Chapter 14: A Bunch of Laughs

They were still fighting Heartless quite some time later.

"Umm, guys!" Joseph shouted, sounding rather frantic. He was staring at his pocket, which had begun to glow. He quickly fished out the pulsing star shard.

"Crap," Sora muttered. He grabbed Riku by the wrist (much to Riku's displeasure) and lunged forward to grab Joseph before the star shard went off.

In a flash of light, they disappeared.

xxx

The three of them landed roughly on their butts, much to their displeasure.

"Give me the star shard," Sora muttered, holding out his hand. Or, rather, his paw. He had been transformed into a lion. He paused upon noticing this. Joseph started laughing.

"That is so cool!" he said, tossing the star shard to Sora. Sora caught it, though he wasn't sure where to put it. He no longer had pockets.

"What am I?" Joseph asked.

"Meerkat," Sora replied.

"Sweet!"

Riku laughed in disbelief at Joseph's slightly random upbeat attitude. However, it didn't take long for his laughter to go from quiet to completely uncontrollable. Upon realizing this, his hands (well, paws) flew to his mouth and he immediately stopped laughing. Sora and Joseph, however, were rolling with laughter by this point.

"What was-" Riku began, and then shook his head. "What am I?" he demanded.

"Dude," Sora gasped through his laughter. "You're a hyena!"

"WHAT!" Riku shouted. "Why am I a hyena!" He paused, clutching his stomach. "And why am I so hungry?"

"Don't eat me!" Joseph said frantically.

"I'm not going to eat you!" Riku replied.

Sora glanced around. "Where are we?" he asked.

"Some world called the Pride Lands," Joseph replied. When Sora and Riku turned to look at him, shocked, he merely shrugged. "Don't ask why I know that. I know a lot of random things. But, anyways, most of the people here are actually animals, which is why we've been transformed, I guess. It's so we'd blend in."

"That makes sense…" Riku muttered. "But that doesn't explain why I'm a hyena!"

Sora and Joseph burst out laughing again.

"Shut up!" Riku snapped. "Or I will take a bite out of you."

Joseph shut up immediately. It took Sora a moment to quiet himself, but he managed.

"Come on," Riku muttered. "Let's go find some Heartless." He headed forward, a bit slow at first, trying to get used to the feel of walking on all fours. As soon as he got used to that, he broke off in a dead run.

"Hey!" Joseph called, and then turned to Sora, who was also not used to walking on all fours. "I can't walk that fast!"

"Get on my back," Sora muttered, pausing. Joseph hopped onto his back. "As soon as there's Heartless, though, you have to get down."

"Okay!" Joseph laughed.

xxx

They made their way through the Pride Lands, killing whatever Heartless that popped up as they went. Surprisingly, though, there weren't a lot of Heartless. This is why they eventually made their way into a place known as the Elephant Graveyard.

They hadn't made it that far in before they were stopped by three hyenas.

"Well, well, well, Banzai, what do we have here?" one asked, turning to another (who was probably called Banzai).

"I don't know, Shenzi," Banzai laughed to the first hyena. He then turned to the third. "What do you think, Ed?"

Ed just laughed.

"What do you want?" Riku snapped.

"Aw, nothing," Banzai laughed. "We were just hoping for a snack."

"And it sure looks like we found one," Shenzi said.

"Joseph-" Sora muttered.

"Way ahead of you," Joseph replied, hopping off Sora's back and finding a place to hide. He didn't have any means of fighting (not in this world, anyways) and didn't want to face three hyenas, even with Sora and Riku there.

"Are you planning on eating us?" Riku asked.

"Well, maybe not all of you," Shenzi replied. "But at least that little guy right there." She pointed to where Joseph had recently been, and then paused. "Wait, where'd he-"

Riku took this momentary confusion as a window to attack and lunged forward, knocking Shenzi to the ground.

"Right… so we're not talking our way out of this…" Sora sighed, and then attacked Banzai.

Ed stopped his laughing for a moment, trying to decide who would be the better target. He decided just to attack Riku in the end, because he was closer.

Riku managed to easily fend off Ed's attack, and continued to focus on Shenzi.

The next few minutes were filled with much scratching and biting.

Sora quickly dodged out of the way of one of Banzai's attacks. He paused a second, noticing something.

The darkness inside him was restless.

He shuddered.

This moment he was caught off guard, however, was the moment Banzai tackled him to the ground. A cry of pain escaped his mouth, and not in response to being tackled to the ground. It was in response to his darkness lashing out.

His form flickered, the darkness growing around him.

"Riku!" he shouted, terrified.

Riku skidded to a stop, and turned to where Sora was. His eyes widened in shock at the sight of the darkness, and he bolted over.

He stopped dead in his tracks as the darkness erupted from Sora, knocking the unfortunate Banzai aside. When the darkness faded, all Riku could do was stare in horror.

That wasn't Sora.

It couldn't have been.

What stood in Sora's place did look like Sora, but was darker, more like a shadow. Almost like an anti version of him. And while it was relatively humanoid in figure, its nature was more of an animal than the lion Sora had been previously.

"Sora!" Riku shouted, lunging forward.

Anti-Sora turned to Banzai, who yelped with fright and ran. Shenzi and Ed were slowly backing off too, before they also ran. Anti-Sora began to follow after them, bounding forward on all fours, but was knocked aside by Riku.

It turned to Riku, and he shuddered slightly as he met its gaze.

Anti-Sora's eyes were glowing yellow, like a Heartless.

This can't be Sora… Riku thought. There's no possible way this is Sora…

Anti-Sora leapt forward and attacked Riku with a flurry of scratches, kicks, and dark energy, most of which made contact with his face. Riku gasped and stumbled back. He could feel warm blood on his face, which he assumed was from a nasty scratch. But he ignored it and lunged forward, tackling Anti-Sora to the ground.

"Sora! Snap out of it!" he said frantically.

Sora's form began to flicker, morphing back into what it should have been. "So… cold…" he whispered, and his form flickered between lion and what might have been human, before settling on lion again.

"Joseph!" Riku shouted, glancing up. "Do you know where the star shard is?"

Joseph, who had emerged from his hiding place as soon as the hyenas were gone, nodded. "Yeah, I've got it."

"I thought you gave it back to Sora."

"He gave it back to me when he realized he didn't have anywhere to put it. And since I can't fight or anything…" Joseph trailed off. "Back to Castle Oblivion?" he asked.

"Hurry," Riku replied.

In a flash of light, the three of them disappeared.

xxx

They reappeared in Castle Oblivion, much to the shock of many Replicas standing about. Why? Well, Riku did still have Sora pinned to the ground. However, they had all returned to their human state.

"Are you all right?" Riku asked Sora.

"How about getting off?" Sora replied, smiling slightly.

Riku laughed, a tad nervously, and got to his feet. He held out a hand to help Sora up, which Sora took.

"What happened?" Riku asked.

Sora shook his head.

Riku frowned.

"Well…" Sora began, but paused, eyes widening in shock.

"What?" Riku asked.

"Your face…" Sora whispered.

Riku touched his cheek, which he just realized was hurting, and found blood. He slowly ran his fingers along the scratch, and winced.

"There's one on your forehead, too," Sora said.

Riku checked that one also, and winced again. It hurt.

"Did I do that?" Sora asked.

Riku quickly shook his head. "No," he lied. "It was one of the hyenas."

Sora looked as if he didn't believe him.

"I'm going to go clean these up," Riku muttered, walking off.

"Here," Joseph said, tossing the star shard to Sora. "Thanks for taking me," he laughed, before running off.