Marie and her keyblade:
www.swirl3y.deviantart.com/art/Marie-and-her-Shooting-Star-Keyblade-383502787
Marie in her mermaid form:
www.swirl3y.deviantart.com/art/LOL-Mermaid-Marie-204002672
A/N:
Nooooooo, back to the dreaded place that is Atlantica! Please, please, please excuse me if I end up making this chapter full of fail, 'cause I know I'll struggle so hard with the musicals here. I've kinda decided to make this a 'let's poke fun at Marie because she hates Atlantica' chapter, so maybe hilarity will ensue?
Chapter Fifty-Four
ଓ
I don't want to swim under the sea!
"No!" I shouted as I hid behind my chair. Sora, Donald and Goofy all snickered as they told me the next world was Atlantica, and at first I wasn't sure what that world was, but then they mentioned Ariel, and…. Well, let's just say I wasn't at my finest. Well… I kinda freaked out. Actually… I freaked out a lot.
"C'mon, it won't be that bad," I heard Sora say, who was suddenly behind me. I gasped as he hugged and twirled me around. He started running to the teleporter, and I started shouting—begging not to go. Donald and Goofy laughed as they encouraged Sora, and we were right at the teleporter when it zapped us towards Atlantica. This is how I die!
-x-
We all sprouted into the water, and almost instantly, I swam—or more like floated—towards a rock down to the seabed. I looked at Sora, Donald and Goofy and I gotta say that Sora seemed more…in shape…I never actually noticed that he was gaining muscle, but uh…I don't think now was the time to gawk at him.
Well, it was, but…I had a problem to deal with, and it was what I was looking at—which was my shirt. It was the same as last year, the pink tube top with a transparent fabric hanging underneath it, and I sighed as I dropped my shoulders. I looked down, and when I did, I noticed that my chest filled a bit more of my tube top, and my mouth widened.
"I grew!" I shouted as I jumped out of the rock. I noticed Sora, Donald and Goofy looking at me, and I blushed almost immediately as I covered my torso. I felt two soft arms wrap around me, and when I turned around I saw Ariel hugging me from behind. "Ariel!"
"Marie! Sora! Donald! Goofy!" she called happily. She let go of me, and I started losing my balance, finally noticing something else other than my chest. Sora was doing the same, and Ariel swam around us as she started giggling. "Forget how to swim?"
"Then you guys got to practice! You follow Flounder—he show you what to do," Sebastian told us. It was easier said than done, since I was still falling towards the seabed. I grabbed the rock I was previously hiding behind, and I saw Sora floating towards me. I blushed again, since this isn't really how I want someone seeing me—when I swam the day I went to the beach with Hayner, Pence and Olette I wore a one-piece with beach shorts.
"C'mon, you can't stay behind that rock all day," he said as he handed out his hand to me. Well, if I really wanted to I could stay behind this rock all day, but I know the guys would keep bugging me to move. I sighed and moved away from the rock, and I noticed Sora staring at me.
"Sora! I thought we went through this last year!" I scolded him. He wasn't staring at my face, and I placed my hands on my hips. I felt myself falling to the floor again, until Sora grabbed my hand and lifted me up to his level. He started laughing while I pouted my lips—Atlantica you horrible world!
"You look great," he simply said as he gave a smile. His hands were around my waist and the butterflies started going crazy inside me. I smiled at him, and he brought me closer as he hugged me and kissed my forehead. I saw Ariel eyeing me from the corner of my eye as she gave a cheeky grin. She came up and took me as she was going to teach me to swim while she asked Flounder to teach the boys.
As Flounder swam around with Sora, Donald and Goofy, Ariel dragged me along as she showed me how to swim. It wasn't so much the swimming that she wanted to be alone with me, but something else—and I know it had something to do with that grin of hers. "Something definitely seems different with you and Sora," she said as she gave a smirk.
"Come on Ariel, nothing gets past you," I smiled as I started swimming after her. It was getting back to me how to swim, but it still felt a bit odd here and there.
"Did you two fall in love? That intimacy isn't something friends share," she said as she started swimming backwards in front of me. She smiled at me and I nodded as I tried catching up with her.
"We had some ups and downs, and somehow I forgot that I even loved him," I said as I lowered my eyes a bit. It was horrible that I put Sora through that, but the fact that he stayed with me throughout was more than I could ask for. "I thought he would've gone for someone else, but he stayed… and he told me he loved me. I told him I loved him, too."
"I'm so glad you two fell in love!" Ariel said as she clasped her hands together. She looked down towards the seabed and had a lovesick look on her face. Something was up with her. "You know, I also found someone—"
"Hey, we're all done practicing up!" we both heard Sora say. I continued to look at Ariel, who swooned a bit before going back to Sora and the others. If I knew anything, that look she gave was definitely something. Olette did it a lot whenever she read one of her romance novels, and Aerith did it whenever she would even hear about something romantic. Maybe Ariel was in love, too?
I swam back to the rest of them and I heard Sebastian asking if there was something wrong. I looked around and noticed everything was pretty much the same, even Goofy agreed with me. Everything seemed peaceful, and Ariel laughed saying as long as her dad was in a good mood everything was fine. I shuddered at her father's mention, since that man is pretty scary with his magic spear thing.
"Hey, we got us a concert very soon, why don't you sing in my musical extravaganza?" I heard Sebastian say. He swam a little closer to Sora, Donald, Goofy and I, and begged us to say yes, saying Ariel was acting strange lately. He was sure she would settle down if we practiced in the music extravaganza, and Donald was pretty excited for it. Sora agreed, and Sebastian cheered. "Excellent! Now den, I teach you everything you need."
"Wait, what are we going to do?" I asked, suddenly feeling a bit nervous about it all. Sebastian told us it would be easy, and started leading us towards the stage of his concert. Of course, it wasn't going to start yet, but he was showing us where we were going to be. When he mentioned the word 'singing' though, I started to panic. "W-wait, wait, wait! I can't sing!"
"No worries! I'll teach you," Sebastian said. He started heading somewhere else, and I swam up beside him. He stopped and got his band to play a little tune with a stick swinging around and told me to repeat after him. He sang a loud note, and I tried repeating it—but with my voice it came out like a dying cow. I saw Sebastian cringe when he heard me, but quickly tried to cover so I wouldn't see. I frowned but he kept encouraging me to continue. He sang another note, and I followed soon after, but instead of a dying cow, it sounded like a dying goat.
"Maybe I'm not cut out for singing…" I said as I dropped my shoulders. Sebastian cleared his throat and told me not to worry.
"We make you dance!" he said. I raised an eyebrow, and didn't know how well I was at dancing. He got some of the fish to dance around me, and told me to follow his footsteps. I listened and watch, and noticed he spun around. I started moving my hips a bit, but I quickly lost the temp, so I decided to spin around. I ended up bumping into the fishes around me, and they started spinning around and got dizzy. I stopped and brought my hands close to me—I'm definitely not cut out for dancing either. I looked over to Sebastian and noticed he was scratching his head and looked somewhat defeated, but then quickly lit a smile and swam around to get something.
He came back and forth with a couple of instruments; some that didn't really make me feel all that confident, and some that didn't really make sense to me. He handed over a tambourine, and told me to shake it around. I followed his instructions and he got a couple of the fishes to sing along with some of the other players, but I started losing the beat, and my tambourine was out of sync with everything else. I dropped my shoulders and handed him the tambourine back, but he went back to get something else. He came back with an instrument that was similar to the triangle, and that was my cue to just stop—there's no way I'm playing a triangle in this band!
"If it's alright, I'll just watch and cheer you on," I said which Sebastian seemed alright with. He smiled and told me that I could be the cheerleader of the extravaganza and just cheer, and honestly, I was ok with that. I watched as Sora, Donald and Goofy came into the area with Ariel, and Sebastian got to work with them all. Sora danced around with Donald while Ariel did some moved around Goofy. I was happy enough just watching them dance; I know I wouldn't be able to pull any dances moves in such a short time.
Sora and Ariel started singing to the song they were doing, and everyone was mostly practicing. The fishes were playing on their trumpets, drums and saxes, while some of the others danced with Donald and Goofy. Sebastian seemed to be the most into it, but it was expected since it was his concert. I watched as they danced around the bubbles and the moving shells, and Sora used his magic to light up a couple of lights around the stage. I cheered and bobbed my head to their singing, which was probably the most I could do musically. I swam up to them after they were done, and Ariel complimented Sora, Donald and Goofy.
"Yeah, you guys sound awesome," I said as I smiled at them.
"Hey! I wanna sing more lines!" Donald complained as he swam a bit closer. Ariel started laughing, but it quickly went away as she looked behind Donald. She swam out of the way, and when I looked at Donald's direction, in came swimming King Triton. I shuddered a bit when he came closer, but I kept my composure as he kept getting closer. Sebastian greeted the king, and told him that we were visiting.
"I certainly hope there hasn't been a need to use that Keyblade of yours," he said. Goofy came swimming up in front of me and I looked around to see Ariel had gone a bit far from us. I frowned knowing that something was probably up with her and the king, but what that was remained unanswered. I heard Sebastian mentioning us being in the concert, and King Triton thought it was a pretty good idea. I was still looking at Ariel, but the King told us that she was still infatuated with the human world and wanted to keep her busy with rehearsals to make her forget about it.
I wasn't really sure about it, I mean; Ariel has such a curious mind about the world above. To make her stop thinking about it is like making Sora forget about using the Keyblade—it wasn't going to happen.
-x-
Everyone kept rehearsing their parts for the musical, but Ariel didn't really seem interested in it. Sebastian tried encouraging her, but she politely refused—she just wasn't feeling it. She swam away from the rest of us, and I swam up to Sora, Donald and Goofy and wondered what we were going to do.
"I'll go follow her, maybe I can find out what exactly is bothering her," I said as I started swimming away. I heard Sora call out to me, but I kept swimming as I wanted to see what kept Ariel so distracted. I know it was the world above, but there had to be something else as well. I kept swimming until I saw green fins, and I smiled as I started seeing that flaming red hair of Ariel's. "What's been keeping you so down, Ariel?" I asked, hoping to get her to open up.
"Oh, Marie…," she started as she looked towards me. She had a frown on her face and she tried hard to cover it up, but it wasn't really working. She continued to look at me until she sighed. "Would you still love Sora even if you two were… different?"
"Different how?" I asked.
"What if you two couldn't walk on the same land? Or you had something that stopped you from seeing him?" she asked. I brought a finger to my chin and wondered about it—I would still love Sora no matter what. I think obstacles were meant to be placed so that each person could prove how much they loved each other. I explained this to Ariel, and she had a faint smile on her face, and a light glimmered from her blue eyes. I heard fins flipping through the water and I turned around to see Sora, Donald and Goofy swimming over to us.
"We'd like you to come with us, Ariel," Goofy said as he looked at both of us. I raised my eyebrow to this and wondered what was going on, but Sora only winked at me. He told her that they had something to show her, and we all swam towards her grotto. I really wondered along the way what they had to show her, but when we entered the grotto we saw a giant statue of a dashing prince in the middle. He seemed so majestic with his pose, and Ariel was ecstatic to see it. She swam around in her grotto, and started explaining some of the stuff she collected over the years; I swam around and looked at the forks, chandeliers and jewelry boxes she collected—she was definitely in love with the world above…
-x-
Aura sighed for the umpteenth time now as she stared out into the town that belonged to Twilight Town. Axel had left to do some of his own things, so she decided to take a short break and go back to the place she loved the most. She felt it in her every being that the end was nearing, and she was starting to worry. Where would she go? Would she actually have to go back to Marie? What happens to Axel? What happens to her? So many questions and she didn't have a single answer for any of them. She perked her head a bit as she saw those three teenagers running around the town, and every time she saw them she was reminded of how Roxas and Marie hanged out with them. Why couldn't she have just been born like a normal human being instead of some Heartless Nobody? She growled a bit at it, but it wasn't doing much to help.
She reached into her pocket and felt a sleek feeling ball in it. She took it out and noticed it was the flower that Riku had given her. She closed her eyes and tried remembering why he gave it to her, and it all came back quickly. There was a flower that Marie wanted Sora to have, and along with saving that flower Riku gave her a flower that the king used as an example.
Aura looked at the flower that Riku had in his palm, and she found it beautiful. Although she was still emotionless and expressionless about almost everything, nature and the beauty of life still amazed her. The flower she stared at was a yellow follower named Celandine, which were pretty common around Twilight Town. Riku told her that the king's master created the flower he was holding as an example, but the king gave it to him since he didn't have any use for it. Riku turned to face Aura, and he extended his hand towards her, making the flower face her.
"Here, take it," he said, giving the flower to her. She took it from him, and stared it at blankly.
"And what am I gonna do with a flower?" she asked, staring between the flower and Riku.
"Keep it with you," he said, walking away towards the exit. "You used to be bubbly and happy like that flower, but you both changed. This flower came back to being bubbly and happy, it just changed in appearance... you can do the same, too."
"I used to be bubbly…," she repeated. She used to be a lot of things, but now all she could really see was herself disappearing and never truly being 'Aura'. The flower shined a bit, and she lowered her eyes as she stared at it. The time was nearing and she had to choose what her future would be… life definitely gave her an awful hand.
-x-
"Ariel, we're here to help you, you know," Sora said as Ariel stopped showing her stuff around the grotto. Sebastian came in and told us all not to butt in, but we couldn't ignore it. We returned to the rehearsal spot and watched Ariel in such a daze, and it wasn't helping the concert at all. Donald suggested singing her part but none of us really wanted to hear the poor duck sing, no offence Donald.
Sebastian came swimming in after, and he was concerned about his musical being too complicated for Sora, Donald and Goofy. They took a peek at the score and were a bit stunned at it. I came in after to look, and the whole thing gave me such a huge headache! There were scribbled little dots all over, and I couldn't understand a thing from that. I definitely knew now that I was not meant for the music industry. Sora just laughed, and told Sebastian that they would be fine. They got on the stage as I stood in front of them, and Sebastian started the song by hitting some of the clams. Sora started by singing the first few lines and his voice sounded pretty amazing! I swear there's nothing Sora can't do.
Sebastian came in singing as well, and he sang about how the ocean life was better than the life above. Ariel didn't seem too fazed by it, but after a few beats from some of the instruments she started swinging her hips a bit. Soon enough she started singing with Sora and Sebastian, while Goofy and Donald danced around. I was laughing and clapping my hands with the song, and they all looked like they were having a grand old time. After the song, Sebastian asked Ariel how she felt about the song, and naturally, she loved it. However, it wasn't what she wanted to sing—she wanted to sing about harmony between land and sea, but Sebastian knew the king wouldn't tolerate it.
"If you won't listen then I'm not gonna sing at all," she spat back. She swam away, and we all followed her behind. She started swimming up above to the shore, and when we all popped our heads above the water, we saw a man walking around the beach.
"Whoa, Ariel, is that the guy?" I asked, not keeping my eyes off the man. She nodded her head and gave a simple 'mhm' as she stared at him. Donald suggested saying something to him, but Ariel was adamant—she was scared to face him in her current form. The man turned around and dropped something along the way, and Ariel quickly swam up front to see what it was. The thing he dropped started getting pulled by the waves, and it floated all the way towards some of the rocks standing by. We all swam towards it and Ariel reached in to grab it. We all stared at it, and it turned out to be a pendant of his.
-x-
We returned to Ariel's grotto after finding that pendant, and she admired it a bit more. "This is great, you guys. I know he'll be happy to have this back."
"And just who is this 'he'?" My spine gave a shiver when I heard that voice—it belonged to King Triton. We all turned around and Ariel quickly hid the pendant when she called out her father. His face seemed so red with anger and I gulped knowing where this would be heading. "Ariel, you know how dangerous humans are!"
She protested saying he didn't know the man, and she was sure that they all weren't as bad as he made them out to be, to which she was going to prove, but the king wasn't having it. "So help me Ariel, I am going to get through to you. And if this is the only way…"
He raised his spear and it started lighting up. My eyes widened since I knew where this guy was going with it. He pointed his spear towards the statue of the man, and we all gasped as it beamed out a light. It went straight towards the statue and half of it broke off, with some pieces almost hitting Donald. Ariel gasped the most and seemed almost in tears, but she quickly left the grotto. I swam out as fast as I could, not just to get away from the king, but to check up on Ariel. Sora, Donald and Goofy followed behind, but Ariel swam so fast that we lost her for a bit along with Flounder and Sebastian. Thankfully, we knew where she would be, and we swam towards that little space.
When we got there, we saw Ariel standing in front of Ursula, and I was surprised at seeing that old hag around. Sebastian told us to stop her, but before we could do anything the sea witch put a barrier around them. A light appeared around Ariel's throat and she started singing. The light traveled all the up through her throat and out of her mouth, it then traveled to Ursula's necklace, which was a golden shell. The witch immediately disappeared, but we saw Ariel transform into a human covered in an off-white cloth. We gasped when she couldn't breathe and Sora and I swam her up to the shore.
-x-
We swam Ariel all the way towards the shore, and she fainted once she got there, so we watched from afar as the man came up from the giant castle behind him. It was obvious he was a prince, but he didn't dress very princely. Anyways, he walked towards her and bent down near her. She woke up and immediately got up, but with her never having legs before, wobbled a bit around the prince. He started laughing and asked her what her name was, but since she gave up her voice, she couldn't answer. Still, he was sweet enough to bring her in, and I sighed out of relief.
"So, what do we do now?" Sora asked. Sebastian sighed and told us all we could do was help from afar, which was pretty hard since all we could do was swim around. I wished I could be a human to help her out, but what Ariel did was extremely dangerous trusting a sea witch like Ursula.
"Maybe we should look for Ursula?" I asked, suggesting an idea around. Sora and the others agreed, since she was the one who put the spell on her, and we were all prepared to fight the witch. I looked over to Sebastian and Flounder. "Keep an eye on Ariel, and make sure nothing bad happens. Also, please remind her that the fork isn't supposed to be used as a hairbrush."
I remember Ariel showing us a fork and using it as a brush, and Sora and I had to explain to her that it was for eating, not for your hair. Luckily, she did have a hairbrush around, and I taught her how to use it. Well, anyways, we all swam back down to see if we could find Ursula. I really hoped we could solve all of this, or if not, that Ariel would be able to kiss the prince in time.
Sorry for the extremely late reply, but I'm finally out of school for the holiday break! I plan to write as much as possible before I go back on January 7. We're also almost done the story! I can't wait to finish it off so we can start on KH:3D! I'm so excited!
GrapeJuice101:
Haha, I didn't really write much of the moments, but here is another chapter, I'll definitely have more out later on.
CatLoverx33:
I'm glad you liked it! There will be lots more before we wrap this story up!
Shadow 1n2:
Yes, over-due fluffs haha. Yes! I can't wait to write on the whole Isa/Saix episode, I have it all in my head on how she'll react with him. It's going to be a show. And yes, Aqua and Terra were just meant for each other! Aww Jack Frost 3
JoojKA:
No, no it's okay! Sorry for the late update! I know this is really late, but I'm glad you got better! Haha, no it's not weird. It would be weird if they kissed like humans since they're technically lions in the pride lands. Aww, thanks for the compliments, and honestly I love you more for even reading this story! 33333
Warrior of six blades:
I'm sorry for the late update, lol. It's totally okay though, I don't expect people to sit and read my story for hours. I'm grateful that you're taking the time to read it though, so thank you very much. Yes, Marie never gave a crap about the tournaments, and it will probably carry over on to the next story for Aura to really forgive Roxas, but they'll end up being a plot hole for a while because they really just need to sit down and talk their problems through. DiZ is a piece of crap to her, but eventually she'll get over it. As for the rest, you'll have to keep reading, haha. There are a lot of chapters, but once I'm done the story, I'll clean it up a bit.
Trubeque:
Haha, glad you caught up! I have a lot more chapters to write though, but it shouldn't be too hard to catch up now, since I only have a month to really finish this story off!
Guest:
Yea, I'm sorry about that, it's supposed to be a running gag DX. I might change it up for the next game if they end up being older than 15/16. :D