Chapter 34 – An Exploding Opportunity

Pearl Piari

Attis was at Pearl Piari making a delivery of food from Maki's to Nikora, when someone stopped by. Attis took in the person's appearance and saw that it was a young girl that had light brown hair in a ponytail and pale brown eyes. She was wearing a dark, crème colored one piece uniform dress of some sorts that had yellow button seashells, and had a large green backpack on her back. Taki was there to introduce her saying, "This is the first time Hanon, Rina, and Attis have met her, right? She's a distant relative of mine who I take care of sometimes, an abalone spirit, Aurisumaris."

'Shoot, that's one complicated name…' Attis couldn't help but think, until Taki added, "We all just call her Auri."

'Well, that makes much more sense.' Attis thought as he gave a sigh.

Auri held up a hand and said, "YO! I wanna become a fortuneteller, and I've come so that Taki-senpai can at least teach me the basics!"

"In the undersea world, apprentices go to a senpai of the same profession for advice on how to achieve a full-fledged status." Taki explained to everyone, "And so today, she has come to her senpai in me."

"How interesting…" Attis mused. Auri nodded at that, but pointed to Attis and asked, "Taki-senpai, are you sure that you should say everything in front of this human though?"

"It's alright Auri; Attis here is the Keyblade wielder that everyone's heard about." Taki assured her.

Auri's eyes widened at that and she said, "Wow, the Keyblade wielder in the flesh! But shouldn't you uh, look older or something?"

"That's…complicated." Attis managed to answer, as Hippo freaked out and said in an ominous voice, "This day…has finally come, hasn't it?"

Attis, Hanon, and Rina looked at Hippo oddly, like he just declared that judgment day had just arrived, but to their surprise, Lucia was freaking out too. They heard her say, "What are we going to do, what are we going to do? Pearl Piari is going to be destroyed!"

"…What?" Attis said, confused, while Hanon asked, "Lucia, why are you so scared?"

Lucia turned to the three and explained, "Well, when Auri came last year to meet with Taki-san, something terrible happened."

"You see, she almost blew up the entire North Pacific Palace, shaking it quite horribly." Hippo finished for Lucia. Auri laughed and added, "Well, that is, I just made a few mistakes here and there while making a medicine, which kinda caused an explosion…"

"Eh, an explosion?" Hanon shouted in disbelief. Attis couldn't help but say, "An explosion from mixing medicine? Now that's just plan odd…"

Rina nodded at that and asked, "She's really that dangerous?"

"Yes, however, she's a different kind of delusional train gone berserk from Hanon." Hippo replied.

"Hey! What do you mean by that? That's rude you know?" Hanon said, putting her hands on her hips. Attis couldn't help but whisper, "Delusional berserk train…?"

"In Hanon-san's case, she has a target and goes straight towards it directly." Hippo explained, ignoring Hanon, while making Attis smirk at that, "But in Auri-san's case, there are no tracks! She's an unpredictable berserk train!"

'Hmm, kinda sounds like our resident fire expert back at the Keypers…" Attis thought to himself. That's when Auri came up from behind Hippo and said, "Hey penguin, did you say something?"

Hippo whipped around and stuttered, "N-no! N-nothing!"

"She sure sounds interesting, huh Hanon, Rina?" Attis whispered to the two. Hanon and Rina didn't know what to say to that as they thought they heard a hint of sarcasm in Attis' voice. That's when Taki said, "By the way, I haven't heard why you want to become a fortuneteller Auri."

That made Auri go on explaining how being a successful fortuneteller would be attractive to guys, which made Attis look at Auri oddly. Taki then gave Auri an assignment of figuring out what the weather was going to be like tomorrow. When Auri went to go outside and Lucia, Hanon, and Rina went to go look, Attis turned to Taki and Nikora and asked, "Is everything going to be alright? That Auri looks nice, but what I've heard so far sounds, you know…"

"Don't worry about a thing Attis; I'm sure everything will be alright." Taki assured him. Nikora wasn't so sure about that, while Hippo was still a bit freaked out.

Attis just shook his head and said, "Well, I'd better get going. I have to head back to Maki-san's place for the next delivery."

Nikora and Taki nodded, and when he reached the door, Lucia, Hanon, and Rina got out of the way as Attis said, "I'll see you three later, and good luck I guess…"

"Hey, Attis makes it sound like we're heading for trouble." Hanon said. Lucia looked at her and said with a sigh, "From what I know about Auri, we're probably going to need it…"

Outside, Attis found Auri putting her shoe back on as he said, "Well, it was nice meeting you Auri-san, and I hope that things will work out for you."

"Thanks, um…" Auri said, when she realized that she didn't know Attis' name. Attis introduced himself, "Attis Hale, but everyone just calls me Attis."

"Right, thanks Attis-san! I'd better get inside and tell Taki-senpai what the weather's going to be like tomorrow!" Auri said before she ran back inside Pearl Piari.

Attis just gave Auri one last look before he made his way back to Maki's restaurant.

Beachside

The next day, after the freak rain shower, Attis was walking home from work when he heard Auri's voice shouting, "Now, come one, come all to my bargain store!"

Looking over the edge of the elevated sidewalk down to the beach, Attis saw that Auri had set up what looked like an accessory shop. As he headed down, he heard what Auri was selling and wondered, 'Are they really magical accessories?'

That's when Lucia, Hanon, and Rina showed up around the same time wondering what Auri was doing. When Attis caught up to them, he looked at them with interest and asked, "What's Auri-san doing?"

"She's selling magical accessories, apparently." Rina replied.

"Magical…accessories?" Attis said, looking skeptical. Looking down at what Auri was selling, Attis couldn't really tell if they were magical or now. Lucia then explained to Attis in a whisper that Auri was selling these accessories that had various charms from love to friendship and whatnot.

As they saw Eriru and Yuri show up, Attis couldn't help but catch the girls' attention and said in a whisper, "I don't know about those ones that Auri's selling, but I'd rather trust Mogie when it comes to magical accessories.

Hearing that made the three Mermaid Princesses thought back to the rings that Mogie let them borrow to fight Heartless. They nodded as Rina quietly asked, "So Moogles are experts when it comes to magical accessories?"

"Uh huh, take a look at this," Attis took out a ring and the girls looked at it with interest, "This is a real magical accessory."

"What is it?" Hanon asked, admiring how beautiful the ring looked. Lucia had a similar look on her face, while Rina just looked at the ring with interest.

"It's called Ruby Moon," Attis stated, "It gives it's wearer protection against fire and ice magics, halving the damage, but it makes lightning magic a bit fatal to the wearer. This is an old accessory I found way back during my early days with the Keypers, and I carry it around as a habit."

The three Mermaid Princesses believed what Attis was telling them as they watched Auri sell what she had in front of her. Attis looked at the stuff himself and thought, 'Maybe I should've brought Mogie along, Moogles have an eye for merchandise…'

Deserted island – beachside

'How the heck did I end up on spying duty…?' Attis couldn't help but feel confused as he watched from the treetops. Taki had somehow drafted him into watching over Auri search for the black pearl that she was supposed to find. Initially, Attis didn't want to, but Taki gave a convincing argument that the Heartless might show up while Auri was digging with Hippo. That sealed the deal, and he was lucky that his shift was over already; he didn't want Maki to start to wonder where he was disappearing off to.

Things were boring, though Yuri and Eriru showing up was a surprise; that put Attis on guard just in case Heartless were following them, but it was just a case of a casual stroll, and somehow Auri drafted the two to 'help' her look for the black pearl. One thing led to another, and now Attis was watching the three dig around the beach.

Throwing a small rock at Hippo, Attis managed to catch his attention and he walked over quietly so that it wasn't noticeable. Attis was on the other side of a bush as he asked, "So, how's helping coming along?"

"Terrible," Hippo huffed, "Though now it seems that Auri-san's working hard, due to falling for her own lie."

"She has a one track mind, doesn't she?" Attis looked a bit amused, looking at the digging trio.

"I guess you can say that…" Hippo mused, when Yuri called him over. He whispered, "I'll see you later Attis-san."

Giving a nod, Attis watched as Hippo walked over and was dragged along by Yuri and Eriru. Suddenly he heard a ruffling of bushes, and that put him on high alert as he scanned the foliage for any signs of the Heartless. Not taking any chances, he went deep into the woods, but he couldn't find anything other than the local wildlife. Shaking his head, Attis went back to the beach, only to see that Auri had found the black pearl and was now heading towards the lab area where she had set up.

Deciding that was the time to appear, Attis walked towards Auri while shouting, "Hey Auri-san, is everything alright?"

Auri jumped, nearly dropping the black pearl in her hands. Whipping around, she saw Attis walking towards her and she sighed a breath of relief, "Oh thank goodness, it's just the Keyblade warrior. Hey, don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Since when was I sneaking up on you?" Attis still had a space to close in on between them, so it really can't be called sneaking, "If I wanted to sneak up on you, I would've done so already."

Giving a huff, Auri just kept on walking forward as Attis walked up to her side until they reached the boiling potion. Attis took one look at the boiling concoction before asking, "Is this going to be safe?"

Attis was so concerned at the moment, that he didn't notice the Red Pearl flashing, though that's partly because it was hidden under the collar of his shirt. Auri waved off any concerns Attis had though, "Don't worry about it Attis-san, it's supposed to be boiled for a while anyway. Hmm, now that I think about it, the black pearl was just an ingredient for a medicine to make things transparent, huh?"

Dropping the pearl into the mix, the potion turned dark for a second, before it suddenly started glowing. Auri had a certain look on her face as she said, "This is bad! I think I left it boiling for too long!"

"Say what?" Attis only had a second to react as he gave the potion a sweeping kick that sent it flying while grabbing Auri and protecting her with his body. What they didn't see was that a Shadow suddenly appeared right on the spot where the potion was going to land. The moment the potion hit, the explosion occurred, and that disrupted the Black Beauty Sisters' song in the ocean below, but that's not the focus here.

Both Attis and Auri were coughing from the dust as the Keyblade wielder asked, "A-are you alright Auri-san?"

"Y-yeah, I'm fine." Auri managed to cough out as the two of them got up. In the distance, they heard Hippo's strained voice shout, "Auri! Are you okay-whoa?"

That's when Attis noticed that there was a dark shadow over them, and he heard Auri shout, "That's the biggest thing I have ever seen!"

Both Auri and Attis looked up, only to see a Shadow that's three times as large as Giga Shadows looking down at them. Attis took the brunt of the explosion, but thankfully he was still in good condition to fight. The dust cleared, and they saw that both Eriru and Yuri had been knocked out by the explosion, and Hippo had reverted back to his penguin form, looking beaten and from the look on his face, fainted too.

Attis instinctively summoned Aqualis to his hand, and immediately synchronized the Red Pearl to it. He looked at Auri and gave her simple instructions, "Auri, take cover in the trees while I take care of this. I'll try to get this Heartless' attention."

"T-that's a Heartless?" Auri looked at the giant Shadow that was looming over them. The Shadow made a swiping attempt at the two, which made Attis grab Auri and jump backwards. The Shadow started creeping towards the two and Attis quickly put Auri down, "Hurry up okay? Oh, and try to get Hippo and the others away too."

All Auri did was nod as Attis stared down the Shadow as he cast Scan. The data quickly came in and found nothing out of the ordinary. Just a Shadow that's grown to massive proportions and it's strength along with it. It's attack pattern is still the same, but with a lot of extra power added behind it. Attis found that Scan gave it a name, 'Titan Shadow', one that he found was very appropriate. He stopped thinking about it and pointed Aqualis at the Titan Shadow shouting, "Fira!"

The Fira spell impacted on the Titan Shadow, but it looked like it didn't do much damage. Constantly bombarding the Titan Shadow with Fira spells didn't help either, as the Heartless shrugged them off like it was nothing. Attis switched to Blizzara and Thundara spells respectively, but found that both of them didn't have much effect on it either, 'Damn, is this thing spell resistant or something?'

Attis knew that a Meteor or Ultima spell would've blasted the Heartless into dust, but since he didn't have that level of magic back yet, and the fact that he drained his magical reserves on the other three spells, he switched to a physical approach and charged the Titan Shadow. In the forest, Auri watched and she couldn't help but think, 'Is he mental or something? Charging right at something like that behemoth!'

Dodging the first strike, which hit the sand and left a crater, Attis started whacking at the Titan Shadow's face with his Keyblade, getting in every hit while dodging, but all it seemed to do is annoy the Titan Shadow as it started getting aggressive. One if it's swipes managed to hit Attis on his left side, knocking the wind out of him as he was sent flying. He landed in the water with a splash and the Titan Shadow turned to him and gave a twitch.

Catching his breath, Attis coughed as he held his side with his right hand, Aqualis in his left, 'T-this thing's strong!'

"C-Cura…" After the healing spell did it's work, Attis ran back towards the Titan Shadow, putting Aqualis on his back and summoning Solaris and Lunaria. One would think that he would've summoned them instead of Aqualis in the first place, but Attis had gotten used to summoning Aqualis, that it was the first Keyblade of choice on instinct. Anyway, Attis continued to fight the Titan Shadow, though a part of it got weird, where it looked like he was trying to wrangle it like a mad bull.

In the end, Attis managed to beat the Titan Shadow, though he looked like he wrestled with a bull at the rodeo when it was over. Watching the Heartless dissolve into black mist and disappearing, he looked over to the forest, where he saw Auri peaking out from behind a tree with wide eyes. He looked around and saw Hippo, Eriru, and Yuri in the same place that they were lying in before, 'This is going to take a while…'

That's when Auri came out of the forest and ran over to Attis saying, "Wow that was so cool! So that's a Keyblade wielder in action huh? Those are Keyblades right? Can I see them?"

'Yup, a very long while…' Attis thought to himself as Auri kept on asking questions and looking at his Keyblades.

Attis' Apartment

"I'm home…" A tired looking Attis walked through the door, feeling like he just gotten through a long day at the office.

"Welcome back kupo…you alright Attis kupo?" Mogie popped out of his room only to see Attis plop down on the couch. A sigh escaped Attis' lips as he said, "I'm alright Mogie, just coming home from another day of Heartless wrangling…"

"…" Mogie didn't know how to respond to that, so the Moogle changed the subject, "You've gotten used to living on this world kupo. Don't you miss being back with the other Keypers kupo?"

Attis froze at that for a second before he looked out the window of his apartment, "Yeah, I do sometimes, but ten years passed already, and I'm sure that everyone's forgotten about me. Most likely I'm in the KIA list by now, so no one will be looking for me."

"I see kupo…" Mogie went back to his room, while Attis thought about what to do with his life now, 'Hmm, first thing's first, destroying Mayluna and helping the Mermaid Princesses for one is still a go. After that…I don't really know after that…'

There was a moment of silence before Attis jumped up thinking, 'That's right, I'd better update the data base before I forget! Hmm, if that's the case, maybe I'll be a librarian or something…but working at Maki-san's place is good too…'

Attis spent the rest of his time thinking about his future, but that got skewed when he got back into playing games on his PC. Hey, he may be a veteran Keyblade wielder, but he's still a teenager!

Note: A short chapter, and I admit, not one of my best ones. At times I'd get something down, and other times, I just want to chuck it out the window. Nevertheless, here's chapter 34, and I'm sorry if it's a bit bland chapter-wise. Oh, and if any of you readers read through the whole story again, and find anything out of place, like missing borders or odd grammar, please mention it to me. I've been hearing that has been doing something to people's stories unintentionally (I think) in those terms, so I would appreciate a heads up and I'll check in on it.