Okage Hearts

Chapter 8

I still don't own Okage or Kingdom Hearts.

Ari and the Hero Rosalyn were heading to the sewer to fight the Sewer Evil King. Once they got to the entrance to his lair, the Hero Rosalyn turned to Ari and said, "You don't have to go down with me. I need to kill him for personal reasons. If you want, you can tell me what it is you need from him and I'll bring it up for you."

"Thank's but no thanks," Stan answered, not bothering to rise from Ari's shadow, "Whatever your business with him is does not concern me, and so my business should not concern you."

"Touchy, aren't we?" the Hero Rosalyn asked, "Alright, if you don't want to talk about it... Let's go then."

Just when she removed the cover to the entrance, James made his appearance and said, "Sorry, Sire. I was with Natasha... I mean working to ensure you didn't have much trouble."

"Who is that?" the Hero Rosalyn asked turning to face the pair.

"That's my butler, James," Stan said, still not rising from Ari's shadow, "Very well, James, you may go return to your duties."

"Yes, Sire," James responded, whatever business he had with the Evil King forgotten. Once James left, the Hero Rosalyn returned to the task of removing the cover.

"Got it," she said after a couple of seconds, "Now let's move. We need to be quick. If the Heroes catch wind of us going while everyone is on break before we kill him, we won't hear the end of it, and will be forbidden from even trying to kill him."

With that, she pulled Ari in after her as she went down the hole in the ground. Ari sighed to himself. No matter what happened, he seemed to be surrounded by people with very controlling personalities. While he didn't mind it on Julia, as her use of her control over him was what led to their close friendship, given that she had literally told him that they were going to be friends when they met, thereby giving him someone who he could always count on. These thoughts made him start to wish she was there, yet again. Stan then whispered in a voice only he could hear, "Slave, keep your mind on task. We're close to him. I can feel it. Afterwards, you can go on break."

Ari then returned to the task at hand, preparing for a battle that would probably not be fun at all. As he and Rosalyn came across a giant rat, who was larger than any other rat, or even human that Ari had ever seen.

"What is this?" Rosalyn asked, losing her calm, "You're not the Evil King!"

"Yes, I am," the giant rat replied calmly, "I am the Sewer Evil King, and I plan on taking over the world."

"But you're nothing like the Evil King who transformed my shadow!" she shouted angrily, glaring at the rodent while making Ari uncomfortably aware of the Evil King who lived in his shadow, had turned his sister's shadow pink and seemed to have power over shadows in general. Hopefully, Stan wouldn't do anything stupid.

"Bah, you fool!" Stan said, ruining Ari's hopes for no trouble from the woman with the rapier, "I, Evil King Stanley Hihat Trinidad the XIV am the one true Evil King!"

"King Stan?" Rosalyn asked in horror, further dashing the chance of a peaceful parting of ways after dealing with the Sewer Evil King, "NOOOOOOOOO!"

"Well, if you took the trouble to come down here to fight me," the Sewer Evil King commented, "I suppose that I have to fight you."

With that said, Rosalyn went back into her Hero's mindset and pulled out her rapier, getting ready to fight as tiny shadow creatures rose from the ground.

"Heartless," Rosalyn said under her breath as if saying a curse, "You're going to want to summon your Keyblade now. You're going to need it for the fight."

With that, she lunged for some of the Heartless, and began attacking them mercilessly, hacking through them as if they were weeds. The Sewer Evil King, on the other hand was far behind the Heartless, summoning more and more of them as they got closer, pushing Rosalyn back as she attempted to get him.

Having finally decided on the proper course of action, Ari began swinging the Keyblade at the Heartless, cutting through them without any real problem, almost as if it was made for the purpose of killing Heartless. As he continued his path, the Hero Rosalyn was killing Heartless as she continued, and kept moving towards the Sewer Evil King. Once Ari got to him, he began hacking at the giant rat until he remembered a very useful lesson he had and pointed the Keyblade at him and thought of Fire, burning the Sewer Evil King, which cause the Heartless to stop materializing as Rosalyn finished them off. Ari sent burst after burst against his opponent until the rat seemed to shrink down to the size of an ordinary human while Stan grew slightly, and cheered, "YES! I feel my power returning to me!"

Ari was glad this particular quest was over, so he could get home and see Julia and then get to sleep in his own bed. His joy was shortlived, however, as at that exact moment, Rosalyn was arguing with Stan quite vehemently about her shadow, which he had evidently turned pink after deciding she wasn't in the right shape to be his host. Somehow, whatever he had said had offended her. Ari hadn't really been paying attention to the argument which seemed to be some sort of lover's quarrel until Rosalyn had pointed her sword at the shadow so he had no idea what the conversation was about.

"You can't kill me," Stan said smugly, "I have no tangible body to stab at."

"Well, then, what about your host?" she replied with a smirk of her own as she grabbed Ari from behind and holding her sword lengthwise along his throat, "I'll bet this is your 'Perfect Host.' It'd be a shame if he lost his head. You'd have to spend years finding a new one from inside your bottle."

"Look," Stan said, trying to negotiate, "I can't fix your shadow until I have all my power back at full capacity. If you want your shadow to be a natural color again, you're going to have to work with me on this."

Rosalyn looked at him for a moment before she released Ari and said, "Only until my shadow is natural again."

Ari, meanwhile had summoned his Keyblade again, planning to not get rid of it until he felt safe again.

Ari checked into a hotel, which had let him stay in a room for himself and offered one to Rosalyn, who accepted. Unfortunately, his two companions decided to argue with each other again, and, since he was attached to one and the other wasn't leaving, he had to deal with them.

"So, Stan," Rosalyn said, looking slyly at the shadow as she spoke, "I suppose that you have no weakness in this form."

"Indeed," Stan boasted, "As long as Ari's shadow exists in the world, I'm with him."

"Goodnight, Stan," Rosalyn smirked, snuffing out the candle in the room, which was right by Ari's head. She then addressed Ari directly and said, "Okay, we're alone, now."

Ari felt a chill of fear overtake him when she said that. The last time she was near him, she almost removed his head from his body. Yet, when she failed to even attempt to do so, he relaxed slightly, Keyblade still in hand.

"There's a Princess," Rosalyn said calmly, "It's said that she has all kinds of magical powers and can perform miracles. Maybe she can solve our problems. Don't let Stan find out, though. He'd get suspicious."

Ari nodded. He didn't want King Chatterbox to die, no matter how annoying he could be, but if someone could get him off the hook for the debt his parents pushed upon him, he'd take the chance. Rosalyn then gave him a kiss on the cheek and left the room. Ari, spent from everything that happened that evening, passed out, dreaming of seeing his best friend again.