Traverse the Town

Posts : 7

"There are so many of them," Miku whispered as she and Ame walked up the street to the second district. Throughout the entire town survivors of the lost worlds stood out; and yet it did not seem like they had nowhere to go, in fact, most had somewhere to stay. Traverse Town was a strange place indeed, to house so many refugees without them forming crowds out in the streets. It was remarkably calm. Still her heart ached to think that all those people had been forced to leave to end up here; despite its sense of welcoming, in all the time she had been there Miku had not seen the sun. The stars were nice, certainly, but there was such a thing as an entirely too long a night.

Us included, she thought suddenly, as if only just realizing it. She and Ame and Hana ended up here, too, and Nova was no more. Miku felt herself sad, for it was such an impossible and terrifying thing to imagine; a world she had known all her life simply gone. Surely such a thing was not at all possible. "Ame, what are we going to do?"

She and Ame had only just reunited after running into each other in Cid's shop, where Miku had gone after asking around about her friends and finding little good come of it. Now they were starting up the other districts in hopes to find Hana. Miku had not dared to go alone with all the heartless around, but she felt safe with Ame; and lucky for them both, he seemed to have found a strange and powerful weapon along the way. So long as the heartless didn't like it, she thought it might be all right.

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Ame saw Traverse town as somewhat similar to Nova, apart from the lack of skyscrapers towering over them, but this place was just as busy. Only here, he couldn't help but notice each and every person they passed, and how out of place most of them seemed. Ame and Hana were no different, but it just made everything all the more real. He never could have imagined their whole lives being flipped upside down in such a brief amount of time. What if they never got to see Nova again? Was Traverse Town really all they had to cling on to- what if this world got swallowed up too? If this happened again, Ame wasn't sure him and Miku would end up in the same world.

Though it was grim thinking, he did hope Traverse Town would remain their Sanctuary, as well as for the other people who had lost their worlds. Ame really hadn't thought beyond that until Miku pressed the matter. He stole a brief glance her way before looking up at the accessory shop. There was little two kids could do about worlds disappearing, never mind fighting off those scary black creatures. But thinking about it, there was something they could do. "We should start looking for Hana, right?"

After the darkness had swallowed him up, Ame woke up outside the Gizmo Shop in the Second District, where he was attacked by the same monsters that took over Nova. Had it not been for the giant key that randomly appeared in his hand whenever he needed it, he probably wouldn't have lasted long enough to reunite with Miku. By now, he and Miku had looked around the First District enough to know Hana wasn't here, but everywhere else was crawling with heartless. As they stepped through the doors to the Second District, Ame glanced around hesitantly; clearly Miku was leading at this point. "What about the monsters?" He asked.

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She continued forward, paying no mind to his pause. "Well, you have your sword-thingy. You did all right before," she said, looking left and right as she tried to decide which way to look first. She continued talking too, without looking back to Ame. "If things go really bad, we can run back here." And if Hana was somewhere in town, weaponless as Miku had been, didn't it make all the more sense to find her quickly, any way they could? "Hey," Miku turned to offer a smile to Ame. "It'll work out, don't worry!"

At last she decided to go right and started along the way leading towards a flight of stairs. They were above a courtyard of a sort and she wanted to look into the alleyways down there before going farther into town. She glanced back to Ame to see if he was following her or not; and nearly ran straight into a heartless. She dived to the side as the shadow made an attempt to grab her and then ran straight back to Ame. "We have a problem," she said smartly as she hid behind him, placing her hands on his shoulders and pushed him forward a tiny bit. "Go get it, tiger."

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"What? How am I supposed to- Whoa!" The heartless leaped, and as Ame braced himself, the keyblade appeared. The shadow landed on it, before jumping back a few paces away. He stepped back, trying unsuccessfully to repress a whimper as the twitchy creature stepped from one side to the other, ready to pounce again. He took a stance, holding out his keyblade like it was going to do the fighting for him, but after a few moments, he knew there was no use. "I don't know how to fight! Come on, run!" The 'daring' hero took Miku's hand and started running, with the heartless in hot pursuit, of course.

He stumbled a bit as they reached the bottom of the stairs, but spotted a door next to the courtyard's fountain, "Through there!" Once Miku ran passed, Ame turned to face the heartless and shut his eyes tight as he swung his keyblade down. The shadow skirted away in plenty of time, and all Ame could do was block again, before turning to catch up with Miku. As they ran through the doorway, they ended up in an alley near a waterway entrance, but he didn't see a way out from here. "Now what do we do?" Ame started trembling as he watched the shadow come their way. If only Hana was here, Ame thought, she'd always been the bravest of the trio.

Posts : 7

Miku squirmed behind him as the heartless went ahead and jumped onto the sword, as if it didn't think much of it at all. It was comical, in a sense, that the two of them and a keyblade couldn't face one little shadow. She watched it move around as if taunting them and made a face to Ame's back as he stood frozen. Finally he seemed to give up; and she stumbled after him as he grabbed her hand and made way right past the heartless.

Nearly tripping and falling over, Miku did her best to stay on her feet as they ran down the stairs and across the courtyard. She dared a look back once Ame released her hand and pointed her to the door, reaching it so quickly she slammed into the wooden surface; and still failed to open the door even with the force of her entire body because she hadn't turned the knob. After a minor struggle with the said part of the door, she managed to throw them open just as Ame caught up to her.

As soon as they were both through, Miku pushed the door shut and leaned her weight against it as she tried to catch her breath. She was about to reply when she noticed the shadow was there, too, and not on the other side of the door as she'd originally thought. Instead of words out came a squeak. She pulled Ame towards a waterway, the only way she still saw, and stood in front of jail bars with him to her back. Her eyes searched quickly for something, anything; and in a split second her heart nearly leaped out of her chest because she found it, a loose bar, easy to remove. "In here!" she yelled, slipping through the remaining bars and looking to pull him through as well. Where this led she had no idea, but away from the shadow was good for a start!

Posts : 7

As Miku dragged Ame by the scruff of his jacket down to the waterway, he noticed the heartless's pace begin to slow, and when they got through the iron bars, it gave up pursuit entirely. His jeans were soaked, but at least they didn't have to deal with that thing anymore. "I think we got away, Miku." He said in a hushed voice, so as not to somehow antagonize the creature and bring it back. He had to be sure it was gone, however, so once Miku released him, he took the iron bar she removed and slowly waded over to the entrance they came through.

When he peered through the gap, the heartless was gone. "Odd..." he mumbled to himself as he carefully put the iron bar back in place. He turned back to Miku and looked around what seemed to be some sort of natural forming cave- not quite what Ame had expected. Stepping forward, he could see a rocky landing ahead, but the water wasn't shallow from here to there, so they'd have to swim a bit. Ame turned to Miku with a shrug, "Well, I don't think we should go back out there. Let's check it out."

He waded forward until the water was too deep for him to stand, and then he swam across from there. The rocks underfoot had a strange mossy hue, nothing like he'd seen back home, and certainly not what he had expected to find in here. When he reached the rocky landing, he noticed this cave was also connected to another man-made structure, a stone staircase that led to who knows where. Ame turned to look at Miku, and wait for her before continuing on.

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"Uh," she started intelligently, moving back to survey their surroundings. She let Ame handle the bar and check whether the creature really had gone; meanwhile she cast a sorry glance to her soaked-through sneakers and wiped some water drops from her knees. "Maybe it doesn't like water," she offered, although it seemed unlikely. In any case, now that the danger passed she was more interested to see where the waterway led; and so she slowly started further in at Ame's prompt.

Though she seemed reluctant to swim, she soon followed Ame, softly paddling through the cold water. She felt prickling in her arms and shivers cruise through her body at the chill. The stone structure rose before them. Miku observed it carefully, eyes wide and alert as they climbed to ground around it, wondering what they'd find there. "How should I say this-- you don't think someone-- actually lives here-- do you?"