1Chapter 2, for whoever may be reading.
Sora stared in shock at the void of space and his distant home for a while longer. Finally, he noticed something. A little ways to the right and above him was a long line of huge space ships, patiently waiting their turn to exit the planet. Sora watched as a mechanics' operator pulled a lever, opening a hole in the gelatinous wall for the ship. Beside the lever was a tall building with a staircase. Sora followed the staircase with his eyes all the way to the ground. It wasn't too far from where he stood.
He instantly took off running toward the building, arriving in a matter of minutes. After a momentary pause to catch his breath, he darted up the stairs. A guard demanded that he have proper clearance, but Sora was easily capable of jumping over the man. Sora soon had half a dozen guards chasing him. Nothing stopped him, though, before he reached the operator at the top.
Breathing heavily, Sora questioned, "How…can I…get on one of those?" He pointed to a ship.
Intrigued by why the boy would come all the way up just to ask that, the plump man called off his guards and then responded, "Money boy…lots and lots of money."
"Is that…the only way?"
"Yup. Sorry kid. I hat to tell you boys that, after you try so hard to get to the top here, but it's not my decision."
"But…I really need to get home."
"Obviously," the man laughed heartily. "People from here know they can't get off. Jabba doesn't allow it."
"Jabba?" Sora asked curiously.
"Jabba is the governor of this planet. He cares about nothing but himself and his money. If he says 10,000 munny to get off, you pay 10,000 munny. No questions allowed."
Sora stared, once again in shock. How was he ever going to get off the planet? There was no question why Marluxia had dumped him there. They could easily come back and get him whenever they wanted. He wanted to say something else but wasn't sure what to say. Just as the silence began to grow awkward, another guard walked onto the platform from the side dragging along with him a protesting boy. The boy wore a baggy shirt and pants with a belt and boots. His hair was pulled back in a small ponytail that showed he was just the slightest bit rebellious.
The guard shoved the boy into the center of the platform, announcing in a deep voice, "We caught this boy stowed away on the ship to Fantasy-land."
"Fantasy-land!" Sora exclaimed, "That's where I'm from! Can't you let me on it? Please!"
"Let me think about it," the man began sarcastically. After a pause, he answered, "No."
"Why not?" Sora begged.
"No exceptions allowed. Particularly not on his ship. The Count of Figarro would blow up this entire planet if someone snuck on from here."
"Which is why we got you off so quickly," the guard added, pushing the young boy again.
"Well, there's no way I'll ever afford to go home," Sora mentioned, hanging his head.
"That's something you'll have to take up with Jabba himself. I don't control the prices; I just enforce them. Speaking of which…" A cage suddenly grew up from the floor, encompassing the boy who had stowed away on the ship.
Sora instantly grew angry. Throwing his hand down with a Keyblade in it, he stated, "I'll go see this Jabba." Then, turning to the boy in the cage, he promised, "And when I'm done, I'll come back and get you out of there."
As Sora turned to leave furiously, the man crossed his arms with a chuckle. "Dumb kid."
When Sora got back to the bottom of the stair, he realized he had no idea where this Jabba lived. Eventually, he decided that the man must live in the biggest house around if he had the power to control traffic flow. He looked around, his eyes coming to rest on something resembling a palace in the distance. That would be the place. He immediately headed in that direction.
It was quite a while before he actually arrived. He peeked around the corner into the throne room carefully, trying to figure out how to kill this man. After all, if he had to kill five people, it might as well be the bad guys. Boy was he surprised to see an overweight, giant slug reclining on the bed-like throne being served by scantily clothed, alien women. Before them knelt two prisoners.
One was young like Sora's age, a bit lanky, and slightly silvery colored. He seemed very nervous about their predicament. The other was older, much taller, and more composed. It almost seemed like he was the younger one's uncle. Jabba looked at them for a while. After biting off the head of a small, live animal, he laughed heartily.
"Jedi," he began, laughing again. "How dense do you think I am? Would I let two Jedi roam aimlessly around my planet?" He just couldn't seem to stop laughing, and each burst caused his fat to jiggle around.
"Sir, we were here to help fix—" the older one began, but he was interrupted by Jabba.
"Take him away," the giant slug commanded. Two of his slaves with blue skin approached the two Jedi from the rear, each one grabbing one of the prisoners. "Not the young one," Jabba corrected, "just the Master. The Padawan may be useful for something up here."
The blue skinned servants obeyed, one taking the Master down to the prison, and the other shoving the Padawan in a corner. "Pick up trash," the slave commanded him. After a moment of being shocked that his Master was now in prison and he was a servant of Jabba the Hutt, the boy bent down to clean the utterly trashed floor.
It was several hours before the boy's cleaning path crossed a giant yellow shoe. He looked up nervously at Sora who smiled with a finger to his mouth. The boy quickly stood up to face Sora. His eyes almost glowed because of their silver tint as he silently asked who Sora was. It was easy to see slight hope in his face, but he clearly expected Sora to just be another of Jabba's servants.
Sora whispered, "I'm going to help you."
The boy's face lit up and then fell again. "No, don't," he replied softly. "You and me together, we can't do anything worth trying."
"Give me a chance," Sora begged with a mischievous smirk. "What's your name?"
"Tru," he answered. "Tru Veld."
Halfway through his last name, their hushed conversation was interrupted by a servant questioning, "Hey trash boy, what's holding you up there?"
Sora dropped a piece of trash, disappearing back into the shadow. Tru knelt to pick it up as the servant approached him from behind. Nervously, Tru turned to face the servant, backing up against the wall.
"J-just this," he stuttered. "It was stuck."
The servant clearly didn't accept that answer as truth. Angry because of the lie, he reached up to slap Tru with some sort of space whip. Tru just ducked, knowing avoiding it would only get him in more trouble. Just in the nick of time, however, Sora leapt out of the shadow, killing the servant with three slashes of his crisscross skeleton Keyblade. Having only a second to think, Tru used it to smile a thank you, you're stupid at Sora.
Sora ignored the second half, deciding, "You take the left. I'll get the right. All that really matters is that we get Jabba."
With a nod, Tru's lightsaber was instantly in his hands, and he dashed off to the left. All the scantily clothed, female servants fled as quickly as they could. Only a few guards stood to protect Jabba, but they had rapid fire laser guns. After a while of fighting, Tru had taken out three guns but no people. Sora had taken out one man with his gun.
Suddenly, Jabba's throne began to disappear through a hole in the floor. With just a glance at Tru, Sora knew he could leave the Jedi with the guards to chase Jabba. He jumped onto the throne to slice away at the slug's layers of fat. Most of the guards turned their fire to Sora, but Tru courageously flipped to between the two. As Tru did all the deflecting with his lightsaber, Sora kept trying to defeat Jabba. In the last second as the throne was disappearing beneath the floor, Tru decided to jump onto it with Sora.
The guards kept shooting at them down the hole, and Tru deflected one of the shots into a guard before the floor closed in above them. A few more slices from both boys finally brought Jabba to his death. Both boys heaved a deep sigh when it was finished. Only seconds later, however, the guards were running down the hallway toward them. Just barely showing their frustration, the boys prepared to fight again. There were three guards left, and it was only a little while before they were dead—two at the hands of Tru and one by Sora.
Taking advantage of their short break, Sora asked, "Do you know how to get out?"
"Get out?" Tru repeated. He seemed like he didn't have the answer, but suddenly he remembered something. "Master…we can't leave without him."
"Oka-ay…where's the prison?"
"I don't know," Tru replied pensively. After a moment, he pointed ahead of them and to the right. "That way."
"Why that way?"
He shrugged. "Just feels right."
Sora shrugged too, following Tru down the dark hallway to the right. Somehow, Tru had been right. The prison was at the end of the hallway. Seeing his master, Tru ran straight toward that cell, falling to his knees to greet the man through the bars. Unbeknownst to Tru, there was also a man guarding the prison. Sora noticed the man running toward them, however, and sliced him through.
Tru used the force to grab the keys from the guard's belt, mentioning, "We're here to get you out Master. That boy was helping me; we defeated Jabba, Master."
After an obviously thoughtful pause, the master replied, "Do you know his motives Tru?"
"What? He saved my life."
"There are always motives behind what people do. Why did he want Jabba dead?"
Tru blinked a few times. He hadn't thought about that. What if Sora wanted something back in return for saving them? What if Sora was a part of an organization even worse than the crime lord Jabba was? His master was right. He should have thought through it.
As the silent conversation continued between the two Jedi, Sora grew uncomfortable because of the quiet, so he answered the question, "I got stranded here, and I couldn't get home without having more money than any logical person would get stranded with. Then, I saw people put in prison for not having the money to get home, and it just isn't fair! So I came here to fix it."
The master continued pondering, now staring at Sora to see if the boy was lying or not. Sora wanted them to believe him. He wasn't a bad guy. There was an ulterior motive added in, but he wasn't a bad guy. As the master examined Sora, a strange feeling came over them all. Tru was nervous enough to draw his lightsaber again. Sora sighed, thinking, Not again. Instantly, a woman faded out of a shadow on the wall.
"Bravo Sora," Eris complimented. "I wasn't sure you'd even try to repay me."
After a moment, a smile oddly crossed Sora's face. "Hey! I killed your six people. What do you want now?"
She looked offended. "Can a woman not say, 'thank you'? Plus, you wouldn't really want to stay in that body your entire life, would you?"
Thinking he understood, Sora stated, "Oh, in that case, you can stay."
Eris smirked slightly, reaching out like she might transform Sora back to his proper age, but then she stopped.
"What is it?" Sora asked after looking down and seeing he was still the same Sora.
"I almost forgot to mention something. Jabba the Hutt was a very nice replacement for one of the six jars you stole, but the other five…they won't do."
"What?" Sora demanded.
"You see, members of Organization XIII are very prominent. They're powerful, they're dangerous, and they're very difficult to come across. Simple mindless guards don't replace them. Find me something better."
"Why wasn't that part of the original agreement?"
"You should have just given the jars back."
"I-I didn't have them anymore."
"Well, that's your problem, isn't it?" Eris finished unsympathetically. "Oh, and to make things easier, I'll give you my magic spell, 'Mark' so I know who you're actually trying to send me, and who just got killed along the way."
Sora just stood there frowning as she disappeared.
After a moment of shock, Tru commented, "You were right Master. I'm sorry—"
"Go with him," his master interrupted.
"What?" Both Sora and Tru questioned, clearly surprised.
"He will need help to get out of this. I can tell. Go with him until his debt is paid. Tru, I trust you to make the right decisions. Together, you may be able to do more than just destroy six men. You may be able to save six lands."
Sora and Tru looked at each other uncertainly. He was right, but that was a lot of responsibility for two boys. After they looked at each other for a while, the uncertainty wore off, and both decided at the same time to accept the challenge.
"Thank you Sir," Sora noted.
"Good bye Master," Tru added.
"Be careful," he ended as they walked away. Once they were gone, he looked around, grabbed his things from the corner, and walked down a different hall to another exit.
Sora and Tru rushed back up the stairs to the door's operator. At the top of the stairs, Sora came to a sudden halt. Holding his Keyblade out in front of him, Sora unlocked the door to the cage.
"I'm back, like I said," he announced, "and Jabba is dead."
"You, a thirteen year old boy, killed Jabba the Hutt?" The man inquired in disbelief.
"Well, with the help of Tru. We did it together," Sora answered. "Now, can I go home?"
"T-that's amazing," the man stuttered in awe. "And I'd certainly say yes, only…ships don't fly to your city often, Kid. I'll assure you, also, that people will be after you for killing Jabba before you can get back home. Run, Kid, you've gotta get on the next flight out of here."
"Where is it going to?" Sora asked just out of curiosity as he glanced to Tru.
The man walked over to a clipboard on the wall, searched through it, and read, "Millenia."
"Millenia," Sora repeated to Tru. "Ever heard of it?"
Tru just shook his head.
After not too many hours, Tru and Sora exited the ship onto a new land that looked very much like fantasy. The trees, ground, everything looked like it resembled reality but was not. A fresh layer of powdery snow covered the ground, but it wasn't cold out. All of a sudden, a voice from behind them broke the peaceful silence.
"Wait up guys!" It called.
Startled, Sora and Tru both turned with their weapons in hand to see the boy Sora had released from prison. "What are you doing here?" Tru asked. "I thought the man said you couldn't come."
He instantly dove head first into an explanation of laws and how Jabba had made a law saying no citizens of his planet could ever leave. Even though Jabba was no longer the ruler, the law stayed in place until a new ruler could remove the law, which meant he was stuck there for at least another week…if not longer, and he needed to get out.
Somewhere in that explanation, Sora interrupted, "Politics? I hate them. What's your name?"
"Jim Hawkins," the boy replied.
"All right Jim," Sora greeted, "it's nice to have you with us." Then, he turned and kept walking.
Tru wasn't so happy with that decision, but he still followed Sora, eventually suspiciously asking Jim, "Why couldn't you wait a week to get off the planet?"
"Well, it's a long story," Jim began. "You see, I—"
A horrifying screech from up above cut him off. All three looked up to see what it was. Right above their heads was circling an evil looking dragon.