Ok… so this is the second chapter of my short break from the main sequence of chapters to feature Captain Shade. Since these chapters are easier to write than the ones featuring the main group of characters, I will write their next chapter while writing these ones. I should expect maybe one more of these, then the next chapter with Sora and Kairi and them should be ready.
I have been extremely busy lately, and I might have to take a little break from writing in a few weeks cause I will have TWO research papers assigned at the same time. I hate my teachers at times…
I will make up for all of this extreme business on my part during the summer , when I will have loads of free time on my hands to write!! YAY!!!
Chapter 13: On the Ferry
An hour and a half after receiving orders to report to the Dreadnaught, I was hovering in the front of the line for the ferry to the oversized battleship. In front of me was a Wizard, so filled with magical energy that she was quite literally vibrating. The air around hem shimmered with multi colored light to such a degree that looking at him made one's eyes ache. It was like a rainbow had a Heartless child with a sugar demon, if that even makes any sense.
I am quite glad that she is on my side. Mages in general scare the crap out of me, and when they are hyperactive, bad things happen. I want them to happen to my enemies, not me. I happen to like my life, thank you very much.
Behind me stood the massive bulk of a Defender, the meat shields of the Heartless. Those things can soak up damage like some sort of mutant sponge made for absorbing damage instead of water. I once saw a Defender take a direct hit from a Thundaga spell and walk away, the spell only scorching its titanic shield. Now, if that had been me, they would be hauling away my pitifully few remaining ashes in a small Ziploc baggie, where a moogle would buy it and sell it as "herbal medication".
Those short pom-pom freaks would do anything to turn a profit, even sending one of their own to hell to try and sell fire to Belias, one of the archdemons of fire. He almost succeeded too, till Belias realized that the moogles were too lazy to compete in sporting events, meaning that they would have no Olympics, meaning that they would have no Moogle Olympic Flame that they could sell to him for a million munny. Roasted moogle, anyone?
But, I regress. I had gotten to the aerodome a half an hour ago, bought my outrageously priced ticket, then proceeded to wait in line for the ferry. Most of that time waiting I spent muttering obscenities at whatever idiot in the First Bank of Darkness, the government run bank, had decided that officers had to pay their own fare to get onto a ship that they were posted on. Does that make any sense at all!?
I mean, sure, we get free dental care instead, but very few types of Heartless even have teeth!! And that paid maternity leave that they included in the package would have been good, except Heartless cannot sexually reproduce. Hell, we don't even have sexes!!! Sometimes, I swear that the bureaucracy is working for the Nobodies, attempting to put all of us Heartless in the military into a berserk rage caused by their incompetence so we recklessly charge the enemy and lose our lives, thus winning the war for the Nobodies.
Though, they do occasionally do something right, the bureaucracy. Like that one time they decided that every soldier needed training in the arts of music. At first, that decision made no sense whatsoever. However, once I was stationed on the frontlines, on the world of Hyrule, from the Earth game Legend of Zelda, I instantly understood why. Every possible event that can happen in some of these worlds is accompanied by some sort of theme song. Take enemy attacks for example. If you listen just as the enemy is about to attack, you can hear aggressive music playing in the background. Or when a really strong key blade wielder or Nobody comes into battle, you can hear their leitmotif, aka theme, playing in the background. Of course, music was also played when we did stuff. Only on some worlds though. Mostly those created by video games and movies. Everywhere else followed the laws of physics, unfortunately.
Generally, anything played in a minor key meant we were screwed. Both we and the Nobodies and keyblade wielders had themes in every key but the minor ones. So minor key meant that something had gone horribly wrong.
That training basically allowed us to know beforehand that an attack was coming or that a bad ass enemy was about wipe the floor with us so we could plan accordingly, write out our wills and such, or on the rare occasion we were organized, counter attack.
Finally, I boarded the ferry. The Wizard was in the seat next to me, next to the window, while the Defender was behind us, having a space that would normally seat two people to himself. Since we were the first to board, we sat in the back of the ferry. The ferry itself was rather large, so it took a bit of time to get the remaining Heartless on board.
One of the last to board was a shadow Heartless, much to the surprise of basically everybody onboard, myself included. Since this was an officers ferry, that would mean that a shadow was an officer, which as far as I knew has only happened once before.
The shadow walked through the ferry, trying to find a seat, eventually sitting in an empty seat across the aisle from me. About a minute or so after the shadow boarded, the ferry began its fifteen minute journey to the orbiting behemoth of a starship.
"So… whats your name?"I asked the Wizard, trying to strike up a conversation with her.
"Before or afterwards?" she asked, referring to the convention that Heartless get new names when they become Heartless due to the fact that most of us cannot remember our names after the… um, lets call it transformation.
"Whichever."
"Well, before, I have no idea. Afterwards… Vestara."
For the second time in the past five minutes, my jaw dropped in shock. Vestara was the name of the Wizard who had killed Donald, one of the best wizards the key blade wielders had, though he didn't wield a key blade himself.
"Yes… that Vestara. So, why don't you pick up your jaw from the floor before I cast a thunder spell down your throat and tell me your name." Scared for my life, I quickly complied with the first part of her threatening order, and with some hesitation fulfilled the second.
"My name as a Heartless is… Shade." I said with a grimace as her jaw took its turn in impacting the floor.
"Holy crap. Are you the same Shade that singlehandedly defeated Axel and Roxas while wounded!! You're like a legend among my family." She said excitedly. For a Heartless, family meant the Heartless living with you during your year of learning such important survival skills as music. There were these huge apartment buildings that served as dorms, with four Heartless to a room. Your dorm mates were your family.
"Yep. The one and the same."
WWe instantly hit it off, chatting about our exploits for a couple of minutes, then we decided that it would be fun to annoy the Defender sitting behind us. I started off.
"Why hey…"I said to the Defender in my gayest sounding voice.
"Yo." The Defender replied, shifting his shield from his knees to in between his legs and the seat.
"So, big boy, what is your name?" said Vestara in a voice that humans would describe as sexy.
"Domovoi." He answered in a bored voice.
"Where have I heard that name before?" I wondered out loud.
"Does it mean anything?" Vestara inquired.
"It is the name of a guardian spirit in an Earth culture." Domovoi responded.
"Huh… that's ironic." Said Vestara.
"Is it really now?" said Domovoi.
" Domovoi, Domovoi… isn't that the name of the Defender who held off a wave of 2000 Nobodies until reinforcements arrived?"
"Yes. And before you ask that next question, that was me. Now, I like silence. If you can go one minute without speaking, maybe I won't hurt you.'
After that, silence had a minute of leadership in the ferry, and then we turned our attentions towards the shadow.
"So, how does a shadow like you get to be an officer in the Heartless Army?" I asked her, curious.
"Do you want the really long, drawn out explanation, or the short, one sentence one?" she responded, glancing at me.
"One sentence is good." I responded.
"My name is Vergere. That is how." She said.
"Vergere the Philosopher?!! Vergere the Torturer!? Vergere the changer!?" Vestara and I both shouted at the same time, our eyes wide in shock. Vergere was the most famous Heartless philoso[her of all time, though that is all that anyone really knew about her. Except for a few quotes here and there, nobody really knew what she actually philosophized about. Maybe that will change for me in the next few minutes.
"Yes. That Vergere. Who the hell else would have that name besides me?" she said in a deriding tone of voice.
Unfortunately, anything else that she would of said was cut off by the rather jarring sound of metal scraping against metal. The ferry had arrived at the Dreadnought.
We quickly disembarked and lined up on the deck of the hangar in which the ferry had landed. An overgrown shadow appeared before us and started pacing up and down the line.
"I am General Eragon…" he began, then a Neoshadow appeared behind him and slit his throat with his razor sharp claws as we looked on with no small amount of confusion.
"Sorry about that folks. Every once in a while one of those fantasy characters with an inflated ego and a can do no wrong attitude becomes a Heartless and tries to take charge around here. This is the fifth time that Eragon alone has done this. Authors that write fantasy that is basically Star Wars/Lord of the Rings crossover fan fiction and get it published as original work should be dragged out into the street and shot." Said the Neoshadow, wiping the shadow's remains from his claws.
"My name is Colonel Tycho. I am in charge of all officers on this ship. Even Generals have to report to me on their actions. Of course, they have the power to send me to the frontlines, so I don't mess with them. EVER. Anyway, I'll be showing you guys to your quarters, except you four over there. Vergere, Shade, Vestara, and Domovoi, you guys are to report immediately to the bridge. After you are done getting raped by the Admiral, I will be there to show you to your room. Appatrently, you four are bunking together. Anyway, just take the turbolift that wasn;t ripped off from Star Wars to your right to Level 144 and walk take a left turn. Continue down that corridor for about two miles and wala, you are at the Bridge. Now, hop to it." Colonel Tycho said.
So, my new found friends and I began our long ass journey to the Bridge. It seemed as if the Admiral, whose name nobody wants to say for some reason, specifically wants to talk to us. This is not going to end well. Crap. And I had finally made some friends who were just as heroic as I was. Damn it.
Ok… the Heartless have no sexes. However, since referring to them using it Is confusing and rather rude and since English doesn't have a gender neutral third person singular pronoun, I'm going to go by the sex that their character would be if they were human. Please Review.