And here is chapter 17. Not too much is happening in this chapter. Donald, Goofy, and Aladdin will get new weapons, and there will be another Coliseum tournament, but that's about it.
Something I'd like to say, for some reason, I can now only use one punctuation, so now there will be a space between my questions and exclamation marks. It looks weird, but it's the only way to get both of them in. Might have to go back and do that with the other chapters.
I still don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.
-Chapter start-
"We're back!" said Donald. Aladdin blinked.
"That was fast."
"We used the warp gummi Cid gave us," said Goofy
"Oh yeah, you used that before after we go to Atlantica. Abu, it's that town we were at before! The one with the wizard! You can come out now!" It took a bit of coaxing, but Aladdin finally got the monkey out of the vents. Everyone looked at Sora who was still sleeping…and bloody.
"I think we should take him to Aerith first," said Donald. So as soon as they disembarked, they ran to the hotel where Aerith lived. Her eyes went wide when she saw the little Tsviet.
"What happened to Sora? !"
"He got into a fight with a pirate crew," said Goofy.
"The pirate crew no longer exists," said Aladdin.
"He's fine. He's just sleeping," said Donald.
"He's been sleeping for a couple of hours," pointed out Goofy.
"Uh, he probably just hasn't been getting enough sleep," said Donald.
"Anyway, these guys said you'd help out with his clothes," explained Aladdin. "I certainly don't know what to do with him when he's like this. Donald and Goofy probably don't, and we need to go see Cid about a navi gummi so we were wondering if you could help with him." Aerith took Sora from Aladdin and Goofy and gave him a look over. If nothing else, Sora is quite light. Probably because he has no fat in his body. It was easy for Aerith to see if his clothes and exhaustion were the only problems.
"Okay, I'll wash his clothes and see if I can clean him up some too. I hope he doesn't wake up though. That would be really awkward." Not to mention Sora might accidentally attack her. Then again, it wouldn't be surprising if he was too groggy to do much of anything. She narrowed her eyes when she noticed something odd in his hair. "Is that a feather?"
"Peter thought it would be funny," explained Aladdin. Aerith nodded as if that made perfect sense and looked at the conscious boys.
"What about you guys?"
"We'll take care of some of the other stuff while he's sleeping," said Donald. "No reason to waste time waiting for him to wake up." He pointed at Goofy. "You take the puppies to the other Dalmatians." He pointed at Aladdin. "You go find Cid and get him to install the navi gummi you found…and maybe go to the synthesizing shop. See if you can get anything there. I'll go to my nephews' shop and get us some new weapons."
"You sure we should split up?" asked Goofy.
"Yeah, we'll be fine. Besides, if we get in trouble, we can just run," explained Donald.
"Well, come to my room when you're done," said Aerith. "If I'm done cleaning Sora up, I'll put him in my bed while I clean his clothes." The group split up into the four directions. Donald went over to the shop his Nephews ran.
"Hi Uncle Donald!"
"Hi."
"Did you come to get some more weapons?" asked Huey.
"Yeah, one for me, one for Goofy, and one for Aladdin. Some potions and ethers too."
"We got a good staff, but it's a bit expensive," said Dewey.
"How much?"
"4000 munny."
"That much? !"
"Yeah, it's the only one that we have at the moment that's stronger than the one you have," said Louie.
"Well, let me take a look at it," said Donald. Louie handed it over. It looked similar to the Magus staff, but it was white and yellow instead. It did feel fairly powerful. "Let me see what you have for Goofy and Aladdin first."
"Actually, we don't have anything better than the shield Goofy has now," said Dewey. "We got some more swords though." Huey went over to a rack and went through it until he found what he was looking for and pulled over a scimitar that had a slightly bluish tone to the blade.
"It's made of mythril. It's tougher than iron." Donald thought for a moment.
"Sure, I'll take them."
Aladdin was having a slightly more difficult time. He'd found Cid easily enough, but there was a slight problem.
"This is only half a gummi. I can't install a gummi if there's only half of it you dumbass!"
"Well, what's the other half look like?"
"What do you think it looks like? It looks like the other *beep* half."
"Okay, okay, we'll look for it." Aladdin took the gummi back. Cid made a face.
"Is that my wallet?" Aladdin blinked. He did not steal from Cid, or anyone else in Traverse Town since they were in such a bad state of affairs. He looked at his shoulder where Abu was sitting with a modern leather wallet with a silver airship on it. Not that Aladdin knew what an airship was. Actually Aladdin wasn't completely sure it was a wallet since most people use pouches where he's from.
"Oh, is that what it is? Sorry, Abu likes shiny things." Aladdin tugged at the wallet, which Abu refused to let go off. "Abu! C'mon! We don't need money that badly!" Abu growled. Cid suddenly hit Abu over the head.
"Give me back my money, you little bastard!" That got Abu to let go. Cid snatched the wallet back and gave both Arabians a dirty look.
"Seriously, I only steal to survive, and since I'm traveling around with three people who have plenty of money, I don't have to worry about it!"
"Just get out of here." Aladdin did so. He didn't really want to get on Cid's bad side. Next stop was the Synthesis Shop.
"Keep that monkey away from me, kupo!" Aladdin sweatdropped. Seems the moogles remembered them from last time.
"Okay, no problem. Donald sent me to see if there was anything we could get synthesized."
"Oh, why didn't you say so? How come it's only you, kupo?"
"We split up to save time."
"Okay, tell me what you want, kupo." Aladdin stared at the list…and stared…and stared.
"I can't read."
"Seriously?"
"It's just what happens where I'm from…Can you just read it?" The Moogle sighed, but started listing the items and the materials needed to synthesize them. Aladdin ended up getting a Mega-Potion, a Magic Armlet, a Golem Chain, and a Master Earring. He didn't have materials needed for the other things. "Thanks, see you around." Then Aladdin left to see if he could find his way to Aerith's hotel room.
Goofy had a fairly easy job. He just had to go to the Dalmatian House and summon all of the puppies they'd found since last time they'd come. The two adult dogs gave him a chunk of Orichalcum and a gummi block that Goofy didn't recognize. Since it was a quick and easy errand, Goofy decided to stay for a few minutes to play with the puppies. However, puppies like running all over the place, and they kept running between Goofy's legs. It didn't take long for him to trip and fall over, knocking over a table and a lamp in the process. "Uh oh, I can fix…" He trailed off when he saw the lamp was floating about a foot off the ground. Then the table righted itself, and the lamp placed itself back on the table. Goofy stared wide-eyed before he went running out of the house with one of his trademark yells, much to the dogs' confusion. Angeal sweatdropped.
"Maybe I should have just put it on the ground and pretended nothing happened."
In the red room of the hotel, Aerith had just finished tucking Sora into the bed. She'd gotten all of the blood off of him and put him in some clean underwear. Now, she just had to take care of his clothes. She held them up and noticed that they were rather stiff because of all the blood. She'd have to try and rinse some of the blood out before trying to wash it. After a moment of thinking, she decided to use the bathtub.
Aerith was still rinsing the clothes out when Goofy came running in suddenly. "Goofy? Are you okay?"
"G-ghost!"
"Ghost? Do you mean the man with the wings?" Goofy just panted. "I see him playing with puppies sometimes. He seems friendly enough. I don't think you need to be scared." That was when Aladdin came in. He blinked when he saw Goofy's odd expression.
"You okay?"
"Goofy saw a ghost. He's in a bit of shock."
"Was it a dangerous ghost?"
"I don't think so. Puppies play with him." Aerith pulled the bathtub plug to drain the water and held up Sora's vest to see how things were going. It actually was going surprisingly well compared to the Keyblade harness. It was beyond repair so she'd replaced it with a spare she'd had the foresight to procure, but it seemed whatever material the clothes were made of, they were designed to be cleaned easily. Most of the blood had come out. The clothing had an odd pinkish tinge still, but it would be back to normal as soon as they were run through a washing machine. That was when Donald came in.
"What's wrong with Goofy?"
"He saw a ghost," said Aladdin. Donald blinked.
"I didn't know you could get ghosts from Heartless attacks…Did you get the gummi installed?"
"The guy, what was his name again?"
"Cid."
"He said he couldn't install it because it was only half a gummi."
"Half? Hey, wait a minute…" Donald started pulling all sorts of stuff out of his pockets. After pulling out all sorts of weird stuff that Aladdin couldn't even try to identify, Donald finally pulled out something that looked just like the gummi Aladdin had picked up in Neverland. "This must be it!"
"Where'd you get that?"
"We found it when Sora locked this world's keyhole. Go take them to Cid so he can install them."
"I don't think that's a good idea…" Donald raised an eyebrow.
"Why not?"
"Abu stole his wallet. I don't think he'll be happy to see us again." Donald sighed.
"Fine, Goofy and I'll give them to Cid." He grabbed the gummi from Aladdin. "Oh yeah." He handed Aladdin the mythril sword he'd bought. Aladdin looked it over.
"The blade's kind of blue."
"It's mythril. It's supposed to look like that. C'mon Goofy." He dragged the still shocked Goofy out of the room.
"Could you help me out?" asked Aerith. "I can't put Sora's shoes in the washing machine with the rest of his clothes. Would you mind scrubbing them?" Aladdin shrugged.
"Sure." Aerith handed Aladdin the boots, a brush, a couple of bowls of water, and some soap and left with the rest of Sora's clothes. "Well, this shouldn't be too hard."
Donald and Goofy were able to find Cid easily enough. He was in the same place he'd been in earlier, stargazing. He raised an eyebrow when the two anthros walked up to him. "What's with the mutt?"
"Goofy saw a ghost." Cid snorted.
"No such thing as ghosts. Probably just seeing things."
"Can you just install the navi-gummi into our gummi ship?"
"Is that the same navi-gummi from earlier?"
"Yeah."
"Why the fuck did you give that kid only half the gummi? !"
"I forgot about it! We found it after you told us about the gizmo shop bell!"
"That wasn't that long ago! You shouldn't have forgotten about it that soon!"
"Will you install it or not? !"
"Sure." Cid grabbed it. "Not like I got anything better to do. It'll take an hour or so though so you better find something to do 'till I'm done." Then Cid left.
"Well, let's go back to the hotel," said Donald. Goofy just nodded. They got back to find that Aerith was still out and Aladdin was still scrubbing Sora's shoes.
"Hi guys. How'd it go?"
"Cid said he'd have it installed in an hour," said Donald.
"Is Sora okay?" asked Goofy.
"Well, he hasn't moved or anything. He'll probably stay asleep for at least the rest of the day…I hope we don't have to worry about cleaning him or anything."
"We'll just have to wait for him to wake up," said Donald. "Then we can leave." Later, Aerith came back with Sora's clothes.
"Okay, these are clean. How are the shoes coming along?" Aladdin held up the shoes. They were actually quite clean now. "Good to see. How 'bout I take you out to eat? I bet you'd like some home cooking."
"That sounds great!" said Goofy.
"What kind of food is it?" asked Aladdin.
"Italian. You've never tried it before, right? I'm sure you'll love it." Aerith grabbed Aladdin and pulled him out of the room before he could respond. Food sounded good so Goofy and Donald followed after them.
Sora was terrified. He wasn't sure what was going on. He didn't know where he was. He just knew that his Daddy was acting odd and had just been stabbed from behind and he was bleeding so much. The man who stabbed his Daddy (and he knew who it was but he couldn't think of who it was because there was all that blood and was Daddy even alive?) calmly turned and walked out of the odd room they were in. His Daddy collapsed, but after a moment, he started getting to his feet. Sora felt a burst of hope at that. His Daddy was still alive! He would be okay! Sora started running towards him.
"Daddy! You're o-" Sora's world erupted into pain. He looked up at his Daddy in shock as he calmly pulled the sword out of Sora's chest. Then Sora was falling and everything hurt and there was so much blood and did his Daddy really hate him that much? Did he really mean to little to him?
"Sora!" Then he was standing in a dark space. He still hurt and felt so lost because if his Daddy didn't want him then why would anyone want him? "Sora! It's okay!" And who was calling him? He knew that voice but he didn't know it and he was still hurting so much and he wanted to cry and go to sleep and just never wake up again. "You have us!" Sora looked up as a bright light started shining. "I won't leave you! I promise!" Then the light was so bright and warm and Sora didn't hurt so much. Then Sora was somewhere else again. It was a library. There was an old woman sitting in a chair with a little girl in front of her. The girl looked very familiar.
"Kairi." Sora didn't know how he knew, but that's who it was, and he was quite proud that he was able to remember.
"Long ago, people lived in peace, bathed in the warmth of light." Oh, the old woman was telling a story. Sora sat down so he could give his full attention. "Everyone loved the light. Then people began to fight over it. They wanted to keep it for themselves. And darkness was born in their hearts. The darkness spread, swallowing the light and many people's hearts. It covered everything, and the world disappeared. But small fragments of light survived…in the hearts of children. With these fragments of light, children rebuilt the lost world. It's the world we live in now. But the true light sleeps, deep within the darkness. That's why the worlds are still scattered, divided from each other. But someday, a door to the innermost darkness will open. And the true light will return. So, listen, child. Even in the deepest darkness, there will always be a light to guide you. Believe in the light, and the darkness will never defeat you. Your heart will shine with its power and push the darkness away. Do you understand, Kairi?" Then the old woman was gone. Just gone. And Kairi was looking around all confused and Sora tried to run over to her but he couldn't because something was pushing against him and pushing him back and he was getting farther and farther away from Kairi and he couldn't reach her.
"Kairi!" She did nothing. "Kairi!" She didn't hear him at all because she was too nice to ignore him and how did he know that and she was getting farther and farther away.
"You think you can save him? You can't even save yourself."
A ceiling came into focus above Sora. He stared…and stared…and stared. Then he sat up and slowly looked around. It looked familiar. Oh look, his clothes. Sora calmly got out and pulled his clothes on. He walked out the door and was finally able to place where he was. The hotel in Traverse Town. Looks like they returned to Traverse Town while he was asleep. That noted, Sora calmly left the hotel.
"You guys have some really odd food here," said Aladdin.
"I think you're just not used to it," said Aerith. "We have all sorts of food from different places, but we've grown up with it so we consider it completely normal." That was when they entered Aerith's room and realized something.
"Where's Sora? !" Unfortunately, Sora wasn't thinking very clearly when he left and did not consider this.
"His clothes are gone," said Goofy. "I guess he woke up and decided to leave."
"How are we supposed to find him? !" shouted Donald. He was not happy.
"Where would Sora go?" asked Aerith.
"He said that he likes to go to relaxing places," said Goofy. "Is there anywhere relaxing here?"
"Hm…Maybe the sewer." Aladdin made a face.
"The sewer?"
"The Heartless don't show up there."
Meanwhile, Sora was wandering around killing any Heartless that tried to attack him. He wasn't really going anywhere in particular. He just wanted to walk around while he thought about the dream (nightmare?) he had. It was an odd dream. It wasn't that odd to have a dream about his pre-Destiny Island life, but Kairi had never shown up in them before. The story-time part had been out there too. He was pretty sure that part had been made up…hopefully. It was sometimes hard to tell with him. And that part at the end…Who was 'him?' Was it talking about Riku? Sora wasn't really worried about saving him anymore after the way he'd acted. "Hm?" The door to Merlin's house was not too far away from him. "Oh, it's Merlin's. I have some more pages from that book. I think I'll go check it out." So Sora walked in.
Back with the group, they were in the sewers. "These are the nicest sewers I've ever been in," said Aladdin. Everyone gave him a weird look. "What? I'm a thief. I go all over the place." They paused as they heard swinging noises and some grunts. They hurried forward, but…
"You're not Sora!" Leon gave Donald a withering look.
"I'd think that's pretty obvious."
"Have you seen Sora?" asked Aerith. "He was sleeping so we left him in my room while we got some food, and he was gone when we got back."
"You lost Sora? !"
"Don't worry," said Goofy. "He took his clothes, so it wasn't the Heartless."
"Well, where could he go?" asked Leon.
"Somewhere relaxing," said Aladdin.
"Maybe he decided to visit Gepetto," suggested Goofy.
So the group, which now included Leon, left to go to Gepetto's house. Ironically, if they'd gotten on the lift at the back of the sewers, they'd have arrived at Merlin's house at the same time as Sora. Merlin smiled when he saw Sora walk in. "Ah, Sora, good to see you. Where are your friends?" Sora shrugged.
"I'm not sure. I woke up in Traverse Town and just needed to get out."
"Well, I hope you left a note."
"No, but I can take care of myself. They know that. There's no need for them to worry."
"Ah, but as your friends, they will worry about you no matter how strong you are." Sora snorted.
"What's the worst that could happen?"
Meanwhile, the group was in the First District and had gotten to Gepetto's place.
"Well, hello there," said Gepetto. "Did Sora decide to take a break?"
"No, he left the hotel room while we were getting food, and now we can't find him," explained Aladdin.
"Yuffie, what are you doing here?" asked Leon. Yuffie was in a corner waving a cat toy in front of Figaro.
"Oh come on." Yuffie picked up Figaro and held him up in Leon's face. "Even you have to admit this is an adorable kitten." Figaro licked Squall's nose. "What's this about Sora going missing?"
"It's like Aladdin said. We can't find Sora," said Aerith. "We're looking in relaxing places."
"What if he finds killing Heartless relaxing?" asked Yuffie. Everyone went silent. That was actually a possibility with Sora.
"That kid is so much trouble," muttered Leon.
Back in Merlin's house, Sora had finally pulled out the book pages and gone into Pooh's book. He decided to go to what looked like a tree with a swing hanging from it.
This was a nice looking spot. There was a tree on a hill with a swing hanging from a branch and a bridge over a slowly flowing river. Pooh and Piglet were looking over the side of the bridge. Sora walked over to them and looked over the side of the bridge. All he saw were a couple of sticks floating down the river.
"What are you two doing?" asked Sora.
"Playing Pooh Sticks," said Pooh. Sora blinked, but didn't get the chance to ask what that was. Piglet suddenly pointed down at the river.
"Look! Something is floating this way!" said Piglet. Sora looked down and saw that there seemed to be some sort of animal floating down the river.
"I think you're right Piglet. What could it be?" Pooh scrunched his face up in concentration for a second before he suddenly brightened. "Why, it looks like Eeyore!" Pooh waved. "Hello Eeyore! If it is you."
"Hello, Pooh." Was it just Sora, or did Eeyore sound depressed? "Yes, it's me. Could you pull me out? That is, if it's not too much trouble. Of course, you don't have to if you don't want to." Sora sweatdropped and quickly dived in to get Eeyore out.
A minute later, all four were on the bank and Sora had gotten a good look at Eeyore. He looked like a small, blue, sad donkey who was missing his tail. "Thank you Pooh. Thank you other you."
"It's Sora." Eeyore stood up and shook some of the residue water off.
"You know, floating along out there, it seemed like something was missing…" Eeyore tried to look behind him. "And something's still missing."
"Why Eeyore's tail is gone!" said Piglet, pointing at where the missing appendage was supposed to be. "Is that what's missing?"
"Let's see…" Eeyore craned his head to the side a bit more to get a better look at his rear. "Yep, lost it again." Sora blinked at this. How do you lose a tail more than once? "Wonder where it went this time. It's not much of a tail, though I'm sort of attached to it, but I don't know why anybody'd look for it. Probably won't find it anyway…" Sora sweatdropped again. Eeyore seemed to have some sort of problem.
"Lost something?" Everyone looked up and saw Owl perched on a limb in the swing tree. "Searching from a high place is the quickest way to find it!"
"Can you look for it since you can fly?" asked Sora.
"I'm afraid my eyes aren't what they used to be. Too much reading, you know. But I can offer good advice. Of course, you don't have to if you don't want to, but do you see this swing here?" They all nodded. "Well, Sora, you're a bit too big to fit, but Pooh should fit nicely. Push him as high as you can and see if he sees anything." This was simple enough, so Sora put Pooh on the swing and started pushing him gently. Of course, that means Pooh was still going pretty high.
"See anything?" asked Sora.
"I see Eeyore's house. And Eeyore. And Piglet. And the bridge. And some trees. And-"
Just then, the swing reached its apex and Pooh went flying. "Oops. Sorry about that!" shouted Sora. There was a loud crash as Pooh landed on what appeared to be a pile of sticks. Everyone ran over to check on Pooh. Pooh was sitting up and seemed to be fine. Among the scattered sticks was a blue piece of cloth with a tuft of black hair on one end and a pink bow. Eeyore noticed that.
"Hm? That looks familiar…"
"It's your tail!" exclaimed Piglet.
"So, how do we reattach it?" asked Sora. A moment later, Sora has using a hammer and a small nail to put the tail where it was supposed to be. "I guess these guys are sentient dolls or something…" "Okay, done." Eeyore swished his tail a few times.
"It's not much of a tail, but it's mine. Thanks, everyone."
Pooh suddenly sighed. "I wish we could put the Hundred Acre Wood back the way it was too…"
"Hey, don't worry. I'm sure everything will be back to normal in no time," said Sora.
"You really think so?" asked Piglet.
"Yeah." Sora stretched a little. "So, what's this Pooh Sticks thing you were doing before anyway?"
"It's a game Pooh made up," said Piglet.
"You drop sticks off a bridge," explained Pooh. "You go to the other side. The stick that comes out first wins."
Meanwhile, the group was still looking around for Sora. "You know, Sora said he knew Angeal Hewley," said Yuffie. "He was a deserter. Maybe Sora decided to follow his example."
"But it seems like Sora doesn't think very highly of Shinra," commented Aerith.
"What's a Shinra?" asked Aladdin.
"Nasty people. Real cut throat. Willing to hurt anyone to make a profit," explained Yuffie.
"Oh, so they're bandits." Aladdin's response caused Yuffie to laugh hysterically until she nearly collapsed.
Meanwhile, Sora had finally left the swing area after playing a few rounds of Pooh Sticks. Next, he decided to go to what looked like a bunch of tree stumps. He found himself in a small area that was full of different sized tree stumps and surrounded by trees. Tigger was bouncing from stump to stump along with what looked like a baby kangaroo in a blue shirt. Tigger caught sight of Sora and waved. "Hulloo Sora! This here's my bouncin' spot! We can bounce around here all day!" To punctuate this, Tigger didn't stop bouncing once while he was talking to Sora."
"Nothing beats bouncin'!" agreed the kangaroo. He didn't stop bouncing, but he decided to bounce up to Sora. "My name's Roo! You're Sora, right?"
"Yeah."
"That's a funny name!" Sora twitched.
"You wanna bounce too Sora?" asked Tigger. "It's lotsa fun!" Sora thought for a moment. For a moment, he saw himself as a child jumping around the stumps. He'd missed out on his childhood…
"Sure." Roo put his hands on his hips.
"To bounce with the finest, you'll need some tips from the finest." They heard a flapping noise and looked up. Owl waved from where he'd landed on a tree branch. "Owl, you don't bounce around like us!" Owl wilted slightly.
"I'm afraid you're correct. Oh well, I guess one can't master everything."
"All right! Just follow our lead!" said Tigger. He started bouncing from stump to stump with Roo following him. Sora shrugged and started bouncing after the two.
Meanwhile, the search group was resting in the gizmo shop. "Sora is good at hiding," said Goofy.
"Aerith, you're psychic. Can't you try to sense where he is or something?" asked Yuffie.
"Hm…I don't know. Usually, I just know where Sora is when he's on this world."
"Then how come you don't know where he is?" asked Aladdin.
"Sora's a little tricky. I think it's because of his odd abilities." Everyone sighed.
"Let's go to Cid's house," said Leon. "If nothing else, we can discuss where he might be."
Meanwhile…
Sora hit an apple up into a tree. "Not bad!" Tigger bounced out of a giant pot and threw another apple at Sora. He hit it into another tree. "It's outta here!" Tigger bounced out and threw another apple, which Sora hit.
*Crash!*
Sora winced. There went the pot. He hoped it wasn't important. "Was that important?"
"Ah, don't worry about it." Sora sighed.
"I'm gonna go now. I've had enough bouncing for now."
"Suit yourself." Tigger and Roo started bouncing from stump to stump again. Sora calmly left the area and proceeded to the last pop-up left, which appeared to be some kind of marsh. Yep, it was a marsh. There were plants, but there was also a lot of mud. Sora blinked. Pooh was walking in circles around a bush. "Pooh, what are you doing?"
"Shh…Quiet, or they'll get away." Pooh kept walking. Sora blinked again.
"Who?"
"The people who took everyone away. See their footprints?" Sora looked down. There were footprints going around the bush, but Sora recognized them as Pooh's. "We were all sticking together to make sure no one got lost again. But then, I saw some footprints that needed following. So I did. Suddenly, everyone was gone. Bad people must have taken them away!" Sora chuckled. Pooh was rather simple at times, but it was sort of endearing.
"I'll let him think they're someone else's footprints." "How 'bout I help you find everyone?"
"Okay, I've been following these footprints for so long that I'm getting rather rumbly in my tummy."
"Now, where would I go if I were any of the others…" Sora tried to see if he could sense any of the toys and sweatdropped before pushing aside the bush Pooh had been walking around. Despite appearances, the bush was only a couple of inches thick and growing in a circle, leaving a circle of bare ground inside it. Eeyore was standing in the circle. "Eeyore, what are you doing in here?"
"Lookin' for sticks to build my house…again." Sora saw no sticks. Just a lot of bush.
"This place already seems like a house…Hey, this could be a good place to have everyone meet up."
"Hm?"
"Pooh kind of lost everyone else. I'm gonna help him look for them."
"Oh." Sora walked out of the bush and took a quick look around. Roo was around here somewhere. He spotted a patch of blue and looked up. Roo was standing on a tree root watching him.
"Roo, could you please come down?"
"Why?"
"Pooh's worried that everyone got lost again. I want to get everyone in the same place to calm him down."
"Oh…okay!" Roo hopped down. "Wait in the bushes, right?"
"Right." Roo bounced to the bush to wait with Eeyore. Sora looked up and noticed Tigger bouncing along a log. "Hey, Tigger!"
"Hulloo there! When'd you get here?"
"Just now. Pooh and I are trying to gather everyone up. Would you mind waiting in that bush over there?"
"All right." Tigger bounced over to the bush, but decided to bounce around it instead of just waiting inside with Roo and Eeyore. Sora started forward and noticed Pooh was following him. He shrugged. As long as Pooh didn't get lost, he didn't see any reason to mind. Just past the log Tigger had bounced past was a well with air rushing out of it and a rock wall with three holes in it. Sora peered in one of them. Rabbit seemed to be looking around curiously.
"Rabbit?" Said animal jumped slightly and spun around.
"Oh, hello Pooh, Sora. I was wondering what happened to you."
"Are you hiding from the bad people?" asked Pooh. Rabbit blinked and gave Sora a questioning look. Sora just shrugged.
"Actually, I just thought this would be a good place to store some of my spare gardening tools. I don't want them to rust you know." Sora was willing to bet that Rabbit would like to hide his honey here too.
"Would you mind going to a circular bush back there?" asked Sora. "Pooh and I are trying to gather everyone into one place."
"May I ask what for?"
"Pooh's worried that everyone got taken away again."
"Oh, okay. I'll see you there then." Rabbit walked out of the hole and over towards the bush. Sora looked around.
"Well, we'll have to jump up there to keep looking. Are you afraid of heights?" Pooh shook his head. "Okay, come here for a second." Sora carefully picked up Pooh and jumped up onto a ledge. He noticed Owl behind some grass and put Pooh down to go talk to him.
"I see you've found all the pages." Sora blinked.
"I have?"
"Yes, thank you. The missing pages caused all sorts of problems for us."
"Really? This world seems rather peaceful. It doesn't seem like you'd have too many problems."
"It depends on your point of view. You seem like someone who's had a rather rough life. In comparison, we must seem worry free. We do have worries though, even if they are fairly minor. Rabbit protecting his garden from Tigger, Pooh's search for honey, Eeyore's tail and house, and, of course, the search for missing friends. In most people's eyes, these are not much of a problem. This world is more suited for children than anyone else." Sora tilted his head in thought.
"I see what you mean. Most of the problems I've seen here aren't a very big deal."
"And yet you still helped the inhabitants of this world." Sora nodded.
"Yeah, finding Pooh that first time, all alone and without his friends, I felt sorry for him. I guess it was because my friends had gone missing recently too. Normally, I wouldn't have tried helping him…" Owl tilted his head.
"Are you sure? Most people think they know themselves, but that's usually not the case." Sora shrugged.
"I don't think it matters why I did it…especially if I don't completely understand why…"
"If that's how you feel about it, then I won't press the issue."
"Hey, wait a minute." Sora quickly replayed the conversation he'd just had with Owl. "You know about other worlds? And the nature of this one?"
"Yes, I read about it in a book once a long time ago."
"Who wrote it?"
"No author. I just found it outside my home one day. I don't know where it came from."
"That's suspicious."
"Well, I can't argue with that. Are you trying to gather all of us up?"
"Yeah, looks like I accidentally left Pooh behind though." Owl chuckled. Sora raised an eyebrow. Owl gestured behind him. Sora turned and sweatdropped. A few yards away, Pooh's top half was stuck in a hole at the bottom of a tree. Sora sighed and walked over with Owl. "Pooh, what are you doing in there?"
"I was just saying hello to Piglet."
"Hm?" Sora quickly checked and found that Piglet was in there. He probably didn't have much room with Pooh's top half in there. "Piglet? You okay?"
"I-I'm fine."
"I'll try pulling Pooh out. I hope I don't need more of that carrot juice." Fortunately, it was very easy to pull Pooh out of the tree, and Piglet came out right after him. "C'mon, Let's get back to the others."
Back in Traverse Town, the search group had gotten to Cid's house where he was cooking something in a large pot. He raised an eyebrow. "Never seen ya'll together before. Something going on that I should know about?"
"We can't find Sora," said Leon.
"You mean he's not at Merlin's?" Everyone gave Cid a very odd look. "What?"
"What makes you think he's at Merlin's?" asked Aerith.
"I saw him walking down the alley to Merlin's a while ago." Cid sniffed at his soup. "Does this taste like it needs salt to you?" He held the ladle out to the group. Curious, Aladdin took a sip and promptly had a coughing fit and started gagging.
"What is that? !"
"Toss it in the pot stew."
"You tossed everything in the fridge in a pot again, didn't you?" asked Yuffie.
"What's it to ya? It's my food. I can do what I want with it." Leon took a deep breath, as if to give him some added patience.
"Cid, didn't you think it was odd that Sora was wandering around on his own?"
"No, he can take care of himself."
"Yeah, but we need him to find the king!" said Donald.
"What about after that?" Donald blinked at that unexpected question.
"I guess he can leave if he wants to." Cid snorted.
"If I was that kid, I'd just kick your asses, steal your ship, and just go look for whatever he's trying to find. Don't know why the brat hasn't done that. Then again, can't tell what the fuck he's thinking either." Cid gulped down the soup still in the ladle. "Needs some pepper."
"Let's just go to Merlin's," said Leon. "We can tell Sora that he shouldn't wander away from us."
"It won't do any good," said Aerith. "This was how he was raised. A lecture won't change anything. He'll have to experience something first-hand to understand it."
"Um…" Everyone turned to Goofy. "Do you really think we're using Sora?"
"Yes," said Cid.
"I'm just traveling with you guys to look for Jasmine," said Aladdin.
"I can kind of see what Cid's saying," said Yuffie.
"I think Sora doesn't trust you, but he wants to trust you so he's giving you the benefit of the doubt," said Aerith. Donald raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean he doesn't trust us?"
"Haven't you noticed? He doesn't trust anyone, unless they do something that lets him know they're on his side. He didn't trust Leon until that match Leon threw a match to keep Sora from hurting himself. He's more open with me, but that's because we're both capable of seeing things people normally don't see. Sora doesn't really trust anyone else, but he wants to trust us. That's why he tries to be friendly even though he doesn't know us that well."
"So, he doesn't trust us?" Goofy sounded rather sad. He'd become fond of Sora, and the thought hurt him.
"Hey, that's not 100%!" said Yuffie. "That's just what everyone's saying. What we need to do is hear it straight from Sora! So let's go to Merlin's place!"
"You go. I'm gonna finish this soup," said Cid. "Oh yeah, finished installing that gummi. You can fly your ship there whenever you want now, but that place is packed with Heartless so you better be careful."
Where was Sora during this conversation? He was stargazing with the residents of the 100 Acre Woods. It was oddly relaxing. Sora closed his eyes. "A world for children…I wonder if this is what a normal kid feels like? Would I have been as carefree as these guys if I'd had a normal childhood? Oh well, I'll never know…and I wouldn't want a normal childhood. I'd have never seen any of this…or met any of them. I'd just be a normal kid trying to find ways to amuse myself. Still…I think I got the short end of that stick."
"Sora? Is it time to go to bed?" Sora chuckled and opened his eyes to look at Pooh.
"Oh, I was just thinking. This place is really nice…Are you glad that everyone's back?" Everyone nodded.
"I'm so glad we're all together again," said Piglet. "I didn't know what to do when I was all alone."
"Aw, Piglet, you gotta be brave!" said Tigger. Piglet blinked in surprise.
"You weren't lonely at all?"
"Lonely? Are you kidding? I'm a Tigger! The most wonderful thing about Tiggers is that I'm the only one! But I do admit, friends are awfully fun too!" Sora chuckled a bit at Tigger. Everyone was silent for the next few minutes.
"Think, think, think." Sora glanced over at Pooh, who was tapping his head.
"What're you thinking about?"
"Oh, well, I'm just thinking about what to think about." Sora chuckled.
"I've been here for a while. I should probably be getting back." Sora stood up and brushed himself off. "Well, I better be getting back." That got everyone's attention.
"Sora? Where are you going?" asked Piglet.
"I'm gonna go look for my friends. I don't know if they're looking for me, but I want to find them so I'll look for them until I find them."
"Bounce on back again!" said Tigger.
"I will."
"I hope you find your friends!" said Piglet. Sora smiled.
"Thank you." With that, Sora started walking away while waving. The toys waved back as Sora felt himself being transported out of the book.
"Sora, don't forget…We shall always be here. If you'd like to visit again, that is."
Then Sora was floating…in space…with a giant version of the book floating about a 100 meters in front of him. This was absurd enough for Sora to go "Huh? !" Then the book closed and a strip folded over to keep it closed. A keyhole appeared in the metal at the end of the strip. "Hm? A Keyhole? I guess this world has a Keyhole too." Sora grabbed the Keyblade, pointed it at the Keyhole, and a beam shot out into the Keyhole. As the locking sound was heard, the cover of the book started glowing. When it stopped glowing, the formerly blank white section of the cover had a picture on it. The picture was Sora holding Pooh's left hand with Piglet holding the other. Tigger was bouncing on his tail. They were walking away from the cover so that all you saw were their backs, but Sora was looking at the animal toys, and the animal toys were looking at Sora. Sora blinked at the picture. "I'm on the cover? Did I somehow become part of the story?" And then Sora was back in Merlin's study.
"It's about time!" Sora blinked several times. Why were practically all the people he knew in Merlin's house?
"What are all you guys doing here?" He was promptly grabbed by Yuffie who started shaking him back and forth.
"That's our line! We spent two hours running around looking for you! What possessed you to go running off without telling anyone? !" Sora pushed Yuffie away.
"I don't see why it's a big deal here. Yeah, it would be a problem if we were in the middle of something on another world, but this world's small enough that it's not difficult to find someone. Besides, it's not like I can't take care of myself."
"We know you can take care of yourself," said Aerith. "But we were worried about you."
"Really? Why?"
"You're worried about your friends, Riku and Kairi, aren't you?" asked Aerith.
"I'm worried about Kairi since she was in pretty bad shape when I saw her, but I don't care about Riku anymore." That's Sora, as blunt as ever.
"So, it's okay to beat him up then?" asked Aladdin.
"Aladdin!"
"Go right ahead."
"Sora!"
"Just don't wander off without telling anyone where you're going again," said Leon. "It'll save everyone a lot of trouble and stress." Sora let out a huff of exasperation.
"Fine! I'll warn you next time I decide to walk around to think!" Honestly, Sora did not understand why they were so worried about him. None of the Tsviets ever worried about him…except for Kimihiro, but he was an overprotective mother hen so he wasn't sure that counted.
"I think that's enough excitement for one night," said Aerith. "Let's all go home and get some rest, okay?"
"Yeah, that sounds good," said Yuffie.
"We don't have a place to stay," said Donald.
"You can stay with me," said Aerith. "I have some extra futons."
"I'm okay with that," said Sora. So Aerith, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Aladdin headed back towards the hotel.
"Hey, Sora?"
"Yeah, Goofy?"
"Do you trust us?"
"Just Aerith." Goofy sighed. "What?"
"How come?"
"I…just have trust issues. I haven't known any of you nearly long enough to trust you."
"You haven't known Aerith that long," pointed Donald.
"Aerith's just one of those people…"
Then they got to the hotel. "Oh! Before I forget…" Aerith pulled the red feather that had been in Sora's hair out of her pocket. "Here." Sora took it and blinked when he saw there was a silver chain attached to the end.
"Where'd you get this?"
"It was in your hair." Sora made a face.
"What was a keychain doing in my hair?"
"Peter put it there as a joke," said Aladdin.
"Well, might as well see what it looks like." Sora removed the Pumpkinhead charm, put it on his chain, and then put the new one on. After the Keyblade changed, Sora started looking it over. It was shorter now, The shaft was a light and dark green, the grip was dark green, the base was light green with the chain extending from it, the guard was a pair of white fairy wings, there was another pair of blue fairy wings coming out right above that, then end of the shaft was white, and the teeth were a set of panpipes. "Fairy Harp. Looks like the color scheme Peter's clothes had with Tinkerbell's wings."
"I like it," said Aerith.
"I wonder where he got it," mused Goofy.
"Who cares?" said Donald. "Let's just get some sleep. I'm beat."
After a night's sleep and breakfast, the boys got back on the gummi ship. When they started the ship up, an announcement appeared on the screen.
"What's that say?" asked Aladdin.
"'Come see the Hercules Cup. Competitors will include the world famous Hercules. Great prizes.'"
"Oh, are you guys gonna be taking part in another fighting tournament?"
"Well, anyone mind making a slight detour?" asked Sora.
"I don't mind," said Goofy.
"Oh, fine, we'll check it out," said Donald. They then used the warp drive to get to the Coliseum. When they walked in, Phil looked up from a tablet he was looking at.
"Oh, you guys again. You entering the tournament?" Sora nodded. "Well, you know the deal. The guy with the monkey can't take part in the tournament. Don't plan on winning today though. No way is Herc gonna lose to some pipsqueaks like you!"
"Fine by me." The group had to wait a little while for others to sign up.
The first fight was against 5 Gargoyles and 3 Shadows. The Shadows were easily taken care of. The Gargoyles were more of a problem. They had to attack the Gargoyles still in physical form while avoiding the Gargoyles in flame form. So, it took a few minutes, but they were able to beat them without much of a problem.
The second match was against 4 Wight Knights, 2 Barrel Spiders, and an Air Pirate. Sora and Donald immediately hit the Barrel Spiders with Fira spells, which caused them to explode and catch the Wight Knights' bandages on fire. While the Wight Knights were running around, trying to put themselves out, Donald and Sora attacked the Air Pirate. Goofy was making sure no one attacked them. After they got rid of the Air Pirate, they finished off the Wight Knights.
The third match was against 4 Pirates and a Battleship. This was a bit trickier. The Pirates wouldn't have been difficult to deal with if not for the Battleship. It kept dropping bombs and firing cannonballs at the group. In the ends, Donald shot spells at the Battleship while Goofy and Sora fought the Pirates. After the Pirates were taken care of, Sora and Goofy joined in attacking the Battleship. Some Cures were required.
The fourth match was against 4 Gargoyles and 3 Wight Knights. This took a few minutes simply because it was difficult to land hits on both of them, but they eventually managed to beat the Halloween Town Heartless.
The fifth match…okay, no match. It was just a Rare Truffle jumping around. Sora just bopped it on the head to make it go away.
The sixth match was against a Stealth Sneak, the same type of Heartless as the chameleon from Tarzan's world. This one didn't turn invisible though so it was a battle of stamina more than anything else.
The seventh match was against a Wight Knight, 2 Gargoyles, 2 Pirates, and 2 Air Pirates. This was a bit tricky too. Goofy defended Donald while the mage cast spells. Sora took a more physical approach and slashed at the Heartless with his daggers.
The eighth match was against 2 Battleships, an Air Pirate, and 2 pirates. This one was a pain to deal with. The Battleships were difficult to reach and dropped bombs when the boys attacked the Pirates. The Air Pirate was a bit tricky to reach too. The Pirates weren't that difficult to deal with. When those two were taken care of the flying enemies became a bit easier to deal with, but still took a while to deal with.
"Okay, you three are now in the finals," said Phil. "That means that you're gonna hafta fight Herc. Now, you can either just forfeit or fight him, but you should just forfeit so he doesn't accidentally hurt you."
"Actually, I've been watching him," said Sora. "His fighting style reminds me of another guy's fighting style, including the odd shield around his body. I'd like to try and see how I'll do against him."
"It's your funeral," said Phil.
"So, what's the plan?" asked Donald.
"About that…Would you mind if this was a one-on-one match? That way I can move at full speed."
"What? !"
"I don't have a problem with it," said Phil.
"You don't want our help?" asked Goofy.
"Like I said, I have a lot of experience fighting someone similar to Hercules. One of the more important things in dealing with this sort of opponent is speed. I'll be able to move more quickly if I don't have to worry about you two." The two anthros sighed.
A moment later, Hercules and Sora were facing each other in the ring. "Doesn't your team have two others?"
"I asked Phil to make this one-on-one."
"Really, how come?"
"It's just how I'm used to fighting. I can go all out this way."
"Well, it's your choice, but I'm not going easy on you." Then Hercules started glowing yellow.
"That's fine by me!" Sora twirled his daggers and activated his Wisdom Drive. "Since he's as strong as he is, physical attacks probably won't have much of an effect. I should try to stick to magic." He dodged a jab from Hercules. Sora cast a quick Aero to lessen the effects of Hercules's attacks. "If his shield is anything like Azul's, a hard enough hit should cause it to fall, at least for a little while. I just hope it doesn't take something like a bazooka to make it fall!" Sora dodged a couple of punches to his head. Then a barrel suddenly popped up in a corner of the arena. Sora blinked. "That's never happened before. I wonder if I can use that." Sora glided over to the barrel so fast that it was like he was in front of Hercules one second and behind the barrel the next. Hercules spun around looking for him a moment before locating the Tsviet.
"Wow, you're fast!" Sora didn't reply and instead punched toward the barrel with both fists. The punches didn't actually reach the barrel. They stopped about an inch from the barrel. A Fira spell came flying out of his fists, engulfed the barrel, and sent it flying toward Hercules. The man was surprised enough that he didn't dodge in time. It caused the glow to subside and Hercules shook his head a bit.
"Now!" Sora cast Stop, freezing Hercules in place. Then he cast all the offensive spells that he could until Stop's effects wore off. Stop didn't last as long as it did with the Heartless for some reason. Hercules ended up suffering from the effects of all the spells Sora fired at him at once. Sora fired a couple more spells before the effects completely appeared. Hercules exhaled sharply.
"Ow…What did you do? I'm gonna have to be more careful with you!" Sora shot another Thundara, which Hercules dodged. His shield wasn't back up yet. That was good. Sora got in closer so that Hercules would have more trouble dodging his spells and cast another Stop. Then he started using as many spells as he could.
*Wham!*
Sora blinked several times. He was lying on a hard surface and his head hurt. "Hey, I think he's waking up!" Sora sat up blinking.
"I lost?"
"Nope. It was a double knockout." Sora blinked and turned. Hercules was standing next to the entrance of the stadium. "I punched you as soon as I could move my body again, but a lightning bolt hit me in the head. We knocked each other out."
"So that's what happened…"
"Don't be so reckless," said Donald. "We were afraid that he'd really hurt you."
"Fine, fine."
"I can't believe it was a draw," said Phil. "From now on, we're working on you magic defense! No way am I allowing any student of mine to have a weakness like that after what happened to Achilles."
"I guess I deserved that." Hercules turned towards Goofy. "You fight using shields, right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Okay, then you can have this." Hercules gave Goofy a shield with a cloud and lightning bolt design.
"That's the tournament prize! Hercules insisted on giving it to you guys for some reason," said Phil.
"I don't use it that much anyway." Hercules turned to Sora. "When you've grown some, we should have another match." Sora grinned.
"Yeah, I'd like that. You're really strong." Then the ground under the stone against the wall started glowing. "Hm?"
"That's never happened before," said Phil.
"Hold on. I'll move the stone." Hercules moved the stone and placed it off to the side. "Huh, this looks like a keyhole or something." The boys perked up.
"Really?" Sora walked over. There was a glowing keyhole in the floor. "So this is where it was…I'll take care of it." Sora grabbed the Keyblade and held it out over the keyhole. The beam shot out, it locked the keyhole, and the beam and keyhole disappeared. Oddly enough, there was a charm where the keyhole just was. It was golden in color and had the same symbol on it as Hercules's shield, most of the chain was iron, but the clasp was gold. "Huh, where'd that come from?"
"It must be a gift from the gods." Sora gave Hercules an odd look. "Well, it's Zeus's symbol."
"Your shield has that symbol too though…"
"Yeah, there's a good reason for that. Anyway, that wasn't there before. I guess it's a reward for something. I'll have to ask next time I run into a god." The way Hercules said that so casually made Sora wonder what these gods were like, but he picked up the charm and replaced the Fairy Harp charm with it. The handle was a Greek style columns, the hand guards were columns with those odd curled things on the top and bottom, the shaft also looked like a column with odd gray edging and 'Hercules' carved into it, and the teeth also looked like the curly thing found on top of columns, but bent somewhat. "Olympia." That was when Aladdin suddenly came running in.
"Hi guys! Hey! You got another Keyblade!"
"Yeah…"
"Hey, you see anyone suspicious?" asked Phil. "The Heartless have been upset lately. I think someone's stealing their stuff."
"Nope, didn't see anyone." Sora sweatdropped. He had a feeling Aladdin had something to do with that.
"Uh, guys, we need to get going," said Goofy.
"Right. Sorry, but we need to be somewhere," said Sora.
"Okay. Phil's planning another tournament. You should come by and compete. There should be a lot more opponents in it," said Hercules.
"Okay, we will." And then the boys left to head to the next new world.
-End Chapter-
And Angeal made a very brief cameo appearance, in case any of you like him.
I have no idea what DEEPGROUND clothes are made of, but with all the brutal killing that goes on down there I figure they have to be easy to clean.
Sora's dream scene…yeah, poor Sora. I put him through so much.
Yes, Sora found the other pages. I just didn't mention it because Sora wasn't actively looking for them. He just ran across them.
Cid's cooking is taken from the manga because I can see him throwing everything in the fridge into a pot and calling it dinner.
Sora may have only spent a year in DEEPGROUND, but the trauma that caused and growing up with a bunch of merciless killers who like fighting does not make for a nice childhood, even if you live in a nice place like Destiny Islands.
The matches in the Coliseum were skipped over because the only fight that was really important was Hercules, and I replaced Cloud because I didn't want Sora to go psycho and stab his shoulder again. As for Hercules…I wanted Sora to get the shield and keychain, but it seemed like Hercules would be a difficult fight even for a Tsviet. I decided to make it a lucky draw for Sora after he let his guard down for a second.
Omake: Even Nobodies Avoid Him
Zexion sighed as he walked out of a dark corridor and into a world he was completely unfamiliar with. Demyx had complained about a crazy man that had broken his ribs last time he was here. He claimed the man had been wearing an outfit similar to the Keyblade wielder's, so Zexion had been sent to confirm this.
"Hello!" Zexion jumped about a foot in the air. There was a man with a psychotic grin floating a foot in front of him.
"How did I miss that?" Then he noticed that the man was wearing clothes that were similar in appearance to Sora's. "This must be the man Demyx was talking about." "Might I ask who you are?" The man then struck a weird pose. He seemed to be trying to give the appearance of a superhero or something.
"I am Ash the Gray!" Then he dropped to a much more casual stance. "I'm a ghost!" Zexion gave him a weird look and checked his scent. Ash did not smell dead. He smelled like dust and ash. That was an odd combination.
"How did you know I was here?"
"The aura told me a person that wasn't really a person came here through a swirling vortex of darkness and crap."
"What?"
"It's sort of like the Force 'cept it's different." That wasn't what Zexion had been talking about. He'd been wondering about how Ash knew he wasn't a person…and about the Dark Corridor. "Let's go!" Zexion's eyes widened as he saw some odd blue spheres rushing for him. He dropped to the ground.
"What are you doing? !"
"I wanna fight! All the Pokémon wannabes here avoid me like the plague, and I haven't had a decent fight in who knows how long! There was some weirdo with a guitar or something, but he ran away shouting something about me being crazier than a Sigdar or something." Zexion twitched. Demyx might not have been far off. Zexion summoned his book. At the very least, he should be able to last until the man was distracted enough to make a break for it.
Later, back in The World That Never Was, Vexen was looking over Demyx's ribs when Zexion suddenly stumbled in through a dark portal. "Hm? Zexion?" Zexion leaned against a wall, panting heavily. Then he coughed up some blood. "What happened to you?"
"Demyx was right. That man is insane."
"Told you."
"And he can somehow detect Nobodies. I say that none of us ever go to that world again."
"Was it really that bad?" asked Vexen. Zexion held up his lexicon. It was beat up and was missing most of its pages. This was odd because Zexion took very good care of his lexicon. "What happened to your book?"
"I trapped him in my book to get a break, and he somehow blew it up from the inside!"
"Huh, I didn't even know it was possible to damage our weapons," mused Vexen. "I wonder if it can be repaired."
"Can you worry about that after we do something about my internal bleeding?"
Needless to say, that world was put on the list of worlds no one is allowed to without Xemnas's permission, and it was all Ash's fault.