So, I mirror this fic on Ao3 and I've just been informed that the Drawn to Life section is pretty actively updated. Suddenly, I feel really sorry about crashing their section, lmao.

It was all so sudden. There was a flash of red, and then there was white. There was the sheer pressure of having his head mushed on to a book page, and then there was nothing. It was a familiar feeling, like that of a dream.

No, it was a dream.

Because as he floated by in this blinding void, he could make out the traces of the same castle halls he and "Gwen" had grown familiar with. He could see the vague figment of a certain pair of doors lead his consciousness into the mysterious library. But of course, just as he could feel himself pass through, the sound of white engulfed it all.

oOo

THE BOOK OF RAPO

oOo

"...aaaaa…

"...aaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

SLAM!

It was a miracle he was still alive with how far down he fell. And it was even more of a miracle he didn't get a concussion with how hard Mokona landed on his face right after. For a moment, he thought that was exactly what happened when he heard a detached laughter boom from the skies. Piecing things together however, that thundering was just Izzy.

"Good job, Bunny Baby, good job!" He could hear her clap expectantly from nowhere at all.

"Huh? What?" Cody sat straight up in a dazed snap and tossed Mokona to the grass in response. He twisted and turned in confusion as he tried to figure out just where Izzy was, but in this gray and clouded farming town he had apparently landed in, there was no one else around. It wasn't until she started to laugh once more that he had the sense to crane his neck upwards and figure out where she was, or rather, where she wasn't.

"Welcome to the Raposa village!" Izzy boomed throughout the sky.

With one mystery gone, now came another. Cody waved his arms around in a panic. Why were he and Mokona suddenly in another world? "Izzy, what did you do?!"

"Oh, I didn't do much," he could imagine herself twirling her hair in a false sense of humbleness. "It was all Mokemon."

"It's Mokona, not Mokemon!"

"I needed a way to shove you in here, so I grabbed him over to use as a catalyst."

"I did a good job, didn't I?" Mokona chuckled along in a bragging pose.

Cody wasn't having it. "Shoved us where?"

"The sketchbook, duh!"

…

"HUH?!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't you remember? I caved your head into the pages and everything."

"You're joking, right?" Cody's eyes blinked rapidly in disbelief. "This…this is a whole new world, isn't it?"

"It is!" Mokona answered, startling his companion with his overjoyed pipe. "Books are like glimpses into other worlds, right? Some books are special enough that they actually are! Like this one."

Cody sighed. "This…is a lot to take in."

"This is, what, your tenth world now?" Izzy mused. "What's so weird about one being in a book?"

"Well…" Cody slowly eyed the scenery around once more. Even more than before, he took note of the dour and dreary atmosphere. The land before him was almost devoid of all color. The ground was practically graying with its lack of life, and despite being surrounded by tilled soil, they were barren and blank. Izzy and Mokona both claimed this was a world, but it looked more like a half formed imitation of one.

"...Oh. Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, OH, OH, OH, OH!" Cody could practically feel the vibrations of Izzy's fists slamming onto a table. "Where are my manners? I didn't even tell you why you're here." She held out a long pause—back at Yuuko's place, she was probably sucking in the air like a vacuum—until finally, she belted it all out into a deafening call like the words of a god.

"MARI, JOWEE, COME ON OUT!"

…

"...Um…"

Cody and Mokona's ears perked. Just a couple of feet away, a pair of creatures, one girl and one boy, hid timidly behind the corner of a building. No doubt, the two had probably been there for quite some time. They were probably beckoned by Izzy's omniscient voice the moment Cody had arrived and only chose to pop up now that the voice deemed it was safe for them to do so. They peered further. The two looked no larger than Mokona. And with their plush-like form and ears like wings, they could've very well assumed they were the same species if it weren't for their more anthromorphic proportions. The girl, the taller of the two, boasted a brunette bob and dollike yellow dress. She had a kind face, but looked guarded in caution. The boy meanwhile, clad in an adventurous look of scarf and goggles, cooed with intense curiosity.

Cody and Mokona looked to one another as if they were trying to gauge a go ahead to proceed to these two unknown creatures. Without a proper response however, Mokona enthusiastically split off into an excited sprint towards the other duo. The poor things looked ready to hide once more from the shock of his overeagerness.

"Hiya!" Cody was able to catch up in time for his friend's loud and proud greeting. "My name's Mokona. Not Bunny Baby or Mokemon. Mokona!"

"Uh," the Keybearer scratched the back of his head. "I'm Cody. And you two must be…"

He'd prompted to give them their proper introductions themselves, but the two continued to stare quietly with uncertainty. The girl was ultimately the first to speak, but not to them. She looked up to the sky with furrowed eyes. "Creator, is he the hero you promised?"

"Oh, nope, nope, nope," Izzy responded. "I already told you. He's the creator. I'm just E-scope!"

"Creator?" Cody mumbled tepidly.

It was just a small smidge of hesitation, but it was just enough for the girl to continue looking at him with doubt. "Are you really, really sure he's the o—"

"Hi there, Cody and Mokona!" The boy could no longer hold in excitement and pounced at the chance to shake the opposite duo's hands. "I'm Jowee, and that's Mari! We're so glad you two came. I didn't know how we were going to keep holding up."

"Yah, yah, yah," Izzy bellowed on. "Managed to snuff out these two when I tried cleaning the book myself. When it got messed up, their whole town went with it."

"Yeah," Jowee added. "There was a huge flood one day. It was terrible!"

"Most of the townsfolk got lost in all the chaos," Mari looked down glumly. "It destroyed everything. Our crops, some of the infrastructure, even the sun! Everyone who was left had no choice but to move out."

"Yeah, these two were all on their lonesome," Izzy finished. "Nothing I did was working, so I told them I'd get them someone who could."

Cody turned his head back at the gloomy scenery. Surrounding the decrepit rural town was what seemed like an endless sea of black goop and mud. It stretched out beyond the eye, fading into the mist of the pages at the very edge of sight. Yuuko had mentioned that the book was tainted by the same darkness that made the Heartless. He supposed he really was the right person for the job.

"Well," he shrugged before summoning out his Keyblade in a show offy twirl. "Just point me to where the Heartless are and I'll take them down for you."

"Nope, nope." Cody could imagine her crossing her arms. "This is a PVP free zone."

"What am I supposed to do then?"

Right on cue, Mokona began to violently heave and gag. At the very peak of his suffocation, a fancy drawing pen lobbed out of his throat and clunked to the ground, wetting the dry grass with his slobber.

"You're gonna draw!"

"...What?"

"If we want everyone to come back, we're going to have to make the town functional again," Mari nodded. "So you'll have to redraw everything we lost."

"Whoa there," Cody waved the explanation of. "Sorry, but I'm not an artist."

"You don't have to be," Jowee stated reassuringly. "You just have to be a creator! You've created something before, right?"

Cody scratched his chin in thought "Well…" Off the top of his head, the closest he could think of was his very brief stint as a wannabe Youtube star. He had uploaded a messy hodgepodge of juvenile stunts, backfired pranks, and tone deaf electric keyboard covers for all of two months before finally pulling the plug after calculating his viewer metrics. Before he got the news about his acceptance into Total Drama, he'd already started to prep up his summer job hunting by claiming content creation on his resume. If he claimed it back then, might as well live up to the name now.

"So," he carefully picked up the pen with squeamish eyes over the dripping saliva. "All I gotta do is draw something, right?"

"Right," the two Rapo residents nodded in unison.

"Let's start with the banya then," Mari suggested eagerly. "If we can get the farmland back up and running again, that'll definitely get the others to come back for sure."

"Got it," Cody nodded. "So, what does this 'banya' plant look like then?"

"That's up to you."

…

"Huh?" Cody's head drooped to the side. A look of fear began to creep in as he quickly started to realize things were a lot more complicated than he assumed.

"You're the creator now!" Jowee happily piped in. "Draw what you think banya looks like."

The three tiny creatures in the vicinity stared at him with hopeful faces while his forehead began to moisten into a pool. It's not like he had much of a creative bone in him to begin with, but with zero guidance, he was left to mull around like a fool. His eyes darted back and forth, hoping for some inkling of a hint. And as the seconds blew into a minute, young Mari grew all the more impatient at his wishy-washy act.

"You can draw anything, you know," Mari reminded him with a tinge of annoyance.

"Y-yeah, I get that," Cody choked. "But, like…you know."

"'You know' what?" Jowee tilted his head.

"I can't just draw 'anything' anything."

"That's what we literally told you to do," Mari said with even less patience.

"Can I at least get a hint on what banya used to look like?"

"I told you already. That's up to you."

"B-but, it existed already, right? I just want some kind of jump off—"

"JUST DRAW ALREADY!"

The double punch of Mokona's shrill shout to his ear and Izzy's booming echo from above threw him into a panic. With a wail, he frantically scribbled out the first gut reaction his arms could fling out, and predictably, it came out as nothing more than indecipherable chicken scratch. The lines wobbled in place, trying to form into the thing called "banya" with all its might, but the doomed doodle was much too weak to hold. Like watching an animal try desperately to continue on its daily routine while at Death's Door, the strange ball of mass collapsed pitifully into the ether, having barely even lasted a few seconds in life.

Everyone stood silent and awkwardly. The excitement of revitalizing the town was no longer there; only a lingering sense of concern.

"Well," Jowee tried to bounce back with a half formed smile. "Maybe that was a little too hard a task to jump straight into. We could start with the sun instead! That should be easy, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Cody nodded. "It's…just a circle after all."

His hands still shaking nervously, he picked up the pen once more to draw out one giant sphere…

…Circles were a lot harder to draw than one would think, huh?

None of his loops came out right. They were lopsided, they were uneven, they failed to connect properly in the gap. It was an ongoing cycle of malformed sketches plopping apart unceremoniously. With each uncertain turn of the wrist, his eyes would slide ever so slightly to the side where he could see the others grow less impressed by the second. The more he looked, the worst his shapes formed, and the worst they would wriggle around like worms in salt. It was obvious. This was not his calling. What was Izzy thinking dragging him there? Screw this.

"This is stupid." Cody finally threw the pen down in frustration, and the three little ones were left aghast.

"Stupid?" Mari's jaw was dropped. "We are trying to save our town. You think this is stupid?!"

Cody's hand creased over his brows. "Look, I'm sorry, but this isn't my skill set. Someone else should be saving your town, not me."

"You're a creator though," Jowee frowned.

"No, I'm not," Cody groaned back before pointing up at the sky in annoyance. "Izzy's just saying whatever she wants. She can just grab someone else instead."

"Nope," Izzy's voice responded promptly. "It's gotta be you, bud."

"But why?"

"Because."

"Why?"

"Because!"

"Why?"

"Because times infinity, my guy!"

"Oh, for the love of!"

He had truly hit his limit. Cody threw his arms into the air and stormed off without a second thought. And like a trigger, Mari left in the opposite direction, spewing off about a useless creator all the way through. That left Jowee and Mokona, cold and confused, without a clue on what to do next. The two stared at the magical pen that laid limp like a cursed object on the decaying stale grass. At first, they looked at one another blankly as if trying to will the other to pick it up and do something themselves. When it became obvious neither were going to budge however, they had no choice but to do the next best thing: Look up at the sky and will Izzy to do something instead.

…

…

…

"Okay, fine! I'll go get him."