Usagi: Happy holidays everyone! And if you're not celebrating anything in particular at the moment then….happy December 27!
Zakura: what's so special about December 27?
Usagi: it's when Chapter 22 of Darkness of the Heart comes out. WOOT!
Zakura: geez….
Usagi: Still none of the same reviewers since last time haven't figured out which game Kotha is from…so I take it not too many of you have played Ape Escape.
Zakura: There's no character named Kotha in the Ape Escape games… at least not as far as I've seen.
Usagi: me neither. Kotha appears in the anime, as a small pet monkey of one of the main characters… until he finds a Peak Point helmet and becomes, drum roll: Specter.
Zakura: the evil monkey set to take over the world…wow what a plot.
Usagi: The background-story presented in DoH is pretty much based on the original game, the only anime-reference I've got is the monkey's name… also since Specter is an albino ape (red-eyed white, whether the red eyes are normal for him or not I'm not sure, as Kotha in the anime had blue eyes curiously enough), I made the heartless white too XD
Zakura: who cares what eye colour he's got?
Usagi: yeah, you're right. Enjoy Chapter 22:
With characters inspired from The Adventure of the Jungle Book, Ape Escape and a title inspired by….Alice in Wonderland…. Yeah.
Chapter 22
Follow the White Monkey
"Well this is where I saw them."
"I don't see what the point in coming here is, why would they come to this exact location again?"
"Well it's worth a try, unless you have any other bright ideas Riku".
The heroes had followed the wolf who'd claimed to have seen the white monkey heartless to a clearing. Although noticeably there were no heartless there when they arrived.
"Why are we looking for a bleached monkey anyway?" Riku asked.
"I somehow doubt a heartless would dye its fur for any reason. There could be something special about it, you know, like the demon heartless. They don't look like any familiar classes either" Sora said.
"Yeah, except there ARE monkey type heartless, the demons just looked like themselves" Riku said. "So if there's a white Powerwild or Bouncywild, what difference does it make?"
"Dunno, let's check it out!" Sora said grinning, before he ran of into the woods. "Race you there."
"Oh, OH! You're so dead!" Riku said and ran after him.
"Race where?" the wolf asked.
"To find the white monkey I guess" Kairi said, laughing. "We'd better follow, or they'll be far of before we know it."
But Sora and Riku didn't continue running, just as they came within the cover of the trees, Riku started sniffing around.
"Wolf-noses are pretty good but what does a monkey-heartless smell like?" he asked.
"Bananas?" Sora joked. "Darkness and bananas."
"What do bananas smell like?"
Sora gazed at his best friend as the others came into the forest.
"There's some Powerwild heartless in that direction" Ienzo said. "Maybe a few Bouncywilds as well."
"Show-off" Riku said. "Fine, let's go check it out then".
The gang followed Zexion through the jungle, until they arrived at a village…or a ghost town would be more precise.
"What happened here?" Kairi asked.
"There used to be a human village here, not too long ago" the wolf who had been their guide said. "But they were chased of. Were beginning to cause problems."
"Don't you like humans in the jungle?" Sora asked.
"Oh normally we don't mind as long as they don't bother us" the wolf said. "Take Mowgli for once, he's okay, even if some of the wolves are a bit vary of him. He even went to visit them a few times. Guess some of us were hoping that he would stay there, not because he's not wanted but its better for him to be with his own kind you know?
But then some stuff happened, Mowgli was asked to kill a tiger that had been bothering the humans for some time, I think he wanted to prove himself for one of the human hunters or something. The tiger had been bothering us too so his friends and family helped him out.
The kid made it, but the human saw him working with us wolves and…I think they somehow figured he was some kind of demon."
"Those silly humans" Samehada laughed, he was sitting on Kairi's back right now.
"So they threw him out. As well as the human family that had helped him settle in" the wolf continued. "They saved the human family, and with the help of several jungle animals they chased the humans away, to prevent them from going to get revenge on the wolf-pack or something, thinking we were monsters."
"That's awful" Kairi said.
"Hey speaking of tigers" Axel said. "That tiger skin back at the meeting rock…"
"It's the same one, Shere Khan" the wolf said. "Luri figured that it belonged there."
"Ukki!"
The strange sound made all the gang turn around at once and stared at something on top of one of the houses.
There were about 2-4 monkeys sitting there, most of them Powerwilds, one Bouncywild and…sure enough one brightly coloured Powerwild.
While the normal powerwilds were blue and dark almost black blue, this one's main coat was pure white, the arms and feet were bright blue, and it also had a bright blue spot on its tail.
"So this is the rumoured albino Powerwild" Riku said.
"Albino? Shouldn't they have red eyes?" Sora asked.
"All heartless have yellow eyes Sora. But I guess now we'll find out if miscoloured heartless are stronger than normal ones" Riku said, he summoned the Road to Dawn in his fangs, and jumped up on the rooftop.
Most of the monkeys scattered the moment Riku came up, but the white Powerwild merely jumped into the air to dodge Riku's attack, and landed behind him.
"Okay, so he's fast" Riku muttered, he charged at the monkey again, but forgot he was on a roof so when the Powerwild dodged again he fell of the edge of the rooftop.
"You just got outsmarted by a heartless" Sora said.
"Of….quiet you" Riku said.
The albino Powerwild was still on the roof looking down, his friends watching from a safe distance.
"Remarkable. I never thought a common heartless could figure out such a strategy. It knows that in our current bodies we can't move about as freely on the roof as he can" Ienzo said.
"Impressed at our enemies are you?" Riku asked.
"I'm just saying you're not stopping any monkey like that" Ienzo said shrugging.
"We'll see about that" Riku said and got onto his feet again. Using the keyblade as support he crawled up on two feet, or at least tried to, supporting his body with his left front paw, pointing the right at the Powerwild.
"Dark blast!" he shouted, hurling a ball of dark energy towards the heartless. Shocked at the unnatural attack the Albino Powerwild didn't have much time to get away, and the attack hit its tail.
"Hah! I may not be able to use the dark portals but at least I can still do THAT!" Riku said.
"How did you learn that?" the jungle-wolf asked.
"Er…. Years of training?" Riku asked. "Don't try this at home".
"I think you pissed him of" Axel said.
Sure enough once Riku had his back turned to speak to the wolf, the white Powerwild bounced down from the roof and tackled him.
Sora moved fast and tackled the monkey in return (creating a pile of wolf-monkey-wolf) before grabbing its tail and holding it stuck.
"Not so though when you're on the ground are you" Riku said.
The monkey screeched, turned and scratched Sora's eye, making him drop its tail in surprise, pounced Riku in the face and jumped back on the roof.
"That was a bit embarrassing" Sora said, rubbing his eye.
"A bit?" Riku asked, his nose was bleeding.
"Should I get help?" the wolf asked.
"Yeah, you do that" Sora said, as soon as the other wolf had left the village, he turned to Riku again. "I've got a plan."
--
"Oh yeah this is more like it!" Sora said just a few minutes later, as both he and Riku soared through trees chasing after the small group of monkey heartless.
"No offence to the wolves but they don't know what they're missing" Riku said.
As you probably should have guessed by now they had shifted from their wolf-forms, after failing at catching the albino Powerwild they had transformed into a pair of monkeys, or truth to be said first they had become chinchillas before finally doing it right at the second try.
As soon as they had changed, the heartless ran of once the odds were no longer at their side, so Sora and Riku were in the trees chasing them, while Kairi and Ienzo (still being wolves) followed on the ground.
Samehada had been dropped in a nearby river, and since the heartless had so far been considerate enough to run by the river's shore, the demon fish was swimming alongside, just waiting for one of the heartless to make a mistake and fall in. A couple of times he jumped up in the air spitting a ball of water at the heartless.
Demyx was in the water as well, he'd figured that in his beaver-form he was better at swimming than at running. He was still unable to attack since he didn't have time to summon his guitar and swim at the same time.
Axel was running far behind the others, occasionally he tried to climb the trees only to fall back down.
"These monkeys are fast" Riku said.
"Well they probably have more training in this than us" Sora reminded him. "I've been a lot of different animals but never a monkey."
The albino Powerwild snarled and stopped, the only Bouncywild of the group stopped as well.
"Ready to give up monkey-boy?" Riku asked.
It was impossible to tell whether the Powerwild was smiling or not, although Sora got a nasty feeling it was, especially since immediately he heard a growling sound from bellow.
Out of the jungle came several wolf-like heartless, they looked similar to the rapid dogs only larger, also a pair of shamans riding massive living bone heartless materialized as well, surrounding the party on the ground.
Up in the trees, more powerwilds, bouncywilds and shamans showed up.
"Still don't think a strangely coloured heartless is any special?" Sora asked.
"Fine, I take it back. This creature is smart! At least for a heartless" Riku said.
"You guys can handle the heartless in the trees, we'll take the ones on the ground" Kairi said.
"There's too many of them! And those Living bones are no pushovers" Sora said.
Riku sniffed the air. "Do you smell something burning?" he asked.
Samehada bounced out of the water again.
"Er…guys? I think you should get down from the trees" he said.
"What do you…oh snap!" Sora said, before both he and Riku jumped right into the water, followed by Kairi and Ienzo before the trees they had previously been in suddenly became engulfed by an unusually fast-spreading fire.
Samehada dived under water, coming back up just a few seconds later and put out the fire with a massive beam of water.
As the fire was gone, so were the heartless, only one remaining was a little red ottsel.
"It's like I've always said, the best way to get rid of a heartless is with a good old fire, got it memorized?" Axel said.
"Do you mind trying NOT to kill us at the same time next time?" Riku said.
"Fine, I can let the heartless get you the next time" the little ottsel said shrugging. "If there's any more of them that is."
"I think you got most of them" Sora said as he swam ashore. "But I don't think its over yet, if that white Powerwild is as smart as it seems to be, he probably would have noticed the fire and got away in time."
"It's pretty obvious that Albino Powerwild must be their leader" Ienzo said. "The big question is; is it working for someone?"
"What are you talking about? Of course it would be working for Xehanort" Riku said.
"I'm not so sure. Why would Xehanort be sending heartless to bother some wolf-pack? These heartless didn't even seem to be looking for the heart, it was like they were only in it for fun" Ienzo said. "Not all heartless work for Xehanort you know, we saw that in the Netherworld."
"Do you guys ever feel like you were sent on the wrong mission?" Demyx asked.
"No Dem, that's just you as usual" Axel said.
Usagi: (Bounces around the room singing) Bouncy! Bouncy! Happy Flouncy! Loving! Loving this sensation!
Zakura: geezus, someone's had enough (takes coke away)
Usagi: NOOOOOOOO!..... okay. Hope you liked this chapter, with all of its dramatic chase-scenes! Monkey-chase-scenes. That's something you don't see everyday…
At least I didn't add the part from Ape Escape 3 where you can chase monkeys in racing cars.
Zakura: fun…
Usagi: Ape Escape is a strange game…. Please review!