07-27-2015, 03:41 PM
“Stream is putting it mildly,” Mireya said, taking the lead in their trek. Mickey had no problem deferring to the night elf; she obviously knew this land better than he and Simba did. “The Animus River snakes throughout the entire verse. You can’t go a couple of miles without seeing one of its tributaries, at least.”
“Rivers are no big deal,” Mickey shrugged, “I worked on one back in my younger days. I was a crew member on a steamboat!”
Blues glanced back at him with a slight grin, but Mireya remained focused forward. The excitement of that story seemed lost on her, so the mouse decided to keep the rest of it to himself. Perhaps he would recount his adventures on Steamboat Willie some other time.
For a little while, they traversed the forest in silence. During the break in conversation, Mickey contemplated his new traveling companions. He had no reason to believe that the preteen machine and the night elf hunter were his friends in any way; in his experience, most people in this Omniverse were out to get him, anyway, between the mouse-hating humans of Camelot and the trigger-happy stormtroopers of Coruscant. Jaded as he’d become since Dante’s Abyss, the idea of trusting these two made the mouse wary. But he had agreed to come along with them to Yig-whatever, so he would fulfill that promise and see if he could find out anything new about them along the way.
Honestly, he didn’t even really know why he had decided to come. Under normal circumstances, that whole encounter in the Scorched Grove might have played out differently. He might have seen them, given Simba the signal, and quickly scurried away, content to never in his life come into contact with Proto Man and Mireya Vasquez. But something compelled him to reveal himself to them and offer his companionship on their travels. Perhaps, the mouse considered, new faces intrigued him. Perhaps something about Blues struck him as oddly familiar. Perhaps he figured he might be able to find some information wherever they were going; something to point him in the right direction.
Most likely, it was a mixture of all three.
“Here we are,” Mireya held out a hand, stopping the pack. She stood on the edge of a small cliff; not far down, the raging rapids of the Animus rushed loudly past them. The night elf glanced over her shoulder at Mickey. “You said you knew rivers?”
Mickey couldn’t tell, but he thought he heard a twinge of disdain in her voice. She underestimated him, maybe. A natural reaction; most people did. He was, after all—what had Proto Man called him?—just an anthropomorphic rodent. He shivered a bit at the r-word, and wondered idly what the long a-word meant. He took a few steps forward, joining Mireya at the cliff’s edge.
“I said I worked on a steamboat,” the mouse replied, looking down at the waters with just a bit of hesitation. He looked up at Mireya, who observed him expectantly. “So, uh… your Yig-a-whoosits is just a few hours away from the other side of this thingy?”
“Yes,” the night elf nodded, “And it’s Yggdrasil.”
“Right, Yig-dragons,” Mickey smiled, but then his lips quickly drooped. “Wait, there aren’t dragons here, are there? I’ve had some awful experiences.”
Mireya facepalmed.
“The point is, we’ve got to figure out a way across,” Blues stepped up, joining the pair. Water splashed up the cliff, wetting Mickey’s yellow shoes just a tiny bit. The trio looked around the area for some way across. They enjoyed little success. Mickey glanced back at Simba. If only the lion had wings, he could just fly them across, post-haste. As it were, though, he had no subjects capable of flight.
The King had to wonder, though, why Mireya didn’t have any better ideas—didn’t she say that she had been born and raised in this endless forest? Surely at some point, getting across this huge river would have come up in her hunter training, or at least in casual conversation… He supposed not, though, because the violet-skinned elf seemed as stumped as he.
Eventually, the hunter sighed, obviously a little frustrated. “Well, it’s getting dark anyway,” she pointed out. Mickey hadn’t really noticed—the canopy of tree cover in this area of the forest had made it difficult for him to discern the time of day. “I say we make camp and… and…” she sighed again, “…and figure it out in the morning.” She didn’t seem too happy with the delay, but the mouse and the boy machine knew that she was right—trying to cross the river at night would be exceedingly dangerous.
“Let’s make camp, then!” Mickey smiled. Blues returned his grin, but Mireya could not find cheer in the situation. The mouse did not know what, but something about this whole trek scared her half to death. He intended to find out what that was.
Mickey couldn’t sleep.
Really, none of the group could. Sometime during one of his various attempts to force himself into slumber, Mireya had escaped into the forest, presumably to do some personal contemplation of her own. Based on her demeanor during this short trip, Mickey supposed she needed the alone time. If it had been anyone else, the mouse might have gotten worried, but the hunter knew these woods better than anyone.
Meanwhile, Blues laid perfectly still on his patch of ground. His eyes were shut, but just the way he held himself suggested to Mickey that he had not found slumber, either. Really and truly, Simba was the only one that had managed to escape into dreamland effectively. The mouse envied him a little.
He sat on the edge of the cliff, his legs hanging down and getting splashed by the rapids as the waters raged below him. He’d been staring down into the river for the last several hours, trying his best to make heads and tails of his new situation.
Just being here around the river brought back memories of that huge, climactic battle at the diner. He remembered the aftermath, when he had dragged himself away from the fighting and sent the Master Sword down the river, having tied a piece of Erza’s skirt around it. That had been the last time he had seen Erza and Harry; Samus he had caught in the VIP room at the end, but so far he had seen no signs of Erza and Harry’s safety since Dante’s Abyss ended.
“Can’t sleep?”
The mouse turned. “Hey Blues.”
The preteen machine sat down next to him, hanging his slightly longer, red-armored legs next to Mickey’s. He looked expectantly at the mouse, as if ‘hey Blues’ wasn’t a satisfactory answer to his original question. “…yeah, I can’t sleep,” the King admitted, “Too much on my mind.”
“I understand,” Proto Man nodded, “Well, I mean… I don’t sleep anyway. But I have seen some things in the past couple of months that were… unsettling.” He removed his gaze from the mouse and looked off into the forest, as if having his own flashbacks. Mickey wanted to take a peek inside the machine’s brain, but he imagined that the boy’s troubles paled in comparison to the horrors of Dante’s Abyss.
Still, his curiosity would be sated. “Like what?”
“I defeated a Blight,” Proto Man shrugged. Mickey did not know what a ‘Blight’ was, but it certainly sounded terrible. “And I watched my friends get abducted by a crazy megalomaniac.”
“That’s awful,” Mickey looked over at the boy, acknowledging that his troubles were, at least, a little bit real. “What happened to them?”
“Well,” Proto Man started, “we were hunting. For this awful woman, named Cindy.”
Cindy. That name sounded familiar, but Mickey couldn’t place it.
“We tracked her to this competition—Dante’s Abyss,” he continued, and the mouse’s gargantuan ears perked up. Had Blues been another competitor? Mickey figured that he might have remembered the preteen machine’s name from the list of competitors that had perished before him; after all, he had only been survived by two others. So no, this boy had not been in the competition—thank gosh for that—but his friends had? “We showed up at the barracks to try and arrest her, but we failed… I got out somehow, but my friends got placed into the competition.”
But who were his friends? “Dante’s Abyss? Who were your friends?”
“Their names,” Blues turned to look back at Mickey, “are Samus Aran and Harry Dresden.”
“No goshdarn way!” Mickey exclaimed, “I totally knew—”
The mouse’s statement was interrupted by the all-too-close sound of a bow and arrow being strung. Mickey Mouse and Proto Man both heard it, and spun around to see a whole contingent of night elves dispersed throughout the trees surrounding their little campground, all with their bows aimed toward the pair of much shorter primes. “This is night elf territory,” one of the females growled, “Explain why you’re trespassing.”
“Stop!” the sound of Mireya’s voice echoed through the forest as she stumbled out of some nearby brush. Recognition flashed across her face as she confronted the speaker at the head of the group. “Elia,” the hunter scowled, “Long time no see.”
Elia lowered her weapon. A smirk laced with condescension appeared on her face.
“Mireya. So you’re alive.”
“Rivers are no big deal,” Mickey shrugged, “I worked on one back in my younger days. I was a crew member on a steamboat!”
Blues glanced back at him with a slight grin, but Mireya remained focused forward. The excitement of that story seemed lost on her, so the mouse decided to keep the rest of it to himself. Perhaps he would recount his adventures on Steamboat Willie some other time.
For a little while, they traversed the forest in silence. During the break in conversation, Mickey contemplated his new traveling companions. He had no reason to believe that the preteen machine and the night elf hunter were his friends in any way; in his experience, most people in this Omniverse were out to get him, anyway, between the mouse-hating humans of Camelot and the trigger-happy stormtroopers of Coruscant. Jaded as he’d become since Dante’s Abyss, the idea of trusting these two made the mouse wary. But he had agreed to come along with them to Yig-whatever, so he would fulfill that promise and see if he could find out anything new about them along the way.
Honestly, he didn’t even really know why he had decided to come. Under normal circumstances, that whole encounter in the Scorched Grove might have played out differently. He might have seen them, given Simba the signal, and quickly scurried away, content to never in his life come into contact with Proto Man and Mireya Vasquez. But something compelled him to reveal himself to them and offer his companionship on their travels. Perhaps, the mouse considered, new faces intrigued him. Perhaps something about Blues struck him as oddly familiar. Perhaps he figured he might be able to find some information wherever they were going; something to point him in the right direction.
Most likely, it was a mixture of all three.
“Here we are,” Mireya held out a hand, stopping the pack. She stood on the edge of a small cliff; not far down, the raging rapids of the Animus rushed loudly past them. The night elf glanced over her shoulder at Mickey. “You said you knew rivers?”
Mickey couldn’t tell, but he thought he heard a twinge of disdain in her voice. She underestimated him, maybe. A natural reaction; most people did. He was, after all—what had Proto Man called him?—just an anthropomorphic rodent. He shivered a bit at the r-word, and wondered idly what the long a-word meant. He took a few steps forward, joining Mireya at the cliff’s edge.
“I said I worked on a steamboat,” the mouse replied, looking down at the waters with just a bit of hesitation. He looked up at Mireya, who observed him expectantly. “So, uh… your Yig-a-whoosits is just a few hours away from the other side of this thingy?”
“Yes,” the night elf nodded, “And it’s Yggdrasil.”
“Right, Yig-dragons,” Mickey smiled, but then his lips quickly drooped. “Wait, there aren’t dragons here, are there? I’ve had some awful experiences.”
Mireya facepalmed.
“The point is, we’ve got to figure out a way across,” Blues stepped up, joining the pair. Water splashed up the cliff, wetting Mickey’s yellow shoes just a tiny bit. The trio looked around the area for some way across. They enjoyed little success. Mickey glanced back at Simba. If only the lion had wings, he could just fly them across, post-haste. As it were, though, he had no subjects capable of flight.
The King had to wonder, though, why Mireya didn’t have any better ideas—didn’t she say that she had been born and raised in this endless forest? Surely at some point, getting across this huge river would have come up in her hunter training, or at least in casual conversation… He supposed not, though, because the violet-skinned elf seemed as stumped as he.
Eventually, the hunter sighed, obviously a little frustrated. “Well, it’s getting dark anyway,” she pointed out. Mickey hadn’t really noticed—the canopy of tree cover in this area of the forest had made it difficult for him to discern the time of day. “I say we make camp and… and…” she sighed again, “…and figure it out in the morning.” She didn’t seem too happy with the delay, but the mouse and the boy machine knew that she was right—trying to cross the river at night would be exceedingly dangerous.
“Let’s make camp, then!” Mickey smiled. Blues returned his grin, but Mireya could not find cheer in the situation. The mouse did not know what, but something about this whole trek scared her half to death. He intended to find out what that was.
* * *
Mickey couldn’t sleep.
Really, none of the group could. Sometime during one of his various attempts to force himself into slumber, Mireya had escaped into the forest, presumably to do some personal contemplation of her own. Based on her demeanor during this short trip, Mickey supposed she needed the alone time. If it had been anyone else, the mouse might have gotten worried, but the hunter knew these woods better than anyone.
Meanwhile, Blues laid perfectly still on his patch of ground. His eyes were shut, but just the way he held himself suggested to Mickey that he had not found slumber, either. Really and truly, Simba was the only one that had managed to escape into dreamland effectively. The mouse envied him a little.
He sat on the edge of the cliff, his legs hanging down and getting splashed by the rapids as the waters raged below him. He’d been staring down into the river for the last several hours, trying his best to make heads and tails of his new situation.
Just being here around the river brought back memories of that huge, climactic battle at the diner. He remembered the aftermath, when he had dragged himself away from the fighting and sent the Master Sword down the river, having tied a piece of Erza’s skirt around it. That had been the last time he had seen Erza and Harry; Samus he had caught in the VIP room at the end, but so far he had seen no signs of Erza and Harry’s safety since Dante’s Abyss ended.
“Can’t sleep?”
The mouse turned. “Hey Blues.”
The preteen machine sat down next to him, hanging his slightly longer, red-armored legs next to Mickey’s. He looked expectantly at the mouse, as if ‘hey Blues’ wasn’t a satisfactory answer to his original question. “…yeah, I can’t sleep,” the King admitted, “Too much on my mind.”
“I understand,” Proto Man nodded, “Well, I mean… I don’t sleep anyway. But I have seen some things in the past couple of months that were… unsettling.” He removed his gaze from the mouse and looked off into the forest, as if having his own flashbacks. Mickey wanted to take a peek inside the machine’s brain, but he imagined that the boy’s troubles paled in comparison to the horrors of Dante’s Abyss.
Still, his curiosity would be sated. “Like what?”
“I defeated a Blight,” Proto Man shrugged. Mickey did not know what a ‘Blight’ was, but it certainly sounded terrible. “And I watched my friends get abducted by a crazy megalomaniac.”
“That’s awful,” Mickey looked over at the boy, acknowledging that his troubles were, at least, a little bit real. “What happened to them?”
“Well,” Proto Man started, “we were hunting. For this awful woman, named Cindy.”
Cindy. That name sounded familiar, but Mickey couldn’t place it.
“We tracked her to this competition—Dante’s Abyss,” he continued, and the mouse’s gargantuan ears perked up. Had Blues been another competitor? Mickey figured that he might have remembered the preteen machine’s name from the list of competitors that had perished before him; after all, he had only been survived by two others. So no, this boy had not been in the competition—thank gosh for that—but his friends had? “We showed up at the barracks to try and arrest her, but we failed… I got out somehow, but my friends got placed into the competition.”
But who were his friends? “Dante’s Abyss? Who were your friends?”
“Their names,” Blues turned to look back at Mickey, “are Samus Aran and Harry Dresden.”
“No goshdarn way!” Mickey exclaimed, “I totally knew—”
The mouse’s statement was interrupted by the all-too-close sound of a bow and arrow being strung. Mickey Mouse and Proto Man both heard it, and spun around to see a whole contingent of night elves dispersed throughout the trees surrounding their little campground, all with their bows aimed toward the pair of much shorter primes. “This is night elf territory,” one of the females growled, “Explain why you’re trespassing.”
“Stop!” the sound of Mireya’s voice echoed through the forest as she stumbled out of some nearby brush. Recognition flashed across her face as she confronted the speaker at the head of the group. “Elia,” the hunter scowled, “Long time no see.”
Elia lowered her weapon. A smirk laced with condescension appeared on her face.
“Mireya. So you’re alive.”
![[Image: 2agonyw.png]](http://i68.tinypic.com/2agonyw.png)