Ascot nodded deferentially, recognizing the wisdom in Thomas' words. Yes, their present approach was good, although he will have to consult his leader on strategy more often; it would not do any good if Thomas, well, thought of himself as neglected; because the group had to be kept together if they were to succeed. If nothing else, Ascot was good at that. So, he followed the older boy's lead as...

As Vanellope guided them to where the Sign was, finally bringing this quest to a close. The boy smiled, and, in response to Joshua's words, spoke:

"Well, I'm going to find a place to do one's bodily rituals, then eat, then go sleep on the journey to the next world. As for said next world, I'll leave the choice to Thomas."

"You guys follow vanellope I don't think me and Joshua will follow for this interesting object. I also agree with ascot I can't wait to eat and rest doe the next world"she said

The unwelcome guests departed, and ignoring whatever sort of supposed context was going on between the girl and Jake, Thomas wasn't all too broken up to see them go. And god riddance for that, at least in his mind. That conversation had been nothing but a waste of time to the end.

He was then left to converse with Belle, who reminded him that they did need to find the Sign for this world, if those guys hadn't taken it while they were being distracted by getting their butts kicked. He shook his head to indicate that he didn't know, but before he could speak as such, they were interrupted by Vanellope's return. "Alright," he agreed, and moved to follow, letting those who wished to stay behind. He doubted they would miss much.

They made their way back to where King Candy had been finally defeated, and Thomas did his best to hide any sign that he recognized this place, or that something had really happened here. That would bring about questions that he didn't want to answer right now. At this point he was fortunate that no one had asked about his arm yet, as it were.

Arriving, they saw Colhoun, Felix, and Ralph there, all watching as Belle asked what they'd found, and Calhoun pulled out something, which, once the candy had bee rubbed away, was revealed to be one of the Signs. "Yes, it would," he confirmed with arms folded across his chest. "Thanks."

"Well, first thing we gotta do now they're gone is reassess," Jake sighed, feeling a couple of sore muscles. He winced as he flexed his arm; that elf had done quite a number on him.

What had happened? It wasn't like he had let himself go all these years. Then again, maybe he had grown a bit soft - even though he had wandered worlds as a warrior, it had been quite a while since he fought a challenge like this. Perhaps the easy victories had gotten to him; it's not like he had a challenge of this magnitude since he was a kid. He hated to admit it, but he needed to stop coasting on his strength and skill - and even these were slipping.

Still, the idea of a great adventure... the thrill, the danger... It had been a hard and brutal fight when he was younger, yet he could not help but smile at the memories. He may not have his friends from the Wild Boys, but he felt these youngsters had the potential.

Which brought him back to the point War and his colleagues just made - the kids had potential, sure, but they just got their ass handed to them by a bunch who weren't even seriously fighting. And if Destruction had been serious, she might have actually wrecked him too.

But she was right about one thing, he thought with a grin. Next time, it's not his back she'll be seeing.

'Huh, that sounded wrong,' he thought to himself. He shook his head; on to more important matters...

"Well, if we're done here," Jake spoke up, "I agree with Thomas. Though... what about the mess?"

He was right; the place was still a broken mess.

"Say, Vanellope, didn't you have a race to finish? Though thanks for the 'sign'."

OOC: Guess I getter get another post going. this silence is eerie.

IC:
Before Vanellope could answer, Jake turned to Thomas.

"I think Ascot has a point there, Thomas," he said. "We got trashed pretty easily, and we need to figure out strategy and planning from now on. That's what a real leader is about."

Vanellope giggled after Jake asked about the race. "Can't you I've already done that? The whole land has been restored to how it was, save for this pile of rotten candy. Even Taffyta and the others realized who I really was."

"Too bad you didn't go through with the execution though." Calhoun mentioned after handing the sign over to Thomas. Felix too notion of the pile of rotten candy and restored it with his hammer, turning it into a muffin. Apparently all the Cy-Bug that was in it had disappeared when the game reset itself.

"What are you guys going to do now? Are you heading back to your game already? You could always stick around here with us for a while." Felix glanced at Calhoun. "I know I will."

"It is a beautiful wor... game, and I would love to spend more time here. But we are still on a quest... one about which is getting more dangerous by the minute. But I'll leave that choice with our leader." she looked at Thomas with a smile.

"I wouldn't really know," Thomas replied as he shifted to face Jake. "I wasn't exactly around to see how you all got your butts kicked, so I can't exactly give you any kind of advice." This was true, and given the train of events one could assume he'd been a bit busy fighting as well, though no one had asked or commented on his absence in that time frame. Apparently his own welfare wasn't that relevant in consideration.

Thomas took the Sign from Calhoun with a grateful nod, putting it away with the others for safekeeping. He left the comment about the execution unresponded to as he watched Felix turn the corpse into a muffin, an involuntary shudder running down his spine at the display, perhaps irrationally but still there nonetheless.

He then swung into resisting the urge to face palm at Felix's continued obvious infatuation with Calhoun, it being about as subtle as a pile of bricks, before he answered the question posed. "Yeah, we have to be moving on. Though given what just happened, I suppose a little time to recuperate would be in order," he agreed. That, and it'd give him the opportunity to learn some more of this magic he'd been given but hadn't had the chance to explore yet.

Jake sighed and shook his head.

"Yeah, sorry about that. We've just had a rough day. Probably wasn't thinking straight."

He turned his attention to Thomas' arm.

"Damn, Thomas, that doesn't look too good. I think we need to patch that up - hell, the sooner we get that looked at, the better. What the hell happened to it?"

The group stayed in Sugar Rush for the rest of the day. With King Candy, or actually Turbo gone, and all of the Cy-Bugs eliminated there was peace in this video game. The heroes could rest and eat as much as they want, they were in a land of candy after all. They were allowed by the new ruler of the world, Vanellope, to take a nap in her castle. Inside of the castle was also a Moogle Shop for those who needed something. Belle took a nap on one of the beds inside of the castle until she was fully restored. Her mana, not that she had much, and health was fully restored. As soon as everyone was ready for department they said goodbye to Ralph, Vanellope, Felix and Calhoun. They jumped on their keyblade gliders and headed to the next world, one that would be much different than the others they had encountered so far. Spirit World. This was the first to last world with a Sign, they almost had all of them. And that way they could finally defeat the Six Senses and save this world. Not that it mattered that much, as they knew another enemy would follow.

They approached the world, it has a very remarkable feature. It was almost completely covered in water, with the exception of one main island and a few small islands scattered all over the world. They landed on the main island, which had a giant bathhouse in the distance. Other than the bathhouse the island was filled with a few apartments but mostly food stands. The group was welcomed by a familiar face, Yukio. "Hey guys!" the look-alike of Sora shouted and ran over to them. "It's been quite some time, hasn't it? I expected you guys sooner on this world."

"We encountered a bit of trouble back at the previous one." Belle answered adding a chuckle to it. "Ow, and we haven't met yet, have we? I saw you once at Treasure Planet when escorting this team's previous leader away to his new team. But I never caught your name." Belle said.

"Yeah, you're right. You are the newest member of the--" he looked to the rest of the group and saw Jake towering above them. "--ow apparently not. Anyways, I'm Yukio, the son of Sora and Kairi. Nice to meet ya!" the 24-year old said. Yukio then walked up to Jake. "You're also new right? I'm Yukio, nice to meet ya. Guess the group finally found a new brawn after Nagi joined my squad." he laughed. After Jake had replied he went to Amaya.

"Hey Amaya. How are you doing today? Not faced too much difficulties I hope?" he said with a smile, but also a bit concern in his voice. Amaya was a Princess of Heart, so the spirit of Kairi, his mother, still is inside of Amaya. You could compare it to an Avatar who still has connections with all its previous lives.

"It is different being asleep for four years unable to have even tell your family and friends goodbye to be lost inside the darkness unable to do anything. I did get to speak with your mother from time to time so I wasn't always alone in my head and it doesn't help once having a sign torn from my cheast that I and our group didn't know of. I has been hard with assisting Joshua and the others with fighting as I barely have the ability to fight or hold my own against anything but his darkness"she commented sweetly to the 24 year old as she messed with her hair a bit

When the group departed on their gliders for the next world, Joshua left with Amaya via CoD as usual, as he had Amaya had yet to use their gliders. When they arrived, he spotted Yukio and gave the older warrior a nod before examining their surroundings. He paid attention to the conversation as well though and was happy to see another person who worried about Amaya. When he heard Amaya's answer he placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her close.
"Well, so long as you're around, I'll be able to fight." He said to her" Cheer up, you're not the kind of person who is meant to fight. You're more of a support type is you ask me. We just need to you learn some spells that are better for supporting. Esuna, Zero Gravity, Sleep, Haste, stuff like that. If you can learn things to make us better at what we do or make doing that job easier, we'll be perfectly fine." He said" Don't worry about being useless, because you're not. You're a calming presence in the group. If anyone wanted you out, they would've said so by now. And I would've kicked their ass in exchange."

Oner spent most of the time after the entire battle and after they got the sign meditating. There was alot to think about, plus alot to talk about. They had to talk with a certain person, so they spent the rest of their time on Sugar Rush in contact with said person. In fact, while everyone else jumped on their glider, Oner and Reno rode inside of theirs to the next world. Even after they arrived and began in conversation with Yukio they were still inside of the book. Although during the conversation, the book suddenly opened, and out from the pages arose Oner, floating out of the book and to the ground, the book disappearing once it closed.

He sighed a little heavily, rubbing his forehead for a moment before he simply listened to the conversation while looking around at the area they were in. Oner didn't really have anything to talk about at the moment, so he stayed silent for now for some odd reason.

Thomas looked at Jake in confusion. "You kidding," he asked, as he shook and moved the now unarmored limb, no sign of any dark wound present. "It's all fine, as good as new. I was out walking around and the armor just fell off," he explained. Hopefully they would accept that excuse, though he was unaware of the people who'd known of his darkness there.

"Told yah," he added to anyone who had thought that something was off there, or who had questioned why he still had the armor on.

Moving on, they stayed in Sugar Rush for the rest of the day, enjoying the candy, talking with the people, and making sure that everyone from this world was doing alright. At the same time though, he took the opportunity to study, practice, and learn the spells that he had gotten from Serin. Knowing Stone and Aqua would be useful for the future after all, since he had to get stronger. He added to that with a new spell, one that had taken a lot of work to do, but would prove useful. He could make that assumption with Blink, which would make illusionary copies of himself, a skill useful in combat.

Sadly, he never did get to speak with Calhoun alone, since she was busy with Felix, or the group, or going back to her world or somesuch, so he missed his chance to ask how she did it, as the experienced one. He had the feeling that he'd regret that later on, but there wasn't much he could do about that.

He did pick up some items, health stuff, and a new ring, and got to sleep, but eventually they had to leave. Goodbyes were said, and they set off. Well, except for Joshua and Amaya, who went through a Corridor of Darkness. Surprisingly to him though, there was no pain from the transit, which he was grateful for.

At last they arrived at the world, seeing a huge expanse of water except for a few scattered islands and a few buildings on those islands. Coming in for a landing, he hopped off to see Yukio approaching them, and he swiftly remembered the guy from when Nagi had left the group. "Hey Yukio," he said in between introductions, and addressed the other thing he mentioned. "Yeah, we got held up by....stuff." He'd heard what happened, but couldn't really comment on the asskicking. Of course, given his arrival before he'd had to tell them that the same thing happened to him, but their thing was more important anyway.

Yukio smiled at everyone's reaction, except that the one of Amaya was a bit depressing. "C'mon Amaya, Joshua is right. For you to be in the group must mean something. And don't be ashamed to be a supporter, what do you think my mo-, Kairi was very good at. Kinda weird seeing as Master Aqua on the other hand was quite different. But both used a lot of Blizzard magic as offensive attacks." Yukio said, dragging the topic on a little bit too much. "Sorry, I'm talking to much." he laughed.

"Anyhow. I encountered a woman in the previous world I came from, someone who goes by the name Thorn, which is a weird name for a girl, but it relates to her powers. She meant no harm to me but did bind me in her thorns. Apparently she came to warn me that my life will be upside down in the future." he sighed. "She left shortly afterwards. But you already guessed it, I had to come and tell it to you guys. But... I can't stay here long, still on an assignment by the King. So what exactly did happen at your end? And was it related to my encounter?" while Yukio was talking the others could notice that there was not a single person around except for them. The stands didn't have anyone to sell their food, yet had the food ready to grab from it. No people were walking over the paths. The only thing that could indicate any sign of a living being was the smoke coming out of the bathhouse's chimney.

Joshua glanced around at everything while everyone else talked. The world gave him a bad feeling and he swore there was a air of malice in the area. Maybe he was just being paranoid. When Yukio brought up being attacked by someone called Thorn though, the older man had his full attention.
"In the last world we were on, we were attacked by a group of Nobodies we've accounted before in Twilight Town. If we're going by the name alone, you're might not be a member of this particular group, as they all have names based on concepts, particularly negative ones: Chaos, Fear, War, and Destruction are the ones we've encountered. We know the names of two others: Darkness and Pestilence. However, despite attacking us, it doesn't seem like they're completely hostile yet. We all got our asses handed to us in the last fight, hell, I almost died. Oddly, they stopped short of killing us, saved me, advised us a bit, and then just up and left." He informed Yukio." They don't like the Six Senses by the way they talk about them and want them gone. They seem capable of eliminating them by themselves but they're letting us do it for some reason."

"The one called darkness was the one that more or less tore a hidden sign from my chest...it hurt but I am near fully recovered...and father's nobody nearly killed joshua and even shiva was defeated by that girl with her flames."Said Amaya gently lookin down before looking up and around "uh why does it seem we are the only ones here with no one else other then us...I dont get it? if food is left out un attended it rots and goes to waste yet.."she said pausin to pick up a peach "this is fresh as if it was just picked from a tree..."She commented changing the subject as she squeezed the fruit testing how strong it was before she looked over at joshua and the others

Thomas listened to the attempts to console Amaya with little interest, nor concern. It had been eminently clear that he shouldn't worry himself about the other girl, that being Joshua's particular providence, so he let him handle things there instead. If it became a major problem he would intervene, but until then or he was asked, he would keep out of it. He had enough things to worry about as it was.

"What they said,' he reaffirmed with a shrug, since the rest of the group could better relate the story than him ,given that he wasn't around, and wasn't about to repeat redundant information. That would just be a waste of time, and it had become apparent that wasting time was something they should avoid in the future.

Looking around, he did note he absence of people, and how remarkable it seemed to be, like everyone had just gotten up and vanished. Well, they couldn't let it distract from the mission, worrisome as it was. No doubt they would find the people somewhere along the way in this world, knowing their luck.

He turned to Yukio then. "So, I don't suppose you have any idea of where the Sign might be on this world then? You were here before us after all." Better to get to it sooner rather than later.

Yukio listened to the members of the group. "Hmmm, interesting. I will make a report of this to The King and Yen Sid as well. They will probably also share this information with Riku and my father. But stay alert even if they won't kill you they still are dangerous. And of course the Six Senses are still present too." he then answered Thomas' question. "Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any hints of where the sign might be. I arrived about an hour ago. However, concerning your observation Amaya, there is one place where there are people." Yukio turned around and pointed to the giant bathhouse in the distance.

"I headed over there, but wasn't allowed to enter. They said that I was way too early and that I'm not on the guest list. Seems that it is a very exclusive bathhouse. However I could see women working there, so maybe..." Yukio looked at Amaya and Belle. "Of course you would need to proper attire and an undercover name to blend in there."

"Well.... I'm willing to do that. I don't know about you Amaya?" Belle quickly glanced over at the younger girl. "But what about the guys? How will they get in?"

"I dunno. They just have to find a way to get in. But I have to leave now, gotta report all this to The King. See you later guys!" Yukio waved the group goodbye. The threw his keyblade into the air which transformed into his Keyblade Glider and departed the world.

"Well, I'm not exactly a newcomer," Jake replied to Yukio. However, he didn't say much, for whatever reason.

Later on, after Yukio left, Jake pondered something.

"Well, I could pose as a manual laborer to smuggle you guys in with shipments of towels or whatever supplies the bathtub could need - I'm clearly not going to pass off as a girl, no matter how I try."

"I know how im gonna get in. It'll be a piece of cake really." Joshua said, looking around at their surroundings." So long as I stay out of sight things should be fine. You wanna join me Amaya, or would you like to go with the others?"

He didn't care either way. Stealth was easier to do solo. On the other hand, it was easier to keep an eye on her if she joined him. He trusted the others though, save maybe Thomas. Something about that boy still bugged him.