Chapter 3

Heroes Meet

"Riku?" Sora asked, knowing that that chances of Riku popping out behind one of those broken pillars to greet him were slim. He heard the sound of crows above him. They hovered above him as though waiting for him to simply fall over dead so they could eat him. Sora quickly erased those thoughts from his head when he heard a voice. It, thankfully, did not speak in that language he heard earlier.

"Auron! Where are you? Is anyone out there?" the voice called. It was a male, but it was so distant. Sora started to scream back when suddenly, something slithered past his leg, which was half submerged in water.

"Huh?" Sora looked down to see an ugly looking creature about to bite. Sora fell backwards and fumbled his hand up to get his keyblade in time to swing at the creature which shattered into several lights that flew into the air as though it was its spirit.

"Anyone?" Sora heard the voice call again before he heard him scream. Sora heard a giant splash before an awful sounding roar. Sora raced through what ruins he could run on to find the person and possibly help. He knew it did not sound like Riku, but whoever it was, they were just as confused as he was and he may have been sucked into this world too.

Sora finally came to a stop at the edge of a bridge that overlooked a huge temple that seemed to have sunk almost completely underwater. Sora then saw a huge creature flying through the water and attempting to swallow someone. Sora reacted quickly and casted a quick lightning spell at the creature which immediately stopped and roared angrily while attmepting to find who did it.

"Woah! Hey thanks!" the man said.

"No problem," Sora responded before the creature rammed into the bridge, breaking it and causing Sora to plunge into the pool of water."Uh-oh."

"Over here, hurry!" the man said quickly, swimming surprisingly fast for being in water. Sora joined him as fast as he could and it was not long before they were being pursued by the creature.

"Where are we-" Sora started.

"Follow me under, I see an entrance to this place," he said before diving underneath the water. Sora followed. As they went through the water the creature began to inhale causing them both to nearly be sucked right into his mouth. Sora pushed as hard as he could, hoping the creature would stop. He looked up a bit and noticed both him and the man were half in the creatures mouth. Sora panicked, but the creature ran into the wall, letting out his breath and forcing them both deep into the temple.

Sora emerged from the water first. He breathed deeply and realized that this place was freezing cold and each breath was making it worse. The man came up and found a place to quickly get out of the water.

"It's f-f-f-freezing," Sora said. joining the man on the floor.

"I know...I'm Tidus. You get sucked into this world too?" he asked.

"Sora, and yes I did," sora said.

"We, need to make a fire quick. Otherwise we are gonna die in here," Tidus said.

"How," Sora asked, looking around at nothing, but stone and water.

"Let's take a look around," Tidus suggested. They walked into a door together and found a circulor room with waterfalls pouring in from the roof.

"Oh man. This place keeps, getting colder," Sora said.

"By the way, did you see anyone else when you got here?" Tidus asked.

"No...I did hear someone speaking in some wierd language though," Sora told him.

"I don't get it. My and Auron...and that kid all got sucked into that same hole...how did we end up in different-"

"Wait...kid? What kid?" Sora asked, wondering if it could have been Kairi or Riku.

"This kid...actually, to tell you the truth, he didn't even look like he was from Zanarkand, he just kinda showed up."

"It must have been Riku," Sora said quietly.

"Look...We can use this to make a fire," Tidus said. He grabbed a bouquet of flowers and then saw an open dressor drawer with some kind of rocks inside.

"What is that?" Sora asked.

"A flint," Tidus said. Sora followed him back to the circulor room where a stack of wood layed in the center of the room that Sora had not even noticed before.

"Clearly we were not the only people trapped in this place," Sora said.

"We probably won't be the first ones to die in this place either," Tidus noted the wide eyes on Sora and quickly added, "Sorry...just kidding."

"This sucks...I am having fun climbing a mountain with my friends one minute, and here I am, seperated, again I might add, from my friends in this...place," Sora stated indicating place with his hands as he did not even know what to call it.

"Well, at least none of those creatures are in here," Tidus said.

"Yeah," Sora agreed. Tidus finally created the fire with his seventh attempt.

"Yay!" Sora said clapping his hands in excitement. Tidus laughed. Suddenly the fire flickered out. Sora grabbed his keylblade and shot sparks out of it, forgetting momentarily that he should have mentioned it earlier. The fire started perfect this time. Sora smiled.

"Your interesting," Tidus said. Sora was not sure how to take that, but he was to cold to over-analyze it.

The building suddenly shook a bit after a loud noise.

"What was that?" Sora asked.

"It better not be the building caving in," Tidus said.

"It sounded kind of like an explosion," Sora pointed out.

"Yeah, it did kind of sound like that," Tidus said. They waited a couple minutes, enjoying the warm fire heating their freezing bodies. Tidus attempted to close up his stylishly half-cut jacket to cover his chest more. Sora teeth chattering echoed through the running water.

"What are we going to do?" Sora asked.

"What do mean?" Tidus asked.

"We can't just sit here and expect get out alive. Shouldn't we look for an exit...or find a way to create one. This fire won't last forever you know," Sora stated.

"True. I don't know...everyway is blocked. Its not as though we can pick up the pillars and move them out of our way," Tidus said.

"Well, as wonderful as this warmth is, I am starving," Sora said, standing.

"Me too...I need food," Tidus said childeshly.

"Maybe we can get a fish or something," Sora suggested.

"If we look out in the water we are gonna find 'something' alright," Tidus stated.

"Well...I don't know. It just seems-" Sora stopped at a louder bang that sounded like it was continuing to get louder and louder as though several mines were going off. It stopped again.

"Is it just me...or is that sounding like someone is trying to blow this place up?" Tidus asked. Something above them started to breath heavily.

"What is...AHHHHH!" Sora dived out of the way before a large creature with sharp, jagged knife-looking legs pounced onto the ground. Tidus pulled his sword out and stood cautiously in front of it as Sora regained his footing. He held his keyblade out and waited to see what the creature was going to do. He was worried that one wrong move and the creature would simply jump on him, impaling him in it's legs.

"This could be bad," Tidus said. Sora decided to jump onto a fallen pillar and run up it to get distance from the creature before striking it with lightning which angered it. As it turned, Tidus sliced through on of its legs. It whipped back around and threw out one of his front legs that came dangerously close to slicing directly through Tidus' neck. It swung again, putting a gash into Tidus' leg.

"Tidus! Sora jumped down and spun around twice before gaining the momentum to knock the creature from Tidus' path. It did not take long before it continued it's rampage.

Suddenly, a final explosion ripped through the stone walls and in the smokey debris, a woman stood in a full armored body suit and goggles with only her blonde hair pushing through at the top. She did not say anything to either of them. She just merely stepped between them and attached a dangerously sharp weapon to one of her hands then proceeded to a stance to wait for the creature.

"Your on our side? Cool!" Tidus said.

"Definitely!" Sora said, just as excited.

The creature pounced at the new target and she evaded with quick, fluid, and precise movements. The creature continued on her, slashing at her form but was unable to get one attack to come in contact with her. Finally, she jumped on one of it's swinging legs, then leaped into a mid-air cartwheel to it's head where she lifted her weapon hand and slammed it into it's head , nearly causing it to collapse. It dizzily reeled back and forth as the woman front flipped off of it. She began walking to Sora and Tidus and the creature prepared to charge at her. Before either could speak, the woman slipped a grenade from her suit, pulled the pin, and tossed it behind her without so much as looking. The creature met it's end and exploded into the light formations Sora had noticed happened to a creature earlier.

"Woah! That was awesome!" Tidus said. "I'm Tidus."

"I'm Sora," Sora followed. A few men in rugged clothing and guns stepped in. They were suddenly, not looking so friendly or helpful. They began to chat amongst themself in that foreign language Sora heard. The woman simply stared at both of them before one man confronted her and she argued back...at least, that is what it seemed like. She finally shook her head and turned.

"Umm...Hello? What are you all saying? Is something wrong?" Tidus asked.

"Cunno," she stated plainly before Sora and Tidus were both knocked unconcious on the ground.

Kinda short, I suppose, but I wanted to stop what was happening to Sora and start a chapter to explain briefly where and what was happening to Kairi, Riku, Donald, and Goofy. Then we will continue to Sora and Tidus adventure with these strange mysterious people...and if you played the game you obviously know who these people are and who the girl is...speaking of which...when I introduced her I didn't know whether to call her a woman...or a girl...because technically, I guess she should be classified as a girl...since Sora is classified as a boy and they are around the same age. But I figured they really would not be able to tell yet so I just said woman...surely no one will send me cookies laced with arsenic for misrepresenting her...Please don't.