Sora awoke with a gasp, his face laying upon a smooth wooden surface. He was sore all over as he wearily pushed himself to his feat. He realized, to his surprise, that he wasn't on the gummi ship anymore. The moment he looked up, he realized he was on the same ship that rammed into theirs. The pirate ship!
But now, instead of sailing through interspace, the ship was sailing across a large body of water, likely an ocean of some sort. The sky above bore the dark curtain of night and the bright twinkle of stars. But most troubling was that he was separated from his friends, and seemingly alone in another new world. He could only hope that they were here too as he walked to the frontmost part of the ship's deck.
"I didn't think you'd come, Sora."
Gasping in surprise at the sudden, familiar yet cold sounding voice, Sora pivoted on his feet, only to be even more surprised at the sight of an equally familiar face. Riku! "Good to see you again."...who wasn't nearly as surprisedRiku wasn't even trying to hide his bitterness toward Sora anymore. Sora still didn't know why Riku was acting like this, but he was more concerned with everyone else. "Where are Donald and Goofy? And Everyone else? Where's Ruby?"
Riku glowered at Sora hearing that of all the people he was asking about, it was THEM. "Are they that important to you? More important than old friends?" Riku asked, evading the question with a disgusted sneer. "Instead of asking about them, you should be asking...about her."
Sora gasped again as Riku stepped aside to reveal the other most powerful motivator of Sora's journey. "Kairi!" he called out with great concern...yet she didn't even react to his voice, let alone what was happening around her.
Concern that Riku didn't believe for an instant. "That's right. While you were off goofing around, I finally found her." he said, the bitterness boiling in his voice. Sora couldn't focus on Riku's grudge toward him. He was more concerned for Kairi. Her face had that same lifeless expression as when she flew into him before the Islands were destroyed. Something must have been wrong with her. But just as he dashed forward, he was stopped by some sort of metal hook.
"Not so fast! No shenanigans aboard MY vessel, boy!" The owner was none other than the aptly named, haughtily smirking Captain Hook who was flanked by three humanoid Heartless with grey skin, patchwork clothes, skulls on their right shoulders, grey cutlasses with orange cracks and brass swirls along the middle of the blades, and red bandannas with eyepatches upon their right eyes and swirls on the left. Rather fittingly pirate themed Heartless given what they were on., let alone pleased to see Sora.
Sora realized if the red clad man was saying it was 'his' vessel then that meant he must have been the pirate captain. And if he was helping Riku but also in charge of these newly seen Heartless...Sora's blood ran cold as the realization dawned on him. "Riku! Why are you siding with the Heartless?!" he asked, not understanding why his friend would work with such horrible creatures, or the people using them.
"The Heartless obey me now, Sora. Now I have nothing to fear." Riku answered with that same cold, resolute edge in his voice.
Despite Riku's self-assured attitude, Sora was only more horrified...but also angered. He thought back to the others he and his friends fought who controlled the Heartless, but were eventually consumed. The people they hurt, the destruction they wrought...Using beings like this only invited disaster, yet Riku thought he had nothing to fear from them? "You're stupid. Sooner or later they'll swallow your heart."
Riku scoffed in amusement at Sora's warning. "Not a chance. My heart's too strong."
Riku's response succeeded in making Sora more upset. Jafar, Ursula, Oogie all believed that with the Heartless under their command, they couldn't be defeated. It was like a cycle that would only ever end badly for those involved in it. He didn't want the same fate for his friend. "Riku..."
But anything Sora would have said would have fallen on deaf ears as Riku sneered down at him bitterly. "I've picked up a few other tricks as well," Riku said, not giving Sora a moment to finish. "Like this, for instance."
Riku focused on Sora as he gave an upward flex of his hand. While nothing seemed to happen at first, Sora saw out of the bottom of his peripheral vision, his shadow coming from the lantern hanging at the nearby wall of the ledge Riku was on. It seemed to be...stretching. When he focused on it, Sora nearly jumped in shock. His shadow came right out the ground and was...Solid. Three dimensional. Almost like he was looking at a mirror of himself, but with less lifelike and an inky black appearance just like those Shadow Heartless. The most unsettling feature was his eyes glowing an eerie yellow color as it smiled in a menacingly smug manner at him.
Feeling like his point was made, Riku decided to cut this 'reunion' short. "You can go see your friends now." he said, flicking his wrist to dissipate the shadowy doppelganger of Sora. Sora let out a gasp of shock as suddenly, the floor opened up under him like a trapdoor, sending him plummeting into the bowels of the ship.
With the prisoners secured and his other dear friend at his side, Riku turned to Hook and said, "Let's get underway already. And keep Sora away from Kairi until we're ready to land." and walked into Hook's cabin. The captain himself however did not take kindly to how Riku was addressing him.
"That scurvy brat thinks he can order me around!" Hook vented angrily to his attendant and first mate, Mr. Smee. A portly, bespectacled, bald old man with grey muttonchops and a big pink nose, clad in a white and blue stripped shirt, seafoam colored short pants, brown sandals, and an orange puffball adorned hat.
"What shall we do, Cap'n Hook?" Smee asked in a scratchy nasal voice.
"Nothing!" Hook answered, gesturing in a silly 'creepy crawly' fashion around himself. "The hold is crawling with Heartless and those ghastly Grimm. Let THEM keep an eye on the brats." Smee looked at his captain nervously. Though he understood the plan, there was one problem.
"But, Cap'n, you-know-who-is also down-"
"Shhh!" Hook suddenly shushed Smee, his demeanor doing an immediate 180 as he looked around himself frantically. "Did you hear that Smee? Oh, that dreadful sound." he said, his voice trembling with a terror that was impossible to hide. He was certain that he heard what sounded like a ticking noise. A horrifically familiar ticking. A tick-tock he would recognize anywhere. But Smee's response was a confused, "No, cap'n." Hook bolted around and grasped Smee by the shoulders desperately. "Are you quite sure? Did I imagine it?" Hook asked, before dramatically sighing, "Oh, my poor nerves."
By now, he just wanted to get this over with and away from the source of that dreadful, awful, nightmarish noise. The sooner the better.
As fortune would have it, the place where Sora fell indeed contained all of his friends! After the moment of surprise and relief at seeing each other all safe and sound passed, they immediately went into explanations. Starting with Donald, Goofy, Ruby and her friends all explaining that they woke up down here, followed by Sora regaling them with what happened up above. Particularly, about the presence of Kairi.
"You don't say?" Goofy said in a congratulatory way to Sora.
"Yeah. It was definitely Kairi. I finally found her." Sora said, as glad about the fact as Goofy was for him.
"That's wonderful, Sora! Just like with all of us, you found her in the end too." Pyrrha said, joining in on the string of optimism.
"I'm so happy for you, Sora." Ruby compounded joyfully. She'd been with him since the beginning of their journey, and now they were finally all reuniting with their friends and loved ones.
"And you said it wasn't likely that he'd find her again, Weiss." Yang said playfully, earning an embarrassed sputter from the Schnee heiress.
"I-I never said that once!" Weiss protested with a flush of indignant embarrassment on her cheeks.
"Weiss. She's joking." Blake said with a wry grin of her own. Seeing the still somewhat stuck-up rich girl lose her cool still held quite a bit of amusement.
"Alright!" Goofy went on with his signature laugh. "Then let's go up and talk to her."
"Yeah!" Sora said, now more driven than ever to get his friends back.
"WOO! Rescue mission!" Nora cheered, jutting her arms out victoriously...and accidentally smacking Ren in the face in the process. "Oh!...Sorry Ren."
"Sounds great. Okay, but first..." Donald said, his joyful tone lowering slightly before suddenly shifting..."How about getting off?!" to a tone of annoyance
The reason for his anger was because when Sora fell, he was laying over Goofy. Who was laying over Pyrrha. Who was laying over Ruby. Who was laying over Weiss Donald. Who was laying over Blake. Who was laying over Yang. Who was laying over Ren. Who was laying over Nora.
"Y-Y-Yeah, I agree. Can we all get up off each other...please?" And at the bottom of the dog-pile, raising a trembling hand in hopes that he would be released from this crushing pressure, was Jaune.
"Oh, sorry." Sora said with an embarrassed chuckle. He was so happy to see Kairi again that he'd completely forgotten about their predicament. Which also brought up another problem...
How were they going to get out of here?
Once they were all dusted off and no longer uncomfortable, Sora looked out a small crevice of the only wooden door in the room they were all locked in.
"There's Heartless everywhere. The moment we set foot outside, they'll swarm us." Blake said as though warning him.
"It's why we're still deciding what to do. Who knows how many others there are. On top of that, we don't know the layout of this ship. We could walk around in circles and eventually tire ourselves out to the point we can't fight back anymore." Weiss said, carefully looking out the door with Sora.
"Well we can't just stay here!" Nora said impatiently.
"Oh, come on. We can take em! Let's just bust outta here and beat em down!" Yang said, swinging a fist around, ready to punch the door.
"Yang, wait!" Ruby cried out, grabbing ahold of her sister's arm in the nick of time, drawing a look of surprised confusion from Yang. "We don't know if it's just the Heartless out there. For all we know, there could be Grimm around here too."
Yang sighed and relaxed with a huff as she sat on top of a barrel. "Fine...But Nora's right, you know. We can't just stay here."
"Ahem!" The sound of a throat clearing from nearby caught their attention. Everyone spun on their heels toward a collection of barrels in the far corner of the room. "How ya doin' there? Looking for a way out?" The source of the youthful, boyish voice revealed itself as a tall, fair skinned, slender, pointy eared boy around Sora and Ruby's age leapt gracefully into view. His attire was a bright green tunic, a pair of dark green leggings, and atop his short ginger hair was a pointed green cap with a red feather on it.
"Who are you?" Goofy asked.
The mystery boy greeted them with a smug smile, saying, "I'm the answer to your prayers!"
His confident boast didn't seem to impress anyone as everyone's reactions ranged from confusion, to skepticism, to flat out disbelief on Donald and Weiss's behalf. Feeling they were being rather ungrateful, the boy huffed and said, "Okay, then. Fine. Have it your way."
Sora looked at the door, then back at their new arrival. "But you're stuck in here to, aren't you?" he asked.
Seemingly offending the boy who turned away with another huff. "No, I'm just waiting for someone." he corrected, crossing his arms.
"Right. Of course you are." Weiss said sarcastically, making the boy's brow twitch with mild annoyance.
Assuming he was telling the truth however, Sora still asked, "Who?"
In that moment, Sora jolted in place when a small sphere of light spun around in a downward spiral at great speed, leaving behind a glittering trail of the same light, then raised up above him before slowly descending to the young redheaded boy who spoke to it. "Tinker Bell, what took you so long?"
The ball of light blinked out and from it came a very tiny humanoid of some sort. A woman with yellow skin and brighter yellow short hair kept back in a bun. Her eyes were bright blue and clinging to her curvy figure was a green dressed with matching shoes though the material seemed somewhat plantlike. It exposed a touch of her cleavage and a great deal of her legs with a triangular pattern of tail coats going around her thighs, as well as her back. Though the most eye-catching detail about her back were the large translucent butterfly wings emerging from it. As she floated about, more of that glittering light seemed to come off her body.
"Oh my gosh!" Ruby said with wide eyes shining almost as much as the tiny winged gal she gazed happily at then zoomed close to her side. "It's a fairy! She's so adorable! Look at her stubby little limbs."
The fairy, Tinker Bell, turned in surprise to Ruby then frowned. It seemed like she was saying something though nobody could hear exactly what since it didn't sound like any form of language for conversation. Though from her miffed expression, raised fist and other bodily gestures it was probably something like 'Hey, who are you calling 'stubby'? I'll punch you!'
"A fairy? Seriously?" Weiss said, blinking with disbelief. A statement which earned befuddled looks directed toward her from the rest of her friends. "What?"
"Weiss. After everything we've seen and all the places we've been, you're still questioning what's real and what isn't?" Blake asked bluntly. She hadn't even SEEN Wonderland, yet what she heard about it from Ruby made me think that that world was infinitely stranger than the existence of fairies.
As Pyrrha also seemed a little giddy at the sight of a real fairy before them, Peter spoke with her. "Great job. So you found Wendy?" Tinker Bell spoke to Peter and apparently he seemed to understand her when looking surprised as he asked, "Hold on. There was another girl there, too? And you say you saw two other people running around the ship, as well?"
Tinker Bell seemed to huff in response to his question, as if giving a sassy and sarcastic 'maybe'. Though she also seemed to say something that left Peter askance. "Are you crazy?! There's no way I'm gonna leave Wendy there!" His answer only seemed to annoy her more. Donald of course, had to say out loud what it was. "Ahah! She must be pretty jealous." As if his announcement of it wasn't enough to infuriate the blonde fairy enough, the fact he laughed about it really set her off. Such was clear as she floated over to Donald and kicked him right on the beak, leaving him dazed. A sight which Nora couldn't help giving a silly little "Heeheee." at.
With another huff, she turned away from the imprisoned group, leaving them, and her dear companion behind. "C-Come on Tink! Open up the door!" His urging fell on deaf ears unfortunately, as she was long gone. With that plan out the window...
"Ahem." Sora cleared his throat, deciding that perhaps it was time he let his Keyblade live up to its name again.
His summoning of it made Weiss look at him with narrowed eyes. "Really? He didn't think to just use the Keyblade from the start?" she muttered to herself. Locked door. Weapon shaped like Key. Unlocks everything. Why was he only NOW thinking to use it?
Though he still didn't quite trust these newcomers, their ginger haired savior held out his hand and decided to officially introduce himself. "I'm Peter Pan."
Which Sora reached out to shake. "Sora-"
"Okay." Peter said suddenly as he yanked his hand out of Sora's reach. "We're in this together, but only until we find Wendy." Peter finished. While their introduction certainly could have gone better, Sora decided to focus on more important things. Getting out of here and finding Kairi, along with helping Peter find this Wendy girl.
Though as Sora used the Keyblade to unlock the door, Ruby and her friends couldn't help wondering who these 'other two people' Tinkerbell mentioned were. Who else could be on this ship?
