I'm getting more reviews now for some reason. That makes me so happy! There was a question in an unsigned review that I wanted to respond to, but I couldn't since it was unsigned! I'd answer it in the note, but I don't want to give anything away. Oh well, not much that can be done about it. I recently read some of the Xxxholic chapters online. Watanuki lost his glasses and never replaced them. He has glasses in this story though. I guess I'll have to do an explanation for that eventually, but not right now.
This is chapter 12, Monstro. From this chapter onwards, there will be a small change to the plot, nothing too major. Think of it as a way to make up for how I'm not getting very detailed in this chapter. It's because of Monstro. Seriously, that whale has a maze in his gut. I could not stand that level, and I'm not going to attempt writing it out. I still don't own anything.
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Our group of adventurers were once more flying through innerspace, waiting for another world to appear. Nothing much was happening.
"We're not running into very many ships," mused Sora. "Do the Heartless have a weaker hold in this area?" Donald and Goofy shrugged.
"It's weird, but it's good. One less thing for us to worry about," said Donald. As soon as he said this, something huge suddenly went flying past their ship, causing their eyes to widen. "What was that? !" The thing turned around, allowing them to see what it was. Their eyes widened in shock.
"It's a giant whale!" At that, Jiminy jumped the pocket on Sora's jacket where he had been. It only took one second for him to identify the whale.
"It's Monstro! A whale of a whale! And vicious besides!" And then Monstro started swimming towards them with his mouth wide open.
"Sora! Get us out of here!" shouted Donald. He didn't really need to. Sora had started piloting the ship away as soon as he realized what Monstro was trying to do, but the gummi ship just wasn't going fast enough.
"We're not gonna make it! Brace for impact!" And then they were in the whale's mouth, and the gummi ship was being tossed almost as badly as when they went through the vortex.
"C'mon Riku! It's really weird!" It was a bright, sunny day on Destiny Islands, and little Sora was trying to show little Riku something.
"It's just a hole. What's the big deal?"
"That's what I thought. Then I heard this weird breathing noise. I thought it might be a monster so I went to check it out-"
"You know, most people would avoid monsters," said Riku.
"Yeah, but I was bored, and I thought it would be fun to fight one. Fighting the same people can get old after a while." Riku smirked.
"Especially when you never win."
"Neither do you!" shouted Sora indignantly. "Anyway, I went in to check it out, and there wasn't a monster, but there was a huge cave and a door."
"A door?"
"Yeah, c'mon, I'll show you." Sora quickly knelt down and crawled through the hole. Since Sora didn't seem to have any problem, Riku shrugged and followed him through. Sora grinned as Riku came in. The cave was actually nicely lit because of a hole in the ceiling. Sora pointed at the hole. "Wind comes rushing in through that hole. That's what the breathing sound is." Sora then pointed at a plain looking brown door at the very back of the cave. "And that's the door."
"Are you sure it's a door?"
"What else could it be? It sure is weird though. There's no keyhole or lock. Not even a doorknob. I tried to see if I could open it, but I couldn't."
"So it's just a door? And it doesn't even open?"
"Pretty much."
Riku sighed. "Man, nothing ever happens here. It's so boring."
"It's not so bad. This is a pretty good place to hide. The entrance is hard to see."
"Hey, Sora."
"Hm?"
"When we grow up, let's get off this island! We'll go on real adventures, not kid games!"
"Sure, but what should we do now? I don't want to go home quite yet." Sora thought for a second before lighting up. "Let's go visit that new girl at the mayor's house! I'll race ya!" With that, Sora ran to the crawl space and crawled out of the cave. Riku also walked towards the exit, but stopped and looked back. There, in the center of the door, was a large, gold-lined keyhole.
*Splash!*
Sora blinked. He was on his back, looking at a very fleshy ceiling. "Huh, I remember that. It was when Riku and I found the Secret Spot right before we met Kairi. What was with that bit at the end though?" Then Donald loomed in Sora's vision.
"Sora!" Sora pushed himself into a sitting position, only to find his vision swimming. That couldn't be good. He groaned and put a hand to his forehead, feeling blood. A chest fell, almost hitting him. Sora noted that Goofy was standing above him and Donald, holding his shield up, probably to keep anything from hitting them.
"Sora! Are you okay?"
"I think so. What happened?"
"I think that big ol' whale Monstro went and swallowed us," explained Goofy. Donald pointed behind them to the gummi ship.
"And you went flying through the windshield." That explained why he felt like crap. "You're lucky you're not hurt too badly. I think I can fix most of it with a Cure."
"Good thing I'm a Tsviet."
"Hey, that weird stripey cat called you that too. What's it mean anyway?" asked Goofy. Whoops, Sora didn't mean to say that part out loud.
"It's just a title that some people have in my world."
"Ow! Where's this stuff coming from!" The three tensed up. They turned and saw Aladdin holding his hands over his head and Abu hiding under his vest.
"Aladdin? !" Aladdin looked over, grinned, and waved.
"Hi guys. Ow!" This time a hi-potion hit him in the head. "Who's up there? !"
"It's just me," said a young-sounding voice. Then a black-haired boy looked out over the pile of stuff he was on.
"Oh, it's just a little wooden boy," said Donald. Then everyone blinked as they digested this. "Little wooden boy? !" Jiminy jumped onto Sora's head.
"Pinocchio!" Aladdin blinked.
"Is that a talking bug?" By this time, Pinocchio was walking away on some platforms while holding onto a gummi block. Jiminy looked down at Sora, waving his umbrella towards Pinocchio. "We gotta follow him!"
"Hold on." Sora turned towards Aladdin. "How'd you get here?"
"I jumped onto your ship when you started to leave."
"How'd you get inside? There's only one entrance, and we would've seen you come in," said Donald. This question made Aladdin grin sheepishly.
"Actually, I couldn't figure out how to get in so I just held on. That was really difficult when you flew away from Agrabah. It was a bit easier when you were just flying around in that weird color place."
"You can breathe in innerspace?" That surprised Sora. He'd think that would be impossible because it seemed similar to outer space. There might still be weird side effects though. Sora looked at Donald. "Will that cause any problems?"
"Yeah, do you know how much this is going to damage the world order? !" Yep, he's angry.
"I think he meant Aladdin," said Goofy.
Aladdin held up his hands. "Some of the skin came off my hands when you started flying. I think a potion or that healing spell will fix it." Donald muttered and quickly cast a Cure on the thief and Sora.
"Don't forget Pinnoch!" shouted Jiminy. "We need to go find him!"
It wasn't that difficult. There was a little wooden boat in sight, and Pinocchio was standing on it with an old man with similar clothes, a white and black cat, and a goldfish in a fish bowl. The old man was looking at the gummi block.
"What have you got there Pinocchio?"
"With this, we can get out of here father!" Pinocchio seemed to really believe this. The older man gave the block a bit of a doubtful look.
"Really? With this big block? You think so?"
"It's true." The two looked over at the group. The older man seemed a little surprised to see the group, but Pinocchio wasn't since he'd seen them already. Sora continued his explanation. "You use blocks like that to make ships that can travel between worlds. How'd you end up here?"
"The whale swallowed us," explained the older man. "It happened shortly after our world disappeared. We were floating along in the little boat, and then this whale suddenly came and swallowed us! But my goodness, he swallowed all of you too?"
"Yep!" said Goofy. "Are you friends of Jiminy?"
"You know Jiminy?" asked Pinocchio.
"Who's that? A friend of yours?"
"He's my conscience!"
"Oh, I see." The older man didn't seem to quite believe Pinocchio. He must not know about Jiminy. He looked back at the group. "This is my son Pinocchio, and I'm Geppetto. And these two are Figaro and Cleo. Actually, Pinocchio wasn't with us when we got eaten. We were looking for him when our world disappeared. He only showed up just a few days ago. Thank goodness we're finally together again. I was so worried."
"Why is he made of wood?" asked Aladdin.
"Well, I'm a carpenter," explained Geppetto. "One of the things I make is puppets. When I made Pinocchio, I was wishing for a child, but I don't know why he came to life. It doesn't matter to me though. I'm happy enough to have a son now."
"Uh, where's Pinocchio?" asked Goofy. Looks like Pinocchio left while his father was talking. He must've gotten bored. Geppetto sighed.
"Looks like he wandered off again." Geppetto looked around Monsto's mouth and sighed. "Could you look for him for me? I'm afraid I'm not as spry as I used to be."
"Not like there's anything else we can do," said Sora. That said they started for the back to Monstro's mouth, but then Sora turned towards Aladdin. "Listen. I didn't say anything because I thought you weren't going to be with us for very long, but you need to work on your swordplay."
"Well, I usually avoid fighting, and I hardly ever get caught when I steal."
"In other words, you focused on speed and agility, not fighting skills." Aladdin nodded. Sora sighed. "Great. Well, might as well start working on it now." Aladdin gave him a look of disbelief.
"While we're fighting Heartless?"
"Be glad you're not learning from Seren. She'll train you 'till every fiber of your being is screaming in pain and still want more, and she won't try to save you if something tries to kill you." This got Sora some odd looks. Sora decided to elaborate. "She turns everything into a training exercise. And I do mean everything. And she'll try to drag you into it if she sees you. You always get some sort of injury. I'm still scared by her sometimes." This left the other three wide-eyed. Sora doesn't seem like the type to scare easily. "Can we go now?" The other three nodded wordlessly, and they went forward into the gut of Monstro.
The inside of Monstro looked rather odd. It was purple with some green and yellow patches. There were also some barrels. There were a bunch of holes too. It only took a quick look to determine that Pinocchio was not in there. Then a bunch of Heartless appeared. There were some Shadows, Soldiers, Air Soldiers, and some weird Heartless that looked like a ghost with an eye dangling out of its socket.
"Search Ghost. Look out for teleport? What's that mean?" Then one of the Search Ghosts disappeared in a weird black light and reappeared beside Sora. It tried to grab him, but he knocked it away. "Oh." Donald cast a Fire spell on a couple of Shadows, killing them. Goofy ran up to a Soldier and started bashing it with his shield. Aladdin blocked a swiped from another Soldier and slashed it. Sora kicked an Air Soldier into a Search Ghost, cast Thunder on them, spun to block an attack from an Air Soldier coming up behind him, and cut off its head. Then he ran over to Aladdin.
"You're holding your sword wrong." Aladdin gave him an 'Are you crazy?' look. Sora rolled his eyes, used a Blizzara to freeze the Soldier Aladdin was fighting, grabbed Aladdin's hands, and changed their position. "There, that's better." Aladdin sweatdropped.
"Can't that wait until after the fight?"
"No time like the present." Sora's eyes widened when he saw something coming right at them. "Look out!" He pushed Aladdin out of the way of a barrel with four spider-like legs. Before it could turn and try again, Sora hit it with a Fira spell, causing it to explode and take out a couple of nearby Heartless with it. Aladdin blinked.
"What was that?"
"Barrel Spider." Sora hit a couple of Soldiers trying to sneak up on them with Gravity and Thunder. "I guess their similar to Pot Spiders, except they explode." Then a Search Ghost appeared in front of them, only to get slashed apart by the Keyblade and a scimitar. "Nice to see you're getting used to this."
"Thanks…I think." Didn't take too long to take out the Heartless after that. As soon as they were done, Sora removed the Three Wishes charm and replaced it with the Jungle King charm. Aladdin looked confused. "What did you do that for?"
"Three Wishes is too short for me to use it like a sword. There's a chance I won't be able to reach an enemy with it. But I can't use it like a dagger because of how it's weighted. I'll just use one I know how to use for now. Plus, there are exploding Heartless here. It'll be better if I stay as far away from them as possible." That last point was a very good one, so no one decided to question it, even if Aladdin was a bit peeved that Sora didn't want to use his charm. The four looked around the area before moving on, and found a couple of chests. One had a hi-potion. The other one had another three puppies in it, only these were shaking and looked traumatized, probably because they'd gotten swallowed by a whale. Since it would be too dangerous to take the puppies with them, they backtracked back to the mouth to put them in the gummi ship. Then they went back into Monstro's gut and went through one of the holes.
Pinocchio was looking around the area it led to. Jiminy jumped out of Sora's pocket and onto his head again.
"There you are! Pinocch, we've been looking all over for you!"
"Geppetto's getting awful worried about you," said Goofy.
"Yeah, so stop playing around already!" added Donald. Pinocchio looked disappointed.
"But what about…"
"Pinocchio, who else is here?" asked Sora.
"Just me." I'm sure it's obvious how shocked Goofy and Donald were to see Riku there. Aladdin wasn't surprised because he had no idea who this was. Sora wasn't surprised for some reason.
"Well, wasn't expecting to see you here Riku." Riku raised an eyebrow. That wasn't quite what he expected. "What are you doing here?"
"Nothing much, just playing with Pinocchio."
"You find Kairi yet?"
"Maybe." Riku smirked. "Maybe if you catch us, I'll tell you." Then he grabbed Pinocchio by the arm and ran through a hole right in front of them with the group giving chase behind the two. Riku and Pinocchio somehow managed to disappear by the time they got in the next chamber though.
"Well, that's just great…" muttered Sora.
"Who was that?" asked Aladdin. "He had really weird hair."
"That was Sora's friend, Riku," explained Goofy. "But what was he doing here?"
"Let's find out," said Sora, walking forward.
What followed gave everyone involved a splitting headache. The inside of Monstro was like a maze. The most they could do was go through a hole and hope it led somewhere. Too make things worse, since they were in a living thing, Sora couldn't sense Pinocchio or Riku's aura. Plus they found two more groups of traumatized puppies that they had to take back to the ship. While they were dealing with the Monstro Maze, Riku was calmly carrying an unconscious Pinocchio through Monstro's intestines.
"Why do you still care about that boy?" Riku turned to Maleficent, who had just shown up from nowhere again. "He has all but deserted you for the Keyblade and his new companions after all."
"Tch. I don't care about him. I was just messing with him."
Maleficent raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? Of course you were." She formed a portal. "Beware the darkness in your heart. The Heartless prey upon it." Riku snorted.
"Mind your own business." Maleficent didn't bother to respond to this and simply walked through the portal. Riku turned and continued going to wherever it was he was going.
Meanwhile, our heroes had had just about enough. They'd been wandering around, most likely in circles, for what felt like hours. If they didn't find something soon, at least one of them, probably Sora, would snap and do something drastic. "Does any of this look familiar?" asked Aladdin.
"I think I remember seeing that spot before," said Goofy, pointing at a spot.
"Why that one?" asked Donald.
"It looks like my Uncle Larry." This got him a look from the others. "Ya know, I don't think we ever tried going through that one." He pointed at a hole in a wall. Thing is, it was high, and you'd have to jump pretty high to get to it. Of course, that wasn't really a problem.
"Okay, you guys hold on," said Sora. Then he picked up Donald and threw him onto the ledge in front of the hole. He repeated this with Goofy and turned towards a wide-eyed Aladdin.
"Hey, wait a min-" Aladdin's protest was cut off when Sora grabbed him and threw him onto the ledge. Thankfully, it was a soft landing. Aladdin groaned and rubbed his now sore rear. "For a scrawny kid, Sora's pretty strong." The two anthros just nodded as Sora jumped onto the ledge with them. Then they went through the hole. Unlike the other areas, this was one large area with no other holes in it, or ledges, or barrels. All in all, it was a very large, lavender room that was almost completely empty. It was only almost because there was a large Heartless with tentacles there, and it had a despondent looking Pinocchio in its mouth. Sora's Scan said it was called Parasite Cage. How fitting. Riku was standing in front of it with his sword pulled out. He looked over at Sora with a smirk.
"'Bout time you showed up." He jerked his head towards the Heartless. "Think you're up for this?" Sora snorted, pulling out the Keyblade.
"I'm sure you know." The two friends looked at each other, but it was anything but a friendly glance. This was seemingly the signal to start, as the Heartless let out a screech and slammed its tentacles down on the teens. Or tried to, both darted off to the side at the last second and then came in, delivered several slashes to its body, and then jumped back right as it breathed out some kind of acid.
"Wow, it's like some kind of mirror," said Aladdin.
"I guess they learned to fight at the same place," said Goofy.
"He hasn't yelled at us to join in yet. That's weird," muttered Donald.
"I didn't think anyone could keep up with Sora," said Aladdin. Goofy shook his head.
"Sora can go faster. He just slows himself down so his friends can keep up with him."
Sora and Riku parried several tentacle strikes before bashing the tentacles onto the ground. The Heartless let out a loud screech, and the two boys took advantage of this by quickly running behind it and hitting it hard enough to make it spit out Pinocchio. The little puppet promptly ran out as fast as his legs could carry him. That was when Sora suddenly grabbed Riku, tossed him into a wall, and pinned him with his left arm while he kept the Keyblade pointed at the Parasite Cage, which hadn't quite recovered.
"Sora? ! What are you doing? !"
"I'm the one who should be asking that," said Sora, a little too calmly for everyone else's taste. "I heard Jafar mention your name right before we entered the chamber he and Jasmine were in back in Agrabah." The other's eyes widened, but Aladdin was the one to voice his thoughts.
"What? ! Are you saying he has something to do with what happened to Jasmine? !" Sora just shrugged, not even looking at Aladdin. Riku was not someone you could take your eyes off of. He continued his rather odd talk with the silver-haired boy.
"Are you working with them?" Riku narrowed his eyes.
"What do you care?"
"I don't want my best friend to become another Sephiroth!" At this point, a tentacle came whipping towards Sora. Sora blocked it with the keyblade, but Riku got free from his pin and made a break for it. Sora tried to go after him, but the Parasite Cage got in the way and blocked him. Aladdin and Goofy tried to go for him, but Riku hit them into the wall with his sword, leaving gashes across their abdomens. Donald squawked and ran to the two to heal them. Riku ran through the hole as the Parasite Cage suddenly pulled itself up to the ceiling and burrowed into the flesh to elsewhere. Sora growled slightly and walked over to the others. "You okay?"
"They'll be fine. Just let me finish healing them," said Donald, using a couple more Cure spells. "That guy wasn't pulling any punches." Aladdin suddenly hauled himself to his feet and gave Sora a look.
"I thought you said he was your friend! Why is he working with the Heartless? !" Sora sighed.
"That's what I wanna know." Sora turned towards the hole they came in through. "C'mon. Maybe we can still catch up with him if we leave now."
"Hey, Sora? What's a Sephiroth?" At Goofy's question, Sora tensed up, and the familiar dark aura flared up for a second, so the other three were surprised when Sora actually answered the question.
"A monster. Sephiroth is a monster." And with that, Sora left the chamber before they could ask him anything else.
"That guy is hiding something," muttered Aladdin.
"Yeah, but we need his help to find the king," said Donald. "We better go after him. He won't wait up for us." He was right. Sora didn't wait for them, but he got held up by some Heartless so it was easy to catch up to him. The rest of the trek to the mouth was spent in silence.
"Please give me back my son!" Well, that certainly didn't sound good. Geppetto was still on his boat, staring up on one of the platforms where a smirking Riku was holding an unconscious Pinocchio under his arm.
"Not a chance, old man. Me and this pupp-"
"Riku!" Sora instantly took off running and jumping towards Riku. He was in front of the two in only a few seconds with his daggers drawn. "Release the hostage!"
Riku did the first thing he could think of: He put his sword to Pinocchio's neck. Lucky for him, Sora was one of the two Tsviets that this works with. Sora growled slightly. "What are you doing?"
"This puppet has a heart."
"He's not a puppet! He's my little boy! Please don't hurt him!" Riku ignored Geppetto.
"He might be able to help someone who's lost their heart."
"Someone who's lost their heart?" Some of the pieces fell into place. About time too. Sora had been getting too many questions and too little answers. "You're talking about Kairi, aren't you?"
Riku gave Sora a nasty look. "What do you care?"
"She lost her heart, and you're teaming up with the things that did it? What sort of sick logic is that?" Riku growled.
"Shut up! You don't understand!" He started backing up into another hole that was behind him.
"I'll keep chasing you. Nothing will be able to stop me. You better be ready for that." Riku gave him one last look and then backed into the hole and into whatever chamber it led to.
"Why didn't you stop him? !" shouted Aladdin.
"He would've killed Pinocchio." Geppetto wrung his hands and looked at the travelers.
"Oh dead, oh dear, please go help Pinocchio. I don't think he'll be able to get out of this on his own," he said. It was obvious to anyone who looked that Geppetto was already worried sick.
"We can't jump that high," said Donald. Translation: Sora was going to have to help them up there, either by carrying them or throwing them. Sora calmly worked his way down, picking up another group of traumatized puppies, then worked his way back up with all of his partners. They went through the hole and blinked. It went straight up with some platforms. That wasn't the odd thing. What was odd were the blue-robed, yellow-capped Heartless bouncing around. They looked sort of like the White Mushrooms, but with a different coloring. They were completely ignoring the group.
"Hey, why aren't these guys attacking us?" asked Aladdin.
"They must be like those mushroom guys," said Goofy. Aladdin gave him a confused look.
"'Mushroom guys'?"
"They were these weird Heartless we ran into before," explained Donald. "They did charades, and we cast spells on them that matched what they were doing. They didn't attack us at all and gave us some really rare items if we attacked them."
"Oh. What's charades?" Sora got tired of their conversation and hit one of the Heartless with the Keyblade. It gave Sora a nasty look, stomped a couple of times, and disappeared. Seems they had the same reaction to physical attacks as a White Mushroom. Sora did this with the other Heartless in the chamber. Then he quickly transported the rest of the group to the topmost ledge. Above this ledge in the ceiling was a huge hole. Sora jumped up and into the hole. He didn't come back down. The others looked at each other until Aladdin shrugged and jumped into the hole. The anthros followed a second later. They found themselves landing in a chamber with fleshy pink platforms surrounded by a green liquid. Sora, Riku, and a seemingly unconscious Pinocchio were on the large center platform. Sora had his daggers out and in a position that suggested he was ready and willing to attack. Riku had his sword in a defensive position. Jiminy was trying to wake Pinocchio up.
"Release him," said Sora. Riku glanced towards Pinocchio.
"A puppet that's lost its heart to the Heartless…maybe it holds the key to helping Kairi." Sora narrowed his eyes slightly. Riku shifted his attention back to Sora. "How 'bout it Sora? Let's join forces to save her. We can do it together." Sora frowned and lifted his front dagger slightly.
"I said 'Release him,' and I meant now." Riku frowned.
"You'd rather fight me? Over a puppet with no heart?"
"At least he's not a traitor or a hypocrite!" Riku blinked at that.
"What?"
"The Heartless destroyed our world, and you decide to make them your ally. You talk about saving Kairi, but you're willing to sacrifice others to do so. You have abandoned your friends for the enemy, and you selfishly doom others for your own desires. A traitor and a hypocrite."
"At least I'm doing something to help Kairi!" Riku shouted lividly. Sora shook his head.
"Riku…Think. Is this something Kairi would want?"
"It's what's best for her!" Yep, there's a whole lot of hostility there. Everyone else knew better than to get close to the two boys, except for Jiminy. He was still trying to wake Pinocchio up.
"Pinocchio, Pinocchio! C'mon, wake up! We gotta get out of here!" Jiminy whispered urgently. Surprisingly, Pinocchio did lift his head a little.
"Jiminy?" Jiminy frantically nodded his head. "I'm…not gonna make it." Normally, when someone says something like that, you try to convince them otherwise. This was not necessary. As soon as Pinocchio finished the sentence, his nose grew six inches longer. If you don't know what that means…You probably didn't have a very pleasant childhood. Poor you. Pinocchio blinked, Donald went slack-jawed, Aladdin rubbed his eyes, Goofy tilted his head while a couple of question marks appeared over his head, and Sora blinked a couple of times. Riku raised an eyebrow at their expressions, as he didn't see that Pinocchio's nose had just grown. Pinocchio then smiled. "Oh, I guess I'm okay after all!"
Then there was a whistling sound. Sora and Riku both jumped back as the Parasite Cage landed between them. Pinocchio's eyes widened, and he dashed out of the stomach. Riku stepped back into a dark portal that appeared behind him. "Riku!" Too late. He was gone. Sora let out a curse. " *beep* Riku. What are you thinking?" Then Sora had to jump over a tentacle that tried to hit him. Aladdin came up behind it and put a deep slice in its back. It let out a roar and spun very quickly for something of its size, knocking Aladdin off the platform. Aladdin let out a scream and pulled himself onto a nearby platform. The area of his body that had come into contact with the green liquid was smoking.
"Don't fall into the green stuff!" Aladdin didn't have to tell them twice. Donald quickly hopped over to the Arabian and started using as many Cures as he could. Sora put his daggers away, pulled out the Keyblade, and turned into Wisdom form. That way he didn't have to worry about the acid. Goofy threw his shield at Parasite Cage and hit it right between the eyes. It roared and pulled back a tentacle to hit the dog anthro. Sora glided behind it and let loose a Blizzara spell on its unprotected back. It turned to try and hit Sora, but Aladdin hopped back in at that moment and landed another hit on it. Aladdin's skin was still a bit pink, and Donald was panting on the smaller platform.
"Hey! Be careful! I don't want to have to fix that again!" shouted Donald.
"Right, I'll be careful!" he shouted back. He then blocked a tentacle. Goofy jumped over and rammed it hard enough to send it back a couple of inches while Sora hit it several times with magical blasts. The Heartless then grabbed onto the ceiling, pulled itself up a few feet, and let go of the ceiling.
"Aero! Aero!" Aladdin and Goofy were covered in spheres of wind that lessened the shockwave enough that they weren't knocked off the platform. Donald was far away enough that he wasn't too affected. Since Sora was levitating slightly, he wasn't very affected. Donald, who had finally recovered, fired off a Fira spell, Sora hit it with more blasts, Aladdin got in another slash in its side, and Goofy threw his shield. Parasite Cage twitched a couple of times, and then spun around rapidly, its tentacles whipping around. Sora jumped over them, but Goofy and Aladdin were both hit. Sora's eyes widened at this.
"No!" And then everything just stopped. Sora blinked a couple of times. "What?"
"It's a spell!" It was Donald. He must've been out of the range. "It freezes time!"
"I'll get the others!" Sora quickly went over to his two allies. He didn't know how to undo it, and even if he did, they'd just go flying into the acid. He just changed their position so that they'd land on the ground on the platform instead of in the acid. Then he joined Donald in attacking the boss Heartless as much as possible, although it didn't seem like any damage was done. Then the time limit of the spell ran out. Goofy and Aladdin landed on the ground with an 'oof.' All the damage done by their attacks showed up almost all at once. It teetered a bit. Then it fell over and started to disappear.
"What just happened?" asked Aladdin.
"Magic," said Sora and Donald simultaneously.
"Ah." Then the stomach started shaking.
"We need to get out of here!" shouted Donald. The all ran, glided in Sora's case, out of a hole nearby. Fortunately, it led back to the previous chamber and they were able to get back to the mouth in about a minute. Geppetto and Pinocchio were running around the boat, securing anything that wasn't already secured to the boat. Geppetto noticed them.
"Hurry! I don't like the looks of this! I think he's going to be sick!" They certainly didn't want to experience that, so they ran to the gummi ship.
"Does this happen everywhere you go?" asked Aladdin.
"No, you're just unlucky," said Sora.
"Get ready!" shouted Donald. At that moment, Monstro started heaving and opened his mouth. The heaving motions caused the two ships to go flying out. The gummi ship flew off before they had to deal with whale vomit. Can whales even vomit? Well, they certainly didn't want to find out.
"So, where are we going now?" asked Aladdin.
"We're going back to Agrabah. We can't take you with us," said Donald.
"Hey! Wait a minute! You can't just-"
"Agrabah is in the opposite direction," said Sora.
"So?"
"We'll run into that whale again, and we can't warp in the middle of a flight. Besides, I have no problem with Aladdin coming with us. He obviously is willing to fight." There was silence as Aladdin grinned.
"Looks like you guys are stuck with me." Donald just sighed as they continued on. Sora looked back behind them, where they had run into Riku.
"I'll find you again Riku, and I'll find out just what you're trying to do."
Meanwhile, in the villains' hideout, Riku was looking at a comatose Kairi while Maleficent observed them.
"So, Kairi's like a lifeless puppet now?" asked Riku.
"Precisely." Riku sighed.
"And her heart was…"
"Taken by the Heartless no doubt." Riku clenched his hands before turning to face the sorceress.
"Tell me! What can I do? !"
"There are seven maidens of the purest heart. We call them the princesses of heart. Gather them together, and a door will open to the heart of all worlds. Within lies untold wisdom. There you will surely find a way to recover Kairi's heart." Maleficient raised her hand. "Now, I'll grant you a marvelous gift: The power to control the Heartless." A black aura surrounded Riku. He didn't panic or show any fear. He just calmly watched as it went into his body. As it faded away, he turned to look at Kairi again.
"Soon, Kairi. Soon."
-end of chapter-
And that is that. That's right. I made Aladdin a member of their party. He just doesn't strike me as the type of guy who would sit back and let someone rescue their love interest. He'll be around for a while.
In case you couldn't tell, the reason Sora wasn't surprised to see Riku was because he heard him being mentioned by Jafar last chapter. Also, it may seem out of character for Sora to use an old Keyblade instead of a new one that his new party member gave him, but it's military logic. Besides, you want to stay as far away from explosives as possible.
Now, here's an omake that goes with the reunion theme going on in this chapter.
Omake: What about the rest? Part IX
Ed lazily swung his feet as he chewed his dinner. For some reason, he was in a mining town of some sort. He didn't know why. He'd been surrounded by some sort of dark energy and then was just in this dump. It hadn't been Nero though. He was familiar enough with the dark Tsviet to know that. Ed was guessing he'd somehow ended up in another world again. It wasn't too much of a problem. High tech prosthetics were fairly common in this world so no one bothered him about that, but all of the townsfolk seemed to think he was an alchemist. Ed snorted. Like alchemy was real. What a bunch of stupid concepts. He could transmute, but there was science behind it. Ed smirked. That ability was very useful. He was turning junk into gold so that the townspeople could pay their ridiculously high taxes. In return, he was given food and board. Those people were so stupid. If those taxes were causing them so much trouble, they should do something about it!
A commotion caught his attention. A young man wearing black pants, a black shirt, white gloves, and a red coat with an odd symbol on the back came flying out the door. Odd, that symbol seemed familiar. "Don't come back, government dog!" Ah, that explained it. The townsfolk weren't exactly fond of the government. The young man sighed and picked up his bag. Then he turned to face Ed. His hair was dark blond and in a ponytail. One of his eyelids was shut. It was flat too, so there probably wasn't an eye under it. His remaining eye was a light brown. The young man blinked and stared in disbelief.
"Ed?" The reaction was instantaneous. Ed was right in front of the man with his spear at his throat.
"How do you know my name?" The young man blinked.
"You mean…you really are Ed?"
"How do you know my name?" He got a relieved smile as an answer.
"I finally found you! Ed, it's me, Al."
"Who?" The man's face fell.
"Huh? What do you mean 'who?' I'm Alphonse, your little brother." Ed scowled and put his spear away.
"You got the wrong guy. I don't have a brother." Al got a look of disbelief on his face.
"But you gotta be. You look just like him, you sound like him, you even have the same name." Ed took a moment to think about that. He was sure he was in a world in another universe. Now, Ed wasn't an expert in the subject, but he figured it was possible that there was another version of him in this world. This Al guy seemed pretty determined to believe Ed was his brother though. He probably wouldn't accept that theory. "Brother?"
"Don't call me that. We're not brothers." Al looked hurt, but Ed didn't really care. "I'm out of here." Ed turned to go, but Al grabbed his shoulder. Ed spun to slit the younger male's throat, but Al was able to dodge it. Ed raised an eyebrow. "Not bad."
"Come with me!" Ed blinked.
"What?"
"You've just forgotten! If you spend time with someone you knew, maybe you'll remember something!" It was true that Ed's memories from before he was a Tsviet were pretty much gone. Mako and all that stuff. He didn't really care that he'd forgotten though. Still, he was getting tired of this town. The only reason he hadn't left was because he didn't have any idea where anything was.
"Sure, I've been wanting to leave this town for a while." Al's face immediately lit up with a happy smile.
"That's great!" Ed rolled his eyes. Honestly, why was this guy so ridiculously certain they were related? Oh well, it wasn't his problem. At least he could go somewhere else now.