A/N: Wow, sorry for the insanely long wait on this. It's been half a year since I began the story. I've been busy and without inspiration. To those of you who are coming straight from my first fic, thank you for coming and enjoy! For those of you who've been waiting so long for the sequel, I'm so sorry I took so long! I'm grateful for your patience, and here it is at long last! By the way, I did some editing on the prequel to this, so you might reread it, if you have time. I didn't really change much, just cleaned up a little. Still, you know.

Anyway, here's the sequel to Overcoming the Darkness. I don't think it'll be as good as the first one, but I'll do my best. It's split between Riku's and Lita's perspectives. I have them nicely labeled for you to minimize confusion. Unlike the first one, I'll probably be releasing the chapters on this slower because I don't have much of it written yet. I can't promise regular updates, but I will try to be fairly quick on it. I want it written as much as you do. As a reminder, this is a RikuxOC fic, with some AxelxOC appearing thanks to Maleficent's mind games and Lita's past. Enjoy!

Finding the Light

Chapter One: Setting Out

Riku

Riku moved quickly from shop to shop in the plaza in Twilight Town, trying to be quick but knowing not to rush, lest he miss something that he and Abry might need when they left to track down Maleficent.

Maleficent had kidnapped their friend (and in Riku's case, love) Lita just two hours ago, after she came to her senses about the dark powers she'd thought she needed to be stronger. Riku fought her and brought her to realize that the darkness wouldn't help her at all, that it could only hurt her and those close to her. In retaliation, for she did so hate to leave empty-handed, Maleficent grabbed Lita during the Heartless chaos she created, and vanished in flames to who-knows-where with her. Riku and Abry were understandably enraged and made immediate plans to rescue her. Maleficent promised to force Lita to succumb to the darkness again, this time without her friends to protect her, but her friends were not going to let that happen.

Riku keenly felt every extra second tick by, and impatiently stuffed the supplies he bought into the bag he carried slung over his shoulder. He'd sent Abry to go secure a gummy ship from the mansion and prepare it for takeoff while he located all the supplies they may require. He had no idea how long it would take to find them, but he wanted them to be prepared for anything. He was well aware of Maleficent's mind games, of how powerful they could be. Lita was strong by nature, but she had been easily misled by Maleficent's teenage appearance, Mia Cleften (which he now saw was an anagram of her true name), and he worried that she wasn't recovered enough to face her yet. But there was also clearly no choice. Riku forced out a breath angrily, startling the old woman who'd just sold him potions.

He closed his eyes in apology, saying, "Sorry, ma'am, I'm just really in a hurry. I have to help my friend, and I have no idea if she's all right." He didn't know why he was taking the time to explain himself to a stranger, but the elder just smiled softly.

"No harm done, young man. But allow me to give you a bit of advice: If you listen well enough, you'll be able to hear her no matter the distance between you."

He looked at her, not comprehending her words. "What do you mean?"

"Hmm, you'll understand when the time comes," she replied. Well that was unhelpful. She gave him a quick once over, then said, "Well, you've certainly got your work cut out for you. Lita won't make it easy."

He openly stared at her this time, then shook his head and ran off, giving her a quick thanks as he left. Riku was very confused, but couldn't spend time thinking about it. All he knew was that the woman saw far more than he figured anyone could guess. Thankfully, he finally had everything he thought they'd need, so he quickly made his way to the mansion.

He found Abry, and Haru, in the back with a gummy ship that had the appearance of experience. In other words, it looked fairly old and not a little banged up in some places. Haru saw his anxious expression and answered his unspoken question. "Don't let her appearance fool you. She's not as pretty as the newer models but she's definitely stronger and more capable. You don't want something that'll fall apart on you if it gets hit a little. So you need the Siren. She can handle anything you throw at her. Believe me, she's always served me well."

Riku glanced at Abry for her opinion. She shrugged. "Lita and I have used it before, and we've never had problems. We should probably trust Haru on this one. She's the robot after all, with her affinity to metal. Ow!" She glared at Haru, rubbing her throbbing head thanks to Haru's punch, who responded with a glare of her own.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say that. For the sake of your Keyblade."

"Okay, I'm sorry, geez! We have more important things to worry about right now, don'tcha think?"

Riku stepped forward. "Agreed. I have supplies, so let's get going. They've already got a tremendous head start on us."

Abry climbed aboard as Haru turned and portalled back to her house. They set their stuff up and soon they were leaving the world of Twilight Town behind.

Lita

Lita came to quite suddenly, confused at first because she didn't remember ever passing out. She sat up and looked around her. She was in a very dark castle, from the looks of the stone walls and high archways. It was immensely dreary and depressing. Everything was in shades of gray and brown. She supposed this must be one of Maleficent's hideouts. It's a pity that her sense of décor is so bland. She ought to add some purple and green to make it livelier. At the very least it would be more identifying. She almost laughed. Here she was, kidnapped by Maleficent, and she was analyzing the atmosphere. Way to ignore the problem, Lita.

She rose to her feet and started walking around the room to check for all possible outlets. She deduced that she was in a throne room, judging by the imposing chair on a tall platform on one side of the circular chamber. However, its small size indicated that it was more likely an antechamber of some sort. There was a fallen pillar across the room from the platform and a doorway on either side of the room halfway between the platform and the broken pillar. Pillars matching the fallen one were placed equidistant to each other around the circular edge of the area between each doorway. Satisfied that she'd seen all she could on the lower level, she climbed the stairs of the elevated platform and observed the room from that point of view.

It would be near impossible to hide in this room. The most obvious places would be behind the pillars, especially the fallen one, but with Maleficent's extra height and by stepping to one side or the other, that plan would fall through quickly. One could also hide directly along the platform, the straight edge making looking straight down rather difficult, but one wouldn't be able to hide there long, and that was assuming that Maleficent appeared directly on the platform, not from one of the two doors. The idea, while unlikely, would render that spot very pointless. All in all, it was a very useless room for Lita. She figured that she'd seen quite enough, and picked one of the two doorways to try next. She really didn't know where she was going. She just hoped that she could find something of use to her. She knew she couldn't evade Maleficent long in her own castle. She just wanted Maleficent's finding her to take as long as she could.