05-20-2018, 01:28 PM
“Cinnabon Island? Like the dessert? Yum!”
She would remind him, rather forcefully, over the rest of the trip that it was Cinnabar Island, not Cinnabon, like the dessert. It didn’t really stick.
Nevertheless, Mickey didn’t understand what made her so nervous when he suggested he lead the embassy onto the island. At first, Minnie flatly refused that plan. They’d discussed this, after all—Mickey might be tad charming, but he still really have the head for complex affairs of state. He mostly had the head for how to summon a keyblade and swing it around in some goons’ faces.
He also, as he would remind her, had a knack for being a leader. Sure, that mostly manifested in battle—which seemed kind of counter to the mouse’s general pacifistic philosophy—but like it or not, Minnie couldn’t deny that people listened to her husband. After all, that was why they had a few protectors in the first place. Sure, most of them were secondaries, their souls inexplicably tied to objects the pair had uncovered in their journeys. Right after Dante’s Abyss, Mickey had been called into Thrall’s chambers back in Camelot and given a little orange gem called the Earthshine; the orc shaman hadn’t really been able to explain it, but when watching the mouse’s affairs in the tournament, something had spoken to him, told him the soul trapped inside this crystal was related to Mickey.
As it turned out, inside had been the lion Simba, Mickey’s most trusted lieutenant, normally guardian of the Pride Lands, now a secondary that Mickey supposed he’d accidentally summoned. Simba hadn’t really been able to explain how he’d gotten to the Omniverse—simply that, around the time Mickey had started the crazy death tournament, he’d appeared without explanation in Camelot, been sent to the wizards of Dalaran for examination, and then stored inside the gem for his own safekeeping.
Similarly, the leader of the elves in the Tangled Green had presented him with another gem—the green Naturespark, with the spirit of one of Mickey’s gentler subjects, Bambi, inside. And with Aladdin had come Aladdin’s magic lamp, now sitting next to the gems on a shelf in Mickey’s cabin and holding the spirit of a magic Genie that had sworn to help the mouse in his quest through the Omniverse.
Whatever the heck that quest ended up being.
Part of it, he supposed, would be to continue searching for more of his subjects. He’d met several throughout his journeys through this strange universe, not just including the spirits who now counted themselves a part of his direct court, and he was sure that more had to be out there… somewhere.
“Can you zip me into this dress?” Minnie asked, stepping into his cabin. The mouse king complied, smiling at the presence of his wife who—after much reluctance—had finally acquiesced to the idea of him approaching the leader of Cinnabon Island. He’d convinced her that the fame he’d garnered from his appearance on Dante’s Abyss would get them a head start with whoever they were meant to meet.
“If your constant mispronouncing of their island’s name doesn’t get us thrown in prison first,” she snarked, “and I really don’t think that anyone remembers that tournament, Mickey, it’s been years. There’s been a bunch more of them with a bunch of way more interesting events since then.”
Mickey scoffed. She of little faith.
“I’m swell, unassuming, and famous,” Mickey assured her. “It’s gonna be fine. The people of Cinnamon Island are going to just love me.” He emphasized the island’s name to prove he knew it. Minnie’s expression didn’t seem impressed with his attempt.
“You aren’t famous to anyone except the Empire’s bounty hunters, like that weird robot guy you told me about from the Graveyardverse,” Minnie rolled her eyes, “and you are definitely swell and unassuming, which is just another reason I feel like I should be the one leading this party.” Mickey harrumphed, and his wife glared at him. If looks could kill, she would’ve bored holes through his huge ears within seconds.
Mickey found it hard to believe that no one remembered his time spent in that heckhole of a tournament. After everything he’d been through, people knew who Mickey Mouse, third place on that insane death parade Dante’s Abyss, was. He’d been a part of the only squad of guys totally and completely committed to nonviolence! He’d been there when they’d made the climactic decision to heal Pepsiman instead of just eliminate an easy-pickings contender! He’d taken the Orgosynth from that green guy’s corpse and flirted with darkness for more seconds than he cared to admit!
He was famous. She would see.
Not long after, their small coalition—himself, his wife, Simba, the Genie, and a few of the sailors who called Cinnabon Island home—waltzed off their ship and onto the docks of the island, greeted by a diplomatic envoy of Poképeople. Their leader, as it seemed, stepped forward from their coalition. Standing no higher than Mickey himself and looking decidedly like a mustached cat, he spoke with a degree of sleaziness that set Mickey’s alerts off already.
“The name’s Meowth,” the cat introduced himself, in an accent Mickey could only describe as hailing from a place called New York, though he’d never seen or heard of such a place. “Our ruler would like to—well, to be honest, our ruler wouldn’t really like to do anything. But his council extends their welcome.”
Mickey’s face furrowed a bit.
“Who’s your ruler? Why doesn’t he extend his welcome?”
“Mickey,” Minnie chastised, kicking him in the shin a bit.
“Ow,” he glanced back at her with just a bit of disdain coloring his expression. She darted her eyes at the contingency of bodyguards flanking the Meowth. The cat himself might not have looked so impressive, but the creatures surrounding him? Downright scary. A huge version of the flame-tailed dragon—this time with wings—stood off to his right hand side, and a muscly human-looking dude, except with several arms and weird grayish skin, stood off to the other side. A few more stood behind them, but those two by far terrified Mickey the most. “Okay, okay,” he looked back at Meowth, taking a nervous gulp, “Myself, my wife, and our advisors accept your welcome. Is there a way we can speak with the council?”
For a moment, Meowth just looked at the collection of creatures around him, crept on to their faces until, cued by Meowth, they all erupted into a fit of giggles and laughter. Meowth, for his part, rolled around on the floor, struck by a hilarity that escaped Mickey and Minnie. A quick look behind them showed that the members of Cinnabon’s navy that had accompanied them also stifled their own chuckles. What was so funny? The orange fire-dragon’s tail flickered with each chortle.
“Can you—a stranger—speak with the council?” Meowth guffawed, “I mean—we’ve never—or, had never, I guess, let strangers on this island in the first place, buckaroo. We’ve been out of contact with the outside world so long that I don’t even remember what someone who isn’t a Pokémon looks like, man!”
Meowth continued to laugh. Mickey began to grow frustrated. As the pacifist king’s patience grew a bit tired, a rainbow essence began to swirl around his fingers. He wouldn’t hurt these dudes, but he wasn’t afraid to scare ‘em a little. He would’ve summoned his Keyblade right then and there if Minnie hadn’t smacked him even harder in the ribs, knocking off his focus and then giving him a glare. His eyes widened as he remembered what she’d whispered to him when they’d first woken up on the boat: these people didn’t know they were primes!
“That being said,” Meowth continued, steam-rolling over the mouse’s moment of self-reflection, “it seems the council has elected, in recent days, to speak to notable visitors. That is, ahem, non-Pokémon ones. So as it turns out…”
Meowth paused for a moment, and then began slapping the ground in what appeared to be his very own makeshift drum roll. Mickey turned around and gave his wife a look that said, ‘who the heck is this guy?’
At long last, the drum roll ended, and Meowth looked up and hissed: “…as it turns out, I can take you to the council.”
“You can?”
“I can,” Meowth smirked, “…but will I? Y’know, mouse, you’re on the lower end of the food chain here. Maybe instead of taking you to meet the bosses, I’ll take you home a grill you and your lady friend here up for my afternoon snack.” Mickey’s fists clenched and all he could think about was how he wanted to summon his keyblade and teach that little cat man a lesson. Minnie stepped in front of him.
“We’re not tasty, Mr. Meowth,” Minnie smiled sweetly, “And we’re taller than you.”
The Meowth scowled. “Right this way.”
And with that, he turned and slithered between the feet of the larger Pokemon he’d brought with him. After a moment, the contingency separated in the middle, and Meowth beckoned Mickey, Minnie, Simba, and the Genie to follow him further into the island of Cinnabon. “That guy’s kind of a drag, eh?” the big blue giant whispered to his mice lords as they took a deep breath and started into the settlement.
With reluctance, Mickey and company trudged forward. The remainder of the island seemed relatively normal; lots of houses and huts and other different types of buildings, hastily and shoddily built, all filled to the brim with these strange little monsters. Where had these little guys come from, and how had Mickey not encountered them before? Or had he? Outside in the world, they seemed to be few and far between, if they existed at all. Here, there seemed to be endless numbers of them, filing in and out of this place and that, going about their day without a care in the world.
Without a care, at least, until the mouse couple and their strange pair of companions blustered by. What Meowth had said seemed to prove true: outsiders were not common here on Cinnabon, and everyone who lived here regarded them with a default level of apprehension not unlike Mickey’s own reservations about them. Perhaps, he thought, they were both just afraid of each other; perhaps that fear was unfounded, and stood in the way of a fruitful alliance. He couldn’t know that, though, and so in the meantime, he resolved to use caution when interacting with the Pokéthings. He would find out what was up with them in good time—and hopefully find out why they were named that way, since the only things about any of them that seemed ‘pokey’ at all were Meowth’s whiskers.
As they traversed deeper into Cinnabon, the population became slightly more… diverse. “So it really isn’t just Pokémon here,” Simba noted quietly to his leaders, and what the lion said rang true: many different types of creatures seemed to roam here, though to be fair, the Pokemonsters were each so unique that had it not been for the presence of some outcast humans, Mickey might’ve just assumed they all fit under the one umbrella.
It seemed, though, that creatures from far and wide now called this island their home. They all shared a commonality in this dissimilarity from each other; the only thing truly connection them was a shared feeling that they just didn’t fit anywhere. Anywhere but here, Mickey supposed. He’d encountered plenty of outcasts before. But these guys seemed… sadder. Downtrodden in a way that most denizens of the Omniverse had not appeared to the mouse. And as he passed more and more of them, the king began to feel… sorry for them, somehow. He’d always been a sucker for someone in need of a pick-me-up, to be honest.
Eventually, they neared the center of the island, and came upon a giant amphitheater constructed into the side of a hill. Meowth led them into the only visible opening in the structure’s outer wall and in a few moments, they stood—Meowth, Mickey, Minnie, Simba, Genie, and a small coalition of guard Pokers—in the middle of a large, open stage. Scattered about the ‘seats’ above them were more of these monsters, all looking similarly old and wise.
“Who do we have today, Meowth?” a voice boomed from the middle of the stands. Mickey squinted to try and see the guy but he couldn’t quite make him out.
Weird-lookin’ dude, Mickey thought.
“Weird-lookin’ dude, eh?” the creature repeated.
Mickey’s eyes grew wide. Did that thing just read his mind?
She would remind him, rather forcefully, over the rest of the trip that it was Cinnabar Island, not Cinnabon, like the dessert. It didn’t really stick.
Nevertheless, Mickey didn’t understand what made her so nervous when he suggested he lead the embassy onto the island. At first, Minnie flatly refused that plan. They’d discussed this, after all—Mickey might be tad charming, but he still really have the head for complex affairs of state. He mostly had the head for how to summon a keyblade and swing it around in some goons’ faces.
He also, as he would remind her, had a knack for being a leader. Sure, that mostly manifested in battle—which seemed kind of counter to the mouse’s general pacifistic philosophy—but like it or not, Minnie couldn’t deny that people listened to her husband. After all, that was why they had a few protectors in the first place. Sure, most of them were secondaries, their souls inexplicably tied to objects the pair had uncovered in their journeys. Right after Dante’s Abyss, Mickey had been called into Thrall’s chambers back in Camelot and given a little orange gem called the Earthshine; the orc shaman hadn’t really been able to explain it, but when watching the mouse’s affairs in the tournament, something had spoken to him, told him the soul trapped inside this crystal was related to Mickey.
As it turned out, inside had been the lion Simba, Mickey’s most trusted lieutenant, normally guardian of the Pride Lands, now a secondary that Mickey supposed he’d accidentally summoned. Simba hadn’t really been able to explain how he’d gotten to the Omniverse—simply that, around the time Mickey had started the crazy death tournament, he’d appeared without explanation in Camelot, been sent to the wizards of Dalaran for examination, and then stored inside the gem for his own safekeeping.
Similarly, the leader of the elves in the Tangled Green had presented him with another gem—the green Naturespark, with the spirit of one of Mickey’s gentler subjects, Bambi, inside. And with Aladdin had come Aladdin’s magic lamp, now sitting next to the gems on a shelf in Mickey’s cabin and holding the spirit of a magic Genie that had sworn to help the mouse in his quest through the Omniverse.
Whatever the heck that quest ended up being.
Part of it, he supposed, would be to continue searching for more of his subjects. He’d met several throughout his journeys through this strange universe, not just including the spirits who now counted themselves a part of his direct court, and he was sure that more had to be out there… somewhere.
“Can you zip me into this dress?” Minnie asked, stepping into his cabin. The mouse king complied, smiling at the presence of his wife who—after much reluctance—had finally acquiesced to the idea of him approaching the leader of Cinnabon Island. He’d convinced her that the fame he’d garnered from his appearance on Dante’s Abyss would get them a head start with whoever they were meant to meet.
“If your constant mispronouncing of their island’s name doesn’t get us thrown in prison first,” she snarked, “and I really don’t think that anyone remembers that tournament, Mickey, it’s been years. There’s been a bunch more of them with a bunch of way more interesting events since then.”
Mickey scoffed. She of little faith.
“I’m swell, unassuming, and famous,” Mickey assured her. “It’s gonna be fine. The people of Cinnamon Island are going to just love me.” He emphasized the island’s name to prove he knew it. Minnie’s expression didn’t seem impressed with his attempt.
“You aren’t famous to anyone except the Empire’s bounty hunters, like that weird robot guy you told me about from the Graveyardverse,” Minnie rolled her eyes, “and you are definitely swell and unassuming, which is just another reason I feel like I should be the one leading this party.” Mickey harrumphed, and his wife glared at him. If looks could kill, she would’ve bored holes through his huge ears within seconds.
Mickey found it hard to believe that no one remembered his time spent in that heckhole of a tournament. After everything he’d been through, people knew who Mickey Mouse, third place on that insane death parade Dante’s Abyss, was. He’d been a part of the only squad of guys totally and completely committed to nonviolence! He’d been there when they’d made the climactic decision to heal Pepsiman instead of just eliminate an easy-pickings contender! He’d taken the Orgosynth from that green guy’s corpse and flirted with darkness for more seconds than he cared to admit!
He was famous. She would see.
Not long after, their small coalition—himself, his wife, Simba, the Genie, and a few of the sailors who called Cinnabon Island home—waltzed off their ship and onto the docks of the island, greeted by a diplomatic envoy of Poképeople. Their leader, as it seemed, stepped forward from their coalition. Standing no higher than Mickey himself and looking decidedly like a mustached cat, he spoke with a degree of sleaziness that set Mickey’s alerts off already.
“The name’s Meowth,” the cat introduced himself, in an accent Mickey could only describe as hailing from a place called New York, though he’d never seen or heard of such a place. “Our ruler would like to—well, to be honest, our ruler wouldn’t really like to do anything. But his council extends their welcome.”
Mickey’s face furrowed a bit.
“Who’s your ruler? Why doesn’t he extend his welcome?”
“Mickey,” Minnie chastised, kicking him in the shin a bit.
“Ow,” he glanced back at her with just a bit of disdain coloring his expression. She darted her eyes at the contingency of bodyguards flanking the Meowth. The cat himself might not have looked so impressive, but the creatures surrounding him? Downright scary. A huge version of the flame-tailed dragon—this time with wings—stood off to his right hand side, and a muscly human-looking dude, except with several arms and weird grayish skin, stood off to the other side. A few more stood behind them, but those two by far terrified Mickey the most. “Okay, okay,” he looked back at Meowth, taking a nervous gulp, “Myself, my wife, and our advisors accept your welcome. Is there a way we can speak with the council?”
For a moment, Meowth just looked at the collection of creatures around him, crept on to their faces until, cued by Meowth, they all erupted into a fit of giggles and laughter. Meowth, for his part, rolled around on the floor, struck by a hilarity that escaped Mickey and Minnie. A quick look behind them showed that the members of Cinnabon’s navy that had accompanied them also stifled their own chuckles. What was so funny? The orange fire-dragon’s tail flickered with each chortle.
“Can you—a stranger—speak with the council?” Meowth guffawed, “I mean—we’ve never—or, had never, I guess, let strangers on this island in the first place, buckaroo. We’ve been out of contact with the outside world so long that I don’t even remember what someone who isn’t a Pokémon looks like, man!”
Meowth continued to laugh. Mickey began to grow frustrated. As the pacifist king’s patience grew a bit tired, a rainbow essence began to swirl around his fingers. He wouldn’t hurt these dudes, but he wasn’t afraid to scare ‘em a little. He would’ve summoned his Keyblade right then and there if Minnie hadn’t smacked him even harder in the ribs, knocking off his focus and then giving him a glare. His eyes widened as he remembered what she’d whispered to him when they’d first woken up on the boat: these people didn’t know they were primes!
“That being said,” Meowth continued, steam-rolling over the mouse’s moment of self-reflection, “it seems the council has elected, in recent days, to speak to notable visitors. That is, ahem, non-Pokémon ones. So as it turns out…”
Meowth paused for a moment, and then began slapping the ground in what appeared to be his very own makeshift drum roll. Mickey turned around and gave his wife a look that said, ‘who the heck is this guy?’
At long last, the drum roll ended, and Meowth looked up and hissed: “…as it turns out, I can take you to the council.”
“You can?”
“I can,” Meowth smirked, “…but will I? Y’know, mouse, you’re on the lower end of the food chain here. Maybe instead of taking you to meet the bosses, I’ll take you home a grill you and your lady friend here up for my afternoon snack.” Mickey’s fists clenched and all he could think about was how he wanted to summon his keyblade and teach that little cat man a lesson. Minnie stepped in front of him.
“We’re not tasty, Mr. Meowth,” Minnie smiled sweetly, “And we’re taller than you.”
The Meowth scowled. “Right this way.”
And with that, he turned and slithered between the feet of the larger Pokemon he’d brought with him. After a moment, the contingency separated in the middle, and Meowth beckoned Mickey, Minnie, Simba, and the Genie to follow him further into the island of Cinnabon. “That guy’s kind of a drag, eh?” the big blue giant whispered to his mice lords as they took a deep breath and started into the settlement.
With reluctance, Mickey and company trudged forward. The remainder of the island seemed relatively normal; lots of houses and huts and other different types of buildings, hastily and shoddily built, all filled to the brim with these strange little monsters. Where had these little guys come from, and how had Mickey not encountered them before? Or had he? Outside in the world, they seemed to be few and far between, if they existed at all. Here, there seemed to be endless numbers of them, filing in and out of this place and that, going about their day without a care in the world.
Without a care, at least, until the mouse couple and their strange pair of companions blustered by. What Meowth had said seemed to prove true: outsiders were not common here on Cinnabon, and everyone who lived here regarded them with a default level of apprehension not unlike Mickey’s own reservations about them. Perhaps, he thought, they were both just afraid of each other; perhaps that fear was unfounded, and stood in the way of a fruitful alliance. He couldn’t know that, though, and so in the meantime, he resolved to use caution when interacting with the Pokéthings. He would find out what was up with them in good time—and hopefully find out why they were named that way, since the only things about any of them that seemed ‘pokey’ at all were Meowth’s whiskers.
As they traversed deeper into Cinnabon, the population became slightly more… diverse. “So it really isn’t just Pokémon here,” Simba noted quietly to his leaders, and what the lion said rang true: many different types of creatures seemed to roam here, though to be fair, the Pokemonsters were each so unique that had it not been for the presence of some outcast humans, Mickey might’ve just assumed they all fit under the one umbrella.
It seemed, though, that creatures from far and wide now called this island their home. They all shared a commonality in this dissimilarity from each other; the only thing truly connection them was a shared feeling that they just didn’t fit anywhere. Anywhere but here, Mickey supposed. He’d encountered plenty of outcasts before. But these guys seemed… sadder. Downtrodden in a way that most denizens of the Omniverse had not appeared to the mouse. And as he passed more and more of them, the king began to feel… sorry for them, somehow. He’d always been a sucker for someone in need of a pick-me-up, to be honest.
Eventually, they neared the center of the island, and came upon a giant amphitheater constructed into the side of a hill. Meowth led them into the only visible opening in the structure’s outer wall and in a few moments, they stood—Meowth, Mickey, Minnie, Simba, Genie, and a small coalition of guard Pokers—in the middle of a large, open stage. Scattered about the ‘seats’ above them were more of these monsters, all looking similarly old and wise.
“Who do we have today, Meowth?” a voice boomed from the middle of the stands. Mickey squinted to try and see the guy but he couldn’t quite make him out.
Weird-lookin’ dude, Mickey thought.
“Weird-lookin’ dude, eh?” the creature repeated.
Mickey’s eyes grew wide. Did that thing just read his mind?
Quote:BEGIN QUEST: "A Little Peace and Quiet"
Words (This Post): 2,112
Words (Quest Total): 2,112
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