Sorry it took me so long to upload! But here it is at last!! Enjoy!
Chapter 3
Through the darkness comes a splitting ray of light, sweeping across my torso and illuminating the surrounding alleyway.
"Gawrsh, so you think she's still alive…?"
"Yeah, just unconscious. Hey, help me get this trash can off her, okay?"
"Sure thing, uh-yuck!"
I could feel something heavy—and from the dull, echoing clang it made as it moved, metal—being pushed from my chest, and my breathing instantly became easier. Squinting, I peeled my eyes open a little more to see three dark shapes hovering above my face, silhouetted by the glow of an open doorway.
"Here, I'll grab her hands, you grab her feet, Goofy. Ugh… that's not gonna work. I'm… not tall enough… Here, Donald help me pick up her shoulders."
I could feel my body being raised, like a broken puppet, by unseen hands. Someone encircled their arms around my chest.
"IDIOT! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO GRAB A LADY THAT WAY!! IT'S INDECENT!!" Garbles a strangely familiar voice.
"Shut up!! I'm trying my best here!!"
"What if she were to wake up, huh?! How do you think she'd like that?!"
"Get off my case already!!"
From the unnatural swaying movement of our gait, I assumed that my rescuers were being forced to wind around obstructions on the path. For a while there was silence, and I couldn't hear anything except the uneven breathing of my three transporters. Everything inside me screams to struggle, to move on my own. My muscles need it, my mind needs it. But as before, my body is completely out of my control—like a doll. But I can feel myself coming to faster then before, so I know that all I have to do is be patient.
And for me, that's a problem.
"Hey, I think she might be coming around!"
As soon as the words are uttered out loud I'm set down on the ground, which is made of some kind of rough stone, by the feel.
"About time," mutters the distorted voice. "Hey! Wake up!!"
I'm promptly battered on the cheek with something hard and feathery.
"Donald! Be careful, she's a lady! Uh-yuh!"
"Yeah, yeah… HEAL!!"
A glowing blue light sparkles, flaming the inside of my eyelids a vivid red hue. I can feel warmth spread through each one of my limbs, and immediately the numb, deadweight sensation drains away leaving my body feeling perfectly normal. Better then normal, in fact. I feel completely revitalized and then some.
Slowly, I open my eyes again and lift my head to look at my rescuers. What I see causes me to flop back into my former position, and very nearly lose consciousness altogether, it's so bizarre. Not to mention disturbingly recognizable, in an uncanny sense.
As I'd already deduced beforehand, there are indeed three of them standing together. One is a boy, small and slight, about thirteen-to-fourteen years old. He has light brown hair, spiked and poking up at odd angles all around his head. His eyes are wide and pure, pure blue… and he's got some sort of enormous, delicately-hewn key-shaped sword strapped to his back.
And he's the normal-looking one of group.
Positioned closest to me is the loudest member of the party. Covered with feathers white as untainted marble, it's the largest duck I have ever seen in my life. It stands about a foot-and-a-half tall, and has beady black eyes which gaze upon me condescendingly. Its bill is orange, slim, and opens very wide whenever he opens it to speak. His body is fairly plump for a duck, and his feet are flat and unusually large. As my eyes adjust to the light, or lack thereof, I can feel shock flood my mind as I see his wings—which seem to end in what can best be described as a four-fingered hands. Feathery, yes, but hands nonetheless.
It's holding some sort of staff over me, and I can see that this is the source of the shimmering blue light. The lustrous tendrils flow in graceful arcs over my torso and legs, gradually dimming as I regain all of my former energy.
On his left stands the strangest of them all: a tall, lean creature with a pale snout and black fur surrounding its head, neck, and the rest of its body. Its eyes are gigantic orbs of snow-white, with the blackest irises I have ever seen which stare back at me with open curiosity. His ears are long and bell-shaped, and covered with the same thick, pitch-black fur as the rest of his person. A huge shield is buckled to his forearm, and I wonder that he has enough strength in his slim arms to lift it. Large, curved fangs jut from his overhanging upper lip—white like bone, and glistening in the light of nearby streetlamps.
The best way to describe it would to call the creature a very lanky wolf, which stands on two legs, and wears… clothing. Oh gosh…
They all wear strange garb, which is oddly trampled and worn, as though they have been traveling for a long time without much rest. Of them all, the boy appears the most friendly. He grins at me and stoops forward, coming to kneel beside me as I struggle to prop myself up on my elbows.
"Hey, are you feeling better now?" he asks brightly. The duck gives a single, affronted snort and folds its wings across its chest.
"Of course she is," it scoffs. "I healed her, didn't I?"
"There's no need to get all defensive, Donald," the wolf-creature pipes amiably. "We all know that you're the most powerful magician in the royal court!"
"Humph!" the duck glares at me, puffing its feathers and lifting its bill into the air. "Perhaps not all of us. Most people say 'thank you' when their life has just been saved," he grumbles in my direction.
"Um… thank you…" I respond automatically. Addressing the boy now, I pose a question. "J-Just… where am I? And you people…" I narrow my eyes. I already understand who they are, but to not ask would seem strange since they don't understand my situation.
"Well, this place is called Traverse Town. And as for who we are, that there's Donald, and Goofy right beside him, and I'm Sora—HEY!! Are you from another world?" the boy suddenly bursts out, his eyes wild with excitement.
"SORAAA!!" the duck squawks, furious. "YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT THAT!!"
"But her clothes… I thought that maybe she came from somewhere else…" The boy, Sora, looks both downcast and mulish at the same time. He turns his attention back at me, ignoring the enraged sputtering which ensues from his fowl-like companion. "So are you? From another world, I mean?"
I hesitate, unsure how to answer. These people can't know where I come from. They can't know that I've already met them, (in a way of speaking) and know every single thing that's going to happen to them during their travels to find Sora's friends and the King. They can't know—they wouldn't understand.
"Yes. Yes… I'm from… another world. I don't know how I ended up here, though…" I'm not sure how to act, so I decide that bewildered apprehension is the right way to go. It seems to work.
"Oh! Maleficent, that bloodthirsty old hag… she's at it again, darn it!" the boy growls, his brows furrowing.
"What?" I ask, still playing the part of the perplexed, uninformed victim.
"Here—come on, we'll explain everything. What did you say your name was?" Sora asks as he pulls my right arm across his shoulders and helps me to my feet. I don't really need the assistance, but I decide that due to my present alias, my reaction of helplessness is necessary.
"My name is… Elise." No last name necessary. And my real one will do fine—it's not like they can google it or something.
With Donald still grumbling behind out backs, the four of us make our way down the darkened streets of Traverse Town. Sora babbles happily at my side, and explains that they were sweeping the city for Heartless when they found me in that alleyway, half-buried by overturned trashcans.
"—It's a lucky thing that we happened on by," he prattles cheerfully. "You could've been killed by those things or something! Whew, that would've been terrible!"
We enter into a different part of town, and I recognize the place as one I've passed many times before. And I know what's coming.
"W-Wait! Sora, there—there's something ahead—Rik—!" I stop myself just in time, and snap my jaw shut in shock that I just spoke out loud. Oh, no! Something inside me cries. Now I'm gonna be found out!
Sora gives me a look of confusion. "R…Riku? What?"
I turn my face away to hide my uncontrollable blushing. All four of us have stopped walking, and everyone is staring at me with wide, mystified eyes. Except for Donald, who looks blatantly mistrustful.
"H—How do you know about Riku?" Sora demands, still looking startled. "Elise?"
And then, out jumps a band of dark, hideous little creatures with round, grotesque-looking heads and quivering antennae. They swarm towards us, shifting shape and warping from side-to-side as they advance. The sheer volume of their numbers triggers my immediate panic, and I scream a warning to the others.
"Guys! LOOK OUT!!" All eyes turn, and in a moment the three have prepared the onslaught with an expertise game-play can't master in the least. Sora turns and stands protectively in front of me, his keyblade drawn and held before him with both hands like a samurai.
But even as my three companions move into battle, from the shadows of a building across the square springs a new addition to the fight. In half and second, all the Heartless have vanished into curling black smoke.
"Hey Sora, wake up already!"
"Un…!" Sora visibly flinches and stares in unchecked shock. "N… No way!"
A boy stands in the midst of the coiling vapors, smiling smugly as he transforms his black, winged-blade into mere tendrils of the same dark mist as the unfortunate Heartless. His eyes are fastened on Sora, and he grins all the wider at the other boy's visible astonishment.
"It took me forever to find you, you know," he laughs.
Sora recovers in a heartbeat. "RIKU!! Is it really you, pal?"
Riku just grins. But deep in my gut, I can feel my stomach turn.
--End of Chapter 3
Thank you for reading! See you at Chapter 4!