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// Heartless: Depths of Monstro 
// Story: Kingdom Hearts: The World's Reluctant Heroes 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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Following their saving of Agrabah, even though Aladdin was sad that he couldn't save Jasmine and couldn't come with the group while they continued their adventure, Sora and the others returned to their ship and set off for another world to explore in the hopes of finding Kairi, or tracking down Maleficent's main base. While Sora did that Fluttershy happily returned to the private world and released the animals she had gotten from making a wish on Genie into the world, where Sombra found that a number of birds, a couple of monkeys, and the other leopard joined the mix. Such a thing seemed to be fine with Sabor, since it meant she wasn't lonely, though it also meant that Fluttershy would be busy making sure all of the new animals knew the rules of this world, especially since she didn't want them eating the worker rabbits, who, for the most part, seemed curious about the new additions. At the same time Sombra found that Radiant's group of workers, a force of ten kobolds that were roughly about half her height and seemed enthusiastic about working with her, since they took only a few seconds to introduce themselves, as Genie was kind enough to give them names, before they picked up their mining equipment and got to work.

The leader of the group, a kobold with a light black body and a red underbelly, took charge of the others as she worked with Radiant to set up a base for the newcomers, where Radiant pulled out the designs for the area and worked with Flare, the kobold in question, to set up some living quarters for the group.

Sombra, on the other hand, spent her time in either the training chamber she had created or relaxing in the living area for a time, the latter being before worrying about making meals for everyone, though the former allowed her to study the magic book Donald had given her and the others. What she discovered was that there were two new spells in their arsenal, those being Fira and Blizzara, and when she used them against some of the dummies it was easy for her to see that their range was longer than their base form and that both spells were larger than before. Such a thing told her that all of the spells that they would be collecting during their adventure seemed to have a tier system, which meant that there had to be a height to their power, before she looked at the other spells they had learned since starting their adventure and had to wonder where they'd find the advanced spells. As she looked at the magical tome, however, she found a pair of pages that greatly interested her, one for 'gravity' magic and one for 'time' magic, which was both incredible and very interesting, all while making Sombra wonder where in the worlds they would discover those spells.

This discovery also made her wonder if there were more magical tiers than just the second tier she had discovered thanks to beating Jafar, as she had to assume that the sorcerer's defeat and imprisonment had caused the tome to fill out more, as three tiers seemed more reasonable than just two.

While she did that Riku came into the training area to spar with her, where she used her magic to form a blade that was like Aladdin's, since the scythe would be too much for him and she didn't want to create something like a Keyblade, so this was her best option at the moment. Sombra played defensive with him, letting him make the first move since she wanted to see how he fought while they weren't in the middle of battle, because he and Sora had fought each other a lot in the past, with wooden sticks and wooden swords, meaning an actual weapon was still new to him. With that in mind she did her best to find the kinks in Riku's defenses that would allow her to turn the practice session on it's head, knocking him to the ground before explaining where he could improve, which only seemed to cause him to nod as he got back up without delay and come at her again. Sombra was still sure that there was something in his mind when the boy looked at her, like he was attracted to her new body and form, and part of her found it to be nice, though for the time being she trained with Riku for a time and let him improve, even though she also extended the offer to the others, to make sure they were ready for whatever the future held for them.

It was morning of the next day when Sora called for everyone to gather, because it seemed like they were nearby a whole new world, though Sombra found that to be weird that two were so close to each other, only to be surprised when she and the others returned to the cockpit, just in time to see a massive deep blue whale fly through space.

"And here I thought I had seen everything." Sombra commented, as she wasn't sure what to think about the scene that was in front of them, that a massive whale was flying through space like it was a ship or something, though everyone was taken aback by what they were seeing right now.

"I thought Monstro had been lost with our world... I wonder what he's doing out here?" Jiminy remarked, informing them that this creature was actually known to him, though that either meant his world was large enough to host such a beast or it had found a way to make itself bigger after fleeing it's world before it was devoured by the Heartless.

"I don't care! Stay away from it!" Donald stated, showing everyone that he didn't care about the whale at all, and that he was far more interested in tracking down whatever world Sora had been heading towards earlier, all while the beast flew about them like it was actually in a massive sea and not the vastness of space.

"Um... I don't think we have much of a choice." Riku said, where he and the others noticed that the whale was opening his mouth as he turned towards their ship, allowing Sombra to see what appeared to be a faint shimmering void beyond the beast's teeth, meaning if they were eaten their ship would likely be dropped into a new world, Monstro's insides.

Sure enough Riku's opinion on the matter was proven to be correct, because despite Sora taking control of the ship and moving them to flee from Monstro, the whale caught up to them in no time and ate the Gummi Ship with ease, causing all of them to be warped out of the ship as they dropped down into his mouth. What was odd was that they landed in what seemed to be the dry edge of his mouth, and not near the tongue or the nearby liquid, though as everyone looked around at all of the wooden platforms, and wrecked wooden ships that hadn't been totally eaten yet, item containers came flying out of a chest above them. Sombra, seeing them coming, caught them with her magic as the others got a good glimpse of who was doing such a thing, which turned out to be an animated wooden puppet that happened to be the size of a small boy, wearing some sort of attire that none of them had seen before, save for Jiminy. This was apparently Pinocchio, who was Geppetto's son given life, and before their world had been swallowed by darkness he had been following the puppet on his misadventures, especially to Pleasure Island, where he was nearly turned into a donkey, though he was thankful to see that Pinocchio had returned to normal.

Pinocchio, for the most part, ignored them as he pulled out a gummi chunk and started to carry it down into the depths of Monstro's mouth, where they found that he was heading for a mostly intact ship, or at least the front half of it, that was lodged into the jaw near the throat, or what Sombra assumed was the throat.

"Um, I suggest we help Pinocchio and get out of here soon... there's no telling when Monstro might eat us, and everything else in his mouth, for real." Fluttershy commented, as she was the one with the most experience when it came to animals, even though a whale might be outside her comfort zone given where she lived, but even then Sombra and Radiant knew to trust her given her past experiences.

With that in mind the group carefully followed Pinocchio, Sombra forming steps out of her magic on top of the water for all of them to walk on, and it wasn't long before they reached the fractured boat, finding an older man who was dressed in similar clothing to Pinocchio, meaning he was Geppetto. Pinocchio was showing him the gummi block he had found, as he claimed it could get them out of here, something that utterly confused his father as he stared at it, though what came as a shock to him was Sora, Sombra, and the others climbing up onto the deck. Such a thing allowed them to find that there was next to nothing up here, save for a bed, a large dresser, a pedestal with a fish bowl on top of it, and a table for two, all while it looked like they were salvaging stuff from the other ships that Monstro was eating, a slow process since the whale was breaking everything into nearly unusable fragments. Gepetto explained that when he and Pinocchio were separated he went looking for his son, which was hard to tell if it was before Pleasure Island or after it since not even the old man seemed to know when his world was swallowed by darkness, meaning he might have been swallowed by the whale before his son suffered the same fate.

Pinocchio, on the other hand, decided that now was the best time to explore the insides of Monstro and walked into the whale's oddly small throat before vanishing, though why no one had stopped him before realizing where he was going was because they thought he was looking for more mouth salvage.

"Don't worry, we'll go find him." Sora said, causing him and the others to jump over the side of the ship and walk over to the opening that Pinocchio had used, though before entering it he had an idea and turned to face Sombra, as if recalling what he had done back in Traverse Town after they talked with Leon, "Are there any Heartless in Monstro?"

"Wait, you can sense Heartless?!" Riku asked, as this was news to him, which was understandable since he had missed the first couple of worlds that they had explored and fought their way through before encountering him, though at the same time Radiant and Fluttershy readied their weapons, causing Donald and Goofy to do the same.

"Well, I can sense the darkness in them... and yes, there are Heartless inside the whale's insides." Sombra replied, taking a moment to answer both of their questions as she summoned her scythe, though as she did so she found something that made her smile for a few seconds, because there was another boss level Heartless somewhere inside Monstro, "And there is one like Guard Armor as well."

The others glanced at each other for a moment, as that meant a powerful Heartless was going to attack them while they searched for Pinocchio, before heading through the opening and found themselves in an oddly pulsing chamber that was made out of the whale's insides. Radiant found this to be the grossest thing she had experienced in her entire life, which was saying something when Sombra thought about what she had done to stay in her life and track her down, though they did find that the puppet didn't seem to care about them as he headed deeper into the whale. They also confirmed that the Heartless were inside Monstro's body, as there were a few floating ghostly looking creatures with the emblem resting on their chests that appeared out of thin air, though they had to either hit them quick or wait until they reappeared, as they seemed to phase in and out of thin air, fitting their ghostly nature. The Ghosts were actually really easy to bring down, as a few hits was more than enough to take one out, though when Sombra tried the Fira spell out she found that the fireball it created blasted her target into mist, meaning the Ghosts were either weak or this spell was far too strong for them.

In addition to that there were Shadows, the Winged Soldiers and Pot Spiders from Agrabah, a few Fat Bodies, a number of Nocturnes of various colors, and Barrel Spiders, just like the ones from Aladdin's world except they wore barrels as their cover, causing the group to lash out at them as Sombra made sure to collect the hearts that were freed.

While fighting the Heartless back the group found Monstro's insides to be rather confusing, as it was more like a maze and less like the internal organs they were expecting, as each entrance seemed to be connected to another part and some just brought everyone back to a chamber they had been in previously. Sombra was trying to help with her senses, though that wasn't easy to do either, so she focused on building a mental map in her head and labeling each opening correctly, so they knew which passage was connected to which point, but the downside was that they had to return to the first chamber for her to accurately build the map. Sora openly wondered how Pinocchio was able to traverse all of this and Radiant gave an accurate answer, the Heartless had likely kidnapped him the moment he happened to be alone and were using the paths in Monstro to confuse them so the boss creature could make an attempt to take his heart. Sombra had to agree, as there was no reason for the heart seeking Heartless to care about something that didn't have a heart, meaning Pinocchio had to have one, though at the same time it meant that they had to hurry, because she remembered what happened to Clayton and figured such a thing would break Pinocchio.

Eventually, with some difficulty and eliminating of all the Heartless until none were left, Sombra found a passage that they hadn't used yet and discovered that it was their destination, as it brought them to a chamber that had a large Heartless that looked like a cage and had a pair of tendril arms, with Pinocchio trapped in it's core.

The only thing the creature seemed to be able to do right now was swing it's arms at them, where Sombra and Riku struck and pinned both appendages down before it could hit anyway, something that allowed everyone else to strike the Parasite Cage, as it looked like it was growing from Monstro's closed bowels, before it could fight back. After a few moments of that happening the boss Heartless burped out Pinocchio before fleeing from them, tearing it's tendrils in the process, though as that happened the puppet fell into the hole the Parasite Cage left behind, causing them to rush after him. Somehow the hole brought them back to the mouth, which didn't make sense to any of them, but before they could figure out what was going on Geppetto told them a ghostly figure snatched Pinocchio and carried him to the upper walkway, right above the path they had entered earlier. That was when Sombra found that they must have learned something after beating up their foe, as Sora was able to jump higher than before and reached the new opening with ease, causing the others to replicate his movements before heading through the new opening, which somehow brought them to Monstro's stomach.

Sure enough the Parasite Cage appeared in the center of the area and attacked the group again, though this time none of them were even remotely impressed by it, and even when it sucked up some acid to use against them they either dodged it with ease or Sombra caught it with her magic before dropping the stomach acid back into the pool. After it tried that a few more times, even though it was an utter failure, Sombra just decided to put a magical barrier over the stomach acid, and then another one around Pinocchio as she spotted him in the corner, who was being talked to by Jiminy while they fought the Heartless. After all of the Heartless everyone assumed that the Parasite Cage would have been stronger than what it was, as even with it trying new arm swings they were able to deal great damage to it, and figured that it had been designed to feast on other Heartless, hence the cage to trap it's kind, to grow it's power, which might explain Monstro's odd habits. As Sora struck the finishing blow, however, Sombra felt a new page fill out in her magical tome, so while she caught the newly freed heart she pulled the book out and let her eyes widen as she noticed that the new spell was, against all odds, the base Stop spell.

Sombra grinned as she looked at the tome, and continued to do so as she found that Monstro's stomach was starting to act up, causing her to gather her magic into her hands as time magic wrapped around her wrists, much to the surprise of the others, before she slammed her hands on the ground as a light blue wave of energy washed over the area, slowing the whale while keeping her group perfectly fine.

"Sombra... what did you do?" Radiant asked, because she knew for a fact that Sombra didn't have this power back when she fought Princesses Celestia and Luna, otherwise it was possible she would have won that battle, and even Fluttershy was surprised by what they were seeing at the moment.

"I'll explain later. For now, let's get out of here... I think Monstro is going to hurl soon!" Sombra replied, because they had fought in the whale's stomach, meaning there was a chance it was going to be sick, and if that was the case the group had a single chance to get out of here with their ship, and as they turned to leave she made sure to pick up Pinocchio and Jiminy, "And we'll get Geppetto as well."

The others nodded as they quickly made their way back to the whale's mouth, where they found that Geppetto was totally stunned by what was happening to Monstro, though upon hearing that they were leaving, along with the fact that he was coming with them, he collected his fishbowl, and the fish inside it, along with a few possessions before catching up to the group. With both the father and son with them Sora found a way to access the Gummi Ship and warped them all aboard it without delay, where he rushed to the pilot's seat as everyone else got ready, as Sombra could tell the spell wearing off as everyone took their seats. Since the newcomers didn't have seats, and there wasn't time to get into the kitchen or even the private world, Sombra weaved her magic into a sphere around them, one that would keep them safe for the first part of their exit, before bracing herself as the time spell came to an end. Such a thing was followed by Monstro sneezing with enough force to send them flying out of his mouth, where Sora made sure to activate the flight system once they were clear of the whale and had stopped moving, before setting a course for Traverse Town.

Sombra, Fluttershy, and Radiant agreed with him, as it would be wise to drop Geppetto and Pinocchio off in a safe haven and Traverse Town would welcome them with ease when they arrived, though it only made them wonder what they might discover in the very near future.