Happy Birthday to WOWZAcoolBEANS. Everyone knows that there's no such thing as the Eleven of Hearts, that's ridiculous. And shouldn't that be the "King," not the "Kingdom"? What kind of card deck is this? Kingdom Hearts/Pandora Hearts XOver.
A/N: This is a fanfic that does not attempt to be serious, or even about the series. It unabashedly stars real humans—namely, my dearly beloved sister WOWZAcoolBEANS, for whose birthday this humble fic is a gift. (Yes, this chapter and chapter 2 were re-posted; because it looks like this fic will be much longer and more serious than previous birthday gift fics, I've broken with tradition and changed our names to slightly less ridiculous pseudonyms. If anyone catches an instance where I've accidentally left the names "Beans" or "Smeep," please alert me with a comment?)
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On a cold and dreary evening in a drab and ugly house in a snowy suburb of a nameless city completely devoid of bishounen of any persuasion, the sound of a clicket-clacketing controller echoed through the living room. Lenore Sherman was home from college, and had reclaimed her rightful place on the couch beside her beloved sister Cybele. The volume on the television was turned down low enough that the violent massacre of hundreds of Heartless wouldn't wake the two parental units who slumbered soundly above them, but that didn't stop the two girls reclining on the couch from giggling and commenting at every cutscene.
"I hate Kairi," spat Cybele as the aforementioned ingénue was abducted by a sexy man for at least the fifteenth time.
"Useless bimbo," Lenore agreed. "At least kick him or something."
"Or quit complaining. Some of us only dream of attractive men materializing out of dark portals in our living rooms and carrying us away," said Cybele with a wistful glance at Axel's perfectly spiky red hair, broad black-robed shoulders, and fine pixelized posterior as he dragged Kairi into a dark portal, the foolish girl protesting the whole way there.
Lenore sat up with a start and looked up at the clock next to the television. "Hey Cybele, did you notice? It's 12:15; you've been seventeen for a quarter of an hour."
"Aw crud, I should get to sleep," she said, stretching her arms over her head. Although her glorious victory against the next day's final exams was all but assured, exhaustion was unlikely to assist in her endeavors.
"Hang on," Lenore said, pausing the game. "I want to give you your present. It'll only take a second." She left the room and returned a few moments later with a small gift. Wrapped in glistening paper and bedecked with a golden ribbon, it fit neatly in her palm. "You don't have to open it right now, but since I won't see you until after your exams, I wanted you to have it for good luck."
"Thanks Norah, you shouldn't have," Cybele used her affectionate nickname for her older sister, her smile radiant even in the dim television-lit gloom. Only she was allowed to call the girl 'Norah'.
"Don't thank me yet. Get some sleep, I'll see you tomorrow," said Lenore. She turned off the television and the room went dark.
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"Well, Sora, what now?" Riku asked, stepping out of the transporter circle and joining Kairi and Sora on the command deck of the Gummi ship. Along with his message, the King had sent Chip and Dale to pick the trio up at Destiny Islands. Sora wasn't quite sure how King Mickey had timed their arrival precisely with the arrival of his message in a bottle, but he had learned to stop questioning some of the improbable things that occurred around him, and just go with the flow. He was adaptive—after all, he had only possessed the Keyblade for a little over a year (and could only remember a few months of that time), but already he felt as much at home here, at the helm of his ship in the shimmering blue pathways between the worlds, as he did reclining against the crooked trunk of the Paopu tree watching the sun set over the ocean. Especially now that Kairi and Riku were safe and by his side, anywhere they went would be home.
"Now," Sora said with a grin, "we storm Maleficent's castle!"
"Wh—what?" Kairi choked.
"Just teasing," he said, entering coordinates into the ship's navigation system. The display screen zoomed in on a cartoonish icon of King Mickey's castle as the ship's engines fired up. "We have to go see what the King meant in his letter."
"For such an honest little guy, he can be seriously cryptic sometimes," Riku said, scanning the contents of the curling missive once again, but unable to gain any more insight from the hastily scribbled note:
One heart inherits darkness, and engulfs another; unlike lightning, tragedy may strike the same place twice. We must act quickly, if we are to find the light that will illuminate this darkness. –Mickey Mouse.
"I think he picked that trait up from Master Yen Sid. I couldn't understand a single word in any of his books." Sora rested an easy hand on the ship's controls as Destiny Island slipped away in the blue void.
The King was waiting to greet them in the gummi hangar when the ship touched down. "Sora! Riku! Kairi! Thank goodness you're here!" he shouted, hurrying to their side. "Come quickly, there's no time to lose!"
"Hold on a minute, Your Majesty. What's going on?" Sora asked. Mickey shook his head.
"Chip? Dale?" he said with a wave of his hand. The two chipmunks saluted and scurried off to the controls of a computer console whose huge screen dominated the hangar's wall. Sora recognized the image that flickered onto the screen as the icon that represented a world on the gummi ship's navigation computer. A ruined mansion and a clock with an unusual face protruded from a base of dark stone wrapped in chains. In the center of the world, a dome of dark energy was crackling; just looking at the icon made Sora nervous.
"What world is this?"
"Sora, when you get cold—really, really cold—some parts of your body get much colder than others, right? Your fingers, your toes, your nose and ears. That's because it's hard for your heart to send blood to points that far away. When you're cold, your heart has to send more warmth to the places you need to stay alive. You can survive without your fingers, but not without your lungs."
"Right…"
"Well, the worlds we know are all just parts of the Realm of Light. Kingdom Hearts is its heart. The paths between them are the veins, and light is like the lifeblood of the universe. This world, your world, Radiant Garden—essentially, all the worlds that are home to a Keyblade-bearer or a Princess of Heart—are all very close to Kingdom Hearts.
"But there are worlds that aren't so close. In order to exist, every world needs a connection to Kingdom Hearts, but there are some worlds that only have very thin connections, or only connect through other worlds. For example, the world Cloud comes from has no direct connection to Kingdom Hearts—it connects through Radiant Garden."
"And this world is one of those?"
"Even farther. This world is called Sabrie, and it's one of the several hundred worlds I studied with Ansem the Wise."
"Well, what's wrong with it?" Riku asked, getting impatient with the technical talk.
"The universe got cold. Sora, Riku, when you two fought to defeat Xemnas, Kingdom Hearts had to divert so much light to give you strength that Sabrie, and many of the worlds near it, just couldn't get enough."
"So what makes Sabrie different? I mean, why are we going there?" Sora asked.
"Because unlike other worlds, Sabrie shares a direct connection with a world within the Realm of Darkness—a place the people of that world call the Abyss. When the supply of light began to run low, the connection to the darkness grew stronger—the strongest it's been in a hundred years. Heartless are already escaping through that connection. If something isn't done, the darkness could seep over and infect the entire Realm of Light."
Riku shuddered. Kairi laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, but she couldn't quite banish the cloud from his eyes. Suddenly feeling reckless, Sora assumed a fighting stance.
"When do we leave?"
"Hahaha, that's the spirit!" Mickey grinned and turned to the computer console behind him, programming Sabrie's coordinates into the gummi ship.
"Now, as for Kairi…" the King began, then put his fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly. Donald and Goofy ran into the room, skidding to a halt a few feet from the King.
"You called, Your Majesty?" said Donald, bringing his hand to his forehead in salute.
"Hiya, Sora!" said Goofy, but at a sharp nudge from Donald he gave an apologetic 'whoops!' and assumed a similarly respectful stance before the King.
"Kairi," said Mickey, turning to her, "I know you want to go with your friends, but I think we all have to admit your combat skills aren't quite up to their level." Sora and Riku exchanged amused glances that quickly became apologetic under Kairi's angry glare. "Howabout you stay here for a while with us? Those two will go and check out Sabrie; meanwhile, Donald and Goofy here will teach you some combat and magic. Once you've gotten a little stronger, you can follow Sora and Riku anywhere they go."
Kairi balked at first, but it only took two minutes of argument and one brutal 'practice spar' with Riku to convince her that she could do with a few basic combat primers. She waved Sora and Riku goodbye as they lifted off from the hangar and set course for Sabrie.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Riku asked Sora when the younger boy started fiddling with the gummi ship's controls a little too gleefully, preparing to enter the first lock. "We don't know anything about the situation in Sabrie, let alone how to fix it when we get there."
"I always figure it out along the way," Sora said, grinning and punching the ignition straight into the shimmering keyhole of the pathway to the next world.