Hitch Hikers and Pumpkins: Part One
The Gummi ship floated in orbit just outside of what had, minutes before, been Zebes. The crew stared in sorrow as the debris of the planet floated silently among the reaches of space.
"Well," Goofy said, "There is a bright side," although he didn't sound very happy.
"What's that?" Luigi asked.
"Well, you heard Samus," Goofy explained, "There wasn't any life on that planet besides the Metroids…at least no one died…" but his voice trailed off. Sora understood what he meant, but still, the destruction of an entire planet was a little too much to look at without feeling a little sorry.
"Hey Rook!" Popple called from the cockpit. Everyone's head turned due to Popple's tendency to call everyone Rook. "Oh sorry, uh, Luigi," he corrected, "Just how many people got on the ship with you. Luigi scratched his head.
"Well, lets-a see," he started counting heads, "There was Ward and I, Donald, Goofy, Sora, and Kairi," He finished.
"And Birdo and I make eight," Popple added.
"Why do you ask?" Ward said.
"Cause my scanners say that there's ten on board," Popple said, "Meaning we got us a couple of stowaways."
"We're on it," Ward said, he nodded to the others, and they took off to find the stowaways. After about an hour of looking, they heard voices coming from the galley.
"Ford, this is INSANE! I just witnessed TWO PLANETS blow up in one day! And now we don't even bloody know where we are!"
"Arthur, did you learn anything from the COVER of that book I gave you? Don't Panic! I happen to know where we are. We are in a very sophisticated Gummi ship. I wouldn't doubt this belonged to royalty of some kind!"
"Oh well that clears everything up! I could sure use a nice cup of tea…but I doubt I'll ever drink it again…"
"Arthur, quiet please, someone's coming." Ward, Sora, and the rest of the crew made their presence known, and saw something odd. They were expecting to see some sort of gelatinous metroid, or some other horrific monster from Zebes. But what they saw was two men, who looked perfectly normal, standing in the galley. They both seemed rather fit, one was shorter, Caucasian, with red hair. He looked rather confused and frightened in the current situation. The other was a little taller, African, had a shaved head, and couldn't be happier to see people.
"Thank GOD," Said the black man, "For a second there…thought you might be the vogon leader…haven't had the best of luck you know."
"Who are you?" Sora asked. He didn't think they were a threat, or his keyblade would have jumped out. Ward seemed to have the same idea.
"Well, my name is Ford. Ford Prefect, if you will. I come from the Betelgeuse Star system. My friend here," he pointed at the red haired man, who still looked as though he was watching an episode of Friends OtO "SNAP!" , "is named Arthur Dent. He comes from a little blue planet you probably haven't heard of before."
"If neither of you are from Zebes, then why were you there?" Donald asked. Arthur then noticed Donald and Goofy, and gasped.
"TALKING DUCKS AND DOGS?" He practically screamed, "FORD DO YOU SEE THAT?"
"You'll have to excuse him," Ford said, "His planet hadn't discovered interstellar travel, and the inhabitants were a trite bit unaware of life outside their planet."
"A-hyuck, it happens!" Goofy said.
"Well in answer to your question, we have to go back a ways," Ford said. "You see, I left my planet due to the fact that I am one of the many, many writers for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
"What's that?" Sora asked.
"It's a book," Ford said, "But not just any book, it's rather extraordinary. You see, my colleagues and I traveled the Universe writing down information for this encyclopedia. It contains basically anything you will ever need to know about anything in the universe. Well, as we all know, the universe is an ever changing thing, so we were planning on expanding the knowledge. I was on my way to a fascinating planet called mars, when I crash landed on Arthur's planet. I was a little naïve to Arthur's culture, and he saved my life on that occasion. So we became good friends. Now, I never once tried to meddle with their culture, because its against space law to mess with the culture of a planet that hasn't discovered space travel, or at least to the fullest extent. The farthest they'd ever been is their moon!" He broke off and chuckled, "We don't even teach about THAT accomplishment in school back on Betelgeuse, it was rather embarrassing that we considered it to be an accomplishment! I was trapped there for ten years, and Arthur became my best friend. Until…the Vogons arrived. They are about the most foul, disgusting, and highly beaurocrasized creatures in the galaxy. They were in the process of removing Arthur's planet to make room for the Interstellar Galactic Bypass. Well, before the deed could be done, I managed to hitch a ride on the Vogon ship, taking Arthur with me. But we were discovered, and the Vogons tortured us."
"Torture?" Arthur interrupted, "It was just a little bad poetry. You should hear some of the crap we had back on…"
"Arthur, Vogon poetry is the second worst poetry in the universe! Look it up!" Ford said. He turned back to Sora and co. "Needless to say, the Vogons were not pleased with our arrival on their ship, and were going to jettison us into space. But then they saw…Zebes did you call it? Well they saw that planet, and realized killing us in that atmosphere would be much more rewarding than just dropping us into space. Plus, considering that we didn't die on Arthur's exploding planet, it only seemed logical to die minutes later on a strange planet going through a similar crisis. Well, I prepared for the worst. Judging by the looks of things, we probably had twenty seconds in the atmosphere, supposing the planet would give us that twenty before it went and popped. But the second we landed, I saw your ship, grabbed Arthur, and thumbed a ride on it before the atmosphere could kill us and before the planet could blow."
The group took some time to absorb it.
"That," Sora said, shaking his head, "Is quite a story."
"You're telling me!" Arthur replied, "I lived most of it!"
"Well, you're both welcome to come with us," Riku said, "Especially since you have no where else to go."
"Your hospitality is most appreciated," Ford said.
"You wouldn't happen to have any tea on you, would you?" Arthur asked.
"Sorry," Popple said. "We don't."
"Grand," Arthur said, dismally.
"So, where are we headed next?" Goofy asked.
"There's a huge planet down there," Birdo replied, in her unusual voice. "And it's teeming with heartless energy. What's weird, is that it's all coming from one spot. Like someone is controlling it somehow."
"Let's check it out," Sora said.
"Luckily, I'm detecting readings of a space port, so these people are used to interstellar travel. But it looks like they don't use it much. These readings look like they are coming from twenty year old frequencies. Or more." Popple said.
"What's the place called?" Ward asked.
"Monstropolis," Popple replied.
Monstropolis was enormous. The whole planet seemed to consist of one city. Ford told them it reminded him of a place he visited once, called Coruscant, or something like that. Only a little smaller. The minute they entered the atmosphere, however, Sora felt funny. His magical clothing automatically changed him into his vampire form, that he normally took when he entered Halloween Town.
"What the?" he said. Kairi jumped back when she saw him.
"Don't worry," Donald said to her. "Monstropolis must be Halloween Town's counterpart. I'll change the rest of us to match." With a wave of his wand, Donald became a mummy (with no visible stomach or internal organs), Goofy turned into the monster with the bolt screwed into his head, mimicking his hat. Kairi was turned into a strange reptilian creature, her legs disappearing, and two extra arms appearing. She had to either slither, or use her extra arms to walk. Ward was changed into a red, furry beast with black eyes and a scaly tail, and Luigi was turned into an overgrown spider creature. He could stand upright, but he had four legs, four arms, and multiple eyes.
"What about us?" Ford asked Donald. Donald looked at him surprised.
"Uuh…well, I guess there's no reason why not…I mean, you guys can't really hurt anything if you don't have a planet to go home to…no offense Arthur."
"It's…ok," Arthur said, a little flustered. With a wave of his wand, Ford was turned into giant green skinned monster, with blue teeth that glowed in the dark. And Arthur was changed into a white furred beast.
"Ok, I'm descending," Popple said. They went through the rest of the atmosphere, and landed in a very old looking space port. They weren't greeted by anyone, until they walked into the space building. There, they saw a strange monster looking person asleep at his desk. Ward looked around. This guy seemed to be the only person working.
"Uuh…excuse us?" Ward asked, a little confused. The monster stuttered awake.
"Oh, jeeze, did you guys just land?" the monster asked.
"Yeah…our ships right out there," Ward answered.
"You guys must be merchants, or something…no one travels with ships these days, not when they can just use the handy door travel. You should look into it."
"No no," Luigi said, smiling. "We moved out of Monstropolis years ago, just coming back to visit family. Couldn't find a convenient door system."
The monster looked at him funny. "Ok then, well, welcome back…I guess." They walked by him and into the city.
"Luigi, did you know about this city before we landed?" Goofy asked.
"Well, I knew about it, but not about the door system," Luigi said. "I was just improvising ourselves out of a sticky customs search."
"This is incredible!" Ford exclaimed, with a copy of the HHGTTG in his hands. He was inputting information as they walked. "Just look at this place! Completely uncharted for the most part! At least in Hitch Hiker standards. I mean, the only thing the Guide came up with when I entered the name, 'Monstropolis,' is that the average human can't penetrate the defense system! I'm making history by writing down my findings!"
"In Hitch Hiker standards," Arthur said. As they walked along, there were billboards all over displaying a name, Monsters, Inc. Sometimes it would have a monster in a hard hat, but other times, it would show a really scary monster, with his name. Such as James P. Sullivan. Randall Boggs. But there was one that really caught Donald's eye.
"SORA! GOOFY! LOOK AT THAT BILLBOARD!" he screamed. He jumped on Sora's back and forced Sora's head in the direction of the billboard. Sora's Jaw dropped. This is what he read.
"Monsters, Inc. We scare, because we care. Jack Skellington, the current #1 scarer!"
"Jack?" Sora said, utterly confused. "But how?"
"Maybe it's this world's version of Jack!" Goofy said.
"I don't think so," Sora said. "I mean, I have yet to meet a single person in this world who looks exactly like their counterpart, or shares their name."
"We've gotta go over there!" Donald said. They stopped at the corner, where they saw two Monsters arguing. One looked slightly familiar.
"Why can't we take my car to work, Sully?" a short green one who looked slightly like a one-eyed frog with horns was pleading. The other, who was enormous, blue (with purple spots) two small horns, and furry, was dragging the green one away from a nice car.
"Mike, its an energy shortage, and we need to conserve energy. We're walking to work. I mean, look at Ted. Ted walks to work!" Sully answered.
"Big deal," Mike retorted, "The guy takes three steps and he's there!" Sora and co. ran up to them.
"Hey are you James P. Sullivan?" Sora asked. Sully turned around and stared at the, rather large, group.
"Uuh…" He started, but Mike interrupted.
"Of course he is! Don't you read the papers? Jeeze, see Sully this is what I'm telling you, ever since that Jack guy came to town and completely stole the first spot on the scare floor, people have been losing big respect for you."
"Mike, when are you going to drop that grudge," Sully looked at his little friend. "Jack is a great guy, and a tremendous scarer. In the six days he's been working here, he's out scared me. He's been helping us slowly climb out of this crisis. He is a master scarer. His helper, that Finkelstein guy in the wheelchair is a genius."
"Did you say Finkelstein?" Sora asked.
"Yeah, do you know them?" Sully asked.
"Of course they know about the famous Jack and his friends. They're all over the papers!" Mike seemed rather upset about this.
"Well, we know them. But we didn't know they were here…we really need to talk to them, could you lead us to them?" Sora said.
"Sure thing. I can explain everything to my boss," Sully said. They took off together towards a large factory like building.
"So you guys new here, or what?" Mike asked.
"You could say that," Kairi said.
"Do you even know what scaring is?" Mike asked. Sora's group all shook their heads at once. Mike stared at them. "Jeeze…real boondocks types aren't you. Well, a long time ago, Monsters found that scaring human children provided an energy source. Since then, however, we also found out that it is lethal to touch childrens bare flesh, or pretty much anything their bare flesh has touched. So getting this energy is a problem. That's where people like my main man Sully here comes in. They sneak into rooms, scare kids, while people like me collect the screams. Then its converted to energy, blah blah blah. But recently, there's been a shortage of screams. Children are becoming harder to scare these days, with all the crap that numbs their minds to fear these days. And to make matters worse, you got these natural born scarers like Jack Skellington who could scare human adults without batting an eye. It's a tough job." By the time he finished his story, they were in front of the building. They walked inside, and were immediately met by two people, who were busy in conversation. One was a crab like monster in a suit jacket, vest, and tie, sipping a sludgy black liquid that almost resembled coffee. The other was Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King.
"Jack!" Sora yelled. Jack turned, and about knocked the crab monster over in his rush to greet his friends.
"Sora! Donald! Goofy!" He exclaimed, "I just knew that if anyone I knew was going to show up here, it would be you three! What are you doing here, anyway?"
"We could ask you the same thing!" Donald said. The crab monster walked up to the group.
"Oh!" Jack said, turning, "Sorry Mr. Waternoose! These are some of my closest friends! This is Sora, Donald, and Goofy!"
"Ah, well, any friend of Jack's is a friend of Monsters, Inc. And of course, me, Henry J. Waternoose the third."
"Hey Jack!" Sully said, extending a paw. Jack took it with both hands, smiling. "James! Good to see you!" Jack said. He turned to Mike. "And Micheal, always a pleasure."
"C'mon Jack," Sully said, "You know we told you to call us Mike and Sully."
"Of course, of course," Jack said. He then turned back to Sora. "I'll have to talk to you later, guys, I've got a job to do!" And with that, he walked away with Mike and Sully. Waternoose turned to the group. "Well!" he said, eyeing Luigi in particular. "Some of you look scary enough to join our scarer training team? How would you like to try? Nothing long term of course. Unless you would like it to be that way. We are always looking for new talent! And boy did that come out of nowhere about a week ago. Jack just pops through a door, beats the training in under a minute, and then goes on to become the top scarer within the week! If we had some more talent like his and Sullivans…well…let's just say this crisis would be over. But look at me, I'm rambling on again. Come with me."
"Well…" Ward said. "We do have some time till Jack gets off work…so…why not?"
They followed Waternoose through a couple of hallways, and into a room that looked like a danger zone. There was tape saying, "Caution," all over the door. They went inside, where they practiced techniques on a dummy, and were constantly told off by the lady running the program. Surprisingly, however, Goofy passed the class with flying colors.
TBC
I figured I'd Give you all a taster. This is one long chapter, and at the moment, im tired of writing it. I'll finish it up later. Plus, this puts everyone in suspense as to how Jack survived the destruction of his homeworld.