Chapter 17

L couldn't help smirking as he sent Light on his way to the concession stand yet again. They had been sitting waiting for the show to begin for at least an hour, and he had made use of that time by requesting items for Light to get at the concession stand; mostly to make him suffer for making him sit through a show about Mickey Mouse. But he was also bored sitting for an hour and it had given him great amusement to watch Light get more annoyed with each successive trip to the stand.

He had kicked off his sneakers and was sitting in his usual way, wiggling his toes as his feet enjoyed their freedom. It had now grown full dark and lights were coming on all along the show area causing the crowd to murmur in excitement. He then noticed the crowd beginning to do something he'd never witnessed before. A handful of them stood up, waving their arms in the air and then sat back down, only to be followed by another group standing up and waving their arms…and it continued throughout the crowd until the group he was sitting in stood up around him, waved their arms, and sat back down again, and he watched as it continued past him and all the way around…only to start up again and begin heading back towards him.

"That's the last time I'm getting up Ryuzaki so you better enjoy this!" Light was saying to him as he handed him an ice cream cone.

"What is it that they're doing?" L asked him as he took the cone, totally ignoring Light's snarky statement. Light looked in the direction L was looking and watched the crowd.

"It's called a wave and I'm sure it's quite obvious why it's called that," he answered his tone still in the testy range, "Oh and you're welcome by the way!" L continued to ignore Light's tone and continued to watch the crowd move as it went past him again.

"But why are they doing it?" he asked completely confused and Light sighed as he sat down next to him, his annoyance draining as he looked at the confused expression on L's face.

"Because it's fun for them I guess," he said watching the crowd as it continued it's wave, then grinned at L, "Come on, try it when it comes back to us!" He burst out laughing at the look of horror that came over L's face at the suggestion.

"You cannot be serious, that's ridiculous!" L snorted at him and looked away as the wave got closer. Light quickly stood, reached down and pulled L's arms up as the wave came to them.

"LIGHT!" he yelled pulling his arms back down and Light continued to laugh.

"Wasn't that fun?" he asked as L stared at him angrily.

"You nearly made me drop my ice cream!" he scolded and that only made Light laugh harder.

"Oh that would have been unfortunate! It's only the fourth one you've had this evening!" he said as L continued to fume.

"It would have been unfortunate for you because you would have had to get me another!" he argued as Light finally sat down next to him again.

"It would have been worth it after seeing your reaction just now," he told him and watched his favorite nose turn upwards even further than it normally did.

"There are times you remind me how much younger than I you really are," L sniffed at him and Light leaned closer to him.

"And wouldn't that make you a dirty old man?" he whispered laughing and before L could deny it, the area went completely dark. The crowd reacted as the lights came back up illuminating the mountain in front of them and the water surrounding. Music began to play and the crowed erupted into applause. Then a woman's voice began to talk about the wonders of imagination and L rolled his eyes and continued to eat his ice cream, ignoring the little snicker he heard from Light. As the voice warned that a powerful imagination could turn an exciting adventure into an overwhelming nightmare the lights went out again. As she questioned whether Mickey's imagination was strong enough to fight the powers of evil the children around them began to shout Mickey's name, standing up and getting excited. Light looked over at L, expecting to see some kind of reaction at discovering it was a Mickey show and was surprised to see no change in L's expression whatsoever; he merely continued to eat his ice cream.

There were sudden bright white lights in the area in front of them, as music began and singers sang about imagination. As the lights pulsed a sudden shot of white light hit the center of the staged area and suddenly the mouse himself was there. The loud roar from the audience around them startled L slightly and he was once again amused by how much power the mouse had over the crowd.

He watched as Mickey began to dance around and in time to his movements and the music, plumes of water began to rise from the surrounding body of water and with each beat the water changed color and height. L sat forward, fascinated by the dancing, cascading fountains of water. As Mickey danced around, seemingly directing the movement of the water, he held his arms out from his sides, and fireworks flew out of his hands in sparkling colors making the audience go even wilder.

The lights went down again, and Mickey disappeared from the staged area, only to reappear as a projection on the mist being created by the fountains of water, this time dressed as a sorcerer and once again calling forth great powers from his hands.

Both Light and L found themselves fascinated by what they were watching, having never seen anything even remotely similar. L was surprised when the projected Mickey commanded huge waves to crash that the actual water crashed into the air, spraying part of the audience several times, and when several objects he had created crashed into each other, true fireworks went off over the water completely blurring the lines between reality and projection.

After a few more scenes were reflected on the water, the projections faded with the change in music to a more jungle type of theme, and suddenly on the mountain behind the projections which had been completely in black, the lights came on and there were jungle animals cavorting all around it. He knew they weren't real, but their sudden appearance behind the water projections was impressive; and as he watched them, directly in front on floating barges, monkeys and apes of all colors danced past them.

He heard Light chuckle at the brightly colored apes and he turned to look at him, not able to hide his own dislike of the dancing apes which only made Light laugh more. The lights on the animals went out only to bring up the projections again, this time of a lion cub dancing around with other animals and L could only guess that it was from one of the movies. The next few moments were filled with other characters all encased in bubbles floating past, some of which he had seen before, and some he definitely recognized from the 3D show they'd watched earlier.

Remaining with the water theme, a large eyeball suddenly appeared frightening away little fishes and the eye eventually was shone to belong to a large whale, who when thrashing about in the ocean caused the real water to splash up and once again splash on the crowd who seemed to enjoy it immensely.

The whale apparently created some sort of vortex into which the sorcerer Mickey fell into and as he seemed to be washed away it went dark and only his eyes were visable as his voice asked what was going on to be answered by the sound of a huge gun, and the vision of a huge old ship projected on the water, and when the lights came on again what appeared to be settlers of old were cavorting on the mountain, and several canoes with native Americans rolled by. L watched as the action went back and forth between live action and projection, a story line about an Indian maiden and a settler and their apparent forbidden attraction being the core; and as their projections were about to kiss, it changed to a princess and her prince dancing, to be followed by what was obviously other princesses and princes.

"It's your favorite," Light whispered into L's ear as Cinderella waltzed by in the projection and L pushed him away. Then the projections were gone, replaced by the dancing water again as barges went by bearing the couples that had just been seen on the projections. As he was most familiar with Snow White, he couldn't help leaning forward a little more when she and her prince went by and it did not go unnoticed by his partner.

He then sat straight back when the evil queen from Snow White suddenly appeared on the stage, beginning her spell to turn her old. He turned and looked at Light who also of course recognized the scene and grinned back at him.

"You're enjoying this, don't deny it!" he said as L continued to watch the queen.

"It is quite interesting, do you think they'll do the entire change live like this?" he asked and Light shrugged.

"You'll just have to watch it and see. You want to hold my hand in case it scares you?" he asked reaching his hand to L who slapped it away which only made Light laugh again. L was slightly startled when the magic mirror was projected in front of them with a clap of thunder, and he couldn't help being completely captivated as he recognized everything that was going on. But instead of Snow White being her target, it was Mickey's imagination that she was after, and he sat forward again as he watched her concoction explode into smoke and light, and changed her into the old hag right before his eyes.

She then called forth every evil character to join her in the quest to control Mickey's mind and they were each projected as they answered her call. They each then proceeded to attack the hapless mouse, one turning himself into a huge snake which then appeared live on the mountain chasing the mouse all around until he found a magic lamp to rub which then destroyed it. Another evil queen type took over, proclaiming that he now had to deal with her and all the powers of her imagination…and then proceeded to rise into the air, and began to be enveloped by the projection of a huge dragon breathing fire. Just as L got used to seeing the projected dragon, it faded and he could see a set of large eyes behind it and what appeared to be a real dragon blew a fireball across the water and where it landed true flames shot up. Both Light and L looked at each other completely surprised as they felt the heat from the true flames all the way up to where they were sitting. The children around them were yelling and jumping up and down as Mickey marched towards the dragon proclaiming it was his dream and began to raise the waters around it, putting out the flames all around them, pulling a sword which then began to shoot fireworks and sparkles at the dragon, causing it to scream and eventually die along with the other baddies who's ends were reflected on the projections.

Once they were done, the scene went black until a fairy appeared and made everything sparkle with flashing lights leading the way for a huge riverboat to appear from the other side of the mountain, and every Disney character imaginable appeared to be on that boat. As the boat made it's way past the crowd, it seemed every hand was in the air waving at the characters, and when it disappeared at the other end of mountain, fireworks and flames danced across the water until one great big explosion of light at the top of the mountain revealed Mickey in his sorcerer's garb for real, creating more fireworks and explosions across the sky until another big one darkened the area and he disappeared saying "Some imagination, huh?" and with one final explosion it was over.

L was still staring in amazement as the crowd went wild with applause and yells of their approval of the show.

"I admit I brought you here because I thought it would be great payback for your making fun of me after that Tower ride, but honestly this turned out to be better than I thought," Light admitted and L nodded his agreement.

"Yes, and once I realized what this show was about I intended to completely ignore it, but I found that impossible." The both stood up as the crowd began to move.

"Come on, let's get back to the hotel," Light said, "I remember you promising me 'later'". L smiled at him seductively.

"Yes, I did and I never lie to you," he answered and Light felt the heat of that smile run through his veins.

"That bus will never move fast enough!" he said pulling L into the crowd and towards the exit.