The Temple of Artemis(Pre-Event/Intro Thread)

[Mickey Mouse]

It quickly became clear to Mickey Mouse that he had not been the only prime kidnapped and brought to this mysterious temple.

First and foremost, the former King surmised that Blues must be around here somewhere. After all, the boy had disappeared into thin air mere seconds before he, too, was whisked away, so the natural conclusion was that they’d been brought to the same place. As it was, though, so many people had crowded into this temple that, however vast it may have been, looking for one single person was comparable to trying to find a needle in a haystack.

The mouse could be certain of one thing, though. For the most part, the abducted primes did not seem to be satisfied with their new homes. Sure, some of them made the best of the unfortunate situation; some of them, it seemed, even shared Mickey’s willingness to help the guy out as they became more aware of his dire situation. But most of them—or the loudest of them, at the very least—did not seem to be incredibly willing to help this poor fella out. They would require a little more convincing than the Keyblade wielder had, it appeared.

“It’s no big thing,” Mickey said, turning to Teucer. “I wish you woulda asked nicer, but there’s no reason not to help out.” His voice didn’t carry very far, thanks to the residual pain of impact from his fall, but the Spirit heard him, at least.

And, apparently, at least the few people surrounding him. “Oh, it’s totally a big thing, and there are totally reasons not to help out.”

Mickey paid no mind to the worrywart. Whoever they were, they had so much negative energy exuding off of them that the mouse couldn’t help but find them a little bit pathetic. And when an anthropomorphic mouse finds you pathetic, well…

Oh well, Mickey shrugged. At the end of the day, the spirit should’ve known that he would only need one hero—albeit, one very skilled hero—to retrieve his stuff. The mouse couldn’t wrap his ears around why the guy had called all these whiny so-called “heroes” to retrieve his stuff when he and Blues were perfectly capable. After all, they’d just finished absolutely wrecking an evil regime situated in the middle of the desert. And Mickey still had the earrings… really and truly, Proto Mouse probably could’ve handled this job all on his own.

Of course, the mouse had sort of grown weary of sharing a body with Blues. Not that the kid wasn’t awesome, but he really did like his own, separate self. The power that being Proto Mouse offered him—offered both of them, really—was just too tempting. Mickey didn’t like spending a lot of time flirting with it.

At that precise moment, however, the crowd parted just enough for Mickey to catch a glimpse of red between the many bodies that pushed through the room.

“Blues?”

The mouse began to push through the crowd, bobbing and weaving through the legs of taller, less desirable company as he approached the flash of familiar color. Bodies moved through the vast main hall of the temple, sliding in and out of his way as he attempted to get back to his newest friend here in the Omniverse. They had only been apart for so long, but certainly they had a lot to discuss. The other primes, however, seemed subconsciously determined to deter them from reuniting with one another.

Gradually, he lost track of the figure, but he kept maneuvering through the crowd anyway, trying to make it to where Blues had been, until—

“Owwwwwww.”

The mouse’s tiny butt hit the floor. He had fallen on the ground too many times already for one afternoon.

He looked up, a little dazed, to see the familiar flash of red. However, it seemed… less familiar now that he’d made it up close to her. That’s right: her. The figure he’d seen in the distance had not, in fact, been Proto Man, but instead a young girl (still much, much taller than him) with striking red hair.

Mickey’s eyes traveled from the girl’s face to the gap between her knees, through which he could spy the actual, real-life Proto Man just a little ways off. The preteen machine seemed engaged in conversation with a… well, to put it mildly, a really creepy-lookin’ gal. Blues turned around, and the mouse thought that for a second his eyes registered his buddy, but then he turned back and continued to converse with his own new acquaintance. Strange, the King thought, that his friend wouldn’t immediately drop his conversation to come debrief about all this with the mouse.

“Uhm,” he squeaked, looking up at his new acquaintance, “…sorry for, uh… I thought you were someone else.”

“A ghost… and a talking mouse,” the girl exclaimed, a little struck by her surroundings.

“Yeah, I suppose that is a bit strange,” Mickey nodded, despite the fact that he really could not see why everyone made such a huge deal about it. In that moment, the tiny mouse realized why Proto Man had shied away from rushing over and greeting him like an old friend—this environment was new, and as they had seen all too much recently, any new environment was also a potentially hostile environment. And being a talking, anthropomorphic mouse and a teenage robot attracted enough attention as it was; best not complicate it by immediately hugging it out.

There would be time later for hugs, he hoped.

“Anyway, I’m Mickey,” he introduced himself, standing and holding out a gloved hand. For a few moments, the girl just stared.

“You shake it,” he instructed her. “Isn’t this a human thing?”

“Uh. Yeah,” she reached out and grasped his hand. “Belle.”

“Nice to meet ya, Belle!”