After Clayton marched out of the tent, everyone let out a collective sigh of frustration. Just when they were actually getting somewhere, Clayton ruined it all with one single selfish action. Jane attempted to smooth things over however she could by saying, "Don't mind Mr. Clayton. He's not...really a bad person. Just a bit...impetuous."
Blake couldn't believe what Jane was saying. Was she really trying to be optimistic about Clayton after what he just did? "How can you say that after what we told you, Jane!? He clearly doesn't put nearly as much value on anything that isn't human!" Jane raised her hands at Blake's sudden outburst. "Blake, please. Surely Mr. Clayton just needs some time to himself. I'm sure he'll come around and realize the value of-"
BANG
Almost immediately, Jane was proven wrong much to her horror. The sound of Clayton's shotgun firing caused everyone to heel turn with shock. "Oh no." Ruby muttered, voice laced with worry. "What is that crazed gunman doing, now?!" Weiss asked immediately after with great annoyance. Clayton just couldn't seem to resist screwing things up for them.
Jaune was the first one to open the tent flap and what he saw...caused him to stop short, eyes wide with shock. "Oh no. Guys!" Sora, Donald, Goofy, and everyone else immediately piled out of the tent. Tarzan paused within the tent and quickly said to Jane, "Jane. Stay safe." The worried scientist looked back at Tarzan and gave a nervous nod. "Please be careful, Tarzan." she urged in a hushed voice as he dashed out alongside everyone else to see what had Jaune so shocked. A sight that caused them to draw their weapons without hesitation.
There was a gorilla in the middle of the open area of the camp. Other simians surrounded it but they weren't like any animal native to this jungle. They were deep yellow from the waist up with their lower portions colored brown. Their feet had talons on the ends of the toes like the fingers on their giant fists. What was most disturbing was their faces had a black void to them with top and bottom edges like rows of teeth with glowing yellow dots inside, as well as an emblem belonging to only type of being Sora and his friends had seen before. "Heartless!"
"Just when I thought we could catch a break." Donald said in an exasperated tone as he drew his staff before aiming it at some of them and cast a spell. "Blizzard!" The simian Heartless immediately turned away from the helpless gorilla as the frigid crystals struck one in the back. They rushed on all fours toward the group, bounding about like the monkeys they resembled, they attempted to swipe at the group. But like many of the Heartless that came before, they weren't very subtle with when they planned to strike. Something that even Sora was picking up on as he managed to block a swipe and counter with his Keyblade.
Goofy rushed to action, blocking a Heartless that attempted to attack Donald, and then slamming it into the air. The Heartless was then met with a follow up Fire spell, which homed in on the dark monkey, incinerating it.
Blake's eyes widened with shock at the familiar sight of those glowing yellow eyes. Just like the shadowy things that consumed remnant. But she refused to let her fear overwhelm her this time. Now that her team, her friends, were with her, she'd fight back with everything she had.
Ruby and Blake felt that it would be best to forego the firearm functions of their weapons for now, lest they scare the gorillas into thinking that they were no different than Clayton. Which was the last thing they wanted. So they stuck with striking with their blades alongside Weiss, cutting down Heartless after Heartless.
Jaune and Pyrrha made good use of their shields and swords as Heartless attempted to gang up on them. Noticing one that was attempting to get the drop on his partner, Jaune called out, "Watch out on the-"
"-Left!" Pyrrha finished, shield-bashing the simian Heartless in the face and stabbing it in the midsection. "Two more from-"
"-Behind!" Jaune exclaimed, raising his shield in near-perfect sync with Pyrrha, followed by both of them slamming the two Heartless into each other and skewering them to finish them off.
With that, the group took a moment to collect themselves. The gorilla rose up from its cowering position, and tentatively approached the group, as if recognizing that they saved him.
"You okay, big fellah?" Ruby asked in worry when it came to them. The gorilla smiled, jumping a little in place and making noises that sounded like delight before holding its fist out. Unsure what it was doing, Ruby opened her own hand and the gorilla dropped something into it before running off into the jungle.
Ruby looked down at the object the Gorilla gave her with a blink. Curious about what it was, Goofy approached her and his eyes widened with surprised recognition. "Hey! It's another gummi block piece!" he exclaimed, drawing everyone else's attention. "Another one?" Donald said, shuffling up to look at it as well. Sure enough, the brightly colored, squishy looking yet surprisingly solid thing in her palm was indeed a gummi block. How did these gorillas even find these?
Tarzan however wasn't interested in that. His eyes narrowed as he looked out to the distance, understandably troubled from the appearance of those Heartless. "Family. In danger. More."
Blake managed to quickly piece together the meaning of Tarzan's words and wasted no time bringing everyone back to the crisis at hand. "I think he's saying the other gorillas are out there. And more of those 'Heartless' too."
"Then we have to do something!" Sora said urgently. Clayton was bad enough, but if the Heartless were here too, there was no telling what would happen if they didn't act now.
Speaking of Clayton however, Goofy noticed that the hunter didn't seem to be anywhere near the camp. "Uh, wait. Where's Clayton? I coulda sworn he was out here."
The moment he brought that up, everyone looked around. Sure enough, no sign of him anywhere. "That's true. We heard his gunshot just outside the tent. So how could he be just...gone?" Weiss wondered warily.
Sora sighed in frustration as the bad news kept piling on and piling on. "This just keeps getting worse. What do we do now?" he asked.
Ruby looked around their area as the group tried to think of a plan. If the Heartless were here, then that would mean that none of the gorillas would be safe. They needed to act quickly before it was too late. But since they couldn't be in all places at once, there was only one option.
"We can cover more ground if we split up. Weiss, Blake, and I will check out the trees nearby. Sora. You, Tarzan, Donald, and Goofy check out the treehouse. Jaune. You and Pyrrha check around the cliffs down that way."
With her directions pointed out, the rest of the group nodded in affirmation. "No problem, Ruby. But uhhh, wasn't Sora our leader?" Goofy inquired curiously, scratching his head. Realizing that she let her own leader instincts rise up, Ruby found herself blushing with embarrassment and saying, "Oh, uhh...right, he did say that. Didn't he?" Her mumbling caused Weiss to rub her temples. "The irony of the time she's NOT a leader and she actually takes the position more seriously than when she started." the Schnee heiress muttered under her breath, earning a frown and an elbow from Blake.
"That doesn't matter right now, Goofy! Let's just go with what Ruby said and save the rest of the gorillas from the Heartless!" Sora exclaimed, dashing off into the trees with Tarzan, Donald, and Goofy hot on his heels. He didn't care about things like leader positions or whatnot. If they didn't hurry, the gorillas were doomed.
Relieved that Sora wasn't upset about her briefly taking the helm, Ruby gestured for her teammates to follow her. As they did, Blake couldn't help curiously asking, "Team SRDG? When did you end up becoming part of another team, Ruby?"
"It's a long story, Blake. I'll tell you some time later." Ruby answered. Thankfully Blake understood that this probably wasn't the time. They had to save Tarzan's family. "Best of luck, everyone. I'll be here and wait for Mr. Clayton to return." Jane called out from her tent. Hopefully he had managed to get away from those violent creatures attacking the gorillas.
-
Sora, Tarzan, Donald and Goofy made their way to the treehouse with all due haste. The four of them soon came up to the slanted branch leading to the constructed home. They immediately noticed the noise and movement inside upon arrival. So, having the drop on their foe, each of them carefully snuck to the entrance and saw more of the monkey looking Heartless making a ruckus. And sure enough, a gorilla was on the second floor, fearfully looking down at its taunting attackers.
As they were distracted, Donald bellowed out, "Thunder!" Just as he'd hoped, the simian Heartless were so close together, they were startle and momentarily paralyzed.
"Here I go! Charge" Goofy shouted as he kept his shield forward and ran at one of the nearest ones. Just as they started to recover, the leftmost Heartless was slammed by his weapon, giving it a fatal dose of whiplash whiplash while Goofy kept running before sandwiching it to a wall. Upon contact, it vanished.
One of the recovered Heartless turned to Goofy and leaped at him with claws ready to rend. Tarzan let out an animalistic roar, flailing his spear around wildly as he lunged and hacked away at it. While it was down, Sora used his Sliding Dash on it, destroying it. "Two down! Three to go!"
With his staff, Donald shot a Blizzard spell at the one closest to him right as Goofy blocked the kick from one of the other remainders. It seemed to hurt the Heartless as it hopped on one foot and seemed to reach for the one it tried kicking Goofy, causing it to go off balance. Sora took the opportunity to strike at it with every second he could, making it vanish next.
Tarzan grappled with another and winced with a groan through his teeth when being cut up. Around his rib cage there were deep red scratches but he pushed past the pain and impaled the Heartless. "Tarzan!" Goofy said to him, throwing an open bottle of a potion to coat his ally.
Tarzan was confused by the bottle he was thrown and examined it curiously, sniffing it before licking it. The taste wasn't exactly good, but it was better than the time he tasted one of Clayton's shotgun shells. So he at least was able to imbibe it. To his surprise, his wounds closed up right away, causing him to smile at Goofy. "Thank you."
With their foes vanquished, the gorilla they were assailing rose up, blinking with surprise. It tentatively approached them, and just like the first one, dropped a gummi in thanks for their aid. "Well what do ya know. Another gummi." Goofy said, kneeling down to pick up the colorful object.
"I wonder how they got all these gummis." Donald inquired, shuffling over to Goofy to look at it. With how many gummis they found, maybe the King really was here. Or at least had been here. Perhaps this trip was worthwhile after all?
"I hope Riku and Kairi are here too..." Sora said softly. As both he and the wizard duck expressed their desire to see their respective friends again, they both perked up and looked at each other before...again, glaring and turning away from one another. It seemed that they were still mad at each other.
Looking at the two of them, Tarzan's face shifted subtly to a slightly sad expression. He may not have much experience in social graces, but he could tell that the two of them had quite a lot of tension between them. Tension that was pushing them away from each other. "Ee-ooh-oo-oo-ah."
Sora turned toward their wild companion, once again hearing that same thing in 'gorilla' that Tarzan said to him when they first met here. "Tarzan, I don't know what that means." Sora said, confusion and a bit of frustration filling his mind. Why did he keep making that particular noise so much?
Tarzan wasn't bothered by Sora's words. He simply smiled to him and Donald encouragingly. An action which befuddled them both as they didn't understand what he was trying to indicate. Though his message hadn't gotten across yet, Tarzan didn't lose faith. The fact that they were helping him save his family made it clear that what he believed he saw in them was there after all. And the same went for their other friends, whom he hoped were having equal luck in saving the rest of the gorillas from these Heartless.
In the most tree filled area, Ruby swung her scythe through the body of the Power Wild's (as she so decided to name them because of how erratic their movements were and the physical strength they had) which cleaved it in half, making it vanish as the heart it captured soared into the sky.
Weiss captured many of the Heartless in a floor of ice riddled with stalagmites. Once immobilized, she used a glyph below herself to skate across and gracefully slice and skewer those she came near, causing them to share the same fate. The lucky one that avoided it cautiously watched her from nearby and once Weiss stopped, it leaped at her with claws readied. Just as she turned in surprise to face it, it seemed to lose its momentum before getting roughly tugged to the ground.
A familiar dark bladed weapon pierced through its back with a long, thick black rope attached. Blake was holding the other end of it and retracted both blade and rope once the Heartless burst. Weiss shared a momentary grin of appreciation with Blake, who returned the facial expression before seeing a gorilla approach her and was mildly surprised to see it hand a gummi piece into her hand before leaving.
"So what are these, exactly?" Blake asked, looking at it while holding it to the sky and trying to get a better look. "Apparently they're what our ship is made out of. The one that let's us travel around," Ruby explained as she and Weiss came to to their teammate who curiously poked it. "It's so soft though. You really have a whole vessel made of these things?"
Blake's inquiry made Weiss shrug. "I'm not sure how it works, but they actually are more durable on the ship. It's as if they solidify when they combine. And what's odd is there aren't nearly as many seams on it as you'd expect from such tiny materials." Weiss's explanation simply made it all the strange. There was no way they'd ever have expected something like this to create a ship of some kind. All the same, Blake pocketed the gift and chose not to think too hard about it right now. "Well either way, looks like there aren't anymore of them. Just to be sure though, let's give this place one more sweep before we head back to camp."
With two groups having saved two additional gorillas, that left only Jaune and Pyrrha. Both of them had a fairly simple time clearing out their own Heartless, despite only being two. Their teamwork was nothing short of near-perfect synergy as they cut down the simian Heartless together.
"Whew. Glad we made it in time." Jaune said, wiping his brow before sheathing his sword along with Pyrrha.
The red haired huntress turned to the gorilla as it ceased its fearful trembling and looked at its saviors cautiously. Smiling to the simian, Pyrrha held out her hand warmly. "It's okay now. You're safe." she said in a gentle tone.
The gorilla took a cautious step toward her, testing the waters as she held her hand out to it. What it did next was quite a surprise, as it suddenly bounded over toward Jaune. The blonde huntsman in training's eyes widened with worry as he took a step back, only for the gorilla to quickly close the distance between them...and begin patting and ruffling him curiously.
"Wha-Hey! What're you doing?! Hey, hang on!" Jaune sputtered as the ape subjected him to a curious examination. Ruffling and fiddling with his messy blonde hair, tugging on the hood of the hoodie. Though the gorilla wasn't harming him, Jaune certainly found this to be...quite undignified. "Uhh, Pyrrha? A little help here?" he pleaded to his partner.
Surprised at what was going on, Pyrrha realized what was beleaguering Jaune and giggled. "Well. It looks like this gorilla has taken a shine to you, Jaune. Social grooming is something they often practice with each other. You should feel honored."
Of course, the huntsman in training looked anything BUT honored with how embarrassing this was. "Yeah, lucky me." Jaune said sarcastically as he tried prying the animal off, though not with much success.
Pyrrha came in to help and set the gorilla down before smiling to it. "Alright. We have to get going now. You'd best get somewhere safe, big fellah. Return to your family and be careful along the way."
Seeming to somewhat understand, the gorilla happily hopped before giving her something then made its way up the cliff. Pyrrha inspected it and cupped her chin. "Another one of these gummi blocks. Where do they keep getting them, I wonder?"
"Not sure. But there's nowhere else we can go except back where we came from. So I guess we should head back to camp." Jaune said before they walked off together. Of course, he couldn't help running a hand along his hair and clothes, still feeling odd from that uninvited grooming session.
What they didn't realize was that the Heartless were far from the only threat within this jungle. From a high up, foliage veiled spot on the cliffs, the leopard Tarzan called 'Sabor' watched them with predatory intent. A hungry snarl emerged from his sharp toothed maw as he narrowed his eyes at his new prey as he followed them stealthily and patiently.
