Alright here it is. Chapter 9! So after this there won't be a chapter posted a week for a little while. Cause Hika-neko-chan and I haven't had time to write more cause we've been busy and vacation. But I hope you enjoy what we got and we will write more as soon as we can.
Chapter 9:
The three headed back the the camp area to meet up with the other two, the rain had started to drizzle down as they walked back. Upon arriving at their camp they saw that Riku and Claire were already there.
"So did you guys find anything?" Sora asked.
Claire shook her head, "No...we didn't, and then it started to rain. Though we did meet a Pokemon, we asked him if he knew anything, but he didn't."
"We meet a pair of pokemon as well." Stated Hikari. "While they seemed to be natives here, the only information they spoke about is of evolution, which is a pokemon's version of growing up."
"Hmm, interesting, " Claire said before sighing. "These Pokemon creatures are really something different."
"I doubt that you guys saw any type of area we could use as shelter, the rain seems to be coming down harder." Riku commented.
Sora shrugged, "Nope… Don't remember seeing anything but a lot of trees and plants."
Hikari though for a bit before speaking. "I could check the circuitry in the gummi ship to see if it's stabilized enough for us to take shelter within the wreckage."
"Go and check then… I don't want to be out in this rain longer than needed." Claire grumbled as the rain started to soak through her clothes.
Hikari turned and climbed into the damaged gummi ship and began inspecting all of the circuitry, starting with the communications system. She could see that a portion of the motherboard was blown apart, but the wires were no longer sparking. Not taking any chances, she called out to the others for her bag.
Outside, Hikari's bag began bouncing towards the gummi ship, and when it was right beside it, it leapt into the door. The others just stared with a bit of confusion and a little bit of a amazement.
"Not going to question that…" Xavier mumbled.
Back inside the gummi ship, Hikari's bag bounced up to her, before opening and spitting out an antistatic wrist strap, a screwdriver, and some foil bags. She first put on the wrist strap on her left wrist and attached the clip to a grounded portion of the console frame. Then, taking the screwdriver, Hikari unscrewed the remains of the motherboard from the rest of the electronics in the communications system. Collecting the removed pieces, she put them all in one of the foil bags, sealing it up and setting it aside before assessing the innards of the device. Finding nothing else that she deemed harmful, Hikari closed up the paneling before moving on to the next section of the controls. She repeated this process for all of the remaining electronics aboard the gummi ship.
After removing all of the damaged electronic circuitry, Hikari climbed through the ship, making her way towards the engine block. Once there, she grounded herself (electrically speaking) before detaching the partially damaged engine and battery.
Making her way back out of the ship, Hikari deposited the foil bags containing damaged circuitry in her bag before poking her head out of the ship.
"I think it's safe to take shelter in here for the time being." Hikari said to the others. "As long as Sora and or Xavier don't zap anything."
Xavier nodded, but Sora spoke up, "Uhh.. I'll try not too. Still don't quite know how to use these new powers yet."
"I can try to help you guys figure that out later. It can be a little hard figuring out, but once you get it, it's easy to pick up on." Xavier added
Just as the remaining part of the group was about to head into the gummi ship, a bright flash of lightning shot over head and was immediately followed by a loud clap of thunder. Small pools of darkness surfaces in the area around the gummi ship and shadow Heartless started to surface.
"Heartless always have to show up at the worst times don't they?" Claire sighed as she summoned her keyblade.
"It's best to just constantly be on alert for them." Hikari answered as her keyblade briefly appeared in her hands before immediately flashing into a bow.
Sora and Riku summoned their keyblades and also started to slash at the little Heartless, while Xavier shot bolts of electricity at the Heartless, knocking them back. As the rain started to pour down, more and more shadow Heartless appeared, as well as a few soldier Heartless. Soon a dark shadow of a creature flew overhead, but just as it was going to pass by, another flash of lightning happened, and all four keyblade wielders quickly noticed the Heartless emblem on it's body.
"It's a Wyvern!" Riku shouted through the downpour of rain.
Hikari clicked her tongue in annoyance before changing her focus onto the flying enemy, launching sets of light arrows at it.
The Wyvern screeched at Hikari as it flew up into the air then dived down at her and swung out it's claws at her once it got in close proximity.
Hikari used her bow to block the claws from reaching her, and in a quick flash of light, the bow was replaced by a naginata (basically a pole that had a curved, single edged blade attached to the end), which Hikari used to force the Wyvern away from her. Once she had enough room, Hikari lept out of the gummi ship and started drawing the heartless away from their campsite.
The other three continued to take out the shadow Heartless until they noticed Hikari heading towards the beach area with the Wyvern trailing behind her.
"Let's go help Hikari!" Sora shouted and the other two nodded.
All three ran after Hikari until they got to the beach clearing, where they met up with Hikari. They looked up to see that the Wyvern had flown high up in the sky, and it soon corkscrew dived right down at them. Thankfully they all managed to jump out of the way before it got to them. It then swooped right up into the sky, too high for any of them to reach to attack.
"What are we supposed to do now?" Sora asked, though it was hard to hear him over the pouring rain.
"Hey, Claire, do you still have your wings?" asked Hikari in response.
"I assume so…" Claire said as her wings appeared. "Alright…I'll go attack it from up there…" Claire then took up to the sky, gripping her keyblade tightly as she flew right at the Wyvern. She got close enough and struck it on it's side before it could fly away from her.
The Wyvern let out another screech as it spun around and tried to attack Claire with it's claws. Claire held up her keyblade to block the attacks, but still was flung back a bit.
Meanwhile on the ground the others looked to see more shadow Heartless had shown up. Sora, Riku, and Hikari were now fairly close together, fighting off the heartless that had gathered around them. The three of them had their backs to the ocean, not noticing the comet like ball of darkness headed straight for them. Hikari noticed it when it was almost on top of them, but was able to dive out of the way, tackling Sora down with her. Riku on the other hand wasn't able to notice the darkness ball in time and was blasted forward and crashed into the sand.
All three looked turned around to where the ball of darkness had come from. They saw a large Heartless with wings on it's back, purple horns on it's head, a sharp, crescent-shaped blade tail, and it carried a large sword in one hand. It was a Invisible Heartless.
Hikari was back on her feet almost immediately, taking up a defensive stance between the Heartless and Sora, making sure to keep an eye on it while assessing Riku's condition from afar. Riku grunted as he slowly stood up, while Sora quickly got back on his feet and face the heartless.
The heartless stood there for a moment as two more like it appeared on each side. The three heartless then charged at Hikari and Sora, flying towards them and swung their large swords at them.
Hikari raised her naginata to block two of the swords simultaneously, throwing her back into the water behind her. Sora also blocked the attack from the other heartless, and then immediately jumped up at them and swung his keyblade across at all three of the heartless, and knocked them back. Riku, now standing up again, was about to run at the heartless when a large lightning bolt shot through the sky. It branched out and stuck each of the heartless, causing the he three heartless to now stand there dazed. Sora, Riku, and Hikari looked over to see Xavier standing in the entrance of the forest.
"Attack them quickly! They will only stay daze for a short bit!" He shouted.
Hikari nodded before quickly standing up, her keyblade returning to it's original form before she threw it at the Invisibles, striking each one then returning to her hand like a boomerang.
Sora, jumped up in the air and swung his keyblade over his head and right down on one of the heartless, finally defeating it. "Alright, One down!" He shouted.
Riku then charged at one of the remaining heartless and quickly attacked it from all directions. After hitting it multiple times Riku stuck his keyblade to the ground, causing a large blast of energy to shoot up and destroy the heartless.
In a flash of light, Hikari vanished from where she was only to reappear in front of the remaining Invisible. Swinging her keyblade, which was now cloaked in light to resemble a larger blade, in an upward strike, sending the heartless some distance in the air. Hikari then appeared slightly above it, spinning like a top to strike it multiple times, before swinging her keyblade down on the Invisible. This final strike created an arc of light that slammed the heartless down into the sand. It vanished in wisps of darkness upon impact with the ground. Hikari landed on the beach in a crouch a short distance away from Riku and Sora.
Meanwhile in the sky, Claire was still fighting the Wyvern. It was hard for Claire to try and strike it, cause it would fly away from her attacks. Claire grumbled with agitation, "Okay...that's it!" She shouted before casting a large ball of fire right at the Wyvern. The Wyvern screeched once more as it started to fall to the ground. Claire dived down and struck the Wyvern multiple times as it fell to the ground. Claire hit it with one more final blow and defeated it, before it even got to the ground.
Claire landed and her wings disappeared. "That took longer than expected…" she sighed as she walked over to the others. By now the rain was finally starting to lighting up, but was still coming down.
"The Invisibles were unexpected, as was Xavier's unexpected attack." Stated Hikari as she began walking back towards the treeline.
"I saw you guys needed some help. So I did what I could." Xavier replied as the four walked closer to the forest entrance.
"So that lighting you use, is that a 'move' that you said Pokemon can use?" Riku asked.
Xavier nodded, "Yeah. Since I am an electric type Pokemon I am able to use lighting based moves."
"That means I can do stuff like that too?" Sora asked.
"Yeah, since you are a Pikachu, you should be able to use electric moves as well." Xavier said.
"Cool." Sora replied as he put his hands behind his head. .
"Do all magic spells have a pokemon move equivalent?" asked Hikari.
"I am not really sure…" Xavier said. "There are a lot of different 'moves' that Pokemon use so I don't know."
"I see. So theoretically there are, however it is unlikely that every spell has a direct counterpart." Hikari thought out loud.
"Probably." Xavier said.
"Can we get out of this rain now?" Claire asked while looking up at the sky and crossing her arms, "We are soaked and I don't think it's going to stop raining for a while."
No one gave a verbal answer, instead some nodded their heads as they all headed back to their camp.
"What are we going to do for tonight though?" Sora asked, "Even if the rain stops, the ground is soaked, and the tents probably are too."
"Didn't we talk about taking shelter in the gummi ship?" replied Hikari.
"Yeah, but does that mean we would also sleep in there?" Sora asked.
"I don't see a problem with that. We wouldn't have to worry about most of the weather effects throughout the night."
"It's going to be rather interesting sleeping in a upside down gummi ship." Claire commented.
After a moment of thought, Hikari spoke. "I'd assume it'd be like sleeping in a giant bird's nest… without all of the roughness and comfort."
"That means we would be all cramped together…" Claire muttered quietly. Her cheeks redden ever so slightly as she thought about it.
Hikari turned to glance at Claire only to let out a soft chuckle and shake her head in amusement.
They all continued to walk until they were back at the ship, Claire grabbed her magic bag before they all walked up to the gummi ship entrance. One by one they carefully climbed into the upside door entrance to the ship, though Xavier had to jump up into the entrance. Once inside, they carefully made their way to the control room. With all five of them in the control room, it was a bit cramped on the ceiling, leaving little room for them to move around without having to ask another to move out of the way.
Now that they were out of the rain, Hikari began untying the sash that held her top together.
"Uh Hikari…" Claire started, "What do you think you are doing?"
"I'm getting out of my wet clothes." Hikari stated as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. By this point she had removed her top, revealing a strapless black binder covering her chest and a scar that ran diagonally across her abdomen.
"Ummm...If you girls want to change out of your wet clothes, we could turn around..." Xavier said, though Sora had already covered his eyes and Riku was looking down at the ground.
Hikari raised an eyebrow at the boys' responses. "I personally don't care if you stare or not." referring to Xavier who didn't look away. "And it's not like I'm completely undressing myself. Sora and Riku gave us a similar show when we first met."
"That's different Hikari!" Claire said raising her voice, "They're guys….It's just different. Guys can go around without their shirts on, but not girls."
Now only dressed in a binder and short shorts Hikari turned to face Claire. "Now that's just sexist. I'm still covering my chest and nether regions and that's considered indecent, yet a male can run around in a scrap of cloth that barely conceals his privates." Hikari bent over to search through her bag before quickly pulling out a towel. "Back in the Nekomata homeland, it was uncommon but socially accepted to walk around without clothing."
"That's where you are from though. It's different everywhere else. Most places find it improper if a girl takes off her clothes in public. That's just how things are," Claire argued as she rubbed a hand over her face. By this point Xavier had laid down and closed his eyes and the other two guys stepped further back into the ship, giving the girls some space.
Hikari was drying out her hair as she made her next comment. "I find human and most humanoid social norms to be quite strange…"
"You're the one who is strange…" Claire sighed as she looked to see that Riku and Sora were not in the control room anymore with them. She opened her back and pulled out some fresh clothes and a towel, and then began to change out of her wet clothes.
Hikari looked over at Claire. "Hypocrite. Sora and Riku may have stepped out, but you're doing the exact same thing I am."
"But the guys are gone now, so it's fine if it's just us…" Claire said as she turned and eyed Xavier, who was still resting there with his eyes still closed. "Can we just stop talking about this…"
She quirked her head in curiosity, but Hikari gave no comment about Claire's glance at Xavier. Instead she said, "Stop being so insecure about your body. If you're ashamed about stripping before the boy you like, how will you act should you two ever go to mate?"
Claire sent an angry glare at Hikari, with her cheeks reddening, "Stop...Can we just please drop this now?"
"Fine, fine." Hikari rolled her eyes. No longer talking, she focused on drying herself off, before removing her shorts, getting a new change of clothes out of her bag, and got dressed.
Claire proceeded to change out of her wet clothes and then put on new dry clothes. Once dressed she walked over to the edge of the control room, "Uh… You guys can come back in now." Claire shouted to Riku and Sora.
Seconds later both the guys came back in, "So what are we going to do until the rain stops?" Sora asked.
Hikari just shrugged before sitting crossed legged on the floor, well glass domed ceiling, in a meditative pose. "It's up to you. I don't exactly have something to help pass the time for a group of people."
"Hmmm, anyone know any good stories to tell?" Claire asked as she also sat down on the ceiling.
"Well…I could tell the story of the story of my first adventure," Sora said as he looked at Riku, "Riku you can help out with some parts right?"
Riku shrugged, "Sure, I guess. If it helps to pass the time."
Sora and Riku sat down across from Claire and Hikari, and Sora started to tell about how their adventure began when they decided to build a raft to leave their island.
Through most the afternoon, Sora told the story of his first adventure, though they stopped for a lunch break after a little while. Then once everyone had finished eating Sora continued, with the help of Riku telling his side of things.
After a little while longer of Sora telling his story, and the group having dinner, he finally started to wrap things up, "After we finally had closed the door, Donald, Goofy and I went to go find Riku and the King….then I don't really know what happened after that until we woke up in these pod things in Twilight Town. But that's a story for another time."
"The Realm of Darkness is quite a mystery, even to those that have returned from within. I'm quite curious Riku, what was it like for you?" asked Hikari.
"I don't know… I haven't really thought about it for a while. A lot has happened since we closed the door then." Riku said.
There was a pause of silence before anyone spoke. Soon Xavier sat up, "Maybe now would be a good time to check if it's stopped raining."
"That sounds good." Claire agreed and everyone else nodded their heads.
They all carefully walked back to the exit of the gummi ship and opened the door. The sun was setting, but the rain had stopped. They carefully climbed down and looked at the ground around them, which was squishy and wet from all the rain.
"So we'll be sleeping in the gummi ship for sure." Sora commented.
"It will probably be a day or two before the ground fully dries back up again, so we will have to stay in the gummi ship until then." Claire said.
"You guys will be Pokemon by that point though, so it wouldn't matter. Unless you can find a way to stop it before hand...which is unlikely." Xavier said.
"While I can tell that the magic that's forcing the transformation is darkness enhanced, it's impossible for me to determine the origin when it covers such a large amount of area." Hikari thought aloud.
"We will just have to keep looking then until we can find the source, or at least a clue of some sorts." Riku suggested.
"That would be easier said than done come morning tomorrow." stated Hikari, before she re-entered the gummi ship, heading back to the command room. She walked over to her bag before digging though it, looking for something.
Soon Claire came back into the gummi ship and walked into the command room. "What are you looking for Hikari?" Claire asked.
Hikari didn't look up while answering. "You were talking about how cramped it would be with all of us sleeping on the domed ceiling beneath our feet, so I'm trying to find my hammock."
"Oh yeah…." Claire said as she walked up to Hikari, "Hmm Do you happen to have a second hammock?"
"If you want to try and see if Dawn will let you use hers…" Hikari began.
"How likely is it that she will let me use it?" Claire asked with a sigh.
Hikari just gave a deadpan stare. "If you can get it from her, then I don't think she'll care." She then pulled out her hammock. "Though you'd have to dig it out yourself."
"I would rather not have to deal with Dawn…" Claire sighed again. "Maybe I will just sleep off in the far corner or something…"
"There's no corner. It's a dome."
"You know what I mean…" Claire grumbled as she crossed her arms.
Hikari stood up and was doing her best to tie the hammock to the chairs that were attached to the floor above them. "You just don't want to sleep next to the guys, do you. Are you afraid of them, or are you just shy because of Riku?"
Claire's puffed up her cheeks as they redden, "What do you think? I'm not afraid of them...I'd be sleeping real close to him…"
"It's not like you have another option unless you want to dig out Dawn's hammock." Hikari commented. "And it's not even that cramped in here. You don't have to sleep right up against him."
"I know… I know...and I really don't want to deal with Dawn," Claire said as Sora and Riku came walking back into the control room. Claire turned and saw them, "Where's Xavier?"
"He said that he was fine sleeping outside again." Sora said as he stretched. "You guys wouldn't happen to have any extra pillows or blankets laying around would you? We checked the inside of the tents and the sleeping bags are also pretty soaked."
Hikari paused from securing her hammock and shouted. "Dawn! We need pillows and blankets!" Without responding, five blankets and three pillows were spit out of her bag.
"But you couldn't have asked her to toss up her hammock…" Claire muttered quietly.
"She won't give that up easily, so if you want it, you have to go get it." Hikari replied to Claire.
Claire just sighed again as she went to grab a pillow and a blanket. Riku and Sora also grabbed a pillow and a blanket. After checking over the knots that held up her hammock, Hikari picked up the remaining blankets, she then climbed up onto the hammock and wrapped the blankets around herself.
Riku and Sora soon laid down on the dome, with Claire just a little further away from them. After setting up their pillows and blankets they got ready to sleep. Claire turned her back away from the guys and let out a sigh as she started to drift off.
And that was a long chapter 9. Hope you all enjoyed. Let us know what you think and stuff.
See you all next time!