Nexus HWR 10.3 Close Encounter:
Cataclysm
"You're serious? Luffy has a bounty?!" Natsu exclaimed, though in a whisper-yell as even he knew not to shout something like that, especially considering where they were. Even at the volume he exclaimed at, a few of the others darted their gazes forward and back in the train car to see if anyone was looking at them oddly. Guards had made patrols through the train a few times now, but no one had come to check their tickets yet, so all of them were getting anxious about that.
"Shh," Gray shushed, looking really annoyed, mainly at himself for mentioning it in the first place. He nodded his head once it was silent in the booth though, and he continued to whisper, "I saw it right before we left the ticket booth. Twenty million dollars is a huge bounty, bigger than any I've ever had on my head."
"You had a bounty?" Ben whispered with wide eyes.
Gray nodded his head just once, then continued, "All the land just north and around the entire west side of the Fire Nation is controlled by the Organization, and they are close allies of the Fire Lord. Everyone from here to the Capital is going to be hunting Luffy down now." He quieted down and the people on his side of the booth understood why. He looked across the table between their seats and into the eyes of each person with him individually and seriously. "Don't forget your bags when we disembark."
Ben tensed up, then purposely calmed down as much as he could and leaned back with his arms behind his head. "'Disembark' will be the word I use when the ticket-checker is coming over. Don't forget the story. Don't hesitate to answer questions. Don't draw attention to us."
Kairi turned her head to the left and gave Kirito a smirk. She locked elbows with him on Dash's left side, and she said, "I'm so excited to see Pyraxas."
Kirito smiled faintly back at her. "Yeah, me too," he responded. He kept his eyes calm, though under his breath he whispered, "Sora's going to kill me." Kairi giggled as she heard what her friend said, and Kirito smiled a little more genuinely at the laughter he got out of her.
"Tickets and identifications please." The two kids on Kirito and Kairi's right side turned and looked up first. The three Fairy Tail mages on the other side were already looking up at the man since he had approached from in front of them and it would have been strange to avert their gazes. Kirito and Kairi turned last, looking surprised at first, then reaching down for their pockets when they saw who was standing there.
Kirito and Kairi are playing this perfectly, Gray thought, while he himself had his arm around Juvia's shoulders (having made sure she was on his right side at the start of the trip so that he would be able to at this moment). He lowered that arm now though to reach into his pocket and grab his ticket, along with his identification. "Ben, Dash, get your tickets and I.D.'s out." The boys across from him were staring at the train staffer waiting for their tickets, and also at the two guards in armor who were holding weapons behind him. They had spears in their hands with glowing orange parts on the sides of the spearheads that had openings on the end presumably for some far-ranged attack capabilities.
"Boys," Kairi said, and the kids snapped their gazes to her, then back to the guards as they reached into their pockets to take out their tickets and I.D.'s too.
The man asking for the tickets had a sharp mustache pointed out to the sides, and a bun over his head similar to other Fire Nation soldiers they had seen before. The two guards behind him were bald and burlier, but just like the one in front, their eyes were discerning as they examined the passengers before them.
Worst comes to worst, I blast our way out of this. Natsu thought, while at the same time handing over his I.D. like the others with him.
Just like Gray said, Ben thought as he handed his I.D. and Dash's over at the same time so the younger boy didn't have to reach past him. If Dash and I don't seem nervous that might look suspicious, but if we give our I.D.'s to them too fast, they might suspect something.
The leader of the group of three examined their I.D.'s very carefully. Gray felt nervous as the man reached his, but despite the woman at the ticket booth calling him out on the fake, the guard passed right over it. That woman must be really good. Sokka said the fakes were top of the line.
"Natsu Dragneel," the thin guard began. He was not wearing armor like the men behind him, but he had a pistol at his waist, and wore red and black colors like other members of the Fire Nation. He looked into Natsu's eyes and the pink haired mage stared straight back.
"What?" Natsu asked.
Gray turned his head to his left at the Dragon Slayer who he narrowed his eyes at. Careful Natsu.
"This I.D. has you marked as rank orange," the guard said. Natsu smirked, and the man humphed at the cocky look on the young man's face. He had a follow up question, but the threatening look in Natsu's eyes after he humphed actually made him believe the orange rank may have more merit to it than he originally thought. "Dashiell-"
"Dash," Dash interrupted, correcting the man hastily.
Ben snickered at the name he had only learned just earlier, one which Kairi mentioned to the old woman who made their I.D.'s, to Dash's dismay. The guard was not as amused, and he narrowed his eyes at the small boy who leaned back at that look. "Your last name is Parr, yet none of the, adults, in this booth share your name. Why is that?"
The way the guard hesitantly said the word, "adults," aggravated a few in the booth who felt like he was insulting them, but Kairi was not so easily upset. She smiled up at the guard and spoke up, "Dash hasn't seen his parents since arriving here on the First Day, so we've been taking care of him."
The guard kept looking at Dash while Kairi spoke, and when she finished, he said in a low voice, "Benjamin Tennyson, what about you? And this time," he continued quickly, while lifting his gaze and glaring towards Kairi, "allow the boy to answer for himself."
Kairi's bright smile lowered down, and she nodded respectfully at the thin man, while at the same time, Kirito and Natsu were giving the man dark glares. Ben took a deep breath, then looked into the guard's eyes with dark ones of his own, "I found my parents on this world." The others in the booth turned towards the thirteen year old and said nothing, making sure they did not look surprised, all of them staying in character, even though none of them were expecting that answer.
What is he doing?! Gray thought, while keeping a stoic look on his face.
"But they died," Ben continued, frowning deeper at the ticket checker whose expression softened a little at a look that flashed over Ben's face. Ben thought this may have been more difficult, tricking the guard into feeling awkward so that he would leave them alone, but he was able to come up with a dark expression pretty fast. All he had to do, was imagine each of the people around him, the day he saw them all die. His expression kept darkening as he sat there, because once he thought of one of them dying, he reimagined the entire day, and was watching Dash die in his arms as he whispered, "So Kairi and Kirito, and John and Juvia are watching out for me now."
He looked back up and into the guard's eyes, and the man stared back for a second before averting his gaze and looking towards Gray who re-faced him. He opened his mouth to ask something, but Natsu leaned over the table first and snapped, "What about me?" Ben turned to the Dragon Slayer, and his dark expression vanished, replaced with a smirk.
"What about you?" Ben questioned back, only mentioning the other four older people's names on purpose a few seconds ago. Despite knowing that Natsu was probably the one looking out for him the most out here, he knew he would get a reaction like this from his friend. Natsu dropped his bottom lip for a second, then began yelling something about how he was watching out for him just as much as the others.
"When we're not looking after you," Kirito mentioned quietly, though loud enough that Natsu turned to him with risen eyebrows, going, 'ehhh?'
"Thank you for your service," the ticket-checker said, and everyone at the table spun back to the edge of it to see the man putting their identifications back down. He seemed convinced by the recent set of events, and he pulled out a hole-puncher that he quickly punched their tickets with. "Enjoy your trip to Shelbyville, though I would suggest spending some time in Pyraxas before you catch your connecting train. The city is quite beautiful."
The man's suspicious questions and attitude completely switched and he actually sounded, friendly now. Kairi was the first to smile again and she responded, "Thank you. We might just do that." He nodded at the girl, and she could tell that the nod was half-apologetic for the tone he used with her before. The man turned and continued walking down the car with the other guards, before stopping at another booth with other passengers who just got on at Sin City.
The group started up a pointless banter that did not make much sense, and kept it going until the guards left their train car. During the conversation, Gray noticed that Juvia was being awfully quiet, and he darted a glance to her to see what was up. She looked concentrated on something, and she was. Juvia was focused on the voices of the men behind her now, waiting to catch one of them mentioning something about their group possibly looking suspicious. Gray moved his hand to his side and grabbed Juvia by the hand under the table, surprising the completely focused girl and making her turn towards him. He had a reassuring look on his face and Juvia smiled softly at the look of it.
Once the guards were off of their car, most of the group turned to Ben with a questioning look. The thirteen year old shrugged his shoulders, "It worked didn't it?"
"It wasn't what I said," Gray scolded back. "You and Dash were supposed to say the same things."
"I think you sold it perfectly," Kairi remarked, making Ben beam towards her while Gray groaned and leaned back, annoyed at how casual his friends treated everything. He had already thought ten steps ahead for if they got caught, knew where to run, thought about whether it was smarter to highjack the train or jump into the Cataclysm, but they kept throwing wrenches into his plans.
Natsu opened his mouth to mention something, but was interrupted by a deep growl. Grrr The others turned towards the Dragon Slayer who froze in place. He chuckled after a second and began, "Must be hung-" GRRR Natsu grabbed his stomach and his face turned pale. "Oh no," he muttered, then his cheeks puffed out and turned purple in color.
"What's wrong?" Kairi questioned the man across from her.
"Motion sickness?" Ben asked. Natsu slumped over the table and looked like he lost all of his energy. The younger kid would have laughed, but he was too confused at the moment and went, "Wait a minute, we've traveled on vehicles a lot since getting off the Sunny, but you haven't gotten sick once!"
Gray turned to the side and his eyes were wide as he had not noticed until now either. "Right when we were getting off the ship, you got sick didn't you?"
Natsu nodded slowly with his chin on the table. "Stupid, idiot," he mumbled, the others barely able to hear him. He could see everyone looking at him confusedly, and he mentioned in a groggy voice, "I've been taking pills, ugh, since Dressrosa. That bastard Kyros, he never mentioned nothing about the effects, urggg, wearing off, though." Natsu dropped his face to the table, then slid backwards into his seat and collapsed into the most slouched position he could get in.
"Must be like Wendy's magic," Gray deduced. "After so many uses, sooner or later your body builds up tolerance."
"Greaaat," Natsu mumbled out. His friends started laughing and the mage closed his eyes, praying the train would get to its destination as fast as possible.
Below The Train That Gray's Group Is On
TOOT! ChChChCh TOOT!
"There goes another one," Killua mentioned, staring up and to the right at the stone pillars rising from the bottom of the Cataclysm.
The kid watched as a train approached from the distance south, until Nami shouted from below the rock he was standing on, "Will you pay attention?!"
"Sorry," Kil remarked with a laugh, turning back around and looking down at the monsters running at them from all angles.
"They're after our food!" Luffy shouted, a panicked look on his face. Coming at them from all sides were bug-like monsters with four ant legs, long mouths full of sharp teeth like those of an alligator, and so many eyes that it somewhat resembled a spider too. The canyon crawlers were heading straight for Franky and Sanji who were carrying the largest bags, and the ones full of all their food.
Hundreds of these monsters were crawling out of cracks between stone walls, out of fissures in the floor, even climbing down pillars around them. Robin looked around, and the dark-haired woman saw something straight to the north of them. "To the cliff!" Everyone turned her way, then followed where she was pointing and saw a pathway up the northern canyon wall of the Cataclysm that they had been able to see all morning and were already heading towards.
"I can take 'em!" Luffy yelled. "Gum Gum Gattling Gun!" Fists flew and canyon crawlers were sent flying all over the place.
"Luffy!" Nami shouted back, as she was already pretty far ahead having listened to Robin right away. "Who knows what else is waiting for us up the walls?! Let's avoid this fight if we can!"
The pirates and their friends continued running north, even though Luffy stayed back and fought the big bug monsters for a little longer. He turned around though as he heard a yell, and his eyes widened at the sight of more of the creatures coming around the sides of where his friends were running. The monsters were not after him, and he realized he was only fighting the ones trying to get straight past him now. "Gum Gum…" he threw a hand up a tall stone pillar near him, "Rocket!"
Luffy shot up in the air, did some flips through the sky, and dropped down in the middle of twenty canyon crawlers. Meanwhile, nearly a mile over the head of the pirate captain, a train shot across the tracks and passed them so that it was farther north. On the western side of the train, the side closer to where Luffy's group was traveling, a young woman with dark red hair leaned up against the window and stared down with eyes as wide as saucers. "Was that…" Kairi whispered.
"What?" Kirito questioned the girl next to him.
Kairi turned and she had a small smile on her face, the corners of her lips curled up just the tiniest amount. "I think," she began, then stopped herself as it sounded crazy. She turned back around, then looked to her friends again who were confused at why she looked so giddy. "I could have swore, that for a second, I just saw an arm down there." Her friends looked even more confused, until Kairi continued slowly, "An arm, stretching up."
"What?" Ben asked, jumping out of his seat and leaning over Kirito and Dash to try and see out the window.
"It was only for a second," Kairi said.
Gray looked shocked for a moment, then calmed himself and leaned back in his seat. "You probably imagined it," he said. He chuckled that he thought something of it even for a second. "Why would Luffy be down there?"
"Didn't you say it was a really dangerous place to travel across?" Dash asked. Gray turned to the kid and his smile started to fade.
"And Luffy is wanted by the Fire Nation, so he wouldn't be able to use the train," Kirito added with a shrug. "Wouldn't be surprised if you really saw him," he told the girl on his side. Kairi smiled that he believed her, though Kirito stayed serious as he thought, There have been weirder coincidences, like the guy guarding the Lazarus Pit being Killua's dad. Kirito looked up a little and saw Gray looking back at him, wondering whether Luffy being below them a minute ago made sense or not. The two locked eyes for a second, before Kirito's eyes darkened and he narrowed his eyebrows, as he was already thinking about his mission with Gray before they looked at each other.
Gray felt his shoulder ache and he turned away, reaching up his right hand and touching his left shoulder. Kirito turned back to the window and looked out himself as they neared the northern side of the Cataclysm. Neither one of them noticed that the other two Fairy Tail mages in the booth saw the interaction they just had in silence. Natsu looked confused, while Juvia saw where Gray put his hand after they locked eyes, and her heart started racing.
Did Kirito have something to do with Gray-sama losing his arm?! I'll kill him! But why didn't Gray-sama mention it to me? …Me? Why, didn't Gray-sama mention it to Juvia? Juvia glared down at the table in front of her, but after a second of glaring she realized that her hands were gripping the table so hard that she could feel it starting to crack beneath her fingers. What the- Juvia stared at her palms as she turned them to face herself, then spotted something out the corner of her left eye and turned her head.
Natsu was looking at the table where Juvia was just gripping, his eyes wide, his heart racing. "She will start to thirst for blood, and then she will start to kill, and she will never stop. When the time comes that she can no longer distinguish between friend and foe, you will have to be the one to kill her. At that time, do not blame yourself. You will only be saving her from becoming even more of a monster." Natsu lifted his gaze, and looked shocked to see that Juvia was already staring into his eyes.
"Natsu-san?" Juvia asked.
Natsu smiled half-heartedly then turned back to Gray who he had initially turned inwards to look at anyway before Juvia's furious glare at Kirito caught his eyes. "What's up with you two?" Natsu mentioned, frustrating Juvia who could tell he was avoiding her gaze for some reason. Gray turned to Natsu and lowered his hand from his shoulder, while Kirito just glanced back, then turned to gaze out the window again. "Things have been tense since-"
"Nothing's tense," Kirito said, making the others turn to him and see he was still looking out the window. He brushed it off like it was nothing, but unlike the others, Natsu kept looking at Gray when Kirito spoke. Natsu saw Gray's face flush with guilt and regret, before he spoke up and agreed with Kirito that nothing was wrong between the two of them. Gray loses an arm on their mission, but Kirito's the one who looks angry at him. I don't get it. The Dragon Slayer shrugged as he figured since neither one of them wanted to tell him he'd have to leave it alone.
Now that Natsu mentions it, Gray's been averting his gaze from Kirito since they got back with Juvia. Ben looked around at the group with him, and he frowned at all the tension building up between them. What's going on? Juvia, Natsu, Kirito, Gray, it's like me, Kairi, and Dash are the only normal ones here. Ben's right hand slid down to his pants, and into his right pocket where it wrapped around something cube-shaped and warm. Normal? Is it normal to lie to your friends? I could have saved Juvia, but I didn't. He clenched his hand tighter around the Eliacube, then let go and put his hand back on top of the table. No, what I did was smart. The King would have shown up and killed all of us if I went back in time. Stop thinking about it!
Ben leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, while an announcement came on over the speakers telling them that they were approaching their destination. Next to him, Dash put his head back too and his arms behind his head. The relaxed little boy smiled and closed his eyes. I wonder if JackJack is in Pyraxas? That would be sweet.
Kairi looked out the window as they started speeding across the northern landscape. Her friends all had so much on their minds, but she was just taking in the beauty of the Fire Nation's green lands and the small towns all over the fields and hills near them. "Wow," she whispered, spotting a city in the distance when she leaned her head closer to the glass. "Sora, I wish you could see this."
Northern Canyon Wall of the Cataclysm
"Pyraxas?" Gimli questioned. The three and a half foot tall dwarf in a suit of armor scratched his long auburn haired beard that melded with his long hair and covered most of his upper body in it. "You're heading in the right direction." The dwarf with deep blue eyes examined the figures in front of him and chuckled, "You be heading into battle?"
Luffy grinned at the dwarf in front of him who he decided was a good guy, even though he had been telling himself he would take longer next time before trusting someone after what happened in the Women's Kingdom. Gimli chortled loudly at the smirk on the pirate's face. The dwarf who was standing guard at the entrance of a cave on the northern wall of the Cataclysm stepped out onto the flat stone platform jutting out of the steep slanted wall. Most of the group with the pirate in the straw hat in front of him were sitting down and resting as the northern cliff face of the Cataclysm was a lot steeper than the southern face that they slid and walked down a few days ago.
One of the group sitting behind Luffy looked towards the short hairy man and lifted his eyebrows. "How did you know?" Riku questioned the friendly-enough dwarf they just met.
"Why else would ye be making this trek? Most humans take those trains to cross this here crack!" He laughed again then pointed up the slant above the top of the cave. "I shouldn't be doing this, as King Anvilmar, the king of the dwarves, is a Lord under that bastard Sozin. But," he cupped a hand to the side of his mouth and looked like he was about to whisper, only to bellow at the top of his lungs, "Only a fool or a coward would bow to a slime like that!" The cupped hand to his mouth did not keep his voice from echoing back through the cave behind him, and Gimli looked smug at the aspect of someone else hearing him.
The dwarf put on guard duty for some "unknown" reason grumbled incoherently under his breath for a few moments before taking a deep breath. "So," he started back up to the pirate boy in front of him and looked up the slanted wall outside the cave again. "At the top of this here cliff, only a mile or so more to go, you'll be able to see that city in the distance. Ironforge is a massive city in these caves behind me, but our miles-deep forges have nothing on that great city. I should know. I helped build it."
"You built the Fire Nation's Capital?" Nami questioned as she stood up, stretching her arms over her head as she got ready to keep moving again.
"Thought you didn't like them?" Usopp asked, confused like his friend next to him.
Gimli smirked, "I don't! But they paid in gold, and they paid heftily." He rose up his double-sided battle axe that looked to be made of very strong steel but also glistened gold on the end of the shaft right before the steel head started. "HAHAHA! Enjoy the climb young warriors! I await tales of your victory over Sozin!"
"Well, we don't know if we're actually going to be-" Nami began.
Luffy threw his arms up in the air though and laughed, "Shishishi! You bet!" Nami could only groan and decided to leave scolding her Captain over not getting into fights in a little bit, they had time after all. The group said their goodbyes to Gimli and packed up any of the things they removed from their bags for the short break.
Luffy started climbing again more excitedly and the rest of his friends followed. The top of the Cataclysm was in sight, but the sun was out without any clouds and the trek was exhausting. They kept pushing themselves though, with their goal so close at hand it was tough to think of taking another break. Panting and sweating, the group of nine pushed up to the top of the cliff, before immediately turning around and looking back out over the giant Cataclysm. Even with the sun out, it was impossible to see the other side of the canyon, but they could see a great deal of it considering how far it dipped down in some portions.
Sanji tried to locate the Women's Kingdom but he could not see it from the edge. Nami thought maybe she would be able to see the Amazonian giants, but after two days of trekking away from their kingdom, she could no longer see the women ten times as tall as her. "That was a Super hike!" Franky said and posed with his arms diagonally up over his head. Rin nodded in agreement, though he was thinking of the demons that attacked them soon after they descended the southern wall, and the black cat sticking its head out of his bag licked him on the side of the face to try and cheer him up. Rin turned to Kuro and nodded, then turned around like some of the others already had.
The second the half-demon turned around, his bottom lip dropped and he let out an audible breath. "Whoa," he whispered. Rin gazed out to the east, and in the far northern distance he could see mountains so tall that he could not see their peaks, and even though there were clouds gathering solely in that area in the rest of the mostly clear sky, he could tell the mountains were taller than any he had ever seen before.
Luffy smiled wide as he examined the landscape in front of them. The train tracks going across the Bridge of Azulon continued north not far to the group's right side, but those tracks shot right through some towns before reaching the next station. "Look at all of that," Killua mentioned and whistled to show he was impressed. They could see the walls of Pyraxas from the cliff edge, and though so far in the distance that they could fit it between their fingers while their arms were outstretched, they could not believe how big the city was.
"Oh man," Usopp whispered. A few of the others looked at him to see what he was looking at, and saw he was looking straight out to the east. They followed his gaze and they became just as shocked to see walls in the distance. The walls were lower down than the giant ones surrounding Pyraxas, but to be that far away from the city they were wrapping around, the group understood the walls had to go for hundreds of miles around.
"That's amazing," Riku said. He turned to a large cyborg next to him and mentioned, "I bet it would take even you a month to build a wall like that."
Though Franky was admiring the brilliant architecture of the walls surrounding the distance Pyraxas and all the land around him, he scoffed at that and said proudly, "Give me a day and I'd build a wall twice as long and thrice as tall!" Riku could not tell if the shipwright was joking or not, and that only made him chuckle more.
"So many towns," Robin remarked, gazing around the lush green landscape within the outer walls. Her eyes lingered on Pyraxas, but she could not see all that much of it from this distance, especially with the high walls on the outside, and the even higher ones inside those outer walls. "It seems many in the Fire Nation live in the outskirts of its capital. The city must be thriving to draw so many even outside of the walls."
"Doesn't look like there are any monsters here though," Killua mentioned. He turned around for a second, then looked north again and said, "I wonder if anyone noticed we're here." A few of his friends looked at him confusedly, and Killua continued, "Someone must be watching the Cataclysm's edge to make sure no monsters climb over it. We should probably start moving in case they have guards patrolling around here."
"Just," Nami began, "give it a minute." Kil looked her way and saw her still looking over everything with such awe in her eyes. The beauty of the land was only matched by the structures and towns scattered around them. There were medieval structures made of stone, and towns made of logs or steel. Most of the buildings had the same style with roofs of red shingles, with little overhangs outside of every floor so that each floor had its own balconies. Doors were made of paper not glass, and most walls were made of bamboo likely cultivated from the bamboo fields between some of the towns. There were two rivers visible from the edge of the cliff, and even some large, docile animals grazing around.
Rin took everything in like his friends, but his eyes focused on Pyraxas before most of theirs did. Yukio. His eyes narrowed and he lost focus on the beauty of everything around him. Astaroth is in there. I'll find him and make him tell me where you are, little brother. He clenched his fists tightly at his sides, "As you are now, you have no chance of saving dear Yukio." You're wrong Mephisto. I don't care why you aren't helping me, but you wouldn't have said anything if you thought I had no chance. I can do this. I can save him!
The others who were looking around at everything noticed Rin's intense expression, and they remembered why it was they decided to come to Pyraxas anyway. Astaroth is in there, Killua thought, while trying to keep his nerves under control despite the rumors he heard about the demon. If that's just what a Lord can do, how strong is a High Lord? Is Sozin stronger than Astaroth? He must be. Maybe I'll find out just how strong inside.
Sozin. A High Lord. Saix was pretty strong, so I'll probably- definitely need Gear Fourth to fight him. Luffy's eyes glanced over to Killua, before he looked out over the north again and thought, It might be smart taking our time to get to him. He's so far away after all, and there's no rush. He calmed himself down, as no matter how much he wanted to charge right in and fight the strongest guy in the city, there were other things he had to consider. I won't lose any nakama in this city, he thought, and an adventurous smile came to his face. We're gonna have so much fun here. "Let's get going!" He called out and started walking forward over the grass at the edge of the canyon. "I can't wait to see inside that city!"
"How about this time, we go in without sending scouts ahead of us first?" Usopp mentioned. Riku turned to the muscular man on his right who spoke sarcastically, but was not smiling when Riku looked into his eyes. Riku knew the sharpshooter was thinking about how he used the Heartless back at the Dread Fort, and he grimaced at the look Usopp gave him.
"Yeah! I want to be surprised," Luffy agreed loudly, not sensing the awkwardness behind him. Luffy's shout seemed to snap Usopp out of it though and he turned ahead and ran up to his captain's side. Riku stared at Usopp's back as he talked excitedly with Luffy, and the silver-haired teen frowned deeply.
"Robin-chan! Let me carry you to…" Nami droned out Sanji's half-perverted half-chivalrous shouts to her left side, and she looked right at the tall young man with deep green eyes walking next to her. Riku, she thought, while the boy in question stared straight ahead with eyes so far away. What are you thinking about? Ever since the Women's Kingdom you've been, off.
Guardians of Light, what does that even mean? Am I only supposed to use the darkness when it's absolutely necessary? Why? When I can control it so well? … Well? What do you think? … Still quiet huh? I know you're still in there. I got used to having someone to talk to this about. Riku waited while he continued to walk, then sighed and continued to frown in an unsure way. What am I supposed to do to get him to forgive me? Maybe he never will. Why am I even focusing on this anyway? I have bigger things to worry about. Sora's gone off on a mission alone to find the Keyhole, Goku, Timmy, and King Mickey. Should I have gone with him? I have the Keyblade too, so why am I leaving it all up to him?
"Riku, are you alright?" Nami whispered, and the man turned to look into her light brown eyes. He smiled at her and nodded, but she kept her facial expression serious and whispered, "It's okay if you're not. You can tell me."
Riku's smile faded. He thought about how Nami was there with him in the Dread Fort when Zexion showed them their worst nightmares. She knew more about him that anyone else in the group he was with, and a small, more genuine smile, returned to his face. "I know," he told her, in a voice that said he really did know that he could tell her if he wasn't alright. "And Nami," he added as he turned back forward, "thanks."
A/N So that's where I originally ended the chapter, but... Something fun I wrote and couldn't figure out where to put, so here you go!
One Week Ago
"Now that Axel is once again with us, that leaves only one group of rogues unaccounted for," Xemnas sat at the highest chair in the circular room of tall white thrones. They all rose at least fifty feet off the ground but his was closer to fifty yards up.
Axel, despite only joining recently, was among the top ten highest chairs in the room. He leaned forward and questioned, "There were others?"
"Ha! Did you think you were some sort of special case?" Xigbar taunted his way. The man with a black ponytail and only one eye leaned forward and shook a fist in front of him. "Nah, there were some other guys who weren't too keen on staying here."
"Who?" Axel asked.
sc
1000 Miles Away
The Great Ocean
Next to a small island in the middle of the Great Ocean but closer to Aebrith than Awul, two ships sailed close to each other. The ships' starboard sides were both lined with their crews. They were sailing so close to each other that there would be a twenty foot gap between their sides, at most, as they ran up alongside each other.
The crews were not focusing much on how close they were though. One crew stared at the black dragon figurehead of the other ship. They looked up at the sail and the skull and crossbones on it and on the black flag at the top. The sails were black and the skull on it was white, with two swords instead of bones crossing behind it. It was a very similar symbol to the one on the white sails of their ship that had a red dragon figurehead. The hilts of the swords on the black flag were gray, and unlike the red sash that went down over the left eye of the skull on the white sail, the sash was gray on the black sail's skull, and there were two of those sashes crossing over each other right above the eyes of the skull.
The crews stopped looking at how closely their ships resembled each other's, and instead shifted their gazes to the sides of the approaching ships closer to them. Every one of the men on the ship with white sails lowered their jaws, while the ones on the darker ship stared back with stern, hardened expressions.
"Uhh, Captain," Yasopp began. The sniper with long curly blond hair did not turn away from the ship they were sailing next to. He continued, "You seeing this?" On the ship twenty feet away from them, stood people who looked exactly like them. The Red Hair Pirates stood on the same exact spots as their counterparts on the other ship. Even the helmsmen looked over from the wheels and made eye contact at the same time.
"Drop anchor," Shanks called out. He stepped towards the ledge and looked out at the ship next to his. Another man walked up to the ledge of that darker ship, a man whose hair was jet black, who had scars on his face in the exact same spot as Shanks. "Hey there, Shanks?" Shanks greeted, raising his pitch to make it a question as he did not know whether this guy had the same name as him as well as his face.
"X Shanks," he corrected, his voice even sounding exactly the same to Shanks's.
"This is too weird," a fat man in a green and white striped shirt on Shanks's left side began. Lucky Roo looked into the fat man on the opposite ship's eyes, and the man glared back at him much darker.
"Who are you?" Benn Beckman called over. Their ships both were at a standstill, but Shanks's crew were getting increasingly nervous at the hostile expressions on all the cloaked figure's faces. Unlike their own brightly colored crew, every person on the ship with black sails wore a black cloak with hoods bunched up behind their necks.
The man who looked like Shanks only with black hair stared straight into Shanks's eyes for a few seconds longer. Then, he reached his hand down towards his waist, and Shanks did the same, putting his hand on his sword hilt. Then, the figure in a cloak calling himself X Shanks pointed a hand forward and yelled, "Got ya!" He tilted his head back and started cracking up at Shanks's sudden baffled expression. The rest of X Shanks's crew lost their hostile expressions and all started laughing too.
Shanks let go off his sword and he called over, "Who are you guys? You our counterparts from a different universe as us or something?"
"Haha, no, we're your Nobodies!" X Shanks called over. "But we'll talk more about that," his eyes narrowed and his men suddenly looked menacing again. Shanks's crew that relaxed became on guard again, then X Shanks yelled out, "Over drinks!" He reached down, grabbed a barrel that was hidden next to the side of the railing, then leapt over the side towards Shanks's ship.
The rest of X Shanks's crew came leaping over while the Red Hair crew groaned that these guys were just messing with them again. Benn Beckman did not relax as easily, and he turned his gaze to the man whose face looked exactly like his. "And who are you? X Benn?"
"Benn X," the Nobody said and Benn sweatdropped.
"All of you have X's either at the start or end of your names?" Yasopp asked his Nobody, Yasopp X.
"Or for Lucky, right in the middle," Yasopp replied with a laugh. Lucky X Roo grinned at Lucky Roo who blinked a few times wondering if this was really happening.
"Drink!" A voice shouted and both crews introducing themselves to or staring oddly at each other spun around. They looked towards the cabin and saw Shanks with his right arm over the cloaked figure's shoulders, and X Shanks's left arm slung over his Somebody's. They both had mugs in their hands and knocked them back at the same time. They chugged, chugged, finished at the same time, and both slammed their mugs down on top of the barrel filled with more ale.
"I like this guy!" Shanks yelled and then started laughing loudly along with his Nobody. The rest of the crews looked back at each other, then they all started grinning and drinks were poured. The party started with duplicates of nearly every person on the ship.
A man from X Shanks's crew was looking around and he turned towards his Captain and his counterpart. "Oi, where's my Somebody?"
Shanks stopped drinking to look towards that man, and his big smile wiped off his face. "Ahh," he sighed and lowered down his mug. "I don't really get what's going on, but Ricky died in the fight against Blackbeard's crew."
"Damn, we fought Blackbeard?" Ricky X said in annoyance. "Wish I could remember that, that was probably a great battle."
"And Sal?" X Sal called over from where he was drinking with the Yasopps.
Yasopp turned to him and took a drink before saying, "Luthor snapped in Metropolis and got Sal with a piece of his aura."
"The guy's aura alone killed my Somebody?" X Sal asked disappointedly.
"Don't be that bummed," Yasopp mentioned. "Luthor took a shit on all of us. Even the Super Saiyans were like rice paper to the guy, all but Son Goku."
Over with Shanks and his Nobody, and both of their first mates, Benn turned to Benn X and asked, "So what is up with all of you? What do you mean you're our Nobodies?"
X Shanks answered, "When you all got turned into Heartless in Castle Oblivion, we were created. This group called the Organization told us to go out looking for our originals to try and take their hearts..." Before he could continue, both Shanks and Benn tensed up, but X Shanks wasn't actually trying to mess with them and he held up a hand defensively. "I didn't really like that Xemnas bastard though, so we left the Organization."
"Abandoned those shitty names they gave us too," Benn added and took a chug from his drink. He started pouring another one and muttered, "What the Hell kind of name is Nenxb? Can't even pronounce that shit."
"Ha! Think that's bad? Try making an anagram with seven letters but only one vowel, two S's, a K, and an X in it!" X Shanks laughed. Benn and Shanks both tried doing it and it just hurt their heads trying to come up with something. They joined in with the laughter when they couldn't come up with anything and the ship got louder than ever.
The party lasted late into the night as Somebodies tried out-drinking their Nobodies and vice versa. It wound up knocking out the majority of both crews while those who remained just cracked up at them. Shanks finally turned to his counterpart, both with faces flushed red, and he asked in a slurred voice, "What's up, urp, with those black cloaks you're all wearing?"
"These?! Ah, we just wear 'em 'cause Xemnas knows where to find us if we aren't. I don't like him, but there's no denying he's a monster. All those High Lords are," X Shanks mumbled at the end.
"He's a High Lord?" Shanks wondered and looked up at the stars. "Huh, haven't been back to Aebrith in a while. Though we are sailing not too far off." He turned east and cracked his knuckles in front of him. "Looks like we've got a new destination! Guys! Let out the, sails..." Shanks fell backwards with his eyes closing and passed out upon hitting the ground.
X Shanks pointed and started laughing at his counterpart who had a snot bubble sticking out of his nose. He opened his mouth to make a taunt, then fell forward and landed crossed right over his Somebody's body. He was out before he hit the ground.
A/N Hope you enjoyed! I wrote the little part about Shanks' and his crew's Nobodies a while back, and figured here was a good place as any to put it. As for the main part of the chapter though, the close encounter is meant to show that the two group's timelines have now lined up. Since chapter 8 followed Luffy's group, and chapter 9 followed Gray's, many of the events happening in those chapters were happening simultaneously. We see in this one though that Luffy's group was already down in the Cataclysm for a few days before Gray and friends got on the train (though this is kind of my bad if it was confusing since I was switching back and forth between plots in the last few parts as if they were happening at the same time). One more thing, the canyon crawlers going after Luffy's group's food are from Avatar the Last Airbender if you wanna look them up. Let me know what you thought of the chapter below! And get ready for the next chapter- Nexus HWR 10.4 Pyraxas- City of Fire!
joebob323 chapter 60 . 22h ago
Woohoo! That was a good chapter, we were introduced to many new faces, and finally got a glimpse of where Zoro was camping out! Nothing much to say, except that I am waiting for the next chapter in high hopes!
Thanks for another review! Glad you enjoyed and hope you enjoyed the latest chapter! Thanks again everyone for reading this story, and 'till next time!