Return to the Drake World

“So where is he now?” Keyblade asked.
“He used one of the function-changing devices…” Lloyd said hesitantly.
“Which one?” Bookworm asked, although she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
“Umm… I forget…” Lloyd’s face reddened as he admitted this.
“Great! Any idea what we should do now?” Shade asked, very frustrated.
“Yes! We should label all the devices! Then we won’t get them mixed up all the time!” Colette suggested happily.
“That’s a great idea!” Lloyd agreed enthusiastically. “Let’s go ask the Professor for writing supplies!” They both ran away, eager to begin this project.
Bookworm sighed. “So now what do we do?”
“We can’t just wait around for Lloyd to remember. How about we try a random guess?” Keyblade suggested.
Shade sighed. She didn’t like this plan, but there didn’t seem to be any other choice. “Fine, that’s what we usually end up doing anyway.”
“Let’s try that one!” Fates pointed to one.
Keyblade activated the Sorcerer’s Ring. A moment later, they were standing in a world that looked strangely familiar.
“Cat!” Tyrsis appeared out of nowhere and glomped Keyblade.
“Oh my God! We’re in the drake world!” Fates cheered. Unlike her friends, she had never been to the drake world and did not realize how unlikely it was that Mithos would come there.
“Tyrsis! Stop strangling Keyblade for a second!” Shade said sharply. Tyrsis let go of Keyblade, who was indeed having difficulty breathing. “Have you seen Mithos here anytime lately?”
“You mean the assassin with the height issue? I haven’t seen him since the party.” This reminded Tyrsis of something. Grinning, he turned to Bookworm. “Why did you just vanish like that? You knew you were gonna lose that DDR round, didn’t you?”
“No! I was winning! And I can beat you anytime!” Bookworm yelled, being overly competitive as usual.
“Sure you can,” Tyrsis laughed sarcastically.
“Can we meet Rainheart now?” Fates asked randomly.
“Yeah, let’s go to the palace! Rainheart will be really glad to see you!” Tyrsis grinned at Keyblade. She was looked like she was about to protest, so he added, “He was really sad when you vanished without even saying good-bye.”
“It can’t hurt to just say hi, right?” Bookworm said sympathetically.
“Alright,” Keyblade reluctantly agreed.
Everyone shifted into drake form, except Fates. Tyrsis shifted into full-drake form to carry her. Everyone noticed the effects Borakk’s sphere had on him. His size had increased and his scales now had a metallic sheen. His shiny scales glinted in the sunlight as he flew towards the palace.
“It looks like Tyrsis is coming back,” Jade observed. He was a green drake skilled in ninja arts and a friend of Rainheart. He munched on an apple as he watched Tyrsis approach.
“He shouldn’t shift into full-drake form to travel such a short distance. It uses up too much energy,” Orion said. He was a pitch black drake. Like Jade, he was a ninja. In fact, they had even studied with the same teacher, a purple drake named Violet.
“Yeah, wasn’t he just at Violet’s village?” Jade asked.
“Yes, I sent him to supervise its reconstruction. The village is recovering from Borakk’s attack much faster than we expected,” Rainheart said, glancing up at his brother. “I’ll have to talk to him later about going full drake so often.”
“He’s probably just doing it to show off. He is the only drake here with a metallic sheen, after all. And he’s a lot bigger too,” Jade pointed out, grinning. Orion just nodded. He didn’t talk much.
“Rainheart!” Tyrsis landed, dropped Fates, and shifted back into human form. Keyblade, Shade, and Bookworm landed soon after.
At the sight of Keyblade, Rainheart completely forgot all about scolding Tyrsis. “Cat!”
“I’m not Cat,” Keyblade said, already tired of telling him this.
Fates had been too busy poking Bookworm for no reason whatsoever to pay attention to what Keyblade had just said. She now stopped annoying Bookworm and decided to share her opinion. “Oh my God! Cat and Rainheart are meant to be together!”
Rainheart took this as affirmation that Keyblade was indeed Cat. He hugged her tightly. (Fortunately for Keyblade, Rainheart’s hug was not as tight as Tyrsis’s strangling glomp.)
Keyblade gave Fates a death glare. Could she have been any less helpful?
She was about to move away from Rainheart’s embrace and inform him once again that she was not Cat, but then she decided against it. He clearly wouldn’t believe her. And now that Mithos was not around to start a fight, she couldn’t see any harm in getting hugged by Rainheart. She smiled and hugged him back.
“Aaaw! They’re so cute together!” Fates said. Bookworm decided that it would be a good idea to distract her before she said anything else that would bother Keyblade. And so, Bookworm decided that it was absolutely necessary to start another poking fight.
“AAAAAHH! Her evil pokes made me bleed!” Bookworm wailed. One of Fates's pokes had accidentally given her a tiny cut on her hand.
“Can you two behave at least a little maturely?” Shade asked, very irritated.
“She started it!” Bookworm announced, as if this made everything Fates’s fault.
“No I didn’t! You poked me first!” Fates protested. Bookworm decided that she needed to respond to this by poking Fates again. Within seconds, they had resumed their poking fight.
“That’s it! If you two can’t behave, we’re leaving!” Shade yelled at them. “We should probably go find Mithos now anyway,” she added. Indigo nodded in agreement.
“Wait! I want to go with you, Cat,” Rainheart said.
Shade nodded. “It should be okay for you to come to at least one world with us, as long as Keyblade doesn’t mind.”
Keyblade thought for a second. Maybe Rainheart would be able to help them defeat Mithos without killing him. It couldn’t hurt to bring him along. “Yeah, he can come.”
“Can we come too?” Jade asked eagerly.
After making sure Keyblade had no objections, Rainheart allowed Jade and Orion to join them on their journey.
“What about me?” Tyrsis asked eagerly.
“No,” Shade answered before Rainheart or Keyblade could say anything. “At least one member of the royal family should stay here.”
“She’s right. You need to make sure there’s no trouble in my absence,” Rainheart told his brother. Tyrsis was disappointed, but didn’t disagree.
“So can we get going now?” Keyblade asked impatiently. She activated the Sorcerer’s Ring.
As soon as they arrived in Derris-Kharlan, they were greeted enthusiastically by Lloyd and Colette. “Look at the labels we made!”
Everyone looked at the function-changing devices. The one that led to the mall had labels saying “Fascinating Magitechnology” and “Exploding DDR Machine”. The Hogwarts one said “Fluffy’s Home”, “Quidditch World”, and “Magic School”. Feudal Japan had the labels “Cute Rin” and “Sesshomaru’s World”. Monty Python World was “Silly Place”, “Slightly Dangerous Rabbit”, “Stupid Witch-Burners”, and “I Saved My Hunny Here”. Krynn was labeled “Dragon World”, “Tas’s World”, and “Where Shade Turned Evil”.
“I’m really sorry about that label, Shade!” Colette apologized. “I told Lloyd that you’re not really evil and you’re actually very nice, but he insisted you had turned evil there! I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings!”
Bookworm and Keyblade had a hard time not laughing. They knew Shade had been evil long before she went to Krynn.
“And guess what! Genis remembered where Mithos went! I forgot he was with us when Mithos came here,” Lloyd said.
“Do you ever pay attention?” Genis shook his head at Lloyd’s short attention span.
“Shut up Genis!” Lloyd snapped.
Genis rolled his eyes and pointed to an unlabeled device. “He used that one.”
“Thanks!” Keyblade started to walk toward the device.
“Wait! I’m coming too!” Sheena said. “We need to know what to label this world, so I volunteered to go with you.”
Keyblade nodded and activated the device. A moment later, they appeared in another world. Keyblade felt a weight on her head. Looking around, she discovered that everyone now had metal headbands with a picture of a sphere on them. She recognized that kind of headband. “YES! We’re in the Naruto world! We’re gonna be ninjas!” she cheered.

Killer Bus!?!

“I think… we might’ve… outrun her… now…” Oregulus gasped for breath.
“Do you think she’ll think to look for us in the parking lot?” Lord of Demonic Blood looked around worriedly.
The mall door opened. Maelthra poked her head out and glanced around. Oregulus and Lord of Demonic Blood ran to hide. Their sudden movement caused her to look in their direction.
“I’m gonna get you for what you said about Mithos!” she yelled and charged after them. Mithos and ST218 followed, curious about what she would do to Oregulus and Lord of Demonic Blood.
Suddenly, Mithos stopped. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in horror. He was staring at a bus parked nearby.
“It’s gonna eat us! Everyone run away! I’ll kill it with my shiny sword!” Mithos unsheathed his sword and ran toward the terrifying bus. As he ran, he screamed the war cry he had learned from Shade. “For the ketchup!”
Maelthra, Oregulus, Lord of Demonic Blood, and ST218 just stared at him. He had just screamed a really random war cry and was now attacking a bus. This behavior was so weird it made Maelthra forget to injure her friends.
“Umm… Mithos? Why are you attacking the bus?” Maelthra asked, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer.
“It wants to kill us all! I bet it even has nasty big pointy teeth!” Mithos whacked the bus again.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing!?!” The bus driver had just exited the mall. “Get away from my bus, you crazy kid!” He ran over and started hitting Mithos with a broom to chase him away.
“AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Mithos screamed. “It’s the monster from the arcade! He’s gonna eat me!”
Mithos was too terrified to attack the “monster” with his sword. He just wanted to get as far away from the scary person as possible. Fortunately, he knew exactly how to accomplish this. He activated the Mage’s Ring.
Meanwhile, Keyblade, Bookworm, Shade, and Fates met at FYE. While waiting for Maelthra to bring Mithos, they discussed how they had spent the day.
“I can’t wait to go to the anime worlds! Do you think I’ll get to be a ninja? I’ve been watching episodes of Naruto all day just in case!” Fates was so excited she decided to poke Bookworm for no reason.
Bookworm poked her back many times. “I took Indigo to the library. She ate Thorax’s hand cause he was being annoying again. Then we went home and I played on my computer.”
I had lots of delicious snacks. And I got to watch Bookworm try to smuggle a microphone. Indigo projected her thoughts so that everyone, including Shade, was able to hear.
“Traitor! Why’d you have to tell her that?!” Bookworm glared at her dragon, angry about her betrayal.
It’s for your own good. Blackmailing Shade is dangerous. Indigo explained. She had taken it upon herself to make sure that Bookworm did not get herself killed due to her pathetic lack of self-preservation.
“Give me the microphone,” Shade held out her hand for the recording equipment. Bookworm reluctantly removed the microphone from her bag and handed it to Shade.
Keyblade decided it was time to change the subject. “I transmuted a DDR machine at my house! And remember those girls from my bus? I shifted into drake form and attacked them with a keyblade! What did you do today, Shade?”
“I took over Russia and Australia,” Shade said calmly, as if this were not unusual at all. “I’m leaving them in my dad’s care while I’m world-hopping.” Everyone stared at her. They were now very worried about Russia and Australia. Shade thought for a minute. “And then I came back here and stole Silence’s Wii.”
Bookworm rolled her eyes. “Was that really necessary?”
“No… But it was fun!” Shade grinned evilly.
Before Bookworm could respond, Maelthra ran up to them, followed by Oregulus, Lord of Demonic Blood, and ST218.
“Mithos just attacked a bus and vanished! What’s going on? Where is he? And why is he acting so weird?” Maelthra demanded.
“Well, I’m not surprised about the bus part, but you said he vanished? Did he run away or just disappear?” Keyblade asked.
“He disappeared! One second, he was standing there screaming while the bus driver hit him with a broom. And the next second, he was gone,” Maelthra explained, still very confused.
“It sounds like he got scared and used the Mage’s Ring. We should go to Derris-Kharlan. The Symphonians might know where he went,” Shade suggested.
“I hope they haven’t killed him yet,” Keyblade said worriedly as she activated the Sorcerer’s Ring.

Angel!?! (Cat)

"Hey you guys!" Cat was calling out to the group (who had made camp) waving something that was in her hand.
"Hey Cat. What is that?" Sora asked, noticing something glint from Cat's hand.
"It's a marble I fouuund!" Cat sing-songed.
Kratos immediately swiped the marble from Cat's hand to examine it. "Hmm....so it's this one. I must've missed it."
"What's Kratos-san talking about?" Netto asked Lloyd.
"Well, Dad was going to get rid of all of Cruxis's exspheres and throw them into space-"
"GIMME BACK MY MARBLE!!!" Lloyd was cut off by Cat yelling (and attempting to tackle) at Kratos to give back "her marble" (he was holding it above her reach) and jumping for it (Goldd had decided to conveniently forget to tell Cat she could fly). Cat got tired of this, so she shifted just enough to get her tail from behind his leg and trip him. This actually worked, as Kratos seemed too intent to keep the marble from her.
Kratos did his oh-so-famous "....".
Cat caught the marble, saying triumphantly, "Ha! I told you I had mad ninja skills!! Now it-" Cat had stopped midway in her sentence, as she noticed that the marble she had caught seemed to be floating, similar to how Netto's did before he transformed. "Wh-"
A bright flash of light temporarily blinded everyone, causing them to avert their eyes. When the light cleared, Cat's clothes had been altered. Cat seemed to be wearing a mostly white outfit with outlines of purple, and many belts around her waist. Along with a skirt (not short but not long) and arm sleeves, also with a purple outline. As Cat was observing this strange new transformation, she felt a sharp pain in her back, like something was trying to rip itself from her back. Cat grimaced, the pain intensifying, causing her to bend over.
"Cat! What's-"
There was another bright flash of light, a scream, and a ripping noise. When it cleared again, Cat was standing... with purple angel wings!
"What IS this? It feels..."
"Umm....Mr. Kratos, why did Cat transform like that?"
Lloyd was also curious. "Yeah Dad, why'd Cat turn into an angel?"
"I'M DEAD?!! HOLY CRAP!!"
Kratos slapped his face. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid.
Sora poked Cat's cheek. "You can't be dead 'cause you're solid."
"Yeah, and don't real angels have halos?"
"Brother, that's just stories, isn't it?"
"You guys, that's not it... When I transformed, it was kinda like..." Cat's eyes looked like they were misted over, like when she was think about something. (Cat thinks?)
"Like what?"
"Like when I transform with Goldd."
"I suppose I'll have to explain, won't I?" Kratos sighed. Out of all the exspheres that he had to throw into space, that one had been a priority. Out of all the other exspheres (besides Lloyd's and Colette's Cruxis Crystal), this one was one of the most powerful.
"You recall that the four Seraphim of Cruxis was made up of four people, correct?"
"Yeah. Wasn't it you, Yuan, Yggdrasil, and... Who was the last one?"
"Martel, Lloyd. Yggdrasil would eventually need someone to replace that position, so he had me create that sphere."
Cat, meanwhile, was only half listening, still staring at her new transformation.
'Cat? Do you hear me?'
'Goldd?'
'Cat... I believe when you transformed, some of the excess energy that I lost... It's nothing...'
"Wait." Cat had risen from her crouching position. After wiping non-existent dust off her shoulder, she asked, "I thought the drakes where the only ones that could make spheres. Why was it that you could?"
'Cat, I never said that there weren't any spheres that don't exist beyond the drakes realm.'
'Meaning?'
Goldd mentally sighed. Sometimes, Cat's ability to be a complete and total scatterbrain at almost any given time could be very irritating. Meaning she had to be very patient with the human girl she shared a mind with (Goldd had gotten a habit of playing cards by herself while Cat didn't need her assistance, but this was lonely, as Goldd had no one else to play her favorite card game with). 'What I MEAN, Cat, is that some of the spheres were not necessarily made by drakes alone, they where crafted by humans of different worlds, but for some reason, the essence was never able to react to a human before you.'
'So what makes me so special?'
'I suppose... it was your personality that attracted me. But other spheres may be attracted by other things.'
'Like...'
"Cat, if I may interrupt your mental conversation."
Cat seemed to snap back to attention. She realized that it was annoying for her friends when she had mental conversations with Goldd.