So alas, we come to the "end" of the Monster's Inc. story and set up an entirely new one. I'd say we're halfway through the story judging from the number of chapters but I can't even trust myself to tell you with certainty. Anyways, enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 45
Linked Worlds -The Dream-
"You're actually considering it? Bringing Sora along with us? Right, the destroyer of worlds at Moira's Crescent. Why do I have the feeling some of the others won't like that, especially Desiree?" Astra pointed out before confessing. "Okay, I admit that I don't mind the guy. I could probably even get along with him if it meant having Luna there. But the-" Here she lowered her voice so Stephanie wouldn't here. "Sorasceptics certainly won't think that it'll be enough to stop that prophecy from coming true."
"I know. I know that," Rhea accepted. "Jill, Jack, Desiree, Vyce and Alfonso. With the vote coming up, that's five against me, you, Kohle, Salome and Lysander. There'll be a tie. If I can convince at least one person to vote against going after him then that will be enough."
"I… didn't say anything about voting against, or for. This is your problem and I don't want to be a part of it," Astra said.
"Right. I suppose you aren't an official member yet," Rhea said sadly. "Then we're outnumbered."
"I didn't finish yet," Astra interrupted. "But if it's the only way to protect Luna, then I guess I have no choice but to join… officially."
Intentional or not, Rhea had just held a gun to Astra's head when she had brought up the vote. It really gave her no choice in the matter. She had to protect Luna by protecting Sora. Indeed, Rhea could hold the physical manifestation of power in her hands and she probably wouldn't even realize it.
"That's great, Luna. I- There's someone coming. One pair of footsteps by the sound of it," Rhea said. Astra frowned and looked to the entrance only to find no one there.
"Er, are you sure? Maybe your hearings going a little off because I can't see or hear anything," Astra said.
"You don't hear it?" Rhea asked before putting an index finger to her lips to silence everyone. Astra remained as still as she could and closed her eyes, trying to imitate Rhea. She strained her ears as much as she possibly could to pick up on something but all she could really notice was the temperature of her earlobes rising.
"Astra, swing behind you!" Rhea said quickly. Doubting she would be able to summon her Keyblade in time, Astra extended her arms out and slammed them backwards as hard as she could. It was the back of her fist that caught something invisible and knocked it to the ground.
Astra spun around and looked down to see Randall rubbing his head in irritation. "You piece of scum. You enjoy frightening little kids?"
"Enjoy? Hmph, what are you talking about?"
"Going after Boo. Why did you want her so badly?" Astra interrogated. She pinned Randall to the ground to make sure he couldn't escape.
"I don't need to tell you anything? How 'bout you mind your own business," Randall replied. When Astra applied even more force however, Randall soon gave in. "Okay okay! We were planning on testing out a scream extractor on the kid. If it worked, I would be rich and we wouldn't need pathetic losers like Sullivan stealing the spotlight, but one of your friends used some stupid key to destroy the machine."
Astra couldn't believe what she had just heard. It seemed so comical and yet they were probably the oldest motives in the book. She adopted a strained twisted smile on her face and clenched her fist tightly.
"You… you went out of your way to try and kidnap a child for riches and to settle some stupid rivalry?" she struggled to say.
"Kidnap? Don't be ridiculous, like it matters what their kind think. Why do you even care so much anyway? It's not like you're one of them," Randall said. Astra was about to respond when instead Stephanie walked up to Randall and smacked him in the face.
"You're talking to one of them, and you've been a very bad monster. Guess what? Boo's not afraid of you and neither am I!" Stephanie proclaimed proudly. Walking up beside her, Boo grinned and roared at Randall to prove Stephanie's point.
"You heard the girls. You're not scary to anyone I'm afraid. In other words, it looks like you've just been made redundant," Astra said. "And since your services are no longer required… Boo, I think I've found a new toy you can play with."
Randall's eyes almost popped out of their sockets and he tried to wriggle out of Astra's grasp as Boo came closer with a wide smile. "No, anything but that! No. NOOOOOOO!"
Astra watched completely amused and immersed in the scene playing out in front her eyes. Boo had wasted no time in grabbing Randall as soon as Astra had let go and started to 'tinker' with him, pulling and stretching anywhere she could. Astra almost felt sorry for him, but then again, he had probably never felt sorry in what he was doing so the sympathy and pity ended rather quickly.
"Well, now that's a sight."
Astra turned to see both Sulley and Mike standing in front of a door on the right side of the floor. They were both staring completely dumbfound as their arch rival was subjected to the harshest of tortures inflicted by a three year old child. Astra didn't know if there were many other ways to exacerbate that fact but she took amusement in trying all the same.
Sora slammed through the door up ahead with his shoulder and froze only for a few seconds. The place he had arrived in was unlike anything he had ever seen before, and he thought that he had seen so many doors on the Scare Floor. Here, wherever here was, was what appeared to be an infinite amount of doors hanging from rails, moving left, right, up, down, anywhere and everywhere.
"Do you think half of these doors have even been used?" Luna asked from behind him.
"Somehow, I really doubt it," Sora said. Footsteps behind them alerted them to the fact that Pete was nearing their location. After being trapped by Gantu and Pete on both sides, Sora and Luna had split from Donald and Goofy who were keeping the former occupied while Sora and Luna lured Pete away from them. After ascending a flight of stairs they soon arrived at the door that took them into this room.
"Looks like you're trapped now ya little pipsqueaks," Pete said. He had the hungry look of a predator in his eyes, probably because he knew that there really was nowhere for them to run now.
"Not too much trouble climbing those stairs, I hope?" Luna asked while looking around for a way out. They were standing on a small balcony overlooking the cascade of doors and judging from their setting, they weren't in any optimal location to fight and if they were to fall all the way down from here… well, there certainly would be no coming back up.
"Luna, you trust me right?" Sora asked.
"That's a weird question to ask. Of course I do," Luna answered.
"Then, when I tell you to, jump of the balcony," Sora said. He had said it so composedly that Luna hadn't been sure that the voice had even come from him at first.
"And you say I'm crazy," Luna said eventually after having processed who and what the voice had said.
"You trusted me," Sora reminded her.
"I know, I know. I really oughta stop saying things like that," Luna said before turning to him. "Are you out of your mind? Sora, you're like one of my besties and all but even I have to call you out on this. You remember when I jumped out of a moving vehicle to save you and injured my leg? Yeah, well this is something else entirely and I'm not quite sure you've thought this through properly."
"Something like fall from high height equals pancake, no? But Luna, we won't be falling that far. We do have plenty of objects that can help us after all," Sora said.
"I'm sure I've mentioned before that I hate heights," Luna said. "But it's not like I have a choice. Pete would probably end up pushing me off anyway so if I'm going to fall it might as well be of my own accord."
"Don't worry, just do your best. No pressure or anything," Sora said before addressing the big cat. "Pete, you know you can turn back anytime, right? Don't do this to yourself."
"I bet you'd like that, wouldn't ya? I'll make you pay for what you did to Maleficent," Pete asked.
"Mommy issues much?" Sora teased. Pete's eye twitched and he burst into a full run. "Luna, now!"
"Geronimo!" Luna yelled before vaulting over the balcony rail. Blurry doors whizzed past her on her way down, causing her to feel nauseous. Her hands, possibly of their own free will, soon found comfort on the head jamb of one of the doors quite a ways down from the area she had jumped from. She looked upwards to see Sora two levels of doors above her heading in the same direction. He gave a quick grin as if to say "See, I told you it would be all right" before looking up.
Above them, Pete was having a hard time getting down to them as expected by Sora. He had taken the bait in following after them and consequently the doors were unable to support his large body leading to them shifting wildly left and right under his weight. Pete, rather than trying to regain his balance, took a leap of faith and let go, knocking three doors off their rails on his way down to Sora. The Keyblade Master leapt to the left just before Pete could crush him and grabbed the door just above Luna.
"Heartless! Come on out!" Pete called out loudly. A group of Wizards and Wyverns flew out of the orbs of darkness and swarmed Sora and Luna. They both took out their Keyblades and began shooting off magic in every direction. Chaos became the name of the game in their eyes as their magic flew and hit the objects occupying the room. Doors fell off rails that had been damaged and smashed into doors below them or just plain fell all the way to the ground where they shattered into many pieces of wood. From where they were, the doors seemed as easily breakable as glass, but they didn't even have time to take in the damage they were doing.
Luna screamed as a door from above smashed into her door. The pain of her fingers being slammed into by a door caused her to let go of her own door and fall headfirst towards the ground. Sora quickly pointed his Keyblade at her, casting Collision Magnet quickly. The plasma hand that he had used to launch her and everyone else into Prince John's fortress extended out from the tip of his Keyblade and wrapped itself around Luna's right leg.
"Gotcha!" Sora said through gritted teeth. He wasn't going to let her fall this time. This time, he had the strength to do something. But still, he remarked inwardly, it had been incredibly close. Too close for his liking. They also weren't out of the woods just yet.
Pete had also noticed his predicament because he let out a howl of laughter. With Sora practically tearing his arms over holding up Luna with one hand and gripping onto the door's jamb with his other, he was completely defenceless against the Heartless.
"Sora, swing me over!" Luna yelled. If she thought she was nauseous before, the blood was rushing to her head as she dangled upside down. Sora complied tensed his bicep before swinging his Keyblade forward. Luna stretched her arms out, keeping the tips of her fingers pointed and her body as straight as she could. It was at this point that she was fortunate that her mother had forced her to take ballet lessons because she could otherwise imagine a panicking Luna screaming for her life in her place. As she was swung upwards, she grabbed onto one of the doors, making use of her cat claws to dig into the door.
Sora was about to release the collision magnet when a Wizard swooped in and cast a bolt of lightning straight at him. What came next was something that not even Sora could describe. The yellow bolt struck the unicorn horn on Sora's head and absorbed it, causing the horn to glow yellow before eventually returning to its normal self.
Sora let out a mighty laugh and looked at Luna. "Did you see that?"
"Now that's called using your head," Luna joked. She was about to look away from him and focus on climbing up, but something caught her attention. It during that brief moment that Sora had laughed that the light at the top of the door had lit up a bright red.
"Of course… Sora, you're door activated just then. The doors here activate through laughter," Luna explained. She also assumed the laughter had to be genuine. She let out one as an example and a group of doors surrounding her lit up in response. Luna grasped the doorknob and twisted it before pushing. The door opened easily and she smiled before stepping in and closing the door behind her.
"Luna!" Sora called after her but she was already gone. Sora sighed and tried his best to laugh before opening the door but it refused to budge.
Oh come on, my laugh not good enough for you?
Sora tried to laugh once again but the door still wouldn't light up to let him through. He doubted there was anything wrong with the doors because Luna was able to get them to open so the only conclusion he could come to was that the problem lay with him. He knew that his laughter was forced. How had he even managed to pull it off before then if Luna had seen him do it? Was there something wrong with him?
"Heh heh heh, what's wrong, chump? Can't laugh to save your hide?" Pete said. If the doors could work with just anyone then Pete's laughter would be enough to light up the entire room. Like most of the energy supplied throughout this world, it required children to make it work.
Or maybe even human with hearts pure like children's? I guess Luna has one, but my heart…
He had seen too many things to even bring up a happy memory that would make him laugh. He tried to think of how Luna had done it so carefree, like she could do it a million times over without any effort. Pete however was already on the move and he felt more pressured and strapped for time. He had no choice but to fight.
Sora kicked away from the door he was holding onto and glided over to a door parallel to where he was. Two of the three Wyverns followed him but he disposed quickly of them with a Fire Raid before leaping towards a door on the right. A Wizard shot forth fire magic out of its staff which Sora absorbed with the horn again before kicking off and gliding towards it, slicing the Wizard in half.
Pete was about move to another door next to him when his vision became blinded by the person who had jumped on him from above.
"Luna, you're back!" Sora exclaimed excitedly. Luna did a handstand on Pete's shoulder, twisted around to face him and scratched upwards with her claws at his face. Pete howled in pain and lost his grip, Luna jumping away to safety before she could be dragged down along with him.
I am gonna hate myself for this, Sora thought with a shake of his head. He aimed the Kingdom Key at the falling Pete and used Collision Magnet to catch him. Luna quickly dispatched of the remaining Heartless before making her way to Sora's door.
"Pete, we're going to play a little game. You tell us what we need to know and i don't drop you. Sounds fair?" Sora said.
"You can forget it. I'm not tellin' ya nothin'," he responded, rather bravely at that to Sora's surprise. Well, Sora knew that words were one thing and actions were another.
"Okay then." Sora released the Collision Magnet and Pete dropped even further with a high pitched scream that he or Luna wouldn't have thought was possible for the big guy. Sora sent out the arm again and caught Pete before he could slam into one of the doors.
"Okay, okay, you got me. I'll tell ya what ya need to know. Just please don't do that again!" Pete demanded rather quickly. He was frightened which was exactly the way Sora wanted him.
"Good. Where is Kefka?"
"Kefka, that dried up fruitcake? Why, I'm sure he's busy prancing around the worlds and making sure they're under they're tightly under our control," Pete answered while trying not to look at the ground.
"You didn't answer my question-"
"Well what else did ya think I was gonna say. How am I supposed to know where he is right now?"
Not good enough. Sora shook his head and released Pete again, allowing him to slam through the door before catching him again a few more doors down.
"Uh, Professor Rattigan is his name. Yeah, that's right. Not exactly sure what he's a professor off exactly but Kefka said he was helping with a grand experiment of some kind," Pete answered.
Sora exchanged a look of intrigue with Luna before pressing for more information. "A grand experiment? Elaborate, Pete…"
"KRONOS are continuing the work Abraxas left behind, I don't know much about it since I'm not a part of the inner crowd but it has something to do with those Chimera," Pete said. "That's all I know, I swear, now let me down! Wait- nonono, I mean up, take me up!"
"An experiment to do with Chimera… they couldn't be thinking of making more of those things, could they?" Luna asked, watching as Sora reeled in Pete.
"We can't let that happen. We need to find this professor and fast. Luna, could you open the door below us?" Sora asked. Luna nodded and closed her eyes. Her lips curled into a smile and she let out a laugh to activate the door. "What are you thinking about to get that to happen? Because, I- I can't find something to make me genuinely laugh like that."
"Um, you remember when I told you just before leaving the Gummi Ship about that dream I had? It ties into that I suppose," Luna said, looking away for some reason. Sora could only surmise that it must have been a pretty embarrassing dream for her to be acting the way she did.
"Wait, what are you doing? I won't fit through that!" Pete yelled as Sora started swinging him back and forth at the door that Luna had opened.
"Just believe, Pete. Believe in me, like Maleficent did." Sora couldn't resist the offer to taunt his foe one last time and with that, he released the Collision Magnet and watched as Pete soared into the door. As he had said, he was a bit too big to fit in entirely at first but Luna managed to squeeze him in before closing the door and cracking the red light by pressing on it firmly with her claws.
Donald continued to fling projectile after projectile of Fire at Gantu who was quick in countering them with his accurately aimed blaster shots.
"Stop- stop running! Curses, degrading me to chasing two anthropomorphic lifeforms who aren't even worth my time," Gantu yelled to himself before shooting again. Goofy knocked these away with his shield and threw it like a discus, knocking the blaster out of Gantu's hand.
"Jus' how far do we have to go?" Goofy asked.
"Who knows? Just keep running!" Donald shouted at him. Being an octopus, he trying to make use of his many legs to spring himself forward, albeit clumsily. He turned a corner and immediately came into contact with someone's knee, knocking him onto the ground.
"Ah! Watch where you're going, will ya?" Astra snapped at him.
"Watch where I'm going? How about you watch where you're going?" Donald shot back angrily. Goofy and Rhea watched with absent stares as Astra and Donald continued to throw words of deprecation at each other. It would probably have been entertaining to watch if not for the fact that Gantu was closing in on them.
"Now, now, could you please stop arguing like an old married couple and deal with the bad guy coming at us?" Stephanie asked in a sophisticated and adult-like manner.
"Old married couple?" Astra questioned before backing away and making a face. "Eww, no, like no way! Urgh, the thought of… why are you torturing me like that, Stephanie?"
"And they say I'm overdramatic," Donald muttered with a roll of his eyes. Astra was about to respond but closed her mouth immediately upon seeing Gantu and smiled.
"You brought me a present, Donald? I take back everything I said about you," she said instead.
"Hold your eagerness for the moment, Astra. We've got much bigger problems on our hands," Rhea said before turning to look at Mike and Sulley who had been trailing behind them next to Stephanie. "Where's Boo?"
"Boo? She's right here of co-" The color seemed to drain from Sulley's fur as he spun around in a frantic panic. Boo, who had been with them the entire time before they had come across Donald and Goofy, had suddenly disappeared.
"Rhea, when did you notice?" Astra asked.
Rhea took hold of her arm and gently swayed from side to side. "Just now actually. I was so busy focusing on your argument that I wasn't listening to anything else. Boo could have easily slipped away in that time, or worse… it's my fault, I apologize."
"Don't, really. I'm her guardian, I should have noticed she was gone," Sulley admitted solemnly. "And I can't ask you guys to help this time. I need to prove to myself that I can keep her safe."
"Whoa, aren't you forgetting someone?" Mike interjected. "I mean I was the one who almost sent her into Randall's clutches. While I was up on that mountain, I was doing some thinking about what it really means to be a good friend and… well, I'm still not sure what that is but maybe if we find Boo together, that can give me the clue I need. What do you say, pal?"
"Mike… you're already are a good friend, you know that? You don't have to try and figure it out. What we have, it can't be described by words. But you're right. I'll need your help if I'm going to find her."
"Oh, this is incredibly bromantic and all but Boo needs you," Astra reminded them. Mike and Sulley nodded and without a word, rushed off back down where they had come from. It was clear that whatever had taken place on that mountain between them before meeting up with Astra and Rhea had cemented their trust in each other even more.
Mike and Sulley had told them about how Waternoose had been collaborating with Randall and Pete to test a more efficient method of obtaining energy. They had ended up snatching away Donald from under their noses under the pretence that the figure in the costume was Boo and when they had found out that their boss was also involved, it had served as quite shock, one that had allowed the villains to take advantage of the situation and exile the two monsters to a mountain somewhere. That meant that they had to consider the possibility that Boo hadn't run away, but was in fact surreptitiously kidnapped by Waternoose, but that was Mike and Sulley's responsibility now.
Rhea waited until the footsteps of Mike and Sulley disappeared before summoning her Keyblade and pointing it at Gantu.
"I would stand down if I were you. We're standing in a hallway that's pretty small, correct? That means you won't have much space to manoeuvre. I can't be held responsible if something happens in that case," she said. It was the first time that Astra had ever seen Rhea frown now that she thought about it.
"As if I'm supposed to be scared of some human. What's wrong? Having trouble seeing? That's a shame," Gantu said mockingly.
"Yes, it is, for you," Rhea replied.
Astra blinked. She had no idea what had just happened. One moment, Gantu outright seemed confident that he would be able to win, the next, he was on the floor out cold completely with Rhea standing over him. She hadn't even struck him and she definitely hadn't moved at any point, Astra was sure about that. It was as if the bridge of her memory that had linked A to B had just gone kaput. Rhea and Gantu's status may have very well started from point B and it would have made no difference.
"Wow! That was amazing Rhea, how did you even do that? I didn't even see you move," Goofy asked soon enough, confirming that it had not just been Astra going crazy.
"It's a secret that has the power alone to destroy the universe and bend your perception of reality forever. Are you sure you want to hear it?" Rhea said in a very serious stone, certainly uncharacteristic for her. Donald and Goofy looked at each other before leaning in and nodding with huge curious eyes as if they were zombies.
"Well I for one would like to keep my universe intact, thank you very much," Astra said.
"Don't worry, I was just pulling a Desiree. I didn't think I'd be too good at it but judging from your reactions, I might try it more often," Rhea said with chuckle. "Plus I'm not sure I could handle the burden of such a secret in the first place. I suppose you could say my Keyblade knows no causation, only effect."
"That's a… strange weapon," Astra said. "How can you have an effect without a cause?"
"To be honest I've never really understood my Keyblade, or my ability to hear others' hearts for that matter. I probably never will. Then again, how was the World created? Why was it split? We don't really over think these things, we just move on with our own lives. It's the same with my Keyblade," Rhea explained. It wasn't the explanation Astra had hoped for and she could have done without the philosophical babble but Rhea was right about one thing: Astra had abandoned any concept of sense a long time ago. It was a big mistake to think that anything involving magic had to make some sort of sense.
"Let's catch up with Sulley and Mike. I should have been watching her as well… I want to help Boo too!" Stephanie jumped up and down, more than hopeful to see her new friend safe.
Despite their fight with Gantu having lasted only a few seconds (if even that), it took them longer to regroup with Mike and Sulley due to what Astra had gladly dubbed "this accursed hell of a factory". The scare floor was starting to fill up, with monsters returning from their lunch, another detrimental factor which added to the search. It was only through Goofy's suddenly acute observation of one of Boo's white socks on the floor of one of the hallways that they eventually found them.
Astra opened the door to what had been labelled as going into the simulation room. Inside was a dark room with the only lighting available being the stage lights at the far end of the room. The room was very much resembled a studio from one of those sketch comedies that Astra used to watch on television. All that was missing was the live audience to laugh at every non-funny thing that was going.
"This has gone far enough, James," the voice of an angry Waternoose bled out of the speakers that behind them.
"She's home now! Just leave her alone!" Sulley demanded.
Oh, this is going to be good, Astra thought as they made their way down the aisle. The stage was obscured to them by curtains but it was all part of a plan, she was sure of it.
"I can't do that! She's soon too much. You both have."
"Mr. Waternoose, it doesn't have to be that way."
"I have no choice! Times have changed. Scaring isn't enough anymore."
"But kidnapping children?"
"I'll kidnap a thousand children before I let this company die, and I'll silence anyone who gets in my way!"
There was some rustling from behind the curtains. A tug on the sleeve from Stephanie made her turn in the direction that the eight year old was pointing at to see Mike inside a control booth with a group of guys in hazmat suits, the CDA or something like that, if Astra remembered correctly. A mechanical voice belonging to a female soon announced the end of the simulation and the curtain drew open.
"Now, I don't know about you guys, but I for one spotted several mistakes here. My favorite one being this," Mike said. He followed up by pressing a button, the speaker blasting the damning evidence in response: "I'll kidnap a thousand children before I let this company die, and I'll silence anyone who gets in my way!"
Sora peered out of the window along with some of the other monsters, watching as Waternoose was escorted out of the building and into a black van by members of the Child Detection Agency. The definitive evidence along with supplementary testimonies from Mike, Sulley, Astra and Rhea had been enough to arrest him. The status of the company however, remained unknown.
"What's going to happen to the company now? How am I going to pay of my debt?"
"I have a wife and child to feed. How am I supposed to provide for them now?"
"I guess this is the end of Monster's Inc. You can say goodbye to a nice salary and hello to some dull retail job that doesn't pay."
Any type of fuel that these monsters had consumed through their food and were prepared to exert in their work had probably now been completely drained as a cloud of negativity blanketed the factory.
"They'll be alright, I know they will. The factory won't close," Luna said from next to him. She sported a determined look on her face.
"What makes you so sure?" Sora asked. "This is just the icing on the cake. They'll go deeper. If they find anything else, an affiliation with KRONOS for example, then they'll shut the factory down."
"Then they won't find out about KRONOS. The name means nothing to them anyway, they're called the Child Detection Agency, they're not interested in what we are," Luna said. "But it's a shame we couldn't interrogate Waternoose. Maybe he could have told us more about KRONOS' plan and maybe even where they were located."
"Heh, well I doubt he would have given it up and even if he did, it'd be too easy. I like doing things the hard way," Sora said. "Let's head back and say goodbye to Boo."
The CDA, even with their knowledge of a human child having been in the factory, had been kind enough to look the other way. This was in exchange for shredding Boo's door to eliminate any evidence that she had ever been there. For Mike and Sulley, they would be unable to see her again but Sora could tell that she had changed them. Their outlooks, their feelings for humans had dramatically changed in the course of one day. It showed that the heart was easily and quickly capable of opening up to things foreign to it.
Sora and Luna had to rush all the way to the Simulation Room where Boo's door currently was. They had little time left until Boo was behind her door and her door was subsequently destroyed. They burst through the door and charged down the aisle at full speed, stopping to breathe only after they had arrived at their destination.
"Hey, there they are. What did I say? Told you they'd make it in time!" Mike slapped one of the CDA agents on the back, but withdrew instantly when they stared back at him. "Jeez, pal, it was just a bet. Don't need to be so wound up about it."
"How much did you win?" Sora asked.
"Just a free date to the Proscemium Movie Theatre with schmoopsie-poo, Celia," Mike said.
"Oh, Mike you old charmer. That'll definitely win her back after last night," said Sulley.
"What happened last night? Did he fail in bed or something?" Astra enquired a little too gleefully.
"In front of the children… really?" Rhea questioned.
"Huh? What do you mean by... fail in bed?" Stephanie asked curiously.
"IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT SHE MEANS. Le- let's just say our goodbyes to Boo before the uptight man gets impatient," Mike said with gritted teeth while nodding his head at the CDA member.
"You be a good girl, Boo. Go to bed at a regular time, brush your teeth, don't eat too many sweets-"
"Donald… how boring are you?" Sora asked before taking Boo into his arms. "Don't listen to him. Have as much fun as you can, alright?"
"Though I'd include the listening to your parents thing. Spend every day with them like it's your last," Luna said. She moved in to hug Boo after Sora only to be stopped by the little girl. Boo placed her finger near Luna's eye and withdrew the watery substance from her face before grinning.
"Luna…" Sora heard Astra say the name under her breath. She must have also realized then why Luna had just made that comment about parents. Luna had told Sora how her last conversation with her parents had been an argument that had ended up with her grounded. In the end, she had disobeyed her parents and went to the hill she always went to in order to see the stars. That was when Abraxas found her and the rest was history. He couldn't even imagine how many times Luna had replayed the event in her head, wishing that she had stayed in her room like her parents had told her to.
Boo was the one to pull Luna into a hug this time. Perhaps Boo sensed the pain and sorrow in Luna's heart and attempted in her own way to rectify it, which is why it probably seemed like they had spent longer hugging than anyone else so far. They soon parted, and after a hasty reminder from the CDA agent that their time was up, Boo was escorted back into her room for a final goodbye with Sulley.
"This is horrible. They'll never be able to see each other again," Goofy sounded the thought on everyone's mind.
"Don't say that. Where there's a will, there's a way," Luna said before turning to Astra. "There has to be a way to link the worlds together, right? Sora and I went into this room with hundreds, possibly thousands of doors. They all lead to a different world, to a different person. If this world can do that, then why can't the others?"
The unexpected intrusion from Rhea came as a bit of a shock to Luna. "Luna, I value your boldness when it comes to dreams, I really do. I once dreamed about a unified world myself. But with the way the worlds are now, there is a reason why their splintered nature is justified. It's just not possible."
"Rhea, what exactly do you mean by 'the way the worlds are now'?" Goofy asked.
"The Heartless obviously," answered Donald but Rhea shook her head.
"There is that, but that wasn't what I meant. The sins of Xehanort, they still live on. Even after he was defeated, he left behind his will. That will continued with the man you call Abraxas but even though he was defeated, he was and is only the first in what I fear will be a series of incidents that will get worse and worse. It would seem that Abraxas passed Xehanort's will on to KRONOS," Rhea explained.
"Xehanort's will… and here I thought I was done with this," Sora muttered, looking off into the distance.
"I suppose Xehanort's will wouldn't exactly be accurate either. I have the feeling that this grudge of hatred has long since stirred even before Xehanort. It's why it wouldn't be suitable to try and change the world now when we don't know when this will end, if it ever will. The only thing we can do is try to leave the World the way it is. We make sure that the balance of light and dark never overlap the other."
"You don't know that? Leave the World the way it is? Or are you too afraid to try?" Luna said. Sora tried to stop her but it was too late. "You know what leaving the world the way it is means? It means letting Waternoose continue to run the company and cover up secrets. It means letting a clearly insane judge continue to abuse someone he's taken in. It means letting rich and greedy men continue to take and take from the poor when they have no right to do so. I could list a lot more examples from the places I've been to. In each of those places, we did something about it and things got better. That world changed, and I did too. So no, I don't believe just waiting for things to happen will make things better, and I won't let some stupid will decide how I feel or what I do with those feelings either."
Sora couldn't help but chuckle. Luna spoke her mind more often than not even though she had told him that she hadn't been very outspoken when it came to class. Sora found it very hard to believe, but when he looked back on how Luna was when he first met her, she almost seemed like a different person. He felt proud of her that she could stand up for what she believed in, and Sora wasn't too far from believing in her dream either. He had seen the things they could do, so why could they go further?
"You're passionate. I can see that there's no point in saying anything further. By the way, Sora, have you decided if you would like to join us?" Rhea asked.
"Join us? You mean Moira's Crescent?" Luna asked.
"Yeah, they want the both of us to join. Luna, I think I should leave this one to you. If you join, you can be with Astra again. I know you'd like that," Sora said.
"And what about you? You'd join too?" Luna asked.
"I… I'm not sure. I don't exactly trust them but if you want me to, I'll do it," Sora said to the cries of objection from Donald and Goofy.
Luna cocked her head slightly to the left and looked at the ground. Before she could say anything else, Sulley popped out of Boo's room looking more depressed than before. No one said anything and remained still as the CDA team got to work, placing the door in a machine and pressing a switch. The door was slowly swallowed whole, with the machine making gurgling and spewing noises until everything was silent once more. The door that used to be there was now reduced to small pieces of wood on the floor.
"Oh come on guys, lighten up would ya? You'd think the way we're all mourning that someone just died. We had fun, didn't we? Isn't that what counts, a good laugh every now and then?" Astra tried to raise the spirits of everyone though her voice was quite unsure herself. It was Luna who was first to catch on and put on her famous beam.
"A good laugh… yeah. Rhea, I'm going to prove to you that change can be a wonderful thing and I think I know where to start. Sulley, I have an idea."
So lots of development here. Sora is stubborn, Luna has a god complex and Donald is in fact the father. Of course if you believe any of what I just said, this story is probably not for you. There's a lot more to be seen from these characters... well, one of things I said anyway was an outright lie. Can you tell which one?
