After everyone had a good laugh over Captain Hook's defeat, even Blake and Weiss, they all descended back onto the Jolly Roger's deck. "Looks like we've cleared out the last of the Heartless and the Grimm." Ren noted with relief.
"Well good!" Jaune said with a heavy sigh as he laid back against one wall of the ships main deck in a slouching sit-down. "Because I was getting tired of not having one moment of peace. Being stuck on this ship has been terrible."
"YOU feel terrible? How do you think I feel? And we're STILL on the thing!" Neptune called out from the doorway of the captain's quarters, having made a beeline for it the instant he landed. A sight which made Weiss roll her eyes and Sun facepalm with embarrassment.
In the midst of their moment of reprieve, Goofy remembered something. "Uh, Kairi couldn't wake up. So maybe she really did lose her-"
"SHH!" Donald hushed him with a frown as he nodded his head to where Sora was. Realizing what he said out loud, Goofy gulped audibly, fearing he may have upset his friend. Peter could tell something was wrong with the way Sora stared off with an unreadable expression. "Sora?"
Though Sun and Neptune were a little lost, not having any idea of what happened between Sora and Riku, team RWBY and JNPR had an inkling of what was on Sora's mind.
"I still can't believe it..." Sora said quietly.
Ruby approached him, about to hold his shoulder. "Sora, look...Even if that is the case, we'll find a way to-"
"I really flew!" To her surprise, Sora wasn't upset at all. In fact, he seemed elated as he looked up again with a huge grin and exclaimed. "Wait till I tell Kairi!" The whole group was stunned to see him in such high spirits. Not one hint of sorrow as far as they could see on his face or hear in his voice as he spoke again, first in wonderment then realization. "Wonder if she'll believe me? Hmph. Probably not."
Surprised as they were, seeing Sora feeling more cheerful was a pleasant change. "You can bring her to Neverland some time. Then she can try." Peter suggested cheerfully. He may not have trusted Sora completely when they first met inside Hook's ship, but he'd grown fond of Sora, and his other fellow adolescents.
"That's a great idea!" Ruby said approvingly. Weiss and Donald of course felt a bit uncertain about that suggestion given the World Order issue, but they didn't want to dispirit Sora when he was finally smiling again.
Looking back at all his friends, seeing them all smiling at him. "If you believe, you can do anything, right?" he said, earning a more cheerful smile from everybody.
"That's right, Sora. Belief is a powerful thing after all." Pyrrha said with a soft nod.
"Yup. I mean, if it weren't for Pyrrha believing in me, I don't think I would have made it as far as I have." Jaune said, drawing a small blush to the face of the girl in question.
"Goodness knows Ruby needed all the belief she could get from me and everyone else to become a somewhat competent leader." Weiss said with a smirk on her face
One that grew more visible as Ruby let out an offended, "Weiss!" And where Yang would normally stick up for her sister, she ended up snickering instead. Even Blake let out a small snicker of her own. "Wha-!? Yang, Blake, how could you!?"
Funny and heartwarming as it was, Sora was now focused on one thing that he believed in more than anything. "I'll find Kairi. I know I will. There's so much I wanna tell her. About flying, the pirates, and everything else that's happened." The and determination in his voice was clear for all to hear.
So much so that Neptune smirked at how Sora talked about Kairi as he walked over to him. "Sounds like Kairi's really special to you, huh?" he said slyly.
The look on his face and his tone made Sun palm his face and mutter, "Come on, Neptune." Though it particularly irked a glaring Weiss. Though Neptune's implications seemed to go over a confused Sora's head.
Jaune could feel there was tension from Weiss from the way she was looking at Neptune and worriedly stepped aside to not be so close to the bad vibes she was giving off. Before things could get any worse, Peter approached. "By the way. I managed to snatch this off Hook in the middle of that scrap he and I had. I thought maybe it was something important since he had it in his pocket but it was just some note about stuff I didn't really understand. Do you guys have any idea what it might be?"
Sora accepted it and perked up before nodding to Peter. "Yeah. We'll hold onto it. Thanks, Peter."
Not entirely sure what he was being thanked for, Peter just nodded with a smile. Tinkerbell flew up to him and spoke urgently, making Peter answer curiously. "What's that Tink? What about the clock tower? You say there's something there?"
"Something up, Peter?" Ruby asked.
"Tinkerbell says she found something odd about the Clock Tower before we left for Wendy's home of London," he said before flying to the helm of the now abandoned Jolly Roger. "Well, we planned on checking up on her anyway. So let's head there, now. Tink? Do your thing."
Tinkerbell nodded and moved with great speed as everyone was covered in it. Together they flew off with Peter leading the way and after heading through the starry sky, found themselves floating above the clouds. Sora, Goofy, Ruby, Yang and Nora were all excited to be freely moving through the air again, but made sure to remain within the group. Blake and Weiss were more relaxed but enjoyed it too with how they softly smiled.
"Man, this is pretty cool, not gonna lie." Sun said as he floated on his back, arms behind his head and eyes closed while still moving. He moved back up but kept flying in a squatted position, his momentum dragging a small ball of cloud beneath him. "I can even fly just like this."
Blake couldn't help shaking her head as Sun 'surfed' through the air on that cloud. Silly, but also very endearing. Neptune, though a bit awkward in his own stage of getting used to flying, was just relieved to be far away from the water. That alone helped him figure it out as Peter and Tinkerbell led the way to London.
It didn't take long for them to arrive at the English Capital. And the first thing they noticed was their destination. The brightly lit clock tower of Big Ben. And sitting at the edge of the top of the tower was the blue nightgown clad Wendy. "Peter!" she called out with relief, knowing that they bested Captain Hook. "Hey Wendy." Peter said as the greater numbered group flew down with him.
Nobody was sure what it was about the clock tower that Tinkerbell sensed, but now that they were here...Sora felt something. It was faint, but it was familiar. A fleeting sensation that he'd felt and become vaguely familiar with in all the time he'd spent traveling to these worlds. As he broke off from the group, he made his way toward the hands of the clock. "Sora?" Donald called out, noticing along with Goofy where he was going.
Everyone else looked toward him with equal curiosity before following him to the front of the tower. Everyone watched as the minute hand and the hour hand lined up to show that it was now midnight. As the bells rang twelve times, the clock suddenly shone with a radiant light that everyone recognized immediately.
Well everyone but Sun and Neptune. But sure enough, there was the Keyhole. Everyone else smiled and nodded to Sora, who nodded back as he leveld the Keyblade with the hole. Once again, the radiant beam of light streamed from the tip of the blade and flew into the hole. And as the stream of light surrounded the hole, it vanished with that same faint locking noise, signifying that this world, like all the others before, was safe from the grasp of the Heartless.
"Uhhh..." "What just happened?"...while also resulting in a very confused Neptune and Sun.
"The other worlds we told you about?" Yang explained. "They've got their own hearts, too. Those Keyholes lead to it and the Heartless can take it like they can take the hearts from people."
"We're pretty sure that's what happened with our world, too." Blake said with a sigh of sadness.
Such a realization surprised Sun and Neptune when realizing that would explain the devastation that came to their home and all those creatures that weren't Grimm invading. The former looked to the rest of his friends. "Is there anything we can do?"
"There is," Jaune said when stepping up. "There's this guy named Ansem who was studying the Heartless. He wrote all these reports and the one Sora got from Peter was part of it. If we get all the pages then we could probably find some way to stop them for good and get back everybody who lost their hearts. And maybe the worlds, too."
"So you don't know for sure if it'll actually work?" Neptune said with slight skepticism.
Ren looked to him stoically. "It's better than not having any lead and not trying at all."
"Well hey," Sun said with a hand to Neptune's shoulder. "If there's a chance at all, I say we go for it. Not like we can do much else right now. So let's help these guys out."
The doubt Neptune started having was gone as he smiled and nodded. "You got a point. Okay, we'll do what we can. What's next?"
"We should probably head back to Traverse Town. Get you guys some ammo for your weapons. And maybe resupply ourselves some, too. Lost a lot while walking around Hook's ship." Ruby said as Sora flew back to them at Big Ben.
Off to the side was Wendy walking across the tower and Peter flew beside her at the outside. "Peter? Are you really going back to Neverland?" Wendy asked sadly.
"Afraid so," Peter said with an apologetic shrug and weak smile. He had a warmer grin and held her hands with a promising tone. "But we can see each other any time. As long as you don't forget about Neverland, that is."
Wendy smiled back at Peter Pan with a warm, gentle affection. The hero of her and her little brothers' playtime in the nursery had become so much more to her in the short time they'd known one another. It was such a shame that they had to part ways now, but as she stared into his eyes, Wendy knew that she wouldn't have traded her time with Peter for anything.
Everyone else watched from the sidelines, Pyrrha and Ruby of course sighing at the romantic display. Though not everyone was enjoying it, going by the scowl on Tinkerbell's face. And the quacking laugh that Donald was letting out certainly didn't help things. Thankfully, a scowl in his direction shut the duck right up. That is before Tinkerbell zoomed over to the pair and flew circles around them, catching their attention as she flew...right up next to Sora with a pout on her face. As usual, Peter was the only one who could understand her. "Oh boy. She's getting steamed again." he remarked as Tinkerbell lingered around Sora with a smug huff. Now THAT was something everyone could understand.
"Heh. Well well, Sora. Aren't you a popular guy." Neptune said playfully, earning a slap to the arm from Weiss.
"Will you stop talking to him like that? He's not a cad like you, Neptune." she said angrily as Neptune nursed his slap-fresh arm.
Peter didn't mind, of course. Well if she was going to storm off with somebody this time, he was glad that it was with someone he could trust. "Do me a favor. Look after her for me, will ya?"
Sora looked at Tinkerbell who flew in front of him with a sassy little smirk, as if trying to show off to say to Peter, 'You wanna ditch me for Wendy? Fine. I'll ditch you for Sora. He's nice and considerate.' Even though, she would never be able to stay mad at Peter. All the same, as if trying to rub it in, she turned back to Sora, smiling a sassy little grin as if to say, 'You're stuck with me for a while, Sora.' Sora on the other hand could only reply to this series of events with a very confused,
"What?"