~*.*Disciples of the Keyblade*.*~
Title: Improvisation
Rating: K+
Warnings: Some violence, very minor blood, another half-formed swear word
Characters: Aqua, Terra, Ventus, Master Eraqus, Shenzi, Banzai, Ed
Summary: Learning to think on one's feet was an important trait of a Keyblade Master…Aqua just wished she didn't have to think on four. Pre-BBS.
Special Notes: This chapter is dedicated to the extremely patient Jimbob86. Thank you for waiting so long for me to actually get this up! I hope you enjoy, and sorry for making you have to wait.
For Dani-Chan, as always!
~***~
Aqua opened one eye as she felt the sunlight suddenly vanish from the surface of her skin. Unconcerned, she looked up into Ven's smiling face. "What's up?"
The blonde Keybearer shrugged. "Master Eraqus wants us to come to him in the gardens."
She had been lounging outside—resting, she would tell anyone, which would be the truth—on the stone walls that encircled the exterior of the Castle because Eraqus had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. Which was not unusual, granted. He'd turn up if he had a lesson for them.
And apparently, two hours behind schedule, he did.
Stretching, Aqua followed Ven as he weaved expertly through the paths that crisscrossed the courtyard.
"A little late," she remarked.
"Yeah, but I'm not complaining, as long as we don't have to train longer!"
Terra was already there, looking bored as usual, nodding at the pair as they joined him. They stood at attention, hands at their sides, eyes raised to meet Eraqus's as he addressed them. The Land of Departure's warm weather was making the trio sleepy, as was usually the case, if they weren't moving.
"You're going back to the Pride Lands today," their graying tutor informed them.
"Really?" Ven blurted out, excited. "Do we get to see Mufasa and Scar again?"
"Actually, you won't," Eraqus told him. In reaction to the youngest apprentice's deflated appearance, he added, "But I'm sure you'll find this mission interesting, regardless. Ventus, Terra…remember Shere Khan?"
"That tiger? How could we forget?" Terra snorted.
"You'll be sent to the Elephant Graveyard today on a similar mission, and I would prefer you do not leave that area. You will all be searching for…" Rummaging inside of his robe, their Master removed a golden, vaguely heart-shaped emblem about half the size of his hand. Aqua recognized it instantly, since a silver copy was on her own outfit, and Terra, along with Ven, had the same insignia elsewhere.
"Search and find again?" complained the oldest apprentice with a roll of his dark eyes.
"I'm sure you'll find this one challenging, Terra." Eraqus smiled, and the brown-haired warrior groaned.
Aqua and Ven laughed, and their Master approached them, slipping a bronze colored bracelet over each of their left wrists. "Now, you may go. The item you search for is in the Elephant Graveyard. Do not forget."
"We won't," Aqua assured him. It didn't take long to don their armor and open a portal, leaving the Land of Departure to find their objective.
It couldn't possibly be that bad. They had been to the Pride Lands before, right?
~***~
Aqua didn't understand exactly why, but she must have blacked out upon entering the arid, muggy Graveyard because she woke up on her stomach. Her perspective had changed, this she knew, but her thoughts were scrambling to rearrange themselves into their proper order and that was the least important thing on her mind.
Because something was staring at her. Right in the eye. Something with large, shadowy blue pupils.
She retreated instinctively, and she heard the telltale scrape of small claws on gray stone. Aqua froze, feeling the now slightly familiar extension of a tail from her body, but there was something different…she didn't have that powerful feeling that surged through a lion's body…
She tilted her head up and looked at the impossible. Gazing straight back, its mouth open in shock, was a stag. It had dark brown fur and a set of antlers that had an impressive number of tines for its age and size, but it seemed a little unsteady on its feet…
Aqua blinked a grand total of eight times before her mind caught up with the situation. She'd recognize those eyes anywhere. "Terra?"
He snorted, dipping his head down to her level. The deer had the same messy hairstyle that Terra always bore, and she was surprised that she hadn't known it was him earlier.
"Of course it's me. I knew it. Whenever Eraqus smiles, we're in trouble." He sighed, and his hot breath ruffled her fur. Aqua turned her head and saw a black body with a long white stripe going down to the end of a thick, bushy tail…
She collapsed back onto the soil, ignoring the tiny rodent skull beside her, and covered her eyes with her paws. "Oh no."
"It's not that bad," Terra reassured her, a smile in his voice. "It's not like skunks are defenseless."
"Easy for you to say." Aqua swiftly ran through all of her knowledge on skunks. She had never been gladder for the hours she had spent in the Castle's library. The main thing she knew about them was that they did not run fast, but they didn't need to. The spray they were infamous for sufficiently protected them from any creature dumb enough to dash into them. They didn't exactly need killer claws or teeth when they had the ability to cause a sensory overload in their foes.
"At least you don't stink," Terra pointed out, shaking his head, still grinning.
"That's a stereotype," she sniffed in response. "Skunks don't stink, themselves." A far more important concept occurred to her at the moment, and she rose onto her hind legs, looking around. She still had her blue hair, amusingly enough. "Where's Ven?"
Terra scoffed and stamped one hoof. "I don't know. I suspect he's landed away from us."
"We have to find him."
"I'm lucky I found you. I agree, though." Kneeling down, he positioned himself onto his stomach and stared straight at her. "Skunks don't run fast. Deer do. Get on, we'll find him."
Aqua looked at him doubtfully. "You don't seem very steady on your feet…"
"Want to find Ven or not?" Terra snapped irritably.
Sighing, she scrambled onto his broad shoulders, resting in the dib between the blades. She dug her claws in as far as she dared without penetrating his pelt, bracing herself for a wild ride. Terra tossed his head and bounded off in the running leap of a deer, hooves clacking the stones together with every step.
Aqua glanced down as she caught an amber flash, and she scowled, recognizing Eraqus's bracelet, now an anklet. That would be it then, the "interesting twist" he had told them about. They had to find this heart charm and get out fast, before they encountered a lion or something worse. They weren't in the right forms to fight a cheetah.
It didn't take long for the pair to find Ven. He was bolting straight for them after all, a golden hare with long legs and ears, sky blue eyes almost leaping from their sockets. He was ahead of a trio of slavering hyenas with smoky pelts and dark spots, their gazes riveted on the rabbit.
"Ven!" Aqua shouted in relief, as he took cover behind Terra, trembling.
"Aqua?" He gasped, looking strangely amused and annoyed at once.
Terra took a step back as the scavengers slowed to a halt and encircled them the best they could. Aqua didn't recognize them, but she assumed these were the hyenas that Mufasa had spoken of, the ones that lived in the Elephant Graveyard. There were probably more where they had come from.
The lone female in the group tilted her head, her comb of black hair jutting from her skull with all the elegance of a rooster's frill. She had a sarcastic, cunning look to her face, and an eager smile on her lips. "Well! What do we have here, Banzai?" She turned to look at a male hyena a deeper shade of gray than she was.
He grinned at her, baring long fangs. "I don't know, Shenzi. What do we have here?"
"Looks like some new prey. I know there ain't no creatures like that here." She gestured with one paw towards Terra, and his response was a loud snort. "Ed?"
The other hyena with the large, unfocused eyes and lolling tongue just laughed wildly, drool falling in rivulets from his jaws.
"We don't want any trouble," Aqua said sheepishly. "We're just looking for something."
Shenzi looked surprised. "Really now? We're looking for something too! Something to eat! What do you say…?"
"Want to stay for dinner?" Banzai finished, moving a little closer.
"What's on the menu?" Ven asked sheepishly, crouching lower to the ground and scooting nearer to Terra's hooves. Aqua knew she couldn't summon her Keyblade in this state, and she figured Ven and Terra were in the same predicament. It occurred to the female Keybearer, then, that they were all relying on the eldest apprentice to somehow get them out of this situation.
Of course, she could always just spray, but she'd save that until there was no other choice. She honestly didn't know how, and besides, who knew how it might affect her companions if they were caught in the resulting mess?
"Dunno, what are you?" Banzai snickered.
"Hungry," Shenzi snarled, taking a paw-step forward.
"I meant them, stupid!"
"Who're you calling stupid?"
Ed laughed for no reason, and Terra turned and leaped clear over his head, kicking out with his back hoof and knocking the hyena silly. Ven pelted after him, keeping up, to Aqua's surprise, with the stag's longer strides.
"Look for any signs of the thing we're supposed to find!" Terra hissed to Aqua as the hyenas gave a collective growl of fury and started to chase them. Their pounding paws terrified the animal part of her mind, and Aqua was surprised by the fear reaction that immediately resulted.
Along with another reaction that she unconsciously suppressed.
Lifting up as high as she dared and peering around as she balanced on Terra's back, she strained her eyes, searching for any glint of gold. But there was nothing, and the hyenas were getting closer, their snarls becoming more and more agitated—and uncomfortably near.
Ven stumbled suddenly, and Aqua instinctively jumped from her perch to kneel by his side. The rabbit shook his head, whirling around and retreating as Shenzi approached.
"Go get that horned thing," she ordered Banzai and Ed. "I can handle these runts!"
Her cohorts hesitated for only a second before splitting around the woodland critters dragged from their natural forest environment. They belonged amongst leafy trees, not the burning sun of an African savannah.
"Hey, er, we can work something out." Ven suggested, his ears flat to his head, one paw rising slowly after the other has he continued to take steps back. Shenzi leered at him, hunching her shoulders. Aqua heard barks and something like braying as the other hyenas apparently battled Terra, keeping the stag away from his friends.
"I've had enough of a work out, thank you," Shenzi replied pleasantly. Aqua curled her claws and lashed out at the scavenger's face, tearing through the fur and leaving three long streaks of blood, not deep, but enough to distract her for a second or two.
The skunk sighed and said to Ven hurriedly, "Go to Terra. Now."
Ven didn't argue, he whipped around and raced towards the eldest of the protégés. Aqua finally stopped fighting her current species' natural reaction to danger, arching her tail and spraying Shenzi in the face a heartbeat before teeth met on her skull.
Some of the mist might have even reached down her throat, for all the female Keyblader knew.
Shenzi's face became comically distorted, and she coughed, tongue poking out from between her teeth. "Aw, man! That stuff is foul!" She hacked some more, and unable to stand the stench combined with the burning as it drenched her eyes, the hyena whirled around and charged off in the opposite direction.
Aqua, sitting amongst the empty eyed elephant skulls and the rotting corpses of those not yet truly skeletal, was utterly unaffected. A roar that she recognized reached her ears, and shaking herself back to reality, she ran as fast as her body allowed towards Terra and Ven.
Her concern was unwarranted.
Apparently, having had leaped from the rocks above, a big, dark, black-gray lion with a long mane sprang towards Ed, hitting him so hard that he rolled head over paws for a couple of feet. The moment he could, the scavenger bolted away, whimpering.
Banzai grinned almost apologetically at the massive lion, but Terra lashed out with his antlers, striking him across the chest and ripping open the fur, revealing deep red. Ven chose that moment to get near the hyena, swiping one long leg out and tripping him. He tried to get away, but the lion pounced on him, keeping a large paw on Banzai's spine to prevent escape.
Eraqus, for of course it was he, inquired in a polite tone, "Where is it?"
"W-Where's what?" Banzai stammered, looking terrified. Aqua almost felt sorry for him. The scent of the spray reached them, and she felt strangely self-conscious about it. No one paid it any attention besides a wrinkling of their noses, and the hyena had far larger worries than a bad smell.
"I placed a golden item on a skull, over there." A gray tailed flicked towards the west. "It's not there. Where is it?"
"Er, uh, Shenzi took it. Yeah!" Trying to nod but not quite succeeding since he was flat on his stomach, Banzai just scratched his claws into the rocky soil.
"And where did Shenzi put it?" Eraqus increased the pressure of his paw just a little bit. Aqua noted, somewhat distractedly, that she had used very little of her—let's call it "defense mechanism"—and it was still surprisingly strong.
"In-in the gorge! Yeah! Down in her hidey hole!" Banzai whined again.
"Did she now? Is that the truth? I'd hate to have to travel all this way…" His claws slid out, not puncturing the hyena's hide, but pricking it in warning.
"I swear! I swear! Over there," he strained with one paw towards the east. "There are these craters that explode with, like, green smoke and stuff! Sulfur or something! One doesn't, that's where Shenzi hid it."
"Thank you." Eraqus removed his paw, and Banzai scrambled away without any trace of dignity.
"Master Eraqus," Ven began, but the big lion whirled around and jumped from stone ledge to rocky perch, vanishing over the cliff top without a word.
Aqua walked anxiously over to Terra, whom was bleeding in several places. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he nodded. "C'mon, we know where the trinket is." He knelt again so she—and this time Ven—could ride on his back. She felt bad, since he was hurt, but she was unable to do any magic in this form. Aqua suspected it was the bracelet that both stopped her arcane talent and gave her such a ridiculous appearance. As Terra ran off in the direction Banzai had said as fast as he dared, Ven snickered.
"You sure know how to stink up a place, Aqua!"
Terra grinned.
The skunk raised her tail threateningly. "It was a defense thing! It got that hyena off of us, didn't it?"
"Coulda did it earlier," grouched the eldest Keyblader.
"You were too close. It almost knocked Shenzi out," Aqua argued. In reality, she had been unsure on how exactly to do it.
The gorge was indeed filled with craters spewing fog, and it only took Ven one quick circuit to find the hole that didn't fire any steam into the air. Aqua looked at the small opening doubtfully, her nose recoiling from the smell it emitted, ironically enough.
"My body's too thick to fit down there," she told Ven as Terra stood guard behind them. The deep, black canyon was lit by a sickly emerald glow, as if from a green fire.
"Not mine! Finally, something I can do." The blonde rabbit wriggled down the gap, tail bobbing excitedly with every movement. He vanished briefly, only to return with something bright yellow in his mouth. Aqua knew the hyenas had long enough legs and the right kind of paws to reach into the crater, but Terra couldn't with his hooves, and neither of them had the right kind of size needed for such a thing. Luckily, Ven's hare form did the job.
"Finally," Terra sighed in relief. "Let's get out of here. What else was down in that hole, Ven?"
"Nothing. Some pretty rocks and that was about it." Ven sprang up nimbly onto the stag's back without any help, but Aqua once again had to clamber onto his shoulders.
She didn't like this body.
Her spraying from earlier had chased off any of the other hyenas in the immediate vicinity, and Terra theatrically—or maybe realistically—coughed as they passed near the area she had chased Shenzi off. Returning to their starting point, they found Eraqus waiting for them.
"I was wondering how well you could improvise," the lion informed them as they approached. He ignored Ven's questions, once more taking them to that strange, specific point in the canyon to assume their human forms, as he had done during their first visit to the Pride Lands. Pride Rock was visible on the horizon as a slanted silhouette against the huge, setting sun.
Ven handed over the small charm once they were back to normal. "Master, that was—"
"Suicidal! Deer don't fight hyenas! This was a load of bullsh—"
Aqua heaved a sigh and reminded Terra to watch his language. As the warrior sulked, she asked, "Why, of all things, was I a skunk?"
Eraqus chuckled. "Because, Aqua…you come across as harmless when you are most obviously not. Terra, I know it was dangerous…why else do you think I was here?"
Terra didn't reply, just continued to glower, and Ven suddenly broke into a bout of snickering.
"What?" Aqua said, puzzled. "What's so funny?"
Folding his arms behind his head and grinning, the blonde winked. "Nothing, I just thought a little laughter would lighten the mood!"
~***~
Yay, for it being 2:35 AM.
Anyway, a very special thank you to everyone that has reviewed/story alerted/favorited so far! You guys are fantastic. I decided to take them to the Pride Lands again because it seemed like a good place to make them improvise with their animal forms, and because I realized I hadn't written the hyenas yet.
We have cleared the two hundred reviews mark! Thanks for sticking with me, and also, thanks to Temari-Desert-Storm for being the two hundredth reviewer!
Thanks for reading, why not drop another review?