I'm sorry it took so long for this chapter to come out! I took a summer physics course, and it took up a lot of my time in June. I only managed to write a few pages of this chapter during that month. Actually, I don't know how long it will take for the next chapter to come out either. I still have about three weeks until my next semester, but I have two classes with labs. If I have time to write, I will, but, well, we'll see.
Chapter 14, and the boys are finally going to Atlantica. Hey, that actually sounds nice. Maybe I'll just call them 'the boys' from now on. Well, maybe next chapter. Ariel kind of throws it off.
-end of AN-
The boys had used the warp gummi to go back to Atlantica. There was only one small problem.
"C'mon Abu. I know it's kind of weird, but Donald promises that we'll be fine, and he does know a lot of magic," said Aladdin. Abu had decided he didn't want to go to Atlantica and was now hiding in a vent that was too small for Aladdin to climb into. The most he could do was talk into it and hope Abu heard him.
"I don't think you're going to convince him," said Sora.
"You'd think Abu would be excited. We've never seen so much water in one place. It's like a giant oasis," explained Aladdin. Sora raised an eyebrow.
"Haven't you guys heard about oceans before?"
"Yeah, but it's really different than what I imagined…" replied Aladdin. "We probably won't get another chance like this. I don't want Abu to miss out on it." He sighed. "It's weird. We go practically everywhere together. I wonder what the problem is."
"Maybe he doesn't know how to swim," said Goofy.
"Well, yeah, that's because there's not a lot of water around Agrabah. I mean, I don't know how to swim either."
"You don't know how to swim, but you want to go to Atlantica?" asked Donald. Aladdin shrugged.
"It doesn't matter if I can swim or not if I can breathe underwater." He has a point there. "Now, are you gonna help me get Abu out of there or not?"
"If Abu doesn't wanna come, you shouldn't force him," said Sora. "He might hold it against you."
"Yeah, but… What if he messes with something that he shouldn't?"
"We'll keep an eye on him for you," said Chip.
"Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard," said Dale. Aladdin sighed.
"Okay, but it's not gonna be the same without him."
A few moments later, the boys were down in the ocean. Sora blinked when he realized that all of his clothes were missing except for the harness holding the Keyblade and the chain around his arm and looked down. Instead of legs, he now had what seemed to be a dolphin tail. "This is how we're going to breathe underwater?"
"Well, it works, doesn't it?" said Donald. His clothes were gone too, and he had octopus tentacles instead of legs.
"Why do I taste salt?" asked Aladdin. His clothes, including his hat, were gone, and his legs had been replaced with a sand shark tail.
"Ocean water is just salty," explained Goofy. Unlike the rest, only his head was unchanged, and that was on the body of a green sea turtle.
"Hey, wait a minute." Sora looked himself over again. "My daggers are gone!" Donald blinked and scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"Oops. I forgot about those." Sora muttered some choice words under his breath.
"Why do I smell blood?" asked Aladdin.
"You're half shark now…You're probably just smelling my shoulder," said Sora, pointing at his shoulder, which was scabbed over, but not completely healed. "Hope there aren't any other sharks nearby."
"Hey, you got other scars," said Goofy. Sora blinked as he realized that they could see the scars on his chest and torso. Most were fairly light and appeared to be from slashes, but there was a scar from a stab wound that was over his heart.
"Well, I spar a lot with my family, and we use real weapons. I get slashed sometimes."
"We better start looking for his majesty." Donald turned in the direction he wanted to go off in and seemed to realize something. "…I don't know how to move like this." This made everyone sweatdrop as they realized that none of them knew how to use their new bodies.
"Now what?" asked Aladdin. Luckily for them, a dues ex machina came swimming up, three of them to be exact. One was a pudgy yellow fish with blue stripes and fins, one was a red crab, and the last one was a mermaid with a green fish tail, red hair, blue eyes, and a purple clam shell bra. The four boys were shocked enough by the appearance of an actual mermaid to just stare. The fishy denizens then noticed them and the crab and fish swam behind the mermaid.
"Relax Flounder, Sebastian. They don't look like one of them," said the mermaid. Then she took a closer look at the boys. "Although they do look a little different."
"They look weird," said the fish. Well, after seeing a mermaid, a talking fish wasn't that odd.
"Uh, what do you mean?" asked Aladdin.
"There's just something about you guys…Anyway, I'm Ariel, and these are Flounder and Sebastian. Are you guys from around here?"
"Not exactly…" Sora suddenly got an idea. "I'm Sora, that's Aladdin, that's Donald, and that's Goofy. We're from pretty far away. We swim pretty differently there. Can you show us how you guys swim around here?" Yeah, it was a long shot, but it was worth a try.
"Oh, that's no problem," said Ariel.
"Ariel! King Triton will not like this!" said Sebastian the crab…who seemed to have a Jamaican accent.
"Oh, he won't mind. It shouldn't take too long." Ariel swam over closer to the boys. "Okay, it's real easy to swim. You just have to get the hang of using your tail."
For the sake of everyone, I'll skip the swimming lesson. There's nothing interesting that happened. Just know that in 15 minutes they'd figured out how to move around fairly well.
"See? It's not that difficult. You'll have the hang of it in no time!" said Ariel.
"We've got company!" shouted Sebastian, pointing in the direction the three had come from. Swimming from that direction were three Heartless that had tentacles and a bubble with the Heartless crest around their heads. "Class dismissed!" The three natives to the world swam away, but Ariel stopped when she saw that the boys weren't moving.
"What are you doing? ! Get out of there!" Ariel's plea fell on death ears as the boys took out their weapons.
"Sea Neons. There doesn't seem to be anything special about them." The fight started. Unfortunately, fighting underwater was different from fighting on land. For one, swinging a weapon took longer due to drag from the water. Another thing was that they still weren't used to moving as mer-people. Also, since Goofy no longer had hands or fingers, he had to put his shield on his back and hit the enemies with it like that. On the bright side, magic was mostly unaffected.
"Thunder!"
ZAP!
Except for that. Anyone nearby was electrocuted. If they weren't underwater, they'd probably cough up smoke.
"No Thunder spells until we leave," said Sora. No one argued. Sora tried to hit a Sea Neon with his Keyblade, but the drag was still making this difficult. Sora let out a growl and hit it with a Blizzara spell instead. This did freeze it. Then Sora hit it with the Keyblade and, despite the drag, managed to shatter it. Aladdin and Goofy were having a more difficult time. Aladdin was mostly blocking the strikes while Goofy was getting in close enough to knock it around. It looked like Goofy was still getting used to this form though. Thankfully, it seemed this type of Heartless wasn't too strong. It only took a few hits from Goofy for it to start dissolving. Then again, it may have been weak from that Thunder spell before. They weren't complaining either way. Donald had the least trouble out of them all. Casting magic isn't too different underwater. He just had to remember not to use any Thunder spells. After a couple of Fira spells (Learned while at Merlin's.), his Sea Neon was as dead as the others.
"Wow…That was amazing!" Ariel swam over to the boys. "You're really strong! Those monsters chased us here, and we couldn't do much of anything."
"Hey, where'd that fish and crab go?" asked Donald.
"Flounder and Sebastian hid in that clam down there," explained Ariel, pointing down at a huge clam that was closed. "We need to get them out now though. Do you guys have anything we can use to pry the clam open?" Sora swam down and pried the clam open with the Keyblade. The two hiding in it immediately swam out. Oddly enough, there was a green circle in the clam.
"A-are the monsters gone?" asked Flounder.
"Yeah, these guys took care of them," explained Ariel. She turned to the boys and smiled. "Thanks a lot. We'd have been in a lot of trouble without you."
"No problem," said Goofy.
"We need to hurry back to the palace," said Sebastian. "Those creatures might be heading there too!"
"How do you get to the palace?" asked Sora.
"It's easy. Just follow the tridents painted on the rocks," explained Ariel. "But would you mind if we travel with you? In case those things try to attack us again? I have some attack potions, but not enough for very many."
"What's an attack potion?" asked Aladdin. Sora elbowed him. "Ow!"
"Huh? Don't you have them where you're from?" The boys just shook their heads. "Wow, your ocean must be really different. They're potions made from lightning that strikes the ocean. We Atlanticans use them to defend ourselves from violent fish that attack us. They electrocute what they hit without the current traveling through the water," explained Ariel. Well, that would be useful since Thunder spells wouldn't be working very well down here.
"We need to get going! Now!" said Sebastian. Then he started swimming in the direction the three natives came from.
"Well, you heard him," said Ariel. The rest swam after him.
It looked like they must have disembarked in a small enclave. Outside was a wide expanse of water, rock, caves, and sea life. It was actually quite beautiful, and they would have liked to stop and look, but Heartless kept popping up and attacking them. And it wasn't just Sea Neons. Search Ghosts were there too. They fought and killed the Heartless they came across as well as they could. Fortunately, Ariel was able to give them a hand, and she obviously knew how to move underwater. Still, the boys were improving as they continued on their way to the palace.
"Hey, Ariel…"
"Yeah?"
"How come we haven't seen any more people on the way to the palace?" asked Sora. "It's kind of odd that you're the only one we've seen."
Ariel laughed nervously. "About that…I like to explore and find interesting stuff. I especially like finding things from the surface world."
"I worry about you sometimes Ariel," said Sebastian.
"It's no big deal…As long as Daddy doesn't find out."
"What sort of stuff do you collect?" asked Aladdin.
"Oh, anything unusual that I can find, mostly things a scavenge from those big wooden things that humans ride around in."
"That sounds a lot like someone I know," muttered Sora.
"Hey!"
"I wasn't talking about you Aladdin."
"Huh?"
"Oh, you're talking about Riku aren't you?" said Goofy. Sora nodded. Why is it this guy who understands Sora the best? We may never know.
"Who's Riku?" asked Ariel. Aladdin scowled.
"He's the-"
"Guy that Sora is looking for!" cut in Donald. They did not want Aladdin going on a rant about Riku. It could give them away.
"What does he look like? Maybe we've seen him," said Ariel.
"Oh, that's easy. He's got silver hair," said Goofy.
"Is he old?" asked Flounder.
"No, he's only about a year older than me," said Sora. "It's just that he was born with silver hair for some reason…We're also looking for a girl named Kairi. She's about my age with short red hair and blue eyes."
"Huh, we haven't seen anyone like that," Ariel. That was both good and bad. It was good because they wouldn't have to deal with Riku here. It was bad because Sora still wanted to find Riku, if only to get some answers and they still had no idea where Kairi might be. "But we'll keep an eye out for them. Silver hair's pretty unusual. If Riku comes here, I'm sure someone will notice."
"…Thanks," said Sora. And then Sebastian noticed some Sea Neons and Search Ghosts heading towards them.
"Incoming!"
It was not too long after this that they reached a city that appeared to be made out of giant sea shells and coral. There were a few mermen in armor made out of some sort of shell and swords swimming around.
"Well, this is just like Agrabah," said Sora. Ariel gave him a confused look.
"Where?"
"It's where Aladdin's from." Ariel's eyes widened and she turned to Aladdin.
"These things showed up in your home too?"
"Uh yeah," replied Aladdin. "I probably shouldn't mention that it was in the middle of a desert though."
"There still seem to be some people here though," observed Sora.
"Yeah, we lost a lot of people when those things first showed up," said Ariel. "But now most people just stay inside their homes. The only people who go outside are guards and Daddy."
"You go outside too," Goofy pointed out. Ariel chuckled.
"Yeah, that's true. I don't really like being cooped up inside." And then a bunch of Heartless showed up. These were not Sea Neons or Search Ghosts though. These looked sort of like scuba divers in green armor with stretched helmets that had fins and propellers on the end, metal tridents, and the Heartless crest on their chests.
"Screwdrivers. Use propellers to swim forward with extra thrust…That might be a problem. We're still having some trouble getting used to fighting underwater." Then the Heartless attacked. Fortunately, the guards quickly rushed in and parried most of the Heartless. Sora and Aladdin were also able to parry the Screwdrivers that attacked them. Goofy managed to position himself so that the trident of the Screwdriver attacking him hit his shield. Donald froze his before it reached him. Ariel was surrounded by guards and looked a little embarrassed. The guards quickly took care of the Screwdrivers near them. Sora, Goofy, and Aladdin were also able to quickly take out the Screwdrivers that had tried to attack them. Then the guards turned towards Ariel.
"Your highness, are you all right?" asked one of the guards. The boys' eyes widened. The guard certainly couldn't mean them, so that left…
"Yeah, I'm fine," said Ariel. "Thanks for your help."
"You should head back to the palace," said the same guard. "King Triton is worried about you."
"We were just heading there," said Sebastian.
"Be very careful. If any of those monsters show up while you're swimming to the palace, just keep swimming. King Triton will notice you entering and destroy the monsters." The group started swimming towards a magnificent looking giant spike-conch. "Hey! You! With the shoulder!" Sora looked back.
"Huh?"
"Get that patched up before you start attracting sharks!" Sora blinked but nodded and they continued swimming.
"What did he mean by that? It stings a little, but that's just because we're underwater."
"Actually, the smell's getting stronger," said Aladdin. "I think you must have reopened it a little."
"But we just got it patched up!" complained Donald.
"There's no time to fix it up. We'll just have to deal with any sharks we run into," said Sora matter-of-factly.
"Are you serious? !" shouted Sebastian.
"That's really dangerous!" said Flounder.
"You should really reconsider!" added Ariel.
"I think we'll be okay." As if to jinx Sora, more Screwdrivers appeared. "Oh great."
"Hurry!" Ariel practically shot off. Fortunately, it wasn't difficult to accomplish that, and the boys stayed right behind her, although Sora did consider staying behind. He decided not to since he was still wasn't used to fighting underwater. The Heartless followed them into the palace, and got zapped by electricity. Oddly enough, the mer-folks weren't electrocuted by it at all.
"That was too close." Everyone turned to see who said that and saw a large merman with a crown, long white hair, a long white beard, a gold trident, and a green tail. "As long as I have my trident, I will not tolerate those creatures inside this palace."
"Daddy!" Ariel swam up to the man. Looks like this was King Triton…as if that wasn't obvious before. King Triton let out a sigh of relief when he saw Ariel.
"Oh, Ariel…" His expression suddenly became sterner. "When will you listen? It's dangerous out there!" Ariel winced.
"But-"
"Strange creatures lurk outside." Triton was using a tone that said she was not to argue with him. There was an uncomfortable silence before Sebastian cleared his throat.
"Behold! You swim before the ruler of the seas, his majesty, King Triton!" Said king eyed the unfamiliar people before him.
"And who are they?"
"They helped us fight off those creatures," said Ariel.
"They don't look familiar. I know the faces of all of Atlantica's inhabitants, and I certainly don't recognize you four."
"We're from an ocean very far from here," said Sora.
"Yeah, we came to find the k-" Goofy was cut off when Sora slapped his hand over his mouth. Donald palmed his face and shook his head, exasperated, while Aladdin just chuckled and sweatdropped, glad he hadn't been the one to say something to give them away. King Triton gave them a suspicious look.
"The what?"
"We're looking for a couple of close friends of mine, but one of them did something awful to a friend of Aladdin's so we don't want to involve anyone else if we can help it." Sora knows how to lie. The trick is to slip in little truths to make it more believable. Ariel seemed to believe it if the sympathetic look on her face meant anything. King Triton didn't look that convinced.
"Well, there is no one with a past like that here. You'll just have to search elsewhere." Ariel looked at her father in shock.
"But Daddy-"
"Ariel! I think you should stop!" warned Sebastian. It seemed to be too late though. King Triton gave her a look that said Ariel was not to disobey him or else.
"You are not to leave this palace. Do you understand?" Ariel frowned, clenching her hands and then swam off, shortly followed by Flounder. The boys quickly followed, not wanting to be stuck alone with a grumpy King Triton. King Triton sighed as they swam off and sat on his throne, stroking his beard. "Perhaps I'm being too strict…" He sighed again. "I just want what's best for her."
"Of course your majesty, but I have to admit…I'm quite curious about these people they're looking for. Earlier Sora just said that they're a boy with silver hair and a girl with red hair."
"That does not concern us Sebastian," said Triton, giving the crab a stern look. "Now, have you anything to report about these creatures?" Sebastian nodded.
"It's just as you expected, your majesty. They're coming from Ursula's Grotto." Triton slammed his fist on his throne's arm.
"I knew it. That sea witch is up to no good again." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I see exile from the palace has taught her nothing." Sebastian nodded while crossing his claws.
"Yes, she poses serious danger." Triton gave the crab a look.
"And I told you to keep Ariel away from such danger, did I not?" Sebastian's eyes widened, and if it had been possible, he would have been sweating nervously.
"Your majesty, uh, I-" Triton raised his hand and cut Sebastian off.
"Just go find Ariel and make sure she doesn't try to investigate anything she shouldn't."
Outside the palace, Ariel was talking to her new friends about her daddy's overprotective nature.
"-and it was probably a bad idea, but it's not like anything terrible happened!"
It was a long monologue…The boys, Flounder included, were staring at her.
"Did that really happen?" asked Donald.
"Yeah, it was really weird…" said Flounder.
"Sounds like the He-monsters aren't the weirdest things you've run into," said Aladdin. Ariel nodded.
"Yeah, but these are a lot more dangerous…"
"Well, we'll be seeing you around Ariel," said Sora. Ariel blinked.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"We still need to find my friends, and we can't do that if we stay here," explained Sora. Ariel put her hands on her hips.
"Oh no, you're not leaving me behind," she said. Flounder gulped.
"But Ariel, King Triton said-" Ariel waved off his concern.
"Don't worry Flounder. These guys are really strong. We'll be fine."
"O-okay."
"Besides, I wanna show you guys my grotto." Aladdin cocked his head.
"Your grotto?" Ariel grinned and nodded. "Is there something special about it?"
"It's a surprise. C'mon!" They swam off and out of the city until they reached what appeared to be a pile of rocks. Ariel started pushing the rock.
"It's in a cave?" asked Goofy, slightly confused.
"Yeah, I don't want Daddy to find out about it. Can you give me a hand?" Ariel had managed to move it somewhat, but there was still a ways to go. At least this explained how Ariel had slapped some Heartless so hard. Aladdin and Sora swam over and helped her move it enough so that everyone could swim inside. They're eyes widened when they saw the contents of the cave.
"Wow…" Inside was a collection of items lining the walls. You could barely see the walls because there were so many things. Ariel swam up in front of everyone and spread her arms with a grin on her face.
"Look at all the wonderful things that Flounder and I've collected."
"Did you find them in ships?" asked Aladdin.
"Yeah, I think they're all from the outside world." Ariel looked up. "Someday, I'm going to see what's out there. I want to see what's out there. Does that sound strange?"
"That…" Everyone looked at Sora. "That sounds like Riku, Kairi, and me."
"Oh, so you want to see what's out there too?" Sora nodded absentmindedly. "I'm glad! That means I'm not the only one!" Ariel put her crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling. Then she looked at the outsiders and grinned. "We should look for them!"
"But King Triton said they weren't here!" said Flounder.
"I know, but he can't have looked everywhere. I bet he didn't look in the sunken ship."
"Your father doesn't want you to do anything that might get you hurt though…" said Sora.
"Oh, he treats me like I'm a little girl! He never wants to let me do anything! He just…He just doesn't understand!"
"No, I think this is just his way of protecting you," said Sora. "I think you should listen to him and stay in Atlantica." Ariel looked at him in shock.
"What? ! I can't believe it!" She glared at him and clenched her hands. "Didn't you just say we were thinking alike? ! I'm coming!"
"No you're not! King Triton's right! You shouldn't get involved!" And then Sora swam out much faster than everyone else could swim.
"What was that about?" asked Aladdin. Donald shrugged.
"Who knows?"
"He seemed really nice too." Ariel crossed her arms. "What right does he have to decide what I can and can't do?"
"You know, he sort of has a point," said Flounder. "Those things are pretty dangerous. Maybe we should just stay here Ariel."
"Not you too Flounder!"
"They probably have a good reason for acting like that," said Goofy. "I bet they're just worried about you."
"I can take care of myself," said Ariel. "And why are you trying to defend Sora like that?"
"Sora always has a reason for everything he does."
"We need to find him," said Donald.
"How are we gonna do that?" asked Flounder.
"His shoulder." Everyone turned toward Aladdin. "I can smell the blood leaking from it."
"Oh right, you're a shark merman," said Ariel.
"Well, let's go! We need to find him before he gets himself killed!" said Donald. The five of them swam out to look for Sora, not seeing Sebastian watching them from the ceiling. They also didn't see the two eels swimming after them.
These two eels are called Flotsam and Jetsam. They have a rather odd ability. Anything they see can be viewed by Ursula, the sea witch, and she was watching the little group swim away. "Those impudent fools will never find the keyhole! Especially since they chased off the Keyblade wielder." Ursula hmmed as she watched the mer-people in her orb. "The girl could prove useful, and I've got the Heartless on my side." She laughed. "Triton, my old friend…Your days are numbered!"
"How can one person swim so fast?" muttered Donald.
"He's a dolphin merman," said Ariel. "They're always really strong swimmers. We won't be able to catch him unless he stops swimming. I just hope none of the sharks around here smell his blood."
"What sort of sharks do you have around here?" asked Goofy.
"Really, really big ones!" said Flounder.
"They're usually at least a foot longer than a merman and several times as wide," said Ariel. "I don't think Sora would be able to handle one on his own."
"We should probably hurry then," said Aladdin. And that was when more Sea Neons appeared. "Oh come on!" So, our group had to take care of the Heartless, which took longer than expected.
"You know," said Goofy, "It's really weird not having Sora to fight with us."
"I guess we got used to having him around," said Donald.
"Then let's hurry up and find him!" said Aladdin. He pointed in a seemingly random direction. "He went that way!" It was a little odd, but they didn't have any other way to find Sora so they just followed Aladdin's nose. After a little while, Ariel noticed something.
"Hey, this is the way to the sunken ship I was telling you guys about earlier."
"Really?" asked Goofy. Ariel nodded. "Wow, what a coincidence."
"Do you think that shark's still there?" asked Flounder.
"There's a shark there?" asked Donald.
"Yeah, we've never been able to stay long because of it," said Ariel. Donald's eyes widened.
"Then we better hurry!"
"Let's see if we can get some dolphins to help us," said Ariel. "We'll get there much faster with their help."
Lucky for them, there were some dolphins nearby, and the friendly sea mammals were willing to give them a ride to the ship.
"Ah!" Aladdin covered his nose.
"Something wrong?" asked Ariel
"The scent of blood just got a lot stronger." Everyone's eye widened.
"Please hurry!" urged Ariel. The dolphins sped up slightly, but it wasn't too necessary. The ship came into view a few seconds later.
"Sora!" The merboy was floating near the mast. He seemed to be unconscious and he was bleeding heavily out of the shoulder. Surprisingly, at their shout, he jerked up. Then he grabbed his shoulder as everyone swam up to him."
"Okay, what happened to you?" demanded Donald.
"Heal." Sora used a quick Cure spell. Then he noticed everyone in front of him looked scared. Putting two and two together, Sora quickly spun around and used the Keyblade to keep what appeared to be a great white shark from disemboweling him. "Get lost." Sora jerked the Keyblade so that it went into the shark's mouth and used Blizzara. The spell went into the shark's mouth. The result was ice spikes in the shark's mouth that punctured its skin and made it impossible to close its mouth. It did try a few times though. Then it decided to swim far away from the agitated Keyblader. "I hope there aren't any more of those." He turned back to see some rather shocked mer-people. "Something wrong?"
"What…What was that?" said Ariel. Sora shrugged.
"I just did the first thing that came to mind."
"But that could kill it," said Ariel.
"You're worried about it?" She nodded. "Fine, I won't do that again."
"Sora, why did you r-swim off like that?" asked Goofy. Sora blushed and looked down.
"I…I was jealous." Everyone blinked.
"Huh?" Sora elaborated.
"Ariel, your father really cares about you. I don't get why you're so upset by that."
"Well, have your parents ever told you that there was something you couldn't do without giving you any reason why?"
"I don't have any parents."
Awkward silence.
"Oh, I-I didn't know," said Ariel, blushing in an embarrassed manner.
"I had a father for a little while. He seemed nice, but he turned out to be completely psychotic." Sora sighed. "Now, the closest thing I have to a parent is Kimihiro, and he just gives advice and makes food. He never tries to tell me what I should and shouldn't do because he thinks I should find out for myself, even if I get hurt doing it."
"At least you had a dad. I don't even remember mine!" said Aladdin.
"Really? That's kind of sad," said Sora.
"Okay! Enough of that!" said Donald. "Sora what were you doing here, and what happened to you? !"
"Oh, I was just swimming around. I wasn't really going anywhere. I do that whenever I'm upset. I usually end up somewhere relaxing." Sora paused and looked around. "Actually, this place doesn't look real relaxing. Why'd I come here?"
"Maybe it was because I said we should look for your friends here?" suggested Ariel. Sora frowned and crossed his arms.
"I guess that could be it…"
"What about your shoulder? It looks like something nasty happened to it," said Goofy.
"Oh, that…That was weird. After I got here, I was really upset so I started hitting the ship's mast." The others looked over at the mast and saw that it looked really beat up and was creaking dangerously like it was about to fall over. "I still felt upset so I used some magic on it too. I wasn't using Thunder, but for some reason, my body started using the spell, and I couldn't get it to stop, only I think it was a Thundara spell instead of a Thunder spell. It electrocuted me and blew my shoulder open." Sora sighed and rubbed said body part. "At least it's healed enough that I don't think anyone needs to look at it."
"Wha-Seriously? !" said Donald. "You mean we don't have to go through all that trouble again?"
"Yeah, I heal faster than a normal person."
"Well, now that we're here, why don't we explore a little while?" asked Ariel. "It'll probably be a little while before that shark comes back so this is one of the best chances we'll get." They decided to do this since they still had no leads on the Keyhole. You're probably thinking that they found a bunch of gold and jewels, right? Well, you're wrong. They found some silverware, some metal rigging, a telescope, and a compass. Ariel certainly seemed pleased with the finds.
"Wow, when you look through this, everything looks smaller!" Sora sweatdropped.
"Uh, I think you're looking through the wrong end." Ariel flipped the telescope.
"Now everything's bigger!"
"I was kind of expecting gold and jewels," said Donald.
"What's gold?" asked Ariel. "And jewels?"
"Uh…" Donald wasn't exactly sure how to explain this to her. Lucky for him, Sora had a way.
"They're objects that are very valuable to surface dwellers," explained Sora. "They occur naturally on land, but the only reason you'd find them down here would be if they got dropped or sunk with a ship."
"Oh…Wait. How do you know so much?" Sora said the first thing that came to mind.
"We're experts on surface dwellers."
"Really? ! Wow, you must know so much! What's this little circle thing with the pointy line in it?"
"It's a compass. That line always points north. Sailors use it to see which way is north so they don't get lost."
"What's this hard patchy circle stuff?"
"It looks like they were used to hold a barrel together."
"What's a barrel?"
"It's a wooden container shaped a bit like a cylinder."
"Wow, you do know a lot!"
"You're not gonna ask about the fork?"
"Fork?"
"Yeah, the pronged thing you're holding. People use it to eat food."
"Huh? ! But Scuttle said this is for combing hair!" Sora sweatdropped.
"Well, I guess it does look a bit like a comb…"
"Aladdin, what're ya doing?" asked Goofy. Aladdin was sifting through some boards and rocks.
"I saw something glinting under here…" Aladdin tossed a few things and his face lit up. "Found it!" He held up what looked like a crystal trident.
"That looks like Daddy's trident," said Ariel.
"Wow, what're the chances of that?" mused Goofy.
"Hmm…There is no chance, only hitsuzen." Donald gave Sora an odd look.
"Huh?"
"It's something Kimihiro says. Hitsuzen basically means what is meant to happen will happen. There is a reason for everything."
"So then why did we find that?" said Donald, jerking a thumb at Aladdin and his find. "And why is that the only thing valuable this ship had?"
"There was a rock that looked like that would fit in it," said Goofy.
"Where'd you see that?" asked Donald.
"Ariel's grotto."
"That's right," said Ariel. "I bet that would look nice there. Let's go back." The trip back was fairly normal. That means they ran into Heartless. It's normal for them to run into Heartless when they are traveling, even if they're just going down the street. If they didn't, that wouldn't be normal. Anyway, they got back to Ariel's grotto after dealing with lots of Sea Neons. Ariel swam up to the rock they'd been talking about and put the crystal trident in it.
"That looks really right," said Ariel. "Like it was meant to be here."
"I think you're right," said Sora. "I think some-"
"Ariel! You've disobeyed me again!" Everyone jumped and turned to see a furious King Triton. "I told you not to leave the palace!" Then he saw the crystal trident. His eyes narrowed and he lifted his trident, which started sparking. Ariel's eyes widened.
"Daddy, no!" Triton hit the crystal trident with an energy bolt. It shattered instantly. Ariel looked at the empty indentation in shock for a moment before giving her father an upset look. "How could you?" Then she swam out with Flounder following her. Oddly enough, Triton didn't try to stop her. Instead, he turned to Sora.
"Young man, you're not from another ocean. You're from another world, aren't you?" The boys stared at him in shock.
"You know about that?" asked Sora. It was a bit odd. The only people they've run into that know about the Keyblade outside of Traverse Town are the villains.
"Yes, all those who rule the sea are told about the Keyblade. That includes that outsiders are not to meddle in the affairs of other worlds!"
"Yeah, but the world order is-"
"You have violated this principle!" shouted Triton, cutting Sora off. "The key bearer shatters peace and brings ruin!"
"But Sora's not like that," said Goofy. Triton ignored him and continued his tirade.
"I thank you for saving my daughter, but there is no room in my ocean for you or your key. If you do not leave by the time the sun sets, I will have to destroy you." And with that, he left the grotto.
"What about the Heartless?" asked Aladdin. "Doesn't he want to get rid of them?"
"Yeah, if they reach the Keyhole, everyone's gonna be in big trouble," said Donald.
"I guess he doesn't think that the Heartless can find the Keyhole," said Sora. "…Hey, Goofy…Did you mean what you said? When you said I wouldn't destroy peace and bring ruin?"
"Of course!"
"…Thanks."
Meanwhile, Ariel was crying her eyes out on a well-lit rock. Flounder had left to give her some privacy. This was a bad move on his part. Out from the shadows swam two familiar eels, slowly circling Ariel.
"My, my, the poor child suffers such deep sorrow," said Jetsam…or Flotsam. I can't tell them apart. Let's just say the first eel is Jetsam and the second one is Flotsam.
"What a pity. If only there were something we could do…" said 'Flotsam.'
"Wait. Maybe she can be of help," said 'Jetsam.'
"Yes." Flotsam looked at Ariel, who had looked up to watch the two eels and listen to them. "Maybe she can be of some help to you."
Ariel sniffled and wiped her nose. "Who're you talking about?"
"Oh, she would surely help you," said 'Jetsam' as the two eels swam a little bit away from Ariel.
"She'd make all your dreams come true," said 'Flotsam' as the two eels swam in a circle for only a moment before being engulfed in black smoke.
"Ursula can help." The two eels disappeared as Ursula appeared, giving Ariel a smile.
"You called, my dear?"
"You're Ursula?" For a second, Ariel thought about all the warnings she'd received about the sea witch. "I'll take my chances." "I was just wondering if-"
"It's all right; helping others is what I live for." If you've seen The Little Mermaid, you'll know it's not that simple, but Ariel doesn't know that. "Let me guess. You wish to see other worlds." Ariel nodded. "That shouldn't be too hard. After all, your new friends came from another world." Ariel blinked.
"What?" Ariel stared at Ursula in shock.
"Of course, they had special help, that key the boy is always carrying around." Ariel looked down in confusion, as if hoping that the answers to all her questions would be written in the sand below.
"They used that to come here from another world?"
"Now, now." Ursula put her hand on Ariel's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "Cheer up, sweetie. You have something special too." Ariel looked up in surprise.
"I do?"
"Yes, now listen carefully…" While Ursula was explaining a plan to Ariel, the boys were looking around for the place where they'd first met her.
"Everything around here looks the same," complained Donald.
"Yeah, I'm starting to miss Ariel," said Aladdin. "She'd probably know how to get back there with no problem."
"Maybe we could find Ariel and ask her to show us how to get there," suggested Goofy.
"The only problem with that is that she's probably back at the palace by now," said Sora. Actually, he was right. Ursula and Ariel were back in the palace. Ursula was looking around semi-frantically.
"Now, I'm sure the Keyhole they seek is somewhere in this palace." She looked over at Ariel. "Now, my dear, if you could just help me look around without letting daddy know…I can help you get to those other worlds you long for." Ariel nodded.
Meanwhile, the boys had somehow gotten back to Atlantica.
"How'd we got back here?" asked Donald.
"I guess we were going around in circles," said Goofy, crossing his fins and nodding as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well, that's just great," muttered Sora. "If we go to the palace to find Ariel, what do you think the chances of Triton killing us are?" Everyone sighed. This was going to be unpleasant. Still, they wanted to leave sometime soon. The boys headed for the palace. At least none of the guards tried to stop them. Triton must not have told them anything yet. Because of this they were able to get into the palace without being bothered.
"At least things seem to be going our way for once," said Aladdin.
"I don't know," said Sora. "It seems pretty quiet. I'd've thought Triton would do something as soon as we set foot in here." As if on cue, some cackles sounded through the hall just then. The boys shared a look and then swam toward to the throne room as fast as they could.
At that moment, Triton was slumped in his throne and looked like he was about to lose consciousness, Ariel was holding onto his arm like she was afraid he was going to die, and Ursula was in the middle of the room holding Triton's trident and cackling.
"The trident is mine at last!" She gave Ariel a cruel grin. "And I couldn't have done it without your help, my dear." Ariel shut her eyes and shook her head.
"No! I didn't want this!"
"Why not? Aren't you tired of following your dear daddy's orders?" Ursula hmmed as Triton gave her a dirty look. "Oh, that's right. We had a deal didn't we? Time for a little journey." She raised the trident, which was crackling with power. "To the dark world of the Heartless!" Ariel brought up an arm to block the blast, but she was saved by the timely arrival of the two eels.
"We cannot find the Keyhole," said 'Jetsam.'
"The Keyhole is not here," said 'Flotsam.'
Ursula frowned and lowered the trident so she could look at her two lackeys. "What?" And that was when the boys swam in. Ursula grinned at them. "Why, we have company. I'm afraid you're a little late handsome!" And then she and the eels disappeared. Sora just blinked a couple of times.
"Who was that?"
"That was Ursula, the sea witch," said Triton. He didn't sound too good. Ariel gave him a worried look.
"Daddy?"
"The trident." Triton tried to get up, but winced and sat back down. "We must get it back."
"We'll get it," said Sora. "It sounds like we need to deal with that lady anyway." Looks like he'd heard something the others couldn't again.
"Was she talking about the Heartless?" asked Goofy. Sora crossed his arms and nodded.
"I heard something about the Keyhole, so she probably has something to do with the Heartless."
"I'll go too," said Ariel, swimming up to them. "My father's hurt, and it's all my fault. I have to do something!"
"…Okay. We'll probably need help finding where she is anyway," said Sora.
"Yeah, we got lost trying to find our way back to where we met you," said Donald.
"Thank you," said Ariel.
Sebastian suddenly swam up from behind the throne. "I'm right behind you!"
"Where'd you come from?" asked Aladdin.
"I'm a conductor, not a soldier! I wouldn't even slow that witch or her lackeys down!"
"The cauldron." Everyone turned towards King Triton in surprise. They'd been expecting him to protest having Ariel go with them, but it looked like he had accepted that she was going. "Ursula draws power from her cauldron. To defeat Ursula, you must strike her cauldron with magic."
"Got it. Donald and I will take care of that," said Sora.
"I can help too," said Ariel. "In case you need thunder magic. I got some more attack potions."
"Then let's go!" said Donald. With that said, they all left and started following Ariel.
"So, where are we going?" asked Aladdin.
"To the sunken ship we were at earlier," said Ariel.
"There's a path that leads to Ursula's lair there," explained Sebastian. "We sealed it up a while ago, but I know how to open it."
"I hope that shark is gone," muttered Sora. Ariel chewed her lip for a second and then looked over at Sora.
"Hey, Sora…"
"Hm?"
"Are you guys really from another world?" That caught them by surprise.
"How'd you find out about that?" asked Donald.
"Yeah, that's supposed to be a secret," added Goofy.
"Ursula told me. She said you used that key to get here."
"Actually, we used a gummi ship," said Sora.
"Huh?"
"We'll explain later. Or you can ask your dad. He knows about other worlds for some reason."
"He does? How come?" Before anyone could answer her, several Heartless appeared. These looked like giant, green angler fish with the Heartless crest on its underside, along with three Screwdrivers attached to the underbelly by their heads.
"Aquatanks…and Screwdrivers. Why are there Screwdrivers attached to the big fishes though?" Then they had to fight the big fish. Weirdly enough, the Screwdrivers seemed to prefer hanging off the underbelly of the Aquatanks to attacking the mer-people. They only attacked if they were knocked off their Aquatank or the Aquatank was destroyed. Maybe they're similar to Remora. The Aquatanks didn't seem to have any special abilities, but it did take a while to destroy them. They had a lot of stamina.
"Nothing like that has ever shown up," said Ariel.
"Maybe Ursula's summoning more powerful Heartless now," suggested Goofy.
"It did sound like the trident gave her a power boost," added Sora.
"That's because it did!" said Sebastian. "We need to hurry before she summons something really nasty!" They quickly started towards the ship again. Unfortunately, the Heartless had gotten a lot stronger. Along with the Aquatanks, Sheltering Zones, very large versions of Sea Neons, were now appearing. This wouldn't be so bad if not for the fact that they separated into three Sea Neons if they were not killed by magic. And, as if that wasn't enough, Search Ghosts were now appearing regularly. It is very difficult to catch teleporting Heartless when you are not an expert at moving around underwater. Still, the group made it to the ship, and they got a surprise.
"More Heartless!" Ariel reached for a potion.
"Hey, these look like those mushroom things from Monstro," said Aladdin. Ariel gave him a confused look.
"Huh?"
"These Heartless don't attack people," explained Sora. "We're not sure why though."
"All they do is try to get us to hit them with spells," said Donald. "It's really weird."
"Should we ignore them then?" asked Ariel.
"Yes, that would be good," said Sebastian, nodding. "We need to get the trident back as soon as possible…What is your friend doing?" Aladdin was trying to sneak up on one of the White Mushrooms.
"Aladdin!" shouted Sora. This got the White Mushroom to turn around. When it saw Aladdin so close to him, it slapped his hands away, stomped a little, and then disappeared. "We don't have time for this! Wait until later!" Aladdin glowered slightly.
"Fine…" Sebastian quickly swam up to a seemingly random boulder and did something that caused it to roll over to the side. Behind the boulder was a hole.
"This is the way to Ursula's lair." Everyone swam in. The hole turned out to actually be a short tunnel. After swimming for a moment, they found themselves in an eerie looking area with red-tinted rocks and brown seaweed. Unfortunately, there were Heartless here too, mostly Search Ghosts.
"I hope we get there soon," said Ariel. "I'm starting to run low on attack potions…"
"Actually, it should be right around this corner," said Sebastian. As they rounded the corner, he pointed. "There!" It was just another hole in the rock, but Sebastian did seem to know what he was doing. They swam in. Inside was a small, circular, dark cavern. In the center of the cavern was a cauldron filled with an unidentified liquid, which was bubbling ominously.
"How is that boiling underwater when the water is a fairly cool temperature? Maybe it's something with a much lower boiling point? Wait. Why am I letting this bother me? I've seen more irrational things in the past week than I have in my whole life." Yes, I'm aware that it's an odd thing for Sora to think at the moment. He just sometimes notices things that he can't help wondering about. "Where's Ursula?"
"Allow me," said Sebastian. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "Ursula! Show yourself! Your time has come!" A large shell near the ceiling moved slightly. Then several tentacles came out of it, closely followed by Ursula's torso and head. At the same time, Flotsam and Jetsam swam in from off to the side. For some reason, Ursula didn't have the trident with her.
"Well, so you decided to come and reclaim Daddy's trident? How nice of you." Ursula laughed. "Now, I can get rid of you!" The cauldron started crackling.
"Donald, you take care of that. The rest of us will deal with Ursula."
"Right!"
It wasn't going to be that simple though. The two eels swam toward Donald to bite him.
"Fire!" Donald hit one of the eels, and it swam away slightly. As for the other one…
"Hya!" Sora stabbed it. Only, the Keyblade went right through it. There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at Sora and the eel, which seemed to be in its death throes.
"Poopsie!" Everyone looked at Ursula in confusion.
"Poopsie?"
"You'll pay for that!" Sora's eyes widened as he looked back and forth between the dead eel and the sea witch.
"You actually care about those two? !" You can't really blame Sora for being surprised. Most villains don't care about any of their underlings. At all. Seems Ursula is an exception to this though. She was furious. She lifted her arms, and the contents of the cauldron erupted. Everyone backpedaled to avoid getting hit by it.
"Okay, killing her pet eel, not the best idea!" said Aladdin.
"I noticed!" Sora made a note not to kill the other eel, who will simply be called 'Jetsam.' Then he pushed the dead eel off the Keyblade before realizing that Ursula happened to be glaring at him. Then she did some kind of spinning thing. Sora supposed that her tentacles were supposed to hurt him. He wasn't really familiar with underwater fighting styles. He quickly swam out of the way, but was clipped slightly. Surprisingly, the tentacles were able to cut through his skin. Then Ursula tried to grab his face with a hand that was crackling with energy which seemed a little too similar to the trident's.
*Clang!*
Sora had brought the Keyblade up, but Aladdin had managed to swim over and had blocked Ursula's hand with his sword. Then Ariel broke an attack potion over Ursula's head, electrocuting the witch. Meanwhile, Donald was continuing to cast spells on the cauldron. Jetsam was trying to attack him, but Goofy was keeping him from doing so. That would continue for most of the fight.
Back to the main part of the fight. Ursula was still angry. She blasted Aladdin and Ariel with some kind of energy blast. Sora took advantage of this to get a hit in on Ursula's back. Ursula growled and turned back to try and blast Sora…and then the cauldron exploded. It didn't just blast the unidentified liquid everywhere. The actual cauldron exploded and sent shrapnel flying everywhere. Fortunately, the water slowed down the shrapnel somewhat. The only ones in danger of being impaled were the three close to the cauldron. Donald was shielded by Goofy, whose shield was apparently denser than the cauldron shards. Jetsam wasn't so lucky. One of the shards went right through him. He flopped a couple of times as he sunk to the ground, but fell still a second later. Ursula looked at the dead eels and the shattered cauldron. Things were not going in her favor. She growled. "You'll pay for this!" And then she released a bunch of ink. Now, everyone knows that octopus ink makes it hard to see so that an octopus can escape something trying to eat it or catch something to eat. Did you know the ink contains a paralyzing agent though? It's why no one tried to grab Ursula or follow her out.
As the ink cloud subsided and everyone stopped coughing, they looked around. It looked like Sora had the worse injuries, probably because he'd gotten Ursula angry at him in particular. The cuts on his tail weren't that deep though, and a Cure spell was enough to get rid of them.
"So, now what?" asked Aladdin.
"We need to find Ursula!" said Ariel, looking rather determined. "She still has the trident!" She turned to Aladdin. "Can you track her blood?"
"Sorry, all the blood here is drowning hers out." Ariel sighed.
"Gawrsh, how're we gonna find her then?" asked Goofy.
"What I want to know is why Ursula didn't use the trident," said Sora. "It didn't sound like she was planning on giving it to Maleficient." Ariel blinked.
"Who?"
"We'll explain later."
Donald looked at Sebastian. "Any idea where she'd go?" Sebastian shook his head.
"Not a clue. No one knows much about what she does. We just know that this is her lair."
"Hm?" Sora suddenly looked off at the entrance with a confused look on his face.
"Sora?" Goofy swam over to him. "You okay?" Sora didn't answer. He just continued staring with an odd look on his face. Goofy nudged him. Sora jumped slightly.
"Huh?"
"You spaced out," said Aladdin. "What happened there?"
"Oh, it's nothing." Sora turned towards the rest. "I think I know where to find Ursula." Everyone looked at him in surprise.
"How do you know that?" asked Ariel.
"Sometimes, I just know things. It doesn't happen very often, but I think this is one of those times." Everyone gave him disbelieving looks. Sora frowned. "Fine, don't believe me."
"It's not that we don't believe you," said Ariel. "It just seems-" She couldn't seem to find the right words, but Aladdin could.
"Too convenient."
"Well, we have ta look for Ursula either way," said Goofy. "Why not look where Sora wants to look, and if she's not there, we look everywhere else?"
"Well, it's better than nothing," said Sebastian.
"Lead the way then," said Ariel. Sora nodded and quickly swam out and away from Ursula's lair with the others following him. It was odd. Only an hour ago, he'd been wandering around completely loss. Now, he seemed to know exactly where he should be going. Actually, this had happened a few times before. Kimihiro experienced it sometimes too. Sora supposed that whatever it was, it was an Ancient thing.
"Sora, did you mean to kill Jetsam and Flotsam?" Sora looked at Ariel in surprise. Where'd that come from?
"Well, yes and no. I knew we were gonna have to probably take them out, but I wasn't expecting the Keyblade to go through them so easily."
"So you were planning on killing them?"
"Well, they were attacking us, and the whole world is at stake. We don't really have much of a choice."
"Of course we have a choice! We always have a choice!"
"What if it's kill or be killed? That's the sort of situation it is right now. Are you willing to kill to survive, or will you let Ursula kill you?" Ariel looked at him in shock.
"Are you serious? How can you say something like that?"
"It's just how I was raised." That's true. We won't go into that though.
"That must be some family," said Aladdin, sweatdropping.
"You have no idea."
"You should introduce us to your family sometime," said Goofy. Sora gave him a 'WTF' look.
"I, uh, wouldn't recommend that." It just didn't seem like a good idea to introduce the Tsviets to his new friends. Sora tried to think of a way to change the subject. "We need to go through this cave." He pointed at a seemingly random cave. Actually, he did think that they needed to go through the cave.
"The current down there is pretty strong," said Ariel. "I'm not sure we can swim against it."
"Well, has anyone done it before?" asked Sora.
"Some of the guards swim out there to make sure everything is all right."
"Then I think we'll be okay. Just grab onto someone if you have trouble swimming against the current."
Ariel and Sebastian ended up hanging on to Aladdin. Donald was holding on to Goofy. Sora ended up on his own, which was fine by him. They swam through the cave and ended up in some open ocean. Ursula was already there, but she was now the size of a skyscraper, had a yellow coral crown, the trident (also much bigger), and she was grinning at them with sharper teeth.
"So that's why she didn't use it before," thought Sora.
"You pathetic fools! I rule the seas now!" Then the trident glowed and what looked like a lightning-based spell hit them.
"Okay, I'm gonna attack her now before she does that again." Sora darted up to Ursula and then swam behind her head. He promptly started hitting her with the Keyblade.
"Hey!" Ursula swiped at him with her hand, but he dodged it without much of a problem. Then she turned, but Sora just followed the back of her head as she turned. Seems there was a bit of a disadvantage to being so large. Ursula growled and used another pseudo-thunder attack, only this one was a lot more concentrated and had a shorter range. Since Sora was the only one in the range, he was the only one who got hit.
"Does he usually do things like that?" asked Ariel. Aladdin shrugged.
"I'll just stay back here," said Donald. "Cure!" The spell was for Sora. He was looking a bit fried from the lightning attack.
"We better go help Sora out," said Goofy. He and Aladdin swam forward towards Ursula. Ariel glanced at Sebastian.
"Ariel, don't even think about it." Ariel immediately swam off towards Ursula. Sebastian sighed. "That girl's gonna be the death of me." Donald snickered at the poor crab.
Sora was wondering why the Keyblade wasn't doing as much damage as last time. It was probably because of the trident's power. Oh well, it looked like the only problem he had to deal with at the moment was the electric attack, which he could actually handle fairly well.
"Need some help?" And then Aladdin landed a slash on Ursula's head. Sora grinned.
"What took you?"
"Just watching you a bit." At that point, Ursula let out an angry yell, lifted the trident, and sent a circle of magic energy outward from her, pushing the two males back as Goofy and Ariel swam up.
"Well, that's two attacks to look out for," muttered Sora. Ursula had turned around to face them, and she started sucking in water through her mouth. This pulled the group towards her. They swam against the suction. It wasn't doing any good though. They were still being pulled towards Ursula's mouth. Then Sora got an idea. "Ariel! Drop one of your potions into the water!" Ariel quickly pulled out one of her special potions and dropped it. It was pulled towards Ursula and landed in her mouth. Ursula let out a loud shriek and stopped sucking in water. Ariel and Sora took advantage of this to swim around to the back of her head. Aladdin and Goofy weren't quite fast enough and ended up in front of her face instead. In the distance, Donald sighed.
"Those guys will never learn." Then he quickly cast a Cure spell on everyone. Then Ursula opened her mouth and bit Aladdin and Goofy. Donald winced. "Maybe I should cast an Aero shell on them."
"Ursula can absorb wind magic!" Donald twitched.
"Sora can hear me from all the way over there? !"
"Yes I can!"
"Why are you shouting random stuff Sora?"
"Just making sure Donald doesn't do something he regrets. Hold on a sec." Sora jammed the Keyblade between Ursula's teeth and pried them open so that Aladdin and Goofy could swim out. Then he quickly cast a couple of Cures on them. Then Ursula let loose with another blast of energy that knocked everyone back. Sora growled.
"At this rate, someone's gonna get hurt. Her skins too tough to cut through easily though, and she's fat enough that I can't sever the arteries or veins in her neck in one blow. Her biggest weakness is electricity, but that's our weakness too. Wait. That's it!" "You guys keep her distracted!" He swam around back to the back of Ursula's head. Then he grabbed the chain of the Keyblade and started spinning it around very quickly. When Sora decided it was spinning quickly enough, he let it fly right towards Ursula. It hit her right in the middle of her neck. Ursula let out a loud screech and started trying to grab it. This was a bit difficult for her. Sora swam up to the Keyblade hilt protruding from Ursula's neck and transformed into his Wisdom drive…which didn't look that different from his normal merman form. "Get back now!" Everyone one quickly did. They weren't sure what Sora was planning, but they were worried that it was dangerous. They were right. "Thundara!" Just to remind you, Sora is currently using the Spellbinder Keyblade. This raises his magical power a bit. He's also using his Wisdom drive, which also increases his magical power. This means his Thundara spell was more like a Thundaga spell. Plus, the water they're in is very good for conducting the electric current. This means Sora and Ursula were both hit with the strong spell. Both screamed as the electric current went through their bodies. Then Ursula just fell. Sora probably would've been pulled down with her, but Aladdin grabbed him.
"You okay?" Sora blinked. It looked like the spell had managed to hit Aladdin too. His hair was a bit frizzy.
"Didn't you swim away?" Aladdin chuckled.
"Well, I'm supposed to be resistant to magic, and we were worried that you'd be in bad shape because of what you were going to do."
"Oh." Sora sighed. "I hate fighting underwater." Aladdin laughed as everyone else swam up.
"Why'd you do something so stupid!" shouted Donald. "You nearly killed yourself! And you blew your shoulder open again!"
"Sorry. The way things were going, it didn't look like we were going to be able to do much to her before she killed us."
"Uh, where's the Keyblade?" asked Goofy. Sora pointed down towards where Ursula's body had fallen. Everyone groaned.
"Well, let's go get the trident…and your key," said Ariel. There was an awkward silence.
"Sorry we couldn't tell you," said Goofy. "But it would've been messing with the world border."
"It's order!" Ariel smiled at them.
"It's okay. I don't completely understand what's going on, but I trust you guys. You can explain as soon as we give the trident back to Daddy."
"Before we go look for the trident, can someone please fix my shoulder so I don't attract another shark?" A Cure was quickly used on Sora because, really, how do you argue with that?
The group swam down towards the sea floor. The trident was fairly easy to find, even if it had shrunken down to its original size. The Keyblade was more…troublesome. Ursula's body had turned into some sort of black goo, and they had to go through that to find it. As soon as they found it, they started heading back. They also found a bunch of papers that had Ansem's name and signature on them. Apparently, Ursula had one of the reports on her person, and it was waterproof. As soon as all the pages had been picked up, they started heading towards the palace.
"You know, I don't get why that attack killed Ursula," said Aladdin. "It was more powerful than usual, but it seemed like it would take more to take her out."
"I figured she didn't have any resistance to electrical magic since she lives underwater. So, I used the Keyblade to use the Thundara spell directly on her nervous system, and I tried to make it as strong as possible."
"What's a nervous system?" Actually, both Aladdin and Ariel asked that. Sora sweatdropped.
"I get the feeling that if those two lived in the same world, they'd be really good friends." "It relays messages from body part to body part using electrical signals. If enough of an electrical shock is delivered to a person, it can interfere with the signals and kill them, usually by affecting the heart."
"Why do you even know that?" asked Donald.
"You don't wanna know." And that was the end of all talking until they reached the castle.
Triton seemed to have recovered enough that he could get out of his throne. He still seemed to be favoring his right side slightly though. Ariel swam up to him and handed the trident to him, but couldn't bring herself to look him in the face. "Daddy…I'm so sorry."
"Hey, please don't be angry with Ariel," said Sora. "She just made a mistake." Triton looked at everyone assembled before he looked straight as Ariel.
"It's my fault." Everyone blinked and looked at him in surprise, including Ariel. "You only followed Ursula…because I wouldn't let you follow your heart. And when you found that crystal trident, I lost my temper and destroyed it."
"Oh yeah, the crystal! Why'd you destroy it?" asked Goofy.
"It felt like something was happening when she put it in that indentation." said Sora. "Did that have some sort of special power?" Triton nodded.
"Yes, that trident had the power to reveal this world's Keyhole."
"And you thought Sora would use it to destroy this world!" said Aladdin. Triton nodded.
"That's right. I couldn't allow you to find the Keyhole so I destroyed the crystal trident."
"Oh Daddy…" Triton turned to face Sora.
"Keybearer, I have a request for you."
"What kind of request?"
"Seal the Keyhole." He held his trident out. "My trident also has the power to reveal the Keyhole." Well, that explained why he knows about the other worlds. "Will you do it?"
"Of course!" said Sora.
"That's what we were planning to do from the start," explained Donald.
Ariel took the trident. "Daddy, where is the Keyhole?" Triton chuckled.
"You should know that better than anyone. It's in your grotto." Everyone blinked.
"Wow, what're the chances?" said Aladdin. Sora laughed.
"Hitsuzen…You never know when it's gonna happen."
"Well, we better get going. Flounder's probably there, and I want to tell him about everything that happened," said Ariel. The boys nodded and they all swam out of the palace. Triton turned towards Sebastian.
"Sebastian."
"Yes sir." He swam out following the mer-people that just left. I guess some things never change.
The trip to the grotto was nice and peaceful. Seems beating Ursula has gotten rid of the Heartless, temporarily at least. When they got to the grotto, Flounder was there, swimming around.
"Ariel! Why do you have your dad's trident? ! He'll be angry if he finds out you took it!"
"Don't worry, he's letting me borrow it for a little while." Ariel held it up to the indent in the rock. It glowed for a moment. Then a 2D blue, sparkly square appeared a few feet in front of the rock. There was a keyhole in it. Sora held up the Keyblade, and light gathered at the tip and shot into the Keyhole. A clicking sound echoed through the grotto as the square disappeared.
"Whoa…What was that?" asked Flounder. Everyone quickly explained what had happened when he'd let Ariel have some alone time. Then the boys explained the Heartless, worlds, etc. to the two natives.
"Wow, it sounds amazing," said Ariel.
"Sorry we couldn't tell you before," said Goofy.
"It's okay. Besides, if you can travel to other worlds, maybe I can too one day." Ariel swam up to the ceiling of the grotto and looked up. "So many places I want to see…I know I'll get there someday…I'll find a way. I'm sure of it."
"I'll go with you…as long as there's water," said Flounder. Sora swam up to Ariel.
"Why don't you come with us? We've already got Aladdin." Ariel smiled sadly and shook her head. Sora blinked in surprise. "Why not?"
"You're fighting those monsters. I was able to help you here, but that's only because we're underwater. If we weren't in water, I wouldn't be able to fight, and those potions wouldn't work anymore. I'd just get in the way. Maybe when you find your friends and save the worlds, you can show me some of the other worlds you've been to."
"Hm…" Sora turned to Donald. "Do you have a problem with that?" The duck sighed.
"I guess not…But only if her dad says it's okay! I don't wanna get on his bad side!" Everyone laughed a bit at this.
"We should probably leave soon…" said Aladdin.
"Wait!" Ariel swam over to a seemingly random shelf. Then she swam over to another one and started fiddling around over there. Then she swam over to Sora and presented him with a lump wrapped in paper. "This is for you. I found it a long time ago. It looks like that thing hanging off the end of your weapon."
"It does?" Sora carefully removed the paper and looked at the charm inside. It was a seashell (It looked like a scallop.) with a chain coming off of the smaller end. "Huh, where'd you find this?"
"Near the abyss, in a group of rocks." Sora removed the Spellbinder charm and replaced it with the seashell charm. The Keyblade changed in a flash of light. The Keyblade now had a green handle that looked like a stretched out fish tail fin, blue handles with mermaids drawn on them, a lighter blue shaft in the shape of a jet of water, and a crab at the end of the shaft for the 'teeth' of the key. Ariel's eyes widened in delight. "Wow, that's amazing!" Sora poked the crab a couple of times to make sure it wasn't alive. It wasn't, thank goodness.
"It's called Crabclaw. Fitting."
"So, can we see how you travel to different worlds?" asked Ariel, looking rather excited. Goofy nodded.
"Sure!"
"It's just…we can't figure out how to get back to where we met you," said Aladdin. "Could you take us there?"
"No problem." So the group swam back to where they went, talking about various things along the way. When they reached the clam with the glowing circle in it, they stopped.
"That glowing circle in the clam lets us get back to the ship we use to travel from world to world," explained Sora.
"If you look up in the sky, you might be able to see it," said Goofy. Everyone swam up and broke through the surface of the water. Ariel squinted as she looked into the sky.
"Where is it?"
"It's next to that cloud right there," said Sora, pointing.
"That little dot? No way! How can you ride it?"
"It only looks small 'cause it's so far away," said Goofy.
"Yeah, it's actually a lot bigger!" added Aladdin.
"So, it can fly, like a bird?" The boys nodded. Ariel grinned. "Wow, that's so amazing! I wonder what that's like…" The boys looked at each other and then turned to face Ariel and Flounder.
"Well, we'll be seeing you around," said Sora.
"Yeah, I hope we'll see you again someday," said Ariel. With that, the boys swam underwater and into the circle and disappeared from the world.
"Finally, we have legs again," said Aladdin. "Hey, Abu we're back! You don't have to worry about going to Atlantica anymore!" Abu jumped down from somewhere and landed on Aladdin's shoulder. "There you are! You missed out on a lot. You wouldn't believe some of the things we got to see!"
"Hey, do you wanna read this report with us?" asked Sora. Aladdin blushed.
"I can't read…" The others blinked before they realized that it wasn't that odd. Where they're from, most people know how to read. Where Aladdin's from, only the higher-ups know how to read. Considering that Aladdin was a 'street rat,' it actually made sense that he couldn't read.
"We'll just read out loud for you then," said Sora, turning back to the papers. "'The shadows that crawl beneath the castle…Are they the people who lost their hearts, or incarnations of darkness? Or something entirely beyond my imagination?
"'All my knowledge has provided no answer. One thing I am sure of is that they are entirely devoid of emotion. Perhaps further study will unlock the mysteries of the heart.
"'Fortunately, there is no shortage of test samples. They are multiplying underground even as I write this report. They still need a name. Those who lack hearts…I will call them the Heartless.'" There was silence as Sora finished reading. "Was Ansem experimenting with the Heartless? That's the impression I'm getting from this report…"
"This didn't tell us anything," muttered Donald.
"That just means we need to find more of the reports," said Goofy.
"So, we'll be going to more worlds?" asked Aladdin. Goofy nodded. "Great, more places to look for Jasmine!"
"We're gonna have to backtrack," said Sora completely out of the blue.
"How come?" Sora pointed out the gummi ship window. Outside were hordes upon hordes of Heartless ships.
"…"
"…"
"…Yeah, let's go the other way."
They promptly turned the gummi ship around and warped to Agrabah.
-end of chapter-
I never want to write underwater fight scenes again. Ever! Those were hard! I hope none of the new Kingdom Hearts games include turning into mer-folks and fighting underwater.
A sand shark is the only thing I could think of for Aladdin. It did come in handy though. Sharks are very good at smelling blood, and that's probably the only reason the group was able to find Sora so quickly.
Water conducts electricity. I always wondered why using Thunder in Atlantica didn't do anything weird. Given, maybe the fact that it's magic might prevent this, but still…
I seriously think that shark you have to fight is a great white shark.
Sora has daddy issues. You'll see why eventually.
Due to the fact that Kimihiro ended up getting hurt whenever he learned an important lesson, he's developed a sort of tough love complex. He will fuss over you, but he won't stop you from doing something dangerous. That way, you'll learn first-hand why it's dangerous and won't try it again.
Contrary to popular belief, sunken ships don't always have gold and treasure in them. You're more likely to find stuff that Ariel would like to collect.
Aladdin seems to have kleptomania. It's probably because he's had to steal to survive since he was very young…I shudder to think what will happen if he and Yuffie ever team up.
The only reason Sora had so much trouble with Ursula is because he isn't used to fighting underwater. If it had been on land, it wouldn't have been so bad. When he gets back to Destiny Islands, Seren will probably find a way to remedy this.
Can you guess what Ariel used as wrapping paper?
On a side note, Kimihiro got his glasses back in the Xxxholic manga. I'm glad. I think he looks better with them.
This is the last 'What about the rest?' omake. I'm out of Tsviets. I may do some follow ups though…
Omake: What about the rest? Part XI
Nero blinked several times. A wave of darkness had gone sweeping over the islands and picked him up before he had time to react. He had an understandable reaction: He let out a loud swear. Usually, he reacts better than that. Something must've caused the darkness growing on the islands to speed up and get a lot stronger. Nero looked around. He was in the middle of a deserted wasteland. The only living thing was a Wutain man with a topknot, a white robe, and a katana who was looking at Nero suspiciously. Nero was used to it. When you wear a straitjacket and muzzle every day, have metal wings, and regularly teleport using darkness, people give you odd looks. Nero just went up to the man. "Where am I?'
The man paused and looked around. Then he looked straight at Nero…and shrugged. "Truthfully, I do not know."
"You're lost?"
"No."
"You just said you don't know where you are."
"I have no set destination so I do not need to know where I am." It sort of made sense.
"I don't suppose you know what world this is."
"Earth."
"Wonderful, I was transported to another world. Now I have to find the others, and they're probably all on different worlds."
"Are you a servant of Aku?" Nero gave the man an odd look.
"What?" The man pointed at the wisps of darkness circling Nero.
"You seem to be a very dark person, you likely have dark powers, and you appeared out of nowhere. Usuallly, that means you have something to do with Aku."
"I have no idea what an 'Aku' is. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go find the other Tsviets." Nero took his arms out of their bindings.
"Wait!" Nero twitched.
"Now what?"
"Do your powers allow you to travel through time?"
That was unexpected. "No."
"Do you have any knowledge of traveling through time?"
"No." The man sighed.
"I see. Well, I hope you find what you seek, just as I hope to find what I seek." With that, the odd Wutain man continued on his way. Nero raised an eyebrow.
"Odd man." Then he disappeared in a swirl of darkness, making it seem like he was never there.