A/N: 4/20/10: Funny thing about being a senior in high school? You become bored of doing your actual school work and would rather re-edit the first fanfiction you made your freshman year. I'm hoping to make this story quite a bit better, so I'll be editing it (again) more thoroughly.

This fanfiction is about a teenage girl who lives in a world called Jewel's Grove. (Name probably won't be mentioned for a long time). This girl, and other teenagers both in and out of her world are joining the new generation of keyblade wielders to fight for and against a darker force. This is my version of "Kingdom Hearts Three" but not really because it's really AU and less what I expected the actual game to be. Ah, yes.

This story is rated T for language (I'm a very heavy cusser), violence, and possible romance.


The autumn sky was almost completely purple in color from the thick storm clouds hanging in the atmosphere, Otherwise, there was only a small bit of grey that could be seen, reflecting the gloomy mood that most residents felt by that particular point of the year. It was September and already dipping down into winter temperatures. Most people attempted to stay inside of their houses, so there was only one person walking outside as a mustard yellow school bus pressed on and exited the neighborhood. A particularly cold gust of wind blew through the area, shaking the tree leaves something awful, causing the high school-aged girl to cross her arms tighter.

She was young, likely a Freshman at her school. More violent gusts of wind cast her dirty blond (striped with thin strips of black) hair into her face, and she paused. The girl was wearing a grey and black striped sweatshirt over a red tank and a pair of jeans. Her most interesting accessory was the pair of crutches that she was uneasily using. One foot, her right, was exposed to the elements as it was only covered in an ace bandage. She drew a deep breath and crossed the eroded street to her white duplex home.

It was true that she loved rainy weather -- in fact, she would miss it during the winter months -- but she did not want to be rained on while on crutches. The front door of the house was, luckily, unlocked. With some difficulty, the teenager maneuvered herself into the dark house on her crutches. Once she was in the haven, she all but collapsed on the navy blue couch although she took extra care to elevate her injured, foot. Behind her, the lighting was illuminated in a mirror across the room; she had just made it.

Thunder quickly followed after its light companion, and she winced somewhat at the noise, jumping a little. Her upper body strength was definitely not getting better; she could feel her arms ache in protest from the work she had been putting them through all day. School had been fun today. Of course anyone would think it highly entertaining to watch a student in her high school moving from class to class on crutches. It was such a common occurrence, though, that no one attempted to trip her, unlike the children at her middle school.

Exhaustion filled her every bone and muscle. There would be no repercussions for falling asleep on the couch. In fact, her mother probably would not even be aware that she was home until she awoke several hours later and went upstairs to see her. Her family members -- cousins, mostly -- never missed an opportunity to chastise her about sometimes being impatient with her mother. It was ironic that they were the ones telling her to treat her mother better; as teenagers, they had all treated their mothers like crap. The thoughts stopped pouring into her head long enough for her brain to settle and carry her to sleep.

One thought clicked in her mind just before sleep. The image of two people, a tall brunette girl and equally tall brunet boy glaring at each other before shouting, "Stefa!"

XxxxxX

Lightning flashed on and on, but after a particularly loud rumbling of thunder, Stefa bolted upward. She looked around, not completely sure what had awoken her since it wasn't the storm. Usually, she slept best during storms. No, it was more like something changing. Like some extra sound -- maybe the clank of a pan? Yawning, she sat herself up and glanced around at her surroundings, but it was still pitch black downstairs. "Mom?" She heard her uncertain voice call out into the darkness, but there was nothing. This was not too surprising, but the lack of any sort of response was.

Slowly, Stefa stood, an unwise move for someone whose ankle was sprained, and groped in the darkness for absolutely anything. She was quite surprised when she felt the coffee table, but her foot did not accidentally kick her four-year-old labrador or any of her four cats. All her bare foot could feel was the soft carpet beneath it.

Stefa knew her house in darkness the same way as she did in the light, and was easily able to stumble into the kitchen for a match and candle. She grabbed the package of matches, opened one, and struck it on the cover. Looking out the window, she noticed that it was completely black. All she could think was that the storm had knocked out the power. "Usually we don't get bad storms like this up here," she murmured to herself. "Mom!"

When there was, once again, no response, Stefa was quite sure she had figured it out. Her mother, in all likely hood, was outside, taking a drag on a cigarette. And the only reason she had not turned on any light -- aside from the rather useless one in the kitchen -- was because she had not wished to awake Stefa. After all, even Stefa was even willing to admit that she was bitchy when first woken up."

She threw open the front door and exited through the screen door as she stepped out into the rain. Tentatively, she put down her injured ankle and dragged it behind her as she followed the walkway from her front door to the driveway. The wind howled, and she heard both the front and storm doors slam shut. She was not too concerned, particularly when she realized her mother was not outside. Ringing the doorbell would both prove her mother was there and get her back into the house.

Rain was falling down hard and Stefa was surprised to see that when she looked around, it actually was pitch black, not dark purple. Her surroundings were, by the minute, starting to look less like her actual environment and more like pure darkness. "...Wh-what?" Just then, as if she was not concerned enough, a little black creature with tennis-ball sized yellow eyes jumped out at her from seemingly out of no where. She quickly jumped back out of reaction, and howled in pain as her ankle sent waves of pain strong enough through her body that she collapsed on the concrete. The creature moved like a predator heading off its weak prey. It reached, with large and outstretched black claws, toward her chest.

"B-back the f-fuck..." Stefa was petrified and, for one of the first times in her life, had no good line. Her pale hazel green eyes were squeezed shut as she accepted her fate as, she expected, most humans out of their element would. But, just as quickly, her right hand was weighed down by something heavy and cool. She was brave enough to reopen her eyes and find a large key-like object in her hand. The little black bug was laying flat on its back a foot or so away. "Did this thing kill that? Did I do that?" she added with even more incredulity.

Although she felt no safer, she felt at ease enough to experiment with the object in her hand. She shook the gargantuan key and briefly examined it. Its handle was shaped like a heart, split in half by black and white. The middle was covered in broken hearts that were half black and half white. The most interesting part were its teeth, which were made up of yellow rose petals and split hearts. "A key...? This seems like... a stretch." Stefa looked up to see the yellow-eyed creature on its feet again. It was foolish of her to have expected it to be dead without her doing anything to really attack it. As the thing scampered toward her a second time, she held the key up in a defensive position. She put her left hand at the bottom of the key to reinforce the shield's power. The claws sank into the exposed skin of her hands somewhat. And, somehow, rain continued to fall in the now completely pitch black area as a disembodied voice spoke,

'This Shadow Heartless wants your heart.'

"My heart? Who would want my heart?" asked Stefa, perplexed, through slightly gritted teeth as she attempted to hold back the Shadow. The first thing she had expected the creature to want was not her heart, that much she had to admit. She had expected it to simply want her flesh. Isn't that what all animals wanted? Not that this was a particular animal she was familiar with, a 'Heartless.'

'... You are needed to fight in the very important, upcoming war. And to use your abilities to seal the door once and for all.... Fight no matter what with your Keyblade, but do not lose your heart!'

"Who...? I don't get it!" shouted Stefa, desperately, as the Shadow began to try to climb onto the keyblade. The only sounds were the falling rain and Shadow's claws. She had enough sense about her to slash horizontally at the Shadow, which disappeared in a cloud of blackness. Sighing, Stefa glanced around but she knew that she was alone. "A... Keyblade?" She asked herself before pushing her dark and wet bangs out of her face, "How can it rain in a completely pitch black place?" she added with annoyance. "Man. It's like I'm... I'm somewhere else, in another realm, or something." Shaking her head, Stefa pushed herself upward, ignoring the spiking of pain in her ankle. If she was going to let that pain -- as intense as it was -- bother her, then she might as well stay back and wait for another one of those things to take her heart.

Some time later, Stefa was quite sure that she was still in the exact same place as before. She had no idea how much time had passed as she did not have any sort of clock, but she did know that she had fought off about thirty Shadows. And, somehow, rain was still pouring and her jeans were now a dark blue, and her red tank top was soaked. Sighing, she slowly moved her body to the 'ground' for a brief rest. Almost immediately, she felt two or three presences near her. The hair on the back of her neck and arms rose, and she jumped, ignoring the spiking pain once again, before whirling around. In the darkness it was hard to spot anything, and she was willing to bet that she was just allowing her imagination to get carried away with her. Stefa's mind quickly changed about this when a weapon was shoved into her face.

Her body froze, and she had a brief thought about curling into a ball on the ground. Instead, she focused her eyes and noticed this weapon also looked like a key. As she squinted her eyes even more, Stefa could just barely see the outline of herself grinning evilly; it was almost like she was looking through a twisted, dark mirror. In her moment of evaluation, Stefa was knocked backwards by the keyblade. The deep, white-hot pain that emitted from her chest as a result forced her to realize that she was not lulling through some dream, or even a hellish nightmare. Everything was quite real.

Stefa could not think about the other two presences, which was made possible by the fact that nothing else approached her. They were just watching her, whatever they were. But, for what? She slammed her keyblade against the other, not quite skilled at sword fights aside from the ones she used to do with her best friend, Nalani, via two large, thick branches. Stefa tried to tell herself that this fight was just like the ones with Nalani, only she was not doing this for fun; she was doing this for her life. The sound of metal clashing against metal exploded in her ears and echoed through the empty, black chasm of never-ending darkness.

'You are... decent, good. But are you good enough?'

Stefa clenched her fist, "Enough with the damn disembodied voice!" she growled while evading another hit by jumping backwards. Her shadow jumped above her with the keyblade held above its head. Huffing and tightly closing her eyes, Stefa threw her keyblade upwards with all of her might. In hindsight, she realized that this was a very bad, naïve idea, but she had never fought before. Not like this. An inhuman scream pierced through the air, which allowed Stefa to calm her guard. Grinning, she was just about sure she had won when...

'You are much too sure of yourself. The darkness shall easily overcome you.'

...something pierced her back.

'Sweet dreams.'