Okage Hearts
Chapter 9
Got another chapter done sooner than I thought I would. And yet, I still don't own Okage or Kingdom Hearts.
Ari was shaken awake roughly. He opened his eyes and expecting to see Stan forcing him to get ready for some insane quest, despite the plan to return home for the time being. He was half right.
"Wake up!" Rosalyn shouted, "The elevator is fixed, so we can go to Rashelo."
"What elevator?" Ari mumbled sleepily, trying to return to dreamland.
"The elevator that leads to the second level of the city," she answered, "It's the only way to reach Rashelo."
"You've mentioned Rashelo twice," Stan said suspiciously, "What's so important at Rashelo that would make you want to go there, woman?"
"I stole your Map O' Evil Kings, you poor excuse for a shadow," she responded quickly, pulling the map out of her pocket, "There's one there."
Ari felt sure she was lying, but, decided to think better of it and get out of bed.
"You sleep fully dressed?" Rosalyn asked in confusion.
"What my Slave wears is not your concern," Stan replied, growling at the woman as he spoke. Deciding that he didn't want to deal with this, Ari got up and snatched the Map O' Evil Kings out of Rosalyn's hand and started heading to the exit. If this was how life was going to be, he was going to get though it as fast as possible. He did have a friend he wanted to see again, after all.
As he kept walking, ignoring Stan and Rosalyn bickering behind him, he eventually came across an elevator that was near a diner. Deciding he wasn't hungry, Ari proceeded to the elevator. Once inside, he had to deal with Stan and Rosalyn arguing again. He found himself wishing that the princess would be able to teleport him far away from the pair once she severed the connection Stan had to his shadow. Maybe she could put him back in his home.
Despite this hope, he couldn't help but feel that the Princess was going to be a spoiled brat. Still, if she could get him away from the bickering Evil King and Hero, he would take his chances. To his surprise, when he got up to the elevator's destination, Linda was there singing.
Walking up to him, she said, "Hi, Coach! Did you hear my singing?"
Having decided long ago that silence was the better part of valor, Ari nodded.
"Was I doing a good job?" she asked cheerily, prompting another nod.
"Thanks, Coach," she said with a grin, "I'm going to practice some more."
With that, Linda left as Rosalyn exited the elevator, and commanded, "Now, let's go to Rashelo to see the Pr... Fight the Evil King!"
Ari was rather interested, now. The Princess was in Rashelo. That meant that, if Rashelo was close enough he could stop having to deal with those two sooner than he could have hoped. Today was shaping into a good day.
Once they arrived in Rashelo, they came across a familiar face for Ari and Stan.
"Hello, friends," Gutten Kisling said with a smile on his face, "I am glad to see you, actually. My research has gone stale, so I believe that I will be able to study more if I follow you around, since an Evil King is certain to bring in more ghosts and the Keyblade is bound to bring Heartless. Ah, I see you have a Hero with you, as well. This is most wonderful, as with the presence of a lovely Hero as well as the Keyblade and an Evil King there are bound to be an exponential increase in ghosts in this vicinity, due to the nature of these creatures, as well as the natures of you, yourselves."
Ari just nodded his head, having become used to longwinded speeches because of his father's tendency to ramble on for hours. Deciding that letting Kisling travel with the group wasn't a problem, he just waved his arms in a gesture that meant follow and continued on the path while Stan, presumably bored with the argument with Rosalyn returned to his usual place in Ari's shadow while Rosalyn left to do something she wouldn't explain, though Ari had his suspicions that it involved a certain Princess. Ari, meanwhile felt happy for the first time since he left Tenel. He was so close to freedom that he could already hear Julia's voice.
'Wait,' he thought having hear her voice say an unfamiliar name, 'Who's Beiloune?'
Turning around, he saw a red-haired girl in a red and white dress with buckles along the skirt and a strange either crown or fence on her head. Behind her was a man with a strangely large noes who was rather well-dressed himself, presumable the aforementioned Beiloune, who was following her. Either this was the Princess, or Rashelo was a place for the wealthy to spend their time. Either way, he wasn't pleased with the possibility of dealing with this girl.
Suddenly, though, he heard Stan's voice in that whisper from earlier saying, "The Princess! I will be able to regain my power if I can just gain access to her and her magical power."
As she passed them and got closer to the pier, Stan returned to Ari's shadow, presumably to try to seem stealthy. Just when Stan had returned to Ari's shadow, the Princess had seemed to notice Ari and turned to look at him. She had a strange look in her eyes when they saw each other. He thought he saw recognition on her face. Did she know him, somehow? He didn't know her, as far as he could recall. He didn't know there even was a Princess.
Before he could think further on the subject, the moment had passed and the princess had moved on, getting closer to the pier. Ari looked away, trying to puzzle out what it was that was going on with the Princess, when the oddest thing to occur that day happened. A fish creature that was larger than the average person leapt out of the water.
"I'm going to guess that's the Evil King," Ari muttered to himself, "It's not like I wanted things to be simple."
"I am the Bubble Evil King" the piscine abomination said gleefully, "And I am taking the Princess to my lair to hold for ransom!"
With that, the self-proclaimed Bubble Evil King grabbed the Princess and leapt into the sea. Ari watched with annoyance, already knowing what was about to happen. Sure enough, Rosalyn arrived, followed by Kisling, while Stan rose from Ari's shadow again.
"We must save the Princess!" Rosalyn shouted, striking a heroic pose.
"We must defeat the Bubble Evil King and reclaim my power!" Stan shouted, striking what would probably have been a more imposing pose if he were three dimensional.
"We must go there, FOR SCIENCE!" Kisling shouted, raising his index finger into the air.
Ari just stood there as Beiloune went up to the group and exclaimed, "The Princess has been taken by a being calling himself the Bubble Evil King! Hero Rosalyn, we need your help! Who are these people with you?"
"Um, this is the esteemed scientist Gutten Kisling, leading expert in the field of ghosts and Heartless," she began, trying to keep up the illusion of being teamed up with respectable members of society, "And this is King Stanley Hihat Trinidad the XIV."
"And the boy the King is attached to?" Beiloune asked, either not noticing or not caring about the fact that said King was blatantly evil.
"Oh," she said, having obviously forgotten about Ari entirely, "That's my... apprentice, Ari, current wielder of the Keyblade."
Beiloune raised an eyebrow at Ari, almost as if the boy's very presence was a surprise, before he said, "Excellent. This team sounds like it would be sufficient to fight the Bubble Evil King. Please move quickly and return the Princess to my care."
And with that, the trio was off, preparing themselves to fight the Bubble Evil King.