"Whoa," Sora exclaimed as they all explored the inside of Donald and Goofy's ship. When he heard they had a ship, he thought they were talking about a boat. This though...it was just incredible! The entire thing was enclosed with a gummy-like surface. Goofy called the material "Gummi blocks;" a pretty accurate name. The cockpit, where they would be seated during travel and could see outside, only had three chairs, but with the push of one of the many colorful, blinking buttons, two more came out of the floor.
"How much longer are those two going to take anyway?" Donald grumbled, being very clear with the tapping of his foot he wanted to leave now.
"I guess Leon must've had a lot to talk about with them." Sora recalled how Sam and Dan had been asked to meet Leon in the morning before they all left. "So does this thing really fly?" Sora's attention moved back to the steering wheel and all of the buttons.
"Of course," Goofy responded. "But we all gotta have happy faces to power it."
"How long did it take to make an engine like that?" The three turned around to find Samantha joining them in the cockpit. She was wearing the new outfit she bought which consisted of a pale green shirt with darker green, long sleeves and a light blue pair of jeans. Tan boots finished the setup.
"More likely they found the engine, not made it," Daniel came up next behind his sister. He was now wearing an olive green, leather jacket over a black shirt, dark blue jeans and dark green sneakers. He put a hand to his chin in thought. "Though how they learned to power it…" He trailed off after noticing Donald and Goofy's faces. Even when angry, the duck's beak was always somehow bent into a smile. The dog was as goofy as ever. "Nevermind."
"So you decided to go shopping and make us take a late departure, huh?" Donald plopped himself down in the pilot's seat and started pressing and pulling all sorts of buttons and levers. The ship lit up and began to hum as the others quickly took their seats.
"I think you two look rather nice with the new duds," Goofy commented as he put on his seat belts.
"Why thank you," Sam responded as she mimicked how Goofy put on one seatbelt strap at a time. "And for your information, I picked out these clothes yesterday. Sorry for taking too long, uh," She and Dan shared a look. "Talking with Leon and the others took pretty long." The two had to get used to the name Leon since Squall for some reason didn't like going by his actual name.
"Is all of this really necessary?" Everyone looked at Sora who was completely tangled up in all of the available seat belts. Daniel sniggered as he got up and loosened some of the belts so Sora could maneuver into a more comfortable position.
Sam glared at her brother as he sat back down. "What?" He asked.
"At least he's wearing his seat belts!"
Dan waved her off. "Whatever, I'll be fine."
"Alright, blast off!" Donald challenged that notion by sending the gummi ship skyrocketing up and away from the ground. Daniel soon found himself on the floor, holding onto the bottom of his chair as each bump of the ship caused his whole body to shake. After another minute of this, the ship stopped rattling and they gracefully flowed forward.
Dan got up from the ground and became instantly stunned by the glowing reds, blues and greens of space. "You really weren't kidding about traveling to different worlds." Almost hidden by the colorful swirls were hundreds of stars twinkling far off. The clouds were obstructing their vision more than he thought as, only a few hundred feet away, giant blocks and obstacles similar looking to their ship appeared.
"We found a path to a new world quicker than i thought we would!" Donald gleefully weaved the ship around several blocks and through a hole in a giant asteroid.
"What do you mean?" Sam piped up. "It looks like a minefield to me."
"These are all gummi blocks," Donald explained. "They used to be barriers between the worlds, but a few years ago, something happened and paths were made. All of this stuff used to be a part of the barrier, so a hole to another world must be nearby."
"That only happened recently?" Sam furrowed her brows. Some more blocks appearing took her attention. "Are those ones, like, moving faster?" She pointed at them.
"Waak, Heartless!" Donald shrieked as he pushed a big, red button. A transparent screen appeared in front of him with crosshairs in the middle of it. He then held down a button on the wheel and laser blasts shot out from the ship and tore into the oncoming danger.
"The Heartless have ships?!" Sora jumped out of his seat and smashed his face into the window as if it would help him see out better. The few ships remaining were quickly taken out by Donald's aiming though. "Oh," Sora dejectedly backed away from the window and summoned his Keyblade. "I was hoping to fight them."
"You can't just walk out there and whack at them!" Donald chastised. He straightened himself out and focused back on avoiding all of the obstacles. "Our defenses are top notch. There's no way the Heartless will be an issue!"
Donald was pretty accurate with that statement as they continued traveling forward. Any enemy ships were quickly taken care of with only some slight damage to their ship, which was usually fixed up by running into collectible gummi blocks surprisingly.
Soon enough, they found themselves approaching what must have been a world. It had a glow to it that allowed everyone to see it through the colorful mist that enveloped their gummi ship. The world had a pink and red checkered pattern; a large castle surrounded by a hedge maze stood on the top while a cottage standing by several trees hung from the bottom of the world.
"Do all worlds look that small?" Daniel asked, curious as to how they were able to see buildings like that.
"Well if I remember correctly-" Goofy started.
"You would look small too if you were far away!" Donald retorted. Dan gave him a blank stare. The duck gave off a heavy sigh. "What we see is just a representation of what's down there. The world doesn't literally look like that."
After pulling a lever, Donald got out of his seat. "Time to get out!" The gummi ship was finally at a full stop and the door on the side opened up. "Now the first step in exploring a new world is to take the first step, plant your feet firmly on the grou-waak!" The duck's first step off the ship was a rather large one as he completely fell out. Goofy tried grabbing onto him, but ended up falling as well. Sam, then Dan, and then Sora joined the accidental chain and they all found themselves rather slowly falling down a lengthy hole.
The walls around them changed from dirt to a red tile decorated with paintings, and furniture started appearing around them. Samantha tried enjoying a rocking chair that came from below her, but it quickly leaned over and slid her off. Goofy decided to lie down and take a nap as the floor was still nowhere in sight.
"So..." Samantha started. "Um, are we just going to stop at every world we see and look all around for a few people?"
"Are you getting cold feet already?" Donald sounded a bit too hopeful while asking that.
"As cold as they currently feel, you know, hovering over a large hole, I'm still not planning on leaving you." She responded indignantly. "But do we have any information at all to go off of?"
Sora and Daniel were silent in thought but Donald quacked out, "The King said to find the key and stick with him!"
"And you found Sora, so I guess you succeeded. Did he say what to do next?"
Donald raised a feathered finger and opened his beak, but then stopped and thought for a second. "Stick with him?"
Sam let out an exasperated sigh, but Sora butted in, "My friends are out there somewhere and I want to see all these worlds. We can't just give up because there's nothing to go off of."
"This still sounds a lot better than staying at Traverse Town with Cid for the rest of our lives," Dan added. His sister grunted to show the conversation was at an end.
The floor finally decided to grace the party with its presence. Goofy happened to roll over at the wrong time and land on his belly while the others landed on their feet. Before they could get their bearings, a white rabbit dressed in nice clothing with a red suit jacket ran by shouting, "Oh, my fur and whiskers! I'm Late, I'm late, I'm late!" The rabbit panted while running in a zigzag motion away, continuing to shout about being late and a queen having his head.
"Shall we follow him?" Dan mused.
"Sounds good to me, ah-yuck!" Goofy chuckled as they followed the rabbit.
After rounding a corner, they found a closed door with no sign of the rabbit. Sora opened the door, but another smaller door was right behind it. "Waak! Quit fooling around!" Donald shouted at either Sora or the door (no one could really tell). As if expecting a different result to happen, the duck opened the second door and walked in only to bump into a third even smaller door. What could only be described as quacks that should not be made near children erupted out of Donald's bill as he grabbed and slammed open door after door. The others could only stare dumbfoundedly at the poor care towards these doors. With the last door opened, Donald fell onto his hands while trying to reach for a mercifully nonexistent handle and banged his fists and feet onto the ground until he finally calmed down.
"Is he okay?" Samantha whispered to Goofy from safely behind him.
"Don't worry, ah-yuck, he does this all the time." Goofy reassured her.
"That's not normal!" Sam gasped. Everyone else ignored the outburst. Sora and Donald passed over the threshold of the strange doorway with ease while the others had to duck their heads.
On the other side was a well lit room with a bed against one wall and a fireplace and stove on the other. On the other side of the room from them was a very small door that they barely glimpsed the white rabbit run through. Sora ran up to the door and bent down to look at it. "How did he get so small?"
"No, you're simply too big." The doorknob on the door unexpectedly spoke out.
Donald jumped back, shouting, "It talks!" as the others also had shocked expressions.
The doorknob yawned loudly, the keyhole acting as its mouth. "Must you be so loud? You woke me up." Goofy cheerfully wished him a good morning, but the doorknob responded, "Good night! I need a bit more sleep." Then it gave another loud yawn.
Sora edged closer to the door, reaching his hand out. "Wait, what do we have to do to grow small?"
"Why don't you try the bottle...over there?" The doorknob somehow pushed its knob nose forward, pointing at a table and chairs that were definitely not there when they first entered the room. Daniel walked over and found two bottles standing on the table. One of them had a picture of a sapling turning into a tree while the other had the images reversed.
"This better not turn me into a baby," Daniel commented before taking a sip of the concoction within the latter bottle. His head took a nauseous spin as his body quickly shrunk him down to half the size of the leg of the chair he was standing next to. Goofy took a drink next as Dan went back to the door to try to open it. Unfortunately the doorknob was fast asleep and he didn't feel like assaulting the door open.
"Looks like we need another way-" Dan started to turn around but was pushed to the ground by a clawed attack from an all black Heartless. Goofy slammed into it with his shield before the Heartless was able to sink into the ground. The others were busy taking on more of the dark creatures, but there some colorful ones floating around Dan had never seen before. They were in the shape of bells and were either red or yellow, and they had a heart-shaped emblem on them like the armored Heartless in Traverse Town had.
Unsheathing his sword, Daniel rushed after the floating heartless and tried to swipe at them, but they leisurely floated out of the way. One of the red ones started to float around in a spiral motion, charging a ball of fire over its head. "That doesn't look good," Dan muttered while holding his sword in front to try to defend it. Before the Heartless could finish charging it though, a large foot stomped down on it, taking it and most of the other floating bells out.
"Don't think you can get at my brother while I'm around!" Sam cheered to herself. It looks like their enemies made a grave mistake in showing up before they all had shrunk down in size. The other Heartless stood no chance against her tap dancing prowess, some of them even disappearing back into the void they came from to avoid her wrath.
"Good thinking!" Sora shouted up to Samantha, but she only shouted back saying she couldn't hear him.
"So where do we go now?" Goofy asked the group. Dan mentioned the doorknob being asleep, so they all looked around the room for some other possible escape. Eventually, Sam found she could push the bed into the wall, revealing a large (respective to the shrunken party) hole on the adjacent wall to the bed.
After Sam took a swig to shrink down, she tried joining the others, but Dan got to her first and stopped her. "What's going on?" She asked.
"You, uh..." He was having a hard time trying to come up with the right words. "I don't want you to get hurt by the Heartless either."
"Aww, thank you for caring," she rolled her eyes at him. "I can take care of myself though." Before he could try to respond, she was already walking up to the rest of the group and they walked through the hole in the wall.
Awaiting them on the other side was an archway made out of a hedge with person-sized card soldiers holding spears or axes lining the walls. A courtroom of all things was at the end with a little, blonde girl in a white and blue dress standing at the defendant's podium.
The white rabbit they had been chasing ran up a spiral staircase to the top of a little tower, paused to catch his breath, then tooted out some sounds through a trumpet. "Court is now in session!" He rasped.
"I'm on trial? But why?" The girl gasped and looked around at everyone around her.
"Her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts, presiding!" The white rabbit continued, holding his hand out toward the judge's booth where a plump woman dressed in red and black with a crown on her head resided.
The Queen frowned while getting a good look at the girl. A heart-shaped fan in her hand looked like it was ready to break from her grasp. "This girl is the culprit. There's no doubt about it. And the reason is...because I say so, that's why!" The fan was waved around in a frenzy.
"That is so unfair!" the girl cried out.
The fan was slammed down like a gavel. "Well, have you anything to say in your defense?" The Queen leaned back with a smug look on her face, like she already knew nothing could change the outcome of the trial.
"Of course!" The girl pointed her finger at the Queen. "I've done absolutely nothing wrong!" She folded her arms together as the audience gasped. "You may be queen, but I'm afraid that doesn't give you the right to be so...so mean!"
The Queen's smirk quickly turned into quite a scowl as a tantrum comparative to one Donald would make started up. "Silence! You dare defy me?" she slammed both of her fists on the bench.
"Hey, guys, we should help her out." Sora quietly got the others' attention. It seemed no one had noticed them enter.
Donald looked troubled. "Yeah, but the-"
"We're outsiders, so wouldn't that be muddling?" Goofy advised.
"Meddling!?" Donald corrected him.
"Oh, yeah. Ah-yuck! And that's against the rules."
"But she looks like she's in way over her head there," Sam had her arms folded together and was tapping her foot nervously.
"The court finds the defendant..." Everyone held their breath as the Queen raised her fan into the air. "Guilty as charged!" The girl gasped. "For the crimes of assault and attempted theft my heart..." That led Sora to gasp. "Off with her head!" The Queen almost fell over the desk with how far she reached her fan out toward the girl.
The card soldiers gathered around the girl, ready to drag her to where the deed would be done. "No! No! Oh, please!" The girl waved her arms around in a manic sorrow.
"Hold it right there!" Sora dashed out toward the girl with Daniel right behind him. Donald, Goofy and Sam walk up to them as well.
"Who are you? How dare you interfere with my court?" The Queen growled down at them.
"Excuse me. But we know who the real culprit is!" Sora confidently stated.
"Uh-huh. It's the Heartle-" Goofy covered his mouth quickly to stop himself from ruining the world order.
Sora paused his speech to glance at Goofy, but Dan continued. "That girl has nothing to do with the attack on you. Do you really think she's even capable of such a thing?"
Surprisingly, the Queen seemed rather calm, leaning on the bench and tapping her finger. "Even little girls can be greedy. Do you have any proof of your statements?" Sora and Dan shared a look, unsure how to continue. A smirk grew on the Queen's face as she watched their egos deflate. "Bring me evidence of Alice's innocence! Fail, and it's off with all of your heads!" She leaned back against her chair. "Gather as much or little evidence as you please. Report back here once you're ready."
The card soldiers moved back to their original positions, except for two which led the girl named Alice into a girl-sized birdcage and locked her up.
"Now you've caused a big mess!" Donald chastised the two boys. "How are we supposed to prove she's innocent when we can't say who the real culprit is?"
"As reckless as they are, I didn't really want to watch a little girl get beheaded either," Sam said. "Maybe finding evidence that the Heartless, or some kind of monster, was around here would be enough."
"Maybe we should ask that Alice person how she even ended up in this mess?" Goofy suggested. The others saw no reason not to so they walked up to the bird cage.
Alice noticed them coming and once they stopped in front of her, asked, "Who are you?"
After a small introductory, Sora started up the more important question: "Why are you on trial in the first place?"
"I should like to know the very same thing!" Alice was close to rolling her eyes at the situation. "Apparently I was guilty from the moment I took the stand!"
"That's crazy! So, where are you from?" Sora continued.
"Hmm, curious," Alice pondered. "I can't quite remember. You see, I found this mysterious rabbit hole. When I tried to peek inside, I tumbled in head-over-heels...and I found myself here."
"So you're from another world!" The others quickly reminded Sora to stick to an inside voice.
Goofy thought about what she said. "That's funny. Maybe you don't need a ship, then." No one could try to comprehend how that would work.
Alice looked at them all with a very confused expression. "What do you mean 'another world'?"
Thankfully the card soldier guarding the cage slammed his spear on the ground and shouted, "Enough! The defendant will be silent!"
Dan lightly punched Sora's shoulder as they all walked away. "Nice going. Guess we'll just have to search around for some evidence then."
As they left the courtyard, they ended up walking into a forest where they were reminded that they were not their normal sizes. Grass blades, flowers and mushrooms towered over them, and a puddle of water nearby was more like a small lake. "Where do you think we should start lookin' first?" Goofy asked.
"Hey, do you hear a voice?" Sam stopped and looked around them.
"That's not very nice. Why would you act like Goofy isn't-" Dan started.
"No, you idiot!" Sam slapped him on the arm. "There's someone else talking." They all craned their heads, trying to hear something off. There was a voice, and it was getting louder. Then, on a giant pebble, they noticed a mouth appear, hanging in the air with nobody supporting it. Purple and pink stripes traveled around near the mouth until a whole body of a cat was visible. Issue was that the head was actually below the rest of the body. One of the paws was stepping on it. The cat lifted its paw off and pulled the head onto the neck where it belonged and gave the party the widest grin they had ever seen. "That is freaky. I don't like you." Sam stated.
"Who are you?" Donald yelled at it, also not liking the cat very much.
"Who, indeed?" That cat talked, because of course it can. "Poor Alice. Soon to lose her head, and she's not guilty of a thing!"
Sora perked up at that. "Hey, if you know who the culprit is, tell us!"
"The Cheshire Cat has all the answers-but doesn't always tell. The answer, the culprit, the cat all lie in darkness." The Cheshire Cat then vanished into darkness.
Sora shouted for the cat to come back. It didn't, but they heard its voice echo around them. "They've already left the forest. I won't tell which exit. There are four pieces of evidence in all. Three are a cinch to find. The fourth is tricky. Big reward if you find them all."
The five all looked at each other. "Should we trust him?" Donald questioned.
The cat did return after this. "To trust, or not to trust? I trust you'll decide!" It then disappeared again.
"I think we can all agree that none of us like that cat," Dan had decided.
With nothing better to do, a wave of Heartless appeared in front of the group. More of the shadow creatures that could sink into the ground and a single, extremely rotund Heartless were ready to go on the offensive. Daniel instantly stepped in front of his sister as he drew his sword, but she pushed him to the side and started walking toward the enemy. "I told you I can handle myself." She reached into a small bag attached to her hip and pulled out a small object that ejected into a quarterstaff. Dan didn't look very reassured until she started spinning the staff around with both hands. Dashing into the Heartless, she whacked away at one of the shadows and it soon disappeared.
"I guess I stand corrected," Daniel ceded. It didn't take long for them to finish the rest of the Heartless off, though it did take a bit to learn they could only attack the large one from behind. Any attack from the front merely bounced off its thick skin. "Where did you learn to fight like that?" Dan asked Sam after they recuperated.
"Aerith taught me a bit while you were busy. Where did you learn to fight?" Sam sent the question back. He wasn't able to come up with an answer.
After that, the five decided to split up into two groups to more quickly search for evidence. Sora stuck with Donald and Goofy while the two siblings went off in a different direction. Sora, Donald and Goofy made quick work of any Heartless that appeared on the large lily pads or tree branches in the air. By the request of Sam, she and Dan remained on the ground and searched for clues that way. The two were able to find footprints that matched one of the types of Heartless they had seen before, and also found an antenna. They met the others back at the entrance of the forest, but they had only found…
"I don't want to know what that is! Put it away!" Sam shouted while pinching her nose. The stench coming from the box in Sora's hand was completely unbearable.
"So that means we won, right?" Dan smugly showed off their two evidence.
"A deal is a deal!" Goofy agreeably handed a bag of munny over while Donald looked at them in disapproval.
"Wait, this was a competition?" Sora asked. "Man, I would've tried a lot harder!" None of them could think of where else the supposed fourth piece of evidence could be though, so they decided to return to the courtyard.
A card soldier was ready for them as they approached the court. "Are you ready to present evidence before the Queen?"
"As ready as we'll ever be," Sora truthfully answered.
"Very well," the card said. "Counsel, step up to the podium."
Sora went up alone while the others stood in a guest box near the side. The Queen was smiling the whole time, still sure that she would be the victor. "Now, show me what you have found." Three card soldiers came out with boxes that the found evidence was put in. "Well, that's certainly a lot of evidence, but I'm still not impressed. Cards! Bring forth my evidence!" Two more cards appeared with identical boxes. "Hmm," the Queen pondered, "checking all five would only be a waste of time. All right, then. Choose the one you wish to present. I'll decide who's guilty based on that evidence.
"What?" Sora gasped. "After all the trouble of collecting it?"
The Queen quickly became ferocious. "You dare object? Then you will lose your head! Now, choose! One box!"
Sora looked at the others. Sam waved her hand as if to say "go on." Donald had his arms folded and was probably tapping his foot in anger. Dan gave him a shrug, and Goofy was looking at a rose bush nearby. Some of the white roses looked like they had red paint on them. Sora gave up in trying to fight back and picked one of the boxes after the card soldiers had mixed them up. Everyone watched in full curiosity as the box was opened to reveal…
"I knew it!" The Queen shouted. Above the box was floating an image of Sam and Dan. The real versions of the two were shouting their disagreements, but the Queen wanted nothing of it. "It will be off with your heads!" The box they were standing in disappeared and two cages erupted from the ground and captured the siblings, barely missing Donald and Goofy. The defendant's podium also disappeared and a tower with large cranks coming out of three of the sides sprung up instead. One of the card soldiers ran up and started cranking it, causing the bird cage Alice was in to move a curtain over her and rise up into the air. "Seize them at once!" The Queen ordered.
Sora readied his Keyblade and swung at the card soldier that dared to approach him first. Donald and Goofy rushed in to help him, leaving Sam and Dan in their cages. The black cards holding axes didn't have much of a chance against the longer reach of the Keyblade. Goofy's defensive maneuvers and Donald's magic also quickly swayed the battle towards their side, even with the card soldiers having a much larger amount of bodies.
"Cards!" The Queen shrieked, as most of the axe soldiers resembled a game of fifty-two card pickup on the field. "If they touch the tower, you lose your heads!" The red cards holding spears jumped in to help their brethren. They were much more formidable of opponents, being able to stab at Sora while staying far enough away to avoid the Keyblade. Donald looked to be running low on magic power and his staff, while capable of dealing blunt damage, was not designed to do so effectively. The two had to rely on Goofy's shield to keep them protected, but the card soldiers were slowly pinning them against the tower.
"Hey, she told them to stop you from touching the tower!" Dan shouted at the trio. "Maybe you should try touching it?" All he was capable of doing was watching, being unable to find any way out of the cage besides possibly digging far enough down through the ground he was standing on.
Being bothered to actually listen to Dan, Donald turned around as the other two continued to deflect the approaching spears and tried to move one of the cogs in the tower. It might as well have been rusted in place as no amount of the duck's strength was able to budge the thing. "Confounded thing!" He kicked at the tower, which just caused him to jump up and down on his other foot while holding the now in pain one.
The Queen was still shouting at her card soldiers during all of this. "Get them, you fools! Quit joking around!" It looked like she was ready to jump down from her seat and attack them herself.
Sam grimaced as she watched the debacle of this terrible trial. All of the shouting and sounds of metal upon metal and being unable to do anything about it was getting to her. Gritting her teeth, she pulled out her quarterstaff and pointed it at the Queen after hearing her call her soldiers fools for the millionth time. "Will you just-shut-UP!" A blast of fire shot out of the staff and went right into the Queen's chest. The siblings looked at the smoking tip of the quarterstaff in complete shock. To Sam's relief, this did get the rowdy queen to go quiet. If one were to look closely, they might have been able to see twinkling stars circle over her head as she sat back into her chair in a daze. All of the card soldiers dropped their guard and held their hands up to their faces to be able to get a better position at biting into their nails in deep fear.
A bit too soon after, the Queen sat back up, realized what was going on, and went back to shouting at the cards to go after the group again. A figurative lightbulb had turned on in Dan's head from seeing all of this. He looked back over to Donald and shouted, "What, is that little tower too much for a weak duck like you to handle? I guess I should have brought my grandma to take care of it instead!"
"What!?" Donald shrieked. He looked more surprised than angry.
"That's really uncalled for!" Sora said between blocking swings from a spear and axe.
"You're right," Dan continued, "it was completely uncalled for to rely on him. I don't know how anyone could even think to ask him to open a jar, let alone something simple as this."
Steam started gushing out of Donald's ear holes. "I'll show you!" Feathers started flying everywhere as a flurry kicking and swinging from the duck was unleashed on the tower. Moving the cogs was no longer a thought of his as the walls of the tower instead were completely demolished.
With the tower gone, the cages holding Sam and Dan retreated back into the ground and the birdcage holding Alice fell back to the ground. Everyone in the court became silent, pausing the battle to look at the cage as the curtain drew itself back. The Queen leaned over her desk and squinted at the now empty cage. "She's gone!" Sam announced.
The Queen slammed her fist into the table. "You fools!" Gathering the attention of all the card soldiers, she gave out an order, "Find the one who's behind this! I don't care how!"
All of the cards hurriedly ran around, some of them simply in circles until they realized what they were doing. None of them cared at all anymore that there were still people to be beheaded in the court. The Queen was busy fanning herself after working up a sweat from all of the shouting.
"Do ya think we should go help them with the search?" Goofy asked Sora and Sam.
"We need to find Alice before they do if we want to save her." Sora corrected Goofy. "Come on, let's go!"
"Can you-can you please stop him!?" Daniel shouted at the top of his lungs while running away from a still enraged Donald. The duck's lungs were quite strong as he continued to shriek without any stop for some breath while chasing after the boy.
After calming Donald down and having Dan apologize for insulting him greatly, they all went back into the forest to do some more sleuthing. As they approached where they first saw the Cheshire Cat, a flower twice their size bloomed and a large stone that would probably just be a pebble if the part was their normal size shot out of the flower and landed near the puddle of water. "I am getting so sick of this world," Sam complained. "Let's just try to find Alice before any more weird things happen." As soon as she finished those words, the Cheshire Cat appeared on top of the giant pebble. "No!" She pointed angrily at the cat. "I want none of you!"
"Oh, but it would be so disappointing for Alice to never be rescued." The cat purred.
Sora stepped up. "Have you seen Alice?"
"Alice, no. Shadows, yes!" Nothing could ever be easy with the cat.
The group waited for the Cheshire Cat to continue, but he didn't. "Where did they go?" Goofy asked.
The cat's head rolled down one arm and then got thrown into the air to land back on his neck, disgusting Sam further. "This way? That way? Does it matter? Left, right, up, down!" He pointed in all the directions. "All mixed up thanks to the shadows! Step deeper into the forest to the deserted garden. You might find shadows in the upside-down room!" The cat then vanished back from whence it came.
Sam led the others further into the woods, bickering about how she was going to cast fire at the cat the next time she saw him. They found a new path where a giant pebble used to be, possibly the same one that got shot out of a flower like a cannonball. At the end of the path was a nice looking cottage with a fenced in yard. It looked like a tea party had been set up there, but no one was in sight. This must have been the deserted garden the cat had mentioned. Surprised by how accurate the cat's words actually were, they stepped into the empty garden and up to the cottage's steps. Goofy politely knocked on the door, but after no one answered, Sora took the initiative to open the door and they all walked in.
Instead of being greeted by the inside of a cottage, they instead found themselves a large, open room. One side of the room had a chimney while the other was barren except for two ramps on the corners. Two tables holding lamps were in the middle. Something about this room felt really off. To the dismay of Sam, the Cheshire Cat awaited them on the roof of the wall they emerged from. "They're hiding somewhere." The cat's smile widened. "And the momeraths outgrabe. Want to find the shadows? Try turning on the light."
"How's this for a light." Sam shot another ball of fire out of her staff but it missed the cat and ended up hitting one of the lamps and successfully lighting it. "Not a word," she glared at her snickering brother.
After more properly lit the other lamp, the cat appeared next to them again. "All the lights are on. You'll see the shadows soon. They'll arrive in this room, but somewhere else. The shadows might go after that doorknob, too."
"Wait, are they going to appear here or go after the doorknob? I don't get it." Sora questioned the Cheshire Cats words as it once again vanished.
"In this room, but somewhere else..." Donald looked around to see if there were any obvious locations a shadow could appear. After looking up, he quacked in surprise. "Look, it's the doorknob!" He pointed up at the ceiling, or actually the floor. Above them was the original room they found the doorknob and the bottle that shrunk them all. They were standing on the ceiling! The tables holding the lamps were actually chandeliers. "This is making me feel nauseous," the duck grumbled.
They all trekked back to the courtyard where the Queen was surprisingly relaxed while waiting for any sort of news. Her whole body was still extremely tensed up, but she was not currently shouting at anyone like a maniac. This could only be seen as a miracle. Back in the bizarre room, with the group now standing on the correct floor, they were able to see the doorknob still napping away.
"You'll have a better view from higher up." The Cheshire Cat waved at them from the top of the table. They all carefully climbed up to the top of the table using the chair as a lower platform. The cat was patiently waiting for them, tapping his front paw daintily on the table. "Are you prepared for the worst?" He said as he stood up. "If not, too bad!" He pointed up at the ceiling.
Everyone flinched as a giant Heartless that looked like it was made of paper mache fell down from above. It landed on the floor on its hands, then pushed back off the ground, flying over the table and landing on its feet on the other side. It's arms folded back out like an accordion and grabbed what looked like maracas in each hand.
"Quick, the bottles!" Dan turned around only to find the Cheshire Cat and the bottles were nowhere to be found. "Shoot, that cat is going to get us killed!" He turned back around and took out his weapon like the others were doing. "Anyone have any ideas?"
"Fire!" Donald cast a fireball at the heartless, but it blocked it with one of the maracas, which burst into flames. It turns out the Heartless was actually carrying giant matches.
"Any good ideas?" Dan corrected himself. Sora let out a battle cry as he jumped off of the table and hit the giant Heartless in the chest a few times. "Looks like the chest can be hit, good job!" Dan reminded himself that they were not doomed here. They were able to take out the large, armored Heartless back in Traverse Town, there's no reason why they can't take on this much larger one, with its flaming matchsticks it was juggling. Mustering what courage he could, Dan raised his sword high and began to run to the edge of the table, but he quickly diverted his body to run off the side of the table as the Heartless slammed its matches against the table, flattening it into the ground.
Without easy access to the Heartless' chest, everyone stood directly underneath it and tried to jump and get an attack in, but they were only able to do so one at a time, and could only get a small scratch in before landing back on the ground. On the other hand, the giant had an easy time swiping its matches down at the party. "This is ridiculous," Sam commented. Backing away from the rest of them, she swung her quarterstaff like she was hitting an invisible enemy, and a ball of white energy came out and homed into the Heartless' chest. Lowering the staff, she then made another upward strike and shot a second blast at the creature. After a few more attacks like this, the Heartless realized there was an actual threat to it, and it stepped over the boys to get to Sam.
"I don't think so!" Sora stabbed his Keyblade forward and slid across the floor to the chair that survived the initial flattening. Once on top of the chair, Sora jumped up and took several swings at the approaching paper chest. The Heartless went limp, falling onto its knees in a stunned state. This gave everyone the chance to attack its vulnerable head, but just like the Queen, the Heartless quickly jolted back up within no time and went back to juggling its matches. More of Sam's attacks homed in on the creature and it once again took an offensive approach against her. This time, it raised the matches and made a cross shape with them while lowering its legs. The fire from one of the matches spread to the other, then the Heartless jumped up and released a large ball of fire that tracked its way to Sam, hitting her on the shoulder. Another fireball came soon after hitting her just as hard, knocking her to the ground. As a third attack approached, she wearily raised her staff in the air to try to block it and looked away right as it got to her, but Goofy's shield blocked the fire. Goofy continued to stand in front of her, blocking any further magical attacks.
During this, Daniel ran after the Heartless, raising his sword for an attack. "How dare you!" He jumped up between the matches and the creature's body while it was still charging an attack and stabbed the sword right through its chest. The Heartless once again fell into its knees, but this time the body continued to crumble and fade away. A large, red, crystalline heart emerged from the Heartless' head and floated in the air before disappearing, just like what happened after they took out the armored Heartless. After staring at where the Heart disappeared for a minute, trying to catch his breath, Dan remembered his sister and quickly made his way back to her. Goofy had just helped her back up, but Dan crashed into her causing the both of them to fall to the ground. "Are you okay?" Dan asked.
"Well now I'm not!" Sam pushed him off. She grimaced as she gently placed her hand over her right shoulder. "I knew it had fire, but I didn't know it was going to be able to do that."
They all heard a loud yawn come from behind them. "What a racket," the doorknob commented. "How's a doorknob to get any sleep?" Sora approached the door to apologize, but the doorknob made the largest yawn they had seen yet. Inside of its mouth, a bright light in the shape of a keyhole appeared. Sora's Keyblade flashed into his hand and made a jerking motion toward the keyhole. A beam of light shot out from the tip of the Keyblade and made its way into the doorknobs mouth. After a second, the beam disappeared and they heard a clicking sound like he had just locked something. Out from the doorknob's mouth, a green bean-shaped object fell out onto the floor.
"You hear that? Sounded like something closed." Sora commented.
Goofy picked up the bean and gave it a good look. "This gummi ain't like the others. No, sir."
Donald took it out of his hand and also investigated it. "Okay, I'll hold on to it." He put the gummi block into his pocket.
"Splendid. You're quite the hero." The misfortune of the group had to continue due to the Cheshire Cat reappearing behind them. "One must be rewarded for a satisfactory skirmish." A box like the ones that held evidence during the trial appeared in Sora's hands. "If you're looking for Alice, she's not he She's gone! off with the shadows, into darkness." With that, the cat disappeared for hopefully the last time.
"No..." Sora looked down at the present in his hand. He didn't feel like he deserved it.
Donald gave Sora a pat on the back. "Let's go back to our gummi ship. We might find her in another world." The table had sprung back out of the ground after the Heartless disappeared so they were able to take a sip out of the other bottle to grow back into their regular sizes.
"Are you going to open that?" Dan pointed at the box Sora was glumly caring around. "'cuz if you don't..." Sora handed over the box without saying a word. "Sweet," Dan started to open the box but stopped when he noticed his sister glaring at him. "What? Aren't you curious about what on earth the cat could have gifted us?"
"Curiosity killed the cat, you know," Sam chided. "For all we know it could just be another Heartless antenna anyway."
"Only one way to find out." Dan opened the box. A chilling feeling filled the hallway they were walking through. Little shards of what looked like ice flew around the group like a small tornado then shattered into dust, floating down to the ground.
"That was a new spell!" Donald happily quacked. He closes his eyes in thought for a few seconds. "Blizzard, that will come in handy!"
"You can just tell what the spell is, like that? That's so cool!" Sora beamed at Donald who scratched at the back of his head in embarrassment.
Dan got out his sword and pointed it away from everyone. "Blizzard!" He shouted. Nothing happened. He lowered his sword down in confusion. "I think this spell is a dud."
Donald laughed at him. "Not just anyone can use magic. It can take years of practice before you can have even a small shard of-"
"Blizzard!" Sora shot out a barrage of icicles down the hallway they had come from. "It works for me," He smugly leaned on his Keyblade. The duck couldn't decide whether to look mad or dismissive at the boy.
"Wait, Sam cast a fire spell earlier, and whatever that white stuff was." Sam looked to have noticed an interesting tile on the ground to examine as Dan questioned her abilities.
"Don't worry, Dan. I can't use magic either, ah-yuck." Goofy placed his arm over Dan's shoulder. "We'll just have ta' be in the front to guard them. It's still an important role."
"Yeah, I guess." He moved Goofy's hand off of him. "It just looked really useful back there. Can't you tell me some kind of shortcut to learn magic faster?" Dan looked over at Donald.
"Don't be silly! There are no shortcuts to magic. If you really want to learn magic, you first have to focus on the magic capabilities in your body anyway. Now let's get back to the ship before any more stupid questions are asked." Donald sneered.
"Okay, fine. I have a not-stupid question though," Dan said as they all stopped at the bottom of the hole. "How do we get back to the ship?"