Monstro stunk. Badly.

After we stepped off the ship we were immediately overcome with fumes of dead fish and rotting wood. There were so many platforms rising out of the Whale's mouth. We stood on the edge of the water, unable to see the bottom. Nessa picked up a wooden board and touched the surface of the water with it. It had the consistency of pool water but in some places it stuck like saliva.

"I am not swimming in that," I said simply. Nessa looked at me like I'd just said I was not going to lick a wooly mammoth. "What?"

"Obviously. That's absolutely disgusting. We have no idea what this thing ate," She said in a duh voice. I glared at her for a moment but she'd already starting climbing up the wooden planks so we could jump across the tops to get to the ship that we could see Sora standing on in the distance, probably the back of the throat.

"Aggh." I muttered climbing up behind her.

"No, its more of an 'Agghhhhhh' like at the back of the throat," she corrected. I smiled to myself, shaking my head. We reached the top of the platform. It would have been a nice view, except we were surrounded by whale gums and it was dark. "Hmm I wonder."

"Wonder what?" I barely finished when Nessa had leapt to the platform across from us. I stared at her. "What on earth did you do that for?" I yelled. She smiled.

"Go on," She called, "You can do it too."

"How do you know?" I yelled/whispered back, giving her a scared look. She laughed. I looked at her for a long moment and then backed up. I ran forward and jumped across, landing next to her, holding my breath.

"That wasn't so bad was it?" She asked. I glared at her.

We jumped across the rest of the platforms and landed on the boat just as Sora started to jump with incredible power.

"What happened to you?" I asked. He shrugged.

"We went in the stomach after Pinocchio," Goofy explained, "But Sora's friend just came through and after we fought some heartless they disappeared into that stomach room. Gheppeto was just helping us learn to jump higher."

"RIKU!" Nessa and I looked at each other. "Was there a girl with him?"

"Why would there be a girl with him?" Sora asked, not even looking at us. He was thinking deeply.

"OUR FRIEND RACHEL!" I gritted my teeth and growled. Nessa put her hand on my arm.

"Calm down," She whispered. Sora looked taken back, "Sorry."

"What? You think Riku took your friend?" Sora asked, finding anger. "He wouldn't do something like that, he's my friend." I scoffed but Nessa just shook her head.

"No Sora that's not what we think," She lied. He backed up a couple steps.

"Well we might as well go after him," Donald suggested.

"We'll go with you and look for Rachel," Nessa suggested. And we all started off into the throat. "Aghh." She offered but I wasn't in the mood to smile anymore.

XXXXXXXXXXX

When we reached the top area of the throat Riku was standing over the puppet.

"RIKU!" Sora yelled, "Let Pinocchio go."

"A puppet that's lost its heart to the heartless. Maybe it holds the key to helping Kairi," Riku paused for a moment, "How about it Sora? Let's join forces to save her. We can do it together." Sora looked at the ground and then raised the key blade, ready to fight. "What? You'd rather fight me? Over a puppet with no heart."

"Heart or no heart," Sora said, "At least he still has a Conscience." I wanted to jump forward and shake that boy with the silver hair. Shake his brains until he told me where Rachel was but Nessa held me back.

"Conscience?"

"You might not hear it, but right now its loud and clear and its telling me you're on the wrong side!" Sora got ready to fight! I started walking towards that boy. My staff was drawn and I had it pointed towards him.

"What happened to Rachel?" I asked. Nessa came up right beside me.

"Maybe its best not to threaten?" She suggested, though I could hear the doubt in her voice. He just stood there smirking at us.

"She's off somewhere," he said. I lunged at him but as I did he opened up a portal and stepped through it just as that stupid giant squid thing dropped down from the ceiling and immediately started to suck up stomach juices and blast them into the air.

"I really don't like him," I told Nessa as she held up her shield and deflected the acidic gas from hurting us. Once the thing stopped shooting us I jumped into the air and started to whack it with my staff and blast magic spells at the same time.

It didn't take very long to defeat the disgusting parasite. When we did Pinocchio was okay and we returned him to Gheppeto and climbed aboard the ship.

"Huh," Goofy said, looking at the scanner. "that's weird."

"What is?" Donald asked. Sora had plopped down on the big couch, followed by Nessa and they promptly fell asleep. I stood behind them while they readied the ship, watching how they turned it on.

"There's somethin' suspicious about that gray mark. It says its right outside the whale," he explained. "Look at the color."

"Why does that matter?" I asked.

"Heartless ships usually show up black and our ships show up white," Donald explained. "That's gray, we don't know what it is." They shrugged it off as a glitch and said when they got home they would have Chip and Dale look into it. I fell asleep on the couch across from Nessa and Sora and all the while I had fiery images flying through my mind.