Usagi: Quick update! WHOOO!
No one's guessed the secret reference in the last chapter yet but there are also only two reviews yet so I let that slide.
Zakura: also no one seems to have noticed the other references you put in which you didn't even mention.
Usagi: yeah… I was wondering if anyone would notice that…
Cid was working on a cat-robot in the last chapter, and if you're familiar with Final Fantasy VII, well you might be able to guess what that is. (Even if DoH has nothing to do with FFVII, I haven't even played it darnit…but like the original KH I decided to toss in an extra character from the game)
Also the turtle swimming by was the Great A'Tuin from Terry Pratchet's discworld-series. It has been mentioned before and yes Riku, it is indeed a wacky place… I don't plan on having it visited in the fic any time soon though….its a bit…too wacky.
Sora: too wacky? Is anything TOO wacky for Usagi?
Usagi: walking luggage is.
Anywayz, this is the chapter that marks the beginning of the Jungle Book Arc.
I set this very late in the series, so Shere Khan the tiger is no longer around….or well his skin is .
Mowgli's stepmother Luri is now the leader of the pack, the ex-leader Akela is her advisor. Lala, who shows up in this chapter is Akela's granddaughter, and mate to Mowgli's step-brother Sura. More characters will be introduced in this chapter:
Chapter 21
Seeonee Jungle
The Seeonee jungle wasn't always a peaceful place, and things definitely weren't looking up at the moment.
A red female wolf ran trhough the trees, chased by several monkey heartless.
"Stop chasing me! I haven't done you anything" the wolf snapped at the heartless.
The heartless ignored her; a few bouncywilds paused, only to fire a rain of small rocks at her.
The wolf dodged and kept running.
"What has gotten into these monkeys?" she wondered.
It didn't take long before she arrived at an obstacle.
A river stretched out in front of her; to make matters worse it was full of alligators.
"Oh no." the female said. "Help! I need help!"
One of the Powerwilds suddenly found itself getting grabbed by the tail and tossed into a nearby tree, as a black and white male wolf showed up.
"Lala! Are you alright?" the male asked.
"Sura, watch out!" Lala shouted back at him.
The male wolf, Sura turned around just in time to see three more monkeys fly at him from behind; he swiftly grabbed one by his teeth and tossed him at the others.
"Where do these things come from? I've never seen monkeys like these" he said.
Meanwhile, not too far away some newcomers in the jungle had heard the call as well.
"Wow this is weird. I still can't hear anything but a wolf howling yet my brain somehow translates that to a girl shouting for help" Riku said.
"Welcome to the animal world" Sora said. "We should help, it might be the heartless."
All our heroes had transformed into forms more fitting for the jungle environment…well Axel, Demyx and Samehada were still in their original animal forms as they figured an ottsel and a beaver wouldn't look too misplaced…and they also found out that it wasn't that easy to transform a demon fish.
"If I only I was able to shape-shift like Isonade-sama" Samehada sighed, as he clang on to Demyx' back. "It's not like he never tried to teach me, why didn't I listen to him? I'm the worst sidekick ever!"
"Stop moping, it won't help anyone" Riku said. "Why are you hanging on Demyx' back anyway? You're a fish, and there's a perfectly good river right there."
"Besides you're too heavy, I can hardly move" Demyx said.
Sure enough the fish and the beaver were about the same size.
"There's too many crocodiles in the river" Samehada pouted. "And yeah, I know what you're gonna say, I'm a demon, I should handle some measly alligators, but they're HUGE, I'm just one tiny demon fish."
"Half a meter long fishes are often considered tiny yes" Sora said.
Riku sighed; he picked up the fish with his new fangs and threw him over at his back. "You'd better hold on, I'm not stopping if you fall of" he said.
The gang then ran by the river until they got to the place where Lala and Sura were fighting the heartless.
"I hate being right sometimes" Sora said, and summoned the keyblade into his fangs.
Thankfully the heartless were only of the lower classes, and three keybladers proved too much for them so pretty soon the remaining ones scattered.
"Are you okay?" Sora asked, after dissolving his keyblade.
"Yeah. We probably could have handled them ourselves later, but thanks anyway" Lala said.
"Be nice Lala, they're just trying to help" Sura said. "My name is Sura by the way, and this is Lala."
"And who are you? You're not members of our pack I can tell that much" Lala said and narrowed her eyes at the heroes.
"We're not from around here. We came here hunting those heartless" Sora said. "I'm Sora; this is Kairi, Axel, Ienzo, Demyx, Riku and…Samehada."
"What is that?" Lala asked, now looking at Samehada.
"He's a magic fish, be nice to him and maybe he'll grant you a wish" Riku said. The demon fish rolled his eyes.
"Yeah right" Lala said.
"Heartless, is that what those monkeys are called?" Sura asked. "They only just started showing up stirring trouble. You're probably welcome to help us fight them, but we have to talk to our leader first."
Lala and Sura lead the keybladers and their friends to a large cliff, on which a few wolves were resting and play fighting.
On a higher ground a white female with brown ears rested on a tiger hide, next to her sat an elderly grey male.
The female looked up curiously as the heroes approached.
"Mother, Akela, we found these strangers by the river, they said they could help us fight those monsters who've been terrorizing the jungle" Sura said.
"Good, we'll probably need all the help we can get" the female said and sat up. "My name is Luri, I'm the leader of the pack. This is my advisor Akela. Who are you?"
Sora introduced everyone again and Riku once again explained that Samehada was a magic fish but wasn't believed; he then said he was a demon fish but no one believed that either so he gave up.
"It sounds like you're familiar with these monsters already, have they been bothering your homes too?" Luri asked.
"You could say that" Sora said. "They are called heartless, and they can in fact be very dangerous if you're not careful, even if you get too close to them you can turn into one yourself."
"Its true!" one other wolf said, he'd been sitting close to the rock listening, but now he came up to Luri. "I told you my brother wasn't killed by them, he turned into one!"
"That's still a pretty far-fetched story… are you sure he wasn't just killed when you weren't watching?" Lala said.
"They do change, trust me" Sora said. "I've seen it happen several times. The heartless are created from the darkness in people and animal's hearts. They desperately seek out more hearts and if they get yours you turn into one."
"That's…." Lala seemed at loss for words.
"We've seen different kinds of these yellow-eyed things around the jungle, are they all heartless?" Sura asked.
"Yes, there's many different kinds" Sora said. "The blue monkeys down at the river are called Powerwild, the Brown ones are Bouncywild, and the ones with the masks are called Shaman."
"What about the white monkey?" the wolf who'd been speaking up previously asked.
"White? There are no white monkey heartless" Sora said. "At least I don't think so" he added looking at Ienzo, who just shook his head. "Never heard of one" he said.
"Well I've seen one" the wolf said. "He came with the others when my brother was turned. Everyone else just said I was crazy when I told them he'd turned into one." He added and glared at Luri.
"Sorry" Luri sighed. "But Lala was right, it was pretty hard to believe but I believe you know, if Sora says its so too".
"You should call the pack together, they need to know to be careful" Akela said.
"Hm, you're probably right. Sura?" Luri said.
"I'm on it mother" Sura said and left, soon after he reappeared on the very top of the cliff, where he then started howling to get the pack together.
It didn't take long before wolves started coming in, but a little longer before Luri decided enough had arrived.
Lala left temporarily, she and Sura came back with two small pups by their tail.
"Are we all here?" Luri asked, looking over the wolf pack. "Where's Mowgli?"
"Sorry I'm late mother" another voice said.
A human boy with a red panda hanging on his shoulder came running, followed by a black panther. "Sorry I'm late" he said.
"A human?" Sora said surprised.
"He's my son" Luri said smiling. "This is Mowgli. My mate protected him from the tiger Shere Khan when he was a baby and he's been with us ever since. Please don't shun him because of his looks, he may be a man cub but he's a wolf at heart."
"Don't worry, I once met a man who was raised by gorillas, I don't mind" Sora said. "Nice to meet you Mowgli."
After explaining about the heartless one more time, the heroes were introduced to the wolf pack and their friends.
They learned that Luri had three sons, her biologic sons were Sura and Akkru, a brown and white male with similar markings to his brother, and of course Mowgli the man-cub.
Akkru had a mate called Mackey, she was a yellow and white she-wolf.
The panther was Bagheera, he had appointed himself one of Mowgli's "teachers", having been raised among humans he was more familiar with how they hunted than anyone.
Eventually they met another one of his teachers too, a bear called Baloo, like Mowgli one that the wolves had been caring for since his mother died.
The red panda was Kichi, an orphan that Mowgli saved from ending as food for…
Bacchus, a fat wolf who had some problems hunting, but he was kept around because he was a good pup-sitter.
"What is this? A wolf-pack or a daycare center?" Riku asked quietly.
"Careful, wolves have extra good hearing you know" Kairi replied.
"We can't very well turn our backs on those in need can we?" Luri asked smiling.
"I can understand why, who can say no when a child is in need? Your species or not" Kairi said, as she was playing with one of Sura and Lala's pups. "Hey Sora, do you want to have kids one day?"
"It's a bit early to be thinking about that isn't it?" Sora asked laughing nervously.
"If mom ever heard you as much as mention the words Sora and kids in the same sentence she'll ground you for life to prevent you from ever seeing him again" Ienzo said.
"It's only a few months left till I'm 18, then she can't say anything" Kairi said stubbornly.
"So? I'm 27 and she would hardly let ME out of her sight" Ienzo sighed.
"Hey, these heartless, what do they want with us? Why can't they leave us alone?" Kichi the red panda asked.
"It's in their nature" Sora said shrugging. "They go of constantly searching for hearts, and then eventually they'll go after the heart of the world, if they get that…well."
"How do we stop them?" Mowgli asked.
"Getting rid of the heartless isn't easy" Riku said. "They go wherever there are people with darkness in their heart….and EVERYONE has some darkness in them, no matter how kind they are. But we can protect the world, if we found the heart of the world, Sora and I could lock it with these." He summoned the Road to dawn keyblade showing it to the other wolves. "This is probably the most effective weapon against the heartless, they fear it. But not everyone can carry it."
"How does the heart look like?" Kichi asked.
"We don't really know it tends to look different from place to place" Sora said. "But there's usually some kind of big keyhole close to it."
"What's a keyhole?" Kichi asked again.
"Oh…well…its kind of a whole with a triangle underneath…we'll know when we see it. Don't worry" Sora said.
"We'll keep our eyes open" Luri said.
Someone else was keeping their eyes open too.
Unbeknownst of the wolf pack they were being watched by a small group of power and Bouncywild heartless. One of them, the one that appeared to be the leader, had a rather unusual appearance.
Mainly it looked like a Powerwild, but instead of blue, his fur was white and bright blue, with a blue patch right on the tail and it seemed to be following the conversation with great interest.
The heart of the world you say? It thought. Maybe it's worth checking it out.
--
"How is it going little dude?"
Orochi sighed and turned around to look at the wolf.
He was no longer hiding his face under a hood it seemed, but instead revealed a pretty normal face, two yellow eyes and long brown hair. His shoes were now pink, even if Xigbar was pretty sure they had been black the last time he saw him.
"It would be going a lot better if you stopped asking every other minute." Orochi said.
"Geez, Sorry" Xigbar said, and gazed on the machine that the demon was working on. "What exactly are you going to do once it's done? How do we know it will work?"
"You could always volunteer to test it" Orochi said. "If we're lucky, you'll die and I won't have to be bothered by you anymore."
"As if. You know Xehanort was a fan of animal testing when we worked together in the past" Xigbar said.
"Gee, I don't know. Why don't you ask HIM?" Orochi said.
Xigbar sighed, he knew when he wasn't wanted, yet the snake had a point, he made his way to Xemnas' office.
When he came in he found Xemnas, still an ottsel, sitting on a desk, Xehanort was using the chair and next to the table Orochi was doing paper work…wait a minute?
Xigbar took a second look to make sure he saw right, it really looked like Orochi alright, except he seemed to have gotten a haircut and a costume change.
Instead of the long hair he had shorter and seemingly darker hair too, and he wore a dark blue top hat, a blue tie and blue shoes.
"Did you need anything nr 2?" Xemnas asked.
Xigbar looked away from the snake-person shaking his head.
"Well yeah. I was just wondering when the machine is done, who were you planning to use to test it?" he asked.
"I'm sure we'll think of something" Xemnas said. "The easiest way would probably to get some kind of animal to test it..." (Orochi nervously looked up from his papers) "Just a shame so few animals get nobodies."
Orochi sighed in relief.
"I think I know one, at least I heard some rumours from my heartless vassals" Xehanort said calmly. "I already sent Cloak out to investigate; we should know soon if the observations were right."
Xigbar was about to ask who this "Cloak" was, but threw it of assuming it was one of the heartless, whom Xehanort had decided to name for some reason… well they were easier to tell apart like that.
"Okay then, good luck with that" he said and left.
Usagi: Orochi is turning into quite a confusing character…
Xigbar: gee, you don't say?
Usagi: well I could tell you why that is, since I've already left you with the yet to be solved mystery of the monkey-game.
Each bijuu has a human form, Orochi…since he has eight heads, have eight separate human forms, and he can turn into all eight at once, thus splitting himself over more areas.
All of the forms look different, you can see them on my Deviantart-account, under "8 little Orochis"
So far we've seen three:
Cloak: the guy with one eye and a cloak covering his face, apparently the only normal-dressed one, though no one knows what he wears under the hood. Wears black shoes.
Hairy: the one with the long hair and pink shoes.
Mr. Yamata: the business-looking guy with the top hat and blue shoes.
Apart from those there's also:
Dumbledude: No hair, wears a blue wizard hat with stars on it, and no shoes.
Ponyman: long hair in a ponytail, and brown shoes.
Pinky Viking Dude: The only one not wearing a brown cloak, his is…you guessed it, pink. He also wears a Viking helmet, has a scar over his left eye and bright blue shoes.
Bunny: Has short hair and a short beard, and he wears fake white rabbit-ears. Purple shoes.
And Ribbonmort: A bald guy wearing green shoes and has a pink ribbon on his tail.
Truly a weird group indeed…and yes Orochi has 8 personalities, still working on those though XD
Soukou: and they say I'm weird…
Usagi: all bijuus are weird in one way or another it seems…
Now what are the Organization XIII up too? Nothing good obviously…
Please review, and the question about the monkeys in the last chapter is still up XD
The white Powerwild is based of a VERY important character from that series XD
Zakura: in other words, you're looking for a series with a white monkey among the main characters?
Usagi: maybe…