I know what you're probably thinking, "But Shade, you have way too many stories unfinished. Why are you starting another one?" Truth is, I needed a little break from writing those stories. It goes like the saying, "You can't see the forest for the trees" it means your too close to the situation to see the big picture. That's my problem with those other stories. that being said, don't think I haven't been writing for them. I have chapters started for four of my stories. They're just not ready yet and probably won't be for a while. The stories I have chapters started for is "Saving the Lost", "Code Keyblade", "Lost in the Shadows" and "Ponysona 3". I did have a chapter started for "Fool's Checkmate" but I didn't like it so, it needs to be re-written.

But anyway, I'm talking too much. This new story will be different in many ways. I'll be trying out different skills in here, hoping that with practice my battle scenes will become better detailed than before and also my ability to describe things will improve.

Okay, I've kept you long enough. Just sit back, grab a bowl of popcorn and enjoy. ^^

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts and all related characters belong to Disney and Square Enix. All other references in this chapter belong to their respective owners.

Brother of Darkness

Chapter One

Grace Robbin lived the life of an ordinary woman in her mid twenties. Working a job, taking care of her house which she had recently bought after college and struggling to keep up with the bills. She worked five days a week and hated her job, but it paid well enough. She couldn't complain about her position, thanks to her college degree she got paid more than most people would. She kept mostly to herself and had few friends to hang out with, most of her friends were online, though they lived hundreds to thousands of miles away. Too far to visit.

It was another Friday afternoon when she clocked out of her desk job. Making sure her cubical computer was turned off and her files were put away she picked up her purse and got up. "Have a good weekend, Grace!" called Damian, her co-worker. He was a year younger and severely underpaid, but he never complained. He often told her he preferred the grunt work over making the serious decisions.

"You too, Damian," she replied as she headed to the elevator. Taking one last sip of the soda that had kept her awake she tossed the empty can into the trash bin. The elevator dinged and she made her way inside. The doors began to slide shut when, "Hold it!"

A hand stopped them at the last moment as another, younger girl stepped inside. It was the one person Grace didn't want to be stuck in an elevator with. The boss's daughter. She was nineteen and a total brat. She thought she was always better than anyone else in the office because her 'daddy' owned it. She thought she could walk over everyone and thanks to her status, she pretty much could.

As Grace made to push the first floor Tiffany leaned over and pushed the seventh, knocking Grace's hand out of the way. "I don't have time to wait."

Grace mentally rolled her eyes. She really couldn't stand the brat, but she never talked back either. She wasn't afraid of losing her job, she was just more polite and mature than that. Luckily for Tiffany, Grace was also very patient.

As they got to the top floor Tiffany stormed out of the elevator before the doors had fully opened. Grace rolled her eyes and reached to hit the first floor button when she heard the annoying whine of a spoiled brat.

"Daddy, I want a PS4! You said if I got my grade up you'd get me one."

"For your birthday sweetheart. That's still five months away," came the gruff voice of a man in his late forties. It sounded strained as if he was just as annoyed by the girl's whining as Grace was.

"That's not fair! They're making Kingdom Hearts Three! What if it comes out before then? I wanna get it!"

"God, how old is this girl, eight?! She needs to fricking grow up!" Grace kept her thoughts to herself, but they weren't always polite.

"Alright, Tiffy, alright. I'll get you one this weekend," the man gave in and the girl squealed in delight. Grace was thankful when the doors finally closed.

When she was finally alone Grace let out a loud and relieved sigh. It was so hard to bite her tongue and not openly gag at that girl's behavior. Grace could count on one hand how many times she acted like that around her parents. One of her father's golden rules were: No means no.

Once outside Grace headed for the bus stop, only to gasp and take off running as the bus was just closing its doors to leave. "Wait! Please!"

The bus started to pull out of the stop when someone in the back saw her and pulled the cord. The bus driver stopped and opened the doors, expecting someone to get off when Grace caught up.

"Thanks," she panted as she slid her bus card into the machine. "Don't thank me," the driver replied, "someone pulled the stop cord."

Grace looked around and saw a young teenage boy with brown hair sitting in the rear. He waved to her and smiled. She saw that there was also an empty seat by him and headed over to take the spot. The bus driver waited for her to sit down before putting the bus back in drive.

"Thanks for that, I wasn't looking forward to walking home."

"No sweat," he replied.

Grace couldn't help but look at the young teen. He looked about sixteen years old, with a white T-shirt, black, open jacket and baggy camo pants. He had headphones on and a PSP in his hands. Grace decided to keep the conversation going.

"What game are you playing?"

"Birth by Sleep."

"What's that?"

The teen handed the game system to her and explained. "It's a Kingdom Hearts game."

"Again with Kingdom Hearts? Is the game still really that popular?" she thought. She looked down at the screen and tilted her head in confusion. "Is that, that nobody kid? The one that was half of Sora?"

It was true, Grace knew what Kingdom Hearts was, but she hadn't gotten very far into the games, only playing the first two.

"Who, Roxas? Naw, that's Ventus. They look a lot alike, but they're very different." the kid pulled out his game guide that he had in his backpack. "See? Here's a better picture of him." he turned to the page showing Ventus in a full, better quality picture.

"He still looks just like Roxas," Grace replied. She realized how far out of the loop she was if Sora was no longer the hero and there was a kid that looked like Roxas as the playable character. Then again, these games were by the same people who made Final Fantasy and she was always lost when it came to those games.

The teen tried explaining, but lost her half way through. The teen only laughed at her expression. "It's okay," he commented, "it does get confusing, even if you follow the storyline, but I won't give away any spoilers."

The bus slowed down and the teen looked out the window. "My stop's coming up."

As the bus came to a stop he slung his backpack over one shoulder and put the PSP back in his pocket. "It was nice talking to you, Ms. ...?"

"Grace, and you?"

"Name's Sky."

Grace smiled as he headed for the doors. "Hope to see you again, Sky." He looked back and raised a friendly hand as he descended the steps.

The rest of the ride was quiet. Grace couldn't wait to get home. All she wanted to do was make a bowl of ramen, grab a soda and plop on the couch. Friday nights were her lazy nights and she was looking forward to sitting back and doing absolutely nothing.

After getting off the bus it was only a block to her house, but she had to cross a busy intersection to get there. On the corner of the busy street was a game store. Grace had often gone in there a few times to see what was going on in the game world, a fun realm she had left behind. Most of the time there would be some kind of card game tournament going on. The last time she came in during the final round and the two gamers were fully into their match. As she walked inside she discovered today was no different.

"I attack with my Blue Eyes Ultimate and wipe out your life points!" shouted one boy.

The second one flipped up one of the cards they had face down on the mat. "I activate my Magic Cylinder trap card and turn your own dragon's attack right back at you!"

Grace rolled her eyes as the second boy made a sound for the attack. She knew the game they were playing, but never understood why people thought their moves needed a sound effect.

"Hey, haven't seen you around in a while, everything going okay?" The store-keeper asked Grace as she approached.

"I'm doing alright, just busy working," she walked up to the shelf that held the PS2 video games. "There aren't many PS2 games, you selling a bunch?"

The store keeper shook his head. "With the PS4 out now, we're not planning to order any more of them. Just PS3 and up."

"Are you serious? That sucks." Well Grace was screwed. She only had a PS2. Her shoulders sagged a bit when she didn't see any game that appealed to her, then again there were only about twelve games she had to choose from and most of them were either for little kids or games too involved with killing. The very thought of earning points for killing someone made Grace sick. It was no wonder crime was on the rise in her city.

The shop keeper saw her deflated expression and went into the back room. He emerged a minute later and looked around for Grace. He found her over by the packs of trading cards.

"Hey, remember three years ago when you brought in a bunch of your Playstation games?"

"Yeah," she answered.

"Well, I remember one you sold to me and you seemed pretty sad about it,"

"Yeah,..." she answered again, wondering where he was going with this.

"Well, another copy of the game came in and I was waiting for you to swing by and see if you wanted it," he held out the game for her to see.

Grace couldn't believe it. It was odd enough that it was brought up twice in one day, let alone three. In the shop keeper's hands was a copy of Kingdom Hearts Two.

Grace looked up at the older man. "You've been saving this, just for me?"

The man scratched the back of his head. "Well, yeah. I mean, you looked like you really didn't want to part with the last one and I felt kinda bad when I sold it, so when this one came in I wanted to see if you wanted it."

Grace remembered why she had to sell some of her games. It was to help pay for her college books. She had already sold her Nintendo DS and all of her Pokémon games except for one which held her strongest team, she had also sold a lot of her anime and movie collection. The only anime movie she had left was Advent Children. She just couldn't bring herself to part with that one.

Grace realized she was still standing there making him wait for an answer. "Sorry, Yes, I'd like to buy it."

She followed him up to the counter and paid for it. One good thing about the older system games were they were cheaper now. Well, except for the rare ones. Grace saw an original copy of Final FantasyVII in the glass case. It was brand new, but she didn't have seventy bucks to spare, but still, she was tempted.

"Maybe another time, Cloud." she thought to herself as the shop keeper put the game in a bag and handed it to her.

She finally made it home as the sun had set. Tossing the keys on the table she laid her things down and fell into a chair. She was so tired she could have fallen asleep right there, but her growling stomach reminded her that she was hungry. She got up and headed into the kitchen.

A short time later she was sitting on the couch, eating her bowl of ramen and mixing in a slice of American cheese and stirring it around as it melted into the juice. She liked it that way as it added a bit more flavor into the mix. Grabbing the remote she flipped through the channels, stopping when she found she hadn't missed one of her favorite shows.

"It's undercooked! I can't do this anymore..." The chef on TV threw the raw piece of fish on the floor and jerked his finger towards the back of the kitchen. "GET OUT!"

"You tell 'em Ramsey," Grace commented to herself in between bites.

After dinner Grace had washed the dishes and got a load of laundry ready for tomorrow. She sat down at the table and looked over today's mail. "Junk, junk, phony sweepstakes, junk, bill, bill..." she looked at both of them. The light and water bill were both due. Grace let her head thunk on to the table as she mentally kicked herself. In these hard times, she often had to choose which bill to pay. Sometimes it would cut in to the money for groceries. This would be one of those times. It looked like another week of eating cheap food.

"I wish my life was better." she mentally wished.

She turned her head to the side as something caught her eye. It was the bag from the game store. Figuring nothing else could lift her spirit she hoped that a trip down memory lane might help her forget her troubles even just for a little bit and took out the game.

Walking over to where she had stashed her old PS2 she pulled it out and hooked it up to the TV. Even though it was almost eleven years old, the system still worked really well. There was one faulty cord that acted up every now and then, but with its age she was pretty impressed with it. Ripping apart the plastic wrapper, Grace opened up the case and checked the disc. It looked brand new, not a single scratch or smudge mark on it. She smiled and put it in.

"Okay, I don't remember crap about this game. Maybe I'll get lucky and beat it this time." Grace couldn't remember why she couldn't beat it before. She knew the reason in the first game. That stupid witch's castle in that one world got her so lost it took away all the fun of when she finally found her way to where she needed to go. She did get enjoyment out of beating the witch, until she turned into a giant dragon and killed her easily, but the second game was a total mystery.

The title screen appeared and Grace set the controls for a new game. "Since I don't remember jack crap about this game, let's go with beginner."

As the screen faded and the Heart in the title logo spun Grace couldn't help but smile. Disney always had a way of doing that to her. A simple joy of letting grown up problems melt away and just enjoy the moment, let loose and have fun.

Grace saw an image of Sora standing on a dirt path on a grassy field at night.

"A scattered dream that's like a far off memory,...a far off memory that's like a scattered dream...I wanna line the pieces up. Yours and mine..."

As Grace watched the opening and enjoyed the music she failed to notice her PS2 heating up. A strange energy emitted from it and slowly traveled down the controller's cord.

Grace had never played any other games except for the first and second and was trying to figure out what each scene meant in the intro, knowing that like the first, it would mean something else somewhere in the game. She never understood the long white halls and didn't know who Sora was fighting with the scythe. The spiral stairs also confused her. Why were there two Rikus? One running alongside Mickey Mouse and the other running the other way, still wearing that dark suit from the first game. She was lost and hoped that the game would some how explain what was up.

The energy was almost to the controller as the game console continued pulsing red.

In the intro, Sora had just landed on the beach, laying in between Kairi and Riku and holding their hands in each of his. They were all asleep and suddenly the screen melted away to reveal a boy with blonde hair descending into what seemed like water. This was the kid she had mistaken for that other one in that teen's game. The current flipped him upright and he slowly landed on something solid.

Grace was so into the intro that she failed to notice the controller heat up or the red wave of energy that engulfed her hands. The moment the boy on the screen covered his eyes from a light from below the screen flashed with an explosion of color. Grace squinted her eyes from the brightness, but it didn't fade like it was suppose to.

"Oh great, don't tell me it fro- What the hell?!" She looked down at her hands and saw what was happening. She tried, but she couldn't let go. The red energy began to burn as it crawled farther up her arms and the screen's light got brighter.

Soon it engulfed the whole room, Grace screamed. When the light faded the room was empty. The game console sparked and shorted out and the screen went black.

I think we can all agree that Grace needed this. Her life was a bit depressing and really boring.

Questions? Let me know in a review and I'll answer in the next update. :)