Panic [Emi]

[Castle]

July 4, 2010

Castle exited the gummi ship and found himself walking in sand. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes against the brilliant rays of this world's sun. At first, he thought they'd landed in a desert, but then he heard the unmistakable sound of water washing against the shore. Come to think of it, he should've known better, anyway, since they'd seen the ocean from space.

He walked forward a bit more and lowered his hand, his eyes gradually adjusting to the brightness. There it was, the ocean, right in front of him, it's surface sparkling like hundreds of particles of glass. He had to stop and stare at it. It was his first time seeing anything like it outside of pictures.

"Whoa," he said under his breath, and then glanced around at the rest of the area. "Nice place!"

They were on a beach, obviously, with a single, vegetation-covered mountain at the center of what must have been a small island. There was a small waterfall nearby and a collection of wooden structures. After a full day in space, sore both mentally and physically from the fight with that jerkwad, this world looked like heaven.

He turned around to see if Emi had disembarked yet. "You ever been here before?" he asked.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Music: Destiny Islands
--

Emi stepped out of the ship and looked down at her feet. Sand covered her sneakers and she wrinkled her nose, attempting to shake it out. "Nope,[/color]" she sighed. She gave up on the shoes and lifted a hand, shielding her eyes from the sunlight. It was hot. Really hot. Destiny Islands in the summertime... it was a tropical paradise, so of course it was hot. The temperature in Radiant Garden was mild compared to the summer heat of the islands. Considering she was already starting to sweat, she took off her leather coat and gloves and threw them back in the ship before closing the hatch.

With the hatch closed, she could finally see the ocean... and she wasn't nearly as impressed as Castle was. She took a hesitant step back, already wary of the water washing up on the shore like it was coming to claim her soul. Emi had never been to a beach before and it was just as well, considering her fear of water. She couldn't even take baths it was so bad, so she wasn't getting any closer to the water.

[Castle]

When Emi removed her coat and gloves, Castle couldn't help but marvel at how skinny she was, even though he'd seen her jacket-less all the time during construction work. However, this was the first time he'd seen her without gloves. His gaze soon traveled to her bare arms and lingered there. Were those... scars?

He suddenly remembered the guy's taunts from a couple of days ago. He made fun of her for cutting herself, and now it looked like he'd actually hit a mark. It was surprising, naturally, but for some reason, it wasn't as surprising as it could have been. It would be horrible to say out loud, but from what he'd seen of Emi so far, he really wouldn't put it past her. The thought left a weird taste in the back of his throat.

He returned his attention to the scenery. Thinking about that fight still made him angry.

"So, any particular plan, or are you just a fan of sunbathing?" he asked with his usual smirk now in place. He didn't even notice her wariness of the water.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Less afraid of creaky dark little houses.
--

Emi raised an eyebrow at him and cross her arms while she did it.
"Do I look like I need to sunbathe?[/color]" she said, gesturing to herself with one hand. No, she had a natural year round tan so she wasn't going to lie around soaking up UV rays and hiking up her chances at melanoma. "Let's look around, I guess. See if Arc is around or if there's anyone who might could lead us to him.[/color]"

Also, please let's get away from the giant, deep, dark ocean of death, please.

She turned and started walking towards some of the little buildings. Were they houses? Maybe someone lived inside, though they looked a little rickety to be actual houses. Of course, for all she knew, island people lived in huts like this just like on television. She walked up to one, knocked once and the door creaked open a little.

She stuck her head inside. "...hello? Anyone in here?[/color]" she shouted into the musty darkness within. She kicked the door open a little more, the sand on wood making a scratching sound. "No one is going to pop out and try and kidnap me to use as a human sacrifice for some kind of island people ritual right?[/color]" she continued, knowing full well there was no one inside. "...because I'm pretty sure you can only use virgins for those kinds of things and well... yeah, definitely not your girl for that one.[/color]"

There was a staircase inside, and she could see light filtering down. She looked over her shoulder and called over to Castle. "I found something interesting![/color]" she said before going further into the structure and staring up the stairs. The creaked under her feet.

[Castle]

Castle snickered. "I was kind of joking, you know," he said to the sun-tan comment, even though he hadn't actually thought of it that way before. Then Emi told him a rough plan and began to investigate the area, and he raised an eyebrow at her. "Who?" he asked, but she was already opening the door to some old shack. He shrugged and meandered around the beach, looking for something else.

He wandered closer to the shore and stopped at the edge of the water. His gaze wandered up to a palm tree that hung over the side of a little islet. He'd seen coconut trees in books, but... those weren't coconuts growing on it. He squinted in an attempt to peer closer.

"Huh?"

At that moment, Emi called him over. He jogged to the shack and joined her inside it. It looked pretty normal, for an abandoned, sand-filled shack. Emi was already going up the stairs.

"What's so interesting about this?" he asked nonchalantly, following her up. "And who's Arc? I thought... oh yeah, Zexion's not your boyfriend," he smirked.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Obligatory backstory.
--

Emi stopped halfway up the stairs and tilted her head.
"Ooooh yeah... I never told you what exactly it is we're looking for. You're kind of dumb you know, jumping into this journey without even knowing what we're looking for.[/color]"

She ignored the boyfriend comments, again. At least, she tried. She felt annoyance rise up in her, but shoved it down knowing it would only lead to an outburst if she let it get to her.

She continued up the stairs, and pushed the door open, wincing at the sudden light after being in the dark shack for while. She shielded her eyes again, and blinked and when her vision adjusted she realized they were on a bridge. There was a smaller island just ahead, with a tree growing on it. After that it was just ocean, ocean, ocean. Emi balked, not wanting to even walk towards it.

To stall, she decided to go ahead and explain. She was unable to rip her eyes away from the terrifying- to her- crystalline waters, so she turned her head towards him but kept her eyes on the ocean.

"A while ago, when I was back at Beast's Castle I met this.... I met Arc.[/color]

She wasn't sure whether to call him a 'person' or a 'guy'.

"He helped me out... actually, he put Zexion in his place, punched him right in the face. I owe him for that, and for standing up for me so... I'm looking for him. I promised I would repay him for his help, so that's what I'm trying to do.[/color]"

[Castle]

Castle scowled when Emi called him dumb, but shrugged it off. He'd been called worse, and he could get back at her later. "Hey, it's better than staying in that- in that other place forever," he said, choosing not to call it a dump since Emi had mentioned that she was from there. He had some standards for his rudeness, at least.

They reached another door at the top of the stairs. He followed Emi back out into the glaring sunlight. After a brief stretch of more sand, they found themselves on a bridge. Castle began to cross it, but Emi stopped almost as soon as she set foot on the first planks. He paused and turned around to see if she was going any further, but apparently, she was going to stand still while she explained the Arc thing to him.

A little detail in the story surprised him, and he raised an eyebrow.
"Wait, so you have to repay this guy for punching Zexion in the face? As in the Zexion from Radiant Garden?" He chuckled briefly and rested a hand on his hip. "That sounds more like bullying than anything. And here I thought you liked that little bookworm."

He was teasing, but he also wanted to hear more about this. He remembered her behavior toward Zexion before, and what she was saying now didn't seem to fit.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Leave it to me to ruin the Hallmark moments in life.
--

Truthfully, she wasn't quite how she felt about Zexion. They had been the best of friends as small children- at least she and Ienzo had been... and then there was a long, long time where there was nothing... and then they were antagonistic towards each other. Heck, they were still antagonistic towards each other but... she didn't know whether to call him her friend or not. She didn't know what to classify Castle as either, or Arc.

Did she have friends? She took a moment to think about that. The last time she could remember having a real, true friend was when she was a child. Ienzo had been her only friend. She decided that maybe one day all these new people she had been meeting could maybe become friends. Castle, Arc, that other girl from the Postern, Lillian. Even Zexion. But it was something that would come with time. She wasn't ready to get close to people again not after what happened with...

"I don't have to explain myself to you,[/color]" she spat, ruining whatever kind of friendly conversation they may have been having. Her annoyance with him was reaching its breaking point, hence the small outburst. He should have been used it by now. "The point is, I owe him for services rendered and I intend on paying that debt.[/color]"

[Castle]

Castle blinked at the sudden, but not entirely unexpected harshness of her reaction. Well, that's what he got for a little teasing, as usual. He put both hands up and tried to keep his snicker to a minimum. Normally, he wouldn't have cared, but this was Emi. He had to be careful with her.

"All right, I get it," he said coolly, lowering his hands, "Debt repaying. What does this guy look like, anyway?"

He glanced over his shoulder at the islet at the other end of the bridge. There were several trees there, but the leaning palm tree with the weird fruit was the largest. It looked like something kids would play around on. Too bad there weren't any trees like that in Traverse Town. He would've had a great time with one as a kid. Well, until the bigger kids shoved him off of it...

He shook the thought from his mind and turned his head back toward Emi.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

You think I'm psyching myself out?
--

"Weeeeell, he's kind of hard to miss,[/color]" she said, taking a step back against the door. It shut behind her. "The best way I can think to explain it is that he is a dragon... man. A dragonman. Yeah. That should be enough explanation. You'll know him when you see him, unless there are any other silvery-colored dragonmen at least a few inches taller than me walking around.[/color]"

Castle had already started walking across the bridge but Emi couldn't get her feet to move. She had horrible visions in her mind of what would happen if she got too close to the ocean, and she was already too close for comfort. She knew you could drown in only an inch of water and there were a million scenarios screaming through her mind at the moment. Time for a slick escape.

"Why don't you check out that little island?[/color]" she told Castle, groping for the handle to the door. There wasn't one, so she just flattened her hand against the wood. "I'll go check...somewhere else.[/color]"

And with that she turned around, pushed open the door and almost ran in, happy to the the solid barrier of the door in between her and those endless miles of deep, blue water.

[Castle]

Castle raised both eyebrows this time.

"Dragon man?" he repeated.

Rather than give him a further explanation, if there was any, Emi suggested he check out the little island and quickly fled through the door they had come through. It was then that he began to suspect something else was going on with her, besides being annoyed at him. He glanced behind him, almost expecting there to be a horrible monster ready to eat his head, but there wasn't. Huh. Maybe she had some girl thing she needed to do or something.

Well, nothing else for him to do but cross the bridge. As he did so, he pondered what exactly a "dragonman" would look like, until he reached the other side and had his attention taken by the leaning tree again. What were those things growing on it? He was pretty sure coconuts didn't look like that. In fact, one look at the other trees confirmed it. The things on the big tree looked almost like... wait.

Castle walked over to the edge of the island and peered at them. He sucked in a little breath. Filled with a new resolve, he put his hands on the bending trunk and pulled himself up. Carefully, since there was quite a bit of water below and he didn't know how to swim, he crept along the length of the tree to the large fronds at the end. Luckily, the fruit pulled off easily, and he quickly returned to the more solid part of the trunk and got down.

Holding the star shaped fruit in one hand, he used the other to reach into his pocket and withdraw a little glass figurine. He held the two objects side by side and examined them. The cracked, similarly star shaped keepsake was almost identical to the strange fruit. The glass glinted brightly in the sunlight.

Perturbed, he turned his gaze to the oceanic horizon. His mother told him that this piece of glass was from his parents. But, there was no way they could have a connection to this place. Their world, the world he had originally come from, was long gone.

"Not a chance," he muttered, shaking his head as he returned the figurine to his pocket. He felt a little disappointed in spite of himself and did his best to push it aside. He vowed years ago that he didn't need anything besides his mom and his home in Traverse Town, and that opinion still stood strong.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Into the ocean, end it all.
--

Emi walked over and and sat down on the steps.
Seeing the ocean, being near it... it had only been a catalyst, the straw that broke the camel's back. It went ahead and punched out the glass Jericho had utterly shattered.

She was trembling as she sat down. She clenched her fist to make her hands stop shaking, but there wasn't a thing she could do about the rest of her. It felt like every muscle in her body wanted to tense up. She had just begun to blame it on being near the ocean when all hell broke loose. There was a strange tickling feeling in her chest... when she flattened her hand against the skin there, she realized her heart was pounding. Her chest felt tight, like something was constricting her.

She started hearing this strange noise and after a few moments of not being able to identify what it was, she realized it was herself gasping for breath, hyperventilating. She couldn't breathe in deeply enough to satisfy her need for oxygen because every breath made little shooting pains flare up in her chest.

What the hell... she thought but that was the last reasonable thought she had. I'm dying. Oh my god. Everything is catching up with me, I'm dying, I'm dead, I'm dead....

She stood up abruptly, all of the blood rushing from her head. She almost fainted, stumbling against the wall. But her strength returned and she bolted, slamming the door open and taking off across the sand. She collapsed near the stairs, onto her knees, still gasping for breath.

Out in the sunlight, things got worse but she had to get out of that house. She was closer to the water but she flipped over and scooted up against the wall, squeezed her eyes shut and drew her knees to her chest. She rested her head on her knees and brought her hands to her hears trying to block out the roaring ocean. It couldn't stop the ringing in her ears.

It felt like the earth was tilting beneath her and she would go tumbling off into the ocean.

Her lips and fingers tingled and it was probably one of the strangest things she'd ever felt. She noticed all of these sensations all at once but the loudest of all were the thoughts in her head. I'm dying. Jericho did something to me. I'm going to die on the beach, Castle is going to forget about me and they'll throw my body in the ocean. I'll never repay my debt to Arc and I'll die away from home like I was always afraid of and I'll never see Zexion again.

Never see Zexion again.

She got stuck on that thought and it replayed in her mind over and over and over again. It made her feel sick. She broke into a cold sweat, an interesting contrast to the blazing summer heat... almost refreshing. But after repeating herself a few hundred more times, and realizing she was talking to herself, she calmed down a bit.

She sat up, looked around. She was still here, she wasn't dead. Her heart slowed down, the sun warmed her chilled bones and got her to stop shaking. She caught her breath and stood up unsteadily.

"What.... what the hell was that?[/color]" she shouted at herself.

[Castle]

He thought he heard a noise coming from the shack. Castle turned around, but nothing looked amiss, and he remembered that Emi was going back downstairs. However, something didn't feel right, and a few seconds later, he found out why.

Unnatural shadows appeared on the sand around him, and from those shadows sprouted the Heartless. Castle jumped and let out a short yelp of surprise. He'd almost forgotten those things even existed! One of them dove in right away, and he caught it with a side kick, successfully knocking it back.

"Hey, Emi! Problem!" he shouted.

Unfortunately, Emi did not appear. Was that shack soundproof or what? Before he could call out again, the Heartless resumed their attack. There were only three of them, and they were the weakest kind, but they were also kind of fast. He plowed another kick into the first one, causing it to go up in smoke, but at the same time another got him from the side.

The paopu hit the sand with a muffled thud. He stumbled away, clutching his scratched arm. The two remaining Heartless hung back for a moment, darting around in that twitchy way they had. There was no intelligence in them, but they'd just gotten a hit on him anyway.

He glanced at his arm. The scratch wasn't deep enough to draw blood, but it stung. He could have, he should have retaliated instead of jumping away. What kind of a fighter was he? He thought it was what he was good at back home, but after he left, it had been nothing but mistakes and losses. First Vincent and that damn gun, then the guy at the Marketplace, then the other one at the Beast's Castle...

It was just like being a kid again. A tiny, wimpy kid who couldn't fight his way out if he tried.

Anger welled up inside him, burning in his chest cavity. When was he going to start winning?

"Damn you!" he yelled at the Heartless, clenching his fists in preparation to attack them again.

Suddenly, something changed. The burning in his chest turned into a weird, intense pressure, and a shadow flared over his right arm like a black flame. Just as he lifted his hand to look at it, it was gone.

"What the...?"

At that moment, the Heartless both attacked at once, as if magnetized to his position. Castle reacted on adrenaline, jumping up and spinning around to catch them both in a crescent kick. Immediately afterward, he moved in and finished them off with a series of strikes. The islet grew quiet again.

The pressure was gone. Castle took a few deep breaths and looked around for any sign of lingering Heartless. There were none, and instead, he saw Emi huddled on the beach, her back to a wall. Frankly, she didn't look good. Castle snatched the paopu from where he'd dropped it, for no other reason than he kind of wanted to hang onto it, and ran back across the bridge.

She was standing by the time he reached her. He'd heard her shout right before he left the shack, but hadn't quite made out the words.

"What's going on? You okay?" he asked, a bit breathlessly.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Goin' down swingin'...
--

Emi opened and closed her mouth a few times, struggling to find words. "Yeah, I just.... don't feel so good,[/color]" she told him. She was hesitant to go into details about whatever had just happened and thought she could pass it off as just being sick. In fact, she thought maybe she could convince herself that's what it was. "Haven't eaten in a while, guess that must be it. Low blood sugar or something, just feeling kind of nauseated and dizzy. That and this heat. Maybe I should sit down.[/color]"

She did so, sitting down on the little ramp and pushing a hand into her hair. That had to be it. She was just hungry was all... there wasn't anything wrong with her and it certainly wasn't anything Jericho had done to her. She just needed a snack and this would all go away. She wanted to get off this world as soon as possible but definitely didn't want whatever just happened happen again while she was flying the gummi ship... or around Castle. So it was best to take a few minutes to recuperate before heading off. Arc obviously wasn't on this island.

"I think its lunchtime. Whatcha got there?[/color]"

[Castle]

Apparently, Emi hadn't been attacked by the Heartless. She was just feeling sick from the heat or from hunger or something. The information gave Castle an uncomfortable twinge. Did that mean the Heartless had just randomly popped up to attack him? He brushed the thought from his mind. The Heartless weren't choosy, they were just, well, random. It's not like they could think like a person could.

Emi pointed out the fruit he was holding, and it brought him back to the present.
"Oh, this? I got it off that tree over there," he said, gesturing to the leaning palm on the islet, "Come to think of it, I think I've heard of these before. Can't remember the name, though."

He considered Emi's problem and realized that he was pretty hungry, too. He looked at the fruit, sizing it up. He'd thought about keeping it, but since it was a fruit, it would only start to rot after a while.

"Here," he said, bending it carefully until it ripped into two pieces, exposing the light green flesh within. He offered one to Emi, "I'm pretty sure they're good to eat."