Chapter 64: The Golden Arrow
Max started to make his way back from his combat training with Little John, they had encountered some Heartless while training so it was all a good work-out in Max's mind. Little John stayed behind to clean up the mess that their training/heartless raid had caused so that Prince John's men don't find leads to their camp. Max and Goofy had been in Sherwood forest for a couple of days now and had received word from Donald that they have arrived in Radiant Garden and that they have managed to get in contract with Brian, saying that they were heading to another world before going to Little Devon. Max had been training with Little John and Robin for the tests that they have been running, he still has no idea what the tests are for. Goofy was pull in charge of delivering payment to the poor while they train, saying that is Goofy's part of the test.
Max was close to the camp when he could hear overhear a conversation going on. Max sneaked closer to the camp, remaining hidden, as he looked in the camp to see Goofy and Robin talking. Robin was currently working on the chow that they were going to have while Goofy was finishing some of the cleaning up of the camp. It seems that the two was talking about Max.
"Your boy has a sharp eye on the bow." Robin commented, "Where did he train?"
"Well, Maxie trained on his world at Little Devon Academy." Goofy answered casually. Max groaned because of this, why is his dad telling a rebel about his personal life?
"His World?" Robin stopped cooking and looked at Goofy, "He's not on the same world as you?"
"Max had chosen to go to Little Devon, it was better for him there." Goofy sighed.
"Well, wasn't you and his mother worried about him?" Robin asked. He soon regretted asking the question when he watched Goofy freeze from the question and hung his head down in sorrow. "I'm sorry, Goofy. I didn't mean to open up old wounds." Robin went over to Goofy to see if he was alright.
"I'll be fine." Goofy smiled at him, "As long as I'm able to see Maxie happy then I'm happy and I'm sure that his mother is proud of him too."
What his dad had just said had really touched Max's heart. He didn't realise that his dad cared about him so much. He always thought that he had completely blanked him after leaving Disney Castle with Daniel. Max could see that his father had made sure that he was happy, even if it separated them. A tear fell down Max's face, Max quickly wiped it away. He guessed that the comment about his past away mother being proud of him got to him the most. Max shook his thoughts away before he decided to show himself, "Hey Dad." He smiled at him.
"Well hiya son." Goofy said cheerfully, "How was training?"
"Interesting." Max said with amusement, he didn't really feel like mentioning the Heartless at the moment. Max then turned to Robin, who had gone back to cooking their meal. "Hey Robin, how do you know the maiden?" he asked.
"Oh, Maid Marian?" Max nodded. "Well, the two of us were childhood sweethearts. We were never separated from each other. We have to bid farewell though when she was needed in London. I haven't seen her since that day." Robin seemed to fall into a daydream after that, confirming to Max that the conversation has ended.
"Gawsh, you don't think that Maid Marian has gone to the London in Neverland, do ya?" Goofy whispered to his son.
"I wouldn't think so." Max answered, "There are more than one London in many worlds." Max looked at Robin in his dreamy state before looking back at his father, "Do you think that Robin and Marian were like Sora and Kairi when Robin meant by 'Childhood Sweethearts'?"
"Huh?" Goofy quickly took this time to look at the dreamy state archer before chuckling to himself, "Yep, me and Donald have seen Sora in that state many times, Ah-yuck!" Max started chuckle slightly with his father.
Little John began whistling his way back in the camp when he noticed that Robin had a dreamy daze look on his face. Little John laughed at this, "Hey lover boy, how's that grub coming? Man I'm starved." Robin only seemed to hum a song that was struck in his head with the same expression on his face. Goofy and Max sound this amusing as they laughed harder. "Rob?" Little John looked at Robin again, "Robin?" Little John tried to grab his attention. Little John clapped his hands right by Robin's face, making him jump.
"What?" Robin stepped away from the pot, "What did you say?"
"Ah, forget it." Little John pushed away, "You're mind not on the food. You're thinking about somebody with long eyelashes. You're smelling that sweet perfume." Little John said in a dreamy tone before noticing a smell. Max halted his laugher when he smelt something aswell. "Is something burning?"
"Oh! The food." Robin turned around to see that the pot was boiling over.
Little John quickly rushed over as soon as he saw it, "YOU'RE BURNING THE CHOW!!!!" Little John grabbed a glove and lifted the pot up before lifting the lid to have lots of black smoke meet his face.
"Well, looks like we're not eating today." Goofy sighed as he and Max sat down near John. Goofy remembered when Sora tried cooking for the first time; he even managed to set an orange on fire. He and Donald still had no idea how Sora managed to do that without that spell.
"Sorry, Guys. I was thinking about Maid Marian again. I can't help it. I love her."
"Aww, that's great that you've found your true love, Robin." Goofy smiled. Robin thanked him with a smile.
"Hey look, why don't you stop mooning and moping around? Just marry the girl." Little John suggested as he checked on how bad the chow was.
"Marry her?" Robin said with disbelief, "You don't just walk up to a girl under a bookcase and say, 'Remember me? We were kids together, will you marry me'? No it isn't just done that way." Robin signed at the end.
"Oh, come on Robby. Climb the castle walls. Sweep her off her feet. Carry her off in style." Little John told him. Goofy looked at his son to see that he was taking note on what Little John was suggesting.
"It's no use Johnny. As I told you it just wouldn't work. Besides, what can I offer her?" Robin asked as he started to hang up the clean washing on the tree.
"Well, for one, you can't cook." Little John said as he took a burn carrot out of the pot and threw it away.
"I'm serious. She's a high born lady of quality." Robin said firmly.
"Does it matter which class she's from?" Max asked him.
Robin sighed before answering the question, "I'm an outlaw so it does matter. That's no life for a lovely lady, always on the run. What kind of a future is that?" Robin asked them.
"For heaven's sake, son." Friar Tuck seem to appear out of nowhere, surprising Robin. This made Robin fall into the basket that he was getting clean washing out of. "You're not an outlaw. Why, someday you'll be called a great hero."
"A hero? Do you hear that Johnny? We've just been pardoned." Robin joked happily.
"Ho, ho, that's a gas. We ain't been arrested yet." John joined in before all of the outlaws started to laugh about the matter.
"All right. Laugh you rogues, but there's going to be a big to-do in Nottingham." Max noticed that Friar Tuck tried the burned chow before any of them realised. He soon started to sweat and cough from the hot and burn taste. "Well-done, ain't it?" He said, referring to the chow. "Old Prince John's having a championship archery tournament tomorrow."
"Archery tournament? Rob and Max could win that standing on his head." Little John said, Goofy backed him up on the comment.
"Thanks guys." Max smiled.
"I'm sure we're not invited though." Robin informed them as he got out of the washing basket, reminding them that they're wanted men.
"No, but there's somebody who'll be very disappointed if you don't come." Friar tuck said as he carried on eating the chow. Goofy though that the chow was safe to eat since Friar Tuck was eating it but as soon as he placed the chow in his mouth, he rushed to the closest lake as quickly as he could. Friar Tuck just shrugged it off and carried on eating the burn chow.
"Yeah. Old Bushel Britches--- the Honourable Sheriff of Nottingham." Little John laughed.
"No." Friar Tuck ate another bit of the chow before facing Robin, "Maid Marian."
Robin froze at this, "Maid Marian?" He repeated.
Friar Tuck nodded as he FINALLY placed the spoon back in the pot, Max had no idea how he could eat that stuff. "Yeah. She's going to give a kiss to the winner." Friar Tuck then looked at Max, "As well as handing out the Golden Arrow."
"It's still sounds-"Max started to think about it but Robin has already made his mind up.
"A kiss to the winner? Oo-de-lolly! Come on Johnny! What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Robin picked up his bow and arrows and began to head his way out of the camp. John, Friar Tuck and Max followed him to try and make sense.
"Wait a minute, Rob. That place will be crawling with soldiers." Little John warned him.
"And Heartless." Max added.
"Aha! But remember, faint hearts never won fair lady. Fear not my friends." Robin quickly shot an arrow which reflected off of one of the cooking pans while Robin threw his hat in the air. "This will be my greatest performance." Robin said as the arrow when threw his hat and the hat simply landed back on his head. Max looked at Robin with amazement. "And Max... this will be your final test as I cannot do this alone."
BOWBOWBOW
"What do you see, Goofy?"
"Hmm..." Goofy looked at the archery tournament, "I see...I see Prince John...He's sitting with...Pete?!" What's Pete doing here?" Goofy turned around to see Robin, Little John and Max dressing into their disguises. Both Robin and Max were disguised like two storks with dark green robes, blue head dresses and huge peasant hats. They also managed to get feathered gloves that made their arms like a stork and have feathers coming out at the end of the robe. They still need to place the beaks on and Max seem to have some trouble balancing on the bamboo sticks that were suppose to be legs. Little John was wearing a fake blonde wig and moustache while wearing a pink formal suit that seemed a bit too small for him.
Max looked at his dad when he heard the name 'Pete', "Pete? I thought he was trapped in another dimension?"
"Oh! He managed to get freed by Maleficent a while back." Goofy informed him.
"And you decide to tell me this NOW!" Max said with frustration before losing balance on his stork legs. "What else did you see?" Max sighed as he grabbed his beak and tried to place it on.
"Don't worry, Goofy. I'll check it out." Robin said as he and Little John checked out the tournament.
Goofy went over to Max, who was shrugging with his mask and knell down next to him. Goofy held out his hand, indicating to give him the beak. Max looked unsure at first before smiling at his dad and handed it over. As Goofy began to place the beak on his son, he began to talk, "Son, I just wanna take this chance to say that I'm sorry." After placing the beak on, Max looked at his father with confusion. "I'm sorry that I never told anyone about you while travelling with Sora. I was worried that if they knew about you...the Heartless might come after you." Max nodded to show his father that he was listening, considering the fact that Max looked nothing like himself at the moment. "I just hope that you forgive me." Goofy lowered his head down in shame.
"Dad..." Max wasn't sure what to say.
"Max! Come on!" Little John started to approach them; "Robin has already gone. The tournament is about to start." Max nodded and tried to stand up on the bamboo sticks.
Max managed to stand and started to walk towards the tournament when he halted and turned back to his father. Goofy looked up and smiled at him warmly, "Good luck, son."
"Thanks Dad." Max smiled back. He turned towards the tournament and began to look for Robin.
It took a while for Max to get used to the bamboo sticks as he found them hard to balance in when he notices a stork over at where the maiden was sitting. 'But of course.' Max went over to Robin as fast as he could when he heard Robin talking to the maiden, "Ah, Your Ladyship. I beg your pardon; it's a great honour to shoot for the favour of a lovely lady like yourself. Hope I win the kiss."
Max noticed as soon as he got there that the Vixen and the Fox were staring dreamily into each others eyes. Max groaned at this,' I seen enough of this with Sora and Kairi.' Max tapped Robin on the shoulder, "The tournament is starting, brother." Both had agreed in the back-story of being brothers since they couldn't find a good enough disguise for Max.
The maiden managed to catch Robin's attention once more, "Well, thank you my thin-legged archer. I wish you luck..." the maiden then leaned forward towards Robin's face whispering, "with all my heart." Max heard enough of the lovey dovey stuff, He grabbed his 'brother's' robe and started to drag him to where the rest of the archers were.
Robin seemed to snap out of his love struck state and started to look at his surroundings, Max then wondered what Little John and his father are doing. Max quickly asked him and Robin first pointed to where Prince John and Pete were sitting. They could see Prince John dismissing some Heartless while letting Little John join them to watch the event. Max looked at Robin again as he couldn't see his father. "Goofy is making sure that the Heartless don't ruin our cover." Robin answered after seeing Max's worried face, "He'll be fine." Max couldn't help but get the bad feeling that was set in his stomach.
After Prince John showed the contestants the Golden Arrow, the tournament began...
BOWBOWBOW
"How come we've stopped here?"
"There's a keyhole that nears to be sealed here and one of Little Devon member's have been located here."
"I wonder who it is."
"That's what I want you to find out. While I go and seal the Keyhole and head to Incas, you find the member and you take them back to Little Devon."
"Why am I being sent back again?"
"Because you need to update our status at HQ and you been annoying the hell out of me on every world that we've been to. I tell you to be sneaky but you decided to shout 'cheese?' as loud as you can which attracts every single enemy in the area."
"Ohhh! That was what you were talking about."
"What the HELL did you think I was talking about?"
"Nacho Cheese."
"........."
"I know, I was confused too. Why would you bring up Nacho Cheese while passing the enemy? It's not like you like Nacho Cheese or the Endless like Nacho Cheese. It was just confusing to hear you say it on every world we go to."
"How does Nacho Cheese sound like sneaky?!? They don't even sound the same!"
"It doesn't have to sound the same so long as it rhymes."
"Oh Kingdom Hearts, help us all."
BOWBOWBOW
It was down to the finals of the archery tournament.
Both Max and Robin, a.k.a The Stork Brothers from Devonshire, have managed to get into the final three. The only problem is that their competition was none other then the Sheriff of Nottingham. Max was quickly collecting his arrows while looking for any sign of his father. The Heartless were still searching for them but there was no sign of Goofy. Max hoped for the best for his father before heading back to Robin, who was talking to the Sheriff.
"Oh… by the way, I hear you're having a little bit trouble getting your hands on that Robin Hood." Robin said to the sheriff while checking his arrows which were tried together by two sticks. Robin made sure to speak with a Devonshire accent so it would fix with his disguise.
"He's scared of me. Now I told you." The Sheriff said proudly. "He didn't show up here today. I can spot him through them phoney disguises. Even those new outlaws didn't show up and the golden arrow is nice and shiny for them."
"You'll catch them soon, Sheriff." Robin patted the Sheriff casually on the back before heading over back to Max. "What's wrong, Max?" Robin asked him.
"There's still no sign of my dad and there's still sign of heartless." Max replied.
Robin placed his feathered hand on Max's shoulder, "Seems to me, Max, that you are caring for your father's safety."
"What?!" Max said in disbelief, "Yeah right." Robin removed his hand from Max, "C'mon, let's win this thing." Robin agreed to this as he quickly looked at the maiden before the two began heading back to where the sheriff is.
The three finalists turned their sight to Prince John, who began to explain the rules of the final challenge, "For the final shootout, move the target back 30 paces." The middle target moved all of a sudden at exactly 30 paces backwards. "Each archer will get one arrow; who even has the best shot will win the Golden Arrow and the kiss from Maid Marian." Prince John quickly asked Maid Marian to kiss the side of the Golden Arrow. Max noticed that the arrow was covered with a bright pink aura before fading away. That's the ingredient. They were right about Maid Marian being the maiden of this world.
The Sheriff was the first to go; he stepped forward confidently before placing his arrow into his bow and aimed at the target. He fired his shot and it looked like it was going to fly over the target when the target suddenly jumped up, making the arrow hit the bulleye. Max looked angrily at the Sheriff as he know that was a cheap shot. "Well, that shot wins the golden arrow, the kiss and the whole caboodle." The Sheriff dusted his hands off.
Max shook his head at the Sheriff and began to aim down the range, concentrating on hitting the bulleye before taking it shot. At first, it looked like that Max's arrow was going to hit the bulleye but the arrow started to slow down while in mid-air. Everyone face's seemed to turned to an confused and worried expression when they saw the arrow had come to a complete halt while floating in mid-air. Robin turned to Max, giving him a questionable look while Max showed him the same confused look. The arrow slowly started to turn away from the target and pointed towards to where Prince John, Pete, Maid Marian and Little John were sitting. The arrow shot at high speed towards Maid Marian; Robin quickly shot his arrow at the rouge arrow and shot the arrow in another angle. The rouge arrow still headed in the same direction but managed to shoot Prince John in the shoulder instead of Maid Marian. Robin sighed in relief as he managed to save Maid Marian while Max looked at the situation in front of him with worry.
Pete looked at Prince John state and growled, "Ohh, Maleficent is gonna have my head for this." Pete then looked at the disguised Max, "Heartless, kill that archer!" Pete clicked his fingers, summoning lots of Soldiers and Archers. Pete looked at the other disguised archer, "Capture him!" he commanded.
Robin and Max had no choice but to drop their disguises as Robin grabbed a sword and Max changed to his blades as they started to fight off against the Heartless. Pete looked surprised to see that Max was on this world and started to look for any signs of his father. One by one, Robin and Max got rid of the Heartless but started to become tired from the amount of Heartless that was being summoned. The Heartless suddenly froze in place as they noticed something was off before fleeing off of the world.
Pete seemed to be confused by this, "Where have all my Heartless gone?! This just keeps getting weirder and weirder." Little John decided that this would be a good time to get Maid Marian to safety.
"What's going on here, Pete? Where's the Heartless?" The Sheriff demanded, too shocked about Prince John's attack to notice that the Storks were Max and Robin. Pete and the Sheriff looked at Prince John as they heard a grunt from him pulling out the arrow. Prince John didn't say a word as he grabbed the Golden Arrow and began to absorb it's power.
Max realised what he was doing, "We have to stop him! He could kill himself!" Robin saw that Little John had taken Maid Marian to safety so he nodded and began to run towards the phony king. A barrier blocked Robin and Max off from Prince John, making the two archers turn around to face the enemy.
Max gasped as he saw that his father was being held hostage by no other than Link.
A/N: Will Max save his father? Who were the two that arrived on Sherwood Forest? Will I forever be called Axel for the rest of my life? Tune in next time for Kingdom Hearts: Balance of Worlds.
Wow! This chapter was kinda hard to write; at least it has gone to a twist like the other worlds. The next chapter will be the last Sherwood Forest one and would lead to Radiant Garden with Riku before back to Sora.
Riku: I'm bored of being in a comatose state, it's as if you don't like me.
Mad: Noooo, you're great Riku. If you think I'm bad to you, you should check out 'Mr. Right'
Riku: Whhhhhy?
Mad: You get tortured by your four brothers.
Riku: I have brothers? Since when?
Mad: Now to messages...
Kisdota- The Freak Gamer: There weren't really many spoilers there, the knight bit is from KH2:FM, its a secret boss like Xemnas was in KH:FM. The only spoiler would have to be the part when they are riding their keyblades. Don't blame ya for the chapter, it was a little off.
Celticskyedancer: I'm a final fantasy fan too! Sherwood Forest will be done soon for Radiant Garden hopefully.
Island-style-girl: RIKU WILL NEVER BE OKAY BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Blastbone: thanks for the review; it's nice to know that you like my story.
Noami.G: I'm glad you liked the Ven and Terra bit, that was the best in that chapter.
Future Keyblade: I know but even Organisation members attacked me. Only Demyx was on my side....he did abandon me when I had to deal with Riku and Sora. No cookies for you Dem Dem.
Artism: I found out that KH:BBS will come out in Japan in January so that means that it be in the US in around summer time, I think. Don't worry. Everyone thinks I'm a ninja since I'm able to appear out of nowhere. It's funny. Since you're drawing, could you try and draw one of the Order members of your choice? I would like to see if my imagination in this story comes out right.
xxKHxxFan14: I'm glad that you like Sora and Kairi in this story.
Hardcore KHFan: Thank you X3
Soragirl4ever: COOKIES!!! YUM YUM! I HAVE ENERGY!! I've reviewed your story, sorry for no doing it sooner, i've been doing other stuff lately. Why don't you do treasure planet? I'm not doing that one still Balance of Memories or Narian or Brother Bear or create your own world. Remeber, when doing a world, don't just follow the film story line. Throw your story into it. (e.g. Prince John doesn't get shot by an arrow in the film) Use your imagination. You could make Hades blow up so long as it kinda makes sense.
Grey vs Ale: YES! SOMEONE LIKES BRIAN!!!
That's about it. I'm gonna rest now. I think I've caught the virus. Blah Blah Blah.
See ya next time
Kingdommad