Asleep at Dawn

Chapter 1: Sleep Without Trouble

-"From the King?"-

Summary: Organization XIII was defeated, Kingdom Hearts was destroyed, and the Time Breaks are all closed, but it's too early to celebrate. Unfortunately, it's also too early to send the newest Keyblade wielders off to war. Can Kairi, Lambda, and Xion stop tripping over each other's weapons in time to stop the Keyblade War?

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A/N: Here it is, the three-quel you've been waiting for! ...Almost the three-quel you've sort of been waiting for!

Those who've played Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance - and hopefully that's almost everyone reading this; if not, go play it! It's awesome! - you know what comes next: Sora and Riku have to be tested for the Mark of Mastery. This...is not the story of their journey through the Sleeping Worlds.

In Silver Linings, several potential Keyblade wielders joined the ranks of the heroes: Lambda, Kairi, Xion, and Roxas. However, of those children (Kairi's actually the oldest at just 15 years old; no matter how you slice it, the others are all less than a year old), only Roxas has enough ability with his dual-wielding Keyblade style to stand up to any flunkies of Xehanort right now. Xion has to reacquire a real Keyblade - having lost hers to self-doubt - and Lambda and Kairi are more likely to trip and land on their Keyblades than win a fight with Xehanort. As Captain Shang once put it in Disney's Mulan, "We've got a long way to go."

Luckily, Yen Sid, Merlin, and the three good fairies have a plan to train the new Keyblade wielders quickly enough to join the inevitable fight.

Formatting Information: Section breaks are indicated by a line of bold V's, as usual. Italic text could be used for emphasis, or to indicate the mind of Kingdom Hearts providing an info blurb, a character's thoughts, a memory, or someone speaking while they're not physically present in the scene. (In cases where two of these things happen at once, half of them will be underlined). Bold text is the consciousness of a Keyblade or other sentient weapon, such as a Nox Nyctores. If there's bold, underlined, italic text, that's probably someone yelling really loudly.

Now, enough with the waiting! Of course, this first chapter takes place before Mickey's letter arrives, so there isn't much action yet.

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Destiny Islands: Market...

"Don't take too long! The burgers will get cold!" Selphie waved to Kairi, Xion, and Lambda as they split off from the rest of the group. Kairi was adamant that Lambda and Xion had to get at least one new outfit each, to replace the ones the other two girls had literally been wearing all their lives.

"Kairi, I don't really need another outfit," Lambda muttered as she was dragged along. Kairi had a really strong grip, especially for someone who had never fought anyone or even worked out before the climactic battles against Organization XIII earlier that day.

Kairi didn't slow down. "Yes, you do, and that's final. You're walking around barefoot, which isn't good for your feet, and even though that bodysuit covers everything it's supposed to, you're practically indecent."

Lambda argued, "I have auto-repair capabilities that fix the wear on my feet, and my bodysuit is designed to literally be worn forever. It uses my auto-repair to clean and fix itself. This bodysuit is pretty much the most practical garment ever created, period!"

Kairi just rolled her eyes and pulled harder. "Maybe that's true, but you still look like you're walking around naked. And all that hair is no substitute for pants or a skirt. You'll need to tie that up somehow." Kairi lifted one of Lambda's knee-length, blonde hairs to demonstrate; the bio-mechanical girl's copious hair fell against her back like a soft blanket, although one short lock of it still stuck up and curled forward over the top of her head. "Besides, we're here!" Kairi pulled Lambda and Xion under one of the awnings at Destiny Islands' big, open-air market.

Xion walked in more willingly than Lambda. "It's no big deal, Lambda. I think it'll be fun to go shopping with friends!" The Organization had a Moogle from whom they could buy supplies, but living in the Castle That Never Was was always so tense and businesslike, no matter what one was trying to do.

Lambda hesitated, causing her to stumble as Kairi dragged her along. "But this is the only thing I have left from the Azure Timeline. All the rest of my clothes, accessories, and weapons disappeared, except this bodysuit and my gloves. Even if I don't need to go back there, I don't want to just forget that the other universe exists. Plus...I don't actually know how to remove the suit. I mean, it must be possible, since I'm supposed to float in a tube for heavy repairs, but there's no zipper or anything. I'm going to have to find some workaround to repair myself without the tube..."

"You're getting off-topic," Kairi interrupted.

"Just wear the suit under something else," Namine pointed out. The blonde Nobody's voice echoed from Kairi's heart, where she now resided. "It isn't a hard concept; Kairi's wearing three layers of clothes right now."

"...Oh. Now I feel really stupid." Lambda let Kairi drag her into one of the few shops in this open-air market that had a real roof and walls.

Fifty minutes later, all the girls emerged in their new outfits.

"Don't worry, you both look great!" Kairi had on the same outfit as before, but she'd bought duplicates of every article and was wearing the new ones. Everything she wore was a little shinier than before.

"I still think it was unnecessary, but yes." Lambda wore a green sundress that hugged her around the middle and was held up by thin straps over her shoulders, revealing part of the bodysuit she still wore underneath. The skirt went down to her knees, which were covered up by cotton tights. She also had a pair of black, open-toed shoes with a three-inch raised heel. She'd also purchased a green hair tie that matched her dress, with which Kairi had tied her hair up in a high ponytail. Lambda's blonde mane still dropped past her skirt, but it wasn't getting in the way of her arms anymore. "It's weird, but I think I'm actually having an easier time walking in these heels! Murakumo always held me up on tip-toes; maybe that has something to do with it?"

(Also, Lambda could still move her hair around at will, even though the sword that kept it in a braid had vanished. She was considering different things to tie on the end of her ponytail to make use of that trait, but hadn't decided on anything yet. Nu-13 had landed a scarily effective attack on Relius with her braid blade...)

Xion, on the other hand, had traded in her Black Coat for a simple outfit consisting of a black T-shirt and blue denim shorts, along with simple black sneakers and white gym socks. "I think this shirt will revolutionize the industry!" The shirt had a white bar across the chest that displayed a custom slogan in blocky, black letters: it read, "I Helped Save the Worlds and All I Got Was This T-Shirt". The slogan could be magically changed every time she put the shirt on. She had also added a hairclip to her bangs in the shape of a Paopu fruit, and she wore a pair of silver chains in loops on each wrist. They were advertised as "Protect Chains" that conferred +1 Defense per item, although the shopkeeper had no clue what that meant.

"It's neat that magic items have been washing up on the shore ever since Sora's first adventure," Namine mused aloud. "Maybe this world won't be so isolated forever."

"Hopefully any visitors can wait until after lunch," Kairi replied. "I hope the burgers aren't cold..."

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Destiny Islands: Food Court...

When the girls joined the rest of the party at one of several plastic tables in the middle of the market, it turned out that the burgers were the only part of the meal that had gone cold: a casualty of poorly-arranged heating lamps.

Kairi cleaned the ruined taste and texture out of her mouth by chugging a lemon-lime soda as fast as she could...followed by wiping her lips on a napkin with utmost etiquette and poise. She blinked innocently at the stares around her. "What?"

Luckily, the soft pretzels that were included as a side dish were still pretty warm. Lambda supposed no one would have heard of France on the Islands, so French fries wouldn't exist...but Lambda wouldn't have it any other way. "These pretzels are amazing - an S-class culinary feat! It's like Sea-Salt Ice Cream, but without any chance of brain freeze! Please pass another, Riku!"

Riku passed Lambda a third pretzel, then continued munching on his first one. "This is the last one you get."

Xion picked the lettuce off her burger and wrapped it around a pretzel, but grimaced as she bit into it. "...This tasted way better in my head."

Selphie slowly picked at just the lettuce. "What a let-down."

Sora, Tidus, and Wakka were engaged in an impromptu eating competition over the cold burgers; none of them were bothered by the poor quality in the slightest. Sora won with twice as many points as the others. "Yagm, th' scormph's 4-2-2!"

Namine chided him, "Sora, don't talk with your mouth full."

Selphie bounced in her chair and asked, "So, what were your adventures like? Were there giant monsters?"

"Dozens," Riku bragged. "I've fought dragons, giant robots, a zombie-coffin-flower-thing that ate other Heartless, a hundred-foot-tall octopus lady with more warts than tentacles, chameleons, more dragons, and a couple giant Heartless with tentacles all over their faces, just to name a few of the nastiest ones. Oh, and the big boss, Xemnas, had three more dragons to sic on us."

"Don't forget the thousands and thousands of little Heartless monsters," Sora added after swallowing the last burger.

Selphie asked, "What about princesses? Did you get to rescue any princesses?"

Kairi replied, "Yep, seven of them. I turned out to be the seventh Princess of Heart, actually."

Selphie gasped in excitement. "Ooh! Do you have a crown?"

Kairi raised an eyebrow at her. "No, of course not. I have a Keyblade now, but I don't have a crown. Or a kingdom...unless Ansem the Wise was my father. I sure hope not; he sacrificed himself near the end, so that would mean my dad is dead. That poor man...Xehanort and his other apprentices really ruined his life."

"Xehanort?"

Lambda picked up the story. "Xehanort was the biggest bad guy. About ten years ago, he invented a machine to make more Heartless, which ended up wrecking Radiant Garden, the world where he lived. Then he turned into a Heartless on purpose for some reason, and started calling himself Ansem to steal that name from his teacher. But he needed to get back a physical body, so he tried to possess Riku."

"Whoa, what a creep..."

"As Xehanort would say, 'In-deeeeed,'" Riku continued. "He was also overly dramatic about everything, and it was always Darkness this, Darkness that, 'SUPREEEME DARKNESS!'the other thing. It was a real pain and took almost a whole year, but I've finally gotten the last bits of him out of my heart, thanks to the real Ansem's sacrifice. For a while there, I even had to body-snatch not-Ansem in reverse. Thank Light that that's over."

"But we were calling Xehanort's Heartless 'Ansem' for almost that whole time, and the real Ansem called himself 'DiZ' the first time we met him, so I still call them by those names," Lambda added. "Don't think about Ansem's history too hard; you'll just hurt your head."

"And what about you...Roxas, was it? What's your story?"

Roxas scratched his hair, trying to think of where to start. "Well, when Sora was trying to rescue Kairi the first time..."

"I hate how I got kidnapped so many times..." Kairi interrupted.

"...Anyway, it turned out Kairi's heart had already ended up inside Sora."

"Like she was stalking him from within?" Selphie asked incredulously.

"Uh, maybe? I remember getting weird visions now and again, but I never felt stalked?" Sora tried to find a way to describe it without making Kairi sound like the bad guy, but he didn't quite manage it. After all, nothing quite like that had ever happened before or since.

"...Anyway, Sora had to stab himself with the Keyblade to get Kairi's heart out of him and back into her body, and that's when both me and Namine were created."

"Who's Namine?" Selphie asked.

"I'm Namine," the girl in question spoke up from inside Kairi's heart, startling Selphie's trio and several people at adjacent tables. "Roxas and I are what's called 'Nobodies', which is a bit of a misnomer. We're all body, which is what's left after a person's heart is stolen by the Heartless...at least, not until we sort of...grew new hearts. I'm Kairi's Nobody, and Roxas is Sora's. We both fused with our original selves eventually, but Lambda helped Roxas and Xion separate from Sora. I chose to stay with Kairi."

Selphie looked rightfully confused. "Xion, are you a Nobody, too?"

"No, I'm something even stranger. I'm a Replica of Roxas. I was created artificially by one of the other Nobodies in Organization XIII, which was a group of thirteen powerful Nobodies, as the name suggests. There was a big, complicated plan to have me pick up all Sora's memories after Namine scattered them..."

"Long, long story," Namine interjected.

"But that plan fell apart due to Namine's intervention, and I ended up dying and returning to Sora. Since I'm mostly made of memories, everyone forgot about me when I returned to Sora. Everyone except Lambda."

Lambda picked up the story. "I think it's because Sora didn't know me at the time, and Namine's memory powers have to work through a connection with Sora. Anyway, I made it my personal mission to bring Xion back, and I finally managed it earlier today, with Namine's and Kairi's help. Getting Roxas back too was mostly a bonus, but a very important one; he has to constantly Observe Xion for them both to keep existing."

"...Did you just pronounce a capital letter in 'Observe'?" Selphie slowly asked.

"Nice catch! I come from another reality called the 'Azure Timeline', where Observation is serious business, because nothing can exist without some powerful being constantly Observing it. The Azure Timeline and your Heart Timeline were all tangled up for a while, but I think we're safe from any more Time Break portals of potentially multiverse-erasing doom for now."

Tidus briefly joined the conversation; he looked scared. "...I'm going to pretend I didn't hear any of that. But the point is we're safe now, right?"

"Right. I stopped the guy who was making Time Breaks, too, so no worries there. Eventually, I hope we can find a more stable way to cross over into the Azure Timeline, since the last visitors hinted that things have gotten a lot better over there, but for now, the two timelines will remain separate."

"Right," Sora concluded. "We've defeated Ansem: Xehanort's Heartless, and Xemnas: his Nobody. There's nothing left of Xehanort to trouble the worlds again. And even if he did come back somehow, we have a bunch of Keyblade wielders right here at this table, so we'll stop him!"

Right on cue, a glass bottle appeared in the middle of the table with a golden flash of Light. Inside the bottle was a rolled up sheet of paper; the only recognizable marking on the outside of the roll was a familiar stamp in the shape of King Mickey Mouse's head.

Riku leaned in. "Whoa, a letter from the King already? This might be a bad thing..."

Selphie thought the exposition was still going on, so she asked, "What King?"

"I had two great friends named Donald and Goofy who traveled with me on all my journeys. They were trying to find their king, Mickey Mouse."

"A mouse was their king?" Wakka asked skeptically.

Riku nodded. "Well, Donald is a duck and Goofy is a dog; you saw them, right? King Mickey also helped me a lot while I was trying to deal with the Darkness inside me. I consider Mickey a great friend of mine, as much as Donald and Goofy are to Sora."

"Who are you, and what have you done to Riku, you big softie?" Tidus tried to reach across the table to grab Riku, but somehow ended up pinned to the ground under Riku's new white-and-yellow sneakers.

"Sora, just read the letter already," Riku urged. "I think that's enough recap for today."

Sora popped the letter out of the bottle and unrolled it. Everyone crowded around behind him as he began to read it aloud...

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A/N: And thus begins a new adventure. Here we go again!

As usual, expect very slow updates. It might be even SLOWER, since I'll have to make up the "Training Worlds" (inside Merlin's "temporally flexible space" ) from scratch.