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:
FINALLY DONE ATLANTICA! GOD IM SO HAPPY IM CRYING HAHA.
Chapter Fifty-Five
ଓ
Ursula the nasty witch
It had been about three days already trying to look for Ursula, and Ariel still hadn't kissed the prince. Time was running out and I was getting worried for the woman. She made a lot of effort with the guy from what I heard from Flounder and Sebastian, but still no kiss. They came close one time but the boat tipped a bit and I got totally angry, I mean give the girl a break!
We swam back up to the shore and I noticed Ariel was slouched over and her shoulders were jerking uncontrollably. I gasped a bit since I knew she was crying, and I swam around towards her. Flounder explained that she had been crying for a long time, and then suddenly we heard Ariel's voice singing. My eyebrow rose when I heard it, and I looked around to see who was singing. We spotted the prince walking around towards our direction with an unfamiliar women clinging to his arm, and Sora wondered about the prince, since his face was totally blank. Flounder pointed at the woman's necklace, which was the same golden shell that Ursula had on.
"Do you think Ursula changed into a human?" I asked. Flounder flipped around and was sure she did to keep Ariel for herself, which angered Sora. He took out his Keyblade and used his magic to break the shell, and when it did a light appeared and surrounded itself around Ariel. She gasped, and the prince's blank expression disappeared.
"Eric!" Ariel called out to the prince, and he came running towards her.
"You…you can talk…" he said. I smiled at their conversation and was glad to know Ariel would finally be getting her wish. "You're the one… the girl who sang to me."
Ariel was so happy about it and Eric was glad to know that Ariel was the one who saved him from a storm. He apologized about not figuring out sooner, but they were finally together now without any interferences. They were so close to kissing, and I brought my hands together as I held my breath in, but then we heard the sea witch.
"Not so fast!" she shouted. They both turned towards her, and she glared at them both. "Do you see what I see?"
"A haggy old sea witch…," I muttered to myself. She pointed to the sunset, and we all looked towards it. Oh no! Time was up! We all looked towards Ariel, who was being grabbed by Ursula. Eric called out to her, and we all swam under the sea.
-x-
"Stop!" Sora shouted after Ursula. She stopped in her tracks and turned around, telling us that Ariel signed a contract. She threatened Ariel a bit, and I growled—this woman is terrible!
"Let Ariel go!" we heard a loud and majestic voice say. Before we could turn around, a beam of light went past us and straight towards the contract that Ursula was holding. She was pushed way back towards a rock behind her, but she wasn't hurt.
"Now, now—even the great King Triton can't go around breaking binding contracts. Why, it just wouldn't do, would it?" she gave a huge, snarky smile, and turned her attention to all of us. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some loose ends to tie up."
She looked back to Ariel, who was being tied up by those two creepy eels, but King Triton stopped her again. He lowered his head, and had a defeated look on his face—something I never saw much before. "You win. Just promise you'll let my daughter go," he said.
She reminded of the deal she had with Ariel, but King Triton offered to go in her place. He pointed his spear at the contract, and his signature replaced Ariel's. We all gasped but Sebastian was the most shocked. Ursula started cackling uncontrollably, and the King started to transform into a small plant-like thing. Ursula grabbed the spear from him, and when Ariel spat some words at her, a spear came from above. We all looked and watched as Eric swam down towards us, but he quickly went up once the eels started chasing after him. Sora, Donald and Goofy all stopped them, and I watched as Ursula started getting bigger.
I saw Ariel swimming up towards Eric, and Ursula kept getting bigger—it was basically a repeat of last year. A huge tornado appeared underwater around Ursula, and I watched as Sora, Donald and Goofy got to work getting rid of those two eels. I swam towards Ariel, who was busy blocking attacks from Ursula. I brought my Keyblade and used some of my spells on her, but she had such tolerance. We both swam down to block some of her attacks, and Eric used one of his spears at her. Sora, Donald and Goofy came swimming in, and we all prepared fighting off the sea witch.
"Flotsam and Jetsam! Right now, mommy needs you!" she shouted. I looked around, and Sora rose towards the air as he looked at Ursula.
"Sorry, "Mommy"…your poopsies are toast!" he shouted back. Ursula grew even angrier, and brought the spear around to attack us, but we all ducked into the water in time to block it. Sora jumped from the water and used his Keyblade to attack her wrist, to which she dropped the spear. It landed on the boat Eric was on, and she gasped.
"No…it's not possible!" she shouted. Sora swam back down towards us, and she yelled at Eric. "That belongs to me!"
"All right, then—you can have it!" Eric shouted. He lifted the spear and threw straight through Ursula, who shouted in pain. She started shrinking, and eventually disappeared with the bubbles under the sea. I sighed in relief, and although I barely did any fighting, I was a bit tuckered out.
-x-
"Please Ariel… you can come out now—it's okay," Eric said as he looked down from his boat to Ariel. She sighed and looked down a bit, and quickly went under sea. Eric gasped a bit, but she jumped out of the sea and did a back flip to show the prince that she was a mermaid. She returned to the shore, and told him the reason she went to Ursula was to be human like him, and he placed a finger on his chin. She sighed once again, and started to leave when she said goodbye, but the prince stopped when he started talking. "To think… I had all that time and I didn't work on my swimming."
He jumped into the water and swam towards Ariel, hoping to learn how to swim from her. She smiled and was glad to help, and then two of them got closer for a hug. We all cheered and eventually returned back below the sea. Eric was a really nice prince and Sora commented on his bravery, but Sebastian reminded us that he is a human. Ariel came in after a while, and she told us how she talked with her father. She was quick to leave though, but thanked us for all the help we gave. Flounder also mentioned that Sebastian needed to put on the best musical ever, since this one was so important. Sebastian swam towards the three guys, and asked for a favor that involved magic, but they all turned to me. I raised one of my eyebrows in confusion, and Sebastian told me I was finally going to be able to do something in the musical. My eyes brightened and I smiled at the thought of being able to help.
-x-
The crowd was huge and everyone was talking amongst themselves, and I was a bit nervous about this all. Sora swam over to me and placed a hand on my back, telling me that I was going to do a spectacular job. I smiled at him, but he brought his hands around my waist and brought me closer towards him. He came in and grabbed a kiss from me, and I giggled as he did. "A kiss for good luck," he smiled.
He was about to let go, but I wrapped my arms around his neck as I gave him a kiss in return. I noticed a tint of pink on his cheeks, but I just giggled a bit more. "A kiss for good luck," I repeated. He smiled and gave me a tighter hug, and we both parted once the concert was about to begin.
Sebastian stood at the front with his conducting stick and the music in front of him. He hit it against the music stand and cleared his throat, and we all gave him the nod to start. Once it started, Ariel's sisters started singing and showing their faces to the crowd. They swam around singing about how Ariel fell in love, and the girl in question showed up from one of the clams. She sang about it being true and started to introduce us. "Take a bow: Donald, Goofy, Marie and Sora!" she sang.
We swam in and although the boys had their singing parts I just swam and did some tricks with my fins, something that I could at least handle! She introduced her father, Sebastian and Flounder on to the stage and in came Triton riding on dolphins. He used his spear to light up the chandelier at the center of the stage, and we all swam around doing tricks and dancing. I wasn't much of the dancing scene, so I used my magic to light up the stage or do fancy tricks. Donald and one of Ariel's sister started swimming to one of the three clams in the middle, while Goofy and the other sister swam to the other. Ariel, Sora and I all swam towards the center clam, and they all started singing to the song while I spun around with my magic. It was weird how well my magic was acting underwater, but I wasn't complaining.
Then, when the ending was approaching, Ariel and Sora nodded at me, and I brought my Keyblade up and pointed it towards the ceiling. As soon as I was about to cast my thundaga spell, I felt my forehead burn, and I was getting a bit confused. It started burning even more, and when the spell released it wasn't the normal thundaga spell. Out came five lightning bolts that eventually turned into fireworks in a way, they didn't harm anyone, but it was strange. I didn't have time to check it out since we were still preforming, but everyone roared and cheered, and with the fireworks still going off a bit we all bowed down.
Once everyone left, a bubble appeared with the keyhole, and Sora did his usual with it. Once unlocked, Ariel looked at us all and asked what was happening. We explained that he had to leave, since a new path had opened, and Sebastian was pretty sad to see us go. Sora, Donald and Goofy all got up and started singing that we're all connected, and that we'd return to our friends. I smiled as they sang, and the words couldn't be any truer—the people I've met so far have been wonderful, and now that we've come so far, I can't just stop. I will come back and say hello every now and then!
-x-
We returned to the ship but I felt a pang of emotions running through me. I didn't know why, but I really wanted to visit Hollow Bastion, so I asked the guys if we could. We turned to ship towards it, and here we were. Those emotions must have told me something though, since we saw a couple of Heartless running around. Sora thought that everything was running smoothly, but clearly something was up.
"Must be Organization XIII again. We better go see Leon," he suggested. I nodded, and we started heading down the road towards Merlin's house. I kept my eyes open for anything unusual, and once we actually reached Merlin's house the defense system started acting up. It nearly attacked Donald but before we did anything else a couple of techy Heartless appeared. I quickly brought out my Keyblade and started attacking some of the Heartless, while Sora dealt with the other half. They weren't so tough to beat but I was a bit worried about the new Heartless wondering around, but what I hadn't noticed while I was fighting was my initiative. Maybe it was the fact that I was feeling more confident, or maybe my affection for my second home, but I was pretty happy right now. Well, not about the Heartless, but you know what I mean.
Once the Heartless were dealt with, the door to Merlin's house opened up, and Yuffie appeared on the other side. She told us to come inside, but the boys were a bit worried about the Heartless, saying that they came from Tron's world. I tilted my head in confusion at this Tron person, but I remember Sora talking about the time they were trapped in that computer. Anyways, all walked inside, and I saw Cid hacking away at the computer.
"Hurry up, Cid!" Yuffie shouted, which got a not so pleasant response from Cid. Merlin was in the room and even told him to hurry, which annoyed Cid even more… Sora asked what was going on, and the man stopped hacking on the computer and turned towards us.
"Talk about yer good timin'!" he exclaimed happily. Yuffie explained how the…MCP…was wreaking havoc inside the computer, and the boys seemed to understand it all. Cid explained how Ryan and Leon went over to Ansem's study to find out what was going on, and found out that the MCP was using data to bring the Heartless in Tron's world to life. Sora asked how Tron was doing, but they figured he was forced onto the game grid. I tried my best to keep up, but I couldn't really without seeing the problem myself, and this Tron guy.
"Unfortunately, you can't do much until we finish the MCP eradication program," Merlin said, which brought Sora's shoulders down. We couldn't enter Tron's world either, since the MCP was blocking the entrance to it through his computing. I sighed and looked around, until I saw Pooh Bear's book. I placed a finger on my chin as I walked over towards it and noticed that a lot of the pages were still missing. My eyes perked up when I realized that we had a lot of the pages, if not all of them.
I turned over to Sora and the others. "Hey, we can see how Pooh is doing while the MCP eradication program is finishing up," I suggested.
"That sounds like a good idea!" I heard Goofy speak. "Donald and I can stay out here and let you guys know when we can enter Tron's world."
Sora nodded and walked over to the book. He picked it up and gave it to Donald to hold while looking at me, and I nodded as we both got transported into the book. I blinked and wobbled a bit being inside the book, but overall I was still feeling fine. I remember being here the last time when all of the pages were ripped out and Pooh couldn't remember our names. I was so saddened by it, but now we can at least help out the little guy! We saw another page light up, so we decided to check it out. We went by and entered a trail full of leaves around, and it got incredibly windy.
"Ow!" I heard Sora shout, I looked towards him and saw an acorn hit him in the back caused by the wind, and I couldn't help but chuckle a bit. He scratched the back of his head and looked at me. "Wonder of Pooh's here…"
Before he could finish his sentence, the wind got incredibly strong and I almost fell over from the pressure of the wind. Luckily Sora grabbed me, and I was holding onto him for support. I took a deep breath, but then we both saw Piglet flying away. "Oh, help, help! Somebody save me!" we heard him shout.
We called out his name and he grabbed hold of a branch from one of the bigger trees. He looked towards us and asked for help, and we both ran towards the giant tree. It ended up being his house, and Sora helped the poor guy down. Piglet thanked him, and we both bent down to get a closer look at him. "Oh, here comes Pooh Bear!" Piglet said as he turned.
"Pooh!" I shouted, extremely happy to see the cute bear wobbling his way towards us. Sora chuckled, but I was just so happy to see him! "You're all right!"
Pooh giggled, and told us he was just fine. He looked towards piglet and then both of us, and started wishing us a happy windsday. I tilted my head in confusion, but Piglet seemed so put down by his comment since Pooh said it was nice to meet all of us. "Nice to m-meet you? But, Pooh. It's me, Piglet!" the little guy said, adding if Pooh remembered him.
Piglet started walking away since he seemed way too sad, but the wind carried him away as he said his goodbyes. I jumped a bit at him flying away, and Owl came out and asked if we could help Piglet down from the wind. We looked around, but owl gave us a couple of balloons to float in the air. Okay, I'm not that light—I kind of ate too much sea-salt ice cream—so I don't know how I was going to float for a long time. Still, Sora seemed to want to go, and I sighed as I grabbed a couple of balloons. "I'll fight off the branches and acorns while you and Pooh look for Piglet," Sora suggested.
Pooh jumped on my back as I grabbed the balloons, and we were flown right off the floor. I nearly screamed, but Sora came in front with his Keyblade and started clearing the path for us. I was feeling a bit nervous since we were so high up in the sky, but I kept my cool as we tried to look for Piglet. A big tree trunk started flying towards us, but Sora was able to get rid of it for us, and we spotted Piglet not long after. I extended my arm out so Pooh could walk on it, and when he was close to Piglet he grabbed hold of his hand. I brought them back towards me and I held them in my arms as I started putting weight on the balloons. A huge gust of wind blew towards us, and it pulled Piglet away from me and towards the branch of his tree. The balloons popped when we reached the ground, and I let Pooh down on the floor. We all walked up towards the tree and encouraged Piglet to jump, but the guy was too scared.
"It'll be okay, Piglet! Just jump!" Sora encouraged. "We'll catch you!"
Piglet gave a deep breath and paused for a moment. He eventually dropped down, and although he totally missed us, he landed right by Pooh, who managed to catch him. "Oh, that was rather frightening. I do hope you're all right, Piglet," Pooh said, who remembered his name. Piglet was ecstatic about it, and Pooh was glad that his friend was all right. Piglet was just glad Pooh was there, and I smiled along with Sora.
"We're glad for you two," I said as Sora agreed. Pooh looked at us as he smiled, and thanked us for saving Piglet… even though he didn't know who we were.
"Oh… uh, sure. Don't mention it," Sora replied as he looked my way. I frowned at the fact that Pooh didn't remember us, but at least he was able to remember Piglet, his best friend.
-x-
We walked out of Piglet's house and started making our way towards a field of carrots. Piglet started walking with us, and when we got further in we saw Pooh flying in with one of those balloons we still had. We saw Eeyore fixing up his house, and when we noticed Pooh was landing near it we ran towards them. Unfortunately, Pooh managed to land on top of Eeyore's house, but Sora still asked if they were okay. He felt bad about his house, but Eeyore seemed pretty fine with it. "No matter. Most likely would have fallen down anyway," he said.
Well… at least looked like it was all fine. Piglet offered to help his house, but Eeyore didn't want to spoil his day. Pooh got up from sitting down, and said hello to Piglet, but didn't remember who Eeyore was. I sighed, I felt really bad for Pooh, since he couldn't remember anyone. Still, Sora and I weren't going to leave poor old Pooh Bear like this; we had to get him to remember his dearest friends!
-x-
Aura
She walked around Hallow Bastion for a bit, knowing full well that the gang was here, but she felt what Marie felt about the place, and decided to check it out. She sighed when she walked by where Demyx had been defeated, and still felt so bad about him. She really didn't want to see him go, but he knew full well that being with Organization XIII practically meant giving up your life. She walked past that part and looked up at the castle and wondered if Leon and his gang were in there, of course, she probably knew the answer to that. She continued to walk towards it but stopped halfway when she saw a hooded figure in the corner of her eye. She turned slightly to face the hooded person and she couldn't figure out who it was, but when he grunted she remembered the voice and knew it was Riku.
"Long time no see," she said as she crossed her arms. She wasn't really in the mood to speak to Riku, but he must have had something for her to be finding her like this. She was fully facing the teen, and she took a deep breath as he walked a bit forward. "What exactly brings you here, huh?"
"I just wanted to see how you were doing," he replied. She eyed the teen suspiciously and wondered if he had anything up his sleeve, but Riku made no attempt to do anything. He lowered his shoulders a bit, and Aura figured he had something more to say. "I also came by to give you something to give to Marie. DiZ asked me to find you, since you two are pretty close by now."
"Why can't you give it to her?" she asked, knowing full well that he couldn't see her in his current form. She sighed and walked up to Riku as he pulled a piece of paper from his coat. She grabbed it and looked at the sheet, and questioned what it was about.
"That's a password for the computer in the castle, he says Marie will find it useful," he explained. "He says Marie will be able to know most of her past from that password, but she'll definitely be overwhelmed. There are things that she really needs to know now, since he feels time is almost up."
"Time waits for no one…," she repeated—one of her many words of wisdom that she followed. Riku only nodded and she looked down at the password; what an easy one. She closed her eyes for a bit before looking back at Riku. "I suppose I should thank you. You made quite the effort to see me after all."
"Aura—"he said before stopping himself. Aura looked at him oddly, but he shook his head and continued on. "I'm sorry… for what I said—"
"You shouldn't be apologizing… you're absolutely right. I am an inconsiderate Nobody, but I'll disappear soon," she told him. He tried stopping her, not liking where she was going with her words, but she continued regardless. "I cannot exist… everyone was right; I shouldn't exist. When the time comes, we'll be fighting side by side I hope… so I'm not going to say goodbye right now, I'll save that for later. When I disappear, Riku… forget me. Forget everything about me… I don't want to be the person that just disappeared. I would rather no one remember me from the start than be the person that they knew… as if I was somebody."
"Aura, stop… you're not making sense—"
"I lost Roxas," she replied. He sensed the emotion from those words, and he was certain she would be choking up the tears she wouldn't let fall. "I don't want to lose Axel, and I know I wouldn't want to lose you, even though I can't stand you sometimes," she muttered under her breath even though Riku still heard. "Let the person who was never meant to exist disappear."
Before he could say anything in return, she disappeared through her portal. He grunted as he tried running up to it but it closed as soon as he got there, and he was in shock at the words Aura was saying. They were completely negative and out of her character, but what if fate had already chosen her path and she was just going along with it? Had Aura given up trying to be a person she could be proud of? Riku sighed and stretched his neck; he couldn't let Aura give up now, not when they were so close to the end.
-x-
We breezed through the woods trying to help Pooh remember his friends, and I was feeling so happy for everyone. Pooh couldn't remember either of us, but I was definitely glad that he could remember everyone else—like Tigger, Rabbit, Owl and the rest of them. We had to help out Pooh with a bunch of stuff to make him remember all of his friends, but the best one was jumping off of balloons. I don't know why—it made me feel like such a child. We also had to look for Pooh through a cave, which majority of them felt scared too, but Sora and I encouraged them to search. It was so cute seeing them all be brave though and I was so incredibly proud of them—especially Piglet!
One thing that made Sora and I keep hope with Pooh trying to remember us, was how he went searching through that cave for a couple of special friends. Maybe Pooh would remember us soon enough—he did our names down, which was good enough for now.
Sora and I were at the bridge at night when we saw Pooh Bear's head trapped inside one of those honey pots. I giggled at how cute he looked, and we both walked over to the little guy. "Pooh, are you all right?" I asked.
"Sora, Marie? Is that you? Oh please help!" he called out. It wasn't that hard to help Pooh out of the honey pot, Sora grabbed the pot while I pulled Pooh out of it. When he was all good, we all sat down on a nearby tree trunk lying sideways. Sora asked what he was doing here, and the little bear pondered for a bit. "I was thinking: perhaps there's a way to make it so you two won't go away."
"You mean a way to make us stay?" Sora asked. Pooh nodded, and asked if there was such a way. I lowered my head at the idea, it would be great to stay with Pooh and all of his friends, but unfortunately things couldn't be like that. Still, Sora assured him that we'd all visit him and his friends every now and then, but Pooh wanted us to stay forever.
"Pooh, we'll always be in your heart," I said as both Sora and I pointed and poked a bit at his heart. Sora told him that he could stay where he was, and we'd visit him anytime he wanted us to. Pooh asked us to promise him, and we did—with everyone else coming in and promising as well. I giggled when they all started drawing near, and we all pretty much huddled up as we watched the night sky. It was only after a while that Sora nudged my arm to indicate that we had to leave.
"Leaving already?" Pooh asked. Sora turned and I told him that we had to. Pooh just smiled. "Well, I won't be sad, because you'll always be right here forever and ever. Right, Sora and Marie?"
Sora and I looked at everyone, and he told them that they'd all be right in our hearts. We said out goodbyes and jumped down the little step, with Sora turning around to give one more wave. I smiled as I waved, and we both started walking out of the woods with our hands holding each other. We eventually started disappearing from the book and into Merlin's house, and the title of the book changed to all of us looking out into the night sky. I gave a warm smile at the book—there are some things in this world that are so beautiful that we just gotta protect it no matter what. This book was one of them.
100 acre woods is done now! It was a shitty job, but there's not much one can do in that world. It's just filler, really. Now we get to the more serious part of the game, and I've got some surprises wrapped around my head, so watch out!
JoojKA:
Haha, I missed you too! My break is only for a while since I go back to school on jan 7, so I'm making the most of it. Do I have you on deviantART? If not, we should totally add each other! I did check up on it cause it's more easier writing an update there than on here. But you should've sent me a message or something Id've gladly replied :D
Haha, oh really? I love Aura too! She's my greatest character I think, mainly because she can be relatable more than Marie. Oh and yes, I couldn't have had Marie do everything well, she's terrible in the arts, but she's pretty great with logical stuff like math and computers. I'm glad you reviewed, it's so good to hear from you~!
CatLoverx33:
Haha, yes they are pretty good friends. :D
Grapejuice101:
Yeah I'm glad to be back, it feels great! I plan to have a lot of moments in the upcoming chapters, and I will update till I am done this story!
Shadow 1n2:
Haha yea she's growing! And definitely, boys will always have that pervey side, but I guess that's why we love them. (Among other reasons) aww, that sounds like such fun—no one does that where I'm from unless it's at Anime North or something. School life is awesome! I love cooking and home life is eh, could be better. Omg really? I was totally thinking the same thing with Jack and Elisa! They look like such a cute couple!