Welcome to Deep Jungle! Where humans act like gorillas, jaguars are evil, and for some reason you can surf on tree branches... Axel!

Axel: "DarthKingdom does not own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or anything else he wants to use later. Only the plot and O.C.s. And lots and lots of stupid disclaimers."

If you don't like it, then why did you volunteer for it?

Axel: "I was bored."

--

Chapter 31: In the Jungle

The Unity hovered in orbit around a bright green planet. It was bathed in sunlight, and looked peaceful enough, but Sora knew from experience that it wasn't completely peaceful. He knew this world, he had visited it almost a year ago.

It's official name was Deep Jungle; the home of Tarzan and a whole family of gorillas. Looking out the viewport, he wondered whatever had happened to Jane Porter. She had been quite attatched to Tarzan when Sora had known her. So had she stayed with him in the jungle, or gone home?

Regardless of who was down there, the place had darkness decending on it. Mickey had sensed it somehow, and nobody questioned his instincts.

"When we get down there," Sora said, "You might be attacked by predators, not just Heartless."

They nodded an affirmative, and he, Kairi, and Riku stepped onto the red transmission pads. "See you dirt side!" And they vanished.

--

The three Keybearers appeared in the remains of an old treehouse.

They were surrounded by the tattered remains of furniture, which had been long since abandoned with the unfortunate deaths of their owners. A baby cradle, some curtains, and an old black-and-white photograph in a circular frame were among the wreckage. A thick layer of dust and dirt covered most of the floor, only disturbed slightly in some places.

Sora knew this treehouse, he had landed here after an "evacuation" the last time he was on this world. Tarzan's biological parents had lived here, as had Tarzan himself, before the gorillas found him.

He and his friends wandered slowly out to the deck of the treehouse, which overlooked the hundreds of miles of pure jungle below them. Back in the house, their companions were appearing.

"Oh, I remember this place!" Goofy said, he walked outside with the others. "I wonder where Tarzan is?"

"He's down there somewhere." Sora said, waving his arm over the jungle, "I hope he's alright."

"Oh, well then, I guess we just pick a tree and start looking." Axel said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"We may not have to," Riku said, he pointed out to a specific part of the jungle. "Look, something's disturbed the birds out there. That means there's some kind of activity."

Sora looked in the direction of his finger, and saw a large flock of birds flying from the tree tops. "You're probably right." He jumped over the railing and fell twenty feet into the netting around the edge of the tree. "C'mon follow me!" He called up to them. They all followed suit, and landed all around him.

Sora led them all the way down the massive tree the treehouse rested on, and into the canopy of smaller trees below. Mighty tree branches as thick as cars stretched out from the trunk they were on, practically linking them to similar branches in other trees. Branches as thick as his arms hung from them in plenty of places.

"Tell me you aren't going to..." Roxas said.

Oh yes I am!

He turned around to give his friends a smile, and said, "Follow my lead!"

And then, to everyone's amazement, he jumped. The rushed to the edge to see that he had landed on one of the branches, and was sliding down it as if riding a skateboard!

"Awesome!" Riku exclaimed, and followed him down, getting the hang of it almost immediately. Axel went next, followed by Goofy, Mickey and Donald, who used his shield like a sled to slide down. Nehrut flew after them, and joined them a bit later.

That left Kairi, Yuffie, and Bariss behind on the tree trunk staring after them. "Are they crazy?" Bariss asked.

"Nope." Kairi responded.

"They just know how to have a good time!" Yuffie finished. She jumped down after them, riding on top of her giant shuriken like a sled. Kairi followed her.

Bariss chose a different style, and used her whip to wrap around the thinner branches above, and swung from them.

The entire party travelled along the branches and vines. Through the entire jungle in the general direction of the disturbance Riku had spotted. Riku soon caught up with Sora (who was still ahead of them all) and it turned into a race, just like old times. Surprisingly, Kairi (who started last) was soon directly behind Sora.

Needless to say, this affected Sora's concentration. Especially when they came to a turn in the branch when he was turned around to face her. He fell off entirely, and just barely managed to save himself by grabbing a vine. His momentum carried him through a giant arc, spinning around the air to the bend in the branches. He let go and landed ten feet in front of both Riku and Kairi.

I can't believe I pulled that off.

Several feet behind them, Nehrut said to Axel, "Show off."

Eventually, they reached the end of the thick branches, and got closer to the ground. Sora reached it first and landed on a nearby hill. The rest followed suit, landing in varying degrees of gracefulness (Donald slid off Goofy's back and landed face-first on the ground, skidding several feet).

They surveyed the area, by Sora's reckoning they were close to their destination. The hill they were on was near a pretty waterfall, flowing into a large lake/watering hole, in which there was a large, red elephant bathing. Everyone took in the sight, before Riku stated, "I think we're close to that spot I pointed out."

The group walked in the direction of the water, and suddenly the elephant let out a loud noise. Not because of them, but because of what had just arrived.

Heartless.

The elephant ran toward the center of the lake, but it was only met by more Heartless. It was now in the center of a ring of them. It cried out in distress.

So, of course that meant they had to help.

Sora summoned Oblivion, Kairi summoned Desitny's Light, Riku summoned Way to Dawn. Weapons appeared in everyone's hands and they rushed into the lake. At the sight of four Keyblades, the Heartless changed course immediately.

Sora recognized several of the Heartless from his last visit to Deep Jungle. Powerwilds, Bouncywilds, and Sniperwilds resembled monkeys colored blue, orange, and purple. They were certainly vicious, and seemed to enjoy messing with their opponents. It became really annoying when they chose to retreat before fighting.

They were probably the most agile Heartless he could remember fighting. They jumped or dove out of the way of their attacks, only to counter-attack microseconds later. So he developed a strategy for fighting them. He would let them charge him, and take a quick step back when they attacked. They would swipe at empty air, leaving a narrow window of opportunity to swipe them in half.

They fought back and forth against the oncoming Heartless, creating a (mostly) human barrier around the panicking elephant. Sloshing about in the water, they were a bit less gracefull than usual, but not so you would notice.

Riku was blasting balls of dark fire left and right, taking down a Heartless with each one. Yuffie jumped in behind him to cover his back.

King Mickey lept all around the field of battle, more agile than the persistant Heartless, cutting them down even as they tried to avoid him.

Axel's fireballs either struck the Heartless, or they hit the water around them, creating billowing clouds of steam that would provide temporary cover until somebody attacked through it.

They were carefull about using lightning spells, lest all the water around electricute them all. The Heartless were thinning out gradually, and after about five minutes, they stopped coming.

Sora let out a sigh of relief, and turned to the elephant. "You okay big guy?"

In response, the elephant let out a cry that sounded extremely happy, and with it's trunk, picked up Sora and Axel (who had been standing closest to him). They were surprised, but took it as a thank you.

"I think you guys have made a new friend!" Kairi said with a smile.

Suddenly there came a sound that three of them recognized: a loud cry from farther inside the forest. It started out soft, but got much louder very quickly. It sounded like a primate crying out to the jungle, proclaiming it's dominance. It was stretched out for around fifteen seconds, before fading away.

Unexpectedly, the elephant's eyes narrowed. It put Sora and Axel on it's back, and then let out a much higher cry that rang in everyone's ears. And suddenly, it took off into the jungle in the direction the first cry had come.

With Sora and Axel still on it's back.

Riku, Kairi, Mickey, and the others looked at each other confused, then chased off after the elephant that had apparently kidnapped their friends.

--

That was pretty short, I know. Sorry.

Yes, on the off-chance I wasn't specific enough, that was Tantor from the movie. I was surprised that they didn't include him last time. Actually, I missed that whole world in the last game. Stupid copywrite issues.

Review please!

(from now on I'll just reply to my reviews the normal way)