Mickey Mouse In The Multiverse of Madness!

[Mickey Mouse]

INTO THE MICKEY-VERSE, Part One:
Mickey Mouse In The Multiverse of Madness!​

“When you wish upon a star…”

Mickey reached out. A small hand, even tinier than his own, flailed upwards towards him, then slipped out of reach.

He grasped on to the only other thing he could reach.

He heard a snap.

***

Snap, crackle, pop, Mickey Mouse was on a bot.

A boat. Mickey Mouse was on a boat.

It made sense. The last thing he remembered feeling before losing unconsciousness was the distinctly uncomfy feeling of water rushing down his tiny throat, choking him into submission. The waters of Opealon dragged him down, pulling him into their depths, as the colony of Nausicaa vanished into nothingness above him.

The tendrils of hopelessness, too, crept up his spine; with the island fading further and further into the distance, so too did any chance he had of stopping the Cap’n. Many warriors still fought valiantly against the Unmade Arbiter within the caverns of the Water Temple, certainly, but for the mouse king… well, the battle had ended. He’d lost.

How had he survived? The force of Cap’n David’s hits — of Darkseid’s very essence imbuing his crustacean muscles with power — had been enough to splinter the mouse’s Iron Mickey armor into many different pieces. He remembered it coming apart as he sank into the ocean planet’s endless sea, drifting away from him. He remembered trying to reach out and retrieve what he could, but the pain surging through his muscles had overpowered him so much that he barely even managed to move his head to watch them float away. No chance at actually moving once the salty waters had begun to choke him.

And yet, somehow, the sweet and delicious sun of Sweetzerland shone over him, a yellow-orange gumdrop in the middle of a clear, crystal blue sky. Mickey’s whole face scrunched up as he suddenly realized he was back on… Nos’talgia?!

He shot up, blinking furiously. Surely, his eyes were deceiving him, right? He’d been sinking into the depths of nothingness on Opealon, right? So how had he managed to freakin’ teleport halfway across the galaxy back to this candy-crusted, cartoon-crowded celestial body? He glanced down at the floor, hoping past hope that maybe the vessel that rocked and wriggled in whatever body of water he’d ended up in now was his Spaceboat, only to be greeted instead by a icing-coated stretch of graham cracker floor.

The mouse pressed a gloved hand to the ground and tried to get up, only to get yanked back to the ground by something wrapped around one of his ankles. His head jerked back, gaze falling on a set of licorice chains that held him in place on the bridge of this ship.

He blinked again, but this time in disbelief. Did they really expect some candy to hold him here?

“Voltar thundasir!” he shouted, his keyblade materializing in his hand and shooting a bolt of lightning from its tip. The electric shock crashed into the licorice chain, snapping it in two and releasing the mouse from its bindings. The recoil from his shot of lightning sent him stumbling backwards, but he quickly regained his footing and sprinted for the side of this sweet little ship.

He leapt up onto the candy cane railing, staring down in horror at the large expanse of the Mountain Dew River stretching out before him. The nearest shore was a good hundred feet away or more, and without a Magic Carpet to come in clutch, he was pretty darn stuck here unless he could find some other way out.

“Ser Mouse!”

Mickey spun around, bouncing off the railing and back onto the graham cracker floor of this ship’s starboard side. The licorice chain clinked as he dragged it along behind him and lifted the Star Seeker until his keyblade was pointed, in the best en garde position he could muster, at the speaker who’d just made themselves known.

A human stood before him, tall and lithe and brown-skinned, dressed in floofy pink pants and a matching veil and cropped top. The human’s features were hard and deliberately angled, and from beneath the veil a slight fuzz peeked out, indicating this person had… a beard? Mickey examined them with great interest as the human held out a hand, trying their best to take a step towards him. In kind, he took a step back and scowled.

“Step off, pal,” he growled. “I don’t take kindly to bein’ chained up, ya hear?”

The human fell into a hasty curtsy, their knees almost hitting the floor as they tried to lower themselves so far they were even shorter than the mouse. “My masters meant no offense, Your Majesty,” the person said, “they simply wanted to corral any frantic impulses you might have upon your sudden waking.”

Mickey scoffed. Please. Frantic, him? Since freakin’ when? A likely story. He’d just been involved in perhaps the greatest heroic team-up the Crossroads had ever known, almost lost his goshdarn life about it, and when he woke up in chains he was supposed to believe it was just a safety precaution? Nah, he knew this story — he’d seen this movie plenty of times, and undoubtedly the person behind it was someone sinister, probably twiddling their mustache in some dark and secret control room at this very moment.

“I assure you,” they continued, “we mean you no harm. We’re just interested in your very… particular set of skills, Mr. Mouse.”

Mickey had to stifle the urge to chuckle; he’d heard that before, too. Behind the unfortunate messenger, a door slid open.

Ha, Mickey thought, revealing yourself so soon, villain? Some evil genius you are, fella!

The entire wall of the ship’s main cabin was also made of graham crackers, so little chunks were sawed off as the door opened revealing a shadowy corridor. Mickey squinted, trying his best to catch a glimpse at the mastermind waiting to spew their evil plan to him. He’d barely been on this boat five minutes — or, well, probably longer, but he’d barely been conscious on this boat five minutes — and already he was in a hurry to have this over with, and be off. After all, he had to figure out what the heck had been going on in the galaxy since he’d been unconscious. It couldn’t have been that long, right?

From the shadowy darkness, a small, slight figure emerged, entirely gray except for the light blue haze surrounding her as she floated into view. Braided pigtails fell behind her head loosely, one slightly more stretched than the other, tied together with pretty bows and accompanied by a little flower in her hair. She wore a slightly ratty-looking short-sleeve dress, a thick belt wrapped around her waist. As she came into the Nos’talgia sunlight, Mickey felt his heart sink and his stomach drop.

“Hi, Mr. Mouse,” the ghost of Little Susie smiled. “Do you remember me?”

Quest: The Greatest Show Unearthed
Mickey Mouse
Post WC: 1145
Quest WC: 1145/20000

 

[Mickey Mouse]

The Star Seeker clanged as it hit the graham cracker floor of the ship.

“Of course I remember you,” he almost whispered, “of course.”

Little Susie’s ghost hovered forward, the expression on her face much warmer and kinder than the rest of her ghostly complexion would lead one to expect. She approached Mickey, and he felt an urge to back away again but stopped himself.

How the heck… was this possible? He supposed after all this time, after everything he’d seen, he should be the type of mouse that absolutely didn’t rule out the possibility of ghosts existing, but ghosts from other dimensions? This shiznit was getting wilder the longer he stayed in the Crossroads. Which, he supposed, would be the rest of his life, at this rate, so he decidedly should start getting used to it.

It didn’t help that even just looking at Little Susie’s face brought back the worst kinda memories of the old place, though. He caught his gaze shifting to the slightly longer pigtail, the one he’d grabbed and yanked in his desperate attempt to save her from certain demise at the hands of those… those… well, he couldn’t rightly remember the specifics, he supposed. Everything from the old place seemed so hazy now; remembering Little Susie would’ve been a shock, but he didn’t really know how he could forget one of his greatest failures — one of the times when he hadn’t measured up to the hero he knew he was supposed to be.

And now she was here, floating in front of him. Decidedly dead, yes, but doing something that looked an awful lot like living a life. Or existing, at least.

What did that mean about the nature of this place? Had he and Blues died, too, when the Danteverse had collapsed in on itself? Had they not actually escaped at all, but was this some sort of weird purgatory he and Little Susie and anyone else who’d perished back there was destined to be trapped in forever?

“You look the same,” Susie interrupted his thoughts with a grin. “Except you changed your outfit, Mr. Mouse.”

Mickey looked down at his new-ish threads, a little darker and more edgy, admittedly, than the brightly colored hoodie-and-shorts combo he’d sported during that cataclysmic Dante’s Abyss. His taste had somehow grown a bit more… well, he liked to think that it was punk rock, but knew that most of his associates might disagree. Blues had once described it as a decidedly more ‘emo’ outfit for a more ‘emo’ Mickey, but the mouse king didn’t have a clue what in tarnation ‘emo’ was supposed to mean.

“I’m tryin’ out something new,” he grinned back at her. “Feels like it fits this place, y’know?”

“I’m not so sure,” Susie giggled, “everything here seems so colorful.”

Mickey glanced around at the scenery. The graham cracker ship had entered into a more sizeable tributary of the Mountain Dew River and now seemed to be docking at one of Sweetzerland’s more lively ports, and truly, Susie’s description couldn’t have been more accurate — gingerbread buildings rose out of the ground before their eyes, painted with frosting of all different colors. They were adorned with gumdrop gargoyles, a candy castle forming the backdrop. If Mickey hadn’t been so concerned with the existential implications (two words he couldn’t even pronounce) of a ghost from another dimension popping up suddenly (a concept he could barely wrap his noggin around), his mouth might’ve watered just looking at it all.

As it was, he had bigger Swedish fish to fry. He turned back toward Susie, and then let his gaze fall on the person behind the ghost girl. “And who’s your friend?”

“Hm?” Susie quirked, glancing back. “Oh, that’s Nefertiti!”

Nefertiti curtsied once again, flashing her eyes up at the mouse king. “That’s right, Your Majesty,” she beamed. “It is I, the mysterious Nefertiti, famed bearded lady of the greatest traveling circus on Nos’talgia, Le Carnivale Freakalicious!”

Mickey blinked. “Are there other traveling circuses on Nos?”

“Beside the point,” Nefertiti chuckled. “The point is, we’re fantastic, and we’re officially taking up residence for the next two weeks in Sweetzerland!”

“Annnnd,” Little Susie piggybacked, “we’ve actually come to offer you a job, Mr. Mouse.”

Mickey looked back at Susie. “A job?”

“Y’see, when our ringleader heard that you were on Nos’talgia, he just had to send us to see if you would join us as a featured act,” Susie explained. “So we went and found you! After whatever happened on Opealon, the Wondertainment Company went looking for you, dragged you out of the ocean, and had you holed up in a hospital over in the Imagen Nation. I had to fight tooth and nail to convince them to let me check you out of there.”

The mouse turned away, glancing at the great capital city of Sweetzerland on the horizon once again. The gaps were being filled in, then… Wondertainment had rescued him, again, from the clutches of Darkseid’s wrath. They’d been there to pull he and Blues out of that creepy ol’ castle in the Uncanny Valley, and now they’d sent in a whole search party to find him in the wide open sea of Opealon? He had to admit, it was almost creepy how invested they were in him, but he was never going to complain about getting to live another day. If he was living at all, anyway, and this wasn’t some elaborate purgatorial torture, an option he still wasn’t willing to rule out.

But what could this carnival want with him? And what did it want with Susie? He supposed, perhaps, there was some luster in being able to say you were a freakin’ ghost from another universe, so that mileage could probably have sustained her for a while. But what did he have, other than being a talking mouse? He didn’t want to undersell his unique qualities, but he certainly had seen far stranger things even in the relatively short time he’d been adventuring in this weirdo galaxy. He could make a freakin’ list of misfits and deviants that should probably be circus acts way before him.

“I’m not sure I would be of much use to you guys,” Mickey shrugged. “I mean, how much pull could a stupid little mouse like me have at your lil’ circus?”

“Unimaginable,” Susie smirked. “Mr. Mouse — I don’t think you understand just how many people know who you are in this universe. I mean, between Dante’s Abyss and now all of your efforts against… well, the Fallen Arbiter…”

Hm. So even Little Susie was afraid to say his name. Weird.

“...between all of that, you’re a minor celebrity,” she continued. “Not like, a household name, per se, but enough people know of you that our ringleader thinks you’d be a draw. And he just wants your services for a little while. Just the two week engagement in Sweetzerland, and then he says you can be on your merry way, off to save the Crossroads from whatever evil tries to destroy the galaxy next. His words, not ours.”

Mickey contemplated what Susie had said. Hadn’t he been aching for this? Hadn’t he been hoping that someone would come along and show him that, even with all the pain and struggle, everything he was doing… mattered? He wasn’t in this for the rewards, or the renown, or the fame, obviously, he was in it to save people, but — well, even an upstanding gentlemouse like himself would admit that, whilst sinking into the depths of Opealon and watching an island you tried to save crack and crumble before your very eyes, it was kinda hard to feel like his attempts at heroism had gotten him anywhere.

So what would a week or two with the Le Carnivale Freakalicious hurt? Probably nothing — he didn’t wanna jinx it, but he didn’t think Darkseid was gonna take over the universe that quickly. And in the end, it might prove to be helpful if he found a bit more reason to keep on truckin’ out of this whole situation.

And maybe he and Little Susie could get to the bottom of what this place was, too.

Figure out how they’d gotten here. Figure out what their purpose might be.

He turned back toward Little Susie and Nefertiti, both of whom looked at him with big, hopeful eyes. “Alright, alright, pals, quit your puppy dog eyes!” he held up his gloved hands, surrendering. “I’m in!”

Quest: The Greatest Show Unearthed
Mickey Mouse
Post WC: 1412
Quest WC: 2555/20000

 

[Mickey Mouse]

The mothertruckin’ circus!

Mickey was, to be quite frank — although his name was decidedly Mickey and not Frank — thrilled as heck. He absolutely adored the circus; everything about it fascinated him and captured his attention almost like nothing else could. He remembered fondly his times visiting the circus with his lady love, Minnie, back in his home realms. Everything there was positively thrilling, and the Carnivale Freakalicious was no different, despite having some weirdo French-soundin’ name.

After docking in the port of Sweetzerland, the mouse king was ushered into a candy carriage along with Little Susie and Nefertiti. They bobbed along the streets, with Mickey trying his darndest to resist his sweet tooth and not lick the frame of their vessel, until they finally rolled up at the most magnificent set of tents he’d ever laid eyes upon. They were much better than the big purple ones Karl Jak and Syntech rolled out each year for Dante’s Abyss, and they were decidedly not made of candy, which let Mickey know that this carnival, he supposed, was the traveling kind.

The first tent, off to his right, was medium-sized and emerald-green, with beautiful gold lining along the edges. Beautiful paintings of lions and elephants and tigers (oh my!) adorned it near the bottom; they all looked positively ferocious. “That,” Nefertiti said, leaning down next to the curious-looking mouse, “is the animal tent.”

Mickey looked up, his fur a little bit paler.

“Oh, not for you, of course,” she clarified. “You’re a special guest. That’s just for the trained animals.”

The mouse king quirked his brow a bit. A little problematic, he thought to himself, but they’ve been so nice to me — surely they treat the other animals well. He made a mental note to go check out the tent later, though, just to make sure.

Off to his left, a similar-looking tent — though significantly smaller — stood, blue in color, with silver linings on the edges and with a nice paisley design in a deep shade of indigo all around the sides. Although it was the smallest of the main three tents, it was decidedly the fanciest-lookin’ one, and so Mickey had a pretty good idea of what he would find inside it if he were to go looking. He glanced up toward Nefertiti, who now hovered around him as his unofficial guide, for confirmation.

“That’s the boss’ place,” the bearded lady confirmed the mouse king’s suspicions. “Good ol’ Ramses, ringleader of this circus and C.E.O extraordinaire!”

“Does the ‘e’ stand for extraordinaire?” Mickey asked.

Nefertiti raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“Hm,” Mickey shrugged.

Little Susie and Nefertiti shared a glance, but moved along quickly, the ghost girl touching Mickey’s shoulder and pressing him toward the big red tent directly ahead of where their candy-coated coach had dropped them off. The mouse followed her touch, looking up at the magnificent Big Top as it sprawled out in front of him. It wasn’t the nicest of the tents, but it was certainly the biggest — striped with crimson and then a more pinkish-color, and with its front flaps wide open. Mickey couldn’t entirely tell what was inside because they were so flippin’ far away, but he could see the ringmaster’s platform at the center and make out the outlines of a bunch of seats across the way.

To be honest, the keyblade master was heckin’ excited to be here and… well, not be a keyblade master for a little while. It had been a long time since he’d been able to do anything relaxing, between all the shiznit happening in the old place and then the steady downward spiral the Crossroads was on. He knew the threat of Darkseid was always looming, but to be honest, it was thrilling to think he might be able to take two weeks and just… not think of that. Or think of it a little bit less, at least.

“So which one do I get my shut-eye in?” he asked, turning back toward his guides. As if on cue, Nefertiti jumped into action, reaching down and snatching up one of his gloved hands and starting down the main path toward the Big Top.

“You’re with me, mouse man,” she giggled, “in one of the much smaller tents behind the Big Top. The small top, you might say.”

Mickey laughed, even though the joke wasn’t that funny. Nefertiti was nice, and she’d taken to him almost immediately, even as he’d threatened her with his keyblade. As she dragged him towards the Big Top, he turned back to look at Little Susie’s ghost. She glanced back at him, too, and for just a moment, they met eyes. She smiled at him the sweetest little smile; so innocent, so nice. As she turned and slipped into the blue tent — to talk to the ringmaster, Mickey guessed — he couldn’t help but dwell on how far she was from where she’d started, too, just like him. And yet she, too, had welcomed him with such open arms, even after he had essentially been responsible for her… for her…

He didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to have fun, he wanted to relax, he wanted to hang out with Nefertiti.

He wanted to heckin’ sleep.

The small tent where Mickey and Nefertiti — or ‘Nef’ as Mickey had taken to calling her — were staying was, indeed, just a few yards behind the Big Top. Several small tents were scattered about, but theirs was decidedly closest to the gigantic red one. Mickey liked that; he was excited that he’d be able to jump right over and see the big show whenever he wanted.

“That’s your bed, right there,” Nef said, pointing toward a small, low-to-the-ground bed near the corner of the tent. It was weirdly small for a circus full of, ostensibly, mostly adult humans; almost as if it had been picked out especially for him. He supposed Nef and Susie had said the ringmaster was hoping he’d come, so maybe whoever this mysterious Ramses was had taken the liberty of planning things out ahead of time just in case he decided to agree to the job. Mickey had to respect that kind of optimist, in any case.

He hopped over to the bed, pulling back the covers and rolling into it with a quickness. As he snuggled up to go to bed, he glanced back over at Nef.

“Your accent,” the little mouse piped up. “It sounds familiar. You from Babylonia, pal?” Mickey vaguely remembered hearing people talk like Nef during his short stint on Mesa Roja, when he’d been getting Blues and the Skwid Skwad all fixed up. The bearded woman had already begun to get ready for bed, unclasping her veil and revealing the stubbly facial hair beneath. It wasn’t nearly as, like, long and bushy as Mickey had prepared himself for when he’d heard ‘bearded lady,’ but it seemed to suit her quite nicely, and for reasons the mouse king couldn’t exactly place, it brought a smile to his lips.

“Ha,” Nef laughed without looking up from her own nighttime prep, wetting a washcloth to wipe her face off after what had certainly been a long day, “not quite, darling. I’m from Karim. I’m Gerudo.”

Mickey quirked up a bit. “Ge-roo-doo? Never heard of that.”

“Geru-do. It’s a tribe of… women,” Nef explained, “who… live in Karim, and are very set in their ways. I chose to leave.” Mickey watched as his would-be roommate’s face sorta drooped at that, and she set down her cloth. As if anticipating the mouse’s next question, she turned to him and continued. “I just didn’t felt like I belonged there anymore. You ever feel like that?”

Mickey nodded. Yea, pal. All the heckin’ time.

Nef smiled a big smile. “I knew we were meant for each other, Mr. Mouse.”

She skipped over and wrapped him a big old hug. Mickey reciprocated it readily, then finally snuggled up when she’d released him and headed back over to her side of the room. After some quick good nights, he let out a deep breath, and reached into his bag sitting on the ground and pulled out his magic mirror.

He gazed into it for several moments, focusing all his magic energy on trying to find the friends he’d lost when he’d leapt into Nausicaa. He hadn’t had much time to dwell on where Blues and the others were, but the wonder had been tugging at the back of his mind. Was the Proto Man off somewhere looking for him? What about the Inklings, or Hiro? Had the young boy genius finished the special project he’d started working on as they traveled from the ARC to Opealon?

He couldn’t get the mirror to show him where they were. Did that mean he wasn’t supposed to find them? Did that mean they were lost somewhere and needed his help, while he lazed away at this circus? Or did that mean… they didn’t want to be found?

He rolled over and fell asleep as quickly as he could.

Quest: The Greatest Show Unearthed
Mickey Mouse
Post WC: 1510
Quest WC: 4065/20000

 

[Mickey Mouse]

He napped for a bit before easing himself out of dreamland. As the zzz’s of Nefertiti confirmed his roommate had cast off into sleep, the mouse king rolled out of bed and slipped on his shoes, quickly departing his little trailer and venturing out into the great unknown of the Carnivale Freakalicious.

Mental note: check in on the ‘animal tent’ — go.

Stealth mode — on!

Knees bent, elbows up, and brow furrowed, Mickey crept ever so quietly out of his and Nefertiti’s trailer. He didn’t exactly have a stealth mode, per se, but he’d watched enough people be sneaky that he had the general idea of how to do it! All you needed was to get low, look super focused, and take a really long time to get anywhere. That was the real key, he’d gleaned through careful observation — anyone who was everyone in the stealth business took their sweet-butt time arriving at their destination.

For his part, Mickey’s destination wasn’t too far, and by the time he’d been stealthing past the other carnies’ trailers for about twenty minutes, he’d made it about twenty percent of the way there. A percent a minute was dreadfully slow, and as he crept underneath yet another low-hanging awning, he mentally congratulated himself on being so dang good at this. He was frickin’ killing it —

TRIP! CRASH! CLANG!

The mouse king bowled over into a collection of metal barrels which made absolutely the loudest, most cacophonous noise he could imagine. His big ears rang as he rolled out of the mishmash of canisters he’d tumbled into, searching frantically for a place to hide. Any second now, someone would come out of their trailers and see him sneaking around, and although no one had technically ever told him he was supposed to stay put, he just knew it would be capital-b Bad if he was caught. He just knew it. For some reason.

No hiding spot immediately made itself apparent, but also… no one ever came out? Just as his brain resigned itself to being caught and started to craft complicated excuses for his late-night revels, Mickey began to feel just a little bit of a creepy-crawly silence start to set in. Since the clanging of the barrels had ceased, not another sound had sounded; no one, it seemed, was to be found.

Which, quite frankly, he found really freakin’ weird. He knew this was, like, a Monday or something, and the show itself wasn’t going on tonight — so much for that old saying, eh? — but he’d always expected carnies to be more… active at a time like this. He supposed the fact that these dudes had a curfew wasn’t exactly sinister, but he had to admit that it struck him as a bit odd. Well, he supposed this was a place called ‘Carnivale Freakalicious’; these people claimed to be freaks, and maybe they were freaks even when it came to bedtime, too.

Aw, dang, that didn’t sound right…

He stopped in his tracks as he finally rounded the corner of the Big Top, a full forty-five minutes into his sneaking. There it was, just across the way: the ‘animal tent,’ in all its big, green glory. He crept a bit faster now over toward it, glancing around as he prepared to cross the main path. Just hadta make sure no one was coming.

A brief whirr-ing noise perked up his mouse ears, and he crouched behind a nearby crate, determined to remain unseen. All the best stealthy folks crouched behind cover, he knew, and then would slowly peek up over that cover to see what the disturbance had been. He remembered a particular passage in Play, Boy of a lightly-armored woman crouched on her hands and knees behind a bed, with some evildoer in a full leather outfit and carrying some weird whip-with-many-whips creepin’ on the other side of the bed. From what Mickey could tell, the masked leather man hadn’t seen the girl yet, but she looked as if curiosity was about to get the better of her. She’d peek up soon, and so would Mickey.

The mouse lifted his head above the crate ever so slowly, watching as Little Susie paced — or, well, hovered quickly in one direction and then another — in front of the ringmaster’s tent. Mickey’s brow quirked, curiously. Was she still meeting with him? It had been several hours now, between his nap and the nearly an hour it had taken him to get this far.

Then, with a swiftness, something else flew forth from the flaps. The ringmaster himself — Ramses, or somethin’ — swept out into the open, looking downright spooky. His body was thin and pointed, adorned in a raggedy old forest-green robe and a slightly lighter shawl; the robe went to the floor so much that you couldn’t see his feet, and with the way he was moving, it looked almost as if those feet weren’t touching the ground. Mickey shuddered at the thought, his eyes scanning up to look at Ramses’ gaunt, almost skull-like face, all orange skin and big lips and tired, half-closed blue eyes. Three tufts of pink hair came out of his noggin, a matching color to his long, pointy nails.

The specterly ringmaster reached out for Little Susie’s hand, grasping one of them and trying to pull her close. He could… touch her, it seemed, but it seemed like Susie wasn’t in the mood for hand holding. She jerked away, furrowing her brow and hovering away from Ramses as he reached again. They were saying something; Mickey concentrated real hard, trying to eavesdrop.

“I won’t stand for this anymore,” Susie whispered intensely. “This isn’t what I was promised.”

“The fun will come soon,” Ramses hissed. “You have my word.”

“I am having no fun, King Ramses,” Susie spat back at him. Ramses lunged for her again, wrapping his weirdly perfectly-manicured nails around her wrist. “Let go of me, right now — ”

Mickey’s gloved hand opened, and his keyblade shimmered to life. He grabbed it, crouching down and preparing to lunge around the corner and save Susie from whatever King Ramses was about to do to her. That was his job, right? As a hero; whenever he saw trouble, he needed to leap into action. He hadn’t succeeded at saving Susie before, but he would now.

“What was that?” he heard Susie saying.

He peeked briefly. Around the corner of his hiding place, he made eye contact with Susie, whose face went just a little paler. She flicked her wrist, and suddenly, he found himself pushed back behind the crate, feet stuck to the floor, unable to move.

Did she… not want him to help her? He cursed in his head. Of course. He’d rushed to try and save her last time, and his instinct — his first plan — had failed miserably. She was keeping him from making the same mistake again, but… something was clearly off about this whole dynamic.

“Must’ve been nothing,” she said, turning back to Ramses. Mickey tried his best to peek over the crates again, only to see the ghost girl and the creepy king slip back into the entrance flaps of the blue tent.

His feet untensed, Susie’s charm on them breaking, and he tumbled out from his hiding spot, keyblade in hand. He had half a mind to ignore her silent protestation and go guns blazin’ — or, uh, keyblade swingin’ — into the ringmaster’s tent, demanding that Susie be released from whatever not-so-fun arrangement ol’ Ramses had cooked up for her. But he knew that she’d been right to stop him from rushing in. There was more going on here, and he had to find out if Susie was the only victim… and what the best way to do the most good would be.

For now, the best place to start on that investigation was exactly where he’d been heading: the animal tent. He let his keyblade fade away, and slowly began to cross the main path.

Quest: The Greatest Show Unearthed
Mickey Mouse
Post WC: 1327
Quest WC: 5392/20000

 

[Mickey Mouse]

As Mickey approached the animal tent, he steeled himself for what was to come. Hmph, he thought, time to see if this is actually the ‘greatest show on earth.’

He pushed through the flaps into a tent that was essentially pitch black. He could barely make out the silhouettes of pens and what looked like cages, which wasn’t a good start to his investigation. In his experience with humans — or, humanoids, at least — they’d always been quick to lock up creatures they didn’t understand. So, the idea that Ramses and his cronies had sized up the animals and put them away in big, uncomfy boxes wasn’t unexpected… but it was, nevertheless, disappointing.

A brief flash of light burst through the entire tent as he once again summoned his keyblade to his gloved hand. He glanced up at what looked like a torch, aimed the weapon as surely as he could, and whispered: “Voltar Thundasir!”

Just like magic — because, well, it was, ho ho! — a lightning bolt burst from the tip of Mickey’s keyblade and soared up through the tent. Mickey said a quick prayer to Walt or the Arbiter or whoever was in charge of luck in this universe to keep his aim true, and they provided. The bolt zapped the torch and immediately, the kindling inside burst into flames. Orange fire licked the air as it illuminated, if only barely, the section of the animal tent he found himself inside. Section, he realized, was the appropriate word, because frick, this place was even bigger on the inside than he could’ve imagined!

Big enough to hold hundreds of cages, anyway. The torch’s illumination confirmed what he’d earlier suspected — arranged in several rows across the huge animal tent was tiny prison after tiny prison. From his vantage point, at least, every cage he could see was home tro some animal or other, and he immediately felt rage begin to bubble up inside his stomach.

“Not for you, of course,” Nefertiti had said.

“That’s just for the trained animals.”

“You’re a special guest.”

The mouse king scoffed. What a load of fooey — he couldn’t think of a single animal that deserved to be locked up like this just for existin’. He had half a mind to make his way down the line and snap each and every one of these locks, setting these guys loose on the people who dared to put ‘em away, but he knew that that would probably end up in a much more bloody affair than he intended. No, if he was going to successfully get these guys free, he’d have to think smarter and work harder than just resorting to swinging his keyblade around.

Besides, there were a heckton of ‘em all locked up in here. He knew that an animal army fighting against their captors — if they even chose to fight — would probably be formidable, but he also knew that something was keeping ‘em here. The people in charge of this here circus were probably much more powerful than he had thus far been able to tell if they could keep all of these guys here, muted, downtrodden, under lock and key.

Cautiously, he approached one of the cages, reaching out and wrapping his gloved fingers around the bar. “Hello?” he squeaked, his mousy voice echoing throughout the tent. “Who’s in there?”

Deep in the back of the large box, he spied something curled up: a tiny little thing, all things considered, though it was admittedly just as large as he. Mickey squinted, and could barely make out that this was the figure of a tiny elephant, small and gray and with a frilly little collar and floppy yellow hat. It looked up at him with sad, blue eyes, flitting its eyelashes sweetly as if begging him to set it free. The mouse king could feel tears swelling up in his eyes as his fingers tightened around the bar.

“What’s your name, pal?” he asked, quietly as he could.

“Dumbo,” an answer came, though it wasn’t from Dumbo himself. The mouse spun to where the voice had come from, in a cage across the way. The inside of this one was especially dark, mostly likely due to its vastness, but also, he could see, due to the interesting conglomerations of rocks inside. He crept over towards it, looking at what was painted along the top.

‘KING OF PRIDE ROCK.’

No, he thought, his feet kicking up and rushing toward the edge of the cage. Sure enough, when he peeked inside, he saw none other than Simba himself lying atop one of the rocks, mane as red and fur as yellow as the last day he’d seen him in the old place. A little dirtier, perhaps, but nevertheless… Simba.

“Simba?” the king nearly screeched, “is that you?!”

“Your majesty,” Simba coughed, struggling to stand as he realized he was looking at his former leader. “It can’t be.”

“Sure as heck is, buddy ol’ pal,” the mouse said, feeling the tears really bubbling at the edge of his eyelids now. “What are you doin’ in here, bud?! How’d you even get here? How long have you been in this universe?”

“I — I mean, to tell the truth, sir, I’m not sure,” the lion replied, snaking his way to the edge of the cage. “I went to sleep one day in the old place, and the next day, I was here.”

Mickey blinked. More evidence that everyone who’d traveled with him in the old place had somehow managed to make their way here, as well — from Gilgamesh to Blues to Victor Wolfy to, now, Simba. This place was getting queerer and queerer by the second, but also… it was seeming closer and closer to home with every minute passing. And he knew, too, that Darkseid continued to grow stronger while he wasted time at this weird ol’ circus.

Having Simba back, along with any other recruits this circus could provide, would certainly be a help in the fight against the Fallen Arbiter. There was just one problem.

“Your Majesty,” Simba spoke, almost reading his mind, “are you here to rescue us?”

Mickey turned back to his lieutenant. “Oh, most definitely, fella.”

Quest: The Greatest Show Unearthed
Mickey Mouse
Post WC: 1023
Quest WC: 6415/20000

 

[Mickey Mouse]

Where… am I?

The mouse couldn’t bring himself to sleep after seeing Simba locked in that cage. He tossed and turned in his little bed in he and Nef’s little corner of the caravan, thinkin’ and thinkin’ and thinkin’ about what to do next. He’d gleaned that he was on Nos’talgia again — the candy-and-cartoon-coated exterior of the planet confirmed that much, at the very least — but where exactly was he? Was there any way of getting in contact with someone who could help him?

Where were Blues, and the Sqwid Sqwad, and Hiro, and the others? How did he end up in this goshdarn circus, all alone?

These were questions he probably should’ve asked from the very beginning, but he’d got caught up in just how nice these folks were. He couldn’t bear to bring himself to question their goodness, but now things had gotten rotten so quickly.

The next morning, he rose with a quickness, before Nef had even thought to open her eyes in her little cot across the room. He threw on his jacket and blew out the door of their tiny little trailer, cascading through the circus grounds like a mouse on a mission. Which, of course, he was — the tiny mouse hardly ever did anything without a big, bold sense of purpose, and this was no different. He wasn’t going to get help from inside the carnival; no, from what he could tell, the people here were either just as evil as that Ramses dude, or trapped here somehow like Little Susie. If he was going to get anything done, he was going to have to figure out where here was, and talk to the local authorities.

Leaving the grounds of the circus seemed like it was going to be easy enough until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Mr. Mouse,” Little Susie’s voice whispered urgently behind him.

The mouse king spun around, caught off guard by her, but quickly relaxed when he saw who’d tapped on his little ol’ shoulder. “Susie!”

“Mr. Mouse,” she repeated again with the same urgency, “where are you going?”

Behind Little Susie, the many different denizens of the circus had begun to slow their gaits. He’d been able to nearly escape their gaze on his way out, but the delay had caught their attention. They, too, wanted to know the answer to Little Susie’s question, it seemed, and he’d be darned if he let them in on any of his master plan. His eyes bounced around, looking from carnival worker to carnival worker, trying to discern if any of them were an immediate threat.

When he was sure that none of the fellas were about to pounce, he swept his gaze back to Little Susie with a big grin.

“Oh, don’t you worry, pal,” he smiled fakely, “I’m just going out for a little grocery trip! And to take in the sights, of course.”

Susie was unconvinced. “Mhmmm,” she scowled, “grocery trip.”

She hovered closer to him. “Be careful, Mr. Mouse,” she muttered. “Eyes are everywhere, and you don’t want to get caught by the boss’s people doing anything… well, anything weird. Or snooping around at night.” She lifted a ghostly eyebrow with this last question, and Mickey felt his fake grin falter a little bit. So she had caught him. He had to work on bein’ sneakier.

“I’m okay,” he nodded, lifting a gloved hand and trying to place it on her shoulder, forgetting she was a ghost. It phased through, feeling altogether strange and… cold, and he shoved it in his pocket, embarrassed. He’d never forget that he was the reason for that coldness — that Little Susie wouldn’t even be a weird ol’ specter right now if he’d been capable enough to save her back in the old place.

I can save her now.

“And soon you’ll be okay, too,” he winked, galloping back a few paces. He lifted up his other hand in a quick little wave and turned nearly sprint out of the carnival’s grounds.

For just a second, he could almost feel as the breath of every worker in eyesight hitched a bit, and he could feel his own air start to cling to the inside of his chest. It felt inevitable that they were going to give chase. That he was going to have to run.

…but then that feeling of danger started to slip away, and he felt safe again. Or, well, maybe not safe — but he felt that he had been allowed to leave.

For the moment, someone didn’t mind him being out and about.

They underestimated his big ol’ noggin, stuffed in that humongous, perfectly round head of his. A little bit of rope was all he needed.

If you give a mouse an inch…

Quest: The Greatest Show Unearthed
Mickey Mouse
Post WC: 796
Quest WC: 7211/20000