Hello, my friends from FanFiciton, UknownHero here and welcome to another chapter of Awaken By Time! Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote one of these. Anyway, it's the last month of the year, people, and I'm preparing for next year and all the craziness it might bring, but I'll try to keep up with my updates. At worst, I'll update monthly. I'm gonna be doing a chapter for the other stories so stay tuned for them. Anyway, let's do this!
Load Game… Start!
Chapter 9: A Wonderful Land (Part 1)
"Whoa…" Sora said as he looked around the Gummi Ship. At first, he thought it would be a bit cramped but on the inside was a whole different story. There was obviously a cockpit but it also had a kitchen, five bedrooms with their own bathrooms, a training area and a room dedicated to storing any items they get along the way. And that's what they could see right now,
"Our raft has nothing on this." Kairi said in awe. It had been a full week and a half since the island was destroyed. He had been training with Leon while Aqua was away on her field trip and he managed to learn a few new tricks from him, like Blitz and Sliding Dash. He wasn't a master at them, but he was decent enough to use them in battle. He was still learning more moves and how to wield the Keyblade in general but with everything he's learned so far, he felt like he was ready for anything coming at his way, "Wow, this thing is smaller from the outside."
"No kidding." Sora muttered before he heard Donald call him over. He was given a quick tutorial on how to choose worlds and what route to pick, "Um, why are you teaching me this? I've never been off world, let alone in a space ship."
"You're a Keyblade Wielder, the first in a long time. So it would make sense for you to choose our destination." Goofy answered Sora's question,
"Then why shouldn't I fly the ship then?"
"No! Flying is very complicated and you have to have a license!" Donald shouted from the pilot seat before pulling out his from under his hat, "See! Only a fully-licensed Gummi Ship pilot can drive one!"
"Uh... Donald. I hate to bring bad news, but it's expired."
"WHAT!?" Sora & Kairi just laughed at the two as they panicked over getting fined when they got home, despite there being more worrying matters right now. When they got Chip & Dale to settle it for them, Sora then had to pick a location,
"How about…" Sora muttered as he looked at the screen in front of him. There were only five worlds on the map. Traverse Town and Disney Castle were the only ones named while the other three were just named '?'. The screen also showed the amount of Heartless activity on each world, represented in the number of stars next to the world's name. Sora decided to choose the world that had one star, since it was the closest one to Traverse Town. When he chose the world, the screen showed the estimated time until they arrived, "8 hours!?"
"Well, that isn't so bad!" Donald said as he started preparing for lift off, "It took us three days to get to Traverse Town."
"Yeah, we'll be there in no time. Why don't you explore the ship and find your room?" Goofy suggested, "It should be the one to the right of Aqua's." Sora just shrugged before wandering off to go find his room. When he found it, it wasn't anything special. The walls were red with a yellow stripe, like the ship, and it had a bed and bedside table. There were a few shelves he could put things on, a closet to put his clothes in and a chest to store all his personal belongings. He didn't have much on him, just spare sets of clothes Aerith made for him and some books, so unpacking and settling in was quick and easy. Kairi wanted to read one of the books he had, so Sora had to read it to her. The story wasn't anything special, but Kairi still enjoyed it and that made Sora want to keep going. A few hours later, Sora & Kairi decided to save it for another time and went to see Aqua in her room. Sora knocked on her door,
"Come in!" She said. Sora opened the door, seeing Aqua was sitting on her bed reading her journal. He looked around her room and started taking note of things. It was like his room, except it was the walls were pure lavender. But then he noticed the Keyblade mounted on the wall,
"What's that?" Sora had to ask. For the state of it, it looked ancient. It was rusty and had many battle scars on it, and yet looked like it was ready for someone to use it and wield it proudly despite its condition,
"That's my old Master's Keyblade." Aqua explained as she looked at it sadly, "It's called Master Keeper." She then looked down, "He's been dead for 10 years, but to me… it's only been a few weeks."
"I'm sorry Aqua." Sora said as he sat next to her and patted her back, "He must've been a good teacher."
"He wasn't my teacher." Aqua muttered before she smiled sadly, tears in her eyes, "He was family." They sat there in silence, paying their respects to the fallen Keyblade Master before Sora broke the silence,
"Why don't you use his Keyblade?" Sora suggested. Aqua quickly shook her head,
"I don't think I can." Aqua replied, "No, wait. I know I can't."
"Why not? You could use two Keyblades at once! That would be so cool!" Aqua couldn't help but laugh a little,
"Even if I wanted to, I can't."
"How come?" Aqua sighed before she turned on her lecture mode,
"Sora, there is a difference between using two Keyblades and wielding two Keyblades. All Keyblade Wielders can only wield one Keyblade, and use one other. While they gain the benefits of the Keyblade they wield, they don't get the benefits of the second Keyblade."
"So you're saying that I can use two Keyblades, I just only get the benefits of one and the other is just dead weight."
"Correct. But there is an ability that allows you to truly wield two Keyblades. The Sync Blade ability."
"Really? How can I learn that?" Sora asked with hope in his eyes,
"You can't learn it." Aqua said, causing Sora to deflate, "Having the ability to wield two Keyblades is extremely rare. One out of twenty billion. And even in the past there weren't many Keyblade Wielders and there was only one recorded user of the Sync Blade ability, and even that can be considered a myth."
"Then why is it called 'Sync Blade' then?"
"It's called 'Sync Blade' because of the conditions needed to even have the ability. To have this ability you have to have a strong body, mind, heart and soul, and they must beat as one. Function as a whole. Be in sync with each other."
"That sounds… hard." Sora muttered as he rubbed the back of his neck,
"It is. Even if you slightly favour one aspect over the others, you lose the ability. That's why many never have the ability." Aqua said as she stood up, "And that's why we make do with the abilities we do have. Come on Sora, I'll spar with you in the training room if you want."
"Sure." Sora was about to stand up, but suddenly there was a sound of an explosion and the Gummi Ship shook, causing the two to stumble, "What was that?" Suddenly, they heard alarms blaring and lights flashing,
"WARNING! WARNING! HEARTLESS ARE ATTACKING THE SHIP! TO YOUR STATIONS! I REPEAT! TO YOUR STATIONS, NOW!" They heard Donald shout into the PA system,
"What!?" The two Keyblade Wielders exclaimed before they quickly made their way to the cockpit,
"Sora, can you tell Donald to not shout as much. I think I'm deaf." Kairi said,
'Later.' Sora thought as they arrived at the cockpit,
"What's going on!?" Aqua shouted to the two animated animals before another explosion shook the ship,
"We're under attack by Heartless ships!" Goofy answered as he started furiously tapping on the screen in front of him, "Gwarsh, it was quiet when we went to Traverse Town!"
"I guess having two Keyblade Wielders in one ship must've caught their attention." Sora guessed, "What do you need us to do?"
"Goofy's getting us the quickest way out of here and I'm making sure we don't die! Sora, I want you on weapons!" Donald ordered as he pointed to the weapons station,
"Aye aye, captain!" Sora said as he saluted before taking the station,
"Aqua! There are fires in the engine room! Put them out with Blizzard before they damage anything critical!"
"Got it." Aqua said as she summoned her Keyblade,
"Grab some Ethers from our stock just in case you out of magic and pick up a radio while you're there!" Aqua nodded before doing her duty,
'Oh man, how do I work this thing?' Sora thought as he stared at the millions of buttons around the screen with a reticule in the middle, 'Kairi, any suggestions?'
"Uh… the big red one on the left?" Kairi guessed. Sora quickly pushed it, hoping it wouldn't blow up the ship. It didn't but instead, it dropped a DisneyStation 8 controller (Looks like a PS4 controller except with the Hidden Mickey symbol in the middle) in his lap,
"Okay, now this is way easier." Sora said as he started mashing buttons until he found the 'Fire main weapons' button. Sora couldn't help but smile as he started blasting away Heartless ships without much effort. He just had to adjust his aim in order to deal with Donald's piloting, where he was constantly dodging all the space bullets that were coming at them,
"Goofy! Status!" Donald shouted,
"Route chosen! ETA: 3 minutes!" Goofy reported,
"Aqua!"
"The fires are out but we have small hull breach. I managed to seal it with some spare Gummi blocks." Aqua said through her radio, "I'm coming back now."
"Good, but we'll need to repair it properly once we're safe." Donald muttered to himself. He did teach Aqua about the Gummi Ship but nothing on repairing breaches. He guessed the seal Aqua made would last long enough for them to get out of the battle, "Sora! Keep firing and don't stop until we're clear!" Sora nodded as he kept firing weapons while Donald weaved through the Heartless ships and dodged all the rings and asteroids that were in their way, "Goofy, your route led us through an asteroid belt!"
"Don't worry! We'll be safe in one minute!" Goofy called out,
"I don't we'll last that long!" Aqua said, having just got back and saw one of the asteroids glance off the cockpit's windows,
"Sora! Focus on destroying the rocks! The Heartless will be destroyed by the asteroids anyway!" Donald ordered. Sora nodded and started focusing fire on the asteroids coming at them. The duck was right as they saw the Heartless starting to thin out and eventually disappear all together. When they got out of the asteroid belt, they all gave a sigh of relief,
"No Heartless are in the area. We're clear. I'm selecting quickest, safest route to our destination." Goofy said as he started plotting their route. Donald just nodded at him and waited for Goofy to give the okay to turn on auto-pilot, allowing the pilot to sigh and wipe the sweat off his feathers,
"Now let's see that seal." Donald said as he got out of his seat, "Aqua, do you mind?"
"Not at all." Aqua replied as she led the duck to her hasty repair. Sora sat back and wiped off some of the sweat that formed on his forehead,
"We did it." Sora said as he got out of the chair and went to drink a glass of water,
"Hey Sora, look at this!" Goofy called out. Sora quickly downed his glass of water before joining Goofy at the cockpit,
"What is it?" Goofy only pointed out the window. Sora looked and saw a rather strange looking world. It was pink with hearts all over it in a checkered pattern, a castle that looked like it was made out of rooks sticking out and a cottage with a tree sticking out the bottom, "Is this the world?" Sora asked,
"Yep. It says here the world's name is Wonderland." Goofy answered, "We should check it out. The King might be there, and maybe your friends too!"
"Thanks Goofy." Sora said as he went into the engine room, "Hey, we're at the world! We're gonna be landing there soon."
"Okay. We'll start preparing!" Donald called back before he put the finishing touches on the new seal, "Hah! Good as new!"
"Thanks Donald." Aqua told the Wizard,
"No problem. We should start preparing for this new world. We never know what we'll find there." Aqua nodded before she started making her way to the stock room. Everyone had started preparing for the new world with Sora doing a bit of training, Aqua stocking up on Potions and Ethers, Donald doing maintenance on the ship just in case and Goofy shining his shield before he could almost see himself in it. When they were ready, Donald told everyone to meet him at the teleporters,
"This is the only way we can get onto this world without raising suspicion by having the Gummi Ship parked somewhere where anybody can see it." Goofy told the two Keyblade Wielders before he yawned, "You guys go on ahead. I'll," Goofy yawned again, "Just be a minute." The two nodded before they stepped into the teleporters,
"I'll see you on the other side." Aqua told the young Keyblade Wielder before she pressed a button and disappeared in a flash of light. Sora took a deep breath, calming down his nerves a bit,
'Ready?' Sora thought,
"Ready." Kairi answered. Sora pushed the button on his teleporter and closed his eyes. Next thing he knew, he was falling,
"Whoa!" Sora shouted as he quickly righted himself. He was falling very slowly, which was very odd. He soon saw Donald and Goofy teleport in, although Goofy was asleep for some reason. Anyway, he looked around and saw very strange things. Tables, teacups and grandfather clocks were floating around them as they fell. Were they falling down, or were these object floating up? Sora couldn't tell, all he knew was that this world was definitely a wonder. After a few more seconds of falling, they all landed on their feet, except Goofy, who landed on his back which interrupted his nap,
"Down the rabbit hole and into madness." Aqua muttered as she looked around. Suddenly, they saw a white rabbit in a suit running around,
"Oh, my fur and whiskers!" The White Rabbit exclaimed, ignoring the group, "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear! I'm here, I should be there. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! The queen, she'll have my head for sure!"
"What is he late for?" Donald asked, but didn't get an answer,
"I sure hope what the bunny just said was a metaphor." Goofy said, worried for the little guy,
"Well, there's only one way to find out." Sora said before they started following the rabbit deeper into the Rabbit Hole, and further into the world known as Wonderland.
Save Game… Quit!
Whew! Done! See ya whenever!
UknownHero signing off. My friends!