Chapter 12: The Lonesome Castle

As the Olympus Coliseum was a choice for Sora and the others to travel to next, Sora wanted to go there. Perhaps he, Donald, and Goofy would finally be considered true heroes at this point—as they did save many worlds from darkness in their battles from what they remembered last before this adventure started. Theoretically, they should have been worthy.

There was one problem though. Mainly, a barrier that was being stubborn about letting them pass. It seemed that they would have to find another way around—and this bummed Sora out as he was working on rerouting. "Aw man… I really wanted to go to Olympus Coliseum next." He complained as they headed to a world that prominently seemed to have a castle present.

Penelope recognized that world. In fact, she had been there before with Riku. And he acted as her babysitter while Roxas and that girl were on a mission from what she remembered. It wasn't the fondest memory, though Penelope supposed that it wouldn't be best to bring up her adventures with Riku until the right time.

For now, reassuring Sora seemed to be the best option. "Don't worry. It seems likely that we'll be able to get to it soon. If the barriers and gateways were completely cooperative as we liked, we could only throw ourselves into risky situations." She spoke calmly, only to wonder if that was really the best way to put it.

Sora wasn't too used to the idea of Penelope trying to comfort him yet. Donald and Goofy weren't either for that matter. It seemed weird for Penelope of all people to try and act like that of a big sister at a time like this. Penelope supposed that the side she showed to Roxas and that girl was coming out.

Clearing her throat, Penelope rephrased herself. "Basically, the point I'm getting across is that we probably should be careful with our gameplan and not throw ourselves into a situation where we could potentially get ourselves killed. I don't need it, you guys don't need it, and generally, we don't want to die before we can accomplish our goals." she explained, waving her hand.

As Sora was going through the Stardust Sweep path on his way to the next world, he supposed now would be a good time to work on catching up with Penelope. As he, Donald, and Goofy had been busy since they woke up, he hadn't really stopped and checked on what Penelope had been up to in the year since they last saw each other. Even though he did some catching up with Leon and the others, he hadn't thought of doing the same with one of his key party members.

"You know, Penelope, I never really asked you something."

"Hmm? Never asked me what?" Penelope asked back.

"We didn't catch up at all when we reunited." Sora pointed out.

Penelope was surprised that Sora wanted to catch up with her. Especially when they were currently driving someplace. "Well, you were setting off on your journey and getting all the intel on what you needed to know, so I don't blame you. I didn't know that you cared about what I was doing."

"Of course, I care. You're my friend."

Penelope frowned at the last part, crossing her arms and looking out towards the window to view space outside. "Are we really friends though and not just people working together towards some common goal? Especially in consideration of how terrible I was to you and literally everyone else around me?"

"This again? Penelope, I haven't been holding a grudge or anything against you for how you acted." Sora pointed out, briefly looking back at the Guardian before shifting his focus back on the battle ahead of him. "I know that you're feeling ashamed of what happened in the past, though it wouldn't be good for you to keep hanging onto what you did."

"I know that you aren't upset with me, but that doesn't excuse how I acted. I have been trying hard to be a better person and less of an ass, though I wonder if that's even possible when I screw up trying to protect others." Penelope sighed, tugging her hair. Sora, Donald, and Goofy were unsure what she meant by the last part, though it was on her mind.

Goofy was the one who spoke next. "Well, ya have shown that you've grown a lot since we last saw ya, Penelope. For starters, you've opened up a lot more to the group and have shown that ya want to change from how you used to be." He said, slightly scratching at his nose. "Though we didn't get to see Riku as long from when we last saw him, ya kind of remind me of him."

Penelope huffed when Riku was brought up, getting slightly more aggressive. It seemed that instead of "Kairi" being the one word that should not be uttered, it had changed to "Riku". With an eyeroll, the brunette said, "Even if I do, it doesn't excuse the stupid thing he did. Well, the series of stupid things he did. I'm either going to kick his ass or give him a piece of my mind the next time I see him!"

Sora's eyes widened at this as they were getting close to landing. "Huh? Why? What'd Riku do? Do you know where he is, Penelope?" He knew that Penelope had mentioned that Riku did something 'stupid' (at least, according to Penelope) when they first met back up with her. She just didn't have time to be clearer on what she meant.

It was the same case in this scenario, as she didn't have time to tell the others what happened as they were now landing in the next world. Penelope wanted to tell Sora about Riku. She wanted to tell him about Roxas. She wanted to tell him everything that had happened over the last year, but she knew she couldn't say much, or really anything at all.

She supposed it would be best for now to save this conversation for later.

XxXxX

(Beast's Castle)

Once Sora, Donald, Goofy and Penelope arrived in the new world, they entered through the large door into an empty and dark entrance hallway. It was quite large and spacious, though it also had this ominous and foreboding feeling. Penelope was accustomed to such when coming to this world, though she didn't say anything about it with her experiences here. Now wasn't the time. She didn't want to ruin Sora, Donald and Goofy's first experience in this place.

Sora looked around, taking in the surroundings. "Hey, what is this place?" He asked Donald and Goofy, wondering if they knew anything about it. They didn't seem to as they were more focused on the area they were in.

"It's huge!" Donald commented, looking around at the spacious entryway they wandered into.

"And sorta gloomy, don't ya think?" Goofy asked, looking around and then back at the others, waving his hand. Penelope bit her lip, holding back her commentary. She wanted to tell the three she had been there before, only for a loud roar to shake the castle and take Sora, Donald, and Goofy off guard. Penelope had never been so relieved by a roar in her life.

"Hey, does anybody else recognize that?" Goofy asked.

Sora crossed his arms and thought about it, hearing the roar again. Penelope was struggling hard to hold back. She was relieved once again when Sora quickly concluded. "Hey! That's the Beast!" He exclaimed.

A heartless slipped by as Goofy was suggesting they'd check up on him. However, they saw a shadow Heartless slip into a nearby room. The trio chased after it while Penelope followed, keeping an eye on what was going on. They slipped into a warm room with a fire lit in a fireplace, and a red, yellow and orange carpet on the ground. As the three were examining the room for the Heartless, Penelope noticed something odd. It was a single rose covered by a glass dome-like structure on the table. The rose had a mysterious glow to it.

Maria pointed it out to Penelope as Donald was going over to it. "Hey, isn't that supposed to be in the furthest chamber of the West Wing and not anywhere close to the entrance? What's it doing here?" Penelope didn't know how Maria knew the castle layout, but Donald was getting a little too close to the rose and a bad feeling crept down Penelope's back. She knew where this was going.

"Uh, Donald? You really shouldn't be getting too close to that! It shouldn't be here." She said, getting ready to stop him. The Beast didn't show up like Penelope had anticipated he would. Heartless showed up and surrounded Sora, Donald and Goofy instead. As they went to fight them off, Penelope aided them. However, despite they were handling themselves fine, and even with Penelope's help, the trio got backed into a corner by the multitude of shadow heartless.

Except they were shadow heartless. They weren't all that intimidating on their own. Penelope supposed that if there was a storm of them, they'd perhaps be a lot more intimidating. When Donald cried for help (Penelope was mildly offended by this as she was helping), the doors to the room were thrown open and the Beast came into the room. He wasn't impressed, and he took the Heartless out with ease.

At the same time though, despite Sora trying to be friendly and greet the Beast, that latter knocked him to the side as well as Donald and Goofy, hardly acknowledging him to get the rose. Penelope supposed that this would happen. Although she didn't interact much with the Beast when she came to the castle on several occasions over the past year, she did know that a lot had been going on with a lot of heartless coming into the castle and Organization XIII targeting this place. Why concern yourself with being friendly when there was a lot of other stuff to worry about?

Of course, this didn't warrant Beast's behavior, though Penelope understood the sentiment for the most part. The Beast came in as quickly as he came out, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy were confused. Donald was not impressed at being knocked over. "Gee, do ya think he maybe forgot who we are?" Goofy asked.

"With this many Heartless around, something must be up." Sora pointed out.

Donald rubbed his face, glaring in the direction the Beast went. "Why'd he have to do that?"

Penelope shrugged, deciding to finally say something. "From what I've seen, the Heartless have been a big issue here for the past year. The Beast was more hyper-fixated on getting the rose over anyone else around him. I know that the rose is very important to him, so getting it back was more of a priority." she said, flipping her hair. Penelope didn't mention the part about Organization XIII. That would come in due time.

"They have? How would you know that, Penelope?" Sora asked, as they were beginning to prepare to go back out into the entrance hall. Penelope adjusted her jacket and crossed her arms.

"I had to come here many times over the past year. Sometimes I came by myself, sometimes I worked with someone, either being forced to do so or on my own accord." Penelope didn't mention that she had worked with Riku and Roxas, as now was not the time or place to talk about it. "My 'babysitter' didn't appreciate it when I ran off."

"Babysitter? Why'd you have a babysitter?" Sora asked.

"It's a long, complicated story that I don't have time to get into." Penelope quickly answered, trying to change the subject. Sora wanted Penelope to just spill it, though that was when they were prepared to go back out.

When they returned out to the entrance hall, Donald saw a woman at the top of the stairs briefly, which the group concluded had to be Belle. So, they headed up towards the East Side of the Castle and down the East Wing to a large pair of double doors. Sora shushed the group when they came in so they could approach this stealthily.

Penelope watched Sora, Donald, and Goofy quietly go over to the door and stand by it, listening in. They heard Belle's voice from within the room, saying, "What am I going to do?" rather despairingly. Sora gave a signal, and Donald was going to go in and break the damn door down.

Penelope threw her hands up in the air and tried to stop Donald from attempting to be a battering duck, as now was possibly one of the worst times to do so, though the door opened just as Donald tried to break it down and Penelope was briskly walking over with a stop spell ready. She dropped it when she noticed the door had opened.

"Hey, who opened the door?" Donald asked.

Belle was very relieved to see Donald there. "Oh, I'm so happy you're here!" she exclaimed, scooping Donald up in a hug. Donald wasn't impressed by the hug, thrashing a little although it wasn't working. It was around then that she saw the other three. "Sora! Goofy! And you too Guardian Penelope!" Sora and Goofy waved hello, and Penelope smiled and did the same.

"Hiya!" Sora greeted Belle quietly.

Donald was still struggling. "Put me down! Put me down!" The duck insisted to Belle, still angry. Belle acknowledged this and carefully set Donald down. The duck was a little dazed by what had just happened.

"Belle 1, Donald 0. The Court Magician of Disney Castle, defeated by a Princess of Heart. It seems the light won this time." Maria hummed in the background, only for Penelope to hear now. Penelope had to hold back from laughing, as what had happened moments before was quite funny to see and Maria's narration did not help with the urge.

Once things had calmed down, the group worked on inquiring more about what was going on. Penelope didn't join much in the questioning as she had some idea of what was happening in the place from what she had observed. "Where's the Beast?" Sora asked Belle, wondering why he wasn't present here.

"Oh, he must be in the west wing." Belle replied. "We don't talk like we used to."

"Did something happen?" Sora asked out of concern.

Belle nodded. "Yes. Isn't that why you're here?" she calmly asked, tugging her sleeve a little.

Donald and Goofy looked at Sora for a moment, and then back to Belle. Goofy was the one who took the initiative of answering first. "Not exactly, but we can still help!"

"Since we're here and all." Sora added.

Perhaps this was a weird couple's therapy session that the quartet had walked into and were now trying to solve. Penelope focused on listening to what had happened and comparing the information received to what she knew about the whole situation. "The Beast won't talk to you?" Donald asked Belle.

"He's been acting strange lately." She said, appearing bothered. "The only ones who might know why are locked up in the dungeon. I want to help them, but…"

"Wait a second. Who locked who up?" Sora asked.

"The Beast locked up his servants." Belle answered.

Penelope bit her lip and looked away. "Oh my god. So, we've gotten to that extent, huh." She murmured, quite dismayed. She wondered if Organization XIII pushed the Beast that far, but she really didn't want to make any assumptions.

"But why?" Donald asked.

"That's what I don't know." Belle answered sadly.

"Hmm. Where's this dungeon?" Sora asked.

"You can get to the undercroft from the west hall. The dungeon is down there." Belle answered. Sora took this in mind and decided to start heading there. Belle warned them to be careful noting the dangers that had been present in the castle often as of late.

As the quartet exited out back into the hall of the East Wing, Penelope decided that now would be a good time as any to mention her experiences again. "So, while I came here over the past year, I had to navigate through the castle a few times. It sort of depended who I was working with, though typically, he and I tended to keep an eye on things on the outside, and we didn't go in much." Penelope was being purposefully vague about who she was referring to. She wasn't done talking, though Sora butted in a little as they were continuing forward.

"Who are you taking about?"

Penelope bit her lip and looked away. "…Riku. I'm referring to Riku." she said quickly. "Anyway, who I was working with is irrelevant to what I'm trying to get to. With the other person I was working with, we did go into the castle and move about, though I've also come in here on my own sometimes. I have been in the dungeon before, so I can show you where it is."

"Wait, Riku was here?" Sora asked, getting curious and excited.

"He was. When we had to come here together, at least. I know he isn't here now though." She said, twirling her hair.

Sora wouldn't exactly get off the topic, as one of his priorities was to find Riku and take him home. He had two leads on where Riku would be, those being King Mickey and Penelope. However, the King's location wasn't always clear as Mickey tended to move about. Meanwhile, Penelope seemed to be more aware of where Riku possibly could be, but she was angry with him for something.

"How can you tell?" Sora asked.

"I can't sense him." Penelope explained, getting mildly annoyed with Sora for the question. She tried to not be too angry, as she knew what direction that took her last time, but she did mildly glare at Sora. "I can sense light and darkness in people's hearts, Sora. You know this! Please don't tell me you forgot."

"I didn't forget, Penelope, don't worry." Sora spoke, giving her a reassuring smile. "I know that you can sense the light and darkness in people's hearts. I was just wondering how you can specifically tell if a person is in a place."

Penelope pondered on how to explain it for a second. "My ease of picking up certain people depends on how far they are from me. People with a lot of darkness in their hearts remind me of smoke, while those with a lot of light tend to remind me of things like a sunny beach, a meadow, and vanilla to name a few examples. I can tell Riku is there because he has a very specific aura. It's a mix of smoke and a sunny beach." She tried to explain, trying to refrain from dragging on.

Sora frowned and thought about it for a moment. "Actually, Penelope, what do you read from me if you were to specifically sense my heart?" Sora asked.

"It's a lot like the sun from a warm sunny beach. It's very cheery and upbeat. The darkness is like the sun setting on a summer day." Penelope tried to describe it. She was assuming the similarities between the light she sensed from Sora and Riku related to their home world of Destiny Islands. She could describe Kairi's pure heart of light as the same, but at the same time, it was a lot like a beautiful garden. She didn't know how she placed that.

Penelope was more focused on getting to the dungeon than she was focusing on descriptions. She knew how to navigate the castle well at this point. Still, she paused when Sora asked more a bit more clarity on Riku's aura. Smoke and a sunny beach didn't seem to really be cutting it as an explanation. Donald and Goofy were interested too as this information would likely help in their search in some way.

The maiden didn't intend for her tone to come off as like she was a bitter ex-girlfriend, but it did. And Sora could tell. "…Riku's darkness is like twilight and his light dawn. Right now, he's stuck in twilight and is basically walking through smoke. That's not to say his light isn't there. He can't exactly… access it right now."

She was trying her hardest to be calm, but her voice was beginning to seethe with resentment and they all could tell that this wasn't the best topic for right now, especially as they were starting to walk into the west hall. The group had slowed down to let her talk, through when they entered the next area, they were impressed by the long reddish-violet carpets, the axe-wielding suits of armor, the glimmering candlelight, and the overall grand nature of the chamber.

Penelope wasn't as impressed as Sora, Donald and Goofy were, though this was their first visit here. She didn't want to ruin their experience. Sora looked around and down the hall, trying to figure out where the accessway was.

"There should be a way into the undercroft around here…" Sora quietly muttered to himself.

Penelope was trying her best to retrace her steps and recall how to head to the undercroft, only to see a particularly large wardrobe was blocking their way. When Sora pushed it out of the way, the wardrobe opened its eyes and gone ahead to loudly ask, "Do you MIND?!" before knocking Sora away and moving back into position.

The girl had a feeling she knew where this was going. She decided to just let reality take its course and see where it went for now.

-o-o-o-o-

Arika 2023 (guest): Hi! Thanks for your question. Roxas will be back in this story, but it won't be for a long while (not until the last world!). As Sora's Nobody, at least at this time in the story, he presently lives on in Sora's heart. So, he's definitely not dead. Just in Sora limbo.

Please feel free to leave any feedback or questions if you have them! I appreciate anyone looking at my work at all. It's been a while, but I am looking forward to finally completing this when I get there. Kingdom Hearts 2 is lengthy though, so it will be a while.

I will see you all in the next chapter!

Ciao!