Despite review lack, I’m updating.
Chapter 2 Jumbled
Sean swung the Keyblade lightly left and right like it was tuning fork. In fact, the comparison wasn’t that far off. Through some form or another, the Keyblade tended to make a reaction to gummi-pieces. As such, it was the perfect tool to find where the scraps had landed. The tall grass they were traveling through made searching a bit more difficult, but with the process they had, considerably less so. Vee trotted beside him, becoming familiar with his new outward appearence, although doing so in a rather gitty way of moving from runs to jogs to even prancing. Randall, on Sean’s other side, was less than ethusiastic. He folded his arms, grimacing and looking down, feeling quite uneasy at not having an extra pair of limbs. He nearly fell over 72 times getting use to it. Needless to say, Sean and Vee dared not remark on it.
The Keyblade slightly vibrated. “Bingo…one’s…” Sean started, stopping to look around. “…around here somewhere…ah! There!”. He pointed through shards of grass to the left. A shiny, almost translucent block lay, taking in the light. Sean ran over to it, observing the gummi-block. It was four times as big as him, and a perfectly oriented cube. “Brilliant” he said, smiling. He waved over at Vee, who had been carrying small bangle on his arm. With the signal, he tapped it’s single red button. Within a few short seconds, Zazu flew over, nearly fast enough that Randall fell again. 73.
“Alright…I think that makes all of them…” Zazu informed, his voice a little too loud, as he clasped his talons around the cube. “You three want a ride back to the ship?” he asked.
Randall growled. “Not me…I feel sick enough and flying without walls wouldn’t do much good would it”
Zazu blinked, Sean looking up at him. “It’s ok Zazu…we can walk back…not that far…”
“Alright…” Zazu sighed, picking up the block and heading back to the Gummi Ship.
“Aww…we barely explored this place” Vee groaned.
“BARELY is ENOUGH” Randall leaned in, teeth garnered, before he turned and started back. Vee murmured something and followed himself. Sean placed his hands to his hips, shaking his head.
“What am I gonna do with those guys” he chuckled, slinging the Keyblade over his shoulder and started to follow. “Hmm?”. He felt his shoulder move, and realized the Keyblade was vibrating. He looked around, seeing no signs of Gummies. Turning, he saw it. Something glinting in the distance near the front of cottage they nearly hit. “Uh…hang on guys last one!”. He turned tail, literally, as Vee motioned for Randall to hold up.
Slicing one or two blades of grass, he spotted the final Gummi, laying under the cover of some sort of sunflower. It seemed rather strange that it seemed to have disturbed little in it’s crash. But then again it was a rather small piece, Sean was able to pick it up with one paw.
“Weird…” he mumbled to himself. It was like one of those fake-glass diamonds, a cut orb. But it was twinkling inside, almost as if the reflections were speaking. Not like it was too strange, they were interdimensional traveling parts.
A quick touch of the Keyblade and it was stored with the bundle of other things they had. The size of the other gummis were just too huge for the convienance. “Well…guess that makes all of them” Sean mentioned, Keyblade over his shoulder. “Huh?”. He paused, looking past the thinned grass in front of him. Padding forward, he spread the grass lightly, looking left first.
There was a river. He’d thought he’d heard rushing water somewhere, but just thought it was the wind playing a trick on his new form. It flowed under a rather large stone bridge that led off somewhere he couldn’t see. Some of the water flowed into a drainage pipe, leading possibly to some other place as well.
Then he looked to the right, which had caught his eye.
It was a house. More of a cottage really. Tanned walls with brick boarders, blue windows and doors, A woodened-brick patterned roof, and a second floor. An abundance of plants and some flowers grew around it, giving the impression that was probably a garden in back of the house. That or whomever owned it loved spices or vegetables.
“Sean! Sean where are ya!”
“GET YOUR NOW-EXISTANT TAIL OVER HERE!!”
Sean blinked, but didn’t take his eyes off the house. “Uhh…I’m…I’m over here!” he called back, but his interest was still on the house. Something was calling his attention. Some noise. “Don’t do it. Curiousity killed the cat. And your a mouse…er no…bigger…rat?” he thought. But for some reason he found himself near the window, even surprising himself when he noticed where he was.
“STUPID!” he yelled to himself. And even more so. Because the second it took him to decide to run back to the ship…than did a gunshot sound from inside the house. Despite facing Unbirth and a gallery of other strange and exotic dangerous and worlds…the simplicity of a gunshot was enough that Sean neartly dropped the Keyblade. He held it up in front of himself, blinking a moment before turning it around, realizing he had been holding it upside down. He heard Randall and Vee shut at him from somewhere, but another gunshot silence anything Sean could hear. And then even something more bizzare happened.
From the door threshold sprung a couple, then tens…then hundreds of rats. Sean’s vision was obscured by brown, light blue, and tanish colors. It was like a traffic jam, though one that was still moving but packed to the streets.
“Seeeeeaaannn!”. Looking back to where Randall and Vee were…they weren’t there anymore. And efore he could get a better look, some large rat ran past him, knocking him down. He caught himself before he fell on his stomach, the Keyblade clattering beside him, vanishing as he pulled his paws over his head. He had the thought that perhaps this world was one of those strange alternative dimensions. Maybe Rats were the main species! That why they became rats when they landed? But why such a huge house? Well for that many it seemed plausible. What abbout the garden? Do rats farm? Wonder if they…
Sean’s mind stopped ranting when he realized that the dust was the only thing around him. One ear rose from under his arms. Nope. Stamepede stopped. Water was splashing and something was going on behind him. But other than that…
Quickly, he got to his feet…er…paws, summoning the Keyblade and looking around. Randall and Vee were nowhere in sight. “VEE!!!..RANDALL!!” he called. Then something on the river caught his eye. Something was…“migrating” from the grass toward the sewer drain. It looked like moving pieces of the ground. Blinking, Sean thought maybe he had gotten hit in the head during the stampede. And if that wasn’t enough to make the Keyblade weilder confused.
TSSH!
Something behind him broke, literally. The window up and behind, on the cottage, burst open, glass spraying out like rays from a sparkler. Wide-eyed, Sean brought up the Keyblade and lowered his eyes, not wanting to get blinded by something other than light. But he found himself on the ground with a headache. Apparently something had landed on him. Thankfully the Keyblade softened the blow and he quickly got to his feet. For a brief second he thought he had woken up at night…but realized it was a shadow. Something was overtop of him. A brief glance and it looked like a book. But also the paws holding it up. Sean blinked, stareing at the blue furred rat stareing open-eyed at him.
A noise made the blue rat turn, giving himself and Sean a clear view at the masked face peering through the window. On instant, both Sean and the blue rat ran under the cover of the book.
“WHAT ARE WE RUNNING FROM!?” Sean yelled, trying to look back in his trot. A small part of him said sarcastically “Your asking a RAT?”. Of course that part was asked to shut up by the other ones who had conversed with a reptilian monster and a digimon.
“A mad human!!” the blue rat remarked, in a panicked tone. Sean was about to ask if he had really said “human”, but by then, surprised at their speed, they had reached the river bank. Sean skidded to a stop, which was tougher than it sounded as the rain was pounding down, making the ground muddy. He realized that the blue rat was actually in the quick process of flipping the book closed and putting it in the water.
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me…” Sean thought, which wasn’t long as he found himself leaping for the top of the book, trying to steady himself as water sloshed on the cover for a moment. Breathing, unused to the physical limits of a rat body, Sean watched the other rat started paddling at the front of the book, trying to increase it’s speed.
At first he thought of helping, but something ahead caught his eye. It looked like the scaffolding of a barrel, stripped down to only the circle connectors, but the bottom remained. It was like a little constructed boat, flanked by two others. But the passengers made him stare. An array of rats. Brown, blue, gray colors. Two on the barrel were using wooden spoons as virtual paddles. Curious enough there was a deep blue rat that stood out near the middle of them that stood out.
“Hold on son! Give him something to grab on to!”
They talked too apparently. Sean looked at the rat near him. Son? Time for that later, right now they were nearing the boat. Sean’s eyes widned as he saw a rather huge, and muscled, rat cut through the small crowd on the boat carrying a spatual. But of course, being smaller, it was much bigger.
“Come on boy! Paddle son!” the dark blue rat, the father, bellowed, urging them on. “Come on! Reach for it!”. They were very close now. “You can do it!”. The blue rat, the son, reached out with his left paw, closer and close to grab it.
Sean blinked. Something was giving him a bad feeling. Wait. The human. Sean looked back, nothing at the house. Wait…they were passing a…
He looked up. “GET BACK!”. He grabbed the rat by the waist and pulled him back just as the tip of the spatula exploded, tossing the book and both of them back and into the water. Sean didn’t have time to get a breath, so went in unprepared.
“I’m gonna die I’m gonna die!” he panicked, looking all about the dark green tinted water. He didn’t know how to swim with this body. “Think…THINK!..PADDLE!”. He brought up his right hand. In a twirl of light and bubbles, the Keyblade formed. He used it as his own paddle to try to get to the surface. It wasn’t working as wel…that is till the other rat seemed to take notice. In a fluid motion, it grabbed the rod of the Keyblade and used it to pull him up. Both of the rats got back on to the book, breathing quick, trying to catch their breath.
“REMY!” sounded a voice far off.
“Dad!” the blue rat near him yelled off. He breathed for a moment, charginning. “You alright…?” he asked Sean, who was laying flat on his back.
“Ooh…super…” he replied.
The blue rat, Remy it seemed, dove for something floating in the water. It turned out to be the end of the spatual. No sooner had he brought it up than did it’s flipping end was blasted, a corner and the middle destroyed from a shot.
“We’re gonna get killed if we stay here!” Remy yelled, clutching the spatula. Holding his breath, Sean got to his feet, albiet unsteadily.
“oooh…”. He shook his head, looking up at the bridge as the gas-masked human reloaded a shotgun. “Ehh…look just paddle…”. He gripped the Keyblade. “I’ll handle this…”. The rat, Remy, seemed to take this, placing the damaged spatual to the side and using it was a better paddle. But Sean was unsure how well he could handle this. He gripped the Keyblade hard, trying to spot where the human was aiming, but it was very difficult.
A shot rang out, impacting the water near the back of the book. Water erupted upward, and the book dipped. Remy seemed fine, but Sean got unbalanced again. He tried to focus, looking up at the bridge. “Think like baseball…watch the pitcher…don’t get a strike”
Another shot. He swung. It was way off. Water erupted near the front of the book, making Remy back up for a second. “We’re almost there!!” he yelled before working harder at the paddling.
Sean grinned at the comment, but dropped it soon after, feeling frustrated he missed. He looked at the bridge with mock loathing. “Alright…maybe a distraction…” he whispered, holding out the Keyblade. “Fira!”. He half-expected that his shorter stature would affect his magic, but he was surprised when a ball of fire as big as himself shot out from the Keyblade. “This time glad I aimed to miss” he thought as it zoomed past the human. The effect was immediate. The human looked to where the light had come from, confounded that they themself was being “shot” at.
Sean slumped, feeling really drained. Magic same, fatigure greater. A shadow moved over him and he could tell they were now in a drain tunnel, the one the ship full of rats had gone in. “Guys wait! Stop!” Remy yelled, his voice echoing.
“Remy! Come on! Paddle!”
“Hold on! Wait for me! Hold on!”. Some noises sounded from deeper down the tunnel. “…Dad?..Dad?”. Remy stopped paddling. Sean took the silence to come near his side, holding the Keyblade over his head as they passed under another tunnel that went upward, where rain water was falling through. They passed under as they slowly drifted onward. The darkness slipt, two different paths were coming up. Sean felt he should say something, but he didn’t know what. Everything was happening so fast that he only just began to try to sort out his priorities.
“Which way…?” the rat, Remy questioned, undoubtibly unsure himself. Sean had to agree, they both looked the same. If he was looking for those other rats…it was a fifty/fifty chance with little to no alteration…
Remy looked over to him, and he only shrugged. “Whichever way you think” was all he could say. The blue rat barred his teeth, selecting the left tunnel and switching the paddle. In the brief moment, Sean’s mind came to a standstill with a thought. Where was Randall and Vee?
He silently gasped. Where were they? Were they still back at the house? Looking for him? Did they know where he was? Or did they…get caught up with the rats? There was different possibilities.
“The ship…I’ve got to go back to the ship…I can find them using it…”. With a start, he turned to the rat, getting his attention. “Uhh look I’ve…”. Seeming from the instinct of the rat side, his ears went up, as did Remy’s. Water. Well they were around allot of it but…it was…roaring?
Both of them turned to forward slowly, as if they knew what horrible thought was in their heads was true. A grate was coming up and the roaring continued. Remy leaped over the book, trying to use the spatula in vein. Sean just stared, wide-eyed.
“I miss the Dreamstar…”
The book went over, and both of them plummeted into a swirling vortex of water. Sean couldn’t see the blue rat, he would have been too hard to see in it all. His body was wracked too and fro by the conflicting currents. He felt thankful that he didn’t hit any walls and that he had taken in a breath before falling. Left, right, left, up, left, down, he couldn’t tell which way he was going anymore. The Keyblade had been ripped from his hands, but he didn’t worry, he could call it back. But he doubted that might be possible. The foreign sensations, the fast unexplained actions, they were taking their toll.
“Heh…I thought I’d die fighting…” he thought, his head too muddled. He started blacking out, his vision fading. It shifted from normal, to foggy, to darkness in flickering seconds. He was on the edge of falling unconcious when a pink paw broke the now calm surface of the water…
