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Fanfiction ► Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom Series



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KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

I only know of two people who can use light. It'll either be King Mickey or Queen Minnie using light to keep the villains at bay. I couldn't help but inwardly cheer at Donald and Goofy showing up on the scene. Oh my gosh, I love seeing them all fight along side each other! SAT talking about their times together and about Kairi falling out of the sky was pretty damn cool too. Also, I loved the water pun thrown in this too. :D Yup, everyone sounds in character. And I don't think I know these villains in particular, but that's okay. xD
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XIII: Hassle in the Castle, pt. 2
Sora doesn’t know what exactly he expects to see when the magical light that had burst into existence in a world occupied by walking, talking animals fades, but a shelf full of books isn’t even in his top ten guesses.

“Wha?” is all he manages when he finally collects his scattered thoughts. Shaking his head, he turns around, coming face to face with a massive golden door flanked by two portraits of short creatures with absolutely enormous round ears. One is dressed in rough leathers and a coonskin cap, with a bushy white mustache beneath its black nose, and the other in a more formal red jacket, smoking a pipe and looking haughtily down at the viewer.

“Where are we?” the boy asks, absolutely bewildered by absolutely everything he’s seeing.

His question goes unanswered, as everyone else immediately rushes forward, crowding around a big-eared, hunched over creature in a pink dress. A crown adorns her head, so Sora assumes this must be the queen, Minnie. She doesn’t look great, her face red as she breathes heavily in and out of her mouth, looking drained completely.

“Are you alright Your Majesty?” Telary asks, dropping to one knee at the queen’s side.

“Quiet you!” Donald squawks, fixing his apprentice with a nasty gaze. “You don’t get to address the queen like that, not after all the stress you’ve caused her!”

“Would you put a sock in it, Quacky!” Azlyn rips right back, giving the royal magician a glare that matches his in intensity. “He’s just concerned about the queen. We all are!”

“I’m fine,” Minnie finally manages to get out between puffs of breath. Goofy guides her over to a small desk and chair. Once she’s seated, her breathing starts to normalize.

“That was some spell you used, Your Highness,” Telary says, stepping back to stand by Azlyn’s side. She’s still engaged in a battle of glares with Donald. “I’ve never even heard of a spell that can do that.”

“Thank you, Telary,” Minnie says, accepting the compliment with a gracious nod. “It took a lot out of me, but I’m sure that I’ll be fine in a moment, after I’ve had a chance to rest.”

“So, what exactly is happening?” Azlyn asks, tearing her eyes away from Donald’s to look up at her queen. “The castle garden is a freakin’ who’s who of bad guys, the hangar’s crawling with some messed up Quackerjack teeth robots, there’re giant plants everywhere... I mean, as far as danger to the castle, this is pretty much the high point.”

“Yes, this is a dark hour indeed,” Minnie agrees, sighing and looking up at the portraits by the door. “If only the king were here. He’d be able to stop the Fearsome Four.”

“Fearsome Four!” Telary cries out, and Sora notices Azlyn looking visibly upset at the invoked name as well. The Keybearer remains silent, however, figuring his questions will be answered eventually.

“All of them at once, huh?” Azlyn says after she’s regained a bit of composure. “Have you tried calling in Darkwing Duck yet?”

“Ha!” Donald scoffs, crossing his arms and sticking his beak up haughtily. “Like we need help from some two-bit scum vigilante whose ego couldn’t fit in the royal audience chamber!”

“And besides, he’s pretty busy,” Goofy adds, earning an indignant squawk from his feathered counterpart. “That ol’ Negaduck is causing a heap of trouble down in Mouseburg.”

“No problem,” Azlyn states confidently, her smile widening and her eyes getting bright. “Me, Telary, and Sora can handle these clowns easy. After all the stuff we’ve seen, a bunch of criminals don’t scare us.”

“Ha!” Donald scoffs once again, chuckling a bit darkly. “Azlyn, if you want to fight criminals so bad, I’d suggest you just start hitting yourself!”

“Oh, will you come off it!” Azlyn roars right back, actually drawing her shield, scowling harshly at the wizard. “Yeah, we did a bad thing, and we definitely disobeyed orders. But, we did manage to complete the mission. We found the key!”

The declaration is met with a squawk of confusion and surprise from Donald, an awed noise by Goofy, and a sudden reenergizing of the queen, who leaps off her chair enthusiastically.

“You did!” she exclaims, stepping up to the pair. “Where? Where is it?”

Azlyn and Telary give each other a brief look before stepping aside and gesturing to Sora, who is a bit taken aback at the sudden attention. For a moment he just stands still, stunned into silence, until Azlyn coughs loudly into her hand.

“Oh!” he says, reaching out a hand and calling out for his weapon. A long shaft of light flashes briefly in his hand, and when it fades, he holds the Keyblade in his grip.

Both Donald and Goofy let out gasps of wonder, leaning forward to get a better look at the blade. Queen Minnie smiles widely, stepping forward to brush her gloved hands against the blade’s smooth shaft.

“We found each other in Traverse Town,” Sora explains, lowering the Keyblade to his side. “Well, they kinda landed on me, actually. But, anyway, afterwards they asked me to come with them on their ship, to look for their king. They even offered to help me look for my friends. Ever since then we’ve been traveling to other worlds, fighting darkness pretty much everywhere we went. I know they disobeyed, and they even lied to me about who they were, but I swear I’d be a goner if it wasn’t for them.”

Minnie and Goofy both look at the boy fondly, while Donald just rolls his eyes and irritably taps his foot.

“And even more important than that,” the Keybearer continues, dismissing the Keyblade and pulling Azlyn and Telary close to his sides, “they helped me carry on when I wanted to give up. They’re my friends, and I couldn’t imagine spending one second searching the worlds without them.”

“I can tell that you’ve all become very important to each other,” the queen says with a sigh, looking over the trio once again. “It doesn’t erase the wrongs they’ve done, though,” she continues, and Azlyn and Telary both look away with pained expressions. “But, I suppose that’s all a conversation we’ll have to have at another time, hm? For now, we’ve got to deal with this attack!”

“I bet we could take ‘em,” Donald chimes in, stepping forward. “If it weren’t for all those freaky plants Bushroot has runnin’ around! There must be a hundred of the things! Way too many for us to beat.”

“Well, uh,” Sora says, raising his hand shyly and actually backing up a step when everyone else turns to look at him. “Doesn’t this castle have, um, an army or something? I know Azlyn said she’s in the royal guard, so…”

“Well, we do have the guard,” Goofy replies, scratching at his neck sheepishly. “But there’s only about a dozen of ‘em, and they ain’t exactly, uh…”

“The royal guard is mostly ceremonial, I’m afraid,” Minnie adds. “Besides Azlyn and Goofy, they most likely won’t be much help.”

“I’ll say,” Azlyn speaks up with a snort. “In fact, I’d bet you ten to one the stinkin’ mop servants would make a better army.”

“Now you listen here, missy!” Donald starts, wagging his finger authoritatively, seemingly glad to have the chance to yell again.

“That’s it!” Telary bursts out suddenly, interrupting Donald’s tirade before it begins and drawing the attention of the room. “It’s so easy!”

“What is it, Telary?” Minnie asks curiously, stepping toward him. “You have an idea?”

“As a matter of fact, Your Majesty, I do!” Suddenly standing tall and confident, he marches to the center of the room, eyes bright and mouth grinning. “What Azlyn said about the mops actually gave it to me!”

Off everyone’s bewildered expressions and confused noises, he begins his explanation. “I think that it is actually possible to use the mops as a kind of impromptu fighting force. I mean, they all run their cleaning and serving assignments through the Master Spell Control totem in the High Tower, right? All we’d have to do is, uh, for lack of a better term ‘reprogram’ their orders for battle.”

“You mean change the spell?” Donald asks, skepticism heavy in his voice. “The spell that’s been running nonstop for decades? The one the king and I took three whole days to set up? The most powerful spell ever cast in Disney Castle? That spell?”

“Uh, yeah,” Telary replies, his voice wavering minutely. “I wouldn’t be easy, of course, but I’ve studied it pretty extensively, and I think my theory is sound.”

“Whaddya think, Your Majesty?” Goofy asks the thoughtful looking queen. After a minute of pacing and scratching her chin, she stops and speaks up.

“Well, I think Telary is right about it being possible,” she agrees. “I’ve studied the spell a bit myself, and it shouldn’t be hard to tweak it a bit. The problem, however, is getting to the High Tower through all of these menaces.”

“We can handle it, Your Majesty,” Azlyn assures her queen, actually dropping to one knee and lowering her head. “Telary, Sora, and I have been doing quite a bit of fighting these past few days, and I think we could get through to the tower.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Donald roars, stepping up to the kneeling girl with a fire in his eyes. “I’m in charge of you…”

“Well, uh, Donald, technically I’m in charge…” Goofy starts to weakly protest, cut off midsentence by a death glare from the duck sorcerer.

“And I say that your hero days are finished!” the mage continues, ignoring Azlyn’s head snapping up with a shocked expression, as well as Telary’s gaping mouth at hearing the news. “I don’t care if you’re all best friends now, from now on, me and Goofy’ll be doing the companioning around here!”

“Hey, you can’t…!” Sora stars to protest, stepping up to the duck with his hand in Keyblade summoning position, only to stop when the diminutive wizard scowls at him.

“That’s right, kid,” Donald confirms with a hard look in his eye. “You’re stuck with us, whether you like it or not!”

Sora starts moving forward again, and Azlyn rises from her position on the floor with fists clenched, surrounding the duck while the other three people in the library watch in sheer horror.

Before any actual combat can take place, a loud boom echoes throughout the room and the golden doors leap forward as if struck. As the echoes of the sound fade, everyone turns to the doors.

Suddenly another explosion bucks the doors, sending them flying open, a strange white foam bursting into the room, splattering Telary, the closest person to the door.

The young mage, predictably, freaks out.

“Aaaah!” he cries, running around aimlessly as the sticky foam oozes into his eyes. “It’s burning, I’m melting, it…!”

Suddenly a hearty, borderline deranged laugh echoes through the room, chilling everyone. As the sound fades, a duck dressed in the yellow and red striped costume of a medieval court jester struts into his room, clutching his stomach.

“Oh man!” he blurts through his guffaws. “The look on your face! You can relax, kid, it’s just whipped cream!”

“Huh?” Telary cautiously scoops a handful of foam into his hand and puts it into his mouth, discovering instantly that it is, in fact, just whipped cream that he’s covered in. “Oh, heh. What do ya know?”

“Quackerjack, you clod!” Donald yells, waving his staff at the criminal menacingly. “You get outta here right now before I have to fry you!”

“Geeze Louise you are tense, Donald ol’ boy!” Quackerjack says with a roll of his eyes, stepping forward to meet the wizard. “You really should try to have fun, like me!”

“You really think holding up castles is fun?” Sora says with an air of challenge, swinging the Keyblade once to show he means business.

“Oh, absolutely,” the jeering jester replies, drawing out a fake flower from his back pocket. “In fact, I’m having an absolute gas!”

The horrible harlequin thrusts the rose forward and squeezes its stem, unleashing a cloud of purple gas directly at Donald and Azlyn, who begin to choke and stumble back.

Enraged at his friend’s pain, Sora steps forward and swings the Keyblade in a mighty horizontal slash, actually picking Quackerjack off the ground and sending him flying back at the doorway, where he lands with a solid plunk on the stone tile, right at the feet of a tall rat in a yellow jumpsuit with an honest-to-God battery plugged into his back. Electric sparks seem to continually flicker off of it.

“Poor Quackerjack,” the rat sighs with a giggle, looking pitiably at the injured jokester at his feet. “You never were very bright, were you?”

“Dang… It!” Azlyn manages through the coughing fit caused by the gas attack to her face. “What is with these people and their stinkin’ puns?”

“What do you want, Megavolt?” Minnie requests of the villain, eyes hard and determined as she steps toward him. “Why are you attacking the castle?”

“Well, Your Highness, if you must know,” Megavolt explains, his right eye twitching twice, “our services were purchased by a benefactor I dare not name. Someone who would see the wielder of the Keyblade,” he points a menacing gloved paw directly at Sora, who grits his teeth defiantly, “and his traveling companions laid low by our awesome power!”

“Just try it you…!” Donald rages at the rat, only to be silenced by a burst of electricity exploding beside him, singing his feathers and sending him scrambling backwards.

“And rest assured, we will have them,” the sparky psycho continues, as if the duck’s rant had never occurred. “But, seeing as we’re here, we’ve decided we might as well take over your castle too!”

Raising his finger high with a maniacal laugh, Megavolt calls to the digit every ounce of power he can dig up from his supercharged biochemistry. Cackling like the madman he is, he brings down his finger and thrusts it forward, sending several sizzling chords of pure blue electricity hurtling at the heroes.

As the tendrils grow closer, Sora flinches, holding the Keyblade in front of him desperately even as he averts his eyes from the bright lights.

The light continues to glow for what seems like an awfully long time to the Keybearer, so he cautiously raises his eyes back up.

He sees the queen, her arms raised and projecting a kind of yellow light, like that of the sun on a summer afternoon. The light floats in the air, blue sparks of the destructive energy Megavolt had sent out flashing momentarily all along the solid barrier of sheer light before being snuffed.

“Wow,” Telary says as he takes a curious step forward, a look of pure awe on his face. “She’s actually converting the electricity into magic, and using it to fortify the shield’s structure. I could study for years and not…”

“Put a sock in it, Telary,” Donald interrupts, moving to stand before the group. “You three need to get ready to move. As soon as the queen drops her shield, you’ve gotta make a run for the tower, okay?”

“But you said…” Telary begins.

“I know what I said,” the sorcerer snaps back, rolling his eyes. “But the queen needs me an’ Goofy here to protect her! You and the key can make it to the tower, right?”

“Yes, we can,” Azlyn says confidently, her lungs finally cleared of the gas from Quackerjack’s attack.

“Good,” Donald replies as Goofy moves to stand beside him, shield drawn and eyes determined. “Don’t get killed or anything,” he jokes as he turns around and prepares his staff. “If ya do, I won’t get my chance to punish ya! Now, Your Majesty!!!”

Minnie lowers her hands and the shield drops. Not a second later, Donald sends a burst of ice magic at the villains, while Goofy leaps forward.

The spell hits Megavolt, covering him in frost and sending him sputtering as he takes a step back, then Goofy delivers a shield strike straight to Quackerjack’s torso, putting the villain down.

The victorious moment fades not a second later, as a trio of the long stemmed, tentacle equipped flowers move in to attack, their tendrils whipping everywhere.

Sora, Azlyn, and Telary make a run out of the library, quickly cutting down a second trio of plant monsters right behind the first ones, then another, until a group of lightning bolts sent by Donald gives them an opening to head off down a side corridor.

Plant creatures endeavor to follow them, but they can’t escape Goofy, whirling at them with the force of a tornado and cutting them down to size. He stops, reorients himself, and begins battling the rest of the monsters, pushing them forward into range of the huge fireballs Donald is creating with his Firaga spell.

A massive bolt of fire is the last thing Telary sees before the trio takes another right into the next corridor, the door to the High Tower set back in the wall beneath a painting of another of the king’s ancestors, this one decked out in the battle gear of a Viking.

A quartet of plants are waiting there, two of the tentacle-vine kind and another pair of Venus flytraps.

Sora and Azlyn leap towards the creatures, Sora bringing his Keyblade down on a flytrap while Azlyn crushes a tentacle-vine beneath her boots, then hurls her shield to cut down the other flytrap, even as Telary freezes the last creature solid.

“This way!” Azlyn shouts, opening the door to the High Tower and waving everyone towards it. As soon as everyone is inside, Azlyn slams the door shut. Through it she can hear more plant monsters marching towards their position. “Hurry, people!”

The trio races up the stairs, not even noticing the pool of shimmering blue water sneaking in beneath the crack of the door.

“How many stairs are there to this tower?” Sora asks his companions after about a solid minute of running up a winding staircase with no end in sight.

“Hey,” Azlyn huffs out, a bit tired herself after combing stairclimbing with all the fighting she’s been doing, “they don’t call it the High Tower for nothing.”

“Besides,” Telary chimes in, though his breathing is even more labored than the other two, “if we put all of these stairs between us, it’ll take a long time for the bad guys to catch up!”

“Are you sure about that?” says a familiar voice. A moment later, the watery form of the Liquidator slithers past the trio to stand a few steps above Telary, arms crossed and black eyes gleaming and gloating.

“Aah!” Telary cries, nearly falling backwards back down the stairs. Luckily, Sora is able to place a steadying hand on the mage’s back and hold him up until he regains his footing.

“Has this ever happened to you?” Liquidator inquires smugly, with all the false charm of a snake oil salesman. “You think you’ve gotten away, you think your plan will work, only to discover that you are in fact trapped? Well folks, if you ever…”

“BLIZZARA!” Telary roars, the spell’s activation word echoing up and down the stairwell. Raising his staff, the mage unleashes a blast of pure cold, encasing the entirety of the Liquidator in ice and cutting off his prideful spiel.

“Why you… little…” the villain hisses through his frozen mouth. “When I thaw, I’ll…”

He doesn’t get to finish this threat either, as Azlyn rushes upward, grabs the rogue’s frozen arm and pitches him down the stairs. Chunks of his icy body can be heard breaking off all the way down the staircase.

“Azlyn!” Telary cries out with a bit of anguish. “Why did you do that?”

“Hey, you froze him,” the knight defends, looking almost indignant at being chastised at this juncture.

“I was just gonna leave him frozen here. You watch the news, you know how he slows down when he gets frozen! I certainly wasn’t planning on hurling him down the stairs!”

“Uh, guys,” Sora chimes in, his ears detecting the last thunk of the Liquidator’s tumble. “Could we maybe talk this through later?”

The trio continue on up the stairs for another minute, finally reaching the wooden door to the High Tower’s main room.
The room is empty except for an oak table in the middle of the room, where a blue conical hat with silvery star and moon patterns stitched into it rests. Light from the tower’s sole window shines upon the hat, giving it a slight silvery blue glow.

“A hat?” Sora exclaims incredulously, moving forward and reaching out for it. “Why is there a hat up here…”

Azlyn grabs the boy’s arm before he can get his hands too close to the artifact, yanking him back unceremoniously.

“The hat is the Master Control Spell,” Telary explains, moving forward and staring at the hat with a reverent look. “It’s the direct connection into every magical operation of the castle, and how Donald and the king were able to weave such a complicated spell as the one that keeps the mops going night and day.”

“And therefore you shouldn’t be touching it,” Azlyn adds sternly, releasing the Keybearer’s wrist from her grip.

“Okay, okay,” Sora complies, backing away and rubbing his wrist with a wince. “Yeesh.”

“Frankly,” Telary says with a bit of a shake, “I’m not even sure I should be touching it. There’s a lot of power tied up in this thing, and if I can’t use it…”

“You can, though,” Azlyn assures her partner, placing her hand gingerly on his shoulder. “I believe you can.”

“Me too!” Sora adds brightly, though he keeps his still hurting wrist to himself.

“Alright then,” the mage says, taking in and letting out a deep breath, his arms reaching for the hat and lifting it into position above his head. “Here goes everything!”

Sora and Azlyn watch as the mage takes another deep breath, sets a steely look into his eyes, and jams the cone onto his head.

For a second, nothing happens.

“Huh,” Telary says, a bit bewildered. “I thought that it would… Oh my!”

You have been deemed worthy, wizard.


As the voice fades from the boy’s mind, the stars and crescent moons of the hat emit a golden glow, and in seconds his eyes glaze over with an aura to match and he rises about a foot into the air.

“Oh, wow,” Telary breathes out, the corner of his mouth teasing up into a grin. “That’s interesting…”

“What?” Azlyn asks, not daring to get any closer to her empowered friend.

“Turns out I did leave that broom running!”

Azlyn groans out loud, while Sora just looks at the pair with confusion, a feeling he’s gotten plenty used to since arriving at the castle.

“There, it’s off,” Telary reports happily.

“Just do the spell we came for, huh?” Azlyn prompts. “We’re on something of a schedule here, in case you’d forgotten.”

“Okay, sure. I’ve isolated the spell I want, now I just need a minute to rearrange it. Won’t take long, I promise.”

“So what should we do in the meantime?”

“Uh, I’ve got a question you could answer,” Sora speaks up, getting Azlyn to finally stop looking at her partner. “Since we’ve got this minute and all.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Azlyn allows, leaning back against the table and crossing her arms.

“Okay, so,” the Keyblade wielder begins, hoping he’s being sensitive enough with his question, “you know how everyone is some kind of animal in this world? Well, if that’s the case, then why…?”

“Why aren’t me and Telary a swan and a badger?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Sora confirms, his eyebrows quirking up. “How did you get ‘swan and badger’?”

“Trust me, it’s something I thought about a lot growing up.” Sighing, Azlyn pushes off the table’s edge. “Well, being perfectly honest Sora, we’re not too sure. No one in the castle really is, or at least they haven’t told us about it. Apparently we just showed up at the door one day, pretty much abandoned.”

“So you two are related?”

“No, we’re not. They ran some tests, no match. That was about twelve years ago.”

Twelve years
, Sora thinks. For some reason, that number nags at the back of his mind.

“Anyway, the king took pity on us, I guess,” Azlyn continues, a fond smile incrementally lighting up her face. “Raised us pretty much from then on. Everybody in the castle pitched in, of course, but the king was… Well, he was just the best. He recommended me for Royal Guard training when I was thirteen, thinking it’d help with my aggression.” She looks to Telary, the grin widening. “Same thing for Telary and being Donald’s apprentice. He’s a great guy.”

“That why you want to find him so much?”

Azlyn shrugs. “Suppose. I mean, I kinda feel like I owe him, ya know? For putting up with me all those years.”

For a moment everything is sweet and calm. That doesn’t last long.

The door to the tower bursts open with a loud boom, and into the room hops Quackerjack, riding atop a large pogo stick and grinning maniacally.

“I knew I’d find you up here!” the jeering jester exclaims, hooting with glee.

“Hold it there, you doofus!” Azlyn defiantly shouts, raising her fists for combat.

“There’s no way you’re messing this up!” Sora adds as the Keyblade flashes into his hands.

“Not if you can’t catch us!” Azlyn yells, darting swiftly out of the room. It takes a second for Sora to get with the program, but he soon follows.

Quackerjack just snorts. Like he’d follow such obvious bait when clearly the one to beat is the guy with the glowing hat. Like he’d be insane enough to...

“You know, I used to have one of your dollies when I was a kid,” Azlyn calls mockingly back up the stairs. “And let me tell ya, it really sucked!”

“How dare you!” Quackerjack roars, his playful demeanor evaporating like Liquidator in a skillet. “My toy designs were, are, and always will be perfect, you little ingrate!”

“Please. I bet that dumb pogo stick you’re using sucks just as hard!”

“I’ll show you!” the demented duck screams, turning to pursue his insolent quarry. “We’ll see who sucks when I’m scraping you off of the bottom of this thing!”

His mighty springed steed takes the stairs two at a time, maintaining perfect balance even on the narrow steps. The constant curve of the stairwell is a bit difficult to negotiate, but nothing his magnificent invention can’t…

On his next bounce down, suddenly all motion stops. Looking down in the spare quarter of a second he has before he begins to pitch forward, Quackerjack sees the girl knight holding the spring in her hand, smirking up at the persnickety prankster before slamming her arm, and the pogo with it, downward.

Quackerjack flies down the air above the stairs, screaming all the while, until he reaches the curve, nothing but hard, unforgiving stone wall ahead.

He’s not even that lucky, though, as Sora steps up, Keyblade held back like a batter ready to hit a homer. He swings the blunt sword forward and connects solidly, sending the criminal comedian hurtling a few feet back up the stairs, where he slams head first into Azlyn’s shield. He sinks to the floor with a weak groan before passing out.

“Nice one, Az!” Sora cheers, his grin stretching as far as his face can allow.

“Well, I wasn’t kidding about the doll,” the girl says modestly. “It didn’t even do karate chops or anything!”

“So you beat me up!” Quackerjack whines, clutching his aching head but still managing to fix Azlyn with a hard glare. “Doesn’t matter! We still got the court duck and the guard dog. Sent ‘em off to our boss Maleficent. And Megavolt’s gonna use the queen to unlock the throne room and become king!”

“What!” Azlyn yells, lifting Quackerjack by the collar and roughly shoving him against the wall.

“Yeah, that’s right,” the defeated but still cocky criminal gloats. “If half the things we’ve heard about Maleficent are true, then those yutzes are as good as…”

Azlyn decks the duck in the beak, knocking him out for the count. She drops him and Sora can see the dark intensity in her eyes.

“Come on,” she says, already heading down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“But what about…”

“He’ll catch up, Sora,” the girl cuts him off, already several feet below him. With a last glance up to the tower room, Sora turns to follow his friend.

When he reaches the bottom of the staircase, he sees that Azlyn is already there waiting, though she doesn’t seem to be doing anything but staring down the hall, where quite a few oddly loud sounds are originating from.

Sora steps to her side and his mouth drops open as he witnesses two mops standing on their bristles, thin wooden arms whipping down on an overwhelmed Venus flytrap with feet

Down the corridor, a tentacle-vine flower snaps a mop into three pieces, only for the pieces to each regrow into another mop, who all launch themselves at the mutant plant with bristly karate kicks.

“I hate to have to say this,” the boy says to his equally transfixed friend. “But you come from one strange world.”

The pair are so focused on the bizarre battles taking place that they don’t notice the jets of water until it’s too late. They slam into the pair’s backs like blunted spears, sending both of them to the floor.

“You think you can make a fool out of the Liquidator twice and get away scot free!” the villain behind Azlyn and Sora cries, his sales-pitch lingo foregone in his rage.

Slowly and with heavy groans, the pair turn to face their foe, who looks at them with nothing but hatred in his beady black eyes.

“How does it feel to know you’re about to be the first folks in Disney Castle to drown on dry land, eh?”

“FIRA!”

A large ball of pure flame shoots out the high tower stairway entrance and slams into the Liquidator, boiling and evaporating him in a microsecond.

Sora and Azlyn look up to see Telary emerge from the staircase door, the tip of his wand still smoking.

“Wasn’t that a bit harsh, Tel?” Azlyn teases as she rises, offering her hand down to Sora to help him stand.

“Well,” the mage stutters, shrugging uneasily, “circumstances being what they were, I figured… Anyway, Donald and Goofy’s signatures aren’t showing up in the castle’s magic resonance field, so I think something’s happened.”

“Quackerjack said that they got them,” Sora says, with a droopy frown. “Took them to someone named Maleficent. I guess she was the one who hired them.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like any villain I know,” Telary says. “Maybe the queen will. And speaking of, I think she’s in trouble!”

“Megavolt took her to the throne room,” Azlyn provides, sneering.

“That’s where she was showing up on the field, yeah. Let’s go!”
This sounds like tooting my own horn, but I just love the mental picture I get picturing those Disney Castle mop guys fighting evil plants. Plus, this new chapter revealed a few previously unknown facts about Azlyn and Telary. Significant ones? Probably. Anyway, tune in next time for the conclusion!
 

KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

I'm dying to know where Telary and Azlyn came from after being raised by the King and everyone in Disney Castle. Gosh, Queen Minnie with Donald and Goofy kicking butt was awesome! Loved the jokes and sass in this chapter a lot too. Anyways, it's too bad Donald and Goofy got taken to Maleficent. And I wonder why Sora finds 'twelve years' so significant. Can't wait for the next chapter to find out what happens next. :D
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XIII: Hassle in the Castle, pt. 3
The trio race back down the same corridors whence they’d come, though this time they pass several mop versus plant smackdowns. All in all, the mops seemed to be wiping the floor with Bushroot’s monstrosities.

“Nice job on the spell Telary,” Azlyn congratulates, and Sora makes a small noise of agreement.

“Thanks guys,” Telary replies modestly. “Honestly it wasn’t that difficult. I already had the spell’s infrastructure to work off of, so I just had to modify the…”

“Telary,” Azlyn interrupts. “Just accept the compliment, okay?”

“Sure.”

When they reach the throne room, part of the massive door has fallen and left a hole. Steeling themselves and readying their weapons, the trio enters.

The audience chamber is as wide and long as Telary remembers, and at the end of it, by the throne stand Megavolt, Bushroot, and Queen Minnie, her arms bound to her sides by thick green vines.

“I see that neither Quackerjack nor the Liquidator were villain enough to subdue you three,” Megavolt sneers haughtily, jumping up into the throne’s seat. “I assure you, I won’t make their mistakes. You will fall, and this castle will belong to me!”

“I get the queen though, right?” Bushroot interjects a bit needily, prompting a loud outburst from the captive queen that’s muffled considerably by the vine gag around her mouth. “You said the queen could be my girlfriend!”

“Yes, Bushroot,” Megavolt sighs, hitting the plant/duck hybrid with an annoyed stare, “the queen will be your girlfriend, and you can watch your soaps in the throne on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. That was the agreement, and I…”

“Would you two mind putting a sock in it?” Azlyn roars. “Besides, it doesn’t matter what you think is gonna happen after you take the castle, since that’s not happening!”

“Yeah!” Sora chimes in. “You chumps couldn’t even do your paid job right!”

“What do you mean?” Megavolt inquires.

“Donald and Goofy weren’t the ones traveling with me,” the Keybearer gloats. “Azlyn and Telary are!”

“And you’ll never catch us now!”

With that final taunt from Azlyn, the trio turn and hightail it out of the throne room, trusting in Megavolt’s rage to goad him into their intended course of action.

The lightning bolt that flashes out the door seconds after they’ve exited into the colonnade confirms that he’s playing to their tune.

“So, uh, what’s the plan now, guys?” Sora asks, looking over his shoulder nervously. “Because I can’t run forever, y’know!”

“Well, Megavolt’s powers short out when he’s exposed to water,” Telary explains.

“Too bad the Liquidator go fried, eh?” Azlyn teases the mage with a wink.

“Hey, that…”

“Relax Tel. I’ve got a plan. Just follow me, and everything…”

Another blast of electricity impacts behind the group, catching Telary in its shockwave and sending him flying down a nearby set of stairs.

“Telary!” Azlyn yells, though she knows that she has to just keep on running. She and Sora put on another burst of speed, and she silently hopes her friend is okay.

Telary lands with a loud thunk and lets out a groan. Sitting up and shaking his head clear, the mage looks around to see that he’s landed in the Disney Castle kitchen.

In one corner huddle a group of chefs, one of them the very same rabbit that had pawned off his serving job on the mage the morning everything had started going pear-shaped.

“Are you okay?” the cook asks, clutching his round chef’s hat in his paws.

“Fine, actually,” Telary replies with a chuckle, though the ache concentrated particularly in his tailbone has him wishing he had a potion on him.

“Say, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

It could be argued that this whole affair is in fact this particular rabbit chef’s fault, but Telary is too kind to point that out.

“Uh, not sure,” he replies innocently. “Maybe you’ve seen me practicing magic with Master Donald?”

Sora and Azlyn, meanwhile, have finally reached their destination: the castle’s gym complex.

“What are we doing here?” Sora inquires, taking in all the exercise equipment. Azlyn grabs his arm and hurries him along.

“Well, you know how Telary said Megavolt gets shorted out by water?”

“We’re gonna sweat on him?” Sora cries out in disgust.

“No, idiot!” Azlyn shoots back, squeezing a bit hard on the boy’s arm and eliciting a tiny squeal. “We’re gonna…”

“DIE!” Megavolt’s deranged voice screams, and suddenly another bolt of lightning hurtles toward the pair.

Sora reacts faster than Azlyn, summoning the Keyblade. The electricity hits the mystic weapon and bounces off, impacting harmlessly on the rubber mat on the floor.

“C’mon!” Azlyn nudges the boy towards the locker rooms.

They enter the room and Sora looks around, a kind of goofy grin playing across his mouth.

“I’m in a girls’ locker room!” he chuckles, prompting an eye roll from his partner.

“You can act like a dumb teenage boy later,” she snaps, grabbing him by the hood and leading him further back.

“I’ll get you for this,” Megavolt’s screechy voice yells from the room’s entrance. “You castle dwellers will pay dearly for the oppression you perpetrate. I mean really, machines designed only to step on? And that’s not even mentioning the way you sweat all over them!”

The villain rounds the corner, smirking as he stalks towards the pair huddled near the door to the showers.

“Now I have you,” he gloats, raising an already sparking finger. He shoots, but the pair dodge and run into the shower room. Sensing weakness, the villain pursues, stalking through the doorway…

And getting Azlyn’s foot in his back, propelling the mad rodent forward and underneath a medium pressure head.

Sora, standing near the taps, turns them as far as they go. The head sputters a moment, and then a torrent of tiny water drops descend on Megavolt.

“No!” he cries in anguish as his powers short out, leaving him nothing but a drowned rat in a jumpsuit. “No, it’s not fair!”

Azlyn winds up and hurls her shield directly at the fiend’s furry face, hitting him in the chin and sending him to the tile floor.

The pair emerge from the locker room a bit damp. Especially Sora, who had been right near the shower as it had started up. Telary is waiting for them.

“You used the showers, I take it?” the mage asks. Azlyn nods at him with a pleased grin on her face. “Nice. Good work team.”

“Now there’s just Bushroot to deal with,” Azlyn says, with a great sigh. “C’mon, fellas let’s get up top.”

They reach the colonnade once more without incident, as the mops have taken care of all the plant creatures. Some of the castle’s occupants and workers are even beginning to emerge from where they’d been hiding.

The audience chamber seems to be where they’ve all congregated, but Queen Minnie and Bushroot are nowhere to be seen.

“Azlyn! Telary!” a duck in a purple dress cries out in anguish as the trio enter the room, a pair of chipmunks dressed in yellow smocks, one with a red nose and the other a black one and wearing a fedora, trailing along behind her.

“Hi, Miss Daisy,” Telary greets her cautiously, pronouncing ‘miss’ with the hard ‘z’ sound. “Did you manage to get to safety quickly during…”

“Where are Donald, Goofy, and the queen?” she asks, wringing her hands. “I haven’t seen them since Donald told me to go hide. Are they alright?”

The trio all look at each other awkwardly, none of them wanting to crush the poor woman’s hopes.

They’re spared the need for an answer, however, by the sound of a loud crash from out in the colonnade. Spinning back toward the door, the group rushes out into the hall.

The party comes to a halt outside the door, as they stand in shock and fear regarding the huge shrubbery before them in the shape of a giant man, at least fifteen feet tall. The column it had just knocked over to announce itself sits in two pieces on the carpeted floor.

“Hear me, denizens of Disney Castle!” Bushroot’s voice, amplified somehow, rings out over the area. “I have your queen trapped inside my shrub armor. Surrender her and the castle to me, and no harm will come to her, or any of you. If you choose to resist…”

The shrub-automaton swings leafy right arm into another pillar, sending it toppling down. Everyone manages to dodge it, but a large chunk breaks off and clips Telary on the forehead, opening a wound and sending a trickle of blood down his face. He falls back into Azlyn’s arms.

“Telary!” she cries, checking him over swiftly as Sora kneels beside the pair. “Telary are you okay?”

He mumbles something vaguely affirmative, already gesturing for Sora to hand over a potion.

“That’s it, Bushroot,” Azlyn says determinately, rising and drawing her shield. “You and your dumb villain pals have wrecked my home, kidnapped two of my friends, and hurt another. I’m tired of it, and I’m tired of you! I may have resented this place before, but none of that matters anymore, because you’ve messed up one of the nicest places in the universe, and for that, I’m gonna kick your ass!”

Everyone present gasps at the curse word, the first in anyone present’s memory to be uttered in such a public setting at the castle. When the gasp fades, a loud gulp from Telary follows, then the loud tinkling of broken glass as he drops the potion bottle to the floor.

“Come and get me!” Bushroot roars, raising the shrub’s hand over its head and fist-pumping the air.

“You ready for this Tel?” Azlyn whispers.

“Sure am,” he replies with a smirk.

“Let’s do this!” Sora cheers with a fist-pump of his own.

“Here we go boys… CHARGE!!!”

The trio leap at the giant leafy monstrosity, barreling inside its chest cavity, hacking away at the leaves in front of them and stomping others underfoot.

When they finally manage to penetrate inside the monster, they find themselves in a tiny chamber within it, lit dimly by luminescent phosphorus leaves scattered throughout. Queen Minnie sits against one wall, arms and mouth still bound.

“It’s okay your majesty,” Telary assures the monarch as Sora cuts away her bonds and Azlyn removes the vine from her mouth. “We’re gonna get you out of here before you can say…”

“Stop!” Bushroot screams, dropping down from the leafy ceiling, four vines growing out of his back and into the infrastructure of his shrub armor, one other connected to his head. “You will not spoil my victory! Not you foolish children! I will have my castle, and I will have my bride, and…”

“Hey, Bushy!” Azlyn interrupts, drawing back her shield arm, “I think I’ve heard enough monologues for today.” She hurls her weapon in a perfect arc, slicing straight through all of the vines Bushroot had been using to operate his monstrosity.

The mad doctor drops to the ground with a blank look, his mind temporarily scrambled by the loss of his creation.

As for the creation, the structure begins to shake, chunks of leafy branches coming down all around.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Telary cries, and Sora moves immediately to begin cutting his way back out.

“Stop, Sora!” Minnie commands, standing still and looking regal despite the chaos around her. “Everyone gather around. I think I have one last shield in me!”

The creature falls to pieces all around them, but the trio remain safe in the queen’s golden shield. After a solid minute of leaves falling around them, the group finds itself atop a high tower of leaves, looking up at the citizens above.

“You ruined it all!” Bushroot cries out in sheer anguish. “I was going to have it all! Revenge, a lady friend, every…”

“Y’know,” Telary sighs, drawing his arm back, “I think Azlyn was right.” He swings, and the head of his staff connects with the disgraced scientist’s skull, knocking him out instantly. “That’s enough monologues for today.”

The next thing they hear is cheering.
 

KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

This. Was. AWESOME! The timing in that one sentence was pretty damn hilarious. I'm not sure if you setup that way on purpose, but kudos for you for doing that. xD Anyways, I loved seeing Azlyn finally have enough of all the monologue and do something about it. Poor Telary is a punching bag in this chapter, constantly getting hit here and there. Overall, it was a good chapter that ended on a happier note. I hope they get Donald and Goofy back soon.
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XIV: Next Steps
The throne room is the least ruined area in the castle, barring a few black marks on the floor courtesy of Megavolt’s lightning’s heat flash, so the trio meet with Queen Minnie there.

She sits above them on the throne, all three of the world travelers having taken a respectful knee, heads bowed and eyes fixed on the floor.

“I’d like to extend to you three my official thanks,” she begins, her voice cheery and proud. “You all showed exceptional skill and bravery in defense of the castle and its people, who are all undoubtedly indebted to you.”

The trio raise their heads and grin at each other, Telary and Azlyn’s faces especially bright.

“It’s only too bad that none of us were able to prevent Master Donald and Captain Goofy from being taken,” the queen sighs, and the trio’s smiles all vanish.

“Where could they have taken them, Your Majesty?” Azlyn asks. “Because we could search the city for…”

“Sadly, they have been taken off world,” Minnie confirms, rubbing her forehead tiredly. “I detected the teleportation as soon as it happened.”

“At least they’re alive, though,” Sora chimes in. “I mean, we can get them back. I’m sure we can!”

“I know it can’t really make up for what we did, but…” Azlyn frowns directly at the floor. “We want to help in any way we can.”

“You can help by continuing on your current mission,” Minnie says. Azlyn and Telary hop up and look at each other in shock, and Minnie explains further. “While it is true that your previous actions were unconscionable and wrong, it seems that you two have proven yourselves, as per the testimony of Sora and Jiminy Cricket.”

The tiny conscience hops up on the back of the throne and gives his charges a little wink.

“And while rest assured there will be consequences at some future date,” the queen continues, “for now, you have my personal blessing in this matter. I am sure you will make me, and the king, proud.”

“Thank you very much your majesty!” Telary says, his legs actually faltering a bit, though Sora is on hand to keep him upright.

“We won’t let you down, we swear!” Azlyn adds, bowing her head respectfully. “We’ll stick to Sora and the Keyblade like glue, and we’ll bring the Donald, Goofy, and the king home too!”

Minnie rises and makes her way down the steps. Standing in front of Azlyn and Telary, she offers each of them a hand, which they take. “As I said before, I have every confidence that you will.”

The group moves out into the corridor, where the castle’s brooms, already reset to their primary function, are assisting the employees in cleaning up the debris and dead plant life still littering the colonnade.

“I wish we could stay and help fix up the castle, Your Majesty,” Sora says as he surveys the scene. “It looks like it’s gonna be a lot of work.”

“The people of this world are strong and full of ingenuity, Sora,” the queen assures the Keyblade wielder, gesturing to a group of pigs dressed in hard hats and overalls working together to clear away a large section of stone column. As they move it past, Azlyn notices that it still has some of Telary’s blood on it.

“Ironically enough,” the mage sighs, scratching at his forehead where he’d gotten hit, “I’d always really admired the stonework on those columns.”

“Besides,” Daisy chimes in, approaching the group with Chip and Dale by her side, “it’ll be nice to have some decorating work to focus on. A nice little pet project while Donald is… away.”

Minnie places a sympathetic hand on her maiden’s shoulder. At the very least, they have each other to console during their long wait to reunite with their loved ones.

“Speaking of pet projects,” Dale announces all of the sudden, “have you two seen Pluto around anywhere? Ever since the night you left, we haven’t found hide or tail of him anywhere in the castle.”

Telary and Azlyn share a small look, wide-eyed and uncertain.

“Nope,” Azlyn says quickly, scratching her elbow absentmindedly.

“Haven’t seen him,” Telary confirms, brushing nervously at his nose.

Sora doubles over laughing, clutching at his knees to stay on balance.

KH-KH-KH


“What’s with those two?” Riku asks his suddenly very gracious host, who only minutes before released him from his own cell. He’s never seen a duck that big or a dog standing on two legs, but then again he’d never seen a green skinned lady before he’d left the islands either. To him, seeing new kinds of people is just another appealing aspect of leaving his childhood home behind. Certainly the being locked in a cell part hadn’t been terribly nice, but it seems that’s all over now.

“Oh, pay them no mind, my dear boy,” Maleficent assures him, smiling at him, then turning and fixing the creatures in the cell with a cruel sneer. “They are naught but minor annoyances. You shan’t have to see them ever again.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him to the staircase and elevator beyond, but he shrugs it off before starting his climb.

The main part of the castle apparently isn’t any brighter than the dungeon, the only illumination provided by dim green flame candles and the occasional hole in the architecture letting sunlight filter in.

Maleficent leads him to a large circular room. Above him, gargoyles with the faces of perturbed hawks peer down at him, green flames flickering in each of their open mouths. She takes him to the low stone table in the center of the room, and they stop.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on!” Riku demands, slamming a fist on the table. “First you lock me up in your dungeon, keep me there for I don’t even know how long, and now all of a sudden you’re just letting me go. Why?”

Maleficent sighs, turning away and ducking her head. “I am truly sorry about your imprisonment, dear Riku. I never wanted to keep you caged like some animal, but my cohorts, well, they insisted. We are, after all, in the midst of some very delicate proceedings, the slightest upset of which could prove quite disastrous.” She turns back to him, a little smile playing across her lips. “I must say though, you held up exceptionally well under your duress. Not many children would have…”

“I’m not a child!” Riku barks, his fist once again pounding against the stone in front of him. “I’m almost eighteen!”

His host moves a bit closer, her smile widening. “Well, I hadn’t the slightest idea. Almost eighteen, nearly a man! In fact, I could see many uses for one such as you in my plans…”

“Look, lady,” Riku shoots back, taking a few steps away from the green-skinned woman, “I don’t know what kind of ‘mission’ you and your buddies are on, but don’t think I’ll just jump up and help you out. I’ve got friends to go see.”

“If you feel so strongly, then of course you are under no obligation to stay,” Maleficent assures the young man, brushing a bit of dust off the glowing green head of her staff. “And perhaps my goals are incompatible with yours besides. After all, it would require so much traveling, visiting so many different worlds. I suppose that wouldn’t be anything you’d be interested in, dear boy.”

Riku stops moving away from Maleficent, interest suddenly piqued. Biting his lip, he says, “Okay look, I’m not saying that I’m going to join up on your ‘mission’ or whatever, but if I hypothetically was interested… What exactly would you tell me about it?”

Maleficent smirks and places a bony hand on the boy’s shoulder. This time, he neither recoils nor moves to brush it off.

“Why, my good man,” the mistress of all evil practically croons, “whatever might it be you would want to know?”

Back in the dungeon, its newest occupants scream in defiance and abject terror as the candles go out one by one, leaving them alone in the pitch black.

KH-KH-KH


“So that’s why we kept veering left,” Telary says through the video link with Chip and Dale, screwing a bolt a bit tighter on the control yoke. “I thought something was going on with my wrist.”

“You’ll have to keep checking on it every once in a while, of course,” Chip reminds him, “but as long as you do, I don’ think you’ll have any more problems.”

“Thanks for the heads up guys,” the mage says, nodding and leaning back in the pilot’s chair. “Are you sure there’s no hard feelings about crashing your ship?”

“From what you told us, it sounded like it was mostly Azlyn’s fault,” Chip says with a shrug.

“And we already don’t like her!” Dale adds with a chuckle. Telary titters a bit at the joke as well.

“And you’ve got nothing on those weird Gummi blocks we found?”

“Nothing in the archives to give us a clue, or the king’s notes from the original design schematics,” Dale sighs. “Sorry we couldn’t help, Telary.”

“It’s no big deal,” Telary assures the pair. “I think our friend Leon in Traverse Town might have a clue about it, and since it’s on our way, I figured we’d stop and check up on things anyway. Thanks again.”

“If you need anything else, we’re just a few buttons away!” Chip reminds him with a wink. The engineer presses down on a button on his console, and the image of him and his brother winks out.

“I knew it,” Azlyn’s voice says from the entrance to the cockpit, startling Telary and nearly sending the young man leaping out of his chair. He looks back to find his companion, a consternated glint in her eye. “I knew those chipmunks hated me!”

“Only because they’ve met you,” the mage jokes, grinning slyly at his friend. She makes a face at him in response, moving to stand behind his chair.

“Can you believe it?” she says after a minute, all smirking and light eyes. “We actually pulled it off! We cheated the system and got rewarded for it!”

“I think,” Telary protests, though gently, “we just got extremely lucky. And frankly, if I had a chance to go back and do it all over again…”

“Don’t talk like that Telary!” the knight admonishes, lightly swatting his shoulder. “Think of what we’ve accomplished, what we’ve got now. Not to mention meeting Sora! This is a good thing, Tel, I promise!”

“It could have just as easily not been, though,” the mage shoots back, getting up from his chair and taking several steps away from Azlyn. “We could have died, or gotten punished, or any number of things! I agree that this is the best possible outcome, but I swear Azlyn, if was back in the moment you asked me to join in on your dumb plan, I would have slammed the door in your face!”

“Actually,” Azlyn says, sheepishly, ducking her head to hide the redness of her blushing cheeks, “I think that’s pretty fair.”

Telary’s ranting posture kind of deflates at that, and after a few seconds, he begins to laugh exuberantly, so loud and contagious that Azlyn joins in after a few moments.

They’re still laughing as Sora ascends the ladder. “What are you two laughing about?” The question only causes further outbursts.

“We’ll tell you later,” Azlyn assures the boy.

“Thanks again, Sora, for sticking up for us like that,” Telary says as he and the Keybearer walk to their seats. “I know you didn’t have to, considering the way we lied to you.”

“Well, what’re friends for?” Sora replies with a grin and a friendly clap of Telary’s shoulder.

“This is Control to Gummi 2,” Chip’s voice chimes in from over the radio. “Everything’s all set up on our end, you can launch when you feel ready.”

“And good luck to you,” Queen Minnie adds.

“Thanks, Control. Be ready in a minute.” Telary busily begins activating launch procedures, but about halfway through he notices that Sora is still standing by his chair. “Sora, you might want to strap in now.” The younger boy shoots a quick glance to his chair, but doesn’t make a move for it. “Um, Sora…”

“Well, okay,” the Keyblade wielder begins, looking at Telary with puppy dog wide eyes, “it’s just that, y’know how we just agreed we’re friends? Right.” He bites his lip, and his eyes turn less pleading and more mischievous. “Well, Telary, do you know what friends do for friends?”

“Uh, no,” Telary stutters, already sensing that he’s not going to be thrilled with the answer to Sora’s rhetorical question. “What do friends do for friends?”

“They let them drive their rocketship.”

Telary hears the click of Azlyn securing her seat belt not half a second later.

KH-KH-KH


Everyone in the control booth winces as the Gummi ship once again falls through the emergency exit.

“Is everything okay, guys?” Chip inquiries into the mike. “What went wrong?”

“Um, yeah, we’re all fine, Control,” Telary replies, though his voice sounds a bit worse for wear. “I was letting Sora try his hand at flying, and now… Azlyn, don’t touch him, you… Azlyn! If you can’t get a hold of yourself, I swear… Sora, please do not provoke her like that, you know it just… Urgh!!!”

After a few seconds of radio silence, Chip calls back. “Telary?”

“Everything’s fine, things are calming down now.” There’s a fuzzy loud noise over the line for a second, but it fades in no time at all. “We’re taking off for real this time. See you soon!”

Dale watches the radar monitor until he sees that the Gummi ship has successfully made it into open space. As soon as that’s confirmed, Minnie and Daisy take their leave.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m questioning your judgement here, Your Majesty,” Lady Daisy says after a few minutes of strolling, “but are you certain that letting Azlyn and Telary out like this was the wisest idea? I mean, they’re just children after all.”

“I have confidence in them, Daisy,” the queen assures her, patting her hand affectionately. She pauses then, looking around to make sure the pair are alone. “Besides, I think that things may work out better than we had hoped.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Minnie explains, her hands clasped in front of her, “I was talking with Sora before he boarded the ship, trying to get to know him a little bit. Besides talking about how much Azlyn and Telary had helped him since he lost his world, he mentioned two friends he was searching for, whom he’d been separated from after his island was attacked.”

“Yes, and?”

“His friends names were Riku…” the queen pauses for dramatic effect, “and Kairi.”

At the mention of that name, Daisy’s eyebrows go flying to the top of her head, her mouth dropping open.

“Are you certain that’s what he said?” she asks the queen, forgetting her place momentarily and actually reaching out to shake the queen’s arm. “It’s been years since we’ve…”

“I know, Daisy, I know,” the queen assures her feathered friend. “But I imagine that he’s been talking about her to them quite a bit, and so far it seems that Merlin’s spell is holding. But I doubt it will last forever, and even so… they deserve to know the truth.”

Minnie looks up at the stars above, imagining Sora, Azlyn, and Telary, as well as her husband, somewhere out there, flying amongst the stars. Her heart sends up a silent prayer, hoping against hope it will be answered.
And thus ends the Disney Castle arc, and what I sort of consider the first "segment" of Keys to the Kingdom. Posting this story here has been really great, because the story's never really gotten the kind of chapter-by-chapter commentary KitKat has been giving, and I really want to thank her for it. I'm actually in the process of writing Keys to the Kingdom II and the feedback here has given me a boost even in that effort, so I am really grateful. And if anyone else has been keeping up with this story and is a member of the forums, feel free to post any comments you may have.

Once again, until next time!
 

KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Whoa! There's another secret having to do with Riku and Kairi being involved in Telary and Azlyn's lives too! I'm curious to know what this is all leading up to! How long it'll be before the spell Merlin placed on everyone to fade away. I'm actually quite surprised Minnie and Daisy know something about all of this. It's such a huge cliff hanger to leave off on! Seriously, this was a great chapter and I can't wait to see how it goes, when SAT stop by Leon's to see how things have been holding up. And Riku finally getting lured in by Maleficent schemes should be exciting to see played out. :D I look forward to Keys to the Kingdom II! And thanks for the shout out! Happy to read along, because this is a really great story!
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XV: The Wizard of Traverse Town
“…Sweet, sweet land!” Azlyn cries out in pure ecstasy, purposefully falling to the ground in Traverse Town’s 1st District and caressing the cobblestones lovingly. “It feels like it’s been years! Decades! A lifetime!”

“Would you cut it out?” Sora barks sharply, arms crossed and eyes glaring at his melodramatic companion. “It wasn’t that bad, y’know. We got here in one piece, didn’t we?”

“You hit a freakin’ meteor!” Azlyn shoots back, picking herself up and dusting off her clothes. They’re new, even though they look identical to the outfit she’d worn since escaping Disney Castle. Just another perk of actually being on an officially sanctioned mission.

“Technically, if it was just floating around in space, it was an asteroid,” Telary corrects quietly, breaking the promise he’s made to himself about getting involved in this argument.

“Whatever, we still hit it.”

“Hey, Telary,” Sora demands, “could you please just tell her that it could have happened to anybody. I mean, it was my first time flying.”

Telary nods weakly.

The discussion is thankfully broken up by the approach of Yuffie, almost bouncing across the plaza and nearly knocking over a young man carrying a bag of groceries.

“Hey, guys!” the self-proclaimed great ninja greets the trio with a smile and a little wave. “It’s nice to see you three back in town.”

“Been quiet around here, huh?” Azlyn asks with a raised eyebrow.

“I wish,” the girl sighs, shaking her head and looking wistfully up at the sky. “But if anything, stuff’s gotten worse lately. Lots of Heartless around. Some have even gotten into 1st District. It’s been a ton of work!”

“Sounds tough,” Sora says sympathetically. “Now that we’re back, we’ll do what we can to help out.”

“We need to see Leon, though,” Telary interjects, frowning at the thought of a sudden mass incursion of Heartless. “We’ve got some questions for him.”

“Well, he’s probably training,” Yuffie answers, going into a handstand apparently out of sheer boredom. “There’s a cavern off the alley in 2nd District where he goes sometimes, swings his sword around. I’m not allowed though, apparently I throw off his ‘mojo’ or something.” She springs back into a flawless backflip, landing on both feet easily. “Can you believe that? Me, distracting!”

“Yeah,” Azlyn mutters crossly. “What a thing to say.”

Yuffie’s directions bring them to the alley easily enough. Sora recognizes it as where he and Leon had fought the Heartless just after he’d learned about the Keyblade. In an odd way, it seems like that was a lifetime ago.

“Oh, please,” Azlyn grumbles as she spies the ankle deep water deposit leading down into the dark cavern Yuffie had directed them too. “These shoes are new!”

“Aren’t you on an official mission for Disney Castle, Azlyn?” Sora teases, jumping straight into the waterway and splashing liquid all around. Azlyn squeaks as a few drops hit her. “I thought you wouldn’t let anything stop you?”

Azlyn scowls and grits her teeth, stepping into the water with defiance in her green eyes. Sora’s still grinning mockingly, so she gives him a shove and sends him sprawling into the water, not even looking as she trudges through the water into the tunnel. Sora doesn’t mind, so used to growing up around water that wet clothes do nothing to faze him.

Telary offers a helping hand, and the Keybearer takes it, still grinning ear to ear. “Sorry about that. Though I’d think by now you’d know not to provoke her.”

“It’s fun actually,” Sora replies cheerfully as the pair make their way into the cavern after the knight. “Since you two don’t need to act like you’re grownups anymore, it’s almost like I’m back on my island with my friends, just playing around.”

“Except now you’ve got a giant key and a mission to destroy evil shadow creatures,” Telary points out.

“Except that, yeah.”

They meet up with Azlyn, who had stopped to wait for them once she’d noticed they hadn’t followed right behind, then proceed into the cavern.

It’s small, barely even bigger than the cockpit of the Gummi ship. Further in, the water level recedes to about a third of an inch high, covering the green stone below. Leon stands in the middle of it, swinging his sword in an almost rhythmic manner, occasionally raising it into blocking position. His leather jacket is lying by the wayside, leaving him in only his dark jeans and white t-shirt, the silver lion’s head pendant of his necklace bouncing against his chest.

He doesn’t notice the trio’s approach, or perhaps he does and just doesn’t care, but Aerith, who has been sitting watching Leon’s process, rises with a huge smile and goes to them, arms spread wide to envelop all three in a tight hug.

“It’s so good to see you all back!” she basically croons, closing her eyes and taking it all in. After a few seconds, she lets go and backs up, still grinning ear to ear.

“Yeah,” Leon says simply, stopping his routine and hoisting the gunblade onto his shoulder. “Nice to know you three are surviving out there in the big bad universe.”

“Well, it hasn’t exactly been easy,” Sora admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “And we’ve got a lot of questions, but we should start at the beginning…”

So Sora, Azlyn, and Telary tell Leon and Aerith all about their travels, talking over each other at several points, and sidestepping the issue of Azlyn and Telary’s lies entirely.

“…And then the Keyblade just, I dunno, reacted,” Sora says with a wave of his hands, describing his experience with the doorknob and underground tree. “It shot out this beam of light, right into the hole, and then there was this clicking noise. Do you know what happened?”

“Well,” Leon says, back to swinging his sword for practice, “it sounds to me like you’ve found some Keyholes, Sora.”

“Keyholes?” Azlyn asks, bewildered. “Why does it sound like you’re saying that with a capital ‘K’?”

“Every world has a Keyhole,” Aerith explains, taking a sip of water. “They lead to the world’s heart. Ansem’s report has a whole chapter on it, supposedly.”

“The world’s heart?” Telary asks incredulously. “I assume you’re being metaphorical here.”

“Yeah,” Leon answers, driving his gunblade blade first into the stone and leaving it sticking there. “Basically, if what we’ve heard is true, a world’s heart is its energy core. It’s what keeps it held together. And a Keyhole is how it’s accessed. How the Heartless get into it.”

“From there, they can corrupt it,” Aerith picks up, folding her hands and peering seriously at the group. “They infect it with darkness and, very soon after…”

“The world disappears,” Leon finishes, his voice hard.

“Disappears how?” Azlyn inquires.

Leon shrugs. “Nobody knows. Well, Ansem might have, but without his report… There’s just no way we can be sure.”

“Is that what happened to my island?” Sora demands, standing up, his eyes narrowing, his finger jabbing out accusingly. “You said you didn’t know.”

“Well, technically…” Leon begins, but he cuts himself off with a sigh. “I wasn’t sure you were ready to handle it. I needed you focused so you could take on the Heartless attacking the town.”

“The true mission of the Keyblade master, as far as we can tell,” Aerith explains, “is to go to the worlds and seal their Keyholes. That way the Heartless can’t get in to corrupt the core. As soon as their hope of that happening is gone, they usually disappear from a world entirely.”

“So I really do have to save every world in the universe,” Sora sighs, leaning back on his hands. “Wow. And I was just planning on finding my friends.” He stands and walks away from the seated group, arms folded in close to his chest. “I don’t know if I can handle all that. I mean, I’m just a kid!”

“Maybe that’s true,” Telary says, moving to Sora’s side and placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “But you’re a kid the Keyblade chose to use it, aren’t you? If the most powerful weapon in the universe thinks you can handle the Heartless, why should you doubt it?”

“Not to mention,” Azlyn adds with a grin, standing up herself, “you’ve got the absolute best backup in the universe!” Frowning, she adds, “Not that you should think of me as your sidekick or anything.”

“Plus, like you said,” Telary points out, “we’ve already got to check the worlds for signs of your friends, the king, and Donald and Goofy. Might as well save the universe while we’re at it, huh?”

Sora grins at his companions, happy to have their support and confidence. “Yeah, okay. I guess it can only help to try, eh?”

“Now you’re talking!” Azlyn giggles, punctuating it with an actually pretty painful slap to Sora’s shoulder.

“Oh, before I forget,” Telary says, reaching back into his pocket and producing the strange Gummi blocks, “Leon, do you have any idea about these? They appeared after Sora sealed the Keyholes. We know they’re Gummi blocks, but beyond that, we’ve got nothing.”

Leon takes one of the blocks and examines it closely. After a minute, he shakes his head. Aerith does likewise.

“Sorry, I have nothing to tell you,” he admits with a shrug and a sigh. “I’m not really an expert on Gummi ships, but maybe Cid knows something. It would probably be best to check with him.”

“We will,” Sora says, handing the blocks back to Telary. “Thanks for all the help, guys.”

“It’s our pleasure,” Aerith says with a little curtsy. “We want to assist you in any way we can.”

“Speaking of,” Leon adds, pulling his sword from the ground and starting up his practice swings again, “we’re going to have a little meeting a couple of hours from now in a house in 3rd District. We’d like it if you’d come.”

“Sure thing Leon,” Sora confirms, taking the piece of paper with the address on it that Aerith hands him and stuffing it in his pocket. “We’ll see you then. And thanks again for telling us about the Keyholes and stuff.”

Sora waits until they’ve reached the alley once again to speak to his travelling companions.

“Man, can you believe it?” he says incredulously, sitting down at the edge of the small water reserve. “Me, some kind of savior of the universe. Yikes.”

“Hey, c’mon Sora,” Azlyn says seriously, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s like we said: If the Keyblade chose you, then there must be a good reason, alright? And you do have us helping out, remember?”

“Yeah,” the Keybearer laughs lightly, “I guess I do.” His tone becomes almost sarcastic. “You guys really are the only help I need.”

The trio laugh and go on about their way, happy to have each other.

Not everyone in the alley is happy, however. Certainly not the boy watching from the shadows, scowling viciously at what he’d just been witness to.

KH-KH-KH


Telary nearly collapses as Azlyn and Sora throw the doors to the Accessory Shop closed, breathing heavily but happy to escape the Heartless that the trio have been battling ever since they left the alley.

“Things are pretty bad out there, eh?” Cid drawls, absentmindedly wiping down some merchandise with a wet rag.

“Terrible,” Sora answers, dropping onto shop’s couch like his legs have left him no other choice.

“It ain’t bad fer business, though,” Cid admits, picking up a new item to rub down. “If people can’t leave 1st District….”

“Hey, that’s not a bad business plan,” Azlyn says almost admiringly. Telary and Sora both give her looks that scream ‘really’? “What? I was just admiring… Just show him the blocks, Tel!”

Telary produces the mysterious Gummis and approaches the counter.

“Well, whaddya know?” Cid exclaims, setting his cleaned item down on the counter. “Ain’t every day a couple a kids waltz in with both halves of a navigation Gummi.”

“Navigation Gummi?” Telary asks, handing the blocks over to Cid.

With a grunt, the old man squeezes the block’s smooth sides together until they lock together, forming a single block shaped like the head of an arrow.

“What does it do?” Sora asks.

“Huh?” Cid sounds almost disbelieving. “Yer tellin’ me that you’ve been crusin’ yer Gummi ship all ‘round the universe and you ain’t got any idea what a navigation Gummi is?”

The trio all look around at each other, shrugging.

“Heh, kids these days, I tell ya…”

“Would you just tell us about the damn block?” Azlyn demands tersely. “What does it do?”

“Alright kid,” Cid relents, raising a hand defeatedly. “I was just given’ ya a hard time, is all. Basically, a navigation Gummi
allows yer ship to detect paths to new worlds y’ain’t seen yet. Opens up routes ya couldn’t find before.” The group looks impressed, so Cid presses on. “If ya want, I could synch your ship’s computer with it. You’d have a new path opened up in no time.”

“Thanks, Cid,” Telary says earnestly. “We appreciate the favor.”

“Favor, eh?” the shopkeeper chuckles, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Well, if it’s favors we’re exchangin’, maybe ya wouldn’t mind doing a little sumthin’ fer me, eh?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Great,” Cid says, reaching behind the counter and producing a small book, white with red around the edges of the cover. “This old guy I know asked me to fix up this book fer him ‘bout a week ago, and I finally finished. Would ya kids mind deliverin’ it to him? He lives in a house in 3rd District, past the plaza. Look for the door with a flame on it.”

“Okay, Cid,” Sora agrees, reaching out and grabbing the book. “But with the Heartless all roaming around 2nd District…”

“Well, there’s a shortcut from 1st District to 3rd, just past the ice cream shop,” Cid provides with a smile. “Should cut down yer travel time quite a bit, and maybe ya can avoid the Heartless that way.”

“Thanks for the info,” Azlyn says, already moving towards the door. “We’ll…”

Suddenly the knight is interrupted by a loud noise, a series of heavy bongs ringing out across the city. For about thirty seconds everyone just stops and lets the noise wash over them.

“What was that?” Azlyn inquires after the sound has faded, digging in her ear with a pinky.

“Town bell,” Cid explains, crunching on his ever-present toothpick. “It’s mounted up on the roof of the Gizmo Shop in 2nd District. Big white building, looks kinda like a church.”

The trio moves to depart again, but Cid stops them.

“Hey, kids. Leon’s setting up…”

“A meeting in 3rd District,” Sora finishes. “We know. We’ll be there soon as we drop off your book, okay?”

Cid nods. “See ya there then. ‘Bout an hour.”

Half an hour later, Sora, Azlyn, and Telary are all hopelessly lost in 3rd District, unable to locate the fire-door that Cid said to look out for. They’ve ventured beyond the plaza they’d first met in, and are now more or less wandering the streets.

“We’re gonna be late to the meeting,” Sora says before crunching down on the last remains of his ice cream cone.

“No we aren’t!” Azlyn proclaims, punching her fist triumphantly in the air and leading her companions down a recessed stairwell. At the bottom is a plain wooden door, a red-tinted flame carved into it.

“Good work, Azlyn,” Telary congratulates, reaching for the door’s handle. Except that the door doesn’t actually have a handle. “Um, okay…”

“No handle?” Sora marvels, looking over things from the top of the stairs. Light flashes in his hands, and when it fades, the Keyblade has appeared. “Maybe I can crack it.”

Telary moves aside to let the Keybearer handle it. Sora taps the door with the Keyblade, but nothing happens. “Huh.”

“Wait a second!” Telary exclaims, knocking Sora aside in his exuberance. “It’s so simple. We just have to use a fire spell!”

“Cool,” Sora says, moving aside. “Go ahead, Telary.”

Telary scratches his chin, then turns back to Sora. “Actually, maybe you should do the honors, Sora. I’ve explained the basic principles of fire spells to you before. Let’ see what you know.”

Azlyn immediately jumps behind a few barrels and crates piled up on the street, taking cover.

“Very funny, Azlyn,” Sora retorts, glaring at his friend’s hideout. “I’ve got this handled, just wait and see!”

“That’s right,” Telary says encouragingly, even as he’s slowly backing up the stairwell. “You can do it Sora! I believe in you…”

Sora frowns, but shrugs off his lack of support and thrusts the Keyblade out, running through the mental techniques Telary had taught him during downtime on the Gummi ship.

“Fire!” he yells, and a fireball about the size of his fist flies from the Keyblade and strikes the flame symbol carved into the door dead-center, lighting it up with a warm red glow.

Sora, however, is not ready for the kickback the ball of fire creates, hurtling back a few feet through the air and landing in a heap on the stairs. Telary cries out and rushes forward, while behind him Azlyn emerges from her hiding spot, laughing madly.

“My fault, my fault,” Telary apologizes, whipping out his staff and raising it into the air. “Cure! Sorry, sorry. I should have warned you about the kickback.” Sora fixes him with a glare through the green aura surrounding his body. “But, hey, this is why we practice, right? To learn new things. Often what not to do in a given situation.”

Sora groans as he rises, and Telary isn’t sure whether he’s agreeing or not.

“It didn’t open, though,” Azlyn complains, stepping past Sora ungracefully, sending him sprawling back to the concrete. She taps on the door, but nothing happens. Turning back to her companion, she leans against it, her head touching the flame symbol. “What did you do wrONG!!!?”

At Azlyn’s touch to the symbol, the door whips back, leaving the knight with nothing to lean against and sending her falling to the rocky ground.

“Y’know,” Sora says cheerfully to Telary, stepping over Azlyn’s prone form, “I think I’m feeling better now.”
Azlyn mumbles something graphic and impolite.

The trio finds themselves in a large stone cavern, open to the starry sky above. In the middle sits a two story house, a tower jutting off of the second floor. It looks vacant, like no one has set foot in it for years.

“Well this is…” Telary begins, trying to suppress the shivers in his spine. “Quaint.”

“I was gonna say creepy,” Sora states, frowning even as he steps closer.

“I’d go with creepy too,” Azlyn agrees, catching up with her friends. “I mean, nobody normal is gonna live in a secluded cavern guarded by a fire spell door.”

The interior of the house is little better, a small foyer devoid of furniture, spider webs in every corner. A cloud of dust flies up as Sora shuts the door.

“Hello!” the Keybearer calls. There’s no answer from either the door at the end of the hall, or from up the spiraling staircase leading to the second floor. “We’re here about your book!” He turns back to his companions. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”

“Should we go?” Telary asks even as Azlyn shoulders her way past him and towards the staircase.

“Let’s at least check it out,” she declares, stopping and turning back. “C’mon. Sora, you check down here, and me and Tel will check upstairs.” Off her friends’ nervous looks, she continues. “We’ve got to at least see, guys. I mean, Cid wouldn’t just send us out on a wild goose chase, would he?”

“I suppose not,” Telary accedes, trudging after her up the stairs. “If we don’t find anything, Sora, we’ll come back down. If we do…”

“Telary’ll probably scream,” Azlyn snorts wryly. “You scream too, if anything happens.”

Sora moves slowly down the hall, eyes darting back and forth as he makes his way to the door. There’s something seriously odd about this place, an almost physical sensation pressing up against him…

He opens the door at the end of the hall, and nearly walks into Kairi.

Sora’s mouth drops open, and Kairi just giggles and starts to pace around the room, bare except for a large stone platform in the middle.

“This place kind of reminds of home,” she says wistfully, spinning as she walks to take everything in. “The Secret Place, y’know? We used to spend hours just drawing on the walls there.” She stops and stares straight at the still gape-mouthed Sora, her trademark cheeky grin seeming to brighten the whole room. “Do you remember those portraits we did of each other, when we were like seven? I went back and looked at them a bunch of times. Oh man, yours was really bad. I didn’t say anything though, ‘cause it was sweet all the same, in a clumsy kind of way.” She steps forward, her grin softening. “That’s so like you, y’know? Sweet, but clumsy.”

Finally, Sora finds his voice, focusing on the memory of Kairi kissing his cheek the night the islands had been consigned to the Darkness of the Heartless.

“I always thought something was missing from that picture,” he tells her, stepping forward. They’re close enough to touch now, but she doesn’t and he daren’t. “I went back, added it in. The day things went bad. I was looking for your mushroom, and…”

“And what?” she asks, tilting her head. “What did you add?”

“I…”

“Who are you talking to Sora?” Telary’s voice pierces Sora’s Kairi-induced reverie.

Startled, Sora turns back to the mage. He’s standing in the doorway, Azlyn behind him.

“I was…” he waves his arm at Kairi, but feels nothing. He turns his head and finds only empty air. Kairi is gone, and something in Sora’s heart aches dully. “Just myself. Trying to keep this place from getting to me.”

Azlyn snorts. “I hear that.” She pushes past Telary, who’s frowning at nothing.

“I swore I heard another voice,” the mage mutters, crossing his arms and thinking hard.

“Nope, just me,” Sora denies with a nervous giggle. When it peters out, he grimaces. “Nobody else.”

“Well, there wasn’t anything upstairs,” Azlyn sighs, taking a seat on the stone platform. “If anybody lives in this house, we didn’t find ‘em. Just a big empty room, dusty old carpet.”

“It’s weird,” Telary adds, dismissing his earlier notion about hearing voices. “And I’m judging that by our very high standard of weird.” He sighs and takes a seat next to Azlyn. “I don’t know why Cid would send us here. It’s like nobody’s lived here in years.”

“Well, I should think everyone’s entitled to a little vacation,” a heavily accented voice interjects from the doorway.

Weapons appear in hands instantly, the entire trio ready to face down the intruder.

The man in question just stands in the doorway with a shocked look on his face, eyes wide behind his wire-rim spectacles. He’s wearing a blue robe with voluminous sleeves, pointed blue shoes on his feet. In one hand he holds a large carpetbag, in the other a long stick. The most notable features on him, though, are a large blue conical hat, drooping slightly at the end, and a flowing white beard reaching almost down to the floor.

“Feel free to lower your weapons, lads,” the man says calmly, dropping his bag and stick to the floor. “I mean no harm. And besides, this is my house!”

“Prove it…” Azlyn dares, arm primed to hurl her shield.

“Well, for one thing,” he chuckles, flicking the carpet bag open with one hand, “I’ve all the furniture. Higitus Figitus!” With an enthusiastic flick of his hand, the man summons forth a bright light from his bag, enveloping the whole room.
When the light clears, the space is considerably better decorated. A white clothed table sits atop the stone platform, a bed lies against one wall, a bureau next to it, and an honest to God fireplace appears in the corner, already blazing warm. Not to mention all the books scattered haphazardly around, some lying alone and others in stacks as tall as Azlyn.

Telary nearly faints at the display of such powerful transfiguration magic. If he studied for years, he’s not sure he could pull it off. Clearly this man knows what he’s doing, thaumaturgically speaking.

“If I may introduce myself,” the man announces, bowing so low his beard piles up on the ground and his hat nearly falls off, “my name is Merlin, and I’m a wizard!” He rises, a huge grin plastered across his face. “And I presume by the way you’re waving it about like Errol Flynn, you are the Keybearer!”

“Uh yeah,” Sora confirms, lowering the Keyblade. “Who’s Errol Flynn?”

“Oh, no one you’d know about,” Merlin chuckles. “Regardless, if you’re the Keyblade wielder, then I’m here on a mission from King Mickey of Disney Castle himself.” He looks at Azlyn and Telary with an air of concern. “Though I was expecting that Master Donald and Captain Goofy would be along with you…”

“They, uh, couldn’t make it,” Telary says lowly, staring dejectedly at the floor.

“I’m Azlyn,” Azlyn introduces herself, placing her shield into its holder. “This is Telary. We’re on this mission in their stead.”

“Azlyn and Telary, hm…” Merlin mutters, scratching his beard. “Yes, I think I do recognize the names…”

“Really? Have you ever visited the castle?” Telary asks. “Maybe you’d have met us there. But, being honest, I can’t say I remember you.”

“Me neither,” Azlyn agrees.

Merlin’s eyes widen for a second, then return to normal. “No,” the sorcerer chuckles lowly, “no I don’t think you would…”

“So you said you’re here on a mission?” Sora asks, breaking the brief silence that followed Merlin’s last statement. “What kind of mission?”

“Why, I’m here to instruct you in the art of magic, of course!” Merlin answers, his wand leaping off the floor into his open hand. “The king was very concerned about your abilities in that area.”

“Oh. Well, Telary’s taught me some stuff…”

“Splendid!” Merlin grins at Telary, then Sora. “It’s always good to have a nice, solid base to start with, I find.”

Azlyn snorts. “Yeah, solid.” This earns her a light kick in the shin from Sora. He grins at her, but as soon as he turns away he gets a smack on the arm.

“Guys!” Telary hisses at the antics. “We’re in front of a great wizard here. A little decorum wouldn’t hurt!”

“Sorry,” Sora apologizes. Azlyn sniffs disdainfully. “Oh! We have your book. The one Cid fixed up! Telary!”

“Oh, yes!” Telary produces the book and hands it to Merlin, who gives it a once over.

“Well, I suppose he did the best he could, given the circumstances,” he mutters, opening the book and flipping through pages.

“What’s wrong?” Azlyn asks. “If you want a refund, it’s no trouble for us to convince that old bag to…”

“No, no, it’s quite alright,” Merlin says, waving his hand dismissively. “He really did the best he could, given the circumstances. You know, I’m really not even sure where I found this book. Apparently it just popped up in my bag one day. It seemed odd, but special somehow… Anyway, it was in quite a state of disrepair, so I asked Cid to fix it up. There were pages missing though, so…”

The Traverse Town bell rings out loudly once again, shaking everything in the small room and jogging Sora’s memory.
“Oh man!” he exclaims. “We told Cid we’d meet him and Leon and the others! We’re late, actually…”

“Well, if you must go, you must go,” Merlin accedes easily, setting the book down on the shelf by his bed. “I’ll be here whenever you want to get in some magic training, alright my boy?”

“Thanks, Mr. Merlin,” Sora says, shaking the magician’s hand. “We’ll stop by when we can. I’d like to look at that book, if you don’t mind.”

“And I’d love some pointers,” Telary adds, pushing Sora out of the way and pumping Merlin’s arm vigorously. “Even if I could just read one of your books on magic…”

“Here,” Merlin says cheerfully, wrenching his arm out of the younger mage’s grip. He grabs a small blue book and places it in the lad’s hand. “Lots of useful magic in there.”

Telary just squeaks his thanks, unable to form words in his excited state.

“Nice meeting you, I guess,” Azlyn says with a shrug, clearly not impressed by the wizard.

“And good to see you as well, my boy.”

Azlyn scowls. “I’m a girl.”

Merlin frowns at her, but after a second he nods slightly, ignoring Sora’s outburst of raucous laughter. “Ah. So you are.”

KH-KH-KH


“The nerve of that old coot!” Azlyn rages as the trio make their way back to the 3rd District plaza. “I mean, I’m wearing a skirt for cripes sake!”

Sora is still intermittently giggling about the old wizard’s mistake.

“He was a bit… eccentric, I’ll admit,” Telary says, nodding. “But he seemed to know what he was doing.” He gestures to the book he’s already read several pages of during the trio’s walk down the street. “There’s a bunch of cool stuff in here. It’s a little advanced for you, Sora, but I think I can use it.”

“He was cool,” Sora agrees, shrugging. “And it’s also nice to think that the king wants me to learn magic!” He frowns a bit, thinking of his not-encounter with Kairi. “His place was weird though. I kept getting this weird… I dunno, vibe I guess.”

“Ambient magic, I’d figure,” Telary says absently, flipping to a new page in his book.

“What?”

“Ambient magic, probably,” Telary answers, looking up for a moment. “If a little place like that is exposed to enough magic over time, it can retain some of it, kind of like background radiation. Usually it causes weirdness. That’s probably why I thought I’d met him before, or why I heard a voice talking to you.”

Sora mulls over the idea of ambient magic a bit as he walks. That could explain his odd waking dream, but somehow he doubts it does. He could feel Kairi in that room, plain as if she had actually been right in front of him. Still, it’s the only explanation he’s got.

They’re walking down the alley leading to the plaza, none of them really paying attention to what they’re doing. That’s how they manage to miss the Soldier Heartless that appears, until it actually leaps at them.

Sora notices first, crying out and stumbling back into the still reading Telary, knocking him to the ground and sending his book flying through the air. It grazes Azlyn’s face and knocks her back several steps.

Sora lands hard and looks up at the creature, too startled to get his thoughts together and summon the Keyblade to counterattack.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to.

A sharp noise cuts through the air, and a moment later the Soldier is gone, dissipating in a burst of darkness.

In its place is someone who causes Sora’s mouth to drop open in surprise.

Standing over him, a purple and red sword shaped like a bat’s wing propped up against his shoulder, looking confident as ever, is Riku.

“Well, well, well,” Sora’s best friend chuckles sardonically. “Look who still needs my help to survive.”
 

KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Oh boy, oh boy, I'm worried about this confrontation with Riku! I'm happy, no doubt about that, but Riku is always so easily jealous of Sora making fast friends! Anyways, it was interesting to see Merlin light up in recognition of Telary and Azlyn and play it off so easily. I find it amusing that Sora had been kicked back by his fire magic though. And Cid, always a funny guy giving everybody a hard time. Great chapter as always! :D
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XVI: Ringing It In
Sora is so overjoyed by the sight of his friend that he leaps without looking, crashing into Riku and wrapping the older boy in a bear hug forceful enough to send both of them sprawling to the ground.

“What…?” Riku cries out in shock, interrupted by Sora’s inquisitive fingers rubbing all over his face, making sure that he isn’t being fooled by some illusion this time around. “Would you mind…?”

“It is you!” Sora exclaims, falling back into another hug. Riku just grins at the boy’s antics.

“Gee,” Azlyn whispers to Telary conspiratorially. “And here all this time I thought it was Kairi he had a thing for.”

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Sora says, climbing off his friend and giving him a helping hand up. “Really you!”

“Who else would I be?” Riku rolls his eyes. It seems Sora hasn’t changed one bit.

“Do you know where Kairi is? I thought she might be with you.”

“No, she’s not.” Riku rubs the back of his neck. “Truth be told, I was hoping she was with you. No luck on that score, I guess.” He grins and walks backwards into the center of the plaza, gesturing all around him. “Can you believe it? We actually pulled it off. We’re in another world! We dreamed about it for so long, and now it’s finally happened. We’re off those islands.”

Riku’s so caught up in his victorious monologue that he doesn’t even notice the Shadow emerge from the ground behind him, and neither do Sora, Azlyn, or Telary.

“As for finding Kairi, you don’t have to worry about it,” Riku says, even as the Shadow creeps steadily closer. “You can just leaving everything to me, okay? I’ve met somebody, somebody who…”

A loud noise cuts Riku off. Startled, he turns to see Sora, crouched in battle position, the last remnants of the Shadow’s captive heart floating away. Grinning like a crocodile, Sora turns to Riku and hikes the Keyblade up onto his shoulder.

“Who should I leave it to again?” Sora teases, winking.

Riku looks totally awed, his eyes fixed on the Keyblade. “How did you…? Sora, what is that thing? What is going on with you?”

“I’ve been looking for you and Kairi,” the Keybearer explains, a bit smugly. “Me and my new friends have been traveling to a bunch of worlds, trying to find you two. Riku, you won’t believe the kinds of things I’ve seen, the places I’ve been.” He gestures to Azlyn and Telary. “They have this rocket that…”

“Who are they?” Riku inquires, and Azlyn notes something disdainful in both his tone and the once over he’s giving the Disney Castle pair.

“Hello!” Telary declares proudly, stepping forward. “My name is…”

“Their king sent them to find me!” Sora interrupts, leaving Telary gape-mouthed and miffed. “Kinda, anyway. Can you believe it, a king is interested in me!”

“What would a king want with you?” Riku asks with a frown, and though Sora is still too excited to notice his tone, Azlyn isn’t, a frown of her own appearing on her face.

“Well,” Telary interjects, placing a hand on Sora’s shoulder, “Sora is the Keyblade master. It’s his destiny to defeat the Heartless, the creatures who attacked your island. The Keyblade itself chose Sora to wield it.”

Riku raises an eyebrow.

“It’s alright to be shocked,” Azlyn snorts, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “I know I was when I first heard…”

“Whaddya mean by that, huh?” Sora demands, whirling on his companion, who only sneers at him in return.

“Well, I was just saying, I…”

“Wow!” Telary interrupts suddenly.

Confused, Sora turns to the mage, only to find him staring at Riku. The young boy follows his gaze, and is shocked to see Riku, waving the Keyblade around easily in one hand.

“The Keyblade, huh?” he says as he gives it a once over, swinging it a few times experimentally.

“Hey!” Sora cries indignantly, rushing his friend with a grimace on his face. “Hey give it back! C’mon, it’s mine!”
Riku just holds out his non-wielding hand, easily keeping Sora at bay while he further examines the Keyblade. Azlyn laughs aloud at the image, finally able to ignore the creepy vibe she’s been feeling ever since Riku showed up.

“What’re you laughing at?” Sora whirls on the guffawing knight, but he moves too fast and loses his balance, falling to the pavement and prompting an even greater laugh from Azlyn, and a concerned wince from Telary.

“Okay, okay,” Riku says through his chuckles. “I think you’ve been tortured enough, eh? Catch.”

Riku tosses the Keyblade to its wielder, who catches it easily and dismisses it immediately, not wanting any further humiliation to come from it.

“Now that we’re done messing around,” he says as he rises, grinning once more, “you can totally come with us on our rocket. It’s so awesome, and I even get to fly it! Well, I did once…”

“Oh, no way!” Azlyn vetoes, slashing her arm through the air emphatically. “There’s no way I’m letting him tag along on this mission. This important, life or death mission.”

“You said when we found my friends…”

“I said I’d help you find him. Nothing about letting civilians tag along on official Disney Castle missions.”

“Civilian nothing, Azlyn! You saw him take on that Heartless back there. He can totally help us out, I promise!”

“Sorry, nope. Not gonna happen.” Azlyn plants her feet and crosses her arms defiantly, absolutely adamant in her policy.

“You… you big….”

“What? I’m a big what? Go on and say it, if you think you’re tough enough!”

Telary, who has thus far been covering his face out of sheer secondhand embarrassment, sighs and turns to Riku. “I’m sorry, Riku. These two just always seem to… Hey!”

Sora and Azlyn stall their dustup at the mage’s outburst, turning to see him covering his mouth in bewilderment. Confused, they turn to see what he’s looking at, and find the plaza empty, Riku nowhere in sight.

“Riku!” Sora cries, looking all around. “Riku, where’d you go? Hello!”

“Huh,” Azlyn says simply, frowning. “I guess he won’t be coming after all.”

“Probably because you scared him off,” Sora shoots back, but there isn’t any venom in it. Just a bit of weariness. “Oh well. I guess the important thing is that he’s safe, right?”

“Sure thing,” Telary agrees reassuringly. “I bet you anything we’ll be seeing him real soon.”

“Yeah!” Sora exclaims with a grin, lacing his fingers together behind his head and leaning back on the balls of his feet. “And who knows, maybe we’ll run into Kairi soon? Yeah, I bet we’ll see him in no time.”

Azlyn sighs deeply. “Do you ever get tired of being so blindly optimistic all the time, Sora? Because I do.”

“Well,” Telary interjects, “we should probably be getting to that meeting. We’re late enough as it is.”

He and Azlyn start moving, heading for the plaza’s exit, while Sora takes another second to wistfully look around, dreaming of when he’ll see Riku again, this time for good.

One thing is for sure in the boy’s mind, though: He’s not letting Riku get his paws on the Keyblade like that ever again. Not without asking permission from its master.

KH-KH-KH


The mood in the small house is decidedly somber. Leon leans against one wall with his arms crossed and his head bowed, Aerith and Yuffie are chatting lowly while sitting on the small bed in the corner of the square room, and Cid is fiddling with some merchandise at the small wooden table in the middle of the room. The light from the electric chandelier above is kind of dim, making everything look duller. The faint scent of dust and mothballs can still be smelled underneath a bit of lemon air freshener.

“Uh, hi everybody,” Sora says nervously as he, Azlyn, and Telary enter the one room house cautiously. Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith all look up at the new arrivals, but Cid is apparently too enamored with his tinkering to be bothered. “Sorry we’re late. I actually ran into my friend Riku.” The boy frowns. “Sorry you can’t meet him. He, uh, left after a few minutes. Probably has something important to do, so…”

“Okay,” Azlyn interjects loudly, “what’s going on? Why are you all acting like somebody peed in your cornflakes?”

Cid snorts out a bit of laughter, then sets whatever he was doing down on the table. “Ya certainly got a way with words, Missy. Give ya that much. You kids ever heard of someone named Maleficent?”

The trio’s eyes all widen at the sound of the name.

“Matter of fact, we have,” Azlyn answers, scowling. “Yeah, she hired a bunch of lowlifes to attack our castle! We beat them off, but…”

“They got our friends,” Telary finishes, muttering lowly.

“Heh,” Cid replies, flicking his toothpick and sneering. “Yeah, that sounds like something that old witch would do. She’s as nasty as they come, the stories say.”

“Witch?” Telary asks.

“Well, there are a whole bunch of ‘em. Some say she’s just a poor girl done wrong by a man, but I think that’s a load of…”

“No, uh, sorry,” Telary apologizes sheepishly. “I meant ‘witch’ as in, y’know, cackling, spell casting hag. Not like, uh, which stories are you referring to.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Anyway,” Yuffie answers, rolling her eyes at the miscommunication, “she’s involved in all kinds of nasty stuff and black magic. Rumor even has it that it’s her who’s controlling the Heartless.”

“Controlling them?” Sora bursts out.

“Yeah,” Leon confirms quietly, sighing. “She’s the reason this town is so full of Heartless. She’s also the reason we had to leave our world and come here.”

“Really?” Telary inquires, tilting his head. “I thought your world was destroyed. How else would you have ended up here?”

“Our world wasn’t destroyed by the Heartless,” Aerith explains gently. “It was taken over by them.”

“One day a mob of Heartless just showed up,” Cid recalls with a sneer. “Maleficent had them clear out the town and castle, but I guess she couldn’t find the Keyhole, so she just stayed held up there, plottin’ the rest of her foul deeds. Me and these kids only escaped by the skin of our teeth.

“That was eleven years ago,” Leon continues, shaking his head disdainfully. “Ever since then she’s been held up in the old castle, where Ansem used to live.”

“The ruler of your world, right?” Telary asks. “The guy who wrote the report that everybody wants to find.”

“Yes,” Aerith confirms. “We think it’s most likely that Maleficent has most of its pages. That’s probably how she learned to control the Heartless so well.”

“Ansem knew how to control Heartless?” Azlyn asks suspiciously.

“Oh, he would never do anything like that!” Aerith assures the knight. “But he was a very wise man. A man of science. If anyone could research the Heartless well enough to find the secret of controlling them, it was him.”

“But now he’s missing, most likely dead, and Maleficent has all his secrets,” Leon rages, in his own quiet way. “She’s in control of the Heartless, and she’s coming here to destroy the last refuge these lost people have in the universe. And there’s nothing I can do to stop her!”

“Hey!” Sora exclaims, drawing everyone’s attention to him. “You can’t go thinking like that!”

“Yeah, Leon,” Telary points out reassuringly. “All Sora has to do is seal the Keyhole, right? That should keep the Heartless from…”

“We don’t know where it is,” Leon interrupts glumly, fixing the mage with a glare that causes him to take a step back. “We’ve been looking for years, and come up empty. We… I failed this town, and all the people in it.”

“Stop that right now!” Sora demands, leaping up on to the table to better address the room. “You can’t give up, Leon. Not now, when the people of Traverse Town are counting on you!”

Outside the small house, Sora’s impassioned speech, full of fist shaking and sweeping arm gestures, can be easily seen through the window. Riku watches it all with mild interest, his mouth turned down only slightly.

“Well, it seems dear Sora has amassed quite the following,” Maleficent observes haughtily, one hand resting on the small of Riku’s back. He’s too focused on his younger friend to do anything about it. “It’s just as I told you, my boy. He has all but forgotten you, so focused on these new friends and the power granted to him by the Keyblade. It’s clear that he values that blade far more than he does you. Quite sad, really.”

Riku grunts. “He said he wanted me to come with him. See other worlds. He wanted me to be with him.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Maleficent accedes, frowning. “But for what reason, hm? Does he really desire your company so, or perhaps he just wants a chance to flaunt his new powers. He’s always been jealous of you, Riku, as strong and clever as you are. Now that he finally has something over you… Well, let us just say power does so tend to go to the head.”

“Could be…”

“Come with me my boy,” Maleficent offers once again. “I will show you power far beyond what that wretched Sora has with his Keyblade.” She pauses a moment, an enigmatic glint in her eye. “And your friend Kairi too. Won’t she be delighted to see you?”

Riku takes one last long look at Sora, hesitating. Until he sees his friend in close conference with that new pair, the ones the king sent, who are supposedly so cool, with a vessel to travel the worlds with that must be ten times as cool as some raft built by kids. He observes the way they stand so close, the tall one’s hand on Sora’s back affectionately.

It more than makes up his mind.

“Okay,” he says, turning disgustedly away from the scene. He gives his new benefactor a slight half-grin. “Let’s go. I’m tired of wasting my time on kid stuff.”

“Excuse me,” Aerith chimes in, interrupting the meeting between Sora, Azlyn, and Telary regarding possible Keyhole locations. They turn to her. “I’m not sure if this will help any, but I’ve had a thought about finding the Keyhole.”

“What is it, Aerith?” Sora asks.

“Well, it has to do with the old Gizmo Shop bell,” she explains. “There are quite a few old legends about it, you see. One of them is about what happens when you ring it three times in one hour. The details are vague, but I think it could be worth a shot. I’ve wanted to try it for quite a bit now, but Leon, well, he thinks the whole thing is kind of silly.”

“I think we should check it out,” Sora says, nodding determinately. “Everything’s worth a shot at this point.”

“Even lame, vague legends,” Azlyn adds.

The group moves for the door, but Cid stops them before they can go.

“After yer done investigatin’,” he drawls, “come and see me over in 1st District. There’s a stall near the entrance to 2nd. I’ve got something to show you that I think you’ll like.”

“Be careful, Sora,” Leon cautions the boy. “With the Heartless out in force like they are…”

“No worries, Leon,” the Keybearer assures the grim man with a wide grin. “We’ll see you really soon, okay?”

“Sure,” Leon replies, allowing himself a little half grin. “I’ll see you soon.”

“I guess,” Telary says as the trio make their way through 2nd District on the way to the Gizmo shop, “that this means we were right about the Heartless being controlled by somebody. Not sure if that’s better than mindless violence, but…”

“What I don’t get,” Sora chimes in, his eyes hard and his voice tight, “is how somebody could be that evil? I mean, as far as I can tell all the Heartless are good for is destroying things and separating people. And what kind of person could want that?”

“It makes me sick too,” Azlyn agrees, her fists clenched. “I mean, if there was money in it, sure…”

“Azlyn…” Telary sighs.

“Kidding! Gosh, I was kidding!” She shakes her head. “I mean, when I see this Maleficent lady, I plan on knocking her lights out for what she did to Disney Castle, really I do. I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

The trio reaches the front door of the Gizmo shop, a dark wood with stained glass windows.

“No Heartless yet,” Telary points out as he reaches for the door handle. “Maybe that means we aren’t close to the Keyhole after all.”

“Um, Telary,” Sora says after the door has swung open, “I think you may be wrong there.”

A veritable phalanx of Soldier Heartless await inside the brightly colored shop, blue and yellow magical Heartless flitting around as air support, all standing between the trio and the access hatchway to the shop’s roof.

“Okay, guys,” Sora says as he summons the Keyblade. “Everybody stay together, and watch each other’s back. Telary, be ready to heal. Ready?”

“Born ready,” Azlyn replies with a confident smirk.

The trio charge, moving almost as one, weapons flashing and spells flying. Lightning strikes called by a Yellow Opera rain down, but Azlyn raises her shield in time to deflect the blow, the layer of rubber between the shield face and handle grounding out most of the harmful electricity, and a few sweeps of the Keyblade eliminating the immediate threats.

Azlyn’s shield moves down to bump a trio of Soldiers into each other, messing up their balance and sending them flying into an even larger group. Once they’re down, the Heartless are easy pickings for Telary’s newly powered up Thundara spell.

They reach the other end of the shop’s floor and Sora kicks it open, noticing the wooden ladder leading up to the shop’s roof.

“Hold them back for just a second!” he commands, knocking a few various Heartless out of the air.

Telary steps up and gathers together what magic he has to spare, focusing not on the incoming horde, but on the lessons he’d managed to pull from Merlin’s spell book. The spell he’s thinking of is tricky, but he knows that if he can’t pull it off, the consequences will be dire, so he gathers all the willpower he can muster, pouring it into the magic in his mind.

“Flame Barrier!” He thrusts his staff into the air and in response three columns of red hot fire, heat contained within the matrix of his magical working so as to not burn his own teammates, spring from the floor inside the Gizmo shop, cutting off the swarm of Heartless inside from moving forward to attack, the few that do ending up incinerated.

“Whoa!” Azlyn exclaims excitedly upon seeing the wall of flame. “Telary, that’s amazing! How…?”

“It was in Merlin’s spell book,” he explains through labored breathing. “But it isn’t gonna last forever, and I don’t think I’ll be much help on the magic front for a bit. This kind of working takes a lot out of you.”

“No problem, Tel,” Sora assures the older boy, even as he moves to the access ladder and begins to climb. “All we’ve got to do now is ring a bell. How hard can that be?”

Pretty hard, the Keyblade wielder realizes as he climbs up onto the roof and sees another group of Soldiers, this time supported by winged versions flying through the air, claws just as sharp as their ground-bound brethren.

He can see, however, the bell, a dull bronze thing set back in a recessed area of the roof. As luck would have it, it’s located directly behind the hungry looking swarm of Darkness monsters.

“What’re you stopping for?” Azlyn asks with a scoff. Sora looks over his shoulder and sees her and Telary standing on the rooftop’s edge. The knight looks ready to go, even grinning a bit as she surveys her opponents. Telary is a bit warier, but his staff is raised just the same.

“Not sure how much help I’ll be, considering how much magic I used on that fire barrier,” the mage sighs apologetically. “But we’ll take care of these guys while you go for the bell. Okay?”

“Thanks guys,” Sora says as the Heartless begin to approach. “See you on the other side?”

Azlyn answers with a battle cry, flying into the mass of Heartless, shield spinning. Telary yells as well, though his has more hints of nervousness in it, and follows her into the fray.

As soon as the Heartless seem occupied, Sora charges in himself, swinging the Keyblade wildly and knocking Soldiers out of his way left and right.

An Air Soldier beelines through the air at him, but Azlyn’s shield easily intercepts, knocking the creature back. Sora ducks under it, slashes a straight horizontal cut through two Soldiers, and finally emerges on the other side.

A thick rope hangs by the bell, and Sora grips it in his free hand and pulls.

The bell swings and lets out a loud bong, but Sora can just barely hear something rattling around inside. Looking down he notices that a small yellow stone has fallen to the ground.

The boy bends to pick it up, finding its surface smooth to the touch. If he squints, the Keybearer can just make out a tiny glimmer of golden light at the heart of the stone.

He holds it closer to his face, inspecting deeper into the light in the core, something almost calling him…

A lion, huge and golden furred with a thick red mane, suddenly appears before him. Startled, Sora lets out a shout and stumbles back. He eyes the lion warily, ready for it to attack.

But it doesn’t, opting to merely look around, obviously bewildered by his surroundings. Then, he focuses on Sora, and their eyes meet.

“Simba,” Sora lets out like a stray breath, unsure of how the name has come to him. But somehow he knows that is the lion’s name, and Simba is willing to assist him against the Heartless.

“Ready?” he asks, holding out the Keyblade, the tip already gathering light. Simba crouches low, almost seeming to nod as he does.

Sora thrusts the Keyblade upward, and simultaneously Simba rises up, chest thrust forward, and lets out a roar worthy of a king.

The light of the Keyblade expands as the roar echoes out, engulfing the rooftop in a dazzling brilliance.

After a moment the light fades, and the rooftop is cleansed of Heartless. Azlyn and Telary look around as their vision clears, noticing that they are alone. Then they notice the lion, still with his head in the air.

Simba lowers his gaze to look at Sora, something like friendship in his clear blue eyes.

“Thanks, Simba,” Sora says, bowing his head to the lion, who lets out a roar in return before fading out in a wink of light.

Azlyn and Telary approach. “What the hell was that?” the knight asks, looking from the spot Simba just vanished from to the stone in Sora’s hand.

“Simba,” Sora answers almost dumbly, still not quite sure himself what just occurred. “He was lost in Darkness, but his heart didn’t want to give up. I… I think I called to him, or the Keyblade did, and then he helped us beat the Heartless.” The Keyblade wielder pockets the stone. “And he’ll be there if we need him again.”

“Huh,” Telary says. “Well anyway, the bell?”

“Right!” Sora agrees, moving to the rope and pulling once to set he brass bell swinging and bonging once more, then finally a third time, letting go of the rope and letting it swing.

The rooftop begins shaking as soon as the rope is released, the whole plaza seemingly set into motion.

At the edge of the plaza, the mural set behind the fountain, three white flowers set against a red background, begins to spin, and the water of the fountain suddenly transmutes to burning red flame. The mural spins past another picture of flowers set against a blue background, then more flowers against green, finally stopping on a picture of five butterflies flying around a single red flower. As soon as the mural stops on the image, the flame returns to water, six powerful jets shooting up and falling against the mural. Wherever the drops drip down, the stone begins to spark, finally rumbling down into a solid white glow, the shape of a three foot tall keyhole glowing blue in the midst of it.

“We found it!” Sora cries triumphantly, pumping his fist into the air. “Now c’mon, let’s go seal that Keyhole!”

“One problem, Sora,” Azlyn points out. “It’s down there, and we’re up on this rooftop! Let’s go back to the ladder and…”

“No need,” Telary informs his counterpart. He leads the group to the edge of the roof, the stone ground of the plaza far below. He waves his spell over the trio, grinning cheerfully. “Mass Feather Fall!”

Sparks fall from the air and glow upon contact with the trio’s skin.

“Huh,” Sora says, examining his arm where the sparks struck. Next to him, Azlyn does the same. “I feel… Lighter.”

“Exactly,” Telary confirms with a smile and a nod. “I found the spell in the book Merlin gave me. Now we can jump from any height and just float down to the ground like a feather.”

“Wow,” Sora comments favorably. “Are you sure it…?”

Azlyn, who until now has been regarding herself with curiosity, grins mischievously and gives Sora a one-handed push, sending the boy off the rooftop. As promised, he simply floats to the ground, landing no worse for the wear against the stone pavement.

“It works!” Azlyn calls down to the miffed Keybearer. Telary rolls his eyes, but the knight doesn’t notice, leaping down with a thrilled grin.

Once Telary jumps as well, the trio make their way towards the Keyhole.

They get about halfway to the fountain when suddenly a portal of darkness opens above them. All three manage to dodge, and when they’ve recovered from the shock, they turn to see a Guard Armor, the same Heartless that had been leading the forces of Darkness on the trio’s first visit to Traverse Town, standing menacingly above them, poised to attack.

“Ha!” Azlyn laughs, dropping into a combat ready stance. “I guess second time’s the charm, huh?”

“Third time, actually, according to the saying,” Telary corrects her, more out of nervous habit than anything else. “I’m pretty sure the second time is just bad luck.”

“Yeah,” Sora chimes in, Keyblade at the ready. “Bad luck for it!”

They charge, ducking under the swipe of a clawed fist. The boys keep moving, but Azlyn stops and makes a corkscrew jump upwards, her shield bashing against the armored hand several times and sending it flopping to the ground uselessly.

A huge, black metal foot comes stomping down at Sora and Telary, but they dodge and Telary knocks a blizzard spell into the pavement, which the foot slides against in an almost comical pratfall.

The next foot rushes at Sora from above, but he gets the Keyblade up in enough time to swat it down, only to be immediately presented with the threat of a closed metal gauntlet. As it rushes him with the force of a battering ram, Sora jumps, somehow managing to leap above it and plant his feet against it, only for a second, before launching himself straight at the torso.

With a loud yell and a mighty downward swing of the Keyblade, Sora knocks the creature’s torso out of the air and sends it crashing to the ground, lying in a heap with all the other defeated body parts.

“Yes!” Azlyn cries triumphantly, letting out an ecstatic whoop. She dances gracefully over to the downed torso, still grinning like the Cheshire Cat, and places a foot on the fallen metal carcass of their foe. “Thirty seconds flat, by my reckoning. Man, that was the easiest Heartless battle ever!”

“Yeah…” Telary agrees, scratching his chin and looking over the various dropped parts of the Guard Armor’s body. Something about this business seems off to him. “Why didn’t it disappear?”

“Huh?” Sora asks, stopping his walk to the Keyhole and turning back to face his companion, looking confused. “You’re right. Usually when we destroy a Heartless…”

Suddenly, the body parts begin to twitch, and Azlyn wisely backs off from the torso her foot had been planted on moments ago.

It’s just in time, too, as a second later the parts begin to rise, all of the disparate limbs floating together to reform, back into the creature’s original shape.

The trio regroups and prepares weapons, ready for anything.

The Guard Armor bends over, planting the metallic spikes of its “fingers” into the pavement of the square. Then, like a child doing a handstand, the torso begins to flip over, feet rising as well. When things settle, the head floats back down to rest just above the wide metal “skirt” that had once been nearest the ground. Then with two twin clinks, the broad black feet snap into pincers.

With hands now feet and feet hands, the Opposite Armor’s visor slams down, revealing the creature’s face of pure shadow and two yellow eyes.

“Uh, wow,” Sora breathes, taking a step back from the transformed monstrosity.

“I hope you were right, Tel,” Azlyn mutters to her companion.

“About what?” the mage asks.

“The third time being the charm.”

The Opposite Armor dives through the air at the group, scattering them across the square. From there it separates, the hands and head moving together towards Azlyn, and the feet and torso strafing Sora and Telary’s position.

The feet come together to form a deadly, windmill-like blade in front of the torso, and immediately set after the mage and the Keybearer, who turn tail and flee.

The black metal pincers of the creature’s hands move for Azlyn, snapping open and shut and forcing the girl to jump and twist around them, at times only barely avoiding a crushed leg or arm or head.

Speaking of heads, after a moment of waiting the Opposite Armor’s strikes, loop-de-looping around and going right for the knight.

She manages to transpose her shield between the flying head and her at the last second, taking it aback for a second she can’t afford to waste, twisting and getting a solid kick into its face.

Shaking off Azlyn’s attack, the Heartless calls its disparate parts back together, once again forming a single body.

It begins to twist again, the clawed feet snapping into place around the wide skirt, the arms locking into position near the smaller opening at the top of the torso, and the head floating just barely above it all.

“What…?” Azlyn asks, taking a step forward even as a blue glow begins to accumulate inside the outward-facing opening.

“Azlyn!” Telary yells as he dives forward, slamming into Azlyn. They hit the ground and roll, just as the blue ball of pure energy slams into the spot the knight was just occupying, leaving a massive dark stain on the pavement.

The mage looks into his counterpart’s eyes with concern, heedless of the fact that he’s laying right on top of her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she confirms, letting out a breath of air she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Except, you’re crushing me a little…”

“Oh!” He rolls off of her, looking quite sheepish about the whole thing. “Sorry, I was just…”

“No, hey, thank you! For saving my life there.”

Another blast impacting against the plaza, barely missing Sora, shocks the pair out of their awkward moment.

“How are we supposed to stop that thing?” Telary asks, as the Opposite Armor cannon chases after a distraught Sora. It would almost look like a comedy routine if not for all of Sora’s terrified screams.

“It’s gonna go so high we can’t get to it, and just keep blasting us from up there,” Azlyn suggests, going over several possible strategies for the Heartless to use and arriving at the most probable.

“So we have to get up to its level?”

Back over in the battle, or rather at the moment the chase, Sora nearly breaks his neck tripping over an abandoned snow-cone cart, instead just ending up ice that settles on his face for a moment, giving him the appearance of a long beard to match Merlin’s, before sloughing off and melting.

“That, or…” Suddenly, Azlyn has an idea. She looks from her shield to the creature, working out the logistics until she’s sure the plan is perfect. Or at least as good as it’s going to get. “Okay, I’ve got it. Stay here, I’ll take care of this in two seconds!”

Telary opens his mouth to protest, but quickly shuts it again as he watches Azlyn bound away after danger. After all, most of his magic will work just fine from this range, and he trusts Azlyn’s plans.

For the most part.

Sora backs against the brick wall at the end of the plaza, for whatever reason choosing to focus on the Keyhole rather than the hovering monster Heartless cannon hovering over him, gathering energy for the strike that will end it all.

It’s ironic, he thinks, or at the very least terribly sad, that he’s about to meet his end so close to the Keyhole. He wonders vaguely if after he’s gone the Keyblade will pass on to another worthy person somewhere in the universe. Someone who can save the universe properly.

At least he got to see Riku one last time, at least he knows his oldest friend is alive and doing relatively well. He’d have liked to see Kairi for real as well, but somehow he feels she’s with him regardless…

The blue energy gathers once more in the wide opening, the beady eyes of the Heartless staring steadily at its target. All I will take is one more second to charge, and then…

Azlyn comes flying in, stuffing her shield, the weapon she has trained every day to use since she was young, the symbol of her dedication to Disney Castle, right into the end of the Heartless cannon.

The Opposite Armor’s weak mind is at least self-aware enough to realize that now is a time to panic. The charge has been built up too much, there’s no going back now. But with all that energy to release and nowhere to release it from…

“Down!” Azlyn yells, pulling Sora to the ground. Telary rushes in and crouches beside them, staff raised and spell prepared.

With nowhere to go, the dark energy of the Opposite Armor cannon reverses back into itself, blowing back the head of the Heartless with such force that it launches past the doorway from 2nd to 1st District, all the way up into the stars above.

As for Sora, Azlyn, and Telary, the mage manages to erect a magical barrier of protection around them, letting the loose energies of the blast harmlessly wash over them.

“Wow,” Sora whispers incredulously as soon as the light has faded from his eyes. “That was…”

“Just seal the Keyhole, Sora,” Azlyn commands sharply, trying not to dwell on the loss of her shield. It’s just a bit of metal, she knows that, but it meant much more to her. She won’t see its loss be in vain.

Sora steps up to the still glowing Keyhole, raising the Keyblade on his own volition for the first time during such an event. Light gathers around its tip, coalescing into a beam that flies from the blade to the hole.

There’s a loud click, and the Keyhole explodes in a shower of light, returning to the mural it once was.

Traverse Town is, for the first time, completely safe.
The hardest part of this whole story is always boss fights. Because the thing is that I feel I have to end each of them in a unique way. "The heroes hit he thing until it died" is fine game mechanics, but not so great narratively. anyway, Traverse Town 2nd visit aftermath is up next, and includes a certain little wooden boy!
 

KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

If only Maleficent wasn't around then Riku would've stayed! It was nice seeing how Riku interacted with Sora's keyblade and new friends. I was also greatly amused at Maleficent being referred to a witch in personality or something until it was cleared up. Furthermore, the fight scenes and Azlyn's shenanigans was a fun read. I kind of feel bad for her losing the shield but at least it came in handy when she had it. Hopefully she gets a replacement soon. And hey, Simba! Overall, awesome chapter. :)
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XVII: Little Wooden Head
Leon, Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid are all standing waiting for Sora, Azlyn, and Telary as they enter 1st District, fresh from their victory. As soon as they see the trio, everyone begins clapping.

The companions exchange proud looks and smiles, all three basking in the glow of their achievement and the admiration of their friends.

“Speech! Speech!” Yuffie cries out, cupping her hands around her mouth.

“You really don’t have to do that,” Leon promises them. All three notice immediately that there’s something off about him, something different than it was before.

“You’re smiling!” Sora laughs, clapping his hands. “You actually look happy!”

“Well, it’s all thanks to you,” the leather clad man admits. His expression switches on a dime, returning to its usual dowerness. “Don’t get too attached to it. We’re still a long way from home, but…”

“You’ve finally given us a truly peaceful place for us to wait out the time until we can return,” Aerith finishes with a smile. “The denizens of this town, us included, are all in your debt.”

“How much in our debt, might I ask? Monetarily speaking, I mean?” Azlyn inquires with a raised eyebrow, but Telary yanks her back a few steps by the hood of her jacket.

“Well I promise you kids’ll always have a discount offer at my store!” Cid promises, stepping up and grinning.

“Thanks,” Sora replies with a grateful nod.

“Especially since I’m in the market for a new shield,” Azlyn interjects. “My old one was, sadly, a casualty of our battle to make this town safe, and thus…”

“Well, here’s the thing about that,” Cid cuts the knight off, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. “The Accessory Shop is kinda under new management.”

“Did you bet it in a poker game?” Azlyn asks, wagging her finger.

Everyone laughs, even Cid.

“Naw,” he answers with a flippant grin, “I just passed it on to one a my employees, so I could get on with starting up my real business again!”

“What business?” Telary asks.

“Glad you asked, my friend!” Cid exclaims, reaching back into an alley beside him. He draws out a huge cart on wheels, several brightly colored objects on display.

“Gummi blocks!”

“That’s right!” Cid confirms with a cheerful grin. “I’m a Gummi engineer. It started off with a penchant for making airships, but once this new tech came along, I was hooked. So, I just wanted ta let you kids know that if you ever need anything, Gummi-wise, I’m the guy to see. Don’t even think about goin’ ta some other schmuck, because I can guarantee that he won’t got the stuff I do.”

“And the parts we already asked you to install?” Azlyn asks. “Are we all set up?”

“Sure thing kid,” Cid confirms with a wink. “I got yer navigation Gummi all set up to find a path to a new world. And just fer the hell of it I threw in a warp Gummi. All you have to do now to return to a world you’ve already found the coordinates to is punch it in and flip a switch. I figured it’d come in handy if you need to come back here.”

“You can really use this world as a place of rest now,” Aerith says with a smile.

Leon steps up and places a hand on Sora’s shoulder, looking him straight in the eye. “If you ever need anything, just come to us and ask. You’ve given us this town, and I’m confident that you can get our world back as well. We trust you, Keyblade master.”

“Master, eh?” Sora tries out, a grin spreading across his face. “I really like the sound of that. Sora, Keyblade master!”

After everyone has had a good laugh at the expense of Sora’s ego and said their proper goodbyes, the trio heads back to the world entrance.

“Here we go again,” Telary sighs. “We just go from one trouble to another, don’t we?”

“I guess that’s the kind of life you lead as a Keyblade master,” Sora points out with a sigh.

“If you think I am ever going to refer to you as master of anything, then let me tell you buddy…” Azlyn begins, slowly building up to complete incensement.

“Hey there folks!” Jiminy cricket’s cheerful voice pops up in front of the band, startling Azlyn out of her anger and into a pinwheeling backwards step.

“Jiminy? Why aren’t you on the ship?” Telary asks.

“Well, I got a little peckish and thought I’d try the local cuisine,” the chronicler answers, steadying himself on Sora’s shoulder. “There’s a café nearby that actually isn’t bad.”

“I could eat,” Telary offers, and everyone seems to agree.

So they sit and have a meal, nothing fancier than sandwiches and bowls of soup, but a nice change of pace from whatever they were managing to scrounge together back on the Gummi ship. As they eat, Sora, Azlyn, and Telary fill Jiminy in on their new knowledge of their mission, as well as events in Traverse Town. He writes it down in his journal.

“We should get going,” Sora says, standing up and leaving a small pouch of munny to pay for the meal. “We’ve got a lot of things to do. Seems like every time we turn around, something else pops up.”

“Not so fast,” Azlyn interrupts abruptly. “I lost my shield in the battle against that Heartless, remember? I realize I’m, like, a premier fist fighting talent, but sometimes a little extra protection doesn’t hurt, y’know?”

“Let’s go to the accessory shop, then,” Telary decides. “I kind of want to meet the new proprietor anyway. Maybe he’ll be even friendlier than Cid.”

Azlyn rolls her eyes. “Tel, we could walk in there to find a cactus behind the counter, and it would still be friendlier than Cid.”

They head over to the shop, Azlyn in the lead. Just as the knight is about to open the door, however, it flies open on its own, sending the doors flying into her face. She cries out and stumbles back, then yells once more when a small boy runs out, elbowing her directly in the shin.

“Stop!” the shop owner can be heard yelling from inside, scrambling to get out from behind the counter.

“What the hell was that?” Azlyn hisses through gritted teeth, nursing her ankle. “I feel like I just got bashed in the shin with a wooden…”

“Pinocchio?” Jiminy mutters just loud enough for Sora to hear, amazement in his words. Sora turns his head to see that the conscience’s eyes are wide and his mouth has dropped open. “Pinocchio!”

“Uh, Jiminy,” the Keybearer whispers nervously to the cricket, ignoring Telary moving to crouch at Azlyn’s side, “what did you just…?”

“Pinocchio!” Jiminy leaps off Sora’s shoulder like he’s been set on fire, holding tightly to the brim of his hat to keep it in place as he takes off down the street, following the thief, who can still be seen making a run for it.

“What’s a Pinocchio?” Azlyn asks, rising easily after her shin has been cured, cocking her head as she watches Jiminy hop away in hot pursuit. “And why is Jiminy so fixated on catching that kid?”

“Maybe it’s a conscience thing,” Telary posits. “Like he feels a duty to bring in wrongdoers.”

“You mean he’s gonna take that thieving midget down?” Azlyn exclaims, her face lighting up. “I hope I get there in time to help!”

She takes off down the street, and Sora follows not two feet behind her, his own curiosity propelling his steps. Telary watches them for a moment, then rolls his eyes and follows.

“You caught him!” Azlyn congratulates her tiny compadre, who is standing in front of a small boy dressed in red overalls, a white t-shirt, and a yellow hat, hands on hips and eye looking stern. “Nice! Now let’s get this…”

The knight steps forward to grab the boy, only to find that his arm has a hinge!

“Wood!” Sora exclaims as he draws an obvious conclusion. “You’re made out of wood!”

“This,” Jiminy explains to the trio as soon as Telary pulls up to the scene, “is Pinocchio. We’re from the same world, and before it’s destruction I was assigned as his conscience. This boy used to get in trouble like…”

“What’s with the wood?” Azlyn asks immediately, not interested in any other details.

“Long story,” is all Jiminy offers as an explanation, turning back to the boy and returning to stern mode. “Now, it sounded to me like that nice shopkeep back there was under the impression you’d stolen something. Now, why would he assume that?”

“Oh, Jiminy, I’ve got no idea,” the boy replies, shrugging and looking as sincere as possible. Until, that is, a burst of light erupts at the tip of his nose, and in moments it elongates almost an inch! “Oh! Um…”

“Ew,” Telary says.

“What the…?” Sora exclaims.

Azlyn has nothing to say at all, an extremely rare occasion.

“Aha!” Jiminy shouts triumphantly, hopping high in the air. “I knew you were up to no good. Oh, Pinocchio, what did you steal?”

“Nothing much,” the wooden boy clearly lies, as evidenced by another inch of nose growth. Jiminy gives him another look, and the boy sighs, reaching into a back pocket. He pulls out a long metallic chain that glows underneath the street lamps.

“Now, Pinocch, why would you take something like that, huh? What do you need a chain for?”

“I dunno,” Pinocchio replies, his nose gradually shrinking back to normal length as he does. “I just saw it, and it was so shiny…”

“Well, you’re going to give it back, young man! That’s a guarantee!” Jiminy gives his charge a solid thump to the wooden leg, and the boy stands with a sigh, head hung low, his white gloved hands by his sides. “Now, march!”

“Wait a second!” Azlyn declares, putting a hand in front of the wooden boy just as he’s getting up. “Before we go anywhere, I wanna know why this kid is made of wood.” Behind her, Sora and Telary nod in agreement.

Jiminy sighs. “Okay, fine. I guess this would look a bit odd to the uninitiated. Pinocchio here started out as a lifeless puppet, carved back on our world by a toymaker named Geppetto. Now Geppetto was a lonely old man, and all he ever wanted was a son. So, the night he finished carving Pinocch here, he got down on his knees and wished for it to be a real boy. And the Blue Fairy heard his wish, and came down to bring Pinocchio to life. For when you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires can come to you.”

“Reminder,” Azlyn whispers to herself, “find blue star lady, wish for munny.”

“That was the day Pinocchio was born. But he was just an animated puppet, not a real boy. To do that, he needs to prove himself worthy. That’s where I come in.”

“And the nose…?” Telary asks.

“Whenever Pinocchio lies, his nose grows. A little insurance policy to keep him, well, honest,” Jiminy finishes explaining.

“Any way we could set up something like that up for Azlyn?” Sora jokes, earning a glare from the knight.

“Now, as I was saying,” Jiminy states, turning back to Pinocchio, “you’re going back to return what you stole and apologize. March!”

The puppet boy hangs his head and the group troops back toward the accessory shop. As they approach, Azlyn reaches down and yanks him upward, trapping him in her arms.

“Hey, lemme go!” Pinocchio protests, while the rest of the group moves to help. They’re too slow, however, and Azlyn rushes into the shop.

The keeper turns and looks at the struggling boy with wide eyes.

“Caught your thief!” Azlyn announces, setting Pinocchio down on the counter like he’s a bracelet she wants appraised.

“Thank you so much!” the shopkeeper, a plain looking boy dressed in a blue vest, white shirt, and tan slacks, says gratefully. “I owe you big time!”

Azlyn grins. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

A few minutes later, the group walks back out of the Accessory Shop, Azlyn admiring her new shield. It’s a bit smaller than her old one, colored green with a silver fleur-de-lis in the middle, but all she cares is that she can throw it, and it’s free.

“Great job teaching Pinocchio about morality,” Telary deadpans. “When this is all over, I’m making you take an ethics class at Mouseburg High.”

“Hey, I already passed that class once!” Azlyn replies defensively.

“Did you cheat?”

“… Maybe.”

“Well, maybe some good honest work will teach Pinocchio a thing or two,” Jiminy says from his position on Sora’s shoulder. “Now, you make sure you report to work on time tomorrow. I know you’re just doing this to make up for stealing, but maybe you’ll find some aptitude for shopkeeping.”

“I’m sorry I got in trouble, Jiminy,” the puppet boy apologizes, staring at the ground in shame. “But without you or father around, it’s hard to remember what’s good to do and what isn’t.”

“I know, Pinocch,” Jiminy says understandingly. “But me and my friends, we’ve been finding all sorts of people out there among the worlds. If we happen across your father, I promise we’ll do our best to get you two back together.”

“Really? Aw, thanks Jiminy!”

“Don’t mention it, Pinocchio.” The cricket grins. “It’s what any good conscience would do.”

After goodbyes are said, the trio and Jiminy return to the Gummi ship.

“Y’know, Jiminy,” Azlyn says to the chronicler, “maybe you’ll wanna ask the next time you volunteer us for a search and rescue mission.”

Jiminy gives her a stern look. “As long as you give me a heads up the next time you kidnap me.”

“Touché.”

KH-KH-KH


The next day, Pinocchio is working at the shop and bored out of his mind shelving inventory, when Cid walks in and begins a conversation with the shopkeeper.

“Hey, Wedge,” the old Gummi merchant says gruffly, “do ya mind doin’ me a favor? I’ve been keepin’ a spare key to my Gummi garage in the cart, but some unsavory looking kids’ve been hangin’ around, and I wanna keep it safe. Can I trust you to put it in the vault for safekeeping?”

“Sure thing, Cid,” Wedge promises, taking the key and placing it on the counter beside him.”

“You’re a good man, Wedge,” Cid says with a smile. “Wouldn’t want some kid to hop in one a my Gummis and go joyridin’ to another world, eh?”

Another world? That certainly intrigues Pinocchio. Maybe, if he went to another world, he could find out where his father had ended up…
 

KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Oh no. Pinocchio! Don't steal Cid's spare key! Alas, it was great seeing SAT celebrating with a meal along with some jokes thrown in there too. I'm pleasantly surprised to see Jiminy take charge with Pinocchio and explain his origins as simple as possible. Of course, Azlyn getting her new shield out it was greatly amusing too. I really can't wait to see where SAT show up next. And I wonder if it's Riku, who Cid meant as an unsavory looking kids being around. Although, it isn't plural so perhaps there's someone else wandering about too? Can't wait for the next chapter!
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XVIII: Arabian Days
Sometimes it seems to Azlyn that a day just isn’t complete without the familiar, though still no less jarring, sound of Telary shrieking in fear.

She bolts out of her room before he sound has even died down, passing the open door of Sora’s room and seeing the Keybearer cock his head at the odd noise, still not as “trained” to react as Azlyn is.

She climbs the ladder up and makes an immediate assessment of the cockpit as soon as her head is above the floor, peering around and seeing no apparent signs of danger. Just Telary, leaned back into the cushion of his seat with one hand clenching his chest. In front of him, a monitor that Azlyn has never noticed before floats above, held aloft by a thin but strong metal arm.

“Hey there, Azlyn!” Dale, the red-nosed, goofier of the chipmunk brothers and Gummi engineers, greets the knight as she finishes her climb. Below, she can hear Sora start his own ascent, having finally caught up with the program.

“Sorry to scare you, Telary,” Dale, black-nosed and responsible, apologizes to Telary, who by now has at least managed to get his breathing back under control. “We must have forgotten to tell you about the two-way comm system.” The flight controller pauses and gives Azlyn a knowing look. “Of course, if you hadn’t stolen it in the first place…”

“There’s going to come a day that someone will forget to remind me of that,” Azlyn sighs, taking her seat to Telary’s left.

“Not any time soon though, I’d imagine,” Telary quips with a hint of a smile, his spirits back to normal after the shock he’d received.

“That’ll be the first thing I tell Kairi about you guys,” Sora comments from his seat to the right. “I’ll say, ’Hey, Kairi, these are my friends Azlyn and Telary, and they stole a Gummi ship’.”

After the laughter dies down, Dale declares it time to get to business. “We actually called to give you guys some bad news.”

“Is the castle okay?” Telary asks, leaning forward and gripping his chair’s arm rests. “The queen? Something from Donald or Goofy?”

“No, no, we’re all fine,” Dale assures the mage. “New columns just went up out in the colonnade, and most of the audience chamber has been cleared up.”

“We called because we picked somethin’ up on our far-range scanners,” Dale says, looking more concerned than is his usual nature. “We’ve been getting a lot of Darkness readings from the worlds, ‘cause of the Heartless, but now we’re starting to see similar signatures out in Gummi space, mostly clustered among further out worlds.”

“What does that mean?” Azlyn asks.

“In short,” Chip answers, “it seems that the Heartless have found a way to use Gummi technology in combination with their own dark powers, which…”

“Would give them a fleet of ships all their own,” Telary finishes, a panicked edge to his voice. “They could attack us while we’re flying from world to world!”

“Afraid so,” Chip says apologetically. “We can’t get much of a read on locations, not in time to warn you anyway, but you do have the turret in back, so…”

“Turret!” Azlyn exclaims, straightening up in her chair, a grin stretching across her face. “You mean like a big gun?”

“Sure,” Dale answers, nodding smartly.

“You’d have known that if…”

Azlyn slams a glowing button on the dash, apparently the way to shut off the monitor since Chip and Dale’s image winks out and the metal arm pulls the screen back behind the computer bay.

“Heartless Gummi ships,” Telary sighs, drooping backwards into the seat. “That’s just what we need, space battles! I’ve never flown in a space battle before. There aren’t even combat simulations. Nobody told me about the turret…”

“Relax, Telary,” Sora assures the older boy, leaning back in his chair. “If anybody can fly us through a bunch of Heartless ships, it’s you. Trust me, we’re gonna be fine!”

“Espescially with me on the turret!” Azlyn says, springing out of her seat and springing to the exit. “Once I get my hands on those guns…”

“Who said you’re in charge of the turret, huh?” Sora challenges, remembering all the times he and Riku chased each other with tiny peashooters. He hadn’t been a bad shot, for a ten year old.

“Oh, please,” Azlyn scoffs, crossing her arms indignantly. “Like I’m gonna…”

“You stole the ship!” Sora blurts out. “And that means that…”

“Okay, say that one more time. In grappling range! I dare ya, key boy…”

Telary lifts the ship’s yoke, sending it rising off the Gummi garage’s landing platform and shaking the cockpit enough so that both Sora and Azlyn lose balance, and therefore steam, preventing the fight from getting physical.

“You will take turns!” the mage barks, uncharacteristically authoritative. “Okay, happy? But for now, just take your seats because we’re gonna see if this warp drive is as great as Cid made it sound. Alright?”

Both mumble an apology as they go to their seats, though Sora maintains that Azlyn started it.

Telary shakes his head as he focuses on the instruments, finding the pattern to engage warp speed. Luckily he made sure to note the positions of all their previously visited worlds, so it’s a simple matter to call up Deep Jungle’s coordinates, the furthest out world they’d been able to detect, and punch in for warp.

“Hang on everybody,” Telary instructs, flexing his fingers around the controls. “This is gonna be…”

He pushes down the warp sequence ignition button, and the view space outside the cockpit shifts from a pleasant blue and green to a harsh white, silver streaks threading through it. All of this happens before Telary can even finish his sentence, so fast that none of the trio notice it happening at all.

“…Different,” Telary finishes. Looking out the viewport, he can see that they’re just out of Deep Jungle’s orbit, the green world spinning slowly beneath them. “Huh.”

“Whoa!” Sora exclaims, exiting his seat and pressing his face against the glass to get a better look. “We got here so fast I didn’t even know it was happening! Cool!”

“It is nice,” Azlyn admits, acting unimpressed. “Saves a lot of time stuck in here alone with you boys.”

Telary notices that the dash-inset monitor is beeping, and leaning over he can see that a new world can be located on radar.

“Can we warp to the next world too?” Sora asks.

“Sadly not,” Telary explains. “The nav Gummi just doesn’t give us anything beyond a vague impression of the world’s location. I need to maintain constant control to get us there.”

“Fascinating as that is,” Azlyn says with a yawn, rising and stretching, “I’ve got an appointment with some guns, so…”

“Who said you get the first turn?” Sora protests, turning and inching away from the glass viewport.

“I did!” the knight provides cheerfully, then dashes after the hatch, laughing like a madwoman. Sora is after her like a shot, arms pumping and face focused.

Telary sighs as he settles in for the flight, and winces when he hears a loud crash from belowdecks, and the frightened yelp of Jiminy Cricket.

KH-KH-KH


The streets of Agrabah, normally so crowded with people and children and animals and all sorts of things Jafar considers nothing more than annoying and messy, are empty, perhaps for the first time in years. Certainly the vizier can scarce remember a midday in the marketplace so devoid of life.

All in all, he’s pleased with his work.

“But you haven’t found the Keyhole yet,” Maleficent reminds her second-in-command imperiously, obviously not as pleased as he is. “You’ve searched the entire palace, have you not?”

“Yes, Maleficent, every inch of it has been swept, from tallest tower to deepest dungeon,” Jafar informs her, fighting an urge to roll his eyes. Sometimes he suspects that the most evil thing about the jade-skinned witch is her micromanaging. “It’s been a task of days, but…”

“You should have searched more quickly. Or have you been mining all the enjoyment you can from ruling Agrabah?”

Jafar scowls openly this time, and is about to say something disdainful that could get him turned to a Shadow, but luckily for him at that moment a squawk rings out from above, signaling the arrival of Iago.

The tiny red parrot lands gently on Jafar’s shoulder. It’s been nearly a decade since the vizier had met the bird, recognizing almost immediately a devious heart not unlike his own. Ever since, the parrot has been a loyal, if mouthy, follower.

“I searched the whole town, Jafar,” he informs his sorcerous master. “From the palace gardens to the western wall, and I couldn’t find hide or tail of the princess.”

Jafar’s scowl grows deeper, and he puffs out an angry breath from his nostrils. “That girl has once again proven herself more trouble than she’s worth. First she escapes custody, and now she’s gone underground. It almost makes me question…”

“The girl is important Jafar,” Maleficent reminds him, arching her eyebrow dangerously. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: We need all seven maidens of purest heart if we are to make my Keyhole operational, or open the final door. We may have captured four so far, but if even one slips through our fingers…”

“I’m aware of the girl’s importance, my friend,” Jafar snaps back, noting that this prompts Maleficent’s eyebrow to climb another inch, a feat he’d thought impossible before. “I was merely expressing my frustration. If she needs be found…”

The vizier waves his hand and summons a cadre of Heartless, squat humanoids dressed in baggy pants and vests. Their faces are wrapped up in cloth strips like turbans, only a few inches of black face and yellow eyes poking out. Each carries a large scimitar, easily wielding it with one hand. The dread symbol of the Heartless stands out on their chests.

“Iago, take these Heartless, find Princess Jasmine, and bring her to me,” he commands with a flourishing wave of his staff. The bird nods, and launches off of his shoulder, the Heartless racing after with their swords held high.

Another hand wave brings a second group, then a third. He gives all three the same instruction to capture Jasmine and bring her to him, stressing the importance of not harming the girl. As he watches them charge off, he can’t help but grin at their obedience. Not even Iago follows orders so well.

“I would not advise becoming so attached to the Darkness,” Maleficent says, like a warning from a busybody schoolteacher. “It can prey upon your heart if you aren’t careful, and with you none-the-wiser. The Heartless consume the careless.”

Jafar laughs to hide his anger. “Your concern is very touching, dear Maleficent, but hardly necessary. I can handle the Heartless just fine.”

“If you say so. I just hope your arrogance doesn’t disrupt my plans.”

“I believe that you meant to say our plans, Maleficent. Don’t forget my role in all of this.”

Maleficent turns away from her companion, mostly so he can’t see her roll her eyes. “Of course not, Jafar. Of course not.”

She leaves then, simply fading away until she is back in the safe darkness of her fortress and Jafar is left alone on the sandy street.

The vizier-turned- sultan of Agrabah scowls at the spot Maleficent just occupied. How dare she talk to him, the new ruler of Agrabah, in that tone! Hadn’t he been the first of their group to join her crusade against the universe? Hadn’t he served loyally, patiently waiting until the day arrived that he could turn the Darkness loose on the place that he was so desperate to rule?

She knows nothing of his other operation, a throwback to plans he had made long before she had offered him the Heartless. Somewhere out in the desert is the key to victory over even Maleficent. Somewhere, deep in the Cave of Wonders, a lamp awaits for the day Jafar finds it and makes all of his wishes come true…

He leaves eventually to return to the palace, and perhaps torture the former sultan a bit. He’d saved the man from the Heartless in order to prolong his vengeance, why not make use of him?

When Jafar is gone and the market is clear once more, a young woman emerges from behind a fruit stall, her eyes watery from the effort of restraining tears.
Agrabah

The trek in from where they park the Gummi ship is short, thankfully, and the heat beats down upon Sora, Azlyn, and Telary’s heads all the way.

The city’s walls are impressive, at least, strong white stone walls Telary estimates are about thirteen feet high, topped by golden domes every ten feet along it.

Over the top of the wall, the trio can see the top of a huge white building topped by the most massive golden dome in the city.

“I just can’t believe it,” Azlyn huffs, her nose wrinkling in angry disgust. “We fly through space for, like, six hours and there’s not one Heartless to shoot! Unbelievable!”

“Well, that’s just too bad for you,” Sora teases, grinning cheekily in a way that he knows will provoke the girl, “because next trip, it’s my turn on the turret.”

Azlyn opens her mouth to say something, but Telary decides to just run over her and prevent further arguing. “I stand by the taking turns system. It should keep everything fair. Now, could you two please focus? This is a new world, and danger could be around any corner.”

Azlyn looks around at the absolutely empty plaza. A few stalls are set up here and there, but all of them are either locked up tight, or completely abandoned. It’s quiet, too, in ways that cities usually aren’t in the middle of the day. Not even ambient noise from surrounding streets filter in.

“It’s a ghost town,” Sora notes with a frown, spinning in a slow circle to take everything in. All in all, there isn’t much. When he turns back to his companions, a panicked look mars his face. “What could have done this to…?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Azlyn asks, trying to sound less caustically sarcastic than usual. “It must have been the Heartless. They must have…”

“A whole town?” Sora squeaks out, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. “They’ve… They’ve gotten rid of so many people and the world doesn’t even look a bit destroyed. How could they do this? How could…”

Telary steps up and puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder, then brings him in closer and wraps an arm around his shoulder.

“I came too late to stop this,” the Keybearer continues, the water in his eyes disappearing in the span of one hard blink, replaced by a righteous anger. “But I swear I’m going to make the Heartless pay for what they did here. I’m going to seal the Keyhole, stop Maleficent, and get justice for these people.”

“We all are,” Azlyn says assuredly, and Telary nods agreement. A half-hearted grin on his face, Sora shrugs Telary’s arm away and begins to march down the city streets.

The only sound accompanying them is that of their own footsteps and the occasional gust of wind, displacing sand here and there.

Suddenly, though, the silence is broken by the sound of new footsteps, coming down a ways around the curve of the street. From the sound of it, there are several pairs of feet in the group.

Just as the trio prepares their weapons, five Bandit Heartless round the bend, swords held high and feet kicking up clouds of dust!

“Well,” Azlyn remarks as she readies her shield for a throw, “I’d say that justice is about to serve customer number one!”

She pulls back and hurls the shield forward, but one of the Heartless twitches its wrist and knocks the weapon away, sending it flying into the dirt like an uncaught Frisbee.

Sora rushes forward with the Keyblade ready, grunting out a battle cry as he aims a swing for a Bandit’s head. The creature raises its own weapon to block, unfortunately, and turns the Keyblade aside, then steps forward for a retaliatory slash.

Sora blocks, and moves the sword out of his way, but a pair of Bandits rush past and head for Azlyn, who slides out of the way of one sword strike and barely dodges another, lashing out with a kick that sends the nearest Heartless stumbling into its companion. Telary calls down a lightning spell and skewers both with a single bolt.

But another Bandit is already on the move, snapping a kick from its small but powerful leg to the mage’s face, then slashing straight at him with its blade. Telary barely interposes his staff to keep from getting bisected.

Sora and his opponent continue to trade blows, but the Heartless is clearly working with much greater strength than the Keybearer, driving him back.

Azlyn goes for her deflected shield, but finds herself blocked by the efforts of the fifth Bandit. She jinks and jukes, but the creature seems more than well prepared, mirroring her movements as she makes them.

She moves quickly and jumps, executing half a flip, placing her hands on the bandit’s shoulders, and vaulting over its head, lashing out with a back-kick before she lands, sending it to the sandy ground.

It recovers and rises, but by then Azlyn has her shield picked up and ready, ramming into the Heartless and sending it flying into a stall selling various bejeweled items, knocking a support beam down and sending it all collapsing on its head.

Telary has his opponent down with a burst of fire, and Sora finally manages to find an opening to swipe the Bandit he’s been confronting since the battle began directly in the head, ending its threat.

More footsteps can be heard, a greater clamor than even the one that announced the last group’s arrival.

Azlyn turns to face the sound and readies her shield, but at a look from Sora, Telary taps her on the shoulder and gestures to a nearby alley.

“What!” Azlyn whisper-screams, looking defiantly angry at her mage friend. “You can’t be serious! We can…”

“Fine!” Telary shoots back in low, careful tones, already inching towards escape. “You can fight more of these guy if you want, but…”

The knight rolls her eyes even as she settles her shield into the magnetic plate on her back. “Fine, fine. Y’know, you don’t always have to be so passive-aggressive about everything!”

The pair move quickly to join Sora, who is already crouched in the alley behind some crates for cover. They wait there for almost a full minute, Azlyn risking a peek over the top of to observe. The Heartless stand in their group and glance around until, apparently satisfied, they continue their patrol of the desert city.

After they’re gone, the trio emerge from their hiding places to discuss a next move.

“Those Heartless are tougher than the kind we’re used to,” Sora admits with a frown, replaying his swordfight over again in his mind.

“Organized too,” Telary agrees. “I’ll bet it won’t be long until another patrol comes along. If we had time I could try and work out a pattern…”

“So you’re saying we should keep hiding?” Azlyn scoffs, pursing her lips angrily.

“It’s probably the best course of action,” Telary confirms, though he doesn’t look at his companion. “Safest.”

The knight sighs but moves toward the alley, her shoulders hunched slightly. The boys follow along after her.

The backstreets and alleyways of Agrabah are a confusing maze, and the presence of Heartless patrolling in groups doesn’t make it any easier. The trio moves about the city for perhaps half-an-hour, and in that time they face numerous dead ends.

Azlyn stops them eventually, fed up with running into high sandstone walls like the one they’re facing now at the end of an alleyway. Other than a few crates stacked in one corner, it’s empty.

“Great plan, guys,” she grumbles, kicking at the ground and rustling up a cloud of sand and dirt. “We’ve managed to avoid the Heartless, but we’re also completely lost!”

“You never know where the Keyhole could be found,” Telary defends weakly, grimacing as soon as he realizes he brittle nature of his argument.

“Down some random alley?” Sora chimes in, skeptical. “So far it seems like Keyholes show up in pretty special places. I bet it’s in that big palace.”

“Great theory, Sora,” Azlyn says, though her sneer places a little doubt of her sincerity in Sora. “Now if only we could get there! I’ll bet if we…”

“Hello?” a soft voice calls out, interrupting the knight and startling everyone. Turning to the source of the voice, the trio sees a girl poke her head out from behind the crates in the corner.

Telary takes point. “Uh, hi there! I’m Telary, and these are my friends Azlyn and Sora.”

“Jasmine,” the young woman says as she emerges from her hiding spot. “My father is the sultan of Agrabah.”

“So, you’re a princess?” Sora inquires, a bit awestruck to be meeting actual royalty. The wonders of the universe never seem to cease.

“Yes,” she replies, but then looks away nervously. “I mean, I suppose I still am. My father’s royal vizier Jafar and his band of strange raiders rule the city now, after deposing him. He’s still locked up in the palace, or at least I think…”

“How did you escape?” Azlyn asks.

Once again, a dreamy look passes over the princess’s face. “I wasn’t at the palace at the time. I’d actually gone out only a day earlier, my first time. When word came of Jafar’s attack, he helped me…”

“He who?”

“Aladdin.” The wistful smile that briefly brightens Jasmine’s face disappears quickly, the cloud of worry returning to her face. “We were together, and he helped me escape the raiders, but… Then he went off into the desert. He said he had something to take care of…”

“As do I, dear princess.”

The voice comes down from above, and everyone looks up to see Jafar, standing atop the roof of a building a few feet off the ground, sneering at those below him. Behind him a twitching cadre of Bandit Heartless restlessly prepare for battle.

“After all, it isn’t safe for a princess such as yourself to be wandering the streets,” the vizier continues with a condescending sneer. “And in the company of lowlifes such as these…”

“Lowlifes!” Azlyn yells up at the robed man, shaking her fist at him. “We’re not the ones using the Heartless to take over a city and kill a bunch of people!”

“I suppose it depends on where one is standing, my dear.” Jafar’s smirk turns into a smile, happily realizing that he may be crushing all the birds that vex him with a single stone. “And I have the high ground!”

“Jasmine, run!” Sora cries, and the princess dashes away as the Heartless, three in all, leap to the ground with downward swings of their swords.

Sora, Azlyn, and Telary all jump back instinctively, evading the blades. Sora rushes forward and cuts down one before it can raise its weapon again, but the other pair barrel into Azlyn and Telary, pushing them back.

Sora whirls around to help his friends, only to find himself knocked forward by a kick from another Bandit, leaping from the building and planting its foot in his spine.

Azlyn blocks a blade and punches her Heartless, and Telary barely gets a shield spell up in time to block a blow.

Sora nearly stumbles into his companions, and as he turns to face the Heartless once again, he finds that several more have joined the forces already arrayed against the trio, and more are leaping down from the rooftop even now.

“Too many,” he grunts, scowling at the veritable horde coming down against them. “We can’t…”

“So what, we’re going to run and hide?” Azlyn scoffs, turning aside a blade with her shield.

“Don’t think of it that way,” Telary advises, bashing a Bandit in the head with a two-handed blow. “Think of it as more of a, uh, tactical retreat.”

The knight almost protests against the lame excuse, but a punch to her face silences the objection. Telary helps her recover while Sora knocks back a Heartless, then fires a blizzard spell in front of him, freezing two Heartless and leaving the creatures blocked for a moment.

Realizing it’s their only chance, the trio tactically retreat down the alley.

They can hear their pursuers behind them, seemingly an entire horde of Heartless feet charging them. The trio winds through the twisting, turning alleyways at top speed, but without an effective knowledge of the cityscape, it seems to be only a matter of time until…

New footsteps sound, but these are coming from the opposite direction, surely to cut the group off. Escape seems more impossible now than ever, until at the last second Telary finds a way to save them.

A long thin pole runs up the outside of a dilapidated sand brown building, leading up to a large hole and a possible refuge.

“Guys!” the mage shouts to get his partner’s attention. They turn to him and he runs for the pole, scrambling up it at top speed. The pair catch on quickly and follow along after.

They make it, but barely, Azlyn only just managing to squeak her foot in before the hordes beneath arrive and find an empty sandlot where their prey should be.

Sora watches discreetly from above as the leaders of both groups seem to converse for a bit, before splitting off once more, each cohort searching a different alleyway leading off the lot.

“Gone,” the Keybearer reports with a heavy sigh of relief, leaning up against the wall and sliding down, relaxing a bit more with every inch. He’d faced Heartless before, but the sheer number of foes arrayed against him in the city streets…

A loud thump sounds from somewhere in the trio’s hideaway. It’s shabby as all get-out, with chunks of sandstone rubble lying where they’ve fallen, the wooden beams above looking half rotted. A small, rough bed stuffed with straw lies in the corner, so apparently someone else has been squatting here.

The thump sounds again, and Telary moves to investigate the source. Lying in the eastern quadrant of the room is an overturned cabinet of some kind, made of dark stained wood. Underneath, a large square of carpet seems to be struggling to escape.

“Um,” Azlyn says as the first word, frowning at the scene before her, “is everyone else seeing the carpet moving?”

“Yep, I sure am,” Telary replies with a bit of a nervous chuckle, and Sora moves off his position at the wall and goes in for a closer look. The carpet is deep blue with a purple and gold bit around the inside edge, and shining golden thread around the exterior. The two tassels are flapping around, struggling for something, probably a way to find release. “So what do we do about it?”

“Uh, we should help it out!” Sora answers as if it’s the most obvious thing in the universe, he’s seen hundreds of carpets in need of rescue. The boy gives the cabinet a stern push, flipping it over and freeing the stuck rug.

The carpet takes to the air, accidentally knocking one tassel into the face of a shocked Azlyn, who barely reacts. It floats for a moment before coming down to rest on two tassels, flapping the other pair madly in some sort of odd pantomime.

Telary is the first to regain composure, blinking hard to clear his head. “Well, this is no good.”

“How do you mean?” Sora asks out of the corner of his mouth, eyes focused on the agitated throw’s every movement.

“I stink at charades.”

The carpet sags forward in apparent disappointment. Then it suddenly perks up once more, rising into the air and flying towards the mattress in the corner. It grabs something sitting next to it, which turns out to be a small wooden chest.

“It says something on it,” Sora points out when the object is dropped in his hands. “I’m not sure if I’m making this out right, but I think it says ‘Aladdin’?”

“Aladdin!” Azlyn exclaims, elbowing Telary aside to stand by Sora and examine the chest. “That’s the name of the guy Jasmine said helped her escape.”

“Yeah, and then he went into…” Telary begins, achieving a triumphant “eureka” moment halfway through his thought. “The desert! He had something to take care of he said. Maybe…”

“Something took care of him,” Sora finishes gravely. Noticing the carpet is moving again, he looks up to see it rise into the air once more, lying flat in front of the boy. “I think it wants us to get on.” A ripple runs through the rug, most likely signaling an affirmative. It lowers itself to a height at which Sora can step on. “C’mon. This Aladdin guy might be in trouble!”

The mage and the knight share a cautious look with one another, but Telary shrugs and takes a seat on the carpet, and Azlyn follows his lead.

The trio rise into the air on the magic carpet, and with an intense rush of air to their faces, take off through the hole in the hovel, and into the desert.

They fly for perhaps an hour, the sun lowering a bit from its prime noontime position in the sky, though still beating down a blistering heat that Telary has to expend magic to protect the trio from.

Finally they arrive at a ring of large rocks, in the middle of which rests a swirling sinkhole of sand. As the carpet takes them down, Azlyn points out that there seems to be someone trapped in it.

They land and the trio take up positions at the edge of the sand hole, peering in at the young, tan-skinned man trapped inside. About half of his body has been claimed, with most of his torso exposed to the open air. Very exposed, as all he seem to be wearing is a vest of deep purple. His black hair haphazardly frames his face, which seems almost peaceful. Next to the man, also entrenched, is a small brown-furred monkey dressed in similar attire as its master.

“He’s totally knocked out,” Azlyn points out, cocking her head to examine the angles of their current problem, “so I wouldn’t count on a lot of help from him.”

“Maybe if we just got his attention,” Telary suggests, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Excuse me sir. Sir! Are you aware that you’re trapped in a sinkhole, sir?”

Aladdin’s eyes flutter a bit, but other than that there’s no response. Telary takes a step back and scratches at his chin, flustered by the problem he cannot surmount.

“I guess yelling isn’t gonna work,” Azlyn says, then glances at Telary and gets struck by an idea. With a quick swipe of her hand, the knight plucks Telary’s staff out of his holster, eliciting a yelp of surprise and indignation from the mage. The girl ignores her companion and moves forward, holding the staff out as far as she can.

She knocks it into the boy’s head, shaking him back to reality. He blinks a few times, clearing stray sand particles from his eyes, then looks up to his rescuer/attacker.

By the time he has recovered, it should be noted, Azlyn has handed Telary’s staff off back to him and assumed an innocent look and pose.

“Uh, hi there,” Sora greets the young man awkwardly, giving him a little wave.

“Hey,” Aladdin replies, nodding to the group so nonchalantly one would hardly believe him halfway trapped in sinking sand.

“Your carpet brought us here,” Telary explains, stuffing his staff back into its holster. “To rescue you, I suppose.”

“And how’s that going?”

Telary grimaces and shakes his head. “To be perfectly honest, not great. We’re going to figure out a way to help eventually but…”

“No problem!” the young man replies cheerfully, his arm beginning to wiggle in the sand. “Just sit back and, hmm… Okay, here we go!”

A puff of blue smoke explodes upwards out of the sand, startling the trio back a step. The smoke rises and expands, until a barrel-chested blue torso emerges from it. The creature that comes forth is a bit on the wider side, with a friendly blue face and large blue arms that end in blue hands, a single golden cuff on each wrist. Around his waist is some kind of red cloth, and a black as night ponytail protrudes from the back of his head.

“HELLO WORLD, HERE’S A SONG THAT WE’RE SINGIN’… COME ON GET GENIE!!!” The blue man sings (To the tune of “Get Happy” by the Partridge Family) cheerfully as the smoke fades, revealing that beneath the red cloth around his waist is nothing but a wispy blue tail. “A WHOLE LOTTA WISHES IS WHAT WE’LL BE GIVIN’, COME ON GET GENIE!!!

This stuns Sora, Azlyn, and Telary even more than the flying carpet did.

“Well, Al,” the genie sighs as he observes the young man’s predicament, “it looks like you could use a bit of help there, don’t it?”

“Yeah, Genie,” Aladdin admits, nodding, “I sure could.”

“Well, you know what to do, don’t ya?”

“After that musical number down in the cave, how could I forget? Genie, I wish to be free of this sandpit. Oh, Abu too!”

“No problemo, kiddo,” Genie answers with a flick of his wrist. “Your wish is my command!” The magical being rises higher into the air, and in a puff of smoke transforms into a large round flying saucer, blinking lights all along the edge. His face can still be seen as well, sitting where the cockpit stereotypically lies on such ships. Suddenly a blue beam shines down onto the trapped boy and his monkey. They begin to rise almost immediately, Abu coming to and shrieking in fear as he realizes he’s getting higher.

Genie moves away from the pit, and Aladdin and Abu drop to the sandy ground, no worse for wear. In another puff of smoke, Genie returns to his normal shape.

“Thanks for the assist, Genie,” Aladdin thanks his rescuer, though he has to admit he has no idea what the big flying disk was all about.

“Oh, stop it,” Genie says, affecting a blush. “I was just doing my job, is all.”

“What the hell is that thing?” Azlyn demands, jabbing a finger at Genie. “And where can I get one?”

Aladdin chuckles. “Well, this here is…”

“Al, puh-lease,” Genie interjects, floating in front of the boy, “leave the intros to the professionals.” He grins and waves his arm, setting off colorful explosions of confetti all around him. “I am the one and only, Genie of the lamp!” In a puff Genie disappears and reappears behind Aladdin, waving the arm that holds a small golden lamp in the air. “All you gotta do is give my lamp here a bit of a rub-dub-rubbity-roo, and all your dearest wishes can be granted. Assuming you only have three dear wishes, of course!” Another puff of smoke, and suddenly Genie is attired in a swanky tuxedo, and a neon light archway is behind Aladdin. There’s a smoke puff in his hand, and suddenly a giant check appears in his hands, Aladdin’s name signed across the bottom. Across most of it read the words “Three Wishes”. “Today’s lucky winner is Mr. Aladdin of Agrabah. Let’s give him a hand!” Aladdin takes the presented check and, of course, one of Genie’s hands along with it.

“Three wishes, huh?” Azlyn asks, a mischievous grin coming to her face. “Any three wishes?”

As he hears the knight’s words, Sora can only think about how convenient it would be to just wish to find Kairi and Riku. Telary thinks about finding the king, and Azlyn is naturally thinking of munny to be made.

“Not so fast there, friend-o,” Genie corrects, holding out a STOP sign that suddenly appears in his hand. “There are of course a few ground rules.”

“Of course,” Azlyn grumbles. Nothing is ever simple in her life.

“Firs off, I can’t kill anybody,” Genie slices off his own head as an example. “I can’t use my powers to make people fall in love.” His head transforms into a heart balloon that floats up to his neck before getting popped by an arrow, leaving his head on his shoulders once again. “And I can’t bring people back from the dead.”

Telary shrieks as he notices several skeletons rising from the sand, but Genie snaps his fingers and they’re done away with in a flash.

“For some reason they always come back craving the taste of human flesh.” He shrugs, then turns to address the reader directly.

“And of course,” he says to you with a sly wink, “I can’t grant any wishes that might instantly resolve the story’s central conflict. That would just be cheap!”

He turns back to the confused group and smiles. “Other than that, anything’s pretty much fair game!” His smile widens as he turns back to Aladdin, gripping his tail and shoving the suddenly microphoned end into his face. “So, my master, what’ll it be for wish number two?”

Aladdin thinks it over for a second, then snaps his fingers as an idea comes to him. “How about making me a fabulously wealthy prince?”

Genie hoots and hollers as he rises into the air, ecstatic to fulfill such a grand request, already envisioning all of the things he can do. Azlyn also seems to approve of the idea, though she may just be thinking of the things she would like to wish for.

“Oh, Al!” he croons, spinning in a circle. “This is the wishing jackpot! You’ll need servants, of course, at least a hundred, and perhaps some camels…”

“Uh, maybe we should hold off on that one, huh?” Aladdin suggests. “After all, things seemed pretty dire in Agrabah when I left to find your lamp.”

“That’s true,” Sora interjects, nodding sadly as he thinks back to the empty state of the desert city. “Nobody’s out on the streets but Heartless, and some guy named Jafar is in charge, and, uh…”

“That princess chick is on the run,” Azlyn adds. “They would’ve got her too, if it wasn’t for us…”

“Wait!” Aladdin interrupts sounding worried. “Did you say ‘princess’? Are you talking about Princess Jasmine?”

“Yeah,” Telary confirms. “She’s in real trouble, Aladdin. She got away from Jafar with our help, but…”

“We’ve gotta help her!” the boy declares, whistling to get Carpet ready for action. The purple throw straightens out and prepares for boarding. Aladdin gives Genie a look. “Might have to rethink that second wish, Genie. But we need to get back to Agrabah first.”

The big blue magic man shrugs easily. “No skin off my back, kid. The more time out in the open air the better, far as I’m concerned.”

“Thanks Genie.”

Everyone boards the carpet, and they take off into the clear blue afternoon sky.
I LOVE WRITING GENIE!!! That's all, hope you enjoyed the chapter!
 
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KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Genie is so awesome. I love how he broke the fourth wall for a minute there. Azlyn, you don't need a genie, you silly girl. And Telary certainly does think fast on his feet to disrupt both Azlyn and Sora from fighting over the turret. I also like how extremely well you've written Jafar, Aladdin, and Jasmine in this chapter too. I'm getting a bit distracted but, did Azlyn used to have to comfort Telary a lot as kids? I get that impression after reading the beginning of the chapter that there's something there between the two; nothing romantic, of course, but something pure, you know? Anyways, I can't wait to see what happens next. :D
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XIX: Arabian Nights, pt. 1
The journey back to Agrabah continues apace, Carpet carrying the travelers at a steady but not overly taxing speed, and Genie drifting alongside. The big blue lug seems to really enjoy the opportunity, taking deep breaths of desert air and doing corkscrews, whooping happily all the while.

Telary, leaning back and enjoying the air on his face himself, looks over to him. “You sure seem to like the desert, Genie.”

“Don’t get out much?” Azlyn asks with a smirk.

“Heh, I wish!” Genie answers, turning another corkscrew through the open air.

“But you’ve got unlimited power,” Aladdin points out, a slight frown on his face. “Surely you can go wherever you want.”

Genie sighs and shakes his head. “You’d think that, huh? But, part of the whole genie gig is being cramped up in that lamp, waiting for a new master to come along and give me a rub. I’m lucky if I get out in the world every hundred years or so.”

“That sounds awful,” Sora says sympathetically, pulling a face at the thought of being so limited. Even when he’d felt trapped on the islands, he hadn’t felt that trapped.

“It is.” Genie grows huge, darkening the skies above with the might of his magic. “PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER!!!” A line of blue smoke flies down into the lamp, and the lid pops off, revealing Genie, stuffed into the small space. “Itty bitty living space.” As quickly as he got in, Genie exits the lamp and returns to normal size, still frowning. “Three wishes, and then it’s back to my portable prison.”

“Isn’t there any way to get out of that deal?” Azlyn asks. “I thought Genies were gaga for loopholes. It’s one of the things I admire them for!”

“Well, there is one way, but…” Genie transforms his body into a large fist, thumb down. “The only way I can break my deal is if my master wishes me free. And you can imagine how many people are willing to do that.”

“I wouldn’t be,” Azlyn comments flatly, drawing a glare from Telary.

Aladdin seems to be deep in thought, scratching his chin. “Say, Genie. What if I used one of my wishes to set you free?”

Genie stops dead, and Carpet reacts accordingly, leaving the group floating in the middle of the desert. Agrabah can’t even be seen on the horizon.

“Y-you would do that? For me!” Genie flicks his wrist and suddenly the whole party is in a darkly lit club, Sora, Telary, and Azlyn sitting at one table, and Aladdin at a table of his own near a low stage, a spotlight shining down on him. On stage, Genie stands dressed in a sparkly sequined dress, blonde hair piled atop his head. Carpet is off to one side with a violin.

“DID YOU EVER KNOW THAT YOU’RE MY HEROOOOOO!!!” Genie wails into the microphone he’s clutching. “YOU’RE EVERYTHING I WOULD LIKE TO BEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I CAN FLY HIGH ON WINGS LIKE EAGLES, YOU ARE THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS!”

The few lines are all he gives, and at the end Sora, Azlyn, and Telary explode into applause, a tear reflecting light in the mage’s right eye. The Genie takes a deep bow. By the time he comes out of it, the club has faded away and they’re back to floating in the desert.

Genie vigorously pumps Aladdin’s hand with a great big smile. “Oh Al, I can’t believe you’d really do that for me!”

“Hey, no problem!” Genie lets go of the young man’s hand and he gets serious once again. “It’s a promise, but only after we help Jasmine.”

They continue on to Agrabah.

KH-KH-KH


As they land in Aladdin’s hovel, twilight blanketing the city in orange tones, Sora is explaining a bit about Jafar’s goals to Aladdin.

“So Jafar is looking for this ‘Keyhole’ thing, huh?” the young street rat says.

“Yep,” the Keybearer answers. “I was thinking it might be in the palace, but it could be anywhere.”

“Keyhole, hm,” Genie mutters, scratching his chin, deep in thought. “You know, I could have sworn I’d heard something about that… Huh.”

“Can you remember anything?” Telary asks, intrigued to have a several thousand years old memory to call on.

Genie reaches behind him and pulls out a massive, leather bound book labeled “Memories”, at least a foot thick with pages. With a grunt he opens it, revealing a large picture of him emerging from a cake, clad only in a red veil over his face. He shrieks and flips a page, this one showing a picture of him with his head in the mouth of a lion. “Uh, let’s just pretend you guys didn’t see that, okay?”

“We’ll worry about the Keyhole later,” Aladdin declares, slamming a fist into his open palm. “First we rescue Jasmine. And for that, we’ll need to get into the palace.”

“Easy peasey, Mister Master,” Genie chimes in, dismissing the big book of memories with a flick of one finger. “Just say the word and I’ll have you in the palace in a flash!”

Aladdin shakes his head. “I can’t waste a wish like that, Genie. I’m sure I can get us into the palace no problem.”

“I dunno,” Sora interjects nervously. “With regular guards, sure, but I bet it’ll be crawling with Heartless…”

“What we need,” Azlyn says, screwing up her face deep in thought, “is a distraction…”

KH-KH-KH


Night has fallen over Agrabah, and two Bandits stand guard at the gates of the palace, on orders from Jafar to keep out any who might attempt to enter. It would be boring work for most, but these creatures know no boredom, no weariness. They could stand at the gates until the walls fell around them.

Still, something inside of them is a bit relieved when they see a pair of figures in dark robes inching their way down the street. Each of the robes has naught but a hand sticking out, clutching tin cups.

“Alms!” The closest of them cries out in a thin, reedy voice. “Alms for the poor! Alms!”

They approach the gates, apparently unafraid of the Heartless, which gives the creatures pause. In their experience, everyone is afraid of them!

“Young man,” the beggar addresses the leftmost bandit, shaking her empty cup. “Spare a piece for an old beggar woman.” She stops in front of the Heartless. It looks to her identical companion behind her, then to its companion, then back. “You look like such a nice boy. I’ll bet you…”

Irritated, the Heartless reaches out and grabs the edge of the woman’s hood, giving it a rough tug that sends her stumbling forward.

A bad move, it soon realizes as it deals with a face full of monkey.

The creature rears back, scratching at its turban clad face with one hand, managing to miss Abu every time it tries to get a hold of the mad primate. Its partner is unsure of how to react. Luckily, it doesn’t have much time to think.

With a loud cry, Azlyn throws off her robe, and Telary follows suit behind her. Taking advantage of the Bandit’s Abu-induced distraction, she slashes her shield forward, cutting it in half. The other is so startled that it’s an easy matter to take its head off with another flick of the shield.

“Hey Heartless!” Azlyn calls out, Abu’s high pitched screeching joining her. “Get a load of this!”

She nods to Telary, who raises his staff high into the air. After another nod, he begins to prepare mentally for the task he’s about to undertake.

“Thunder!” he yells, and the tip of his held-high staff sparks, throwing invisible energy into the atmosphere.

Energy trapped in the heavens responds in kind, and a glowing streak of pure white electricity flies down from the sky like the wrath of an angry god, striking the sand in front of the palace.

The force sends sand flying in all directions through the air, and in another brilliant flash, turns most of the grains to solid, twinkling glass.

To say that this causes a stir among the Heartless guards set up along the palace walls is a bit of an understatement. Every available Bandit makes immediately for the site of the strange explosion, a thunderous running of footsteps so heavy the wall itself rattles slightly.

It’s enough that Aladdin nearly lets go of the rope he and Sora are using to scale the wall into the palace, but luckily he manages to maintain grip. The pair make it up and over the wall easily enough.

“Are you sure Azlyn and Telary are going to be okay?” Aladdin asks his new friend as he touches down on the other side of the palace walls. They’re in a small garden courtyard, once lush, but now seeming to be in desperate need of sustenance, plantlife growing all around. In the center sits a stone fountain, dry as a bone.

Sora chuckles a bit, smiling fondly. “They’ll be fine. They’ve handled Heartless before, and Telary will know when it’s a good time to drag Azlyn outta there. Besides, they’ve got Abu to help!”

“But who will help you, street rat?” Jafar’s mocking voice rings out from the garden entrance. Sora and Aladdin whirl to see him standing there with a cruel sneer on his face. Kneeling beside him is a terrified Princess Jasmine, held in check by a Bandit Heartless. The sword positioned above her neck makes what will happen if the heroes make any sudden moves abundantly clear. “It seems you’ve come a bit too late to rescue your fair princess from the jaws of the Heartless! Then again, what else could be expected from an urchin like you?”

Aladdin scowls back at the skinny vizier, but his expression softens as he looks down at Jasmine, rendered helpless by the Heartless. It’s such a far cry from the strong-willed, spirited girl he’d met in the Agrabah bazaar just days ago, which only serves to further fuel his anger.

“Urchin, huh?” he shoots back at Jafar, tearing his eyes away from the troubled princess. Reaching behind his back, he rests a hand on Genie’s lamp. A single rub is all it takes to call upon his trump card. “Genie! My second wish is that you rescue Jasmine!”

In a flash the Genie appears behind Jasmine. He flicks his pointer finger and a large broom appears, brushing aside the Heartless holding Jasmine down. With that taken care of, he floats down and takes the startled girl in his arms, cradling her as he rises into the air.

“Geeze, Al,” the Genie remarks, shaking his blue head, “one wish left and you’ve thrown me nothin’ but softballs! Couldn’t we have at least tried the prince thing?”

“Impressive,” Jafar says, looking the Genie up and down, something manic in his eyes that neither Sora nor Aladdin can
decipher. “But I’m afraid your second wish is about to be…denied!”

As soon as the word passes the vizier’s lips, Aladdin hears a squawk from behind him. In the next moment, the feeling of the lamp leaves his hands, and the brightly colored parrot Iago flies out from behind his back, the lamp clutched in his small yellow talons. He crosses the distance and drops the lamp in his master’s hands.

“Uh oh!” is all Genie has time to say before he begins to return to his blue smoke form, drifting into the lamp. Jasmine falls to the ground and lands with an exclamation of surprise.

“Farewell, street rat,” Jafar laughs maniacally. He waves his staff and suddenly a pair of nearby pots both sprout spindly legs, blue pincers, and a large stinger tail, moving forward, claws snapping, to engage the heroes. With a cruel smirk, Jafar waves his staff once more, and he and Jasmine fade away, leaving nothing behind.

“Jasmine!” Aladdin screams, rushing forward. He doesn’t get far, though, one of the Pot Scorpions scuttling after him on its insectoid legs, knocking him to the ground hard.

Sora moves to help his friend, only barely managing to get the Keyblade up in time to bat away the scorpion’s stinger. He moves it down quickly then to deflect several consecutive strikes from the creature’s claws, but is forced back by the power of the blows.

The other Pot Scorpion has taken advantage of his distraction to move around to his other side, striking out with its pincer and nearly succeeding in taking the boy’s arm off. Not wanting to stay surrounded, Sora rolls out of the path of both creatures, rising and holding the Keyblade parallel to the ground in a defensive posture.

The Heartless circle around, swinging their pincers testily and forcing Sora to react, flinching at each twitch. Finally, one of them charges, pincers snapping open and shut at insane speeds, headed straight for the Keybearer.

He’s only saved by Azlyn, who barrels into the pot with both feet, knocking it back so hard that it flips over and lands on its “head”, squirming and thrashing in a desperate attempt to right itself.

Glancing left, Sora can see Telary taking on the other Pot Scorpion with Aladdin’s help, though the mage’s contribution is dubious, clinging for dear life to the creature’s tail, his entire body wrapped around it while the Heartless swings it about in an attempt to dislodge him.

A throw from Azlyn’s shield takes care of the flipped Scorpion, and Abu has taken advantage of Telary’s distraction to wrap the other’s legs in twine, causing it to fall over and thus be easy prey for Telary’s staff.

“He took Jasmine!” Aladdin yells in anger, his voice betraying his clear hurting. “Where would he take her? Why would he?”

“I’m guessing he didn’t find the Keyhole in the palace,” Azlyn posits, noting the fact that Agrabah hasn’t yet been consigned to doom and Darkness. “So I’ll bet he’d go wherever else he thought it could be.”

“So we have no idea,” Sora sighs, defeated. The situation is beginning to call to mind how Alice had been snatched from underneath their noses in Wonderland, and all the bad feelings associated with that event are beginning to bubble up again. Some hero he’s turning out to be, if he can’t even rescue young women in distress.

“It’ll be somewhere important,” Telary says, directing the discussion to Aladdin, who surely knows the ins-and-outs of his world far better than the trio does. “And considering how hard it’s been to find, the place would have to be well hidden too.”

Aladdin looks up at the offworlders, a hard, determined look in his eyes. “There’s only one place. The same place I found Carpet and the lamp. The Cave of Wonders.”

Aladdin whistles to summon Carpet, who flies down from the skies not seconds later. The group hops on and rises back into the air, speeding off from the city out to the desert, Carpet pushing itself further than it ever has before.
A bit of a short passage this time, but I wanted to make the Cave of Wonders segment its own post. Enjoy this lead up to Agrabah's finale!
 

KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Genie getting so excited about his freedom is touching, because if I ever met the fella myself, I'd certainly wish him free first thing! Too bad Jasmine still got kidnapped by a potted heartless. And I got a good laugh out of Abu, Telary, and Azlyn trying to distract the heartless guards guarding the palace - while Aladdin and Sora tried to make their way in to save Jasmine. The one thing that always gets me is why didn't Aladdin just wish Genie free, because obviously, he'd stay. lol. Ah well, it wouldn't be Aladdin and the lamp, if it weren't. Otherwise, I greatly look forward to the finale! Can't wait to see how things go down in the Cave of Wonders!
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XIX: Arabian Nights, pt. 2
The journey takes much less time than it had initially, but the last vestiges of creeping sunlight have already disappeared, leaving the desert cold and desolate, the only light coming off the myriad number of stars shining up above.

When they once again reach the area encircled by stones, Carpet begins its descent, touching down lightly in the middle of the seemingly empty area.

“So,” Azlyn says, looking around skeptically at the bare area, “are we supposed to start digging, or…?”

She doesn’t get a chance to finish her snark, as the ground begins to shake and shift, nearly throwing all but Aladdin, who is prepared for such an effect, to the sandy ground.

A huge mound of sand piles together, growing larger and large until it towers over the group. As it grows, its shape becomes better defined, sharp points and smooth planes appearing as if guided by the hand of some invisible sculptor. Eventually the ground ceases to shake and the intended form can be clearly seen: the head of a tiger, staring intently down at the quartet with glowing yellow eyes, a sense of seriousness and power inherent in their gaze. Old eyes that have seen much, and have not been impressed.

“WHO DARES DISTURB MY SLUMBER?” it asks in a deep, booming voice, orange light shining from deep within the tiger’s throat with every opening and closing of his mouth, blazing down on the fearful group like a spotlight.

Aladdin steps forward, shoulders squared, posture tight, not giving away the slightest hint of hesitation or fear. Sora, Azlyn, and Telary are all in awe of his composure.

“It is I, Aladdin!” the street rat declares boldly, staring up impassively at the cave’s guardian. Any fear or hesitation he may feel is banished immediately by his need to ensure Jasmine’s safety. “The Diamond in the Rough. I have entered before, and now I will enter again!”

For a moment the cave guardian just stares, completely still as it apparently contemplates its choice.

“You may enter, worthy one,” it says after a few seconds of deliberation. Aladdin sighs and sags in relief, no longer needing to maintain his calm façade.

Sora and his group step up as well, bringing the attention of the guardian back down to them.

“And what worth have you?” the Cave asks, its eyes intensity increasing with every word.

Sora hesitates for a moment, knowing with certainty that if he doesn’t give a good answer, this may be a short, disappointing trip. But, within moments, he realizes what answer he needs to give.

“I,” he says, reaching out his hand and focusing, calling his weapon, “am the wielder of the Keyblade! I seek the Keyhole.”

The tiger head relaxes, leaning back and kicking up a few spurts of sand as it does. “Enter, Keybearer. I have waited many long centuries for your arrival.”

And just like that, the construct becomes inanimate, its mouth opening wide to reveal an orange glow from within, and a stairway leading down into its depths.

Aladdin steps up with little hesitation, but the offworld trio is a bit more wary of putting themselves literally in the tiger’s mouth. But Sora knows he can ill afford to waste time being scared, not if he wants to succeed with Jasmine where he’d failed with Alice.

Azlyn steps up quickly, then notices that Telary is frozen behind her, looking nervous and visibly shaking. Sighing and rolling her eyes, she steps up to the tiger’s lip and reaches a hand down for her counterpart.

“Do you trust me?” she asks after noticing that his shaking hasn’t eased yet.

“Huh?”

“Do you trust me?” she repeats, a soft look in her eyes that she rarely allows.

The mage offers his hand up, half-smiling. “Yes, I do.”

They’re all in now, making their way down the stairs, of which there seem to be a great many.

“So, Aladdin,” Sora asks to pass the time, “what’s in this cave anyway, besides the lamp and Keyhole? Did you just walk right in and take it, or…”

“There wasn’t much, actually,” the boy answers with a shrug. “A bunch of empty rooms. Lots of creepy statues. And then of course there was the treasure room…”

“Treasure!” Azlyn exclaims, eyes brightening and mouth curving into a smile that would shame the Cheshire Cat. “You mean, like, treasure treasure?”

“Is there any other kind?” Aladdin replies with a chuckle. “Gold, silver, jewels, you name it. All piled up in one big room. I’d swear the sultan himself didn’t have that much. Three sultans!”

“Yikes!” Telary bursts out, startling himself by slipping on an odd wet patch on the staircase and nearly going head over heels. He moves on, unaware that he’d nearly just wiped out on Azlyn’s drool. “If you had all that treasure in your sights, Aladdin, why did you ignore it for the lamp?”

“Legends said that the cave had something ‘greater than gold’ inside,” the street rat answers. “And I figured it’d be impossible to take all that stuff with me when I left.” Abu jabbers something. “Yes, Abu, even with you helping.”

The group reaches the bottom of the stairwell, emerging through a small door into a large cavern. Half the cavern is made of dull brown brick, a few platforms rising here and there. The other half is just a black expanse of nothingness, leading down into shadowy depths too deep to fathom. At the far end is another rectangular door, leading to the next chamber.

“Huh,” Aladdin says, scratching his head and looking around the room. “It’s all different from the last time. When I first came through, there were a bunch of big stone statues of guys holding swords. They kept swinging them down and I had to dodge them. Abu nearly lost his tail.”

“Some kind of magically randomizing environment?” Telary posits, thinking over the details of such a spell in his head, and finding them too vast to grasp. Perhaps the Genie himself would have the raw magical power necessary, but why would he design his own, for lack of a better term, prison?

Sora notices writing on one of the stone platforms rising from the ground. It’s an odd language that he has absolutely no frame of reference for deciphering. Still…

“Cetra,” he breathes out, feeling strangely like it wasn’t even his mouth that formed the word.

“Gesundheit,” Azlyn replies, patting the boy on the shoulder and breaking him out of his reverie. He looks back at her with a confused look, and she meets it with one of her own, backing away slowly. “So where’s this treasure, eh? All I see is some fancy interior decorating!”

Aladdin shrugs, nearly dislodging a perturbed Abu. “Like I said, Azlyn, this place is completely different now than when I visited alone. The treasure could even not be here anymore.”

The knight frowns. Maybe it’s selfish, or ignorant of the bigger picture or whatever, but Azlyn can’t help but think she deserves some sort of reward for traipsing all around the universe playing second fiddle to some backwater chosen one.

“You know what I mean?” she grouses to the Heartless standing next to her. Then she realizes that there’s a Heartless standing next to her! Instantly her shield is out and swinging, bashing the Bandit in the face and sending it staggering back a few steps. “Boys! Company!”

The boys are already well aware, weapons out and ready. Aladdin even brandishes a large scimitar it seems he acquired at some point.

The Heartless have formed a fairly solid wall near the exit, the usual selection of Bandits and Shadows, apparently lead by a large, round Heartless in blue harem pants and an orange vest.

“This definitely didn’t happen on my last trip!” Aladdin says, even as Sora leaps forward to bring his Keyblade down on a pair of Shadows.

The attack is successful, but unfortunately places him directly in front of the Large Bandit, which stares down at the boy with the same blank expression all Heartless wear. The boy takes a step back and raises his Keyblade, but that’s no use against the puff of flame that flies from the creature’s mouth.

Sora cries out and stumbles back several steps, each one moving him closer to the edge of the platform and the abyss below. Then, with one final flailing stride, the Keybearer plunges into the blackness below, screaming all the while.

Azlyn knocks her opponent in the face with her shield and rushes over to the ledge, looking down for some sign of Sora. After a moment, she swears she can hear a faint splash.

“Sora’s down!” she cries, notifying the still struggling Telary and Aladdin. “He fell, but… I thought I heard a splash! He might be okay…”

Aladdin slashes all the way through a Bandit with his sword, then dives to the edge, tumbling over into the blackness after Sora.

“Really?” Azlyn yells over the sound of Telary firing off a thunder spell in hopes of gaining them a moment’s reprieve. She turns to see him running towards her, breathing heavily. “We’re doing this? Well, I guess that answers the age old question, ‘If Sora fell off a cliff, would you…’?”

She doesn’t get to the end of her quipping, because by the time she reaches it Telary has barreled into her and sent them both tumbling into the unknown pit.

They fall for a scant few seconds, landing with a booming splash below. It takes a moment to recover from the shock of the water’s impact and temperature, but when they’ve both gotten over it, the pair surface, each taking a deep breath.

“Hey guys,” Sora greets the pair, smiling broadly down at them.

The cavern they’ve landed in is very blue, tiny lights seeming to come out of the large central pool they all landed in. Blue stone makes up the walls stretching upward, and the floor is similarly colored. A long tunnel continues on into more blackness.

“That’s what I really love about this quest,” Azlyn sighs, letting Aladdin help her out of the water. “All the nice places I get to go.”

“Just keep thinking about that treasure, Az,” Sora offers by way of condolence, grinning. She adopts one of her own, thinking wistfully about the gold that awaits.

“Which we will see about gathering for ourselves after we rescue Jasmine,” Telary says, shaking his head to dislodge the water trapped inside his ears and hair. “After all, traipsing around with gold-laden pockets probably isn’t very conducive to defeating evil sorcerers.”

The group continues on into the blue rock cavern, forced to walk single file in the narrow space. It’s a long way, and something about the cavern they’re in seems to be subtly encouraging a healthy silence for their journey.

Finally, minutes later, the party reaches a dead end. A large body of water stands between them and their goal, a door leading to a recessed staircase climbing back to the upper level. The water would be easy enough to cross by swimming, if not for the fact that the ledge is far too high to reach from the water.

There does seem to be some hope though, if the odd, dull bronze statue of a grinning gorilla holding a bright red gem can count as hope.

“What now?” Azlyn asks.

“I’ll bet you anything that gem in the statue’s hands is the key,” Aladdin states. “If only we could get to it…”

Suddenly, Abu begins to jabber and jerk from his position on Aladdin’s shoulder, alternating shrieking loudly and pointing a furry digit at the gem. “Do you think you can get up there, Abu? It’d be a real help.”

The monkey takes a flourishing bow and leaps across the waterway, gripping some handholds on the cliff face and scurrying his way up.

“Make sure to be careful with that gem!” Azlyn yells up. When she sees that Sora and Telary are side-eying her, she shrugs. “What? Mama likes.”

Abu reaches the top and scales the statue itself, one paw grazing the gem. Suddenly, the precious stone begins to glow with a faint orange light, only just bright enough to illuminate the statue’s face.

Suddenly the ground shakes, and a large staircase rises from the water by the ledge, creating an easy way up the sheer cliff. Abu jabbers and jeers triumphantly, shaking his tail in a little victory dance.

“Aw, man!” Azlyn grouses when she reaches the top and sees that the gem has been reduced to a misshapen puddle of goo.

In a few minutes, when they reach the top of the staircase, she forgets all about it.

KH-KH-KH


Up in the large chamber that once held Genie’s lamp, Jafar is gloating over said item, greedily giving it an enthusiastic rub along its golden length. Jasmine lays on the floor, unconscious.

In a moment, Genie’s smoky form emerges almost lethargically from the lamp, forming up in the air into a mopey Genie, his face literally drooping in dreadful anticipation of whatever task his new master is going to force him to perform.

“Why the long face?” Jafar practically cackles, drawing an even further frown from the big blue creature. “I thought your kind enjoyed giving people their hearts’ desires. And trust me, my heart has desired this for quite some time.”

Genie says nothing, not even looking at the red-robed sorcerer. The genie rulebook (And there really is a literal book, big and purple with ‘Da Rulez’ plastered on the cover in gaudy orange word art) says he has to grant the wishes of whosoever held his lamp, but nowhere does it stipulate he has to like it.

“Well, perhaps you’ll come around then, hmm?” Jafar sighs, rubbing his sleeve on the head of his staff absentmindedly. “Genie, for my first wish, I command you to show me the Keyhole!”

Genie tries to resist, he really does. He clenches his fists tight and closes his eyes against the strain of it, desperately making a wish of his own to not be forced to do this.

But, he has no choice, and the moment his concentration slips in the slightest his hand moves of its own accord, releasing his magic.

As it does so, the chamber begins rumbling, and slowly but surely the Keyhole reveals itself. A massive keyhole shaped stone emerges from the wall, the actual hole situated in its exact middle.

As reveals go, it’s actually pretty anticlimactic, which puts just another bit of a painful burden on Genie’s heart. He’d actually envisioned this moment several times over his long life, and had been planning a whole The Price Is Right, “Come on down!” shtick to accompany it. A shame the routine would never see the light of day.

“Well, well, well,” the melodious voice of Maleficent drifts into the chamber. Jafar manages to divest his gaze from the Keyhole and turn to face her. The witch looks pleased, one finger rubbing against her green chin. “It seems you have done it, Jafar. Most impressive.”

The vizier gives a grand bow, a smile stretching across his thin face. “I told you things were well in hand, my lady. Our plans draw nearer still to completion.”

Maleficent nods, though whether the witch is truly impressed or not remains impossible to determine.

“A pity that this world shall so soon be destroyed,” Jafar says with a hint of regret. “I had so little time to rule it.”

“Our goals are far more significant than your desire to lord over one measly desert city, Jafar,” Maleficent reminds her second, narrowing her eyes at him in annoyance. “I’ve warned you not to let your…”

The witch’s words die on her tongue as a noise begins echoing through the lamp chamber. High, thin, and persistent, it almost sounds like….

…The clinking of coins!

“I see our friend the Keybearer has arrived,” Maleficent announces with a smirk. Both she and Jafar turn to gaze at the room’s entrance.

Sora and his companions spill into the room, the origin of the clinking noise revealed to be Azlyn, whose pockets are literally overflowing with gold coins and precious gems, and Abu, who is likewise burdened.

“I hate to be ‘that guy’, Az,” Telary states flatly to his companion. “But I told you so about the treasure!”

“Yeah, yeah,” the knight mutters back, turning her face away.

Sora doesn’t even notice the pair’s exchange, eyes transfixed on the jade-skinned woman in the black and purple cloak. “Are you… Maleficent?”

The woman fades away without an answer, giving the boy an impassive glance all the while. Sora wonders where she’s gone.

“Let Jasmine go, Jafar!” Aladdin demands with a determined growl, the fire of his anger blazing hot in his chest as he spies the unconscious princess.

“I’m afraid I cannot do that, boy,” the sorcerer replies with a cruel sneer, shaking his head. “She’s a princess, you see. One of seven who holds the key to opening the final door!”

“Open…?” Telary says.

“The Door?” Azlyn adds.

The phrase sparks a bit of recognition in Sora’s mind as well, though what exactly he cannot remember. Like something from a dream…

“It is only too bad that you fools will not live to gaze beyond it,” Jafar continues, all smug confidence in his voice and eyes. “Not once I’m finished with you. Genie!”

The big blue lug appears by the former vizier’s side, looking uncomfortable and none too pleased to be there.

“I’ve decided on my second wish, Genie! CRUSH THEM!”

There’s an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, until Genie reluctantly breaks it.

“Uh, well…” he stammers, tugging nervously on a red and blue striped tie that has suddenly appeared around his neck. “Y’see, Master, the thing about that is that, well, I can’t really… Kill anybody.”

“What!” Jafar rages, taking a step back and glaring daggers at his azure slave.

Genie shrugs. “Sorry, but them’s Da Rulez!” He actually summons the big purple book and flips to the relevant page. “My hands are tied!” And suddenly they literally are, lashed together with a thick rope.

“Useless fool!” Jafar spits. He fixes his gaze once more on the party, who have moved even closer, weapons at the ready. “Fine then! You may not be able to kill them, but trust me, I can! Genie, I wish for you to make me the most powerful sorcerer in all the worlds!”

“Genie, no!” Aladdin protests, but it’s too late, and Genie can’t help it. In a flash, a deep purple aura surrounds the vizier, lifting him into the air on a cushion of pure power.

The villain raises his staff, fiery orange power gathering at the tip of the snakehead topper. With an utterance of a few words in some strange language, Jafar releases the energy, sending a beam of blazing fire lancing toward his enemies.
The beam impacts the floor just before the group, then explodes in another conflagration that sends them all flying through the air, all of them landing harshly on the stone floor.

“Too hot for you?” Jafar quips. Iago, who until now has been hanging back, lands on the sorcerer’s shoulder and joins in his cackling. “Perhaps you’d like a moment to cool down!” He raises his staff once more.

Huge chunks of ice form in the air around the group, frozen pieces as wide as Sora is tall slamming into them repeatedly, knocking them around and scrambling their senses.

Jafar lets that go on for a few seconds before he waves once again and the barrage desists. He looks out over the battered and bleeding heroes, his eyes blazing with delight. Beside him, Genie has transformed into a large blue ostrich and planted his head firmly beneath the sand.

With another flick he summons a meteor shower, sending flaming chunks of rock down from thin air to finish them off. They gather what strength they can and scatter, dodging left and right.

Azlyn ducks past a meteor and, seeing an opening, sprints towards Jafar. She skids to a stop a few feet away and hurls her shield with a grunt, sending it spinning towards the sorcerer at speeds not dissimilar to a buzzsaw.

He sees the projectile coming and merely chuckles, flicking his wrist. A shower of pink sparks surround the shield, and when they fade it has become a harmless wreath of pink daisies, impacting against Jafar’s thin chest with no consequences at all.

He turns back to the others, convinced that the girl is less a threat bereft of her shield. He’s dead wrong, and Azlyn charges once more, screaming defiant fury.

Jafar turns his gaze to her, sneering once more. Azlyn digs deep into her pockets, grabs what she can and throws, hurling a barrage of coins and gems at the villain.

Jafar snorts and waves his staff once more, transmogrifying the projectiles into harmless bubbles that float away.
Azlyn bursts through the curtain of bubbles and lands a devastating kick to Jafar’s jaw. Despite his newfound raw magical power, his physical stature remains the same, and he flies back through the air, screaming in pain and rage.

Seeing an opportunity, Telary raises his staff and unleashes a thunder spell, raw electricity sizzling through Jafar’s body, momentarily exposing his skeleton. Sora and Aladdin come in next, slashing the sorcerer with their blades.

Jafar’s cries of pain can barely be heard over the sound of an entire cheerleading squad worth of Genies, all dressed in white and blue uniforms, the pleats of their skirts bouncing against blue thighs.

“Al and Sora got the key!” the squad chants, shaking their pom-poms and butts in time. “The key to bring us victory!!!”
As he floats to the ground, the sorcerer levels an absolutely murderous look at the traitorous genie.

Suddenly the squad is diminished to a single Genie cheerleader, waving a teeny tiny blue pennant with about as much enthusiasm as one could muster for watching paint dry.

“Jafar, Jafar, he’s our man,” he chants in a monotone. “If he can’t do it… GREAT!!!

Jafar lands, wiping a bit of blood and sweat from his hurting jaw. Sora and Aladdin each take up one side against him, confident but remaining wary of his power.

“You won’t win this, you snake!” Aladdin yells defiantly, brandishing his scimitar expertly. “We’ll find a way to beat you!”

“A snake, hm?” Jafar replies, sneering at the street rat. “Well boy, why don’t we see how snakelike I can be!!!”

The sorcerer begins to grow suddenly, and twist, his body briefly becoming liquid silver before reforming. Long coils reach all the way across the chamber, red and blue scales appearing on them. A hood rises up over Jafar’s neck, and long jaws grow thin but razor sharp teeth. Slitted pupils gaze down upon the heroes while a thin forked tongue darts between pebbly lips.

Crikey!” Genie exclaims in an exaggerated accent, suddenly dressed in khaki shorts and a vest. “It’s a big ‘un!”

Azlyn and Telary charge the cobra, but a flick of its tail sends them flying against the stone wall. When the pair rises again, they find themselves trapped in a giant hourglass. Sand begins to trickle in from the chamber above them, slowly but surely filling up to their doom.

As for Sora and Aladdin, Jafar wraps them up in his coils, bringing them close to his hooded face. With a reptilian smirk, he begins to squeeze.

“You ssstupid ssstreet ratsssss!!!” Jafar cackles, every hissed word dripping with gloating. “Did you really think that you could hope to challenge me? I have gained ultimate power! None can withstand me, not even Maleficent! I am going to crush the life from you, slowly, and then I shall deal with that witch! Then, with the Heartless at my side, I will…”

“Be stuck playing number two,” Aladdin interrupts, huffing out the words despite the slow squeezing from hiss scaled nemesis.

What?” Jafar bursts out incredulously. He cannot believe the gall of this urchin, lecturing him at his moment of triumph!

“Face it Jafar,” the boy continues, despite the odd look Sora is giving him. “No matter how much power you have now, you’ll never have as much as Genie!”

The squeezing stops suddenly, and with the pressure so relieved, Sora actually has a chance to pick up on Aladdin’s scheme.

“Yeah,” he perks up, wriggling a bit to gain the cobra’s attention. “With power like Genie’s, I’ll bet you could open the Door yourself, no princesses necessary!”

If Genie had conventional internal organs like a heart, this would be the point at which it would give out. What are they doing up there? Had they heard nothing of his boasting about “phenomenal cosmic power”?

“It’s true,” Jafar admits, cocking his hooded head in thought. “His power does exceed my own.” He grins, an absolutely disconcerting expression when attempted by his reptilian face. “But not for long! Genie!”

Genie pops up floating beside Jafar’s face, dressed in the red and black leotard of a certain DC comics jester. He looks nervous. “You rang, Mister J?”

“I have my final wish,” Jafar declares, raising his head and smiling from not-ear to not-ear, “I wish to become… An all-powerful genie!

Genie sighs, returning to his normal blue form. “Sure thing, master.” As he reaches out his finger, energy gathering at the tip, he gives Aladdin and Sora a pointed look. “Thanks a lot you two.”

The energy gathering on Genie’s finger goes flying, impacting Jafar’s cobra form and surrounding it with an aura of red light. After a few moments, the long coils of its body disappear, fading into clouds of red smoke. When the effect hits the area Sora and Aladdin are trapped in, both drop to the ground.

Above, the smoke begins to coalesce, forming a single red cloud. From it emerges the huge, muscled form of Jafar, a built torso atop a red tail that glows like rocket exhaust. He smiles down upon the beings below him, his goatee practically quivering in anticipation.

While all that is happening, Sora rushes to the hourglass his companions are trapped in, breaking through with a heavy swing from the Keyblade and sending glass and sand flying.

Sora dodges the glass, but does feel the sharp sting of Azlyn’s knuckles impacting his forehead.

“What the hell is that about?” she shouts over the raging winds of the chamber, gesturing to above, where Jafar is reveling in his newfound powers, creating a small solar system of planets between his hands before crushing it to dust. “Did you not hear Genie say phenomenal cosmic freakin’ powers?

“Hold on Azlyn,” cautions Telary, who has also worked the scheme through and found it satisfactory. “I think I know what… Aha!”

The mage gestures to a patch of sandy floor not far from where Jafar is floating, where inside a tiny nexus of dark power appears a lamp identical to Genie’s, but black as night in color.

Aladdin charges for the lamp, accompanied by the loud cheers of Genie, who has also deduced the plan, but misses it as Iago swoops down and takes it in his talons. The parrot rises and flies back towards the chamber’s exit.

Sora runs for it, but soon finds himself picked up by a burst of wind from nowhere, blown away through the chamber doors and into the treasure room, a vast cavern with gold piled high to the ceiling everywhere.

He lands in one such pile, scattering coins and jewels all around him on impact. Out of the corner of his eye he notes that the others have arrived in a similar manner. Aladdin has, in fact, landed just a bit lower down on the same pile that Sora has.

“And so it ends, street rat!” the crimson genie gloats, raising his hands and gathering dark, destructive energy there. “This is how you die!”

On the word “die” he thrusts down his hands, only to find that the energy dissipates as it nears the young man. Furthermore, he finds he can’t move his hands down any further to crush the nuisance!

“Looks like somebody didn’t pay attention to me earlier, did they?” Genie says, floating up alongside his evil opposite, “Da Rulez” held open in front of him. A sentence on the first page is highlighted and double-underlined, and Genie points to it smugly. “Genie rule number 1: No killing!”

Jafar throws his head back and screams in impotent rage, not noticing that the motion sends the back of his cranium colliding with the floating Iago, sending the lamp-bearing parrot careening down towards the ground. He manages to stop his descent at just about the right height for Abu to make his move, leaping off a gold pile and dragging Jafar’s lackey the rest of the way to the ground.

“I may not be able to kill you, street rat!” Jafar snarls down to Aladdin once he regains his composure. “But I will make you wish you’d died!”

“I don’t think so Jafar!” the young man yells up at him, even as Abu tosses the black lamp in a perfect arc, landing easily in his hands. He holds it high above his head.

“No!” the evil genie screams, backing away like he’s just been burnt, black bracelet-like shackles popping into existence on his wrists. “It cannot be! How…?”

“Phenomenal cosmic power…!” Sora yells up at the villain as his tail becomes irrevocably drawn to the lamps tip, sucking Jafar into its confines.

The former vizier screams and flails, desperately casting his arms out for anything he can hold on to. He finds Iago, and unfortunately for the parrot, he gets sucked in right along with his master. The only thing remaining of the pair in the chamber is the echoes of their terrified screams.

“Itty bitty living space,” Aladdin finishes with a knowing smirk, looking up at Genie and giving the blue guy an exaggerated wink.

“Oh, Al! You prince you!” Genie cries in ecstasy, wrapping the boy up in an enormous hug.

“I can’t believe this,” Azlyn grumbles to Telary, the only person within earshot. The mage gives her a quizzical look. “The guy could’ve gotten three more wishes!” The older boy actually slaps his forehead, exasperated.

“Jasmine!” Aladdin exclaims suddenly, breaking free from Genie’s embrace and rushing back towards the lamp chamber. Genie, Sora, and Telary hurry after him, but Azlyn stays put, bends down, and begins to gather as much loot as she can.

“No!” Sora hears Aladdin cry from within the chamber. He enters and sees his new friend on his knees in front of the Keyhole, clutching at his hair with both hands. Where Jasmine had been only a minute earlier is now empty.

She’s gone.

Sora nearly drops to his knees himself. Another girl in trouble, another failure. How does he keep failing like this?

“Sora!” Telary cries, shocking the Keybearer out of his private pity party. “Sora, the Keyhole!”

The boy shakes his head to clear it, stepping up to the Keyhole with his Keyblade raised. As before, white light gathers at the tip, coalescing into a single beam that fires into the Keyhole like a guided laser. There’s a burst of light and a click.

Immediately the stone surrounding the Keyhole begins to change, transforming into golden sand that quickly sweeps away all evidence of what was once there.

Telary moves forward and swipes a Nav-G off the ground, pocketing it for later use.

“She’s gone, Sora,” Aladdin says brokenly, looking up at the Keybearer with tear-filled eyes. “Jasmine’s gone.”

There’s little time to reflect on that, as suddenly the entire chamber begins to shake, chunks of rock falling from the ceiling and bursting upon impact with the ground.

“Uh, I’m thinking it’s time to leave,” Telary suggests nervously, gazing at the destruction all around him. He notices something missing immediately. “Where’s…?”

“I’m right here,” Azlyn replies, raising an arm in salute. She sounds like a piggy bank as she does so.
Carpet comes flying into the chamber, lowering itself for boarding. Azlyn is the first to hop aboard, and immediately the rug crashes to the floor, unable to bear the weight of Azlyn’s haul.

Everyone gives her a stern look.

“Fine,” she sighs, standing up and opening pockets, out of which gold, rubies, and other precious metals fall in cascades. The only concession she’s allowed is a single golden shield strapped to her back, to replace the one Jafar had transmuted.

“Aladdin, c’mon!” Sora urges, placing a firm hand on the street rat, who resists with all his might. Finally Telary joins the Keybearer’s efforts, and together they manage to force Aladdin aboard Carpet, taking off without a minute to spare.

Azlyn and Abu sit in the back, and she nudges the monkey conspiratorially. “It’s too bad about all that treasure. But, at least I got to keep this baby!”

Grinning ear to ear, she reaches down into her pants and produces a large gold bar almost as long as her forearm. Abu eyes it appreciatively.

Then a large rock falls from the ceiling and smashes into it, sending the treasure hurtling to the floor of the chamber, which is slowly filling with lava.

“Dang it!” she sighs as Carpet clears the mouth of the rapidly dissolving tiger head and climbs into the starlit sky.
Added quite a bit of movie stuff in this chapter, but as I was writing the snake battle I have to say I was very glad that it wasn't actually a part of Kingdom Hearts, because boy am I afraid of snakes! Also tossed in a few Genie pop culture references just for fun. anyway, I hope this chapter was enjoyed by all who read it. Until next time, and the epilogue to the events of Agrabah.
 

KingdomKey

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

The pop culture references were hilarious. Genie, you the man. Poor Azlyn, you just can't catch a break when it comes to treasure. Sora and Aladdin were smart in tricking Jafar into a genie. I agree with you there, it's certainly a good thing we didn't have to battle a snake version of Jafar. *shivers* Gives me the creeps to think about. And c'mon Sora, don't beat yourself up. You'll save them eventually. Great chapter as always!
 

TelaryCri

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Re: Kingdom Hearts: Keys to the Kingdom

Chapter XX: A Wish Shared
The mood in Aladdin’s hovel is somber. The boy just sits at the edge of the gaping hole in the wall, gazing out at the city down below.

Sora isn’t exactly chipper himself, still down about his failure.

“Where did he take her?” Aladdin finally asks after minutes of stolid, stony silence.

Telary and Azlyn share a concerned look, unsure of just how much information they should give away to the obviously distraught young man.

“She’s… not in Agrabah anymore,” Telary explains finally, the words eking out slowly. “She’s… elsewhere. Gosh, I wish I could say more, but…”

“That would be middling,” Azlyn finishes, looking at the floor solemnly.

“Well, uh, meddling, actually, but pretty much,” Telary corrects, aware of Azlyn’s annoyed gaze at his correction. “Sorry.”

“We can find her though,” Sora assures his friend, though his voice does not betray a lot of confidence.

“Take me with you Sora!” Aladdin declares standing up, hands clenched tightly at his sides.

“We can’t, Aladdin,” the Keybearer sighs, wincing and looking away. “It just… It wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”

“Uh, hello!” Genie chimes in, floating over to his master’s side and giving him a light noogie. “C’mon Al, it’s so simple. You’ve still got one wish left, y’know. I can have Jasmine back here in a flash, easy as pie! All you’ve gotta do is say the words, ‘I wish’…”

“I wish for your freedom, Genie,” Aladdin says, looking the big blue lug directly in the eye. “That’s the promise I made to you, and I… I wish for you to be free!”

Suddenly, a blue glow begins to radiate from Genie’s skin, surrounding him in an aura of pure light. He rises into the air, pink and green sparks of energy racing along the golden shackles at his wrists and dismantling them, sending both to the ground with a clatter. The sparks move downward, circling his tail and bursting once more, leaving him with two legs clad in blue pants that lead down to black, pointed shoes on his feet.

“I… I…” Genie stutters, the ability to form words leaving him completely for the first time in a long, long existence. “I’m free!”

He rises into the air and turns a perfect flip, landing easily on his feet. He rushes to Azlyn, nearly knocking her over in the process and prompting a big laugh from the others.

“Okay, okay, wish for something outrageous!” he encourages her, batting her lightly on the shoulder with both hands. “Wish for, uh, I don’t know… The Nile! Just say ‘I wish for the Nile’!”

“Uh,” Azlyn stammers, taken aback by the big blue lug’s enthusiasm, “I wish for… the Nile?”

“NO WAY!” Genie yells back, grabbing his belly and letting out a good-natured cackle that soon spreads to the others. Except Azlyn, who looks a bit miffed.

“Well, Genie, a deal is a deal,” Aladdin says as soon as he can manage it through his laughter. “You’re free now. You can go anywhere you want to!”

“I know, Al,” Genie says, finally dialing down the reverie a little bit, “But what about Jasmine? I’ve still got some magic left in the ole tank, but not enough to rescue her from bad juju like the Heartless.”

“It’s okay Genie,” Aladdin assures his friend with a solemn half grin, “I trust Sora, Azlyn, and Telary to do the job. They did save Agrabah, after all.” The four share big grins before Aladdin turns back to Genie. “But if you could, would you mind helping them out a little, y’know, if they need it?”

Genie seems to consider for a second before turning his back and crossing his arms across his chest. “Well, Al, frankly I’m done taking orders from others. From now on, life is on my terms, baby!” Aladdin’s face falls, but he notices Genie turn around, fixing the street rat with a grin. “But a favor, well, now that’s an entirely different kettle of fish! I’m sure that I could manage.” The big blue lug goes to Aladdin and places an arm around his shoulders, leaning in close. “After all, we’re pals, right Al?”

“Genie,” Aladdin says with a bit of a blush, running his hand through his hair.

Genie moves off Aladdin and approaches Sora. Holding his hand out, he calls forth a sky blue gem, which Sora takes.

“If you ever find yourself in dire straits, Sora,” Genie instructs, actually sounding serious, “you just give this little beaut a rub and I’ll come running!”

“Thank Genie,” Sora says with a giggle, pocketing the gem for later. He still feels a little bad for allowing what happened with Jasmine, but he also knows that he can fix his mistake, with a little help from his friends.

“Alright everybody!” Genie declares, his arms stretching to impossible proportions. “Bring it in!” The arms clamp around Sora, Azlyn, Telary, Aladdin, Abu, and Carpet, squeezing them all together in Genie’s massive embrace. “I can feel it now: We’re gonna be pals for life!”

KH-KH-KH


The mood in the chapel of Maleficent’s fortress is decidedly less cheery than that of Aladdin’s hovel. She circles her scrying pool slowly, face impassive.

“That was a close one, eh?” Hades throws out, most likely just to break the silence. “I mean, I thought I knew power, but what that smarmy vizier had goin’ for him in genie mode… Wow, y’know what I mean?”

“It was not enough,” Maleficent points out coolly, stopping her rotation by the side of the room’s third, much younger occupant. “Jafar craved power above all else. Power for vengeance.”

“True, true,” Hades admits, scratching his chin. “Still, maybe he coulda sealed the deal, if somebody had stuck around to help.”

Riku scowls up at the flaming god. “I did my part,” he practically growls, clenching a gloved fist. “You told me all I had to do was nab the princess, and I did. Nobody said anything about helping that jerk!”

“You performed admirably, dear boy,” Maleficent assures him, patting Riku’s head far too affectionately for his liking. “Marvelously in fact!” She shrugs coolly. “And besides, Jafar was beyond help. All he craved was power to further his vengeance. Once he allowed that much Darkness in his heart, his usefulness was ended. A lesson for all.”

Noticing the witch’s pointed glare in his direction, Hades backs up, his hands raised defensively. “Oh, hey, c’mon! You know me! I’m as cool as they come, babe! Sure I got things I, y’know, would like to accomplish. Satyrs to skin, nephews to murder, brothers to usurp. Family stuff, basically. But honestly, Mal, I am one-hundred percent committed to the cause.”

The jade-skinned sorceress merely rolls her eyes. “All good things to those who wait. When the door is opened, all desires will be fulfilled.”

“Speaking of, kid,” Hades says, drawing Riku’s attention, “have we got a surprise for you!”

Riku looks inquisitively at Maleficent, who grins down at him. “I haven’t forgotten our deal, my dear boy. You did what I asked of you, and well. Thus…” She waves a green hand over the pool, infusing it with the tiniest bit of magic. The water coalesces into the floating image of a young, redheaded girl, sleeping a peaceful sleep.

“Kairi!” Riku practically screams, lunging out with his hand, but only succeeding in sending the integrity of the projection into disarray, scattering water back into the pool. “You found her? You know where she is?”

“Your vessel awaits,” Maleficent confirms with a grin. “You may go to her whenever you wish.”

“I should warn you though, boy,” a roughly accented voice cuts through the darkness surrounding the chapel entrance. Out of it emerges a tall man garbed in the red vestments of a pirate, his large red hat drooping low, white feather sticking straight out. The silver of his hook stands out against the garish redness of his coat. “This will be no pleasure cruise!”

“Why are you doing all this for me?” Riku asks, staring up at his jade-skinned benefactor with pure suspicion in his eyes. “There’s gotta be a catch! No way nabbing one girl is worth all this! What do you really want?”

Maleficent sighs deeply, placing a hand lightly on her cloaked breast. She seems very hurt by the boy’s accusations and mistrust.

“How many times must I tell you, dear Riku,” she says, with as much sincerity as she can muster, “I only want you to be happy. Why, you’re like the son I’ve never had!” She moves to run her fingers through the boy’s silver hair, but he jerks away from the touch.

“Somehow,” he spits at her, eyes hard, “I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe what you wish, my dear,” Maleficent relents, turning away, then looking back over her shoulder at the youth. “But, lest you forget. I kept my end of the bargain.”

Riku fixes her with another scowl, then turns on his heel and stalks away, Hook following after slowly.

“So, uh,” Hades says after the chapel doors have slammed shut, leaving him and Maleficent in privacy once again. “Not that I, like, need to know, y’know, but, uh… What exactly is the catch?”

Maleficent gives him a hard look, one eyebrow raised. Shaking her head, she sighs deeply and stalks away, leaving the god with only silence.
 
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