01-25-2016, 09:17 PM
Suddenly the Endless Dunes were a little bit emptier.
Don’t panic.
“Blues...?” A moment passed, little more than a breath. Silence lingered in the air as it had the entire way from Nippur, but this time, the familiar sounds of Proto Man did not comfort the mouse. Sand crunching beneath robotic feet, the occasional mechanized sigh: all absent.
“…BLUES!”
You’re panicking.
He had little time to dwell on his companion’s sudden disappearance, however, before he met the same fate. He whirled around, hoping that perhaps the preteen machine had simply reappeared in another spot in this gosh-forsaken desert. Instead, a falling sensation greeted him, and where once a sweeping, arid landscape stretched out for miles, darkness crept in.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
“This is no home for heroes.”
Mickey Mouse said those words merely seconds before Proto Man had plunged into nothingness. His big ears rang from the shock of hitting the ground—hard—but along with the sounds of bells came a fleeting memory of the sentence. Had he been in the right frame of mind, perhaps the irony would have dawned upon the mouse; as it were, the words meant absolutely nothing in the face of this latest trial.
His tiny, unusually frail form slowly unfurled. Gloved hands brushed the ground, attempting to discern without opening his eyes where exactly he’d landed. The floor beneath him felt… hard, though from the burning sensation emanating through his tiny skull, perhaps that much should have been obvious.
Hesitantly, he opened his eyes, but the tiny mouse could never have prepared himself for the site that lay before him.
Home.
In spite of whatever pain still lingered in his head, he pushed himself off the ground and stumbled to his feet. Finally, at long last, something seemed familiar. The ornate columns, the structures that surrounded him… Olympus Coliseum stood before his eyes, as regal and magnificent as he remembered it being before he’d left.
Left? His brain struggled to wrap itself around that idea. Why would he have ever left home? And where would he have gone? None of that made any sense. He glanced around him. Flashes of colors phased in and out of focus, but none of them looked like Minnie.
…what’s goin’ on? He thought, blinking several times to try and stop the pictures around him from wobbling quite so much. Before he could fully bring himself back to 100%, though, a voice beckoned him. The mouse swung back around—much too quickly—to see the figure that named himself Teucer standing before him. The mouse’s brow furrowed—who the heck was Teucer? And where was Hercules? Even the snide Hades, who never failed to greet newcomers to the Coliseum, was nowhere to be found. The spirit kept talking, talking, talking, and Mickey tried his best to absorb all the information—relics, his soul, Elysian Fields. They all seemed such foreign concepts to him, but then… everything seemed such foreign concepts to him all of a sudden.
Still, even in the midst of his confusion, the mouse knew a cry for help when he heard one.
“No need for a reward,” he muttered, almost to himself, though the man’s generosity certainly helped convince Mickey that he seemed worth helping. The mouse placed his gloved hands on his temples and squeezed ever so slightly, and at last, the figure of the warrior came into focus. The quest seemed noble, and easy enough to be sure—go out into the unknown, find six things, bring them back. No issues. Once he’d steadied himself, he’d be all ready to go.
He reached for his Keyblade out of habit, planning to unsheathe it in a grand gesture of his dedication to helping out, but something strange met him instead: emptiness. He glanced down, and sure enough, his weapon had gone missing. Panic snuck into his expression again, and slowly but surely something dawned on him:
This wasn’t the Olympus Coliseum.
He hadn’t left the Disney Realms. He’d been abducted. The Omniverse had almost completely departed his mind until this moment; but for the life of him, the King couldn’t understand how. After all, so much had happened. So much pain.
And now, this man had abducted him, too, just like Omni had, to do his bidding. He supposed that the man’s lack of tact and manners could be attributed to his desperation—certainly, the crop of heroes that he’d brought here, now that Mickey’s vision had become slightly less blurry, demonstrated that—but still, the little mouse thought that maybe he could’ve found a better way to get help. An embroidered invitation didn’t seem too far out of the scope of reason.
As it was, though, no one in the Omniverse seemed inclined to etiquette. Perhaps being royalty had spoiled him on that account. This was no home for heroes, indeed.
He glanced up at Teucer again.
What now?
Don’t panic.
“Blues...?” A moment passed, little more than a breath. Silence lingered in the air as it had the entire way from Nippur, but this time, the familiar sounds of Proto Man did not comfort the mouse. Sand crunching beneath robotic feet, the occasional mechanized sigh: all absent.
“…BLUES!”
You’re panicking.
He had little time to dwell on his companion’s sudden disappearance, however, before he met the same fate. He whirled around, hoping that perhaps the preteen machine had simply reappeared in another spot in this gosh-forsaken desert. Instead, a falling sensation greeted him, and where once a sweeping, arid landscape stretched out for miles, darkness crept in.
* * *
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
“This is no home for heroes.”
Mickey Mouse said those words merely seconds before Proto Man had plunged into nothingness. His big ears rang from the shock of hitting the ground—hard—but along with the sounds of bells came a fleeting memory of the sentence. Had he been in the right frame of mind, perhaps the irony would have dawned upon the mouse; as it were, the words meant absolutely nothing in the face of this latest trial.
His tiny, unusually frail form slowly unfurled. Gloved hands brushed the ground, attempting to discern without opening his eyes where exactly he’d landed. The floor beneath him felt… hard, though from the burning sensation emanating through his tiny skull, perhaps that much should have been obvious.
Hesitantly, he opened his eyes, but the tiny mouse could never have prepared himself for the site that lay before him.
Home.
In spite of whatever pain still lingered in his head, he pushed himself off the ground and stumbled to his feet. Finally, at long last, something seemed familiar. The ornate columns, the structures that surrounded him… Olympus Coliseum stood before his eyes, as regal and magnificent as he remembered it being before he’d left.
Left? His brain struggled to wrap itself around that idea. Why would he have ever left home? And where would he have gone? None of that made any sense. He glanced around him. Flashes of colors phased in and out of focus, but none of them looked like Minnie.
…what’s goin’ on? He thought, blinking several times to try and stop the pictures around him from wobbling quite so much. Before he could fully bring himself back to 100%, though, a voice beckoned him. The mouse swung back around—much too quickly—to see the figure that named himself Teucer standing before him. The mouse’s brow furrowed—who the heck was Teucer? And where was Hercules? Even the snide Hades, who never failed to greet newcomers to the Coliseum, was nowhere to be found. The spirit kept talking, talking, talking, and Mickey tried his best to absorb all the information—relics, his soul, Elysian Fields. They all seemed such foreign concepts to him, but then… everything seemed such foreign concepts to him all of a sudden.
Still, even in the midst of his confusion, the mouse knew a cry for help when he heard one.
“No need for a reward,” he muttered, almost to himself, though the man’s generosity certainly helped convince Mickey that he seemed worth helping. The mouse placed his gloved hands on his temples and squeezed ever so slightly, and at last, the figure of the warrior came into focus. The quest seemed noble, and easy enough to be sure—go out into the unknown, find six things, bring them back. No issues. Once he’d steadied himself, he’d be all ready to go.
He reached for his Keyblade out of habit, planning to unsheathe it in a grand gesture of his dedication to helping out, but something strange met him instead: emptiness. He glanced down, and sure enough, his weapon had gone missing. Panic snuck into his expression again, and slowly but surely something dawned on him:
This wasn’t the Olympus Coliseum.
He hadn’t left the Disney Realms. He’d been abducted. The Omniverse had almost completely departed his mind until this moment; but for the life of him, the King couldn’t understand how. After all, so much had happened. So much pain.
And now, this man had abducted him, too, just like Omni had, to do his bidding. He supposed that the man’s lack of tact and manners could be attributed to his desperation—certainly, the crop of heroes that he’d brought here, now that Mickey’s vision had become slightly less blurry, demonstrated that—but still, the little mouse thought that maybe he could’ve found a better way to get help. An embroidered invitation didn’t seem too far out of the scope of reason.
As it was, though, no one in the Omniverse seemed inclined to etiquette. Perhaps being royalty had spoiled him on that account. This was no home for heroes, indeed.
He glanced up at Teucer again.
What now?
![[Image: 2agonyw.png]](http://i68.tinypic.com/2agonyw.png)