Plumber in the Big City
"Should we park here, my love?" Birdo replied to Popple. The shadowy little man looked through his mask at the Pink dinosaur with the rounded mouth.
"Y…Your LOVE?" he asked incredulously. "I told you to call me Popple, the Great!" he barked. "And yes, this will be fine!" they brought it down in a little square of Traverse Town. Luigi gulped as the hatch opened.
"Take care, Rook!" Popple called after him as Luigi stepped out. Luigi looked around at the dark buildings, made even gloomier by the dark sky. He walked down the alley way, and came to the street beyond. Not a soul was present. He unsheathed his mallet and started walking carefully on the sidewalk. He didn't know what the heartless were, what they looked like, or anything, so caution was definitely needed. He heard movement behind him, and jumped, blasting a trash can lid that had fallen off its can with a blast of icy magic. Seeing his mistake, he chuckled in a scared sort of way. He made his way to a building with a mushroom on it. He walked inside, and saw that it was an item shop. He walked to the counter and put his munny pouch on it. The shop owner didn't seem to be anywhere near. Suddenly, a door opened, and a small cat with a red cape and a crown came into the room.
"Oh!" it said, in a squeaky male's voice, "I didn't think I'd have customers today! What with the heartless everywhere!" He bounded up to the counter and jumped over to the clerk's side. "What'll it be, Greenie?" he asked.
"It's-a LUIGI!" Luigi corrected, "And I'll take three mushrooms, and a Flower."
"No problem, Luis," the cat said. "My name's Reeve, nice to meet ya."
"Its-a Luigi!" Luigi corrected again.
"Right-o," said the cat. It was really starting to annoy Luigi, and he just wanted his items so he could get out and look for the keyblader. "You know," the cat said, "I'm not really a cat!" This caught Luigi's attention.
"Oh really?" Luigi retorted, "Cause you-a look like a cat to me."
"Nope," Reeve replied, handing Luigi his items, "I'm a human, I just use this as a decoy. It allows me to operate in the open, cause the cat doll doesn't have a heart. The heartless just ignore it!"
"Fascinating," Luigi replied. He walked out the door, looked back and said (out of the goodness in his heart) "Nice to meet you, too, Reeve!"
"See ya Larry!" It yelled as the door shut.
Luigi put his new items in his hip pouch and walked through the streets. 'How am I going to find this guy?' he thought, 'He could be anyone, anything for that matter!' and as he walked by a certain house, he smelled the sweet aroma of pasta. Spaghetti to be exact. He walked to the door and knocked, his stomach growling. The door was answered by a pretty woman of black hair.
"Jeeze!" she said, "Two new ones in one day? It's getting bad out there, isn't it?" she asked. Luigi knew what she must be referring to.
"No no," he replied, "My world isn't going to be taken by the Heartless for a long time. I am a personal envoy from The Mushroom Kingdom, sent by Prince Mario of Nintendo Castle. I'm his brother, the court wizard, captain of the guards, and of course friend, Luigi."
"Oh!" she said, "Well, come in, have some food!" she looked over her shoulder, "Quina!" She yelled, "Get this man some spaghetti!" she looked back at Luigi and said, "My name's Rinoa," she finished.
"Do you live here alone, with Quina?" Luigi asked after Quina had entered, carrying the huge tray of delicious looking pasta. Luigi started eating immediately.
"No," she replied. "I have a couple of friends, one is in the basement, where he operates his stupid toy cat…"
"Reeve?" he asked.
"You know him?" Rinoa asked curiously.
"I just purchased items from his cat," Luigi said with a laugh, "I would like to meet him for real before I go."
"Luigi?" came a voice, and a handsome man in an expensive suit came up from downstairs. "I'm sorry about messing up your name, I have a lot of work before I get the translator right on the cat," he said. He stepped forward and shook Luigi's hand.
"Who else lives here," Luigi inquired, seeing a helmet that would have looked slightly out of place on the heads of anyone else in the room.
"Garam," Reeve said, shrugging his shoulders. "He goes out on patrol every night, finding more people who become stranded, and find them homes."
"We're lucky he found who he did tonight!" Rinoa said with a smile. Luigi had a mouth full of pasta when he answered sloppily.
"Whothat?" he said.
"The Keyblader!" Reeve said excitedly. Luigi swallowed his pasta so fast that his eyes watered from it.
"The Keyblader is here? For sure?" he asked quickly. Rinoa nodded.
"He arrived a half hour or so before you did. He said he was going to look around the town for his friends. How come you're so interested?" she asked.
"That's why the Prince sent me!" he answered. "He wants me to assist the Keyblader in anyway I can! I have to find him!"
"Well," Rinoa said, looking thoughtful, "I know he didn't leave the city. He wouldn't have a means to. So you're bound to find him eventually." Luigi stood up quickly.
"I've-a gotta go!" he said, letting his Italian accent slip in his excitement. "It was nice meeting you all!" They all nodded, and Luigi tore through the door.
Ward had looked. And looked. And looked. But she wasn't anywhere. He didn't see a building that looked like it could have been lit up on the inside like the one in his dream was, and he wasn't about to burst into someone's home without permission. He was getting frustrated, and to make matters worse for him, the heartless would not leave him alone. But there was a good thing about it. He was starting to get a technique down to defeating them faster. He figured out weak points. He went for them. He was getting stronger.
He found himself in front of the clock tower. He was standing in a large square, buildings surrounding himself and the tower. He was going to go into the tower to look, when once again the keyblade sprung into his hand, and heartless surrounded him.
Luigi was walking on a ledge above the street. He had been searching for an hour, and still no sign of the keyblader. In fact, he had not seen another living soul since he left Rinoa's place. He hadn't even seen a heartless yet, but that was due to the fact the Keyblader was around. They were probably after him, Luigi thought. He looked down to see a boy surrounded by dark-as-the-night beings. They had glowing eyes. He was about to jump off the ledge and help the boy, but suddenly he saw himself facing the black things himself.
"So these are the heartless," he thought out loud. He gripped his mallet tightly and said, "Let's see what you've got!" A heartless appeared directly under him. Surprised, Luigi went flying over the edge, and landed on the boy.
"Would you get off me?" the boy yelled. Luigi pulled himself off, and they stood back to back, the heartless surrounding them.
"Ready to fight?" the boy asked.
Luigi gave a smile, "Okie Dokie!" he said. Alone, the heartless may have prospered. But together they were unstoppable. Luigi would freeze a group, and they boy would slice through them with his strange weapon. Many times, Luigi would bat them at the boy, and he would swing his blade like a baseball bat, slicing each one. The boy screamed their weaknesses to Luigi during the height of the battle, when more than one hundred were attacking at once. Soon, they stopped multiplying. Sooner still, they started losing numbers. Finally, with a satisfying slicing noise, the last heartless was gone.
Just when they thought it was over, a great blackness appeared. Out of the ground came a heartless unlike the ones they had ever seen. It wasn't small. It was enormous. Metal plating covered most of its body, and it growled as it took form, and faced them. Luigi looked at the boy, nodded, and jumped swinging his hammer as hard as he could. The hammer barely dented the creatures armor. The shock of the blow sent Luigi flying and shaking twenty feet away.
"NO!" the boy cried. He jumped in, and found that his weapon, though leaving a much larger dent, did about as much damage as the mallet. It turned and hit the boy, sending him flying. The boy landed on the ground. It was fast as lightning, and Luigi (still regaining his focus) stared blankly for a second as the boy barely managed to deflect each blow. Then the shock wore off, and Luigi rejoined the battle.
"Hey!" The boy cried to Luigi, "I've got an idea!"
Luigi bashed his mallet against the heartless's face, only loostening the helmet's jaw brace. He landed, jumped out of the way of its giant arms, and said, "I'm listening!"
"Stand a safe distance away," The boy said, using his blade to trip the monster. "And start freezing the armor!" Luigi caught on and ran back twenty yards, aimed his mallet, and shot a Blizzard at the creature. It his the chest plate, and it froze solid. The boy smacked the chest plate, and shattered it. The monster, aware of his exposed weakness, switched from offense to defense. He started blocking the blows rather than giving them.
"Aim for the helmet!" the boy cried.
Luigi tried a few times, and only managed to freeze a shoulder guard, some leg armor, and finally wheezing from the energy that was being drained from him, he hit the helmet. The creature roared as its head was suddenly caught in an icy tomb. But he was quickly freed by the boy, who swung his blade viciously. It went through the helmet, the head of the beast, and out the other side. The beast writhed on the ground, twisting and squirming, unable to get up. He soon disappeared, and a giant heart escaped him, and vanished.
Both Luigi and the boy were panting. They turned and faced each other.
"My name's Ward," the boy said, smiling. "Thanks for helping me out there!"
"Name's Luigi, and no problem," Luigi replied, smiling back. "I take it you are the Keyblader?" Ward looked at the blade in his hand, and frowned.
"Yes…but I don't know what to do with it!" he replied.
"I do," Luigi replied. Luigi explained where he came from.
"And Prince Mario knows what I am supposed to do with the keyblade?" Ward asked Luigi after Luigi finished.
"Of course!" Luigi replied, "He has one as well!"
"Well?" Ward asked, "What is it then?"
"Simple," Luigi replied shrugging, "You have to go through the worlds, finding the heart of each, and locking it, thus preventing anymore heartless from getting in."
"And how do I lock the worlds?" Ward asked. Luigi smacked his head.
"With the keyblade, of course!" he explained. "It will show you what to do when the time comes. Now, before we go to my ship…" but Ward interrupted him.
"Your ship?" Ward asked. "What do you mean?"
"The Gummi Ship! It's how I travel from world to world! And it's how we are going to go save the worlds from the heartless!"
"So you're coming with me?" Ward asked smiling, and extending his hand. Luigi grasped it.
"Of course!" he replied. And with that, they walked to the Gummi.
PS
For those of you wanting to know, yes, you will meet the villains counterparts in chapter seven!
"The Hearts are powerful, and unpredictable. But no one has covered the Stars yet!"