are at the tipping point. That pirate, Hook, he mentioned the place where Maleficent is, Hollow Bastion. Whatever happens, that will be where it all ends. Roronoa, Maleficent, that kid Riku... Tashigi. We're getting close. I can feel it.
The Marine caught up to the three who left first, while the pirates were still just leaving their ship. "Oi Luffy," Usopp started softly to his Captain. The rubber-merman turned his head a little and Usopp continued, "Don't let what Sora said get to you." The tanner merman smiled reassuringly, "You know we all know you care, right? You wouldn't be looking all over the world's for us if you didn't."
"Yeah, I know," Luffy replied. It didn't sound like he was lying, so Usopp frowned as he wondered what had Luffy looking so, troubled.
"And we're going to save the worlds too," Nami mentioned. The others looked towards the orange haired mermaid who smiled brightly at her captain. "Even Halloween Town," she added. Luffy's eyes widened in surprise, and Nami held out a hand like it was obvious. "Think about it. All this time we've been talking about saving our own world, and that one already got destroyed by the darkness. Those weapons you and Sora have though, I bet they can fix all the damage that was done." Nami stopped talking but continued in her mind, And save Nojiko, Gen, and everyone in Cocoyashi Village.
"Yeah!" Chopper agreed enthusiastically from behind them where he was lagging thanks to his turtle form. "Then Drum Island will come back with everything else. Dr. Kureha will be there, and I can tell her all about my adventures the next time I visit. And we'll all be together again! Sanji and Zoro too!"
The reindeer-turtle said it and instantly the others' smiles faded. They realized that they never told Chopper about Zoro, and Usopp grimaced as he left a few parts out of the stories he told their cute doctor. He's going to find out sooner or later. Might as well tell him now, Usopp thought about it for a second, but he shook his head against it. No, there's no point. There isn't anything he can do about it, and it would only make him sad.
Luffy swam away from the Merry and his stomach rumbled loudly. "I hope there's a Krusty Krab on this world too," he mumbled hungrily.
Robin looked around as they started descending through the sea. She was admiring the rock formations and various forms of sea life emerging out from behind them. As she looked past one of the pillars of undersea stone below her, she spotted a movement of something much bigger than the previous fish she had seen swimming around. Robin slowed down and she turned her attention to the pillar, watching as the shadow left from behind it and raced behind another rock fast. It should have kept swimming and she knew she would be able to follow it, but the fish never came out from beyond it.
It is hiding, and from this angle, it must be hiding from us. "Luffy," Robin said, not wasting a second. The pirate captain at the front of their group turned around and saw Robin lift up her hand and point down at the stone she saw the dark shape hide behind. "I believe we have company," she said, keeping her voice calm though she did feel an odd chill as she looked that way.
"Heartless?" Usopp asked. He reached behind his exposed torso to his muscular back and gripped the hilt of his broadsword strapped there.
"It was very large," Robin stated. Usopp saw part of a shadow stick out from behind the rock for a second and he gulped.
"If it isn't a Heatless, it's probably just an oversized fish," Nami said. She stuck her arms in front of her and pulled them to her sides while kicking her tail behind her. Nami swam down and to the right a little so she could see behind the rock the others were looking at. "See?" She began as she spotted the tail of the creature. She got farther right and kept talking, "It's got a dolphin's tail. Or, wow that's big," she kept swimming and slowed down a little and she followed the blue body up from its tail to his body. "Is that a whale? I think it's, uh oh-"
Luffy felt it a second before he saw it. His eyes opened wide, and he started swimming forward and yelled, "Nami, move!"
Nami was already on it. She swam back while her fellow four crewmates swam forward. Chopper tried transforming into a larger version of himself, but the turtle was all he had and he yelped in surprise as trying to transform did not work. The beast swam out from behind the rock and raced towards the closest one to it, which turned out to be the navigator not far away. Nami swam away faster and Luffy and Usopp both charged forward at the front of their friends.
Usopp swung down his sword as he reached Nami but the shark in front of him swam fast to the left and avoided him. Usopp swung down so hard that he did a front flip in the water and kept tumbling over himself for three more flips. "Crap!" Usopp yelled as he tumbled. "Luffy, get it!"
As Usopp shouted it, he cast a glance back at Luffy and his jaw dropped at the sight of the pirate captain spinning around much farther back than he made it. Luffy swung his fists around and they slammed into stone pillars around them, destroying them and making them collapse, but not stopping the shark from swimming around the falling debris and opening its mouth around Nami. "Ahh!" Nami yelled and she held her hands up in front of her face to protect from the shark's teeth.
"Thunder!" Luffy shouted.
A bolt of lightning dropped down on the shark about to chomp Nami and it got shocked temporarily. It bit down a second later, but Nami had turned and swam to the side to get out of its way. Nami sighed in relief as she made it, but then screamed out in pain as the shark bit down again while snapping its head in her direction. Her tail got bit into and the shark opened its mouth while swimming up to get more of her tail in it. As it brought down its jaws again, a few dozen arms appeared out of its top and bottom jaw and held them apart. Robin struggled to hold the monster though, and it bit down after being held back for a second, catching just the bottom of Nami's tail again.
The shark's eyes darted back to the people attacking it and saw Luffy pointing the Keyblade at its face. "Fire!" Luffy yelled, and a small fireball flew out only to disappear under the water halfway between him and the shark. "Nami!" Luffy yelled, as when the shark saw all of her friends swimming towards it, it turned away and swam as fast as it could down into the ravines between stone pillars. The sea floor was lower here than around the rest of the ocean, and they swam down into the lower areas after the shark.
"It's getting away!" Chopper yelled. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled out, "Please shark, bring Nami back!"
The talking reindeer-turtle got the shark to look back, but it just grinned a mouth full of huge shark teeth each almost as long as the turtle itself before swimming back faster than before. "What is that?" Luffy exclaimed as he saw the shark swim into a hole and instantly get taken away much faster than before.
"It is a high speed current," Robin replied, slowing down a little. "I believe the shark is leading us to its den. Perhaps there are other sharks waiting there for us to arrive."
Chopper's face turned pale, but one figure never stopped swimming and charged straight at the hole. He held his sword in his hands and yelled out, "Nami! I'm coming!"
Robin chuckled at the man's actions while Luffy pumped a fist and shouted, "Yeah! We're coming to save you!"
"Quickly!" They heard Nami scream from the hole.
"Let's go!" Luffy shouted. He swam into the hole behind Usopp, and Robin took a deep breath of water before following them in there.
Chopper took a big gulp and then clenched his furry hands into fists. I'm not afraid! I'm a pirate! Chopper raced ahead and dove into the jet stream where he moved faster than he had since arriving on this world and turning into such a slow animal. Although he thought to himself to be brave, he could not help but yell, "Ahhh!"
The crew of four spun down the current with Usopp at the front pointed straight ahead with his sword out in front of him. They charged the hole at the end of the tunnel full of fast water, and splashed out into a huge area with a sunken ship out in front of them. Nami had gotten released from the shark's jaws and it had a bloody nose, but it looked angrier than ever as it chased her around. "Hold on!" Luffy yelled after her, and she looked towards the hole she came in from where her friends were gathered. "We'll be right there, Nami!"
"Uhh Sora," Goofy began.
"What?" Sora asked, keeping his gaze straight in front of him as he swam.
The turtle-dog behind him came to a full stop and Sora realized the others weren't following him either. He turned to them and asked, "What is it?" He stared at the three behind him for a second and then leaned to the side to look past Donald's octopus body. "Where are they?" Sora asked in a deadpan voice.
"I thought they were behind me," Smoker admitted with a shake of his head.
"Should we go back for them?" Goofy asked.
Sora looked back and up through the water but did not see Luffy or the other pirates anywhere. He frowned and said, "No. There're Heartless everywhere. We need to find the Keyhole," he finished and spun back around, kicking his tail behind him and moving faster as he got the hang of it.
"But, uh," Donald spun from Sora to behind him and back again. "The King said to follow the Key," he muttered under his breath. He looked ahead at Sora swimming away and he nodded his head before chasing after him. Luffy, where did you go? The duck shook his head disappointedly.
Heartless appeared in front of the group and they charged at them to attack. Smoker punched a fist forward and his arm detached to smoke, but his smoke spread thin in the water and disappeared. "Grr," Smoker grumbled in aggravation.
"That stinks," Sora shouted from behind Smoker. The Marine who was distracted by the failure of his Devil Fruit powers did not notice the boy was so close to him and he spun around. His eyes widened as Sora was not the only thing he didn't feel coming up behind him, and the boy who was back to back with him was fending off a group of Heartless Jellyfish. There was a huge jellyfish in the middle of the three, and when Sora hit it enough times it broke into two smaller ones.
One of the ones that broke off raced towards Sora but Smoker swam up first and slammed a fist into it. He covered his first with Armament Haki and kept looking at it for a few seconds longer as he realized it had been a few times since he last failed at getting his Haki going. Not a surprise, he thought, while spinning out of the way of two Ghost Heartless they recognized from Halloween Town. He chased one that went past him and slammed an elbow down on it that he also managed to surround in Haki. All this nonstop fighting has been making me stronger. Next time I see that witch Maleficent, she will not slip through my grasp.
"Ahhhh!"
Sora spun to the right and the others with him all looked the same direction. They heard a scream that sounded like it came from a young woman, and Sora spotted a mermaid swimming between rock pillars in the depths below him. Behind her were several large Heartless and he started swimming down immediately, "Hold on!" Sora called out.
"Right behind you Sora!" Goofy exclaimed.
"Wawawa!" Donald swam down and waved his wand around, causing lightning to drop on the Heartless behind the mermaid and the yellow fish swimming with her. The redhead in a purple shell bikini spun around in surprise and watched in even more awe as Sora and his friends swam in and started beating up the Heartless.
Sora bat two Heartless back and sent a blizzard spell flying at them, but as he shot it he got hit from behind by one of the Ghost Heartless's long claws. "Sora!" Donald yelled. He just used up the last of his magic on another blast of lightning, so the duck pulled out an Ether and tossed it up to himself. His magic replenished and he pointed his wand up, making green healing light shimmer down over his comrade.
"Thanks!" Sora called out. He lifted his Keyblade and blocked the following attack on him. Both him and the enemy were knocked back by the force of the parry, but Sora quickly recovered and shot forward, dashing past his enemy and swiping as he did, then continuing up into a combo of five hits that sent his enemy flying backwards and vanishing into a puddle of darkness.
The enemies were all destroyed and Sora pumped a fist in the water as he let his Keyblade vanish. "Woohoo!" Goofy yelled and Donald even twirled around his wand excitedly.
Smoker shook his head at the three in front of him, though he did cross his arms and enjoy a small moment of satisfaction at their quick disposal of those Heartless. He turned his head after that moment and looked over at the young girl who was quite beautiful now that he got a look at her. She swam over with her green mermaid tail kicking behind her.
"Thank you," the girl said as she reached the group in front of her.
Sora turned and smiled at the girl, "It was no problem," he said. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," the girl with teal blue eyes replied. She did a little swim around Sora and looked at the teenage merman with a funny look. "I haven't seen you around here. Where did you come from?"
"Um," Sora scratched his spiky brown hair. "An ocean far away," he replied, and Donald sighed in relief as he thought the kid was going to let it slip again like on the last world they visited.
"Oh," the girl said, sounding disappointed. She brightened up after a second though and did another spin, "Anyway, what are your names? I'm Ariel, and this is Flounder," she pointed at a small yellow fish with blue stripes and fins swimming next to her.
"Nice to meet you," Sora said. "I'm Sora, this is Donald, and Goofy. And he's Smoker," he added, motioning to the older man behind the three of them.
Ariel looked back there and saw the man frowning deeply and she backed up a little nervously. Donald and Goofy turned with frowns at Smoker for scaring Ariel, but the man just glared at them and they gulped and spun back forward. "So Ariel," Sora started. "Why were the Heartless after you? What happened?"
"The Heartless?" Ariel questioned. Donald face-palmed and Sora started chuckling nervously.
"Oh um, that's what I've heard those creatures are called," Sora lied, looking away sheepishly as he did.
"Well," Ariel began. It was her turn to look sheepish now and she continued, "My father told me not to leave the palace walls, but there's so much to do out here. I'm looking for stuff from other worlds."
"Other, worlds?" Sora questioned, trying to make himself sound skeptical.
"Mm hmm," Ariel said and she did a twirl around her fish friend. "Every so often something will float down from the surface. I collect them. You want to see?"
Donald opened his mouth to say they had important things to do, but Sora jumped first and shouted, "Okay!" Ariel smiled and she started swimming off, and Sora heard someone clear his throat behind him. He looked back and saw Smoker looking annoyed and Donald crossing his tentacles at him. "We can't just let her swim around here on her own," Sora argued as the girl left his earshot. "She's not safe with the Heartless around."
Donald humphed but he uncrossed his tentacles and arms as that did make sense. He swam after Sora as the teen turned and chased Ariel, and Goofy and Smoker followed behind him. The man with white hair grimaced at this errand which felt like a distraction. He glanced behind him and thought, At least we're doing something. What the Hell is Straw Hat up to?
"Oof!" Chopper gasped and he went spinning away inside his shell. "Dang it, I can't do anything like this- ah!" Chopper pulled his arms and legs back into his shell and made his head stick out as little as possible as he saw the shark racing towards him with its mouth wide open.
Two figures appeared on Chopper's sides while he was hiding, and the giant shark turned towards one of them and shot over, clamping its teeth down on the figure and tearing straight through her. The shark looked confused though as after biting through the woman, it felt nothing between its teeth. Nami smirked and swam forward, her tail all healed up thanks to a blast from Luffy's Cure magic. "Mirage Tempo," she called out, and the other figure who appeared next to Chopper disappeared as well into the water. Nami looked down at her Clima Tact after using it and wondered how the water on this world acted so similarly to the air on others, but she figured it would have been the same in Bikini Bottom.
The shark turned its head towards the voice of the woman who it thought it just bit down on again, and it started racing towards her with an angry look on his face. It bared its huge sharp teeth, and then a steaming pirate with red skin appeared on its side with both arms thrown back behind him. "Jet Bazooka!" He yelled, and his arms shot forward through the water and slammed into the shark's side. He dented his hands into the shark's body and it gasped in pain before shooting away. As it flew off, over a hundred hands emerged out the top of the nearby sunken ship that was the shark's den. The arms rose up, and Robin clenched her eyes shut while holding her fists tight with her arms crossed. All of her rising arms merged together into one single hand that she smacked forward into the shark heading towards her.
"Whoa!" Nami and Chopper exclaimed at the amazing attack that sent the shark flying the other way.
Luffy also looked towards his archaeologist with a smile on his face at the cool move she just showed, then he turned the other way with widening eyes as he saw someone shooting through the water almost as fast as he had moved before his Gear Second Jet Bazooka. The blur zipping through the water pulled his sword back far at his right side as he swam towards the left side of the shark. The beast was regaining itself as Usopp was swimming towards it, and it snapped its jaws towards him right as he got close. Usopp leaned his body back and skid through the water with the shark's jaws snapping shut right over his exposed muscular chest. Then, when he was halfway back behind the shark, he did a full three-sixty degree spin and cut across the shark's right side with a deep gasp.
The shark kept swimming, but it was slowing down after that hit. It slowed, and slowed, and then it came to a stop. The shark turned upside-down so it was floating belly up, and it sank down to the ground of the ocean floor. "We did it!" Nami shouted happily, then she started swimming towards the man who put the finishing blow on the shark. "My hero-" Nami came to a stop before reaching the muscular man who put his sword up over his shoulder into his sheath. Usopp got a confused look on his face as he was expecting a hug from the mermaid in front of him.
Nami was just gawking at the long-nosed man though, and Usopp noticed that her gaze was lifted over his shoulders and towards a hole leading into the area they were in that was full of strong currents pushing their direction so there was no way to travel back through it. In between Usopp and that hole that he just turned around to look at, a merman swimming towards them started to slow down.
Every one of the Straw Hats had huge eyes. Nami and Usopp gawked, Chopper's lips started quivering, even Robin let out a small gasp as she spotted the figure with a blue tail swimming towards them. Luffy got over the shock though in an instant, and he swam forward with a giant smile forming on his face. The merman swimming towards them kicked his tail harder and shot forward even faster towards Luffy as the pirate with a straw hat dangling on his back by the string tied around his neck shouted, "Sanji!"
The blond-haired merman kept swimming fast towards the man who shouted that, and then right before he reached the rubber merman, the blond man spun around and smacked his long blue tail into the side of Luffy's head so hard that the pirate captain shot down through the water all the way into the ground below. Chopper dropped his jaw, Nami gasped, and Usopp felt a deep sense of dread form in his stomach. No, not again, Usopp thought. He started swimming towards Sanji though, lifting his right hand back up to the hilt over his right shoulder. "Sanji! Stop it!" Usopp yelled in a strong, brave voice.
Sanji lifted his gaze from the trail of white through the water that he just sent Luffy crashing through. He looked up with dark eyes towards the man above him, but those eyes opened wider in surprise at the sight of the muscular figure above him. "Us-sop?" He questioned slowly, wondering if he was seeing things correctly. Sanji was shirtless revealing that his body looked similar to how it always did, and a flip of his blond hair still covered half of his face, so it looked like he had not been on this world for very long. The sight of Usopp's figure made him shocked however, and Usopp lowered his sword a little at the look on Sanji's face.
"It is you, isn't-" Usopp stopped talking as Sanji shot forward, kicking his tail so hard that he raced through the water faster than any of them could swim.
Usopp leaned back while lifted back up his sword, getting ready to face Sanji, when someone swam up in front of him and threw her arms out to the sides. Sanji froze where he was only ten feet in front of Usopp, his eyes popping open huge and his tail freezing in place instead of kicking around his body. "Sanji! Stop this," Nami shouted and then begged, a scared look on her face. First Zoro, then Robin in Agrabah, and even Riku. I didn't think anyone else would make me feel so, betrayed. "Why are you attacking us?" Nami asked with such a look of pain and betrayal on her face that Sanji could not even get a nosebleed at the sight of Nami in mermaid form.
Sanji started backing up, his eyes darting from Nami to a different part of the area where he saw Robin looking towards him curiously as well. I- I can't, he thought, while backing up in the water. He turned and started swimming back the way he came.
"Sanji, wait!" Usopp called out, swimming around Nami and after the blond man who he did not understand why he was attacking them. "Talk to us!"
"Sanji!" Luffy yelled as he swam up from the ground into Sanji's path, between him and the hole with the strong currents in it pushing towards them. "What was that for?" Luffy asked his chef in front of him, more confused that anything at why Sanji kicked him back there. It didn't hurt, because I'm rubber, Luffy thought, but what confused him even more was that he knew Sanji knew that. Luffy smiled and swam a little forward towards his chef who stopped moving in the water, "I'm so glad we found you. I've been looking all over the worlds, and I almost found everyone- oh! And I'm so hungry Sanji, can you make-"
"Get out of here, Luffy," Sanji hissed. Luffy's eyes opened wide and his mouth froze open. Sanji kicked his tail behind him to his left and swam around Luffy in a single move. Luffy tried spinning around after him but he still was not used to his new tail, and the fact that he was flustered made it even harder to control himself. He started flailing around and kicking his tail to try and chase after Sanji, but Sanji swam into the hole with the strong currents and did not even slow down as they pushed against him. Luffy and Usopp reached the hole a few seconds later and tried to chase him straight into it, but the currents were too strong for either of them and pushed them right back out into the shark's den.
Luffy tried again and again, but he could not swim strong enough to follow his nakama into the tunnel. "Sanji!" Luffy shouted after the man he lost sight of. "SANJI!"
"Much better!" Ariel called out and clapped her hands at how fast Sora was swimming alongside her.
Sora smiled proudly as he was getting much better at swimming as a merman. Donald, Smoker, and Goofy were getting better as well, but they trailed behind the two mer-teens swimming ahead. "There's my grotto," Ariel called out, pointing forward with a hand towards a rock formation that had a boulder pressed up against what looked like the entrance to get in. Before they could reach it though, more of the jellyfish Heartless appeared along with strange green creatures holding tridents. Those monsters looked as dangerous as the jellyfish, and they were much faster, darting towards them and jabbing with their weapons forward. They had dark green faces but they opened up in the middles to show blackness inside with beady yellow eyes inside that darkness.
"These Heartless are even stronger than the last world's," Sora said to Donald while they battled a few of the green ones together.
Donald darted his eyes around, but he saw Goofy and Smoker fighting alongside Ariel far enough away that they did not hear Sora. Donald hummed to himself after making sure that they were alone in their conversation, then he mentioned while calling down some lightning on their enemies, "It might be because of Halloween Town. The more stars that go out, the more worlds that fall, the more powerful the Heartless are getting."
"Then we have to move faster," Sora said, and he tried going into Drive Form to speed up his attacks. He lifted his Keyblade and waited, but he could not get that form to come out for him. "What's going on?" He wondered, and then he turned towards Smoker and thought about how he was having a hard time with his powers as well.
"Focus Sora!" Donald shouted, pushing Sora out of the way and using his wand to block the trident jabbing at Sora.
Sora gasped as Donald's wand was pushed away and the duck was hit instead of him. "Hey!" Sora yelled, swimming back over and doing a combo on the Heartless who attacked his friend. Once the monster had exploded into little green balls and clear ones to restore their MP, Sora turned to Donald and asked, "Are you okay?" Donald shook his head around while blowing through his lips, then he nodded to show he was okay. "Thanks Donald," Sora added, and the duck turned to Sora to see him smiling gratefully at him.
"Yeah whatever, don't worry about it," Donald said. He pointed one of his octopus legs forward and Sora turned to see the other three had finished their enemies as well. The five of them started swimming down for the grotto, and Ariel seemed really excited to show them inside.
"I've got this," Sora boasted, and he swam towards the boulder before anyone else could. He leaned his shoulder into it and wrapped both hands around one side, then slid the boulder away from the hole behind it so that they could all swim into the grotto. Sora grinned at how easy that was for him, but he wiped the grin from his face as everyone else just swam past into the grotto without saying anything to him. He swam inside after them and opened his mouth, but then his bottom lip just dropped and he started doing a spin next to Ariel as he looked around in the tall circular room they were in. At the very top there was a hole leading out into the rest of the ocean, but all along the walls there were rings sticking out like shelves that were covered in chests and vases and all sorts of things that did not look like they belonged at the bottom of the ocean.
"Wow," Goofy said as he stared into a strange mirror on the second shelf. "Is that what I look like, hyuck?" He turned sideways and examined his own turtle shell with a closer look for the first time.
"Look at all the wonderful things Flouder and I have collected," Ariel said while doing a spin and looking at it all herself. The small yellow fish swam around in the grotto but came down to float next to Ariel as she spoke. "I think it's all from the outside world," she continued. She turned back to Sora and smiled at him and said, "Someday I'm going to see what's out there. I want to see other worlds too." She did another spin with such a look of wonder on her face, then asked her new friend, "Does that sound strange?"
Sora shook his head with a look of nostalgia on his face, "No, not at all," he replied. "I used to feel the same way."
Smoker looked over at the kid and lifted his eyebrows at him. He did, did he? What are the chances that he would be the one to travel different worlds? His eyebrows narrowed back down, Something about this kid, ever since I met him, there's something different about him. I can understand why the Keyblade would choose him, but Straw Hat? Smoker shook his head.
"Used to?" Ariel asked, wondering why Sora stopped.
Sora remembered she did not know that he was currently doing what he always wanted to do. "I mean, I still do," he corrected himself. Sora shook his head around and then looked into Ariel's teal eyes and began, "Actually Ariel, there's something my friends and I are looking for. Do you think you can help me out?"
Donald was looking around at everything in the grotto, but his gaze lingered on a strange trident-shaped indent on a weird blue indent on the stone wall. "Hmm," he hummed.
"Sure," Ariel said. "I'll do whatever I can. You did help me back there after all."
"Thanks," Sora told the girl. "Well, we're looking for something called a Keyhole. Have you ever heard of it?"
"There's no such thing!" A booming voice shouted behind the group. All of them spun around and stared towards the entrance of the grotto where a red lobster was cowering back from the giant merman floating in towards them. "And Ariel!" The man shouted at the top of his lungs, making the girl ease backwards. He had a body over twice as large as Smoker's, and his was covered in muscles that made him look like quite the intimidating figure. He held a long golden trident in his hands, had on golden wrist-guards, had a big fluffy white beard that connected to his long waving hair, and he wore a golden crown on top of his head with five points sticking off of it. "What have I told you about leaving the palace?! You disobeyed me again! The ocean is not safe!"
"But Daddy, I was just-" Ariel began arguing.
"Not. Another. Word," Ariel's father commanded. King Triton narrowed his eyes at his daughter as she opened her mouth to keep arguing, then she just swam off with a hurt look in her eyes. She glanced back towards her new friends as she reached her father's side, then spotted his glare down at her and continued to swim out of the grotto.
Sora felt bad as he watched her swim off, then he turned his gaze to the man she called her father. "You didn't need to be so mean to her. We kept her safe from the Heartless so you didn't need to worry."
Triton just kept glaring at the kid the whole time he spoke. He looked from Sora to each of the others with him, then he said in a stern, scolding voice, "Young man, what do you think you are doing here?"
Sora leaned back a little at the question. Smoker lifted his eyebrows, and Donald and Goofy gulped as they each had a strange feeling about the man in front of him. "Uh," Sora began. "I don't know what you-"
"I am King Triton, and these are my oceans, and you are not from this world!" Triton swam forward and narrowed his eyes at the boy who gasped as the King knew about him. Sora's gasp gave himself away, and Triton continued in a deeper voice, "Then you must be the key bearer."
"H-How did you know?" Sora asked.
Triton looked around at the strange beings in front of him, thinking of a few ways he was able to discover it. Mainly though, it was from what Sora said as he was entering the grotto. "You will find no Keyhole here. Now, leave my world." He said it in a serious voice, and he continued angrily, "As the key bearer, you must already know… One must not meddle in the affairs of other worlds."
Smoker looked from the King of this world to the boy trying to save it. "We're not trying to meddle," Smoker began, in a respectful tone to the world's monarch. Triton turned to the other white haired man who continued, "All we're trying to do-"
"What you are attempting means nothing to me!" Triton boomed, and Smoker quieted himself at the tone of the King. He slammed the butt of his trident down as he yelled it, and the entire grotto around them shook from the power of it. "You have violated this principle," Triton said, while Sora looked away with a guilty look, thinking back on the WMAT and how long they meddled with that world for. Triton continued in a scolding voice, "The key bearer shatters peace and brings ruin."
Sora's head bowed even more. He thought about how Earth had almost no Heartless on it until he showed up with his friends. Shattered the peace. He thought about how right after he arrived in Halloween Town, the entire world fell apart. Brought ruin. That, it sounds like…
"Aw, Sora's not like that," Goofy said.
"Whether or not you are, you have broke this most sacred rule. Not only are you here, but there are other world travelers making a mess in my kingdom," Triton bellowed.
Sora muttered while still looking down, "Luffy's just doing whatever he wants." He shook his head around and closed his eyes. I thought after what I said you might take things more seriously, but you ran off as soon as we got here. You know what, I don't care anymore. I'll save the worlds on my own.
Triton glared at the figures who had no response for what he just claimed. He turned and said while looking over his shoulder, "I thank you for protecting my daughter, but- there is no room in this ocean for you or your key." He swam out of the grotto and the small lobster behind him followed him out. Sora lifted his right hand and looked down at the hilt of the golden Keyblade that he made appear in his grasp. The boy's blue eyes focused on it with such a troubled look on his face.
"Guys," Sora said in a soft voice. The other three looked to him now that they were alone in the grotto. Sora turned his head to look at the same small indent off of the wall that Donald saw before which looked to be missing a piece of it. "Let's get going," Sora said in a serious tone. He was not smiling anymore, but Donald and Goofy could not find it in them to remind him of how their ship ran on happy faces. After everything that was happening, it was difficult for even them to stay positive. "We still need to find this world's Keyhole, whether or not the people here want us to."
Smoker nodded his head, "I agree. There may already be dark forces at work here controlling the Heartless that have been attacking us since we arrived. If they find the Keyhole first," he did not finish his sentence, but he did not need to. None of them were forgetting Halloween Town anytime soon. They all nodded at each other, and then the mermen, turtle, and octopus swam towards the exit of the grotto and out into the ocean.
As the four of them swam away, two eels watching from the hole in the ceiling swam down and slithered around the room. The creepy dark green eels had small yellow eyes and started speaking as they swam around the grotto. "The key bearers are lost as to how to find the Keyhole."
"My my, and it looks like we just found a way to get Triton's trident." The other hissed. "If only there was some way we could help that poor girl," it hissed, holding onto each 's' longer than it should have to make it sound even creepier.
"Do it," a high-pitched voice echoed in the grotto to the eels plotting their evil schemes. "Haha HAA ha! Soon, the trident will be all mine!"
In a dark cave far from Ariel's grotto and the nearby palace, a large witch with the body of an octopus turned from the cauldron in front of her that she was speaking into. She had white hair receding back on her head, bright red lips and heavy make-up all over her face that did not mask how ugly she was. The fat witch with purple skin and a black dress falling down over all her tentacles floated towards the entrance of her cave and her smug look started to lower into a furious one. Ursula yelled out and the cauldron behind her glowed bright red, right before fire shot from her hands and into the man in front of her with blond hair.
"What was that?!" She yelled at the merman who steadied himself after the powerful magic blast. "I gave you an order to destroy that key bearer! Do you not remember who you are indebted to?!"
"I remember-" the blond man began, bowing his head and casting a shadow over his own face. "But I-"
"SILENCE!" Ursula roared. "The next time you disobey me, I will remove those gills I so generously granted you with and let you drown! Do you understand me?" She leaned forward with a menacing look on her face as she asked that question, and the former pirate lifted his head slowly and looked up into the large eyes of the witch before him. He nodded once at her, then Ursula smiled and said, "Good. In that case go join Flotsam and Jetsam. They are going to get Ariel to bring us into the palace so that I can get my hands on the trident. My exile has gone on for too long, and I will rise like never before with the power of the trident to rule these seas! Hahaha HAAhaha HAHAHAHA!"
A/N Sanji?! The last member of the Straw Hats is found, but he's attacking his friends for a reason they don't understand. Will Luffy and the others be able to save their crewmate from Ursula's clutches? Will Ursula's plan to steal the trident work? Or will Sora find the Keyhole first? Find out next time on Broken Log Pose! Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry it's been 14 months since I last updated, but in those same 14 months I posted over 1.1 million words of a different crossover (Nexus Heroes Will Rise), so I've been a little busy. XD Back to updating this one though, and I think I'm going to get another chapter of it out soon so get ready! I have an end in sight for this crossover, but I'm also moving to Japan in a couple of weeks and won't have much time to write once I'm there, so... Guess I'll have to get out as much as I can in the time I have left! Alright, review responses:
Jmw chapter 25 . Jan 13, 2017
Love this story this this should get more reviews. Soras speech was nessary luffy really needs to learn his actions have consequences. He can't be childish lives are at stake as shown with Halloween town if they had left earlier they could have probably saved them but luffy wanted to stay for the tournament instead of searching for his friends or moving on. I like luffy but he need grow up and realize he is being selfish.
As for smoker teaching ussop haki is i testing I think Nami and chopper need to learn haki or train too maybe goofy and Donald could learn haki from smoker as well see if they can combine haki with Donald's magic or with goofy shield.
Question we can already tell that Nami and ussop are probably gonna get together at some point and maybe zoro and tashigi and that's a big if but what about the rest of the crew and sora
If you decide to incorporate pairing in the future can one of the crew member be paired with a Disney world character like says sanji and Ariel for example not saying you have to do that just putting it as an example although that would be interesting.
Can't wait for next chapter.
Glad you enjoyed the story! Hope you're still into it even after the year+ hiatus (sorry about that). Luffy's realizing there's a lot more at stake than just his own life and his friends' lives, but the idea of all the worlds resting on his shoulders is not something easily setting in. Nami gives some hope this chapter though suggesting that they'll be able to restore Halloween Town as long as they continue on their mission. Smoker's Haki is getting better, but will he have enough time to teach the others Haki before the end of the worlds comes? Time's running out, and as strong as they're trying to get, there might just not be enough time... As for Nami and Usopp getting together, I wonder if you missed after the two of them got out of Monstro's stomach, Nami's shirt was on backwards... for some reason... ;). Still have yet to see Tashigi, and though we know she's with Zoro at least, it seems she has lost her heart. As for the final pairing, well, we'll see if anything comes of that in the next chapter, won't we? Thanks for the review!
SilentXD7 chapter 25 . Apr 3, 2017
Interesting story. I hope you continue with the series in the future and I see great potential in this story.
Glad you enjoyed, and I hope you see the update and read the new chapter! As I said I'm going to continue posting to this soon, and right after I post this chapter I'm actually going to continue with chapter 27. So I guess I'll get to that now, huh? XD Thanks for the review and to everyone who read, faved, or followed this story. 'Till next time!