strangetrip | OtherWorlds: The Fish Freaks of Crystal Cove (Sam x Sora), backdated

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OtherWorlds: The Fish Freaks of Crystal Cove (Sam x Sora), backdated

"Did you hear about that sardine boat?"

"Y'mean the one went missing up near the old oil rig?

The conversation floated on the buzz of conversation in The Hangman's Grill where Sam had staked out a booth, a newspaper, and a prime position for hearing the rumors of supernatural stuff happening in the town. A lot of it was turning out to be not-so-supernatural, but that was par for the course.

Dean would love this place. Great cheeseburgers, great pie, and enough hunting to keep them busy for weeks. Sam smiled into his coffee cup. At least thinking about Dean wasn't hurting so much.

"...haunted."

"Load of crap if y'ask me.

"Just saying, it's not the first boat to go missing up there."

That was enough to pique Sam's curiosity. He paid his check with one of the credit cards in his wallet. He didn't feel bad about it being a fake. If they got rid enough of the supernatural activity in Bonesville, The Hangman's Grill would make a lot more money. And if he found any cash, he'd leave it for them.

He saw Sora as he was leaving the grill to do some research and nodded in greeting. "Hey, Sora."

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Sora had, he thought, been one of the first through the door into the new world. Through the door, up the cliff, whatever. A new world was always exciting, especially because it was a new chance to maybe find Riku or Kairi. Or both! But so far they hadn't been at any of the places he thought they'd be or any of the places he thought they'd think he would be.

He'd been about to start just asking people if they'd seen his friends - any of them! - when the weird sense of the town started being more distracting. There weren't any Heartless, they'd have been drawn to the Keyblade, but... this town kind of felt like Port Royal. And Port Royal had had cursed zombie pirates.

He was okay with being alone, but the weird feeling made him extra glad to see someone he knew, even mostly in passing. Without thinking about it, Sora bounced into step with Sam. "Hi, Sam! This is kind of an interesting place, huh?"

"That's one word for it." He couldn't resist a smile at the kid. As far as he knew, Sora was almost sixteen, but most days, he didn't look a minute over twelve.

Fucked up was more what Sam had been thinking, but he tended to watch his mouth around the younger ones at the inn. Dean would probably mock him for that, too, but his big brother didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to that. He'd been the one telling Sam to watch his mouth for the first ten years of his life.

"You headed back to the Inn?"

"Nah, not right now." Eventually, sure. To sleep or something. Or eat, because a fishing town like this was apparently not a good place to be a vegetarian. But not right away. "There's something weird here, so I'm gonna kind of run around until something jumps at me." Tried-and-true tactic for him. Eventually, evil things always jumped at him. "Are you headed back?"

Sam cast a sideways glance at him. "That's probably not a great idea. I'm pretty sure we're looking at dangerous weird more than interesting weird."

He didn't want to be dismissive, because God knew at fifteen he and Dean had been able to handle themselves in a situation like this. But Sora was just a cheerful kid with a lot of energy.

Or...hm. The Inn being the Inn, he probably shouldn't make that assumption.

"I was actually heading to the library, the newspaper office or the town hall to do a little research about some of the weird."

"Neat! You mind some company?" If it was dangerous weird, it was definitely better to stay in groups. Especially since as far as Sora knew, Sam didn't have a Keyblade or anything like it. "I'm actually pretty good at dangerous weird, don't worry."

Better Sora came with him then wandered off on his own. At least Sam could keep an eye on him. And two sets of eyes were always better than one when it came to archival research.

"Nah, it's cool if you want to come." He glanced over again and then asked, "So what kind of dangerous-weird are you used to?" Because it could be anything from video games to vampires.

"Oh, tons of stuff!" Sora grinned up at Sam, perfectly cheerful. He might have been talking about anything, but he continued, "A giant three-headed dog that barfed fire in a Coliseum. That happened like three times. Playing cards with spears. The insides of a giant whale including his possessed belly or something. A shadow-copy of myself a few times, sometimes that was giant too. A witch who turned into a dragon. A thousand Heartless all at once. A Mongol horde. Three masked kids in a walking bathtub. A giant talking pillowcase filled with bugs that tried to kill me with conveyer belts. Undead zombie pirates...." Sora stopped there, shrugging a little. "Actually kind of a lot's tried to kill me. I guess dangerous weird is kind of my thing!"

Sam blinked at the stream of mundane-world nonsense, hunter-sense that came pouring out of Sora's mouth. But if he was a hunter, he was a hunter like none they'd ever met. Either that, or he hadn't lost anyone yet.

"Guess we've got that in common," Sam replied, a little wryly. He doubted the most dangerous thing ever wanting to kill Sora had ever been his own father and brother though. "So, is your whole family hunters or did you fall into it some other way?"

"I don't have a family," Sora replied, almost off-hand. He didn't, anyway, not anymore. They'd been destroyed with the Destiny Islands back at the start of everything, and he wasn't sure they'd been recreated when it was brought back. He was never going there again, probably, so it... didn't matter. "I got this," he raised his hand and called the Keyblade into it, "when the Heartless ate my home world. So I guess if I'm a hunter, I just hunt Heartless."

A giant key? Sam's brow furrowed but he just shrugged. Magic weapons didn't have to make sense. They just had to work. "What's a Heartless?" With an audible capital H, Sam suspected they were probably some kind of demon.

Sora let the Keyblade go again. It was better not to swing it around if he wasn't going to be using it. It drew attention, which wasn't always a good idea. "Heartless are sort of... they're monsters. When someone loses their heart, the darkness in it becomes a Heartless and the shell left behind becomes a Nobody. Which is a different kind of monster, sometimes. Sometimes they stay people. It's hard to predict."

That was some seriously bad juju. "How do they lose their hearts? And did you figure out who's behind it yet?" Because that kind of thing didn't just happen. Someone was doing it on purpose and that someone was bad news.

"No one's really behind the Heartless, they just exist as long as there's darkness in people's hearts. New Heartless can be made by current ones taking hearts, but I'm pretty sure there's a source somewhere that they just come from." Sora shook his head. "They can be controlled and stuff, but I think they pretty much only let themselves be told to do what they want to do anyway. It's not a good idea. But yeah, I've locked every open world I've found. There aren't any Heartless here or in the Inn."

Sam's gaze narrowed as he shot a glance at Sora. He was starting to sound like something Sam ought to be suspicious of. "If you can lock an open world, how come you can't unlock a closed one?"

Sora tilted his head, considering. "I... probably could. But I don't know how, and also it's a bad idea. I'd probably need to start by finding the world's Keyhole, the access to its core. The Keyblade would open it, and then the Heartless would come destroy the world like right away because they wouldn't have to find the Keyhole like usual. So I definitely don't want to do any of that."

"Would we be able to leave if you opened the core?" Sora didn't seem like the mastermind behind all of this. "Because if you can fight a thousand at once there are a lot of people who can fight."

"I dunno." The Heartless came in through walls, kind of, connecting worlds. They were called. Locking the Keyhole closed the connections, but would unlocking it open them?. "I've never tried. But I think it's way more likely everyone would be destroyed when the Heartless eat the world. Except maybe me, I've been thrown clear before."

"Good to know." It was, too. But for now, Sam put a pin in it and went back to the research they had ahead of them.

"Have you heard anything about a boat going missing?"

"Um, maybe a little?" He'd been focused on looking for his friends, but... maybe he'd overheard something? "Is that what you're gonna research? Or what we're gonna, I guess."

"Yeah. There's an old oil rig not too far out that people are saying is haunted. They think it's responsible for the boat's disappearance." Sam kept his voice low, even though it was unlikely anyone could listen in while they moved through the streets. "I want to see if there's anything in the library archives about the rig."

"Sounds like a good idea." Sora nodded. "There's something weird about this place. And I bet your idea'll work better than just hoping whatever it is starts attacking me."

"Yeah, waiting to get attacked isn't the most efficient way to hunt. Unless you're baiting a trap, but I can't do that without knowing what we're trying to catch. So, research."

And Sam's long strides carried them right up to the front steps of the library.

Sora, being much shorter, had to jog to keep up as they went up the stairs and into the building. But that was fine, that was practically his normal speed. His slow speed, even, given how often he defaulted to 'flat-out run'. "What do you want me to look for?"

"Anything about that oil rig, hauntings, sightings of strange creatures," Sam rattled off. "Usually if there's something supernatural going on, there will be some kind of urban legend."

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OtherWorlds: The Fish Freaks of Crystal Cove (Sam x Sora), backdated

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