Usagi: welcome back to another joy-filled cute chapter of Darkness of the Heart!
Zakura: which taking the previous chapter into count is obviously neither joy-filled nor cute.
Usagi: why are you so pessimistic?
Zakura: cuz you ruined the Netherworld.
Usagi: oh…yeah… How will our heroes escape THAT? Read and see:
Chapter 14
The End of the Netherworld
"We have go get out of here! Now!" Mickey said, knocking out a few heartless before he pulled out a remote control of some sort and pushed a button. The Highwind quickly arrived over the horizon.
"But…what about Laharl?" Flonne asked. "And the Netherworld's…"
"He'll manage, about the Netherworld…well its too late for that" Sora said. Just as he said that the ground around the pit was starting to crack.
"Everyone, get in!" Kairi yelled.
The remaining bijuu demons changed to their humanoid forms as everyone ran into the ship, Raijuu ran over to help Shukaku get in.
Once everyone had come in Donald took the wheel and started the engines, just as the ground was swept away under them.
"Hurry up!" Demyx yelled as he realised the ship wasn't moving very fast.
"I'm trying! But the black hole is pulling us in" Donald said.
"Should we throw Souko out?" Shukaku suggested.
"I heard that!" Souko complained.
Riku looked back towards the spiralling black hole behind them, trees and rocks flew into it and there was hardly anything left of the ground underneath.
"We may not have any other choice" he said. "We have to go trhough it".
"What?" everyone else in the gummi ship yelled.
"Are you even aware of where that thing leads?" Donald asked.
"It could lead anywhere, most likely we would end up at the End of the World, nasty place I'm sure, but if you don't have a super-rocket hidden somewhere that's where we'll end up anyway" Riku said. "Besides, if we keep spending our fuel trying to escape that thing we'll eventually run out and be trapped there."
"Riku has a point for once" Sora said.
"What do you mean "for once?" Riku complained, Sora ignored him.
"We've both been trhough that portal once before, it isn't pretty but it might be our only way out" Sora continued. "When we get out on the other side, it shouldn't be too difficult getting back to our world, as long as we don't waste our fuel".
Mickey sighed.
"I hate to say it but it's our only chance" he said. "Turn the ship around Donald."
The duck still looked worried, but turned the gummi ship around and just as the back was no longer pointing towards it, the black hole's gravity took effect and pulled the ship towards it, no engine power was needed, other than to steer away from rocks and pieces that got in the way.
"Hang on!" Sora yelled.
It was a bumpy ride indeed, once into the portal the gummi ship got thrown around half of the time, and the rest of it Donald had to spend dodging rocks and what else that came of the Netherworld.
Finally they reached the end of the portal, the gummi ship calmed down enough for Donald to regain control.
"That was fun, let us never do that again" Etna said.
"I-is it over?" Flonne asked, as she tried to get back up. There weren't enough seats for everyone in the gummi ship, so a lot of the demons had to sit on the floor.
Sora took a peek out of the window. "I'm afraid so" he said.
Everyone eventually got up (and Shukaku threw up on the floor) to examine their surrounding.
The Highwind was driving slowly to preserve fuel; all they could really see was an eerie purple sky.
Bellow them was a broken up landscape, covered in broken trees and dead plants. Heartless peeked out everywhere.
"What is that place?" Flonne said.
"Ehm, Flonne? I think that might be the Netherworld" Etna said. "Look, there's the castle…or was".
Sure they could see the lava pit, but only a few rocks were sticking up from it to reveal the castle was even once there. The lava looked different too, it was all black.
"That looks kind of like the dark eco back in Haven City" Axel said.
"I think you're right" Mickey said. "I guess that substance exists on more than one world, either that or it has a connection to the dark realm, and surfaces when a world is consumed by darkness.
"Nice, can we go now?" Nekomata asked.
"I'm trying" Donald said, as a light started flashing on the dashboard. "But it appears we're too heavy. See that's why I kept telling you not to pick up so many passengers".
"Well we can't just leave the demons here… just get the gummi ship down, maybe we can find another solution" Kairi said.
Donald drove the gummi ship down to the ground and allowed everyone to get out; Flonne immediately started examining the area.
"Hey wait…where's Gordon and Jennifer?" Flonne suddenly asked.
Etna looked around. "Hey yeah… we almost forgot about them, didn't we leave them around here somewhere?" she asked.
"We better look for them, and check if they are okay or if they got away" Kairi said.
--
"Gordon! Miss Jennifer! Thursday! Where are you? Oh please be okay" Flonne shouted, as they walked around the previously-a-lava-pit-now-filled-with-dark-gooey-eco-stuff.
"Strange, we should have seen their ship by now" Etna said. "Wasn't it around here?"
"I think it was over there" Sora said.
"No, it was over here I can smell it… uh oh" Zexion said.
"What's wrong?" Kairi asked, but her fuzzy big brother didn't have to reply, before a pile of rocks suddenly started moving, and a small dark red fox came out of it, glaring at the group.
"Kyu, I forgot how cute your animal-form was!" Nekomata said.
"Shut up!" the tiny Kyuubi yelled. "Where'd that blasted snake go? I'll kill him! And then if he returns I'll shop of all his head and kill him again, and make origami out of his intestines!"
"How do you plan on doing that when you don't have fingers?" Axel asked.
"I have a human form too you know… Now WHERE is HE?" the fox said again, and tried to charge out of the pile of rocks, but then he tripped over one of his own tails, his feet were still scarred, making it hard to walk.
"Oh poor little guy, you're injured, you can't fight now" Kairi said.
"Did she just use the words "Poor little guy" about a heartless? A demon heartless? The demon heartless of the strongest fox demon ever?" Demyx asked.
"You've got to admit he's cute" Nekomata said.
"I told you never to use the C-word about me again Nekomata" Kyuubi muttered, as he was being "involuntarily" cuddled by Kairi, though the fact that he didn't turn around and bite seemed to hint he wasn't as annoyed with it as he appeared to be.
"Uhm, excuse me mr Kyuubi sir, you wouldn't happen to have seen two humans and a robot here somewhere have you?" Flonne asked.
"Maybe...but what do I get for telling you?" Kyuubi asked.
"We could help you get your heart back" Kairi said, winking. "If we do, you'll be back to full strength again and may even be strong enough to beat that giant snake".
"What? We can't bring a demon heartless on the gummi ship!" Riku said.
"Ienzo's a heartless and I haven't heard you complain about him coming with us" Kairi said shrugging.
"Ienzo is just a shadow, and besides we've got his nobody with him, that should count for something" Riku said. "But Kyuubi is a demon fox, one of the strongest there is".
"THE strongest there is" Kyuubi added.
"That's not really reassuring..." Riku said.
"Aw please? I promise I won't eat anyone" Kyuubi said, trying his best to produce a puppy-eye-look.
"That would be way less disturbing if his eyes wasn't yellow…no offence Trix" Sora said.
"Tell you what, you'll lead us to our friends and then maybe we'll let you ride with us" Riku said.
"Or you'll just leave me behind or strike me down soon after you find them right?" Kyuubi asked.
Riku's glare just about revealed that was just what he planned on doing.
"But here's another question, you wanted to find this Vexen-fellow right?" Kyuubi said.
"How did you know?" Kairi asked.
"I spied on you from the bushes… Well my lakeys did" Kyuubi said.
"Don't powerful heartless do anything themselves?" Sora asked.
"Nah…why bother. But as I was saying, you need to find Vexen, but do you know where he is?" the fox asked.
"What? You do?" Riku asked suspiciously.
"Hello. My nobody always hangs round that dude for reasons I don't quite get. As long as they're together I can help you locate them" Kyuubi said.
Everyone looked at each other for a while, before everyone suddenly started staring at Riku.
"Why are everyone looking at me?" he asked.
"You're the one who usually comes up with the counterarguments in cases like this" Sora reminded him.
"Oh…well…I can't come up with any. Damn, fine you can come along, but if you try anything…" Riku said.
"You'll stick your keyblade right into my chest, I get it" Kyuubi said. "Now about those humans…follow me".
The demon fox led them to a clearing, where they could see the Defender of Earth's space ship lying on its side.
"Oh no!" Flonne said and started running towards the space ship but Kyuubi stopped her.
"They're not in there" he said. "I saw the space ship crash, just before you came out of the portal…"
The fox got interrupted by several beeps coming from a rock formation. Flonne ran towards it and dug out a rather beat up Thursday, the robot was beeping madly, his eyes (which were made up of 3 lights) span around like crazy and making odd sounds, it was hard to make out any words of it.
"Beep! Beep! Heartless. Krrrk. Dark. BEEP. Gordon. Jennifer. BEEP. Leave. Krrrk. Its comiiiiiing"
The robot silenced, and the lights went out, before one of them popped out of its socket.
"But…What happened? Thursday! Wake up!" Flonne yelled and started shaking the robot. "Where are Gordon and Jennifer?"
At the last questions she turned around and stared at Kyuubi, who was gazing at a cloud formation.
Kairi came and put her hand on the fallen angel's shoulder.
"He's not waking up" Etna said, keeping her distance. "And we won't find Gordon and Jennifer alive, do we?" Once again the last was directed at Kyuubi. Who simply nodded.
"You said I should lead you to the humans" he said. "It's not my fault they didn't make the trip".
Flonne broke out in tears, and as Kairi tried to comfort her Etna sent her prinnies to investigate the space ship.
"It appears to be in good shape dood" one said after the examination. "But the paint has been scraped of a few places, but it doesn't affect its flying."
"Good…then there's only one thing left to do" Etna said, she just stared at the prinnies, who immediately panicked, each pulled out a paint brush and a bucket of red paint out of their pouches (they had that in there since they could never know when Etna asked them to paint something) and ran over to paint the whole (yellow) space ship red.
"You can't just steal Gordon's ship!" Flonne protested.
"Why not? He won't need it anymore" Etna said shrugging. "And we need a ship to get us out of here; you know Highwind can't take all of us. Besides, I'm sure that if Gordon was still alive he'd beg us to take it. You don't think he'd let us stay here and become snacks for the heartless do you?"
"I guess…" Flonne said, before she started crying at Kairi's shoulder again.
"There there, it'll be okay" Kairi said.
"No it won't!" Flonne cried. "First we lost Laharl, then the Netherworld, and now even Gordon, Thursday and Jennifer are gone. Where are we going to go?"
"We'll find somewhere, relax!" Etna said, the prinnies returned to her side, every one of them sweating.
"We're done with the painting dood" one said panting.
Etna gazed at the now all red space ship, which the prinnies had also been "kind" enough to push back into position.
"Where are the Speed Stripes? And the large banner that says Etna the Beauty Queen?" she asked.
The prinnies all fainted.
Usagi: and as usual we end our chapters at a lighter note.
Sora: what do you mean by usual? Usually you end with a hopeless cliffhanger… heck in the last chapter you left us on a dying planet!
Usagi: okay… then FOR ONCE we end our chapter on a lighter note, making fun of prinnies. Because making fun of prinnies is fun.
Prinny: Doooood!
Usagi: I've decided to give each bijuu 3 forms in this fanfic. One is their huge demon monster form (except Kaku who's rather small anyway), the other is a humanoid form, and the third is as Kyuubi is here, a smaller animal form.
Zakura: why? What is the purpose of being able to change into a tiny animal?
Usagi: Well its…compact, and makes it far easier to travel around in a small carrier.
Zakura: (stare)
Usagi: and it's cute! And besides I redesigned these demons so I can make them any form I want! Just how the heck do you expect a monster-size Kyuubi would fit into the gummi ship huh?
Zakura: …human form?
Usagi: Eat a banana! (Gives rabbit a banana)
Zakura: yummy…
Usagi: Well you know the drill. The little purple button that says "Submit Review". It's there for a reason, press it, and review! If you do Laharl will come to your house and sing for you!
Laharl: …I DON'T SING!
Usagi: okay okay…review, make me happy, and I'll upload the next chapter quicker. KTHANKSBYE!