Chapter Text
chapter 5: Crescentia: the space port
“talking”
‘thinking or writing’
*echo*
—
Katarina looked around her, dumbfounded as she explored her new environment. She soon realized the floor was made of metal. As she walked a couple of steps, Katarina noticed they were currently on some kind of metal platform. Finally finding an edge, upon looking down, she saw the sky filled with stars, then it clicked for her.
"We are in SPACE," her yelling woke up Vivi, who immediately got up with his new staff ready to attack. "Where, how, when, what happened? I remember that we were in a magic tower then… IT'S THAT BOAT FLYING!" Vivi didn't take it as well as Katarina; she could understand it was his first travel between worlds, and he wasn't as experienced as her. While Vivi lost his marbles at the space theme of the world, Katarina admired the scenery. Besides all technology, Katarina could really see the similarities with the port city of her home world. If anything, this made her realize how lazy the developers of Fortune Lover were. Comparing this to Sorcier didn't seem fair, but sometimes she could feel they didn't do anything with the magical setting. Speaking of, there was something weird about this place. It was a port, right? So where are the people? She could tell this place should have people managing it. There were some ships still landing from afar, but she couldn't see the people from that far. Maybe they could ask around and find someone to sell them a ship, although she didn't know how she would pilot that kind of thing with only two people without experience.
"Vivi, we need to keep moving on." He snapped out of his freak out and gave a nod to Katarina. They could tell something was up; people were closing their windows and blocking their doors. Katarina could swear she heard someone loading a gun, but she didn't want to scare Vivi. As they advanced a little, suddenly in front of them, a dark magic portal appeared. From it, a dark creature formed. It was the same size as Vivi. It wore a red bandana covering its head and an eyepatch with an ‘X’ stitched in the middle. It wore bare stitched leather pants and boots, mirroring the appearance of a pirate. On its chest, it had a weird emblem: a heart shape with a jagged, pointed bottom; it held a blade with a red crack and yellow spiral-looking, like a face. There was no doubt about it; it was a heartless appearance. As Katarina and Vivi drew their weapons, the heartless opened its mouth, showing a set of pointy teeth, as a group of shadows and another pirate also appeared as backups.
"I'll take care of the pirates; you deal with the little ones," Vivi gave her a quick nod before starting to smack the shadows on their heads with his staff. They were small, so he thought using fire on them would be overkill; he was unsure if he should use it. He had tried to practice while they were on the train on the way to Yen Sid, and from what he saw, the spell always came with the same power. It was fortunate he could cancel it before shooting it, or that would end badly for them, so he would stick with what he knew unless it was truly necessary.
Meanwhile, Katarina began to fight the pirates. Fortunately for her, they didn't seem to know how to properly fight with their swords, aimlessly trying to hit her with random slashes, leaving plenty of openings for her to exploit. She then again thanked her previous lessons on sword fighting. As she dodged its attacks, she started connecting hits against it the creature managed to stop the last one ending in a clash forcing her to use her to hands in the struggle. Her opponent was weakened from all her previous attacks, making it easy to overpower it, or so she thought. As she started to get the upper hand in the struggle, she heard Vivi scream at her, "Behind you!" The other one had jumped, ready to slash her back. She couldn't jump away or block it, so she just braced herself for the hit, but it never came. From her shadow, a mass raised and stopped the attack. The mass then took the shape of a dog head, biting the heartless's hand and taking advantage of the grip, smashing it into the ground, making it disappear. At the same time, not really caring for what stopped the other heartless, Katarina broke the heartless's stance, delivering a diagonal cut to its chest, making it disappear as well.
Having a moment to breathe, Katarina looked at her shadow, and she could see it acting strange. It looked like a strange substance was rising from it. "Pocchi?" she asked, making her shadow react, letting a little dog head form in her shadow, giving a quick nod.
"Help!" She then remembered Vivi, who looked like he was playing whack-a-mole as the heartless swarmed the floor down him. Katarina then thought quickly, "Pocchi, catch." In a blink of an eye her shadow left her and took the shape of the frontal part of a wolf, which proceed to catch the heartless in its mouth and force them out. Not losing time, Katarina used her magic to create the same upgraded earth bump, sending them up in the air. "Vivi, finish them now." Vivi then used fire, and with the resulting explosion, destroyed the remaining shadows.
With the battle finished, Vivi looked a little worried about her shadow abilities. "So your shadow has always been able to do that?" he tried to say as normally as he could, only managing to sound twice as awkward. "Well, I think that was just Pocchi. It feels good to have someone watching my back like that." Vivi relaxed a little, seeing that Katarina's shadow went back to normal.
"Maybe that's why there is nobody around, with the heartless attacking everybody. I doubt someone would like to do business," Vivi said, as many shops, upon giving a closer look, had barricades of pieces of wood nailing the door shut. "Well, that's going to make buying a ship harder." She looked at her purse, looking at the munny Yen Sid gave them. She really wasn't sure if that would be enough to get a ship. While she thought about it, she heard something like a door closing coming from an alley. As they looked around, besides the trash and a door in a really poor state, as she tried knocking, she met with what seemed to be a pistol.
"Heartless or client?" The voice was very high-pitched to an inhuman point. Katarina, seeing the threat, answered as quickly as she could, "Client, we are looking for a…" Before she could end her sentence, the door opened. Katarina then saw what seemed to be a slug dressed like a sailor. Both stared at the creature, a surprisingly small creature with the weird gun on top of a barrel. "What! Never saw a slug before," feeling a little ashamed, Katarina and Vivi apologized as they started going downstairs. They could hear a lot of voices talking over each other. As they looked around, they saw a bunch of tables full of all kinds of beings. Some looked alien to her, like beings made of rock, some had two heads, others looked like fantasy races like cat people. All were talking and drinking who knows what, in the typical pub atmosphere. In the center of the room, there was a bar managed by a creature Katarina could recognize, a moogle wearing an apron.
"Excuse us, we are looking to buy a ship," the moogle looked at her and kept silent for a moment. "We only sell drinks here, miss," it had a dry tone like someone who wasn't paid enough to deal with this. "Wait, not like that, what i mean is if you know where we could find one? It doesn't need to be big; we just need something to move around, you know," as she tried to explain herself, the moguri interrupted her. "Oh, I get it, you're rookies, right?" before she could respond a guy, rock, thing crashed onto the bar table. Upon turning around, she saw a typical bar fight that kept escalating. The moogle gave a sigh and took a piece of paper and a pen and quickly drew a symbol, an alien skull with two rings in an 'x' shape. "Here, look for this symbol around the Port, knock on the door that has it five times then make a pause and do another two, ask for the cyborg. He has a soft spot for rookies; I'm sure he would help you," the moogle then took what seemed to be a rifle and flew towards the fight, shooting like there was no tomorrow. As Katarina watched the chaos unfold, she was grateful not to be involved. "Well, I think we should keep going, right Vivi? Vivi?" She realized her traveling companion wasn't beside her anymore. She then saw his characteristic hat in the center of the bar fight. "VIVI!?”
—
After a couple of minutes back in the alley, one could hear the sounds of the bar fight. The door kicked open as Katarina ran away, charging at Vivi like a sack of potatoes. They quickly hid behind a trash container. A slug person then emerged, angry, looking for them, followed by a tiny green thing with only one eye and tentacles for hands. “What are you doing?” the green thing was angry as the slug thing let out a couple of fart noises from some part of its back, apparently communicating with those noises. “I don't care if he insulted you, do you want to get your heart torn up by a Heartless?” The slug creature made a sad noise and slowly walked towards the bar, both closing the door. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, and you better apologize to the barman for starting all this mess; you know he hates using his gun with paying customers,” Katarina managed to hear as they went back up the stairs into the bar.
She gave a sigh of relief and looked at Vivi. “What did you even say to him to get him so angry?” she asked, still weirded out by the whole event. “I just asked where the bathroom was,” he said, recovering from the commotion of the previous fight.
As they got up, Katarina looked at the paper the moogle gave her before all that mess started. “I guess we have to go back to the port.” In their path back to the port, they got ambushed again by a group of Heartless. The port was infested by them. She was also surprised at how easily she and Vivi were taking them out. They weren't as much of a threat without someone directing them like when she fought them back at her home against the witch. Something else was happening here maybe they acted on their own. As they continued to walk, they finally arrived at the oldest part of the port. Surprisingly, there were a couple of people outside, with their weapons out, while they charged things onto an old ship. They weren't friendly, to put it simply.”'Look over there, is that symbol, the symbol,” Vivi pointed towards a door; the symbol was carved in the lower parts of the door, making it hard to spot unless you were short or really looking for it. Despite the heavy looks of the workers behind them, Katarina knocked five times, paused, and nervously did the last two. The workers then relaxed and continued to work as if nothing had happened. Soon, the door opened a little bit, showing a lot of chains keeping it closed. “What do you want?” a deep voice asked, a little intimidated. Katarina answered, ”We are looking for the cyborg; the bartender sent us.” Quickly, the door shut as they heard a bunch of locks opening. Soon, the door revealed a gigantic red arachnic being, with a set of tongs for hands and yellow eyes with a black iris. The creature instantly noticed their discomfort and made a smile. “Pass, I will guide you.” As they walked, they heard the door loudly being closed. The creature looked satisfied after scaring them.
The place was a mess; marks of slashes filled the walls, with some still having knives or swords stuck in them. Finally, they arrived at a door. “We have clients,” he said in a mocking tone as he held the door open for them. “Leave them pass,” the other voice sounded human, a little old but compared to anything they had seen so far they were happy with it. Inside the place, there was a table with a holographic map. The first thing they noticed was a red light coming from one side of his face showing a robotic eye. The man wore a simple sailor outfit with a black coat and captain hat. The other distinctive characteristic was a metal prosthesis with the hand made of different articulations, allowing even more intricate movements. As they looked at the man, they heard the door being shut again, catching them with their guard lowered. “So, you are here for business, I guess?” The tone of the old man was relaxed. He turned the map off and got up, showing that one of his legs was also a prosthesis. The man then extended his arm to them. “John Silver, you could say I'm the closest thing these rats have to a captain.” The man started to laugh. Katarina felt more comfortable and returned the handshake. “I am Katarina.”
“And I am Vivi,” both presented themselves. “We need a ship.'” Silver then put his robot hand on his chin. “How long is going to be this job? My men and I have a very important business coming, one that will require our full attention,” he said as he thought. “Oh, we don't need a crew; we just want the ship.” A large grin formed on the old man as he started to laugh again. “I get it, you kids finally got some freedom and want to take on the world. I can respect that.” He took his seat again and began to think. “So, you kids need a small ship and some basic training in navigation.” Katarina and Vivi exchanged a look before they both nodded to Silver. “While I'm sure I would be able to turn both of you into experienced marines and get you a respectable ship in no time, but I'm going to need to know the budget we are working with. As you can tell, that kind of equipment isn't cheap speacialy on these times.” Sounding like bad actor Katarina understood the indirect and then took out the Munny from her purse and put it on the table. “Would this be enough?” The moment the large amount hit the table, one of the ornaments on Silver's table started to shake as it transformed into a floating pink goo with two eyes and a small mouth. The creature started playing around with the Munny, making celebrating noises. “Morph, control yourself; the clients are watching.” The creature then stopped and transformed back into an ornament but it moved slowly, trying to grab one of the Munny pieces from the table. Vivi got really interested in the creature, and started getting very close to it. “What kind of creature is this?” he said as he tried to get a closer look at the creature, who started to get nervous as Vivi looked at it. The creature then transformed into its original form and hid behind Silver. “He is Morph, my companion for as long as I can remember,” he then pet it with his normal hand while he looked at the Munny on the table. “This should be enough, but it might take a while to find the ship, you know. It takes time to move around with the Heartless bothering everybody.” Katarina then jumped at the chance. “There's no need to worry about the Heartless,” she said excitedly as she summoned her Keyblade. “Vivi and I can take them out while you ask around.” Vivi took out his staff, trying to strike a pose along with Katarina; they still needed practice on this.
Silver, on the other hand, took real interest in Katarina’s weapon, like he had seen it before somewhere. With a smile, he then let out another big laugh. “I guess it's a deal then; it's getting late too. So, Morph, why don't you guide these rookies towards their rooms? Your lessons will start early in the morning, and you will need the rest.” Silver then got up and opened the door, and Morph changed its
form to a little version of Silver, who guided them towards their room.
As they continued on their way, the arachnid creature crawled out of the ceiling and got into Silver's office, who then looked at it angrily. “Haven't I told you that I can handle business alone?” There was a lot of venom in his voice. “Well, it's difficult to take you seriously when you pull us all into your charities instead of looking for Billy.” The arachnid was interrupted by Silver's iron hand grabbing his neck. “If you had a brain inside that empty head of yours, you would have realized that those kids came here without a scratch on them. You would also have noticed that their clothes aren't from here, meaning they are world travelers, and we would have missed out on this deal,” he said as he let the creature see the table full of Munny. “That's why I'm in charge, and you just listen to my orders,” he finally let him go. As he recovered his breath, the creature looked surprised at the quantity of the Munny. “What are we supposed to do?” Silver then gave a quick laugh. “You will make sure the others treat them like guests or leave them alone. I will teach them what they pay for, and if everything goes right, we would finally be able to find the good old Billy Bones,” he said as he began to plan how Katarina and Vivi would leave him one step closer to his dream.