*sings* New chapter time!
Note -- Only 1 chapter left of this part of the story, next stop, Hollow Bastion!
After Cloud had finished eating the fish cooked by Sora, Larxene, and BHK(Ted), Axel looked at him expectantly, "Is it time to fix our Gummi Ship?" Cloud nodded, "I'm going to take a look at it and see why it isn't working..." Axel looked over to where his and Larxene's ship had crashed, "It looks pretty bad..." Cloud nodded, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean it isn't unfixable, the outside is mostly for armor and for show. It can fly without too much armor, but that isn't always the best idea." Larxene looked at Cloud, "Do you know if Traverse Town has any shops that fix up Gummi Ships? Ours was given to us for this mission only by Marluxia, the leader of Castle Oblivion. He probably wouldn't be too happy to see it in this shape..." Cloud thought for a moment, "One of my friends is really good with Gummi Ships; he might be able to fix it. But, he travels between Traverse Town and Hollow Bastion a lot, helping with the resistance against the Heartless. If he's in Traverse Town, tell him that you are friends of mine, and he can probably help you out, his name is Cid. If he's at Hollow Bastion, where I'll be going, I'll tell him about your predicament." Larxene smiled and nodded, "Ok, thanks, that'll be really helpful!" Sora looked at Cloud, "Can Sora come to Hollow Bastion too? Sora wants to fight evil..." BHK(Ted) nodded, "Count me in too!" Cloud nodded, "Sure, our resistance needs all the help we can get... Maybe if we work together, we can finally stop the Heartless..." Larxene's Shadow followers eeped nervously, they didn't want to be eliminated. Larxene looked at them, "I suppose we could spare you guys, you all seem pretty harmless...." The Shadows looked relieved at this, then Larxene spoke again, "But if you steal anyone's heart, we will have no choice but to stop you for good..." The Shadows nodded heartily, they would obey their leader, for she was their leader, and they didn't want to disappear forever. Cloud shrugged, "Hey, you never know, they might even be useful against other Heartless..." Larxene shrugged, "That's possible..." Cloud looked at Axel and Larxene, "You two are welcome to come with us to Hollow Bastion, once we get your Gummi Ship working." Larxene shook her head, "I'd really like to help fight the Heartless with you, but we have to finish this mission, and we're running really late as it is..." Axel nodded, "Yeah..." Cloud nodded, "I thought you would say something like that, I don't hold it against you, perhaps if your mission doesn't take too long, you can come and join us, better late than never." Larxene nodded, "Yeah, we might be able to swing by Hollow Bastion after our mission." Axel nodded, "Yeah! I'd like that!" Cloud smiled, "Good! Well, let's get around to see what's wrong with your ship..." Cloud walked over to the beat up Gummi Ship, Axel following close behind. Cloud turned around, "Are you going to pester me again?..." Axel nodded, "Yep!..." Cloud frowned at Axel, and Axel stammered, "I mean...no..." Cloud nodded, "Good...you can watch...but stay out of the way, and don't touch anything, unless I ask you to. Got it?" Axel nodded, "Yeah..." Cloud turned to the heavily dented Gummi Ship, and he walked around it, inspecting the armor. "Good news is that the armor wasn't breached, there are no holes, just a lot of dents and scratches." He pressed the button to open the door, and walked inside the Gummi Ship. He hit the light switch, but the lights stayed off. "Hmmm....the power's busted...." Cloud commented. He then made his way to the control panel. Squinting in the faint light, Cloud could see that the control panel was mostly good, a little crumpled, except for the control stick. The control stick was broken in half. Cloud nodded and picked up the broken piece. Walking out of the ship, he looked at the useless control stick in his hand. Axel looked at Cloud, "What's that?..." Cloud showed the control stick to Axel, "The control stick broke, but I think I can make a new, temporary one, out of the wood in here." Axel nodded, "Sounds good..." he murmured, even though he didn't really have a clue what Cloud was talking about. Cloud held out the control stick to Axel, "Hey, could you hold this for a minute, while I find a suitable replacement piece of wood?" Axel nodded, "Sure!" As Cloud walked off, he thought he could hear Axel quietly counting, "One...two...three..." Cloud shook his head; he would never understand this Axel guy. Cloud climbed up one of the big piles of useless lumber, hoping to find some dry wood near the top. One he reached the top, he started digging around, looking for one of the right thickness. As he was searching, he heard Axel yell, "Sixty! The minute's up!" Cloud shook his head, "Axel! 'Just a minute' is a figure of speech! It means that it won't take long!" he shouted down to Axel. Axel blinked, "Oooooohhhhhh...." he said quietly, and went back to looking at the control stick. Cloud finally found a piece of wood that was about the right length and width. He brought it down and set it down on a reasonably dry pile of wood. Cloud walked back into the Gummi Ship and managed to take out the rest of the damaged control stick. When Cloud came back out, Axel looked at him, "How are you gonna cut the wood?..." Cloud smiled, "I'll show you..." and pulled out his big sword. Axel blinked, "You're going to use that..." he pointed at the gigantic sword, "to cut that..." he pointed to the rather small control stick. Cloud nodded, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "Yep!" Axel blinked, "You're nuts..." Cloud laughed, "You'll see..." He set the control stick down next to the piece of wood he found, lining the broken pieces up as best as he could. With a mighty swing, he cut the piece of wood to be about the length of the control stick, then simply put his sword away. "That's it?" Axel asked. Cloud laughed, "Not exactly, I've got some smaller tools that I can use to trim it in my Gummi Ship; it's just easier to cut it to size with the Buster Sword." Axel blinked, "Ah..." Cloud chuckled, and took the broken control stick and the wood to his Gummi Ship. "It'll take a few minutes; I've got to trim the wood in my ship, because the lighting is better there. Cloud then went into his ship and got his tool kit. Pulling out a small knife, Cloud began to shape the rectangular lumber into a round, cylindrical control stick. After about ten minutes, Cloud came back out with the new control stick, the now polished wood gleaming in the dim light. Axel looked at the new control stick, "Wow that looks great!" Cloud nodded, "Thanks!" He went into the Gummi Ship and inserted the new control stick. Rotating it, and making sure it was secure, Cloud left the new Gummi Stick in its new home. Then, Cloud looked at the control panel. Locating the communicator, he memorized its identification number "Org812...got it... Now I can contact them if I need to..." He then walked out of the ship. "Now to see about the power..." Axel looked at Cloud, "What runs the power?..." Cloud looked at Axel, "The Gummi Ship engines supply all the power the ship needs..." Cloud walked around to the engines, "Your ship has two engines...so that means that either one or both engines are damaged... Two engine ships are small and light, but they require a lot of power, so both engines are necessary to run it." Cloud pulled out some odd looking goggles from his pocket. "What are those?" Axel asked, curious. Cloud looked at Axel, "They are goggles that let me see in the dark a little better, I always have a pair of goggles in my tool kit, it's dangerous to stick your hand or head in a Gummi Ship engine. The Gummi Ship engines are powered by special Gummi Blocks that heat up to extreme temperatures. Even deactivated Gummi Engine Blocks can still be very hot, depending on the engine." Axel nodded, a blank look on his face. Cloud knelt down and carefully looked in the first engine, "Ah...you're in luck, at least one of the engines' power sources is intact, and even luckier, it's a Firaga-G class, I have some extra Firaga-G power cores in my ship, that's what my ship's engines use." Axel nodded blankly again. Cloud then looked into the other engine, "Wow...this engine's power core appears to have exploded... There are lots of black char marks, and some fragments of the power core are lying about loose..." Axel looked at Cloud, "Is that bad?..." Cloud thought for a moment, "It is bad, but not unfixable, like I said, I have extra power cores, I just have to bring one out, clear the debris, and place the new one in. I'll be right back..." Axel nodded as Cloud went back to his Gummi Ship. Shortly, Cloud came back out, wearing heavy gloves and carrying a clear cylindrical container. Inside the container was a medium-sized glowing red stone. Axel saw the glowing stone, "Shiny!" he exclaimed, and ran over to Cloud, trying to peer into the container. "Stop it!" Cloud yelled, "It's very, very hot, and very, very dangerous, don't touch it! Even the container is superheated! You must have special gloves to handle one of these!" Axel winced backwards from Cloud's outburst. Cloud walked carefully over to the Gummi Ship, and placed the container on the ground nearby. "Don't touch it, it will hurt you." Cloud said shortly to Axel, who was now knelt down, looking intently at the power core. Cloud went over to the engine, and kneeling down, proceeded to wipe the debris of the last power core out of the engine. He turned back to get the power core, but saw the container empty. Cloud blinked, then looked up at Axel. Axel was happily playing with the power core, occasionally tossing it up in the air. "Shiny!" Axel said happily. Cloud blinked long and slow. "Axel....what are you doing?..." Cloud asked, still shocked by what he saw. "I'm enjoying the shiny!" Axel replied. "Axel...don't you know that thing is heated to thousands of degrees?..." Cloud asked. Axel shrugged, "It feels cold to me...not really cold, more like medium cold." Cloud blinked, "Cold...medium cold? What are you talking about?!? That thing is a Firaga-G, so named after the highest level fire spell! It's inferno hot!" Axel looked at Cloud, laughing, "I'm a master of fire, Firaga is simple!" Cloud then laughed, he had forgotten about Axel's powers. "Sorry about yelling at you, I forgot that you were a flame master." Axel grinned, "It's ok, as long as you let me put it in the engine!" Cloud looked a little nervous, "Ok...all you have to do is push it into the engine until it clicks into place." Axel nodded, "Ok!" and went over to the engine. He knelt down and put the power core into the engine, it clicking solidly into place. "Bye bye shiny." Axel said as he stood up. Cloud looked at Axel, "Let's test it out..." they walked inside the Gummi Ship, and this time, when Cloud flicked the light switch, the lights came one. He walked over to the control console and hit a button. The console glowed to life. Axel cheered, "Yay!" Cloud smiled, "Don't celebrate just yet, we need to see if this thing can fly..." Cloud sat down in the pilot's seat, and Axel sat next to him. Cloud hit a button, and the engine's roared to life. Guiding the control stick gently, Cloud was able to maneuver the Gummi Ship off of the ground. Axel was cheering, and so was Larxene, BHK(Ted), and Sora. Cloud gently set the ship on the ground, and Axel went bounding out, "It works, it works!" he yelled, dancing about a bit. Cloud stepped out as well, not as exuberantly though, but had a big grin on his face. Axel was bouncing up and down in front of Larxene, "Itworksitworksitworks! We can continue the mission and finally see what's in the envelope! We should celebrate with Cocoa Krispies!" Larxene laughed, "Axel...we don't have any Cocoa Krispies!" Axel nodded, "I know, but now we can go and get some!" Everyone laughed with joy, and Cloud nodded, "Yep, Axel, you can now go buy all the Cocoa Krispies you can eat!" This caused everyone to laugh some more. Cloud looked at the group, "How about we all spend one more night in here together, before we all go our separate ways. It could be a long time, if ever, until we see each other again." Sora nodded, "Sora likes that idea!" BHK(Ted) nodded, "Sounds good to me, we can celebrate with...another meal of fish." He laughed, "After this, I don't think I'll eat much fish..." Cloud laughed, "Yeah...I think we all are sick of fish..." Axel blinked, "I could never get sick of burnt fish..." Larxene shook her head, laughing, "Ok, if that's what you say!" BHK(Ted) looked at everyone, "Since we just ate recently, why don't we relax for a bit?" "Sounds good to me!" Axel said cheerfully, and went and sat near the fire that had been built earlier. Larxene, BHK(Ted), Sora, and Cloud also went and sat around the fire, talking cheerfully about their plans after leaving Monstro.