On Today's Episode: The trinity makes a pit stop in Traverse Town, both to bring their newest summon gem to Dorothy and to return the first torn page to the Pipo Storybook. And waiting inside the book is the first of Specter's newest henchmen, the Freaky Monkey Five. Can Nick help Jimmy take down Blue Monkey and advance further in their quest to find and capture Specter?
EDIT 10/19/22: Changed the next episode preview due to picking a different world for the next episode.
Episode 8: Fleet-Footed Blue Monkey
"It doesn't feel like it's been that long since the last time we were here, does it?" Nick wondered as the trinity moved through to the Second District of Traverse Town, occasionally stopping to battle a few scattered Heartless along the way. "And is it always night here?"
"That's what it seems like," Maylin answered after blasting a Plague Beak with a point-blank Thunder spell. "These in-between worlds don't often make too much sense, really."
"Like we said, Traverse Town's mostly a waystation world for people who lost their worlds, but somehow survived," Haruka stated.
The trinity crossed through the Third District and entered the tunnel that led to the Mystic Cavern where Julius and Dorothy were staying.
"Ah, you have returned," Julius proclaimed. "I believe you have found a missing page to the book?"
"Right as rain," Nick replied, walking over to the Pipo Storybook and placing the page that Eri had given him into the first torn spot, after which the page magically re-fused with the book. "Now let's see where this passage takes us."
Nick re-opened the storybook and turned to the page he'd returned, and the book emitted a bright green glow that pulled him inside of it.
When Nick landed in the laboratory, he noticed that it had been mostly remodeled into a teleportation station of sorts, no doubt for Jimmy to head out and catch the out-of-control monkeys.
"Oh, you're back," Natalie proclaimed as she walked out from the room nearby. "Looks like you found one of the pages."
"Seems so," Nick replied. "Is Jimmy back yet?"
"He should be any second now," Natalie responded, and sure enough, Jimmy came flying out of the teleporter, his Monkey Net in hand.
"Mission complete, Natalie!" Jimmy proclaimed. "I captured all the monkeys in that place."
Before Natalie could respond, however, the nearby viewscreen turned to static interference before cutting to a strange room where Specter himself, sitting on a floating chair, could be seen.
"Why, hello, my human friends," Specter laughed. "How are you doing on this fine day?"
"Specter," Natalie growled. "You're up to your usual tricks again, aren't you?"
"You don't have to be so blasé," Specter responded. "We superior monkeys are simply offering to rule over you foolish humans who simply cannot take care of yourselves."
"Oh, so you didn't learn your lesson even after Spike cleaned your clock?!" Natalie taunted.
"Yes, I supposed I failed to play my cards right that time," Specter admitted as he picked up a glowing banana. "But you won't be so lucky this time. Now, I have the Freaky Monkey Five on my side, and they'll put up a fight like you've never seen before! I'm sorry, but you fools don't stand a chance. I fed them these special Vita-Z Bananas, so they're much stronger than you."
"Maybe don't get cocky, Specter?" Nick taunted. "After all, that's what brought you down last time."
"Just you wait, Specter," Natalie stated. "Jimmy's gonna be there any moment to capture you!"
In response, Specter just laughed like he didn't consider them a threat. "Oh, we'll see who will catch who. This looks like it's going to be a lot of fun," Specter proclaimed before ending the transmission.
As soon as that happened, the alarms in the Travel Station began to blare as Natalie checked what was happening.
"It looks like we've got a lock on one of the Freaky Monkey Five that Specter mentioned," Natalie proclaimed.
"That must be what the missing pages represent, then," Nick realized.
"All right, you two, head over to the location we received and take down that monkey!" Natalie exclaimed.
"Roger that!" Nick and Jimmy shouted at the same time, jumping on the warp pad so it could transport them to a floating four-way crossing suspended high in the sky.
It seemed like there wasn't anybody here, but Nick knew better, especially after all the adventuring he'd been doing.
"Well, well, kiddies, you've done pretty good to make it this far."
Jimmy pointed to the other side of the west crossing, where a tall and slim monkey wearing a blue one-piece outfit resembling a jumpsuit, with fingerless gloves, steel kneepads, and blue and silver sneakers, a modified blue Pipo Helmet that covered one eye with a big white B emblem on the front, and his Specter Badge on his belt, was waiting for them.
"Ever hear of the Freaky Monkey Five?" the monkey laughed, turning around on his unicycle to face his challengers. "Well, I'm Blue Monkey! The boss monkey ordered me to stop you, so I'm afraid that's what I've gotta do. Don't take it personal, though. I'm doing this for all the little monkeys out there."
"Oh, really?" Jimmy shot back.
"Hehehe, you're definitely now cowards, are you?" Blue Monkey stated. "By the way, didn't your mama ever tell you not to cross at a red light? Because I'll make sure you never forget."
"How about you just stop monologuing and bring it on?!" Nick shouted, summoning the Kingdom Key to his hand.
Blue Monkey did so, surrounding himself with a spherical barrier and charging towards them at high speeds.
Jimmy, remembering what he'd had to do to catch some monkeys earlier, summoned his Super Hoop and began running forward, the Super Hoop spinning around him to increase his speed to match Blue Monkey's.
The two crashed into each other, but Jimmy's Super Hoop won out and broke Blue Monkey's barrier, leaving him wide open for Nick to jump over Jimmy and land a few hits on Blue Monkey until he sped away to another side of the crossing, dropping bombs as he went to deter Nick and Jimmy from following him.
Not to be discouraged, Nick simply moved the opposite way and eventually found himself behind Blue Monkey. Before Blue Monkey could turn around, Nick unleashed a Sonic Blade to knock Blue Monkey around some. After the last hit, Nick noticed that the light on Blue Monkey's Pipo Helmet changed from blue to yellow, most likely an indicator of their progress.
Blue Monkey sped away again, but this time, as Nick tried to pursue, the traffic lights at this corner of the crossing turned red, and the bridge he was on started to collapse. Nick quickly jumped back to the corner platform as Blue Monkey sped around and charged down Jimmy again.
Though Blue Monkey tried to swerve to throw his opponent off, Jimmy simply juked the same way and broke Blue Monkey's barrier with the Super Hoop, allowing Jimmy to whack him a few times with his Stun Club.
Blue Monkey's helmet went from yellow to red as he sped off, tossing whole clusters of bombs this time. The bombs' explosions created enough of a distraction for Blue Monkey to sneak up behind Jimmy and charge, faster than Jimmy could get his Super Hoop up to defend himself.
Nick solved that by placing himself in front of Jimmy and raising the Kingdom Key in a parrying stance so that Blue Monkey bounced backwards, his barrier breaking in the process. Nick took advantage of this by lunging forward with a keyblade strike so fast that Jimmy only saw Nick lunge, then appear behind Blue Monkey.
Nick's new move, Zantetsuken, dealt the finishing blow and knocked Blue Monkey off of his unicycle and caused his Pipo Helmet to shut off, leaving him stunned so that Jimmy could approach and use his Monkey Net to capture Blue Monkey, sending him away with a flash of blue light.
"Nice one, Jimmy," Nick proclaimed.
"Yeah, we make a pretty good team, huh?" Jimmy laughed as they were both surrounded by a flash of blue light, no doubt Natalie bringing them back to the Travel Station.
"Well done, you two," Natalie proclaimed. "That must have been the 'friend' that Specter mentioned."
"Okay, so now what?" Jimmy asked.
"You just keep capturing monkeys," Natalie answered. "I'll keep an eye out for any more of the Freaky Monkey Five."
"Guess that means I've gotta skedaddle myself," Nick stated. "I'm pretty sure the only way we're gonna find more of the 'Monkey Rangers' is if I find more torn pages."
"Try not to be too long, 'kay?" Jimmy stated. "Specter sounds like he's gonna be a problem."
"Just wait until I get my keyblade on him," Nick chuckled as he jogged out of the laboratory and jumped into the green portal just outside the lab, returning him to the Mystic House with a shiny new Ability Crystal in his hand.
Almost as soon as he'd returned, Maylin and Haruka descended from the upper floor of the Mystic House with Julius.
"Oh, back already?" Haruka quipped.
"Sorry 'bout vanishing on you, but we decided to do some magic training while you were taking care of business in there," Maylin replied. "Did everything work out?"
"The first member of the Freaky Monkey Five has been pasted," Nick answered. "I figured out that each missing page correlates to one of the FNF, so once we find the pages, we'll be that much closer to finding Specter as well."
"Oh, hey, you found another summon gem!" Dorothy proclaimed. "Let's get them back into fighting shape, shall we?"
Nick walked over to hand the summon gem off to Dorothy as brought out her grimoire and opened it, flipping its pages to the spell she wanted.
"Dream Magic: Spirit Reconfiguration!" Dorothy proclaimed, the pages of her grimoire glowing and surrounding the summon gem with a cloud of multi-colored magic. After a couple seconds, the cloud vanished, and the summon gem had transformed into a fiery red crystal shaped like a witch's hat.
"That's two so far," Dorothy stated. "We'll get these poor souls back in no time if you keep finding them like you have."
Nick nodded to Dorothy as she handed the Fireglow off to him.
Naturally, once the trinity had left the Mystic Cavern and returned to the Third District, they were accosted by a small army of Heartless, mainly Large Bodies and Plague Beaks with a few Green Requiems flanking them.
"Okay, this is just getting stupid!" Maylin shouted.
"Maybe they know we just got a powerup and want to take us out quickly?" Haruka responded.
"Well, if that's what they want, let's give 'em a show," Nick proclaimed.
As the Heartless advanced on them, Nick clenched his hand around the Fireglow, causing burning red energy to radiate from it. Maylin and Haruka were briefly enveloped in that same glow before completely vanishing.
("Spark Again" by Aimer plays)
Swirls of fire began to surround Nick as he raised the Fireglow above him, concussive bursts of fire exploding outwards from it to create a magic seal on the ground in front of him. Nick spun the Kingdom Key in his hands before jamming its blade into the center of the seal and turning it, causing the seal to erupt upwards in a column of fire that eventually cleared away to reveal Nick's newest ally.
She was a pretty young adult of above-average height and fair complexion, slender with a curvaceous and well-endowed figure but also athletically built with well-defined muscle, large violet eyes and long, dark hair reaching down past her shoulders with strands that framed her face, tucked behind her ear on the left side, and cropped bangs that fell over her forehead. She was wearing a black, sleeveless top and long dark trousers, buckled at the waist with a belt, which pressed the middle part that was strapped to her shoulders, topped by a protective outer jacket and trousers, a neck protector, protective gloves, black boots and a helmet, with the buttons of her protective jacket in the shape of cross-like symbols. Many parts of her outfit were also coated with blue lines.
Maki Oze, the Witch Queen of Company 8, spun around and saluted to Nick, one which he returned just as enthusiastically before they both stood side-by-side to face the oncoming horde of Heartless.
One of the Large Bodies lunged forward, only for Maki to snap her fingers and create a ring of floating fireballs with smiley faces on them to surround Nick, protecting him from the Large Body's lunge.
Nick moved in to strike the Large Body while it was stunned, and with every swing he made, a couple of those smiley-faced fireballs would attack the Large Body in conjunction with him.
One of the Plague Beaks tried to attack him from behind, but Maki raised her hands to create geysers of fire around him that incinerated the Plague Beak before it could even get close.
Though the fireballs were eventually depleted by attacking and defending, Maki just snapped her fingers to create more, and the cycle continued.
Once the Plague Beaks and Green Requiems were eliminated, that just left the eight remaining Large Bodies. Maki backflipped into the air and summoned her Iron Owls, two large cannon-like metal pieces that Sputter and Flare, her fire spirits, made their way inside. Nick jumped off of one of the Large Bodies to join Maki in the air, aiming his keyblade towards the Large Bodies.
The Iron Owls began to gather fire energy, as did Nick's keyblade, and they both let out a loud battle cry before unleashing their energy as three bright orange-red beams of energy, two from the Iron Owls and one from the Kingdom Key, that joined into one massive burst of fire energy that scorched the entire immediate area, incinerating all of the Heartless that had gotten caught in it, even some that had just spawned in.
Once the blast had dissipated, Nick and Maki gracefully landed on the ground, then saluted to each other once again, Maki smiling brightly as she burst into a bunch of little Sputters and Flares that reformed into the Fireglow in Nick's free hand.
"Holy crapbaskets, she was literally on fire, huh?" Maylin giggled once she and Haruka had returned.
"Makes you wonder what their worlds are like," Haruka stated. "I mean, we have a magical mermaid, and a witch lady that can control fire. I hope the rest of our summons are just as lively."
"Well, is that everything we came here to do?" Maylin quipped.
"I think so," Nick answered. "So let's head back to the Gummi Ship and push play on our quest."
But as the trinity left the Third District, they just missed Ellen watching them from the nearby alleyway.
As Ellen walked away, she kept staring at her reflection in Starlight, wondering what else Ichinose and her goon squad wasn't telling her. Because why, then, every time she stared at her reflection in this keyblade did she experience flashes of memory, of her fighting alongside other keyblade wielders with keyblades exactly like hers?
She wasn't entirely convinced that these were her own memories, either.
So, what, then?
To be continued...
New summon acquired!
Maki Oze, the Witch Queen of Company 8
MP Required: 3
Anime of Origin: Fire Force (2019)
Theme Song: "Spark Again" by Aimer
Action: Press /\ to create a ring of Sputters and Flares to defend Nick. Every time to swing your keyblade, even if you miss the enemy, the Sputters and Flares will attack any nearby enemies.
Guarding now protects you from all directions with a geyser of fire.
Every Heartless killed while Maki is active fills the Charge Gauge by 1/6.
When Maki's Charge Gauge is full, press /\ to summon the Iron Owls and incinerate everything in the given area.
On the next episode...
Nick: Oof, this place is nuts.
Maylin: No kidding. I thought that one world with the MC Escher paintings was bad enough, but this... THIS...
Haruka: Yeah, it might be hard to figure out which way is up and which way is forward with all of this.
Maylin: Wait, Nick, isn't that your...
Nick: Hold on, Ellen?! What the heck are you doing here?!
Ellen: Oh, stop suddenly acting like you care.
Nick: Welp, looks like we've got another mystery to solve on the next episode of Kingdom Hearts: Key to Her Heart re:Verse, "The Labyrinth of Illusions"!
Nick, Maylin and Haruka: May your hearts be your guiding key!