Day 37: Arts and Crafts Room
Honey was relieved when breakfast was over. Even though there'd been plenty of sticky-sweet french toast to be had, the company left him feeling a little inadequate. Usually girls fawned all over him, but Callisto had been downright mean. Had he done something wrong? What kind of girl wanted to fight rather than play? It'd only been a few days
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Sora made sure to look out for Artemis when he walked into the Arts and Crafts room, but there was no sign of him. He felt a sudden pang of worry shoot through him, but he knew there was no point in dwelling on it. He just hoped Artemis was all right...
The fact that they were in the Arts and Crafts room when one of the club's key members had just passed away was something Sora couldn't miss. It made him less inclined to actually partake in any of the activities. He glanced around, spotting Ken and Ururu, Honey (he was back?), and Hitsugaya, but they were all busy.
He probably wasn't the best conversation partner right now, so Sora found an empty spot where he could sit and eyed the door, hoping that Artemis would walk through it soon. Even if they didn't get to talk right this second, at least then he would know that the other boy was okay (or at least functional).
[Free!]
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Great. Arts and craft huh? Geez, he felt like he was like six, and OK he wasn't even that old really but come on, arts and freakin craft?
Looking around the room it looked like everyone already had company and while he normally didn't have any trouble jumping into others conversations - who wouldn't be happy to see him? - people here were all so touchy that it was probably a bad idea. He was about to just grab some supplies and pretend to be sketching - chicks loved an artist after all - when he spotted some kinda gloomy looking guy sitting alone.
Was everyone here a downer or was he just unlucky? Sauntering over, Kon plonked himself down across from him. Grinning openly he said, "Hey there! I'm Superboy." Surely this time he'd be recognised.
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Who had an interesting name, to say the least. "Superboy?" Sora parroted before he could stop himself. He supposed there could be weirder (maybe), and a name wasn't the most important thing about a person.
After all, this Superboy was pretty optimistic for being stuck in this place, and since Sora had never seen him before, that meant he had to be new. If he could stay happy even when he was tossed into this disorienting situation, then he must be a pretty strong person!
"Uhh, I'm Sora," he returned, holding his smile and realizing that it was somewhat more genuine now. "Nice to meet you!"
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"Sora huh?" That was a kind of girlie name, but he remembered what happened when he said that about Robin and while this guy didn't look like he'd pull some freakish ninja trick and taser him it was better not to tempt fate.
Forgetting that he still smelt of pond water, Kon leaned forward almost conspiratorially. "You know, I've been in some pretty weird situations before but I don't think I ever expected to wind up in a place like this. Not that I think I can't handle it, of course but it's a bit more than your normal run-of-the-mill supervillain fight. Not quite up to the standards of an evil cult intent on summoning an evil goddess of death but the crazed wildlife and really great food make a pretty good combination. I am a professional though, what do you say?"
It was important to reassure people that while he appeared to be trapped here he was an expert in dealing with this sort of thing and it was just a matter of time before he was busting out.
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"Yeah, just Sora," he confirmed. He still thought it was interesting how so many people had two or three names, though he was starting to realize that he was the strange one for only having one. It just showed how isolated Destiny Islands had really been.
As Superboy leaned in, Sora couldn't help but catch a whiff of a pretty terrible smell. In fact, it was something he recognized. He'd taken a dip in the institute's pond once, and the smell wasn't something he could forget. Before he could comment on it, though, the other boy started rambling and Sora had to focus all his attention on what was being said in order to keep up.
Apparently he was supposed to respond if the question at the end was any indication, but Sora had no idea what to say. "Uhh... I guess so? No one really expects to end up here, I don't think." All that stuff about supervillains and evil cults pretty much went over the boy's head, though. He wasn't used to conversations being this awkward.
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He needed to sort this place out soon too. The other Superboy's warning had sure sounded like whatever Black Zero was going to do to Kon's world it was going to happen soon. He couldn't waste time on some side trip like this. That reminded him, the Hypertime jacket he'd been using had been getting pretty unstable last he remembered. He had to find that too before it nuked everyone here or just stopped working and left him stranded on this world.
"Hey, have you seen a weird jacket anywhere? It's pretty important that I find it." Kon wasn't sure what you did with a nuclear powered Hypertime jacket that was on the verge of meltdown, but maybe Sora had some idea. It couldn't be far, after all no one else could use it. Unless there was another Superboy kicking around here.
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As for being used to a situation like this, Sora had to admit that it was different from the norm for him. The danger and battles he could handle, but being captured for this long wasn't something he'd had to deal with before. Being so limited was definitely frustrating, but he was almost used to it by now. It didn't make him any less inclined to escape, though.
"Huh?" he asked when Superboy threw out a random question. A jacket, of all things? "I don't think so, no," he admitted with a small frown - he felt bad that he couldn't help the newcomer out. "What does it look like?"
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Confident he'd clearly explained what a superhero was, Kon tried to describe his Hypertime jacket. "It's a black jacket with yellow marks on it. Made of weird New Gods technology. Last I saw it was leaking some sort of black energy. It's my only way home see?" Geez he hoped Sora wouldn't recognise the design from his description and decide he was one of the bad guys. It has been difficult enough trying to convince Batwoman he was a good guy in that other reality he'd stopped in.
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The description of the jacket didn't ring any bells with Sora, although the mention of black energy was a cause for concern. That sounded like it might have something to do with the Heartless - there was a chance that they had invaded Superboy's world. But why would a jacket help him get home? "That probably isn't here," he explained. "They take most of the important stuff away from us before we're brought here, I think." He wanted to ask for more details about that black energy, but one thing at a time.
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"Sure thing, I'll tell you anything you want to know. Like I said, I'm Superboy. I was made to take over from Superman - he's pretty much the most powerful guy on the planet. I have tactile telekinesis which lets me do all sorts of awesome stuff - I can fly and I'm invulnerable and superstrong. I can also use it for other stuff like dismantling anything I touch or holding buildings together. Back home I'm on a team called Young Justice with some other heroes like me. I guess we're kinda like a junior Justice League. There's Impulse who's superfast and Robin and Arrowette who don't have any powers and Wonder Girl who can fly and is superstrong too. We've saved the world a few times now as well as other smaller stuff."
Hmm, anyone who didn't know about superheroes wouldn't have heard about the Justice League either and they were pretty cool. "Then there's the JLA themselves. It's made up of all sorts of heroes like Superman, Steel, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. They keep the world safe too. I guess you could say I'm in training to join the team when I'm-" Kon cut himself off. Sometimes he forgot that he wasn't about to get any older and while then JLA had trusted him with this mission they weren't going to let some kid join no matter who he was.
Shrugging it off he continued, "Anyway, it's not all teams either. A lot of us do solo work too. I used to be the hero of Hawaii - that was a pretty sweet gig - and Superman and Batman both have their own cities they keep safe. And that's not even mentioning all the aliens and other worlds I've fought and visited."
And if he was going to save his world again he needed the Hypertime jacket back. It figured it wasn't going to be easy to find but he was totally up to the challenge. Just so long as it hadn't been blown up or taken apart. He wouldn't have much chance of finding another genius to fix it if it was.
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It would have been cool to be part of a team that worked together to protect a world, but Sora was definitely more of the traveling type. He had saved countless worlds, often utilizing the help of one of its natives. Though if some of the worlds he'd visited had housed a team like the one Superboy was describing, maybe his help wouldn't have been needed in the first place.
Then again, he was the key to defeating the Heartless, and no one else could take that job. These superheroes must have done other kinds of protecting, like stopping villains and that sort of thing.
"That's really neat!" he said with a grin. "I kind of do the same thing, but it's a little bit different." Trying to explain his own job would probably take a while, though he'd be willing to if Superboy asked. "It must be a lot of fun, though - helping people while working on a team and stuff." Sora had his own "teams," but the groups that Superboy had described sounded much larger.
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Kon hadn't been allowed to tell the rest of Young Justice about this mission before he left. He didn't expect them to be worried about him or anything - hello, Superboy here - but they'd probably start to wonder if he was missing for a while. But that was cool, if the girls were worried about him it'd just make it that much better the next time he saw them.
"So what do you do? You have any powers?" He was curious what sort of hero Sora was if he wasn't familiar with the idea of superheroes. What other sort were there, apart from like firemen and stuff like that? And, don't get him wrong they did a good job and stuff, but they weren't all that different from people like Robin and Cissie who rescued people without having powers. Maybe they just didn't call them superheroes where Sora was from.
Kon tried picturing Sora in costume fighting supervillains. It wasn't that hard Sora reminded him a little of Impulse, though if he had superspeed like Bart did he hid it way better. He didn't have a secret identity which was cool. Those things always seemed way too much trouble to keep up never mind the whole pretending to be someone you weren't. And it really sucked not knowing your friends real names or even what they looked like. Not that he cared about Robin's secret identity. Just that if he did it would suck, so it was good Sora didn't have one.
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So much had changed since then, and it was hard to think that only a few years had passed (one of which he had spent sleeping, he reminded himself). Even though he would have loved to go back to normal life for some time, he knew things would never be the same after everything that had happened. He was just glad that things were still good between him, Riku, and Kairi - even though they continued to get separated.
"I also learned some magic from friends of mine, so I can cast some pretty cool spells. And I learned to fly, but I can only do it really well in Neverland. Usually I can glide, though..." Not that any of that was even close to possible here. His Keyblade wasn't even as strong as usual, and it obviously didn't work as well against the monsters here as it would have against Heartless.
"I don't have super-speed or strength or anything like that, though," he finished. "No costumes or masks, either." That did sound like it would be kind of fun, though. On the other hand, a costume might just get in the way and make fighting harder. Sometimes practicality was more important than how cool something looked. He wondered why it was such a staple among superheroes.
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"Why didn't you just say you use magic to start with? I haven't met many magic users before. What sort of magic? Like, what can you do?" Much as Kon would've liked to get to know some of the magic users back home - like that babe with fishnets Zatanna - he'd never had a chance before. While he'd faced plenty of magical creatures and people who used magic items meeting a real magician was still really cool.
"These, ah, Heartless things. Are they demons or something like that?" he asked. He'd been right to think this world could've come straight from an episode of Wendy the Werewolf Stalker. Demons and monsters and everything. If it wasn't for the problem with his TTK and the whole gotta save the world thing he'd be tempted to hang out here for a while. A guy like him could have a lot of fun.
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He felt a little better when the other boy seemed interested in magic. Sora was no expert, but he wasn't half-bad either. Merlin and Donald had taught him pretty well. "Well, I could heal wounds, make fire, ice, lightning... That sort of thing." There were others, of course, but those were the most basic spells and the ones that Superboy would be able to understand the easiest.
Sora wasn't sure about the Heartless being demons, or what Superboy even meant when he said that. He tilted his head and shrugged. "I don't think so, no. What exactly do you mean by demons?" If he got the other boy's definition, he could give a better answer.
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It all sounded like basic stuff, the sort thing you'd expect a magician to be able to do. Nothing like what Mr Myxzptlk could do thank god. Meeting that guy once had been annoying enough, he didn't know how Superman could put up with the freakish little twerp constantly harassing him.
Looking back at Sora, Kon blinked in surprise. What sort of magician hadn't heard of demons? "You know," he said vaguely, waving a hand about. "Demons. Fire and brimstone and all that stuff? Um, evil soulless monsters from hell I guess. I think they're magical. They don't look human or at least I don't think so. Anyway, they're bad news." He didn't know how else to describe them. Demons were demons. You just knew what they were or something. He hadn't encountered many of them either so he was guessing here but surely a magic user knew what demons were right? This was probably a misunderstanding like Sora not knowing what superheroes were even though he sorta was one.
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