Fan Fiction ❯ Black Orchid ❯ Off to See the Wizard ( Chapter 6 )

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It was almost noon. They were all sitting around a table, mostly talking or trying to recover from the enormous late brunch they had just finished.

"So you're going to take her to see the wizard, huh?" Cid said to Arc. He was currently trying to pick out all the crumbs from his spiky beard and only having moderate success.

"You mean Merlin?" asked Sora, turning from his conversation with Yuffie.

"No, the other funny old man in a blue hat that lives in the grotto," said Arc sarcastically.

"You mean there's two of 'em?" asked Zell, who was still eating anything left on the table. Everyone stared at him in silence, then shook their heads and sighed.

"So who's going? You know he doesn't like crowds," warned Cid.

"Well, there's me," started Arc.

"Pick me! Pick me!" shouted Rikku, waving her hand in the air enthusiastically.

"And we have to bring Orchid of course."

"Oooh! Oooh! Memememe!"

"And Montblanc met her first."

"And me! Pick me!"

"And that's it."

"Meanie."

"What should the rest of us do?" asked Sora.

"I don't know. Go sightseeing. Talk. Read. Pick your nose. Whatever," replied Arc, pushing his yellow shades up and slouching down in his chair. He stayed there and didn't move.

"Shouldn't we be going?" asked Orchid.

"I was afraid someone would say that," grumbled Arc, still slouched down in his chair. "Montblanc, don't you have a sleep spell? Or silence? I want to rest and she won't let me be."

"Nope. I'm only a black mage, kupo."

"Hey!" said Orchid, poking his shoulder from where she sat next to him. "Aren't you the one who was saying that we need to act now against the Heartless? Huh? Huh?"

"She's got you there," said Yuffie, smiling slyly.

"I was up all night. Let me sleep," mumbled Arc.

"I was up all night too!" said Orchid, poking harder.

"Yeah… Maybe… Shut up."

He still didn't move. Orchid eventually gave up poking him and sat in her chair pouting, while Yuffie and Rikku giggled madly. Arc suddenly got up, pushing Orchid and Zell's chairs back, much to Zell and the carpet's dismay as Zell's plate of food fell from his hands. He then reached down with his stone right hand, grabbed both of Orchid's legs, then swung her up and over his shoulder to hang upside down on his back. He then stomped out of the room with the protesting Orchid in tow like a burlap sack, who was dividing her hands between pounding him and keeping her sweatshirt and tank top from falling down.

"Let go of me! ARRR! Put me down, you stupid brick fisted meanie! NOW!"

By now, Rikku and Yuffie were clutching their sides, howling with laughter, and even Sora and Cid were fighting to conceal their smiles. Zell was still mourning the loss of his plate of food.

"Oh well, kupo," sighed Montblanc, picking up his rod and Bramblebite, following after them.

"Wait!" said Sora, reaching into his pocket. The moogle turned back to face him. Sora dug around, but couldn't find them. All of his key chains for the keyblade were gone. "Uh, never mind."

* * *

"So how come the door won't open?"

Orchid wasn't very happy about all the doors around Traverse Town that didn't work. The three of them were standing in front of a wood door in the Third District with arcane symbols and a highly stylized flame on it.

"Would you do the honors, Montblanc?" asked Arc.

"Sure thing, kupo!" said the moogle. "Fire!"

A small fireball shot from his rod to strike the flame on the door.

"Now try it," said Arc.

Orchid pushed the door and it opened easily. Inside was a large open cavern, taken up almost entirely by a miniature lake. In the middle was a strange looking cottage on an island, with large stepping-stones leading to it. When they approached them, they began to move, much to the three's dismay.

"As if the door doesn't discourage visitors enough," said Orchid sarcastically.

"Come on!" shouted Arc, jumping and landing roughly on the first one, using his right hand to steady himself. He quickly leaped to the next one, then the next.

"Fine!" yelled Orchid. She jumped to the first stone, and was surprised by its slipperiness from all the algae that had grown over it and almost fell off. Waving her arms, she regained her balance and jumped to the next one. She looked to the moogle and his short little legs. "Montblanc, how are you going to get across?"

In response, Montblanc drifted up on his cute little wings and fluttered past both her and Arc to land on the far shore. Seeing they'd been beaten, both redoubled their efforts to get across. Soon they were standing in front of the house, which seemed to be in a state of disrepair. There was a ragged banner above the doorway, which was boarded shut. Arc knocked on them, but they didn't seem to want to go anywhere. Montblanc drifted around the side, out of sight. Almost immediately, they heard a kupo, and they walked around to see what he had found.

What he had found was a large hole in the stone wall of the circular cottage, which was covered by a moth eaten old rag. They brushed it aside and went in. Inside it was empty, and Orchid marveled at how it seemed bigger inside than out. She ran in and out the door several times. It didn't just seem bigger inside than out. It was bigger inside than out. Suddenly they heard the grumbling of an old man and one waddled inside, carrying a large brown bag. He was wearing a blue robe and a pointy blue cap, had a white mustache and beard that almost touched the floor, spectacles and large bushy white eyebrows that almost gave him a sort of owlish appearance.

"Hello, hello, yes, nice to do Arc, you too Orchid, would you like a chestnut Montblanc? Oh you already have one, sorry bad joke, just a second now," was all blurted out in a single breath while they stood there stunned as the old man walked up the stairs to the raised circular platform in the middle of the room and opened his bag. He began waving a wand around, and little toy furniture popped out of the bag, to spiral around the room. The three soon noticed, though, that the furniture was growing larger and life size, and it was hazardous to stand in their way to their seemingly accustomed places around the room. Orchid rolled out of the way of a particularly brutish bookshelf, while Arc tried not to be trampled by a chest of drawers and Montblanc had an aerial performance of death defying dodges with an airborne tea set.

Eventually, everything settled down, though Arc was sporting a goodly-sized lump on his head from an angry grimoire, and Orchid had never before been rammed by a chair. Montblanc was flying around trying to decide where to sit at the table on the raised platform while eyeing the teacups suspiciously, which eyed him back with equal suspicion. They all got settled in while the teapot went around serving tea.

"So, old man," said Arc, warding the teapot from his cup with one huge stone finger, "Do you know what's going on?"

"Well," started the wizard, "I'm being questioned by a rather rude guest while we sit down for tea in my house, for starters."

"Ah," said Arc sarcastically, having a harder time warding off the sugar bowl, which insisted on serving him, "witness the great powers of wizardry."

"What?" asked Orchid, confused.

"Didn't you hear him?" said Arc, the sarcasm practically dripping from his voice as he pushed the sugar bowl over, causing it to lose its cover and some sugar. It shook its spoon at him like an angry beggar, and picked up its cover and moved to Montblanc, who let it do its job, saying a soft 'when' after two scoops. "He told us exactly what's going on."

"If you would like a more helpfully mystical and deep answer, you should try using my name," said the wizard. "Not 'old man'. Kids these days."

"Bitter," was all Orchid said, as she tasted the tea. She had never had tea before, and let the sugar bowl happily fill almost half her cup with its contents before she said 'when'. She stirred her tea, then drank it with much more satisfying results as the bowl hopped over to the wizard's cup.

"Fine, Merlin," said Arc, his voice now frosted with candy-coated politeness. "Can you tell us why the Heartless are back and kindly divulge any helpful information?"

"A nice effort, but it sounded very forced," said Merlin, staring levelly at Arc.

"Um, kupo, could you please tell us many helpful things?" said Montblanc in his naturally polite voice.

"Well, now, at least one set of sentient beings isn't going down the tubes with everyone else," said Merlin, still staring at Arc, failing to notice that his teacup was nearing full of sugar. "I cannot tell you why the Heartless are back. I assume that some one called them again. Or they manipulated him or her into calling them. Either way, the door is open and here they are."

"Anything that could help us?" asked Orchid coyly, trying to flex the girly charms she knew she didn't have. It worked anyways, though she suspected that it was because Merlin was using Arc as a point of comparison on the politeness scale.

"Well, I can tell you that things tend to follow a similar path. I have a feeling you three will be together for this. The Key Bearer, the Defender, and the Mage. Sword, Shield, and Staff. But I can tell, you're wondering about the keyblade. After all that Sora said, I expect it's a shock for all that the keyblade is now a living plant. Yes, it's still the same keyblade, the Keyblade of World. Only now, it's of the World's Life, not the World's Heart, though it too can lock the doors."

"I noticed it absorbed the Heartless, instead of scattering them, as they were struck down. How come?" asked Arc.

"I think that now, instead of destroying them, the Keyblade is trying to absorb them to convert them into basic energy, to purify them in a sense. To what end, I do not know."

"So where is the King's Envoy?" continued Arc. "Why aren't they here looking for the Key Bearer too, ol- er, Merlin."

"So it's as I feared. The Heartless, knowing they can't devour the Kingdom, have blocked them off instead. The fact that they can block off everything from the Kingdom shows a minimum for their strength, and that is not a good thing. I fear the worst. Their power must be enormous."

"Or they're weakened by diverting so much to taking out key worlds," said Arc.

"And we are even more so weakened by the loss of these worlds."

They sat there in silence, until Merlin suddenly noticed his teacup with a shocked cry. The sugar bowl was still piling on sugar, despite the fact that the cup was now completely obscured by its mountain of white.

"Stop! Stop, Stop, Stop, Stop it!" he shouted. The sugar bowl continued on merrily, not heeding its master.

"You! Stop, er, What! I mean When! When when when!" he yelled at it. The sugar bowl stopped at the magic words, and hopped happily back into place with the rest of the tea set. "Oh, don't you act all innocent. You know very well what I mean when I say 'stop', you stubborn thing. You're even worse than children," Merlin ranted, brushing off the sugar with his beard. "Biscuit, anyone?"