A/N: Hmmmm...so much for a quick update, but please don't blame me! It's almost my birthday! I'll be fifteen (hurray!). I don't know what that has to do with anything, but it must have something to do with it! Yes, I'm hyper and I'm rambling on about...nothing...Ok! I'll shut up now.
Disclaimer: (sigh) If I've said it once I've said it a million times...I don't own Kingdom Hearts, but I own Kupo and the Spike Blade. There!
Chapter 8
The Coliseum
"We're here!" Donald cried from the cockpit.
"I could've got us here faster if you had let me drive," Sora commented.
"Yeah, we might've got here faster," Kupo agreed, "but we'd have got here in a million tiny pieces!"
Gizmo laughed as Sora scowled and crossed his arms.
Donald chuckled as he pushed a small blue button next to the door. With a small "whoosh", the door opened to reveal a pair of huge golden doors.
"Whoa, talk about spending a ton of money on a pair of doors..." Kupo stared up at them as the small group approached.
The five began shoving on the doors, but, much to their surprise, the huge golden doors opened easily. The surprised group slowly walked through the doors and looked around at the Coliseum.
On their end, there were about four posts that were each made of gold. There were some stairs that were golden, but the floor was made of sand. There were a few torches lined up on either side of them and on the wall to their right was the line-up for the Tournament.
The other end of the Coliseum was pretty much the same, but there was no Tournament line-up. Instead, there were two huge, golden statues of a very muscular man.
"I feel very out of place..." Kupo commented as she glanced up at the line-up.
"Me too," Gizmo agreed. "And I've never seen this many golden things in one place."
The other four nodded as they made their way to another pair of golden doors. These opened just as easily as the first pair.
Inside, they found more golden things and a funny looking man that was shorter than Sora and Kupo. But it wasn't his size that made him look funny. It was the fact that he had goat legs instead of human legs and little goat horns on his head.
"Um..." Sora started, but was cut off by the little goat man.
"Great timing!" He said while messing with a rule board. He didn't even look back to see who he was talking to. "Gimme a hand here! Move that pedestal over there for me. I need to get this place spruced up for the Games!"
Sora and Kupo looked at each other and shrugged. The two walked over to the pedestal and began shoving. Unfortunately, it didn't move as easily as the pairs of doors.
"It's way too heavy!" Sora gave it one last shove and gave up.
"What's it made of!" Kupo also gave it one more shove and gave up.
"What! Too heavy?" The little goat man exclaimed. "Since when have you been such a little-" he cut himself off when he turned to face the two. "Oh...wrong guy."
"Who are you callin' a guy, shorty!" Kupo shouted.
The man backed off a bit, but continued anyway, "What are you kids doing here? This is the world famous Coliseum!" He paused then added quickly, "Heroes only!"
"But you've got heroes standing right in front of you!" Donald exclaimed.
"Yeah! Sora and Kupo are real heroes chosen by the Keyblade and the Spike Blade!" Goofy added.
Sora and Kupo smiled proudly at the thought of being called heroes.
"And we're heroes too!" Donald quickly added, being careful not to forget himself and Goofy.
The goat man seemed to look at Kupo and Sora with a critical eye, but that was all stopped when he started laughing. "Heroes? Those runts?" He slapped his knee and began laughing harder.
The proud smiles on the two friend's faces disappeared and were replaced with looks of frustration.
"Hey, back off buddy!" Sora commanded.
The goat man wiped away a tear from one eye and walked over to the pedestal. "Look, if you guys can't even move this pedestal," he began trying to push it, "you can't call yourselves," he started pushing it so hard his face turned red, "heroes!"
The poor little goat man finally collapsed to the ground and tried to catch his breath. He looked up at the two friends to see them smirking down at him.
"All right!" He said and pushed himself back up. "So it takes more than brawn. Well, lets see what you two can do."
Kupo looked at Sora and the two shrugged. Was he really gonna let them compete in the Games? That's what it looked like to them.
"Follow me," the little man said and motioned for them to follow him.
He led the five down a dark hall way and into a large arena. There were barrels everywhere! Barrels were on top of platforms, on the ground, under a few things, and crowded together.
"Wow..." Gizmo said. "That's a lot of barrels..."
"Yeah," Kupo agreed.
"This is called the barrel challenge," the goat man explained.
"I wonder why," Sora whispered to Kupo and made her giggle.
"What you do here is break all the barrels in the least amount of time," he continued. "Go ahead and decide who's first. I'll time you when you're ready."
Kupo looked at Sora and Sora looked at Kupo. The girl smiled and quickly stepped behind the boy and shoved him towards the goat man.
"Hey!" Sora glared back at his friend as she put on an innocent smile.
"Ok! On my count," the goat man said. Sora looked back to the arena and waited for the man to start counting. "One...two...three!"
Sora rushed forward and pulled out the Keyblade. He quickly took care of the first barrel and rushed to the second. After finishing off that one, he grabbed the top of a platform and pulled himself up. It was only now that he noticed his friends were cheering for him.
The boy flashed them a quick smile and began hacking away at the small group of barrels. It took him about thirty seconds there before he could move up to the next platform. He finally made it to the last barrel and chopped it up quickly.
He smiled at his friends only to realize that they weren't cheering for him, they were shouting something at him! The boy strained his ears to hear what they were saying and finally realized that he had forgotten a barrel on the ground!
"Darn it!" Sora said to himself as he quickly made his way down the platforms and to the ground. He spotted the "enemy" in no time and took care of it.
"Your time is..." the goat man studied the clock. "Five minutes and sixteen seconds!"
Sora scowled at himself for forgetting a barrel and costing him a lot of time. Kupo would probably beat his time easily...
"Next!" The man said as he cleared Sora's time.
Kupo walked forward and glanced down at the little man.
"On my count," he said and got the clock ready. "One...two...three!"
Kupo made a dash for the barrel Sora had missed when he tried his luck on the challenge. She took care of it in a few swings of her Spike Blade and was off to take care of the next target. As soon as she had destroyed all the barrels on the ground, she headed for the platform.
The girl hoisted herself up onto the platform and swung her weapon at the first barrel. One of the spikes on it got stuck in the side of the barrel and she realized this when she tried to pull the Spike Blade back.
She put her foot on one side of the barrel and yanked her weapon back, also kicking the barrel off the edge and destroying it at the same time. The girl stood there for a second before turning to the other barrels and breaking them as well.
The girl had no more difficulties after she got her weapon free and it only took her a few more seconds to chop up the rest of the barrels.
Kupo walked back to the goat man and looked at him expectantly.
The little man looked down at his clock. "Four minutes and fifty-seven seconds!"
"Good job, Kupo," Sora smiled and shook his friend's hand.
"Thanks," she smiled. "You did good too."
"Blah, blah, blah," the man interrupted. "Hurry up and follow me!"
The little goat man led the five back down the hallway and back into the lobby where Sora immediately asked this question, "Can we compete in the Games now?"
"No," the man said plainly.
"Why not!" Kupo exclaimed.
"I've told you before," he said. "It for heroes only and you five are not heroes!"
"Oh, what do you know?" Donald said and walked up to Sora and Kupo. "C'mon. We can't waist all our time here."
Kupo cast the little goat man one last glare over her shoulder, but he wasn't looking. Sora crossed his arms in frustration as Donald and Goofy led the way back to the Gummy Ship.
A/N: And there you have it! Another wonderful chapter by yours truly. I don't have much time to type out an ending author's note because I've gotta go eat supper. But reviews are always welcome and you can make 'em as long as you want! Isn't that right, xXHeroine of TimeXx? Oh, and thanks again to Sailorstar165 for helping me on the lines!