Here we are in chapter 13. 13 is usually an unlucky number, but when it comes to Kingdom Hearts…well, it's probably still unlucky 'cause Organization XIII are the bad guys…mostly.
I'm sorry it took so long for me to update, but I couldn't remember if Rabbit's house was a tree or part of a hill or something else, and I couldn't find my copy of Kingdom Hearts. I still can't find it, but I thought I'd waited long enough to update and went ahead with posting the chapter. I just removed most descriptions of Rabbit's house. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Anyway, this one is a bit of a filler chapter. Sora wants to do a couple of things before they go to Atlantica. I still own nothing except for the plot.
Also, I would like to say thank you Gamefaqs! They have information that comes in handy when writing stories. It only occurred to me to do that just now. I don't know if I should have been doing that the whole time…Oh well, I'm doing it now.
-end of AN-
After some flying and shooting of Heartless ships, the group reached the next world. It appeared to be a purple rock sphere with water, coral, and a sunken ship in it.
"Wow, that's a lot of water," said Aladdin. He's from the desert. He is not used to something like this.
"Well, we've got a problem," said Sora. "Unless this thing doubles as a submarine, we won't be able to go down there without drowning." Aladdin blinked.
"What's a submarine?"
"It's sort of like a ship that works underwater with air for people to breathe," explained Sora.
"I can use my magic to let us breathe underwater," said Donald.
"So, this one won't be a problem then?" asked Sora.
"Nope."
"Mind if we make a detour?" Everyone blinked. Sora seemed to want to stop at every single world they found. "We can come back with the warp gummi, right?"
"That's right!" said Chip.
"And we can go to worlds we've already been to with the warp gummi. It shouldn't be too much of a problem," continued Sora.
"What do you wanna do?" asked Goofy.
"Go to the Coliseum and get Phil to give Aladdin a quick crash course in hero training, and then go to Traverse Town to drop off the puppies and see Merlin about the new spell I learned."
"Why do I need training?" asked Aladdin.
"No offense, but you still need to work on your sword work. Hercules has a sword, so I guess that Phil teaches some sword work."
"Hey, they're having a tournament at the Coliseum again," said Dale. "Maybe you can enter. They'll probably have a great prize again!" Donald looked like he was going to argue, but he huffed and crossed his arms.
"Well, fine, but we better not take too long!"
A minute later, they were hovering in front of the Coliseum.
"Whoa, that was fast!" said Aladdin.
"I guess Cid knows what he's doing," said Sora. "I wish I could remember why his name is so familiar…"
They just disembarked and went into the lobby. Phil looked up from where he was writing something down. "Oh, you're back." Phil raised an eyebrow at Aladdin. "Who's the yahoo?"
"Hey!"
"This is Aladdin," explained Sora. "He decided to come with us because the opposition kidnapped his girlfriend." Aladdin blushed slightly, but didn't deny it. "He doesn't have much fighting experience. Can you give him some hero training?"
Phil rubbed his chin. "Damsel in distress, eh? She a looker?" This got three of them to sweatdrop. Sora didn't for some reason.
"She's a princess," said Goofy.
"Okay, sure. I'll give him a crash course." They sweatdropped some more. "You guys wanna fight in the tournament while we're doing that?"
"Can't I do the training after the tournament?" asked Aladdin.
"Well, if you wanna watch, fine." The four adventurers blinked. "They've already got a registered team. If they change it, they'll have to start all over, and the next Phil Cup won't be held for another few days."
"It's called the Phil Cup?" said Donald, giving Phil a weird look.
"Yeah, this one's the Pegasus Cup. So, you signing up or not?"
Five minutes later, Sora, Donald, and Goofy were in the dugout waiting for their turn. Sora had switched to Three Wishes and was doing some practice swings with it. He wanted to get some practice in with his shorter Keyblades.
"It's too bad Aladdin couldn't fight with us," said Goofy.
"I dunno. For a second there, he had a weird look on his face," said Sora. "I think he might try something…"
Then they had to start fighting. First up were 2 Search Ghosts, 3 Air Soldiers, and a Bandit.
"More Heartless?" muttered Sora. "I was hoping to actually fight some people." Then he ran forward and brought his Keyblade down on the Bandit. It managed to block, barely. Donald used a Thunder to hit the Air Soldiers, and Goofy threw his shield at one of the Search Ghosts, making its head fly back. The other one teleported behind Sora and tried to claw him, but Sora spun around and cut it in two. The Bandit tried to attack him, but Sora spun back around and hit it with a roundhouse kick that sent it lying into the barrier. Then it was impaled when Sora threw the Keyblade at it. Meanwhile, Goofy was continuing to bash the Search Ghost with his shield, and Donald cast Gravity on the Air Soldiers. Since they were now on the ground, Sora grabbed the Keyblade, ran over and beheaded one of them. Goofy had finished taking care of the Search Ghost, and came over to help. The Air Soldiers didn't last long after this.
The second round consisted of 2 Bandits, 4 Shadows, and 3 Barrel Spiders. Sora and Donald hit the Barrel Spiders with Fira spells. The explosion took out the Shadows and Bandits.
The third round was against 1 Fat Bandit, 2 Large Bodies, 1 Barrel Spider, and, and a Pot Spider. Donald hit the Barrel Spider with a Fira, Goofy threw his shield and shattered the Pot Spider, and Sora slashed open the back of one of the Large Bodies. Sora and Goofy continued to attack the large Heartless from behind while Donald hit them with spells and dodged the fireballs the Fat Bandit spat out. All in all, not a difficult match.
The fourth round match was against 2 Green Requiems, 3 Yellow Operas, and 5 Pot Spiders. Sora immediately went for the Green Requiems. Donald hit the others with a Stop spell (He figured out how to use it by watching Sora use it a few times on the way to Atlantica.) on the rest of the Heartless. Goofy started bashing those Heartless. When Sora was done with the Green Requiems, he helped Goofy. Time started up, and the Heartless had to go through all the attacks at once and died.
Fifth round found the three fighting 2 Fat Bandits and 4 Search Ghosts. Goofy did his spinning move, Sora somehow managed to jump onto a Fat Bandit's shoulder and cut its head into two, and Donald used Thunder on them. Surprisingly easy considering it had so many Search Ghosts.
The Sixth Round was a bit…stranger. There were three little mushroom Heartless with purple hats and a blue-black cloak. Sora raised an eyebrow. "Black Fungi. Poisonous. Does that mean they actually attack?" The three Fungi started walking forward. Cautious, Sora threw his Keyblade at one. The Black Fungus twitched a little and then squatted down, releasing a purple gas. Sora's eyes widened and he covered his nose and mouth. "Don't breathe the gas! It's poisonous!" The anthros' eyes widened and they quickly covered their faces as well. The Black Fungi walked closer. Sora took a deep breath, held it, and quickly ran forward to hit one as many times as he could. After two hits, the Black Fungus suddenly turned to stone. Sora hit it anyway. When most people hit stone, they either break their hand or break their weapon. Sora actually managed to shatter the Fungus. Unfortunately, the shattered Fungus released more gas when it got shattered. Sora winced and jumped back, but noticed that some of the gas was sticking to his skin. "Are there spores in there? *Beep*! I hope antidotes work on it." Donald and Goofy had figured out that long distance attacks worked best and were staying as far away from the mushroom Heartless as possible. Donald quickly hit one with a Fira spell. This time, both the Fungi turned to stone. Sora pulled out a vial filled with a golden liquid and threw it at the Fungi. They blinked in confusion, but it didn't have any effect on them.
"What the heck was that? !" shouted Donald.
"It was a soft! It's supposed to de-petrify people and kill stone monsters! I guess it doesn't have any effect on these guys since they're Heartless!" And then the Black Fungi turned back to normal. The three then concentrated as many attacks on them as they could. Thankfully, they took out the remaining Black Fungi before they turned into stone again. Unfortunately, the fungi released more gas. Sora sighed when he noticed his skin now had a purple tint to it. He pulled out three bottles with green liquid in them. He handed one to Donald and Goofy, who gave them odd looks. "They're antidotes. They counteract most poisons." Sora downed his to prove his point.
"Hey! Where'd you get a soft and antidotes? !" It was Yuffie. She and Leon were competing too, but their group had ended up on the opposite end of the chart. The two groups would only fight if they both made it to the finals. "I haven't seen any since the Heartless got our world!"
"Chris made them, and Kimihiro makes sure that everyone always has some, even if it means sneaking them into clothes," explained Sora.
"Who're those guys?" asked Yuffie. "Your family?" Sora nodded. "That's some family."
"No kidding."
The seventh round was a bit normal. Their opponents were 5 Barrel Spiders and 5 Pot Spiders. The Barrel Spiders were blown up by Fira spells and the ensuing explosions shattered the Pot Spiders.
The eighth round had 3 Fat Bandits and 2 Large Bodies. Donald started casting spells. Goofy threw his shield at one of the Large Bodies' heads while he circled to the back. Sora threw the Keyblade at a Fat Bandit's head. Then he ran toward it, casting a Blizzara spell. He slid past the Fat Bandit and picked up the Keyblade. Then he sliced the Fat Bandit in two vertically. Donald's continued spell casting finally killed the two Large Bodies. Goofy continued bashing the back of another Fat Bandit and destroyed that one. That left one Fat Bandit. It started spitting fireballs at the three, but they were either able to dodge or block them. Then they launched attacks right at its head. Said head was destroyed, and the body followed soon after.
The last round was Leon and Yuffie, as expected.
"We're gonna kick your asses!" shouted Yuffie. Leon just stayed silent. Sora pulled out his daggers instead of the Keyblade. He remembered what happened last time he took on Leon, and he was going all out this time. That meant using the weapon he was most comfortable with. He also went into Valor form. Yuffie blinked several times. Leon raised an eyebrow. Then Sora suddenly appeared in front of Yuffie and made several slashes at her. Yuffie backflipped away, barely avoiding the slashes, but there were some thin scratches on her abdomen. "He got faster!" Then Sora managed to get up close to Yuffie again. This time, he did land a slash before Yuffie managed to backflip. When Yuffie landed this time, she started tossing shuriken at Sora as quickly as she could. Now, Yuffie may be an immature, hyper girl, but she isn't kidding when she says she's a ninja. She threw the shuriken with enough force and speed that most people wouldn't be able to react to them. Sora managed to dodge and block them all, but it looked like he needed enough concentration to do so that he didn't move forward. Yuffie decided to keep tossing her shuriken.
You're probably wondering what Leon has been doing. He wasn't doing nothing. As soon as he saw just what Sora was now capable of, he'd tried to go over to Yuffie, but Goofy had blocked him. Goofy does not have much of an offense compared to Leon, but he has a great defense. Good enough that he was able to block all of Leon's attacks, even if he was wincing every time Leon's gunblade connected with his shield. Donald cast a quick Aero spell on Goofy. Leon snarled and sped his attacks up. Now, Goofy was having trouble defending himself. Donald cast a Fira spell on Leon, but he knocked it away with little problem. Then he knocked Goofy to the side and ran over to Sora. Fortunately, Sora saw him coming and was able to block the attack. Yuffie took this opportunity to use one of her limits and heal her abdomen. Then she realized something.
"Those were all of my shuriken!" Sure, she could go over and try to get them, but it wouldn't be safe with Leon and Sora exchanging blows in the middle of the thrown shuriken. Yuffie sighed. "Well, this is just great." Then she had to dodge a Blizzara spell and Goofy's shield. "I can't believe it! I'm gonna have to use my other limit if I wanna last!" Yuffie held her hands up. A large, blue, translucent, glowing shuriken appeared in them. Then she threw it at Goofy. He ducked, but the shuriken suddenly turned right around and hit him in the shield arm. He yelped and dropped his shield. Then the shuriken changed direction again and headed towards Donald. Donald squawked and ran a couple of feet to the left. The shuriken changed direction again and continued heading for the Magician.
"Aero!" The spell slowed the shuriken down slightly, but it still hit him in the shoulder. Goofy was trying to use a potion to heal his arm, but Yuffie was fighting him hand to hand to prevent this.
"Donald can use a healing spell, so I need to take him out. Goofy can't use magic so he's less of a problem, and Leon's taking care of Sora." Yuffie's thoughts were cut off when Sora suddenly appeared in front of her. Her eyes widened. "He managed to get away from Leon!" Then Sora kicked Yuffie in the stomach hard enough to send her flying into the force field. Yuffie coughed up a bit of blood and fainted while her shuriken disappeared. Donald let out a sigh of relief and quickly cast a group Cure.
"You actually beat Yuffie." Uh oh. Leon was starting to come over. "I guess you guys are stronger than I gave you credit for." With that, Leon twirled his gunblade, causing a blue energy to cover it, making the blade longer and a bit wider. Goofy and Donald glanced at Sora. He was heavily panting. He also had a few small cuts on his body, which had probably been larger before Donald used Cure. Sora was currently trying to figure out what to do.
"Leon was going easy on me last time! I need to think of something fast or I'll be down for the count!" Then Leon ran up, and Sora didn't have time to think. Sora brought up one dagger to block an overhead strike and immediately had to use his other dagger to block a swipe from the side.
"Aero!" Donald quickly cast the defensive spell on Sora. It did little to help though. Leon's hits were still coming through, and they still made Sora feel like his arms were going to get ripped out their sockets when he blocked. Goofy quickly tried to hit him with his shield, but Leon easily knocked this attack away. Then he slashed Goofy across the chest and kicked him into the force field, knocking him out. Sora tried to attack him at that moment, but Leon brought his gunblade back around and hit Sora in the head with the flat side of the blade. As Sora was knocked to the ground, Leon whirled around and shot at Donald, who was about to use a Cure spell. The bullets hit him in the hand, arm, and shoulder. Donald let out a loud squawk, dropped his staff, and grabbed his injured arm. Leon took a step towards Donald, but stopped and turned back around. Sora had pushed himself back to his feet, but he was panting, sweating, bloody, and could barely hold his knives.
"You're still conscious?" Leon sighed and shook his head. "You really don't know when to quit. If we keep going, you'll end up much worse than this, and we really can't afford that right now."
"Tsviets…either win…or die…" Leon's eye twitched at this.
"You can't be serious! What sort of shit-brained idea is that? !"
"Nngh!" Leon rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger.
"Honestly, I don't know where you even got such a stupid idea."
"Nnnn…."
"And what's a 'Tsviet' anyway?"
Sora suddenly grabbed his right shoulder and let out a blood-curdling scream. Leon froze up and wondered if he'd hurt Sora more than he meant to. That worry was pushed out of his mind as Sora suddenly started violently stabbing his right shoulder with a dagger. For a moment, Leon just stared in shock. Then he acted.
"Hey! Stop that!" Leon grabbed Sora's hand. The Tsviet growled and bit Leon's hand. Leon quickly drew his hand back. "He broke the skin…I hope he's not rabid, because I'm seriously starting to think he is." Sora had gone back to stabbing his shoulder again. Leon turned to Phil. "Hey! Call the match!"
"Uh…Slight problem. The force field doesn't go down until one team goes down or gives up." Leon turned to look at Donald, but the duck seemed to have passed out from blood loss. Well, there went the giving up option. Leon made a note not to knock out the two normal members of the team if he had to fight Sora's team again. He turned back to Sora, who was still stabbing himself. Leon decided to just knock Sora out with the butt of the gunblade. The only problem was that Sora caught Leon's hand before the weapon could connect with his head. Leon's eyes widened.
"He can still use that arm? !" Surprisingly, despite his shoulder being a bloody mess, Sora's right arm was still functioning just fine. Sora looked up at Leon and sneered. Then he tried to stab him with the bloody dagger. Leon wrenched his hand out of Sora's grip and backed up in time to avoid the swipe. Instead of returning his attention to his shoulder, he staggered forward and tried to stab Leon. Normally, Leon would not worry too much about this. Sora was moving more sluggishly, and it was easy to avoid the knife, but there was a lot of blood dripping onto the ground from Sora's shoulder. Leon grit his teeth. There was only one thing he could do. He threw his gunblade to the ground. "There, I give." Sora blinked and looked from the gunblade to Leon. Then his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward in a dead faint. Leon groaned. "Now you faint…"
About an hour later:
Sora groaned as he woke up. "Ah, great, Leon must've knocked me out…Why does my shoulder hurt so much?" Sora rubbed his eyes.
"You're up!" Sora tilted his head and saw Goofy, Donald, Leon and Yuffie watching him. Aladdin presumably was still with Phil. Yuffie grinned. "We were starting to think you would never wake up."
"Huh? Why?"
"You started stabbing yourself," said Leon.
Sora blinked and took a look at his right shoulder. The first thing that occurred to him was that his shirt and vest were bloody and had holes around that area. The second thing that occurred to him was that he could see some pretty bloody bandages under the holes. The third thing he noticed was that his right arm was in a sling. Sora groaned. "What exactly did I do this time?" Leon narrowed his eyes.
"You don't remember?"
"I blacked out while you were talking about how I was being stupid." Leon rolled his eyes.
"You started stabbing yourself, and when I tried to stop you, you attacked me. And I'm assuming this has happened before since there were scars all over your shoulder and shoulder blade." Yuffie decided to add her two cents.
"Plus you just said 'This time.'"
Sora sighed. How exactly was he supposed to explain it? "It's a defense mechanism." He got disbelieving looks. "It's not a defense against an outside threat. It's a defense against an inside threat." Yuffie gave him a worried look.
"You're not sick, are you?"
"No, I don't think so anyway. Chris would've noticed. It's from something Shinra did to me." Yuffie nodded in understanding. Everyone else seemed confused. "The Shinra Company regularly experimented on people." This time Yuffie slammed her fist into her open hand with a triumphant look on her face.
"I knew it!"
"And you're one of these people?" asked Leon.
Sora nodded. "Yeah, it's probably why my limits are so odd…Anyway, the reason I started stabbing myself is because there is one thing that I rejected so violently that when it starts to act up, I attack it."
"Shouldn't your immune system be attacking it?" asked Leon.
"Well, that experiment had to do with injecting foreign cells into my body. My body actually accepted them, but I was so upset by it, that whenever my mind picks up that they're starting to act up, I just…I dunno…freak out and attack myself. I can never remember doing it though."
"Why your shoulder though?" asked Yuffie. "That's kind of a weird place to do it."
"That's just where the cells are most concentrated."
"How often does this happen?" asked Leon.
"Not too often. Only when I'm really stressed and don't calm down."
"Are you gonna be okay Sora?" asked Goofy.
"Oh, yeah, I'll be fine in a couple of days. I'll just use my left hand until then."
"Yeah, but won't that be really awkward?" asked Yuffie.
"Not really. I'm ambidextrous." Everyone blinked. Actually, that sort of made sense. Sora didn't seem to favor either of his hands when he used his daggers, and he kept both his hands on the Keyblade at all times. "So, where's Aladdin?"
"He finished training with Phil. We don't know what he's doing now," said Donald. Yuffie snickered slightly, which got her some odd looks. Then Aladdin came in.
"Hey guys…What happened to Sora?"
"Sora went psycho and started stabbing himself," explained Donald. Aladdin gave him a weird look. Sora sighed and explained again.
"Okay, what's a cell though? Is it like a prison cell?"
"They're microscopic things that make up the bodies of all living things," said Leon, giving Sora a look that said 'Where'd you get this guy?'
"Oh, what's microscopic?"
"Too small to see," said Donald.
"Ah."
"Is there anyone who can speed this up?" asked Donald, pointing at Sora's injury.
"You could try Aerith or Merlin," suggested Yuffie.
"Looks like we're going back to Traverse Town then," said Sora. The group of would-be heroes got up and left the Coliseum. Yuffie turned towards Leon.
"Do you think he realizes they won?"
"Probably not. Aladdin wasn't there, Donald and Goofy were unconscious, and Sora just admitted he doesn't remember what happened."
"Sweet! I'm gonna try to swipe the prize!" Yuffie ran off. Leon just shook his head at his partner's antics.
Meanwhile, the group that we focus on arrived in Traverse Town. Aladdin looked around in amazement. He'd never seen most of the things that were here, so everything was new to him.
"Sora!" Conveniently enough, Aerith was next to the mailbox. She walked over to the group and looked Aladdin over curiously. "I don't remember seeing you around before. Are you new?"
"Aladdin's from another world," explained Sora. "He decided to come with us when his girlfriend got kidnapped."
"Well, Jasmine's not really-"
"That's so brave of you. She's very lucky to have someone like you," said Aerith. Aladdin blushed slightly.
"He could mess up the world order by coming with us though," said Donald.
"True, but I don't think that will happen if Aladdin has only good intentions," said Aerith. Then she turned to Sora. "Are you okay? It looks like you were pretty badly hurt."
"I'll be fine in a couple of days, but Yuffie said you might be able to speed it up a bit."
"Well, I could try. If nothing else, I can repair and clean your clothes. I'll take you to where I'm staying."
"I'll go visit my nephews while you do that," said Donald. "Come get me when you're done." He then walked over to his nephews' shop.
"Donald has nephews?" asked Aladdin. Goofy nodded.
"Yep! Huey, Dewey, and Louie! They're triplets."
"So, where are you staying?" asked Sora.
"The hotel."
"Won't we have to go through some Heartless to get there?" asked Goofy.
"Yes, but don't worry. Even if Sora can't use his arm, I'm sure you won't have any problem." It wasn't very far to the hotel, and the only Heartless they ran into were Shadows and Soldiers. They certainly were a lot easier to deal with compared to some of the other Heartless they'd had to contend with recently. Even if Sora was only using his left hand, this didn't seem to affect his fighting. Surprisingly, Aerith was capable of fighting too. She was a mage and used some high level spells. "Well, here we are. I stay in the red room. Goofy, Aladdin, would you mind waiting in the green room? Leon's not here so he shouldn't mind."
"No problem," said Goofy. The two went into the green room. Then Aerith and Sora went into the red room.
"Now, let me see your shoulder." Sora took off his jacket, shirt, and the bandages and turned around to expose his back to Aerith. "Wow, that's looks really bad." Aerith took a closer look at it, and her eyes widened. "Sora, where did you get this?"
"I kind of started stabbing myself. It's a long story."
"There's some old scar tissue here. Has it happened before?"
"Yeah, it's happened less and less as I've gotten older."
"…Yuffie says you used to live in the Shinra building. Who did you live with though?" Sora was silent. "I understand that you don't want to talk about it…You know, my boyfriend once mentioned that a little boy lived in the SOLDIER quarters. It was confidential though, so he couldn't talk about it very much. That boy was you, wasn't it?"
"Yeah…"
"I thought so. That has to do with why you did this, doesn't it?" Sora was quiet. "You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to, but I think that if you want to stop hurting yourself, you'll just have to accept what's bothering you." Sora was still quiet. "Well, I'm done. There wasn't much I could do, but I did heal it a little. If you want to see if it can be healed any more, you'll have to go see Merlin." Sora nodded. Aerith quickly started winding bandages around the shoulder. "I'll start fixing your clothes up. I'll give you a shirt to wear until then. I doubt you want anyone to see these scars."
"…Thanks."
"By the way, a few hours ago, we got some new arrivals. They're a bit unusual, an elderly man and a living puppet." Sora's head shot up.
"Geppetto and Pinocchio!" Aerith chuckled.
"They did mention you guys. How did you meet?"
"We ran into them when we got swallowed by a whale." Aerith blanched. "Yeah, we can't figure out what it was doing in innerspace either. Do you know where they are?"
"They were staying in a vacant house in the First District when I last saw them. I think they'll probably end up staying there." Sora nodded in understanding. "Now, do me a favor, and don't try to rip out your shoulder again." Despite himself, Sora smiled as he nodded again. Aerith finished tying the bandage, went over to the dresser, rummaged around in a drawer for a moment, and came back with a simple white shirt. "Here you go. Try not to destroy it. It can be difficult to find decent clothes, and I don't think Leon will appreciate having to get a new one." Sora nodded, quickly slipped the shirt on over the bandages, and put his arm back in the sling. "Now, go visit your friends, but go get Donald first. I doubt he'll want to be left out."
"Yes ma'am." Sora walked over to the door connecting the red room to the green room and walked through it.
"You're done already? That was pretty quick," said Aladdin.
"There wasn't much she could do. She suggested seeing Merlin," explained Sora. "She also said that Pinocchio and Geppetto are here." Goofy lit up.
"Really?"
"Yeah, they're staying in the first district at the moment."
"You wanna check up on them?" asked Aladdin.
"We should go get Donald first," said Goofy. Sora nodded.
"Aerith said the same thing. He's in the first district too though, so it's no big deal." The group left the hotel and quickly went back to the first district. They had to deal with a small amount of Heartless, but nothing too difficult.
"Actually, I'd like to make a quick stop at the synthesis shop first," said Sora when they were back in the first district.
"What's a synthesis shop?" asked Aladdin.
"It's where you use all those strange things that Heartless drop to make items you can use," explained Goofy.
"Oh, so that's what that stuff was. Guess I don't need to hold on to this stuff then." Aladdin started pulling out all sorts of booty from who knows where: shards, gems, and some weird sort of goo. Goofy and Sora blinked.
"Where'd you get all of that?" asked Sora.
"I kind of took it from the Heartless we were fighting. I thought it might be valuable and they certainly weren't gonna use it, so I grabbed it. There was some more, but that girl you fought caught me when I was grabbing stuff at the Coliseum and threatened to expose me if I didn't give her half." Yep, Aladdin was definitely a thief. Sora decided not to worry about it and just walked into the store.
"Welcome, kupo!" Aladdin stared.
"Uh, what are those?"
"They're moogles," said Goofy, like that explained everything. Abu jumped out of Aladdin's jacket to look at one of the odd little creatures. Then he poked its pom-pom.
"Don't touch me pom-pom, kupo!" The moogle punched Abu. The monkey screeched and darted back into Aladdin's vest. Everyone else just wondered why the moogle had an English accent. "You want to synthesize something or not?" He seemed grumpier than before now. They just got an elixir, a power chain, a dark ring, an AP Up, and an angel bangle and left. Then they went to Huey, Dewey, and Louie's store.
"Hi guys," said Dewey.
"How ya doin'?" asked Huey.
"Fine," said Sora. "Donald, it looks like Pinocchio and Geppetto are here. We were gonna go visit them. Wanna come?" Donald nodded.
"Sure."
"You guys come back later! We'll give you a good deal on some new weapons."
The four guys walked around the first district for a few minutes. It wasn't hard to find the house. Living puppets are unusual even by Traverse Town's standards. A friendly Samaritan pointed them towards the right house, and they went inside. Cleo and Figaro were playing in a corner, Geppetto was drawing on a sheet of paper, and Pinocchio was playing with a top. When he saw his friends come in, he grinned and went over to them.
"Sora!" His face fell when he saw Sora's arm. "Your arm…"
"This happened after we got out of Monstro. It doesn't have anything to do with him." Geppetto looked up from what he was working on.
"It's nice to see you got away from Monstro. I was worried he might eat your ship again."
"Nope! We got out of there before he could," said Aladdin. Geppetto smiled at them.
"Well, that's good to hear."
"Hey, how did you guys get here anyway?" asked Goofy.
"Well, we floated along in that odd space for a little while," explained Geppetto. "Then we got sucked into an orange swirling space. I thought we were going to be ripped to shreds, but we landed in this town instead. An odd man named Cid helped us find this house. Then he told us about the gummi ships. They're really interesting. I thought I'd try designing some in my spare time. I finished one already. I'd like you to have it." He opened a drawer and pulled out a rolled up paper. He handed the paper to Donald, who unrolled it and looked at it.
"Hey, this blueprint's not bad…" Geppetto nodded and turned to Pinocchio.
"Isn't there something you wanted to give them too, Pinocchio?"
"Oh, that's right!" Pinocchio pulled something out and handed it to Sora. It was a yellow star charm with a wooden chain. "I found it right before we got out of Monstro. It sort of reminded me of your key thing, so I thought you'd like it."
"That's really sweet of you." Sora pulled out his Keyblade, and, with a bit of difficulty, switched the Three Wishes charm with the new one. With a flash of light, the Keyblade changed again. The shaft was still short, about the same length as Three Wishes. In addition, the whole thing seemed to be made of wood. The 'teeth' of the key were a wooden gear, another smaller gear partially stuck out of the other side of the shaft a few inches below, the top of the guard had several wooden gears, but the sides appeared to be belts that connected the gears at the top to a couple of wheels at the bottom, the handle was simply a thin piece of wood, and the charm and chain were at the base of the handle. "It looks sort of like the inside of a clock." Sora picked it up and the name came to him. "Wishing Star." He wasn't sure what that had to do with Pinocchio, but he figured there was a reason behind the name.
"Gawrsh, are you sure it's okay for us to take all this?" asked Goofy.
"Of course! You saved us after all," said Geppetto. "Besides, we certainly can't use either of them."
"Aw, but father-"
"I know you'd like to see some other worlds Pinocchio, but it's just too dangerous for us. We can't fight or defend ourselves at all. The most we can do is avoid the Heartless. You understand, right?" Pinocchio sighed sadly.
"Yes, father."
"Hey, Pinocchio." Pinocchio looked over at Sora. "You should listen to Geppetto. He's only saying this because he doesn't want to see you hurt." Pinocchio looked down, sad but aware that Sora had a point.
"Yeah, I know…"
"Listen to your conscience. You have one for a reason."
"Okay…" Pinocchio looked up at Sora with hopeful eyes. "You'll come visit again, right?" Sora grinned at the puppet boy.
"Of course!" With that, they went back outside.
"So, are we gonna see this other guy Leon mentioned?" asked Aladdin.
"Yeah, I should probably get this shoulder fixed as soon as I can, but I wanna get you guys some new weapons and stop by the Dalmatians' place first." Aladdin looked confused.
"Dalmatians?"
"The puppies, remember?"
"Oh yeah…"
They headed back to Huey, Dewey, and Louie's store.
"Hi guys!" said Louie.
"Back for those weapons?" asked Huey. "We got some new staffs and shields in."
"We might have a weapon for the other guy too," said Dewey. "What kind of weapon do you use?"
"A scimitar." Dewey dug around behind the counter and pulled out a sword that looked like Aladdin's regular sword, only it was shinier.
"We got some Iron Swords. They only cost 500 munny each," said Dewey.
"That sounds like a lot of whatever that is," said Aladdin.
"Those pretty stones that the Heartless drop when you defeat them are munny," said Goofy.
"Really? That's pretty convenient," said Aladdin.
"Yeah, for some reason, monsters seem to always have money on them," said Sora. "It's weird, but no one complains about it."
"What about for me and Goofy?" asked Donald.
"Well, hold on." Huey started going through a barrel. Louie started sifting through the contents of a large box. Huey pulled out a staff that looked a lot like Donald's first staff, except it was red instead of blue. "We have the Magus Staff for 1000 munny."
Louie pulled out a small grayish-blue shield with a dark gray lining and what looked like a light gray fleur-de-lis except the two side spikes were curling in. "And this is the Gigas Shield. It costs 1000 munny too."
"That's 2500 munny all together," said Sora. "I think we can afford it. Go ahead and ring it up."
"Okay!" Donald and Goofy happily took their new weapons. Aladdin looked at his a little strangely. "What's wrong? Don't you like it?" asked Huey.
"It's nice. I'm just not used to getting stuff like this." He looked at his three companions. "You sure you don't mind this?"
"Nope! Don't worry about it!" said Goofy.
"We have to work together, so we all need good weapons," said Donald.
"Don't worry about it," said Sora. "After all, what are friends for?" Aladdin blinked.
"Friends?"
"Well, I respect you enough to consider you a friend. Try not to change that, okay." said Sora.
After that touching scene, they started towards the entrance to the Second District. The Heartless weren't that hard to deal with, even when a Large Body showed up during fights. There were at the house in no time at all. Sora looked around for a moment. "Huh?"
"Something wrong?" asked Aladdin.
"No, there was just something here last time that's not here now."
"How many puppies are there?" asked Aladdin, looking around. "It looks like there's already a lot here."
"I think we've found 30 something so far…" said Goofy. Aladdin's head shot to the side to look at Goofy in disbelief.
"30? ! How many puppies are there? !"
"I think there's supposed to be 99."
"…Why do they have so many?" Sora just shrugged while Donald went over to the green circle and started summoning the puppies from the gummi ship. The puppies immediately went over to their parents, and the dogs started nuzzling their children. After a few moments of this, the larger dog dug around under a couch, pulled out a box, and nudged it towards Sora. Sora opened it and found a mythril shard, a whole mythril crystal, a megalixir, and, surprisingly, a page from Pooh's book inside. After thanking the Dalmatians, they continued towards Merlin's house in the third district. When they got there, Aladdin looked around the cavern in interest.
"How are those stones moving?"
"Beats me," said Donald. "Maybe it's some type of earth magic…" Then they jumped across the rocks and went into the stone hut. Merlin looked up from where he was drinking some tea.
"Hello there. I see you've picked up a new traveling companion."
"You're a magician like Donald, right?" asked Aladdin.
"That's correct. I, along with the Fairy Godmother, was asked to assist the keybearer."
"Fairy Godmother?" said woman appeared in a small shower of sparkles. Aladdin blinked, but after being around Genie, it wasn't that odd an entrance.
"Hello there my dear. I see you've found a summon gem." The traveling group blinked.
"Huh?" The fairy godmother looked over at Aladdin.
"A gem that houses the spirit of a creature whose world disappeared. They can be used in battle. They're stones that look rather unusual."
"I think I know what you're talking about." Aladdin reached into his sash and pulled out a hollow piece of glass shaped like a teardrop and about half full of water.
"Where'd you find that?" asked Donald.
"I saw it lying on a plank back in Monstro. I picked it up before Sora chucked me up to the higher level."
"Oh, the poor dear, he's just a baby," said the Fairy Godmother.
"Can I summon it?" asked Aladdin, looking a bit excited. The Fairy Godmother shook her head.
"Some types of summoning magic can be used by anyone, but some types can only be used by certain people. I'm afraid summoning gems fall in the latter category."
"Oh…" Aladdin looked disappointed.
"You want to have a summon?" asked Sora. Aladdin nodded. "I'd give you a summon materia, but I didn't have any on me when I got sent here."
"What's a summon materia?" asked Aladdin.
"In my home world, we had little gems called materia. Different types of materia did different things. One type is summon materia, which you can use to summon powerful creatures. They function a bit differently than these summons though."
"That is one of the types of summons that anyone can use though," said the fairy godmother. "What about you Sora? Would you like the summon?" Sora nodded. Aladdin sighed but handed the summon gem over to Sora. "Bibbity bobbity boo!" She tapped the summon gem with her wand. Again, Sora felt a foreign entity in his mind. The difference was this one was more scared than Simba had been and didn't seem to know how to talk. That was probably because it was a baby. Sora mentally gave it some soothing words until it had calmed down.
"Now, what do you say to practicing some of your magic? I'd like to see how you two have progressed," said Merlin.
"Can you help with my shoulder a bit first? I kind of hurt it." Merlin pulled back Sora's collar and took a look at his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow, but cast a spell that left a green afterglow.
"There, it should be safe to use your arm by tomorrow. Until then, you should try to avoid using it. Now, let's start working on your magic." Merlin tapped his staff on the floor, and the section they were standing on lifted up into the attic. "Why don't you go first this time, Donald?" Donald nodded, took out his staff, and walked over to the floating furniture. Goofy sat down on the ground to watch since he was completely incapable of using magic. Sora decided to watch Donald while leaning against the wall. Aladdin walked over to Merlin.
"Hey, can I learn some of these spells? They're pretty useful."
"Hmm…Let me take a look." Merlin waved a hand, and some sparkles went over Aladdin for a moment. "Well, that's a bit unusual."
"What is?"
"You're body has a natural resistance to magic for some reason. It's rare for that to happen. It makes it so that magic has much less of an effect on you, but it also makes it rather difficult for you to do magic." Aladdin blinked. Merlin quickly explained. "Most people with a strong resistance are completely incapable of using magic. It looks like you'd be able to use status magic though."
"So, what's that mean?"
"Status magic is used on opponents. Different spells have different effects, they can poison, confuse, put to sleep, etc. The only thing is…Heartless are made completely of darkness. They don't have any of the body parts these spells effect, so status magic is useless against them." Aladdin drooped slightly.
"Oh…" He sighed and straightened up. "I guess that means I'll just have to make do with my sword then…"
"Don't let it bother you," said Sora. "If the Pot Centipede had used that attack on a normal person, they would've died." Aladdin turned towards him.
"You were listening?"
"Sorry, old habit." Sora straightened up and turned towards him. "But seriously, that's pretty useful. With very little combat experience, you survived a spell that should have killed you. With some training and experience, you should be able to get hit by a spell and hardly be affected, and that can be big trouble for some opponents."
"You guys don't seem to have any trouble with spells," pointed out Aladdin.
"I've been training since I was a kid. I've built up a resistance to magic. It's probably the same with Donald and Goofy." Sora turned towards Merlin. "Right?"
"That's correct. Repeated exposure to magic builds up a resistance to it. I'd say the three of you have a resistance that is about equal to Aladdin's."
"Sora's not too much younger than me though…"
"Age has nothing to do with it, my boy. Resistance is built up by being exposed to magic." Merlin made a sweeping motion towards the other three. "Magic is very common in their worlds, so they have been exposed since they were young. Magic is rare in your world, am I right?" Aladdin nodded. "You are going to be exposed to much more magic now. As such, your resistance to magic will grow much stronger very quickly. By the end of the journey, most types of magic should have much less of an effect on you."
"Well…I guess that's good news," said Aladdin, scratching the back of his head. He shrugged. "At least I won't have to worry too much if we run into more sorcerers."
"That's the spirit!" Then Merlin turned towards Donald. "You've improved quite a bit! Now, why don't you let Sora have a turn?" Donald nodded and walked over to them. Sora walked over to the furniture.
"Here goes nothing." Sora felt out the new presence in his mind and pulled it into the real world. That was when things got weird. Sora suddenly felt something very wrong with his body and opened his eyes. It wasn't difficult to figure out what was wrong. "Why the *beep* am I so small? !" It looked like someone had cast a Mini spell on Sora. Donald, Goofy, and Aladdin burst out laughing. Merlin just looked at Sora curiously.
*POP!*
Sora turned to find the source of the sound and blinked. A baby elephant was looking at him with big blue eyes. It also had a little yellow hat, a ruffled collar that reminded Sora of a clown, and the biggest ears he had ever seen. The baby elephant picked mini-Sora up with his trunk, looked him over, made a happy sound, and put him on his back, right behind his head. A bit confused, Sora grabbed on. Then the elephant did something very unexpected. It started flapping its ears. This wouldn't have been notable, if not for the fact that the action lifted it off the ground. The baby then started flying around happily, causing everyone to stare at the odd sight.
"Wow, a flying elephant," said Aladdin.
"I'm not sure that's supposed to be possible," said Donald.
"It's kind of cute," said Goofy.
"Is that all he does?" asked Sora. Yeah, flying was nice, but not that much use in a fight. Then the little elephant (For some reason, Sora wanted to call it Dumbo, but that didn't seem like something you should call a baby of any species.) shot a blast of water out of its trunk and hit a teapot. The water actually broke the teapot. Sora blinked a bit. "Hey, that was sort of like water magic." "Can you do that some more?" The little elephant trumpeted and started spraying everything with water. The porcelain was destroyed pretty quickly. The cabinets were more difficult to destroy and took a few seconds to break. After a couple of minutes of this, Dumbo suddenly disappeared, Sora grew back to his normal size, and Sora dropped to the ground. Fortunately, after his body went back to normal, the fall was only about a foot and he landed on his feet. "That was really odd…"
"Well, the Fairy Godmother did say he was just a baby," said Merlin. "If he were an adult, you'd probably stay the same size, and he probably wouldn't be able to fly either. How's Simba been doing, by the way?"
"Oh, I'll show you." "Hey, Simba, Merlin wants to see how we're doing."
"Okay!" Sora quickly summoned the lion and demonstrated how they fought together.
"So that's how he got a giant cat to appear out of nowhere," said Aladdin. "I wondered about that…"
"They've improved. Sora doesn't need to channel as much mana to Simba as he did last time," mused Merlin. "I'm satisfied with your progress in summoning. Now, show me how you can use normal magic." Sora nodded and started using all the different spells he had learned. "You taught yourself Stop? When did that happen?"
"Not too long ago," said Donald. "He hasn't had too much practice with it quite yet."
"Sora, can you show me a plain Fire and Blizzard spell?" Sora paused, concentrated, and then shot a fireball at a wardrobe. Merlin sighed. "That was a Fira spell."
"Yeah, hold on…" Sora held out his hand and concentrated. A fireball shot out of his hand. Sora blinked in confusion. "Huh? That was Fira again…"
"Are you channeling too much mana?" asked Merlin.
"I don't think so. It's the same amount as I always use."
"The same amount…" Merlin's eyes widened. "Could you perform a Fira spell one more time? And a Blizzara spell as well?" Sora nodded and performed both quite quickly. "That's…very odd…"
"What do you mean?" asked Sora.
"You have experience with magic, correct?"
"Yeah, using materia."
"Different levels of a spell require different amounts of mana to use. You noticed that when you used spells with materia?" Sora nodded. "Just now, that Fira spell used the same amount of mana that a regular Fire spell would use, and the Blizzara spell used the same amount of energy as a Blizzard spell." Everyone's eyes widened.
"What? !" shouted Sora.
"How's that possible?" asked Donald.
"It must be because of the experiments," muttered Sora. "Do I need to worry about this?"
"Well, not needing a large amount of mana for a high level spell certainly isn't a bad thing," mused Merlin. "But I have no idea what it means." Sora muttered something inaudible under his breath. Merlin seemed to catch something though, and he frowned. "Well, if it bothers you that much, I might have something that can help you back in my study." The five went back down and Merlin started rummaging through his carpetbag. After a few minutes of this he triumphantly pulled a small green book with rusty chain coming off a corner. "This may look like a book, but it's actually one of those charms that you use to change the form of your Keyblade."
"Seriously?" asked Aladdin. He had a point. It didn't look like one of Sora's key chains.
"How'd you end up with it?" asked Sora.
"I found it during my travels," explained Merlin. "I can't use it, of course, but I decided to hold on to it in case I ever met a keybearer. I would have given it to you before, but it seemed like you were more of a physical fighter than a magic user. Maybe it can help you with your magic." Sora took it from Merlin's hand, and switched it with Wishing Star. The Keyblade changed so that it was short, blue, and looked sort of like astronomy equipment. The book was hanging off the end on a rusty chain. Sora twirled it a few times, noting that his magic did feel a bit stronger.
"Spellbinder…thanks…" Sora put the key on his back and walked back over to the lift. "We found a couple more pages from Pooh's book. I think I'll go visit him."
"Who's Pooh?" asked Aladdin.
"He's the bear in the book," said Goofy.
"Huh?" As Sora was taken back down, the situation with the odd book was explained to Aladdin. Sora walked over to the book, opened it, and was sucked in. As Sora looked around the pages, he noticed that two more scenes had popped up. Sora took a look between the two before heading over to the one that looked like it was a large tree, but took off his sling and stuffed it into one of his pockets first. He was getting tired of the reactions people had towards it. After he walked over to it, he found himself surrounded by trees with a large one standing out from the others. Sora looked around but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Hello?" Sora's eyes went over to a log. There was a very nervous voice coming from it. "I-is anyone there?" A pink head poked itself out of the log and looked around.
"Is that a pig?" The little pig sniffled and slowly came out of the log and looked around.
"Wh-wh-what am I to do? I'm all alone. Pooh? Pooh? Where are you? It's me! Piglet!"
"You're friends with Pooh?" Piglet spun around, saw Sora, squeaked, and ran away. Sora sweatdropped. Maybe he shouldn't have been so quiet when he was walking over. "Hey, it's okay!" Sora walked in the same direction and saw Piglet cowering behind a shrub near the large tree. "I'm a friend." Piglet looked up.
"R-really?" Sora nodded with a smile.
"I know Pooh too."
"You do?" Sora nodded again. "Oh, y-you see, I-I have something for him. I have to take it to Pooh right away!" A crunching sound caught their attention. They looked down the path and saw Pooh coming up it while sniffing.
"Oh, I believe I smell a delicious something-" He took an extra big sniff. "A something like honey!"
Piglet started waving his arms. "Pooh!" This did get Pooh's attention though.
"Hello, Piglet. How have you been?"
"Oh, I-I'm so glad to see you. I thought you'd gone away." Sora found this a little funny. He wondered if everyone in this book felt that way. "I brought wh-what you asked for." He gestured over to a rock that had a large red balloon tied to it. Pooh smiled and went over to it.
"Thank you Piglet. Now I can finally have some honey."
"How are you going to get honey with a balloon?" asked Sora.
"I shall hold on to the balloon, and fly like a bee up the Hunny Tree, see," explained Pooh.
"But, it you take their honey, won't the bees be angry?" pointed out Piglet. Pooh blinked.
"Oh…you're probably right…" He tapped his head in thought for a second before he seemed to have an idea and turned to Sora. "If you could only chase away those bees, I'm quite certain I could get a small morsel of honey. Would you help me get some honey?"
"I don't see why not," said Sora.
"You probably need to know a little bit about the Hunny Tree then." The three looked up to a nearby tree limb where Owl was perched.
"How long have you been here?" asked Sora.
"Oh, a few minutes. The Hunny Tree is full of beehives, but that's not where the honey is. That's where the bees live. The honey is in those hollows in the tree." Sora looked over at the large tree. Indeed, there were several beehives and hollows in the tree. "Of course, when Pooh gets close to these hollows, the bees will defend their honey. The balloon will probably be able to take a few stings, but it will pop in no time. Sora, you need to follow Pooh by climbing on the tree limbs. That way, you can knock away the bees before they get too close to him."
"That shouldn't be a problem," said Sora.
"Does that mean I can get honey now?" asked Pooh.
"Yeah, go ahead." Pooh lit up, untied the balloon from the rock, and started floating up. Sora started jumping onto the limbs. In no time, they reached the first hollow. As soon as Pooh started reaching into it, bees started coming out of the nearby beehive. Sora grabbed Spellbinder (with his left hand of course) and started hitting the bees with the flat of the blade. This stunned them enough to make them fall to the ground, but bees kept coming out until Pooh finished with that hollow and started floating up to the next one. Sora continued knocking away bees, and Pooh kept eating all the honey he could. This went on until Pooh finished eating at the last hollow and realized that he was still floating higher.
"Oh bother. The balloon doesn't want to go back down." Sora threw the Keyblade at the balloon, popping it, and caught Pooh as he fell down. Pooh rubbed his stomach happily.
"That was yummy in my tummy, but there's room for a bit more." Sora sweatdropped.
"Don't you think you've had enough?" Pooh shook his head.
"Pooh can eat quite a bit of honey," said Owl. "Don't worry. He eats large amounts of honey all the time."
"I see…Well, I guess I'll check out that other place then," said Sora.
"Oh, did someone else come back?" asked Pooh. Sora nodded. "Let's go see them." Sora jumped down back to the ground, put Pooh down, and then took a moment to find where the Keyblade had landed. Then the three started down the path away from the tree, and Sora suddenly found himself back on the pages of the book without Pooh or Piglet.
"Huh, that's weird. Can they not come here?" Sora shrugged and walked over to the other pop-up.
When Sora walked into the scene, he saw a vegetable garden, and another house built into the scenery. Pooh and Piglet were in front of the house. As Sora headed over, Piglet saw him and ran over to him.
"Look, Rabbit's house c-came back!" He pointed over towards the house. "But it looks like Rabbit isn't home. Pooh's been calling and calling, but the house says no one's home.
Sora raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? Mind if I take a look?"
"I don't, but what if Rabbit's house does?"
"Don't worry. I'll be fine." With that, the two walked over to join Pooh.
"Hello? Are you sure Rabbit isn't home?"
"Yes, nobody's home!" Sora choked back a laugh and walked around the house. There was a hole there, which made sense since it's a rabbit burrow. Sora crawled through and saw a yellow rabbit looking towards the door.
"Who is this person named Nobody?" Sora was amused enough to stand off to the side and watch what was going on. It seemed Pooh had found the same hole as Sora and was crawling in. "Nobody, have you seen Rabbit?" Rabbit's eyes widened and he turned around towards the hole.
"No! No Rabbit here! No one's home!" Rabbit was too late though. Pooh had crawled in enough to see him.
"Hello Rabbit!" Rabbit got a bit shifty-eyed.
"Why, P-Pooh! What a pleasant surprise!" Piglet then climbed in after Pooh. "And Piglet too! Nice to see you Piglet. And…" This was when he finally noticed Sora. "Is this a new friend?"
"Yeah, I'm Sora."
"Nice to meet you." Rabbit turned back to Pooh. "P-Pooh, I'm sorry, but I'm all out of honey at the moment."
"What about that?" asked Sora, pointing up at a pot hidden in the rafters. Rabbit's eyes widened.
"H-Honey? ! Now, how did that get there?" Sora jumped up to the beam, grabbed it, carefully picked up the pot and dropped back down. Rabbit sighed, seemingly admitting defeat. He turned towards Pooh. "Would you like some, Pooh? Don't feel that you have to of course." He looked hopeful at this, but Pooh happily rubbed his paws together.
"Oh, thank you Rabbit! I would like just a small smackeral. I'm quite hungry." Pooh stuck his paw into the pot and then stuffed it and the honey coating it into his mouth.
"Um, Pooh Bear…" Pooh stuck his head into the pot. "You're not eating the whole pot, are you?" Pooh continued to eat the honey. Rabbit just sighed. "Once you start, there's no stopping you, is there?" Sora chuckled a bit. It didn't seem that much else was happening so he decided to leave and go back to Merlin's house. Fate must have had other ideas though, because Piglet suddenly came running up with a panicked look on his face.
"You okay?" asked Sora.
"H-Help! Please help Pooh!" Piglet panted and Sora raised an eyebrow.
"What happened?"
"He's stuck!"
"He got his head stuck in the jar?"
"No!" A moment later, Sora was staring at Pooh, who was stuck in the hole that led out of Rabbit's burrow.
"How much honey was in that pot?" asked Sora in disbelief.
"A lot. I was saving it," said Rabbit.
"Oh, help and bother. I'm stuck again. I came in through this hole, so it must have shrunk." Sora sweatdropped.
"I don't think that's quite how it works Pooh." It was awkward talking the Pooh's backside, so everyone went outside so they could talk to him face-to-face.
"Oh, how will I eat honey if I'm stuck here?" Pooh's head lit up a bit. "When it's lunch time, perhaps you could bring me a honey jar?"
"No honey 'til you're unstuck!" said Rabbit, looking very serious. Pooh drooped at the prospect of not being able to eat honey anytime in the near future. Rabbit just sighed again before turning towards Sora. "If Pooh doesn't slim down, my house will be plugged up forever! If only there were something we could do…"
"What about a lubricant like soap or something?" suggested Sora.
"I don't have anything like that," said Rabbit, but he thought for a second. "I know! A bit of carrot top juice should do the trick. I have a carrot patch on the other side of the stream. Carrot top juice is the key to slimming down Pooh!" Just then they heard an odd bouncing noise. The three turned towards the source of the noise as Rabbit's eyes widened. "Oh no! Not him!" Coming down the path from the woods was what looked sort of like a tiger, only it was bouncing on its tail. As the bouncing 'tiger' bounced forward, he landed on a pumpkin and smashed and knocked over some bean poles, making Rabbit groan. Then the 'tiger' landed on Sora's head, nearly knocking the young Tsviet over. It was looking at him rather curiously with a grin on its face.
"Hey there! Name's Tigger! T-I-double-guh-RR! That spells Tigger! Well now, I don't think I've ever seen you before!"
"Hello Tigger!" said Pooh, waving from where he was stuck. "You've just bounced my new friend Sora." Tigger cocked his head and bounced off Sora and over to Pooh.
"Hey Pooh! Say, you're looking mighty uncomfy today. Is that some kinda new exercise? Why, bouncin' around is a lot more fun!" To demonstrate, Tigger started bouncing on his tail again. Sora cocked his head.
"How come you like bouncing so much?" Now Tigger was bouncing around Sora.
"Why? 'Cause bouncin' is what Tiggers do best! Speaking of which, my bouncin' spot has gone and disappeared! So for now, this'll be my new bouncin' ground!" Then he started bouncing all around Rabbit's house, destroying several plants in the process. Rabbit panicked and grabbed Sora's arm.
"Tigger's bouncing will ruin my vegetables! And if we don't give Pooh some carrot top juice, he'll be stuck forever!" Rabbit didn't need to say anything more. Sora quickly looked around, found the carrots, and ran over to them. He was just in time too. Tigger was about to land in the carrot patch. Sora quickly cast an Aero spell, more to protect his injured arm than anything else, and then brought up his left arm. Fortunately, the Aero shield was enough to repel Tigger. Unfortunately, this gave Tigger extra height, and he decided to keep bouncing around Sora. So Sora had to keep running around to keep Tigger from completely burying the carrots. Aero wore off a few times. When that happened, Tigger was knocked away by Sora's arm right before the Tsviet cast another Aero spell. This went on for a few minutes until Tigger finally bounced off to the side onto the ground and stopped. Rabbit quickly ran forward to start pulling carrots out of the ground.
"Say, you kept up pretty good there Sora, especially for a non-Tigger! Let's have another go sometime!" Then Tigger bounced off and away from Rabbit's house. Rabbit let out a sigh of relief and then looked over his ruined vegetables sadly.
"This isn't the first time he's decided to bounce in my garden, but I think this is the most damage he's ever done."
"Yeah, sorry about not reacting sooner," said Sora.
"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you managed to save the carrots. Pooh is my friend, but I do not want him stuck in my house for who knows how long. Go wait in my house. I'll tell you when I've given him the juice. Then you should push him as hard as you can." Sora nodded and went inside while Rabbit went to the back of the house. After a few minutes, Rabbit shouted "Okay, go ahead!" Sora backed up, then ran forward and slammed into Pooh with his left shoulder. Pooh went flying out of the hole. Sora climbed out after him and saw Rabbit shaking his head and Pooh with his head in another pot.
"First my vegetable patch and now this," muttered Rabbit. "At this rate, I'm not going to have any honey left."
"Do rabbits even eat honey?" wondered Sora. Then again, this world existed in a book. Normal stuff may not apply here.
"Oh, bother. Where am I?" asked Pooh, looking around with the pot still on his head. "It's ever so dark in here. Well, it isn't so bad I suppose. There is plenty of honey." Then some eating noises started coming from the pot.
"Pooh, really likes honey, huh?" said Sora.
"Yes, I worry about him sometimes…" said Rabbit.
"Well, I'll just be going then," said Sora, turning to leave.
"Bye Sora," said Piglet, waving good-bye. Thought I forgot about him, didn't you?
"Feel free to visit anytime," said Rabbit, waving good-bye. Sora returned the wave as he walked down the path and back onto the pages of the book.
Sora took out his sling. "Huh?" In his pocket was an emerald leaf. "Where'd this come from? I'll just ask when I get back." Then he quickly put his sling back on and walked over to the portal that would take him back Merlin's house.
"This food sure looks weird."
"That's just because you're used to Arabian food," said Merlin. Sora blinked. It looked like they were making dinner. Merlin noticed Sora from where he was stirring a pot of stew. "Ah, Sora, how did your visit go?"
"It was okay. There was a crazy bouncing tiger thing. I had to keep him from destroying a carrot patch, and I found this in my pocket." Sora held up the leaf.
"Oh, it's a summon gem," explained Merlin.
"What was a summon gem doing in a book?" asked Donald.
"Maybe that was just the world it ended up in when its world was destroyed," suggested Goofy.
"That could be possible," mused Merlin. Sora just went over to the Fairy Godmother.
"Oh poor thing. This one's just a baby as well."
"Another baby?" asked Sora.
"Yes, it looks like it. He seems to be different from the summon from earlier though. Bibbity bobbity boo!" Sora once again found himself trying to calm down a new presence in his mind. After a few minutes of this, it had calmed down, but…
"That looks a bit like a wildebeest."
Now it was scared again.
"Leave it alone Simba!"
"Huh?"
"It probably thinks you're gonna eat it!"
"Actually, I've mostly been eating bugs and grubs for the last few years." Sora wasn't sure what sort of lion ate bugs, but that did seem to reassure the new presence a little.
"Well, why don't we see what this new summon can do while the food finishes up?" suggested Merlin. So they all found themselves in his attic again with the floating furniture. Sora went through the steps to summon and found himself looking at…
"A baby deer?" That's what it was. A baby deer that would make any girl go 'Aww…' at its cuteness. It nervously sniffed at Sora to see if he was friendly. "That explains the wildebeest comment…Uh, yeah, I'm nice. I won't hurt you." The fawn blinked up at him. Sora held out his hand. The deer sniffed it a few times before nuzzling it. "So, what can you do?" The deer backed up a bit and then started leaping all over the place, and as it did so, it left behind clear glowing bubbles. "What are those?"
"They contain mana," observed Merlin. "You can probably use them to restore your mana. I guess this a support summon instead of an offensive one."
"Ah." That was when the time limit ran out and the deer disappeared. "Well, I don't think there's much else I can do with him."
"I'm hungry," said Goofy. "Can we eat now?"
"Yes, the food should be about ready." They went back down and ate dinner, although it took a moment for Aladdin and Abu to eat their food. They weren't picky enough to not try it though. After eating dinner, Merlin had Donald and Sora practice their magic some more. Aladdin didn't want to be left out, so Goofy took him back outside to train a bit. Two hours later, everyone turned in for the night. The next morning, they had a nice warm breakfast while Merlin looked Sora's shoulder over. "Well, I don't want you to put too much stress on it, but I believe you'll be able to fight with it again."
"That's good enough for me."
"Good, then we can leave as soon as we get your clothes back," said Donald.
"Yeah, we still need to find Jasmine," said Aladdin.
"Okay, okay…we'll go back to Atlantica." They quickly went over to the hotel.
"Back for your clothes?" asked Aerith. Sora nodded. Aerith handed him the clothes, which looked good as new. "Just change in there." Sora nodded again and headed into the room.
"Hey, Aerith, right?"
"Yes Aladdin?"
"You and Sora seem pretty close. Were you friends before all of this started?"
"No, but we were from the same world. I'd never met him before he came to Traverse Town. Because of his eyes, I recognized he was from Shinra, but he's also…different from most people who are affiliated with the company."
"What's Shinra?"
"Don't worry about it. I don't think you'll ever have to deal with them, and I don't think Sora would be comfortable if you knew." Just then Sora came out.
"Thanks for fixing my clothes. It would've been a pain if I had to replace them, especially if Seren found out."
"You guys are leaving now?" asked Aerith. They all nodded. "Well, good luck."
"Thanks." With that, they made their way back to the first district and their gummi ship and set off for the world they'd found the day before.
-That's it-
Right filler chapter done. Thank goodness. Maybe it's just me, but filler chapters don't seem to be as good as the regular ones. Oh well, most of the information isn't too necessary. I think the only things in the chapter that will be mentioned later are Sora's shoulder and Pooh's book.
I think that's 60 puppies. It looks like I missed a group in Monstro though. Along with a book page. I'll find a way for Sora and company to pick them up later.
There is a very good reason for Sora freaking out and stabbing his shoulder. I can't tell you though. Just know that it will be explained eventually.
Sora being ambidextrous has nothing to do with being a Tsviet. He picked it up when he was younger by emulating someone he was around most of the time.
The conversations with Aerith are so difficult. She's really perceptive, but I don't want her giving away the plot. As for how she knows about Sora's past, Zack told Aerith about Sora, but he never told her his name. Or who raised him. Or why he was even living in the Shinra building. She just knows that he grew up with the SOLDIERS.
I figure Aladdin will do almost anything to save Jasmine. And the group was going to see Merlin eventually so I had to come up with a reason why Aladdin couldn't learn magic. Just to be clear, Aladdin cannot learn magic on his own, but he could use materia if Sora had some.
That's all I have to say. Here is an omake. This time, there are two Tsviets!
Omake: What about the rest? Part X
"Why the *bleep* am I stuck with you? !" shouted Kyo.
"I'm not exactly happy about it either," muttered Zakuro. "Where are we anyway?" They appeared to be in some sort of town/city. Everyone except for them was wearing informal yukatas. Something about this place felt off.
"Is this karma or something? I mean, out of everyone, I got stuck with you when the world ended?" Zakuro twitched at Kyo's ranting and rounded on him.
"I don't know! I'd rather be with Seren or Ash than you!"
"Yeah, well I bet even Chris would be better than you, and she'd probably have hit me with half a dozen spells by now!"
"Why you-" Zakuro pulled out her whip and tried to whip it around Kyo's neck, but he ducked under it and dashed up to Zakuro and tried to slash her abdomen with his claws, but she cart-wheeled out of the way. Now, Zakuro and Kyo are equals in every area. Seriously. If they were in a videogame and you used Scan on them, the stats displayed would be exactly the same for the two. This means that when they get into a fight, it can go on for hours. As a matter of fact, they've never managed to finish a fight. Someone always stopped them before they could, usually by bashing their heads together, hitting them with a spell, throwing something at them, etc.
This time, there was no one to stop them. The most the surrounding people could do was vacate the surrounding area. Long story short, they continued trying to kill each other for around half an hour before they both decided to perform their limit breaks and the familiar smoking energy surrounded them.
You know that Azul can transform into some sort of Behemoth thing? Well, Zakuro and Kyo have similar limit breaks, except they don't turn into Behemoths. Zakuro sprouted purple fur all over her body, hunched over as her body shape started to contort, her ears grew long and pointed, her mouth and nose lengthened into a muzzle, her nails turned into claws, and her feet lengthened and grew claws as well. In addition, her boots disappeared to somewhere, and her whip somehow got absorbed into her body.
Kyo hunched over as orange fur grew over his body, his ears grew even longer than Zakuro's, his hands became clawed, his feet got longer and clawed, and his face also got a muzzle, although it was shorter than Zakuro's. In addition, his shoes and shirt went missing. This folks is why they don't get along. Zakuro is a wolf and Kyo is a cat of some sort.
The two jumped and started biting and clawing at each other, but it would be boring if that was all they did. A purple whip-like tendril shot out of Zakuro's arm and into Kyo's side, knocking him into a building. Kyo landed on his feet though, and ran to the side, jumping at Zakuro from an angle she wouldn't be able to get him with her whip-tentacle. Zakuro retracted the tentacle, but Kyo was on her and trying to rip out her jugular. The tentacle came out of Zakuro's throat before he could do so, and Kyo had to leap back. Zakuro got up on all fours before Kyo could attack again. The two stood growling at each other for a moment before a voice cut through the silence.
"Well, this looks fun." There was a scary looking man standing there. He was wearing a black haori with a white sleeveless jacket, had some scars going over his chest and face, an eye patch over his right eye, his black hair was put up in several spikes with bells at the end, and he had a jagged looking sword in his right hand. For some reason, a little pink-haired girl was hanging onto his shoulder. The two were-people ignored him. This was a mistake. Zaraki let out an insane laugh and then jumped into the fray. Yachiru giggled and jumped off to the side to watch the ensuing fray. The fight went on for over three hours, and the damages caused by the fight cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair. The shinigami never did manage to get their hands on the two Tsviets, mostly because they ended back in Destiny Islands several days later and never ended up in the Seireitei again.