Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to its rightful owners, not to me. Sorry.

It was suddenly very cold in here.

I could see the fog flowing from my mouth every time that I exhaled, as if it were below a few degrees. To my left, Sora's teeth were clanking together. He was shaking as well. The trembling was kind of hard to ignore. You know, considering the fact that it was making a loud clank, clank sound throughout the Gummi Ship. His bright eyes glanced over at me, and for the first time in surprisingly an hour, he asked, "Are you cold, too?"

I just nodded. It was pretty obvious that I was freezing; my hands buried deep in the pockets of my shorts in attempt to find warmth. He must have noticed because he then stuck his head in the front seat to glare at Donald. "Are you trying to kill us?" he snapped lightly. Clank, clank, clank his teeth chattered once more. "Why is it so cold in here? What did you do?"

"It wasn't me," Donald replied. His head turned to the side, only to come face to face with Sora. Just like any other time, he rolled his eyes before pushing him back into the back seat. "It is probably because of one of the world's coming up . . ." He paused to look at the orb of land floating in front of us. Well, I wouldn't exactly call it land. It was more like a floating mass of water."Oh, will you look at that. That's the reason why it's so cold in here. You know they say once you get in a pool, you have to warm up to the water. Okay, guys. Prepare for landing."

Sora let out a scoff, sinking back into the seat next to me with a loud thud. "Land where? In the sea? We'll drown."

"Not with my magic, we won't." The duck flashed a grin. "Just leave it to me."

"Oh, god. Donald, what did you do?"

"I did good, eh?"

I wouldn't exactly say that. When the duck said that his magic would help, I wasn't exactly expecting this. We were floating around in water, some better than others, surrounded by sea creatures and tiny, little fish. Donald, who seemed as smug as ever, was floating upside down next to a turtle-fied Goofy, his arms crossed and everything below his waist transformed into yellow and blue tentacles. It was an amusing sight to say the least. But, it wasn't as amusing as whatever Sora was staring at apparently.

"What's so funny?" I had turned to him and asked, then instantly regretted it. He had been changed into a sea creature, too. He was naked, save for everything below his waist, which was replaced with a dolphin tail. He grinned, then pointed a finger at me.

"You." He snickered. "I like your outfit, hun."

My body had been changed like him, my legs being replaced with a blue mermaid tail like in the stories. There was a checkerboard cloth tied around my chest and I stared at Donald. "Thanks for at least giving me a shirt," I said sarcastically. Then, I turned to Sora. "It's not funny."

He opened his mouth to talk, but was cut off by a girl's voice. "Come on, Sebastian," they had said.

"Ariel, wait! Don't leave me behind!"

It was a red crab that came swimming behind a redheaded mermaid and a yellow fish. It paddled its little claws to catch up with her. However, it froze when it seen us. Letting out a scream, it swam back over to the mermaid, cowering with fear. I just stared; Donald was floating upside down, Goofy was swimming terribly slow, and Sora and I were harmless. We weren't exactly the scariest things in town.

"Relax, Sebastian," the girl had spoke. For the sake of being socially awkward, I waved. She chuckled and gave a little one back. "They look completely harmless. Right, Flounder?"

The yellow fish swam from behind her. He looked awfully scared, too. "I don't know. There's something weird about them."

Just as he had said that, Goofy had bumped into me, sending us both flipping out of control. Attempting to use my tail to swim myself back in the same direction, I had bumped into Donald. It was a mess.

"Hehehe," Sora chuckled nervously, trying to draw attention away from our struggles. "What do you mean?"

The girl, Ariel, swam a bit closer. "They do seem . . . a little different," she said. She flashed me a beautiful smile. "Where are you from?"

"Um . . . we're from kinda far away," I answered. Truth. "and we're not really used to these waters." Also truth. "Hehehe . . . uh . . ."

"Oh, I see. In that case, Sebastian can show you how we swim around here."

At that, the red crab spun his head around. His face held a shocked look on it. He wasn't happy at all as he shouted, "Ariel, King Triton will not like this!"

Ariel just rolled her blue eyes. King Triton? He actually existed? As far as I knew, he was just a myth that Sora's mother used to tell us when the sea waters got to choppy to play in. "Triton must be mad," she'd say, then we'd never ask to play in the salty waters again. Sora must have noticed too because he glanced at me, a hopeful gleam in his eye. Do you think our islands are around here, then, I could almost hear him ask. I shook my head. If we had to travel this far, the islands probably weren't around here. He nodded, the hopeful gleam easily erased.

"Oh, don't worry." We looked up to see Ariel talking to the crab still. I let out a sigh, glad she wasn't paying attention to us. "You'll be fine." And with that, she took a step back (or swam away) to let Sebastian take over.

"Easy for you to say," Sebastian grumbled, looking over to us. "Okay, it's time for you to learn how to swim properly." He motioned to the adorable yellow fish beside him. "Practice swimming with Flounder. Try to tag him."

"Piece of cake." I grinned.

However, as soon as Sebastian said begin and Flounder swam away, I swam around in a circle. Sora laughed, saying something about piece of cake, my butt. He swam off, his dolphin tale flapping behind him, yet still wobbling side to side a lot. Goofy was slower than everyone, attempting to kick his little turtle legs to go faster. Once I eventually got myself right side up, I swam after them.

Sora's hand came close to touching him, but Flounder sped off, sinking lower to the ocean floor. I frowned. I only knew how to go backwards and forwards, not up and down. Donald, on the other hand, seemed to have got it down pact. He sunk lower and dove for the poor fish. Once more, Flounder sped off.

After catching him about ten times, we were out of breath. Swimming was a lot harder than normal running or walking. Sebastian swam over to where the four of us were huffing and puffing. Though he looked unimpressed, he pasted on a proud smile. It made me feel at least a little bit better about myself. "Good job." He grinned. "Now let's move on to self-defense-"

"Sebastian!"

We looked up to see a frightened Ariel. She was pointing a finger to a school of fish swimming our way. At first glance, they looked harmless, but as I looked closer, I noticed the purple and red heart symbol on them. They were heartless . . . underwater. Ariel grabbed Flounder and Sebastian, and began swimming away, which I was thankful for. Because she was fleeing, she must have ran into them before. Because she ran into them before, she must have knew they were dangerous. At least she hasn't been hurt by them.

"Class is over. Good luck!" Sebastian yelled as they ran.

Not a word was said as we summoned our Keyblades. Even though they appeared five pounds lighter underwater, they seemed to gain ten pounds when you swung them. It was apparent as I tried to hit one and it seemed like I was going in slow motion. Since Sora was stronger than me, he was having an easier time than me, but I was straining just to move it. He must have seen because he killed the two heartless in front of me, and said, "You might want to stick to magic until you get a bit stronger."

That one sentence froze me in place. Was I not strong enough for this world? I knew at some point, I wouldn't be tough enough for things, but I wasn't expecting it to happen so early on in our journey. Making my Keyblade disappear, I watched in silence as Goofy finished off the last three Heartless fish. I would have to push myself if I wanted to get up to their level . . . if I wanted to catch up with Sora.

Ariel swam back over to us once the coast was clear. She actually looked . . . impressed. Her red lips were pulled up into a smile, seemingly less suspicious of us, as she said, "Wow, nice job!" More like nice job to the boys. Sora placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Those creatures chased us here," Ariel continued.

"Oh, no! Those monsters might be heading for the palace, too!" Sebastian's eyes grew wide. There was a palace around here? Was King Triton there? "We'd better head back right away!"

"But, wh-what if we run into more on our way back?" Flounder stuttered.

Ariel turned to us, a pleading expression on her face. "I'm sorry, but we need your help. Please come to the palace with us."

A chance to meet the King that we heard of so much growing up? There's no way I was going to miss this.

Sora took a look at Donald, Goofy, and I before nodding his head. "Yeah, of course we'll do it," he said.

"Oh, thank you so much!"

We were going to take them on a dangerous path while I was semi-defenseless. For the first time in not a long while, I couldn't use my Keyblade again. I wasn't the best at magic, either, so I doubted I'd really do any damage in combat. Well, at least until I learned how to lift a few more weights.

Sora leaned a bit in my direction, clearly trying to tell me something. I looked at him, then leaned over, too. "What is it?"

"Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you. Just watch your back, okay?"

I nodded. "Okay."

Hey, everyone! I'm sorry this story seemed to just be . . . forgotten about, but I swear that I didn't. I actually couldn't just let this story go. I plan on finishing the entire story this year, and then going back and editing everything before I move on to KH2. And since this is the middle of the story line where the group just goes on missions to save the worlds, it is going to be a little slow paced for a few more chapters. Just bare with me and I'll make it up to you :)