Disclaimer: I'm awake, but my world is half-asleep...-hums 'Incomplete'- Sorry. I don't own Incomplete by the Backstreet Boys. I also don't own anything that appears in this story, which belongs to either Disney, Square, or both Disney AND Square. (and 'Not Your Enemy' by the J-Mac)
By the way, I decided to name the ships Fantasia after the movie and Star Ocean because that's like, the best game series EVER made by Square. Excluding Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy, of course. I mean, SO:TtEoT was magnificent and since basically no one will know about Albel Nox, Mirage Koas or Clair Lasbard (meaning; I can't put any characters from SO here), I decided to make my own little tribute to SO. PLAY THE GAME IF YOU HAVEN'T!!
P.S. I decided to spilt this chapter into two smaller chapters. (it was originally bigger) Sorry, guys. XP!
P.S.S. A special thanks to k2, dragonlover131313 (I think I'm gonna abbreviate your name to dl13, do you mind?), and lebrezie. Also, thanks to everyone who's reading along.
Stage the Sixth: The World That Shares Their Fate
Two weeks had withered away; and both de Luz siblings were at sea, headed for the Isle of Bikanel. The rumors of the Kraken are making everyone on edge, and stormy nights makes the crew particularly nervous. For, they have a good reason to be...
"I hate the sea," Axel muttered, his face turning green as he got sea-sick again. "Man, I get all sick and wobbly when I even try to walk across the ship." He glanced at his blonde friend, who was having no difficulty at the seafaring life. "How do you do it?"
"I was trained in the castle of Atlantica. You may not know about it, but those people were such great swimmers you'd practically think they were mermaids." Roxas sighed and shook his head, "They taught me how to swim; and although I'm not able to swim in armor like they are, they taught me how to do some pretty impressive things like swim against rough currents and things of the like."
"That's really possible?" The redhead blinked and then looked out to sea with a glum expression on his face, "I can't even look at the sea without getting sick, let alone swim in it. I'd be hopeless in water combat."
"It's a good thing people don't fight in the water, then," Roxas said, resting his hands on the railing. Squinting, he thought he noticed two specks in the distance. "Hey, what's that?" The dirty blonde asked, tilting his head slightly as he tried to make out what the specks were, only to no avail. Maybe Axel had better vision than he, for that's what Naminé claimed.
"What's what?" The redhead questioned, looking back at Roxas and then trying to see where he was looking at. "Oh, you mean those ships?"
"You can tell they're ships?!" He was surprised. Naminé was right--there was a lot to his best friend that Roxas didn't even know. For one, she was right when she said he had keen eyesight.
"From the looks of it, they belong to Disney," He said, then shrugged, "The symbol of Disney is the mouse ears and a castle, right? And the other ship has a jolly roger on it--it must be accompanying the Disney ship."
"The only thing I see are dots! You can actually see their masts?" Roxas was in shock. Keen was not even the adjective to describe Axel's vision. It was...superhuman. "Your eyesight is like an eagle's!"
"You're giving me too little credit, Rox. It's better than an eagle's," He said, then chuckled, "I'll go alert the Captain."
"Wait, Axel--" Roxas felt as if there was something the redhead wasn't telling him--actually, he knew there was something Axel was keeping from him, and now he just had to know what. Seeing Axel stop and turn around, he asked, "Are you..." He was about to finish it off with 'human', but that would be stupid, so he shook his head and looked back out to sea, "Nevermind. It wasn't important." In his thinking, he realized that he was really an impatient person. The Queen had even told him that he would know about his best friend in time--but time was seeming to take forever!
Soon enough, he began humming a tune while thinking. And then, the humming turned into an inaudible beat in his head. After, the beat turned into quiet singing. But of course, he didn't think anyone heard him, so he dared to raise his voice, even if it was just by a note.
"...But that was another place
And that was another time
It's not fair to blame me for all his crimes" It was after the first stanza of his song that he heard a dreamy sigh from behind him. Actually, multiple dreamy sighs. The first thing that was on his mind was, 'What the hell, Axel's gay? No way, he's such a womanizer...' Then he turned around to face what he thought would be the redhead, but luckily, it was just a bunch of female sailors who, apparently, were now in love with him.
"Oh, Sir Roxas de Luz, your voice is soooo dreamy..." Said the first, clasping her hands together and placing the union on her cheek.
"...And you have such gorgeous blue eyes..." Said the second, adopting a dreamy look in her eyes.
"...And you're just sooooo handsome..." Chirped the third, who was inching closer and closer to him. There were more, but they were only repeating what the first three said. They all seemed to be moving closer to him every time he blinked. To be quite frank with you, Roxas was getting scared of these female admirers. They looked like the type that were going to force him to undergo some sort of weird marital ritual which included him performing some kind of dance wearing a flowy pink dress. He shuddered at the thought.
Roxas gulped, trying to remember how Axel had told him to deal with raving female fans. Although, luckily for the redhead he was the charming type, whereas the dirty blonde would end up looking like an idiot if he tried any of that player stuff. Besides, saying those cheap pick-up lines that never worked anyway made him feel uncomfortable. Come on, some of the ones Axel taught the blonde were just stupid. 'I lost my teddy bear, can you sleep with me instead?' That was just lame, and Roxas had witnessed when Axel had used that pick-up line and received three favors after. Favors being a glove or scarf or something from a lady that a knight would take to ride into battle. Compared to what a loser he was two years ago...Wow.
Though soon enough, the girls were close enough that they could just reach out and touch him. "S-Sorry ladies, I'm um..." He tried to think of something that would get them to back off. Then he remembered his earlier thought and he blurted out, "I'm gay!"
These girls froze for a moment, then let his words register through their brains. Then the first one, who seemed to be the leader of the group, squealed and said, "Oh my Nomura, are you gay for Sir Axel?"
"Ye--Wait, WHAT?" The very idea of him being 'gay' for Axel was just...ludicrous. They were best friends. Nothing more. He wasn't gay for anyone! If anything, he was in love wi--'What the hell are you thinking, Roxas?' He mentally slapped himself thrice for thinking such thoughts. "I'm not gay for anyone! I'm just--a homosexual! By Saint Nomura, can't you just leave a guy and his sexuality alone?!" Now they had edged so close that Roxas was practically hugging the railing in order not to touch them.
"That's alright, Sir Roxas de Luz, we love you no matter what and who you like!" Said the second sailor--and it was hard to believe they were all sailors and not giggly maids who had infiltrated on the ship. Maybe they were...
Roxas had no idea how it happened. It wasn't like he was a gynophobe or anything, but he just did not want to touch those girls. That's probably how it happened. Because once the girls moved closer, that was it for him. Somehow, someway, he flipped over the railing and plummeted to his icy cold death. Alright, maybe not, but it sure was freezing. Thanking Saint Nomura for the first time for having his father send him to the castle of Atlantica, he swam to the surface of the ocean quite easily. He remembered he had his swords on him when he fell, so if anything attacked him...wait, his swords? While treading water (and staring up at the girls who were too dumbfounded at what just occurred to yell for help), he felt his sides to see if he had lost his swords. Because luck happened to be on his side today, both of them were gone.
Mentally cursing in his head, he yelled up at the girls, "Get the Captain!" Though, over the waves and because of the distance between them, he doubted they heard him. Then, Roxas went under to find his swords. They were both pretty heavy, so if he didn't swim to the bottom fast, they'd be lost forever. He couldn't see anything; just an abyss of sea-green that stretched out before him endlessly.
He was almost out of breath, and he had been down here for three minutes already. The training at Atlantica made him sharp at holding his breath. He could stay under for at least five minutes or so. How he did it, he didn't even know. Swimming more vigorously, he thought he saw one of his sword's hilts. He reached out and grabbed onto it, however, that was when disaster struck.
Before he could even see it coming, something very, very cold struck him across the face. It was so cold that it actually burned. Disoriented from losing oxygen, he kept his grip on his sword and attempted to make out what had hit him. It was a...giant tentacle; bigger than him. Multiple words ran throughout his mind, but they consisted of this, 'Holy mother of Nomura this is the Kraken. I am going to die.' But he was not going to give up without a fight, even if he was starting to feel light-headed and dizzy. There was no way, with how deep he was under, that he would make it back to the surface in time. So, he grabbed his sword, figuring the other was lost in the deep depths of the ocean, and swung at the tentacle. Surprisingly, it made a clean sweep.
But the Kraken didn't like that very much, for he heard an intense roar rattle his head, likely coming from the nautical monster itself. Roxas' vision started to black out as he was losing oxygen, and although he continued to try to slice up the tentacle, it was not long before the Kraken's other tentacles shot out and struck him as well. The last thing he felt before blacking out was them constricting him tighter and tighter, the last thing he saw was about six sets of razor-sharp, spiked teeth coming towards him, and the last thing he heard was a familiar voice screaming inside of him, 'Light, give me strength!'
Sora wished he was a pirate. Alright, maybe he didn't--for pirates had a less glorious fame than that of knights, and people generally thought bad of pirates--but man, it was awesome being one. Not that he'd know, but he had begged the captain of his ship to let him ride with the pirates. Grudgingly, the captain let him, and now Sora was watching Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa arguing over who was Captain of this ship, named the Black Pearl. Apparently it held some value to both. Sora busied himself by watching the argument volley for a while. Finally, he felt as if his head was going to implode from the neverending argument.
"Why don't," He began loudly, so loud that everyone stopped and stared at him, "You both become Captain? Jack--"
"Captain Jack Sparrow," The pirate corrected with a nod of his head.
"Captain Jack Sparrow," Sora repeated, feeling like he was back in the Disney castle being lectured by Donald, "can take control of half of the crew and ship, and then Barbossa--"
"Captain Barbossa," The other man corrected.
With a slight roll of his eyes and a sigh, Sora corrected himself, "Captain Barbossa can control half of the crew and ship."
"That's actually not a bad idea, mate," Said Jack, as he walked to the left, and then to the right, "But this is my ship and I should get the--" Jack paused in his tracks, and seemed to be staring at something confusedly. The whole crew turned to see what Jack was staring at, before a huge wave rippled beneath them and made the boat swerve dangerously.
"The Kraken!" Miss Elizabeth Swann, one of the only ladies aboard, shouted, "It's come back for Jack!"
"Nah, poppet," Said another pirate whose name Sora forgot, "It's going after something else. See?" The man pointed out towards sea, and they could see that the ripple was going towards a speck in the distance. Jack and Barbossa instantly got out telescopes to check what was going on.
"The ship in the distance--Ay, it's one of Square's, and it seems the Kraken is going towards it. Most likely they were planning to intercept us on our way to the isle," Barbossa explained, putting away the telescope, as did Jack to his.
"We should help!" Sora piped up. The pirates (and Elizabeth, as well as her 'boyfriend' of sorts, Will, whom were not pirates. Although Will seemed to have some kind of connection to the piracy line, but Sora had not been told everything yet) looked at him liked he was crazy.
"Are you insane?" The dark-haired Will asked, his voice slightly raised so it made Sora flinch, "If we go after the Kraken ourselves we will be dead! Besides, they are our enemy so it's better for us that the Kraken isn't after Jack."
"Why does the Kraken want Jack, anyway?" Sora questioned, tilting his head.
"Maybe we'll tell you when you've put on a few more years, laddie," Barbossa said, chuckling slightly and then looking back out to sea.
"We should help," Sora repeated softly, "It's our common enemy! If we join up and defeat it--"
"Then what?" Will shouted, crossing his arms, "Then Square will attack and kill us all!"
The brunette frowned. "Not helping out to destroy the Kraken is wrong! If Disney and Square team up, we can defeat it together! Think about it: This could be our first step towards peace! No more battles, no more people dying! It can start here!" He said, feeling as if he were a motivational speaker. He was always good at these pep talks. Though, this time, he was doing terribly at them. All he received were blank stares from the crew members who didn't want to go along with his plan; most likely they thought of it as suicide.
"Fine then! But remember this: After the Kraken destroys Square's ship, it'll be after us!" Sora said, hoping that would make a point. "Wouldn't it be better to join forces now that way we can get rid of it before it kills us? And we don't have a guaranteed chance of dying after we defeat the Kraken! The Queen probably didn't send a whole fleet out, and we have one of our best ships, H.M.S. Fantasia on our side, as well as the Black Pearl! We can beat the Kraken!" The brunette said, but the blank stares continued. No one agreed with him. Well, he was a de Luz and he could use his family name as an influence on the Captain of the Fantasia! After all, the Black Pearl was supposed to be escorting them, so if the Fantasia got in a fight, the Black Pearl was going to have to join in the fight, right?
Just as Sora was about to grab a rope and swing to the other ship, Captain Jack Sparrow came to his aid. "I say we aid the boy in his plight. But," Jack turned to the brunette, who had the biggest grin on his face, "you'll be paying for the repairs on my ship if it gets damaged."
"My ship," Barbossa corrected, and then he pointed a finger at Sora's grin, "And wipe that smile off your face, boy. Going into battle is not something to be happy about."
FINITO! Yes, it was a short chapter, but I actually liked having it split. You know, it seems like the bad things always happen to Roxas. -laugh- Let's hope that it won't stay that way forever...
Anyway, I hope I'll update soon. Midterm week is coming up, so I won't guarentee anything...