PrismRain13: hiya guys! I know I was hoping to get this out in less than a month, but a lot was going on.
Gus: Excuses, excuses.
PrismRain13: hey! Between finishing my semester at college, starting a new job, an anime convention this past weekend and MEETING QUINTON FLYNN I haven't had much free time. -fangirl squeal!-
Gus: wow that's amazing! I'm jealous!
PrismRain13: he was so funny! I asked him to have Axel confess his love to Larxene and he did an entire drunk Axel monologue! His autograph's on my wall now! Anyway, I still claim no ownership of anything from Square or Disney. I only own the plot and my OCs. Enjoy our 50th chapter!
Chapter 50: The Thinner Disaster
Kairi, Minnie, Goofy and Max hadn't moved an inch since Pete and Mortimer left, staring at the mirror in shock. None of them could believe that Mickey, Sora and Roxas were lost to them. They had been taken so quickly. Finally, Kairi moved towards the mirror, placing her fingertips against the cool glass. Sure enough, it was solid.
"Your majesty," Kairi said, turning towards the queen. "What did Pete and Mortimer mean by the King's going to 'face a blast from his past'?"
Minnie, Goofy and Max all looked nervously at one another, as though they were hiding something from her. Well, Kairi wasn't going to tolerate it.
"Come on, you guys! Sora and Roxas are trapped in there too! I need to know what's going on!" The princess of heart pleaded.
The three toons all looked towards themselves, finally sighing in defeat. Minnie stepped forward, ready to explain.
"You see, Kairi, around fifty years ago, after Mickey completed his training, it was announced that Mickey would take the throne. Our kingdom began to grow heavily overpopulated. It was so bad that some of our citizens began to loose their hearts because they were being forgotten. One of those citizens was Mickey's brother, Oswald. Master Yen Sid was able to create a parallel world, Wasteland, that would protect our forgotten citizens." The Queen explained, pausing to take a breath before continuing.
"But, Mickey was a young mouse; immature and reckless. Oswald saw him unfit to take the throne and he blames him for being forgotten and 'stealing' the crown from him. One day, Mickey saw Master Yen Sid putting the finishing touches on Wasteland. When the Master left, Curiosity took a hold of Mickey. Some things happened and..."
At that point, the Queen suddenly stopped talking, looking down at her hands sadly.
"What?" Kairi asked anxiously. "What happened?"
"Gawrsh, ya know Kairi, I think this is something you need to ask the King yourself." Goofy said. "You don't need to worry about them. I just know Sora, Roxas and King Mickey will be alright."
Kairi sighed. "I hope you're right."
The next thing they knew, the entire room became filled with heartless. Shadows, soldiers and bolt towers looked ready to strike at the group of four.
"Oh no!" Minnie gasped as the three around her drew their weapons. "That magic those two used on the mirror must have halted the power of the cornerstone!"
"That must be why the heartless appeared in town too!" Max said. Kairi ducked out of the way of an attack from a soldier, defending Max before he could suffer any damage from a bolt tower.
Minnie fired a blast of light magic from her hands, destroying the soldier that attacked Kairi. "Go, Kairi! The others don't know what happened here! You have to warn them!"
"But-" Kairi protested.
"No buts!" Interrupted Minnie. "We can handle things here!"
Kairi hesitated at first, but then came to a decision after thinking the situation over. "Okay, I'm on it, your majesty!" She nodded before sprinting down the halls, running as fast as her legs could carry her back to town.
The moment Kairi left, a bolt tower was just about to attack the Queen but was destroyed by Goofy's shield before it could harm her.
"Maxie! You get Queen Minnie outta here! You both gotta get somewhere safe!" Said Goofy, blocking an incoming attack from a soldier heartless.
"No way dad!" Max growled, standing beside his father with his skateboard raised. "I'm not going to leave you to fight alone! You may think you're trying to protect us, but who will protect you if you're alone?! I'm your son, so I have to protect you too!"
"He's right!" Exclaimed the Queen. "We're not going anywhere! We're going to stay and fight alongside you!"
Goofy found himself speechless at their words, but his mouth soon spread into a smile. "Okay. Let's get rid of these heartless!" And just like that, the three of them charged into battle.
Minnie quickly became surrounded by bolt towers, but the queen showed no fear. She raised her hands in front of her as they began to glow light blue.
"You'll not harm my subjects!" She exclaimed as she threw a number of tiny balls of light towards the heartless, causing a small amount of damage, but pushing them away from her. Then, Minnie placed her hands over her heart, gathering power.
"Light!" She exclaimed as she jumped into the air, summoning a large pillar of light, damaging and knocking away all the nearby Heartless. (1)
~*KHIII*~
Back in the middle of Disney Town's Plaza, Riku, Dragon, Xion, Naminé, Lydia, Kyra and Rusty were doing all they could to fight off the many heartless that had attacked the world. Lea, Myde, West, Donald and Daisy had left some time ago in order to round up the other citizens and hide them in the Town's underground tunnels for safety.
The heartless had nearly doubled in numbers since the first group had gone to the castle. Now, in addition to bolt towers and soldiers, there were black inky pureblood heartless with glowing green eyes and mouths. Some were the same size as shadows and others were as big as large bodies; spatters and slobbers.
Riku swung Way to Dawn into a Slobber, causing a severe amount of damage. Just when it was trying to heal itself, it was instantly destroyed by a powerful strike from Xion.
"Thanks." Riku said to her.
Xion responded with a friendly smile. "Don't mention it."
After the others had finished up their fights, the plaza appeared to be clear of heartless. But, they knew it wouldn't be for long.
"Man," Kyra breathed as she took a quick swing from a potion. "I never thought it was possible for the heartless to attack this world." She then took a second potion out of her jacket pocket and tossed it over to Rusty, who gratefully gulped it down.
"You're telling me." Lydia said, stretching her arms over her head. "This is such a drag. I was hoping to win at Rumble Racing again and enjoy the rest of the festival!"
"Uhh... Is now really the best time to be talking about that?" Dragon asked.
"Seriously, Lydia. We have more important things to worry about!" Kyra grumbled while Rusty barked in agreement. No one in the group noticed a soldier appear until it was just about to attack Naminé.
But, it never got a chance to. Before the heartless could lay so much as a scratch on Naminé, it was destroyed by a flowery Keyblade. The group turned around, finding Kairi standing before them with Destiny's Embrace raised.
"Naminé, are you alright?" Kairi questioned, pulling her former nobody into a tight hug.
"Yes, I'm fine, thanks to you." Naminé replied, returning the hug.
"Why are you alone?" Riku asked. "Where are the others?"
"Max and Goofy are protecting the caste with the Queen." Kairi explained. "But, Sora, Roxas and the King-"
But, before Kairi could finish her sentence, the team became surrounded by the same types of heartless as before, only a much larger group than before.
"Sorry, Kairi, but we'll have to talk while we fight." Xion said while she raised Lost Memory in front of her. The others followed her into battle with their weapons ready.
"Looks like we'll need some help." Kairi stated, reaching into the pouch on her waist and pulling out the Mole Rat Charm she got from Radiant Garden. "Rufus!" She exclaimed as the charm began to glow a soft pink. When the light vanished, Ron's small naked mole rat appeared in Kairi's pocket.
"Yay!" Rufus exclaimed in a squeaky voice, pounding his tiny fists into the air. He jumped out of the princess's pocket, and delivered a powerful kick to a bolt tower, knocking it into the ground. Kairi followed Rufus's lead, slashing through a horde of soldier heartless with her keyblade.
After unleashing a few powerful karate moves on the heartless, Rufus jumped up onto Kairi's head and pulled out some sharp nacho chips from behind his back.
"Cheese!" He exclaimed as he threw the chips at the heartless, causing them to drop a large amount of munny and synthesis materials. While Kairi kept attacking, Rufus kept throwing chips, using them to defend his teammates as well.
For his final attack, Rufus put away his chips and destroyed all the heartless surrounding Kairi with one powerful three hundred and sixty degree karate kick. (1) Then, he jumped right back into Kairi's pocket.
"Thanks for the help, Rufus." Kairi smiled.
"You're welcome!" Replied Rufus before disappearing in a flash of light.
~*KHIII*~
Oswald obviously knew what he was talking about when he said the projectors would take them where they needed to go. Outside the castle door there was literally a large projector screen sitting there with an aura of importance.
Sora, Roxas and Mickey had jumped into the projector not really knowing what to expect with Gus following closely behind them. Honestly, this didn't even faze Sora; he'd been through much weirder stuff before. Wonderland didn't even make his top ten.
The next thing they knew, they had become separated, emerging from the projector and found themselves in the locations Oswald had told them to go to.
Sora had ended up in a location that greatly reminded him of a darker version of Space Paranoids. Nearby was a Launch pad with the Moonliner Rocket resting upon it. Ahead, he could see strafer and magnum loader heartless surrounding a small, metal disk with electric blue lines. Sora fought his way through the heartless, succeeding in defeating them and picked up the disk before rushing back towards the projector.
Roxas had found himself in a dark, shady-looking pirate port after he emerged from the projector screen. In the distance he could see an endless murky ocean and a skull-shaped rock similar to the one back at Neverland. He wasn't even there for a few minuets before he was surrounded by pirate and air pirate heartless. Roxas was sucessfully able to slay them all, receiving an old joystick from them.
Mickey and Gus had ended up in front of a spooky, run-down mannor. In the middle of a dark thunderstorm. Despite being scared, Gus helped Mickey fight off hook bats and trick ghosts inside the mansion by healing him when he needed it. As soon as all the heartless were defeated, they left behind a fuel tank filled with bubbly green liquid.
Once the three groups had retrieved their rocket parts, they had all jumped back into their projectors. Then, they had emerged in front of a large, towering mountain made up entirely of Mickey Mouse merchandise. This included toys, clocks and small figurines just to name a few examples.
"Well, now we know why it's called 'Mickeyjunk Mountain'." Sora remarked, gazing up at the cluttered mountain.
"Yeah." Mickey replied sadly. "I guess Oswald resented me more than I ever thought possible."
Gus released a small sigh. Being Oswald's best friend and advisor ever since Wasteland was created, he knew how much pain the rabbit felt.
"Come on, we better get going." Said Gus as he began to hover up to the path that led up the mountain. "Oswald's probably waiting for us."
Mickey and Sora followed him up the path, but Roxas lagged behind when he noticed a small, shiny object at his feet. It certainly didn't look like it was part of the mountain. He bent down to pick it up, finding it to be a charm on a gold chain decorated with blue background and lighter sparkles. The name "Brazzle-Dazzle charm" popped into his head.
A summon charm? Roxas thought. What's it doing here?
"Hey! Roxas! You coming or what?!" Sora's voice interrupted his thoughts. As Roxas looked up, he noticed that Sora, Gus and Mickey were already quite a ways up the mountain.
"Yeah! I'm coming!" The former nobody called back, pocketing the charm and running up the path in order to catch up with the others.
After what felt like ages of climbing, the group of four had finally reached the top of the mountain. What they saw before them raised a few eyebrows. Oswald standing in front of a giant green jug, trying to push an equally giant cork inside the top. The jug was so dark and cloudy, it was nearly impossible to tell what was in it.
"Hey! You guys wanna give me a hand here?" Oswald grunted as he gave the cork another push.
Without a single word of protest, Sora, Mickey, Roxas and Gus rushed to his side and helped him push the cork back into the jug, in its proper place.
"Thanks. That was a close one!" Oswald sighed in relief. "No one else has made it to the jug in years."
"What's in it?" Roxas asked.
"The Blot." Oswald replied simply.
"What? But we saw the Blot!" Sora exclaimed.
Mickey nodded in agreement. "That's right! It dragged us in here through the mirror and was about to fight us in the Mad Doctor's lab!"
"Yeah, until it flew away after it saw our keyblades." Roxas added. "To be honest, it was kind of a wimp."
Oswald scoffed. "You guys haven't even seen the REAL Blot. A long time back, Ortensia and I managed to bottle it up. We saved Wasteland - but I lost Ortensia. I stay here on the mountain to guard the jug." Sora noticed the rabbit was trying his hardest to hold back his tears. To be honest, he knew all too well how he felt.
Oswald took a deep breath as he continued. "What YOU'VE seen are just - drippings. Didn't I mention that before?"
To prove his point, a stray drop of black ink leaked out of the bottle and dripped down the side of the mountain, transforming into a spatter heartless. But, before it could do any damage, it was destroyed from a blast of light magic from Mickey's keyblade.
Oswald took a deep breath and turned to face his brother. "Listen, Mouse, maybe I misjudged you and your friends. Ortensia would want me to be more friendly. Let's start over. Shake on it?" He asked as he held out his hand towards Mickey.
The King smiled, a feeling of relief washing over him. He held out his own hand and was about to shake his brother's hand. But then, he pulled his hand back, leaving a confused look on Oswald's face. Roxas, Sora and Gus all looked equally confused. This was finally a chance for the two brothers to make amends, why was Mickey hesitating?
They soon got their answer when Mickey spoke again with a sad, remorseful look in his eyes. "When I was young, I found Master's workshop in the castle. There was paint, and thinner - things got out of control. I spilled the thinner jug into a gateway to this place. I caused the Thinner Disaster."
Oswald, Sora, Roxas and Gus all gasped in shock. None of them expected this from the King.
But soon, Oswald's expression was soon replaced with one of pure anger and rage. "WHAT?! IT WAS YOU?!"
"I'm really sorry. I tried to stop the Blot, but I wasn't strong enough." Mickey replied with remorse in his voice.
"I should have known! You stole my life AND ruined my home!" Oswald snarled as he jumped up onto the giant cork and summoned his keyblade. "That's it! You and me, Mouse! Right now, c'mon! C'mon! Put 'em up! Put 'em up!" The small angry rabbit started jumping up and down on top of the cork, but he failed to notice the cork starting to rapidly crack beneath his feet.
The others noticed and desperately yelled at him, trying to get him to stop. But Oswald was so blinded by rage, he couldn't hear them. He just kept angrily jumping up and waving his keyblade around. Causing the cork to crack more and more.
"I've been wanting this for years! This is finally gonna be my moment!" Oswald exclaimed, just as the cork beneath his feet became filled with multiple cracks leaking black ink.
"OSWALD! STOP!" Sora shouted with fear and worry.
The small rabbit stopped jumping on the cork the moment Sora's voice reached his ears. Slowly, he looked down, eyes widening at what had happened to the cork; what had resulted thanks to his anger overpowering him. "Uh-oh." He said.
"Uh-oh is right." Roxas gulped, the group of them slowly backing away.
Then, the entire jug began to shake and the cracks grew and grew. "Get back everybody! It's breaking!" Oswald exclaimed as he jumped off just as the cork burst open, causing an enormous wave of black ink to explode out of the jug. Black ink sputtered everywhere as the skies darkened tremendously. The clouds turned dark along with the sky and became dark, swirling storm clouds.
Emerging from those clouds was the fearsome Shadow Blot itself. It appeared similar to the smaller version they encounter at the Mad Doctor's lab, with terrifying glowing green eyes and a mouth and thick black ink dripping off its body. But this monstrous version had a powerful aura of darkness radiating off of it, rivalling the size and power of the Chernabog and a thousand darksides.
The Shadow Blot looked down, grinning evilly at the sight of the five heroes staring up at him in fear. It released, a deep, dark laugh as it reached out its hand towards them.
Mickey was so frozen, he could barely move. After facing countless battles, the king had never felt as scared as he did in this moment. Even as the inky clawed hand inched closer and closer towards them, it's eyes set on the small king.
"Mickey! Look out!" Gus exclaimed, pushing Mickey out of the way just in time, the mouse tumbling and slamming up against the jug. But, it was too late for the rest of them. In one swift movement, before anyone had a chance to get out of the way, the Blot scooped up Oswald, Gus, Sora and Roxas in his fist.
As soon as they realized their situation, the four of them started struggling against the Blot's strong, sticky grip.
"Hey!" Sora exclaimed, trying to free his hand to summon his keyblade. But, thanks to the sticky ink it was impossible to do so. "Let us go you big bully!" He snarled, glaring up at the giant Blot.
"Good luck trying to talk to it, Sora." Oswald grumbled as he continued to struggle. "The Blot's a monster. I would even bet it's become a heartless itself."
The Blot ignored the voices of it's hostages and kept it's soulless eyes on Mickey. It slowly extended it's other inky, open hand towards the king, stopping just in front of him. Mickey watched as the ink from the Blot's palm began to shift into a small, limp sculpture of himself. Then, out of the sculpture's chest emerged a small heart.
Mickey gasped as he realized what the Blot wanted; his heart. The small King's eyes shifted to the Blot and his friends. If he gave this monster his heart that meant he couldn't leave and it could. He'd be unleashing a monster upon his own kingdom, but the people here have already suffered a great deal thanks to the mistake he made when he was younger.
The Blot must have thought Mickey was taking too long to decide because it released a dark growl of impatience and squeezed it's hand tighter and tighter around it's hostages. Mickey saw the results immediately; his four companions began to release hisses of pain due to the tightness. Then, they soon stopped struggling and turned limp in the Blot's hand.
The king shivered in fear for their safety, releasing a small gasp. He couldn't bear to see them suffer like this after all that had happened. Sora still had more people to save, Roxas just got a heart of his own, he still barely knew Gus and Oswald had lost so much thanks to him.
Finally making a decision, Mickey closed his eyes, clenched his fists and puffed out his chest, offering his heart to the Blot.
The monster before him grinned in victory and without any warning, latched it's long, inky finger onto Mickey's chest. The Blot pulled and pulled until it found what it was looking for. When it removed it's finger, it revealed Mickey's heart being pulled away, coated in strands of black ink.
The second he felt his heart being pulled out of his chest, Mickey suddenly felt weak and empty, as though a crucial part of him was missing.
The king was so distracted, he barely noticed four figures coated in black ink falling from the Blot's hand until they roughly landed beside him. Once he was out of his trance, Mickey rushed over to his friends while they tried to wipe the ink off them.
"Are you all alright?!" Mickey questioned, helping Gus up to his feet.
Sora nodded as he wiped the ink off his arms. "Yeah, more or less. Thanks, your majesty."
"That was very brave of you!" Gus exclaimed with a smile after he shook the remaining ink off his body.
There was a small groan from beside Roxas as Oswald pushed himself up to his knees. "You okay, Oswald?" Roxas asked, helping the rabbit brush the goey black ink off his ears and clothes.
"Heh, despite the fact that we were just taken hostage by the Blot, I'm peachy." The rabbit then turned to Mickey. "Bet you're sorry you had to safe me too, huh? Well, that's why they call me the Lucky Rabbit."
Then, there was a deep dark laugh coming from above them. The five of them looked up, finding that the Shadow Blot was slowly wandering away from them with
"It's even bigger than I remember." Trembled Mickey while Sora, Roxas and Gus moved to his side.
"Oh no. Oh no!" Oswald gasped in fear and sudden realization, standing a few feet away from the group. "He's going to absorb all the paint and destroy Wasteland!" The rabbit slowly started backing away, eyes glued to the giant Blot.
"And once he's done here, he's going to head straight for Disney Town!" Mickey exclaimed. "There's no way the others will be able to fight against it after all the heartless that are invading."
Sora clenched his fists, turning to the team. "Then, it looks like it's up to us to stop the Blot!"
"Sora, are you crazy?!" Roxas questioned. "We can't fight that thing! We couldn't even attack it when it grabbed us!"
"That's right." Gus agreed sadly. "It took all of Oswald's power and the strength of all of Wasteland to contain it the first time."
Mickey hung his head. "For once, Sora. I think this is a battle we can't win. I created a monster."
"Don't talk like that, your majesty!" Exclaimed Sora. "You just gave up your heart to save us! I know you wouldn't have done that if you didn't think that deep down we could beat the Blot! You've never given up like this before even when things looked impossible! We can't let the Blot win just yet! So you made a mistake when you were younger, that just means you have to try and fix it!"
The small king remained silent for a few moments, Sora's words being processed through his mind. Slowly, hope began to return to him as he looked up into Sora's eyes and his smile started coming back.
"You're right, Sora. It's my fault the Blot was created, I need to fix my mistake and help save Wasteland. I owe it's people that much." Said Mickey with a tone of newfound confidence as he turned to his companions. "I'm going to fight the Blot. Will you all help me?"
"Of course we will, Mickey!" Gus pounded his fists into the air. "It's about time we put an end to the Blot once and for all!"
"You can count on me, your majesty!" Stated Sora.
Roxas nodded his head, just as ready as the others to fight. But as he looked to his side, he noticed someone was missing from their group. "Wait! Where's Oswald?"
Sora, Mickey and Gus all turned their heads to the spot where Oswald once stood, finding no one there.
"Oh dear." Sighed Gus. "Oswald must have run off on his own."
"Then we better go find him." Mickey said. "We'll need his help to stop the Shadow Blot. And, I need to give him a proper apology."
Gus nodded his head. "Alright then, men. Follow me, I have a pretty good idea where our Lucky Rabbit friend may have gone." With that, Sora, Roxas and Mickey followed Gus all the way down the mountain and jumped through the projector screen, fighting against an increased amount of deadly, inky heartless. The skies remained dark and Stormy while the Shadow Blot watched with a dark, victorious grin spread across it's mouth.
PrismRain13: Thanks so much for reading, sticking with me for so long and being so patient for 50 WHOLE CHAPTERS! It means a lot to know that you guys like my stories!
Gus: Congratulations, Prism! We'll see you all next time! Don't forget to leave a review!
PrismRain13: oh, and here's a hint for the new summon charm; it's a classic Disney character who appeared in Epic Mickey 2.
(1) - Rufus's limit: Naked Mole Rap